Sitting of 8 May 1912

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Great Eastern Railway Bill,
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Metropolitan Railway Bill (by Order),
Consideration, as amended, deferred till Monday next.
Kilmamock Gas Provisional Order Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to—
Collooney, Ballina, and Belmullet Railways and Piers Bill,
Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier Bill, without Amendment.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to dissolve and reincorporate the Brodsworth and District Gas Company, Limited; and for other purposes." [Brodsworth and District Gas Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to extend the time for the construction of the works authorised by the Ystradfellte Water Act, 1902, and to confer further powers upon the Neath Rural District Council in regard to their water undertaking; and for other purposes." [Ystrad-fellte Water Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers upon the Manchester Ship Canal Company with respect to the holding and disposal of lands; and for other purposes." [Manchester Ship Canal Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act for incorporating and conferring powers on the Bawtry and District Gas Company." [Bawtry and District Gas Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Lea Bridge District Gas Company to establish a benefit fund for their servants and their dependents; and for
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other purposes." [Lea Bridge District Gas Company Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Maidenhead Gas Company to establish a benefit fund for their servants and their dependents; and for other purposes." [Maidenhead Gas Company Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Southgate and District Gas Company to establish a benefit fund for their servants and their dependents; and for other purposes." [Southgate and District Gas Company Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the North Middlesex Gas Company to establish a benefit fund for their servants and their dependents; and for other purposes." [North Middlesex Gas Company Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the acquisition by the South Suburban Gas Company of the undertakings of the Bromley and Crays Gas Company and the West Kent Gas Company; to confer further powers on the South Suburban Gas Company; and for other purposes." [South Suburban Gas Bill [Lords.]
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to constitute a lunatic asylums board for the West Riding of the county of York; to transfer certain existing county lunatic asylums to such board; and for other purposes." [West Riding of Yorkshire Asylums Bill [Lords.]

Brodsworth and District Gas Bill [Lords],

Ystradfellte Water Bill [Lords],

Manchester Ship Canal Bill [Lords],

Bawtry and District Gas Bill [Lords],

Lea Bridge District Gas Company Bill [Lords],

Maidenhead Gas Company Bill [Lords],

Southgate and District Gas Company Bill [Lords],

North Middlesex Gas Company Bill [Lords],

South Suburban Gas Bill [Lords],

West Riding of Yorkshire Asylums Bill [Lords],

Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
Great Western Railway Bill,
Reported with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Keighley Corporation Bill,
Reported with Amendments, from the Local Legislation Committee (Section A); Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
London Institution (Transfer) Bill,
Ordered that the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills do examine the London Institution (Transfer) Bill, with respect to compliance with the Standing Orders relative to Private Bills.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS (QUALIFICATION OF CLERGYMEN) BILL.
Reported, with an Amendment, from Standing Committee C.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Minutes of Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration Tomorrow, and to be printed.

TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
Copy presented of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, No. 4865 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
FLEETS (GREAT BRITAIN AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES).
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 6th March; Mr. Dickinson]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 127.]
ULTIMUS HÆRES (SCOTLAND) (ACCOUNT AND LIST OF ESTATES).
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 7th May; Mr. Masterman]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

FACTORY AND WORKSHOP (TRANSMISSION OF DISEASE BY "SHUTTLE-KISSING").
Copy presented of Report to the Home Office and the Local Government Board of an inquiry into the alleged danger of the
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transmission of certain Diseases in weaving sheds by means of "Shuttle-kissing" [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  German Ambassador in London.
  Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he has been informed officially that the German Ambassador in London will shortly retire?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Acland): No, Sir.

  Italy and Turkey.
  Mr. KINGasked whether the policy of this country is being directed with the object of restricting within the narrowest possible limits the field of warlike operations between Turkey and Italy?
  Mr. ACLAND: The policy of His Majesty's Government is directed to the protection of British interests in the best manner compatible with an attitude of strict neutrality. I cannot usefully give any closer definition.

  Civil Service (Straits Settlements).
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Mr. Walter Schofield, Mr. Guy Hatton Sugden, and Mr. John Erskine Kempe, who passed the Civil Service examination held in August, 1911, have been appointed to the Civil Services of Hong Kong, the Straits Settlements, and the Federated Malay States, respectively; whether each of these candidates satisfied the Colonial Office Regulation that all candidates for appointments to the Civil Service in these States and Colonies should be of pure European descent on both sides; and will he state what evidence each candidate was required to produce as to his age and as to his descent?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. Each of these gentlemen signed a declaration as to his descent, and there being no reason to question the declaration, no further evidence was required. In other respects each of them

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  was certified by the Civil Service Commissioners to be duly qualified under the Regulations for appointment to a cadetship.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what evidence these gentlemen were required to give as to their age?
  Mr. HARCOURT: They were required to give evidence which will satisfy me.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what evidence was required to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman as to their age?
  Mr. HARCOURT: No.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why he is not prepared to take the word of these gentlemen as to their age, if he is prepared to take their word as to their descent?
  Mr. HARCOURT: I did not say I was not prepared to take their word as to their age.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Will the right hon. Gentleman state why he is not prepared to state the evidence he requires as to their age?
  Mr. HARCOURT: No.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: I will raise it on the question of the Colonial Secretary's salary.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware of the academic careers of Dr. Lim Boon Keng, M.B.C.M., at Edinburgh and Cambridge Universities, of Dr. Wu Lien Teh, M.A., M.D., at Cambridge University, of Sze Jin Chan, LL.B., at Cambridge University and at Gray's Inn, where he held a 100 guineas Inns of Court studentship for three years, of G. S. Yeoh, LL.B., at Cambridge University and at Gray's Inn, of Song Ong Siang, M.A., LL.M., at Cambridge University and at the Middle Temple, where he held an Inns of Court scholarship of 100 guineas for one year, of Chan Sze Pong, B.A., B.C., at Cambridge University, of Chan Sze Jin, B.A., LL.B., at Cambridge, of Koh Lip Teng, M.B., Ch.B., at Edinburgh University, and of Tan Seng Suan, B.A., M.B., B.C., at Cambridge University; whether he can say how many of these gentlemen were enabled to pursue their studies in this
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  country by the aid of the Queen's scholarships in the Straits Settlements, which have recently been abolished by the Government; whether he is aware that these gentlemen are all excluded from the Civil Service of the Colony of their birth by the Regulation recently made by the Colonial Office excluding from that service all persons who are not of pure European descent on both sides; and whether he is now prepared to implement his promise to admit British-born Chinese to examination for the Civil Service of their Colony if he were satisfied as to the ability of Chinese to pass examinations?
  Mr. HARCOURT: I am acquainted with the careers of some of these gentlemen and I am content to accept as accurate my hon. Friend's statements with regard to the others. Five of them were Straits Settlements scholars, but I cannot say whether they would not have been able to pursue their studies in this country without the aid of the scholarships. None of these gentlemen would now be eligible under the Regulations made in 1904 for appointment to a cadetship in the Straits Settlements, but I have no reason to believe that any of them ever desired such an appointment. I may point out that some of them could have competed for cadetships if they had wished to do so, as the change in the Regulations was not made till after they had ceased to be eligible on the ground of age. I have never made the promise which my hon. Friend ascribes to me. What I said was that I would consider the question of admitting British-born Chinese and Malays to the Cadet Service if there were any chance of such candidates being successful in the competitive examination and if there were a local demand for the concession, which at present does not exist.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Do not the names of those gentlemen indicate that there is a considerable class of Chinese in the Colony who are competent to pass an examination?
  Mr. HARCOURT: No.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the gentlemen whose names are here would have much more chance of passing an examination than the right hon. Gentleman if he were in competition with them?
  Mr. HARCOURT: That may be quite true.
  Mr. RONALD M'NEILL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, with the view of relieving the congestion of business in this House caused by the questions of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. MacCallum Scott), he will have all matters relating to the Federated Malay States transferred to the Irish Parliament?

  ROYAL NAVY.

    OIL FUEL.
    Mr. FRED HALL (Dulwich)asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if it is proposed to take any steps with regard to the extension of the use of oil as fuel for the Navy; and whether he could state what information is available to show how oil compares with coal as regards cost and other considerations determining the relative efficiency of the two forms of fuel?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): I cannot add anything to the statement made by the First Lord of the Admiralty in introducing the Navy Estimates. The importance of this subject is recognised, and continual study and developments are in progress.
    Mr. FRED HALL: Has the right hon. Gentleman taken into consideration the great success that is already claimed for the "Zelania"?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Perhaps the hon. Member will refresh his memory on the statement made by the First Lord. I will send it to him.

    BATTLESHIPS LAUNCHED (GHEAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY).
    Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked how many battleships have been launched for the British and German Navies, respectively, from and including 1908 to the present time?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The answer is: Germany, thirteen battleships; Great Britain, thirteen battleships. I may add that four German battle cruisers have also been launched during the same period, and five British battle cruisers, including the "New Zealand." The battle cruiser "Australia," being built for the Australian Government, has also been launched within the period mentioned.
    Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that that statement is consistent with maintaining the two-Power standard?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The hon. Member should take a full and comprehensive view of the whole field before he makes a statement of that kind.
    Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Does the right hon. Gentleman affirm that he is maintaining the standard?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: If the examination is confined to this, the hon. Member has not taken a comprehensive view of our naval strength.

    ARMOURED SHIPS.
    Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked how many armoured ships of the British and German programmes for 1910–11 have been launched, and how many are still on the stocks?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The four armoured ships of the German programme for 1910–11 have been launched, and there are therefore none still on the stocks. Four armoured ships of the British programme for 1910–11 (exclusive of the "New Zealand" building for the British Navy at the charge of the New Zealand Government) have been launched, and one is still on the stocks.
    Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked when orders were placed for the armoured cruisers of the German programme for 1912–13, and when it is anticipated that orders will be placed for the corresponding British ships?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: There is no official information as to the date of placing the order for the battle cruiser of the German 1912–13 programme; but it has been stated in the German Press towards the end of April that the order has been placed subject to the sanction of the Reichstag. The dates for laying down the ships of the British programme for 1912–13 are now under consideration.
    Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Is the right hon. Gentleman in favour of our lagging behind the Germans in placing orders for ships?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Our general practice is to lay these ships down late in the year.
    Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Does the right hon. Gentleman approve of that when the Germans lay them down early in the year?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I think our procedure meets all our needs.

    RIGGING HOUSE (LABOURERS).
    Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it has been the custom in setting on labourers in the rigging house, who will in their turn become riggers, to give preference to men who have served in the Navy; if so, whether he is aware that men who have never served in the Navy have recently been started as labourers in the rigging house; and will he state what is the policy of the Admiralty in the matter?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: So far as I know, there has not been any recent general change of practice in respect of the entry of labourers in the rigging houses. It is the fact that a labourer engaged in the rigging houses could not become a rigger unless he had had previous suitable training. But we do not on that account exclude other men from employment as labourers in the rigging houses, though, in the absence of the qualification indicated, they would not be eligible for appointment as riggers.

    Greenwich Hospital (Old Age Pension).
    Mr. WHELERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has received an application for a Greenwich Hospital old age pension from Josiah Blandford, aged seventy-six, of 2, Marine Parade, Sheerness; and, if so, whether he will state the reason for withholding the pension in this case?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. Blandford was superannuated as a messenger, and is therefore not eligible for a Greenwich Hospital age pension.
    Mr. WHELER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the fact that this man holds a certificate for long service as an ordinary seaman and that he is debarred from a pension through a mistake?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: No, I think not. Blandford was superannuated as a messenger and is not eligible for a Greenwich age pension. His pension as a messenger is £60 16s. 7d. a year.
    Mr. WHELER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have a certificate signed by the dockyard superintendent in which he is put down as an ordinary seaman?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: No. In any case he was superannuated as a messenger and he is not eligible for a Greenwich age pension.

    South African Provincial Councils (Borrowing Powers).
    Mr. NEWMANasked whether the right of raising loans is a power reserved to the provincial councils under Clause 88 of the South African Act, 1909; whether such power of borrowing has, since the date of the passing of the Act, been exercised by any such provincial council; and, if so, at what percentage of interest has such borrowing been effected?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Under Section 85 of the Act the provinces have power to borrow on the sole credit of the province with the consent of the Governor-General in Council, and in accordance with regulations to be framed by the Union Parliament. No arrangements for such borrowing have, I understand, at present been made.

    Straits Settlements (Queen's Scholarship).
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Sir Francis Swettenham, when Governor of the Straits Settlements, suggested to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the right hon. Member for West Birmingham, that the Queen's scholarships, which have enabled many natives of that Colony to complete their education at British universities, should be reduced or abolished; whether the right hon. Member for West Birmingham refused his assent to this proposal; whether the present Secretary of State for the Colonies has abolished these scholarships in spite of the opposition of the Hon. Tan Jiak Kim, C.M.G., the only member of the Legislative Council who is entitled to speak as a native of the Colony; and whether he will state for what purpose these scholarships were instituted, and in what way they have failed to fulfil that purpose?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Sir Francis Swettenham proposed ten years ago, on the advice of a Commission which inquired into the system of education in the Colony, that the value of the scholarships should be reduced. The Secretary of State deprecated, at that time, the adoption of this proposal, mainly on the ground that the value had only recently been raised, and Sir F. Swettenham acquiesced in their being retained, though he stated that he was not satisfied that they met the objects for which they were instituted. My hon. Friend is incorrect in saying that I have

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    abolished these scholarships. They have been abolished by the Colonial Government, which established them. I am aware that my friend Mr. Tan Jiak Kim was not in favour of the abolition. The scholarships were created to allow promising boys an opportunity of completing their studies in England, and to encourage a number of boys to remain at school and acquire a really useful education. The general opinion is that their existence led to an undue amount of attention being given to the few boys who competed for them, that it was unnecessary to continue this special inducement for boys to remain at school, and that the financial situation of the Colony does not justify the expenditure on a favoured few of large sums of money, which can be better employed for the furtherance of education in other ways. This matter is one for the Government and Legislature of the Colony, and I must decline to interfere in it in any way.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Will the right hon. Gentleman publish the correspondence dealing with this subject?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I think I had better reread the correspondence first and see if I can publish it.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Did the right hon. Gentleman not read it before answering the question?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Yes, Sir, I read it and forgot it.

    Malta (Census).
    Mr. POINTERasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has official information to the effect that the recent Census of the Maltese shows that one-fourth of the population is unemployed; and, if so, whether he is considering any scheme, either in conjunction with the Malta Government or otherwise, to provide a remedy?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The reply to the first part of the question is in the negative; but I can assure the hon. Member that the question of unemployment in Malta is occupying my earnest consideration.

    Laud Valuation.
    Mr. ROYDSasked whether claims have been made by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue for Increment Value Duty upon
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    sale of a house and land when they have been sold at an actual loss and no increase had taken place in the value of the site since 30th April, 1909; and, if so, whether directions will be given for the discontinuance of such claims?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): The basis of calculating the site value of a composite property on the occasion of a sale is the subject of several appeals, and pending the final decision of the Courts, I am not prepared to make any statement on the matter.
    Mr. ROYDSasked whether the valuers in ascertaining assessable site value under the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, have been instructed to disallow any claim for deduction in respect of works executed or expenditure incurred in improving the value of the land unless such claim is accompanied by actual details of the cost of such works; and whether, in cases where the reclamation and user of lands are solely attributable to works executed, such as sea walls, embankments, and drainage of fen lands, where it is impossible to produce actual proof of outlay, the valuers have been instructed to disallow any claim for deduction?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Statute requires owners desirous of claiming site value deductions in respect of works executed or expenditure incurred in improving the value of the land to prove to the Commissioners the value attributable to such works or expenditure. The Commissioners have instructed the valuation officers to accept reasonable evidence in support of such claims, and details of the amount of the expenditure are not required if the accretion of value can be otherwise demonstrated.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the capital expended and remuneratively invested is taken as capital expended with the object of raising the value of the land, such as railway building carried out on the Great Eastern Railway?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I would not like to answer a technical question of that kind without notice. If my hon. Friend will put it on the Paper, I will answer it.
    Mr. ROYDSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that when substituted site value is applied for in respect of a freehold house and land the

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    Commissioners decline to accede to the application unless the owner can prove that on purchase the price paid for the land apart from buildings exceeded the assessable site value; and whether, in view of the fact that on purchase no separate values are ever placed on the site and buildings respectively and it is not possible for an owner to comply with the Commissioners' requirements, he will give directions for the present practice to be discontinued?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The hon. Member is under a misapprehension. The Commissioners do not require proof that the price paid for the land apart from the buildings exceeded the assessable site value.
    Mr. ROYDSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in the ascertainment of the site values of component parts of an occupation in respect of which separate valuations have been required, he will instruct valuers to make their valuation of each part as if the whole of such occupation were divested of buildings in accordance with the provisions of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, in view of the fact that the present practice of valuing one part of an occupation as if it were divested of buildings and the other component parts as if it were not is contrary to the provisions of the Act?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am advised that the existing practice is in accordance with the provisions of the law, and it is therefore unnecessary to give instructions such as the hon. Member suggests.

    Railway Revenue (Trust Fond Investments).
    Sir GEORGE YOUNGERasked whether, in view of the fact that as a result of the recent strike of coal miners the revenues of railway companies may be so affected as to make it impossible for them to pay any dividend on their ordinary stock during the current year, or cause any dividend to be less than three per cent., the Government will take such steps as may be necessary to insure that any such failure of or shortage in the dividend on the ordinary stock of any railway company during the current year shall not have the effect of removing the debenture, guaranteed, preference, or lien stocks of such company from the list of investments authorised by law for the investment of trust funds?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Government are unable to state what course of action they might consider desirable in circumstances which have not yet arisen.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the very serious nature of this particular matter, and has he himself considered whether steps ought to be taken should the event I have mentioned arise, and further, has he formed any opinion as to what should be done should the contingency arise?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The hon. Baronet knows very well that the question cannot arise until the end of the year when we get the returns. It is rather premature now to consider it. It is one of the questions that arise out of the coal strike undoubtedly, but we should wait and see whether trade will not recover in the remaining months of the year.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    MONEYS CONTRIBUTED.
    Mr. CAMPIONasked whether moneys contributed under the terms of the National Insurance Act will be regarded as national property?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The moneys so contributed will be dealt with as provided by the Act.

    MEDICAL SERVICES.
    Sir PHILIP MAGNUSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the terms of the pledge contained in a document addressed by the medical secretary of the British Medical Association to an members of the medical profession, whether engaged in club practice or not, and to the form of resignation of contract practice appointments now held by club doctors to be used in the event of the Commissioners being unable to arrange terms of practice satisfactory to the medical profession; and if so, what action he proposes to take; and whether, having regard to the document issued by the British Medical Association, it is still the intention of the Government to bring the Insurance Act into operation on 15th July of this year, notwithstanding the fact that any Act for the cure of sickness and prevention of disease cannot become operative without the assistance and voluntary support of members of the medical profession?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am aware that statements have been made in the Press

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    as to a form of pledge which is alleged to have been issued by the British Medical Association to members of the medical profession in reference to conditions which were in existence before the Insurance Act was introduced, and which that Act neither extends nor perpetuates. The pledge appears only to relate to action to be taken if the Commissioners and Insurance Committees fail to come to agreement with medical men as to work under the Act. Negotiations will commence as soon as the Advisory Committee meets. The first meeting has been fixed for Friday next. Medical benefit does not commence until next January, and no decision on this matter is necessary before bringing into operation such portion of the Act as comes into effect in July. Moreover, the general operation of the Act cannot be affected by any decision as to the particular form medical benefit may take, whether the panel system with free choice of doctor or the alternatives of special arrangements by the Insurance Committees or Commissioners with the approved societies or the payment of a monetary equivalent to each insured person.
    Mr. FRED HALL (Dulwich): May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is still of opinion that medical benefit will take place as from January next?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. J. WARD: To finally settle this matter, why not agree to place to the credit of each insured person something within at least a reasonable sum of what is to be paid?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: As I pointed out in the answer I gave, that is one of the possible alternatives.
    Mr. J. WARD: Why not decide it at once?

    STATUS OF COLLECTORS.
    Mr. LEES SMITHasked whether the provisions of the Collecting Societies and Industrial Assurance Companies Act, 1896, prohibiting the collectors of these societies from attending members' meetings, will apply to the separate sections formed by such societies for the purposes of the National Insurance Act?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): The disabilities imposed upon collectors by Section 8 of the Collecting Societies
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    and Industrial Assurance Companies Act, 1896, will not apply to the collector of a society or company which forms a separate section for the purpose of the National Insurance Act unless he acts for that section as a collector within the meaning of the Act of 1896.
    Mr. LEES SMITH: Will the same provision be applied to the other paid officials such as clerks who are acting under the special section of the Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: If the hon. Gentleman will put down a question relating I will be glad to give him an answer.

    SICK BENEFIT.
    Colonel BATHURSTasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the fact that, under the National Insurance Act, a man, having paid six months (twenty-six weeks) contributions and then falling seriously ill, is able to draw six months' sick benefit only, and can under no circumstances draw further benefit of any kind until he has paid 104 contributions; and whether he will take care that this point is made clear by means of a leaflet or through the lecturers engaged in explaining the Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: After paying contributions for six months—i.e., twenty-six weeks—an insured person is entitled not only to sickness benefit for six months, but also to the other benefits of the Act, including medical benefit, sanatorium benefit, and maternity benefit when and for as long as they are required, with the single exception of disablement benefit. Permanent disablement benefit can only be drawn after 104 contributions have been paid. The position is exactly and fully stated on page 2 of the official explanatory leaflet No. 10, and is also explained by the official lecturers.

    EMERGENCY CARDS.
    Mr. FELLasked if the emergency cards to be issued to employers under the National Insurance Act, 1911, will be applicable to the cases where the employés are deposit contributors?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Yes, Sir. Both the emergency cards and all other cards will be exactly the same for deposit contributors as for members of approved societies.
    Mr. FELL: Will they be used in the case of a casual labourer who gets one day's employment?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The cards will only be used where an insured person is not able to produce a card, but whose employer is under the obligation to stamp a card. It is for the benefit of the employer.

    Budget Surplus.
    Mr. HUNTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can now say to what purposes he is going to apply the surplus of £6,500,000; and, if not, can he say when he will be able to do so?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am afraid I can add nothing to the statements I have already made in the House.
    Mr. HUNT: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any idea when he will be able to tell us?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: No, Sir; I do not think I can add anything at the present moment.

  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.

    IRISH STAMPS.
    Mr. AMERYasked whether, under the provisions of the Government of Ireland Bill, the Irish Parliament can provide that no receipt which requires to be stamped shall be valid unless stamped with an Irish stamp?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The answer is in the negative. The Irish Parliament will have no power to interfere with the mode in which any receipt stamp duty is levied.

    INCOME TAX.
    Sir JOHN LONSDALEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to which country, under Section 24 of the proposed Government of Ireland Bill the Income Tax collected on dividends on shares in English railways or other English companies (where the shares are owned by residents in Ireland) will be attributed, to England or Ireland?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Section 24 of the Bill leaves the matter to the discretion of the Joint Exchequer Board.
    Sir J. LONSDALE: Will the action of the Joint Exchequer Board be controlled by the Imperial Parliament?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Oh! yes.
    Sir J. LONSDALE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say in what manner it will be brought before this House? Will he also see that that is provided for in the Bill?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think the hon. Baronet should not put that question to me without notice.
    Mr. CASSEL: Will not the right hon. Gentleman claim for the Imperial Exchequer any Income Tax on the profits of English railways wherever the shareholders may be resident?
    Mr. MOORE: How is the Chancellor of the Exchequer going to control the action of the Irish representatives on the Joint Exchequer Board?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That is exactly the question put by the hon. Baronet.
    Mr. MOORE: We have not got an answer.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I gave an answer. I invited the hon. Baronet to put down a question.

    QUEER'S UNIVERSITY, BELFAST.
    Major WHITEasked whether, under the Government of Ireland Bill, there is any obligation on the Irish Executive to continue the grant of £28,000 per annum to the Queen's University, Belfast; and what safeguard he proposes to ensure that the provisions of the Irish Universities Act, 1908, are duly carried out?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Irish Executive will have the same obligation to pay £18,000 per annum to the Queen's University, Belfast, when voted by the Irish Parliament as the United Kingdom Executive have to pay that sum now when voted by the United Kingdom Parliament. The payment of £10,000 now paid out of the Church Temporalities Fund will also depend on the action of the Irish Parliament.

    IRISH MEMBERS AT WESTMINSTER.
    Major MORRISON-BELLasked, in view of the fact that it is proposed, under Clause 26 of the Government of Ireland Bill, to increase in the Division Lobbies of this House the voting strength of Ireland on the lines of representation in proportion to population, whether the Prime Minister is prepared, for the purposes of any future financial revision, while the financial arrangements under this Bill are being in the first place laid down, to adopt the same policy towards England, namely, of equalising on a population basis her voting strength as compared to Ireland,

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    thus affording England an equal voice in the framing of any decisions as to finance that may be arrived at?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): No, Sir, the Prime Minister is not prepared to adopt this suggestion.
    Mr. CASSELasked whether it would be competent to the Irish Parliament, under the Government of Ireland Bill, to discontinue for Ireland all or any of the duties imposed by the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, on the rest of the United Kingdom by the votes of Irish Members?
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): I must refer the hon. Member to Clause 15 of the Bill.
    Mr. CASSEL: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my question?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: These are really Debating matters, and I think the hon. Member should refer to the Bill.

    LAND VALUATION.
    Mr. CASSELasked whether, under the Government of Ireland Bill, the costs of the valuation of land in Ireland, pursuant to the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, would be costs of the collection of taxes and therefore fall upon the Imperial Exchequer, or whether such costs would fall upon the Irish Exchequer?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Subject to Clause 40 of the Bill the cost of the valuation of land in Ireland pursuant to Part I. of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, will fall upon the Imperial Exchequer, to which will accrue the benefit of the taxes thereby imposed.
    Mr. CASSELasked whether it would be within the competence of the Irish Parliament, under the provisions of the Government of Ireland Bill, to repeal the land valuation Clauses and Land Values Duties of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910; and how it would be possible for the Exchequer Board to estimate from year to year, with any approach to correctness, what Land Values Duties not in force would have produced if they had been in force?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: With regard to the first part of the question, I must refer the hon. Member to Clause 15 of the Bill. The latter part of the question is more suitable for discussion in Committee on Clause 17.
    Mr. CASSEL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the construction of Clause 15 is very ambiguous?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: That is precisely the kind of matter which ought to be discussed in Committee of the House.
    Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that there will be an opportunity for discussion?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: There is little doubt that there will be ample opportunity to discuss all these matters if the Opposition will so arrange their business as to enable that to be done.

    TRUSTEE SECURITIES.
    Mr. NEWMANasked whether, in the event of Clause 23 of the Government of Ireland Bill becoming law, it is proposed to similarly include in the list of trustee securities under the Trustee Act, 1893, any stock or security issued in respect of any loan by a component state of any federal system within the Empire?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: This question can be considered if, and when, occasion arises.

    CHURCH REVENUES.
    Mr. HUNTasked whether, under the Government of Ireland Bill, he can say if the Irish Parliament will have power to transfer any annual sum of money from any of the revenues of the Catholic or other churches in Ireland to assist or establish an Irish museum?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I would refer the hon. Member to the Prime Minister's reply to a similar question asked by the hon. Member for Denbigh district on 6th instant.
    Mr. HUNT: Will the right hon. Gentleman say "Yes" or "No." If he cannot do that, can he say why the British Government is to be allowed to take away the revenue of the Welsh Church for a Welsh museum while the poor Irish Government is not to be allowed to have the same privilege for an Irish museum?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The answer of the Prime Minister was that there is "no express prohibition in the Bill of such legislation, nor do I think such prohibition is necessary in view of the powers of veto reserved to the Crown and to the Imperial Parliament."
    Mr. HUNT: Are we to understand that this power will be allowed to the Irish Parliament?
    Mr. BIRRELL: There is no express prohibition of it, but restriction of it is obtained in the way I have described.

    LAND PURCHASE ACT.
    EARL of KERRYasked if the Prime Minister will state on whose advice the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland now acts in exercising control and making regulations under Section 23 (8) of the Land Purchase Act, 1903; whether this matter is provided for in the Government of Ireland Bill; and, if so, whether the Lord Lieutenant will in future exercise his powers under this Section on the advice of the Imperial or of the Irish Ministers?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Lord Lieutenant, if he is not himself a member of the Cabinet, acts on the advice of a responsible Minister, and, after the passing of the Bill, will continue to act on the advice of a Minister responsible to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The matter is provided for in Clause 4 of the Bill.

    SOUTH AFRICAN UNION.
    Mr. KELLAWAYasked the Prime Minister if the provincial councils of the South African Union possess autonomy in regard to direct taxation within their States, all education other than higher education, municipal institutions, and generally over all provincial as distinct from federal matters; and, if so, will he say from what Section of the Act of Union these powers are derived?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Yes, Sir, under Section 85.
    Mr. KELLAWAY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how the idea originated that the South African States do not possess Home Rule?
    Mr. AMERY: May I ask whether, as a matter of fact, the powers of education in South African provinces are for five years only, and that they can impose no direct taxation except such as may from time to time be assented to by the central Parliament of the Union?
    Mr. HARRY LAWSON: May I ask whether that particular provision has not been generally condemned in South Africa since it was passed, and whether there was not the strongest view that it ought not to have been accepted?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I have no information on that subject.

    IMPERIAL SUPREMACY.
    Sir JOHN LONSDALEasked the Prime Minister whether he can state the procedure under the proposed Government of Ireland Bill by which Imperial supremacy is to be exercised and enforced in an instance where the Imperial Parliament having formally objected to or vetoed a measure passed by the Irish Government the latter, rather than submit, resigns?
    Mr. BIRRELL: No special procedure is provided or needed. If such a case were to arise, it is clear that the measure referred to would not have the effect of law.

    STAMPS (DEVICE).
    Sir JOHN LONSDALEasked the Prime Minister whether, under the Government of Ireland Bill, the Parliament proposed to be established in Dublin will have power to authorise any device on stamps other than the King's head?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The design of stamps is properly a matter of prerogative in regard to which the King's consent would require to be taken.

    HARBOURS.
    Sir JOHN LONSDALEasked the Prime Minister whether, under the Government of Ireland Bill, the proposed Irish Parliament will have jurisdiction over Royal harbours or harbours under Admiralty control, or over the coast line between high and low-water mark?
    Mr. BIRRELL: There is nothing in the Bill to prohibit the Irish Parliament making laws with respect to harbours so far as the legislation does not interfere with the rights of the Crown (including naval and military rights). The ground between high and low-water mark is primâ facie Crown property, and, as such, excluded from Irish legislation, but under Clause 39 such property may be placed at the disposal of the Irish Government.

    OLD AGE PENSIONS.
    Sir JOHN LONSDALEasked the Prime Minister whether, under the Government of Ireland Bill, if the proposed Irish Parliament did away with or reduced the rate of old age pensions, the equivalent amount saved would be credited to the Irish Parliament for other purposes?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Should the Irish Government avail themselves of their power under Clause 5 of the Bill to secure the transfer of the old age pensions services, the cost at the date of transfer, as determined under the provisions of Clause 17 (4), will be added to the transferred sum at the disposal of the Irish Government, and the Irish Exchequer will thereafter secure the benefit of any savings in the cost, as it will have to meet any increase. The rights of pensioners at the time of the transfer are safeguarded by Clause 4 (a) of the Bill.
    Mr. FELLasked what is the number of persons in receipt of old age pensions in Ireland at the present time; if this number will by the death tables decrease considerably in the next ten years; and if he can state what will be the estimated number of pensioners there in each of the following ten years?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The total number of pensions payable in Ireland on the last Friday of the quarter ending 31st March last was 205,317. Against any decrease in the next few years must be set the increase owing to the removal of the pauper disqualification, the effect of which will probably be increasingly felt. I fear I am unable to give an estimate of the number of pensioners in future years in Ireland.
    Mr. CASSELasked whether, seeing that the view expressed on behalf of the Government in the outline of financial provisions that the cost of old age pensions in Ireland will decrease is at variance with the views expressed by the Committee on Irish Finance in their Report, the right hon. Gentleman will state how it is proposed that the Exchequer Board, in the event of old age pensions in Ireland being taken over by the Irish administration, shall estimate the cost of this service?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: In the event indicated the Joint Exchequer Board will no doubt take into consideration when estimating the cost of old age pensions in Ireland all the data then available. It is not proposed to prescribe the manner in which they shall arive at their estimates.
    Mr. CASSEL: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my question, how it will be possible for the Exchequer Board—in view of the difference of opinion between the Government and the Committee as to the increase or decrease of
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    the charge for this service—to determine that matter?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I shall be very happy to discuss the hon. Member's question when we come to discuss the Clauses.

    ELECTORAL FRANCHISE.
    Mr. RONALD M'NEILLasked the Prime Minister whether it will be within the power of the Irish Parliament, under the Government of Ireland Bill, to alter the electoral franchise so as to include duly qualified women?
    Mr. BIRRELL: There is nothing to prevent the Irish Parliament doing so after three years from the passing of the Act under the powers conferred by Clause 9.

    CUSTOMS AND EXCISE.
    Mr. AMERYasked (1) whether, under the provisions of the Government of Ireland Bill, the proposed Irish Government would be able to raise the Customs and Excise Duty on sugar and then give back the Excise to Irish producers of sugar in the form of a bounty; and, if so, whether such a policy would involve a discrimination not only against British sugar, but also against British confectionery, jam, biscuits, and mineral waters; (2) whether, under the provisions of the Government of Ireland Bill, the proposed Irish Government would be able to raise the Customs and Excise Duty on tobacco and then give back the Excise to the Irish producers to tobacco in the form of a bounty; and (3) whether, under the provisions of the Government of Ireland Bill, the proposed Irish Government would be able to raise the Customs and Excise Duty on spirits and then give back the Excise to Irish producers of spirits in the form of a bounty?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I will answer these three questions together. Clause 15 (d) provides that the Excise Duty shall correspond to the Customs Duty, and there can be no doubt that the course suggested in the question of levying an Excise Duty and of returning the proceeds to the payers so as to effect, in practice, a differentiation between the rates of Customs and Excise would be an evasion of that provision and would be held to be ultra vires.
    Mr. AMERY: What provision is there in the Bill to prevent the Irish Government giving a slightly different amount in bounties in such a way as to be not an

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    absolute evasion of the provision and yet give adequate protection to Irish produce?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: It would depend on the merits of the case whether it was ultra vires or not. The Irish Government, like any other Government, will be able to make a Grant to a particular industry for the encouragement of that industry.
    Mr. AMERY: Who would decide whether it was ultra vires?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The Courts.
    Mr. CASSEL: Would not the Courts decide the question according to the language of the Statute, and not whether it was an evasion or not?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: By the intention of the Statute as declared by its language.

