Sitting of 30 January 1913

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

ESTABLISHED CHURCH (WALES) BILL.
Petitions against the passing of the Established Church (Wales) Bill were presented by-
Mr. Bridgewater, from various parts of Staffordshire, signed by 12,315 persons.

NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.
Copy presented of Provisional Regulations made by the Irish Insurance Commissioners as to notices to be given by Insured persons transferring from the Voluntary to the Employed Rate [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 489.]
BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.
Copy presented of Annual Report on the Distribution of Grants for Agricultural Education and Research in the year 1911–12, with Statements respecting several Colleges and Institutions aided, and a Summary of the Agricultural Instruction provided by County Councils in 1910–11 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
TELEGRAPH OFFICES (SCOTLAND).
Return ordered "of Telegraph Offices in Scotland which are carried on by the Post Office at a loss, and where the deficit is made up by local contribution and by the Scottish Board of Agriculture, such Return setting forth (a) the total cost; (b) local contribution; and (c) contribution from the Board of Agriculture."—[Mr. Cathcart Wason."]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Agreement of Urga.
  Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he can inform the House what was agreed by the Agreement of Urga?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): I am unable to add anything at present to my reply to the hon. Member's question of 20th January.

  Russia and Mongolia.
  Sir J. D. REESasked if the Foreign Secretary can give the House any information regarding the recently concluded treaty between Russia and Mongolia?
  Sir E. GREY: I will lay a translation of the Treaty and Protocol before Parliament within the next few days.

  Fanama Canal.
  Mr. KINGasked whether any answer has been returned to that part of the Note from Mr. Knox, United States Secretary of State, on the subject of the Panama Canal, wherein Mr. Knox asks if Great Britain is prepared to join in ratifying the unratified arbitration treaty of 3rd August, 1911, which the United States is prepared to ratify; and, if so, whether the reply can be stated?
  Sir E. GREY: The United States Note is under consideration with the departments specially concerned and will be carefully considered by His Majesty's Government before a reply is sent to it.

  United States (Arbitration Treaty).
  Mr. KINGasked whether, in the event of his resuming negotiations for ratifying the arbitration treaty with the United States, he will approach other Great Powers with a view to their joining simultaneously in the treaty?
  Sir E. GREY: His Majesty's Government have come to no decision at present on the question of resuming negotiations for the ratification of the treaty in question. They are, therefore, unable to express any opinion with regard to the proposal that they should approach other Great Powers in the sense proposed.

  San Thomé and Principé (Recontracting of Labour).
  Mr. ARMITAGEasked whether any recontracting of labour has taken place at the Curador's office on San Thomé at which any British Consul has been pre sent; and, if so, will the forthcoming White Book contain any Report upon this feature of the question?
  Sir E. GREY: As far as I am aware, no British Consular officer has yet attended the renewal of contracts of labourers employed in San Thomé, but the salaried Vice-Consul, who is going there, will no doubt take an opportunity of attending when contracts, which are, I understand made in public, are renewed.
  Mr. ARMITAGEasked whether the system of recontracting the slaves and servicaes on the islands of San Thomé and Principlé takes place at some Government office, or whether upon the premises and in the presence of the planters where, for the time being, the Government official would become in the eyes of the labourers the guest of the planter?
  Sir E. GREY: Under the regulations of May, 1911, the contracts of servicaes employed in San Thomé and Principé can only be renewed before the Curator or his representative, but I am unaware of any stipulation as to the place where the new contract should be signed.

  Upper Paraguay (Murder of Mr. Brown and Mr. Radley).
  Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSONasked whether the Foreign Secretary has any in formation regarding the murder of Mr. Brown and Mr. Radley by natives on the Upper Paraguay; and what action, if any, is being taken by the Bolivian Government to discover and punish the natives responsible?
  Sir E. GREY: I have not heard of the subject, but if the hon. Member will supply me with information, I will ask His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at La Paz for a report, if the persons referred to are British subjects.

  Persia.
  Colonel YATEasked whether a concession has been granted to Russia by the Persian Government for the construction of a line of railway from Julfa to Tabriz; if so, whether a similar concession has been granted to Great Britain for the construction of a railway from Muhamra to
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  Khoramabad; and, if not, when such a concession will be granted?
  Sir E. GREY: So far as I am aware, neither of these concession has yet been granted, but I understand that there is good hope that both will be granted very shortly.

  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Mr. J. P. FARRELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland when the tenants on the Methodist Home Mission estate (late George Lemon) at Caldragh, county Longford, may expect their vesting orders; and what is the cause of the delay?
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): The Estates Commissioners are unable, from the particulars given, to identify this estate as the subject of proceedings for sale before them under the Land Purchase Acts.
  Mr. J. P. FARRELLasked whether the Estates Commissioners have yet entered into communication with Colonel Gregg, of Newtowncashel, for the purchase of the untenanted lands of Collum and Derrydanagh; and, if so, with what result?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners inform me that the owner has agreed to sell some sixty acres of Collum and some thirty-five acres of Derrydarragh.
  Mr. FARRELL: Before the transaction is completed, will the right hon. Gentleman see that the tenants acquire an ex tension of their holdings?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I will see whether that can be done.
  Mr. GINNELLasked how many tenanted estates in Westmeath have been sold and vested in the purchasers since 1903; how many in course of sale on which interest in lieu of rent is being paid; how many in other stages offered for sale; how many have not yet been offered for sale; what is the cause of this, seeing that all tenants desire to purchase; and when the Estates Commissioners propose to exercise their compulsory powers in Westmeath?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Since the passing of the Irish Land Act, 1903, 3,334 holdings in county Westmeath, situate on 171 estates sold by owners direct to tenants, have been vested in the tenants. Purchase agreements have been signed and are pending in respect of 2,853 holdings in that county

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  situate on 147 estates which are the subject of direct sale proceedings, and they will be dealt with as they are reached in order of priority. In addition, thirty-one estates in that county have been sold to, and vested in, the Estates Commissioners, and fifteen others are in course of being purchased by them. The Commissioners axe not in a position to state how many estates in that county have not been sold or offered for sale or the reasons why. The powers of the Commissioners to acquire lands compulsorily are limited to the acquisition of "congested estates" within the meaning of the Land Purchase Acts, and of untenanted land for the relief of congestion, and will be exercised in such cases as the Commissioners may consider necessary and desirable.

  National Schools (Fivemiletown, Fermanagh).
  Mr. CRUMLEYasked whether, in July last, the senior inspector of national schools held an investigation at Aghavoory national school, Fivemiletown, county Fermanagh, into the reasons why the then manager of the school, the Rev. Walter Browne, Clooneen Rectory, served the principal teacher, Mr. James Primrose, with a three months' notice of dismissal; that the result of the investigation was that Mr. Primrose's services as principal teacher were continued; that the Rev. Mr. Browne has since resigned the managership of the school and was succeeded by a Mr. Lendrum; that Mr. Lendrum visited the school on 16th December ultimo, entered his name in the daily report book, and left without speaking to the teacher; that on the following day he again visited the school, produced No. 3 form of agreement naming his referee, and asked the teacher to sign it; and that Mr. Primrose refused to sign the agreement unless the Commissioners of National Education were named as referee; and can the Chief Secretary state why the Commissioners, on being appealed to by Mr. Primrose, have declined to act in such capacity, although one of their own rules provides that the Commissioners themselves may be named as referee, and having regard to the fact that there are grounds for the suspicion that the former manager resigned so that the teacher may be compelled to enter into a new agreement with the present manager by which he can be dismissed on three months' notice without right of appeal to the Commissioners?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The Commissioners of National Education inform me that in July, 1911, the senior inspector of the circuit in which this school is situated held an investigation as stated. As a result of the inquiry Mr. Primsose was continued as principal teacher of the school on trial. The Rev. Mr. Browne has since resigned the managership of the school and has been succeeded by Mr. Lendrum. The Commissioners have been informed that Mr. Lendrum acted as stated in the question, but they have no independent evidence on the point. The form of agreement between the former manager and teacher provided for a referee. The referee named in the agreement having died, the Commissioners acted as referee pending the execution of a new agreement. On the appointment of the new manager a fresh agreement was necessary, and the manager offered the teacher his choice of three names, but the teacher declined to accept any of them, and asked that the Commissioners should be appointed as referee. The manager desired to have a local person appointed who had personal knowledge of the school, and in these circumstances the Commissioners declined to act. The Commissioners have no information as to why the Rev. Mr. Browne resigned the managership of the school. Any teacher who has a well grounded cause of complaint against his manager can appeal to the Commissioners.

  Outrages (County Clare).
  Captain CRAIGasked whether the Chief Secretary has received a report of an outrage perpetrated at Fahy, in county Clare, by a party of moonlighters, who shot one bullock dead and wounded another on a farm belonging to Mr. John Cullinan; whether he is aware that several other outrages have been committed in connection with this farm; and whether anyone has been brought to justice?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The police authorities inform me that on the 16th instant a bullock, the property of Mr. John Cullinan, was shot dead and another wounded on a farm at Fahee North, county Clare; but there is nothing to show that any number of persons were engaged in the commission of the outrage. No evidence has yet been obtained to bring home guilt to any person, but the police are pursuing their inquiries. Two cattle drives and a few cases of injury to the walls have taken place in connection with this farm, which consists

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  of over 400 acres situated in a remote hilly country. The police are paying special attention to the farm.
  Captain CRAIGasked if the Chief Secretary's attention has been called to the charge delivered by County Court Judge Bodkin at Ennis, county Clare, on the 31st instant, in which he referred to the constantly occurring commission of outrages by the use of firearms; whether he has read that portion of the charge in which the judge refers to the practice in less civilised countries of establishing vigilance committees for the prompt punishment of criminals whom the ordinary law is powerless to bring to justice; whether he still refuses to give the law-abiding people in Clare adequate protection; and whether he will sanction the establishment of vigilance committees by persons in Clare whose lives and properties are attacked?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have read a newspaper report of the charge of the learned judge referred to. There is a large extra force of police in the county, and special measures have been and are being taken for the prevention of outrage and for the protection of all persons who require it. I have no power to sanction the establishment of vigilance committees as suggested.
  Captain CRAIG: Will the right hon. Gentleman state whether he thinks that, in regard to its condition, Clare is the worst county in Ireland?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Undoubtedly a part of Clare is in a very bad condition.

  Royal Irish Constabulary Force Fund.
  Mr. HORNERasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would receive a representative deputation on behalf of the Royal Irish Constabulary pensioners, subscribers to the Constabulary Force Fund, to hear their views upon the question of having the fund wound up; and, if so, would he fix a date and place?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The fund is being wound up by the natural process of paying claims upon it according as they accrue. It cannot be diverted from its original purpose without injustice to the widows and orphans for whose benefit it was created by Statute. No useful object would therefore be served by receiving a deputation of subscribers as suggested.
  Mr. HORNER: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware from correspondence and resolutions that a great deal of distrust and discontent is felt with regard to how the fund is dealt with, and would not the receiving of the deputation suggested in the question be the best way to allay that distrust and discontent, instead of positively refusing it?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I have really answered many questions on this subject. As to the anxiety about this fund, it is the desire of a number of persons who subscribe to divide this money among themselves rather than postpone it to the day they die, when their widows and orphans would get the benefit.
  Captain CRAIG: Will the right hon. Gentleman, in view of his statement that the misapprehension is entirely due to ignorance on the part of those who make the stir in the matter, consider whether it would not be possible to circulate among the police force a statement of the actual circumstances of the fund, and how it is dealt with?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I should be very glad to do anything to prevent my having a series of these questions, and I think there is a good deal to be said for the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman.
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if the representations he has received against winding-up and distributing the Irish Constabulary Force Fund have not all emanated from officers and officials, will he say from whom they have emanated?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Apart from official reports, I have not received any representations against the winding up of the fund from officers or officials. I have, however, received strong protests from subscribers and their wives against the injustice to widows and orphans of diverting the fund from its original purpose.
  Mr. GINNELLasked the right hon. Gentleman if, in view of the complaints of contributors to the Irish Constabulary Force Fund that the fund is being administered for the benefit of officers and officials at the expense of the men, he will state the normal payments into and receipts from the fund by the families of officers, officials, and men, respectively, with the average salary of each of those classes?
  Mr. BIRRELL: No officials except officers, head, and other constables of the Royal Irish Constabulary contribute to or receive anything from this fund. The rate of contribution per cent. on pay and pension is the same for officers and men, and the rate per cent, for gratuities to families of both ranks is likewise the same. In the accounts of the fund the amounts received as contributions from subscribing officers and men, respectively, are not distinguished. In the year 1911–12 177 claims were paid, amounting to £18,246, of which £3,785 was paid to families of officers, and in 1910–11, 143 claims, amounting to £15,362, were paid, of which sum the families of officers received £2,639. The total receipts from officers and men serving and on pension were in these two years £4,714 and £5,030, respectively. The salaries of the various grades of officers and men are set out in the Estimates, but the average salaries of the various classes of subscribers to the fund is not known.
  Mr. GINNELLasked how the Irish Constabulary Force Fund is invested; what annual interest is received on it; at what period is it estimated that, in the natural decrease of claims, the interest and income will meet all demands on the fund; and whether subscribers to the fund not fulfilling technical requirements will be left in want, while the money to which they have contributed is lying idle?
  Mr. BIRRELL: As regards the first two paragraphs of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the question of the hon. Member for South Tyrone on 27th November last. I am unable at present to say whether at any future time the demands on the fund can be met from the interest and subscriptions. The statutory trusts of the fund are to provide gratuities for the widows and orphans of deceased subscribers, and the liberal scale of gratuities awarded is based on this limited liability.
  Mr. GINNELL: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the fact that this fund was set up on a principle now obsolete, with the result that many men who during their lives contributed to it died without anyone belonging to them benefiting by it?
  Mr. BIRRELL: I cannot alter the scale or plan upon which this beneficent operation was set going; and I think it would be most unjust to those who have subscribed and whose widows and orphans may and will eventually receive great
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  benefits to alter it at this stage of its history.
  Mr. GINNELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the men who leave no widows and whose children have attained a certain age benefit nothing during their lives, and the families benefit nothing?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The families will benefit on their death.
  Mr. GINNELL: No.
  Mr. GINNELLasked what sum is paid out of the Irish Constabulary Force Fund to the widow of a district inspector who has served forty years and dies ten years after retiring, and what sum to the widow of a constable who has served thirty years and dies ten years after retiring?
  Mr. BIRRELL: The exact amount of the gratuities payable in the cases referred to cannot be determined from the particulars given in the question. The sums payable in each case would be 5 per cent, on the total amount of pay drawn during service and ½ per cent, of the total amount of pension received. These amounts would be increased according to the number of children entitled to benefit under the rules of the fund.

