Sitting of 15 May 1912

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Shipley Urban District Council Bill,
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Staffordshire Potteries Water Bill (by Order),
Consideration, as amended, deferred till Friday.
Manchester Royal Exchange Bill [Lords] (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Friday.
Land Drainage Provisional Order Bill,
Military Lands Provisional Order Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Kilmarnock Gas Provisional Order Bill (by Order),
Considered; to be read the third time To-morrow.
Clyde Lighthouses Order Confirmation Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 5) Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order of the Local Government Board relating to Kidderminster." Presented by Mr. HERBERT LEWIS; supported by Mr. Burns; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 6) Bill,
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Bethesda, Darwen, Dewsbury, Llanelly, and the Thurrock Grays and Tilbury Joint Sewerage District." Presented by Mr. HERBERT LEWIS; supported by Mr. Burns; read the first time; to be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed.
Cardiff Railway Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Glasgow Boundaries Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Standing Orders,
Leave given to the Select Committee to make a Special Report in the case of the Great Central Railway (Grimsby Fish Dock) [Lords], Petition for Bill.
Special Report brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 137.]
Resolutions reported from the Select Committee:—

1. "That, in the case of the Great Northern Railway Bill [Lords], Petition for Additional Provision, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to insert the Additional Provision if the Committee on the Bill think fit."

2. "That, in the case of the Houghton-le-Spring District Gas Bill [Lords], Petition for Additional Provision, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to insert the Additional Provision if the Committee on the Bill think fit,"

3. "That, in the case of the City of London (Various Powers) Bill [Lords], Petition for Additional Provision, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to insert the Additional Provision if the Committee on the Bill think fit."

4. "That, in the case of the London Trust Company [Lords], Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill."

5. "That, in the case of the Great Central Railway (Grimsby Fish Dock) [Lords], Petition for Bill, Re-committed Resolution of the 1st May, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill."

Resolutions agreed to.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to:—
Newry, Keady, and Tynan Railway Bill, without Amendment.
Church Stretton Urban District Water Bill, with Amendments.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to extend the limits of supply of the Christchurch Gas Company, and to confer further powers upon the company. [Christchurch Gas Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the county borough of Stockport to provide and work trolley vehicles; and for other purposes." [Stockport Corporation Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the construction of a new railway and works and the acquisition of additional lands by the Great Central Railway Company; to transfer the powers for the construction of certain railways from the Great Central Railway Company to the Hull and Barnsley and Great Central Railway Companies jointly, and to authorise those companies to make a deviation railway; to authorise the Great Northern and Great Central Railway Companies to make further works and acquire additional lands for their West Riding and Grimsby Railway; to authorise the North Lindsey Light Railways Company to make further works; to enable the Humber Commercial Railway and Dock Company to acquire the undertaking of the Barton and Immingham Light Railway Company and to raise further capital; to confer further powers upon the Seaforth and Sefton Junction Railway Company; and for other purposes." [Great Central Railway Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the construction of subways in the City of London; to repeal the obligation to maintain Shadwell Fish Market; to provide for the granting of superannuation and pension allowances to certain of the officers and servants of the Corporation of London; and for other purposes." [City of London (Various Powers) Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Swanage Gas and Water Company to construct additional waterworks; to confer further powers upon them with reference to their gas and water undertakings; and for other purposes." [Swanage Gas and Water Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act for conferring further powers upon the London and North-Western Railway Company in relation to their own undertaking and upon that company in conjunction with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Com-
1104
pany and the Great Western Company, respectively, in relation to their joint undertakings, and upon the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company in relation to their undertaking; and for other purposes." [London and North-Western Railway Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend The City of London (Spitalfields Market) Act, 1902; and for other purposes." [Stepney Borough Council (Spitalfields Market) Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers upon the Herne Bay Gas and Coke Company, Limited; and for other purposes." [Herne Bay Gas Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers upon Price's Patent Candle Company, Limited; to enable the Company to change the name of the Company; and for other purposes." [Price's Patent Candle Company Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Llanelly Rural District Council to obtain a supply of water from the River Sawdde, in the county of Carmarthen; to authorise the construction of works; and for other purposes." [Llanelly Rural District Water Bill [Lords.]
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act for granting additional powers to the Australian Agricultural Company; for altering the capital of the company; for enabling the company to make further alterations in its capital; for consolidating and amending the Acts relating to the company; and for other purposes." [Australian Agricultural Company Bill [Lords.]
Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Bill [Lords], Ancient Monuments Protection Bill [Lords], and Ancient Monuments Protection (No. 2) Bill [Lords],—That they have appointed a Committee, consisting of Five Lords, to join with a Committee of the Commons, to consider the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Bill [Lords], the Ancient Monuments Protection Bill [Lords], and the Ancient Monuments Protection (No. 2) Bill [Lords], and request the Commons to appoint an equal number of their Members to be joined with the said Lords.
That they propose that the Joint Committee do meet in Committee Room A, on Wednesday the 12th of June next, at Twelve o'clock.
Christchurch Gas Bill [Lords],
Stockport Corporation Bill [Lords],
Great Central Railway Bill [Lords],
City of London (Various Powers) Bill [Lords],
Swanage Gas and Water Bill [Lords],
London and North-Western Railway Bill [Lords],
Stepney Borough Council (Spitalfields Market) Bill [Lords],
Herne Bay Gas Bill [Lards],
Price's Patent Candle Company Bill [Lords],
Llanelly Rural District Water Bill [Lords],
Australian Agricultural Company Bill [Lords],
Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
Pier and Harbour Provisional Order (No. 1) Bill,
Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

BOARD OF EDUCATION.
Copy presented of Report on the Geological Survey and Museum in Jermyn Street, the Science Museum at South Kensington, and on the work of the Solar Physics Committee for the year 1911 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).
Copy presented of Code of Regulations for Continuation Classes providing further Instruction for those who have left School, 1912 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
Paper laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House:—

TEMPORARY LAWS.
Register of Temporary Laws for the Second Session, Thirtieth Parliament, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland [pursuant to the Report of the Select Committee on Expiring Laws in Session 1866]; to be printed. [No. 136.]
JURIES BILL.
Order for Second Reading upon Friday read, and discharged:—Bill withdrawn.
EAST INDIA (FINANCIAL STATEMENT AND BUDGET).
Address for Return "of the Indian Financial Statement and Budget for 1912–13 and Discussions thereon in the Legislative Council of the Governor-General,"—[Sir Henry Havelock-Allan.]
EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION.
Copy ordered "of Tables relating to Emigration and Immigration from and into the United Kingdom in the year 1911 (being a Statistical Account of the Passenger Movement between the United Kingdom and Places Abroad); together with Report to the Board of Trade thereon (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 180, of Session 1911.)"—[Mr. Sydney Buxton.]
SOLDIERS' EMPLOYMENT.
Return ordered "of the number of persons holding, on the 31st day of March, 1912, (1) established; (2) unestablished appointments as messengers, postmen, watchers, wards, park-keepers, attendants, porters, and similar situations, other than clerical appointments, in the several Government Departments, showing the number of such persons who previously served in His Majesty's Regular Army and Navy and the percentage of places held by ex-Army and ex-Navy men to the other places in question."—[Colonel Yate.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  ROYAL NAVY.

    SEAMAN CLASS (PAY AND ALLOWANCES).
    Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what was the average vote per head for pay and allowances of the petty officers and men of the seaman class, Royal Navy, each year from 1909–10 to 1912–13, inclusive?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): The amounts for pay and allowances of petty officers and men of the seaman class, taken in the Estimates for the years referred to, give the following averages per head: 1909–10, £38 17s. 7d.; 1910–11, £38 12s. 4d.; 1911–12, £38 7s. 1d.; 1912–13, £37 13s. 3d. I ought to add that the decrease in average rate, as shown by the Estimates, is mainly attributable to a closer approximation of estimate to pay and allowances actually drawn, and not to any decrease in actual receipts by petty officers and men.
    Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Is there no decrease whatever?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I cannot recall any within these years.

    BATTLE SQUADRONS.
    Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the fact that sixty-five battleships were required to complete the organisation of the battle squadrons under the new scheme, and that only fifty-two completed effective battleships were available, he would state what organisation it was proposed to adopt in place of the eight squadrons of eight battleships each, with an additional flagship for the commander-in-chief, originally described?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Churchill): The organisation of the Fleet in eight battle squadrons of eight ships, with a Fleet flagship, is an organisation laid down for the express purpose of being worked up to gradually. If the hon. Member will refer to the OFFICIAL REPORT of my speech on the Motion to go into Committee on the Navy Estimates he will find that I emphasised the existing gaps in this organisation which will eventually have to be filled up. For the present the Fourth Battle Squadron will be four ships below strength, and the Sixth quite unformed. New battleships are, however, arriving rapidly, and five are expected to join the Fleets during the next twelve months. Reference to the Navy List each month will show the detailed allocation of ships to the various squadrons.
    Mr. MIDDLEMORE: Is it not true that there is a shortage of eleven for the effective squadrons?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: There is no shortage which was not foreseen and fully explained to the House at the time the organisation was unfolded.

    LEAVE (PLAIN CLOTHES).
    Mr. MIDDLEMOREasked whether permission could be given to petty officers and men to wear plain clothes while on leave, so as to extend to the men of the Navy the same indulgence as is enjoyed by noncommissioned officers and men of the Army?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The question will be considered.

    "ENCHANTRESS" (ADMIRAL'S BARGE).
    Mr. DOUGLAS HALLasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the large admiral's barge attached to the yacht "Enchantress," and built for use in Portsmouth Harbour, was recently ordered to be sent to Plymouth for the occasion of the First Lord's visit to that port; whether it was found impossible to send the barge by the "Enchantress" and orders were given that it should be sent by a battleship specially allotted for the purpose; if so, whether, in consequence of this order, it would be necessary to take out some of the existing boat-fittings of the battleship and replace them by fittings suitable for the barge; and whether he would state the estimated cost of fitting a battleship for this purpose; and (2) for whose use the admiral's barge attached to the "Enchantress" was recently ordered to be sent to Plymouth; and what was the estimated cost in connection with the repairs which had recently been carried out in regard to it and its dispatch to Plymouth?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: It was intended to send the steam barge belongng to the "Enchantress" to Portland for the use of the Board of Admiralty during the recent visit paid by His Majesty to the Fleet. The intention was, however, abandoned.

    COAL STRIKE.
    Mr. GODFREY COLLINSasked whether the coal strike delayed the building of warships under construction; and, if so, to what extent?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The extent of the delay varies with the different vessels under construction, and the circumstances of each case will be considered on the delivery of the vessel from the contractors.
    Mr. ASHLEY: Will any steps be taken to overtake the arrears?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I am quite satisfied that the rate of progress, in spite of the delays which have taken place from this and other causes to the vessels under construction, will not impair the margin that I indicated to the House.

    GERMAN NAVY BILL.
    Mr. GODFREY COLLINSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, if he could say the extra amount to be spent on new construction during the present financial year under the new German Navy Bill, at present being considered by the Reichstag?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The extra amount to be spent on new construction during the present financial year under the new German Navy Bill, is £342,466, of which, according to the Supplementary Estimates also under consideration, £97,847 is to be devoted to providing airships and for experiments therewith, the remainder being for submarines.
    Mr. GODFREY COLLINS: Does the right hon. Gentleman anticipate any necessity for a Supplementary Estimate for new construction this year?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I shall certainly have to present a Supplementary Estimate.

    ADMIRALTY CONTRACTS (FAIR-WAGES CLAUSE).
    Mr. BARNESasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he could state the result of the inquiry into the alleged infringement of the Fair-Wages Clause at the Yarrow Shipbuilding Yard, Scotstoun?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I am not yet in a position to state the result of the inquiry.

    Straits Settlements.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he would publish or place in the Library of this House copies of the correspondence between Sir Francis Swettenham, formerly Governor of the Straits Settlements and the Colonial Secretary, who was then the right hon. Member for West Birmingham, with regard to the proposed reduction of the Queen's scholarships, which the right hon. Member for West Birmingham disallowed; and copies of any subsequent correspondence or reports which had induced him to consent to the abolition of these scholarships?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt): No, Sir; this correspondence, which is now nine years, old, was of a confidential character and I do not propose to publish it. The scholarships were not abolished by me.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) consented to the publication of this alleged confidential correspondence in the Colony—in the "Gazette," I think? I have part of it here. Will the right hon. Gentleman make that correspondence available to Members of this House by placing copies in the Library?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Oh, yes. Any correspondence—and there was some—published, probably in the "Gazette," as my hon. Friend says, shall be placed in the Library.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Has the right hon. Gentleman any objection to publishing his own correspondence in the same way as the right hon. Member for West Birmingham consented to the publication of his?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the reply.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is now able to say whether the Director of Education for the Straits Settlements has ever advised the abolition of the Queen's scholarships, and whether the abolition of these scholarships was carried against his advice; whether, if he is still without information on these subjects, he will obtain copies of any Reports which the Director of Education has made with regard to these scholarships; and if he will also state why he consented to the abolition of these scholarships without having this information?
    Mr. HARCOURT: As I informed my hon. Friend last Wednesday, I regard this question as one for the Government and Legislature of the Colony, and I do not, therefore, propose to ask for further information. I may add that, though the abolition of the second scholarship has only come into effect this year, it was approved not by me, but by my predecessor, in 1909. The first was abolished in 1908.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West

    1111
    Birmingham was asked to consent to the reduction of these scholarships he insisted on further inquiries being made locally, and on receiving further local information; and will the right hon. Gentleman say why he himself did not take similar steps when requested to abolish these scholarships?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I am prepared to maintain and accept responsibility for the decision of my predecessor, and I am acquainted with the grounds on which it was arrived at.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think the report of Director of Education material to the question?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Yes, Sir, all reports are material to the question.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can now state what evidence a candidate for an appointment to the Civil Service of the Straits Settlements is required to produce to show that he satisfies the regulation with regard to age; whether a signed statement by the candidate as to his age is sufficient; and, if not, will he state why he is prepared to take the candidate's word that he satisfies the regulation that every candidate must be of pure European descent on both sides while he is not prepared to take his word as to his age?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Before the Civil Service Commissioners issue a certificate of qualification they require a candidate who has been successful in the examination to produce a birth certificate or other satisfactory documentary evidence of age. I have not stated that I am prepared to take a candidate's word that he satisfies the regulation as to European descent. In any case of doubt I should require further evidence, but in the great majority of cases no doubt arises.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Has the right hon. Gentleman any means of forming an opinion as to a person's descent unless he requires some evidence; can he form any opinion by looking at him?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Very often.

    Imperial Trade Commission.
    Mr. CROFTasked if the date of the first meeting of the Imperial Commissioners has now been fixed?
    Mr. HARCOURT: It is hoped that the Commission will meet soon after the arrival of the Australian member on 10th June.
    Mr. CROFTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will consider the possibility of adding a representative for the West Indies to the Imperial Trade Commission; and, if not, whether the Commission will hear witnesses from the West Indies in London in the event of its not being able to visit those islands?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The resolution of the Conference under which the Commission has been appointed does not contemplate any representation of the West Indies. The Commission will decide what witnesses it will hear under the terms of reference.
    Mr. CROFT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is considerable feeling on the part of those who are interested in the trade of the West Indies that there should be some such consideration as I have indicated?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The whole proceedings of the Commission are regulated by the decision of the Conference, which was a Conference of the self-governing Dominions.
    Mr. CROFT: Considering that there are at the present time negotiations going on between the West Indies and other Dominions, surely the right hon. Gentleman does not say that the suggestion is not germane to the matter?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I have already said that the Commission will decide what and whom they will hear.

    Sleeping Sickness, Nyasaland.
    Dr. CHAPPLEasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if his promise to take drastic action for the prevention of sleeping sickness in Nyasaland when he was satisfied that game is a reservoir and Glossina morsitans a carrier of the trypanosome disease still holds good; and, if so, whether he will now indicate, in the face of the evidence of these scientific facts, what his action is to be?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I have nothing to add to the very full reply which I gave to my hon. Friend on 16th April.
    Dr. CHAPPLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that some action ought

    1113
    to be taken, and that in the reply recently given by him no action was promised; and that the sufferings from this disease to domestic animals and the natives have grown to be very serious indeed?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Yes, Sir, I would not for a moment deny the seriousness of the spread of the disease; what I am waiting for is information that is sufficiently definite to justify me in destroying species, either of wild or domestic animals.
    Dr. CHAPPLE: May I ask if sufficient evidence has not been placed before the right hon. Gentleman to justify him in concluding that game is a reservoir and the fly mentioned a carrier of the disease; and that therefore these two factors are the cause of the spread of the disease?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The evidence, so far as it has gone at present, tends rather to prove that wild animals, domestic animals, and man are all carriers of the disease. I have not yet been able to decide which, or whether all of them, should be destroyed.
    Dr. CHAPPLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that when domestic animals contract the disease they die rapidly or are killed?
    Mr. SPEAKER: We cannot carry on an argument upon the question.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    WORKMEN'S CONTRIBUTION CARDS.
    Mr. CLYNESasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to his statements at a meeting of the Advisory Committee, whether the fact of contribution cards under the National Insurance Act being supplied to workmen by either a trade union as his approved society or by the employer in a case where the card is not so supplied, will readily enable employers to ascertain whether particular workmen are in a union or not; and, as this is deemed to be very undesirable, can he take steps to have all cards supplied through one source?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): Cards of exactly similar character will be supplied to insured persons through the Post Office, trade unions, or other approved societies. If the insured person does not produce his card his employer will stamp an emergency card, but there will be nothing on that or any other card to distinguish the society or union to which the employé
    1114
    belongs, or, in future, when the class of deposit contributors is constituted, whether he belongs to a society or is a deposit contributor.
    Mr. CLYNES: Is it not a fact that when the employer supplies a card to a man that he will know whether or not the man is in a trade union?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No, not in the least. If the employé for any reason has not got his card he will be given an emergency card. He may or may not be a member of a trade union or friendly society, but he will have this card. Cards will be freely supplied to members of societies.
    Mr. CLYNES: May I put the question in another form. If an employé has his card from his trade union, and another workman in the same employ does not possess a card, does not that allow the employer to discover who is in the trade union and who is not?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No; cards will be freely supplied to approved societies, secretaries and others, and exactly similar cards will be obtainable by insured persons.
    Mr. JOHN WARD: Is it not the fact that so far as the employer is concerned he will not know whether the man has got his card from a trade union or anywhere else?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: That is so.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: That is to say, that the name of the approved society will not be on the card?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No name will be on the card.
    Mr. CLYNES: Did not the Chancellor of the Exchequer say that the cards would be supplied by the employers?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I do not think so, either in this House or outside. If the hon. Gentleman has any doubts, I will send him some copies of the cards, and he will then see the position clearly.

    ADVISORY COMMITTEE (COMPOSITION).
    Mr. LEES SMITHasked what number of members of the Advisory Committee under the National Insurance Act represent the boards of directors and committees of management of life insurance companies?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No members of the Joint Advisory Committee have been appointed to represent life insurance companies. Eight members have been appointed to represent insured persons who may be members of the State Insurance Section of industrial assurance companies and collecting friendly societies.
    Mr. LEES SMITH: How many of the members appointed are directors or members of the board of management of those companies, and how many are members of the workers organisations?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I cannot say that without notice.

    INDUSTRIAL COMPANIES AND COLLECTING SOCIETIES.
    Mr. LEES SMITHasked whether, in the discussions as to how to secure members' control in the separate sections of life insurance companies and societies under the National Insurance Act, representatives of 'the workers' organisations in those companies and societies are being consulted?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The answer is in the negative. The Commission is in negotiation with representatives of industrial companies and collecting societies which desire to form sections or an approved society under the National Insurance Act. The sole duty of the Commissioner in this respect under the Act before giving approval is to see that the society is so constituted as to secure absolute self-government for any person who choose such sections or society for their State Insurance.
    Mr. LEES SMITH: In view of the fact that there is a great difference of opinion between boards of management and workers as to how to secure absolute self-government, would it not be fairer to consult both sides; and if members of the workers organisation are not consulted, what is the purpose of the United Committee?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I do not quite understand what my hon. Friend means by the workers' organisation. The sole concern we have is the gentlemen who form the society on the one hand, and apply to us for approval, and the insured persons on the other. I think the workers to whom my hon. Friend refers are workers under a totally different system, that is life insurance. They only come in in connection with these societies if they are insured persons.

    OFFICIAL LECTURES.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked how long a period of training is considered necessary by the Insurance Commissioners before official lecturers can be deemed qualified to instruct the public on the National Insurance Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No particular time of training can be laid down in this or any similar work, as it must be dependent both on the previous knowledge of the subject possessed by the official, and on the rapidity with which he is able to acquire fresh information.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can see his way to admit the Press to the lectures given by the official lecturers on the Insurance Act; and, if not, will he state the reason for his refusal?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: As I have already stated in the House the request for privacy at such meetings came from the representatives of trade unions and friendly societies. In special training courses arranged and paid for by the Commission this condition is continued. But in no case in which those convening the meeting and paying for its expenses desire the admission of the Press is any objection offered by the Commissioners.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: May I ask if members attending a special training course have to sign a paper that they will not divulge what went on?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I cannot answer that offhand. It is at the request of those trained that the private character of the course is maintained.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked whether meetings addressed by official lecturers on the Insurance Act are advertised by leaflets containing the following promise: Your doctor's bill will be paid; and whether such a promise has been authorised by the Commissioners?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No leaflet containing the statement referred to has been issued by the Insurance Commissions. In every case where medical benefit is referred to, it has been explained as defined by the Act as medical attendance and drugs or the money equivalent.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that meetings have been convened by official leaflets on which that statement has been made?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No, I have no information at all upon that subject.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: It is so!
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to furnish me with particulars.

    SEAMEN'S NATIONAL INSURANCE SOCIETY.
    Mr. SUTHERLANDasked what progress has been made in the formation of the Seamen's National Insurance Society under the National Insurance Act; whether a committee of management has been or is being formed, and if it is proposed to have representatives of Scottish fishermen on the committee; what steps have been taken to provide machinery for the enrolment of intending members; whether it is proposed to utilise for the purpose any and, if so, what agencies of Government offices, such as Customs or Revenue offices, Labour Exchanges, post offices, etc.; and whether it is intended that arrangements shall be made with local insurance committees for the administration of benefits?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): The subject to which my hon. Friend refers has been for some time engaging the attention of the Board of Trade as well as the question of the constitution of the committee of management of the Seaman's National Insurance Society. I have just appointed a Committee to advise me as to the formation of the society, and as to the preparation of its rules, and I will consider the advisability of adding to this preliminary Committee one or two persons conversant with the fishing industry, but I do not think it possible to arrange for the separate representation of Scottish fishermen. The machinery for the enrolment of members and for carrying out the work of the society generally are among the matters to be settled by the committee of management when it has been constituted.
    Mr. WATT: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when this Committee will report? Has he any idea how long its deliberations will take?
    Mr. BUXTON: I hope they will report as soon as possible, as the Act comes into force very soon.

    DEATH OF DR. RICHARDS, NORTH DEVON.
    Mr. BOOTHasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware of the facts
    1118
    relating to the death of Dr. Richards, of Winkleigh, North Devon; and what steps he proposes to take for the protection of medical men who are loyal to the State and take similar work under the Insurance Act of last year; and what provision it is intended to make to compensate any doctors and their families who, by taking contracts under the Act, incur the hostility of the local branch of their trade union?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): My attention has been called to the facts relating to the death of Dr. Richards as reported in the Press. With regard to the second and third parts of my hon. Friend's question, I am unable to state what course of action might be thought desirable in circumstances which, I trust, will not arise.
    Mr. BOOTH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this medical officer came to an untimely death through the prosecution of the local doctors; is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the whole of the circumstances, or will he institute an inquiry?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I have seen the statement made by the relatives of Dr. Richards. I also observe that the Secretary of the British Medical Association challenges the accuracy of some of the figures. Under those circumstances I could not possibly pronounce an opinion.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Does loyalty to the State mean whether you are in favour of the Insurance Act or not?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: What on earth has that got to do with this? [HON. MEMBERS: "It is in the question."]
    Mr. LEIF JONES: Will my right hon. Friend not take some steps to ascertain the facts in connection with this most painful case?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: If these facts had arisen in connection with the administration of the Insurance Act, of course it would be the duty of the Treasury or its officials to look into the matter, but as it has not arisen in connection with the administration of any Act of Parliament, I do not see I have any right to interfere in these circumstances.
    Mr. BOOTH: I beg to give notice I shall call attention to this case on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House next Wednesday.

    Motor Car and Carriage Licence Duties.
    Mr. RENDALLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he is aware that by fixing, under the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, and the Revenue Act, 1911, the amounts to be paid to local authorities in respect of motor-car and carriage Licence Duties at the actual sum collected in the year 1908–9 a hardship is inflicted upon a majority of the county councils of England and Wales, inasmuch as a loss of revenue is thereby sustained by such county councils; whether he is aware that the Gloucestershire County Council, in consequence of the adoption of the year 1908–9 as above mentioned, loses revenue to the extent of between £2,000 and £3,000 per annum; and whether, in view of the promise made by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Budget in the year 1907, and the intention of Parliament, as shown by Section 17 of the Finance Act, 1907, that county councils were not to be deprived of the natural growth of local taxation licences, steps will be taken, on the consideration of the Finance Bill of the present Session, to ensure that the annual amounts payable to county councils in respect of such licences shall be not less than the amounts which would have been payable if the before-mentioned provisions of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, and the Revenue Act, 1911, had not been passed?
    Sir JOHN SPEAR: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers the question may I ask him if he is aware that the Devon County Council was last year deprived of £4,000, and that while the increased maintenance of the main roads—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of that question.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am unable to add anything to the answer which I gave to three similar questions on Thursday last in this House.

    Imperial and Local Taxation (Committee).
    Mr. WEDGWOODasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will inform the Chairman of the Committee on Imperial and Local Taxation that the Committee can be supplied with the valuation of full site value of each hereditament in sample urban and rural areas should the Committee require such samples before
    1120
    reporting with respect to a possible change in the standard of rating?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: If the Chairman of the Committee on Imperial and Local Taxation applies for the information referred to in the question, it will be suplied to him.

    State Liabilities.
    Captain JESSELasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can state, or will he agree to a Return stating what was on the 31st March, 1912, the total aggregate of the contingent or indirect liabilities of the State, enumerated under Nos. 1 to 11 of the list given in Appendix III. of the accustomed National Debt Return, which aggregate on the 31st March, 1911, was £4,575,486; and can he state what was on the 31st March, 1912, the aggregate amount of the guaranteed loans outstanding which on the 31st March, 1911, was £191,984,419?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The figures for which the hon. and gallant Member asks will be published as usual in the Annual National Debt Return which is now with the printers, and will shortly be in the hands of hon. Members.
    Captain JESSELasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the contingent liabilities of the State, enumerated in Appendix III. of the National Debt Return, are part of the aggregate gross liabilities of the State; and whether the deficiency in the funds held by the National Debt Commissioners to meet the claims of depositors in the Post Office Savings Bank and of the trustees of trustee savings banks and friendly societies, which deficiency is now over £30,000,000, is part of the aggregate gross liabilities of the State?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The answer to both parts of the question is in the negative.

    Assessors and Collectors of Taxes (Memorial).
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has received any memorial from the assessors and collectors, of taxes asking that the present system of withholding payment for the collection of taxes should be changed, and that payment should be made by regular monthly or quarterly payments; and, if so, what reply has been made to the request?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I have received a memorial upon this subject, which is still under consideration.

    Pigs (Restrictions as to Market).
    Captain FABERasked the President of the Board of Agriculture if he will state whether he can reconsider the rule concerning pigs which are sent to market not being allowed to recross county boundaries if unsold, seeing that there are now constant forced sales in markets owing to pigs being unable to be taken home if unsold; and whether, seeing that county boundaries are often close to a market town, such as the Hampshire boundary to Newbury, he can see his way to making the rule to refer to a radius round market towns instead of county boundaries?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan): My right hon. Friend has requested me to answer this question on his behalf. Article 4 (2) of the Swine Fever (Regulation of Movement) Order was specially designed to meet, so far as possible, the difficulty referred to in the first part of the question. Under that Article swine which are moved from premises in one scheduled area to a market in another scheduled area may be moved by licence back to the premises from which they came, subject to detention there for a period of twenty-eight days. I am afraid the Article could not be modified without prejudice to the good effects of the Order. The Board are always prepared to consider any reasonable adjustment of the boundaries of scheduled areas, when the local authorities concerned are agreed as to the modifications it may be desirable to make.
    Captain FABER: Am I to understand that if pigs are not sold they have to wait twenty-eight, days before they can be taken home?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: No, Sir; but when they are taken home they have to remain twenty-eight days there before they can be moved again.
    Captain FABER: Would that be under the police regulations or those of special officers?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: The hon. Gentleman should put down that question.

    Ireland's Life Assurance Society (Administration).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the names of the persons accountable for what is called Ireland's Life Assurance Society; the number of persons they have induced to insure with them; their approximate income in premiums; and whether the cost of administration consumes all this money?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am informed that the present trustees of the society are Dr. Sheppard, J.P., Mr. Valentine Hackett Demery, and Mr. Henry Joseph O'Byrne, and the annual return for 1910 was signed by Mr. W. H. Sanderson as the treasurer and Mr. C. H. Woodhead as the secretary of the society. According to the same return the number of benefit members on 31st December, 1910, was 1,601; the premium income was for sums at death £26 6s. 6d.; and for endowments £l,297 5s. 5d. The cost of administration in the annual return, called expenditure of management fund account, was £1,031 12s. 2d. The annual return for 1911 has to be furnished to the Assistant Registrar of Friendly Societies for Ireland by the end of this month, but has not yet been received.
    Mr. GINNELL: Is the hon. Member aware of the existence of any money whatsoever as security for people insured in this society?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No; the only facts I am aware of at the moment are those I read out in answer to the question on the Paper.

    National Portrait Gallery (Contemporary Foreign Art).
    Mr. GOLDMANasked what principles influence the trustees in granting the admission of portraits to the National Portrait Gallery; upon what grounds did they act in accepting the portrait of a lady by Signor Jean Boldini, now being exhibited on loan at the National Gallery; and, in view of the public dissatisfaction and adverse comment in the Press with regard to its inclusion in the National Gallery, whether the trustees contemplate removing the picture in question to the Victoria and Albert Museum or some equally suitable place of exhibition?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: With regard to the first part of the question I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member for the Tottenham Division last Thursday and to the rules on page ix. of the National Portrait Gallery

    1123
    Catalogue. An exception was made when the picture by Signor Jean Boldini was offered to the Trustees in order that an interesting picture might not be lost to the nation. The picture has not been permanently included in the National Gallery collection. As the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery do not usually exhibit a portrait of any person deceased less than ten years, the picture has been temporarily lent by them to the trustees of the National Gallery. I understand that there is no other public gallery in London where the picture could conveniently be shown.
    Mr. GOLDMAN: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the artist himself has expressed dissatisfaction with the picture, and said that the picture never would have been exhibited except in fulfilment of a promise made to the subject? And may I ask whether, in view of the adverse criticism passed by the public on the subject of the inclusion of this picture, and in view of the fact that the public are large contributors, will not the views of the public be considered?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I have no knowledge of any such adverse criticism. If Members of the House have a strong opinion on the subject I shall be very glad to convey that opinion to the trustees of the Portrait Gallery or the National Gallery who are responsible.
    Mr. LYNCH: May I ask the hon. Gentleman if he can devise means of housing and exhibiting, as is done in the Luxemburg Gallery in Paris, works of contemporary artists such as Boldini and Rodin?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I think that is too large a question to answer now.
    Mr. GOLDMANasked whether any public gallery exists in London for the admission of contemporary foreign art; and, if not, whether it is proposed to take any steps to provide such accommodation?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Contemporary foreign pictures can be exhibited at the National Gallery, and several pictures by living foreign artists have been shown there in recent years.

    Civil Service (Age Limit for Admission).
    Mr. HUNTasked what is the limit of age for appointments to the Civil Service; and if there is any special limitation in the case of appointments of inspectors to the English and Scotch Board of Agriculture?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The age limits for admission into the Civil Service are separately prescribed for the various grades of Civil servants. The normal age limits for established inspectors under the English Board of Agriculture are twenty-five to thirty-five, with extension to forty-five in cases of persons who have served under the Department as temporary inspectors since the age of thirty-five. No age limits have yet been prescribed for inspectors under the Scottish Board.

    Licensing Act (Compensation Awards).
    Mr. WRIGHTasked whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that the compensation authority, under the Licensing Act, for the county of Derbyshire referred five houses to the Inland Revenue Commissioners, as to the amount of compensation to be paid, on the 11th of August, 1910, and two houses for the same purpose on the 28th of September, 1911, and that in the former case awards were not made by the Commissioners until the 13th of March, 1911, and in the latter case have not yet been made; and whether he will, in view of the hardship to those interested in the compensation to be awarded and the inconvenience to the compensation authority entailed by such delays, secure that awards shall be made in the latter case without further delay, and in similar cases in the future with greater expedition?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The answers to the different parts of the hon. Member's question are all in the affirmative.
    Mr. WRIGHT: How long will it be before the award is sent round to the compensation authority?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: As soon as possible, but I cannot say exactly when.

    Guardian Bank, Limited.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will ascertain, as at the end of April, 1912, the amounts, respectively, of the paid-up capital of the Guardian Bank, of that money already spent on administration, of the liabilities of the bank, and of the money remaining and available to meet them?
    Mr. BUXTON: The balance-sheet filed by the Guardian Bank, Limited, was made up to the 30th June, 1911, and if it is made up to that date in the present year I shall not be able to furnish the hon. Member with particulars of the position, at the end of April.

    Erin Insurance and Investment Company, Limited.
    Mr. GINNELLasked if the right hon. Gentleman will ascertain, as at the end of April, 1912, the amounts, respectively, of paid-up capital of the Erin Assurance and Investment Company, Limited, of money received in premiums or otherwise, of money already spent on administration, of liabilities contracted up to that date, and of money available to meet them; how much of the paid-up capital belongs to F. England; whether he is the person of that name formerly connected with the Irish Provident Society, now in compulsory liquidation; how many persons the Erin Company have got to insure with them; and whether, on the facts, they will be allowed to continue soliciting clients and issuing policies?
    Mr. BUXTON: The latest returns filed by the Erin Assurance and Investment Company, Limited, are made up to 30th June, 1911, and if they are made up to the same date in the present year, I shall not be able to furnish the hon. Member with particulars of the position at the end of April. The returns which have been filed show that on the 2nd January, 1912, Mr. F. England hold twenty ordinary shares of £5 each and three founders' shares of £5 each, which have since been converted into 200 ordinary shares of 10s. each, and thirty preferred ordinary shares of 10s. each, and that a further 500 preferred ordinary shares of 10s. each have been allotted to him. I am not aware that Mr. England was connected with the Irish Provident Assurance Company, Limited. The Board of Trade have no information as to the number of persons insured with the company, and they have no power to prevent the issue of policies by the company.
    Mr. GINNELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether this company has deposited the £20,000 required as security under the Act?
    Mr. BUXTON: Perhaps the hon. Member will give me notice of that question.

    Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society of Australia.
    Mr. GINNELLasked whether the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society of Australia has deposited £20,000 as security for persons insured with it in the United Kingdom; and whether he can state the number of such persons, the amount received from them in premiums
    1126
    in the last twenty years, and the average proportion of repayments to paid premiums in closed cases in that time?
    Mr. BUXTON: The Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society, Limited, has made the deposit of £20,000 required by the Assurance Companies Act, 1909. The returns filed by the society show that during the year ending 31st December, 1910, it received £100,535 4s. 2d. for premiums in respect of life assurance business within the United Kingdom, and paid £77,161 9s. 10d. for claims and surrenders in respect of such business. The further information asked for by the hon. Member is not required to be disclosed in the company's returns, and I am therefore unable to furnish it.

    Imperial Parliament (Veto.)
    Mr. GREENEasked the Prime Minister whether he can state the occasions upon which the veto of the Imperial Parliament has been exercised with reference to any legislative action dealing with the internal affairs of any self-governing Colony within the Empire?
    Mr. LYNCH: Before this question is put I wish to raise a point of Order. I wish to ask you, Mr. Speaker, why this question was allowed to be put on the Paper in the form in which it appears. This is not a mere matter of quibbling about the nicety of words, but a question which affects the status of our self-governing Dominions and involves questions which arouse the keenest resentment in the Dominions.
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is not a point of Order at all. Those words have appeared over and over again.
    Mr. HARCOURT: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by me to a question by the hon. Member for Graves-end on 6th May.

  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.

    IRISH FINANCE (COMMITTEE).
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Prime Minister whether he will now publish the evidence given before the Committee on Irish Finance in respect of which no pledge of secrecy was given or is now insisted upon?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): I must refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave on 6th May in reply to questions on this subject. I have as

    1127
    yet received no indication that the House as a whole desires the publication of the evidence.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: What number of signatures would be necessary?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Anything which indicates the general desire of the House.