    TRUE REVENUE (IRELAND).
    Mr. MAURICE HEALYasked the sources from which the £1,464,500 increase of the true revenue from Ireland in the year 1911–12 as compared with the year 1908–9 are drawn, giving the amount of the increase resulting from the new and additional taxation imposed by the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, and the amount of the increase from any other source, and mentioning what that source is?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: As I stated in answer to a question by the hon. Member on Monday last, the increase due to new and increased taxation imposed by the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, is approximately £1,100,000. The remainder is due to increases distributed over various heads. The figures for 1911–12 will be published in due course.
    Mr. M. HEALY: Can the right hon. Gentleman not give the heads of the other increases? That was the principal object of the question.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am afraid I could not give them now. There is no objection to giving them. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put a notice down on the Paper.

    Works of Art (Export Tax).
    Mr. KINGasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to frequent sales of valuable works of art which leave this country for foreign purchasers, and especially to a picture by
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    Rembrandt, sold to an American buyer for £50,000; whether he is aware that the value of such works of art has greatly appreciated in recent years; and whether, in order to retain such works of art in this country and in cases where they leave these shores to provide a financial compensation to the Exchequer, he will consider the imposition of a tax on sales of objects of artistic value exported to foreign lands?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am aware of the circumstances alluded to by my hon. Friend. While agreeing that the matter is one of importance, I am not prepared to commit myself to the imposition of taxation, as suggested.
    Mr. KING: Will the right hon. Gentleman read the speech of the President of the Royal Academy on the subject?

    House of Commons (Lighting).
    Mr. SAMUEL YOUNGasked the hon. Member for St. George's-in-the-East, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, if, in consequence of Members finding it difficult, if not impossible, to read their notes, he will see his way to remedying the lighting of the Chamber of the House of Commons?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN (Lord of the Treasury): The alterations which it is proposed to make will allow the illumination on the benches to be increased to any desired value. Experiments are now being made to find the lighting value all over the floor of the House.
    Mr. SAMUEL YOUNG: Does the hon. Member approve of the system of lighting the Chamber through a glass medium?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: Yes. As I have stated in answer to questions, it is proposed, after having a report from the specialist who examines this matter to alter the lighting.
    Lord BALCARRES: Is there really any general demand for increasing the strength or intensity of the light?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: I think, perhaps the Noble Lord should wait and see the report which will shortly be laid on the Table. The matter affects the ventilation of the House also.
    Mr. KING: Is it not the fact that on some days the gas is much stronger than on other days?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: If the hon. Gentleman refers to the illumination he will find that it is impossible to turn the gas up very high on some days because the fan is likely to blow it out.

    Hyde Park (Tea House).
    Mr. ORMSBY-GOREasked how much land has been fenced off for the enclosure round the Tea House in Hyde Park; whether any extension of this enclosure is contemplated; and whether the use of the Tea House justifies any further abstraction of land from the open park?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: The enclosure round the Ring Tea House in Hyde Park is about one and a quarter acres. No extension is at present contemplated.

    General Post Office East.
    Mr. ORMSBY-GOREasked whether it is proposed to make any structural alteration in the old General Post Office buildings in Aldersgate Street; and, if so, to what extent these buildings of national and artistic interest will be altered; whether any action has been taken in the matter already; and whether the House will be consulted before any work of destruction takes place?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: The First Commissioner has considered this question very carefully. Unfortunately the present plan of the buildings in Aldersgate Street, known as the General Post Office East, is very prodigal of space, while the increased business of the Post Office and the enhanced value of land make economy of the utmost importance. It was found, to his very great regret, that it would be quite impossible to provide the necessary space by adapting the buildings in Aldersgate Street, and a scheme has been prepared for demolishing them and erecting a new block. A contract for clearing the site is now under consideration.

    Established Church (Wales) Bill.
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education how many of the eighty-nine schools which have been closed or handed over to local authorities by the Church of England are situated in the county of Carnarvon?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD Of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan): Since 31st March, 1903, five
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    Church of England schools have been closed in the county of Carnarvon, and eight have been handed over to local authorities.
    Mr. KING: Is it not the fact that the endowments of the Church of England in Carnarvon are greater, pro rata, with respect to the population, than in any other county?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: I cannot say.
    Viscount WOLMERasked the Prime Minister if he will state how many days he proposes to allow for the Second Reading of the Established Church (Wales) Bill, in view of the number of days spent on the Second Reading of the Irish Church Bill in 1869?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE (for the Prime Minister): As has already been stated, the Debate will begin next Monday, and be continued on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, when we hope to have the Division.
    Viscount WOLMER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on the Irish Church Bill five days were given for the Second Reading?
    Mr. KING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that twice Bills for the Disestablishment of the Welsh Church have been passed by this House. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."]
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: The right hon. Gentleman is not aware of any such thing.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: As to Ireland, I was under the impression it took four days.
    Viscount WOLMER: Five days. In view of that, will the right hon. Gentleman give us five days?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: There have already been one or two discussions in recent years on the same subject.
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Can the Chancellor of the Exchequer now state what is the intention of the Government in reference to the Committee stage of the Welsh Disestablishment Bill?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: We propose to take it on the floor of the House.

    National School Teachers' Pensions (Ireland).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether there is, on the list of teachers pensioned off under the Irish Board of National Education, one who, after twenty-nine years' service as teacher, is now in receipt of an annual pension of £3 17s. 6d.; whether he will explain the rule or scale under which this pension of 2½d. per day was fixed; whether that is the minimum pension for an Irish teacher; what the minimum pension is for an English teacher; how many English and Irish teachers, respectively, are now in receipt of pensions of less than £13 a year; and when, and according to what scale, are Irish teachers' pensions to be increased?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am informed that there is no pension of this amount on the books of the Irish Teachers' Pension Office, and therefore the second and third questions do not arise. The minimum disablement allowance under Section 2 of the Elementary School Teachers' (Superannuation) Act, 1898, is after ten years' service £20 a year in the case of a male English teacher, and £15 a year in the case of a female English teacher. There are 104 Irish teachers receiving pensions of less than £13 a year. A revision of the scale of Irish teachers' pensions is now under consideration, and provision has been made for the purpose in the Estimates for the current financial year.
    Mr. GINNELL: Would the hon. Gentleman say what is the minimum pension that any Irish teacher receives? It is asked in the question.
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am afraid that I cannot add anything to what I have said. Perhaps the hon. Member will put down a question.
    Mr. GINNELL: It is on the Paper—what is the minimum pension to an Irish teacher?

    Lough Erne Fisheries.
    Mr. CRUMLEYasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that the Commissioners of Woods and Forests have recently issued public notices in the Lough Erne fisheries district, county Fermanagh, stating that they will issue licences permitting the holders to fish with single rod and line only for trout on Lough Erne, the fee for which is £1 for the season; that
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    no more than ten of these licences will be issued for any one season; and that free permits to fish with a single rod and line only for pike and other coarse fish will be issued to owners and tenants of lands adjoining the Lough and to residents in the vicinity; can he state under what Statute or by whose authority these notices have been published; is he aware that fishing for trout and coarse fish on Lough Erne and its tributaries has from time immemorial been free; are the fishery rights on Lough Erne vested in the present Erne Fishery Company under a patent of James I.; is he aware that, on the face of the licence referred to, severe penalties are set forth not only for fishing without a licence but for refusing to produce the same when demanded by any police constable or bailiff; is it intended by the resurrection of some obsolete enactment to enforce such penalties; and whether, seeing that the river Erne is one of the most popular fishing resorts in Ireland, and in view of the hardship which the tax and restrictions will impose on the poorer classes in the district, he will undertake to have this notice withdrawn?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: A judgment of the Exchequer Chamber in Ireland in 1868 (Bloomfield v. Johnson) decided that the public have no right of fishing in Lough Erne, and that the fishing belongs to the Crown subject to certain rights granted to certain landowners by Letters Patent. There have been from time to time prosecutions for fishing in the Lough at the instance of the persons entitled under these patents, and convictions have followed. In recent years frequent complaints have been made that persons from a distance have descended on portions of the Lough and swept it with nets. Licences are now issued for trout fishing at a fee of £1 for the season without any limit as to number, and free permits to fish with rod and line for pike and coarse fish are granted to owners and tenants of lands adjoining the Lough and to residents in the vicinity. The sole object of the Commissioners of Woods has been to protect the fisheries from destruction, and if the hon. Member has any alternative suggestions to make for the preservation of the fishery and the benefit of the locality I shall be glad to communicate them to the Commissioners.
    Mr. CRUMLEY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there was never any interference with fishing on this lake for over 100 years until some prosecution took place last year, and that the Fisheries

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    Commissioners took a leaf out of the book of those who instituted the prosecution in reference to Lough Neagh?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I understand from the Commissioners that they were contemplating the possibility of the complete destruction of the fish on the Lough, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman will communicate with me to see if any better methods, can be devised of preserving the fish.

    Columbia Parcels Post (Bar Gold).
    Mr. GEORGE TERRELLasked the Postmaster-General whether the postal charge on bar gold sent by parcels post from the Republic of Columbia to the United Kingdom is approximately 18s. per pound, and the charge on similar gold sent from Columbia to New York, including insurance, is 2s. 10d. per pound; whether gold sent to the United Kingdom is subject to any restrictions as to fineness not imposed by the United States authorities; and whether, with a view to encourage the sending of gold from Columbia to England, he will modify the postal rates and conditions so as to correspond with the rates and conditions of other countries?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am unable to state the conditions governing the transmission of bullion from the Republic of Columbia to the United States of America. The importation into the United Kingdom by post of any packet containing coin or bullion exceeding £5 in value is prohibited. There are no other special postal restrictions on the importation of bullion into the United Kingdom. I am not prepared to modify the existing regulations.

    Wireless Telegraphy.
    Mr. NORTON - GRIFFITHSasked whether the legal advisers to the Crown have provided a Clause in the contract now being considered with the Marconi Company by which the Government shall not be precluded from taking up or controlling any other system of wireless telegraphy that might prove more efficient for long-distance transmission?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The contract with the Marconi Company will meet the contingency referred to by the hon. Member.
    Mr. LYNCH: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into account that in various
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    foreign countries, America, France, Germany, and Denmark, extensive experiments are now being made with a view to increasing the scope and accuracy of wireless telegraphy, and will he not tie down the Government without having considered the whole scope and possibilities of these inventions?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I appreciate my hon. Friend's contention, but if we are to wait until wireless telegraphy is absolutely perfected, we shall never be able to complete our Imperial wireless scheme. The Government are not tied down to any one system, and if, later on, any other system is found to be superior, it can be substituted for the earlier one.

    Criminal Law Amendment (White Slave Traffic) Bill.
    Mr. FRANCEasked the Prime Minister if, in view of the continual blocking of the Criminal Law Amendment (White Slave Traffic) Bill and of the measure of support it receives from all parts of the House, he will undertake to arrange for the introduction of a Bill embodying a drastic reform of the law on this subject?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I much regret the continual blocking of this measure which has, I believe, the general support of the House, and I fail to understand the motives of hon. Members who have prevented its discussion. While in view of the pressure of business this Session it is not possible for me to give any definite assurance that the Government can take action in the matter, I shall be glad to consider later on whether something can be done to facilitate the progress of the Bill.
    Mr. LEE: Will the Government not consider whether, as they have allowed a week of Parliamentary time to discuss the Women's Suffrage Bill, some time is not still available for the discussion of a question in which women are equally interested?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Government will undoubtedly consider the subject of giving facilities later on, but I could not at this stage give any distinct pledge.
    Mr. BOOTH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the opposition which is offered in this House to this measure has not been directed to the avoidance of discussion, but that objection has been taken to the measure passing through without

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    discussion, and is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some of the Clauses are exceedingly objectionable?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: In that case, if facilities are given, it will mean that the objections will probably be removed.

    Canada and United States.
    Mr. HUNTasked whether, in view of the fact that President Taft stated that the effect of reciprocity between the United States and Canada would be to make Canada only an adjunct of the United States and would transfer Canada's Important business to New York and Chicago, the Prime Minister can now say whether he will instruct Mr. Bryce, our Ambassador at Washington, that he is not in future to assist in bringing about reciprocity between Canada and the United States?
    Mr. ACLAND: I would refer the hon. Member to the statement made by the Prime Minister on Monday.
    Mr. HUNT: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Prime Minister did not answer this question at all in his reply, and, in view of that, is our Ambassador at Washington to be allowed to make Australia, New Zealand, and other parts of the British Empire mere adjuncts of the United States?
    Mr. ACLAND: That question does not arise. The British Ambassador at Washington has nothing to do with Australia.

    Public Trustee Act.
    Mr. GINNELLasked whether the Prime Minister's attention has been called to the Amendments of the Public Trustee Act suggested by the Public Trustee, those Amendments being non-contentious; whether an effort will be made to have them enacted this Session; and, if so, whether he will consider the advisability of extending the amended Act to Ireland, to be administered by an Irish trustee?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Government hope it will be possible this Session to introduce and pass a Bill amending the Public Trustee Act in certain uncontentious matters. As regards the question of extending the scope of the Public Trustee Act to Ireland, the Government's view is that, now the Government of Ireland Bill is before the House, other legislation specially affecting Ireland should be restricted as far as possible.
    Mr. WATT: Will the Amendment take the form of extending the Act to Scotland?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I should like to have notice of that question.

    Co-partnership.
    Viscount WOLMERasked the Prime Minister whether he is now able to make any definite reply to the memorial on co-partnership addressed to him by 293 Members of this House?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am afraid I have nothing to add to the replies already given.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Will the right hon. Gentleman be able to make any statement in the Debate which is likely to take place this evening on the subject?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I will consider that point.

    Telephone Service.
    Lord NINIAN CRICHTON-STUARTasked the Postmaster-General whether he will state whether he proposes to raise the telephone rates above the amount charged by the National Telephone Company; if so, at what date the revised rates will come into force; and what the rate will be when in force?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: As I have frequently stated, it is my intention to revise the rates for telephone service after the price to be paid for the National Telephone Company's system has been settled. The rates will, to a considerable extent, depend upon that price, and if they are not generally acceptable they will be the subject of public inquiry either by a Select Committee of this House or by some other Committee of a representative character.
    Mr. C. BATHURSTasked the Postmaster-General whether the memorandum recently issued by his Department in reference to rural party-line telephones for farmers is intended to mean that no farmer living within half a mile of an existing telephone exchange can obtain the benefit of the reduced scale of charge for telephone facilities, or merely that such farmer will not be reckoned in the minimum of three prospective customers without which a party-line system will not be installed?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am sending to the hon. Member a set of the papers containing full particulars of the rural party-line telephone service. A necessary precedent of a rural service is the existence of an exchange serving subscribers who rent exclusive or two party-lines at the ordinary rates, and it would therefore be impracticable to serve all subscribers by means of the multi-party lines intended to meet the needs of residents in more isolated districts. I am, however, considering in connection with the forthcoming general investigation as to rates whether a four-party line service cannot be provided for residents who live near small exchanges at rates corresponding with rural party-line rates, but with a rather more convenient method of service.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Do I understand from that that it is the fact that a farmer living within half a mile of the village where there is an exchange does not get the benefit of the lower terms?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Under the present system he does not get the benefit of the existing tariff on the rural party-line service. It is impossible to draw a distinction between farmers and other residents. If we were to include farmers within half a mile of the exchange we should have to include everybody, and the consequence would be that the growth of the number of those exchanges would be very much hampered.
    Mr. C. BATHURST: Did not the right hon. Gentleman put forward this as a scheme for the special benefit of farmers?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: It is expected that farmers generally will support it more than anyone else. If you included people in the neighbourhood of a village it would only mean that you would have to apply it to all the residents of the village.
    Mr. NIELDasked whether, in the arbitration between the Postmaster-General and the National Telephone Company to ascertain the price to be paid for the acquisition of the telephone system of the company, the agreements for wayleaves are or will be treated as subsisting and continuing obligations to be taken into account for the purpose of obtaining a reduction in the price to be paid to the company for the undertaking?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I cannot make any statement in anticipation of the
    408
    proceedings as to the course which will be taken before the Railway and Canal Commissioners.
    Mr. NIELDasked (1) whether the Postmaster-General is aware that his name has been used by his Departmental officials as repudiating agreements for wayleaves for telephone poles and wires entered into by the National Telephone Company with public bodies and others; and, if so, in view of such repudiation exposing the Department to charges of a gross breach of faith, will he reconsider the matter and direct that such agreements shall be duly observed in the same way as other obligations transferred to the Post Office with the undertaking of the company; (2) if the Postmaster-General will state why agreements entered into by the National Telephone Company with public bodies and persons for wayleaves for telephone poles and wires are not binding upon him; why any distinction should be made when the service rendered is precisely the same; on what ground and in pursuance of what statutory authority or contractual rights does the Post Office demand to have a continuance of a service and repudiate the obligation to pay for the same, and thus place itself beyond and above the Common Law and that relating to contracts in force as between the subjects of His Majesty in this country?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am advised that the agreements relating to wayleaves on private property negotiated by the National Telephone Company are not legally binding either upon me or upon the property owners, but in the majority of cases I am continuing similar arrangements. The Postmaster-General's rights of constructing telegraphs on public roads, railways, and canals, are regulated by numerous Statutes and Agreements, and I should not be justified in continuing payments made for the user of public roads, railways, and canals by the company, who had no such rights.

    Sale of Irish Butter.
    Mr. LUNDONasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether any steps have been taken by his Department, or by that known as the Irish division presided over by Lord Carrick, to trace the whereabouts of a gang of bogus butter merchants who have quite recently been operating successfully in Ireland; is he aware that these persons

    409
    have got butter from various Irish creameries but have never paid for the same; have the Irish inspectors taken up the matter, and, if so, with what results; have boxes of butter been found at any London stations addressed to men who are already known to the Department to have defrauded Irish agriculturists; have the police authorities been put, in motion with a view to the tracking down of these persons who are trading under assumed names in Great Britain; and, if not, will something be done to try and prevent the Irish farmer from being robbed of what is his only means of subsistence?
    Mr. T. W. RUSSELL (Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture, Ireland): Several cases of frauds of the nature referred to have been investigated by the Department's staff in Great Britain, and the information obtained has been placed before the Director of Public Prosecutions and the police authorities concerned. In two instances proceedings have been instituted by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Other complaints are at present receiving the attention of the police. It is undesirable to give publicity to the methods of investigation adopted. If the hon. Member will send me any definite information in his possession as to a case of the kind I will have the matter looked into, if this is not already being done.

    Whiddy Island Fishermen (County Cork).
    Mr. GILHOOLYasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether he has received a memorial setting forth grievances of the trammel and net line fishermen of Whiddy Island in connection with steam trawling in Bantry; whether they have also sent small fry consisting of immature sole, cod, and ling; and, as the means of subsistence of hundreds of fishermen along the seaboard of Bantry is affected by steam trawling, he will cause an inquiry to be held relative to that mode of fishing?
    Mr. RUSSELL: The Department have received a memorial as indicated in the question, and have also received several parcels of small fish of different kinds. Nearly two-thirds of this fish are of species caught almost solely by trawling. Of the remainder some are caught by other classes of nets or on lines. The samples contained one common sole, but no cod or ling. The question of trawling in Bantry Bay was carefully considered at Inquiries held in the year 1910, and the
    410
    Department see no reason for further inquiry at present.
    Mr. GILHOOLY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there was only one small trawler in the bay then and now there are three destroying the fish, and would the right hon. Gentleman undertake to send down an inspector to see the amount of spawn and small fry which are taken out of those trawlers?
    Mr. RUSSELL: I do not think, after the inquiry held eighteen months ago, that anything can be added.
    Mr. GILHOOLY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the gentleman who held that inquiry was a great advocate of steam trawlers?

    French Railways (Accidents).
    Sir J. D. REESasked the President of the Board of Trade if he has any information of which he can place the House in possession regarding the greater liability to serious accidents and greater cost to the taxpayers of the State-owned Western Railway of France, as compared with the like liability and cost of working the lines owned by private companies in the French Republic?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): I have not the means of making the comparison indicated in the question, but the hon. Member will find much information relating to the working of the various French railways in the official volume of Statistics of French Railways, published by the French Ministry of Public Works. If he cares to call at the Board of Trade he can consult this work.

    Loss of Steamship "Oceana."
    Sir J. D. REESasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Government will provide for representation of the British-Indian lascars concerned on the occasion of the inquiry into the circumstances attending the recent collision of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's s.s. "Oceana" with another vessel?
    Mr. BUXTON: It is not the practice to provide representation for the various interests concerned in formal investigations into shipping casualties. In the present case presumably any evidence affecting the crew of the "Oceana" will be duly considered by counsel representing the owners of the vessel, who are responsible for the efficiency of the crew engaged.
    Sir J. D. REES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the character of the lascar in general has been grievously impugned in connection with this matter. It is a very special case?
    Mr. BUXTON: I take it that it is the interest of the P. and O. Company to assist in the matter of vindicating their character.

    Government Contracts (Edward G. Herbert, Levenshulme).
    Mr. CLYNESasked the President of the Board of Trade if he can ascertain whether the firm of Edward G. Herbert, Levenshulme, Manchester, is at present engaged on any Government work or is, with respect to previous contracts, on the Government list of fair firms; and whether he is aware that men employed by this firm as fitters, turners, machine men, and others are paid below the standard rates for their work?
    Mr. BUXTON: The firm mentioned is not engaged on any work for the Board of Trade. Beyond this, I regret that I have no information, but I will make inquiries of the other Departments, and inform my hon. Friend of the result.
    Mr. CLYNES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this firm makes use of the names of various large employing Departments?
    Mr. BUXTON: I am making inquiries. As far as the Board of Trade is concerned, we have no dealings with them at present.

  MERCANTILE MARINE.

    BRITISH SEAMEN (TRAINING).
    Mr. FREDERICK WHYTEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he could give an estimate of the cost of the scheme of training in seamanship recently submitted to him by the Committee of the National Conference on the Training of British Seamen; whether any application has been made by the Board of Trade to the Treasury for the funds necessary to finance the scheme; and, if so, whether he could state the result?
    Mr. BUXTON: I understand that the scheme contemplated by the Committee of the National Conference on the Training of British Seamen would involve the expenditure of £50,000 in the first year, and
    412
    an annual expenditure of £100,000 in subsequent years. The Board of Trade has been in communication with the Admiralty and the Board of Education on the subject, but it has not yet been found possible to adopt the scheme.
    Sir HILDRED CARLILEasked what steps the Government was taking to encourage the training of seamen of British nationality?
    Mr. BUXTON: The matter to which the hon. Member refers is receiving careful consideration in conjunction with the Board of Education. I am not in a position to make any statement at present.

    UNEMPLOYMENT (SEAMEN).
    Sir HILDRED CARLILEasked what was the present rate of unemployment among sailors; and what had been the average percentage for the last five years?
    Mr. BUXTON: I regret that there are no statistics which would enable me to give the information asked for. The number of seamen engaged in each month at the principal ports is published regularly in the Board of Trade "Labour Gazette," and these figures throw some light on the state of employment for seamen.
    Sir HILDRED CARLILE: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to make arrangements so that information of a complete character may exist?
    Mr. BUXTON: If the hon. Gentleman can make any suggestion, I shall be glad to consider it.

    LANGUAGE TEST.
    Sir HILDRED CARLILEasked the President of the Board of Trade if he could state how many foreign sailors had been excluded under the Act enforcing the langauge test since it came into operation, and to what nationalities they belonged?
    Mr. BUXTON: The information desired by the hon. Member is not available.
    Sir H. CARLILE: Will the right hon. Gentleman take any steps to obtain the information?
    Mr. BUXTON: I do not think I can ascertain how many have been excluded in consequence of the operation of the Act. I cannot tell whether they would come forward or not.
    Sir H. CARLILE: Seeing that his Department is responsible for the administration of the Act, is not the right hon. Gentleman informed as to the result of its working?
    Mr. BUXTON: The result of its working is shown in the reply to the hon. Member's next question.
    Sir H. CARLILEasked the President of the Board of Trade if he would state how the decrease in foreign sailors since the Act came into operation enforcing the language test compared with the decrease or increase of foreign sailors in the five years immediately preceding the enforcement of the Act?
    Mr. BUXTON: The language test under Section 12 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, came into force on 1st January, 1908. The number of foreign seamen of all ratings returned as employed in the year 1903, exclusive of Asiatics and East Africans serving under agreements to terminate in Asia, was 40,396, being a percentage of 15.7; in 1907 the number was 37,694, a percentage of 13.6; and in 1910 the number was 30,462, a percentage of 11.2. The statistics for 1911 are not yet available. The language test has undoubtedly been a factor that has led to this decline, but there are other factors under the Act of 1906, e.g., better food and accommodation, certified cooks, etc., which have made the Merchant Service more popular with our own people, as is shown by the fact that in the above quoted period the number of British seamen increased from 176,500 in 1903 to 202,000 in 1910.
    Mr. CLYNES: Would there be any need for a language test if adequate British wages were given for work on all British vessels?
    Mr. BUXTON: I cannot answer that question.

LOSS OF STEAMSHIP "TITANIC."

  WRECK COMMISSIONER'S INQUIRY.
  Mr. BARNESasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will state what arrangements have been made for the payment of seamen witnesses retained by his Department for the purposes of the "Titanic" inquiry; if they are paid per day or per week; how much per day or week; and if he has any official information as to certain of them being destitute?
  Mr. BUXTON: Seamen witnesses detained by the Board of Trade for the purposes of the "Titanic" Inquiry are being paid allowances in accordance with a scale approved by the Treasury, or as near thereto as circumstances admit. The sums paid are graded by the seamen's ratings, and differ in amount according to whether the witnesses are detained at a port where they reside or elsewhere. Travelling expenses are paid in addition. The witnesses are paid by the Receiver of Wreck at the place where they may be, and can be paid by day or week, as they prefer, usually the former. I have not heard that any of the witnesses are destitute. Application has been made in certain instances for an increase of the rate of pay, and this is under consideration.
  Mr. BARNES: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me in plain terms how much per day or per week these men get? Is he aware that one of the men, a greaser, who came up from Southampton last week preferred sleeping on the Embankment to going to the Sailors' Home to which he was referred by the authorities?
  Mr. BUXTON: I shall be glad to have particulars of that case. The rates vary under certain conditions. If the hon. Member will give notice of another question I will give him fuller particulars.
  Mr. BARNES: What is the rate of pay for these men who come up from Southampton to give evidence at the "Titanic" inquiry?
  Mr. BUXTON: The rates vary under certain conditions. If the hon. Member gives me notice of another question, giving particulars of the cases to which he refers, I will give him the information.
  Mr. BARNES: Can the right hon. Gentleman give me the highest and the lowest rates? Can he give me any information of a definite character?
  Mr. BUXTON: I would rather have notice, in order to be quite accurate.
  Mr. CROOKS: Have the men to sleep on the Embankment until the Board of Trade has made up its mind?
  Mr. BUXTON: The rates are on the Treasury scale; I shall be glad to give full particulars.
  Mr. CROOKS: May we have them circulated to-night?

RELIGIOUS CENSUS (WALES).
Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I beg to move "That leave be given to introduce a Bill to provide for taking forthwith a religious census in Wales and Monmouthshire."
The events of the last few weeks have shown such a census to be absolutely necessary. The Government have brought in a Welsh Disestablishment Bill. They base their case for it almost entirely on the alleged weakness of the Church in Wales and the strength of Nonconformity; but when we come to examine their statements we find that they have no definite figures at all to go upon. On the contrary, they rely almost entirely on guesswork. For the last forty years they have been indulging in a sort of guessing competition, and it is high time, before this Bill is proceeded with, that there should be a definite ascertainment of the strength of the Church and of the Nonconformist bodies in Wales. The last guess is that Nonconformists are, in the words of the Under-Secretary, "the people of Wales," and that the Church is less than one-quarter. What do they rely upon? As regards the Nonconformist figures, I imagine they rely only upon the figures put in before the Royal Commission. What were those figures? They were the figures collected by the County Evidence Committee. Those figures were hopelessly wrong. They were so wrong that the Commissioners disregarded them entirely, and I am not surprised. They could not even count the number of Nonconformist ministers correctly. To give one instance, in the case of Lampeter, where it was known there were ten Nonconformist ministers, nine were counted twice over and the tenth was counted three times. As a consequence it was made out that there were twenty-one ministers. The Commissioners disregarded those figures, and fell bark upon the Year Books, but the Year Books were equally inaccurate, so much so that many Nonconformist witnesses said so. I will give one example, and one only. A Congregational minister, writing to the "Christian World" on 10th June, 1909, said:—
"When he was 'called' to his present pastorate, the membership according to the Year Book was over 100. When he got there he found that this membership was 'figurative rather than actual.'"
Is not that a beautiful phrase? I never knew there were so many synonyms for Inaccuracy.
416
"When he came to examine the figures he found that more than thirty members had gone to London, America, and elsewhere; some were dead, and others were awaiting transfer, and within eighteen months no less than fifteen more were estranged through various causes."
Yet the revision of this particular Year Book only took place two and a-half years after he had settled in his charge. I say these figures are quite inaccurate, and the only way to make them accurate is to have a religious census. It is said that the Church only numbers one-fourth of the people of Wales. What do those who say that know? They know nothing, except that a certain number of figures of communicants were put in which were absolutely accurate because, instead of their resting on figures, the Church put in the names and addresses of communicants. From that you cannot deduce with any accuracy the total number of adherents of the Church. In my belief it is quite as many or nearly as many as all the Nonconformist bodies put together. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] Yes; but that is only a guess, and if hon. Members cheer the fact that it is only a guess, why not agree with me to have a religious census? What are the objections to it? If hon. Members vote against it, we can only on this side say: "You are afraid of taking it." Yet every other country has one—Germany, Austro-Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United States of America, and even Ireland.
Two years ago we had the remarkable spectacle of hon. Members opposite getting up one after another and denouncing a religious census in England and Wales as an abuse of the rights of conscience, and two days later supporting in the Lobby a religious census for Ireland. Under those circumstances the only thing we can do is to have a religious census and to bring this matter to an absolute test. The figures put forward by the Under-Secretary are clearly wrong. He says the Church is less than a quarter of the people, and the Nonconformists, even on their own computation—which is not an underestimate—only claim less than one-half of the people. If the Church members are less than a quarter, it follows that more than one-quarter of the people of Wales and Monmouthshire have no religion at all. That is a libel on the Welsh nation. I do not believe it myself. It ought to be tested in the proper way by a census. I will merely repeat that if hon. Members vote against this Motion as they have done in the past, they clearly show that they are afraid of the results. If they

417
vote for it they admit that they have been wrong on every previous occasion. If hon. Members admit the necessity of a religious census now, the least we can expect is that the Government will give us facilities for this Bill, and will postpone further consideration of the Welsh Church Bill till the census has been taken, and the result has been made known. For these reasons, and
in order to help the Government in the great difficulty they are in, I beg to move for leave to introduce this Bill.
Question put, "That leave be given to introduce a Bill to provide for taking a Religious Census in Wales and Monmouthshire."
The House divided: Ayes, 233; Noes, 16.

Division No. 85.]

AYES.

[3.57 p.m.

Addison, Dr. C.

Falle, B. G.

Mackinder, H. J.

Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.

Fell, Arthur

Macmaster, Donald

Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)

Fitzroy, Hon. E. A.

M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)

Amery, L. C. M. S.

Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

M'Laren, Hon. F.W.S. (Lincs., Spalding)

Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R.

Foster, Philip Staveley

M'Mordie, Robert James

Ashley, W. W.

France, G. A.

McNeill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's)

Astor, Waldorf

Gardner, Ernest

Menzies, Sir Walter

Bagot, Lieut.-Colonel J.

Gastrell, Major W. Houghton

Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

Baird, J. L.

Gill, A. H.

Middlemore, John Throgmorton

Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

Gilmour, Captain John

Morrison-Bell, Capt. E. F. (Ashburton)

Baker, Sir R. L. (Dorset, N.)

Gladstone, W. G. C.

Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton)

Balcarres, Lord

Glanville, H. J.

Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

Baldwin, Stanley

Glazebrook, Capt. Philip K.

Mount, William Arthur

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

Goldman, C. S.

Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C.

Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

Goldsmith, Frank

Newdegate, F. A.

Barnes, G. N.

Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

Newman, John R. P.

Barnston, H.

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick)

Guest, Hon. Major C. H. C. (Pembroke)

Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)

Norman, Sip Hnery

Bathurst, Hon. A. B. (Glouc, E.)

Gulland, John William

Norton, Captain Cecil W.

Bathurst, C. (Wilts, Wilton)

Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

Norton-Griffiths, J. (Wednesbury)

Beck, Arthur Cecil

Haddock, George Bahr

O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)

Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. Geo.)

Hall, Fred (Dulwich)

Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

Bigland, Alfred

Hambro, Angus Valdemar

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Bird, A.

Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington, S.)

Palmer, Godfrey Mark

Boles, Lieut.-Col. Dennis Fortescue

Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

Parker, James (Halifax)

Bowerman, C. W.

Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

Parkes, Ebenezer

Boyle, W. L. (Norfolk, Mid)

Harris, Henry Percy

Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

Boyton, J.

Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.)

Peel, Capt. R. F. (Woodbridge)

Bridgeman, W. Clive

Harwood, George

Perkins, Walter F.

Burn, Colonel C. R.

Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

Peto, Basil Edward

Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)

Pointer, Joseph

Butcher, J. G.

Henry, Sir Charles

Pole-Carew, Sir R.

Byles, Sir William Pollard

Hewins, William Albert Samuel

Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. (Dublin Univ.)

Hickman, Col. Thomas E.

Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)

Campion, W. R.

Higham, John Sharp

Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford)

Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred

Hill, Sir Clement L.

Rawson, Col. R. H.

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.

Hills, J. W.

Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

Cassel, Felix

Hoare, S. J. G.

Rees, Sir J. D.

Castlereagh, viscount

Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

Remnant, James Farquharson

Cator, John

Holmes, Daniel Turner

Rendall, Athelstan

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Hope, Harry (Bute)

Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.

Horne, W. E. (Surrey, Guildford)

Roe, Sir Thomas

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.)

Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

Ronaldshay, Earl of

Chambers, James

Hunt, Rowland

Rose, Sir Charles Day

Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

Hunter, Sir C. R. (Bath)

Rowlands, James

Clough, William

Ingleby, Holcombe

Royds, Edmund

Clyde, J. Avon

Jessel, Captain H. M.

Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)

Clynes, J. R.

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

Sanders, Robert A.

Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock)

Kellaway, Frederick George

Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)

Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

Kemp, Sir G.

Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

Courthope, George Loyd

Kerry, Earl of

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Craik, Sir Henry

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B.

Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

Knight, Captain E. A.

Smith, H. B. L. (Northampton)

Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian

Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

Spicer, Sir Albert

Crooks, William

Lansbury, George

Stanier, Beville

Dalrymple, Viscount

Larmor, Sir J

Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)

Dalziel, Sir James H. (Kirkcaldy)

Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)

Staveley-Hill, Henry

Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts, Mile End)

Steel-Maitland, A. D.

Denniss, E. R. B.

Lee, Arthur H.

Stewart, Gershom

Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott-

Lloyd, G. A.

Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

Dixon, C. H.

Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford)

Elibank, Rt. Hon. Master of

Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

Sykes Mark (Hull, Central)

Esslemont, George Birnie

Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (Hanover Sq.)

Talbot, Lord E.

Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich)

Taylor, John W. (Durham)

Faber, George Denison (Clapham)

McCaw, William J. MacGeaqh

Tennant, Harold John

Faber, Captain W. V. (Hants, W.)

Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester)

Thomas, J. H. (Derby)

Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North)

Watt, Henry A.

Wolmer, Viscount

Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.)

Weigall, Capt A. G.

Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Ripon)

Tobin, Alfred Aspinall

Wheler, Granville C. H.

Wood, John (Stalybridge)

Touche, George Alexander

White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport)

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Tryon, Captain George Clement

Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

Yate, Colonel C. E.

Tullibardine, Marquess of

Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

Yerburgh, Robert

Verney, Sir Harry

Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)

Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Sir A. Griffith Boscawen and Lord Robert Cecil.

Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)

Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

NOES.

Bentham, G. J.

Hogge, James Myles

White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

Booth, Frederick Handel

Holt, Richard Durning

Whitehouse, John Howard

Brunner, J. F, L.

King, J. (Somerset, N.)

Chancellor, H. G.

Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Moore and Mr. John Gordon(Londonderry, South)

Chapple, Dr. W. A.

M'Calmont, Colonel James

Helme, Norval Watson

Pollard, Sir George H.

Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)

Wedgwood, Josiah C,

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, Lord Bobert Cecil, and Mr. Ormsby-Gore.
Presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 200.]

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.
SECOND READING.—[Sixth Day's Debate.]
Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [30th April], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Which Amendment was, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—[Mr. Walter Long.]
Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question." Debate resumed.
Mr. WYNDHAM: The Government are leaving a good deal to the Opposition. At election time they looked to the Opposition to announce the measures which I they omit from their election addresses, and when one of these measures, such as this Bill, obviously of great novelty and grave consequence, is introduced they look once more to the Opposition to supply the alternative solution for difficulties, the intangible character of which, one would have supposed, might have dawned upon them in the interval between electioneering and drafting. When we, acting well within our rights, respectfully declined that invitation, and acting within our rights, ply the Government for a little more information upon the novel, and, as we think, incongruous features of the new Constitution they ask us to accept, how
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are we met? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) put five categorical questions the other night. How was he met? The Foreign Secretary, if I may use a colloquial, phrase, "asked him another." He asked, "Is there any parallel in history for the British Empire?" That suggestion that the variety and incongruity of the British Empire is an excuse for the features of this Bill is an absurd suggestion. Incongruities which have grown up with the ages, and tested by experience, are tolerable even though they be indefensible, but the incongruities of this Bill, the incongruous features in a new Constitution devised in secret and flung at the head of the House of Commons, are quite intolerable unless they are capable of explanation and defence on the part of their authors.
We heard on Monday from the Attorney-General and yesterday from the Postmaster-General some explanation and some defence of the more curious items in the new Constitution, but, in the main, what have we had from the Treasury Bench? Ministers have arisen one after another and have asked us in dulcet tones to let bygones be bygones, and to view this new model of a Constitution with the cool consideration of "the modern eye." I think the First Lord of the Admiralty must have meant the futurist eye, because, except in this Bill and in a recent exhibition of that school of painting, I have never seen such a confusion of contour and such an absence of perspective. We are ready to accord to the Government cool consideration, in the light of reason, which they ask, but we do not think they deserve it. This is not the beginning of the new Constitution. This is Chapter II of the new written Constitution which is to be substituted for the Constitution1 under which we lived hitherto, and if we

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but examine it we cannot forget that Chapter I. of the new Constitution received last Session the imprimatur of force. We are graciously invited to plead against this measure if it does not find favour with us. We know that the verdict has been settled out of Court. The Government's contention is that the views of the electorate have been modified by recent events since the electorate last pronounced against Home Rule in 1893. Then, if that is their contention, why deny the electorate an opportunity of expressing the new view with which you credit them? That denial has introduced an air of unreality into this Debate, but with that air of unreality there is a strain, I might almost say, of grim reality. That denial by you of the opportunity to the electorate of this country to consider and decide upon the new Constitution, in our judgment, justifies the attitude of Ulster. I go further. I say that it enjoins sympathy and support towards the attitude of Ulster on the part of all people who care for the reasonable use of representative institutions and of all those who will not tolerate tyrannical short-cuts, and think that those who attempt them ought to receive political punishment in order to deter others from following their example.
But for all that our quarrel on that score is not with hon. Members who belong to the Nationalist party. True, they have, during the last three strange years, voted against the views of our constituents, although we thought they shared them. Still, they always wanted Home Rule and they found it more easy to compel the Government than to persuade the electorate. I, for one, feel it would be hypercritical to blame them for that. Our quarrel is with the Government who indulge their passion for Home Rule only when they are dependent upon the Irish vote, and who, when they are called upon to produce the Home Rule Bill, come down to the House with this strange story of inaugurating a system of Federal Government for the whole of the United Kingdom. I am quite ready to consider this new model of the federal system. It is not very easy to do so, because if I except—and I will come to him—the Postmaster-General, we have had very little defence of the features of this Bill from the point of view which the Government invite us to treat it as a first step towards a Federal Constitution. We have to rely, after eight or nine days of Debate, upon first impressions. First impressions sometimes have a lasting value.
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This is indeed a strange Bill to support a federal union for the United Kingdom. There were three most startling features in it which struck most of us at the first blush, In the first place, there is the nominated Senate. We have to examine what we are being let in for. We have been denied any opportunity of discussing a remodelled Second Chamber, but now we are being asked to commit ourselves to a model for Second Chambers, although we have had no opportunity of discussing the bearing it may, and indeed must, have on the constitutional problem. Where did the modern eye get the nominated Senate from? From Canada, the oldest example of the type of government which His Majesty's present advisers say they wish to imitate for the Mother-country. What was the next most startling feature from the point of view that this is the first step towards a federal union? On that point of view every Englishman, Scotchman, and Welshman has as good a right to speak as any Nationalist or Ulsterman. What was the second most startling feature? That within the federal union we were to have a Customs barrier and a separate Post Office. The Postmaster-General dealt with that point yesterday, and I confess that until I heard his speech, in common with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), I thought they must have taken that tip from places whose inhabitants are not considered accountable for their actions.
So far as the Post Office is concerned, the Postmaster-General found a precedent in the modern eye, and he quoted the Sovereign State of Würtemberg and Bavaria, which is reigned over by one of the oldest reigning families in Europe. But the right hon. Gentleman gave a still more modern and up-to-date reason. He quoted from the Report of the Primrose Committee, and said during recent years the cost of the Post Office in Ireland had increased owing to greater postal facilities which had been given to Ireland. Look at that from the point of view of a new federal Constitution! What will Scotland say if the postal facilities and the telegraphic facilities of the fishing fleets are to be measured on the new theory of cutting the loss in order to set up a federal system? As for the Customs barrier, the Postmaster-General, in what I think was an ingenious portion of his speech, tried to prove that there was to be no Customs Duty. I think that point may well be reserved for our discussions

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in Committee. He admitted, however, that there must be a Customs House, and if that is so, can the Irish Government alter the rates of duty? If they cannot alter the rates of duty, what on earth is this Bill for? If they do alter the rates, and it is the only financial liberty you give them, then there is to be a Customs barrier in this first instalment of the new model federal Constitution. But what we find it difficult to reconcile with any conception of a federal union is the forcible exclusion of Ulster from the federal unit to which she clings and the forcible inclusion of Ulster in the federal union which she repudiates. Where did you get that from? When the South African Constitution was being debated, if Natal had refused to come in, would you have forced her to enter into the Union of South Africa? If you would not have forced Natal to enter the Union of South Africa, why should you force Ulster out of the Union of the United Kingdom? The Postmaster-General gave us no guidance on that point. He said of us:—
"They have, however, little knowledge of the temper of the Liberal party in this country if they think that party would long support a Government which declared its readiness to rule Ireland except upon Liberal principles."
Is it a Liberal principle to support a federal union by putting one homogeneous part of the population in a State it does not want to enter and forcing it out of the State in which it wishes to remain? We must look at this aspect of the Government proposal from the point of view of the whole United Kingdom. I do believe that in the United Kingdom there is at this moment a huge majority against any one of those three proposals, if we really have seriously to suppose they are going to be included in the new federal conception of the United Kingdom. The Government have shown very little regard for what are supposed to be the wishes of the majority, and they have taken very great care that if the majority exists it shall not express its view at the poll. They are trifling with the gravity of this occasion, and they are trifling with the House and with a most responsible duty when they devise a new Constitution, in which they propose a nominated Senate and a Customs barrier, and the forcible exclusion of Ulster, proposals which, in my opinion, are against the wishes of a great majority of their fellow compatriots. They cannot proceed with the federal argument and retain those features. They have to choose
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in this matter. If they persist in asking us to view this as a federal measure they must withdraw those three features, and if they insist upon retaining them let us hear no more about the federal argument. I think it has gone. I think the Government have killed the idea of a federal union by making it ridiculous.
But is that so? I am bound to examine their measure from the point of view they advocate. If that is so, what are we discussing? I think anybody who has listened to the Debate must come to the conclusion that this is either a Home Rule Bill or a bad joke. All the arguments, whether by Unionists or Nationalists, have subsided into the old channel of the Irish question. This Bill, like its two pedecessors, which the country rejected when it was consulted, sets out to do this: On the one hand, to satisfy the demand of Ireland's national aspirations, and, on the other hand, to satisfy that demand without dislocating the United Kingdom, and without weakening the power, military and diplomatic, of the United Kingdom amongst the great Empires of the world, and without prejudice to the rights of minorities in Ireland. The question before this House is not whether we can now sketch out a new federal union for the United Kingdom, but whether this Bill achieves the first object, and avoids the dilemmas with which that object is beset. I think we have already shown a readiness to consider this Bill in an unprejudiced way, and to consider it in the light of recent events. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Well, I think so, but hon. Members opposite differ from me. May I say that we do not, at all events, shrink from that test.
I believe that all who have taken part—and I had to do so years ago—in the Debate of what is the Irish question have set out to achieve three objects. In the first place, they have set out to maintain the military power of this country; secondly, they set out to increase the material prosperity of Ireland; and thirdly, they have set out to give political satisfaction, not only to Ireland, but to what is important, satisfaction to England also. Let us look at these objects in the light of recent events. Will anyone deny that nothing has happened since 1893 which makes this object more important? May we not urge that everything which has happened in our opinion, at any rate, creates the presumption that our policy of one Parliament and one Exchequer for the United Kingdom is perhaps the best, and perhaps

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the only way of achieving those three objects with which all agree. Let me test that. I need not dwell on the first point because it has been effectively dealt with by previous speakers. No one would accept this Bill if it injured the military or diplomatic power of the United Kingdom. Have not recent events increased the importance of that? Since 1893 two things have happened. There has been an enormous extension of our Imperial responsibility, which in Africa and elsewhere has brought us in diplomatic tension with many of the great European Powers of the world, and has brought us close up to a new great armed Oriental Power. The other thing which has happened is that the armaments of all those who are our rivals, and may be our antagonists, have been piled up beyond the bounds of any previous expectations. Do not recent events also show that our plan may be, and, as we believe is, the best plan for preserving our country against the menace of those new events.
I know it is not considered advisable to illustrate an argument by a comparison with other countries, but I think I could make my argument stronger if I had no regard to that consideration. I think, however, I may say without any possibility of offence that if Italy had in recent years relaxed the political and fiscal ties which bind her to Sicily, that her position in the eyes of Europe would not now be as good as it is. If that be so, if we relax the fiscal ties between Ireland and Great Britain shall we in the eyes of Europe—and remember prestige counts for much in these matters—occupy as good a position as we do now in the face of all that has happened since 1893. The First Lord of the Admiralty referred us to other great federations, and he pointed to the United States of America and the great German Empire. But he did not prove that throughout the United States and the German Empire, with the exceptions with which I will deal, there is one great national spirit. If anyone doubts it let him read a book called "The Frontiers of the Heart," which shows that the uniform national spirit throughout the separate sovereign States of Germany was the great factor before the Franco-German War. That is not the case here, and we regret it.
The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Colonel Seely): Not yet.
Mr. WYNDHAM: The right hon. Gentleman interrupts me, but I cannot believe the Nationalist Members for Ireland
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would be the first to say that the national spirit will continue and thrive whatever happens, and I do not deny that. What I deny is that it would find expression in a political measure of this kind. When the First Lord of the Admiralty refers us to the German Empire there is one exception there from the general prevalence of a homogeneous national spirit throughout the whole Fatherland. There is the part of Poland. How does Germany treat Poland? Germany insists upon binding Poland as tightly as she can to the fabric of the Empire by political and fiscal ties. And why? Out of military prudence. I will not develop that part of my argument further, but I do urge that recent experience shows that it is wiser on that score to make the best of the Union rather than to reverse the process which has been followed by all the other great military Powers in the world. From the military point of view it is less admissible now than it was in 1893 to relax the bonds that unite these two islands. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that all the great military Powers of the world are now living in what may be called a suppressed state of siege. But all those who inherit it must be prepared under those circumstances to accept as cheerfully as they can the amount of discipline which that state of affairs demands.
I am going to pass on, and, if I may, review in the light of recent events the second object, the material prosperity of Ireland, which turns upon the financial relations between Ireland and England. Surely no one will deny that matters more now than it did in 1893. I address this, argument, if I may say so, only to hon. Members who sit for British seats, because hon. Members belonging to the Nationalist party of Ireland do not listen to this argument. I make no complaint of that. In many classic phrases they say they prefer self-government to good government and rags and poverty to the surrender of national spirit. We do not complain of that. You often complain that Ulster will not listen to your argument. We have too much cause to complain that Ireland will not listen to our argument founded on prosperity under the Union; but we may, addressing ourselves in this respect solely to British Members, say that the prosperity, which has increased since 1893, does vindicate the Union against the charge that it necessarily inflicts poverty upon Ireland, and does vindicate the Union against the further charge that under it we can take no account of the fact that Ireland is, in

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the main, an agricultural country linked up with Great Britain, in the main an industrial country. Much has been done to vindicate these charges preferred in 1886 and 1893. I am the last person in the world to wish to make another speech to the House on land purchase, but, having mentioned the well-known fact that Ireland is, in the main, an agricultural country, I must, to make good my argument, point out that in 1893 very little progress had been made with land purchase. The Land Purchase Act of my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) was scarcely on its legs. It was only passed at the end of the Session of 1891. Very well, you proposed Home Rule before land purchase had any start in Ireland. The results of that Act were very great. Taken with its predecessors it meant the creation of over 70,000 peasant proprietors in Ireland. But after a few years that Act was on its last legs and new legislation was required.
In the year 1903 new legislation was introduced and was passed. By far the most important fact attaching to that new legislation is the basis on which it was founded, far more important than the results to which it led. That Act of 1903 was founded on a basis of general consent. The year before at the Land Conference those who spoke for both parties put forward terms and said, "If the Parliament of Westminster will make those terms possible, we will be bound by them." Because of that, in this House, with practical unanimity, all parties gave the sanction of Westminster to that great treaty between rival agrarian interests in Ireland, and between Ireland and England. That was much the most important factor in the Land Legislation of 1903, although its results were not inconsiderable. Altogether, I suppose nearly 250,000 men have become, or are in the way of becoming, the owners of the farms which they occupy. Those results are important, but the basis was more important. I do not want to pick a quarrel with the Chief Secretary, but I must just state in passing that he knows I hold the opinion that the Act of 1909 arrested land purchase in Ireland, and he must allow me to say it arrested it in part because of the new financial provisions, but much more, because it broke up the basis on which the Act of 1903 was founded. The whole purport of the Act of 1903, a purport to which all parties interested gave
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their allegiance, was that all the dilatory and litigious methods of rent fixing were to be ended as soon as possible, and its place was to be taken in Ireland by smooth and rapid land purchase undertaken by unanimous consent. That was the basis of the whole thing. You arrested that in 1909. You will destroy it if this Bill becomes law. I will not go into the details of the provisions of this Bill affecting land purchase; we shall have to examine them almost with a miscroscope when we come to Committee. In Clause 2, Sub-section (2), paragraph (a), this is reserved:—
"The general subject matter of the Acts relating to land purchase in Ireland."
I have often wondered what that means. I have never read such an expression in any Act of Parliament. What is quite clear is that the Rent Fixing Acts are not reserved, so it is certain that the Parliament in Dublin is going to legislate for rent fixing, and may alter the period for the review of rents, say from fifteen to ten or to five years, and the Parliament at Westminster is to go on legislating to put land purchase back where it was before the Act of 1909. It is ludicrous. I do not know, indeed none of us know yet—perhaps the Chief Secretary will enlighten us—what may be the case in respect of the executive powers of the Parliament to be instituted at Dublin. The legislative powers are to be split with land purchase at Westminster and rent fixing at Dublin, but how are the executive powers to be divided? I am still left in doubt as to whether the Congested Districts Board which now operates over nearly a third of Ireland is to be under the control of Westminster or under the control of Dublin. [An HON. MEMBER: "Both."] Well, probably both. What is the prospect if this Bill passes? It will be far harder to raise money in the London markets for land purchase in Ireland; it will become impossible if rent fixing is run against land purchase in Ireland; and it will become insane if the Congested Districts Board, operating over a third of Ireland, are to run compulsory provisions and cash prices against voluntary purchase and depreciated stock. I wish to restrain my language, and I address this argument to British Members only. I say if they vote for this Bill they will smash the one practical thing which has been done to make the Government of Ireland tolerable under any theory of Union, of Home Rule, or of federation.

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May I, before leaving this question of the material prosperity of Ireland and of its dependence upon the financial relations between the two countries, address an argument to the whole House, including the Nationalist Members from Ireland. Perhaps I may, because I, in common with all Chief Secretaries, I say all Chief Secretaries, have done what I could in my day to secure fair finance for Ireland. Now look at it. There is this transferred sum. That transferred sum, the only stable income of the new Parliament at Dublin, is, I understand, under Clause 18 to be hypothecated in the first place for all the loss which may accrue from land purchase. In the past we have had many eager Debates about the unfairness of this or that loss for any reason falling upon the rates. Is it not a serious matter for a Government setting up for the first time to bear all the loss from land purchase upon the only income on which they are to rely for carrying on their Government? In the second place, that transferred sum is hypothecated for any purpose now charged to the Irish Church Fund. That for many years has been a matter of book-keeping. It depends upon who keeps the books, and these books are now to be kept, not at Dublin, but at Whitehall, and I wonder whether this slender income of the Dublin Government will stand that second load of hypothecation, seeing it is the only sum on which they can rely for carrying on the government of Ireland. It is a matter of common knowledge that we have not only to think of agriculture in Ireland. Mr. Parnell, between the Bill of 1886 and that of 1893, said, speaking at Nottingham at the end of 1899:—
"The movement aims more especially at the industrial regeneration of the country."
This Bill destroys British credit for land purposes, and it leaves the Irish credit nonexistent for any other purposes which have been contemplated in Ireland. All the brain work in this Bill, and it reveals a good deal of fundamental cerebration, seems to have been concentrated upon having a Customs barrier in order to please the Nationalist aspirations of Ireland, and at the same time, to having no Customs Duty in order to foster the interests of Ireland, which have been held up in Ireland ever since I can remember as the main inducement for having a Home Rule Bill. The finance of this Bill destroys the federal theory which is held out to England, and it destroys the
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Home Rule theory which is held out to Ireland. All the ingenuity of its authors has been concentrated with the enlightened vision of the modern eye upon safeguarding the principles of Mr. Cobden. For that they have cared, and for nothing else. Now recent events, whether we look at Irish agriculture or at the prospect of Irish industrial regeneration, or at the prospect of Ireland sharing in further measures of social reform, show that this question of the material prosperity of Ireland is more important now than it was in 1893; and I think they show, or, at any rate, they convince us, that the policy of one Exchequer and one credit or the policy of fiscal autonomy are the only two possible policies if you are to avoid friction between the two countries. You have got to choose between them. We choose one of the two possible policies; you reject them both. Upon that aspect, I say this in conclusion. You refuse to submit this very novel finance to the electorate of the country, and you have done nothing in this Bill to abate the financial friction between Great Britain and Ireland.
We must examine this Bill from the point of view of whether it will give political satisfaction to all who are concerned. Recent events show that is more important. Since 1893 we have seen Norway separated from Sweden, and we have seen in the example which the Government are never tired of quoting, the example of South Africa, that Union is a better model than Federation in order to give political satisfaction, where it is very hard to get it. If hon. Members belonging to the Nationalist party say, "From the point of view of political rights and political satisfaction, we are content with this Bill, what have you to say?" I admit that is an argument we have to meet as far as they are concerned. I will not meet it. I deliberately refrain from trying to meet it by referring to a case when a plan with which the accredited leaders of the Nationalist party stated themselves to be satisfied but which was afterwards found not to satisfy their followers. I refrain from urging that argument. But I do urge this. The Government, in these Debates, are never tired of asking us to look at South Africa. What do they mean? Do the new leaders of the National party not suppose that they meant what they said? They have constantly asked us to look at South Africa. Then the status of a sister State was the

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ultimate destination they held out to Ireland. I think the leaders of the future Nationalist party will convict the Government of having deceived them. They will claim that the Government meant what they said, and nobody will blame them if they use the minor rights given them to acquire the political and complete status of an independent sister State. But in this connection we cannot be guided only by recent events. We must look to the experience of past history. The Postmaster-General recited various quotations from the past in support of his theory.
Are we altogether to ignore the fact that this Bill, in its political aspect, is not a new plan? It is, in all essentials, a reversal to a plan which was tried in Ireland a century ago, and which has been repudiated by Irishmen ever since. From the Sixth of George I., certainly from George II., till 1782, you had a political plan applied to the two countries which, in all its essential features, is the plan you now ask us to revert to. You have a plan under which the Parliament at Westminster claims that it has, or ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes with sufficient powers, limited by the people of Ireland, and you are putting them back in this Bill. With that no Irishman was content during the fifty or sixty years which preceded Grattan's Parliament. And when, towards the end of the eigthteenth century a new policy had to be invented, it was found that the legislative liberties accorded under Grattan's Parliament were incompatible with Imperial authority. I do not believe one Irishman can be found who did not denounce the idea of returning to legislative subordination in terms of repudiation and scorn. Grattan and Sheridan said that whatever else was tried that must not be tried, and Pitt said reversion to any such plan would be—
"unworthy of the liberality of England and injurious to the interests of Ireland."
He said that then—I believe it now. I say, and I am entitled to say, not because I wish to throw any discredit on the sincerity of the present leaders of the Irish party, but I am entitled to say that the leaders of the Nationalist party in the past repudiated the plan which the leaders of the Nationalist party to-day are prepared to accept. The Irish Nationalist party cannot, in respect of political rights, claim to speak for Ulster. Would the Government, when they framed the South
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African Constitution, of which they are so proud, have compelled Natal to join the Union? Or, if they proceed with their federal plan, would they force Wales to join in with the Birmingham area? No-body can speak for Ulster except those who sit for Ulster constituencies, and they decline the position of political subordination which you allot them.
May not something be said for England from the federal point of view. I pass no criticism on the retention of forty-two Irish Members here at Westminster. We have been driven to the Home Rule point of view pure and simple, and from that point of view the inclusion of forty-two Irish Members at Westminster for Home Rule was described to me only yesterday by a very ardent Home Ruler as idiotic. So I think it is. If the Irish Nationalist Members, speaking as they are quite entitled to, for Irish Nationalists, prefer, instead of an equal union with this country a morganatic alliance, with the chance of saving something out of the pin - money, that is their affair. But why, if that be so, should Members who sit for British seats be asked to be politically satisfied with a limited but statutory right on the part of Ireland to-nag and interfere in our separate domicile? To all these arguments, I put them as briefly as I can, we only have two answers. The first is a retort rather than an answer. We are charged with inconsistency. But there is nothing inconsistent in saying that this Bill does not give enough to satisfy the national aspirations of Ireland, although it gives too much to ensure the cohesion of the United Kingdom. Whether we look at defence, finance, or political equality, there is nothing in this Bill which is not absurd from a federal point of view and dangerous from a Home Rule point of view.
The only other answer is we think that these dangers are illusory and far-fetched, and that there is supremacy retained by the Parliament at Westminster. I think the safeguards have been rather roughly handled during the Debate on this point. I will only submit one general consideration. In these days of democracy the power of any assembly or any organ of government depends on its popularity in every sense of that word. Will the Parliament at Westminster be popular in the colloquial sense over all Ireland if it stands only for the policeman and the tax-gatherer? Will it be popular in the North-East of Ireland if it stands for a guardian who has excluded his wards from

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a trust under which they are beneficiaries? If I turn to the constitutional sense of the word, will the Parliament at Westminster be popular anywhere in Ireland if the Irish Nationalists and Unionists have less in that Parliament than the representation to which they are entitled? I cannot conceive why the Government brought in this Bill with the idea of inaugurating a federal system, nor why the Irish Nationalist party accepted from the point of view of "Ireland a nation." That is their affair. They may say it is no business of mine. I agree. But our duty is to form such a judgment as we can of what the practical result of such a measure will be. We owe that to ourselves; we owe it to our country; its past and its future, and we believe that such a Bill as this will revive in Ireland animosities—racial, religious, and agrarian—which were dying down under the Union.
We believe such a Bill as this will check material prosperity which was returning to Ireland, and that its financial provisions must preclude Ireland from sharing in further efforts which must be made by both parties to level up the conditions of life for the less fortunate of our fellow-countrymen. We believe that this Bill, by its financial and political provisions, will tend to nothing but friction, and will embitter the relations between Great Britain and Ireland which have shown such a marked tendency to improve. It will also weaken the power of the United Kingdom amongst the great and growing military Powers of the world. We ask this House to pause before it abandons the tried policy of the Union for such a chaos of incompatible expedients. I admit, and every Chief Secretary will admit, that to govern Ireland under the Union is not unattended with difficulties and disappointments to Unionists as well as Nationalists. Under the Union sometimes the cold shadow of wasted energy falls on the life of men who work for the Union or against it. But to any man of sane or healthy mind there is nothing in the history of Great Britain or Ireland for the last twenty-five years which would excuse melancholy and still less despair. By following the course of the Union we have made no little way towards the haven we all desire of a happier Ireland and better feeling between the two countries. It is my profound conviction that we shall retard our progress if we now embark on a more hazardous voyage towards a more
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doubtful destination. In the words of an old writer:—
"We shall never proceed if we be ever beginning, nor arrive at any certain port sailing with all winds that blow."
The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): The right hon. Gentleman has, within most becoming limits of time, made an exceedingly able and interesting speech, and has presented some points of view which have not hitherto been put forward in the Debate. It was, indeed, impossible for him to make otherwise than a profoundly interesting speech on the affairs of a country with which he was at one time most closely connected, and where his memory will long be cherished, and where he will have the good fortune to have his name associated perhaps for the next hundred years, with a great and most beneficent remedial measure. I know there are some people who speak of the right hon. Gentleman's connection with Ireland as if there were something a little unfortunate in it. I confess I have never been able to see that. I regard him as an exceedingly lucky man. He came along at a very happy moment of time, when land purchase on a large scale had been bitterly opposed by all former Members of his party. I am old enough to remember the chorus of condemnation which faced Mr. Gladstone's Land Purchase Bill—
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: As part of Home Rule.
5.0 P.M.
Mr. BIRRELL: I do not want to go into that, except to say that that Land Purchase Bill pledged British credit to the extent of £150,000,000 in order to buy out Irish landlords, and I am a little bit chagrined, although perhaps I ought not to be, at the calm confidence and assurance with which hon. Gentlemen opposite take to themselves credit for the whole policy of land purchase on a great scale, as if it had been entirely their invention. They put entirely on one side Mr. Gladstone's proposal. I have here one quotation—it is the only quotation I shall give to the House during my speech, which I hope will be as short, though I am afraid not so interesting or so eloquent as the speech to which we have just listened. The speech to which I refer was the famous manifesto to the great Tory party given by its former leader, Lord Salisbury, one of the clearest thinking and plain speakers who ever lived. He had his alternative policy to Mr. Parnell's policy

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for the government of Ireland. His policy was twenty years of resolute Government. He went on to say:—
"If I am asked for a further alternative policy, I will only say that if the Prime Minister is right in thinking that the electors of this country have screwed themselves up to that heroic pitch that they are prepared to spend £150,000,000 of money upon the pacification of Ireland, I think I can point out to them a better way of spending the money than in buying the landlords out. I do not say I recommend it, because I am not at all convinced that the electors of England ought to bear such a tremendous burden, but assuming that the Government is right in thinking that they are willing to bear it, I would point out to them that if they could only emigrate another million of the Irish people, they might do it for a great deal less than that sum. They could set them up in a distant colony, under conditions under which they would be certain to prosper. They could give them, in place of the present misery and agitation, a bright future of industry and prosperity, and they could be certain of recovering from them in due time the money that had been advanced—"
Even in the distant Colony they were not going to get it for nothing—
"with far more certainty than if they recovered it from the tenants when they had made them proprietors."
A few days later he said to the Primrose League:—
"Buy out landlords for the purpose of evading the duty of protecting them! That, indeed, would be a cowardly shirking of our responsibility."
Stick to the landlords and let the people go! That was the further alternative policy put forward by the late Lord Salisbury, instead of the far nobler and better policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover when he said, "Stick to the people and let the landlords go!" That is why I call the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover a lucky man. He was fortunate enough to be able by arts and crafts personal to himself—upon which I congratulate him—to hypnotise a Chancellor of the Exchequer "He wove a circle round him thrice." He cast upon him a holy spell such as reduced that unfortunate man to absolute silence all through the discussion of the Land Bill. The only remark he made—I do not say internally to himself, nor do I know, of course, what he said in private to the right hon. Gentleman—but the only observation he made all through all those Debates was an interlocutory observation, but it was a very valuable one, because he said:—
"If money could not be raised at 2¾ per cent. the Bill would not work."
Never mind that. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman. I am not speaking with any innuendo or reservation when I congratulate him upon having been able to secure the passage through Parliament
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of that Bill. He was a lucky man. I am the unlucky person because—oh, cursed spite!—the finance under it came to utter grief and to a complete end at the time I first assumed office, for a purpose I have already explained, and for a purpose which I am happy to say has been fulfilled. Then you say I arrested land purchase, but the truer thing would be to say, if you like, that I was not able wholly to revive it, that I was not able to find an equally corresponding good cash basis or stock basis, nor was I able to obtain the full renewal of that bonus which undoubtedly had a great deal to do with the success of the measure. But I do not want to go into that. I have far too much to say. The right hon. Gentleman was very kind. He did not pursue the subject against me very far. It is a long story and it is the only accusation against me in the matter of my government of Ireland, which I feel very acutely. Therefore the right hon. Gentleman will pardon me if on this occasion—I hope we may have others—I must bid him for the moment—I hope to come back to it if I have time—an affectionate farewell. I am bound to deal with some rather heavy arrears in this matter.
The right hon. Gentleman himself, in common with all other speakers on his side, has greatly complained—and I am sure their tones were so sincere that I do not doubt they really felt it—of the character and nature of the speeches made from this Front Bench by Ministers. You have said, and in ordinary circumstances I could not but feel the force of your criticism, that it was the duty of Ministers to stand at this table, with the printed measure before them, and to expound it exegetically, homiletically, Clause by Clause, to an attentive, and I am sure a patient, a willing, and an anxious-to-listen House of Commons. That, of course, is true enough in a way, but will you not admit that after a Bill has been introduced by the Prime Minister, and after it has been put into print, that the nature and character of the speeches that we have to deliver in defence of it are largely, and must be, fashioned, determined and shaped by the character of the Opposition and by the character of the speeches that are made. Looking at it fairly from first to last, what have been the general nature and character of the speeches that have been made by hon. Gentlemen and right hon. Gentlemen of the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman made some suggestion about the novelty of this measure. He has known,