  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.

    ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY PENSIONS.
    Mr. HORNERasked in the event of the Government of Ireland Bill becoming law, the basis upon which the pension of a constable in the Royal Irish Constabulary would be calculated who had served nineteen years at the time the force was transferred to the Irish Government, and who then elected to retire voluntarily rather than serve under the Irish Government?
    Mr. BIRRELL: If the hon. and learned Member had referred to Rules 2, 3, and 4 of the Fourth Schedule which regulate the calculation of the compensation allowance payable in the circumstances mentioned in the question, he would have discovered for himself that the constable he is thinking about would be entitled to a compensation allowance of 30/50 of what his pay would probably have been in the same rank at the end of the five added years, subject to the limitation that it is not to exceed two-thirds of his annual pay at the time of retirement.

    Clanricarde Estate (County Galway).
    Mr. JOHN ROCHEasked upon what date Lord Clanricarde served the writ of injunction on the Congested Districts Board for Ireland to prevent their purchasing his estate under the Land Act of 1909; what delay was consented to by the Board: what is the present position of the case; and what explanation is offered for the delay that has occurred in this matter?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The writs of injunction were served on the Congested Districts Board on the 28th February, 1912. The Board did not consent to any delay in the proceedings but, on the contrary, the Master of the Rolls in April, 1912, at their instance, made the plaintiff's counsel undertake to expedite the proceedings. As the plaintiff did not give notice of trial for the Michaelmas sittings, the Board have taken steps with the object of having the injunction proceedings adjudicated upon during next month.

    Housing of Working Classes (Ireland).
    Mr. WILLIAM O'BRIENasked how many houses have been built under the Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Act of 1908; how many of these houses are let at a weekly rent of 1s. 6d. and 1s., respectively; what has been the total cost, and what contribution has been made towards the cost to the local authorities out of the Housing Fund provided by the Act?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The number of houses built or to be built under the Act in 2,274, but precise information as to the number of houses actually built and as to the rents (which are fixed at the discretion of the local authority as regards reasonable charges) could only be obtained by communication with the several local authorities in the country. The aggregate amount sanctioned for building schemes is £438,055. The contributions from the Housing Fund for the three years ended 31st March, 1910, 1911, 1912, amounted to £5,631, and were sufficient to defray the liabilities of the local authorities for principal and interest.
    Mr. W. O'BRIEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman have any objection to obtain for me information as to the rents at which the houses are let because otherwise it would be impossible to tell whether the houses are let to the artisan classes?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I will do the best I can to obtain it. Without circularising all the local authorities I will endeavour to ascertain the largest number of cases I can of what the average rent is.
    Mr. CLANCY: Can the right horn Gentleman say whether it is a fact that the amount of the loans sanctioned since the passing of the Act of 1908 is about half the amount applied for and sanctioned since the year 1890?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I should like notice of that question.

    Tarbert Female School (County Kerry).
    Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he will afford an opportunity to the representatives of the six little girls between the ages of eleven and fifteen years who were expelled from the female school at Tarbert, county Kerry, in the month of February, 1911, to appear before the Com mission of Inquiry about to be held into the national school inspectors, etc., in order that they may fully lay before that Commission the action of the manager, teacher, and the school inspectors who were sent to investigate the charges made, and explain how those inspectors acted in the matter?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I hardly think that this is a case for the Commission, but it is open to the hon. Member to make any representation he may think fit to the Commission, and it will then be for them to decide whether the facts of the case as represented to them bring it within the terms of reference.

    Congested Districts Board.
    Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether his attention has been called to proceedings at Petty Sessions in Athlone on the 24th instant in a case brought by the Congested Districts Board to take possession of a farm now in possession of Mr. P. J. Fallon; whether he is aware that this farm has been boycotted for some time because the owner refused to surrender it at the bidding of the United Irish League, and that 100 tons of hay were burned on the farm; whether it is the intention of the Congested Districts Board to evict the legal owner of the farm and hand it over to the people in whose interest the boycotting was established; and, if so, will the Board pay the owner the price at

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    which the farm has been valued by an independent valuer, or will they compel the owner to accept a price settled by the official valuer, which is only one-fourth of the market value if the land had not been boycotted?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The case referred to by the hon. and gallant Member was not before the Athlone Petty Sessions on the 24th instant, but was for hearing before a sub-commission of the Irish Land Commission on that date, when proceedings were being taken for the resumption of Fallon's holding under Section 5 (6) of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, and Section 83 of the Irish Land Act, 1903. The case is still sub judice, and I cannot therefore make any statement in regard to it.

    Lancashire High Sheriffs (Expenses).
    Mr. NUTTALLasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether, on further consideration, he has decided to publish the results of the inquiry into the expenses incurred by the High Sheriffs of Lancashire during their term of office; and whether he is aware that a number of Lancashire Members of Parliament desire to have this information?
    The CHANCELLOR of the DUCHY of LANCASTER (Mr. Hobhouse): Intimation has reached me that a considerable number of Members of both sides of the House would desire the publication of this Report. I am in communication with the Lord Chief Justice with respect to its contents, but as unfortunately he is at the present moment not well, I should prefer to delay its publication until I can accompany it with a statement of his views on behalf of the judges as to the recommendations therein contained. I may add that the committee inform me that the expenses of the sheriffs in Lancashire come to £3,000 per year in addition to the Treasury allowance of something like a thousand pounds.

    Catalogues to Australia (Customs Duty).
    Mr. NEWDEGATEasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the Australian Commonwealth charge 1d. Customs Duty on a single catalogue sent by post from England, which causes hindrance to commercial relations between the Mother Country and the Colonies; and whether he will endeavour to get this matter altered?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Harcourt): Under the Commonwealth of Australia Customs Tariff, trade catalogues are liable to a duty at 6d. per pound, or 35 per cent, ad valorem, whichever rate returns the higher duty. In cases, however, where the total duty on any one mail addressed by any one consignor to any one State of the Commonwealth does not exceed 1s., the payment of duty is waived. Representations as to the effect of this duty on trade between this country and the Commonwealth have on several occasions been made by firms engaged in trade with the Commonwealth and have been brought under the notice of the Commonwealth Government, but that Government has not seen its way to alter the duty, and I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by further representations at the present time.

    Sierra Leone (Messrs. Lever Brothers).
    Mr. RUPERT GWYNNEasked whether Messrs. Lever Brothers, Limited, are required to make any and, if so, what deposit of caution or guarantee money as security for the due carrying out of their obligations under the extensive rights granted to them in respect of areas in the Sierra Leone Protectorate, the Gold Coast Colony, or Southern Nigeria?
    Mr. HARCOURT: No, Sir. If the obligations are not carried out the concession will be forfeited.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Is there any limit of time in which these obligations will be carried on?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I think there is, but I cannot carry the whole of the wording in my head. I can give the hon. Gentleman the information.
    Mr. GWYNNEasked the right hon. Gentleman if, having regard to the reiterated representations by Messrs. Lever Brothers, Limited, when applying for an extensive monopoly in the Sierra Leone Protectorate, that the enterprise would entail a great outlay and expenditure of capital, he will say what is the total sum which Messrs. Lever are under obligation to spend?
    Mr. HARCOURT: As will be seen from page 45 of Cd. 6561, the sum proposed to be expended is £15,000 within one year from the date of the Agreement.
    Mr. GWYNNEasked whether Mr. Alldridge, who was sent out in 1907 by Messrs. Lever Brothers to Sierra Leone to interview the Governor and negotiate with the chiefs, with a view to obtaining concessions for that firm, was at any time employed by the Government or in any Colonial Department; and, if so, in what capacity was he employed and during what period?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Mr. Alldridge was employed by the Government of Sierra Leone as travelling commissioner or as district commissioner from 1889 until his retirement on pension in August, 1905.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Does the right hon. Gentleman think it desirable that Civil servants should return to the same Colonies on behalf of private firms?
    Mr. HARCOURT: This is the case of a Civil servant who had received his pension, and there were no conditions attached to the pension to prevent him from seeking other employment for commercial purposes.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Is not the right hon. Gentleman seeking to prevent Governors and other Civil servants on leaving the Civil Service from undertaking directorships at the present time?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Yes, I am doing that. That is quite new action. Mr. Alldridge retired during the tenure of office of the late Conservative Government, and no conditions of that sort were made on his retirement.
    Mr. GWYNNE: He was sent out under the auspices of the present Government.
    Mr. GWYNNEasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state the nature of the tramway privileges in the Gold Coast Colony granted, or proposed to be granted, to Messrs. Lever Brothers, Limited, and the associated firm of W. B. MacIver and Company, Limited, for a term of twenty-one years; the extent of the area to which the privileges apply; the consideration paid, or to be paid, by them; and the capital expenditure which they are required to make in the construction of tramways, railways, or other forms of traction?
    Mr. HARCOURT: No special privileges in regard to tramways are now intended to be given to those firms.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Why has the right hon. Gentleman withdrawn them?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Representations were made to me by Chambers of Commerce here at the time the discussion was going on about the concessions; they thought these grants undesirable, and, on further consideration, I agreed.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Will the right hon. Gentleman furnish us with copies of the correspondence on the subject which is not included in the Blue Book?
    Mr. HARCOURT: There is no correspondence which is in the least material that does not appear in the Blue Book.
    Captain CRAIG: What was the amount that Messrs. Lever Brothers contributed to the Radical party funds?
    Mr. TOUCHEasked whether any and, if so, what steps have been taken to protect and preserve, or obtain a transfer or waiver of the rights of certain Opobo and Bonny traders who hold trading leases on the Imo and Azumini Creek (Aba River) within the area selected by Messrs. Lever Brothers, Limited; and, in view of their letter to the Colonial Secretary at Lagos, dated 10th September, on the importance of obtaining a monopoly in the rights granted to them, whether they propose to proceed with the selection if anyone else, either native or European, holds similar rights to themselves?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I have no further information on this point than is contained in the published correspondence.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked whether Messrs. Lever Brothers, Limited, request for the grant of monopoly rights for the erection of machinery for treating palm kernels as well as for treating the pericarp of palm fruit have been definitely and finally refused in respect of any West African Colonies?
    Mr. HARCOURT: No such rights will be granted in any part of British West Africa.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked if the withholding of the sole right of erecting machinery for the crushing of nuts from the exclusive right of constructing and working mills for expressing or extracting oil from the pericarp of palm fruit within an area of approximately 311 square miles in the Sierra Leone Protectorate granted to Messrs. Lever Brothers, Limited, is in tended for the protection of the natives; and in what way will this protection operate, seeing that the rights granted give Messrs. Lever Brothers virtual commercial