    SECOND READING DEBATE (LENGTH OF SPEECHES).
    Sir GODFREY BARINGasked whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that, although over forty-five hours were allocated to the Debate on the Second Reading of the Government of Ireland Bill, only sixty-six Members found an opportunity of speaking; whether he is aware that, owing to the length of the speeches delivered, a number of Members who desired to take part in the Debate were debarred from doing so; and whether, having regard to these facts, he will consider the desirability of proposing a Standing Order limiting the duration of speeches?
    The PRIME MINISTER: It is clearly within the power of Members themselves to remedy the evil to which the hon. Baronet calls attention, and I do not think it is a matter for Government intervention.
    Mr. WATT: Could the Government not devise some form of punishment for hon. Members who occupy too long?

    COMMITTEE OF IMPERIAL DEFENCE.
    Mr. AMERYasked the Prime Minister (1) whether the Government of Ireland Bill was submitted to the Committee of Imperial Defence for consideration before being introduced; and (2) whether the proposed transfer of the control of the Post Office to the Irish Parliament under the Government of Ireland Bill, together with the right to conduct postal and telegraphic negotiations with Foreign Powers, has been submitted to the Committee of Imperial Defence for their opinion?
    The PRIME MINISTER: It would be contrary to usage to state what matters have or have not been submitted to the Committee of Imperial Defence.
    Mr. AMERYasked if the right hon. Gentleman can say in what way it is contemplated to enforce the Press censorship in Ireland in time of war; and whether the question has been submitted to the
    1128
    Committee of Imperial Defence for an expression of their views?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Matters arising from a state of war are reserved to the Parliament and Government of the United Kingdom, and His Majesty's Government do not anticipate that there will be any difficulty in the enforcement of a Press censorship in Ireland in time of war, but I am not prepared to state the means which will be adopted. With regard to the last part of the question, I must refer the hon. Member to the answer I have just given.

    RETIREMENT OF IRISH MEMBERS.
    Mr. DOUGLAS HALLasked whether, in the event of the Government of Ireland Bill becoming law, the Irish Members of the Imperial Parliament will retire when the Imperial House of Commons is dissolved or when the Irish House of Commons is dissolved, or on both occasions?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Irish Members of the Imperial Parliament will retire when the Imperial Parliament is dissolved.
    Mr. JAMES HOPE: What will happen if the British House of Commons is dissolved at the time when the delegates under Clause 26 are over here?
    The PRIME MINISTER: That will not happen for a good many years.
    Mr. JAMES HOPE: What will happen then? Will there be any chance to wait and see?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. Member can raise the point in Committee.

    RECEIPT STAMPS.
    Mr. AMERYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state by what provision of the Government of Ireland Bill the Irish Parliament is prevented from passing legislation making the affixing of an Irish stamp essential to the recognition of the validity of a receipt by an Irish Court?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The affixing of the stamp is only a method of collecting the Receipt Stamp Duty, and the collection of taxes is excluded from the Irish Parliament's power of legislation by Clause 2 (11) (b).

    IRISH PARLIAMENT (BORROWING POWERS).
    Mr. STEWARTasked whether the Irish Parliament will be able to borrow money

    1129
    in any market they may prefer; and, in the event of their borrowing from or through foreign financiers, to what extent will they be able to pledge the security they have to offer or to grant any concessions by way of security to such foreign moneylenders?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The Irish Parliament, like other Parliaments in the British Empire, will be able to contract loans in such markets and on such terms as appear to them to be practicable and expedient. They may give whatever security is placed at their disposal by the provisions of their Constitution.

    FISCAL ARRANGEMENTS.
    Mr. AMERYasked by what provision of the Government of Ireland Bill the Irish Government is restrained from granting bounties which may have the effect of establishing in Ireland a system of protection against. Great Britain or from applying the proceeds of any Irish tax for that purpose?
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): There is no provision in the Bill preventing the Irish Parliament from making grants from Irish revenues to particular industries.
    Mr. AMERY: Does not that plainly contradict the answer given by the right hon. Gentleman the other day? [HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he considers his answer to-day consistent with the answer he gave me the other day?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Yes. The hon. Member's question the other day contemplated a case in which the Irish Parliament imposed an additional Excise Duty and then handed back the amount of that duty to the persons from whom it was obtained. That would not be permitted.
    Mr. AMERY: Would it be permitted to grant a bounty if it happened to be equivalent to that Excise Duty, or if it happened to be two-thirds or quarter of it, or if it came from another source?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: It depends upon the particular case.
    Mr. AMERY: May I suggest a particular case?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter for argument when we come to the Committee stage of the Bill.

    DRILLING IN ULSTER.
    Mr. WEDGWOODasked whether the police authorities in Ulster have been asked for a return of the names of those officers, retired or otherwise, who have been drilling the members of the Unionist clubs; and those who are opposed to the Tom Mann and the Ilkestone prosecutions are also opposed to any similar prosecutions under old Acts in Ireland?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): The Government are keeping themselves fully informed as to drilling in Ulster, and as to the officers and others engaged in it. As regards the latter part of the question, several Members who are opposed to the prosecutions referred to have urged the Government to undertake similar prosecutions in Ireland.
    Mr. MOORE: Has there been any diminution in the drilling since the demonstration at Balmoral?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I really do not know. I received a report on the drilling, the nature of which I described to the House yesterday. The drilling is still going on.
    Mr. RONALD M'NEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a considerable amount of drilling going on in many secondary and elementary schools? Are the Government keeping their eye on that also?
    Mr. BIRRELL: That does not arise here.
    Mr. DEVLIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a number of District Inspectors of Police in Ulster have been removed from that province to other parts of Ireland because they reported on this drilling?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I do not know that.

    Religious Census (Wales) Bill.
    Sir ARTHUR GRIFFITH-BOSCAWENasked whether the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider the decision of the Government to refuse facilities for the further stages of the Religious Census (Wales) Bill, in view of the fact that the First Reading was carried by 233 votes to 17 and that several Members of the Government voted in the majority?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I am unable to give facilities from the time at the disposal of His Majesty's Government.
    Viscount WOLMER: If the right hon. Gentleman refuses to give facilities, why did several Members of the Government vote for the Bill?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The Noble Lord does not seem to appreciate that it would be a very unusual thing to refuse leave to introduce a Bill.

    Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society, Limited.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Board has general power to enforce observance of the undertakings by which insurance companies and societies induce persons to insure with them, so as to obviate the necessity for numerous actions; whether, having regard to the statements in the 1891 prospectus of the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society, Limited, that the rate of interest at which the funds of the society were invested showed an average of over 6 per cent., that the annual income then exceeded £400,000, and printed in capital letters on every page that all profits belong to the members, to the table of estimated results issued with that prospectus and subsequently, and to the fact that in practice the society repays only about three-fifths of the money paid in premiums, he will have calculated by an independent accountant the amount of profits of this society in those twenty years, the value according to that prospectus of the options to which a person is now entitled who, in March, 1892, when under thirty-two years of age, insured £1,000 on a whole life policy for a tontine period of twenty years, and has paid an annual premium of £24 16s. 8d., amounting in those twenty years to £496 13s. 4d.; whether he will compare the results obtained with the options actually offered in this case; and whether he can require this society either to pay in accordance with its undertakings or to embody in its prospectus a correct illustration of the manner in which it does pay?
    Mr. BUXTON: The Board of Trade have no power to enforce the performance of contracts, which is a matter in which the Courts alone have jurisdiction. The Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society, Limited, has filed all the returns required by the Acts relating to life assurance companies, and these returns show that for the year ending 31st December, 1890, the income of the society amounted to £370,411, and that for each of the five
    1132
    years preceding 31st December, 1889, the funds of the society were invested so as to give a return of over 6 per cent. The rate of interest earned by the society has diminished since that time with the result that any estimate based on that rate would prove to be excessive. The Board of Trade have no power to require the society to allow a calculation of their profits in addition to that shown in their accounts.

    Workmen's Trains (Central London Railway).
    Mr. WILLIAM THORNEasked whether he is aware that the Central London Railway Company do not run workmen's trains from Shepherd's Bush before half-past six in the morning, which causes inconvenience to workpeople; and if he intends taking action in the matter?
    Mr. BUXTON: I have received complaints on this subject, and am in communication with the railway company in the matter.

  COAL MINES (MINIMUM WAGE) ACT.

    COUNTY OF NORTHUMBERLAND.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked whether the punishment of forfeiture of wages, provided in the rules attached to the administration of the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act for breaches thereof in the county of Northumberland, means that the defaulting worker forfeits the whole of his wages for the day or only that portion thereof which he has obtained through the operation of the Act?
    Mr. BUXTON: The Board of Trade have no authority to interpret the decision arrived at with regard to the Northumberland district under the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act, but I think that if my hon. Friend reads Rules 4 to 8 of the Schedule of the District Rules for Northumberland, he will see that what the workman forfeits for the breaches stated therein is his right to wages at the minimum rate, and not his right to be paid wages for the work performed by him.

    SOUTH WALES DISTRICT (CHAIRMAN'S AWARD).
    Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked whether the award of the chairman of the South Wales District Board, under the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act gives labourers a fixed minimum of 4s. 6d. a day, or whether

    1133
    this figure is subject to reduction automatically should the present selling price of coal fall sufficiently to bring about a reduction in the percentage now paid to colliers and others on the basic rates?
    Mr. BUXTON: The proceedings of the Joint District Board for South Wales are at present incomplete, and I have no official information which would enable me to make any statement with regard to the interpretation of any particular decision which the Board may have arrived at in the course of such proceedings.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire whether the minimum wage actually paid is 3s. a day?
    Mr. BUXTON: If it is 3s. a day it is plus the percentages. The proceedings are not complete, and I would rather wait until I get a full report from the chairman. When that report arrives I shall be glad to answer any further questions.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: As this point is very urgent, may I request that the right hon. Gentleman should obtain the information as soon as possible as to whether the percentage is to be a fluctuating quantity or whether the 4s. 6d. is fixed absolutely as the minimum?
    Mr. T. RICHARDSON: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will lay upon the Table of the House copies of the award of the whole of the District Boards under the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act?
    Mr. BUXTON: I understand the hon. Member to ask that when these awards are given they should be laid upon the Table of the House. Perhaps the simplest way would be to print them with the Votes so that Members can refer to them. This is only one of a large number of matters that have been decided either by the Joint Committee or by the chairman, and I do not think it would really be expedient for me to intervene or to ask for information at the present time, though I perfectly understand my hon. Friend's anxiety in the matter.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I am sorry to press the matter, but this decision has been given with regard to this particular point. May I ask that the information may be obtained and an answer given on Monday next?
    Mr. BUXTON: I will consider the matter.
    Mr. T. RICHARDSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman include in his promise copies of the conditions as well as the actual wages?
    Mr. BUXTON: I think the Northumberland case does cover conditions as well as the actual amounts. What I shall propose is that whatever I receive from these various chairmen as their decisions are given or as the decisions of the Joint Boards are given I should circulate to Members, but I would rather not do so until I have got it complete.

    Church of England Schools.
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education how many of the eighty-nine Church of England schools closed or handed over to the local authorities in Wales since 1st April, 1903, are in the counties of Anglesey, Merionethshire, Flintshire, and Carmarthenshire respectively?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): The figures are as follows: In Anglesey four Church of England schools were closed and three were transferred; in Merionethshire five were closed and two were transferred; in Flintshire four were closed and one was transferred; in Carmarthenshire two were closed and none were transferred.

    Elementary Education (School Pence).
    Mr. KINGasked the amount of school pence paid in the year ending 31st July, 1911, to the managers of council schools, Church of England schools, Wesleyan schools, Roman Catholic schools, and schools of all other denominations, respectively, and the total of all school pence paid in the same period in the public elementary schools of England and Wales receiving an income from school pence?
    Mr. PEASE: The information the hon. Member desires will be found in the Return ordered by the House of Commons on 21st February last at the instance of the hon. Member.
    Mr. KING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the totals were not given in the Return as they usually are in Returns of this kind?
    Mr. PEASE: They certainly were not given, but the hon. Member, I presume, can add a few figures together.
    Mr. KING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware there are a great number of figures, and that all the House might not accept the accuracy of my totals?

    Culver Street Non-provided School, Colchester.
    Mr. KINGasked whether the Culver Street non-provided school, Colchester, has been charging fees to elementary school children; and that the school is now condemned on the ground of structural defects and lack of playing-ground; and whether it is the policy of the Board to allow local education authorities to sanction fees in schools carried on in condemned buildings and with a curriculum not superior to that of free schools?
    Mr. PEASE: The answers to the first and second parts of the question are in the affirmative. The fees at this school are chargeable under the Elementary Education Act, 1891, and the Board have no power to require their abolition or reduction.

    Department of Agriculture (Ireland).
    Mr. VINCENT KENNEDYasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) what is the area of his Department's property in Ballyhaise, county Cavan; what is the area of the property referred to now under tillage; how many workmen are employed on the lands and how many agricultural students are being trained at this station; will he state what percentage of students trained at this agricultural institution have obtained positions under his Department; and what is the cost of working this agricultural station?
    Mr. T. W. RUSSELL (Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture, Ireland): The total area of the Ballyhaise property, including waste, water roads, and 200 acres of woods, is 820 statute acres. Of this 570 acres are arable, of which one-fourth is under tillage rotation. From twenty-four to thirty workmen are employed on the property. Fifteen agricultural and seventeen creamery students were admitted this session. The station is used for carrying out experiments. 4.8 per cent, of the students have obtained employment under the Department, The cost of the station is about £1,800 per annum.

    Royal Fleet Reserve.
    Lord NINIAN CRICHTON-STUARTasked the Postmaster-General whether he will consider the grant of twenty-eight days' leave to all employés of his Department in the immediate Reserve of the Royal Fleet Reserve; and whether, if so such men will be granted full wages during such time of sea service?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I have already arranged to grant twenty-eight days' special leave to as many Post Office employés as possible who apply for permission to join the Immediate Class of the Royal Fleet Reserve. No civil pay will be granted during the periods of special leave, but the men will receive naval pay and allowances.
    Lord N. CRICHTON-STUART: Will the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to consider giving these Reserve men the difference between their pay and the pay of their substitutes during their training?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: I will consider that point.
    Sir W. BYLES: Will the Post Office be sacrificed in the interests of the Navy?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: No sacrifice is required from the Post Office in this matter, and naturally the Post Office will facilitate the attendance of these men at their training.

    Post Office (Engineering Department).
    Mr. STEWARTasked the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the fact that since June, 1908, provincial first-class clerks of the offices of the superintending engineers in the engineering department of the Post Office have been eligible for promotion to the first-class of clerks in the headquarters office of the engineering department of the Post Office, that no promotions have been made from the provincial class for a period of eight years, and that no other outlet of promotion is available to those officers, he will take steps to ensure that the next vacancy for a first-class clerk in the headquarters office shall be filled by the selection of an officer from the provincial class of first-class clerks; and if preference in the matter of these promotions will be given to one class of officers to the exclusion of duly qualified officers of other eligible classes?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: No vacancy exists at the present time on the class in question. Whenever one arises, I will consider the hon. Member's suggestion.

    Case of John Ayling.
    Mr. MARTINasked the Secretary for Scotland whether, in view of the circumstances connected with John Ayling, he will depart from the usual practice of his Department and give the reasons for the release of Ayling in order to appease the feeling existing with regard to this case?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): The practice referred to is not confined to my Department, and I see no reason for departing from it in this case.

    Hyde Park (Speech by Mr. Keir Hardie).
    Mr. HUNTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the speech, as reported, of the junior Member for Merthyr Tydvil, on May Day last, in Hyde Park, in which he not only told soldiers not to shoot strikers, but told men not to enlist, and added that the crime of shooting a German workman was just as great as shooting a British workman; and whether he proposes to inquire into the case, and, if the reported statement is found to be correct, to prosecute the hon. Member?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): My attention had not previously been called to the speech in question. I have seen a newspaper report of it, and it does not appear to me to call for any action on my part.
    Mr. HUNT: Are we to understand that an hon. Member of this House may make statements with impunity which cannot be made by an ordinary agitator outside, and, if that is so and the hon. Member is not to be prosecuted, may not Mr. Tom Mann be let out?
    Mr. McKENNA: There was nothing in the speech of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil upon which a prosecution could be founded?
    Mr. HUNT: Will the right hon. Gentleman deny that the hon. Member did advise soldiers not to shoot Germans, even if they were enemies?
    Mr. McKENNA: I do not think the hon. Gentleman has quite accurately reported what the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil said.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Are we to understand the right hon. Gentleman came to the conclusion which he has stated after consideration of the matter with the Director of Public Prosecutions?
    Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir, I have not consulted the Director of Public Prosecutions in the case.

    Tailoring Trade Dispute.
    Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALDasked the Home Secretary whether it is permissible under factory law to sleep and feed persons of both sexes in rooms used for manufacturing purposes; whether such practices have taken place in the Soho district during the dispute in the tailoring trade;, whether he intends to institute proceedings against occupiers so offending; and whether he will utilise the powers conferred by Section 4 of the Factory Act, 1907, in such a manner as to make the practice impossible in future?
    Mr. McKENNA: The only provisions on the subject in the Factory Act, apart from those relating to dangerous trades, are that if a workshop other than a domestic workshop is occupied also as a sleeping apartment a higher proportion of cubic space per worker may be required in the day time, and that women and young persons must not be allowed during the meal times required under the Act to remain in a room in which a manufacturing process is then being carried on. Numerous inspections have recently been made in the Soho district, but no infringements of these provisions have been discovered. I think the reference in the last part of the question to Section 4 of the Act of 1907 must be a mistake; perhaps my hon. Friend will communicate with me on the point.

    Mr. Tom Mann (Sentence).
    Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked the Home Secretary whether, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, he is prepared to recommend His Majesty to extend the clemency of the Crown to Mr. Tom Mann, now undergoing a sentence of six months' imprisonment for saying at a public meeting that soldiers ought not to shoot workmen on strike, by remitting the remainder of the sentence?
    Mr. McKENNA: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley on Monday.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: In consequence of the answer given, I beg to give notice that I shall ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House to call attention to the delay of the Home Office in considering this question.
    Mr. WEDGWOODasked whether he can yet make any statement as to the case of Mr. Tom Mann and as to the other Syndicalist prosecutions?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I can add nothing to the answer which I gave yesterday to the hon. Member for North-East Manchester.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I rise to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House in order to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, i.e., the delay of the Home Secretary in considering the sentence passed on Tom Mann.
    Mr. McKENNA: In connection with this point, may I be allowed to say that I have asked for the notes in this case, but have not yet received them. When I get them I shall have to study them, and, if I find occasion to do so, I shall then have to communicate with the judge. In these circumstances, I submit that there cannot have been delay on my part.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: In the event of a definite understanding that I shall have an answer on Monday next I will not press the Motion to-day.
    Mr. McKENNA: It is impossible for me to make any such pledge. Many of the circumstances which I have stated are not under my complete control. So far as I am concerned, however, there will be no delay,
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Over a week has elapsed since the case was tried and sentence pronounced, and I feel bound to ask leave to move the Motion.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid I must accept the statement of the Home Secretary that he has not yet received the notes. If he has not, there has been no delay on his part in considering them. I think the better plan would be for the hon. Member to renew his Motion on Monday, and if he can then show there has been delay on the part of the Home
    1140
    Secretary, it will be for the House to consider the matter. In view of the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the hon. Member can hardly properly press his Motion now.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I will put down a question for Monday next.

    Women's Medical Service (India).
    Mr. H. W. FORSTERasked the Undersecretary of State for India whether the Government of India has approved the scheme drawn up by Surgeon-General C. P. Lukis, K.C.S.I., for the formation of a service of medical women for India; and, if so, when the scheme will come into operation?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): The answer to the first question is in the negative. The Government of India have under their consideration a scheme for the formation of a Women's Indian Medical Service which was submitted to the Secretary of State by certain ladies interested in the practice of medicine; but they have not yet expressed their opinion upon it.
    Mr. FORSTER: Can the Under-Secretary say how soon the Government of India will come to a determination on the question?
    Mr. MONTAGU: There is a considerable amount of interest manifested in it, and I telegraphed this morning asking when we might expect a reply.

    Provincial Engineers (India).
    Mr. O'GRADYasked (1) when final Orders on the case of provincial engineers, which has been under consideration for nearly four years, are likely to be passed; and why, in view of the fact that the Government of India's dispatch on the subject was transmitted to this country so far back as August last year, steps have not yet been taken to effect an early settlement of the case; and (2) whether he will now lay the complete Papers in connection with the case of provincial engineers upon the Table of this House?
    Mr. MONTAGU: It is not possible to state exactly when a decision will be reached on this very difficult and complicated case. The Secretary of State in Council has already passed Orders sanctioning certain increases of pay which will, he hopes, satisfy those interested; but has found it necessary to reserve other parts of the Government of India's proposals for

    1141
    further consideration. The matter will be expedited so far as possible. Until a final decision is reached on all the issues involved, the Secretary of State is not prepared to consider the question of laying Papers.

    Anti-Vaccination Prosecution (India).
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the fact that Mr. Jetha Nand, of Delhigate, Multan City, Punjab, was sentenced to fifteen days' imprisonment on 14th March, 1912, for not having his child vaccinated; whether he had been fined on two occasions previously in regard to the same child; whether the Indian vaccination laws allow of repeated prosecutions for the same offence; whether Mr. Jetha Nand was forcibly vaccinated whilst in prison, although he had had small-pox and showed marks on his body proving this; and, seeing that this case demonstrates that the vaccination laws are not enforced with moderation and restraint, whether he will advise the Government of India to introduce legislation on the, lines of that in operation in this country?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The Secretary of State has no knowledge of the facts of the case mentioned by the hon. Member, but he has asked the Government of India for a Report.

    Land Purchase (Ireland).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland how far the Irish Land Commissioners hold a firm of land agents, in entire control for the vendor of the negotiations for the sale of an estate, responsible for defective maps and representations subsequently resulting in the purchasing tenants being ordered to pay rents and attorn as tenants to a new landlord for lands in respect of which they are paying annuities as purchasers; whether he is aware that Messrs. Stewart and Son, acting in this capacity for Lord Longford, informed the Estates Commissioners that the tenants along the canal bank from Porterstown to the Downs Bog in Westmeath, had been obliged to take tenancies comprising the bank to the water's edge, and that they understood that they were purchasing those entire holdings and got no notice to the contrary, and no reduction of price, which would be a consequence of such a notice; and whether the Land Commission will now either maintain those purchasers in their
    1142
    entire holdings or reduce the annuities proportionately if the holdings are reduced?
    Mr. BIRRELL: Agents employed by owners who are selling estates under the Land Purchase Acts furnish to the Estates Commissioners such particulars as may be required. Portion of the estate referred to was intersected by the Royal Canal owned by the Midland Great Western Railway Company. Prior to the sale of his estate, Lord Longford allowed his tenants to use the canal banks, which he held as a yearly tenant from the company. The company have offered to make a letting of the banks to the tenant purchasers at the same rent in proportionate shares. Some of them have accepted the offer, while in the case of others who have refused the company have instituted legal proceedings and have obtained decrees for possession in each case. The holdings sold by Lord Long-ford under the Land Purchase Acts were the lands of which he was the owner in fee, and did not include any part of the canal banks. The estate maps lodged by the vendor did not purport to include the canal banks, and were prepared in accordance with the Commissioners' rules.

    Reinstatement of Evicted Tenants (County Cavan).
    Mr. VINCENT KENNEDYasked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that, contrary to the wishes of the people of county Cavan, expressed by resolution of the Cavan County Council, the Estates Commissioners planted James M'Cullagh on the lands of Kilmore, in county Cavan, and replied to the resolution of the Cavan County Council that they had no desire or intention to alter their decision of doing so, although the lands of Kilmore were acquired for the purpose of reinstating evicted tenants; is James M'Cullagh an evicted tenant; and is he aware that there are twelve evicted tenants in the vicinity already recommended for reinstatement by the Estates Commissioners, but who have not yet been reinstated; and, in view of the dissatisfaction and disturbance occasioned in the district, will he take any action in the matter?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners received the resolution referred to relative to the allotment of portion of the lands of Kilmore, and in reply stated that the lands had been allotted in the exercise of the discretion vested in them, and that they had no power to vary the arrange-

    1143
    ments which had been made. The lands were not acquired under the Evicted Tenants Act, but were utilised by the Commissioners for the purposes of facilitating the reinstatement of evicted tenants. One of the farms was allotted by them to M'Cullagh in consideration of his surrendering two farms in the same county, one of which was an evicted farm, and it has been given to the evicted tenant, and the second holding has been given to another county Cavan evicted tenant. The Commissioners experience great difficulty in obtaining untenanted land which persons desirous of surrendering evicted holdings are willing to accept, and if such persons are to be intimidated in the occupation of the new farms granted to them, it will be impossible for the Commissioners to obtain the surrender of evicted holdings, and will make it increasingly difficult to carry out the provisions of the Acts relating to the reinstatement of evicted tenants.
    Mr. VINCENT KENNEDY: Is this man an evicted tenant? Why did the officials act in violation of the people's wishes by placing this planter on the land?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The whole thing is done with the object of obtaining farms for evicted tenants, and nothing more.
    Mr. MOORE: Is this man receiving protection from the Government at present?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I do not know.
    Mr. MOORE: Were not all the twelve prosecutions instituted by the Government during the last fortnight against Nationalists for intimidation dismissed by Nationalist benches of magistrates? If so, what action does the Government propose to take?
    Mr. BIRRELL: They will take what action is open to them in the matter.

LOSS OF STEAMSHIP "TITANIC."

  DECK PASSENGERS.
  Major ARCHER-SHEEasked whether Section 291 of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, which states that a ship shall not carry passengers on more than two decks, has been repealed by any subsequent Act;
  Mr. BUXTON: The Section referred to by the hon. Member was repealed by Section 85 and the 2nd Schedule of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, and superseded by Section 16 and Regulatons made under Secton 17 of that Act.

  PORT OF LONDON AUTHORITY.
  Lord ALEXANDER THYNNE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade a question of which I have given him private notice, namely, whether the tug-masters employed in the trade of the Port of London have been applied to by the lightermen to reduce their average working hours to seventy-two hours per week; whether up to the present it has been impossible to arrange a meeting between the representatives of the masters and the representatives of the men, and whether the Board of Trade have been invited to intervene?
  Mr. BUXTON: Yes, the attention of the Board of Trade has been drawn to this, matter, but at the present time it is inadvisable that I should make any statement on the subject.

DEATH OF THE KING OF DENMARK.
The PRIME MINISTER: I have to inform the House that the Government has received to-day the news of the sudden death of the King of Denmark. I beg to give notice that to-morrow I will move an Address to His Majesty on the melancholy occasion.
ESTABLISHED CHURCH (WALES) BILL.

  SECOND READING.— [Third Day's Debate]
  Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [13th May], "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. Frederick Edwin Smith.]
  Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question." Debate resumed.
  Mr. POLLOCK: I desire only to finish the argument I was presenting to the House last night when the Debate stood adjourned. That argument was that the Under-Secretary had quite misread both history and law when the defended the proposal of this Bill to take away the land and property of the Church in Wales, and bring those properties back to their ancient tenure, and when he further asserted that inasmuch as the purposes of

  1145
  the tenure could not in many cases be fulfilled by reason of the change in the Church the tenure should lapse and the land be devoted to some other purposes. I was referring to the fact that all these tenures had been altered, dealt with, and considered by this House at a period when it cannot be supposed that it was under the particular dominance of the views of the Anglican Church. It was in 1645 that these tenures were brought before this House. All these tenures were then abolished when the Restoration took place in the year 1660, and an Act confirming the abolition of those tenures was passed Toy this House. It contained, in Section 7, one very remarkable exception, and that was that the tenure known as the frankal-moigne should remain. That means that, although that tenure could not perform the so-called services which were said to be a part of it, and the duties in respect of it had lapsed, the House at that time, and during the Puritan period, was content to free that tenure of land from all such services and still to retain that particular form of tenure, which was largely used for the purposes of the tenure of land by the Church. After that, I do not think any lawyer or historian can dispute what I said, that there is a hollowness about the argument presented so often, that this Bill tries to restore the intentions of pious donors of lands to the Church in. Wales.
  It must also be remembered that a great deal of the religious gifts to the Church, gifts to the cathedrals, to' the bishops' sees, and to the parishes, were only given upon a tenure of knights' service. That service was abolished by this House in 1645, and we have had a continuous user of the land, free from all these so-called rights or duties which are so often dwelt upon by those persons who have not made deep research into history or who are not very skilled in law. Hon. Members seem to justify their attitude towards this Bill by finding some grounds for salving their consciences in some ancient law or ancient history. Let me take as an example the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division (Mr. Leif Jones), who supposed that, inasmuch as in the year 1809 this House had put an end to the absolute right on the part of the testator to tie up the income of land, that that in some way gave this House a right to destroy trusts and to prevent testators giving land for particular purposes. If that sort of confusion of thought can exist in the brain of the hon. Member, perhaps he may be excused for his other views upon this Bill.
  1146
  He tells us that he is not a great lawyer. I rather wish he were a greater lawyer than he is, for then he could not have fallen into such a confusion of thought, and he would not in this House, or elsewhere, justify his views by so extraordinary a confusion of thought as to the law of his own country. An hon. Member opposite has deprecated the use of the word "cupidity" in connection with those proposals. I agree that we do not need to use such a word. I do not desire to use it myself. I think a happier word might be "wastefulness." What we complain of is the utter wastefulness in handing over property, which no one disputes is being wisely and well used, to another purpose for which it is not wanted. We complain of the handing over of money, now sorely needed by the curates, to the curators of museums. We see no justice and no good sense in it, and while we leave aside all questions of cupidity we say that is a wasteful, foolish, and would be an unworthy act of this House. I agree that it would be a happy thing if we could raise the Debate on this great question to as high a level as possible. I regret that any Member on the other side of the House should not give full weight to the objections made from this side of the House, and should doubt the sincerity of the views which are expressed. We can answer the arguments presented from the other side, and we have been waiting for a long time to find any true justification for the alteration which is proposed by this Bill. It is for hon. Members on the other side to justify this alteration. They have failed to do so. We are not unreasonably anxious to preserve the liberties and the possessions of the Church, which undoubtedly has done much for the people, and which we believe is doing really good work, in respect of which she ought not to be crippled. May I refer in conclusion to a few words, spoken in 1884, by a man who held great sway in this House, and whose opinions are still worth quoting. He said:—
  "I cannot, and will not, allow myself to believe that the English people, who are not only naturally religious, but also eminently practicable, will ever consent, for the petty purpose of gratifying sectarian animosity, or for the wretched object of pandering to infidel proclivities—will ever consent to deprive themselves of so abundant a fountain of aid and consolation, or acquiesce in the demolition of an institution which elevates the life of the nation, and consecrates the acts of the State."
  These words lose none of their force or value by being words which have been preserved to us and for us by the First Lord of the Admiralty as being the words

  1147
  which fell from the eloquent lips of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill. Those are his eloquent sentiments, expressed at Birmingham in 1884, and I think we find in those words a truer and higher note than is sometimes to be found in Debates on such subjects in this House. It is because we believe that the Church has elevated the life of the nation, and has consecrated the acts of the State that we offer our sincere, our whole-hearted, and our constant opposition to the proposals which are put forward in this Bill.
  4.0 P.M.
  The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): I do not propose to detain the attention of the House for more than a very short time, and I shall endeavour to employ that time in dealing not with matters of detail, but with the larger issues of principle which are raised by this Bill. I shall not, however, enter upon the question, because I do not think it is in any way necessary to do so, or that it is involved in the argument, whether, as a matter of abstract reason or historical experience the special recognition by the State of some particular form or some particular organisation of the Christian faith is or is not in the best interests of religion. Nor, for the same reason, shall I do more than refer for a moment to the interesting point which was raised yesterday by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir. Balfour), when he claimed, if I may express my own personal opinion, legitimately and justifiably, for the Church of England that since the Reformation it had, as compared with other religious institutions elsewhere, been a comprehensive Church which had allowed to its ministers and its members the greatest width of opinion and latitude of discussion and expression. I believe that to be true, and I am not concerned to criticise the instances which the right hon. Gentleman enumerated drawn from other times and other countries, of Churches which have not followed or set that excellent example. But may I ask the House and the right hon. Gentleman whether the contrast which he drew, legitimate as I believe it to have been, is really relevant to the question which is engaged in this controversy. The Church of England is an established Church, no doubt, but so were the great bulk of the Churches—I am not sure whether I should be accurate in saying all—to which the right hon. Gentleman referred by way of contrast—established at any rate in this
  1148
  sense, which is perhaps the worst sense of the term, that they could call upon the coercive powers of the State to enforce their own narrow and illiberal pretensions. Therefore, the differentia between the action and the attitude of the Church of England in this matter and of the other Churches with which the right hon. Gentleman, I think, justly compares it to its advantage, cannot be that the Church of England is established, for that is a feature which it possesses in common with most of the others. It must be something else. Perhaps, without undue national self-complacency we may say it may be found in some peculiar tendency of the English mind and the English temperament working in an English atmosphere upon an English soil.
  But, as I say, I do not think that a discussion on that point, interesting as it is undoubtedly in an historical sense, is specially relevant to the question which is now before the House. For the British Parliament—and this is the first proposition I wish to submit to the House—the question of the Disestablishment or Disendowment of any Church over which it possesses jurisdiction must be a question not so much of principle as of expediency. I say that because every argument of principle that is relevant either to Establishment or Endowment was used and exhausted in 1869, when, by the assent of the Crown and both Houses of Parliament, the Irish Church was Disestablished and Disendowed upon a scale with which the provisions of the present measure, if you compare one with the other, are, I will not say generous, but certainly moderate. The right hon. Gentleman yesterday put this question-begging inquiry. He said, "Is the Church strengthened or weakened by being robbed?" That is precisely the question which was put to Mr. Gladstone and was put to both Houses of Parliament in the year 1869, and when they gave their assent, as they did, to the Statute dealing with the Irish Church they put upon record a legislative precedent which, until it is wiped off our Statute Book, you cannot get rid of, and from which we may presume that it is not contrary to the ordinary laws of morality, and it is within constitutional competence to deal both with the Establishment and with the Endowment of a so-called national Church. I quite agree that when you come to degrees of expediency the two cases are not identical cases, nor has anyone ever suggested that they are; but though not identical they are, when they

  1149
  come to be examined, in one, and that the most essential point, similar or at least analogous, and the point to which I refer is the point upon which Mr. Gladstone, in promoting the legislation of 1869, not indeed exclusively, but to a very large extent, relied. The origin of the two Churches is no doubt different—the Church in Ireland and the Church in Wales—but their history possesses this common feature that in both cases alike for the best part of 200 years the established Church in Ireland and the Anglican established Church in Wales devoted their main energies, not to the spiritual regeneration of the population in and for which they existed, but were used by the English Government as political instruments.
  I was only a day or two ago struck, in reading a volume of history, with one fact which may serve by way of illustration for what I have said in its application to Wales. Probably the two most eminent persons who occupied episcopal posts in the Church in Wales during the eighteenth century were Bishop Hoadly, in the early part of the century, and Bishop Watson, in the latter part. Bishop Hoadly was Bishop of Bangor, and Bishop Watson was Bishop of Llandaff. Bishop Hoadly, who is known and celebrated in the literature of English theology as the initiator of a very long, though not a very fruitful piece of dialectics which goes by the name of "The Bangorian Controversy," during the whole of the six years that he was in that See never once visited Bangor at all. And at the end of the century Bishop Watson, a very eminent chemist and a distinguished light of the University of Cambridge, only emerged once every three years from his comfortable seclusion among the Westmorland lakes and visited the See of Llandaff. I mention these two cases as illustrations of the kind of thing which went on there, just as it went on in Ireland. The Church was regarded as an excellent place in which to put men of distinction who wanted leisure for the pursuit of other activities, and the hungry sheep looked up and were not fed. The result in Ireland was, as everyone knows, to confirm the mass of the Irish people in their allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church. The result in Wales, where the Roman Catholic Church has never had, at least in modern times, any strong hold on the people, was to drive the great mass of the nation to seek spiritual life and teaching outside the walls of the Established Church. In the eighteenth century, the period when the episcopal annals of Wales
  1150
  were adorned by these illustrious names, and which, I think, may justly be described as the time of the re-Christianising of the country, the Church of England, the established Church, took no active part, and certainly no official part, in that great work, which was carried on mainly, if not exclusively, by the spontaneous energies and by the voluntary offerings of people outside.
  Of course, it may be said, and I dare say will be said, that all that is ancient history. So it is, in a sense. Things have now changed. So they had in Ireland. Exactly the same thing was said there. The Irish Church, the Church which was Disestablished in 1869, had long before that date turned over a new chapter and set its house in order, and was endeavouring to keep itself more or less abreast of the spiritual and religious requirements of the people. Things have changed, and no one has acknowledged more fully than I have during the whole of this controversy the great work which the Anglican Church, in Wales has been doing for a generation past, not only to make atonement for the shortcomings of the past, but to discharge the duties which it owes to the community. But nations have long memories, and it is true of nations as it is of individuals, that ground which has once been lost very often can never be recovered. Although the roads on which the Establishment travelled were different in the two cases the results in Ireland and in Wales were the same. Despite the growth of a new spirit, and despite the attempt to overtake arrears, which were really not over takable, the established Church expresses the religious views and embodies the religious organisation of a comparatively small minority of the population. I do not think, in dealing with this matter, which, as I have said, is a matter of expediency, anyone will deny the proposition that an established Church, to maintain and to justify its title to Establishment, must be the organised expression of the spiritual and the religious life of the mass of the people. No one could say that of the Church in Ireland. No one will say that of the established Church in Wales. I should like, in view of some strong language which has been used, language which I hope I shall abstain from imitating, and which I quite agree is used by persons who feel strongly both upon one side and the other, for this is a matter which excites an unusual degree of feeling—I should like to quote a prophecy