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we have all known, through long years of wearisome political life, that whenever the Liberal party introduced a Home Rule Bill it would be found to carry on its very forefront a provision for an Irish Parliament, and what, in my judgment, is at all events, of equal importance, a provision for an Irish Executive, composed of Irish Ministers of the Crown, of Irish Privy Councillors, and of Irish heads of Irish Departments, who would exercise just as much executive authority as corresponds to the legislative authority imposed upon that Parliament, and who would be responsible as a Ministry to the Parliament of the day. That is my conception of Home Rule. Unless you create this Irish Executive, I say for myself that my interest in Home Rule disappears for ever. It is the pulse of the machine. If Home Rule has any curative effect, there is the medicine. It lies in that and in that alone.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite, with the instinct of true warriors, saw that, and have flung themselves helter-skelter, pell-mell, man and boy, with all the force they possess, and it is great—not argumentative force merely, but moral force, sometimes almost physical force—they have flung themselves upon that which they object to most, which they conceive to be the worst possible thing in this Bill. They have said, or others might be supposed to say, "Provincial assemblies if you like; Private Bill legislation if you choose; but never a Parliament, and never an Irish Executive," and on that point they have conducted their attack. They have wound up their speeches for the most part, almost all of them—I do not blame them, I do not wonder at it—by very eloquent, grave, and solemn references as to what is the feeling in Ulster, and what Ulster will do—
"Ancestral voices prophesying war."
And having by these means—perfectly fair and honest means—raised the feelings of their own supporters to the highest pitch of excitement, they sit down amid salvoes of applause, and then expect the Minister to get up and in dulcet tones—I am afraid mine are not very dulcet; I am using the expression of the right hon. Gentleman—invite the House to consider quite quietly, centimes additionelles, the provisions made for the Civil servants and other persons under this Bill. I really do not think that that is quite a fair way of expecting us to deal with the House, when you have confined yourselves all through, and I do not blame you, on the Second Reading of the
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Bill, to the great fact that in our view and conception Home Rule means a Home Rule Parliament, means a Parliament, and means an Irish Executive. Of course, I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that wary warriors like himself, ancient Parliamentary hands like himself, and like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour), the former Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), and other persons have, perhaps more skilfully than some of their supporters, introduced between the parentheses of their philippics, a certain amount of perfectly legitimate criticism. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand Division (Mr. Long) asked what was most becoming in one who formerly occupied the same office I hold. He was legitimately anxious about the provisions for the retirement of the Royal Irish Constabulary. He spoke as all Chief Secretaries must do, from the bottom of his heart, and I am sure I join with him, in admiration of that force. I do not think anybody can accuse me of having done anything but stand by them to the utmost of my ability, and so I shall always continue to do so long as I hold my office. The right hon. Gentleman says that the provisions of the Bill are not quite satisfactory with regard to their retirement.
Mr. WALTER LONG: That was one of my points.
Mr. BIRRELL: Yes, I know. I have noted others. There are no provisions in this Bill to which I have devoted more personal attention than the Clauses relating to the Civil Service, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and the Dublin Metropolitan Police, because, if this Bill becomes law, there will be nothing more disagreeable to me than that there should be any incidents such as those already referred to in the course of the Debate connected with the painful subject of retrenchment. If I have not fully succeeded—I have had conferences with the persons concerned, or, at any rate, with their leaders—I think, on the whole, my Clauses are very good. But I have no doubt they are capable of amendment. The right hon. Gentleman's next question was, what Minister in this House was going to reply for the reserved services, and for the general outside relations of Ireland with this country? He was fortunate enough to discover some flippancy in my reply. It is very creditable to him to find it. I said that some

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Minister would undoubtedly have to be appointed to reply. He thought that was flippant because it might be a very humble sort of Minister—if there is such an individual. That was not my intention at all. I quite agree that the Minister who responds for Ireland for the reserved services, and for anything else connected with the new Constitution, must be an important Minister. I do not say a self-important Minister, but an important Minister, and his salary, I am sure, will be commensurate with his duties. He ought to be, and I am quite sure he will be, so far as I can see, a Cabinet Minister. But I do not think the right hon. Gentleman will expect to find in the Bill the provisions arranging for these matters.
Then he referred to the dual control of the police. He thought that was a subject matter of grave difficulty. He said, "Here are the police, this fine force, well drilled and disciplined. How can they take their orders sometimes from the Irish Executive and sometimes from the Lord Lieutenant as representing the Imperial Government?" Other people took it up or I would not refer to it, but a great deal of criticism has been directed to the great difficulties there will be in handling and dealing with the police. He has forgotten, and the other gentleman did not know, that already the Irish Constabulary serve a great many masters. Under the Local Government Act of 1898, all the county authorities are able by a Resolution which most, I think all, have passed, to call upon the police to discharge most important duties. For example, they can enforce the by-laws which the Dublin County Council has passed, and for the enforcement of which the police are responsible. That is to say, the police may prosecute themselves in all such cases, or the county council may appoint persons to prosecute. Placing lights on vehicles, violent or indecent behaviour, throwing missiles, interference with public notices, carrying dangerous substances, interference with public lamps, unnecessary obstruction of vehicles, all these things already this great and useful, though highly disciplined, force discharges. They are lowly duties if you like, but we cannot always be living in the throes of bloody revolution. These are useful duties, and the ordinary duties of the police, as we ordinarily in England understand the term, and they are discharged by the Irish Constabulary at the bidding and by the authority of these local
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bodies. Then, of course, there is the Sheriff. If he has need of a force greater than his own, he can command men to-carry out the orders of the law. He deals at once with the police; he calls upon them, and they come and obey his call. The suggestion has been made in debate that we were making the position impossible, intolerable, and novel, and something which had never been heard of before, because we are creating an Executive who would have, after a certain lapse of time, the right to call upon the Royal Irish Constabulary.
Mr. WALTER LONG: If you want to know exactly what I said, it was this. It was not that different people have a call upon the police, for they have the same thing in London as in Ireland. My argument was, and the right hon. Gentleman, has not disposed of it, that so far as I understand the Bill the Irish Executive have a right to order the police to do certain things, not to call upon them, and the Imperial Government also have the right to order them. Who would be the adviser to whom the police are to look for the advice given to the Lord Lieutenant as to the discharge of these duties?
Mr. BIRRELL: It is an addition to their masters, an addition to their authorities. The Executive would be perfectly entitled to call upon the police to come to their assistance or to obey their orders and send them wheresoever they choose to send them. The Lord Lieutenant, as representing His Majesty and the Imperial side of Ireland, would also have the right to call upon them and would be entitled to order them. The case put by the right hon. Gentleman is that the Irish Executive would use the police to go to a particular place in order to put down some disturbance or trouble, and the Lord Lieutenant would think the disturbance or trouble ought not to be put down.
Mr. WALTER LONG: No, no.
Mr. BIRRELL: Well, then, put it the other way round. I say the police exists for the purpose of putting down disturbance and enforcing the authority of the law. The Lord Lieutenant commands them so to do and they will do so, and he will receive in the future, as in the past, their obedience, and unless you mean to say there is a likelihood of the Irish Executive wishing the police not to be employed when the Imperial representative thinks it is necessary, I really cannot

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imagine what difficulty you can suppose there is. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) mentioned the administration of the Post Office. I will not repeat what was said by the Postmaster-General in regard to that matter. If it is supposed by this House that handing over the Post Office to the Irish Government is a shocking violation of the true principles of federalism, I daresay that point, like many others, is quite open to consideration. Then the right hon. Gentleman found a great novelty in Clause 26. He had forgotten, and small blame, to him, a Clause in the Bill of 1886 which was very similar in its character—Clause 39—which provided for the appearance—the mysterious appearance if you like—the sudden appearance upon the floor of the House of representatives from Ireland in certain proportion. The only thing is that they were there for much more general purposes than are contemplated in Clause 26, where it is entirely limited to the one object of revising finance. I do not want to labour points of this kind when what you really object to in the measure, on the threshold of it, is the fact that it sets up this Parliament. It is not because the Senate is nominated that the right hon. Gentleman was inspired to deliver the admirable speech he has just made. If that had been the only issue, whether that was democratic or not, I do not think he would have worried himself very much about that nor about the 164 representatives in the Irish Parliament. It is because we propose to set up an Irish Parliament and an Irish Executive that there is all this trouble. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Finlay) almost groaned with alarm over this Executive, and he said aloud to those near him, "Had Grattan's Parliament an Executive?" It was just because Grattan's Parliament had not an Executive that we have all this trouble upon us. The fifth chapter of Lecky's "History of Ireland during the Eighteenth Century" describes the whole Constitution of 1782, and Mr. Lecky says, in so many words, that in Grattan's Parliament there was no Ministry responsible to Parliament, and he goes on to say that was the main blot in the Constitution of 1782.
We have been accused of lack of fervour by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), and he says we do not throw accents of conviction in our speeches. I cannot conceive of any human being being more absolutely convinced than I am that the real source of the weak-
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ness, the whole of your troubles in Ireland before and after the Union, was that you never have had in that country a strong Executive. You never had it, and I will tell you why. You never had a strong Executive, because such Executive as there has been has been divorced, as it always has been, from the people, and has never been popular, and being hampered at the same time by a sham system of representation, to which no attention is paid when it makes Irish demands, it has been condemned from the beginning to feebleness. I am rather susceptible to the charge of not caring about a thing of this sort, because I do care most intensely. I have been now for five years—I dare say I have discharged my duties very badly, but nevertheless I have had the responsibility of what is called the government of Ireland. I have had it upon my hands, and, if you like, upon my conscience, for five years, and I therefore say I am entitled at all events to make the observation that in my judgment the pulse of the whole machine, the only chance of curing these Irish grievances and that un-happiness to which the right hon. Gentleman made a very honest reference, is by the setting up, if it can be done, of a strong Executive in Ireland.
Now let me come to another point. I heard the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) with amazement compares disparagingly the powers for usefulness which Irish Members enjoy now in this House with the powers of usefulness which they would enjoy in their new Parliament when they get it. No one can pay compliments one-half so well as the right hon. Gentleman. He conveys them so pleasantly that you are convinced of their sincerity, and are immensely gratified by being their recipient. He turned to the Irish Members and gave them to understand that now and here they had such full scope for their brilliant wit, their moving eloquence, their great Parliamentary gifts, that he was amazed that they should be willing to exchange this noble arena, this splendid theatre for their wit and their eloquence, for a miserable Parliament in Dublin to which nobody but men of the slenderest intellectual calibre, quite unlike existing Irish Members, would ever dream of going. That was a most extraordinary statement. Were I to go out of my way to pay compliments to the Irish Members, I should not select for special commendation either their wit or their eloquence, I

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should prefer to dwell, if I felt myself at liberty to do so, upon their unbroken good faith, upon their strict adherence on all occasions, great and small, to their word, to their splendid self-abnegation of place and of profit, and their whole-hearted devotion—sometimes, I think, carried too far—to what they conceive to be the interests of their poorer fellow countrymen. I believe in Ireland there are tens of thousands of persons every whit as good as they are, and just as capable of rising to the heavy responsibility which Clauses 1 and 4 of this Bill impose upon them. I therefore express my belief upon that point as fervently as I can.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to give us an instance of what these noble beings can do in this House. He mentioned education. He must have forgotten, and I do not wonder—he has been a Prime Minister since—how education is managed in Ireland. To hear him speak you would have thought that the Chief Secretary for Ireland was the Minister of Education. He is nothing of the kind. So far as primary and secondary education are concerned, he is a mere grama-phone. He is asked questions about a Board of which he is not a member and to which he cannot even go. The National Board of Education absolutely controls the primary education of that country, and every question that is put to me I answer—the House must be sick to death of hearing it—"I am informed by the Commissioners of National Education." As for intermediate education, that is even worse. [An HON. MEMBER: "Will you abolish the Board?"] Certainly, I hope so. It lives like a gentleman on its private fortunes, and the only way we can get a discussion on it is by putting down by consent a token Vote. This Board of National Education is composed of certain members, and is equally divided as between Catholics and Protestants. The members occasionally retire or die, and the Irish Government appoints their successors. There is as regards the appointments an obligation of honour which if departed from would create great trouble. It is about the only thing a Chief Secretary can create in Ireland, and unless he is anxious to create trouble, he must look about when a Catholic retires to get a Catholic successor, and when a Protestant retires he must go to the ignominy of ascertaining what kind of Dissenter he is. If a Presbyterian, he must have a
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Presbyterian successor; and if a Wesleyan, he must have a Wesleyan successor. There are both Presbyterians and Wesleyans on the Board. By common agreement Catholics and Protestants have to be equally divided on the Board, and the only authority the Irish Government has over the Board is as regards the appointment of members.
You say these matters can be discussed in Committee of Supply. You have so far as primary education is concerned a Vote, I agree. It does come into a Vote by this House. There is nothing more distasteful to me than to speak disrespectfully in any way of this great House of Commons, to which I hope we are all proud to belong, but to talk about discussions in Supply as a means of successfully governing the country or getting at the bottom of the matters discussed is ludicrous. You are expected to do it. I remember well being in the House when the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) cut down supply to twenty days. Although twenty days are not enough, for the discussion of Votes, at the same time it is quite enough considering how it is done. Ireland gets two and a half days, and the subjects are chosen by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, and by Conservative Members from another part of Ireland. They decide between them through what are called the "accustomed channels" what they will talk about. One day they will talk about old age pensions, and another day they will talk about education. But it is a perfunctory discussion. How it is really done both of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite must remember. Take the National Board of Education. Every year it presents through the Treasury demands for more money, and it is perfectly justified in making the demands. It puts them under eighteen or nineteen ancient heads—very ancient, some of them almost hoary. The only person to whom they are a novelty is the Chief Secretary who, as a rule, does not last more than two years and therefore comes fresh to them almost every time. He selects as best he can those that appeal most to his own idiosyncrasy or appeal to the idiosyncrasy of the guardian of the public purse, his right hon. Friend and colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He decides where he will be most likely to win. It does not necessarily follow that he selects what Ireland most wants or what the Education Board think will best meet the national demands. He

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selects what he thinks has the best chance of getting through. That is the way it is done. It is not done by discussion or by pressure brought to bear on the Government. It is done by the work and the sense of activity and conscience of the Chief Secretary operating upon a more or less willing or reluctant Treasury, sometimes the one and sometimes the other, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer has colleagues paying visits to the Treasury and stating cases of equal urgency, and it all depends on that.
I have not been so very unsuccessful in obtaining from the Chancellor of the Exchequer the moneys required. I obtained the £114,000 Grant for teachers—the Grant which bears my name. In addition I had also been very much moved by seeing the condition of a very large number of schools in the country. I put great pressure on the Treasury, and after a long time I obtained the Grant for what is called the heating and lighting of schools. But that is not the way in which the education of the country, where education is of so much importance, and where the people are so deeply attached to it as they are in Ireland, should be managed. That is not a satisfactory mode of conducting the affairs of a nation. Nobody ought to be satisfied with it, and nobody is satisfied with it. Hon. Members from Ulster are at the bottom of their hearts as dissatisfied with the present mode as hon. Members from other parts of Ireland. It is a little better perhaps when the Conservatives are in office, though I do not know that they got quite so much out of them for education as they have got out of me. I agree that I have been a little longer in office than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand (Mr. Long). But they are all agreed upon the badness of the system, and if it were not for the fact of what is called the religious difficulty, or the political difficulty, everybody on the benches opposite knows very well that if Ireland were homogeneous, and if their were not two camps, two religions, and two nationalities, as they are sometimes called, Home Rule, on lines very like this, would have been passed probably long ago, and certainly it would be passed now without very much discussion.
I must say a word about the safeguards. Nothing is easier than to ridicule safeguards. The only way in which you can honestly say whether a safeguard is worth having or not is to assume that you want the Bill to go through, or feel that it must
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go through, and that, therefore, you must accept the measure either reluctantly or with enthusiasm. You have to consider what safeguards may fairly and properly be put in. If you think the Bill is a mischievous and ridiculous affair, if you think that I am here advocating Bedlam, I agree it is not much use talking. It is quite easy for any hon. Member opposite who has any elocutionary power to get up and read one of the safeguards with a particular intonation, and secure an expression of the righteous indignation of the people who are sitting behind him. Suppose for a moment that in considering this Bill on what I call its merits, you were convinced that the Bill were going to become law in the ordinary way this Session, why, then, what safeguards would you consider necessary supposing you were an Imperial Minister representing all parts of England, Ireland, and Scotland? We are asked, "Why put in the supremacy of Parliament? Does not every lawyer know that whether you put it in or not it does not make the Bill any better?" But does not the right hon. Gentleman who suggests that question know it is a good thing, when effecting a treaty between two different bodies of people, or when you are setting up a Constitution, that you should place it on record in black and white, out of what lawyers call "abundant caution." Why! Legal documents would be a tenth of the length they are now if only the things were put in that are absolutely needed.
Sir E. CARSON: Does that apply to the Preamble of the Parliament Act?
Mr. BIRRELL: You put in every kind of provision, not because you think it is likely to happen, but because you think it desirable to put it in. A man in making a will may put in clauses and provisions to provide for children who may go to the bad, but it does not follow that he expects them to do so. Hon. Members opposite refer to the safeguards as if they were absurd. Take what was said by the hon. and learned Member for the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews (Sir-R. Finlay). He said that all the safeguards are bad except those which were in the last Home Rule Bill, and which we have left out of this Bill. I must say that cut me to the very quick. It was my fate to go through the whole of the Debates which took place on the two previous Home Rule Bills and to make a précis of the safeguards they contained. I have preserved in this

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Bill the safeguards against which least was said by Members of the Opposition, and I excluded the safeguards which on these occasions were most riddled by the Opposition. Nobody took a more active part than the hon. and learned Member for these Universities in the discussion of the former Bills. The hon. Member for Chertsey (Mr. Macmaster) said that the safeguards we had left out were the only safeguards worth having, and that those we have put in are not worth the paper they are written on. All I can say is that if hon. Members opposite move the insertion of the safeguards we have left out I shall make no objection. The only objection I shall make to them will be to read to hon. Members their own speeches. There is another argument I want to refer to, because it is a serious matter in relation to the safeguards. It has been said that they will be got rid of by circumvention in the same way as it was alleged Cardinal Logue, and the Roman Catholic Church, had circumvented the undenominational Clauses which were inserted in the Irish University Act. The hon. and learned Member for Trinity College (Mr. J. H. Campbell) said:—
"That the genius of the Church of Rome had circumvented …"
Mr. J. H. CAMPBELL: Quite wrong. I said the genius of the Irish people. You got that from the hon. Member for North Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell).
Mr. BIRRELL: I am quoting the hon. and learned Member's own words. At all events, the allegation was based upon some observations of Cardinal Logue that the genius of the Irish race, in which the hon. and learned Member participates, had circumvented certain things. Now, that can only mean that by some method of chicane or fraud the Catholics have deliberately set themselves to get round by some legal hocus-pocus and destroy the undenominational Clauses which are in the Act. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Stephen Gwynn) got up and asked if the right hon. Gentleman could give a single interfere with the undenominational tempt, either successful or unsuccessful, to interfere with the undenominational Clauses. Assuming the OFFICIAL REPORT to be correct, the hon. and learned Gentleman used these words:—
"Three months ago the Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh was able to declare that the genius of the Roman Catholic race"
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—that leaves the right honourable and learned Member no genius at all—
"had circumvented the machinations of the English Nonocnformists, and to-day he was glad to see and to know that this university was practically exclusively Catholic."
Cardinal Logue said no more than I myself said in effect during the passage of the Bill both through this House and in Committee upstairs, and no Nonconformist was under any delusion on the subject. I said we were establishing a university which by its charter, and by its forms and laws, would be as undenominational as, and even more undenominational than, Trinity College, Dublin, is at present, and that it was being established for the express purpose of providing the Roman Catholics of Ireland with that higher education from which, in their opinion, they had hitherto been excluded, and I went on to say that probably none but Roman Catholics, or a very large number of Roman Catholics, will go there, and that the consequence is that the graduates will be overwhelmingly Catholic, with the further consequence that the governing body of the university will be Roman Catholic. I remember saying that if you came back fifty years hence you might find that this undenominational university is just as much, but no more, a Catholic institution than Trinity College, Dublin, is at this moment a Protestant institution, and I do not think it was quite fair for the right hon. Gentleman to say what he did. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Kingston Division (Mr. Cave) also seemed to think that Cardinal Logue had set himself by circumvention to make my Nonconformist friends who supported me in carrying that Bill look foolish. I assure you he did nothing of the sort. All he said was that it would be a Roman Catholic university in the same sense as a boys' school is a school of boys. If everybody in a university is of one way of thinking, can you prevent the atmosphere and feeling of that university corresponding to their religious faith? But no alteration can be made by the genius of the Roman Catholic race in any one of the provisions of the Act. The University will remain undenominational, and open to everybody irrespective of religion or creed.
I bring that in because in all your references to safeguards what you assume is, that the people who are going to exercise legislative power in Ireland and have the

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control of the Executive really will be a set of rogues and vagabonds. We say, that if they purport to pass a law which is ultra vires it is no law, and this Bill says that it will be void ab initio. If anybody passes such a law nobody can put it in force. Any officer who seeks to put it in force will have no protection. He will be liable to an action, and will be called to account. What is your answer? "Who is going to appoint the judges? What sort of judges will they be? Perhaps they will not ever be barristers of seven years' standing. They will be ignorant, illiterate, dishonest men, who will pay no attention to our Constitution, and no attention to points of law, who will not listen to the arguments of counsel—perhaps people will not be able to have any counsel. The United Irish League will exercise an intimidatory effect, and no counsel will be able to take a brief on the unpopular side." All these things are based on the deep-rooted distrust and disbelief of the right hon. Gentleman in the capacity of the Irish representatives. The right hon. Gentleman in speaking as an Irishman to his brother Irishmen is quite complimentary. He reserves all his little acidulities for me. He described the hon. and learned Member for Water-ford as the most tolerant man he thought he over knew, and he paid the hon. and learned Member for North-East Cork (Mr. T. M. Healy) a well-deserved compliment which I certainly am quite ready to second. But then, it is said, that these gentlemen may die or may disappear, and who will take their place? Quite a different race of men. Ignorant, dishonest ruffians will take their places, and will bring the whole machinery down about our ears. Well, if that is so, then of course, it is a very serious state of affairs, and the only thing we can do would be to do what poor Frankenstein was not able to do, slay the monster we ourselves have created. But I do not believe that anything of the sort can possibly happen.
I have exceeded my time, but we have had criticisms about the reserved services, old age pensions, and the Land Purchase Acts. We are told sometimes that it is a slur on the Irish people to reserve these services. Does any hon. Gentleman opposite suggest for a single moment that we should not have reserved the provisions of the Land Purchase Acts, including the Act of 1903 and the Act of 1909? Were
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we not bound to reserve them? We were bound to do so as guardians of the public purse and of British credit. Then why seek to gain support from the Irish below the Gangway, which you will not do, by trying to stir up their indignation because this matter has been reserved which was bound to be reserved? I am very sorry that these great, expensive services exist. If they did not the fiscal situation would be enormously easier. But they do exist. These great obligations, which put too great a tax upon the financial capacity of the Irish race at the present moment, have necessitated the reservation of those services. All roads lead to Rome—not the Holy See, but the city. Therefore I do not know whether the right hon. and learned Member is going to repeat—we have not had it yet—as one of the catchwords against Home Rule that it means Rome Rule. I thought that that had been completely and absolutely given up, or else I would not have made up the innocent observation which I have made. The laughter which it excited makes me feel a little uneasy. Perhaps after all, your fear is that under this new Constitution the religion of the great majority of the people may have a better chance and a fairer chance than it has had before. I do not know how that would be, but almost all opposition speakers ended by eloquent references to Ulster. Now about Ulster, I have never doubted for a single moment that the feeling in Ulster is very strong.
I have often been asked about it by my Friends behind me, who do not know Ireland even as well as I do. They have reminded me of the language employed by the men of Ulster about the disestablishment of the Church, and they have said, "Is not it true that men who were of as much light and leading, of as high character, and of as great culture as any of the present leaders of the Protestant party in Ulster, used language about the pending disestablishment of the Church almost as violent—indeed, just as violent—as anything that has ever been employed with reference to the possible passing of this Bill?" And they have said to me, "Were they talking insincerely?" I answered, "No." I am perfectly sure that Lord Rathmore, or my lamented friend the late Recorder of Dublin, in the speeches which they made, were only saying what they absolutely believed. But the fact is that they were very angry, and they worked them-

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selves up to the belief that that very slender, mysterious thing called the connection between Church and State really was a barrier, and a dyke between them and the Church of Rome, and that they would be submerged by the Church of Rome if this mysterious and slender tie were sundered. They really thought that this disestablishment of this Church would be the removal of this great dyke. They discovered when the time came that it was nothing of the sort. They were honest when they said that they were going to do such dreadful things, but there was no occasion for their misgivings. That is what I suggest now to the people of Ulster. Just as their predecessors of a generation or two ago thought, that the conection between Church and State was a barrier and a protection for their religious liberties, so perhaps, though they may say that this present Government of Ireland by this Parliament is the sole protection for their civil liberties, yet if this Bill passes they will rind that they are mistaken now, even as they were mistaken before. At all events, I can never bring myself to believe, and I never will, because I know it to be untrue, that it is impossible for Roman Catholics and Protestants to work together for the common good of their common country.
Sir JOSEPH LARMOR: If I venture to intervene in this important Debate it is because I am an Irishman, born and bred among the yeomen of Ulster, and that I have spent five pleasant years of my life on the staff of the University College in the West of Ireland, in the city of Galway. That is the explanation of why on a matter which profoundly affects the future of my native land I do not wish to record a silent vote. The exigencies of Debate have made it necessary that I should assume a place of prominence, which I did not at all intend, in following so important a speaker as the Chief Secretary for Ireland; but I confess that the expectations have not been fulfilled which the Chief Secretary held out that he would do something to elucidate the very serious criticisms of this Bill which were brought forward in the five questions still unanswered of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London, by the important considerations by which the hon. Member for Kingston absolutely riddled the safeguards mentioned in the Bill, and by the observations of the right hon. Member for East Worcestershire yesterday which were
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partially answered by the Postmaster-General. I think the Chief Secretary's statement that he was going to make up for arrears which were due to the Opposition in this matter has not been carried out. Let me try to make a précis of the points of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. He informed us that Lord Salisbury on some occasion talked of the possibility of emigrating a million Irishmen as a palliative for the troubles of Ireland. So far as I can understand, the Government are now straight on the way to produce the emigration of half a million Ulster men.
We asked, how are the affairs of Ireland to be represented in this House? We were dissatisfied with the information that a Minister would be responsible. The Chief Secretary has gone one better, and with a great flourish has told us that a Cabinet Minister will be responsible. We have asked the Chief Secretary which authority, in England or Ireland, will have the control of the Royal Irish Constabulary, that semi-armed force, on the control of which more than anything else the liberties of the Unionist party will depend. The Chief Secretary has told us that any county council can have control of the Irish Constabulary within its borders to suppress crime, and he says, "Whatmore do you want?" When we ask whether the British Government or the Irish Government is to control the armed forces of the Crown, we are told that any county council can direct the small number of these forces within its borders to obey its orders in the suppression of crime. We have put it to the Government, "How it is that, with a Post Office in Ireland separated from the Imperial Post Office and under the control of a Department in Dublin, the commercial interests of the North of Ireland are to be protected in the all-important matter of Postal facilities?" We are told that that matter is open to reconsideration. Let me reinforce that point a little further. The Postmaster-General's reason for not making the Post Office a reserved matter was that during the last fifteen years expenditure on the Irish Post Office had gone up by 70 per cent.
6.0 P.M.
It is not in the industrial communities of the North of Ireland that this increase has arisen. The industrial communities of the North of Ireland do their business in the same manner as the industrial communities of the North of England, and so have achieved success. This increased expenditure of

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the Post Office has arisen in the South and West of Ireland. They have been able to bring pressure on the Government for their purposes. Does the Postmaster-General tell this House that in the Irish Parliament they will be able to retrench one penny on the salaries that are paid to postmasters and postmistresses in the South and West of Ireland, in order to reduce the burden of taxation? Not one penny. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Bal-four) put the point that a large number of Members would come to the floor of this House from Ireland to reconsider finance as between Great Britain and Ireland—Members who are not elected to this House by any constituency. The right hon. Gentleman had no answer, so far as I heard, to that innovation in the Constitution. The point was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover (Mr. Wyndham) that the Parliament which we are setting up in Ireland will inevitably agitate, as did the Parliament in Ireland before 1782, for complete independence of British control. In 1782, largely on the initiative of an agitation from Ulster, the Irish Parliament took advantage of Great Britain in time of emergency, during foreign wars, to secure what they called the independence of the Irish Parliament. What is there to prevent the same thing from occurring again? On the other hand, the Chief Secretary's point about Grattan's Parliament was quite the opposite one; it was not sufficiently independent because it had not an Executive of its own independent of England.
Then we came to a subject on which I can perhaps speak with some authority in regard to the conditions both in England and in Ireland—the important subject of education. The Chief Secretary told us that nobody ought to be satisfied with the present condition of Irish education. Has the present Government taken any steps towards the amelioration of the blots to which the Chief Secretary referred either in regard to primary or to intermediate education, or, what is more important in the present conditions of Ireland, in regard to technical education, which is under the Board presided over by the right hon. Gentleman opposite—technical education which, I hope, is to be one of the means for regenerating the industries of Ireland. At one time I knew something about the proceedings of that Board. I had the honour of the acquaintance of Sir Horace Plunkett, and I knew
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something of the way in which experts were approached for advice when they were making educational appointments to the higher Departments of that Board in Ireland. I know something about the kind of appointments that are being made now. I venture to say that no specialists on scientific subjects are now asked to give advice as to those appointments.
Mr. T. W. RUSSELL (Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture, Ireland): The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. No appointment has been made to the Royal College of Science or to any high office under the Technical Education Board where a specialist has not been consulted.
Sir J. LARMOR: All I can say is that I have heard a great deal about some of the recent appointments, and I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to give me the names of the specialists on some of those occasions. The future prosperity of Ireland depends largely on the higher branches of industrial and technical education. Immense sums of money have been spent in putting up palatial buildings for the headquarters of the Board in Dublin, and I ask whether the same amount of pains is taken to secure that the best men, from whatever sources they come, shall be available for what, after all, is the only object for which those buildings have been erected. The Chief Secretary went on to speak about the Bill and about the safeguards. I could not follow his arguments, and all that I could make out was that the first question was whether you want to have Home Rule or not. If you do not want to have Home Rule, then the question of safeguards is of no account. If you want Home Rule, then first take the Bill, and when you have done that, then it is time to consider what sort of safeguards you will put in. To take the Bill first and to put in the safeguards afterwards is no great indication of statesmanship? The Chief Secretary came to a subject in regard to which I have been struck during the Debates in this House—the question between Cardinal Logue and the hon. Member for the city of Galway. Cardinal Logue, I understand, said:—
"Whatever the machinations of the Nonconformist conscience, the genius of the Irish people would take care that the National University in Dublin should be a Catholic institution."
This statement of Cardinal Logue has not been impugned in any quarter of this House, and I should say that it is time the

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Nonconformists should "look foolish" with regard to the safeguards which they thought they had inserted in the Act. If these safeguards which the Nonconformists thought were of validity have turned out to be of no validity at all, what is to be said of the safeguards on which we are to depend in this Bill, which have been riddled with criticisms in regard to which no word of justification has yet been offered? The right hon. Gentleman told us that if "a majority of Catholics go to the National University of Ireland, why it would be a Catholic institution, and that is the end of it," Yes, the Nationalist bodies in Ireland will take very good care that the National University of Ireland shall be properly fed to make it the institution of the kind they want. The county councils of Ireland can provide scholarships for higher education, and in the great majority of cases those scholarships are only tenable in the National University of Ireland. It is certainly the case that the Catholic people of Ireland could, by sending the proper people to the National University, and paying for them with the taxpayers' money, make that university the kind of institution which they desire. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the usefulness of the present Nationalist party in this House when they go over to Dublin—of the high career that is before them in the local Parliament, and of the vigorous Debates that will be carried on. I am not quite certain whether the hon. Gentleman who has achieved such a distinguished position in this House, the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Sir. T. P. O'Connor), and others of his colleagues, will be very keen to go over to the Irish Parliament in Dublin; but what I am clear about is that representatives of the Ulster commercial centres would have to go to the Irish Parliament in Dublin, and they would have to spend their time there, whether they liked it or not, in fighting hard for commercial legislation, in regard to which they will be at the mercy of this Parliament in Dublin for the prosperity of their manufactures. I say that the city of Liverpool is more Nationalist than the city of Belfast, and the case is still stronger as regards the city of Glasgow. How would the commercial men of those cities look if, for the commercial legislation on which they depend to carry on their commerce, they had to go to an institution recruited from the agrarian parts of Ireland—where men are still partially educated and
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entirely devoid of any commercial knowledge or instincts—in order to carry legislation on which the life-blood of their commerce depends?
The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the education question in a manner of entire irresponsibility which I confess shocked me, and I think shocked most Members of this House who believe in the urgency and the importance of education if this country is to maintain its position in the world. He said he was merely a go-between, and that things in Ireland were settled by Boards on which half were Protestants and half were Catholics, and they fought questions out between them which he reported over here. If things are so bad in Ireland in regard to education as the right hon. Gentleman said—and they are very bad—why is it that the Government have not moved a finger in order to do something? In answer to a question to-day the right hon. Gentleman stated that under this Bill the Irish Parliament will have power to discuss the endowments of the new University in Ulster, Queen's University in Belfast, and, I presume, also the National University in Dublin. Everyone acquainted with the North of Ireland knows that a keen controversy has arisen in Belfast as to the denominationalising of the new University in Ulster; he knows the struggle that is still going on as to whether they should have an unsectarian institution or an institution in which the philosophy and dogma of the Roman Catholic Church shall be represented by professors. How is the Irish Parliament in Dublin, with any degree of fairness, to debate the grants to an institution which is in the throes of a controversy as to whether it is to follow the course of the National University in Dublin or to remain under the conditions under which, I think I may say, it was intended to be constituted by this House? Yesterday I took close notice of the reply of the Postmaster-General on the matter of the Government's Financial Committee. I also noted the statement of the Chief Secretary, which came in an interruption and therefore is the more emphatic, that the Government's Financial Committee were called in to advise on the hypothesis that Home Rule was to come as to what were to be the finances between the two Kingdoms. His statement was that the Committee were asked to advise on the footing of Home Rule. The Committee advised and sent in their report to the Government, on the footing of Home Rule. The Government rejected the