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    control over all nuts in a given area so that they can make their own price and prevent the natives from getting full market value?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The withholding of the monopoly of erecting machinery for extracting oil from the kernels of palm fruits was not intended for the protection of the natives as it is extremely unlikely that any native would wish to erect such machinery. The native is protected by the fact that he can continue to sell his nuts or the oil which he may prepare from them to anyone he pleases, if it pays him better to do so rather than to take them to Messrs. Lever's mill. The privilege to be granted to Messrs. Lever is confined strictly to machinery for which novelty is claimed. There is no warrant in the licence for the assertion that "virtual commercial control over all nuts in a given area" has been granted to them.
    Mr. TOUCHE: Is it the view of the Colonial Office that a legal monopoly over a part of the nut is not equivalent to a monopoly over the whole nut?
    Mr. HARCOURT: There is no legal monopoly over any part of the nut. There is a legal monopoly within a limited area to erect a special form of newly invented machinery.
    Mr. TOUCHE: Is not that a monopoly for treating part of the nut?
    Mr. HARCOURT: There is no monopoly of the nut; it is a monopoly of the machinery.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked in what manner the consent of the natives was obtained to the grant of exclusive rights to Messrs. Lever Brothers, Limited, in the Sierra Leone protectorate; were the representations of the chiefs or tribal authorities accepted as conclusive; and how was the consent of the chiefs obtained, and did any consideration pass?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The proposals of Messrs. Lever were fully explained to a representative body of chiefs assembled at Yonnibanna on the 11th March, 1912, and they expressed themselves as fully in sympathy with the scheme. So far as I am aware no consideration passed. As the Governor and I were already satisfied that the scheme was not antagonistic to the interest of the natives, there was no ground for not considering the chiefs' acceptance of it as conclusive.
    Mr. GWYNNE: By whom was this explained to the chiefs?
    Mr. HARCOURT: By one of the officials in the service of the Government there; I do not know whether it was the Governor or the Colonial Secretary.
    Sir J. D. REES: Was the official interpreter a person sufficiently qualified to interpret on an occasion of this character?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I am not acquainted with the official interpreter, but I have no doubt he was properly qualified.
    Mr. TOUCHE: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember that it was stipulated that the consent of the natives should be obtained? Can he say whether any inquiry was made to ascertain whether the chiefs consulted the natives by referendum or otherwise?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I think the referendum is one of the questions of which I should have notice.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked whether the Government have entered into any agreement, promise, or understanding with Messrs. Lever Brothers, Limited, not to grant licences similar to theirs and relating to the same area either in respect to the erection of mills or the construction of railways in the Gold Coast Colony or Southern Nigeria for any fixed period; and, if so, what is the period?
    Mr. HARCOURT: As the hon. Member will see from a perusal of Cd. 6561, any monpoly granted in Sierra Leone or the Gold Coast can only extend to the erection of mills for the extraction of oil from the pericarp of the palm fruit and the term of such monopoly will be twenty-one years. Rights with respect to railways in those Colonies will only be granted under the Proprietary Railway Ordinances of those Colonies, which do not involve a monopoly.
    Mr. TOUCHEasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what figures and statements relating to the experience of Messrs. Lever Brothers, Limited, in the Gold Coast, were submitted by them to the Colonial Office in support of their representation that an area of five miles radius in Southern Nigeria would be inadequate, and that a much larger area from which to draw supplies was essential; did the Colonial Office call for any further figures or statements in support of the representation; were they supplied; and, if so, will he communicate them to

    1493
    the House with any other facts which induced him to alter his decision to restrict the grant to an area of five miles radius?
    Mr. HARCOURT: It was represented to the Colonial Office that, as Lever Brothers would have no special rights of purchase or collection within the area, and as the natives would not carry the palm fruit to a centre more than about five miles distant, it would be possible for a rival firm, or firms, established at points only five miles from the mills, to render nugatory the special advantages acquired by Lever Brothers within a circle of only five miles radius. With a radius of ten miles, such competition is still effective for five miles within Lever Brothers' area, but the advantage given is considered to be sufficient.

    West Coast of Africa (Concessions).
    Mr. FELLasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will cause to be exhibited in the Tea Room a map showing the position and extent of any concessions which have been granted during the past three years in the Crown Colonies on the West Coast of Africa?
    Mr. HARCOURT: It would be impossible to exhibit these concessions accurately, on a map of reasonable size, as many of them cover a very small area. The hon. Member will find full information as regards concessions in the Parliamentary Papers which have recently been published in Cd. 5743 of 1911, and No. 68 of 1912, and in my Written Answer to the hon. Member for Dulwich, circulated to-day.
    Mr. FELL: Are there any maps published by the Government?
    Mr. HARCOURT: There are no maps included in the, Papers, but if I can be of any assistance to the hon. Member in the matter of maps, I shall be glad to do what I can.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the statistics as to the amount of land granted given in the Blue Books cover only those Grants which have received Government sanction, and that, as a matter of fact, Grants ten times as large have been made which have not received official sanction, but are being used by the concessionaires?
    Mr. HARCOURT: The word "Grants" should not be used, but it is quite true that arrangements have sometimes been made by private individuals with local
    1494
    chiefs, but these are not Grants which have been validated by the local Courts.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: But they are being acted upon.

    Women Suffrage.
    Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister (1) whether the Committee to be set up to draft a Women Suffrage Bill will be nominated by the Committee of Selection or by the House; (2) whether the Committee of this House to be set up to draft a Women Suffrage Bill will be appointed this Session; and (3) whether the Women Suffrage Committee which it is proposed to form will be presided over by the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Leader of the Opposition; and whether it is intended that during the proceedings next Session on the Women Suffrage Bill the House should be temporarily led by the Chairman of this Committee?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George) (for the Prime Minister): The question of the formation and appointment of such a Committee, as that to which my hon. Friend refers, rests entirely with the supporters of the movement for Women Suffrage, and is not a matter for the Government. I am not in a position to give my hon. Friend the information he desires on the other points raised in the question.
    Mr. HARRY LAWSON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how this Committee will communicate officially with the Government in respect of the allocation of the time of the House and other matters?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: There is no Committee at the present moment; therefore I could not answer that. I am not certain that I shall be able to answer it when the Committee is appointed.
    Sir J. D. REES: Will the resulting Bill have preference over all others, irrespective of the ballot and of the claims of other Bills?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I could not reply to that.

    Supplementary Estimates.
    Colonel PRYCE-JONESasked which are the Supplementary Estimates it is proposed to take before the Recess?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I hope to publish the Supplementary Estimates very shortly, possibly this week.
    Sir GEORGE YOUNGER: Will the Supplementary Estimates include an amount for salmon-marking in Scotland?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think not.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: Why not?
    Mr. W. O'BRIEN: Will they include the £50,000 in respect of medical benefit in Ireland?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That is a subject for discussion, I understand. It has not been raised with me at the present moment.

    British East Africa (Allotment of Land).
    Mr. EDMUND HARVEYasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the speech made by the Governor of British East Africa on 27th December, at the Nakuru Show lunch, in which he stated that he had recommended the Secretary of State that the Governor should have authority to allot lands without auction in cases in which it may appear to him that exceptional circumstances render it desirable that land should be owned by a particular person; and whether he has information as to what are the circumstances to which the Governor alluded, and can give this information to the House?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I have received a despatch from the Governor recommending that, pending the promulgation of a new Lands Ordinance, outstanding applications should be dealt with under existing regulations, subject to an additional condition for auction or, in special cases, allotment at a fixed premium. I have approved of his recommendations generally, but have asked for further information as to the proposal to allot land without competition.
    Mr. E. HARVEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Ordinance is likely to be approved?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I cannot say that today.
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman, in allowing certain lands to be granted by allotment, whereas others are reserved for auction purposes, see the danger arising from favouritism or the suspicion of favouritism?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Yes, but I think the hon. Gentleman can accept what I have said in my answer that I have asked for further information of the proposals to allot the land.
    Mr. E. HARVEYasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to a public statement by the Governor of British East Africa, in a speech on 27th December, that he was in communication with the Secretary of State with reference to the draft Land Ordinance and had obtained his consent to the removal from the Ordinance of that part which made provision to prevent the accumulation of land in the hands of one individual; and whether he can state the reason for the removal of this restriction?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Yes, Sir; I have agreed to the elimination from the draft Land Ordinance of the restrictions on the amount of land which may be held by one person on the ground that those restrictions will not be necessary to prevent undue accumulation without development when the arrangements proposed as to grant subject to premium determined by auction, personal occupation, and development, are brought into force.
    Mr. E. HARVEY: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider the fact that there are already in spite of this being a new Colony enormous estates in the hands of either one individual, or a large corporation, and does he think it desirable to continue the growth of these enormous estates?
    Mr. HARCOURT: No, I consider it most undesirable to continue their growth, and so long as I remain in my present office they will not be continued. These enormous grants have not been made during my tenure of office, or indeed by the Colonial Office.
    Sir J. D. REES: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think it is a good thing to get money into the country for wages for the employment of the natives?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Yes, and that is what is contemplated. I hope to do it by means of small ownership.
    Sir J. D. REES: Does the right hon. Gentleman think he, is acting in the interest of British East Africa by the establishment of small ownership there?
    Mr. HARCOURT: Yes.
    MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: Does the right hon. Gentleman favour small occupancy in this country?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD: Will the documents relating to the matter be laid on the Table of the House?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I am obliged to the Noble Lord for correcting my mistake. I meant "small occupancy," which is what I have been establishing in East Africa, and what I have been supporting in this country.

    Admiralty Arch (Approach).
    Sir WILLIAM BULLasked the hon. Member for St. George's-in-the-East, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, why the Government have been advised to sell the vacant land at the entrance to the Mall, in Cockspur Street, having regard to the fact that permanent buildings will be placed thereupon and therefore preclude all chance of the Admiralty Arch having an approach to Trafalgar Square adequate to its position; and whether this means that all idea of acquiring part of Drummond's Bank and the opposite corner have now been abandoned?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN (Lord of the Treasury): The land referred to belongs to the London County Council. I am informed that they have sold it, thereby precluding, as the hon. Member rightly says, all chance of the construction of a worthy approach to the Admiralty Arch.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    MEDICAL BENEFIT.
    Mr. CASSELasked the Secretary to the Treasury at what periods payments will be made to doctors on the panels who are remunerated on the capitation system, and when will the first payments be made; whether the lists of patients furnished by doctors will be accepted as sufficient for the purpose of payment, or whether it will be necessary to produce the patients' tickets; and whether remuneration will commence to run from 15th January, 1913, or the date when the doctor accepts an insured person as his patient, and how will such date be ascertained?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Masterman): The Regulations contemplate quarterly payments, but, as I have previously stated, arrangements may be made by insurance com-
    1498
    mittees whereby payments may be made on account during the quarter. The lists of patients sent in by the doctors will be checked by the insurance committees from the lists furnished by the societies, not from the medical tickets. The payments are due as from 15th January or whatever later date the doctor joined the panel.

    SANATORIUM BENEFIT.
    Mr. CASSELasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether Hawkins, of St. Paul's Road, Camden Town, an insured person, was recommended for treatment for tuberculosis at home in November, 1912; that since then he has nothing but the doctor's services and cod-liver oil; that the accommodation is very bad and the doctor has made certain requirements, but no further notice has been taken of them than a mere acknowledgment; that consequently the patient is not making any progress; and whether he will take steps to see that this man receives the necessaries ordered by the doctor?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am informed by the London Insurance Committee that the insured person in question was recommended for domiciliary treatment in November, and has since that time been receiving this treatment, including doctor's services and medicines. Arrangements have been made for the patient to receive other articles ancillary to his treatment.
    Mr. CASSEL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the doctor in charge of the case states that his requirements have not been supplied?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No, I am not aware. I will make any further inquiries of the London Insurance Committee if the hon. and learned Gentleman desires me to do so.
    Mr. CASSELasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in the case of R. P. Darken, of 223, Clarence Buildings, N.W., entitled to sanatorium benefit and recommended for treatment at home, the clerk to the London Insurance Committee, at an interview which took place between him and the doctor in charge on 2nd January, 1913, informed the doctor that they would not pay for the necessaries ordered by him, such as bedding, supplementary diet, and visits by a nurse; that the local authority would have to pay for them or the man must go to the infirmary, and that the only things allowed for the treatment of such cases were the doctor's

    1499
    services, cod-liver oil, and extract of malt; that a similar statement was made over the telephone to Dr. Sykes, the medical officer of health for St. Pancras; that the doctor in charge attributes the death of his patient to this refusal; that certain articles were obtained from the dispensary in Oakley Square, N.W.; and that no repayment was made in respect of them until the day when a question relating to the matter appeared on the Order Paper of the House of Commons, when a special messenger was sent to the dispensary with a cheque for £10; and what steps he proposes to take to see that the necessaries prescribed by the doctor are supplied?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am informed by the London Insurance Committee that the clerk to the committee informed the doctor that the committee had no power, and could not in future arrange to supply such articles as coal, but only such food and nourishment as were ancillary to the treatment of tuberculosis The committee are empowered to authorise the supply of articles which are ordered by the doctor and are ancillary to the treatment, hut have no legal power to supply articles not falling within this description. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative. I may add that the patient did, in fact receive the articles ordered for him and there is no foundation therefore for the suggestion in the fourth part of the question. I am informed that repayment had been sanctioned, and a cheque actually drawn for signature before the hon. Member's previous question was put down on the 13th instant.
    Mr. CASSEL: Is it to be taken as a rule when the doctor orders ancillary treatment in the case of tuberculosis that the things are not to be supplied?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: No, only the articles which can be legally supplied under the Act which rules the ancillary treatment of tuberculosis. The Act is not an Act for giving general relief to poor people.
    Mr. CASSEL: Is it a fact that these articles are confined to cod liver oil and extract of malt?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Oh, no; a cheque for a considerable sum, I think nearly £10, was paid over for other articles which were for ancillary treatment; but the insurance committee have no power to supply coal, or bread and meat.
    Mr. CASSEL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the information given by the doctor in charge of the case is that the articles he ordered were not coal, but supplementary diet, the daily visits of a nurse, and proper bedding?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Those were the articles supplied.
    Mr. CASSEL: Is it not the case that these articles were only supplied after such delay as to cause grave and serious injury to the patient?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Oh, no, I have answered that already; that is not so: I have the facts.

    UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT.
    Mr. BARNESasked the President of the Board of Trade how many claims for unemployed benefit have been received up to 25th January throughout the United Kingdom and for each district separately; if he can state how many of these had been granted and refused, respectively, in each division and the time generally taken to come to a decision; and, if any, how many cases have been referred to the Courts of Referees or Umpire?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. J. M. Robertson): The number of claims for unemployment benefit made up to and including 25th January throughout the United Kingdom is 138,222. I will have a statement showing the number received in each of the eight divisions printed in the Votes. Decisions on claims will, it is hoped, be given, as a rule, within the first week of unemployment, in respect of which the workman is not entitled to benefit, and benefit will be paid on each Friday up to and including the previous Wednesday; that is to say, the workman will, as a rule, receive, on the following Friday, the first unemployment benefit to which he may be entitled up to any Wednesday. This will be the general rule in future, but for obvious reasons it has not been possible to adhere to it in all cases with respect to the first mass of applications. As regards the other portions of the question, information is not yet complete, but I will send it to my hon. Friend as soon as it is available. [See Written Answers of this date]
    Mr. BARNES: Will the information be printed as a matter of course, or will I have to put down another question?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: Genéral statistics will be available, but it depends upon the desirability of the information that is to be given. I will investigate the matter.
    Mr. WORTHINGTON-EVANSasked whether an insured painter, under Part II. of the Act, who has duly paid twenty-six weekly contributions and has had added in respect of past employment twenty-five contributions, who on the 13th January declared on the unemployment fund and declared off on the 25th January is entitled to unemployment benefit; and, if so, to how much, no question having been raised as to disqualification?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: In the circumstances described by the hon. Member the workman (assuming him to have been unemployed and to have signed the unemployed register as required from the 13th to the 25th January; both days inclusive) would be entitled to 7s. in respect of the six days of unemployment from 20th January to 25th January, and would receive payment on Friday, 31st January.
    Mr. WORTH INGTON-EVANSasked whether on 25th January the official in charge of the Labour Exchange at Trowbridge informed an insured workman under Part II. of the Act that no funds were available to pay unemployment benefit until 31st January?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: I am causing inquiries to be made into the statement referred to by the hon. Member, and will communicate the result to him.

    PROPOSED GRANT TO IRELAND.
    Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware of the charge made for doctors' notes (for the purpose of claiming sick benefit under the Insurance Act), amounting in most cases to 2s. 6d. each, in the district of Belfast; and whether any action will be taken by the Insurance Commissioners, or any arrangement be made, whereby a sum more in consonance with the cost of such notes in this country might be established?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: As my right hon. Friend stated in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Waterford, on the 9th instant, the Government will submit proposals for the Grant of a sum of £50,000 towards expenses incurred in Ireland in connection with the National Insurance Act in consequence of the absence of medical
    1502
    benefit in that country, such sum to be expended in accordance with a scheme to be submitted to the Treasury by the Irish Commissioners. This sum will be in part available for contributions towards the cost, at reasonable terms, of medical certificates granted in connection with claims to sickness benefit. I would point out, however, that societies are not bound to require medical certificates as evidence of illness, and, if excessive fees are demanded for such certificates, they can adopt alternative methods for obtaining such evidence.

    DISPENSING MEDICINES.
    Mr. O'GRADYasked whether complaints have reached him from a number of chemists and drug store proprietors who have been dispensing for doctors that their exclusion from the panels as dispensers under the National Insurance Act is resulting in a loss in respect to this section of their business; and, seeing that these persons are thus disqualified from dispensing medicines through the passing of the Act, whether any steps can or will be taken to prevent these chemists from being driven out of business?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: As I have previously stated, no persons qualified to dispense medicines prior to the passing of the National Insurance Act have been disqualified from dispensing medicines by that Act. The Insurance Commissioners have no power to vary the conditions laid down in Section 15 (5) of the Act as to the supply of medicines to insured persons.
    Mr. O'GRADY: Is it not a fact that there are a large number of chemists in this country who are qualified although they are not members of the Pharmaceutical Society, and have been in the habit of dispensing medicines for doctors for a period of years, and is it not a fact that the Act specifically relates to those men when it speaks of having to get a certificate from a doctor to dispense?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am not sure, but it only follows the limitation laid down in the Pharmacy Act.
    Mr. O'GRADY: Does that mean that the Act constitutes a monopoly for the members of the Pharmaceutical Society to the exclusion of other skilled men?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The Pharmacy Act lays down certain qualifications for chemists and those are embodied in the Insurance Act.
    Mr. O'GRADY: Can these chemists be placed on the panel of dispensers for things not down in the schedules of poisons?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I am not sure of that.
    Mr. O'GRADYasked whether in the east municipal ward of East Leeds there are 6,463 persons on the electoral register, and that for the larger population in the locality which this number represents there is only one chemist's shop at which medicines may be dispensed under the National Insurance Act; and whether, in view of the hardship that this imposes on poor people, as well as the danger to life in having to come from the opposite end of the municipal division to obtain medicines, the unregistered but qualified chemists in business in the neighbourhood shall be given the right to dispense under the Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I have communicated with the Leeds Insurance Committee, and they are making inquiries as to the adequacy of the number of chemists in the district referred to. I may, however, point out that in any case it would not be possible to authorise the supply of medicines requiring dispensing to be arranged by other persons than those entitled to make these arrangements under the Act.
    Mr. O'GRADYasked whether the prescriptions made out on paper by the doctor and given to a patient to be dispensed at the store of a chemist who is on the panel as a dispenser under the National Insurance Act many times contain a list of medical appliances; whether he is aware that this means that the sale of these appliances in the majority of cases is bound to go to such chemists to the loss of business of those chemists and drug store proprietors who can only be on the panels for the supply of medical appliances; and whether, having regard to the fact that a monopoly of dispensing has been created for the M.P.S. chemist under the Act and that a monopoly is also developing in respect to the supply of medical appliances, steps will be taken to alter this state of things?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The National Insurance Act gives the insured person a free choice as to the chemists or other persons on the lists from whom he can obtain appliances, and I could not take
    1504
    any action which would have the effect of depriving the insured person of that choice.

    SICKNESS BENEFIT.
    Mr. J. P. FARRELLasked what action the Treasury has taken to get Miss Margaret Tierney, Ballymahon Street, Longford, paid the sick benefit to which she is entitled under the National Insurance Act?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The Irish Insurance Commissioners have since my hon. Friend's last question communicated with the St. Brigid's branch of the Irish National Foresters, Longford, of which the person mentioned in the question is a member, and from which she would receive the benefits of the Act. They inform me that some doubt had arisen as to whether contributions were payable at the employed or the voluntary contributors rate. It has been decided, however, that the latter rate is payable, and her cards have been stamped accordingly, and the society will pay her benefit under the ordinary conditions.

    Petrol Tax.
    Mr. FREDERICK HALL (Dulwich)asked the Secretary to the Treasury the total amount of revenue derived from the Petrol Tax in 1911 and 1912 for each year separately; and, if possible, how much was obtained from the taxation imposed on trade and licensed vehicles at 1½d. per gallon, and how much on the basis of 3d. per gallon for private cars?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: The net amount of revenue derived from the duty on motor spirit in the years 1911 and 1912 was £578,843 and £719,910 respectively. In 1911 the amount produced at the 3d. per gallon rate was £448,365 and at the 1½d. rate £130,478; and in 1912, £536,443 at 3d. per gallon and £183,467 at 1½d. per gallon.

    Importation of Fresh Milk.
    Mr. GEORGE TERRELLasked the President of the Board of Trade if he can state the quantity of fresh milk imported into the United Kingdom from France during the month of December, 1912; what is the average cost per gallon of its carriage by sea and by land to London, respectively and whether such milk is subject to any inspection or tests as to its purity either in the United Kingdom or at the place from which it is obtained?
    Mr. J. M. ROBERTSON: The quantity of fresh milk consigned from France which was imported into the United Kingdom during December, 1912, was 1,868 cwts. The whole of this quantity was imported at Southampton, and I understand that the combined sea and rail freight from the French port of shipment to London is 2s. 6d. per seventeen imperial gallons. The last part of the question should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board.

    Midland and South-Western Railway (Cheltenham Accident).
    Sir WALTER ESSEXasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the accident on 17th January last in which two men lost their lives owing to the nearness of the railway lines to the abutments of the bridge over the Midland and South Western Railway at Cheltenham; whether he knows that this is not the first fatal accident at this spot; and whether he proposes to take any steps to prevent further loss of life from the inadequacy of passage space at the place indicated?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: An inquiry has been ordered into this accident. The Board of Trade have no record of any other fatal accident at the same spot during recent years.

    State Departments (Officials).
    Mr. GINNELLasked in what State Departments officials are required to give their business time exclusively to official work; in what Departments extra payments are made to officials in addition to salary; how the extra pay is earned, whether by work within or without normal business hours; in what Departments outside or private practice is allowed in addition to official salary; and in what Departments extra Departmental pay and private practice for reward are allowed concurrently with official salary?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Speaking generally, all permanent pensionable officers in Government Departments are required to give their whole time to their official duties. Particulars of extra remuneration paid to officials in addition to salary are given under the several Votes in the annual Appropriation Accounts. A number of Departments employ part-time officers with the right of private practice, but I am unable to furnish a complete list.
    Mr. GINNELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say under what rule the Law Officers of the Crown come in that respect?
    Mr. MASTERMAN: I would like to have notice of that question.

    Housing and Town Planning Act.
    Mr. MARK SYKESasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he will, in view of the demolition of houses in rural districts which are taking place under the provisions of the recent Housing and Town Planning Act, consider the desirability of securing powers for county councils to provide dwelling houses for the roadmen or other employés in their service?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns): Where a county council are able to show that the provision of dwelling accommodation for roadmen or other employés in their service is necessary in the interests of efficient working, I have not refused to sanction loans for that purpose.

    Agricultural Rating.
    Mr. CATORasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he will issue fresh regulations stating whether for rating purposes osier lands should be treated as agricultural land, or whether they should be assessed as buildings and other hereditaments?
    Mr. BURNS: The matter is governed by the definition of "agricultural land" in the Agricultural Rates Act, 1896, and I am not empowered to issue regulations of the kind suggested by the hon. Member.

    Limehouse Cut.
    Mr. NIELDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that, in consequence of the lawlessness which for some months past has prevailed in the Limehouse Cut and its neighbourhood, the employés of members of the Association of Master Lighter men and Barge Owners have refused to work on barges there; whether he is aware that there exists a system of intimidation and threats of violence on the part of a number of roughs who congregate there, and who, notwithstanding the presence of the lightermen in charge of the craft, board the same and cause damage; and whether in view of this, he will take effective steps to put an end to such a state of things?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): The Commissioner of Police has no information to show that a condition of lawlessness and terrorism exists in the Lime-house Cut, or that there is any system of intimidation there. The towing path of this canal is patrolled by the police of the Lee Conservancy Board, who doubtless experience difficulty in affording complete security to barges and property left unprotected by the owners.
    Captain CRAIG: Would the right hon. Gentleman ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take a run down and make his next big speech upon that spot?
    Mr. NIELDasked whether on the night of 11th December last the barge "William," belonging to Messrs. Deering and Son, whilst lying opposite a factory in Limehouse Cut for the purpose of discharging her cargo, was forcibly taken possession of by a gang of roughs and damage was done to the barge in spite of the efforts of the watchman in charge; whether he is aware that, owing to the refusal of the police to patrol the Cut, the property being conveyed in barges and also that contained in the warehouses and factories adjoining the Cut is frequently being stolen or destroyed and the premises damaged, and that the owners, though large ratepayers in the district, have been wholly without remedy or security against a repetition of these out rages; and will he say why this state of things has been allowed to arise?
    Mr. McKENNA: The Commissioner of Police informs me that he is not aware that the facts are as stated. The Metropolitan police have received no information that the barge "William" was interfered with, and the Limehouse Cut is, as I have just said, patrolled by police constables appointed by the Lee Conservancy Board.

    Shops Act.
    Mr. CARR-GOMMasked whether it is the intention of the Government to give facilities to the Shops Act (1912) Amendment Bill so that the measure may become Law this Session?
    Mr. McKENNA: I hope it will be possible to pass the Bill, subject to certain Amendments, by general consent this Session.
    Sir WILLIAM BYLES: Has the right hon. Gentleman received many complaints
    1508
    as to the special operations of the Shops Act?
    Mr. McKENNA: I should be glad to have notice.