  1151
  made by a very eminent man, one of the most accomplished men the Church of England has ever lent to the Church of Ireland, the Archbishop of Dublin, on the eve of Irish Disestablishment, in 1869. He said:—
  "If you overthrow the Irish Established Church you will put to the Irish Protestants the choice between apostasy and expatriation, and every man among them who has money or position when he sees his Church go will leave the country. If you do that, you will find Ireland so difficult to manage that you will have to depend on the gibbet and the sword."
  That was the prophecy of this able and distinguished man, but the Irish Protestants have not left Ireland, and we know by indications to which I need not refer—for they are not strictly relevant to the subject now before the House— that they are as virile and as vocal as ever. They have not had to choose between apostasy and expatriation, and they still pursue their own faith with undiminished ardour on their native soil, and Ireland has not been handed over to the gibbet or the sword. I think it may well give pause to those who are prophesying with equal glibness and assurance almost equally disastrous results to the adherents of the established Church in Wales, when they see how history has evolved itself in the sister case of Ireland. Attempts have been made in the course of the Debates and elsewhere, to distinguish between the two cases. I quite agree there is no greater fallacy than to say history repeats itself. History does not repeat itself, and you cannot find any two cases in history which logicians would say are on all-fours. What are the substantial distinctions sought to be raised in the case of Ireland and the case of Wales? There is one which is very frequently invoked, and it was used by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour). He said that in the case of Ireland you were dealing with a nation—in another connection we sometimes hear that disputed—and that in the case of Wales you are not. The right hon. Gentleman said, as though it were a perfectly natural analogy which is argumentatively valid, that to treat the voice of the vast predominant majority of the representatives of the Principality as though in a matter of this kind it ought, primâ facie at any rate, to receive attention and deference, was an argument which, to his mind, weighs no more than if you could show the same state of things in regard to some particular geographical fraction of England. Is that seriously
  1152
  maintained? We do not go into this matter by numbers, and it is not a matter of counting heads, but if there is anywhere in the British Empire a community which has all the indicia of a separate nation, in history, language, development, traditions and special needs, social atmosphere, all that makes up domestic and civic life, surely that community is the Welsh nation. This House of Commons has constantly now for generations past practically by its legislation acknowledged that is so. Why! the acts of the right hon. Gentleman himself as a legislator are very much better than his professions as a dialectician. He was himself certainly an important Member of the Cabinet that passed the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, which recognised, as regards that vital and all-important subject of national necessity, that Wales required and must be dealt out different and separate treatment from the rest of the United Kingdom. I could multiply illustrations. We all agree practically that there is a separation, not in any way inconsistent with common loyalty and Imperial unity—separation of local sentiment and local interests in regard to the Principality of Wales as well marked and defined as exists anywhere in the civilised world, and not even Ireland itself can claim precedence in that respect. That is one attempt, and I think unsuccessfully, to discriminate between the two cases.
  There is another attempt which perhaps deserves more serious notice. It was made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. F. E. Smith) who moved the Amendment, and it was repeated with great force and wealth of illustration by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London yesterday. It is that here, unlike the case of Ireland, your legislation for Disestablishment and Disendowment involves the dismemberment of the Church of England. It is said, "You are taking away four dioceses which from time immemorial, or at least for a great many centuries, have formed part of the Province of Canterbury. You are cutting them off from Convocation and from synodical connection with those with whom they have always been closely related, and turning them adrift into the wilderness to lead their own life, and to pursue a course of their own." Technically the same thing might have been said of the Church of Ireland, because by the Act of Union the Church of Ireland and the Church of England were united. I am

  1153
  reminded by an hon. Friend that for 150 years there was no Convocation. Convocation was only revived in, I think, the year 1852, after being in desuetude for considerably more than a century. Practically by the Act of Union and the most solemn language which could be used in a treaty the Church in England and the Church in Ireland were declared to be a united Church. I do not want to press that, which, after all, is a technical point, but what I cannot understand with all the sympathy that I really feel with an obviously genuine sentiment, and what I have puzzled my brain to understand, is how after this separation has taken place, and these four dioceses are formally sepaated for synodical and constitutional purposes from the Province of Canterbury there should be any difficulty in as close intercommunion and co-operation as there was before. That is not the case with the Nonconformist bodies. As an hon. Friend of mine said last night, the Methodists of Wales have no difficulty in co-operating on the closest possible terms with the Methodists of England. If you look to our own Dominion Churches overseas, you will find, though there is no Convocation, the difficulty conjured up is one which in practice has no real existence at all.
  Then the right hon. Gentleman in what I think was the most entertaining part of his speech reinforced the argument by saying that we were not only going to dismember the Church of England, but that we were going to re-establish in Wales an Episcopal Church of its own. The right hon Gentleman, giving his imagination the wings of humour, a very useful and desirable thing if it is to make a lofty and attractive flight, by anticipation canonised my right hon. Friend, the Home Secretary, as the person who in history will go down as the patron saint of the new established Welsh Church. I am very reluctant to tarnish or bedim the contingent halo which would so becomingly encircle the brow of my right hon. Friend, but lest he should entertain some exaggerated conception of what history has in store for him, I am bound in common honesty to point out that his claim to this position in the hierarchy of patron saints, rests on the slenderest possible ground. What is it founded upon? It is founded entirely on the thirteenth Clause of the Bill, which provides: —

  (1) Nothing in any Act, law, or custom shall prevent the bishops, clergy, and
  1154
  laity of the Church in Wales from holding synods or electing representatives thereto, or from framing, either by themselves or by their representatives elected in such manner as they think fit, constitutions and regulations for the general management and good government of the Church in Wales and the property and affairs thereof, whether as a whole or according to dioceses, and the future representation of members thereof in a general synod or in diocesan synods, or otherwise.

  "(2) If at any time it is shown to the satisfaction of His Majesty the King that the said bishops, clergy, and laity have appointed any persons so to represent them, and hold property for any of their uses and purposes, His Majesty in Council may by charter incorporate such persons (in this Act referred to as the representative body), with power to hold land without licence in mortmain."

  If that is the only claim my right hon. Friend may have to entitle him to rank with St. Augustine, St. Columba, Joseph Smith, and other ecclesiastical organisers, I am sorry to say that I do not take a very sanguine view of his chances of immortality. Connected with the argument with which I have been dealing, and, I suppose, corollary to it is another, again supposed to distinguish the case of Wales from that of Ireland, and which is based on the continuity and identity of the Church of England throughout all historical record both in England and Wales. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. F. E. Smith), in support of that contention, and with the view of establishing an argumentative difference between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and myself quoted a speech I made nearly twenty years ago in moving the Second Reading of a similar Bill. I do not complain of the right hon. Gentleman for not having taken the excellent advice by one whose name he and I as Oxford men must revere, namely, the late President Routh, always to verify his references. But, after all, he only followed the example of the Archbishop of Canterbury. I have had put into my hands since the Debate began a leaflet, now in circulation, which I should be sorry to hold either the right hon. Gentleman or the Archbishop in any way responsible for. It is headed, "What Mr. Asquith says about the Church." It is published by and bears the imprimatur of the Central Church Committee for Defence and Instruction. I have had considerable experience in

  1155
  electioneering of political leaflets of one kind or another, but this particular one is a masterpiece of misrepresentation. I call it a masterpiece for this reason: It cites a number of passages which are verbally and textually correct from various speeches of mine, carefully divorcing them from the context, and conveying to the reader, as I shall show in a moment, not only a different but diametrically opposite impression to that which was intended by me, and which any reader of the speeches would see was clearly meant. With regard to the continuity and identity of the Church—I am sorry to trouble the House—I am quoted as having said, and quite correctly, and I adhere to every word of it: —
  "It is a historical error to represent the Church of England as ever having been a mere off-shoot and dependency of the Church of Rome,"
  And as having further said that—
  "I am not one of those who think it is right to assume that the legislation of Henry VIII. transferred the privileges and endowments of the national Church from the Church of Rome to the Church of England. I am quite prepared to admit, what I believe the best authorities on history now assert, that there has been amid all these changes and developments a substantial identity and continuity of existence in our national Church from its earliest days down to the present time."
  That is perfectly true. That is embedded in a context which apparently these gentlemen who are engaged in Church defence and instruction were either too indolent to read or found it too inconvenient to repeat. I am going to read something that preceded and something that followed the passage which was selected by the Church Defence Committee. This is the passage which precedes:—
  "The statements which I have made show conclusively and bring out in the clearest possible light the distinction which is obvious enough between the Church as a Spiritual Body, which is one which is identical, which is continuing, which does not change, and the Church as an Establishment which is subject in all its forms and all its laws to the shifting currents of public opinion, at one time being protected by Parliament to a certain extent, and at, other times protected by Parliament within much narrower and more contracted limits."
  In other words, I was drawing and pointing to the distinction between the spiritual unity and continuity of the Church and the shifting phases which it assumed from time to time, owing to the legislation of Parliament, as a State Establishment. I will make that much clearer in what follows. In the legislation of the Reformation some people seem to think nothing happened. I again claim indulgence if I quote the summary I then gave of what happened at the
  1156
  Reformation, and what that legislation was then:—
  "The assertion of the claim on the part of the Crown and Parliament first of all to establish and define the Royal supremacy over the Church; and next to confine the Church even in purely Ecclesiastical matters as its final Court of Appeal to a Court of secular Judges appointed by the Crown; to change the doctrine and modify the ceremonies taught and practised, at one moment to prohibit and at another to permit and then to prohibit again such an institution as the marriage of the clergy."
  I went on to say:—
  "I defy anyone who has studied with an impartial mind the legislation of the forty years, from 1530 to 1570, to dispute the proposition that Parliament did in that time assert and exercise their right to prescribe the conditions of the tenure upon which every Ecclesiastical benefice of this country was to be held."
  Does anyone deny that proposition? If he does he must find some way of escape which has never yet been discovered from the cast-iron legislation of Henry VIII. and his successors. I repeat to-day what I said then, that the Church as an Establishment and not the Church as a spiritual entity, not the Church as a continuous stream—as it has been in my opinion at any rate—on the whole of beneficent influence on the life of this nation, but the Church as an establishment is the creature of Parliament. Parliament has prescribed conditions, Parliament has altered conditions. That which Parliament has made it can unmake again at its own discretion. Now let me refer to another point which is inseparable from what I have said about Establishment, namely, Disendowment. The hon. Member for Bolton (Mr. Harwood) in his very able speech yesterday, in which he frankly avowed himself an opponent of this Bill, pointed out, and I think with unanswerable force, that in point of principle you cannot separate Disestablishment from Disendowment. The principle, the right in one case is exactly the same as in the other, and depends upon the same considerations and is authorised by the force of the same sanction. The constitutional right which I have pointed out in the passages which I ventured to quote from myself was affirmed in the Reformation settlement. It was reaffirmed in 1869 in the case of the Irish Church, and there have been other cases, where you are not dealing with funds or endowments the conditions of which have been laid down by Statutes, in which Parliament has shown and exercised the most drastic powers in the public interests of revision and redistribution. I will not go back to the case, though it is a very striking one in many points of view, the famous case of the Dissenters Chapel Act of 1844, but I will take a much more recent

  1157
  Act. I will take the case of what was done, and done by the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) as recently as the year 1905 in the case of the Scottish Church.
  What happened there? You were dealing with a fund, every penny of which had been contributed practically within the memory of living man. Disruption took place in 1813 and legislation in 1905. The Free Church which went out in 1843, resolved to unite with another Scottish Ecclesiastical organisation much older in its origin, as far as its constituent parts were concerned, the United Presbyterians. They believed, and were advised, that such a union was intra vires, and would not affect their title to the property, but the House of Lords held otherwise, and held that the legal title to this fund, every penny of which as I have said had grown up within the lifetime of two generations, belonged to a small dissentient minority who did not themselves subscribe to the Union. What did the Government of the day do? They did what I think was perfectly right, and I strongly supported it at the time. They said that it would be a monstrous thing that the whole of the funds which had been subscribed by the Free Church which went out at the disruption should become the property of a small minority; and the Government passed an Act of Parliament which distributed the fund. On what principle? By polling the number of adherents—that is practically what it came to—in particular parishes. It is worth reading from the second Sub-section of Section 1 of the Churches (Scotland) Act, 1005. It says:—
  "The Commission in making their allocations of property under this Act shall allocate congregational property to the Free Church in any case where they consider that out of those who in the opinion of the Commission were members or adherents of the congregation on the 30th day of October. 1900, and are at the commencement of this Act both resident in the district and members or adherents of the Free Church or United Free Church congregation, at least one-third are members or adherents of the Free Church congregation."
  So that unless they were one-third they were not to get it. In other words, they made a most drastic distribution of this fund between the parties by polling the number of adherents of the two different bodies concerned. As to the bearing of that legislation, the Archbishop of Canterbury and my hon. and learned Friend—
  Sir A. CRIPPS: That whole Commission was based on the supposition that the
  1158
  smaller body could not use the fund and that funds sufficient for their equipment should be left and the residue was not to be secularised but was to be used for Ecclesiastical purposes.
  The PRIME MINISTER: That is the basis on which this Bill proceeds. So far as the amount to be allocated to the original beneficiaries is concerned it is based exactly on the principle on which this Bill proceeds.
  Sir A. CRIPPS: Surely it is entirely distinct. If you were to say that these funds were not wanted for the purposes of the Church in Wales I agree, but that was the whole basis of the Scottish case, and it does not exist here.
  The PRIME MINISTER: Let me read what was said in the course of the Debate by perhaps the most eminent Scottish lawyer at that time, who is, unfortunately now dead, and who was one of our most distinguished judges, Lord Robertson. It has a direct bearing on the question to which I am now referring. Lord Robertson, who strongly opposed this measure, speaking on the 31st July, said this:—
  "You are going to make use of the Commission to take a sort of head poll of the adherents of the Free Church. If they fall short of a certain standard, then you are going to deprive them of their property. Now I want to know how far that is to be applied elsewhere?"
  He goes on with great prescience to use these words: —
  "Suppose we have a Welsh Disestablishment Bill, is the property of the Welsh Church to he taken away in those parishes where they fall below a certain standard, and are my Noble Friends on the other side of the House going to back up the Government in that system? You see now the kind of enterprise you are going to embark on."
  Lord Robertson foresaw that the precedent which was being set could well be followed in the case of the Welsh Church. In regard to this matter of Disendowment, the present Bill, as everybody knows, is more generous in its provision than those which preceded it. I was sorry to hear the right hon. Gentleman speaking, as he said with authority, declare that the Church would not be content to get 10s. 11d. in the £. That, of course, means, if it means anything at all, that you regard the whole operation, even if it were only to deprive the Church of a penny in the pound, as spoliation and robbery. Precisely the same argument was used in the case of the Irish Church.
  Lord ROBERT CECIL: It was quite true then.
  The PRIME MINISTER: The Noble Lord says it was true. Lord Salisbury voted for the Second Reading. I cannot understand anyone who conscientiously maintains that a particular measure is a measure of spoliation and robbery supporting it in any shape or form. If it is a question of degree or expediency, I can understand; if it is a question whether these terms are just and generous or those terms are just and generous, then I quite agree that it is a matter of accommodation and not of principle; but if it is spoliation and robbery, if you will not accept even 19s. 11d. in the £, then the thing is wrong in principle and nothing can justify it. I can only say, in regard to that, so far as we here are concerned—I speak for my colleagues and myself—we shall welcome, and welcome in the fullest degree, when we get into the Committee stage, discussion both as to what is just and generous to leave to the Church, and also as to what purpose the residue which is not left to the Church, can in the best interests of Wales be most usefully applied. I have only one word to say in conclusion. I approach this matter, not as a Welsh Nationalist, which by birth and other disabilities I am not entitled to, though with the strongest possible sympathy with the Welsh nation, and certainly not in any sense as antagonistic to the Church of England. I should be sorry to submit myself for examination in orthodoxy unless I were quite sure who the examiners were to be, but I believe I can say that I am sincerely attached to what I conceive to be the essential teaching of the Church of England and its forms of worship, and in the office which I have now held for some years—which carries with it the trusteeship of matters very important to the Church—I think I may say honestly that I have spared neither pains nor time to advance the best interests of the Church, and, above all, to maintain and promote its comprehensive character. Therefore I trust I may be believed when I say that when the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. F. E. Smith) suggests that those who support this Bill are animated only by the lust of cupidity, or when, as I much regretted to hear, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) said yesterday, that all we care about is, not the benefit or advantage of those who were to receive, but to wound and despoil those from whom we are going to take—when the right hon. Gentleman said that my withers, and, I believe, those of the vast
  1160
  mass of those who support us, were altogether unwrung.
  I would not raise my voice in support of any scheme which was dictated by such motives, or which in my conscience and judgment I thought would lead to such a result. I do not believe the Church in Wales, with its beneficent and growing activity, which we all of us, willingly or unwillingly, and for my part most willingly, are constrained to recognise and rejoice in—I do not believe it will be crippled by any measure of Disendowment which Parliament would in the least degree be likely to carry through. I know how strong are the feelings, both on one side and the other, but I would ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to enlarge their imaginations far enough to believe that a person may be sincerely attached to the Church of England honestly desirous for its progress, not only in England, but in Wales, and yet think that by promoting this measure he is not only not hindering but helping the best interests of the Church. I should hope that is not too great a task for the imaginations even of the most ardent opponents of this Bill, and I will make one more appeal. Let them stretch their vision outside the comparatively narrow limits of this United Kingdom of ours, and look at what is going on among the great English-speaking communities in. and outside our Empire. Some of them have had established Churches and have disestablished them. Some of them have never tolerated any official recognition by the State of any particular form of religious organisation. Is there a man here, or outside these walls, who is acquainted with the actual facts, who will allege that in those great communities the sense of religion is less deep-seated or less widespread, or that the standard of public or of private life is less pure or less exalted than in this country? I do not believe there is. For my part, I support this Bill, partly in the light of that experience in addition to the special and particular grounds upon which it rests, in the firm and honest belief that if it is passed into law, it will remove in Wales the greatest obstacle to charity and co-operation among Christians, and so far from degrading or lowering the level, you will find in the long run it will benefit the whole spiritual and religious life of the Principality.
  Mr. CAVE: In endeavouring to the best of my ability to follow the Prime Minister,

  1161
  I will try to conform to the moderation of language which he has impressed upon us by precept and also by example. If I wander even for a moment from that moderation of language I hope the House will believe it is only because there are some subjects so grave and some feelings so intense that it is impossible to veil or conceal them. May I refer quite briefly to the argument used to-day by the Prime Minister, and used, I think, in other speeches which he has made on this and on the last Bill. He began those speeches by referring to the Irish precedent, and lie suggests to us that because in 1869 Mr. Gladstone's Act was passed for Ireland, therefore the principle of Disestablishment ought no longer to be questioned in this House. I join issue entirely with him on that argument. Even if the Irish precedent were on all fours—and it is far from being so—I decline to accept the view that because Parliament in 1869 passed an Act disestablishing the Irish Church, we may not to the full question the principle of Disestablishment to-day. That you have been unjust once is no reason why you may be unjust again. That you have taken property from one Church, or one part of the Church, is no reason why you may take property from another part of the same Church. But I submit that the Irish precedent is in no sense on all fours with this case. The Irish Church was the creation of a Statute, of a Statute then not seventy years old. Irish Disestablishment was proposed by Mr. Gladstone expressly as one means of relieving Irish discontent and disorder. No one can say that of Wales. Again, as to Irish endowments, they were said, I do not say truly said, to be excessive and to be misused. No one says that of the Church of Wales. In any case this Bill is far less generous to the Church of Wales than is the Irish Act to the Church in Ireland. There is more than one point under this Bill in which the Welsh Church comes worse off, and far worse off, than the Church of Ireland under Mr. Gladstone's Act. I will only for the moment remind the House of this—I will refer to one or two points later—that today the Church in Wales is poorer before Disestablishment than the Church of Ireland after Disestablishment; and that fact alone, I think, is an answer for any fair-minded man to the Irish analogy. Then the right hon. Gentleman went back to what he admitted to be relatively ancient history—he went back to the eighteenth century. He said there were bishops then
  1162
  who did not do their duty, and hinted that it was too late to remedy such neglect. I do not think the English sense of justice will accept that view. I do not think Englishmen will permit you to say that because the Church might not have done its duty 100 years ago, therefore, though the Church does its duty to-day, that Church must suffer. Englishmen will look to the present, and see how matters stand in the present day, and will decide on that basis. I want to dwell for a short time on the question of Disestablishment, because it has been to some extent made little of by some previous speakers, and I do not think it a small thing. What is meant by Disestablishment?
  5.0 P.M.
  I listened with very great care to speakers in this Debate—speakers on the other side—hoping to understand what is their point of view, and if I have correctly understood them there is one thought which runs through all the speeches in favour of the Bill. I mean the speeches of Nonconformists especially, and that is that they desire equality—equality of privileges and possibly equality of means. Let us consider how far under this Bill you obtain equality of privileges. The word Disestablishment by itself may mean nothing, or it may mean a good deal. When you say that the Church shall cease to be established by law, that is a phrase of doubtful meaning, and one must look at the later Clauses of the Bill to see what the measure really effects. I say nothing of the so-called social privileges which are not touched by the Bill—those privileges which were dealt with so fully by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Balfour) yesterday—the Doctorate of Divinity, the presence of the Archbishop at the Coronation, and other things. There is only one privilege attaching now to the Church of England which this Bill affects or touches in any way—I mean the fact that some of the bishops of the Church sit in the House of Lords. That, I agree is a privilege, although as a set-off ministers of the Church cannot sit in this House. Still, the privilege does exist, and that will be taken away by the Bill. What you are doing by this Bill is to exclude the Welsh bishops from the other House with the effect which follows under the existing law, that you bring four more English bishops into the other House. Is that the right way to deal with this question? Is it not better to deal with it on general principles and

  1163
  on broader lines? I venture to associate myself entirely with what was said by my right hon. Friend yesterday, and I think it is a pity to exclude from the House of Lords almost the only element which comes into it from outside, and almost the only element which sits there by virtue of office. I would far rather see all of the Churches represented in that House. I am quite sure no one who belongs to the Church of England would view with the least jealousy a proposal of that kind. But when you deal with the matter as in this Bill by exclusion, you make it impossible for the future to deal with it by inclusion. The matter is dealt with on wrong lines, and should be considered as a whole if and when your time conies to deal with the whole Constitution. With that one exception the changes are not in the direction of abolishing privilege at all, although they are, nevertheless, gravely injurious to the Church of England. Let me refer briefly to the question of what has been called dismemberment. You propose to forbid the summoning of the Welsh clergy to Convocation. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think there is little or nothing in that because it will still be open to the clergy of the Church of England to confer with the clergy of the Church of Wales. Of course they may, and so they may with the ministers of any denomination, but what you are doing is to destroy the union of the Church. You are taking no privilege from the Church, for the constitution of Convocation affects no one but Churchmen, but what we desire, and claim is that representatives of the whole Church, which to-day is one, shall be permitted to be summoned and as one body to deliberate and decide on matters affecting the Church, and affecting the Church only. I think that to forbid that, and to break up the spiritual unity of the Church, is nothing less than a wanton and useless act of tryranny.
  What more is there in this Bill? You take away the nomination by the Crown to archbishoprics and bishoprics and to Crown livings. There is not in this Bill what was found in the last Bill—that is a recital that the Crown has consented to place its patronage at the disposal of Parliament. I do not know whether the Government have obtained such a consent, but if I understand the matter rightly the precedent of the last Bill ought to be considered and followed in this. Even if that consent be obtained, the nomination of the Crown
  1164
  to those offices is by no means a privilege of the Church. It is a privilege of the Crown and of the nation, and, of course, the power is exercised on advice. Therefore you are not by that method weakening the Church or putting it on a par with other denominations, you are relieving it from a burden which at the moment rests upon it. Then you dissolve the ecclesiastical co-operations and you destroy the parochial system. That is not destroying a privilege. The parochial system is a burden on the Church, because it represents an obligation that every parish in the country shall have a representative of the Church to whom every man and woman in the parish, whether churchman or church-woman or not, shall be entitled to look for help, and to whom anyone can go for baptism, for marriage, for birth, and for alt the offices of religion. That is an obligation on the Church, and not a privilege.
  You abrogate the ecclesiastical law. Somebody seemed to think that to have the ecclesiastical law recognised in the Courts was a privilege of the Church and not of other denominations. Nothing of the kind. Every religious community is governed by law, and the law of trusts governing the free Churches, to call them that, are recognised in every court in the country. There is not a lawyer who has not had experience of cases where those laws have been considered and enforced. The position of the Church only differs in this respect, that the Church, having at one time covered, and still claiming to cover so far as ministrations go, the whole country, the law of the Church is so generally recognised and so enforced that it has become part of and recognised in the law of the country. Therefore, though enforced through ecclesiastical courts, it is enforced in the end in the civil courts in respect of the property of the Church and the trusts by which it is governed. All you are doing by the Bill is to declare that it shall be no longer the law, but that every member of the Church shall be deemed to be bound by contract to observe the doctrines and the regulations and the ritual of the Church. That only means that, instead of going to an ecclesiastical court as you do to-day, and having your Church question considered there, and if you succeed taking it to other courts, you must go at once to the civil court. Thus you cast it on the civil courts of this country to interpret and to consider, and if need be to enforce, the law as to the

  1165
  doctrine, and even the ritual of the Church. You are opening the door to an enormous change, because that means that you may enforce those laws by injunctions in the civil courts.
  The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir John Simon): Is not that what happens in other cases?
  Mr. CAVE: I do not think there is any case where the Court has had to interpret the doctrines of any Nonconformist body. In any case, they are laid down in writing while the other rests upon long history and usuage. These questions are of great complexity, and it is undesirable that civil courts should have to deal with them. What I desire to impress on the House is that this is not the abolition of a privilege, but it is only the substitution of one remedy for another. Those are, I think, the real effects of Disestablishment. With the one exception about the bishops, I do not think there is one of them which can be said to destroy a privilege of the Church, or to go towards giving equality to other bodies. I was rather startled by what the Prime Minister said just now about Clause 13 of this Bill. I had rather understood Clause 13 as giving the power, or at all events recognising and confirming the power in the Church by proper means to consider and define its regulations and ordinances. The right hon. Gentleman sought to minimise that, and said that after all it was only a negative Clause and only meant that nothing in the Act prevented that from being done. I hope he does not mean that that is going to be left open and that the Church is not to know whether it has or has not that power. In any case, even that power would require the ultimate assistance of the civil courts.
  I have dealt with Disestablishment quite briefly, and I want now to say something upon what I agree has been treated as more important still, and that is the question of Disendowment. Let me point out to hon. Members, and there are some I know on the other side, who expressed their willingness to vote for the Second Reading of the Bill and yet say they are opposed entirely to Disendowment, that you cannot so separate the two things. The Prime Minister has said that Disendowment is bound up in Disestablishment. Therefore I do not think that, if there are Members who are opposed to Disendowment, they are entitled to vote for the Second Reading of the Bill, for in
  1166
  so doing it may be said that they are voting both for one and the other. As to Disendowment, just consider what you are doing. You are taking £173,000 per year, not from the Church, because you are taking it from the poorest dioceses of the Church, not even from the Church in Wales, because you are taking the bulk of the money not from the Church itself, but from the scattered benefices throughout the Principality. It may be that in some little village the rector now has £120 or £150 per year at his disposal, and after this Bill, so far as endowments is concerned, that will be reduced to £10 or £20 or £30 per year. That is what you are doing, and I shall say one or two words about the details before I come to your reasons. As regards tithes, I am not concerned to go into the history of centuries ago; I do not care whether tithes began in Wales in the ninth or the tenth or the eleventh century. What Giraldus Cambrensis wrote docs not interest me very much. I am much more concerned in what Georgius Cambrensis says to-day. It is enough for me that for seven or eight or nine centuries the legal right of the ecclesiastical corporations to tithe has been recognised, and there is not, I think, any prescriptive right which rests on a stronger basis. The Chancellor of the Exchequer rather endeavoured to lead the House to believe the other day that tithes had been given in order that masses might be said for souls.
  Mr. EDGAR JONES: In some cases.
  Mr. CAVE: I should like him or anybody else to produce a single case where in Wales tithe has been given to an ecclesiastical corporation for the purposes of masses being said.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): Glebe.
  Mr. CAVE: Then it does not apply to tithes. The gift of land, which the Chancellor quoted, was not a gift to the Church; it was a gift to a monastery, which is a very different thing. You may find several such gifts to monasteries for masses, but you will have difficulty in finding gifts even of glebes to ecclesiastical corporations for masses. Even if it be so, you are not really taking the glebe from the Church, because by this very Bill you compel the Church body to repurchase the glebe at its value, or in other words you

  1167
  are not taking the land, but you are fining the Church body a certain sum representing the value of the glebe. The glebe is worth, say, £28,000 a year, and the Church body must repurchase.
  Mr. McKENNA: It is voluntary.
  Mr. CAVE: No, I think it is compulsory according to the Bill. But no doubt the right hon. Gentleman will make that clear. As I read the Bill you make the Church pay, but out of what fund? You have not left the Church body any funds at all out of which that purchase can be made. I hope we shall find out sooner or later, whether it be voluntary or compulsory, out of what fund you authorise or compel the Church body to make that so-called re-purchase. One word about other sources of income. Take Queen Anne's Bounty. You profess to take nothing but old endowments before 1662. But Queen Anne's Bounty was an endowment of 1703. Tenths and first fruits were the property of the Crown down to the reign of Queen Anne, who gave that income to the Church, which then, if ever, was a Protestant Church in the full sense of the term. Therefore, in taking away anything which comes from Queen Anne's Bounty, you are taking away a modern endowment. More than that, you are actually taking away the savings from that income. As the House knows, a great part of the property to be taken, called Welsh ecclesiastical property, is property purchased for the benefit of the Church in Wales out of the yearly savings from the income of Queen Anne's Bounty. So that you are not only taking a modern endowment, but you are making your Bill retrospective and taking away from the Church savings in past years out of its income. Anything more grossly unfair cannot be conceived. I say nothing about the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, because my right hon. Friend (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) dealt with them last night. A similar point arises with regard to the Parliamentary Grants. The Parliamentary Grants are surely modern gifts. They represent what is left of grants made to the Church between 1809 and 1820. They were given by the nation for the maintenance of poor clergy—that is, of course, poor clergy of a Protestant Church. On what ground does the State claim to retake Grants made under those circumstances? You made like Grants to dissenting ministers at the same time, and, indeed, for a longer period. Are those going to be repaid? It may be that
  1168
  they have been spent. Then you draw this distinction: the dissenting minister has spent his grant and the Churchman has saved his; therefore, you are going to take his savings and not reclaim the grant from the dissenter. You did not so deal even with the Irish Church in 1869, because, as hon. Members know, under the Irish Church Act compensation was paid. You paid the Irish Church fourteen years' purchase for grants of that kind, but you are going to reclaim from the Church in Wales gifts which Parliament made to the Church as a Protestant Church less than 100 years ago.
  Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES: Given by Parliament.
  Mr. CAVE: Yes, given by Parliament. But Parliament is not in the habit of reclaiming its gifts; otherwise a very heavy claim might be made upon other Churches in this respect. I am not going into Committee matters; therefore, with regard to the provisions for existing interests, I will merely say that they seem to me in every respect insufficient and clearly less generous than those made by the Irish Act. You are not providing for curates in this Bill. You are not providing for commutation. In Ireland you gave power to commute incomes, and you added a bonus of 12 per cent, to the capital value of the commutation. The effect of that arrangement has been to make it possible for the Irish Church to some extent to survive to-day. You are not doing that for the Church in Wales. I do not know on what principle you are so much less generous to the Church in Wales than you were to the Irish Church.
  But I want to go to a broader question, although I hope the details are not without interest. If you want to test a principle, very often the best thing you can do is to see how it is proposed to carry it out in detail. The question I want to ask is: Why are you going to disendow the Church in Wales? I have made it my business to ask that question of every speaker who did not voluntarily answer it. I have listened with great care to all the answers. No two of them agree, but all of them are worthy of consideration. In the first place, throughout the Debate no one has said that the income of the Church in Wales is not well used, or is not fully required to meet the Church's needs. A generous tribute has been paid to the work which, in our generation has been done by the Church in Wales. No one has

  1169
  said a word in favour of the substituted purposes to which you are going to apply this income. Not even the Home Secretary, who introduced the Bill, nor the Prime Minister has said a word about those objects. No one says that money is wanted for museums or for the eleemosynary and other charitable purposes to which the income is to be applied. Surely that is a strange omission. When you are transferring property from one purpose to another you ought to show that it is not needed for the purpose from which you are taking it and that it is needed for the purpose to which you are transferring it. But this is what has been said. The Home Secretary defended Disendowment on the ground that the majority of the Welsh voters were in favour of it. The argument of numbers is often relevant, but on a question of taking away property it seems to me to have no relevance at all. If ninety-nine men out of one hundred in this country desired to take away property without compensation I would not yield to them, nor do I think that the argument ought to weigh an ounce in the scale. If it be true that Disestablishment and Disendowment are bound up together, and that the one goes with the other, and if it be true that no majority justifies Disendowment, what becomes of your majority for Disestablishment? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his well-known way, said that the property was given for masses. I have dealt with that. I think it historically untrue. Carrying rather further the view of the Prime Minister, he relied on precedent, and fell back on the authority of Henry VIII. Henry VIII. we know took property, not from the Church, but from the monasteries, which no doubt stand on a somewhat parallel footing, and he was referred to by his contemporaries as a stout and sturdy thief. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer prefers to take him for his model I do not know why we should object. The Solicitor-General gave his own reason, again quite different from the others. He said that the Church was endowed because it was established and therefore if it is disestablished it must be disendowed.
  Sir J. SIMONdissented.
  Mr. CAVE: I think I am summarising fairly the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument. It sounds very logical, but it is historically untrue, because the endowments of the Church were given before the establishment of the Church. In any case, those who say this confuse the motive of
  1170
  the gift with the conditions. It may be that the money was given to the Church because it represented for the time being the religion of the greater part of the country, but no condition was imposed. To say that because the conditions change you may take away that which was given unconditionally, seems to me to open the way for the destruction of every kind of charitable gift. The fact is that the money was given for religious uses, and you are taking it away from religious uses. That is the answer to the Scottish precedent which the Prime Minister adduced. In the case of the Free Church of Scotland, the money which had belonged to the Free Church was divided amongst the elements which were said to make up the Free Church, to be still applied for the same purposes. The Leader of the Welsh Parliamentary party (Sir D. Brynmor Jones) was taken rather off his guard when asked why he was in favour of Disendowment. He said: —
  "Disestablishment necessarily involves Disendowment, because it means the dissolution of the corporation in which the funds we propose to deal with are vested. [HON. MEMBERS: Why?] Because the dissolved corporation ceases to exist. When a man is dead does he enjoy his property?"
  That is a splendid reason. Because a man is dead you take away his property. The first answer is: Why kill him? I have yet to learn that robbery can be defended on the ground that you first murdered the possessor.
  Sir D. BRYNMOR JONES: I said that some provision was made by law for the property of the dissolved corporation unless there was to be a resumption by the Crown.
  Mr. CAVE: I am much obliged to the hon. and learned Member. I was going to deal with the second point arising from his argument. It is quite true that provision is made in another way for securing to the Church an endowment of one-third of its property. But if one-third, why not the whole? If a man is too dead to possess £l I do not see how he can keep a firm grip on 6s. 8d. To nobody would I more like to put that question than to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then there came the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy. He had a brand new argument. He said: "Oh, we are taking the £173,000 from you, but all you have to do is to replace it; for that purpose you need only save a £100,000 every year for forty years. At the end of that time you will have your endowment back again." In other