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report of the Committee. The inference I draw from that is that on the footing of Home Rule the financial relations between the two islands cannot be drafted in a satisfactory manner. That is on the report of the Committee; I can draw no other conclusion than that. It appears that a Committee of the Cabinet then took the matter in hand, including the Postmaster-General; and they produced a new scheme of financial relations whose complexity has been the cause of most of all this trouble. A large number of the questions which have been put and the objections which have been raised on this side of the House, and which have never been answered, are with regard to the intricacies of this finance. I take it that the House must have come to the view on all sides that the Government's plan of finance between the two parts of the United Kingdom is an impossible one; and their own Committee, who were asked what should be the relations, gave a verdict which the Government said was also an impossible one.
The main point always raised in favour of Home Rule is that the agitation for Home Rule has been a permanent one in Ireland for forty years. On the other hand, the agitation and the firm determination to reject Home Rule on the part of the northern province of Ulster has been equally permanent, and has increased in intensity on each occasion. It is not hard to see what the cause of the persistence of the demand for Home Rule is. The Irish are an isolated people; they are far away out of touch with the rest of the world, and that very aloofness is intensified by religious differences which are greater than exist between people and their neighbours in any other part of the north of Europe. The very phrase "Home Rule" is naturally a spell which binds them to the eloquent Gentlemen who go down and tell them about the great advantages which they will derive from it. During those forty years it has been of vague and shifting import except as a phrase on which to hang separatist aspirations more or less pronounced. I am gratified to find in the speech of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. M. Healy) yesterday a confirmation of my view which I had not expected, that it is the vagueness and indefiniteness of the promise of Home Rule, as put before the rural Irish, that makes its chief attraction. The hon. Member's unexpected corroboration I desire to repeat again. He told the House that Home Rulers by telling the Irish people
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that Home Rule was good for Ireland had inevitably raised exaggerated expectations, and that the average Irishman, as the result of a long course of oratory of a somewhat flamboyant character, had begun to believe that if Home Rule were granted, Ireland would be a sort of Heaven. That is the reason why the agitation for Home Rule has persisted.
That it has been of vague and shifting import is fully proved by the three Bills which have been introduced in order to bring it into effect, Bills of totally different characters among one another, but they have all been accepted, at first provisionally more or less, as solutions of the problem. This time the Government, driven by their fate hard up against this thorny question, have, to do them justice, tried hard to make a complete scheme; but one bristling with restrictions and safeguards, so much so that on the speech of the Prime Minister on the First Reading, one really began to wonder what it was that the Irish Nationalist representatives saw worth taking in the Bill. The whole question hinges upon the safeguards. If the safeguards are good, why there is nothing in it; and if the safeguards can be made whatever the Irish Nationalist party want, then there is all. We have heard a great deal about the moderation of the Irish Nationalist representatives; I have no doubt that the same was heard in 1886 and in 1893. On each of those occasions the harvest of vituperation of England and British institutions had apparently been ended, and there was apparently to be no more. I am afraid if this measure comes to a mishap, we shall hear more. There is no security here, even if the present Nationalist Members were in a Dublin Parliament, that they are able to act up to their promises. It is well known in Ireland what is the ladder by which they have risen to power and influence. If they become the most moderate people in the world there are plenty of others to stimulate the same expectations on a greater scale and to rise and supplant them and take their places. What Unionist Ireland fears is to be placed as a minority along with a population not yet ripe in education and in experience of the outer world, to use its predominant power responsibly and intelligently. Calculated tyranny we may admit need not be anticipated, but the effect of politics on an isolated and excitable people, as yet untrained in affairs, and therefore inclined to support extremes, is not the less to be feared. The examples

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of civic administration in centres in America and elsewhere in which Irish influence is predominant does nothing to remove those fears.
The First Lord of the Admiralty pleaded very eloquently that Ulster was a small section of the Irish nation, and that it ought to show confidence and fall into line with the rest of the community. To the view of Ulstermen that plea rests on the ignoring of history. It is the part that Ulster has played in history for three centuries, and in the history not only of the United Kingdom, where its action was at one time decisive, but in the history of America, where the tone of the American Constitution has been partly moulded by Ulstermen, and to which the Ulster emigration in the eighteenth century has already contributed five Presidents of the United States—it is that part that Ulster has played in history that gives her the right to be treated not as a minority, but as a community, and to refuse, as she has always done, the destiny of being merged and obliterated like the Normans in Con-naught and the Cromwellians in Tipperary. In Ulster, where I was born, the language one heard, the local dialect, was the language of Shakespeare, preserved by the settlers as they brought it in the time of James I. That is still more the case in the county of Derry, which was settled by the great companies of the City of London. The only other place where the language of Shakespeare, the Elizabethan dialect, is still the common language, is in New England, in the United States. The British settlers brought to Ulster the same firm and unchangeable religious convictions which the Pilgrims of the "Mayflower" took to New England. There they have preserved them for three hundred years, and they are not inclined to fall in with any scheme that would jeopardise their inheritance. I have nothing to say, I should be the last person to say anything, against my fellow countrymen in the South and West. During five years I made many friendships in Galway, some of which I am glad to find, as I did the other day, are still remembered. In the most futile university that the differences of Ireland ever allowed English statesmen to impose upon her, the Royal University of Ireland, I was a colleague in the mixed boards in which half were Protestants and half were Catholics. We transcended the political conditions, and many of the people whose respect and friendship I have valued most in my life
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were my Catholic colleagues on those boards. If opportunity were given, as opportunity has not been given, in universities and by higher education, to allow the different creeds and parties in Ireland to come together, and to know each other, there would be some chance of North and South uniting together, but the method of treating Ulster in these matters, when the will of Nationalist Ireland is predominant, has been invariably not to give Ulster what she wanted. When a university, or any other organisation, has been obtained, Ulster must have some compensation. They do not allow Ulster to choose what compensation she may have, but some dole, some university of the kind she does not want, is thrown to her in order to redress the scale. That is the form of tyranny that is most objectionable to any independent people.
I have spoken of the imminent danger that the industries and manufactures of Belfast will run under a Dublin Parliament. It has been difficult enough to establish the commercial success of Belfast. The only result of this policy, in the face of the opposition of practically the whole of the commercial community of Ireland, will be to place a premium on the retransfer to the other side of the Channel, of the industries of Ulster, which have taken root slowly and with difficulty, and on the emigration of the labour connected therewith. An attempt has been made to belittle the position of the operatives in Belfast and to talk about the slum property in that city. I remember when there was a great deal of slum property in Belfast, as there has been in other Irish towns, and as there still is in the only other large Irish city; but in no city in the United Kingdom that I know has a greater change been made in that respect than in Belfast. If there is any slum property remaining, it is very largely in the Nationalist quarter, and is in rapid process of disappearing. One of the Nationalist Members talked of the intolerance, of Belfast, and he referred to the treatment which Lord and Lady Pirrie received recently at Larne. I regret that occurrence very much. But I wish to make this point in connection with it. It has been said that manufacturing Ireland is not solid against Home Rule, and that gentleman, of no doubt supreme financial ability, has been quoted as an illustration. It is easy for a financial magnate to declare himself in favour of Home Rule, and then to go and live outside the country. I am told that

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Lord Pirrie is now making a large settlement in Surrey. It is easy to be a Home Ruler and to live in another country. But the people who made the shipbuilding pre-eminence of Belfast, Sir Edward Harland and his companions, who were Members of this House, stuck to that city in which their industry flourished. If Home Rulers who wish to impose this measure upon Ireland are to be the first to leave the country, what hope can there be of its continued prosperity?
I had intended to speak of Irish University history, but I refrain. I desired also to refer to the sentiments expressed by the Under-Secretary of State for War with regard to the misdeeds of the English in Ireland in the past. When he spoke of the horrors of the evictions in Connemara, which everybody knows were terrible enough, and of which we all ought to be ashamed, the overwrought description which he gave, and of which I should like to know the evidence, produced nothing in my mind more than a reminiscence of the descriptions which appeared in the foreign Press during the Boer war of the concentration camps in South Africa. They were couched in much the same style. It is time that the history of these misdeeds, which nobody can palliate, was rewritten in the light of recent research. I gather that Mr. Lecky wrote his history chiefly in the light of the public records in Dublin, which had just been thrown open. There must be other sources. The verdict of history is always open to revision. Although the facts are bad enough, I do not believe they are as bad as they are represented to be. It is the same in connection with the commercial injustice of England to Ireland. I am sure that is bad enough, but I do not believe it is all intentional or selfish. I was surprised the other day to come across a statement on this point by one of the most tolerant men who ever lived, one of the glories of England, who was made head of the Board of Commerce at the time when the relations between Ireland and England in the matter of manufactures were reconstructed. I refer to John Locke. No one would accuse him of intolerance or of destroying the industries of any nation; but the principle that he laid down was that each country should have its own staple manufacture, that the linen trade should be encouraged in Ireland both North and South, while the woollen trade was to belong to England. That is all wrong in economics according to our present
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ideas, but it is not based on the selfishness of England or the desire to destroy the commerce of Ireland, although that element may have come in to some extent later on. I am convinced that there again the verdict of history needs revision.
I shall, no doubt, be asked what is my remedy if Home Rule is not good. I say, wait ten years for the ameliorative legislation and improved industrial education to bear fruit. Give quiet economic forces a chance as against political agitation. Take to heart Lord Morley's statement, made recently in another place, when excusing the character of recent appointments to the Irish Bench of magistrates.
Mr. GINNELL: I beg to ask whether this speech is relevant to the Bill?
Sir J. LARMOR: Lord Morley said:—
"If the social conditions had given the Government material for choice the results would have been different."
I say, accept that statement and wait for the rapidly-improving time. If you say that the younger generation in Ulster are coming round to Home Rule—wait, and do not precipitate an unnecessary conflict. The demand for Home Rule has been a blind demand, with no definiteness and therefore no finality. The Nationalist party are now, as always, ready to take what they can get, to be used as an argument to get more. A month ago they knew little or nothing about the present Bill; now a Convention in Dublin has accepted it without a word of criticism, or rather without a word of criticism that can reach the ears of the British public. But we have heard from hon. Members who represent what used to glory in the name of "Rebel Cork" their criticisms of the financial provisions of the Bill. Only practical remedial measures can promote finality, not complicated paper constitutions. Industrial well-being is the true source of political content. Ireland has only to steady herself, and concentrate on her present educational, agrarian, and industrial opportunities, in order to obtain careers for her sons at home and within the Empire far beyond any which they have hitherto attained abroad. It has not been in the crowded areas of New York or Chicago that the real successes of the Irish race have been achieved. It is where Irishmen are thoroughly intermixed with English and Scotch at home, and with other races abroad that the proper environment is obtained in which their special gifts can assert themselves. It is in the public and political life of Great Britain,

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in the Imperial service of India, in the numerous Colonial Dominions in which Irishmen have everywhere risen to the very high positions of Government, that we find the true record of their race. This Irish Parliament in Dublin must be in contrast to such careers a mere parochial assembly, too pretentious for the functions assigned to it by this Bill, in which the abilities and the eloquence that can achieve such conspicuous positions in world-wide fields will dissipate themselves in the barren friction of local debate.
Mr. JEREMIAH MacVEAGH: I desire at the outset to congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University (Sir J. Larmor) upon the maiden speech which he has just delivered. I do not agree with any of the premises upon which he based that speech, or with any of the deductions which I understood him to draw; but I congratulate him, and all the more earnestly because he is a fellow Irishman, and it is always a satisfaction to find an Irishman, one of the most brilliant scholars of his time, taking his rightful place in this House. But the hon. and learned Member will forgive me for saying that he is not so distinguished in the political as in the scholastic world, and it is to that fact I attribute the weakness which his speech displayed in political knowledge. I congratulate him upon a further point, namely, that, notwithstanding his Belfast upbringing, he has scorned to descend to use the weapons that other Members have employed in this controversy. He has not suggested the possibility of religious intolerance being exercised by his fellow-countrymen in the event of this Bill passing into law. The same remark applies to the right hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Wyndham) who, throughout his speech, carefully refrained from descending to that depth. No Unionist who has ever held the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland has used that argument, and I think they are to be congratulated upon that fact. But when the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University talks about the danger of the national university in Ireland, founded by this Parliament and maintained out of public funds, becoming Catholic in tone and spirit, may I respectfully suggest that he should turn his energies to the reform of the institution at which he was educated at Belfast? He will find abundant room there for all the energies of which he is possessed in abolishing the sectarian
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spirit. In the total salary list of £18,870 in the institution in which he was educated there are only two Catholic officials, and between them they share the magnificent total of £300. Yet the hon. and learned Gentleman comes here to talk about the danger of a national university in Ireland becoming sectarian! The National University, with an overwhelming Catholic majority on the Senate, at any rate has not hesitated to appoint Protestant professors and Protestant officials, from the highest down to the lowest posts. They have set an example which Queen's University, Belfast, might well follow. I also congratulate the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Dover on the tone and temper of his speech. Even if the tone had been otherwise, we upon these benches should have endeavoured to restrain the expression of any resentment, because we remember, and remember gratefully, that when the right hon. Gentleman was Chief Secretary he did his best to serve Ireland according to his lights. If he failed he failed because the Orange tail was wagging the Tory dog at a time when he was Chief Secretary.
Mr. WYNDHAMdissented.
Mr. MacVEAGH: And though he may turn now with a smile to one of those hon. Gentlemen who tried to hunt him out of the Chief Secretaryship, both of them, know it is absolutely true. They know also that the Orange tail is wagging the Tory dog again to-day. But the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, if he will forgive me for saying so, was much more remarkable for its omissions than for what it contained. Why, for example, when he gets up to deliver a speech on the Home Rule Bill, has he nothing to tell us about the old mysterious negotiations which were carried on between Dublin Castle and Lord Dunraven on the Devolution scheme—negotiations which resulted in his being compelled to resign the Chief Secretaryship for Ireland? Why has he not unearthed those wonderful cypher telegrams which passed between himself and the present Member for the City of London, who was then Prime Minister, reiterating all the negotiations that were going on, and the arrangements for the publication of the Devolution scheme? I think the right hon. Gentleman would have found himself the centre of a most interested House if he had only gone into a little detail of the secret history of that period!
All the hon. Members who have taken part in this Debate have felt called upon

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to say something about Ulster, and the less they knew about it the longer were their speeches. I happen to be an Ulster man, and an Ulster Member. Not only that, but I have the honour to represent a constituency which is in the very corner of that Ulster which certain hon. Members claim to have all to themselves. But when they talk about Ulster, they do not mean Ulster; they mean North-East Ulster, or to drop into the language of the mariner, that part of Ulster which lies north by north-east. They claim to speak for only four counties of the province of Ulster, because admittedly in five counties we have an overwhelming majority; and even in the remaining four counties which they claim to be their private property we have got a loyal minority of very substantial proportions. It is on behalf of that loyal minority in the north by northeast corner that I venture to address the House to-night. In the county of Antrim, for instance, including the city of Belfast, even if there were no Liberal Protestants in the county at all, we have, according to the last Census returned, 26 per cent. of the population. In the county of Down we have got 27 per cent. of the population. In the county of Derry we have 46 per cent. of the population. In Armagh we have 45 per cent. of the population, and that is in the corner of Ulster that they say is all their own.
Though I am proud of my native city of Belfast, and proud of my native province of Ulster, I am still prouder of my native country, and I am not prepared to praise my native province at the expense of the land that gave me birth. I have never done it, and do not intend to do it. I leave that to other Ulster Members. But I may remind the House that thousands of foreigners land on these shores every year from Germany, Spain, France, and Italy, and even from China and Japan. Did anybody ever hear of one of these foreigners getting upon a platform in England to traduce and defame the country which gave him birth? ["No, no!"] That work, so far as I understand, is left to a number of Members from the province of Ulster. I have not the slightest desire to emulate their example. These hon. Gentlemen claim, that in the province of Ulster they have one-half of the wealth, two-thirds of the intelligence, at least three-fourths of the education, and an absolute monopoly of the honesty of the country. As a matter of fact, all their claims are based on the most shadowy
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foundations. In relation to their wealth, if you take the rateable valuation of the-four provinces, Leinster is richer than Ulster, and Ulster very much richer than the province of Munster. So far as prosperity is concerned, people do not fly away from it, yet the emigration from the province of Ulster in the last fifty years has been greater than from any other province of Ireland. An hon. Member interjects that that is from the Nationalist parts of Ulster. Nothing of the kind. The greatest emigration from all Ireland1 has been from the so-called loyal counties of Antrim and Down. So far as education is concerned, that, too, will not bear the test of investigation, because the number of people who can read and write—and that is a fairly conclusive test of education—is less in Ulster than in Leinster.
The junior Member for Trinity College is in the habit, in the stock speech which he has delivered all over Great Britain, of holding up as one of the gravest and most serious arguments against Home Rule that if the Irish people get self-government they will proceed immediately to indulge in oppressive taxation against the loyal minority in the North-East of Ireland. What hon. Gentleman of this frame of mind would like to say is that we, the Irish Members in this House, are eighth-two embryo Lloyd Georges who are bursting to wipe everybody off the face of the earth with taxation. [An HON. MEMBER: "Lloyd Georges"?] I say that is what hon. Members above the Gangway would like to say. But I think that the two right hon. Gentlemen who represent Trinity College may at least lay this flattering unction to their souls, that however predatory the Irish Parliament, may be it cannot get at them. They have left Ireland. They have come over here and joined the English Bar. They have shaken the dust of an ungrateful country off their feet. They have left no property behind them which we could tax. They have not even left an address in the country to which we could send Form IV., or any other form. Fleeing from the wrath to come in the shape of oppressive taxation, they have voluntarily sought sanctuary within the financial jurisdiction of the rapparee from Wales! They have come over here to England where their political friends never whine about oppressive taxation, where they have no Socialistic Budget, no land taxes, no death duties, no stamps to be licked; where they

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have none of these terrible things that an Irish Parliament will be bursting to impose on the loyal minority in the northeast corner of the land! If they think that a native Parliament would want to harry any native industry, they must have proceeded upon two assumptions. They must assume in the first place that all Irishmen are possessed of a double dose of original sin. They must also assume that the Dublin Parliament will be a Parliament of fools. You will have to take both of these assumptions to be accurate before you credit the Irish Parliament with any intention of proceeding to interfere with any Irish industry.
So far as the safeguards are concerned, I have heard one hon. Member after another get up and say that they are not the slightest protection, or of any service to them. I think the safeguards are very effective. Take, for example, the safeguard in respect to oppressive taxation. In the matter of direct taxation we cannot increase the taxes more than 10 per cent. Say there is a tenpenny Income Tax in England and we decide in Ireland that we will make it 11d. I do not think that that will drive any Ulster manufacturer into bankruptcy. So far as indirect taxation is concerned, the more we increase that, the more we are hitting, not at the rich man, but at the poor man. But I agree with hon. Members when they say that they attach no importance to these safeguards. Neither do I. The reason I do not attach any importance to them is because I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand Division that no importance whatever need be attached to the fears which hon. Members express as to the possibility of religious intolerance in Ireland under Home Rule. Believing their fears to be unnecessary and unfounded, I believe the safeguards to be equally unnecessary. The best safeguard, as a matter of fact, which can be given to the minority in any country is the common sense of the community amongst whom they dwell. It is the only safeguard which is possessed by the Catholic minority here in England. It is the only safeguard which is possessed by the Catholic minority in Scotland. We have found it adequate and satisfactory. If the Chief Secretary wants a suggestion from me as to a safeguard that will satisfy hon. Members from the north-east corner of Ulster I will tell him. It is that he should put
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into the Home Rule Bill a Clause providing that under Home Rule nobody but a Tory shall get a job in Ireland. That is really the beginning and end of the present opposition. The hon. Baronet the Member for Mid-Armagh, in the course of his speech the other night, said that it was not the legislation of the Irish Parliament he was afraid of, but the administration.
Mr. MOORE: Hear, hear.
Mr. MacVEAGH: The hon. and learned Member for North Armagh, I am glad to say, agrees. Administration means patronage, and patronage is a euphemism for jobs. "Patronage" is a nicer way of putting it. When you boil down the phrase it means jobs. These gentlemen have always had the loaves and fishes in Ireland, and they desire to continue in the exercise of that ascendancy which they have enjoyed so long. They are not satisfied with the safeguard of the Senate. It is not democratic enough for them. The Government have laid their cards upon the table. If they can trump them let them play. It is "up to" them to state how they desire the Senate to be constituted. If they will only suggest their Amendments I think they will find upon our part, and I am sure upon the part of the Government, an absolutely honest desire to go so far as we can go to meet their views, to enable them to accept this Bill, and to come to terms on peace with honour.
Mr. MOORE: Hear, hear.
7.0 P.M.
Mr. MacVEAGH: It is not that we are afraid of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for North Armagh, with all his bluster about civil war. No, we know him, and he knows us! We know the exact value to attach to his bluster. We have heard it too often to be frightened by it. It is not his opposition in the field we are afraid of. But we do not desire the passing of the Home Rule Bill to be a victory or a defeat for any section of our countrymen. We honestly desire that this should be attained with peace between all classes of the community in Ireland. Does anybody imagine, for example, that we want to lose the hon. and learned Member for North Armagh (Mr. Moore)? Does anybody think we want in an Irish Parliament to lose the hon. and gallant Member the Member for East Down (Captain Craig), my political neighbour, who represents the same county as myself? Not a bit of

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it. We want to lose none of these Gentlemen. They have done us no harm here. Quite the contrary. They have been the most valuable asset the national cause has in this House; they have been far more valuable than any Nationalist Member in the promotion of the cause of Home Rule. We would not injure a hair on one of their heads, and I do not believe they would injure a hair on the head of any Nationalist Member. I think some of them, especially two of them, would fit the description of Mr. Whalley when he spoke about Jesuits in disguise. So far as the hon. and gallant Member for East Down is concerned, he would be the Sir Frederick Banbury of an Irish Parliament, and if he only enjoys the same popularity in a Dublin Parliament that the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London enjoys in this House, I think he should be perfectly satisfied with his happy lot. The only thing is that in this Parliament I would prefer to have the hon. and gallant Gentleman against me and in a Dublin Parliament I would rather have him with me. We are ready and anxious to proclaim a blessed oblivion for the past and bury the hatchet for ever. Hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway from Ulster appeal to the electors of this country and say, "Do not hand us over to the rule of John Redmond," and the English Tories take up the same cry.
I was down at a by-election in Nottingham. [HON. MEMBEBS: "Hear, hear."] Yes, where we reduced the Tory majority in spite of the lavish distribution of a millionaire's wealth. There I saw huge placards, at least twice the size of myself, bearing the simple legend, "Why rob John Bull to pay John Redmond?" This Bill does not do that. I am sorry it does not. I think if it did my hon. and learned friend the Member for Waterford might be even more enamoured of the Bill than he is at present. All that nonsense does not deceive anybody, not even the hon. Gentlemen who utter it. My hon. Friend may be at present a bogey man to Tory emissaries in the country, but there is not a man in this House who would not endorse the statement made the other day by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Trinity College (Mr. J. H. Campbell) when he said that he holds the hon. and learned Member for Waterford in the highest respect, and places implicit faith in everything he says.
An HON. MEMBER: That is not what be said.
Mr. MacVEAGH: Well, words to that effect. He certainly paid a very high and a very remarkable tribute to my hon. and learned friend the Member for Waterford, and that is the view taken by every Tory Member in this House, and when they come to hold him up as a "bogey man" they are not likely to impress anybody. The fact of the matter is that the Ulster Unionist Members would be a much more powerful party in an Irish Parliament than ever they can be in a British Parliament. I do not know that that is saying very much, but it is saying something. They know perfectly well that in an Irish Parliament all the old political landmarks would be swept away; that the old parties would disappear; that the old shibboleths would lose their magic. They know that in an Irish Parliament Protestants would be divided into different camps, and Catholics would be divided into different camps, and that new parties and new issues would arise. What the dividing lines may be it is impossible for any man to say, but this we can predict with absolute certainty, that in an Irish Parliament there will be no time for squabbling about the battle of the Boyne or the Thirty-Nine Articles. We shall have better work to do—the work of elevating our nation and restoring prosperity to her, and in that work we shall welcome the co-operation of every Irishman who is willing to give a helping hand. I should like to appeal to English Tory Members, and to ask them whether they really believe that in the attitude they are now adopting towards Home Rule they are pursuing a consistent policy? It is not long since the Tory party in this country was running Conservative Home Rule candidates in Ireland, and paying their expenses. The hon. Member for Mid-Armagh scoffs at that.
Sir J. LONSDALE: I deny it.
Mr. MacVEAGH: Then I shall answer the hon. Baronet with a letter from one of those gentlemen. I never speak without authority. Sir Henry Bellingham, who sat in this House as a Conservative Member, and who went down to Tory constituencies in England and supported Conservative candidates, and who always voted in the Tory Lobbies and received the Tory Whips, wrote—
Mr. MALCOLM: Did he ever vote for Home Rule?
Mr. MacVEAGH: Yes, he voted for Home Rule resolutions and he was returned as a Conservative Home Ruler. The hon. Member for Croydon rushes in where wiser men fear to tread. But I can assure him he will not catch us in this way. Sir Henry Bellingham, who is one of His Majesty's Lord Lieutenants, wrote this:—
"The present leader of the Conservative party and also I regret to say other Conservatives in high positions have recently endeavoured, not only to identify the whole party with the extreme Ulster section, but to let it be thought that as a party they never had anything to do with Home Rule. Will you allow me therefore to remind your readers that Home Rule was started by a Conservative and that for many years Conservatives sat as Home Rulers."
Does the hon. Member for York deny that?
Mr. BUTCHER: It is quite new to me to hear that a Conservative sat in this House as a Home Ruler.
Mr. MacVEAGH: The innocence of the hon. and learned Member for York is too overwhelming for me altogether. It only shows that he is lost in the House of Commons, and that he ought to be back again in the University. Sir Henry goes on to say:—
"When I stood as an avowed Home Ruler for the county of Louth I received the support both of the Carlton Club and of the Conservative Whips."
The hon. and learned Member for York knows what the support of the Carlton Club is.
Mr. BUTCHER: I do not.
Mr. MacVEAGH: More innocence. Sir Henry Bellingham continues:—
"Further, during the time I was in Parliament I was regularly summoned to the meetings of the Conservative party, and I have letters in my possession from some of the Conservative leaders which are complete evidence of complicity with Home Rule."
Mr. MALCOLM: The hon. Gentleman corrected me just now, but there is nothing in the letter which he read which shows that Sir Henry Bellingham ever voted for Home Rule. He was not in the '86 Parliament I think, and he never voted for Home Rule.
Mr. MacVEAGH: I never said he was here in 1886, but I will tell you what he did. He voted for Home Rule resolutions in this House and the Tory Whips were never withdrawn from him and he was never expelled from the Tory party. Really the surprise of these hon. Gentlemen overwhelms me. One would think from their horror at the reading of this letter of
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Sir Henry Bellingham's that none of them were living in 1885 when Lord Salisbury, as Prime Minister, and Lord Carnarvon, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, entered into negotiations with Irish Members for the introduction of a Tory Home Rule Bill. One would think they never heard of the historic meeting between Mr. Parnell and Lord Carnarvon in an empty house in London for the discussion of the details of a Home Rule Bill. Have they never heard of Sir Howard Vincent and others sent over by the Tory party to march from one end of Ireland to the other canvassing Irish Nationalists as to the details of the Bill the Tory party were prepared to introduce? [Laughter.] The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Walton Division of Liverpool was very innocent of politics at that time, and his loud laugh now only bespeaks the mind that does not possess much knowledge of the facts of that time. The fact remains that as a result of the negotiations that went on between the Tory party and the Nationalists, the Tories got the Irish vote at that election, and you were very glad to get it and Tory candidates expressed their indebtedness to Irish electors for having supported them in 1885. But you did not stop at 1885. You again flirted with the Irish Nationalist in 1902, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover was Chief Secretary for Ireland. What about the hon. and learned Member for North Armagh (Mr. Moore)? I wonder, does he agree with me about that? Was not he the watchdog that was let loose and hunted the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover from office because he flirted with Home Rule. The hon. and learned Member cannot deny that. Again, in 1910, the whole Tory party wakened up one fine morning, and, picking up their Tory newspapers, they rubbed their eyes with amazement and wondered whether it was a vision they saw. They wondered what was happening, because in the good old Tory papers, which they had been reading all their lives, they found the first leading article supporting Home Rule.
An HON. MEMBER: What paper was that?
Mr. MacVEAGH: The whole of them. All the Tory papers in Great Britain, from the "Times" down to the "Daily Mail," became infected with the Home Rule microbe at the same moment. I wonder where the inspiration came from.

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Would any Member on the Front Opposition Bench tell us? Would they tell us who passed the word to the Tory newspapers that they were to preach Home Rule?
Viscount HELMSLEY: Who was it?
Mr. MacVEAGH: I do not know. I am not on the Front Bench. Here is one of the Noble triplets asking me questions. He wants me to substantiate this statement. Is it not enough when I tell him that all the Tory papers of the country started it. Can the Noble Lord deny it?
Viscount HELMSLEY: Yes.
Mr. MacVEAGH: Will the Noble Lord tell me some of the papers that did not do it? I can give the extracts, I have them here, and I could read from dozens of Tory papers. I will give him a few of them, as I see he is so anxious about the matter. Here, for example, is what appeared in the "Observer" on November 13th, 1910, after the failure of the negotiations:—
"In the due hour we are convinced the method and the policy of conference will be revived, when the eyes of all men are finally opened by the issue of another struggle: and as the favourable hour returns—though no man now knows when—we shall raise again the voice of reason."
The "Observer" further stated:—
"Unionism is doomed if it waltzes to war under the device of 'Death or Dublin Castle.'"
I said I would be willing to supply the hon. Member for Croydon with a choice collection of arguments of this kind from Tory newspapers, but if the hon. Member for Croydon will not believe me, will he believe the "Evening Standard," which only last month said:—
"Home Rule pure and simple may be undesirable, but call it Federalism, call it Devolution, call it Self-government, and is there not a great deal to be said for it in that form?"
The "Evening Standard" goes on to say:—
"And there is that awkward fact that a good deal was said for it only a year ago by various influential exponents of Unionist opinion, who, so far from being Die Hards then, were quite inclined for a square deal with Mr. Redmond."
I have quoted from the "Observer," which is edited by Mr. Garvin, who is a brilliant and distinguished journalist. He is an Irishman, and though I deplore his recreancy from the cause of Ireland respect his ability, and I extract consolation even from his recreancy in the reflection that when the Tory party wanted a man to lead them out of the morass in which they are floundering they had to go to
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Ireland. I rejoice that it is given to an Irishman, with the help of American dollars, to lead the Tory party to destruction. Therefore Mr. Garvin deserves attention, and I shall ask the House to permit me to refer to him, because at present he is the conscience keeper of the Tory party and the policy provider to two Houses of Parliament. Now he is raising not the voice of reason, but the voice of passion. Mr. Garvin was the British correspondent for some years for "United Ireland," which had a brilliant but chequered career, but during all the time he was the correspondent for "United Ireland" week after week he supported the most advanced views of Irish Nationalism. For example, when the Irish Local Government Bill of 1892 was introduced by Mr. Balfour, Mr. Garvin wrote:—
"Benevolent Gladstonian Codlins may pose very effectively beside these hopeless Tory Shorts. … No Liberal Ministry would ever have risen to propose such a measure as Mr. Balfour's Bill, with the old but perfectly characteristic exhibition of the brutality of Tory prejudices, and the grotesque clumsiness of the devices by which the fears and resentments of the more stupid party are sought to be soothed."
At that time we were all Whigs on these benches to Mr. Garvin, who could not be trusted to work the movement to a successful issue; simpletons who were not equipped by nature with the capacity to deal with the sharks of the British Treasury, and he did not hesitate to tell us what he thought. In the course of his observations, he had something to say about the use of dynamite. At one time there were a large number of dynamite prisoners in penal servitude, and a demand had been made for their release, and the Tory party did release them, although the Liberal party declined to do so. On that occasion Mr. Garvin wrote in "United Ireland":—
"One point that should be emphasised is that, whether the prisoners be guilty or not, the pacification of Ireland demands their release. If they be dynamiters, they are what misery and misrule have made them. Dynamiter is not one whit more deadly to society than jury-packing, not one whit a worse outrage on a people. The dynamiter is a no more of an appalling excrescence upon the body of society than the partisan judge, the jury-packer, the agent provocateur, and the other figures of the sinister hierarchy."
I shall now pass from the writing of Mr. Garvin, in order that we may consider Mr. Garvin as a politician and a public man. There are two Mr. Garvins. Mr. Garvin attended a banquet to commemorate the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and he was again in evidence as one of the speakers, and declared that the system of government in Ireland was such that compared with it the horrors of Armenia and Cuba paled their

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ineffectual fires. I have here what I call my Garvin dossier. It is the minute-book of an association with which Mr. Garvin was connected, and one of its functions was to give a reception to Mr. John Daly on his release from penal servitude. Another occasion was to give a welcome to O'Donovan Rossa, and I have a letter here in which Mr. Garvin says, he has left nothing undone, and will leave nothing undone, to promote the reception to O'Donovan Rossa. O'Donovan Rossa spent a large part of his life in penal servitude, and he was considered such an extremist that you were not permitted to mention his name in polite Tory society. I notice, from the "Newcastle Leader" of 2nd May, 1892, Mr. Garvin moved a Home Rule resolution in the following terms:—
"It is a matter of life and death that Home Rule should come quickly. We were not fighting for any Local Government Board, but a Parliament that will be supreme in the country, that will have control of the land in which the people live, and whose acts will be subject to no veto except that of the Crown on the advice of the Irish Ministry."
You would almost think Mr. Garvin had seen a forecast of this Bill when he moved that resolution. The speech goes on to say:—
"If we do not get that, we will go back to Westminster to begin the same old round of opposition again. We must have the ideal, the whole ideal, and nothing but the ideal."
That quotation is in the choicest Garvinese, but here is a pronouncement equally "Garvinesque":—
"The business of Irishmen is simply to watch for the whites of their enemy's eyes and blaze away. Ireland's grievances were really none the more acute because they were represented by eighty-six votes, but the desperate beggars had attention called to their distress when they happened to get hold of loaded pistols. As lung as the issue of the struggle is in the slightest degree uncertain the first duty of an Irishman is to fight, his second duty is to right, and his third duty is still to tight."
Mr. Garvin might have put that word for word in one of his "Die-Hard" articles. That was in a speech delivered by Mr. Garvin in Newcastle-on-Tyne in support of Home Rule. This is the gentleman who every Sunday in the "Observer" and every week-day in the "Pall Mall Gazette" assails, with all the epithets in the English language and all the adjectives in the dictionary, the Irish party for no other crime than that they have been true to the cause which he has abandoned. Mr. Garvin and hon. Members above the Gangway now say that if we pass this Home Rule Bill it means the end of the Empire. The Tories always invoke the Empire when anything is proposed which is not
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exactly to their liking. They pose as patron saints of the Army, the Navy, the Union Jack, the Royal Family, and the Empire; but, after all, the Empire has survived twenty-eight Parliaments up to the present, and I think we may reasonably assume that it will survive the twenty-ninth. Hon. Members talk about separation, but can they tell me of any sane Irishman who ever wanted separation. I notice the hon. and learned Member for South Londonderry shakes his head, but if he can tell us of a sane Irishman who wants separation I should be very glad to hear of him.
We have played a large part in the building up of this Empire, and we are not going to give up our claim to a share in our heritage. Supposing we were fools and wanted separation: How could we get it? After all, the English people are 40,000,000 in number, and we in Ireland number only 4,000,000. You have an Army and Navy on which you spend over £70,000,000 a year, but we have got no Army or Navy, and we have no "Dreadnoughts." We have no money to build "Dreadnoughts," and if we had money I do not think we should be such fools as to spend it in that way. We have no military resources. Even with the help of the Unionists in Ireland we could not raise a pop gun in the whole country, and yet the English people are gravely asked to be afraid of what would happen under Home Rule. I wonder if any grown-up man in the House believes that. Hon. Members go down to their constituencies and they say terrible things will happen: That sometime or other when all the English are sleeping in their beds absolutely unconscious of the danger that is hanging over them, 4,000,000 Irishmen will steal across the sea under cover of darkness, and 40,000,000 in this country will be murdered before they know anything about it. That is very flattering to our courage, but it does not say much for the courage of the Tory party if they are really afraid that the Irish people would attempt to do anything of that kind when Home Rule has been passed. Dean Swift once said that twelve men fully armed ought to be equal to one man in his nightshirt anyhow. Even if we attempt the task of separation, I think they might make their minds quite easy upon that. The First Lord of the Admiralty dealt with the Imperial aspect of the Home Rule problem a few days ago, and a great many hon. Members thought he was beating the air, but that was not so. An hon.