    Underground Telegraph Lines.
    Mr. PIRIEasked the Postmaster-General if he would state the total number of, and the mileage of, the shorter underground telegraph lines in England apart from the 1,197 of main underground routes, and if these are shown on the map of the system which has been supplied to the Scottish Members; and what is the approximate area in square miles of Scotland north of Falkirk, the northernmost point of this system, including the islands of the Hebrides and the Lewis?
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel): In most of the large towns of the United Kingdom short sections of telegraph lines have been laid in underground pipes in many cases in the pipes provided for the telephone service of such towns. The practice in this respect is the same in similar circumstances throughout the United Kingdom. It would be a matter of considerable difficulty and expense to ascertain the total number of mileage of these sections, and I do not see that any useful purpose would be served by obtaining the figures. The underground lines of this class are not shown in the map of the main underground telegraph system recently supplied, and it would be impracticable to show them except on a map of much larger scale. I regret that there is no special information in the Post Office as to the area in square miles of the parts of Scotland referred to by the hon. and gallant Member.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why this matter does not equally apply to English Members as well as Scottish Members?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Because they have not asked for it.
    Mr. GWYNNE: When a Paper is issued to the House, is it not issued to all the Members of the House? Will the right hon. Gentleman issue it to all the Members now?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: It is not a Parliamentary Paper at all; it is a Departmental Paper. I was asked to issue it to the Scottish Members, as I have done. I have also placed a copy of it in the Library, where it is accessible to every

    1509
    Member. If there is a general desire to have a map of the underground telegraph system of this country I shall furnish it, but I think, as a rule, hon. Members do not wish it.
    Mr. GWYNNE: The map seems to me to contain no underground telegraphy, except in England. There is very little in Scotland?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: It was precisely for that reason that the Scottish Members wanted it.

    Telephone Service (Market Drayton).
    Mr. STANIERasked the Postmaster-General whether he could arrange that the telephone office in Market Drayton could be open later than 9 p.m.; and, if so, when would it take effect from?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The question is under consideration. I hope it may be found possible to authorise a continuous service at the Market Drayton Exchange.

    Longford Post Office.
    Mr. J. P. FARRELLasked the Post-master-General whether he is yet in a position to state what course he intends to adopt to do justice to Messenger Feeny, of Longford Post Office, who was, without cause, dismissed from his employment?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: The inquiries in this case are not yet complete; the matter is being expedited, and I will communicate with the hon. Member as soon as possible.
    Mr. FARRELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman conducting this inquiry independently of the local post office?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Yes, I am awaiting a report from the Secretary in Ireland.

    Elementary Schools (Medical Inspection).
    Mr. ROWNTREEasked the President of the Board of Education whether, as a result of the medical inspection in the elementary schools of England and Wales during recent years, it is possible to estimate the number of children attending these schools who are suffering from the following defects, and the approximate percentage of the whole which these numbers represent: Defective vision, defective hearing, ear disease, adenoids and enlarged tonsils, injurious decay of teeth,
    1510
    unclean bodies, ringworm, tuberculosis, heart disease, and malnutrition?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Pease): The latest estimate is to be found in paragraph 314 on page 256 of the Report for 1910 of the Board's Chief Medical Officer [Cd. 5925, of 1911]. I cannot assert that there is as yet any improvement in the condition of the entrants into the schools, but we believe that substantial progress is being made in the case of children who have already come under inspection.
    Mr. ARTHUR LYNCH: Could the right hon. Gentleman give the distribution of those diseases as per locality?
    Mr. PEASE: There is a great deal of information upon the various localities by way of illustration in the medical officer's Report recently issued. If the hon. Member desires any further information I shall do my best to get it for him.

    Small Holdings (Applications for Land).
    Mr. BECKasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware that six men, residing in the parish of Wickham. St. Paul, have applied to the Essex County Council for land under the Small Holdings Act; that in spite of the fact that these men have been approved as thoroughly competent, respectable, and suitable persons, and have waited with patience for a long period, there appears no prospect of their obtaining land; and will he say what steps the Board of Agriculture propose to take in order to remedy this state of affairs?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Runciman): I am informed that the six approved applicants for small holdings in the parish of Wickham St. Paul were provided with land in the year 1910. Four of the six subsequently applied for additional land, and the applications were approved in May last year. The Small Holdings Commissioner for the district is in communication with the county council on the subject.

    Foot-and-Mouth Disease.
    Mr. MONTAGUE BARLOWasked whether the right hon. Gentleman can now see his way to promise any relaxation of the existing restrictions on the importation of cattle and pigs into the ports and markets of Manchester and Salford?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: An Order of the Board, which came into operation to-day, enables Irish cattle and swine, after twelve hours' detention at the landing place, to be taken into Manchester and Salford markets under the same conditions as before the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease last year.
    Mr. BARLOW: With regard to the Order, with which I have been kindly supplied, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether Manchester and Salford are landing places for Irish animals within the meaning of Section 1 (b), Part 1, of the Order?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The landing place on the Manchester Ship Canal at Salford is one of the landing places.
    Sir W. BYLES: Am I right in supposing that the restrictions on the Salford Cattle Market are removed and that Irish cattle may now come in freely?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Yes. Sir.
    Mr. WILLIAM O'BRIENasked whether, as the result of a recent deputation of Members of Parliament, he has dropped, or at least suspended, the Order for the twelve hours' detention of Irish cattle at the British ports of debarkation; and, if not, has he finally made up his mind to make the Order a permanent one?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The effect of the Order to which the hon. Member refers is to allow the trade in live stock between Ireland and Great Britain to be carried on with greater freedom than at any time during the last seven months. There appeared to me to be no good reason for postponing this relief, and the Order came into operation to-day. The requirement of detention at the landing place is intended to be permanent, but, as I have already stated, if experience shows that so long a period as twelve hours is unnecessary, I shall be prepared to reduce it.
    Mr. W. O'BRIEN: Has the right hon. Gentleman yet made any reply to the unanimous resolution passed by the Irish Council of Agriculture that the cumulative effect of this twelve hours' detention cannot fail to inflict a crushing blow on Ireland's greatest industry?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I courteously acknowledged the resolution sent to me. I do not agree that this twelve hours' detention will be a crushing blow, or any blow whatever, to the Irish cattle trade.
    Mr. KILBRIDE: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the committee appointed in Dublin, consisting of representatives of the cattle trade and of the different county councils and others interested, have yet communicated with him, and whether they have made and formulated their suggestions and submitted them to him?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I have been awaiting some communication from the committee during the whole of this week, but, as they have not communicated with me up to the present, I felt that I could not postpone the operation of the Order until their communication reached me. If they have anything further to communicate, I shall, of course, give it further consideration.

    Inshore Fisheries (Scotland).
    Sir GEORGE YOUNGERasked whether it is intended to include Scottish inshore fisheries, which demand attention, within the scope of the inquiry of the Departmental Committee appointed to consider the present position of inshore fisheries; and whether he will add Scottish representatives to that Committee?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The inquiry to be undertaken by the Departmental Committee in question is limited to the inshore fisheries of England and Wales. The Scottish fisheries are under the jurisdiction of the Fishery Board for Scotland.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult his colleague the Secretary for Scotland with a view, if possible, of getting a joint inquiry in this question because, as he knows, the matter is extremely pressing in Scotland?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN:I cannot speak for the Scottish Office, but I believe the Committee is now sitting under the presidency of a Scottish Member and acting for the Fishery Board of Scotland. They are inquiring into some of the matters which will be covered by the Departmental Committee.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: Does the right hon. Gentleman know that?
    Captain MURRAY: Are there not questions which overlap as between Scotland and England in this particular connection?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Yes, that is quite true.

    Land Valuation Officer.
    Mr. RENDALLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether a land valuation oficer can demand admission to a house the site value of which it is his duty to value; if so, from what Section of the Finance or other Act is such power derived; and are any such powers more or less extensive than those possessed by Income Tax and rating authorities?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Under the provisions of Section 31 (2) of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, the Commissioners of Inland Revenue may give to any person a general or a special authority to inspect land for the purpose of valuation, and the person so authorised is entitled, on production of his authority, to inspect any land at such reasonable times as the Commissioners consider necessary. My hon. Friend is doubtless aware that the expression "land" includes buildings. The powers possessed by Income Tax authorities under Section 78 of the Income Tax Act of 1842 are generally similar, as also are those given under Section 38 of the Valuation (Metropolis) Act, 1869, to a person appointed under Section 38 of that Act to make a valuation.

    Pensions Commutation Act.
    Colonel YATEasked whether, considering the fact that the Treasury had already made a profit of some £200,000 from the commutation of pensions and that the Government of India now permit their pensioners to commute their pensions on a 3½ per cent, basis instead of on the 5 per cent, basis at present charge able under the Pensions Commutation Act, and also have limited the proportion up to which pensions may be commuted to one quarter of the pension, he will now consider the question of instituting an inquiry into the working of the Pensions Commutation Act, with a view to the possibility of legislation being introduced on the subject at some later date, although he cannot undertake to introduce legislation on the subject at the present moment?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Certain questions connected with the working of the Pensions Commutation Acts are already under consideration, but I cannot hold out any hope of the introduction of legislation on the subject.

    Customs and Excise Services.
    Captain CRAIGasked, with reference to the amalgamation of the Customs and Excise services, whether the promotions to the supervising grade of assistant and second-class supervisors of Excise and of 104 first-class examining officers of Customs have been made, subject to the reservation of a proportion of vacancies for upper section port clerks, as indicated in the Amalgamation Committee's Report; have steps been taken to ensure that the relative seniority rights of clerks will be adequately safeguarded and that they will be placed on the same salary basis as if they had received promotion in accordance with the Committee's expressed intention, concurrently with officers of the other grades concerned; is there any reason why the twelve upper section clerks who qualified by special examination for surveyor-ships in July last have not yet been promoted; is he aware that several of the qualified clerks have served for over ten years in their present class and are now at their maximum salary of £300 and that in one or two cases they are nearing fifty years of age; is he aware that the latest-promoted first-class examining officers have been promoted, over the heads of the clerks, from salaries of £240, receiving after less than two years' service in their class immediate increases in salary of £80 per annum; will he state the average annual number of promotions from the upper section class before amalgamation; and is he aware that no upper section clerk has been promoted for almost three years and that the junior first-class examining officers last promoted could not, under pre-amalgamation conditions, have expected promotion for many years yet?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The recommendations of the Amalgamation Committee as to the promotion of upper section port clerks have not been lost sight of. The Committee recommended that forty-two upper section clerks should be promoted to the surveyor grade in the course of the next six years following their report, and, as a matter of fact, in consequence of the concessions made by me to the service in May last, these promotions will be made long before the expiration of the period in question. Subject to this, the statements in the question are generally speaking correct. The average annual number of promotions from the upper section port clerks during the five years preceding the report of the Amalgamation Committee was six.

ESTABLISHED CHURCH (WALES) BILL (COMMUTATION CLAUSE).
Lord ROBERT CECIL: I beg to ask the Home Secretary a question of which I have given him private notice: Whether he consulted any actuary or other expert not being an employé of the Government before proposing that, in determining the value of the annuities under the suggested Commutation Clause of the Welsh Church Bill, interest should be calculated at the rate of 3½ per cent, per annum; if so, who he was and what was the advice which he gave?
Mr. McKENNA: I consulted an actuary who is not an employé of the Government before circulating the White Paper containing the proposed commutation scheme in connection with the Welsh Church Bill. It is generally undesirable under any circumstances to disclose the expert advice which a Minister receives in framing the proposals of a Bill, but it would be impossible to do so in the present case, as the particular matter to which the Noble Lord refers was only one of several items which have to be taken into account in forming a conclusion as to what would be a fair proposal in its entirety.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: May I ask whether the actuary did or did not approve of 3½ per cent.?
Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir. That would be purporting to give an answer to a question which is incapable of an answer, as actuary never actually expressed any opinion on any single item standing by itself.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: May I press the right hon. Gentleman to this extent? May the House assume these proposals come before it without the approval of any expert or actuary?
Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir. I do not think the Noble Lord is justified in assuming that.
Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: May I ask the Home Secretary whether he consulted any of the officers of Queen Anne's Bounty or of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners on this subject, and can he state what their opinion was on the matter?
Mr. McKENNA: Personally, I did not consult them, but the actuary employed on behalf of the Government consulted with the actuary employed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and I understand
1516
the actuary employed by them would have preferred 3 per cent, instead of 3½ per cent., and taking the basis at, I think, 5 per cent, instead of 2½ per cent.—I am not sure, but it was certainly more than 2½, per cent.—as the calculation for expenses, but on neither of the two points was I able to agree.
Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Was it merely a preference or was any definite statement made as to the effect of taking 3½ per cent.?
Mr. McKENNA: It was certainly contrary to the opinion of the actuary.