  1171
  words, "We are going to leave you £87,000. You can save £100,000 a year, and you will have no complaint against us." Of course, the answer to that is that there are other uses for the money; every penny that can be saved by the Church in Wales is wanted; that will be even more true when you have passed this Bill.
  I have practically got to the end of the reasons given for Disendowment, except one which was given by the Undersecretary for the Home Department, and, I think, was endorsed by the Secretary to the Treasury yesterday. These hon. Gentlemen state that Disendowment is for the good of the Church. I cannot accept that from them. The Under-Secretary—I am sorry he is not here—has been in the country one of the most violent assailants of the Church. He called it "a parasite of aristocracy," and other things which I do not remember. If he thinks that sincerely he must dislike and detest the Church, and I do not think he is able to advise as to what will or what will not be for the good of the Church. As regards the hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Treasury, only yesterday he quoted as an accusation against the Church to which he claims to belong, that it was guilty of "complacency, arrogance, cowardice, and worldliness." If he thinks that of the Church I do not think he is a good adviser for us either. The hon. Gentleman said yesterday that he thought that where the Church had succeeded it had done so in spite of its endowments and not because of them. I have here a quotation from his work, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for the Walton Division referred, and I would ask the House to compare what the hon. Gentleman said yesterday with what he has written. He was dealing in the book with the influence of the Nonconformists. He said:—
  "Nonconformists are strongest among the middle classes.…As one penetrates from the border regions into the actual depth, they are found to become a less and less operative force in the life of the people. This seems due to two main causes. In the first place they do not possess the machinery necessary to maintain endowed Churches throughout this vast district, and few of the scattered missions are in a position to support themselves. There is nothing corresponding to the parochial system of the English Church, with its buildings, parsonages, and certain, if small endowments. The consequence of this is manifest; as the ghetto rolls forward, driving before it the middle class element, so the Free Churches become submerged in the flood; some altogether disappearing, some carry on an uncertain existence as missions run by wealthier churches on the outskirts or beyond the borders."
  The hon. Gentleman's conclusion was this—and here he is dealing with the
  1172
  question of how the masses are to be reached—
  "I am profoundly convinced that this must come through the only body possessing at present machinery adequate to the needs, and claiming authority to cover the whole ground—the National Established Church of England."
  I ask the House to consider that. The fact is that we have no reasons for Disendowment.
  Mr. LEIF JONES: Will the hon. Gentleman forgive me for a moment. In his arguments he has not touched upon the real argument that influences most of us on this side, and that is that these endowments are national property and not the property of the Church.
  Mr. CAVE: I did not hear the hon. Gentleman's argument, as I was absent when he spoke; but if he gave that reason, I think I have disposed of it in the first-part of my remarks. It is founded upon history—what I believe to be a false view of history. Endowments never were national in any sense of the word, and if they were the property passed eight or nine hundred years ago, which I said was enough. That is another of the long series of different reasons given for Disendowment. I think I am not uncharitable in inferring that they are not the real reasons which move hon. Members opposite. They are excuses. I wish hon. Members would give us their real reason—I mean the motive which impels them to do this. What good do you expect to do by this Act? I was told the other day by a Nonconformist friend of mine that what moved him was that if you disestablished the Church without disendowing it the Church would still be too strong. I have not heard that said in public, and I do not think it will be avowed in this House. But I hope hon. Members will search their minds and see whether some feeling of that kind, perhaps without their knowledge, does not move them. If it be true, that is not the way to pursue equality—to weaken the Church in order that your Churches may be more nearly equal to her. If there is any injustice, any inequality that can be brought before the House as between the different Churches in this country, I think I may say of all of us that we will gladly try to understand it and do our best to join in trying to remedy it. But if you, the free churches, prefer to follow the other course, if you are determined to wreck and spoil the Church to which we are attached, then that Church will indeed rise above you, for you will sink below

  1173
  her level. If you take everything from the Church of England, she will still possess the memory that through the dark years she, almost unaided, kept alive in the villages and slums of this country that light of faith which it is often difficult to keep, and always bitter to lose, while your Churches, if they join in this attempt, will have marred their annals of which, so far, they are justly proud, by complicity in what I believe will be an unforgettable wrong.
  Sir ALFRED MOND: The very remarkable and very lucid speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman seems to me to make one despair of there ever being a possibility of any kind of understanding between the two sides of this House on the question at issue. In the year 18S6 a resolution was moved, and was supported by a large majority of the Welsh party, to the effect that the Establishment of the Church in Wales was an injustice to Wales. If hon. Members opposite cannot realise that the Welsh people feel that this Church is an injustice to them, the whole of our Debate is an absolute waste of time. The hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down, and other hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side, are continually asking what is the Nonconformist grievance in Wales? The curious thing is that it is so difficult for some people to realise that the opinion of many of us is that the establishment of any one religion—much more any one denomination—by the State, must be a direct derogation of every other denomination which exists. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] Certainly, because the State assumes by its action that that one denomination is in some way superior to the others, otherwise it would not establish it. Supposing, for instance, we propose to establish the Baptist religion; that the Baptist denomination should be put in the place of the Church of England. Is there a single member of the Church of England who would not enter the most vehement protest, and would not feel that his Church was being derogated and lowered from its present level? I would like to draw the attention of hon. Members opposite to a speech made by an eminent leader of theirs. I refer to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. Speaking in 1885, at Glasgow, he said: —
  "I say, then, that for political as well is for social reasons, and in the interest of religion itself. I am a Liberationist. I would free the Church from State control, whether in England, in Scotland, or in Wales: and my opinion on the subject is entirely strengthened
  1174
  by my belief that the appropriation to the service of a single sect of funds which were originally designed for the benefit of the whole nation is an injustice."
  That statement was made by one of the leaders of the party opposite in 1885. To-every word of that statement we adhere to-day. I have no reason to believe that the right hon. Gentleman himself has changed his opinion one iota since he made that speech. It is absurd to come here and pretend that hon. Gentlemen opposite do not know what our position is. It is absurd to come here after all these-years and say, "What is your grievance1?" Those grievances have been stated very clearly, specifically, and definitely. We maintain that the union of the State and the Church is a bad thing both for the Church and for the State. We object to it as a fundamentally wrong principle. One would like to quote historical research, and I think we should prove without contradiction that from the days of the Priest-Kings of the Egyptian Dynasties, during the times of the Pope and Kings of Rome, and through all the days of the Priest-Kings who ever existed, the religious life has always suffered; religion has suffered, and the State has suffered. You will not find a single great reformer in the Church in these periods. They dominated the so-called established Church at that time, whatever the religion may have been. Look over the great names of those who were reformers in religion or founders of religion, and who desired to put new thought and the quickening light of spiritual interest into the apathy of the established organisations. They all have to fight the Establishment in existence. Apart from questions of majorities, and Wales, many of us believe that the union of Church and State is a thing fundamentally wrong.
  The union of Church and State in the twentieth century is an anachronism which cannot be defended. All through these-Debates, when we are discussing what ought to be a most vital subject, you find that the average Member of Parliament feels, and feels rightly, that it is no longer his duty or business to enter into theological controversy or to attack or defend this system. The idea that we are still living in a time when we have the Church in this country subject to legislation and subject to the jurisdiction of this House, and that we as Members of Parliament are bound in duty to occupy ourselves with legislation on that subject by this House is an anachronism which nothing but long use has made hon. Members opposite believe in. If

  1175
  anyone came down to this House to-day and proposed to endow any Church in Wales, or elsewhere, how many Members could he find to support him, and because this thing has existed so long, and because you are used to it, and because you have long history and tradition behind it, is no argument why a change should not be made, or why it should continue. The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken denied the analogy between the Irish Church, Disestablishment, and the proposals with regard to the Welsh Church. The only point he made was that the connection between the Irish Church and the English Church was much more recent than that between the English and the Welsh Church. I suppose he meant that the former connection between the Irish and the English Church dated from the Act of Union, while that between the English and the Welsh Church dated from somewhere about the thirteenth century. I do not think that point affects the analogy in the slightest degree.
  Looked at broadly, what is the analogy? You have two Celtic Churches, the Irish and the Welsh Churches, they both had forced upon them what was an outside Church, namely, the English Church. In both of those countries you find, in varying degrees and different lines, that the population never accepted this Chucrh forced upon them as a national Church. It is quite true that in the case of the Irish Church the Irish people clung to their old Irish faith and never joined the Reformed Church of England, and that was one of the most potent arguments used by Mr. Gladstone in 1869. But let me point out that the Welsh case is much stronger. Why? Because in Wales this Church at one time had possession of the whole soul of the people, and it was due to nothing but their own attitude that they lost the unanimous majority and became the Church merely of a small minority. Mr. Gladstone in 1869, and not only Mr. Gladstone, but the House of Commons and the Sovereign used the argument that the Church of England in Ireland being the Church of a small minority, and a Church out of keeping with the desires of the great majority of the population of that country, was good and sufficient and reasonable ground to Disestablish and Disendow that Church.
  Surely, if you admit there is such a thing as the Welsh people, then even a more unanswerable claim than Mr. Gladstone ever had for the Disestablishment of the
  1176
  English Church in Ireland exists for Disestablishment in Wales. In both cases the Church of England is the Church of the minority; in both cases owing to voluntary effort among the poorest of the community they have supplied their own religious needs, and that is a point which I wish to enforce, that in matters of religious opinion the Nonconformists in Wales say they do not ask for the Churches which you put into their parishes. The hon. and learned Member and hon. Members opposite generally keep on explaining that the English Church has churches in all the rural parishes. But what is the use of having churches if you have not got congregations for them? It is a notorious fact that in most of these churches in the rural parishes on any Sunday you will only find the clergyman and the members of his family as the congregation. The people of the Principality, with great sacrifice to themselves, put their hands in their own pockets whenever necessary to provide for their own religious needs. Every argument used in this Debate was used in 1869. I am very glad that the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down admitted that Disestablishment and Disendowment go hand in hand. That is a very valuable admission from our point of view.
  Mr. CAVE: I did not make that admission; I said the Prime Minister said so.
  Sir A. MOND: Well, but I gathered the hon. and learned Gentleman agrees.
  Mr. CAVEdissented.
  Sir A. MOND: He does not agree then that Disestablishment and Disendowment go hand in hand. That question was argued at great length in 1869, and neither Mr. Disraeli nor any of the Conservative leaders of that time had any doubt upon the subject. That point has been examined, and perhaps it might be advisable to emphasise it now. It was one of the points very seriously raised in 1869, and it was said and agreed by all parties that to leave a Church Disestablished, and a non-State institution in control of State funds was an unthinkable proposition. The novel doctrine has sprung up now, and a school has sprung up, who wish for all the privileges of State Establishment and none of the disadvantages. They want to be relieved from the control of the House of Commons, but to keep their endowments secured by Act of Parliament. The

  1177
  hon. and learned Member made an extraordinary statement when he talked about Queen Anne's Bounty as an endowment. It was not an endowment; it was the alienation of Crown property to the Church of England. Queen Anne had no right to alienate that property; it was the property of the Crown and of the nation, and the hon. and learned Member admitted that from the time of Henry VIII. to Queen Anne this property had been Crown property, and we claim we have right to realienate that property much better than Queen Anne ever had to alienate Crown property to particular Churches. When hon. Members ask why we want to Disendow the Church it seems to me the argument, from our point of view, is very simple. The hon. and learned Member says, "You want to take away our property." We say, "You are in possession of our property," that is the whole difference. If the hon. and learned Gentleman convinced me that tithes and Queen Anne's Bounty and the glebe lands were the property of the Church of England, I never would seek to disendow it, but I maintain that tithes are a tax, and I have such eminent authority as Mr. Justice Phillimore for that statement. Mr. Justice Phillimore, on 31st May, 1803, in a letter to the "Guardian," said:—
  "The earliest tithe payers acted, no doubt, under the influence of the idea (derived, I believe, like some other Judiac ideas, from the clerical and literary circle of Charlemagne) that they were under religious duty to give the tenth of their income to the Church. But when this idea had once taken root in public opinion, anyone who refuses to pay tithe was treated as a breaker of the law of the Church and was subject to excommunication. If this had no terrors for him, the aid of the secular arm was implored, and by a process which ultimately took form in the writ De excommunicatio capiendo, he was cast into prison. Thus the voluntary subscription became a tax. If this bit of legal history be correct there was no 'giving' of tithe except by some early Saxons during their lives. All subsequent tithe is a tax imposed by the State for the benefit, in the first instant, of the Church."
  I have never seen that seriously controverted by any serious lawyer. Caxton, Coke, and Seldon all agree that tithes were essentially a tax, and the Statute Book of this country is full of Statutes from the time of Edward to 1836 dealing with this matter. There is one point which hon. Members opposite never deal with in this controversy. If tithes are not a tax, and if tithes are grants of land, how do they explain the coercion, and how can anybody grant a portion of any man's labour, which is certainly as large a part of the ordinary tithes as any part of the increase in the produce of the land? Is it seriously maintained that once upon a
  1178
  time tithes were personal. If, on the other hand, it is maintained that tithes were a tax enforced by law, and that you have a fight now to have them granted, then why introduce the pious ancestor? Hon Members opposite address themselves to entirely opposite bases; one moment it is the pious gift of tithes by a pious ancestor whom we can never discover, and when they find that inconvenient they brush it aside and answer, it is enough to say we had them since the Reformation. They must either drop one of these arguments or the other. They cannot one moment contend that they are in possession of them for 900 years, and the next moment that they are in possession of them only for 300 years. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] Obviously they cannot say at one moment we do not care what happened before the Reformation, and then when they find that argument does not suit them, turn to the other. They must either deal with the whole historical case or none of it. In this Debate they use these arguments for different purposes.
  Mr. CAVE: I do not see any inconsistency if the property was held for 300 years or 900 years.
  6.0 P.M.
  Sir A. MOND: I did not say you could not hold the same property for 300 years or 900 years. I say you cannot argue that your title is derived from a pious ancestor 900 years ago, and when we ask who was the pious ancestor, they answer, we hold it for 300 years, and that is enough for us. It cannot be disputed that a great deal of land which is titheable to-day was never titheable until recent times, neither is it disputed that a portion of the tithes belonged to the poor, and that, some time or other, they got into the hands of the Church. Now, if tithes were originally a tax enforced by the State for the purposes of a religious denomination, surely they cannot be defended in a place like Wales, where four-fifths of the population no longer belong to that body, and surely we are entitled to say that this tax ought not to be enforced any longer for the benefit of one small part of the community. That leads me to another point. Hon. Members opposite admit that there is some unfairness and injustice in the fact that the body which provides by law the spiritual service for Wales, is a body which is now in a minority. We are told that this Bill proposes to take money from the spiritual service and utilise it for secular purposes,

  1179
  and we are asked why cannot we have concurrent endowments? Concurrent endowment was one of the points of discussion in the year 1869, and then neither Nonconformists nor Catholics would accept, any more then than they will to-day, any form of State endowment. You cannot endow people who will not be endowed, and the Churches which have grown up on their own basis are not prepared to go back on State control merely for monetary advantages. Therefore you cannot concurrently endow, and if that is so, what is the only other course open to us. It is to utilise this money for other objects, and such objects as are for the general benefit of the whole community, including members of all religious bodies and beliefs, and that is what we propose to do under this Bill. It is easy to say that we are taking money from a spiritual organisation and handing it over to museums. I do not know why hon. Members opposite have such a contempt for museums. I am glad that in this House we have been spared some of the language which was addressed to us outside the House, and which has been sent to us in resolutions, accusing us of robbing God in order to benefit secular institutions. To my mind I think a great many of those who have framed those resolutions have not really thought what the meaning of their words is. In this connection I cannot say anything in a better way than that which was said in 1869 by Mr. John Bright on the charge of sacrilege and spoliation which was brought against the Irish Church Bill. He said:
  "I hope it is not fur from Christianity to charity, and we know that the Divine Author of our Faith has left much more of the doings of a compassionate and loving heart than He has of dogma…Do yon think, therefore, that it will lie a misappropriation of the surplus funds to apply them to some kind of object as that which is described in the Bill? He you not rather think, from the charitable dealing of the Bill, that a sweeter incense may arise than when these vast funds are applied to maintain three times the number 'Of clergymen than can be of the slightest use to the Church with which they are connected?"
  The hon. and learned Member opposite said nobody had alleged that the funds of the Church of England in Wales were not required in the rural districts. I wish to point out that that is not altogether correct. We maintain that in the rural parishes of Wales you are carrying on a large organisation for which there is no demand. I will admit, if you like, that in some urban districts you could do with more money, but you do not propose to find that money under the present organisation. We have been told that it is
  1180
  impossible to reallocate the money which is now being wasted in rural districts to densely populated centres. That, however, is not so, and there is a much closer analogy there than the hon. and learned Member seems to think. I will quote in this connection the words of a bishop of this very Church, Dr. Thirlwall, the Bishop of St. David's, who, speaking in the House of Lords on the 15th June, 1869, in justification of his vote for the Second Reading of the Irish Church Bill, denied that the property of the Irish Church was in any special sense the "property of God." He said:—
  "Charitable donations, whether of a cathedral or a market, were equally acceptable as offerings to God. If a trustee were given discretion to appropriate the one or the other funds bequeathed to his care, his decision ought not to depend on the superior sanctity of the destination, but on the local need or the general usefulness. It was not a question between God and man, but between one kind of gift beneficial to society and another."
  Those arguments hold absolutely good to-day. Those of us who are supporting this Bill are not animated by any blind hatred of any one Church or any desire to cripple it, but we feel an injustice is being committed. We feel in Wales that the Welsh Church is anti-national, anti-democratic, out of touch with the people, and out of touch with the majority, and yet it is in a superior position. The funds it is using were originally meant for the nation as a whole, and were national funds. I do not say that in a legal sense, but more in the sense in which Mr. Gladstone spoke on the Irish Church Bill. Mr. Gladstone put the point more clearly than I have ever heard it put by any speaker. Speaking in the House of Commons on 23rd March, 1869, he said:—
  "There is a trust—whether in the legal sense I know not; but in the political, the social, the moral sense, there is a trust impressed upon this property from first to last for the benefit of the nation. It was for the nation that the property was given. It is true it was given to corporations. Yes; but why? Not that they might enjoy it as private property, but that they might hold it on condition of duty. They were only convenient symbols - convenient media for its conveyance from generation to generation. The real meaning, scope, and object was that through them it should be applied for all time to the benefit of the entire population of the kingdom."
  That is what we mean when we speak of this property as national property. We know that legally it belongs to the Ecclesiastical Corporations, but we maintain, as Mr. Gladstone maintained, in 1869, that there is a trust imposed upon this property which the Church of England in Wales cannot carry out, and therefore they have no longer any right to that property. You may be anxious for people to come to

  1181
  your banquet, but if they will not accept your invitation you are not bound to go on providing banquets. You may be anxious that the people of Wales should come to your Church, but they do not belong to your Church, and however good your intentions are, or however excellent your work is, you cannot claim that you are fulfilling the original trust. I am astonished that hon. Members opposite who are members of the richest Church in the world, whose congregation consists of all the richest men in the country, attach such an enormous importance to the relatively small amount of money which is dealt with under this Bill. There are plenty of Churchmen in Wales well able to fill up this gap. I notice in one of the circulars which has been sent to me it is stated that if this Bill passes Churchmen will no longer be able to give anything to the poor because they will have to find the money for their own ministers, a thing which Nonconformists are doing every day throughout the length and breadth of the land. I really wonder sometimes whether that is an argument which will impress any one.
  I am astonished that there are not more hon. Members on the Opposition side anxious to throw off the control of the House of Commons over the Church, and I am surprised that they are not prepared to make the necessary financial sacrifice to achieve this purpose. The hon. Member for the Walton Division (Mr. F. E. Smith), whose knowledge of Wales I should think is extremely limted, told us that this Bill would produce bitterness and strife, but that is not the opinion of those who understand this question a great deal better than he does. I am speaking on this question with an impartial mind, and I have been more than surprised to find the intensity of feeling which exists on this subject in Wales. The right hon. and learned Member for Walton, in the reference he made in his argument to the Minimum Wage Bill, showed an absolute ignorance of the Welsh working classes. There is sitting in this House one of the oldest leaders of the miners of South Wales, and I am sure he will agree with me when I say that there is not one Welsh Labour Member who would get himself adopted in a Welsh constituency if he did not declare himself in favour of Disestablishment and Disendowment. It is useless to tell us that there is no demand and no mandate for this Bill in Wales, and I defy any hon. Members of this House to get elected for a Welsh constituency who is
  1182
  not sound on this question. Hon. Members opposite tell us that the people of Wales do not want this measure. But what further proof could they have than the state of things which has existed for the last twenty-five years. When the hon. Members for Denbigh boroughs states that the Welsh people do not want this measure he is simply making a travesty and a farce of a serious matter. The Welsh people want this Bill and they mean to have it, and if they do not get it now they will have it some day.
  What you have to recognise is that you cannot meet this demand by a blind foolish policy. I am sure there are many people in Wales and out of it who would be glad to see an end to this controversy, and there are many who will be glad to see the matter settled with more or less common consent. It is not a pleasant task to go about the country arguing that one religious body is much superior to another, and yet that is bound to continue until this question is got out of the way. Surely it would be much better for all parties if a bridge could be built in order to get this matter settled once and for all. I shall not be disturbed in the least by all the invective that will be poured on my head in regard to this question. There is the Church Defence Organisation with almost unlimited resources, devoting its time to inflaming the Welsh people against this Bill, and some of us felt it was only right our case should be presented to them in the best way. We have not the privileges of the Church, and neither do we want enormous sums left in order to—
  Lord ROBERT CECIL: How much have you got?
  Sir A. MOND: The amount is a good deal less than that of the Church Defence Committee. The point I am making is, that it is not fair to represent my endeavours in that direction as an attempt to raise money to obtain a mandate. The mandate is clear. If some hon. Members opposite could attend the Convention in Wales, they would find there is not so much the necessity for obtaining a mandate as for explaining why we have not got this Bill. The Welsh people and Welsh Liberals have been very patient, but they are not going to wait patiently for ever. Some hon. Members on this side look askance at this Bill, but, if they think the patience of Welsh Liberal Members is to be disregarded, and that we are going to stand that treatment for ever,

  1183
  they are very much mistaken. This Bill has got to be passed. The Welsh people will see it is passed. The Welsh Liberal Members have only got one duty. It is to make it certain this Bill will be passed, and we shall certainly all do the best we can. It is useless to ask us to wait another twenty years, and I suppose another twenty years, and another twenty years, a process of eternal procrastination lasting apparently to infinity. One hon. Member opposite interrupted my hon. Friend who said the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain) said twenty years ago, "Disestablishment must come," and said, "Why not wait another twenty years?" We have waited twenty years, but we have no intention of waiting another twenty years, and I do not think the great mass of the Nonconformists of England intend that we shall wait another twenty years.
  Lord ROBERT CECIL: Who is "we"?
  Sir A. MOND: The Welsh people. They are the people concerned, and they are the only people we represent in this matter. I would like to draw the attention of the House—I think it is right it should be done—to a resolution which was passed on 3rd May, 1912, by the General Committee of the National Free Church Council, an English organisation, representing the whole of the Free Churches in this country:—
  "That in view of the repeatedly expressed declaration of the National Free Church Council at its annual assemblies in favour of the principle of religious equality and definitely of the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Anglican Church in Wales, we confidently look to all progressive representatives in Parliament to stand loyally by the Government in securing the passage of the Bill now introduced. We also appeal to all friends of religious equality to stand by the just demands of the Welsh nation and help the wider movement for liberating the Church from State control."
  As our mandate is sometimes questioned, I would like to read a resolution I received the other day from the Quarterly Association of the North Wales Calvinistic Methodists:—
  "That we, the Quarterly Association of the Calvinistic Methodists of North Wales representing 168,364 adherents, express our gratification that His Majesty's Government, by introducing their measure for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church of England in Wales, has met the demands which Wales, consistently and by overwhelming majorities for forty years, has made for religious equality.
  "That, while we adhere strongly to the conviction that the ancient endowments are national possessions, we are prepared to approve of the provisions of the Bill of the Government, although it grants to the Anglican Church much property which, in strict justice, should be restored to the service of the nation as a whole."
  1184
  Yet we have been told the Welsh people do not know what they are talking about, and that Disendowment has never entered into their minds. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who said that?"] It was said, I think, by an hon. Member who recently exchanged a Welsh seat for a seat in Nottingham, and' the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Bridgeman) said something similar. One-thing is certain, and that is the demand1 has been consistent. We hold, and I think it cannot be contraverted, that our demand is just. The fact that the Church requires funds is no reply to the demand of a nation which requires these funds, and the application of the funds is also a question for the nation and for nobody else. We are told it is not our business to give advice to the Church of England. I heartily concur. It is the last thing I would endeavour to do. I agree it is not for us to ask whether endowment or Disendowment is better for the Church or not, but it is not for hon. Members opposite to argue whether the Welsh people want to spend this national money on cottage hospitals or on churches.
  Viscount WOLMER: It is not their money.
  Sir A. MOND: It is their money. Who is paying the tithe? It is the Welsh, people. Nobody else is paying it. That is the whole fundamental difference between us, and that is the reason we consider we are entitled to Disendow the Church. We may argue this question in as friendly manner as we may, but we-shall have difficulty in convincing the one side or the other. The hon. and learned Member for Kingston (Mr. Cave) said, "You have got some sinister, hidden motive." I say that is not the case. Our motives are based on what we consider justice. The Welsh people have stood firm and true to the country in which they live and to their faith in election after election for generation after generation, and hon. Members may make up their minds that as far as Wales is concerned, as there has been no going back in the fight, neither will there be in the future. We expect and hope that once and for all this question will be settled in this Parliament, so that we may be able to devote ourselves to other purposes with energies equal to those with which the Welsh people have-devoted themselves to the struggle in which we are engaged to-day.
  Captain TRYON: I am very glad it has fallen to my lot to have an opportunity of

  1185
  speaking on behalf of those Welshmen who are members of the Church of England, and who view this Bill with its crippling effect upon their work with the greatest anxiety. I have seen something of them in other parts of Wales, and also in the constituency of the hon. Member who has just addressed the House, and I venture to say it is not for him to charge these Welshmen who are also Churchmen with being anti-national. I do not quite know the definition of a nation, but we had one last night from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Masterman), who told us that a nation was—
  "an entity, mystical and immortal, composed of varieties of race."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th May, 1912, col. 1069.]
  I think that definition must have been made to include the hon. Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond). The Financial Secretary to the Treasury used certain terms of grave reproach against the Church, and those words were quoted by my hon. Friend just now. He charged the Church of England with complacency, arrogance, cowardice, moderation, and worldliness. But my hon. Friend, when he quoted that, did not add that in a very different part of his speech the Financial Secretary took, and I think wisely took, the precaution of saying he was "a loyal Churchman." I do not much care for loyalty which takes that form, and I should like to ask him, and others who throughout this Debate have been making strong and I am afraid sometimes bitter attacks against the Church of England, why, if this is a Bill to benefit the Church, it is necessary, in order to justify it, to make such a violent attack upon the Church? If the Bill is really to benefit the Church, surely it is not necessary to bring a series of charges against the Church in order to justify the introduction of the measure. I will not go further into the speech of the Financial Secretary except to allude to two parts. In one place he brought charges which ought never to have been made against the faith of congregations in London. Beyond recording the fact that this charge was made, I think it is best not to make any comment, but I cannot see what the faith of those who worship in St. George's, Hanover Square, has got to do with the Disestablishment of the Church in Wales. I think it is all part of a campaign against those who are believed to be well off, and it is not religious but purely political in its motive. As part of that campaign, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury told us that in some parts
  1186
  of the country men are working longer hours or are working for less wages than they might receive in order that these tithes may be paid. Used in this House, that language deceives nobody who has read the Bill, but, if those speeches are going to be made about the country, we shall know that attempts are being made to get votes by promises which are false. Nobody knows better than the Financial Secretary that tithes will go on being paid under the Bill as before, but to try to get votes by promising the Welsh people shorter hours or higher wages is to make promises which have no foundation whatever in the Bill. I must ask the pardon of the House for alluding to one or two small arguments which have been put from the other side, and which ought to be answered. The hon. Member for Mid-Glamorgan (Mr. Hugh Edwards), whose speech certainly formed a very remarkable contrast to that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour), said:—
  "As far back as 1623, Dr. Lewis Baily, Bishop of Bangor referred to the wicked neglect and degradation of the clergy."
  What is the object in going back to those times? The truth is they have to go back a long time in order to discover material for any charges against the Church. There was one hon. Member who had a complaint to make against St. Augustine. Another complained because a certain archbishop went down into Wales guarded by mailed warriors, but that was too far ago to be of material import concerning this Bill. If the hon. Member thinks that a mission is to be condemned because it is guarded by "warriors," perhaps he will get the First Lord of the Admiralty to develop that argument in the debate on Home Rule at Belfast. Then we have been told by the Home Secretary that it is a charge against the Church that it sometimes has bishops who cannot speak Welsh. I do not believe the Liberal party make a knowledge of the Welsh language a condition compulsory in the case of their own candidates. When the Home Secretary made that charge he knew well that there are now in the Church in Wales bishops of Welsh origin speaking the Welsh language. But I have only brought up these points to emphasise this, that at a time when charges are being collected against the Church in order to justify this robbery, those who bring those charges have to go back and ransack all history in order to collect a little mud to throw at the Church.

  1187
  If you want to condemn the Church let us be told what it is is wrong with it today. The Prime Minister spoke of its "beneficent and growing activity." If the work of the Church is beneficent, what is the good of going back hundreds of years in order to get material for charges against it? I can tell the House why it is done. It is an endeavour to justify a measure of which you are beginning to be ashamed. It is an endeavour to justify a spoliation which you know to be wrong. It is an endeavour to justify your attack on the Church, and in order to do this, you find you have to bring up charges hundreds of years old. The hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division (Mr. Leif Jones) spoke with natural pride of the fact that his father had worked in the Congregational Church. I have seen something of the work of that Church. I feel the hon. Member had something of which he may naturally be proud. But what did he say? He said his father became chairman to the Congregational Union of England and Wales, thus showing that his father although a Welshman [An HON. MEMBER: "He was not a Welsh minister; he was a minister in London."] My point is that the Congregational body have a joint union for England and Wales, and that this Welshman went to London and was appointed chairman of that body. I want to emphasise the fact that it is a union for England and Wales. We claim the same rights for the Church of England. The hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division spoke on the question of endowments, and suggested that circumstances might arise which would prevent the wishes of the pious founder being respected, and that, if they were respected in his lifetime, it was as much as could reasonably be expected. Surely that is a new doctrine—that the wishes of a founder who gives his money for definite purposes should only be respected during his lifetime. Obviously with such a doctrine you can do anything you like with money left for public purposes after the death of the testator.
  I am not moved by the statements which have been made with regard to the proportion of Members for Wales who are in favour of this measure. We do not look at this point as a question of arithmetic. It is with us a question of honesty. We also are unmoved when we are told that the Home Secretary is going to leave us 6s. 8d. in the £. We do not feel at all grateful to him for that. Again, I must
  1188
  say honesty is not a question of proportion, it is a question of principle; and we hold that this money is clearly money which was, in the first place, devoted to religious purposes, and that it ought to remain so devoted. When hon. Members attempt to justify a certain thing which may not be very wise, they frequently use high-sounding words; for instance, when the Labour party are resisting the reference of some measure to the people they generally open their argument by describing themselves as strong democrats. Much in the same way, where any measure of unfairness or of an arbitrary character is put forward it is generally defended at the beginning by some talk about liberty. In the name of liberty the Church is going to be deprived of its property against the overwhelming desire of its membership. This is to be done in the name of equality, and you are to have this arrangement, that, subject to certain regulations with regard to trusts, twenty-five years will give the Nonconformist bodies a Parliamentary title to their endowments, while 250 years means to the Church not a Parliamentary title, but Parliamentary confiscation. We have heard something about charity. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that we had really high authority for giving to the poor. So we have; but are you giving to the poor under this Bill? The Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke of the desire "to relieve distress of those who suffer." But what is it people are suffering from? Is it from the lack of museums? He tells us that the money will be devoted to "the highest and most sacred Christian purposes." But I do not think anybody will contend that endowing a museum is the highest and most sacred Christian purpose.
  There was another part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman which had more hope in it and which had a better spirit in it, and that was when he spoke of the great ceremony at Carnarvon. Nobody who reads the right hon. Gentleman's speech can do so without feeling that he realised how much that great ceremony meant to the people of Wales, and how, into the dry bones of what might have been otherwise a mere legal ceremony, there was breathed a live spirit, which made the Welsh people feel that they were taking part in a great religious ceremony in which all the Churches joined. When we think of our Coronation services here in London last year, and of the great ceremony in Wales to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer

  1189
  referred, we must feel it is rather in realising these great truths of religion, it is rather in working together in co-operation among the Churches, that we shall advance on the line of progress. I cannot believe those who contend that the road to reconciliation lies through robbery. We shall oppose this Bill to the utmost of our power. I, for one, believe it will never become law; but at least this we can promise: we shall throughout offer it most uncompromising resistance.
  Mr. LEACH: I listened with a good deal of interest to the speech just delivered, and to many of the other speeches made on this subject from the other side of the House. I have been not a little distressed to find that so many speakers on that side, and especially on the Front Bench, have imputed improper motives to those who sit on this side. They have charged Liberal Members, indirectly if not directly, with wishing to destroy the Church of England. Whatever may be the case with others, that certainly is not true of the Member for the Colne Valley. I rejoice greatly in every word that has been spoken in this House which refers to the increase of the Church of England. I am glad that at last she is awakening from her long sleep and shaking herself free from the indifferent slumbers which have marked her course in days gone by. A true Christian rejoices in the success of that Church, especially should that success quicken the other Christian Churches to put forth efforts to achieve a like success. I say with all sincerity and earnestness that those who have charged us with wishing to destroy or injure the Church has slandered us. We wish her every blessing that she can secure, and every blessing that she deserves. If I may speak for myself, I may say that the Church of England in Wales has no greater admirer than I in regard to the devotion displayed by her clergy. I have often sat in my study at the feet, so to speak, of her great scholars; I have often entered her ancient and historic buildings, and not once, but often, in my public ministries have I prayed for the success of that great Church which all my ancestors, as far as they had any religion, once belonged to. I will lift no finger so far as I am concerned to injure the Church as a religious institution.
  But we distinguish between the Establishment of that Church and the Church as a spiritual and religious institution. In the first place it is created by the State.
  1190
  It is a Church established by Parliament. In the second place religion stands on an altogether different footing; it should not be a function of Parliament at all. If I could injure the Church as a spiritual institution, I could not find it in my heart to do it. But I do want to destroy the Establishment, and to sever the connection between Church and State. I am glad I have lived to see the introduction of this Bill, and to have a seat in this Parliament at its introduction. I want to give the House in a very few words—I never occupy its time very long, I believe I have never exceeded ten minutes, and I wish others would follow my example in that respect—I wish to give some reason why I think that this Bill should be carried into law. This Episcopal Church in Wales is no longer the Church of the Welsh nation. Whatever may have been true of her in the past that cannot be said of her now. We are told that three - fourths of the Welsh people are outside the Episcopal Church in Wales, and that they are outside by their own choice. They do not attend her ministry, and they do not want that ministry, though they are a very religious people. The Welsh people demand separation, and I think that they make that demand in the most constitutional way known to them. They have sent for many years a large number of representatives to this House, and you have been told this afternoon that no person can be nominated as a Liberal candidate in Wales if he does not believe in Disestablishment and Disendowment.
  The Welsh Members, who come to this House pledged to Disestablishment and Disendowment, are simply the mouthpieces of the Welsh people who elect them. They would not be here otherwise. Wales asks for this separation as the extension of what she believes, rightly or wrongly, and what I have believed for a long series of years to be what is right and just. She asks for religious equality. She believes that so long as one Church is connected with the law there will not be that equality she desires to see. The Welsh people hold, and I agree with them, that all forms of religion should be equal before the law, and that the law should protect all in their religious rights. I hold, and the Welshmen hold, that no civil, nor social, nor political advantage should be given to any man because of his religious belief, neither should he suffer because of his non-religious belief. I am a Nonconformist by conviction. I have