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Member above the Gangway came down to his constituency and made the most reckless charges against Nationalists. The hon. Member for the Woodbridge Division of Sussex (Major Peel) went down to Aldeburgh on 31st January last, and this is what he said:—
"When some Power wants to come here across the North Sea it may find it convenient ground to jump off from Ireland. I believe that Nationalists have lately sent an offer to that country of assistance. I have not got the papers by me to-night, or I should be very pleased to read out what they did offer."
I wonder if the hon. and gallant Member has got the papers with him to-night. His suggestion in that speech was that the Nationalist leaders were engaged in a treasonable conspiracy. If he believed that why did he not indict them by getting up in this House, and bringing this charge against the Nationalist Members instead of addressing a hole and corner meeting in Aldeburgh and bringing these charges forward in that way. I may say that that statement was an absolute falsehood on the face of it, and if the hon. and gallant Gentleman does not apologise for it, I can only leave him to his own conscience, and the judgment of every honest man inside and outside this House.
Major PEEL: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has chosen to make an accusation against me of a very baseless character. I certainly went to Aldeburgh, and I certainly made a speech there with regard to the question of Home Rule for Ireland, but I never for one moment accused Nationalist Members of having made any offer to Germany. I think anyone who knows me would be perfectly well aware that, although I am very much opposed to Home Rule, I would never make an accusation of that sort. I am entitled to say further that I was accused in a letter written to a newspaper of having made the same accusation. I immediately wrote to the editor of that paper to deny having made any accusation against hon. Members below the Gangway, and I am very much surprised indeed—in the face of my denial not only in that paper, but at a subsequent meeting at Aldeburgh—that the hon. Gentleman should make such a charge when he is talking about the olive branch, and should try to bring bitterness into these Debates. If he would like to know the authority for what I spoke about, it is a leaflet issued by the Unionist Association of Ireland. I am not responsible for the statements in that leaflet, and there was nothing in it which in any way impugned the Nationalist Members.
Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is not entitled to make a speech. I thought he rose to make an explanation.
Mr. MacVEAGH: I at once and unreservedly accept the repudiation of the hon. Gentleman. I never heard of his contradiction before. I read the report in the "Aldeburgh Post," and I am delighted to hear he promptly repudiated the report published in a paper in his own Constituency. I shall not pursue the matter further than to say it is typical of the slanders and calumnies circulated in England with regard to the Nationalist party. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Bonar Law) told the House the other day he could not find words to describe the enthusiasm and the magnificence of the meeting he addressed in the City of Belfast. Happily a poet has rushed in where the right hon. Gentleman feared to tread. This poet has contributed a great poem to a Belfast newspaper. He signs his initials "E. C," which I hope do not indicate the fleeting figure which I see disappearing on the front Opposition Bench. This "E.C." is another Rudyard Kipling, and he has given a description of this great meeting. He says:—
"The angel visitant—"
That is the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bonar Law).
"The angel visitant surveyed
The ranks of marchers who had come
From the four Provinces, who made
Their Ulster protest for their homes."
It appears the morning started with rain, but the weather cleared up as the day advanced.
Sir E. CARSON: No, it was the other way about.
Mr. MacVEAGH: Oh, it was the other way about. Then the poet proceeds:—
"The law-giver of Israel's race,
Though absent in His mortal form,
Was present, and by fitting grace
Disclosed His wisdom, for the storm
That threatened, passed in gentle shower
As when it swept o'er Gallilee.
And sunshine gladdened by its power
The hearts of Ireland's peasantry;
And substitute for Israel's awe
Was found in—honest Bonar Law."
I rejoice to think that by the genius of "E. C." we have been saved from having no permanent record as to the magnificence of this meeting. I hope "E. C." does not disclose or conceal the identity of any Member on the Front Opposition Bench. I should like, in conclusion, to

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ask hon. Members above the Gangway whether they will, before this Debate closes, tell us what is their real alternative to the Home Rule policy of the Government. They cannot subsist on a policy of mere negation. I know what the Ulster Tories would say. I hear the voice already of the hon. Baronet the Member for Mid-Armagh (Sir John Lonsdale): "Leave things exactly as they are; we are perfectly satisfied." But I was appealing to the statesmen above the Gangway. I want them to tell us, "Is that their last word about the Irish question?" We have heard various unauthorised schemes propounded. The titular chief of the Opposition (Mr. Bonar Law) at the present time has advanced Tariff Reform as a solution. The right hon. Gentleman the Member, for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) went down to his constituency and said, "Devolution is today, and always has been, the Tory alternative to Home Rule." Whilst Mr. Garvin says, "Let us all say 'Federalism' together." I do not mind what they say if they would only say something in one voice; but this I can tell them: Tariff Reform will not prove the solvent of the Irish problem and will not work the oracle in Ireland. You cannot satisfy the soul of a nation by promising its people an extra meal a day. You cannot get rid of the sentiment of nationality by promising a people that Tariff Reform will give them an extra suit of clothes in a year. The impulse of nationality comes from higher than earthly powers and is indestructible. We know the real alternative of the Tory party, the only authorised policy that has ever been brought as an alternative to Home Rule. It was preached by Lord Salisbury when he compared the Irish people with Hottentots and prescribed manacles and Manitoba as the sovereign remedies for Irish discontent and preached the policy which you now know to be a futile policy of twenty years of "firm and resolute government." That stands today as it was twenty-five years ago, the only authorised alternative policy of the Tory party—the re-erection of the plank bed, the battering ram, and the gibbet as the emblems of Tory rule in Ireland. John Bright said:—
"Terror is the only specific of the Tory party. They have no confidence in allegiance, except when there is no power to rebel."
The House has two policies before it, and, as between the two, I do not for a moment doubt this House will confirm and
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enforce the policy which has already received the approval of the masses of the electors of this Kingdom.
Mr. ATHERLEY-JONES: I venture to intervene in this Debate as one who took part in the battle of Home Rule in the years 1886 and 1893. I hope we are now entering upon what may prove to be the last campaign in the promotion of that cause. I was a Home Ruler long before Home Rule was introduced into the House of Commons by Mr. Gladstone. I have always been a Home Ruler, for this reason. I believe that Home Rule is essential to the well-being of Ireland. Looking at it from the point of view of the theory of government, I believe that the whole trend of civilisation lies in the direction of the consolidation or centralisation of the Executive and the Legislature. I think, if anyone studies the history of Europe—I make this concession to the Unionist party—one cannot fail to be impressed, if you take the history of Germany, of France, or of Italy, with the fact that the whole objective of civilisation has been in the direction of the centralisation of the executive and the legislative functions. Where there are exceptions, they have been associated with either racial or religious antipathies. Although those considerations of theory appeal to one, there are considerations of more importance, and the consideration which impresses mo most of all in favour of Homo Rule for Ireland is that the demand of Ireland for Home Rule has been persistent and consistent. There is hardly a page of Irish history that does not eloquently assert justification for that policy on the part of the Irish people. I am quite content to admit that economic grievances in Ireland which when I first entered Parliament were so conspicuous, have been abated to a large extent owing largely to the action of right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and especially the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover (Mr. Wyndham). Yet the passion for Home Rule has not in the slightest degree diminished.
I remember a conversation I had with Mr. Parnell in 1887 or 1888, after the rejection of the Home Rule Bill, and when right hon. Gentlemen opposite had entered upon their policy of endeavouring to conciliate the Irish people by economic legislation. I remember suggesting to him—it was rather presumptious on my part—that it was an unwise policy on his part and on that of his party to promote economic reform as it would tend to weaken the Home Rule

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movement. His answer to me has been fully justified by subsequent events. He said: "If every economic grievance in Ireland were remedied, the demand of the Irish people for Home Rule would be just as strong as it ever was in the darkest days of the past." I do not pretend to repeat his words precisely, but that was the substance of the answer he gave to me. If that be so, and I think it is so, let us for one moment apply ourselves to an examination of the present Home Rule measure. I am bound to say there is no measure of such complexity and such far-reaching results as this measure, which must not be open to effective destructive criticism. There are phases of this Bill which undoubtedly some of us on this side of the House view with a certain amount of alarm. I admit at once I do not like a nominated Chamber. Mr. Gladstone, speaking in 1893 of a nominated Chamber, stated that his cardinal objection to it was that it would be a very weak Chamber, and he desired to build up a second Chamber which would be comparatively strong. The reason which Mr. Gladstone gave against the proposal would be a reason which would appeal to me in its favour. On the whole, although in theory I object to the nominated Chamber, yet there are certain men who it is desirable to secure the co-operation of in the government of Ireland, such as my right hon. Friend Sir Horace Plunkett, and Lord MacDonnell, and others whom it might be impossible to get returned through an elected Chamber for Ulster or for any other part of Ireland, and, therefore, on the whole, I would be disposed to welcome a nominated Chamber as a step in the right direction, for the purpose of securing the co-operation of men whose services would be invaluable to Ireland.
Again, I frankly admit I am troubled about Clause 3, which prohibits any endowment of religion or the imposition of any prohibition upon the exercise of religion. It strikes me that that may prove a very serious difficulty in the action of an Irish Legislature in reference to education, and I would suggest to my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary that if there is any danger of its hampering the Irish Legislature in respect of education, the point might be dealt with by a separate Clause. With regard to finance, although I very much agree with the views put forward as to the principle of taxation in Ireland by the late Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Balfour), and as to the incidence
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of taxation in Ireland, I would at the same time remind hon. Members of probably one of the most valuable contributions to the study of Irish finance to be found in a speech made in this House by the late Mr. Blake, in which he examined, with most singular care and accuracy, the whole financial relations existing since the Union between Great Britain and Ireland. I will only say this with regard to finance: Nobody can doubt that Ireland has been taxed largely beyond her taxable capacity. I rather resent the observation in the Report of the Primrose Commission which suggests that restitution is not to be considered. It was admitted in the speech made by my right hon. Friend, and it is admitted by current literature, that if we continue the Union between England and Ireland our expenditure on Ireland must materially increase. I very much deplore that old age pensions were extended to Ireland in the form in which they were. The conditions of an industrial community are very different from those of an agricultural community, and the necessity for old age pensions was not certainly so urgent in Ireland as in this country. Of this I am certain, however, that there is an abundance of room in various departments of Irish local government for very considerable economy being effected which will amply justify a reduction of £500,000 a year, and which will also amply justify the vaticination indulged in by the head of the Government that Ireland, perhaps, at some future date, may be able to contribute to Imperial expenditure, which for some time past she has not been expected to do.
The only other topic of importance in connection with what I may call the general policy of the Bill is that which concerns Ulster. That has been so abundantly discussed, and with great moderation, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover to-day that I do not propose to say very much on the point. I do not regard with ridicule, neither do I scoff at this very serious situation. I do not for one moment imagine there is any danger of revolution, but I think the establishment of Home Rule might possibly lead to very great disorder. There might be some attempt at passive resistance, and it might bring about a very deplorable state of things. What I want to do is to ask my Unionist Friends who may be in this House how do they propose that this question should be settled? Of course they have a policy, that of

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taking no other step than to continue a resolute form of government. The position of the Ulster representatives, and those who speak for them on that side of the House, is singuarly infelicitous. If they said, "We must have distinct treatment for Ulster, because Ireland is not a homogeneous nation—Ulster is really a province which deserves separate treatment," that would be a, perfectly intelligible position, although I do not say it would be entertained. But the Ulster representatives have chosen to put an absolute veto on that mode of treatment. They have said, "No; our Protestant brethren are scattered over different parts of the country, and these sporadic Protestants must be looked after by the English Government and not by a Government established in Dublin."
It reduces it to this: Three-fourths of the people of Ireland are in favour of some form of Home Rule, and is it reasonable that one-fourth—not a homogeneous fourth—should say, "We have no solution to offer and no proposal to make other than one which is not justified by the history of Ulster." In the days of Grattan's Parliament, in the days of Wolff Tone, and of Napper Tandy, the leaders of the revolutionary movement for a form of republic in Ireland were to be found among the Protestants of Ireland, and were adverse to the opinions and feelings of a great Catholic population. I do not throw that out as a vital argument at the present time. It only shows the inconsistency of public opinion. But with regard to this extremely difficult question of Ulster, they leave us absolutely no alternative. They put us in this position. We are to negative the cession of Home Rule to the people of Ireland without having an opportunity of meeting any reasonable wish that they put forward. This Bill is full of safeguards, and I must say I have been surprised at the extreme moderation which has been displayed by the Irish party in accepting a measure hedged in by so many safeguards. There can be no doubt that a great Protestant community, like that to be found in Ulster, would not suffer if these Statutes were violated, because we should not tolerate any evasion or violation of the provisions for the protection of the Irish Protestant minority.
8.0 P.M.
I now turn to a point on which I feel very strongly, and which actuated me in the course I pursued on the Bill of 1893—I refer to the retention of the Irish Members at
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Westminster. I think my late hon. Friend Dr. Wallace, then Member for Edinburgh, and myself were the two only Liberal Members who went into the Lobby against the Government on the question of the retention of the Irish Members here. My convictions on that point are as strong today as ever they were. In the 1886 Bill no Irish Members were to be retained, and that state of things was accepted by the then Leader of the Irish party, Mr. Parnell, who declared, speaking authoritatively on behalf of his party, that he had no desire whatever that there should be an Irish representative in the English Parliament. But under the Bill of 1893 eighty Irish Members were retained in the Eng-glish Parliament. There were certain in-and-out Clauses, and they were prohibited under the Bill from dealing with certain matters. Now we have, in 1912, a reduction to forty-two of the number of Irish Members to be retained. I want to read an extract which illustrates and elucidates my attitude in regard to this question. In 1896 the present Leader of the Irish party made the following statement, which holds just as good at the present time as then:—
"It is unfortunately proposed in the present Bill that Irish Members should be kept here. If Irish Members were away there would be no temptation for a loyal minority to send to this House representatives hostile to Home Rule for Ireland, who would come here with an avowed policy of wrecking the Constitution, and initiating debates on every conceivable Irish question. I say the presence of Irish Members would be a standing temptation to the Irish Parliament to do that which it would not otherwise do."
Those are very pregnant words. I quite agree that such Ulster Members as may find their way to the Imperial Parliament will be continually criticising the action of the Irish Executive and the Irish Administration, and endeavouring to curtail the scope of the powers of the Irish Parliament. There is another point of view that was voiced by Mr. Sexton. He did not quite agree with the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, and he justified the retention of the Irish Members as affording
"a certain leverage for securing further concessions."
There is the mischief. I do not say that because I would not give further concessions. I would gladly give further concessions, but there is the mischief foretold by Mr. Gladstone, foretold by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, and foretold by Mr. Sexton, of a body of Irish Members in this House, representing the interests of the Irish people, using their power for the purpose of making further

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exactions for the Irish people. In what directions would these exactions go? Let me give a concrete instance. Mr. Parnell, speaking at Wicklow, and dealing with the Home Rule Bill and with what the ultimate action of Ireland would be said:—
"No solution of the Irish question will be acceptable to the Irish people, unless it gives them full and ample control over questions of trade and navigation."
Trade and navigation is one of the departments of activity excluded from the operation of the Irish Parliament. We are Free Traders on this side of the House, but we know that there is imminent danger of that policy, which has been observed so long, being reversed by Parliament. I believe a reversal of the Free Trade policy would be beneficial to Ireland. That was the view Mr. Parnell took, and I think it is the view that most thoughtful men would take. The placing of a tariff such as the leader of an Opposition would place—an ad valorem tariff—on agricultural produce, would be of enormous benefit to the Irish people, and they would naturally support the imposition of such a tariff. It is no disrespect to the Irish Members to say that. They are serving the interests of their country, and it would be pure patriotism on their part; firstly, because the object in itself is good; and, secondly, because they might thereby secure even further concessions, by way of subsidies, loans, or Grants, from the English Parliament for the development of their own country. Is it not certain that on the eve of a General Election, as was done by Lord Carnarvon in 1885, that one of the first things the Leader of an English party would do would be to consult Irish Members, so as to start with a nucleus of forty-two on a Division. That is the danger I apprehend. I could elaborate it at greater length by quotations from Mr. Gladstone's speeches and the speeches of others. What has taken place here? The Prime Minister has given us forty-two Irish Members. What did Mr. Gladstone say in regard to forty-two Members? He said that it would be an insult to the Irish people to give them forty-two Members; that the proper proportion was eighty Members, and that to give them thirty or forty Members would be to give an unequal and an unfair position to the interests of Ireland in relation to questions of Imperial policy. The Prime Minister says it is only forty, and he said:—
"In my experience in Parliament, it is only on very few occasions when forty Members would hold the balance of power."
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There have been two Parliaments of which I have been a Member, the Parliament of 1893 and the present Parliament, where forty-two Members held the balance of power. If I go back to the year 1837, I find that there was a long succession of Parliaments in which the transfer of forty-two votes from one side to the other would have altered the entire political destiny of the country. I want to press that point a little further. If you are content, as I believe you are, to do without Irish representation in this Parliament, still it might be desirable for you to have what Mr. Gladstone was in favour of, namely, a delegation. If forty Members are not likely to affect the destiny of English parties, then to make the matter doubly sure, inasmuch as you are cut down in numbers, so that you cannot be, according to the Prime Minister's opinion, an effective force, but only a debating force—although no doubt the powerful debating force—if we only want you for a debating force, let us reduce you still more to a delegation of ten or twelve Members. You will still have a debating force in the House of Commons, but you would not endanger the course of English domestic politics. I have very imperfectly stated my views upon the subject owing to the exigencies of time.
That is the attitude I take up with regard to the retention of the Irish Members in this House. I rejoice to think that is a view shared by my hon. Friend opposite (Mr. John Redmond). He knows that if there is Irish representation here we shall still be discussing, and discussing very often under the most disagreeable conditions, questions relating to Irish affairs. That is not the worst evil. The one I shrink from is that we shall be moulding our Irish policy according to the exigencies of political parties. It would be a perfectly legitimate action on the part of the Irish Members, who are here quite properly seeking the interests of their own country, but for us it would be odious if we should endeavour to purchase by promises of subsidies and loans, by promises of powers over trade and navigation, a vote which would override the vote of the true opinion of the House of Commons as represented by English and Scottish Members. I know that these views, although they will not be given utterance to from this side of the House, are shared by very many of my hon. Friends, and although I yield to no one in my devotion to Home Rule—and I would

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give a very much larger measure of Home Rule to Ireland than this Bill gives—yet I regard with the gravest apprehension what I believe, in the words of Mr. Glad-Stone, would be
"the degradation of Parliament."
I believe this is a great measure. I believe it is a measure which in its details has been framed with great care and skill. I believe it is a measure which ought to satisfy Irishmen, although there is no finality to the just aspirations of the Irish party. I believe there need be no apprehension on our part, because there is a probationary period of six years in regard to certain matters, and a longer period in regard to other matters, during which we shall have a grip of the purse strings, and also the control over physical force. Six years will be enough for us to learn, or, at any rate, for those who doubt it to learn, that the Irish people are capable of great wisdom and justice and capable of discharging the great duties of administration.
Mr. JOHN REDMOND: I beg to move, "That the Debate be now adjourned."
Debate to be resumed to-morrow (Thursday).

ANCIENT MONUMENTS.
Ordered, That the Lords Message [2nd May, 1912], That they communicate that they have come to the following Resolution, namely: That it is desirable that the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Bill [Lords], the Ancient Monuments Protection Bill [Lords], and the Ancient Monuments Protection (No. 2) Bill [Lords] be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament, be now considered.
Ordered, That this House doth concur with the Lords in the said Resolution.—[Mr. Gulland.]

INDUSTRIAL UNREST.
Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMS: I beg to move, "That this House is of opinion that the recent industrial disturbances show the necessity of a thorough and authoritative investigation into the causes of the present industrial unrest and into possible
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remedies therefor, and, in view of the prospective recurrence of such disturbances, calls upon the Government to prosecute such investigation by all appropriate means and in the speediest manner compatible with adequate inquiry into the issues involved."
The Motion which I have on the Paper deals with a subject which may be considered no less important than that which the House has just been discussing. Indeed, I predict that when the Irish question has been settled and when old feuds are forgotten and when a new nation has been formed, or perhaps I should say when the old nation has been reformed, this industrial question will still be found to be with us. But the question of industrial unrest differs from the Irish question in one way. It has not yet been crystallised and hardened so greatly into a party subject, and that may be accounted somewhat an advantage. I trust the Debate which I am now commencing will not partake too much of a party character. It is true, of course, that each party may differ as to the remedies which are to be applied to this industrial unrest. That is in the nature of party politics. But we are here confronted with national ills upon the very diagnosis of which it is no shame to say we are more or less in the dark, and it may be that professional etiquette will allow of rival physicians consulting together on the nature of the case and at all events we can make an effort to bring to bear on this great subject as long as possible calm and dispassionate judgment. There is no need to emphasise the serious nature of the subject we are going to deal with to-night. It has already been under discussion in two special Debates, and, of course, was involved in the series of Debates which were held on the Coal Mines Bill. Perhaps this Debate to-night may not be held to be superfluous, because when the Debate on the Address was in progress matters had not moved forward as they have since, and when the Coal Mines Bill was under discussion we were in the midst of a fierce industrial conflict. It will be of advantage to be able to discuss this question when there is no longer a turmoil in the industrial world.
The subject of industrial unrest has long and increasingly held public attention. The history of the last months and the last year is fresh in everyone's memory. The year 1911 began with a great strike of miners. We next saw a strike of an inter-

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national character of seamen and transit workers. Then came a strike unprecedented in the history of this country, the railway strike of last year, which involved directly something like 370,000 men, and last year closed with a lock-out in the great cotton trade of Lancashire. This year we have had the coal strike, in which millions of workpeople were directly or indirectly involved, which cost this country millions of pounds and involved not only discomfort but suffering and misery. We ought not, either, to forget another incident which has some connection with this question of industrial unrest, and that is the Syndicalist prosecutions. It would be a great mistake to imagine that the arrest of the brothers Buck, of Bowman, and Mr. Tom Mann are incidents entirely unconnected with the subject of industrial unrest. They are part of the evidence and symptoms of that unrest, and they must be taken as such. Burke once told us that particular punishments are a cure for incidental distempers in the State, but they increase rather than allay the heat which arises from a natural indisposition in the people. I believe these incidents have arisen from what Burke would have called a national indisposition in the people, and that we must consider them in connection with this subject of industrial unrest. To conclude the history of the last months, during these few days which have passed we have seen the latest outcome of industrial unrest, that is a strike which, perhaps, affects many Members of the House more acutely than even the railway strike or the coal strike, and that is the strike of the tailors. Nor has this unrest been confined to this country. Wherever we look over the civilised world we find a state of uneasiness existing in the labour world. Every day we hear tidings from America, or France, or Germany, of new tumults in industry, and this unrest is not only unprecedented but it is ubiquitous. There is no danger of any save the most stupid and narrow-minded and short-sighted of persons not recognising the great gravity of the situation that lies before us.
But though the situation is serious, I think this unrest is not in itself a bad thing. It is part of a struggle for better conditions on the part of the workers of this country. It is part of a struggle for what I think has become known as a place in the sun. It is part of a long developing movement which began with the first Factory Act, and which has gained force and effect ever since. From being a blind
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and groping movement it has become a conscious and connected effort. Not only has labour learnt its power, but labour has obtained an ethical conviction of the rights of its cause. This unrest is part of a deliberate revolt against the untrammelled nature of wealth getting, and this in itself is not bad. It is only the symptoms which we consider bad, and we must remember that the strikes are not the unrest; they are only the symptoms of the unrest. Moreover, strikes may be held to be better than riots, and one of the matters on which we may congratulate ourselves is that the recent industrial revolts have been conducted in an orderly manner. We must all deplore these symptoms, but if we cure the disease the symptoms will cease. As Burke said, the people have no interest in disorder. That is perfectly true. None suffer more than the poor themselves by the disorder of industrial strife. During the coal strike and the railway strike it was not the rich, not the small classes of the people that suffered; it was the great masses of the people who were reduced to misery and sometimes destitution. What we have set before us to-day is to find out how to give labour its due without these upheavals of industry. That is the problem. I know, of course, there is a school of thought which denies that any new situation has arisen, and which says this is only a matter of the old strike again, and which goes on to say that to-day labour is crushed and the coffers of labour are empty. In my opinion this is a profound mistake. It shows a lack of what I may call historic perspective.
It has always been difficult to realise when we have been in the midst of a fundamental change. It was the case when England passed from being an agricultural country to an industrial country. No foresight was shown during that transition, and we had to pay very bitterly afterwards. I believe to-day we are in the midst of another fundamental change. I believe it is no good trying blindly to fight it. If we try we are condemned, not only to more strikes, which are costly and inflict hardships on everyone, more particularly on the poorer classes, but we are condemned to failure in the end. We can avoid future trouble, but only by rational action instead of what I may call muddling on. In every voyage, especially on un-travelled seas, the time may come when the course has to be altered. We have had a good many warning breakers to tell

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us that our course may perhaps have to be changed. It is surely time that we surveyed our charts, shortened sail, and heaved the log. I say more. If we do merely muddle on, if we do not see that this problem is faced, and if we do not show that our resources are adequate to deal with the problem, then not only we, as the Liberal party, but all of us as an assembly, have failed in our duty, and we have earned a great deal of that abuse which is showered at present, perhaps unjustly, on our heads. What form is that action to take if action we are to take? My Resolution asks merely for an inquiry. That is not because I think definite action and definite legislation are unnecessary. It is because I can conceive that too hasty and ill-considered legislation may perhaps do more harm than good. And, after all, we have been moving fairly fast lately. The Coal Mines Act was a novel, perhaps a revolutionary departure. It was an experiment, and we are now in process of seeing how it works. We shall learn a good deal from the operation of the Coal Mines Act. I think, perhaps, it may be well not to move too hastily until we can see what the definite results of the experiment of the minimum wage will be. Without sure knowledge of our ground, and without thorough consideration of practical details, I believe it would be folly to move.
I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) has given notice of an Amendment to the Resolution. That Amendment expresses ideas with many of which I am in complete sympathy. While I am in complete sympathy with the hon. Member's ideas, I wish to know how the details of these ideas are to be worked out. Are they in a condition in which they can be translated into action of a definite and practical kind? Do we know that if they are carried out, they will cure this labour unrest. If my hon. Friend can show that it is so, then I am certainly with him, and I should be perfectly prepared to assent to his Amendment. I presume the details are worked out; otherwise why do we find it laid down that eight hours should be a working day? Why not seven hours or six hours? There must be some statistics to show that eight is a practical maximum. No doubt we shall be told why he proposes eight hours. I should like to be told at the same
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time what the minimum wage suggested is, because, if we are to take this action we must know what it is. We must not pass a Resolution vaguely in favour of a minimum wage without knowing the method by which it is to be brought into operation, or the exact amount it is to be. I should like to know how the minimum wage is to be fixed, and to have some financial details as to the cost of the nationalisation of railways, mines, and other monopolies, because, if these matters are in a fit state for action, we ought to have practical details. Unless they are in a fit state for immediate action, there is no good pretending for a moment we can take that action. In respect of all these things I am waiting for details. I should also like to know my hon. Friend's reason for thinking that the passage of these measures would cure and put an end to the present state of unrest. I say that in theory a good many of them have my heartiest sympathy. If the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil can give the practical details I have spoken about I admit that would save the inquiry I am asking for, and I am sure that no one will be more glad than myself to see the necessity for an inquiry done away with.
But I say that an inquiry should be the first step. If that is the best course, what should be the scope of the inquiry, and what form should it take? I think it is the best course, and I am glad to find that in this view I am supported by the Government, because in a Debate in this House a short time ago, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Hobhouse) said:—
"The Government are prepared—indeed, have already begun—to make some limited inquiries as to the rise in prices and as to the cost of living in this country; but I think it would be much more satisfactory if we could get a far wider inquiry than that which has been carried out in other countries, and we should be prepared to assent to some far wider inquiry than is going on at the present moment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th March, 1912, col. 556.]
That is entirely satisfactory. But one of the qualifications which I think should be laid down for any inquiry is that it should be a speedy inquiry, and that it should not take too long in its operations. We are threatened with further industrial unrest—another railway strike, another coal strike, and difficulties in the cotton trade. How far this will be realised I do not know, but it is quite obvious that the sooner we come to a conclusion on this matter, the safer and better it will be for the country. For many reasons I think that now is a suitable time for such an inquiry. We are in a state of comparative tranquillity in the

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industrial world. It is good policy not to conduct operations in a time of stress. Sometimes, as in the case of the Coal Mines Act, it is impossible not to do so. But there are manifest advantages in dealing with cases when they are not in the acute stage. Moreover, all sides of the question will be calmly considered. There are more sides to the question than those of the employers and the employed. No one has stated that more accurately than the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald). He stated that there are three sides to the question. He used these words:—
"We cannot possibly allow capital and labour simply to fight out their own battles, we, standing on one side, looking on. We are too fond of imagining there are two sides only to a dispute. There are three sides to every dispute; there is the side of capital, there is the side of labour, and there is the side of the general community; and the general community has no business to allow capital and labour, righting their battles themselves, to elbow them out of consideration. We are bound to take upon ourselves our responsibility; and, if capital is wrong, we must enforce right upon it. At the same time, and I do not hesitate to say, if labour is wrong, then we must do the same."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February, 1912, col. 53.]
Now is the time, when there is no great industrial conflict in progress, to try to work out the three sides of this question. For these reasons I conceive that now is the best time for a searching inquiry into industrial unrest.
What should be the scope of the inquiry? In the Resolution it is suggested that it should inquire into the causes and remedies of industrial unrest. It is a very large field. Since the Resolution appeared on the Paper I have received a great many letters on the subject giving various persons' opinions as to the causes and remedies. They cover a large area. The causes cover an area extending from the National Insurance Act, which has not yet come into operation, to the grievance of a local fire brigade. The remedies suggested extend from a tax on land to the teaching of tidiness to maid-servants. All these different proposals seem to me to show the absolute necessity for an inquiry of some kind. I do not pretend that others may not be more in a position to judge of the causes and remedies than my correspondents, but I think that even in the highest quarters we may surmise there is doubt as to the causes and remedies of industrial unrest. Far be it from me to usurp the functions of the inquiry, but I think it may be useful if I touch on some of the points which fall within the scope of such an inquiry.
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First, as to the causes. There is one section which seems to be in a state of pessimism as to industrial unrest. It says that the cause of it all is civilisation itself; that it is an irremediable evil, which the power of money causes; that the old order is gone, there is no humanity in industry, there are no bonds between workmen and employers, the old bonds will never return, and the future of industry is a future which cannot be looked upon with any anticipation except one of misery. I remember an article in the "Westminster Review," which breathed a profound pessimism. Probably it was written by a very young person. It said that these things were the cause of industrial unrest, and it wound up by saying that the only remedies were to be found in free intracranial circulation and a diet free from poison. I do not pretend to understand what "free intracranial circulation" means, but it shows the type of surmise which has been appearing on the subject in quite respectable papers and magazines. I do not share the pessimism exhibited in these quarters. The whole system may be indeed at fault, but if it will not work we shall simply have to scrap it, if necessary. I refuse absolutely to believe that the resources of humanity at present are exhausted. Another reason which is given very often has to be taken much more seriously. It is that the greatest cause of industrial unrest is the general feeling on the part of labour that it is not getting its due share of the world's goods. That is a reason which we have got to take very seriously indeed. Since the time of the Factory Acts synthetic reason has come to labour's assistance. It is said, "Why should we not have our fair share?" This is partly economic reasoning. It is also partly ethical, that is to say, the worker realises he has a right to demand a chance in life. It is also partly scientific. He realises that if he is given a chance he is as good as any. No doubt he is sometimes rash in his assumptions, and sometimes a little crude in his reasoning. He overestimates the extent and the value of great riches, but in the main he is right. The balance to-day is on the wrong side, and the worker has now become well aware of it.
What is this new recognition, this fresh inspiration, this increasing force due to? I conceive it is due very largely to education, and education which is still insufficient, but which is sufficient to carry the