SUFFRAGIST PRISONERS (HUNGER STRIKES).
Mr. GERALD FRANCE: I beg to ask the Home Secretary a question, of which I have given him private notice: If, in view of recent acts of violence by women and the possibility of a recurrence of hunger strikes in prison, he will consider the immediate necessity of legislation which would empower him to release on licence only, without having recourse to forcible feeding, those who by refusing to take food have reduced themselves to a critical condition of weakness?
Mr. McKENNA: I have already considered the possibility of such legislation, which might perhaps afford at any rate a partial solution of the problem. As my hon. Friend, however, knows, it could not under any circumstances be proposed at present unless it were manifest that it would meet with acceptance by all parties in the House.
Sir W. BYLES: Is legislation necessary? Is it not possible to do it through the Home Secretary?
Mr. McKENNA: A prisoner committed to prison and not to penal servitude cannot be let out on licence.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Lord BALCARRES: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can make any statement as to the business to be taken on this day week and on Friday?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think I had better make a statement for the whole week. We shall, as already announced, take to-morrow the Third Reading of the Trade Unions Bill and the Report of the Committee on Sir Stuart Samuel's case. On Monday and Tuesday we shall take the Report stage of the Welsh Church Bill, and on Wednesday the Third Reading of that Bill. On Thursday we shall take Supplementary Estimates, and on Friday the Lords Amendments to the Temperance (Scotland) Bill will be considered; and, thereafter, if time permits, Supplementary Estimates. On Monday night next, after 10.30, we shall take the Clerks of Sessions (Scotland) Bill and the Sheriffs Courts (Scotland) Bill final stages.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: Would it be possible to take the Lords Amendments to the Temperance (Scotland) Bill on Monday rather than on Friday? Friday is an inconvenient day. It would be very convenient for us on this side of the House if it could be so arranged.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: We will consider that.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: It would be a great convenience.
  Mr. J. WARD: Can the right hon. Gentleman indicate what are the Supplementary Estimates?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am afraid I cannot give a list now to my hon. Friend, but they will be put down to-morrow.
  Mr. A. LYTTELTON: Would it be possible to give any rough indication as to what the Government designs are with regard to the holidays?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: We hope, with the goodwill of all parties in the House, to conclude on the 15th February.
  Lord BALCARRES: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us at least how many Supplementary Estimates there arc, in order that we may know whether that hope is likely to be realized?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: There is no one with wider experience in these matters than the Noble Lord, and he knows it does not depend upon the number, but rather upon the nature of the Supplementary Estimates. There are in number fourteen or fifteen of them, but some of them are very small. There are really only two or three which raise any point of principle, and a good deal will depend whether the Medical Vote is taken or not.
  Mr. WALTER LONG: Could the right hon. Gentleman give some indication when the holidays are likely to end? It would be a great convenience to hon. Gentlemen who have to make their arrangements if the right hon. Gentleman could indicate, at all events in some general terms, what he hopes will be the length of the holidays.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think I had better not say anything without consulting the Prime Minister on that subject. We shall not, at any rate, start the new Session before the first week in March.

  MESSAGE FROM THE KING.

    SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (at the Bar) acquainted the House that he had a Message from His Majesty the King to the House signed by His Majesty's own hand. And he presented the same to the House, and it was read (all the Members of the House being uncovered), and is as followeth:—
    GEORGE R. I.
    It having become necessary to make further provision for the carrying on of the Army and Civil Services in the current financial year, His Majesty recommends to His faithful Commons that provision be made accordingly, for which purpose. He has commanded that Supplementary Estimates he laid before them.

  ESTABLISHED CHURCH (WALES) BILL.

    ALLOCATION OF TIME.—REPORT STAGE.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the proceedings on each of the two allotted days given to the Report stage of the Established Church (Wales) Bill shall be those shown in the second column of the following table, and those proceedings shall, if not previously

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    brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at the time shown in the third column of that table:—

    Allotted Day.

    Proceedings.

    Time for Proceedings to be brought to a Conclusion.

    P.M.

    First

    …

    New Clauses

    7.0

    Clauses 1 and 2, and Clause 3 to the end of Sub-section (4).

    Remainder of Clause 3 and Clauses 4 to 7

    10.30

    Second

    …

    The remainder of the Bill

    7.0

    New Schedules, and any other matter necessary to bring Report stage to a conclusion

    10.30

    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): The House will remember the original Resolution contained a provision that two hours should be allotted in order to determine what the arrangements of business should be for the Report stage. In making the allocation which is now proposed, we have endeavoured to divide the time into such periods as would enable hon. Gentlemen opposite to discuss those points which in the course of the Debate in Committee were not touched upon, and to which, so far as we could gather, we judged they were anxious to direct the attention of the House. I notice, although I recognise very short notice was given, that the only Amendments put down are Amendments which do not in principle touch the allocation of time we have proposed. On the first day we suggest that the new Clauses and Clauses 1 and 2 and Clause 3, to the end of Sub-section (4) should be considered until Seven o'clock. There is an Amendment down to that proposal in the name of the hon. and learned Member for South Bucks (Sir A. Cripps), but I conceive the purpose of his Amendment will in fact be met by the allocation of time as it now stands, inasmuch as on the consideration of the new Clauses reference could be made to the new Schedules which really form part of the new Clauses. There is no Amendment down at all to the second allocation which relates to the remainder of Clause 3 and Clauses 4 to 7, which will be discussed up to 10.30 on the first day.
    On the second day we have proposed that the remainder of the Bill should be discussed up to Seven o'clock, and that during the second part of the second day the new Schedules and any other matter should be discussed. An Amendment has been placed upon the Paper by the right
    hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square (Mr. A. Lyttelton), proposing a slightly different allocation of the time. He suggests that instead of taking the whole of the remainder of the Bill before Seven o'clock we should only proceed with Clauses 8 to 17. We are in a matter of this kind, of course, entirely in the hands of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, and are only too anxious they should have the opportunity of discussing that which they prefer to discuss. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the proposal he now makes would enable the second half of the second day to open with a discussion on Clause 18. I was under the impression Clause 18 had been very fully discussed, but if there is any desire to proceed with it rather than with' the new Schedules to the Bill on the second half of the second day, we should offer no objection. I do not know that there is any further point to bring before the House at this moment, but we shall be most anxious to meet the views of hon. Members when they come to move their Amendments.
    Mr. WYNDHAM: I think it was evident from the hesitation with which the Home Secretary rose that he conceived it unnecessary in the first instance to put forward any defence or explanation of this new allocation of time under the guillotine. I will not pretend that I was surprised, because the Government pride themselves on having established a regime in this House as effective as that applicable to a well-drilled regiment when words of command are no longer necessary and we have what is called "silent drill." The fact that the Government have had to put forward a new Guillotine Motion for the Report stage shows their original conception—narrow enough itself—of what would be the proper manner of discussing the Bill on Report had even in their own opinion to be modified.
    Mr. McKENNA: The right hon. Gentleman has forgotten the House has already agreed that two days and only two days should be given to the Report stage. We are not limiting the time by this proposal. All we are doing is to make a proposal to hon. Gentlemen opposite that within those two days the time should be allocated in a particular way. As far as we are concerned, no allocation of time would be needed at all.
    4.0 P.M.
    Mr. WYNDHAM: The Home Secretary has restated my position, which is that they have found reason for modifying, I did not say extending, their scheme. Why have they modified it? Because their original conception of what would be a proper opportunity in the House turned out, in their own opinion, not to be a proper opportunity for the discussion of the Report stage of the Bill. I am not prepared for one moment to admit that that is all we have to consider this afternoon. What we have to consider is not merely whether this new redistribution within two days is better than, the last redistribution, and whether it cannot be made still better by accepting the Amendment of my right hon. and learned Friend. It was perfectly open to the Government if they saw fit in respect of this as in respect of all other Bills, to come down to the House and say that further time ought to have been given than that it was originally proposed to give. The Opposition in this Parliament would not be performing their duty if they allowed it to become the practice and habit of this House to accept these Guillotine Motions without a word of demur. I dare say that for saying that and for indicating that we claim a right to resist and denounce this proposal in particular I shall come under the bann of the Prime Minister and be accused of overdoing our melodramatic manœuvring. Having very small gifts in the melodramatic line I do not think I shall lay myself open to that charge; but it is difficult, when you are outraged again and again, to give adequate expression to what is legitimate indignation. This is the most flagrant instance of this detested regime. It is one of the methods by which the Prime Minister is bringing to a close a campaign inaugurated twenty-five years ago, and it suggests the presumption that this Bill is rather obsolete, a presumption amply confirmed in the Debate we had in the earlier stages, because no one will deny that an impression has been conveyed to this House that
    1536
    there are fewer people passionately desirous of the objects of this Bill than there were many years ago. Therefore, in the light of the impression created during the Debates in Committee the Government ought, in our opinion, if they have any regard for the decency of our proceedings, to have come down with a proposal of greater latitude for discussion and free consideration on the Report stage of this Bill.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I must remind the right hon. Gentleman that the House hag already decided that only two days shall be given to the Report stage. If the right hon. Gentleman takes exception to the timetable he may point out the portion of the Bill from which, in his opinion, sufficient time for discussion is not allowed, but it is not open to him to say that two days is too short, because the House has already decided that point, and we cannot go back on its decision.
    Mr. WYNDHAM: Of course, I bow to your ruling, but in view of the fact that the Government have changed their plans, I did think I was entitled, in general terms, to say that they had not gone far enough to meet the necessities of the case.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I do not quite follow the right hon. Gentleman when he says that the Government have "changed their plans." Perhaps he will elucidate that point.
    Mr. WYNDHAM: The modifications in the time-table show that the Government have come to the conclusion that their original disposition of the time within two days was not adequate. I thought that raised the presumption that the total amount of time allocated to the proper discussion of these matters is not adequate. Clearly, if more time had to be given to one subject, less time would have to be given to another, and for the latter subject there will be less time allowed than was deemed necessary under the original proposal of the Government.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I do not understand what the right hon. Gentleman means by "original proposals." The original proposition was that two days should be given for Report. No division of the time up till now has, as far as I am aware, been made. This is the first and only plan I have seen.
    Mr. WYNDHAM: I will not pursue the point further. I will content myself with

    1537
    the very inadequate language in which I have expressed our opinion of the procedure to which the Government are subjecting the House. But I will endeavour, keeping within the Schedules, to show how intolerable is the treatment to which we are asked to submit. On the first day down to Seven o'clock we are to discuss new Clauses, Clauses 1 and 2, and the bulk of Clause 3. I would ask the House to consider that proposal. The Report stage, as a rule, is expected to give the House an opportunity of reviewing the decisions arrived at in Committee. It is also expected to give an opportunity for debating matters which have not been discussed. What decisions were arrived at in Committee on the new Clause which deals with commutation? What decisions were arrived at in Committee on the new Clause which deals with the marriage laws? These subjects were not made the matter of any decisions in Committee; they were not discussed except in a tentative manner which led the Government to bring down totally new proposals. In view of that fact, and in view of the dialogue to which we have just listened between the Home Secretary and the Noble Lord on the actuarial considerations which have to be taken into account on the question of commutation, is it not intolerable that the House should be asked between four and seven-thirty to deal with the wholly novel questions of commutation and marriage laws, which were not discussed and not decided upon, and then and then only, that it should have an opportunity for dealing with the chief operative Clauses in the Bill which were discussed in Committee. It reduces our procedure to a farce. It is evident that even a body of experts would take more than four hours in one day in order to arrive at a conclusion as to the meaning of the commutation proposals put forward by the Government; therefore it is really an outrage on the dignity of this House to ask it in that short period of time to deal with this question, not only from the actuarial basis, but from its bearing on the deep feelings and ardent passions which the Bill has aroused in so many breasts. On that point alone we are entitled to say that the proposals of the Government are purely derisory. So are the rest of them
    The remaining Clauses of the Bill are all to be dealt with in a very short period of time. One would suppose we had, as in happier times, only to review a discus-
    1538
    sion which has been ample in one way or another. With regard to the remaining Clauses, I will take but one example. We are to be asked to dispose inter alia of the question whether these funds are to be diverted to secular uses. No one could have listened to the discussion and not gone away from the House without having deeply impressed on his mind that there was great reluctance on the part of many of those who supported the Government proposals, and when it is obvious from the proceedings in the Committee stage that there are many men whose minds are thus perturbed, surely on the Report stage adequate opportunity ought to be given for those Gentlemen to review the votes given in Committee before they fully apprehended the great issues with which they are entrusted as Members of this House. Taking these two points—that we have new issues to be considered which have never been put before the House at all, and that we have some decisions arrived at after discussions which show that they do not indicate the real feeling of the House, then I say this time-table reduces our proceedings on the Report stage to a mere act of registration, not even of matured views already achieved, but of shifts arrived at in order to put a better face upon the destruction of our Parliamentary liberties. A Bill cannot be treated in the ordinary way when it is more or less susceptible of extraordinary treatment in the Motion before us.
    What we have done in Committee we are supposed to be reviewing on the Report stage. What have we done in Committee? It has not been a mere discussion on some great social change, but we have had certain claims put before the high tribunal of Parliament, on the one hand, by Gentlemen representing the Welsh nationality, and, on the other hand, by Gentlemen representing the interests of the Christian community. The representatives of Welsh nationality have sued the Christian community for damages at the bar of this House, and the least we can do, if we are to pretend any longer to be the High Court of Parliament, is to hear on the Report stage the effect of the evidence restated by advocates on both sides, and to deliberate, before we give final judgment upon a case which cuts so very deeply into the hearts and consciences of so many millions of our fellow subjects.
    Captain TRYON: I should like to put one point before the House with regard to the allotment of time. It is this. On