  1191
  already stated that all my ancestors, so far as they had any religious convictions— and I have traced them back a very long way—were Church of England. I was born into its atmosphere, and one of my earliest recollections is that of being taken to the parish church by my relatives. I am a Nonconformist, and it is by conviction. As a Nonconformist, I claim equality before the law with any Churchman. But you will not give it to me. I live in England, and I speak of English conditions. You put upon me, as a Nonconformist, a civil disability, and upon mine a disability. For instance, my daughter is a teacher and distinguished as a certificated teacher. She could not have obtained the post of head teacher in one of the many thousands of schools which are supported by the State unless prepared to forswear the religion of her mother and forsake the faith of her father. I say that is wrong, and that you cannot expect me to support any religious disability being placed upon any man because of his religious belief.
  Religious belief is a question between the man and his Maker. The State cannot create religious faith; it can create the Establishment, but not religious faith. It cannot destroy it, and it ought not therefore to attempt to control it. The Establishment of the Church, like that which now exists in Wales, makes the Church a Department of the State, makes her clergy Civil servants, and places at the head of the Church the monarch of the realm. We Nonconformists, who understand Nonconformity, say that we are as loyal as any living man to his gracious Majesty in his own sphere, but we say that in the Church of Christ, Christ Himself is the Head, and, as the old Puritans used to say:—
  "To think any other is a derogation of the Crown rights of King Jesus."
  I have heard it said again and again in this Debate that if the Church in Wales is Disestablished there will be no Christian service in a large number of parishes. Only one of two things can be said of those who make that statement—the first I will not say is true of any Member in this House— that they are either very wicked or very ignorant of what Nonconformity is. Anybody who understands Nonconformity could not stand up in this House and say that a clergyman of the Church of England or a regular ordained minister of any denomination is necessary for Christian service. Without a clergyman you can have
  1192
  Christian service. We hold that all the Churches can go on without an ordained minister. The Churches over which I have had the honour of presiding as pastor were complete without me. The deacons and elders of those Churches, men selected because of their devotion and spirituality of life, could administer, and do administer in Wales and in England, where there is no recognised minister, the ordinances of the Church. So we say that without a recognised duly ordained minister all the services can be continued. It is for those on the other side of the House to show that without a clergyman no religious ordinances can be administered. The Holy Sacraments will be administered in Wales, and are administered in Wales, without the aid of a clergyman. I am not speaking against the clergyman, he is my brother, and I respect and love him. Visitation is carried on where there is no clergyman, alms are distributed, and, if I may say so with all reverence, the consolations of our holy religion are administered to the dying even where there is no ordained clergyman. We believe in the priesthood of believers. Where they call an ordained minister to preside over them it is so much to their credit, but they can, and do, carry on all these religious services.
  Men and women in Wales have built their churches and chapels. They are not always beautiful, sometimes they are ugly, but the people like them, and they subscribe the money for them. The men and women in Wales are among the most religious people in any part of the United Kingdom, not excepting even Scotland. I hope Scotchmen will excuse me for that reference. They may have no stately cathedrals in which to worship. I should like to see them have them. They have no ancient liturgy, they have no surpliced choirs to lead them in their service of song, they have no ornate service at all, and yet they worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness in the hills and valleys of Wales, as sincerely and as devoutly as any worship in the Epispocal churches throughout the Principality. To say that there can be no worship where there is no clergyman is to represent what I know is not true. Welshmen believe, and I believe they are right, that the best interests of the Church as a spiritual institution will be promoted by a separation from the State. I need not refer to the example of the Irish Church, beyond saying that I made inquiry some years after

  1193
  that Church was Disestablished, and before the Royal University of Ireland was abolished. I was speaking to one of its officers, he being an educated layman in that Church, and I asked him the effect of Disestablishment upon the spiritual life of that Church. He said that so far as the spiritual life of the Church was concerned, nothing ever happened which was better for the Church than its separation from the State. With the example of the Irish Church before us, we feel that the spiritual life of the Welsh Church will be greatly improved. I say most sincerely, most earnestly and devoutly, although I am a Nonconformist and an ardent Radical—too Radical for many of my comrades—that if I could believe that this Bill would injure the Church in Wales as a spiritual institution, nothing would induce me to vote for it. I love religion too well, and have served her interests too long, ever to lift my finger to do what I thought would injure the progress of religion in any Church, but I do support this Bill, because I do not believe that it will injure, but rather that it will assist the Church in Wales.
  I want to say a few words about endowments. I have been a pastor, but I am no longer an ordained minister. I resigned my Church and salary to be a candidate for this House, and, if I may say so, I served the House and the nation by winning the seat I did win. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am glad you acknowledge it; you have never acknowledged it before, and, if somewhat tardy, I am glad that you see it now. I do not quite agree with all that has been said in this House about endowments. I have in my lifetime been the pastor of four churches. The social position of the people in those four was very much the same. One of those churches had an endowment, not a very ancient endowment, but still an endowment. I say it reverently and respectfully, that the other three churches contributed more in proportion towards the upkeep than did the endowed church. It was not sufficiently endowed for the endowment to pay all its expenses, but my belief was, and still is, that the endowment, small as it was, did not a little to prevent the outflow of the gifts of the people, although they were a generous people, and gave largely to the support of religion and to the support of the poor. As to these endowments, I can well understand that the Church of England has had them so long, and has come
  1194
  to rely so much upon them, that she is very unwilling to surrender them. If I could have my way I would give her more than this Bill gives her. I do not mind what my hon. Friends think of me, but I would take a date very much further back than the date of 1662, which is taken in the Bill. I would go back to 1534, the date of the first Act of Uniformity, when Henry VIII. finally broke with the Pope of Rome and made himself the Pope in England and established the Church here. But I shall support this Bill heartily, although it does not go quite so far in that direction as I could wish. I am sure that these endowments were intended for the welfare of the whole of the Welsh nation when they were created. Long since have the Welsh people as a nation ceased to enjoy those endowments. They are held by one Church, and one Church only. The other Churches do not want them, for we do not believe in concurrent endowment. But, having held them so long, it seems to me somewhat hard that you should take from them as much as you can. I would give them rather more than the Bill gives them. Be that as it may, we shall have to fight out the matter in Committee, and in Committee, perhaps, I shall have more to say about being more generous, although this Bill is more generous in regard to this matter than the two Bills which preceded it. These are the reasons why I shall heartily support the Bill and vote for it and hope that it will become law; because the Church is no longer the Church of the Welsh nation; because all forms of religion should be equal before the law; because religious belief is a matter between a man and his Maker, and because the best interests of the Church, its spiritual interests, will be served by its separation from the State.
  7.0 P.M.
  Mr. CATOR: It is exceedingly difficult for many on this side of the House to follow the arguments which have been used from time to time by hon. Members opposite, but we gather, at any rate, that there is a considerable divergence of opinion among those who are in favour of Disestablishing and Disendowing the Church in Wales. Some hon. Members are in favour of both Disestablishment and Disendowment; while others lay more stress on Disendowment and others again on Disestablishment. Although we are all most anxious to do our best to see the case from the other point of view, it is very difficult for us to hear hon. Members

  1195
  who are not themselves Churchmen assure us that they wish well by the Church and are in earnest in their desire to do her no harm whatever, while at the same time they are anxious to defraud the Church of England in Wales of £173,000. I think we must be forgiven for suspecting such statements as those and the Gentlemen who make them. It is true it would be more easy for us to understand the motives which inspire those statements, if we did not see Nonconformists themselves displaying the very greatest anxiety to build up endowments for themselves, and one has only to look 500 yards from the very Chamber in which we are sitting to see a very handsome building being erected, which, presumably, has some endowment and which goes far to prove that the Non-conformist bodies themselves find that endowments are a great necessity for them. If they do find this to be the case, it is extremely difficult for us Churchmen to understand how they can imagine for a moment that the Church will be a stronger spiritual influence without the £173,000 than she is at present. It has been said by more than one hon. Member that £173,000 is a very small sum, and that it will be very soon made up; but these endowments will not spring forth immediately like Minerva from the head of Jove. They will take at least two generations to build up, and we have to look to the fact that this is going to be a period during which the Church of England will have very great difficulty in fulfilling the spiritual needs of the people she is ministering to at present.
  Of course, it is possible to look at the Establishment from many points of view. We have heard a great deal of the privileges which Establishment gives. It is perfectly true that the Establishment of the Church in this country does give certain privileges; but they are worth very little in themselves. But it also imposes considerable restrictions, and the double argument has been used on the other side of the House that it is surely not fair that the Church of England should possess the privileges she does, while on the other hand it has been repeated over and over again that she cannot be in the position which she should be in on account of her dependence upon the State and on account of the number of restrictions to which she has to submit. Churchmen with regard to the restrictions, at any rate, must be the best judges of what they prefer, and I cannot help feeling that what must be our
  1196
  cardinal point and the bed-rock of all our arguments in regard to this is that we do believe that national recognition is of utility to the State. That seems to me the foundation of our position, and that is where, of course, we differ very largely from hon. Members on the other side. Judged by her history, we ask whether it can truly be said that the Church has failed. I do not think it is possible to say this; but if you are going to destroy the influence that she undoubtedly possesses at the present time, what are you going to put in her place? It is perfectly obvious that no Nonconformist body can take and fill the place that the Church now holds in the country. There are plenty of evidences to show that Nonconformity is not the growing body which many of its members would lead us to suppose it is; and there is no spiritual corporation which can minister to the wants of the people more fully than can and does the national Church of this country. I think one of the strongest points of our established Church, although I daresay there will be numbers of people in the House who will not agree with me, is that from its very composition it is able to follow the national life of this country. That national life is derived in its source from the fact that many of the clergy of the Church of England come from our large universities, and if you compare our national Church with the Churches of any of our dependencies, I do not think it can be denied for a moment that the Church in this country, Established as it is and in connection with the State as it is, is in a far stronger position than any of the Churches, Disestablished as they are, in our Colonies.
  How different is the attitude of the State to-day from what it was fifty years ago. Then it was merely concerned in considering the liberty of the subject, the security of property, and the prevention of an invasion by an enemy. Having achieved those objects the State was called upon to do nothing more, but now the whole position is altered and the State enters more and more into our daily life. It has an influence first upon the body of the citizen in that it has established infirmaries all over the country, and even the National Insurance scheme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer directly deals with the actual bodily wants of the citizen of our country. When you take the mind, you have education in a way that was not the case fifty years ago. You have education and you have Cowper-Temple teaching, which is

  1197
  strictly established in this country and you may say practically endowed. If you are going to consider the aspect of the body and of the mind, why in the world is no national recognition to be given to the soul? There are many Acts of Parliament dealing with Nonconformist bodies. That has been more and more the case, and the State only quite recently has found it necessary to recognise the claims of labour in the minimum wage. Why in the world, if it is necessary and right to establish the principle of State recognition with regard to labour and with regard to the various aspects of civic life, should it be wrong to give national recognition to spiritual matters? Surely the Church and the State must go hand in hand. There must be an alliance between the two, and it is only when the Church trespasses unduly on the affairs of the State and the State treads unduly upon the heels of the Church that there is disaster. I do not think that we can be sufficiently proud of the comprehensive character of our English Church. I should like to quote the words of the late Cardinal Newman in 1864, which many of us read in the "Times" this morning:—
  "If there were no such thing us absolute truth in religions matters, there is great wisdom in the compromise and comprehension of opinions, and this the Chinch of England exhibits."
  The analogy between this question and the question as regards Ireland has been mentioned several times. I am not going through all the reasons which have been adduced to prove that there is any similarity between the two. I consider myself that there is none whatever. It seems to me that the only point in common between Ireland and Wales at present is that the Government, for reasons best known to themselves, are intent on trying to pass measures of what we on this side of the House consider to be of the character of destruction at the very moment when in each case there is advancement and certainly increase in prosperity. It is a curious fact that to pass either measure it is necessary that an alliance should exist between the Roman Catholics in Ireland and the Nonconformists in Wales, and that in order to pass Home Rule the Nonconformists in Wales should be prepared to turn a deaf ear to their brethren in Ireland, who right or wrongly, believe that if Home Rule is brought in in Ireland liberty will be denied to them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer on 23rd April, said:—
  "One thing, at any rate, they have a right to determine is the arrangement made for their own spiritual welfare…No nation or individual, however
  1198
  powerful, has the right to dictate to any other nation, or any other individual, with regard to their spiritual wants."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th April, 1912, cols. 1263–1264].
  That statement was no doubt cheered at the time it was made by a great number of the right hon. Gentleman's supporters. But, as a matter of fact, it possesses this curious point: it is in direct opposition to the very line the Government are taking with regard to their Home Rule Bill. They are prepared to grant all kinds of concessions to the Irish people; but one thing they do deny them is the right to endow any religion whatever. That is denied to those who are to be responsible for the government of Ireland in future. It is in direct contradiction of the plea which has been urged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Another argument used by the hon. Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond) is that the Church funds were intended for the whole nation, and since many of them do not need the services of the Church themselves the funds ought to go to other public purposes. As a matter of fact the whole nation has the benefit of the offer. It does not follow that because the entire Welsh nation do not care to avail themselves of the services of the Church that, for that reason, the Church should be Disestablished. I might as well argue that because the contents of the British Museum, the Wallace Collection, or any other collection of objects in London which you can think of, are only inspected and enjoyed by a minority of Londoners, for that reason, these museums and their contents should no longer be at the service of the public. I, in common with many other Members of this House, have listened with the greatest care and interest to the arguments which have been used by hon. Members on the other side, but none of us have been able to convince ourselves that a single speech, including even that of the Prime Minister, has been sufficiently strong to convince us that it will really be a good thing for the welfare of this country that the great Church of England, of which the Church in Wales is only a portion, and which has a history of over 800 years, should be destroyed, and that its funds should be taken away for secular purposes.
  Sir JOHN BARLOW: My reason for speaking in this Debate is that, although I am not a Welshman or a representative in this House of a Welsh constituency, I have for over forty years spent a very substantial portion of nearly every year in Wales. In fact, I have had a residence

  1199
  there, as had also my father before me, so that I have had an opportunity of ascertaining and observing the feelings of the Welsh people in regard to this matter in a way that perhaps the majority of Members in this House have not been able to do. Anyone who has had that opportunity must have been forcibly struck with the overwhelmingly predominant feeling in favour of a measure of this kind. It matters not whether you go to the country districts of Wales or to the towns, there is this feeling. Figures have been quoted in this controversy, showing that a large number of the representatives in this House from Wales are in favour of the measure, and have been so for a long time. Figures have also been quoted showing that a large and overwhelming number of the people who voted at recent elections voted in support of such a measure. But striking, and I think, perhaps to those of us who believe in representative government and conclusive as these figures are, I do not think that they adequately or sufficiently express the intense depth of feeling that exists in Wales among the Welsh people from one end of the Principality to the other in favour of a measure of this nature. The feeling is stronger in Wales than anyone who has not had ah opportunity of examining it closely for a long period of time can, I think, possibly realise or imagine. The Welsh are in the main a nation of Nonconformists. I have watched many times the people pouring into their chapels and filling them to overflowing, and I have also watched those going to the established Churches, and I have observed the meagre, miserable attendance which I regret to say there often is at the Welsh services of the established Church. Perhaps you may say that some Welshmen attend English services in these chapels. A few do, but not a large proportion. There is, I think, no doubt, that any fair-minded man on whichever side of the House he sits, if he looked into and investigated this matter, would, from the evidence of what happened around him in Wales, come to the conclusion that the Welsh people are terribly in earnest about Disestablishment. It is the thing which they place before everything. I found that out when I once unsuccessfully contested a seat in Wales, whose representative at the present time is sitting on the other side of the House. The Welsh people undoubtedly use their
  1200
  chapels far more than they use the churches of the English Church. It seems to me that the Welsh Nonconformists have successfully proved what has been, to some extent, doubted in these Debates, that they are able to cope not unsuccessfully with what sometimes has happened, namely, a large increase in the demand for religious ministrations. I remember hearing the late Lord Swansea, who was a Member of this House for a Welsh constituency for something like forty years, speak on this subject. He drew attention to the fact that the Nonconformists in Wales were, at any rate, able to meet an increased demand for religious ministrations more rapidly than the Anglican Church, because, as he said, they had fewer formalities to go through. They built their chapels and opened them, while there was still debt existing, whereas there were often difficulties in connection with that in the established Church. Welsh Nonconformists resent, and deeply resent, what they consider the inequality under which they are placed, and I do not think that that feeling of resentment, which is, I may say, a national feeling in Wales, is in the interest of religion as a whole in the Principality. I think it is a distinct drawback to religious progress and to the religious work done in the Principality as a whole.
  The Welsh people are naturally by the bent of their minds, by training, and by education a Nonconformist people. They are democratic, and the system of Church government adopted by Nonconformists appeals most to them, and undoubtedly it suits their needs best. That being so, they are more attracted by the Nonconformist form of Church government than by that of the established Church. The immense majority of the voters who voted in favour of this policy has already been referred to. At the present time we have only three representatives in this House who were elected in opposition to what I may term this demand, and their total majority was a very small one. In 1906 the Welsh Members of this House were unanimous, and if you go back you will find that time after time this feeling has prevailed in an overwhelming and surprising degree. This is the first question in regard to which Welshmen ask the view of candidates, and it is undoubtedly the question to which they attach most importance. If you say that the minority is not represented by the representation of Wales, I would point out that you seldom find under our system of representation

  1201
  that the representatives so accurately express the views of those who voted for them as they do in this case. Some efforts have been made in this Debate to make a distinction between Disestablishment and Disendowment. The Disestablishment of a particular Church in this country has always been followed by some measure of Disendowment. That was so in the case of the Reformation. It was the case when the Roman Catholic Church was Disestablished in Scotland. It was the case more recently when the English Church in Ireland was Disestablished. Therefore we cannot find a precedent for doing anything else than dealing with the question of Disendowment if we once tackle the question of Disestablishment. It seems to me that the Church originally had these moneys handed over to it when it was to a greater extent than it is now, in Wales at any rate, the Church of the whole nation. The whole nation benefited then in a way it does not do now. The Church also had some duties to perform which have been taken from it by the State. The State or associations do more now in connection with looking after the poor, and other matters, than they used to do in the olden times, Therefore the conditions having changed surely some of this property which we contend, though hon. Members opposite do not agree with us, is national property, may be reasonably diverted to other and national objects, instead of those for which it has more recently been used. There is one matter of which we have not heard so much in this Debate as I expected, though we have heard something of it in the country. That is the question whether this subject was submitted to the people of the country at the last General Election. Speaking of Welsh Disestablishment and Disendowment in September, 1910, the Bishop of St. David's said:—
  "As you are aware, the present Government will introduce a Welsh Disestablishment Bill. They are definitely pledged not only to introduce, but to carry it through Parliament."
  That is a definite statement and a warning to all whom it may concern that the policy of the present Government was one of Disestablishment. Therefore, I do not think that those who object to this Bill can say that they are being taken unawares. The Bishop of St. Asaph's said at Oswestry, on the 15th November, 1910:
  "think that the fate of the Church in Wales, so far as Disestablishment and Disendowment and her position are concerned, may be decided within the next six or eight weeks."
  And as regards the universal feeling in Wales in favour of this question being
  1202
  dealt with, Dr. Jayne, the Bishop of Chester, who had considerable knowledge of Wales, wrote to the "Times" on the 8th June, 1911, as follows:—
  "We are confronted, it is true, by the impressive, significant, undeniable fact, that the persistent, almost unanimous, Parliamentary voice of Wales, is in favour of at least Disestablishment."
  I think, after all these warnings, it cannot be said that the question of Welsh Disestablishment was not before the country at the last election, and we cannot deny that the present Government is pledged to carry it out. When you have a national feeling like this, I think that we, at any rate on this side of the House, must necessarily do our best to give effect to that feeling. I was looking up the other day some of the speeches which were made in connection with the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, and I find that the late Lord Salisbury, speaking in the House of Lords on the 9th June, 1869, on the Irish Disestablishment Bill, said:—
  "I am one of those who cannot give sufficient reason to justify me in voting against the principle of this Bill."
  Then he went on to say:—
  "It is not courage, it is not dignity to withstand the real opinion of the nation. All that you are doing thereby is to delay an inevitable issue, for all history teaches us that no nation was ever thus induced to reverse its decision."
  That, I submit, is the position with regard to Welsh Disestablishment to-day. I submit that it has been proved, and proved up to the hilt, that the feeling in Wales is overwhelmingly in favour of it. I submit that it is proved upon evidence which no one can doubt, and I submit that it is to the advantage of the Church itself that it should cease to hold a position which makes it suspect of the great majority of those in that country whom it would like to get to its ministration. I submit that it is to the advantage of religion and to the advantage of the State that this intolerable state of things should cease to exist, and I believe that you will best consult the highest interests of this realm if you give a Second Reading to this Bill and put it upon the Statute Book with as little delay as you can.
  Captain MORRISON-BELL: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down told us, as other Members have told us constantly in this Debate, that the Church in Wales was not a national Church, and that the great majority of the Members representing the Welsh constituencies were in favour of this particular measure of what I cannot help characterising as robbery.

  1203
  The argument of nationality has been used so constantly in this Debate that I cannot help thinking that there is a certain amount of mixed thinking on this point. I quite understand that the Government are quite committed to this Bill, and I quite see the cause of it. When they dealt with the Irish question, the Government talked so much about the Irish nation that it was quite obvious Wales was not to be left out. We had the Prime Minister, in answer to an interruption on this side, replying, "The Irish nation" and the Welsh nation was not going to be left out. So this argument, I suppose, will be used very frequently, that the measure is brought forward in the interest of the national life of Wales and that whatever its character, Welsh Members want it, and whether it is right or wrong, just or unjust, or connected with any sort of principle, it must be granted and need not be argued, as forty Welsh Members have said that it must be and it must be. A worse argument from the point of view of honesty and elementary principles of right cannot possibly be used. I do not care whether forty or 400 Members representing Wales were in favour of this act of robbery I should still be quite convinced that it was an act of robbery and would fight against it to the best of my power. It is all very well saying that Nonconformists in Wales go to their chapels in greater numbers than those who belong to the Church of England. After all, the whole spirit of a nation is not dependent entirely on whether a man goes to church or chapel. When you say that a man is in a minor position as regards his religion in any particular part of the United Kingdom because he does not go to the Church, you must take the work of the Church among those who do not attend the Church. We have been told that this is an alien Church in Wales. That point can be refuted by an authority which perhaps hon. Members may not think very great, but it is that of a man who has lived and worked among Welsh people and is a Nonconformist. I have not the honour of knowing him myself. He is the Rev. W. E. Sellers, Wesleyan Methodist superintendent of the Llandrindod Wells, and Brecon circuit. He wrote a letter to the "Church Family Newspaper" a few weeks ago. He said:—
  "Let us look at this question not through our fathers' eyes but through our own, and in doing so we are bound candidly to admit that the Church of England is doing its very best to make amends for the past."
  1204
  [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Members are blaming us now for what took place in 1800 or 1600. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I have heard it said constantly during the last few days of this Debate, and I think the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Dr. Leach) has also said that the iniquities of the Church in the past were the reason why you are going to punish the Church in the present. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Hon. Members are now saying "No," but I have heard that stated.
  Mr. KING: The hon. Member would not say that if—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order."]
  Captain MORRISON-BELL: I have been patiently waiting the opportunity of saying a few words on this great question and I have not time to make for an argument. This Methodist superintendent goes on—
  "and her ministers are Welsh."
  I read a short time ago an article in the "Contemporary Review" from an hon. Member opposite, I think the hon. Member for Carmarthenshire, which stated that the Church was alien, and that no services in Welsh were held in the cathedrals in Wales. The Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Acland) took up that statement as being reliable, and made it down in the West Country, and later on he had to write a long letter to the paper explaining the great mistake he had made in taking the authority of the hon. Member for Carmarthenshire. That seems to me a dangerous line to take. The letter continued:—
  "She is the most progressive Church in the Principality, and the fact that she is so proves that to-day she is suiting the genius of the larger portion of the Welsh people. The Church of England cannot be called alien to-day. Whether she be alien or not she is by her earnest preaching, her splendid stand for morality and her discipline, doing great things for the Kingdom of Christ."
  What excuse are you going to give for preventing that work from being carried on?
  We were told by the Chancellor of the Duchy (Mr. Hobhouse) last night that it did not matter very much to Churchmen— and he himself was a Churchman—that the Welsh Church was going to lose £170,000 a year. It is one of the most extraordinary arguments I ever heard in this House that to take away these endowments from the Welsh Church is going to be for her good and enable her to do her work better. We perfectly well know that hon. Members of this House are not prepared to

  1205
  give up endowments in connection with their own Churches, and the, Welsh Church, if they are to carry on their work, ought not to be called upon to give up their endowments. To say that it will be for the benefit of the Church in Wales to give up their endowments really makes me angry; I cannot conceive how any hon. Member can use an argument like that. The Church of Wales will go on whatever you do—we know that perfectly well—but you also know perfectly well that the Church in Wales, in the work she is doing amongst the poorest of the poor, is going to suffer because of lack of funds. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Master-man) made one of the most extraordinary speeches I ever heard in my life. He is an ardent Churchman, and I feel sure he is a most earnest man, and that he made a most earnest, though certainly a most extraordinary, speech. He is going to take away the endowments with which the Church in Wales carries on her work, and yet he says that Church will be far more free and powerful than before. It is so much germane to the point that I ask your indulgence while I quote a passage from the hon. Gentleman's interesting work entitled "The Heart of the Empire." In that work he makes this surprising statement:—
  "As one penetrates into the actual depths of the abyss, Nonconformists are found to be ever less and less operative. That is through no fault of their own. They have nothing corresponding with certain small endowments of the English Church. If the masses—"
  Not those who worship in St. George's, Hanover Square—
  are to be reached, this must come through the national Established Church of England."
  That is from the hon. Gentleman who said it will benefit the Church in Wales to take away her endowments, which are, as admitted by every single Member of the House who has studied the question at all, entirely out of proportion to the work that is to be carried on by that Church, yet here we have his words that if you are to get at the masses you must look at the small endowments that have been given to the established Church. I want to ask two or three questions, which I will not elaborate, because I am very much in sympathy with the idea of short speeches. Is the Church in Wales doing its work properly now? I do not think that a single hon. Member, whatever his view may be on Disestablishment or Disendowment, will refuse to admit that the Church is doing its utmost now to carry on its work, despite what it did a few
  1206
  years or a few centuries ago. Another question is: Is it a good thing or a bad thing that the State should recognise religion? In these days, under the conditions which at present prevail throughout the country and other countries, I say without the slightest hesitation—I do not ask hon. Gentlemen to agree with me—that you must have religion recognised just as much as you have any other thing recognised, if you think it is good for the State as a whole. I believe myself that the State connection is doing good rather than harm, and that the State should recognise that at the bottom of everything is the question of religion.
  The third question is: Is there a superabundance of money being spent on work that has been carried on for centuries? It is quite obvious that there is not sufficient money at present, yet we are told by the Chancellor of the Duchy that it does not matter about taking away £170,000 from the Welsh Church because she will very soon get it back again. There is the further question, which I consider very germane to this particular controversy. Could there be a permanent minister of religion in dozens of parishes if it were not for these endowments? I have just shown that the masses of the people are dependent on the Welsh Church, and it is these small endowments that enables the people to be reached. Is it contended by Liberal Churchmen that the money, entirely inadequate as it is well known to be, could be better spent than it is being spent at the present time? When you tell me that you are going to take away those endowments and give them to museums and other objects, I ask Liberal Churchmen whether they can in their conscience say that the work which is being done now, right throughout the Principality of Wales, by these clergymen of the Church of Wales—whether they agree with or whether they do not, have they the assurance to say—that this work is not far more valuable than anything which can be accomplished by taking away those endowments and devoting them to museums or any other scheme contemplated by the Government at the present moment? I, for one, believe that the position taken up by the Government and by many Members on the other side of the House, is entirely unjustified, and I, for one, shall do my best to fight this Bill to the bitter end.
  Mr. HAROLD CAWLEY: I wish to say a word or two from the point of view of a

  1207
  Liberal Churchman. I am neither a Welsh Churchman nor a Nonconformist, but I must say, for my part, that the idea of Disestablishment and Disendowment has never appealed strongly to me, and does not now. I do not wish to take a single halfpenny away from the Church. As a politician I do not see any material advantage to be gained from this Bill, at any rate to justify its position in the programme of legislation in this House, but if the Welsh Members can show that there is a real and sustained demand for this Bill in Wales, and that the Bill is just— and they must prove both—then I do not see how anybody who believes in democracy and representative government can refuse to support this Bill. No matter what a man's personal opinions are as to the value or importance of the Bill, if you once show that there is a real and sustained demand by the people for the Bill, and that demand is just, I conceive it to be the duty of this House to give it the place in the legislative programme which it occupies. But you have got to show both that there is a real demand for it, and that the demand is just. The hon. Member who has just spoken said that we on this side of the House were continually saying that the Welsh Members demanded this Bill, and that therefore it must pass. I do not believe that has been put forward in a single speech on this side of the House. [An HON. MEMBER: "Over and over again."] It is quite easy, with an argument made up of three or four things taken in conjunction to form an unanswerable argument, and to pick out one portion of it and say, "That is not an argument." I quite admit that it is not an argument to say that the Welsh Members demand this Bill, if that which they demand is unjust. We have got to see first of all if there is a demand for it in Wales. There is a large number of Welsh Members who say that not only they but their constituents are very anxious for the Bill. We have a large number, mostly Englishmen on that side of the House, who say that the Welsh do not really demand the Bill. We have had the question of numbers at elections brought out ad nauseam; I think that argument has been brought out to the fullest extent. Rut I believe there are some other considerations which show that the Welsh nation are behind the Members of this House, and demand the Bill. too.
  There is one fact which was mentioned by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury
  1208
  (Mr. Masterman) yesterday, that the Conservative party did fight certain seats in Wales, and that they put up candidates who declared themselves in favour of Disestablishment. That does seem to show that there are some Unionists, at all events, who believe that there is a demand for this Bill. It is a very common thing to hear from that side of the House that the Bill is not brought in by the Government because they believe in Disestablishment and Disendowment, but merely as a vote-catching device. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] Yes, but is a Government likely to bring in a Bill as a vote-catching device if those who have votes do not want it? Are they likely to go out vote-catching and bait their hook with something which the fish dislike, and which they know the fish dislike? It is not only that the Welsh Members come here and vote for it in season and out of season, but they have pressed it upon the Government, and Members, as a rule, do not press upon the Government things that their constituents do not want. Does the hon. Member for Devonport, who asks strings of questions about dockyard labourers, desire to waste the time of the House? Do Scottish Members who ask about the Moray Firth do so out of idle curiosity? When for some reason the Welsh Members press forward Disestablishment is it not because they believe that it is a great and vital question with their constituents? I believe it is beyond argument, amongst impartial men at any rate, that it has been established that there is a real demand for this measure in Wales. Then there remains the other and greater question: Is it just? I have satisfied myself that this measure is just largely on historical grounds—apparently very unpopular in the House—on the ground that my reading of history shows me that a large part of the revenues of the Church at present are really national revenues, and on the ground that at the present time those who hold the revenues of the English Church owe the allocation of those revenues to the action of the State only.
  8.0 P.M.
  We have heard a great deal of deprecation of the digging up of the past, but it seems to me that the origin of tithe at any rate is of vital importance in this matter, because, if tithes were, as is suggested by some people, given in the form of a charge on land to the Church, then no length of time can change that into a tax, but if the first binding obligation of tithe

  1209
  payment was imposed by the State, then I think that is a tax and nothing but a tax, and no length of time can make it anything else. I myself read about this question in the book of a controversialist, Lord Selborne. I find, even in the work of a partisan like that, brought out very clearly what the origin of tithe was. Tithe was first of all a voluntary contribution of a certain number of people exhorted to pay by the Church, then there comes the stage when excommunication is imposed on those who will not pay, and then there comes the time when tithe is made payable by law of the land by Statute. There is dispute as to when that come into existence. Bishop Stubbs, again a controversialist on the other side, holds that it became the law of the land in 780, and Lord Selborne puts the first obligation to pay tithes as in the year 970, or shortly afterwards. In that Statute there is direct injunction to pay tithes. It proceeds in these terms, which I think are rather significant. [The HON. MEMBER quoted the terms of the Statute.] There you have a statutory injunction to pay tithes, and a method of enforcement, and a penalty if it be not paid. I may point out as to the method of enforcement that the landlord got part of the tithe, and I think he probably helped in the enforcement of that law. That was reflected in other Statutes subsequently, and it has continued the law of the land in other forms and with other methods of enforcement to the present day.
  To my mind that is a tax, and is nothing else but a tax, and it has all the qualities which are usually attached to a tax. The only argument I heard used to show that it is not a tax was the one used by Lord Selborne, who said that it never came in to the Treasury. I do not think that is conclusive. At any rate, hon. Members are in the habit of talking about a servant tax, and that tax will not come in to the Treasury. I do not think, if hon. Members were asked to pay a certain amount every year, say, to temperance societies, that they would deny that that was a tax. The other thing said about tithe was that it was paid voluntarily. It was paid from year to year by a certain number of people voluntarily. If at any time a man ceased to be a member of the Church he could have ceased to pay tithes, but when the Statute came the tithe had to be paid ever since. Take another illustration. There are a number of people at the present time who pay, say, £100 per year to hospitals. I
  1210
  do not think anybody will deny that if everybody in the country were obliged to pay £100 of his income to hospitals that that would be a tax. I think, taking everything into consideration, there is no question that tithe is nothing more or less than a tax which is paid year by year, which is part of the national revenue, and which the State has the right to choose the objects for, and not only the right, but it is the duty of the State to see that those objects are not to benefit, as in Wales, a small minority of the people, but for the national uses of the country as a whole. That constitutes by far the greater part of the money that is taken.
  There is just one other part, and that is Queen Anne's Bounty, to which the hon. and learned Member for Kingston (Mr. Cave) referred this afternoon. That, too, I regard as part of the national revenue. He suggested it was a kind of pious gift on the part of Queen Anne. Green said it was given at the dictation of the Duke of Marlborough, and that it was part of the national revenue. It was given probably by a statesman who was hard-up and pressed and endeavouring to propitiate his own political party, and in no sense a private gift of the Queen. Those two account for what is by far the larger part of the fund, and as far as they are concerned I do not think there can be any doubt that that part is purely national revenue. The old revenues of the Church were, prior to the Reformation, the property of the national Church and the property of a nation as a whole. Since that date they have been allocated by the action of the State to a certain section of the country arbitrarily chosen by the State. No doubt prior to the Reformation the Church and the nation were simply the same thing regarded from different points of view. I think it is Green's phrase that the Church was the nation regarded in its religious aspect. By the events that occurred at the Reformation that ceased to be true, as first one Monarch and then another limited the property, the organisation, and the fabric of the Church to the uses of those people who believed a particular set of doctrines, first to those who believed in the Papal supremacy and to those who did not, and first to those who believed in transubstantiation and then to those who did not.
  The ancient Catholic Church was first disendowed by the Reformation, and afterwards at the time of the Restoration, Charles II., it became the turn of

  1211
  Puritanism. The more extreme Protestant section of the Church was cut off from the benefit of the endowments, one-fifth of the clergy were dispelled from the Church, and Puritanism joined Roman Catholicism in that body of the country which no longer had the benefit of the endowment that used to be meant for all. That was not done by the Church, and it was as a rule not done with the consent of the Church. The Forty-Two Articles were put forward without consulting Convocation, and there was no proof that either of the Prayer-books of Edward VI. were submitted to Convocation. Queen Mary quite openly made her changes without any attempt at consulting her Church. As to Queen Elizabeth., the Lower House of Convocation passed a resolution just before that in favour of the doctrine of transubstantiation, and in favour of the supremacy of the Pope and in favour of the sacrifice of the mass. When the Bill for the Act of Uniformity came before the House of Lords every single bishop present voted against it. Thus you have a constant series of changes, first one way and then the other, allocating and limiting the funds of the Church to people who believe in one particular set of doctrines without the consent, and, in some cases, against the wish of the Church. You have that done by the State and by the State only. It seems to me that this action of the State, and the fact that the State had limited to the few, and in Wales to quite a small minority, what was originally the property meant for all, that that does establish the right of the State at the present time to devote those revenues to the objects of the nation as a whole, and as nearly as possible to the objects for which they were originally intended.
  I do not want to go further into historical contentions as to the tripartite division, but nobody doubts that the mediaeval Church regarded the objects to be served by this money as religious uses. The purposes of education and the purpose of benefiting the poor were regarded as religious uses. I do not think any fair-minded man can deny that there are certain good things in compensation for and against the loss of endowments. I, for my part, should not think that the loss of endowments would be a good thing, but there are certain things which compensate. It is an advantage that no longer will laymen, or people who have no religion at all, direct who are to
  1212
  be the ministers of the Church. It is an advantage that the Church should be able to allocate its revenues in future in the best possible way, and though it may have only four-fifths of the present revenue it will be able to economise and to redistribute that money in a better and more efficient way. I think there is an advantage in the fact that a clergyman will no longer have a freehold in his living, and that a very stupid, or, it may be, a very incompetent man will no longer be able to retain his hold on the living against the wishes of all the parishioners and of the Church. That is not a reason for the Bill itself, but it is an argument forgiving our consideration to the case, and became I think Wales demands this, and because I believe that that demand is just, I believe this Bill fully merits the support of English Churchmen in this country.
  Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"—[Lord Hugh Cecil]—put, and agreed to.
  Debate to be resumed to-morrow (Thursday).

PUBLIC OFFICES (SITES>— [EXPEXSES].
Order read for further consideration of Resolution [read a second time upon 13th May]:—
"That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of the Consolidated Fund and out of Moneys provided by Parliament, of any Charges and Expenses which may become payable under any Act of the present Session to make provision for the acquisition of a Site for Public Offices in Westminster, for the acquisition of land for the further extension of the Patent Office and for purposes in connection with the Record Office, to amend the Public Offices Sites (Extension) Act, 1908, and to make provision for certain other public purposes."
Resolution further considered.
And, it being a Quarter past Eight of the clock, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put, pursuant to Stand-Order No. 4.