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worker far beyond his ancestors in this matter of reasoning on his place in the world. Moreover, we have seen during the last few years a great influx of cheap literature of the very best quality, and workmen are able to read and study a great deal more than they have ever been able to before. Another thing which has an effect is what he has seen and heard during the last ten years. We have seen all over the world riches exhibiting themselves, if I may put it in that way, more flamboyantly than they have ever done in the past. I believe that the motor car itself has been responsible for a great deal. At this very time, when the poor man's cottage has been dusted by motor cars and his hedge has been whitened, he has been given an increasingly efficient education and a larger area of thought, and he is beginning to say to himself, "why have some people all the good things in this world and why have I so little share in them? I do not want to make any party points in this Debate, but at the same time I do think that the attitude of one section of the rich on matters of taxation has had no little effect on the poorer classes of this country. I think that if we had not heard so much outcry over the Budget, we should not have had quite so much industrial unrest as that with which we are faced to-day. The result of all this has been the awakening of the people to what I might call a sense of their birthright. It is an idealism; it may be crude idealism; it may be also blind idealism; but it is an idealism, and the cruder and blinder it is, the more it needs our guidance and assistance. But in the main, and on the whole, it is a right idealism, for it is founded on facts and on right assumptions.
I believe there is another cause of industrial unrest though perhaps it is not so often referred to. I believe that a large section of the working classes have a feeling of dissatisfaction at the results of political action. They began with false dreams. When they saw the advent of the Labour party in this House they expected miracles. I hope that my hon. Friends on the Labour benches will not think it impertinent or patronising for me to say that that is entirely unjustified, as they have done all they could, and a great deal of thanks is due to them from the working classes. But they cannot do miracles, and miracles were expected of them. I believe that that
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feeling on the part of the working classes, that distrust of political action, will pass. Industrial power is not complete without political power, and leaders will always be wanted for the workers. I say this in spite of the Syndicalist doctrine that leaders must be done away with—the motto of Syndicalists being, as far as I can make out "Do not follow my leader." More, everything depends in future on what leaders the Labour party will get in this country. A fourth cause of labour unrest, and one which is generally appreciated, is the rise in the cost of the necessaries of life. Undoubtedly there has been a stoppage, or at all events a slackening, in the material progress of the working classes. The fact is that things have been moving in a circle. Increased wages have been met with by increased prices, and the consumer pays an increased price on the article on which the wage has been increased. And just as all trades, and so far as all trades, tend to this situation, so all consumers tend to pay on all the necessaries of life. In this way increased wages have been neutralised to some extent at all events by increased prices, and I do not see in what way at the present moment it is going to be stopped. The final outcome of increased wages is that prices are raised, and if you raise prices you to a certain extent neutralise the effect of increased wages. This cessation of economic progress has a great deal to do with unrest. Those to my mind are the chief causes which lie at the root of the present industrial situation.
I now come to the question of remedies. There have been many suggestions, and in the articles and letters which I have read lately there has been a vast field of possible remedies exhibited. Here, again, we have the pessimist, who says that economic law will prevent any remedy at all, that industry will be crushed if labour asks for more. If that is so it must be demonstrated to labour. It can be demonstrated in two ways if it is true, which I do not believe. It can be demonstrated by the empirical method, by strikes and breaking industries, or it can be demonstrated by reason and by bringing the actual facts of the situation to the eyes and ears of the people. I think that would be the better way, and to that extent I consider an inquiry will serve a useful purpose. The truth is there is no panacea and no one remedy

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for industrial unrest. Any remedies to be effective must necessarily touch the causes and deal with genuine grievances as to wages, and so on, and they must carry conviction to the people at large as well as bring to them a sense of co-operation instead of a sense of strife. No one remedy can completely fulfil all those conditions, and many remedies do not deserve inquiry. For instance, there is the doctrine of meeting strikes by mere force, which merely says "put down strikes," and which has been illustrated by Sir Henry Seton-Karr in the April number of "The Fortnightly." It has been also illustrated in another paper by Mr. Sichel, who prescribes, as far as I can make out, national service as an excellent remedy for all industrial unrest. Those remedies, to my mind, are all short-sighted, and they do not even deserve inquiry. We have got to oppose industrial unrest not by brute force, but by reason and justice. Another remedy we have heard a great deal discussed of late in this House is that of Syndicalism. It is a new and interesting development, but as it has been dealt with quite recently, I do not propose to go into it. It is not only interesting, but in some ways I think it must prove extremely attractive to a certain class of mind. One thing I may say about Syndicalism is that it is not of the slightest use "shrieking" against it. Mr. Benjamin Kidd, in the "Times," the other day, wrote:—
"Syndicalism must be dealt with in the same manner as the classes that have preceded it have been dealt with. Its opponents must meet the demands of labour with a truer conception of the interests of the community than Syndicalism has got."
I am not one of those who think that labour is incapable of managing a concern any more than are shareholders of managing a concern; at the same time I think that the Syndicalist ideal is impossible and undesirable in its aim; and that its methods would not only be fraught with evil consequences, but would not even tend to the accomplishment of the object which they set out to attain. We next come to the remedy—and here I am afraid I approach a party question—advanced by some persons for industrial unrest which has received a certain amount of attention in the columns of the "Times," and that remedy is Tariff Reform. I should be very glad to see an inquiry on that subject in regard to the effect of Protection upon real wages. I should not dread inquiry at all; I should be very glad to see it instituted, but
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I am perfectly certain that it would prove that in the matter of real wages Protection has no good effect at all, and that it would do harm to the workers and not good. As I understand the Tariff Reform argument, prices must be artificially raised, so that the workers can get more wages. We say that the increased prices would probably go elsewhere than into the workers' pockets. We deny that experience or reason show that the effect of Protection is to raise wages. Our principle is to see wages raised first, as by the Minimum Wage Bill. We say—and I think it is what we shall see proved—that the idea that if you raise wages you are going to ruin industry is an idea which will be very largely exploded. At all events, I think this would be proved, that nowhere in the world do the workers get a greater share of the fruits of industry than they do in this country—that is to say, there is no place where real wages bear so large a proportion to the total profit as they do in this country. If it can be shown that there are places where that is not the case, if it can be shown that there are places where the better condition of labour is due to Protection, then I am perfectly willing to reconsider my position on this question. The next remedy was suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour), who thinks that the hopes of the future lie in education. That certainly is to a very large extent true, and I think there, again, is another point which may be usefully submitted to inquiry. Next there is a suggested remedy, which deserves very serious consideration, and that is compulsory arbitration. I think on that point, especially, some form of inquiry would prove very useful indeed. On the whole, I am inclined to agree with my hon. Friend (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) that compulsory arbitration in the end must fail. I think we have seen instances in Wellington, New Zealand, and in Australia that, if compulsory arbitration is pushed to its limits, it must fail. Men strike in spite of the law, and before they come back they demand an amnesty; and I fail to see how you can prevent that. But although I confess that it seems to me that ultimately compulsory arbitration must fail, I do feel that weight attaches to the view of Mr. Sidney Low, who recently wrote an interesting article in the "Fortnightly" on Anti-Strike-Legislation in Australia. He said:—
"Though it is true that the Arbitration Acts have not abolished the strike, they have, at any rate,

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effected a great deal. The law has created an atmosphere which is completely adverse to the strikes on a great scale."
At all events, a great deal can be done, short of compulsory arbitration, by strengthening the machinery of arbitration to create, as far as possible, an atmosphere of conciliation. But I do think that the whole of this subject needs further elucidation, and this is one of the points I should be inclined to think an inquiry would elucidate better than almost any other plan. Next we come to the chief remedy advocated by my hon. Friends below the Gangway—the remedy of nationalisation. Nationalisation, as I understand it to-day, is restricted to monopolies in the Labour party's programme; and fiscally I am entirely in accordance with the theory of nationalising monopolies. I do not pretend to say that it is a possible thing in all cases to do; I think it is possible in regard to railways, but it is not possible with regard to mines at present. At all events, it is a question which demands serious consideration. This question is not a fiscal, but an industrial one. I do not think that nationalisation of monopolies would cure industrial unrest; in fact, I think that experience shows that it does not; but I believe it may help and assist, and that you may be able to get more wages under the State than from an employer. But I do not think it matters twopence to the workman whether he gets his wages from the State or from a private employer. What he wants is to get as much wages as he can, and he has as much desire to strike against the State as against an ordinary employer when he wants more wages. Nationalisation, therefore, does not cure industrial unrest. In Continental countries some of the worst strikes we have had have been in connection with State railways. New Zealand and Australia are other cases in point. When we turn from the nationalisation of railways to the nationalisation of other things the subject becomes a very much more complex one. We are to be asked by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) to adopt a policy which has never been considered seriously in detail. We must have some details as to the nationalisation even of railways before contemplating a policy to be carried in the next months or the next years. As soon as we have definite financial details, then perhaps will be the time to consider the adoption of a policy. I should like to see one part of this inquiry directed to finding out how
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far nationalisation has stopped strikes where it has been tried. I rather fancy it would be found that the idea of nationalisation in reference to its effect upon industrial unrest is, at all events to a certain extent, a fallacious one.
9.0 P.M.
There is one other remedy suggested for industrial unrest, and that is a remedy too, which, to my mind, deserves the most careful and thorough consideration. It is the idea of extending the minimum wage to all industries. By that I conceive it is not meant to introduce a flat minimum for the whole of this country. Certainly I do not mean to suggest any such thing. I think the index figures of prices in different parts of the Kingdom would absolutely put an end to the idea of any flat minimum which would be equitable. But, if it is meant by that that we are to apply in other industries the same principle which has been applied by the Coal Mines Act, then I think it deserves the most serious consideration. After all, we have entered upon this principle of a minimum wage. We have entered on this idea of a low-water line in one great industry, and before that we had Boards dealing with other industries of an entirely opposite character. I conceive it is too late to go back. I believe we have begun a policy which will have to be considered as to its extension to other industries besides the Coal Mines. I am glad to see that even Sir Henry Seton Karr supports this idea, because he says in the "Fortnightly" that if the principle is applicable to the coal trade it is, a fortiori, even more applicable to most other industries. That is another subject which I conceive to be one into which inquiry should be made. Lastly, there is the question of co-operation and co-partnership. That is a solution which has been very much favoured, both inside this House and outside, and very deservedly so, but we have not yet had any real consideration of the practical details as to co-partnership and cooperation in different industries. There, again, it seems to me we need further information and inquiry into the subjects of co-partnership and co-operation as regards different trades. It is, when you come to think of it, a peaceful form of Syndicalism on a small scale. It is allowing men to take over an industry and manage it themselves. Syndicalists say that the men are capable of managing industry and co-partnership says the same thing. The essential difference of Syndicalism is, first of all, the scale on which it is proposed to be carried out, and

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the methods by which it is proposed to be introduced. Those are fallacious and impossible. The idea that industries could be run and could be managed by a society of the workers I think is a perfectly sane and sound idea. That idea is, as I say, co-partnership and nothing more. I read the same thing in so respectable a paper as the "Times" the other day, that it is Syndicalism on a small scale attained by peaceful means. One thing is perfectly certain, the more you can manage to connect the workers with the profit and management of great industrial concerns, the more likelihood you have of peace in the industrial world. Mazzini said:—
"From slave to serf, from serf to wage-servant, from wage-servant to partner."
We are carrying through that programme to a certain extent. I believe it will be carried through to the end. There, again, I say there is ample field for inquiry. So there are certain subjects into which inquiry should be made. First as to the causes of industrial unrest, and then as to remedies, and more especially what I may call certain specific, solid remedies. There is, first of all, compulsory arbitration, and next there is the effect of nationalisation in preventing strikes, and there is the minimum wage and how far that is capable of extension to other industries, and there is co-partnership and co-operation, and, lastly, there is education. All those subjects seem to me to be worthy of authoritative and careful and searching inquiry.
Now I come to the last section of what I have to say. I apologise to the House, but this is really a very complex and difficult question, and I have been trying to go into it as thoroughly as I have been able, because I conceive that nothing but a thorough and exhaustive inquiry would be of real use. The last section of my speech shall be as to the form of the inquiry. I confess it is a very difficult subject. I found it so when I was trying to frame a Resolution. On the one hand you have issues so grave and complex that they need very deep and searching inquiry. On the other hand it is quite obvious that your procedure must not be too long delayed. That is why I have taken refuge to-day in the phrase "appropriate methods of inquiry." I confess it is difficult to think of any form of procedure which is alike speedy and which would definitely and properly inquire into the causes of industrial unrest. The conditions of such an
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inquiry are that it must be thorough, that it must employ the highest authorities and the best brains in the Kingdom, and that it must get as far as possible facts, not opinions. It must be an open and unprejudiced inquiry. It seemed at first that a Royal Commission would be the most appropriate method, except for its length. I confess that the precedent of the Labour Commission of 1891 does not offer any encouragement as to a Royal Commission, but it has occurred to me that it might be possible to institute a small series of Special Commissions or Special Committees, on the various heads, such as compulsory arbitration, the effect of nationalisation on strikes, and so on. This small number of Committees could sit simultaneously, work quite fast, and could produce a mass of evidence under various heads as to industrial unrest, the causes, and the remedies. No doubt there are arguments against this course, but there are arguments against any course. We should have at all events much further light thrown on many of the great factors in this industrial unrest. If necessary, the Chairmen of those small Committees might afterwards sit together to form some sort of general Report.
Mr. COOPER: Would you say on what basis those Committees should be formed?
Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMS: That, of course, is a matter for consideration. As long as you got the most widely representative persons and had at their back the assistance of the Government Departments, I think they could usefully conduct the inquiries. You would have to have the members pertinent to the subject considered. Thus in co-partnership you would have those with a knowledge of that subject and of its effects on labour and industry, and also representatives of industries not run as co-partnerships at present, and so on. I think that could be arranged. I have seen reports in the newspapers that a Cabinet Committee is sitting on the matter of industrial unrest. I do hope that is not to be all. After all, the public are concerned in this matter. The public have a right to see this matter investigated. It concerns them very deeply. After all, it is good that the public should know and learn all the details and all the questions involved in this industrial unrest. And I think it is good for us that they should know and learn these things, because, although we as a House of Commons are supposed to rule

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in this land, in the ultimate instance the people are the authority. Not only will inquiry not carry conviction unless its proceedings and processes are made patent, but probably action founded on any other than open inquiry will run far greater risk of being called into question and of being called party action than action founded on inquiry conducted in an open way. I therefore trust that if the Cabinet Committee finds this subject deserving of thorough investigation and of far-reaching inquiry, it will arrange that an inquiry of a public nature shall be made. I fear that I have occupied a very long time, but, as I say, this is a very complex subject, involving vast and vital issues. We are in a period of change, and unless we recognise that we are in a period of fundamental change, unless we take the matter in hand to-day, not only we, but those who come after us, will rue it. I believe that the spirit behind this unrest is a right spirit, and that it will prevail; I believe that labour will get, and rightly get, a larger share of this world's goods; and I conceive it to be our duty, as the ruling body in this great nation, to see to it that labour gets its due without the miseries and calamities of industrial strife.
Mr. A. F. WHYTE: I beg to second the Motion.
The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Crawshay-Williams) has travelled over a wide field in laying his Resolution before the House. I will not venture to go over the whole of that field, but will devote myself to one corner of it. I conceive that an evening obtained under the private Members' ballot is most usefully employed in ventilating a subject rather than in endeavouring to arrive at definite conclusions. I readily admit that that is why I am here to second this Motion. But in this case we can combine the ventilation of probably the most important social question of the day with a direct demand upon the Government that it should make full inquiry into the matter. As to what that inquiry should be, I hope to say a word before I sit down. In the meanwhile, the plain fact before us in discussing this question is that industrial unrest in this country is only part of a world-wide movement that has been disturbing populations both east and west. It has taken various forms in various countries, and though in some senses it has come in recent months to a more acute point in this country, it has none the less shown symptoms of a
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similar character in other countries. Whence does that world-wide movement arise? There are certain persons in this country who tell us that it is merely the work of agitators, that if you got rid, for instance—if he will forgive my saying so—of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie), or of Mr. Vernon Hartshorn, you would get rid of the whole trouble. That is, I think, a very profound mistake. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester reminds me that the agitators are not all on one side, but that they are to be found on both sides in any industrial dispute. He is quite right. But even if you got rid of the extremists on both sides, the main question would still be with us. After all, the sparks from a passing engine will light no grass unless the grass is dry already. In this case the grass undoubtedly was, and is, dry.
I would remind those who suggest that this is merely the work of agitators, of the different kind of treatment which they mete out to those who happen to express exactly the same opinions as these agitators, except that they express them in what I may call the language of the University rather than the language of the mill and the factory. For instance, when my hon. Friend the Member for the Stirling Burghs (Mr. Ponsonby) publishes a. book entitled "The Camel and the Needle," he is told by the "Spectator" that the book contains the amiable aspirations of a sentimental Radical. But when the very facts and the conclusions drawn from those facts to be found in that book are expressed in somewhat rougher language by the miners of South Wales, we are immediately told to call out the police and the troops and shoot them down. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Surely if the opinions expressed by the hon. Member for the Stirling Burghs—opinions which he supported by calling in evidence the vast accumulated wealth of this country and comparing it with the dire poverty in which many people live—if that evidence is sufficient to support the conclusions and the "amiable aspirations of a sentimental Radical," and if those opinions are to be passed over with a gentle pat on the back in that way, surely we may be allowed to say that those who use the same arguments and adduce the same evidence in support of practically the same conclusions in another sphere, ought to be entitled to the sympathetic ear of this House.
I take it that the present industrial unrest, of which I do not believe we have

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yet seen the end, is mainly the outcome of the conjunction of two forces which had their origin in the nineteenth century; first of all, the great accumulation of wealth during the nineteenth century, on a scale and at a pace absolutely unprecedented in the history of the world, and, taken along with that, the education of the people of this country, which gave them access to all kinds of economic doctrines, good, bad and indifferent, and which now enables them to come forward and place their arguments before the people of this country and before this House in a manner in which they have never been able to do so before. You have, by educating them, given them the means of examining their own economic position; you have equally given them the means of examining the economic position of those who are at all events financially above them. I think no one ought to be surprised that, with the conjunction of these two phenomena of the nineteenth century, there should be now, at the beginning of the twentieth century, something of a conflagration. These various facts have been known to social inquirers for many years. They have driven men of reforming instincts to investigate the conditions of life in different localities, with the result that we have the monumental example of the excellent work which has been done and can yet be done, in the volumes of Mr. Booth on "Life and Labour in London." We have another example in the inquiry of Mr. Rowntree into the conditions of life in York. All over the country persons whose consciences have been awakened by the inequality of wealth have endeavoured to probe to the bottom the origin of those inequalities. Therefore we cannot say now that we have not had a great deal of inquiry. What we do say is that we have had inquiries devoted to specific points and directed to specific areas. The revelations which those inquiries have brought to light have been the common property of Members of Parliament and of social reformers of all classes for many years.
But those revelations have been brought home to the general community only by the general uprising of the working classes during the last few years. The facts with regard to life and labour in London, and the facts regarding conditions of life in York, well known to Mr. Rowntree and others, are only now becoming the common property of the people in general. As
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they have become the common property of those who possess both industrial and political power, you have immediately had a demand arising out of their new knowledge. I am not going to attempt to describe exactly what that demand has been. Members of this House know it very well, and it would be only a waste of time if I endeavoured to traverse that ground again. I will give one small quotation, or voice, out of the prevailing unrest, taken from an interesting journal called the "Railway Clerk." I am sorry the hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) is not present, because this happens to have reference to him. I am sure he will forgive me for quoting it in his absence. The extract is entitled "Dogs and Men." It runs as follows:—
"The tender-hearted Sir Frederick Banbury has introduced a Bill for the protection of dogs. But many clerks and station masters on the Great Northern Railway protest that they have a prior claim upon the hon. Member's consideration, and contend that he ought to see that justice is done to the salaried staff of his company."
I think that is a pertinent inquiry, but there is even a more pertinent inquiry to follow in the rest of the quotation:—
"The Company has recently issued a new edition of its booklet 'Where to Live.' The clerical staff maintain that the more urgent question is 'How to Live1 on the meagre salary meted out to them by Sir Frederick and his colleagues."
As I have said, I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman is not here to defend his position and that of his railway. I do not think that he will quarrel with me for giving the quotation I have, for the last few lines of it are pertinent to this inquiry for which we are asking. The whole question that presents itself to the working classes is, "How to Live?" They see that other classes of the community are enabled to live, I do not say on a lavish scale, but on a modest scale of comfort which they themselves have not been able to reach, and they ask, "Is it not right that the world should be so organised, and that industries should be so carried on, that those who are engaged in their thousands and millions in those industries should be able to live the same sort of life as those above them?" I said that this was a pertinent question, and the reason why it is pertinent is that it raises the whole economic position of the working classes of this country. It raises the question of the relation between rent and wages, and of the relation between real wages and the prices of necessaries, both of which were dealt with at some length by my hon. Friend. The prevailing unrest is simply an unanswerable answer

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to that question of "How to Live?" If we grant that, what have we to say to the prevailing unrest? If I in any sense have carried the House with me so far, I think hon. Members will admit, judging on the basis of what I have said, that the prevailing industrial unrest is in no sense a culpable movement, but is the inevitable product of forces which I have attempted to describe. It is a natural outcome of the position in which thousands, nay millions, of human beings live in this country; conditions which if they were known—and perhaps I should add "experienced"—would not be tolerated by this House or indeed by those who have sent us here.
We are asking for an inquiry into this question, and it may be asked if the inquiry must deal with the whole question. I think not, for in the whole question is embraced not only the origins of the industrial unrest, and questions of wages, into which I believe inquiry must be held, but questions of housing, the remedial principles of which we have already admitted, and the question of sweated labour. I name only these questions to show that this House can press forward on lines already laid down while the inquiry is going forward into matters that lie beyond. There is abundant material, but it needs collation, amalgamation, and examination—a sifting of the chaff from the wheat. So far as the greater questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester are concerned, I think these, on the contrary do need a thorough, exhaustive, and searching inquiry, which would enlist public confidence. I am not going to pursue the general question any further, but I should like to add one word in relation to the position of many hon. Members of the House, especially on this side. Those hon. Members have come into this House wearing party colours admittedly, come into this House as partisans, but they have come into this House as partisans not simply because of any love for party politics pure and simple, but because they saw in the Liberal party the most representative engine of progressive Government that exists in this country at the present time, and because they wished as speedily as possible to enlist their own energies to carrying forward the objects, which are in the mind of the Liberal Government. Hon. Gentlemen opposite will, no doubt, tell me that after all it makes very little difference what motives bring men to this House, for their behaviour in this House
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is very much the same. I think I am entitled to deny that, and to say at all events so far as I am concerned, and a good many other Members on these benches, that the moment the Liberal party deviates from the path of what they consider to be true social reform that moment they will leave the Liberal party.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: The speeches we have listened to have impressed upon, the House one fact, and that is that the time at our disposal this evening for discussing this question is ridiculously insufficient. The hon. Member who introduced the Resolution spoke for fifty minutes. I do not blame him for it. I quite agree, if he wished to traverse all the subjects that he apparently did wish to traverse, that it was quite impossible for him to have taken less time. I do think that if we do want really seriously to consider this question the Government must find us further time. The hon. Member who has just sat down said that he came into the House a Liberal, he believes that the Liberals are the party of social reform, and if they show any sort of deviation from social reform he and others will leave the Liberal party. I have always immensely admired that curious superstition which enables Members of the Liberal party to believe in the usefulness of the party to which they belong. I do not desire on the present occasion to make in any sense a party attack. I desire, if possible, to compress my observations into a very short space of time. I agree that the unrest is widespread, and that it extends far beyond this country. I was very much interested in the discussion which occupied a good deal of the time of the Mover and Seconder as to how far the unrest was morally justifiable. I think that is a matter which is really not for us to consider at all. I am not certainly going to say that the unrest is not morally justifiable, but that aspect of the case does not come within our purview.
The question asked is as to the cause of the unrest and what can be done to remedy it. The cause is, I quite agree, an attempt to get better terms for labour. That is the chief cause. No one can doubt it. It may well be that the cause has been increased and exasperated by the improved education which we have, fortunately and properly, been able to afford to our people, and by other circumstances to which other Members have alluded. But the essential thing is the demand for higher wages. Hon. Members believe that that demand

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can be met by the grant of the minimum wage, and so on. I do not believe in that remedy myself in the least bit, and I should not be acting truthfully to the House if I said I did. I believe your system at the present is based upon a system of bargaining, and that rash and violent interference with the bargaining by either side is not going to be of any advantage to the working classes or to the employers. I do not believe it will obtain ultimately any better terms for the working classes; I do believe it will operate as a discouragement to enterprise and energy with the employers. Therefore I prefer to say that what is really necessary is not essentially higher wages, but it may be a better division of the profits of industry, and I shall have a word or two to say about that later on, but I wish to say this further, that I do not believe it is a fundamental difficulty in the present situation. I believe the fundamental difficulty is this, that we have outgrown our industrial system. It was taken over, as one hon. Member said very justly, from days when the greater part of this country was agricultural, and it rested essentially upon this, that there was a personal relationship between the employed and the employer.
I do not myself take the harsh view which hon. Members opposite do of our present agricultural system. I believe, on the whole, that it works far better than any other part of our industrial system, because you have largely preserved there the personal relation which you have destroyed elsewhere in your industrial system. I am not complaining of anybody; I think it was an essential and inevitable result of two things. In the first place it was due to the introduction of the factory system, because you had there a great sub-division of labour and the great monotonisation of labour, if I may coin a word, which ensued, and the fact that one man is constantly employed to do the same thing not seeing the result of his labour and having no human relation with the result. I am very sorry to have to put these matters so crudely and dogmatically, but I am doing it in the interests of time. The other great fact has been the introduction of the company system, again the fault of no one. As industries became larger, and, in my view, that was inevitable with the advance of what we call civilisation you had the factory system on the one hand, which produced the division of labour, and the company system on the other hand, which produced
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the aggregation of capital. Both had this common effect, that they destroyed all human element in industry. In the great companies you cannot have personal relationship between the shareholders and the workmen. It is impossible. Shareholders are organised through agents who are not themselves the owners and managers of businesses, and the workman feels this, or sees it in the papers constantly, and knows there is no means of getting any human feeling in the machine which, as flesh and blood, he forms a working part. I believe these two causes are quite as much at the bottom of the whole trouble as the actual want in wages or the actual glaring divergence between riches and poverty at the present time.
I assure hon. Members I am not attempting to minimise the tremendous contrast that exists between wealth and poverty, but it is not in that either the difficulty lies. Do not let us deceive ourselves by thinking it is. This contrast between wealth and poverty has always been there, in a way, perhaps, that is less than it now was. It is not only that that is at the bottom of this unrest. It is that we have outgrown our industrial system to a large extent, and we must construct something fresh and new if we are to carry on our industries in this country. It would be quite impossible for me to attempt to deaf with the remedies proposed by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) and his friends—I am not sure whether I am right in calling the "Syndicalists" his friends—but proposed in what I may venture to call the revolution. I do not think they are practical; I do not myself think, if he will allow me to say so, that they have been worked out, and that he really knows, in pounds, shillings, and pence, the effect of what he proposes to do, and I am confident that the attempt to adopt them would cause such frightful misery to the class he represents that they would be the very first to condemn any such experiment. I think these demands of Socialism and Syndicalism do show profoundly that, consciously or unconsciously, the working classes, in my opinion, know that there is something wrong in the very organisation of industry at the present moment, and that they feel that and feel another thing also.
If I do not mistake the symptoms, I think they feel at present a distrust in the machinery of government. I am not going to repeat what I have often said in this House, the great danger I see is their

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distrust of this House and its efficiency; but I say this, that what I and others have preached in this House for many years past is producing an effect which we always said it must produce outside, namely, that people are more and more growing to distrust the Legislature and to think that they have not a chance of obtaining justice from the legislative machine. You see it from passive resistance on the one hand—I take examples from both sides. What was the cause of that? The Chancellor of the Exchequer will not contradict me when I say the cause of passive resistance was a feeling, right or wrong, among the Nonconformists that they had not been fairly represented in this House; that the House had done something which it had no authority to do. I do not say that they are right. I am merely showing what their feeling was. It was not so much the provisions of the Act of 1902 as that they were dissatisfied with the authority of the Legislature. So it is with the suffragettes. Many hon. Members are very angry, and among them the hon. Member who moved this Resolution, with the action of these women; but utlimately what is it that moved the women to do these things? They complained that they were not fairly treated by this House; that they were treated with chicanery and trickery, and that this House has no real authority to do what it does. I take another example, namely, the example of Ulster. It is the same complaint. I do not say if it is right or wrong; I do not wish to get into party controversy. Ulster says this House is going to do something which it has no authority to do in the name of the people of this country. So it is with industrial unrest.
What are the remedies for these two great difficulties? The hon. Members who have spoken have sought inquiry. Seriously, I do not think that inquiry offers any real or adequate remedy. Let me read the subjects into which inquiry should be made as they suggest—Tariff Reform, education, compulsory arbitration, nationalisation of railways and land, a minimum wage, co-partnership, and the hon. Member who spoke last, added, housing. If this is their remedy, I confess I have great sympathy with the concluding words of the Amendment on the Paper, that
"this House is, therefore, adverse to the delays of further inquiries, which only
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allow the public to forget the pressing nature of the unrest."
If that is the remedy of the official Liberal party, all I can say is they will find it very difficult to answer their Socialist friends.
Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMS: I suggested that before action be taken we had better consider very carefully such proposals as can be elucidated by inquiry.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: I do not follow that proposition—nothing should be done until after inquiry, but the hon. Member knows that inquiry is not a remedy. I do not think that inquiry should take the place of action. Let me point out that some of us on this side asked for an inquiry into one particular branch of that subject. Our first request was made last November. I do not say it was treated with anything but the utmost courtesy by the Government, but we have not yet got that inquiry set on foot, and the Government are still considering whether they will inquire or not. I am not complaining that the delay is unreasonable, because I know that Government is carried on under great difficulties, and that Ministers who have been in office for six years have been very much over-worked. I think if your only remedy is by way of inquiries you will find it very difficult to resist that part of my criticism. I believe this is a crisis of enormous importance and tremendous seriousness. At any minute we might find ourselves in an industrial war quite as serious as the recent coal strike or the railway strike. We have in this crisis to consider the actual difficulties of putting out the fire if a crisis should arise, because it must be an administrative matter which must be left to the Government of the day. It would be folly on the part of anybody who is not a Member of the Government even to suggest how an urgent crisis of that kind can be dealt with, because nobody but the Government can possibly have the knowledge as to its extent and nature. I say that this question must be dealt with courageously and with impartiality. There must be no shrinking even from the strongest measure if they are necessary to preserve order. That is the only contribution I can make to the settlement of this urgent crisis.
There is the chronic side of the question which must be dealt with. As to the

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industrial side of it, in my judgment the only hopeful remedy suggested is co-partnership. I cannot now develop the whole arguments in favour of co-partnership, but I am convinced that unless co-partnership is the remedy adopted, there is no other remedy for the present condition of affairs. If you cannot induce capital and labour to work more closely together than it does at the present time, then your whole industrial system will be in serious danger. With regard to the other matter of giving the public greater confidence in this House, personally I have no doubt that you must bring the electorate into closer relationship with this House, and that is the only way in which this object can be achieved. I have always been a strong supporter of the policy of the Referendum for that reason. I believe you must have a direct appeal from this House to the people to be carried out when there is any danger of injustice to one class or another, so that there will be no idea that this House, at the bidding of the bureaucracy, is carrying out a policy which has no authorisation from the people. Those are the two remedies which I suggest, and they have both this in common, that they bring into closer relationship the Government and the governed. On the industrial side you are going to give a share of the profits to those employed, and on the political side closer authority and control to the electorate. I believe that that is the only way out of the difficulty. I am sometimes accused of not being a democrat, but I venture to say that I am a truer democrat than a great many of those who have made democracy into a kind of fetish. When it comes to really setting up democratic authority, then hon. Members opposite tire the very first to draw back. I believe democracy to be not a fetish, but a fact. If we are to solve this industrial question it must be by a full and frank recognition that our Government is government of the people by the people for the people, both in industrial and in political matters.
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to move as an Amendment to leave out from the word "disturbances," to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words "are caused by a deplorable insufficiency of wages, which has persisted notwithstanding a great expansion of national wealth and a considerable increase in the cost of living, and shows the necessity for preventing the continuance of such unequal division of the fruits of
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industry by legislation securing the right to work, a maximum eight-hours' working day, a minimum living wage, and the nationalisation of railways, mines, land, and other monopolies; this House is therefore adverse to the delays of further inquiries which only allow the public to forget the pressing nature of the unrest, and calls upon the Government to introduce legislation with the least possible delay."
I do not intend to follow the Noble Lord opposite in his very interesting disquisition, but it occurred to me whilst he was speaking that if his faith in co-partnership is so great as it appears to be he and his Friends have a very excellent opportunity of giving it practical effect. I entirely agree with him in regard to what he said about the days that are gone when there was a more intimate relationship between employer and employed. Unquestionably much of the present trouble is due to bad relations between employer and employed. Hon. Members are aware of the condition of labour in the agricultural industry, and, if co-partnership is going to be a remedy, I know of no better field of operation than the land. If the landowners, the farmers, and the labourers came forward on those lines it might throw some light on the subject. With regard to co-partnership, I do not accept it as a remedy for strikes or industrial unrest. When this question was last mooted, I made a reference to the case of a mill in Yorkshire where co-partnership was in operation and where they had a strike. The end of that strike was that the trade union members were dismissed.
Mr. THEODORE TAYLOR: I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Member, but those men were not dismissed. I regret that I am obliged to introduce a personal matter of this kind. Very few of these men left. As a matter of fact, they dismissed themselves, and they were not dismissed. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil alluded to this matter at Question Time, and I have seen the representative of the men since, and he says dismissed is not the word that should be used.
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: At any rate, they were not taken back again after the strike. I am not casting any reflection upon the hon. Member. All I wish to point out is that co-partnership does not prevent strikes. The inquiry, according to the Mover and Seconder, would be conducted by men who do not understand the