    1539
    Tuesday we are to be allowed from 3.45 to 7.0 to deal with the Bill from Clause 8 to the end. I will not enumerate the many important points embodied in that portion of the Bill. I wish to call attention to one particular point in regard to which I think we might, if we had more time, obtain some useful result. It is the question of glebe. The principle under which glebe is to be taken away from the Church is raised by this Clause, and what little discussion did take place on it in Committee has caused the Liberal party to change its ground very considerably. We had hoped, therefore, if we could get more time devoted to that provision better results would have been secured. The Financial Secretary in dealing with this matter talked about the long hours and the small wages for which people in Wales had to work in order that this income should go to the Church. Another Member repeated the same argument, and so did a third Member. The Financial Secretary took the line that this was some social reform, and that if the Bill went through these people would be expected to work shorter hours and would get higher wages. Could anybody believe that he has read the Bill? When one hon. Member was indulging in this line of argument he was asked how was this income obtained from the land, and his reply was: "We get it by the sweat of the Nonconformist's brow." That is taking up an entirely new attitude. In the first place it assumes that no one in Wales works except the Nonconformists, and in the second place it is an implication that they object as a matter of conscience to the payment of this money to the Church. The Member I am referring to did not suggest that the work would be less under the Bill, but he declared that the result of the toil of the people would go to national purposes. If the result of the toil of the people in Wales is to go to national purposes I think we ought to have more time in order to discuss why this principle is not to be applied to all other forms of industry in Wales. Why apply it only to land, and particularly to that land which is held by the Church? It seems to me to open up an enormous field of controversy for which we certainly want more time. There is another matter for which more time is required, and that is the proposal in this same Clause that the Church shall be graciously and kindly allowed to buy back part of her own land from the State. I think we want more time in order to find
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    out under what conditions that land will be held in the future before we risk any money belonging to the Church in investments in land. We are told that the Church is to put part of her money into the purchase of land, and I want to know are we still to be assailed with these stories of Nonconformists working long hours in order that these rents shall be paid, because if those stories are to continue the money which the Church puts into that land will clearly not be safe. We have lately had in the country a speech from the Prime Minister which bears on this question. He has asked us a great many questions about our financial policy, but he has given us no information whatever with regard to his own. We want to know what is to be the land policy of the Government and of the Liberal party?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I do not see how this arises on the Motion to allocate time.
    Captain TRYON: I accept your ruling, Sir; I am sorry if I have not made my point clear: My point is this: That as the safety of this land depends upon the policy of the Government we ought to have further information with regard to the policy of the Government, not now, but during the discussion which, I fear, under this allotment of time will be all too brief. I only urge that we should have more time to discuss this particular portion of the Bill, because it raises the whole question whether a religious body is to be allowed to draw its income from land, and beyond it will come the question of whether any money the Church puts into the ownership of land will be safe in the future under the proposals which the Government may soon bring in.
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I must not discuss the question whether or not two days is sufficient. That, I understand, is settled. But, as between the two days, I am bound to say that the allocation appears to me to be exceedingly faulty and absurd. It was just the same on the Committee stage, where a large number of most important questions were never discussed at all, but during the last few days we had more time than was really wanted. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I do not know why hon. Members cheer. If they guillotine a Bill like this, which has never been before the country, at all events they might allocate the time in a sensible fashion. The fact that unimportant Clauses at the end were given more time than was necessary is nothing to the

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    credit of hon. Members opposite or to the Government. It is to the discredit of the Government, because they so unskilfully allocated their time that that was the case, whereas other important matters were not discussed at all. I know that I must not go into the question of the allocation of time on Committee, but taking these miserable two days, what an absolute farce and fiasco it is to suggest that we shall be able to discuss this Bill on Report in two days. Even taking the two days, this allocation is as ridiculous as it could be. The first half of the first day and the second half of the second day are given to new matter which is entirely Government business—that is to say, for the new Clauses proposed by the Government and the new Schedules which are dependent upon those new Clauses.
    Mr. McKENNA: No.
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: The Home Secretary knows that the new Clause on commutation will last the whole of the afternoon.
    Mr. McKENNA: That Clause is moved in response to an Amendment which the hon. and gallant Member seconded. It is not my proposal, and it is intended to meet the hon. and gallant Gentleman's own Amendment.
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Quite so. If the Home Secretary says we are responsible, why did he not accept the Clause we moved, or rather a Clause which was moved from his own side and supported by me? Instead of doing that, he persuaded his own Friend to withdraw his Clause in order that the Government might bring up a new Clause of their own. The new Clause is the Government's Clause; they are responsible for it, and for the Schedules attached to it, which take up the whole of the second evening, so that of the two days one whole day, that is two half-days, are taken up with Government Clauses. Having regard to the fact that this most important question of commutation was not in the original Bill and is now brought in by the Government, I think we have a very strong claim to ask for an extra day to discuss it. However, I realise that perhaps that would not be in order, and all I can do is to discuss the allocation as between the two days. One day is taken up with Government Clauses; what remains? One day for the whole Bill, which is to be discussed on the evening of Monday and the afternoon of
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    Tuesday. May I remind the Home Secretary and the Government that there is a large number of most important questions which were either insufficiently discussed in Committee or not discussed at all? Surely we ought to have more time than one day to make up the leeway we lost during the Committee stage. Take the question of Disestablishment, which is presumably half the Bill. That was disposed of in under one day. The second Clause, which deals with Disestablishment, was never discussed at all, nor shall we have any opportunity of discussing it on the present occasion. Clause 3 dismembers the Church and takes away the Welsh Church from the Convocation of Canterbury. That was never discussed at all on the Committee stage. I do not know what opportunity we shall have of discussing it now. If we have an opportunity of discussing it now, it will only be at the expense of other important matters which were not discussed on the Committee stage. Take again the question of private benefactions. What more important question is there than that? Private benefactions had one day allotted to them in Committee and only one Amendment was moved and discussed. There was another question affecting the date which you ought to take for private benefactions, which was never reached. That question will not be reached now under this allocation. It is a monstrous thing that the whole question of what constitutes private benefactions should not be discussed properly in Committee or at all on Report.
    Coming to Clause 8, owing to the faulty allocation of time on the Committee stage, only two days were given to that Clause, and, so far as I can ascertain, less than half a day will be given to it on Report. On Clause 8 a large number of very important matters were never discussed. The question whether the Government should take the tithe rent-charge from the Church was never discussed at all, and I do not know whether there will be a chance of discussing it now. Very likely not. The question of a repair fund for the Church was never discussed, but should have been discussed on Clause 8. It is quite true that in a fit of unwonted generosity you are giving back to the Church the cathedrals and churches, but you are not providing any means whereby they are to be kept in repair. That is a question we are entitled to raise on Clause 8. We could not do it in Committee, and so far as I can

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    see we shall not be able to do it on Report. There is, I suppose, no question in the whole Bill which so strikes the imagination of the people, and to which there is at all events greater sentimental objection than the proposal to take away the churchyards, especially those which are adjacent to the churches, and through which you have to pass in order to attend the services. That point was never discussed at all.
    Mr. BOOTH: Oh, yes, it was. I spoke on it, and so did you.
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: The hon. Member forgets what he spoke on.
    Mr. BOOTH: I do not.
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: He speaks so often that I believe it is difficult for him to remember what points he speaks on. If he carries his mind back, he will remember that he spoke on the question of the administration of these churchyards after they have been alienated. On the question of their alienation he did not speak at all, because there was no opportunity for him or for anyone else to do so. On Clause 8 you have the three big questions like tithe rent-charge, the repair fund, and the alienation of the churchyards, which were not discussed in Committee. It is childish to give us a portion of half a day to discuss those questions along with other big questions that have to be discussed in the same time. There is the question of the constitution of the Church. We had one day in Committee for that, but the matter was never definitely settled. There was a considerable approach between the two sides of the House as to what steps should be taken to form the first. Synod, and there was considerable approach as to how a layman might be defined. I have no doubt that if we had had further time for consideration an agreement could have been come to on that point. There will be no opportunity now, and the matter will therefore be left as vague as it is at the present ime. Then there is the question of the Welsh Commissioners. We had a short discussion on that in Committee. It was not a very satisfactory one, because the net result was that the Government refused to disclose the names of the Commissioners. The question as to what were to be the powers and duties of these Commissioners, raised by Clauses 11 and 12, was never discussed at all, so that
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    now we are in this position with regard to the Commissioners, that we do not know who they are to be, and we have never discussed for a single moment what their duties, powers, and responsibilities are to be.
    Again, take the question of the ultimate disposal of the alienated funds. I said just now that I thought the public took a deeper sentimental interest in the question of churchyards than in anything else; but, besides that, there is another question in which the public take the deepest interest—that is the proposal to secularise the funds taken from the Church. Anybody who took part in the Flint election knows very well the interest taken there in that subject. Anybody who observed the great care the Liberal candidate took to avoid discussing that question knows how unpopular secularisation is. We had one day to discuss that in Committee, on a Friday. Only one Amendment could be moved. Other Amendments were foreshadowed. The Government, somewhat ashamed of their original proposals, suggested various alterations in order to modify the secularisation. They said they would knock out the museums and various other things which were unpopular in the country. The Debate was carried on in a good spirit, and there was some approach to a general agreement. We could get nearer to some agreement if we had more time. It is impossible to believe, having regard to the allocation made of these two half-days by the Government, that there will be any opportunity for discussing Clause 18 and the question of how the funds taken from the Church are to be disposed of. There is another point upon which there was considerable discussion between the two sides, and an offer was made by the Government, which was partially accepted, and which, at all events, is a matter for consideration—I mean Clause 22, and the question of how far the Bill affects the marriage laws. Surely the Home Secretary knows the importance of that. Surely he knows there was a long Debate here, conducted in more or less of a friendly spirit, and an attempt was made to harmonise some of the conflicting views on the two sides of the House. Surely that is just the very point that on Report might be settled once and for all, but there will be no opportunity when you are discussing all these things on one day.
    Mr. McKENNA: It will come on under a new Clause the first day.
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Yes, after commutation. The Home Secretary will move a new Clause, privileged by the fact that it is a Government Clause, and it will be put to the House without discussion. Is that a proper allocation? Is that the way to meet Members on this side? Does the Home Secretary really think that is what we come here for, to have new Clauses moved by him and mechanically voted on without a word of discussion? It is reducing the whole thing to an absolute farce, and this allocation table is probably the biggest farce of all. I quite agree, as we are limited to the two days, it was difficult for the Government to give us a proper allocation, but they do not appear to have tried. The allocation they have given seems to be about as bad a use of the time as they could possibly make, just as in the same way their allocation in Committee was as faulty as could be. For these reasons I oppose this table. It is a scandalous thing that the Bill should be carried in this way. It has never been before the country, and under this table it will never be discussed, and I hope the House will show what they feel about it by expressing an adverse opinion to the proposals of the Government.
    Sir A. CRIPPS: I admit it is almost an impossible task within two days to allocate the time, both as regards matters which have not been discussed and matters which have only been half discussed during the Committee stage, but I have to deal, of course, with the allocation as it stands, and it is quite impossible that a large number of matters can be discussed which have not been discussed at all, or which at present have only been partly discussed. I apprehend it is the purpose of the Report stage that on matters which have not been fully discussed, or in reference to which no settled determination has been arrived at, we should have an opportunity either to reconsider those matters or to discuss them for the first time. The new Clauses and Clauses 1, 2, and 3, to the end of Sub-section (4), have to be taken before seven o'clock on the first day. Take the Commutation Clause. The discussion there is not as regards the principle of commutation, but as regards the terms on which, from a business point of view, commutation should be ascertained and adjusted, and that is a matter which we have not yet had time to consider in any way until we had the proposal put down in a new Clause by the Home Secretary himself. Even on the question he
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    was asked about, the 31 table or the previous table, a matter of that kind is of absolutely vital importance. It means this: The representative body might either take over commutation as a business matter or they might be asked to take it over on terms which must mean bankruptcy and insolvency. What could be more important than that? As regards that one matter in the Commutation Clause—a very serious business matter in which all parts of the House are interested, because the principle of commutation was assented to in all parts of the House, and what is left open between us is the business question—how would it be possible even to discuss it adequately by seven o'clock?
    But that is not all. T am not dealing with new Clauses which may be formally moved by the Home Secretary, although, for instance, with regard to the one dealing with the marriage law, it is an absolute violation of all Parliamentary practice to move a Clause of that kind on a topic of that kind and to allow no time for discussion at all, because it arouses a great deal of feeling and wants to be adjusted most carefully. But it is not only that. There are Clauses 1, 2, and 3, down to the end of Sub-section (4). That means that on Report, and after what is practically three-hours' discussion, you have not only to deal with all the business matters connected with commutation, but you have to deal with the whole question of Disestablishment, the whole question of the destruction of all existing ecclesiastical corporations and Ecclesiastical Courts and, more than all, you have to deal with a matter which is admittedly new to this Bill, and which differentiates it from any other Bill of a similar kind—that is, the question of the dismemberment of the Church. How is that to be discussed in three hours on the Report stage? It is a monstrous proposal—a fiasco—to suggest for a moment that you can have anything like the reality of discussion which is necessary upon points of that kind on the Report stage by only giving till seven o'clock on the first day. Then what is to be done between 7.0 and 10.30? In the first place there is the last Sub-section of Clause 3. That has never yet been mentioned in Committee, yet it deals with one of the most vital principles so far as Churchmen are concerned, because it proposes the breaking up of Convocation. From the point of view of Churchmen, there is hardly any question which excites their