SUGAR DUTIES.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I beg to move, "That, in the opinion of this House, the continued imposition of a Sugar Duty is inexpedient and unjust, and ought to cease

1213
even if it involves an increase of other taxation."
It will be within the recollection of the House that when this tax was imposed, or I should say reimposed, in 1901, it was ostensibly as a war tax to meet the exceptional expenses of the South African war. It was reimposed then after an interval of twenty-seven or twenty-eight years, because the original Sugar Duty was abolished by Mr. Gladstone in 1872. The reimposition of the tax in 1901 by the party opposite was rightly opposed by Members now sitting on this side of the House. The special necessity for this tax has passed away, and I think the time has come when the Liberal Government should sweep away the remainder. It is true that in 1908 the tax was reduced from 4s. 2d. to 1s. l0d. a cwt., but even the remainder of the tax is equally unjust with the tax as originally imposed. It is even more important that the remainder of the tax should be removed, because, although the revenue now received from the Sugar Duty is half that which it was in 1901, yet the cost of collecting the tax is the same, as also is the extra cost to the consumer, due to incidental charges, and to the extra profit which the manufacturer requires in order to meet the expense of paying the tax before he gets his money from the retailer. Let me remind the House what the tax at present is. It is a tax of 1s. 10d. per hundredweight on sugar, which during the first few months of this year averages, roughly, 15s. 4½d. a hundredweight. Therefore it is a tax of about 14 per cent, on the value of the sugar. The tax brings in about £3,500,000 a year. It is a bad tax, because it is a tax both on food and on the raw material of a great many industries in the country. I shall leave to my Seconder, the hon. Member for the Sowerby Division (Mr. Higham), the chief argument against the tax as a tax on raw material, but I should like to point out what it means as a tax on the food of the people. The tax amounts to about 1s. 6d. per annum per head of the population of this country. For an average family of, say, seven members the tax will be nearly 10s. a year upon the wage earner—not a big tax, it is true, but one which falls with increasing severity the poorer the man is and the smaller his wage. After all, even a rich man cannot eat much more sugar than a poor man, and a man who has a large family has undoubtedly to pay far more of this tax than a man with an equal income and a smaller family, and still more than a rich man
1214
who is a bachelor, and has no one to support but himself. Fran the point of view of a tax on food, the tax on sugar is unjust, and it is particularly inexpedient, because sugar forms one of the most important foodstuffs for the children of the country. Sugar is recognised by all doctors to be a very valuable foodstuff for children for building them up and making them healthy and strong. Therefore, of all food taxes I think the tax on sugar is the worst.
The collecting of all taxes is difficult; the collecting of import duties is particularly difficult, and of all import duties the collecting of the duty on sugar is the most difficult of all, because sugar enters into so many manufactured products imported into this country. It is not merely that we have to impose the tax on raw sugar as it comes into the country. There are between thirty and forty articles into the composition of which sugar enters, with the result that the Customs House officials have to examine all those compounded articles, and the Treasury have to impose the tax upon them. Sugar enters into a very large number of articles either of food or of common use imported into this country, which articles have of necessity to be taxed simply and solely because sugar forms part of their composition. If you did away with the tax on sugar you would do away with all the difficulties which arose last, year over the question of the tax on cocoa and chocolate. You would at the same time relieve our Customs House officials and system of a great deal of the present Customs House work. The tax on sugar is a bad tax, therefore, because it is a tax on a raw material, not only of the sugar refining trade, but also of the confectionery: trade, the jam trade, and all those allied trades which cooperate with the jam-making and confectionery trades to put their articles before the public. It is bad, not only because it is a tax on raw material, but because it is a tax on food which is felt most severely by the poorest classes, and of the poorest classes, most severely by the children. It is bad because it is a costly tax to collect, because it makes necessary a scrutiny of so large an amount of the imports of the country, and because the cost of collection is out of proportion to the amount collected. I want also to refer to one other way in which this tax, and, indeed, all indirect taxes upon food are bad. It is not true to say, as so many Free Traders do say, that in the case of a tax upon sugar the whole proceeds go into the Treasury, and none

1215
into the pockets of the protected manufacturers. It is true that none of the proceeds of the tax go into the pockets of the protected manufacturers, unless, indeed, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rye (Mr. Courthope) introduces his beet-sugar growing, and manages to escape Excise Duty.
It is not true, nevertheless, that the whole proceeds of the. tax go into the Treasury, because the importers have to pay duty on the sugar that comes into the country, and cannot expect to recoup themselves till they are paid by the retailers, to whom, naturally, they must grant a certain amount of credit; and therefore all the middlemen and the merchants who import sugar have to invest larger amounts of capital in the business than otherwise they would do, and have to secure during the period between the date upon which they paid duty and the date upon which they are paid by the retailers, a legitimate rate of interest on the money that is lying idle. Therefore you and that the Government halved the duty in 1908 so far as the public as a whole were concerned, yet so far as the revenue was concerned of this country they dropped the tax, not from 4s. 2d. per cwt. to 2s. 1d., but from 43. 2d. to 1s. 10d. Actually the Revenue Tax fell by more than one-half, still the public only got exactly one-half of the original duty. Therefore in all these indirect taxes you must remember that you are taxing the community by more than that which goes into the Treasury, because the middleman has to secure larger profits to cover the rate of interest on capital that is lying idle, or, rather, capital which he has to employ in financing the period during which he does not get a return for his money. That is the minor injustice of all indirect taxation.
I want the House to bear with me for a little while, while I deal with the fundamental injustice of such taxes as this tax on sugar. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are always great sticklers—and rightly so—for the sanctity of property. Of all forms of property, what is there more sacred than the wage a man takes home at the end of his week's work? Every penny of it is obviously and patently earned. He takes home, it may be, 30s. as a reward of his week's labour. That property ought surely to be sacred if any property in the world is! He hands that money over to his wife, and she goes out to do the week's shopping. She buys half a pound of sugar
1216
from the grocer, and the Government come along and take from that half a pound of sugar as a tax a fraction of a penny—that out of the absolute property of that working man. Surely there is interference with the rights of property! The wife buys half a pound of tea. Again the Government come along and compulsorily take part of that hard-earned 30s. as a tax. You have in all those indirect duties State robbery. It is perfectly true that the majority may have voted in favour of this tax, or taxes; still it is only State-sanctioned robbery, for the State has no right to take that man's property.
Taxes of this sort are unjust because they are a tax upon labour, and yet they are often justified on the ground that they are taxes which the poor pay. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have said over and over again that without taxes of this kind the poor would contribute nothing to taxation. I wonder whether they have ever thought who pays; who really does contribute to the taxation of this country. It is true that the Chancellor of the Exchequer or any Chancellor of the Exchequer may take wealth in taxation in the first place from the rich, but the people who created that wealth were the poor workers of this country. Taxation in the long run comes from the workers of the country. It may come to other people first, but in no case can I conceive of a State where a tax does not come out of the workers of the country. The people who create the wealth are the only people from whom you can in the long run take the wealth. Therefore I do not think it is a valid argument to say that if you abolish the Sugar Duty or any other tax falling upon labour that you thereby exempt labour from all taxation. No; labour will still be taxed, will still pass on the wealth which it creates, it may be through a series of hands, to the State in order to fill the State coffers. The arguments of hon. Gentlemen opposite aught to be, and very often are, put on a different footing from that. They do not say that labour would contribute nothing to the taxation of the, country if this tax is taken off; rather they say that it is necessary that the workers should recognise that they are paying part of the taxation; that then it is so obviously before his mind whenever the taxes are increased or reduced that he feels he is a participator in the advantages or disadvantages of changes of taxation. If that is so I do not think that the Sugar Duty brings it home to him very well. It would

1217
be better to have some other form of taxation which indicated to him more directly that he was contributing to the upkeep of the country, that he was vitally interested as a taxpayer in the expenditure or the economy of the government of the country.
The Sugar Duty is an indirect tax—the most efficient way of plucking the goose. If you want the poor workers of this country to recognise the absolute truth, which we all know to be true, that they do pay the taxes, that they are vitally affected by every change of taxation, why then make a direct tax; levy a tax upon them; but I would urge that that tax should be a just tax, and no robbery. You can make a perfectly just tax by levying upon all who use land a tax equal to the economic rent of the land which they use. That would be a perfectly just tax, because the community is not depriving a man of the fruits of his labour. He is merely paying to the community a sum equal to the advantage which he gets from the community. This direct tax I offer to hon. Members opposite as the best fitted to render absolutely clear to every man in the country—for every man must use land—that he is a participator in the country's affairs, and that he is vitally affected and interested in the expenditure of the Government of the country. The arguments against this tax have been stayed over and over again in this House. They have been stated by all the hon. Members in the Government at the present time. They have been stated by hon. Members opposite. More wonderful still, they have even been stated by the hon. Member who used to sit in the seat below me, Mr. Harold Cox. I do not believe that even the hon. Member for Rye, who has an Amendment to this Motion, would defend the tax on sugar per se. It is universally admitted that this tax is unjust and inexpedient. The time must come when we must carry out what is a just and expedient course, and unite in asking the Government to take this tax off. I move this Resolution to-night, because it is perfectly well known to hon. Members that when the Budget, the Finance Bill, of the year is before the House, when tins Sugar Duty is in its place, that then it is extremely difficult for any hon. Member on this side of the House to move that that duty be deleted.
The Government have then made their plans, their whole Budget has been arranged, and to cut out the Sugar Duty then would be to leave them with a deficit
1218
of £3,500,000 on the year's working. To vote against the Government on such an occasion would be a vote of want of confidence. It is extremely difficult to get such a reduction in the duty carried knowing as everybody does the ardour with which we support the Government at the present time. The difficulties on such an occasion are immense, but the difficulties on a Resolution such as this are by no means so great. Liberal Members may vote for a Resolution which urges that the Sugar Duty should be removed without endangering the existence of the Government in any way. They can vote for it knowing perfectly well that the carrying of that Resolution, although it may inconvenience the Government for a while, will in the long run induce the Government to take that duty off. I bring forward this Resolution to-night because I want this Sugar Duty taken off. I believe that nine-tenths of Members of the Government, and 99 out of every 100 of their supporters, want that duty taken off. Some of us may want it off for small party reasons, but the continued imposition of the Sugar Duty is one of the best arguments of hon. Members opposite for Tariff Reform. I have left that argument entirely out of account. I do not think it is worth while bringing it before the House; it is quite sufficient for me to know that this tax is an unjust tax and is inexpedient, and I hope that before this Debate closes we shall have a promise from the Government that within the next two years, either in the Budget of next year or the year after, they will see the need for taking off this relic of the war tax which was imposed by hon. Members opposite in 1901. I quote the words used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1909, when this tax was brought forward, when he said:—
"Perhaps there is no tax, even the tax on bread, on which there may be so much said to justify its total repeal as the duty upon sugar."
And I would also quote what was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, who was no less emphatic in his opposition to the Sugar Duty. He said:—
"This tax is open to many great disadvantages."
And the Secretary to the Treasury actually voted in favour of Mr. Harold Cox's Amendment to the Finance Bill upon this question, and did so on an occasion when it was far more difficult to vote for the abolition of the Sugar Duty than it is to-night upon a mere Resolution which

1219
does not bind the Government to immediate action and gives them time to go into the question.
The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): Was that before the tax was reduced?
Mr. WEDGWOOD: It was, and I suppose it was the vote of the hon. Gentleman that ultimately forced the Government to reduce the duty to half in the next year. The position we are in to-night is, we want this duty abolished. We see, in the passing of a Resolution by this House to-night, a chance of getting it abolished without inconvenience to the Government if the Government mean to abolish it. To move the abolition of this duty when the Finance Bill is before the House is a very different thing to asking the Government by this Resolution to abolish it within the next year or two, and I hope that we shall either get a promise from the Government to-night that they will wipe out the remains of this duty, in 1913 or 1914, or that otherwise we shall, by putting this Resolution upon the Journals of the House, make it imperative that they should do so.
I wish to say one or two words with respect to the Amendment on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for the Rye Division. The hon. Member for the Rye Division wishes to retain this tax upon sugar in order to build up the beet-growing industry of this country. If the hon. Member really wants to build up the beet - growing industry there are other ways than by retaining this most unjust tax upon the food of the people of this country. There is always the bounty system, as an alternative to this indirect tax upon the people. This tax hits the poorest people; it hits the people with large families much harder than those who can make both ends meet more easily. If the only object of the hon. Member for Rye is to build up the beet-growing industry let him act in a matter more conducive to the interests of the whole community by collecting the money necessary for the building up of that industry from those better able to bear the contribution required by the State. Let him ask for bounties equivalent in value to the protection which they get, or hope to get, from the retention of this tariff, and for the absence of an Excise Duty. If he asks for a bounty it will be exactly the same for the growers, but it will be a very
1220
different thing for the poorest people of this country. You can take your bounties from all sources, but you can only take a protective tariff from the mouths of the people and from their children. Therefore I hope he will not press this Amendment to a Division, but will look forward to the time when his party comes into power to build up this industry if he wishes to build it up, at the expense of those best able to bear it, and not at the expense of the stomachs of the people. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will give us some promise to-night that we shall have this tax removed. It is now absolutely in his power to see that this tax is taken off. If you want to make the poor understand that they are contributing to the taxation of the country an indirect tax such as a tax upon sugar, is not a tax that makes them see it very clearly. If you want to make the poor recognise that they are vitally interested in economy the sugar-tax is not a good one to make them see that; it is an indirect tax paid almost without knowing it. If you want to make the poor recognise that they are sharing in the expenditure of the country make it a direct tax upon them; make it a tax upon the whole of the land they live upon whose value is created by the community, and should go by right of the community.
Mr. HIGHAM: I desire to second the Resolution which has been moved by my hon. Friend. I do so for the reasons which he has given and for reasons which I shall put before the House. He says that the Sugar Duty was first put on as one of the War Taxes in 1901. It was one of three taxes, the Corn Tax, the Coal Tax, and this one. The Corn Tax soon went, and the Coal Tax did not long survive, and this Sugar Duty is the sole remnant of that policy. In looking up the speech of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord St. Aldwyn, I find he gave a special reason for this tax. He said:—
"It is our opinion that in the true interests of pence and economy the labouring classes is well as other classes should know that they hear the burden of the cost of war and the preparations for war."
When I read that I thought that I had never read a more unjust sentence upon the working classes of this country. I think hon. Members will acknowledge that the labouring classes have very little to do with controlling the foreign policy of this country. When they do ultimately throw in their lot and their shouts upon the side of war, it is in every case the result of their being inflamed by the newspapers. The labourng classes of this

1221
country are no more responsible for war than the labouring classes of any other country are responsible for our wars. That was the reason given by Lord St. Aldwyn, but he also gave a palliative. He said that this Sugar Duty might have very little effect upon the people, because the country giving the bounty encourages the production of sugar within its own borders and at the same time does its best to restrict the consumption by every possible means, so that the result is that there is an enormous amount of sugar which must find a foreign market.
That was his strongest argument after stating that the labouring classes ought to pay. It was a strong argument to use, because I wish to show how the effect of the Sugar Duty was made doubly vicious by the abolition of the bounty, of which we were really the cause, a year or two later. We took part in the Brussels Convention, and every advantage recorded in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech in that year the Government of that day deliberately threw away by going to the Brussels Convention. My hon. Friend, in moving this Resolution, has referred to the influence of the Sugar Duty upon trade. I think there is no duty upon a raw material which can affect so many industries and which can affect so many people engaged in industry. It affects those who deal in the manufacture of commodities contained in that raw material. The duty was one halfpenny; it was put on in the year 1901. At that time on the Continent they were giving a bounty which included the cartel arrangement, which practically came to another halfpenny per pound, and the duty was then estimated at 5s. per cwt. The bounty is part of a protective system, but, as far as this country is concerned, a tariff on the Continent lessens the trade we can do with the country which imposes the tariff. But it gives an indirect advantage, in so far as it increases the cost of producing other articles in that country, and therefore we can compete with them more successfully. But the bounty has a different effect. A bounty given in those Continental countries enables them to keep up the price to the consumers in their own country and make them pay extra there, and you make it worse for them to compete with our manufacturers here, and we get an advantage in the lower price of sugar coming into this country.
It was calculated by the largest user of sugar in this country that under the
1222
bounty system we were getting an advantage of £4 per ton. We use 1,500,000 tons of sugar a year, and therefore the Conservative Government threw away £6,000,000 a year by going to the Brussels Convention and joining in the decision to abolish those bounties. In other words, the consumers of sugar had to pay another £6,000,000 a year to our Government, and it had to come out of the sugar industries and the users of sugar. Take, for instance, the trades which engage in using sugar. The biggest trade is the brewing industry, and then there are the makers of preserves, jams, cocoa, chocolate, sweets, aerated waters, and an immense number of small employers of labour, who were heavily hit because there were so many articles which were sold at one penny and twopence each upon which they could not increase the charge either in the wholesale or the retail list, and consequently these people were heavily hit by the Sugar Duty. I would like hon. Members to compare the price of sugar on the Continent and here as showing the effect of bounties. In 1902 sugar could be bought in any retail shop in London at l½d. per pound, including the duty. If there had been no duty it would have been very little over a penny per pound. In Paris at that very time sugar was 4¼d. per pound, and the chocolate manufacturers in Paris could not buy their sugar under 3½d. per pound. In Berlin the price was a halfpenny per pound cheaper than in Paris. Later we put the tax on our own people, and we went into the Brussels Convention and struck out the bounty, which was equivalent to another halfpenny per pound. The following year the price went up one farthing per pound in Paris, and in Berlin the price remained the same. In the years 1906, 1907, and 1908, the price in London was 2d. per pound; in Paris it was 3d., and in Berlin it was 3½d., or exactly what Lord St. Aldwyn foresaw in his speech. The abolition of those bounties put up the price of sugar against the people of this country by £d. and brought it down all over Europe—France, Germany, Austria, and Italy—by a sum varying from 1d. to 1½d. a pound. It brought it down to Continental manufacturers by £12 per ton all over Europe, and it put it up to our manufacturers £4 per ton. That is an extra reason why the Chancellor of the Exchequer should to-day take into his most careful consideration the question how soon he can help the industries of this

1223
country by taking this tax off the raw material they are using. I know we have the sympathy of every Member of the Government. The Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in May, 1908:—
"This was one of the most objectionable of all our indirect taxes. It was a tax on food and it was a tax on raw material."
Perhaps the most attractive reason given for going into the Convention was that of helping our West Indian Colonies, a reason as fallacious as the reason advanced by the hon. Gentleman opposite in putting down his Amendment. To take a huge hammer for the purpose of cracking a nut is not in it with the reason given for entering into this Convention or for the Amendment to-night. We use one and a half million tons of sugar per year, and we have never in the biggest year of our trade with the West Indian Colonies bought from them more than 5 per cent, of our consumption, and in several recent years it has gone down to 2½ per cent. We are actually taxing ourselves £4 per ton on a consumption of one and a half million tons in order to help the West Indian Colonies to increase their sales to us from 42,000 tons per year. In 1900 we bought 42,000 tons from them, in 1901 42,000 tons, and in succeeding years 50,000 tons, 42,000 tons, 58,000 tons, 61,000 tons, 60,000 tons, 40,000 tons, 61,000 tons, and 79,000 tons. In the biggest year we did not buy 5 per cent, of our consumption, and we put all that burden upon ourselves for the sake of that amount of purchase. If you take the production of the Colonies, it has been of no more help to them than to us, because while in 1900 they produced 238,000 tons, in 1902, before the Convention came into force, they produced 302,000 tons, and in 1910 220,000 tons, so hon. Members will see again that while the Convention put that enormous tax upon us it did not help one iota the West Indian Colonies in their competition with beet sugar or in their exports to us. Take another result. We in this country had to go cap in hand to that Convention asking them to allow the exportation of Russian sugar lying idle in that country.
9.0 P.M.
Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. J. H. Whitley): The hon. Member is getting rather wide of the Motion. The Brussels Sugar Convention only arises so far as it has any relation to the Motion which the hon. Member is seconding. I cannot rule out
1224
allusions to it, but it must not be entered into in detail.
Mr. HIGHAM: I wish to show how the Convention has emphasised the mischief which the duty itself has done. Last year there were in Russia 1,000,000 tons of sugar to spare, but we were debarred from having that sugar by the Convention. Perhaps the greatest trouble these industries using sugar have is that every Spring they wonder whether the duty is going to be taken off or not, and every shopkeeper and merchant using sugar in his trade has to bring his stocks down to the smallest possible limit, so that he may not be landed with large stocks of sugar if the tax is taken off. The tax is a great burden upon these industries, but there is in addition this annual upset in their business. Famine years and plenty, failures of harvest and speculation they are quite prepared to face, but the narrowing of the markets by the levelling of a duty makes those difficulties doubly hard to bear. One has to remember that while in olden times sugar was very high in price a tremendous reduction in the price encouraged these industries to go ahead, and now they have to face the highest prices of sugar which have ranged since 1882. In 1882 sugar was 27s. per ton. It then dropped to 20s., and in the early part of this year it was higher than any price since 1882. The industries are prepared to face high prices, but they do ask that they should not be handicapped in their business by a duty which presses upon them so severely as this duty does. I am sure the House is sympathetic on this subject, and I desire to press the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give us an assurance that the matter will have his most careful consideration, and, if possible, to hold out some hope to us of releasing these industries from a burden which has been pressing upon them now for the last twelve years.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): The House has listened to two very able speeches upon the Resolution which has just been moved, and I am sure they have contained some very admirable figures which must have made a great impression on those who heard them. I wish I could refer to them and could follow the hon. Members into the discussion about the Sugar Convention, but I am afraid that the Rules of Order will not permit of my doing so. I sympathise with the hon. Member in this

1225
general case and I especially sympathise with him in his particular case. I do not think that anyone who has followed the working of the Convention can come to any other conclusion than that it was a great business blunder on our part to enter into it. I was one of those, and I believe my hon. Friend the Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) was also one of those, who protested very strongly at the time. We predicted that the effect would be to put up prices of sugar in this country, and to give an advantage to our trade rivals by depressing the prices to them while increasing them in this country, thereby seriously affecting an industry which we had ourselves built up, and in which we had got the real mastery of the world, so far as this particular trade was concerned. I regret I cannot follow the hon. Member into that subject. The only observation I make is this: that if we have suffered more from that tax than from any other tax which the late Government put upon this commodity we, at any rate, have done something to reduce it.
I regret I am not in a position to accept this Motion. If I accepted it I should regard it as a pledge to deal with the matter. I am not in a position to do that, and, therefore, I am certain the House will not ask me, on a Motion of this kind, to undertake what, after all, is a very considerable fiscal change, after the plans for the year had been submitted by the Government to the House of Commons. But my hon. Friend may depend upon it that whenever there is a possibility of our dealing with this matter we consider ourselves pledged to deal with it. It is part of the duties of food and raw material in this country which on every principle we are bound to do our very best to remove from among the taxes of the country. We shall therefore take it into account when dealing with the finances of the year. We could not do it this year, for reasons which I explained at the time I made my annual statement. We were then not in a position to reduce taxation. All I have to say is this, that since the present Government came into power we have reduced the burden of taxation upon sugar from £6,186,000 to £3,250,000; that is, a reduction of £3,000,000 upon this very important commodity which plays such an essential part in the food of the people. That, in itself, is a guarantee that we take these pledges seriously as an obligation cast upon us as a party. It is as far as we can go at present. We regret that we cannot
1226
see our way now to go further, but we do not regard our obligations as discharged by a reduction of £3,000,000 a year.
I would like to remind my hon. Friends of what really has been done during the few years we have been in office in the matter of readjusting the relations of direct and indirect taxation. When we came into office, in the year 1905, the percentage of indirect taxation was 49.7, as compared with 50.3 of direct taxation— roughly speaking, half and half. Last year the percentage of indirect taxation was 42.7 and of direct taxation 57.3. The taxation upon pure luxuries, like alcohol and tobacco, has been increased by 10 per cent. The taxation upon the necessaries of life —tea and sugar—not forgetting coal—we have decreased by about 25 per cent. I am only quoting these percentages to show that it has not been merely lip-service that we have given to the principles so clearly enunciated by my hon. Friend in moving this Resolution. We have gone some way, at any rate, towards redeeming the promises we made when we entered office. It will be interesting to the House to know how we compare with foreign countries in the matter of the Sugar Duty. When we entered office the Sugar Duty in this country was 4s. 2d. per cwt.; it has now been reduced to 1s. 10d. In Germany it is 9s. 5d. per cwt. Customs and 7s. Excise, so that the duty in Germany on homegrown sugar, and I commend this fact to the hon. Member who is about to move an Amendment—the duty on beet-grown sugar in Germany is 7s. per cwt., while in France it is 10s. In Germany the duty on tea is 5½d. In France it ranges from 9d. to 11½d. On cheese in Germany the duty ranges from 7s. 6d. to 15s. per cwt., and in France from 4s. 10d. to 8s. 1d. The duty on butter is 10s. per cwt. in Germany and 8s. 6d. in France. The duty on meat imported into Germany runs from 13s. 1d. to 17s. 6d. per cwt. and in France from 10s. 2d. to 14s. 3d. The duty on wheat is very heavy in Germany, and still heavier in France. If you go through the whole category of the necessaries of life you will find the duty abroad is exceedingly high, and, in this respect, when we compare what we are doing with some of the great Continental Powers, I submit that our record is an exceedingly good one. I want my hon. Friend to bear in mind that it means that in a country like Germany, which is becoming more and more industrialised, these high duties mean that

1227
the cost of living is going up year by year accordingly as more money has to be spent upon imports. I do not think that at the present stage there is anything more I can usefully say. My hon. Friends have very fairly stated, indeed, they have put in their Resolution, and the Mover, with his usual courage, has not shirked, the natural result of doing away with the Sugar Duty. He said, "Very well, put on some other tax." I think he will agree with me that it is desirable that every class in a community should contribute something towards the expense of the State.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: I said the working classes contribute more than any other class.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That opens up a very abstruse economic problem, into which I am not prepared to follow my hon. Friend. If he includes all those who labour, so that the working classes include everybody who works with muscle or brain, then I agree with him. Those who do not work contribute nothing, and it is an absurd theory to say that they do. If my hon. Friend makes it a comprehensive definition of the working classes, I agree with him. What I mean is, that taking the working classes in the most comprehensive sense, I think everybody should be brought in to contribute something towards the expenses of the State. I cannot conceive a worse system—I have often said this before—than a system whereby the expenditure of the country is borne by one class numerically, perhaps, small, and where the policy is directed by everybody. I think it was a very bad principle. I think everybody ought to feel that he has got a responsibility, even a financial responsibility, for running the country.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: If the right hon. Gentleman will be good enough to read my speech, he will see that I dealt with that point. The right hon. Gentleman was not present when I spoke of it.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am very sorry I was not present at the time. I do not know whether my hon. Friend suggested any alternative tax.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: A tax on land values. I urge that as a tax which everybody would pay.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am sure my hon. Friend woud not make a speech without bringing in at the beginning, or the middle, or the end the question of the Land Value Duty. I cannot imagine him delivering a speech on any subject without, at any rate, dwelling upon the merits of the taxation of ground values. I do not altogether disagree with him about the desirability of taxing land values, but that does not dispose of the argument which I was putting forward.
Mr. WEDGWOOD: Yes, it does. Everybody puts it forward.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Apparently I am in for a very long argument. Luckily it is an irrelevant one. I will just resume the topic I started with. My hon. Friend said it does not follow that a Sugar Tax is the best method of securing the contribution. There I agree with him. It does not follow that if you have got to call upon everybody in the community to contribute, that the taxation of sugar is the best method of arriving at a contribution of that kind. I do not think that it is. There is only one thing to be said. I should be sorry for the Chancellor of the Exchequer who tries to substitute another method. Every Chancellor of the Exchequer who initiates new taxation has his difficulties. The difficulties which I had with the one or two new taxes which I initiated three or four years ago would be nothing to the tribulation that would fall upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer who tried to remove this taxation from the working classes by substituting other indirect taxes. Every Chancellor of the Exchequer will eschew that very invidious task. For the moment we are not in a position to contemplate it. It is true that on the working of last year we had a very considerable surplus, but anybody who looks at the finance of the present year will see that it is a surplus which is not capable of repetition, for the simple reason that-half of it is attributable to the saving of expenditure, which is very largely due to labour troubles and matters of that kind, in consequence of which the Admiralty did not spend its quota upon construction; and the other half of it is more than absorbed by the increased expenditure this year upon the programme the Liberal party has adopted. Therefore there is no other source available for expenditure except new taxation if the Sugar Duty is finally abolished. For that reason I could not possibly contemplate any action of that kind.

1229
I have simply to point out, as every Chancellor of the Exchequer up to the present has pointed out, that, the only way of reducing taxation is by reducing expenditure. So long as expenditure is increasing taxes cannot be taken off—expenditure sometimes upon matters which the House of Commons presses upon the Government, expenditure which is sometimes productive and useful, and sometimes for causes which everybody roust deplore, however much we may all feel the necessity for that expenditure. At any rate, that is the only method of reducing taxes and getting rid of some things I should be glad to see blotted out of every Budget. I think my hon. Friend has rendered good service in raising a discussion upon this subject. It is desirable that we should be reminded of it, that we should have a Debate upon it, and that we should realise the importance of a proposal of this kind to the working classes of this country when we are in a position to carry it into effect. I very much regret that at the present stage it is not possible for me to go beyond that.
Sir FREDERICK CAWLEY: I do not think the Mover of this Resolution has got very much comfort from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. So far as I can see he has said nothing that will give us any hope of his ever taking the tax off this year, or in any future year. That is my opinion anyhow.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The hon. Baronet has no right to say that a Minister has defended a tax unless he is prepared to quote some passage. I deprecated the tax, and the only defence I made was that I was not in a position to take it off.
Sir F. CAWLEY: If the right hon. Gentleman says he did not do it I will take his word for it. I was going on to say that he did somewhat defend the tax, because he compared this country with other countries, and showed that the taxation of other countries on sugar and other things is greater than in this country. He might have gone further. IIe might have shown that other countries put taxes on manufactured goods and that we do not. I wish to see this tax abolished, because I have pledged myself on the platform time after time to vote for its abolition, and I believe almost every Member of the Liberal party in this House at one time or another has pledged himself. I am not sure whether Ministers, including even the Chancellor himself, have not gone a long way in this
1230
direction, but all we have to-night is sweet words to say that it cannot be done. I wish to see it abolished because it is a tax on the food of the people and on the children of the very poor as well as a tax on raw material. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, when speaking on the Insurance Bill is always very eloquent on the maternity benefit. I believe in the Insurance Bill, but it must be remembered that for every child that a man has he pays more in taxation by this tax. It is computed that a man earnings 21s. a week pays 6s. 3d. per annum through the Sugar Tax, and he would pay very much more if he had a large family. The wages of agricultural labourers are very low. It is often said that they have gardens in which they can grow fruit and things which are food for the children, but these things cannot possibly be made palatable unless sugar is used with them. You are by this tax making it very hard for the agricultural labourer to use the produce of his own garden, because you are taxing the sugar which makes that produce palatable. I object to the tax because it falls on the manufacturers of articles which are used by the very poor in the shape of jams and the cheapest kind of sweets. Of course, the tax falls on the consumer, and the consumer of these articles are the very poorest part of the community. In the manufacture of confectionery sugar forms 75 per cent, to 85 per cent., and in the manufacture of jam it forms something like 65 per cent. People hardly realise the enormous amount of jam used by the poor of this country. Between 1901 and 1911 the sugar consumers of this country have paid £53,150,000 in taxation, and last year the Wholesale Co-operative Society, who really supply indirectly the working class consumers, had to pay £270,355 for sugar. Sugar is the raw material of an enormous business which is not confined to one part of the country. Confectionery works are all over the Kingdom, in almost every town, and it has this advantage perhaps that in many cases the works are right in the country, they are carried on under the best conditions as regards the people they employ, and it is a very healthy business. For the ten years previous to 1901 this was perhaps one of the most prosperous businesses in the country. It was employing more hands year after year, and no trade was doing more for the employment of the working classes, but since the Sugar Convention it has not increased in anything like the ratio that it did before, and so

1231
much has it been affected by the Sugar Convention, which raised the price, that there have been more failures in it than in almost any trade in England during the last five years. That is due to some extent to the tax, which I deprecate very strongly. I have pledged myself to vote for its abolition, and I have no wish to get out of any pledge I have ever made. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has given no sort of indication that he has any intention of taking off the tax, and if it is pressed to a Division I shall vote for the Resolution.
Mr. COURTHOPE: I beg to move as an Amendment to leave out all after the word "That," in order to insert instead thereof the words "owing to the rapidly increasing consumption of sugar throughout the world, and to the limited area of suitable land available for sugar-beet cultivation in Europe, it is advisable that the introduction of the beet-sugar industry into the United Kingdom should be encouraged and that the existing Customs Duty on sugar should be maintained during the costly experimental period incidental to the establishment of this industry."
The allusion which the Mover and Seconder of the Motion have made to my proposed Amendment and the words which fell from the Chancellor of the Exchequer entirely failed to touch the object or purpose of the Amendment. My immediate motive in moving it is practically the same as the motive which appeared to underlie the speeches of the Mover and Seconder and of the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Cawley). They have all said that sugar is an important food, that it is of the utmost importance to the poor, and that we must try to keep it cheap, but they have entirely overlooked the fact that in order that it may continue cheap, or that it may resume the general grade of cheapness to which we have been accustomed during recent years, you have to ensure that the supply of sugar is going to be at least equal to the demand—that the production will always meet the consumption. They have overlooked the fact that in country after country sugar is now apparently for the first time becoming an article of popular diet, that owing to the inclusion of sugar in the Army rations of some Continental nations the taste for sugar has been spreading not only among the troops but among the homes of the peasants throughout great districts where previously sugar
1232
was almost unknown, and that the sugar-producing countries of Europe are becoming less and less able to supply other than their own demand for beet sugar. I shall have a word or two to say in a moment about cane sugar. The hon. Gentlemen who moved and seconded the Motion seemed to assume that the future production of sugar could be absolutely unlimited, that therefore they had nothing to think of at all except the objectionable nature of the tax from their point of view—in many ways I agree with them—and that all they have to do for the sake of the consumer is to get the tax taken off.
Before going into details of my justification for asserting that the consumption of sugar throughout the world is overtaking the production, and that, therefore, if we are to get a plentiful supply of cheap sugar, we must increase the area of production in future, I wish to say that one or two arguments have been used already to which I should like to refer, because they have been more or less in the form of questions directly addressed to myself. The hon. Member who moved the Motion (Mr. Wedgwood) suggested that instead of asking for a temporary continuation of the Customs Duty on sugar during the costly experimental period incidental to the establishment of a new industry, I should ask the House to grant a bounty to the producer of British sugar equivalent in amount, and so get the money for the bounty from those who could better afford to pay it. He twice refuted his own argument—once in the course of his speech and once in an interruption of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—by stating that it is the poor who contribute the whole burden of all taxation. If they do, I would like to suggest to him that they will contribute the funds for the bounty equal to the Customs Duty to which he so much objects. I should like also to repudiate the suggestion which he made that one of my motives for wishing to retain the Customs Duty for the present is that we should make the poor man like the rich man feel a practical interest in the rise and fall of taxation. I agree with him that sugar is the very last kind of tax one would select for that purpose, but I agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the principle is a good and sound one for economical government. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion (Sir F. Cawley) spent practically the whole of his able speech in making an attack upon the Brussels

1233
Convention and the motives which led this country to become a signatory to the Convention.
Notice taken that forty Members were not present; House counted, and forty Members not being present,
The House was adjourned at Seventeen minutes before Ten o'clock till to-morrow (.Thursday).