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problem and who are incapable of appreciating the point of view of the working classes. It would simply be another of those academic inquiries of which nothing conies. The Mover of the Resolution said the matters he enumerated would all require to be inquired into, and I understood him to say they had not been inquired into. I am afraid his memory is somewhat short, though he is much younger than I am. Let me remind the House of the subjects to which he refers as needing inquiry which have already been inquired into in recent years either by Royal Commission, or Special Committee, or Departmental Committee. There was, first, the question of the Irish Railways, and the Committee reported in favour of nationalisation. That has been inquired into.
Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMS: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. Has an inquiry been made into the question whether nationalisation would prevent strikes? That is the point.
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: The point was in regard to nationalisation. That has been inquired into, and no amount of theorising by a small Committee can forecast what is going to happen under nationalisation. The nationalisation of canals has been inquired into and approved of. The question of the minimum wage, apart from the matter of strikes altogether, has been inquired into in the sweated industries, and the outcome has been the Minimum Wages Board for sweated industries now in existence. Some years ago there was a Royal Commission on Labour, which sat for years and took evidence from all sorts and conditions of people, with the usual result, of course—that nothing was done. In 1894–5 a Special Committee, of which I was a Member, sat to inquire into unemployment and the remedies for unemployment, but nothing came of it. There have been several inquiries during recent years in regard to afforestation, but practically nothing has been done. There was a Royal Commission on the Poor Law, which presented two very elaborate Reports some three years ago, but beyond that nothing has happened. We have had inquiries into the housing, and there is no social subject where the law is stronger or where the local authorities have better or more complete powers than in regard to housing. So I submit there have been inquiries galore in the past. The time for inquiry is past;
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action is now required. It is all very well for us to discuss here academically what should be done, and to appoint nice respectable Committees; but outside there is seething unrest, and the appointment of these Committees will simply accentuate it and add to it. There have been several expressions of opinion as to the causes of unrest. The poverty cause is well known. The late Leader of the Liberal party (Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman) at the General Election of 1906 put his imprimatur upon the statement that one-third of the population of Great Britain—he founded his opinion on Reports prepared by Mr. Charles Booth and Mr. Seebohm Rowntree—were living either in poverty or on the poverty line. The last ten years have accentuated every evil that then existed. Let me give the House these figures. During those ten years, the first ten years of this century, the cost of living, according to the Board of Trade returns, has increased by 12½ per cent., or 2s. 6d. in the £, but the increase in wages obtained by the working classes comes on an average to only 1d. per week.
Mr. BIGLAND: Is that for trade unionists only?
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: No, that is from the Board of Trade returns.
Mr. PETO: The hon. Member is understating his case. The increase in the cost of living is 3s. in the £.
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I am speaking of the first ten years of this century, and during those years this House has practically done nothing. The workers have been crying out for a fuller share of life. Education has been growing, and the demand for more of the advantages of civilisation has been increasing; but, whilst there has been this increase in the demand, there has been a lessening of the power to satisfy the demand. Parliament has been looked to for help in this matter, and we have "bidden him eat the east wind." Various reforms have been proposed, but all these things have been tinkering with effects without touching causes. Let me enumerate very briefly what has been done. Pensions have been given to the aged over seventy, but the need for pensions is due to the poverty-stricken life, owing to low wages, which the workers have to endure until they are seventy. Insurance! There is attached to it irritating conditions and a burdensome payment

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for which there was not the slightest necessity, since a small addition to the Income Tax or to the Tax on Land Values would have found all the money necessary to pay for the cost of insurance. I came now to the reform most referred to to-night, the miners' minimum wage, and I cite this as a sample of the way the House plays with this question. Take the two figures the men asked to be inserted in that Bill, 5s. per day for men and 2s. per day for boys, 5s. per day for men who go down into the pit risking their lives in winning coal. The House refused to put the figures in the Bill. What has happened? The independent chairman of of the South Wales district—a former Member of this House, a gentleman who is highly respected, and whose impartiality and sense of fair play will not be questioned for a moment, Lord St. Aldwyn—has given a decision under the Act that the minimum wage for a labourer in a coal pit is to be 3s. a day, plus whatever percentage may be current. At the present time the percentage is just over 50. Fifty per cent. on 3s. makes 4s. 6d. per day, but the percentage varies with the rise and fall in the price of coal. The minimum percentage to which wages can fall is 35, and the maximum to which it may rise is 60 per cent. So this underground labourer for whom Parliament has legislated can have a maximum wage of 4s. 9d. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] If hon. Members will allow me to finish, they will find I am right. His minimum wage is 3s. On that he has at the present time 50 per cent.; that makes his present wage 4s. 6d. The percentage may go up to 60; that would make his minimum wage 4s. 9d. It may also go down to 35, and bring the minimum wage down to 4s.
That is the outcome of this House legislating for the working classes. And that is not all. The Government, afraid lest the chairmen should be a little more generous than it deemed they should be, have by means of letters to the "Times," written by the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Sydney Buxton) and by Sir George Askwith, practically given an instruction to the chairmen not to take the average earnings of the men into account when fixing the wage, but to take the actual daily rate being paid. I hold that to be responsible for the decision Lord St. Aldwyn has given. Remember that the workers who conducted this agitation are not the sweated workers, they are not the unskilled men, but they are really the better paid class of workmen, who are sick
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and tired of all this piffling. They want something done, and they look to this House, not to agree to a Resolution appointing a Committee with a mass of work which may occupy it for years to come, but to proceed at once not merely to mitigate the effects of poverty but to root out the causes of the poverty which obtains in their midst.
10.0 P.M.
There is one other aspect of the subject which must not be overlooked. The Noble Lord opposite asked in what way the nationalisation of our industries would remedy unrest and produce peace in our industrial areas. My answer is, it can be done in this way. At the present time every improvement in the condition of the workers is made a fresh pretext by the capitalist class for enriching themselves. Let me give one or two illustrations. The Minimum Wage Act passed this House a few weeks ago. It meant an increase in the cost of getting coal of 2d. and, in some districts, 3d. per ton. At the very worst the increase might be 6d., but that would only be in very exceptional cases. What has happened? Already here in the city of London the consumer is told that, because of the increase in the cost of getting the coal, due to the Minimum Wage Act, there is to be a permanent increase of 2s. 6d. per ton in the price charged to the consumer! So, although that Act was passed ostensibly for the benefit of the miner, it will be the mine owner who will be enriched. [An HON. MEMBER: "The middleman."] Yes, perhaps mainly the middleman. Again, take the case of the railways. There is an attempt being made to increase the wages of railway men, and the Government is bringing in a Bill giving the railway companies power to increase their rates. That is to say, they desire to take from the public not only all that the rise in wages will cost them, but as much more as they can squeeze out of it. The same thing occurs with regard to all rises of wage in the matter of rent. Every time a rise takes place rents go up. The only remedy for this is to nationalise the mines, the railways, and the land. The hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Crawshay-Williams) was very much concerned about the cost. He wanted me to tell him what these things were going to cost. But the cost is a matter of no consequence. It does not concern us in any way whatever. By nationalisation these things would be added to the national wealth. If you issue Government

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stock to the railway shareholders you will have as an asset the railways, and the profits now going into the pockets of the shareholders will go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The same would be the case with the mines and the land. Cost, therefore, is a matter of no consequence, the only thing to be feared is that the Government might be called upon to pay too much for them. That is one danger which was foreseen by the late Mr. Gladstone in the middle of the last century when he set forth in an Act of Parliament the terms upon which railways are to be nationalised.
We can see no solution of the industrial problem short of Socialism. There is no good giving working men rises in wages if the landlords, the colliery owners, and the middlemen are going to take it for themselves and for their own benefit. That is not helping anyone or anything. The only remedy for that is to have the mines, the land, and industries generally the property of the community as a whole, so that the whole of the wealth created will belong to the community, and the present order would be reversed by which those who do really useful and hard work receive the smallest portion of that which their labour produces. The Members of the Labour party object to any special Committee or Royal Commission being set up to inquire into the labour question. We on these benches are here to speak for the Labour party. [An HON. MEMBER: "And for Socialism."] Some of us are Socialists I am proud to say, and many more are going to be Socialists. So long as capitalism continues, with all its heartlessness and tyranny, there is no hope for the common people. They will be Socialists. I rejoice at the fact that the working classes are becoming more and more socialistic. The more socialistic they become, the more unrest we are going to have. The socialist leaders and the trade union leaders object to a blacklegging committee being set up to do the work which we have been sent here specially to perform. I give this House and the Government this warning—if any of these make-believe committees are set up no single working class organisation in the country will appear before it and give evidence. I have been through Commissions both as a Member and as a witness, and there are very few things more irritating than to see some poor, simple-minded, honest workman brought from his trade and
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placed in the midst of a number of trained, skilled, legal and business men, to be plucked very much as a bird of prey plucks a pigeon. The working classes will give no evidence. They have formulated their demands. If this House does not satisfy the demands, so much the worse for the House. Syndicalism is the direct outcome of the apathy and the indifference of this House towards working class questions, and I rejoice at the growth of Syndicalism. The more Syndicalism we have outside, the quicker will be the pace at which this Chamber will move. Parliament never moves except in response to pressure, and the more pressure the more likelihood there will be of real drastic reforms being passed, and of the conditions of the workmen being improved.
Mr. J. H. THOMAS: I beg to second the Amendment.
I will limit my remarks to one particular industry, and I have no hesitation in saying that I do know the real cause of the unrest in the railway service at this moment. It is because in 1907 we stated as an organisation that there were 100,000 railway men getting less than £1 per week. That statement was contradicted in this House, it was contradicted before the Royal Commission, and a pamphlet has been issued for distribution among railway shareholders denouncing trade unionists in general, and myself in particular, for making such a statement, and suggesting that it was a deliberate untruth. Two months ago the Board of Trade issued their Returns. They are Returns from an impartial investigation. Look at the Returns, and you will find that it is there clearly stated that 97,000 railway men, excluding boys, are in receipt of less than £1 a week. That is the cause of the unrest in the railway service. We say that labour should be the first charge on industry. One other point only. Last year the railway companies of this country carried 40,000,000 tons more merchandise than they carried in 1900. Last year the railway companies carried 56,250,000 more passengers than they carried in 1900, and last year the railways ran 23,000,000 train miles less than they did in 1900. That means that when I myself was an engine-driver, less than six years ago, I was working trains carrying a certain load, and that to-day engine-drivers are working trains carrying double the load that I was carrying six years ago. That, in a few words, is the

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cause of the unrest in the railway service. When you remember that in ten years, according to the Government Returns, the increase in wages for railway men has only been a halfpenny, you can well understand that the railway men at this moment are in revolt against these miserable conditions. I hope, as a result of this Debate, that employers will realise that if they want to stop the unrest and stop the growth of Syndicalism, they can do it by giving more humane consideration to those they employ.
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley): Before putting this Amendment, I think I ought to state to the House that I have had some doubt as to whether or not it was permissible, owing to the fact that the early part of it is almost verbally identical with a Motion previously moved as an Amendment to the Address. Therefore it is only by keeping my main eye on the latter part that I am able to admit it.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): We have had a very interesting discussion upon a question which interests the whole population of this country. It is very rarely that topics can be raised of such general interest to all sections and classes of the community. I agree with the Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) that it would be desirable if we could have from time to time opportunities of reviewing subjects of this character in this House, even if we reviewed them in connection with Resolutions which might be of an academic character. I cannot help noting that even on a subject of this kind the House of Commons need not be apprehensive of any immediate trouble and any labour unrest. I take into account its condition at the present moment. I think the reason for that is that the House of Commons realises that it is not a new problem. One might imagine, from the discussions which have taken place, and even from the observations which have been made in the course of this Debate, that labour unrest was a new symptom. Anyone who reads the history of the last century will realise that it is a problem that we have had with us for at any rate 100 years. As a matter of fact it is an old problem, and the only difference which the last 100 years made was that you had it more continuously during those 100 years than during any previous period in the history of this country. I think it is due to causes which are in themselves quite wholesome. My hon. Friend
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(Mr. Crawshay-Williams), in the able speech he made in moving this Resolution, and the Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil), in his very interesting contribution to the Debate, indicated what it meant. It is simply the vary natural desire on the part of the men to improve their conditions, and the only reason why we have had more social unrest, more economic unrest, during the past 100 years than we had during any previous period in our history, is that the wealth of the world has increased at a greater ratio during the last 100 years than probably during any period in our history, and there is a feeling on the part of the working classes that probably they are not getting their fair share of that great increase.
I think the constant succession of labour struggles we have had for at least a century is attributable to that fact in a very large degree. It is true, perhaps, that during the last year or two we have had more serious strikes than during any previous period for some years. I think that is due to the fact that when you have a certain accession of prosperity, and the profits of trade increase very rapidly, the working classes are apt to complain, and I think often with a good deal of reason, that there is a tardiness in allocating to them their share of the increased profits. That is why you probably get more serious strikes during periods of increasing prosperity. But it is by no means confined to this country. The symptoms are manifested in all the industrial countries in the world. There have been serious strikes in Germany. The result of the last general election there is an indication of very deep social and economic unrest on the part of the working classes. You had, I believe, four or five millions of electors who recorded their votes for the party for which the hon. Gentleman spoke a moment ago. What was the cause of that? It was not merely that they were converted by Socialistic theories. It was that there was a deep-rooted dissatisfaction, first of all with the increased cost of living, and that the workmen there feel that although Germany has undoubtedly made great strides in industrial prosperity during the last twenty or thirty years, they have not had their fair share of it, and that has been accentuated by the enormous increase during the last few years in the price of the necessaries of life. All that reacted upon the working classes, and their method of protesting against it was not so much by strikes as by returning an

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unprecedented number of Socialist deputies. In the United States anyone who reads the papers, in the last few days, especially the financial papers, will find that the finance of America is disturbed very largely through the fear of great labour troubles. In France we have had outbreaks which have bordered on revolution once or twice, and the same thing applies to Austria and Italy. You find this unrest in every part of the industrial world. What is it attributable to?
I have been very struck with the fact that there has been no difference of opinion in the premises between the Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) and the hon. Member {Mr. Keir Hardie). They both agree that it is dissatisfaction with the conditions of life amongst the working classes, the feeling that they are not getting a fair share of the general prosperity, and the only difference between them is not in the causes of the unrest, but with regard to the remedies. I was also struck by the very slight difference, in general principle, of the remedies. The Noble Lord said his remedy was to give the workman a fairer share of the profits. That is coming pretty near the Syndicalist doctrine in principle and in essence. I am not dealing with co-partnership. I am simply now dealing with the agreement in what I call the essentials in the method of approaching the question. There is agreement in all essentials. The cause of the unrest is the feeling amongst the workmen that they are not getting a fair share of the profits. I am not sure that the Noble Lord did not go further and say he thought there was some justification for that.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: I did not say that.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Very well, I will not press that.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: I did not happen to say anything about it.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I do not wish to attribute to the Noble Lord any statement which he did not make. The second remedy suggested was that the workers should get a fair share of the profits. That carries him very far in agreement with others. I am not sure that it does not carry us further than the Noble Lord realises. I was rather surprised to hear him say that in his judgment the conditions
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of labour in the agricultural districts of this country were on the whole more favourable than those in the industrial districts. I think he will find that it is quite the reverse, and that a good deal of the trouble in the industrial districts is due to the fact that the conditions of labour in the agricultural districts are so unfair to the workers. I wonder if he has ever thought of this side of the problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas) says that there are 97,000 men in the railway world earning less than £1 per week. The Noble Lord will find that unskilled labour, not merely on railways but in the transport world generally, produces conditions of the same kind. Is he quite sure that that is not very largely due to the fact that agricultural labourers, who constitute the reservoir from which railway labour, carters, dockers, and others are supplied, are very much underpaid in the country. That undoubtedly is a matter which ought to be inquired into, and I am certain that it does have a very serious effect in depressing wages in the labour market in the industrial districts and towns of this country. After all, the Noble Lord, I think, would go to the extent of saying that in matters of this kind he would interfere by Act of Parliament with free bargain. If you have got a supply of sturdy, healthy, strong men, who are now paid 12s. and 13s. a week—
Lord ROBERT CECILindicated dissent.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That is so. If the Noble Lord will look at the agricultural returns and reports upon the condition of agricultural labourers in this country he will find that there are counties where they are paid 13s. a week.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: In estimating the wages of the agricultural labourer, which I think are rather low—I do not dispute it—you must take into account the hay harvest money and things of that kind, which go to increase the average.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: At any rate, the Noble Lord admits that the wages are very low. That is the only point I wish to make. I do not wish to enter into a dispute about figures. It is not essential. The only case I wish to make is this: I think it will be agreed that the wages of agricultural labourers in some parts of England are exceedingly low, and much too low for what they do.
Mr. W. L. BOYLE: They are in Norfolk, certainly.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I had Norfolk in my mind when I referred to 13s. a week. In addition, there are some perquisites which I cannot value for the moment. But if you add both together I should be very much surprised if they come to more than 15s. a week. As long as you have got a supply of labour of the kind which you can get for 15s. a week for very hard work, for very long hours of continuous work—labour which is called unskilled, but which very often is really skilled labour, because to make a good agricultural labourer you have got to start a boy at twelve, and he has to go on to twenty before he is fit to do the sort of work that an agricultural labourer is called upon to discharge—you are bound to depress the labour market all round in the matter of wages. Those are problems that ought to be looked into. I am not sure that low paid agricultural labour is really profitable. I am very doubtful about it. I know parts of the country not very fertile, which are far removed from any great "markets where the agricultural labourer is paid £1 a week and more, and I am sure that it is a good thing for the farmer as well as the labourer. He gets a better class of man, a more contented and a more intelligent class of man, and what I have never been able to solve is why counties which I know myself and counties which other hon. Members know, say in Scotland—[An HON. MEMBER: "Lancashire."] Yes, but I am not thinking so much of Lancashire where the market is at their doors. I am thinking of districts where there is no market at their doors, where the next great market is 100 miles or more from the farm, and still wages of £1 a week are paid in those districts, and farmers are doing fairly well, while if you go to other districts where you have got great markets—Norfolk is a case in point, and some of the home counties are cases of the same kind—you find that the agricultural labourer is only paid, say, 15s. a week, or I do not care what, but it is less than £1 a week. There must be something radically wrong in the whole system which works in that way. It is not an economic wage. It must be clear that if they can pay £1 a week in the other districts they ought to be able to pay more than that in districts where they have great markets at their doors, and where the land is fertile. These are things that lie really at the root of all
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these questions, more especially questions of agricultural labour; and you cannot consider them surely as problems in which the agricultural labourers stand alone, the carters stand alone, the dockers stand alone, the unskilled labourers in the mines stand alone. It is part and parcel of the whole problem that has got to be looked at in all its parts. This unrest is not entirely due to wages. The hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Keir Hardie) said that if you give men good wages they do not want pensions. I do not quite agree with that; The Civil Service proves that that is not the case. There they have the inducement of good wages, but the greatest inducement of all is the guarantee of a pension.
However, that is by the way. There are other conditions than the conditions of wages which affect these problems, and which produce this feverish state of unrest. If hon. Members would only just think of the labour quarrels we have had in the last few years, the most formidable were those which have been engineered, conducted, and supported by people who, according to the present scale of wages, were paid good wages. Some of the best paid men were the most formidable men to deal with in the last strike which we had.
Mr. J. H. THOMAS: They came out to support the others.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I quite agree; at the same time, it was because they felt the same sympathy, and not only that, but the same general conditions of unrest, which affected them as well. There are questions like housing which have a very great deal to do with it. Take the South Wales collieries, which, in many respects, are a hotbed of social and economic unrest. It is not altogether a wages question. The conditions of housing there are such as to make decent living almost impossible.
Mr. MALCOLM: Wages are good.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That is exactly the point which I am making. My point is that it is not merely wages. You have conditions there with regard to housing which produce this state of feverishness, which produce that unhealthy condition of mind that makes people discontented with their lot. I feel sure that if hon. Members were acquainted with some of the conditions in the mining districts of South Wales they would not be surprised in the least at the

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bitterness of the labour troubles which we have had in the South Wales district in the last few years. It is not merely wages, then, but also very largely the conditions under which people live. Then, of course, there are questions like the question of men feeling that they are not treated as if they were men. The very worst struggle we ever had in North Wales was a struggle which did not arise out of wages at all—the great Penrhyn quarry strike. I am not sure that wages entered into it at all; I do not recollect that the question of hours entered into it. It was a sort of feeling that they were not treated as if they were men possessing a mind of their own, but as if they were mere creatures of the managers. That was the feeling they had. They were not allowed to present their grievances, certainly not collectively. When they came before the managers they were treated roughly and rudely. That was the complaint. I am not entering into the question whether it was well-founded or not. We very nearly had a railway strike the other day in London—I am not going into the merits of the question—in consequence of men having been dismissed, not because the management dispensed with their services, but purely and simply because they were supposed to be labour leaders.
Mr. J. H. THOMAS: The management admitted it.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am not entering into the merits at all. After all, you cannot ignore these things. I speak with a little experience of labour troubles, having tried to settle them. These things are the things which embitter labour quarrels. There are three things, I am perfectly certain, which contribute to these labour troubles. First of all, of course, is the question of wages. Secondly, and I am not sure that it is not almost as large a cause for unrest, there is the feeling that the conditions of life are not worthy of the dignity of the men who are clamouring for improvement. And, thirdly, there is the feeling that they are not treated, under certain conditions, as if they were men possessing a mind of their own, but as if they were purely the creatures of the particular management and were to take their orders without question or complaint on their part, especially if it were presented collectively to the management, when it would not be accepted or considered. Those are the sort of things which produce
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this labour unrest. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) has got his remedies. What are the remedies he suggested. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. Crawshay-Williams) did not suggest any particular remedy, and the only particular remedies we have had to-day are, first of all, a minimum wage; secondly, nationalisation of the railways and other sources of production; and the third is the one suggested by the Noble Lord—co-partnership. Is my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr quite sure that the nationalisation of railways, for instance, would put an end to strikes on railways. I am not opposing nationalisation of railways. I think there is a good deal to be said for it. There is a good deal to be said for it from the traders' point of view, from the point of view of saving an enormous amount of waste in the management of railways, and waste which I think is inevitable as long as you get a system of competition amongst five or six leading lines for exactly the same traffic. It is a condition which is recognised even by the railway companies themselves, and they are seeking to remedy it by means of amalgamation and co-operation, and understandings amongst themselves. There is no doubt at all that anyone who inquires into the railway system of this country will recognise that the waste attributable to unlimited competition amongst themselves is costing the country millions of money per year. Empty trains run, three trains run where one would do just as well—they are trying even to take advantage of the coal strike with a view to correcting a good deal of that waste. I am therefore not combatting from any point of view the question of nationalisation, but my hon. Friend is very sanguine if he thinks it will put an end to labour troubles. My hon. Friend (Mr. Keir Hardie) says it depends on how much you pay them. I do not agree, because after all whatever you pay them there will be disputes between the men who give their labour and the men who adjust the payment for it in which they will take different points of view in regard to the value of it. They will take different points of view with regard to the amount which the railways could bear, and I have no doubt at all that the workmen will suggest under certain conditions you should pass it on to the consumer. The man who will adjust the wages, the official, is the one who represents both consumer and worker.
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: The wages dispute would be settled in the same way as Post Office disputes are settled now.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I do not know whether that is quite encouraging.
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: No strikes.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am afraid it is not a very encouraging analogy. I think if my hon. Friend were Chancellor of the Exchequer he would not be as ready with that analogy as he is now. Take the case of Australia. I think one of the greatest strikes took place on the State Railways there. [HON. MEMBEBS: "France."] I did not think the great strike there took place on State railways, but on railways that were not nationalised. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] If that is so, then that bears out still further the truth of what I am saying. Where you have got nationalisation in Germany, I do not think the wages are as good as they are here. On the contrary, my recollection is that they are very low there. The figures that I have show that the wages on the State railways in Germany are much lower than in this country.
Mr. WARDLE: That is only partly true. There are two classes of employés in Germany.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Perhaps my hon. Friend will give the exact figures. If it is true that the men are very much better paid on the State railways in Germany, I agree that that is a considerable argument from the workmen's point of view in favour of nationalisation. The Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) suggests co-partnership. He will be able to present his views on that subject before the Cabinet Committee which is inquiring into this matter. I have approached the Noble Lord on the subject, and he has been good enough to say that he will do so. But let me point this out to my hon. Friends on the Labour Benches. One thing which amongst others has struck me when we have been trying to settle some of these labour disputes is the feeling with which the workmen themselves regard the interference of the State. They will not have compulsory arbitration: that is, interference by the State. Even in social efforts, under a system of nationalisation, you must have some system of that kind. But the workmen resent State interference. A great deal of the trouble in the mining world was due to the fact that the Govern-
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ment could not, without doing a great deal of mischief, interfere until it was perfectly obvious that the parties had failed to settle matters themselves. Even then the miners were more resentful of anything in the nature of compulsory interference on the part of the State than the mine owners were.
Mr. J. H. THOMAS: Out of at least thirty cases in which appeals have been made to the Board of Trade to my knowledge only one has ever been decided in favour of the men. That is why they are so suspicious.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Does my hon. Friend see what that implies? After all, the Board of Trade, whether under a Liberal or a Conservative Government, for the time being represents the State. [An HON. MEMBER: "Who are they?"] I do not follow that. What does nationalisation mean if it does not mean the control of the State?
Mr. LANSBURY: The only difference is that from our point of view if the railways were managed not for the purpose of producing profit for individuals, arbitration by the State would be in favour of the whole community. At present we contend that the result of compulsory arbitration would be to fix the amount of wages and the dividends to be received by the private owners. It is just there that we part company.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think the hon. Member ought to adjust his views to those of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil. What did he say? He said that he would have nationalisation regardless of expense.
Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I said cost.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: What does that mean? It means that you have to pay somebody for it. When you pay anybody for their property—and my hon. Friend does not suggest that property should be taken away without being paid for—
Mr. LANSBURY: The telephones.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The telephones are a very good case in point. We paid the telephone company the market value of their undertaking. Surely you have to pay the interest—
Mr. LANSBURY: You fixed the interest.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: If you pay the interest is not that exactly the samething?
Mr. LANSBURY: No.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: If you buy you must buy on the basis of the dividend that they are earning, or confiscate it. You must take that into account when you are fixing your wages or you must pass on the loss to the community.
Mr. LANSBURY: You have not done that with the London tramways?
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Then that means that they are able to make a profit on the tramways that they were unable to make before. By amalgamation you may save much wasteful expenditure. But you must take into account the dividend and interest on your capital whether you nationalise or whether you do not, unless you make somebody else pay, and that somebody else is after all the community. Nationalisation is a question that ought to be considered on its merits and as a business proposition. I think it is worth consideration and examination as a business proposition. In fact, I think it might be well worth while the railway companies considering it, instead of going on with the present wasteful system which does not do them any good, and imposes a heavy burden upon the community. Undoubtedly it gives all sorts of conveniences to the travelling public which I think they are paying too much for. My hon. Friend wants to commit the country to what after all is a gigantic transaction. It may be a sound one from a commercial point of view, but surely it ought to be examined very carefully, and if it is examined I cannot imagine why labour should refuse to assist in its examination.
So much for the question of nationalisation. On the general question of unrest the Cabinet have come to the conclusion that it ought to be examined, and they are conducting an inquiry into it. Whether it will be necessary to have an inquiry in another form, or a more searching inquiry, is a matter upon which we shall have to come to a conclusion, and I think we will come to a conclusion pretty rapidly. In the meantime we are looking into the matter, and making inquiry with a view to informing ourselves on a matter of vital moment affecting good government. We are looking into the matter as rapidly as we can. What conclusions we may come to I am not prepared to indicate
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now. I have only to say we are looking into the question, but you cannot deal with it until all the facts are in your possession. Co-partnership is in a very experimental stage. There are cases where on the face of it it has been attended with a very considerable measure of success; there are cases which indicate it has been a failure. We want to find out why it is a success in one case and a failure in another. Whether the difficulty is a fundamental difficulty or whether it is remedial. These are things upon which we ought not to come to a hasty conclusion, and in the meantime we should apply such remedies as it is in the power of the Government to apply to the economic conditions of the present time.
Mr. PETO: I rise to call attention to the fact that upon this most important question concerning both employers and employed more than anybody else in this House or outside it nobody representing the employers of labour had any opportunity of making any contribution to the Debate. I agree entirely with the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord Robert Cecil) that we have a right to demand that there should be some reasonable time for discussing this subject. This House has been engaged for years past in considering all kinds of other subjects, and this great question, except when pressed momentarily upon the attention of the House by some upheaval of labour and some combination of panic, has never had any consideration. The hon. Member for Merthyr said he protested altogether against academic discussions in this House, and said that in his opinion the labour world outside is in a state of seething unrest. I ask the House to remember what his contribution to the Debate on the question of co-partnership was. He began with the case of the hon. Member for the Rad-cliffe Division of Lancashire (Mr. Theodore Taylor) who, for twenty-five years practised what he preached, not in an academic sense, and he pointed the finger of scorn at a scheme which keeps 1,500 workers employed because twenty-three employés, who were paid infinitely better wages than were current in the trade, had decided to strike. If that is the spirit in which he meets co-partnership, we cannot expect any great advance to be made from the point of view of the reconciliation of the interests of capital and labour. The Chancellor indicated in his speech that some inquiry was

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going to be made by some Committee of the Cabinet, and said the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin was going to represent his views on the subject of co-partnership. I want to point out, with all submission, that no Committee of the Cabinet can possibly deal with this question, for three very obvious reasons. First of all, it will be admitted that, apart from their arduous labours, it is obvious that with the enormous legislative programme every single member of the Government is charged with some part of this great hotchpotch of ill-digested legislation flung at the House, they will not have time to conduct an impartial inquiry, to hear the evidence of employers and employed, members of associations, traders in the foreign trade, the home and colonial trade, and to consider this question from every point of view. Secondly it would be perfectly ridiculous to have any inquiry into the labour conditions which lie behind the question of labour unrest, and leave out the great factor of our fiscal system, the alteration of which is believed by a vast majority of the working classes, taking our Empire as a whole, to be at the root of the matter. To leave that out of consideration you are once more playing Hamlet without the Prince. In the same way as the Government are doing in the inquiry they have set on foot into Empire trade where they bar the one question of vital moment to the trade of the Empire. The Government is composed of convinced Free Traders, and if we have a Committee—whether it is a, Committee of both Houses or whatever court is set up, we want it to be unprejudiced and to be impartial to investigate and judge in this matter. Beyond that there is a third reason why no Committee of the Government should go into this question. They would be asked in the very possible result to constitute themselves into a jury to find a true bill against themselves. There is not the slightest doubt that one of the things which would have to be looked into among the causes of the present industrial unrest would be the doctrines which underlie the legislative programme of the Government during the last five years. I have only to recall such legislation as the Coal Miners (Eight Hours) Act, the Miners (Minimum Wage) Act, the Budget of 1909, the Parliament Act, and practically every single great Act passed by the Government during the last five years. I would remind the House of the principle underlying the Budget of 1909. I do not
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want to go into matters of detail, but I ask if anybody will deny that the main underlying basis of the Budget was that the poverty and misery of the poorest classes was mainly due to the wealth of the richer classes, and would only be cured and could only be cured by increased taxation upon the wealthy classes.
Mr. LANSBURY: Abolish the rich.
Mr. PETO: There we have the underlying evils of the Budget of 1909. I ask whether those speeches do not undoubtedly promote class hatred. In my opinion, they are undoubtedly a factor. Apart from anything which was said in any particular place on this subject, that is the root basis—that the poor can only be benefited at the expense of the rich, and that the interests of the rich and the poor are opposed to one another.
And, it being Eleven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed upon Thursday, 6th June.
Adjourned at Three minutes after Eleven o'clock.

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.
  JUDGES AND IRISH OFFICES.
  JUDGES AND IRISH OFFICES.
  POST OFFICE (IRELAND).
  POST OFFICE (IRELAND).
  Irish Church Temporalities Fund.
  Irish Church Temporalities Fund.
  Lough Erne (Salmon and Trout Fishing).
  Lough Erne (Salmon and Trout Fishing).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Chelsea Hospital (Royal Horticultural Society's Show).
  Chelsea Hospital (Royal Horticultural Society's Show).
  National Reserve.
  National Reserve.
  Black Watch Depôt, Perth.
  Black Watch Depôt, Perth.
  Established Church (Wales) Bill.
  Established Church (Wales) Bill.
  Vaccination (Conscientious Objections).
  Vaccination (Conscientious Objections).
  London General Omnibus Company (Drivers' Uniform).
  London General Omnibus Company (Drivers' Uniform).
  Gas Light and Coke Company's Premises (Fatal Accident).
  Gas Light and Coke Company's Premises (Fatal Accident).
  Shops Act.
  Shops Act.
  Refusal of Licence (Totley, Derbyshire).
  Refusal of Licence (Totley, Derbyshire).
  Theft of Old Iron (Convictions at Wigan).
  Theft of Old Iron (Convictions at Wigan).
  Thibet.
  Thibet.
  Oudh State Railway (Jumna Bridge).
  Oudh State Railway (Jumna Bridge).
  Madras Education Department (Small-pox and Vaccination).
  Madras Education Department (Small-pox and Vaccination).
  British Army in India (Wives of Soldiers).
  British Army in India (Wives of Soldiers).
  Care of Feeble-Minded.
  Care of Feeble-Minded.
  St. Pancras Workhouse.
  St. Pancras Workhouse.
  Leaf Binders.
  Leaf Binders.
  Telegraph Linesmen (Surrey).
  Telegraph Linesmen (Surrey).
  Small Holdings (Scotland).
  Small Holdings (Scotland).
  Western Hebrides (Steamship Service).
  Western Hebrides (Steamship Service).
  Court of Criminal Appeal (John Home).
  Court of Criminal Appeal (John Home).