  Old Age Pensions.
  Old Age Pensions.
NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.
  TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTIVE PATIENTS.
  TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTIVE PATIENTS.
  Stamp Duties (Yield).
  Stamp Duties (Yield).
  Dog Licences.
  Dog Licences.
  Teachers' Superannuation (Scotland).
  Teachers' Superannuation (Scotland).
GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.
  PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION (BOYCOTTING NOTICE).
  PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION (BOYCOTTING NOTICE).
  TRADES DISPUTES AND WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.
  TRADES DISPUTES AND WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.
  FINANCIAL PROVISIONS.
  FINANCIAL PROVISIONS.
  JOINT EXCHEQUER BOARD DECISIONS.
  JOINT EXCHEQUER BOARD DECISIONS.
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Vaccination (Ireland).
  Vaccination (Ireland).
  Labourers' Cottages (Thurles Rural District).
  Labourers' Cottages (Thurles Rural District).
  Extra Police (County Wexford).
  Extra Police (County Wexford).
  Petty Sessions Clerk (County Tipperary).
  Petty Sessions Clerk (County Tipperary).
  Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar.
  Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar.
  Greenwich Hospital.
  Greenwich Hospital.
  Royal Dockyards.
  Royal Dockyards.
  Garrison Church (Tidworth).
  Garrison Church (Tidworth).
  Redford Cavalry Barracks (Labourers' Wages).
  Redford Cavalry Barracks (Labourers' Wages).
  War Office (Reconstitution) Committee.
  War Office (Reconstitution) Committee.
  Territorial Force.
  Territorial Force.
  Houses of Convocation (Death of Sovereign).
  Houses of Convocation (Death of Sovereign).
  Habitual Vagrants.
  Habitual Vagrants.
  Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act (Joint District Boards).
  Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act (Joint District Boards).
LOSS OF STEAMSHIP "TITANIC."
  LIABILITY OF OWNERS.
  LIABILITY OF OWNERS.
  Law Integrity Insurance Company, Limited.
  Law Integrity Insurance Company, Limited.
  Postal Telegraph Service (Loss to Public Revenue).
  Postal Telegraph Service (Loss to Public Revenue).
  Tory Island (Breakdown of Cable).
  Tory Island (Breakdown of Cable).
  Canada and United States (Reciprocity Negotiations).
  Canada and United States (Reciprocity Negotiations).
  Education as to Cattle Diseases.
  Education as to Cattle Diseases.
  Infants Born Blind (Scotland).
  Infants Born Blind (Scotland).
WAKEFIELD GAS BILL. [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
RAMSBOTTOM URBAN DISTRICT RAILLESS TRACTION BILL.
Reported, with Amendments.
WOKING DISTRICT GAS BILL. [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
RHYMNEY VALLEY SEWERAGE BOARD BILL. [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
TEES CONSERVANCY BILL. [H.L.]
The King's consent signified, and Bill reported, with Amendments.
BARRY RAILWAY BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.
ASHBORNE URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL (GAS) BILL.
Read 2a, and committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
TAVISTOCK URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
Read 2a, and committed.
BIRKBECK SHARE AND DEBENTURE TRUST BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
YORK UNITED GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  WANDSWORTH, WIMBLEDON AND EPSOM DISTRICT GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  Moved, That Standing Order No. 143 be suspended, and that the Bills be now read 3a; agreed to: Bills read 3aaccordingly, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
DUBLIN AND SOUTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
SIDMOUTH URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered, and agreed to.
METROPOLITAN POLICE PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
Re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday the 11th of June next.
CRIMINAL LAW AMENDMENT BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to amend the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, the Vagrancy Act, 1898, and the Immoral Traffic (Scotland) Act, 1902—Was presented by the Lord Charnwood; read 1a, and to be printed. (No. 54.)
GLASGOW AND SOUTH WESTERN RAIL WAY ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY (GRIMSBY FISH DOCK) BILL. [H.L.]
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): I have to ask your Lordships' permission to do rather an exceptional thing to-morrow in the case of a Bill which is before your Lordships' House awaiting Second Reading. It is not desired to read it a second time until the Standing Orders Committee of the House of Commons have given a decision which they are expected to give very shortly, but their decision has not been arrived at in time for me to move the Second Reading of the Bill now. The Bill to which I refer is the Great Central Railway Bill, and the particular subject concerns a dock at Grimsby. It is a late Bill, and I do not wish to move that it be read a second time until it is known whether the Standing Orders Committee in another place will dispense with their Standing Orders to allow the Bill to proceed. The decision of that Committee will not be known until later this afternoon, and if their decision is in favour of the Bill proceeding, it is important that it should be read a second time before we adjourn for the Whitsuntide recess, so that the time for depositing petitions might commence to run at once and the

1029
Bill go to a Committee immediately on the resumption of the House after Whitsuntide. I therefore propose to ask leave to move the Second Reading of the Bill to-morrow morning when the House is sitting for Judicial business.

FOREIGN AND MILITARY POLICY.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH rose to call attention to a speech delivered by the Secretary of State for War at Barn-staple on April 20, and to ask His Majesty's Government how they are able to reconcile the principles of foreign and military policy then enunciated with recent events and the statement made to the House of Commons by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, in calling attention to the speech which the noble Viscount delivered at Barnstaple, I must remind your Lordships of what was said by Sir Edward Grey in November last in the House of Commons. I shall therefore be obliged to read from the speech of the Foreign Minister an extract which generally summarises the foreign policy which Sir Edward Grey, after full and careful deliberation, considers is the one which should be accepted by this country. Speaking in the House of Commons on November 27 last, Sir Edward Grey made use of these words—
"There is one foreign policy different from the one which I have been endeavouring to sketch to the House, and it seems to me to be advocated in some quarters of the country. It seems to me to be simply disastrous. It is that we should give it to be understood that in no circumstances, however aggressively, provocatively, or wantonly, a friend of ours was attacked, we should give our friend no assistance whatever. That would be an attempt in revert to what was once called a policy of 'splendid isolation.' It would deprive us of the possibility of having a friend in Europe, and it would result m the other nations of Europe, either by choice or by necessity, being brought into the orbit of a single diplomacy from which we should be excluded. The ideal of splendid isolation contemplated a balance of power in Europe to which we were not to be a party, and from which we were to be able to stand aside in the happy position of having no obligations and being able to take advantage of any difficulties which arose in Europe from friction between opposing Powers. That policy is not a possible one now. Any single Power that attempted to adopt that policy in Europe to-day would be felt as a public nuisance, and if we were that single Power, one result would be that m the course of a few years we should be building warships, not against a two-Power standard, but probably against the united navies of Europe. As a matter of fact that policy, which would be disastrous, is not a policy. It is the negation of policy."
1030
Those words are very clear and distinct, and I believe that the vast majority of the people of this country supported Sir Edward Grey in that clear and moderate statement of our policy abroad.
I must ask your Lordships to consider the effect of the language of the noble Viscount the Secretary of State for War. Speaking at Barnstaple on April 20—I am quoting from the Western Morning News report, which I believe to be on the whole the most reliable report I could get—the noble Viscount made use of these words—
"All military organisation, all naval organisation in this country depends on foreign policy."
I am sure We entirely agree with the noble Viscount on that point. He proceeded—
"It is on our foreign policy that the shape of our Army and Navy depends…If foreign policy changes, you will Have to have a new system, but I hope foreign policy is not likely to change. I do not think it is likely to change, as I believe our best policy is to be as free as possible of Continental alliances, to manage our own affairs in our own great Dominions, to have our great Fleet commanding the sea, to have our great Oversea Army which we can send anywhere—the Continent or anywhere else necessary—and to retain our independence, relying for home defence on the voluntary efforts of our citizens."
I do not know what the noble Viscount meant by our independence unless it implied an independence of all understandings with foreign Powers. It does seem to me to be impossible to reconcile the principles of policy stated by Sir Edward Grey and those views expressed by the noble Viscount opposite.
I should also like to ask the noble Viscount what he means when he talks of our great Oversea Army. He went on to say—
"We have 320,000 men engaged for oversea service—77,000 in India…"
But, my Lords, we could not send the men in India anywhere. Those men in time of crisis, or presumably so, would have to remain in India. Then the noble Viscount went on to say—
"We have an Expeditionary Army with its line of communications which is about three times as large as the Expeditionary Army for oversea service of any other Power in the world."
I cannot understand what the noble Viscount had in his mind when he spoke of our having an enormous Oversea Army. He went on to speak of Germany. He said—
"Germany has somewhere under 3,000 men who are engaged for voluntary service oversea. They have 3,000 men in Africa; that is the whole Oversea Army of Germany."

1031
But surely the German Army and the French Army, provided they had the ships, would go and take their part wherever the theatre of war was in Europe. It seems to me ridiculous to talk about the German Oversea Army as limited to 3,000 men. Why, I believe that at the present moment, though it is difficult to get at the exact figures, it is a modest computation to say that the Italians have at least 100,000 men in a purely Expeditionary Force in North Africa.
I come back to the point of an Oversea Army. When the noble Viscount talks about a great Oversea Army, let us see what the great armies of the Continent are, which for all practical purposes, if they could land on these shores, could be used as much against us in England as if we were part of the Continent. At the present moment, putting it at a very modest computation, the Germans can put at least 900,000 men into the field at once, and it is a very modest computation also to say that the French could put at least 700,000 men into the field at once. I should like, now that I am touching on this question of Germany and France, to call your Lordships' attention to this fact, which is a very significant, and, I confess, a very serious one. The population of Germany is 65,000,000, with a yearly increase of 900,000. The population of France is 40,000,000, and their population is practically stationary. The French have to take at the present moment for military and naval purposes, of those attaining the age of twenty, 77 per cent.; the Germans have only to take 47 per cent. Germany, by adding, as she has decided to do, 29,000 men to her peace establishment, will in five years' time add at least another 100,000 men, well trained, to her army. On the other hand, the French Military Budget for 1912 provides, owing to decreasing birth rate, for a decrease of 10,000 men as compared with 1911. All these facts give great weight to what I have no doubt was in the mind of Sir John French when he spoke at the Royal Academy and stated that the maintenance of these great Continental armies must depend very largely upon the maintenance of population. That brings me back to this point. I have great respect and regard for the German people, but this is not a time when, if we wish to maintain our good feeling with and fulfil our obligations to France, we ought, knowing how
1032
pressed in regard to population the French are, to show any inclination that we are not prepared to take our part in a reasonable assertion of the balance of power in Europe.
There is another part of the speech of the noble Viscount which seems to me to indicate a contradiction or confusion of thought, unless it is a further emphasis of the policy of splendid isolation. Speaking on the subject of home defence the noble Viscount said—
"We do not need to make home defence our first concern, as we are girt round with the sea, and so long as we have a Navy that commands the sea we can rely on the exertions of the citizens, properly organised, to do the rest. Our first line of home defence is the Navy, the second our professional Army, and the third the Territorial Force, which owes its existence to the sense of duty of our citizens. If we tried to combine the thing, if we brought in compulsion, we should do just what the Chancellor of the Exchequer does—he stops all voluntary gifts to himself."
With your Lordships' permission I would like to deal with these sentences as they stand. The noble Viscount says, first of all, that we can rely on the exertions of the citizens properly organised. If that means anything it means the Territorial Army. It is not necessary to make general statements against the Territorial Army. Every one realises, no one more than myself, the enormous difficulties that have confronted and must confront the Territorial Army. Among other things, I think people are beginning to realise that the Territorial system is one which in a nation like ours, a great commercial nation, introduces, not technically a system of compulsion, but involves and brings with it a great sense of hardship. The best of those who join the Territorial Army—I think the larger portion of them—are more or less engaged in trade. One of the reasons which I am convinced in my own mind is beginning to have a considerable effect in recruiting for the Territorial Army is this, that the men are beginning to realise that not only are they performing a duty which ought to be shared by all alike, but that in case of mobilisation they are placing themselves in a very serious business difficulty. What I mean is this. Supposing that the system of the Territorial Army had obtained during the time of the South African war. Men engaged in business in London and elsewhere would have had to leave their places and would have been taken away from them for an indefinite time, and they

1033
realise the fact that, however well disposed employers may be, it is impossible for them to keep the places open for an indefinite period.
But, my Lords, do not let us go into the question now merely as to the difficulties of the Territorial Army. Let us look at the facts as they have been disclosed to us by official statements. We know, according to the last Return—that of October 1, 1911—that we had a shortage in officers of 1,774; in non-commissioned officers and men, of 47,351—the difference between strength and establishment. We know that the engagements of over 80,000 non-commissioned officers and men expire between October 1, 1911, and September, 1912. We know also that if these men remain on it is not possible for them to form a Reserve. We know, further, that after four years of existence the Territorial Force Reserve numbers only 166 officers, and 490 of other ranks. Again, we know that Sir John French, in his official Report, was not able to say a single word as regards the efficiency of the Territorial Army. He spoke a great deal of their patriotism, but said nothing about their efficiency. We know also that quite recently he told the East Anglian Brigade that the Territorial Artillery could not possibly be fit to meet Regular troops without more training. We know that there were absent from camp, with leave, 1,450 officers and 25,317 non-commissioned officers and men, and that there were absent, without leave, 41 officers and 6,703 non-commissioned officers and men; so that out of a total strength of 264,000, about one-eighth, or 33,500 officers and men, did not attend camp at all.
Then as regards the question of discipline. No punishment has been awarded for absence without leave; in fact, the Under Secretary of State for War, in reply to a Question in the other House on May 7 as to what punishment had been awarded to the officers and men of the Special Reserve who had absented themselves without leave, and who I find from the Army Annual Report number 41 officers and 1,455 men, said that the War Office had no information as to whether any, and, if so, what punishment had been awarded to these men for what, after all, as regards the Special Reserve, which is a higher branch of the Army, is a very serious offence. Then as regards physique.
We know that 12.76 per cent. of the Territorials are under nineteen years of age. As regards the physique of the recruits of the Special Reserve, Colonel Seely would not give any information. I am informed—I hope it is not general—that in some cases men have been engaged whose height was only 5 feet 1½ inches, and their chest measurement 29½ inches, and it is really absurd to suppose that these men can possibly carry the field service equipment, which, as your Lordships know, amounts to close upon 60 lbs.
Then the noble Viscount said that our second line of defence against invasion is our professional Army. If our professional Army is to be our second line of home defence, what becomes of the Expeditionary Force? You cannot count it two ways. I think it was the noble Marquess who leads this House who, in some former discussion on this subject, implied that if we could not send the whole of the six Divisions of the Expeditionary Force abroad we should have to send fewer. Judging human nature by what it is, do you suppose that if we were confronted by a serious Continental Power the people of this country would allow our shores to run the risk of being invaded by 70,000 men, if they could get across and avoid our Fleet, and permit the invaders to be confronted only by Territorials whose numbers and discipline and training are admitted by official figures to be absolutely incomplete and inefficient?
Then I come to another sentence in the noble Viscount's speech—
"If we tried to combine the thing, if we brought in compulsion, we should do just what the Chancellor of the Exchequer does—he stops all voluntary gifts to himself."
It is always difficult—in fact, it is impossible—when you enter into the region of prophecy, to know exactly what will take place. It is impossible to predict exactly what would be the effect, if we had in any shape or kind a compulsory system, upon recruiting for outside service; but it seems to me that the balance of fact, judging from the past, is in favour of our being able to work in conjunction a voluntary and a compulsory system. I do not for one moment say that the system of the Militia ballot, which was a matter of chance and unequal, was a good one, but I should like to give your Lordships certain figures which were drawn up by the Adjutant-General's Office in November,

1035
1813—that is to say, figures which showed the working of Lord Castlereagh's Local Militia Act. Those figures are rather significant. That Act, if I remember rightly, was passed in June, 1808, and the following returns were drawn up by the Adjutant-General's Office of that time. In 1809–10 we got, for the Napoleonic wars by ordinary recruiting, 20,815; during that year we got 23,885 volunteers under the Local Militia Act. In 1811 the numbers were—by ordinary recruiting, 11,472; volunteers, 11,453. In 1812 the numbers were 14,432 and 9,927 respectively; and in 1813, 11,285 and 8,834 respectively. Therefore during the years of the Napoleonic wars 43 per cent. of the recruits were volunteers under the Militia Act. It is not my object to-day to discuss compulsory service, but at the same time, if the noble Viscount wishes to controvert the arguments as to compulsory service, I do not think he can say with any certainty at all that compulsory service would interfere with voluntary recruiting for the Regular Army. There is only one other matter which I wish to put to the noble Viscount. I do think that the country ought to have some assurance that the principles of foreign policy enunciated by Sir Edward Grey now hold the field. Certainly the speech delivered by the noble Viscount reads in a different direction. At any rate, so it seems to me, and I am sure it would have that effect upon a provincial audience. It seems to echo a sort of return to the old provincial policy which we had hoped was dead and buried—the policy of splendid isolation.
One word more, my Lords. I am very anxious that I should not be misunderstood with regard to a certain sentence in the noble Viscount's speech. I am at one—at least I hope I may say I am—with the noble Viscount in a dislike and a distrust of what are technically called Continental alliances, offensive as well as defensive. But unless Sir Edward Grey's speech meant nothing and was mere empty verbiage, it is not a reasonable policy for this country to ignore the balance of power in Europe; nor does it seem to me an honourable policy, still less an effective policy, to make no adequate military provision for acting up to any understanding we may have with our friends on the Continent, whose interests under certain contingencies, which it is unnecessary to discuss here this evening, deserve and demand mutual
1036
help and support. Without wishing for one moment—I should deprecate it very strongly—to use any language which could be provocative to or distrustful of any foreign Power, I do hope the noble Viscount when he rises to speak this evening will be able to assure us that we shall do nothing which in any way could weaken the sense of our good understanding with our friends. I go further than that. I hope that the noble Viscount may realise, perhaps more fully even than he did in his speech at Barnstaple, that it is our duty as well as our interest to provide suitable military provision to carry out our obligations abroad.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT HALDANE): My Lords, the Notice on the Paper in the name of the noble Earl was to call attention to a speech delivered by me at Barnstaple and to ask the Government how they were able to reconcile the principles of foreign and military policy then enunciated with recent events and the statement made to the House of Commons by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The exordium and the peroration of the noble Earl's speech dealt with that topic, but in between there was interposed a large body of matter which does not appear strictly relevant to the Notice, and therefore I do not propose to go into the general question of the principles which lie at the foundation of the Territorial Force. I would rather refer the noble Earl to those speeches which he made when he was the eloquent and enthusiastic apostle of this Force during the conduct of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill through this House. He spoke to-day of Territorial numbers. Territorial recruiting is always a difficult question. But if I am too optimistic, the noble Earl ought not to be quite so gloomy. After all, on April 1 last year the Territorial Force was within eleven of the highest point it ever reached during the boom period. Recruiting has been very good during this year; and as to the exodus, men have remained and others have taken the places of those who have left. As to the future we cannot tell; we must await that. But as to the present, I do not think that any one has any title to be full of gloom. Then the noble Earl spoke of the lesson to be drawn as to the possibility of combining compulsory service with voluntary recruiting from what took place at the beginnings

1037
of the last century. The period of the Napoleonic wars was very different from a period of peace. Therefore I do not think much of the case which can be founded upon that.
I come to what was the real point of the Notice and speech of the noble Earl. It may be clue to some obtuseness on my part, but I cannot for the life of me find anything that is in the slightest degree inconsistent between my humble utterances at Barnstaple and the speech of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the House of Commons last November. We said, as far as I can see, precisely the same thing. I certainly meant to say the same thing, although I did not say it so well as my right hon. friend did. We both of us spoke in the same sense. It is quite true that the policy of splendid isolation is over. I never said that it was not. I was speaking of the difficulties which alliances impose. I never uttered a single syllable about those friendships, those ententes, which are much more the order of the day than they used to be. What I was speaking of is apparent from the excellent report with which the noble Earl provided himself, and I have in my hand a verbatim report of my speech taken from another local newspaper. What I said was this—
"No one Empire has ever been so great as our Empire, and it extends all over the globe, in distant places to which our soldiers have to go. The result is that we must have a great Navy to command the seas, and an oversea professional Expeditionary Army which can go out and reinforce the garrisons which defend the distant possessions of the Crown. No other country has such an Empire; no other nation such an obligation."
In that sentence I defined what I meant by an Oversea Army. I did not mean an Army that travelled for a short distance over an arm of the sea, or that crossed a frontier such as that of France or Germany, or that made a short transit like that of Italy. I was speaking of an Oversea Army which is required to defend our distant possessions in India and in other parts of the Dominions of the Crown, which may have to go there for prolonged periods and serve for many years, and the men of which have therefore to be recruited professionally for long service in a fashion which enables you to get them only upon a professional and voluntary basis.
The noble Earl referred to the German Army, but if he will give his attention to
1038
the story of the German Army he will find that Germany did not send its compulsorily raised soldiers to China, its last long distance expedition; the men who were sent were raised voluntarily. Germany does not send compulsorily raised soldiers to Africa; she gets them voluntarily. Germany has some 2,850 professionally recruited soldiers for service oversea, as against 320,000 which we get, and get without very great difficulty, under our voluntary system. That is why I said I did not wish to gamble with our present system, because our present system is essential to us so long as our distant Dominions are not in a position to provide for their own defence. Therefore I said that our first concern was a great voluntarily raised Army and a Navy commanding the seas. Then I went on to point out what I meant by alliances. I said I could conceive a change of foreign policy, one in which we entered into actual alliances with other Powers possessing great Navies, which might relieve us from the necessity which we are under at present of keeping an enormous Navy for ourselves. I did not advocate that policy. On the contrary, I said I hoped we might never come to it; but I said that if we did the price exacted by these Powers under alliances might be the provision of a large Army for service on the Continent which could only be got by compulsory service.
I pointed out that our military system depended on foreign policy and changes in foreign policy. f should have thought that was a truism, and I ask the noble Earl, Wherein in the enunciation of that truism is there anything inconsistent with what was said by ray right hon. friend in the House of Commons? I certainly said no word in the slightest degree referring to our friendship with France, a friendship on which we rightly set great store. I spoke of a policy of alliances in a sense defined, which is a very different policy from our policy of to-day. Our policy to-day is not a policy of splendid isolation; it is a policy of certain friendships which my right hon. friend explained in the other House. I was not quite sure from the conclusion of the noble Earl's speech whether, although he said he did not like alliances, his mind was not tending a little in the direction of alliances and the kind of Army we might have to raise if the alliances included in their terms the provision of such an Army.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: I share with the noble Viscount distrust and dislike of Continental alliances in the technical sense. My first point was that it was possible to read into the speech of the noble Viscount a weakening of the position taken up by Sir Edward Grey, and the other part of my speech was to show that where you have an alliance or understanding your military policy and military position must be sufficient to be able to maintain your diplomacy.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: I hope I have shown that any suggestion such as the noble Earl feared is not to be read into any utterance of mine. As to the noble Earl's second point, there again he puzzles me. You cannot provide a great Continental Army contemporaneously with the pursuit of the policy which is our present policy, and which is conditioned by our obligations with regard to the distant Dominions of the Crown. If that ever changes, then would arise the possibility to which the noble Earl has referred. The reason why I carefully guarded myself from pointing in that direction in the speech to which he has referred was the reason which I have given to-day. I think I have now made it clear that there was no deep-lying or sinister intention in the speech I made at Barnstaple, and I confess, having read that speech over again—a thing I very rarely do with my own speeches—I am very much puzzled to understand how such an idea could have got into the noble Earl's head.
LORD LOVAT: My Lords, the debate this afternoon has been particularly interesting in that we have had an opportunity, which is rare in this House, of hearing the two noble Lords who were responsible for the introduction of the Territorial Army scheme—one pointing out the weakness of the scheme, and the other defending the scheme. The noble Viscount the Secretary of State for War has rather talked round the point which I feel sure many of your Lordships would like to get at—namely, whether the Expeditionary Force is actually there and able to sail. The noble Viscount said there was no contemplation of any policy of a great Army on a Continental basis. I do not suppose that any of us imagined for a moment that there was. But is it possible that this Expeditionary Force, of which we hear so much, can be sent out
1040
of the country? Through the policy which His Majesty's Government have adopted in regard to the land defences of the country they always find themselves on the horns of the same dilemma. They talk very largely about the Expeditionary Force, and for the purposes of this Force all the officers are counted in. But when it comes to a question of home defence these unfortunate officers are counted over again. I should like to ask, in the first place, whether we have the organisation to send out the Expeditionary Force; and, secondly, whether we can afford to let it go. The noble Viscount ought to tell us at some time or another whether the policy of His Majesty's Government is the policy laid down by Sir Edward Grey, or the policy which I read into the noble Viscount's speech—that we cannot compete on the Continent with the great Continental armies.
Every day that passes we see less and less hope of the Expeditionary Force being able to set sail. The noble Duke behind me pointed out the other day the lamentable state of things in regard to officers in the Special Reserve. If I read The Times report of the noble Duke's speech correctly, he stated that there would be practically no subalterns at all in the Special Reserve at the moment that the Expeditionary Force is to sail. I understand that for this integral part of our home defence officers are to be improvised after the Expeditionary Force has left these shores. I notice that the noble Viscount dissents from that. But, according to him, 'we shall be 1,100 officers short in the 74 battalions, and we are to make up for 600 of them by getting boys from Sandhurst. Youths with only six months' training at Sandhurst or Woolwich are to be pitchforked among a number of men they have never seen, and perhaps at the moment before action. You are to make up 600 officers of cadets. What are the remainder going to consist of? The noble Viscount spoke of two or three hundred "patriotic gentlemen" who are to come forward. God help those men! They will indeed be patriots to join an army which is going to be organised in this manner. In the noble Viscount's own words, there will be 1,100 subalterns short at the moment of mobilisation. Therefore I ask the question again, Can this Expeditionary Force sail, or can it not? And is there any intention that it

1041
should ever sail? All sorts of attempts have been tried to get out of this. We were told by the noble Marquess the Leader of the House some two years ago that Continental operations were outside the scope of the Government's ideas—
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: Has the noble Lord the reference to what I said?
LORD LOVAT: No, I have not; but I will give it to the noble Marquess afterwards. Then we had the statement that only four out of the six Divisions would sail. And afterwards we were told that only three were going to sail, the authority for that statement being Lord Lucas. Then we had a statement in the other House of Parliament by the Under-Secretary, who produced plans by which the six Divisions could get under sail within fifteen days. If they are going to fight on the Continent and fight with success they must be on the spot somewhere between the fourteenth and the fifteenth day. The great battle would take place between the eleventh and the twenty-fifth day, and unless we had our Expeditionary Force there in time for the great action we might as well not send it at all. Our bagatelle of troops would be nothing to a defeated army on the Continent, but it might make all the difference if our Expeditionary Force arrived in time. I trust that some noble Lord on the Front Bench opposite will give us further enlightenment on this point, and let us know what the policy of His Majesty's Government is and whether they can send this Expeditionary Force oversea if circumstances arise which make it desirable that we should send it for the support of our ally.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, I think the question put by the noble Lord who has just sat down is a fair one, but your Lordships are in some difficulty over the Notice on the Paper. The noble Earl, Lord Portsmouth, put down a most innocent looking interrogatory, and on that he has founded a speech which in reality goes into the whole question of the external relations of this country, and, in addition, raises in a very definite form the desirability of our adopting compulsion for military service. I am under a difficulty which I think a good many of your Lordships are under in that we had not the advantage of reading the speech
1042
which the noble Viscount delivered at Barnstaple. I have tried hard to get a copy, but have not been able to discover what this epoch-making speech actually alleged. But to a great extent we are relieved from that difficulty, by the speech to-day of the noble Viscount, who has practically ranged himself in line with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. I can only say that we on this side of the House congratulate ourselves that the noble Viscount has taken that attitude. If there was anything in the Barnstaple speech which appeared to differ from the attitude of the Foreign Secretary, we are obliged to Lord Portsmouth for having succeeded in obtaining so reassuring a statement as we have had this afternoon from the noble Viscount. The only thing I think we are entitled to say, after that statement, is that that announcement of policy, that clear abandonment of the isolation of this country, the adoption of the policy of alliances, does involve a corresponding obligation and liability on the Secretary of State for War.
What I think your Lordships in these discussions sometimes find so difficult is to disentangle the interchange of criticism and recrimination as to the past as against the present, and as to our alleged strength and our real strength. What seems to me to be the really important issue is this. Is the policy of His Majesty's Government such as involves a heavier charge and liability on the country than was the case seven years ago? And still more, Have circumstances altered in relation to our possible antagonists in such a way as make the professions of the Government more difficult to carry out than they were some years back? I for one do not shrink from these comparisons of strength as against a few years ago, because I believe that the state of our Forces as we handed them over in the then circumstances of the time was absolutely defensible, indeed in some respects a good deal more defensible than would be the case under similar circumstances at the present moment. But I think we ought to keep clearly in our mind that the obligations and dangers of 1912 are very different from the obligations and dangers of 1905. There has been a great change in the comparative power of Fleets, of our own Fleet as compared with foreign Fleets. We know that the two-to-one standard was then adopted, and we know now that

1043
His Majesty's Government have not found it possible to work up to so high a standard. There has been also a great change in policy. Upon this matter the noble Marquess asked for the reference to his speech which was alluded to by Lord Lovat. I have a perfect recollection of that speech, in which the noble Marquess told us that we did not expect so to organise our military forces as to enable us to employ them on the Continent of Europe. The change which was made last year was, I venture to say, an epoch making change, and especially so coming from the Benches opposite. There is also, I am afraid I must say, too, in this relation a considerable decrease in our offensive power in certain particulars, especially in the case of Artillery and of officers. What I really ask for, in supporting what has just fallen from Lord Lovat, is that we should get on all these subjects rather more chastened information than we have had in the past.
I do not wish to accuse the noble Viscount of any desire to do otherwise than give the House absolutely reliable information, and I am not going either to follow out the question of whether we can defend ourselves at present without compulsion, which was raised by the noble Earl, or even the question of whether six Divisions could be sent abroad at the present moment, but I am going to lay down two things which I hope your Lordships will take note of, and which I think the country ought to study. The first is that the policy of the Government has changed completely in the last three years with regard to the number of troops they would send abroad in the contingency of there being a European foe by whom we might apprehend invasion. This point was put over and over again to the Government in a debate about three years ago, and in the end we had a direct statement from the noble Marquess the Leader of the House. We pressed the Government on this point. We said, "You can make up six Divisions somehow, no doubt. If you do, you will, in our opinion, leave behind forces quite unfit to use against a European army. Will you, in these circumstances, send six Divisions abroad?" The noble Marquess, after the fullest deliberation and after the question had been put by four different speakers on this side, stated that if there was anything like a danger of invasion, if there was anything to apprehend, unless
1044
the sky, so to speak, was clear in that respect, the Government did not propose to send more than four Divisions abroad.
In certain circumstances last year the Government, as we all know, found it necessary to contemplate sending abroad the whole of the six Divisions which were said to constitute our Expeditionary Force. That involves a complete change in the situation in regard to home defence, because the whole of the Government's scheme rests upon their having six months in which to prepare forces for home defence. That six months would be taken away, and my noble friend Lord Lovat was anxious to pursue the question and to know whether or not, in the circumstances, the six Divisions could go. I have my own opinion about that, and I believe that, one way or another, they would go. I believe that the organisation for sending them is in a far better state. I am not quite so sure about the stores, and the noble Viscount has not been so reassuring on that point. I should like to know a little more as regards the reserves of stores for that occasion, of course assuming that a sufficiency is left behind for home defence.
A dangerous feature in all the assumptions of the noble Viscount is that regiments at home will have to be wrecked in order that the six Divisions may be sent abroad in complete form. The noble Viscount stands first on one leg and then on the other, and expects us to believe that in each case he is resting his whole frame on both. I have here the remarks which he made on March 6 last and the remarks which he made two nights ago, in reply each time to the noble Duke. The noble Duke's point is this. He says, "You may be able to send the six Divisions, but you are going to take practically every subaltern out of the Special Reserve. You give Regular officers to the Special Reserve and you say the Special Reserve will not be efficient without those officers, yet you are going to take the whole lot away on mobilisation." On March 6 I asked the noble Viscount what number of officers who would go abroad would have to be taken from the Officers Training Corps, the noble Duke having said that 600 of them would be officers of the Special Reserve. The noble Viscount replied—I am quoting from Hansard—
"You would not, at any rate to any large extent, take officers from the Officers Training Corps of

1045
the Special Reserve for that purpose. What you would do would be to draw upon the Regular officers belonging to the other establishments at home. There are 780 of them with the Special Reserve battalions. You would make your Expeditionary Force as perfect in officers as possible."
That is a definite statement that from the 780 Regular officers with the Special Reserve battalions will be drawn the officers necessary to bring the six Divisions up to strength on mobilisation. Two nights ago the noble Duke made a very damaging case as to the condition of these regiments if officers were to be taken away in this manner, and the noble Viscount then used these words—
"All the Regular officers belonging to the Special Reserve establishment in peace will remain with them on mobilisation."
That is an absolute divergence of statement. I do not for a moment suggest that the noble Viscount deliberately intends to mislead the House. But when the attack is that the six Divisions cannot go, he tells us that he can draw on the Special Reserve and take away their Regular officers for that purpose; and when the attack is that the Special Reserve will be perfectly useless because it will have no subalterns of experience in it, he says that the whole of them will be left for home defence. A man cannot be in both places at the same time. I am not going to ask your Lordships to go more deeply into this question to-night, but I have deprecated on previous occasions and I deprecate now the system under which the noble Viscount, who is trying to make bricks without straw, endeavours to prove to us that all the bricks will be forthcoming at the time of mobilisation. We are not in the least averse to helping the noble Viscount in his difficulty if he has any. We do not in the slightest degree complain of the firm language which has been used in certain foreign difficulties recently, but we do complain that the Government will not tell the country what sacrifices may be necessary in order to make that firm language effective.
There is, the noble Viscount must know, one serious grievance amongst officers in this country. I have long been of opinion that it is impossible to fill the ranks of officers unless you pay a living wage. Army subalterns are worse paid, in my opinion, than any other body of men in this country, except, perhaps, those who go into the Church. While other trades and pursuits have been more highly
1046
remunerated, I do not think there has been any improvement in the position of the subaltern officer in the Army for a great number of years. For a long time the argument used to be—I remember hearing Lord Randolph Churchill make use of it in a speech in the House of Commons—that it was absurd to talk of adding to the pay of officers in the Army. The great mistake, said Lord Randolph, was to pay them anything at all; they were quite willing to join for the honour of serving the Queen, and it was absolutely unnecessary, he said, to consider the question of pounds, shillings, and pence. That is not the case now, and, considering the lavish expenditure into which this Government has been plunged, I do say that before we desert the idea of voluntary service and before we say that Regular officers cannot be obtained in sufficient numbers we ought to consider whether the inducements offered to them ought not to be improved.
I add the pious hope that, with these strong pronouncements of policy, we may be allowed some insight into the difficulties and, what is really more important for the remedying of them, some admission that there are difficulties now that the policy of the Government includes sending six Divisions abroad immediately without the six months' delay for training, and now that the Government themselves must realise that there are difficulties, not anticipated by the noble Viscount five years ago, in filling up the ranks, not merely to the numbers which now ought to be there in case of invasion, but to the numbers which then, under much more favourable circumstances, he said were the minimum on which he could contemplate the efficient defence of the country.
THE EARL OF ERROLL: My Lords, I should like to say a word in support of what has fallen from the noble Viscount as to the necessity of paying officers better. In every other walk of life when men are wanted higher wages are offered and the men are generally obtained, but during the last 100 years I believe the pay of officers has been almost stationary while that of the men has been very much increased. It seems to me that the British officer at the present moment is the worst paid in the world. You give him the wages of an artisan or of one of your

1047
Lordships' butlers, and you expect for that to get an educated gentleman to Rive his services to the country. I should like to read to your Lordships a comparison with what is paid to officers in America and in Australia, and you will see how very much worse off are the officers in this country. I gave these figures to your Lordships four years ago, but since that time I believe nothing has been done.
A second-lieutenant in the British Army gets the princely wage of£95 a year; in Australia, apparently, there are no second-lieutenants; but in America a second-lieutenant receives£280 a year. A lieutenant in the British Army gets£118 a year; in Australia he gets£200, rising by£25 a year to£300; and in the American Army he gets£300. A captain in the British Army receives£211; in the Australian Army a captain receives from£325 to£400; and in the American Army£360. Majors receive in this country£247 a year; in Australia they get from£425 to£500, and in America£500. Lieutenant-colonels receive here£328 a year; in Australia they get from£500 to£600, and in America£600. These figures show that the Colonies recognise the justice of giving a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, and that they treat their officers much more generously than we do. I cannot help thinking that there are plenty of young men in this country ready to come forward and officer the Army, young men who are absolutely suitable from their pursuits and their traditions to do so, but at the present moment I do not think the conditions offered are adequate to induce them to come forward in sufficient numbers. At present the rates of wages which you offer are too low, the prospects are hazy, and the plums are too few.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA, (THE MARQUESS OF CREWE): My Lords, as the noble Viscount opposite stated, we are all placed at some disadvantage owing to the fact that the quite simple Question put down by the noble Earl opposite was as to the possible discrepancy between the terms of the speech delivered by my noble friend in Devonshire and another speech delivered by my right hon. friend the Foreign Secretary in another place. That apparently harmless Question has grown into a discussion ranging over the whole field of foreign policy and Imperial
1048
defence, and both sides are placed at a certain disadvantage by that, as when the noble Viscount opposite wanted to call attention to some former words of mine he was not able to give me the reference, and equally I am not in any position to contradict him, not having the reference at hand myself.
My noble friend, Lord Haldane, performed a service in the course of his speech in pointing out that these discussions are apt to be conducted with a certain laxity of language and without a perfectly clear understanding of what particular terms mean as we use them. He instanced the term "Oversea Forces." It is quite true that the term "Oversea Army" is used alike at different times for a force which has to take a long spell of service in tropical countries, and for the entirely different services which a British Army might conceivably be called upon to fulfil—namely, that of serving on some part of the Continent of Europe. The battle of Assaye was fought overseas and so was the battle of Waterloo, but they were engagements of a totally different class, fought by the same General but with entirely different armies and under totally different conditions. It is important, I think, to keep this distinction clear in one's mind, because it has a real bearing upon the difficult and vexed question of compulsory service, which I quite agree this is not the moment to discuss in all its bearings, although it has, of course, a close reference to the subject under discussion.
My noble friend behind me also pointed out that there are two extreme policies, both of which were repudiated in his speech and also in the speech of my right hon. friend Sir Edward Grey. On the one hand, there is the policy, which some people regard as an ideal policy for this country, of complete isolation, of remaining absolutely uninterested in what happens on the Continent of Europe, and of resolving that in no circumstances will you take part in any complication unless you are yourselves directly attacked. That is a policy which, as Sir Edward Grey pointed out and as my noble friend has also pointed out, it is riot possible for this country to pursue in existing circumstances, if indeed it ever was a possible policy for this country to maintain as an abstract proposition. Certainly it has never been maintained as a historical

1049
fact. The alternative policy, of course, is the policy—also repudiated by the noble Earl opposite—of close alliance with great Continental Powers involving the performance of serious obligations on our part, perhaps in matters in which we have no real interest whatever.
I was not quite certain what the noble Earl intended when he spoke of offensive and defensive alliances as being the kind of alliances which he thought we ought not to undertake. I was not quite certain whether he desired to hint that we might conceivably undertake a policy of defensive alliances as distinct from the universal obligation attached to offensive and defensive alliances, but I am sure the noble Earl will be aware that what is called a defensive alliance may, as a matter of fact, throw almost as heavy an obligation upon any Power as an alliance for all purposes; and for this reason, that where an attack is made by one Power on another, which is the really responsible party in the collision between the two Powers is a matter which in fact can only be decided by the ultimate verdict of history. It is a matter upon which it is hardly possible to give a sound opinion at the time. If the noble Earl would consider all the various wars that have taken place in which European Powers were concerned in the whole of the latter part of the nineteenth century, he would find on examination that in the case of almost all those collisions each side would have said that it was not the attacking but the attacked party. Consequently such a distinction as I could not help thinking the noble Earl meant to draw is one which in fact it is exceedingly difficult to make.
The noble Lord opposite, Lord Lovat, alluded specially to the Expeditionary Force, and to some phrases of mine which I used, I think, about two years ago. As I stated earlier, I have not the precise reference to what I said, but I have no reason to think that I hold now a view in any way different from that which I held then; nor, which is infinitely more important, have I any reason to suppose that the policy of His Majesty's Government has in any way been modified since that time. If I remember aright, on that occasion an attempt was made to pin us to a statement that at a moment's notice, in all circumstances, whatever might be the condition of affairs on the Continent
1050
of Europe and whatever might be the threats which had been levelled against us, we should be prepared to send out six Divisions to some part of the world—it is not important where—but that we should be prepared at once to send them out of the country. At that time I stated, and I am quite prepared to state again, that the circumstances of Europe might be such that it would not be possible to send at short notice more than four Divisions out of the country.
I am prepared to go further than that. I can conceive other circumstances in which it might not be possible to send more than two Divisions. I can conceive other circumstances in which it would not be possible to send a single man out of the country, and I have not the least doubt that there is not one of the great military Powers on the Continent of Europe which would not be able to make a similar declaration as to what might happen in special circumstances on the Continent of Europe. The fact is, my Lords, we have two forces which both exist primarily, of course, for purposes of defence, but are both capable of offence—the first being the Fleet, and the second being that portion of our Army winch it is possible to send abroad. Without knowing what the precise circumstances are, what Powers are hostile to you in Europe at the time and what are friendly, what are their relations among themselves, and what is the position on the Continent of Europe in regard to alliances inter se—without knowing all these things it seems to me altogether impossible to lay down as a general proposition that you are prepared either to send abroad 50,000, 100,000, or 150,000 men, or, in the course of time, the whole male population of this island which is capable of bearing arms.
LORD LOVAT: That is our point. We say you are not sufficiently strong at home to be able to make use of the Expeditionary Force in all circumstances.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I in no way dispute the conclusion which the noble Lord chooses to draw from the observations which I have made. It appears to me that it would apply equally well, as I have said, to every country in Europe. If it were at the time being engaged in a contest of a particular kind, it might not be able to send either part if its Fleet or a particular

1051
part of its Army to a particular part of the world. You could, easily devise a case, I suppose, with regard to any of the great military Powers of Europe which have possessions abroad, in which it would be exceedingly difficult for them to send any troops abroad. It would not, I should think, be taken as a confession of weakness on the part of the German Army or of the French Army were they to admit freely that if they were engaged in a great European war on their frontiers they would not respectively desire to send, or even in a sense be capable of sending, 100,000 men in one case to South Africa and in the other case to Indo-China. It would be an entirely irrelevant question to put to those who control those armies to ask them if they could conceive any special circumstances in which they would not be able to move their men about the chess board in the manner in which they might move them supposing no complications existed. That being so, I am quite certain that my noble friend will not feel himself in any way pinned into a corner by the fact that he is obliged to admit that the precise number of men that can be sent away from this island at any particular moment must depend on the special circumstances of the case and primarily upon the issues of foreign policy.
Some part of the speeches made has dealt with specially military questions of the character of those touched upon in the Questions of the noble Duke which are next on the Paper. I have no desire to attempt to play any of my noble friend's cards by dealing with those questions, which excite great interest, such, for instance, as that which was dealt with by the noble Earl who spoke last and was also touched upon by the noble Viscount opposite—namely, the exceedingly important question of the pay of the British officer. Nor would there be any advantage in my attempting to deal with those other questions as to the supply of subalterns for the Expeditionary Force or for the Home Defence Force, which were touched upon by the noble Earl who initiated this debate and also by Lord Lovat. With some of those matters I have no doubt my noble friend the Secretary of State will be able to deal in his reply to the noble Duke's Questions. I have endeavoured to confine these observations simply to questions of policy, and to show, so far as I could, that the discrepancy alleged by the noble Earl
1052
between the observations of my noble friend and of the Foreign Secretary does not in reality exist, because although this country does not take up a position of complete isolation from all possible interests on the Continent of Europe, yet it is equally removed from the policy of the opposite pole—that of entangling or embarrassing alliances.
The noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, used the word "alliances." That could only have been a slip, because he is, of course, aware that no such alliance with any Great Power on the Continent of Europe exists. We have no engagements of any kind, as has often been stated, involving military obligations on our part. That has already been clearly stated by my right hon. friend, and in view of the character of this discussion and of the rather easy manner in which the possibility of moving large bodies of troops on to the Continent of Europe has been mentioned, it is desirable, I think, that that statement should be categorically made again. We have no entangling military alliance. But, as noble Lords opposite know very well, we have friendly understandings of an intimate character, and of the possible bearings of those understandings upon conceivable foreign complications noble Lords who keep their eye on the world at large are as competent to judge as we are, because the whole business is entirely above board. We have no secret engagements or obligations, and noble Lords opposite are entitled to figure for themselves, and are quite capable of doing so, the conceivable circumstances in which those understandings might lead—which Heaven forbid should be the case—to our interfering in some complications abroad. But I think that my noble friend made the matter, as far as he is concerned, quite clear, and I have done nothing more than to repeat what he said.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, it appears to me—I do not know whether I am mistaken or not—that the noble Marquess has just dealt a mortal blow to the military policy of his colleague beside him. The keynote of that military policy, so far as I have understood it, is that this country, owing to the admirable arrangements which the noble Viscount had made, was in a position to send abroad 150,000 men whenever they were required in any conceivable contingency; and the Under-Secretary of State for War went so far

1053
as to assert in the House of Commons the other day that he had only to address an envelope and the thing was done. Now we gather that in certain circumstances that are not altogether improbable the Government are not prepared to despatch a single man of the Expeditionary Force. I do not desire to offer any further comment upon that. I am not going to say anything on the general political situation, because I venture to think that without notice and on an impromptu occasion like this it is a very imprudent thing to discuss international relations. But I hope that at least the nation will realise what the military position of this country actually is. I do not know how this declaration will be taken abroad. I do not know how it will be taken in this country. But, at all events, I do feel convinced that anybody who studies the declaration which has just been made will come to the conclusion that the veil of optimism with which the noble Viscount has so successfully clothed his scheme up to the present moment is in rapid process of disappearing.

THE ARMY.
THE DUKE OF BEDFORD*THE DUKE OF BEDFORD rose to call attention—

1. To the deficiency of 600 Regular Infantry officers, excluding Staff, on the mobilisation of the Regular Infantry of the six Divisions of the Expeditionary Force, and to ask what would be the deficiency, including Staff.

2. To the statement of the Secretary of State for War (House of Lords, Official Report), 6th March, 1912—

(a) "What you would do would be to draw upon the Regular o officers belonging to other establishments at home."

(b) "In the Peninsular War we had to make up a deficiency of officers on mobilisation, and we promoted a large number of non-commissioned officers in those days."

3. To ask the Secretary of State for War whether, on the mobilisation of the six Divisions of the Expeditionary Force, Regular officers attached to the Infantry of the Territorial Army will be re-posted to their Regular battalions in order to complete the number of Regular officers required.

1054

4. Whether it is the intention to promote from the non-commissioned rank to fill vacancies in the commissioned ranks before the embarkation of the Expeditionary Force, or subsequently during the progress of the campaign; and to move for Papers.

The noble Duke said: My Lords, on mobilisation the Expeditionary Force will be short of 600 Regular Infantry officers, not including those required for Staff duties. To meet this deficiency the noble Viscount told us on March 6 that he has "1,571 Regular Infantry officers available—namely, 780 Regular Infantry officers now doing duty in the Special Reserve and 791 belonging to the infantry of the Regular Reserve of Officers." I wish to test those figures. The first point is to discover the total shortage of Infantry officers in the Expeditionary Force when the requisite number are withdrawn for Staff duties. The requisite number is given in detail in "War Establishments, Part I, Expeditionary Force, 1912." "War Establishments" is a War Office manual published by authority. I find in that book that there are required for Brigade and Divisional Staff 48 officers; for transport, signalling, and machine gun, 3 officers per battalion—234 officers; a total of 282. I do not propose to give the details, which would mean the reading of a page and a-half from this manual, but if the noble Viscount challenges these figures I have the detail here and shall ask to be allowed to read it in the course of my reply. Then comes aviation. This is not yet allowed for in "War Establishments." For aviation work 182 officers from all branches of the Army are required by Memorandum on Naval and, Military Aviation [Cd. 6,067]. Say that the Infantry contribute 50. That makes a total of 332. If, therefore, for Staff work 332 more Infantry officers are required, then the total deficit of Regular officers for the Infantry of the Expeditionary Force is 932. If we say, in round numbers, 900 Regular Infantry officers, we shall be well under the mark. Because this estimate does not include every Staff appointment, and it does not make any allowance for unfitness for active service. How is this deficiency of 900 Regular Infantry officers to be met on mobilisation?
The noble Viscount told us, on March 6 last, that he had 780 Regular officers

1055
serving with the Infantry of the Special Reserve, and that he was going to draw upon them in the first place to make good the deficiencies in Regular officers with the Line. But the noble Viscount forgot., when he gave the figure of 780, that he had already withdrawn all Regular officers from the Fourth Battalions of the Special Reserve except the adjutants and quartermasters, and was left with 632 Regular officers in the Special Reserve Infantry. Now, out of this number field officers, quartermasters and adjutants are not available as company officers. There are available, by the Army List, in the 74 Third Battalions of the Special Reserve 358 Regular company officers, which is not quite the same as 780, being less than half. The noble Viscount wants 900; he has got 358, and is left with a shortage of 542. He then falls back upon the Reserve of Regular Officers. He told us, on March 6 last, that in the Reserve of Officers—
"There were at present 791 Infantry officers after allowing 40 per cent. for officers who for various reasons may not be forthcoming. That figure by itself would wipe out his (the Duke of Bedford's) 575,"
that being the deficit excluding Staff.
But what is the real state of the case here? There are available in the Regular Reserve of Officers, by the statement of the Under-Secretary of State for War on March 13, 129 Infantry captains and 38 Infantry subalterns who are resident in the United Kingdom, who do not belong to any other branch of our military forces, and who have left the Army less than three years—a total of 167 to meet a deficit of 542, leaving a shortage of 375. It is impossible for the sate of efficiency to allow more than three years of complete rustiness to accumulate upon an officer who is to command a company in action within three weeks of rejoining!Again, there is the point of age. It is useless to call back elderly captains to command Infantry companies on active service after they have "got slow." To sum up the noble Viscount's figures. He has told us that he had in the Special Reserve 780 Regular officers and in the Infantry of the Reserve of Officers, after allowing for all wastage, 791—a total of 1,571 Regular officers available to make good deficiencies in the Infantry of the Expeditionary Force. But when we come to go into detail by reference to the Army List we
1056
find that, instead of 1,571 officers being available, we have 525—that is, one-third of the number given by the noble Viscount. The deficit in the Expeditionary Force is 900; the number available for wiping out the deficit is not 1,571, it is 525, leaving a shortage of 375.
The question I ask is, How does the noble Viscount, having exhausted all available Regular officers in the Special Infantry Reserve and in the Regular Reserve of Officers, propose to make good this shortage of 375 Regular Infantry officers previous to embarkation? To bring back a lot of rusty and elderly captains from the Reserve and put them in command of companies over the heads of senior subalterns fully qualified for the promotion which is due to them will not add to the efficiency of battalions. There are 129 captains to come back from the Reserve, so that it seems that on mobilisation companies to the numerical equivalent of sixteen battalions—that is four Infantry Brigades—will be commanded by Reserve captains. That is not desirable, although perhaps the best that can be done in the circumstances. But what is very much worse as far as efficiency goes as well as still more unfair to the Line subalterns is to bring in several hundred non-Regular officers from the Special Reserve. Bringing in non-Regular officers over the heads of Line officers previous to embarkation ought at all costs to be avoided; anyhow, the less of it the better. The effect of posting some hundreds of non-Regular captains and subalterns from the Special Reserve and Supplementary List of the Special Reserve to Line battalions on mobilisation is this. In the case of the captains, captains who have served fewer months consecutively than Line subalterns have years, and who have passed for their promotion under much easier terms, will step in and deprive the latter of the promotion due to them, for which they are qualified and to which the officers who go over their heads have no sort or kind of claim.
In the case of lieutenants, first lieutenants from the Special Reserve will supersede second lieutenants in the Line. The Special Reserve first lieutenants on being posted to the Line on mobilisation, however much junior they may be, rank s to all Regular second lieutenants however

1057
much service they may have had. A first lieutenant from the Supplementary List of the Special Reserve who happens at his own convenience to have completed four separate fortnights of service, two months in all, will go over the head of a junior Line subaltern with nearly four years of consecutive service to his credit, and who has passed for the rank of first lieutenant in the Army. Now, as a former company officer in the Army I say at once that there is nothing I should have resented more keenly than a man who has avoided all the drudgery and hard work of military life in time of peace coming into my battalion over my head. An individual of one's own age, or very likely younger, and very probably a known failure to get into the Army, is to supersede you the moment it is a question of active service. This supersession of Regular officers by non-Regular officers on mobilisation destroys the Army as a professional career. The noble Viscount told us on March 6 last, "You would make your Expeditionary Force as perfect in officers as possible," and he proceeds to supersede the fit by the less fit, and that on the eve of active service.
The noble Viscount, in dealing with the Army Estimates on March 14 of last year, said—
"There is no difficulty at all in mobilising as far as officers of the Expeditionary Force are concerned. But, of course, you would deplete to a very considerable extent the depôts and home establishments."
I demur to the statement that there is no difficulty at all in mobilising as far as officers of the Expeditionary Force are concerned, but I entirely agree that the home establishments and the depôts must he depleted. But what does the noble Viscount mean exactly by the home establishments? On the departure of the Expeditionary Force we are left with four Regular battalions for the whole of Great Britain and Ireland and the Channel Islands. I presume that the noble Viscount does not propose to deplete these four borne battalions of their officers. But it would be satisfactory to have an assurance from him that he does not intend, to do so. Then as to the depôts. The noble Viscount cannot deplete the depôts because he has done that already. All Regular officers belonging to the depôts leave the depots of mobilisation with the Third Battalions of the Special Reserve, and we have already
1058
dealt with them. There is nothing left at the depôin the way of Regular officers on mobilisation, and you cannot deplete nothing. But there is still a body of Regular Infantry officers left in the country—namely, the adjutants of the Territorial battalions. There are 207 Regular infantry officers serving as adjutants of Territorial battalions. It is these officers, and not non-Regular officers, who should join the Expeditionary Force. Home Line battalions mobilising under great pressure for instant active service abroad are no place for non-Regular officers. With the best intentions in the world they will be more in the way than anything else, because they lack all knowledge and experience, in dealing with Regular non-commissioned officers and soldiers.
A battalion at home has been called by the noble Viscount a feeding battalion in the sense that it has to send drafts to its linked battalion abroad. If the feeding battalion is called upon to take the field within two or three months of having despatched all its drafts, then it is in the condition described by Lord Wolseley as that of a "squeezed lemon." When Lord Card well established the linked battalion system he most certainly never contemplated squeezed-lemon battalions being used within a fortnight of mobilisation for a great European campaign. He meant them for home defence. But His Majesty's Government, whether rightly or wrongly I do not know, are credited with having contemplated the possibility of using them last summer on the Continent of Europe. It is that which makes it especially interesting to consider in detail the composition of the battalions with which the Government were prepared to embark on a European campaign. In round numbers there will be available for each home battalion, after the departure of drafts abroad, 300 young soldiers with the Colours; consequently on mobilisation 600 Reservists will be required. First, as to the serving soldiers; most of these are boys of twenty years of age with little more than one year's training. They cannot be the equals of what are often referred to as Continental conscripts, who are men of not less than twenty-two years of age and none of whom will have done less than two years' training. Again, on the Continent the whole manhood of the nation is in the Army. You cannot say that Line recruits in this country

1059
represent the manhood of the nation. It is idle to suppose that the boys serving with the Colours in the Infantry of the Expeditionary Force will not be outclassed in every respect by the Continental soldiers whom they will have to meet.
Next we come to the Reserve. Now, we organise our Reserve on a different plan from that of Continental Powers. They train their Reserve officers and men annually with the units with which they did their Colour service and with which they will serve again on mobilisation. We do not. We do not train our Reserve, either officers or men, annually, and we post officers and men to units in time of war with which they have never served in time of peace. Our plan ensures our Reservists becoming more and more rusty with the lapse of each year spent in civilian life without any military training. Our Reserve is of varying quality—from excellent to the reverse. The men in Section "A" who have done seven years' Colour service and have not been more than a year in the Reserve are probably the best trained Infantry soldiers in the world, but their numbers are limited. Some Reservists, and you must take the best, are required by Mobilisation Regulations, 1912, for Mounted Infantry duties in place of the Divisional Cavalry, which is lacking from the Expeditionary Force. But few of the serving boy soldiers would have been through a Mounted Infantry course, or would be strong enough to ride. They could not control one cob, let alone holding two or three others all unbroken to Mounted Infantry work. A boy cannot do a man's work in the Army any more than in any other field of labour. In the present Army Reserve many men have been passed prematurely to the Reserve after two or three years' Colour service. The exact number is known only to the Adjutant-General in the War Office. But what is known to every one outside the War Office is this, that men who have had two years' training with the Colours and spent many more, in the Reserve without any training at all are of no immediate value as first-class soldiers. Thus in the Regular Reserve you pass by degrees from excellence in Section "A" to uselessness amongst the re-enlisted Reservists in the last years of their service in Section "D."
The evidence given by many General Officers before the South African War
1060
Commission shows that Sections "A" and "B" of the Reserve proved most satisfactory on service, provided always they had had time to regain military habits, discipline, and proficiency. Field-Marshal Lord Methuen states that he found the Reserve efficient with the exception of the men in Section "D," who could not march and many of whom he had to leave behind. We rely, by the way, on Section "D" men for the Expeditionary Force. Lord Methuen adds that—
"The difficulty with the Reserve is that when you bring them, as I did, up the Orange River and launch them against the enemy at once, they have hardly got to know their officers and non commissioned officers. Therefore I should say that to give a battalion a full chance the Reservists ought to be with the battalion a few weeks in the field before they are used."
Now the first-class Army Reserve was called up on October 7, and the Battle of Magersfontein was fought on December 11—nine weeks after mobilisation. There had been mobilisation at home, the voyage out, the disembarkation, the march up the Orange River, but, even after that, the Reserve was not yet at its best. Now what chance is there of the Infantry of the Expeditionary Force having nine weeks previous to going into action on the Continent of Europe? The answer is none, absolutely none. The men will not have time to get used to their new boots much less their new rifles. The problem is how to attain the maximum of efficiency in a couple of weeks with a battalion composed of a collection of 300 young serving soldiers undoubtedly inferior to Continental soldiers, and 600 Reservists some of whom may be superior and others again inferior to the troops to whom they will be opposed. The degree of efficiency to which a battalion can attain under these circumstances within two or three weeks must depend entirely on the ability and experience of its officers and non-commissioned officers. Hence the necessity of employing none but Regular officers who know how to handle and deal with Regular soldiers.
The noble Viscount must summon the 207 Regular officers from the Territorial Army. We remember that in the early days of the Territorial Army the type of man to make an ideal Territorial adjutant was said to be a young solicitor. Could not the noble Viscount cause lists to be

1061
prepared of young solicitors who would be ready to act as adjutants on the mobilisation of the Territorial Force, and thus set free Regular officers urgently required for more important duties abroad? No one has ever yet been able to explain the use of the Territorial Army. We have had many debates in your Lordships' House on this subject, all of which have intensified the obscurity. But this is clear—if the Territorial Army is to endanger the initial success of the Regular Army in a Continental campaign by depriving it of Regular officers, then so surely the Territorial Army as an institution becomes at once a standing danger to the Empire. If the noble Viscount reports to the Army 207 adjutants from Territorial battalions, then there is still a deficit of 168 Regular officers to be made good from the Special Reserve and by promotion from the ranks. If the noble Viscount leaves the Regular officers with the Special Reserve battalions as he told us last Thursday, then it will be 168 plus 358—that is, 526. The noble Viscount can make good that shortage by taking every Special Reserve subaltern from the Third Battalions—there are at present 500 available—and making good the further shortage by promotions from the ranks. But I have included the 207 adjutants from the Territorial Army. If the noble Viscount does not repost these Regular officers to their Line battalions, then he must make good the 207 by promotion from the ranks. As regards the Special Reserve officers I would venture to make this suggestion to the noble Viscount. Send none but subalterns to the Line previous to embarkation, and make all Special Reserve subalterns, whether they be first lieutenants or not, join at the bottom of the list of Regular officers as recruit officers. Let them join as they do now on passing for the Army. Why should the fact of not passing for the Array allow them on account of mobilisation to join senior to Line subalterns? You will thus avoid interfering with promotion in the Line, anyhow previous to the commencement of the campaign, whatever may happen afterwards.
Then as to promotion front the ranks. On March 6 last the noble Viscount told us that—
"In the Peninsular War we had to make up a deficiency of officers on mobilisation, and we promoted a large, number of non-commisioned officers in those days."
1062
Does the noble Viscount propose to promote from the non-commissioned ranks before the embarkation of the Expeditionary Force or during the progress of the campaign? I cannot find instances of noncommissioned officers promoted from the ranks previous to the commencement of the Peninsular War. Perhaps the noble Viscount would kindly inform me where the records can be found. During the campaign several non-commissioned officers were promoted for distinguished service in the field and were generally appointed adjutants in other regiments. The Under-Secretary of State for War stated, on March 12, that lists of non-commissioned officers qualified for commissioned rank had already beer prepared. It is impossible to tell if an officer, a non-commissioned officer, or a man will show distinguished ability on service. In the Peninsular War they tried non-commissioned officers in the field first and promoted them afterwards. The obvious disadvantage of promoting front the ranks on the eve of embarkation is that experienced noncommissioned officers are invaluable on mobilisation, and although the commissioned ranks may be strengthened the non-commissioned ranks must be weakened by being deprived of their best and most experienced members. It may be that promotion from the ranks on an extended scale at the moment of mobilisation may impair, and not add to, the total efficiency of battalions.
If the noble Viscount resorts to promotion from the ranks he must give those promoted a living wage. The pay of a second lieutenant is 5s. 3d. a day; that of a sergeant-major, 5s. But when a cadet joins from Sandhurst he is not as a rule a married man with a wife and six or eight children, which is generally the case with sergeant-majors and senior non-commissioned officers. The noncommissioned officer has his uniform, boots, and other articles of clothing provided, also his rations. Then he has free quarters for his wife and children, and when the battalion moves they travel at the public expense. The moment he is promoted to commissioned rank he loses all these allowances. I presume that this question of pay has been considered, and I hope the noble Viscount will give us some information upon the point. In conclusion, I hope that the noble Viscount will do as he told us he was going

1063
to do, namely, make the Expeditionary Force as perfect as possible in officers. But that entails depriving the Territorial Infantry of the Regular officers, and not superseding Regular officers by Special Reserve officers. I have avoided any reference to the wastage of war, as my remarks apply solely to the officers of the Infantry of the Expeditionary Force previous to embarkation.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I confess that experience has now taught me to tremble when the noble Duke gives notice of a Question, because it branches out into a vast variety of topics. Much of what he said dealt with matters to which this Motion does not refer. For instance, the quality of the British Reservist as compared with the Continental Reservist. It is quite true that he is not trained during his Reserve period to the extent that some Continental soldiers are trained; but, on the other hand, the British Reservist has served seven years with the Colours and is a much better trained man initially than his Continental contemporary, and that is the reason why we lay less stress on training than is laid upon it on the Continent, where the Reserve period commences after two years' training. There were other topics to which the noble Duke referred, to even touch upon which I should be taking up a great deal of your Lordships' time. I will only refer to one. He said that aviation will require an increase in the establishment of officers. That is quite true. We shall have to recruit more officers to meet the demands which aviation is making, and we are proceeding to do so. Recruiting for that establishment will be added to the recruiting for the other establishments, and as aviation grows so we must get as many officers as we can for this work. It will be satisfactory to noble Lords opposite to know that the officers of the Flying Corps are on the whole well paid. We have seen to that. As regards non-commissioned officers who may be promoted, there, again, I can inform the noble Duke that we have anticipated what he said, and his observations have therefore not fallen upon deaf ears.
Then the noble Duke went into a string of further figures, of which again I had no notice. If there belonged to your Lordships' House a noble Lord with the gifts of one of those marvellous youths to be seen in the music-halls in the capitals of this
1064
country and the Continent, who can perform astounding feats in impromptu calculation and carry in their heads strings of figures, he might be in a position to cope with the noble Duke; but I am wholly deficient in those gifts, and therefore I can only deal with the figures of which he has given me some notice, except where by chance I happen to carry some others in my head, which I fear is but rarely. The noble Duke spoke first of the deficiency of 600 Regular Infantry officers, excluding Staff, on the mobilisation of the Regular Infantry of the six Divisions of the Expeditionary Force. He asked what would be the deficiency, including, Staff. My answer to that is that the actual shortage in the Infantry battalions of the Expeditionary Force on March 1 last, after deducting the officers required for Staff and extra-regimental appointments, was 666. The number varies from day to day, and can no more be considered constant than the number of subalterns to be taken from each Special Reserve battalion. This number must depend on the requirements of the Regular units and on the strength in officers of the Special Reserve battalions. The authorities do not propose necessarily to take four officers from each Special Reserve battalion. If a particular Special Reserve battalion is considerably below-its establishment of subalterns, its strength may be left undisturbed.
On Monday last I told the noble Duke that in all periods of history and in every country mobilisation must be a ragged business. The immense leap front peace to war establishment, in the case of officers in particular, is always trying, even in the most perfectly regulated armies. If the noble Duke found himself in Berlin he would probably hear complaints, almost as loud and long as his own, of the system which they have there, although it is a better system, owing to their circumstances, than we have here. The actual method of filling the deficiencies in the Expeditionary Force must be determined at the time and in the circumstances of the moment, having regard to what the number may be when the need arises. Then the noble Duke called attention to what I said on March 6. I then said that what we should do would be to draw upon the Regular officers belonging to other establishments at home. The noble Viscount opposite has also called attention to that sentence. But meantime—on Monday last

1065
—I explained what I meant. I said that we should draw on the Regular establishments at home, but that that was not to be taken as meaning that we should mop up all the officers, or the greater part of them. We have no intention of taking away the Regular officers with the Special Reserve units. We have no intention of depriving the Territorial Force of its Regular officers, of its adjutants and so on. I do not think the noble Duke displayed any love for the Territorial Force in the suggestion which he made to me on that point. But I can assure noble Lords that as regards the Territorial Force our virtue is proof, as it is in the case of the Special Reserve, so far as regards Regular officers. In the course of the development of mobilisation schemes it has been found that it is not desirable that we should draw Regular officers from any establishments at home except the Staff College and other establishments which would naturally be closed on mobilisation. As I explained on Monday, we do not propose to draw away the Regular officers with the Special Reserve battalions or the Regular officers with the Territorial Force.
Then I explained that it is our intention to promote a number of non-commissioned officers on mobilisation, and we have made provision for proper remuneration for them. It is intended to give commissions to a number of non-commissioned officers to fill vacancies in the Expeditionary Force prior to its embarkation, and this source of supply may subsequently be drawn upon also to meet the wastage of war. While non-commissioned officers are very valuable, this is not an aspect in which the Army is deficient. We have always been able to maintain great elasticity in the supply of non-commissioned officers, and the Reserve is sufficiently large to enable us to make up the slight depletion which the promotion of these non-commissioned officers would occasion. I have now answered all the points as to which the noble Duke interrogated me in his Questions. I am wholly unable to cope with the torrent of figures which he poured out in his speech and to which no reference is made in his Notice on the Paper; and. I can only say again that if he wants information about these figures, many of which go into great detail, the best plan would be for him to come and see us at the War Office and we will supply him with all the in-
1066
formation he desires. I can assure him he will always be welcome.
LORD LOVAT: The noble Viscount has definitely stated that no Territorial officers will be used.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: Regular officers.
LORD LOVAT: Will no adjutants be taken?
VISCOUNT HALDANE: I can conceive it possible that we might take a particular adjutant because he was suitable, but we would always replace him by a Regular officer.
LORD LOVAT: In the Artillery?
VISCOUNT HALDANE: You cannot have in the case of mobilisation a scheme so defined that you can say whether or not you will take a particular officer or an officer in a particular arm. We should avoid doing anything which would injure the efficiency of the Territorial Force.
LORD LOVAT: We wish to find out where these officers are coming from.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: The noble Lord ought to know that it is contrary to the practice of every country but our own to give even as much information as I have given regarding mobilisation. The noble Lord's experience must show him that it is not in the public interest to probe far into mobilisation details.
LORD LOVAT: I decline to accept the reference to other Continental Powers. The noble Viscount said that there was equal anxiety in Berlin. Germany has a reserve of officers under the rank of major numbering 28,000; and France, I believe, has a reserve of officers of about 17,000. Therefore we have in this country every right to be anxious and to desire to pin the noble Viscount down to every single thing we can get cut of him. Moreover, a good many of our officers appear in two places. They appear in the Army List both as officers of the Territorial Force and in the Reserve of Officers. I should like to ask whether any of these can be taken away to serve with the Expeditionary Force on mobilisation.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: Do you mean Regular officers?
LORD LOVAT: I mean officers who have been Regular officers and who are now serving in the Territorial Force.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: I should say certainly if the interests of the country required it. In those circumstances it would be right to take them. They are not Regular officers in the sense in which I have spoken. They are officers who have been Regular officers and who have become Territorial officers, but who are still under obligation.
LORD LOVAT: I do not dispute the noble Viscount's wisdom in saying that he might take these officers away, but I wish to press home this fact, that the Territorial Army is to be depleted at the time of the mobilisation of the Expeditionary Force of its most efficient men. Thus the training of the Territorial Force will be deprived of its backbone. The noble Viscount said that he did not tie himself to take any particular number of officers from any of the Special Reserve regiments. All the Special Reserve regiments are short, I think, with only three or four exceptions. The inference, therefore, is that they will be entirely denuded of subalterns.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: Most of these officers who have served long enough to get a pension and are now in the Territorial Force are senior officers and of captain's standing, at all events, and there is no deficiency in officers of that sort. The General Reserve of Officers contains officers liable to serve in that rank in abundance. The difficulty is in junior subalterns, and to supply these we have called into existence the Officers Training Corps, which, as I explained the other day, now consists of 25,000, and some 18,000 have passed through it having obtained either the "A" or "B" certificate. We believe that the Corps will give us a large supply. As regards the rest, the promotion of non-commissioned officers, which the noble Lord opposite seemed to think a bad system—
LORD LOVAT: No. What I said was that it is a bad system at the moment of mobilisation; in fact, at the moment of mobilisation it is an infamous system.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: it is, at any rate, resorted to in France, and it is only not resorted to in Germany because of that large reserve of officers to which I referred last Monday. On mobilisation
1068
we have to do the best we can. It is only by making use of such means as the Universities and public schools afford that we can deal with the subject, and it is not made any better by probing too minutely into details.
THE DUKE OF BEDFORD: I regret that the noble Viscount will not harden his heart and take the 500 or 600 Regular Infantry officers whom he proposes to leave at home with the Territorial Force. They would be valuable for the Infantry of the Expeditionary Force. The noble Viscount has not told me where I can find the record of commissions granted before the sailing of the Army for the Peninsular War.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: I will make inquiries among those who are learned in these things, and if I can get any light on the subject I will communicate with the noble Duke. As to the question of the desirability of taking away Regular officers from the Territorial Force, the noble Duke must fight that out with the noble Lord (Lord Lovat) who sits below him.

THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD OF SCOTLAND.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, I wish to ask when the Report of the Congested Districts Board of Scotland for the year to March 31, 1912, and the Report of the Crofters Commission for the year 1911 will be laid upon the Table.
LORD WILLINGDON: In answer to the noble Earl's Question I have to say that the Reports to which he refers are in a forward state of preparation and will be laid on the Table as soon as practicable, but I am not in a position to name the exact date. In view of the fact that the Crofters Commission came to an end on March 31, 1912, the Report of the Commission will cover the period down to that date—that is to say, a period of fifteen months instead of twelve months.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Last year the Report of the Congested Districts Board of Scotland Was received in the Scottish Office, according to the date upon it, on April 22, but it was not laid on the Table of your Lordships' House until

1069
August 22, when this House was on the point of adjourning. I think any one who read the Report could understand that it was not a Report of which any Department would be very proud. I ask this Question to-day in the hope that the Scottish Office will not repeat the bad precedent of last year, but will present the Report in the month of June at the latest.
LORD WILLINGDON: The Scottish Office are fully aware of the position taken up by the noble Earl, and I can assure him that they will do everything to provide time for the criticism and discussion of this Report.

SMALL LANDHOLDERS (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1911.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: I beg to make the Motion which stands in my name.
Moved, That there be laid before the House a Return (a) of the names, official designation, salary, and conditions of employment of all officers and clerks who have been appointed by the Land Court or by the Board of Agriculture for Scotland under the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act, 1911; and (b) specifying those of the above officials who before the passing of the Act of 1911 were employed by the Crofters Commission or by the Congested Districts Board, and giving their former official position and terms and conditions of employment.—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
LORD WILLINGDON: I shall be happy to endeavour to meet the desire of the noble Earl for information on the subjects which he mentions, but in view of the fact that a number of appointments have yet to be settled I would suggest that it would be more convenient that the matter should stand over until the complete list is ready. If the noble Earl will raise the question again when the House resumes its sittings I shall be happy to give him every information.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Does the noble Lord mean that between now and the next few weeks there is going to be a large number of further appointments made?
LORD WILLINGDON: All I mean to say is that the appointments are not fully made at the present moment. I will give the noble Earl the best information I can when the Horse resumes after the Whitsuntide recess.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: A considerable number of appointments have been made, and I think it is desirable that we should know the names of those appointed, their official designation, their salaries, their term of office, whether they have served before, and so on. We were informed by the late Secretary for Scotland that the greatest care would be taken to pick out the most impartial and best men of every sort and kind, and I merely wish to know who have been appointed up to the present time. I suggest that no harm can be done by the giving of a Return of all those appointments which have been made up to the present time. If there are others made subsequently, I can renew the Motion later with regard to those particular appointments.
LORD WILLINGDON: If the noble Earl will be satisfied with having a Return of the number of appointments that have been made up to the present time, I will agree to the Motion.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: That is all I could expect.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

HIS MAJESTY THE LATE KING OF DENMARK.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: Your Lordships are aware that the House as a rule does not sit on Ascension Day, which is to-morrow, but there is a special reason for our meeting in order to propose, which I shall have the honour of doing, the presentation of an Address to His Majesty the King and one also to Queen Alexandra conveying the condolence of this House with their Majesties upon the lamentable death of the King of Denmark. I understand that it would meet the convenience of the House if we assembled at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon.
House adjourned at Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.