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    conscientious opinion more strongly than the proposal in this Bill to break up what has been called the representative assembly of Churchmen, which has remained in its existing form ever since the time of Edward I. Surely it is a monstrous suggestion that as regards a matter of that kind you have practically an infinitesimal time for discussion.
    Then as regards these other Clauses, from 4 to 7, which are to be dealt with before 10.30 on the second day, you have there the whole question of the vesting of property. In other words, you have the whole question of the method of Disendowment. A great deal as regards the method of Disendowment has not been and could not be discussed up to this point, and the difference of opinion as regards this question is even more marked than the difference of opinion in regard to Disestablishment. It is an outrage to mix up this Clause with other very important Clauses which have to be closured before 10.30. Then when we come to the question of the remainder of the Bill, which all has to be dealt with before seven o'clock on Tuesday, subject to the new Schedule, let us see what is proposed to be discussed. Outside the House, at any rate, one of the most prominent matters of discussion has been the origin and use of the tithe rent-charge. We have not had a word of discussion in Committee of that most important point, and, as far as I can see, we shall not have an opportunity of discussing it on Report. Again, it is a violation of all tradition as regards this House that in a matter of that kind, which demands full discussion, and in reference to which there is a difference of opinion as regards certain historical elements, we should not have full discussion before the Bill is passed. Then take the question of glebe. That raises a lot of very important points. There was considerable discussion about it in Committee, but surely we ought to have a further opportunity of discussing a question of that kind. Of course it is quite clear that we shall not have any such opportunity. Then there are three other matters in reference to which it appears to me that we shall have no opportunity at all. Take the question of the constitution of the representative body. That is left, so far as the Committee discussion is concerned, quite indeterminate and indefinite. I agree there was a tendency for the two sides to approach one another in order to see if the matter could not be dealt with
    1548
    on a more or less agreed basis, but what is the good of a discussion of that kind unless we have an opportunity to carry the ideas on the two sides further on Report? It is quite clear that there will be no opportunity whatever of discussing a constitution of the representative body.
    Then take another matter. Take the question of what is called compensation of existing interests, an extremely important point. On the question of the compensation of curates, the Government majority was only forty. Surely, if that could be properly discussed, we might hope that this gross injustice which is being done to these poor curates might be reversed. And yet we are not to have an opportunity of discussing it at all. Then as regards the secularisation of property now devoted to religious purposes. The question which we raised of concurrent Endowment was a most important one. It could not be thoroughly discussed. I had an Amendment down providing that apart from concurrent Endowment at least funds of this kind ought to be reserved for religious and sacred purposes only. We shall have no opportunity at all of discussing the matter. It was not discussed in Committee. [An HON. MEMBER: "It was."] No, it was not. I had an Amendment, but it was closured. What was discussed was a different matter—concurrent Endowment—but altogether apart from concurrent Endowment, there is the other question that you ought on the cy prèsdoctrine to use them for religious purposes only. That is an extremely important principle which we have not been able to discuss up to the present. Then there is the question of the burial grounds adjoining our churches. Everyone can realise the desire of Churchmen to preserve the churchyards surrounding their old Churches. Everyone can realise a position of that kind. But, as a matter of fact, the alienation of these churchyards was never discussed. There was no opportunity whatever of having a word of discussion upon this very important topic. I agree that was mainly the reason for the interference of the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth). The question of administration was dealt with, but that is quite distinct from the question of alienation, and I might appeal to the hon. Gentleman opposite who, I know, takes an interest in the question of administration, and ask whether he does not think the question of alienation ought to have a full and fair

    1549
    chance for discussion in this House before the Bill goes to another place. The allocation provided in the time-table as it stands really means that the Report stage will be a farce and fiasco if it is intended that that stage is to be used either for the purpose of fully discussing matters left over from the Committee stage in order that there may be a rapprochement between the two sides or if it is intended that all matters which were not reached during the Committee stage should be discussed. We shall have a Bill which, after the Committee and Report stages, will be in some parts wholly undiscussed as regards vital elements between the two sides, and not only vital elements, but matters which affect the conscience and feeling of Churchmen. The proposed allocation of time can never give the discussion which ought to be allowed on the Report stage. On these grounds, I am bound to say that I wholly oppose the suggestion made by the Government.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: I confess that in one sense I regard this discussion as a somewhat futile one. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] Some hon. Members regard all discussion as futile. I regard this discussion as futile because I do recognise that to provide only two days for discussion on the Report stage of this Bill is obviously to render adequate discussion totally impossible. Therefore the Government are attempting what cannot possibly be accomplished for the reasons I am about to give. I think the solution arrived at is a particularly bad one. I am not myself prepared to say that any other solution would have been materially better. There are some circumstances about this particular proposal which think distinguish it from ordinary proposals of this kind. The Government have brought forward, as the House has been told, two extremely important new Clauses. Either of them will take much more than three hours to discuss properly if we are to have a business-like discussion. The Government put the Commutation Clause first, and I am certain we will discuss nothing else but that Clause in the time allowed for it and several other matters. If hon. Members will look at the Clause they will see that it is one of extreme complexity—necessary complexity. I am not making that a criticism of the Clause. I see several hon. Gentlemen opposite who are quite capable of discussing and understanding it. I am not so certain that I understand it. Its complexity is pro-
    1550
    digious. It provides most elaborately for the creation of a gigantic fund—when I say gigantic I mean that it amounts to £2,000,000—in a particular way, with all sorts of necessary provisions dealing with the period of transition, the difficulty of providing for the clergy who come upon it in the interval before the whole sum can be paid over, and so on.
    There is a variety of other provisions of the greatest complexity, and also the vital question in the Schedule which is referred to in the Clause, namely, whether it is to be a 3 or 3½ per cent, basis. That is a Clause which we have got to discuss in common with another new Clause dealing with marriages, in addition to the first three Clauses of the Bill, all of them of enormous importance, before 7 o'clock on the first allotted day. The Home Secretary said the Commutation Clause was to be moved in order to meet criticism on this side of the House, but he will remember that in the course of Debate on that subject he himself said that he always thought such a Clause should form part of the Bill, and that he did not put it in only because he was afraid it would not meet the views of hon. Gentlemen opposite. That in itself was a complete condemnation of the conduct of the Bill. It is the duty of the Government to put forward what they think right, and not wait until they see whether the Opposition like it or not. If they put a Clause in a Bill they will soon find out the view of the House upon it. It is really absurd to suggest that we can consider that on the merits in three and a half hours. That is not the only thing. I find that the Government propose no less than sixty Amendments themselves to be considered on the Report stage of this Bill. If we were to divide on every one we should absolutely have no time whatever for any discussion at all. I hope we shall not find it necessary to divide on every one, but the proposal shows the absurdity of this kind of procedure. I shall be told, no doubt, that a great proportion of them are Amendments of a verbal character. It may be so, but I cannot undertake to say. But I know that several of them deal with questions we have never discussed at all. Let me give an illustration. There is a proposal to add at end of Clause 2 the words,
    "by reason of having been ordained to the office of priest or deacon, if the ecclesiastical office he holds is an ecclesiastical office in the Church in Wales,

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    or, if he does not hold any ecclesiastical office, if the last ecclesiastical office which he held was an ecclesiastical office in the Church in Wales."
    That really is an extremely important question. That particular Amendment is one which we certainly shall never get discussed.
    Mr. McKENNA: Will the Noble Lord allow me to interrupt? Does he not recognise these words? Are they not the words which the Noble Lord himself put on the Paper as an Amendment? We are not doing anything more than accepting the Noble Lord's own Amendment.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: I think not. I certainly do not recognise the words, but I will investigate that point. But the point is quite immaterial. I am certainly not the House of Commons, whatever else I may be. It is quite true that I did propose to move, not these words I think, but rather different words. I quite agree that the provision is obscure and ill-drawn, and I am glad that the Government recognise that. I think the words put down by the Government are very obscure, and likely to raise very great confusion and difficulty. It would not be in order to discuss the whole bearing of that Amendment at length, but perhaps I may be allowed to say that in my view the effect might be that a young man might go for six months to a curacy in Wales, and for the whole of the rest of his life be at a disadvantage unless he took another place in England. That seems to me an astonishing result. So far as I can see that is the effect of the Clause. There are many other Amendments which ought to be properly discussed. If hon. Members look at the Order Paper they will find Amendments proposing a number of elaborate provisions. Take, for instance, the Amendment to add at the end of Clause 14—
    "Nothing in this Section shall be construed as entitling the holder of any ecclesiastical office to receive the emoluments of that office during any period whilst he may be suspended by order of a Court of competent jurisdiction from exercising the spiritual functions of that office."
    I do not know how that is going to work. I thought we were abolishing all the Spiritual Courts. I do not understand what the Amendment means. It may have a very good meaning. It is obviously a
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    matter that ought to be discussed before it is put in the Bill, but it will not be discussed.
    Mr. McKENNA: That Amendment WJJ taken from the hon. Member for Chelsea Mr. Hoare).
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Very likely, but I am not the hon. Member for Chelsea, and I have not heard from him why he wants it inserted. When a Minister is challenged with regard to a particular Amendment, and asked how he dares to propose that it shall be included in the Bill without discussion by this House, he says it is one of the Opposition Amendments, and that we have no right to complain. That is the spirit produced by these Guillotine Resolutions. It shows the complete and absolute contempt which occupants of the Front Bench have for the House of Commons. This particular specimen of the guillotine is really the worst, because it is the last example of that pernicious practice. I do not think if I had been asked to allocate the time in two days I could have made it materially better. My hon. Friend has an Amendment down which seems a slight improvement on the scheme. The fact that the Government cannot see how the allocation within the two days could be materially bettered is a proof that the scheme is not very much worse than any other that could be devised. It is time for hon. Members who do not sit on either Front Bench to say how long they are going to submit to this procedure under the guillotine as the only possible method by which the House can transact its business. It cannot be so, and I do not believe it is so. I believe there is one plan which could be devised to improve our discussions, and I do say that in any case we must have something better than this if we desire the House of Commons to go on at all. I should like to see, as I suggested to the Prime Minister earlier in the Session, a strong Committee appointed without a single Member from either Front Bench upon it. I say that with all respect to my right hon. Friend, who, for an occupant of the Front Bench, is singularly fair-minded. It is a matter in which the interests of the Front Benches are divergent from those of other Members of the House. The object of the Front Benches, and particularly the Treasury Bench, is to get a Bill through the House. The less discussion for the Treasury Bench the better.

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    5.0 P.M.
    We all know how a Bill is discussed under the guillotine. We know how grotesque were some of the answers given by Ministers on this Bill. They had not taken the trouble to understand the brief furnished by the permanent officials. They read it out, and very often they read it out wrong. I do not blame them. They are human beings. They know it is quite unimportant what they say under the guillotine. They know that nobody can hurt them, and that when the bell rings they will have their cohorts brought in from outside to vote as they are told. It seems perfectly farcical and ridiculous. I ask hon. Members opposite—I am not speaking to the Treasury Bench—to give in their own words to their own constituents a perfectly unvarnished account of what goes on in this House under the guillotine. I have tried it myself. Without any exception I have always found that the first impression is stupefaction, and the second is absolute disbelief in what I say. You cannot get ordinary men in the street to believe that such a thing can go on in Parliament. They simply think that you are pulling their legs. I appeal to hon. Members opposite to join with unofficial Members on this side in putting an end to the matter. After all, we can put some pressure on the Front Bench. We can make them really consider this matter. They would really be doing more public service if they devoted a few weeks next Session to putting this right than by almost any reform. I have done my best to study this question all the time I have been in the House. I am quite sure that there are plans which can be adopted and improvements to be made. I am certain that if hon. Members will really devote their minds to it there are many others in this House who would be able to suggest better plans than I could think of which would put an end to this scandal. I do not regret what happened in the last few weeks in this House.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Why does the Noble Lord move the Closure on my hon. Friend behind?
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Because he was quite obviously and intentionally wasting time. But the Closure is not the guillotine; it is an entirely different thing. I know of no Assembly which has not got in some form or other the power of putting an end to a particular Debate. That must
    1554
    go in every Assembly. But the guillotine is an absolutely different thing, and I believe that every man who has considered the guillotine proposed for the Franchise Bill and the guillotine proposed for the Welsh Church Bill will agree that it is absolutely intolerable. I shall vote against this allocation, as I am opposed to it altogether, quite irrespective of any particular form of it. I hope hon. Members opposite will really give somewhat serious consideration for themselves without reference to their official leaders to see whether some remedy cannot be devised for what is really nothing else than a scandal to the House of Commons.
    Mr. POLLOCK: I have been a very short time in this House, but during the whole of that time we have worked on Committees of Bills under a strict guillotine. One point seems to me to emerge from that fact—that is, the severer the guillotine the greater the importance of the Report stage; the less discussion takes place in Committee the longer you require in Report, and if, as we have in this Bill had to dispose of a very large number of very important questions under a stringent guillotine, it means that we have left over to the Report stage a number of questions which ought to be fully discussed and ventilated upon the Report stage. I am not going over the points which have been put so forcibly and lucidly by my hon. Friend this afternoon. I will take two left over from the Committee stage. There is, first, the question of the marriage laws. That arises under Clause 22. We had a discussion upon that Clause which began at 7.30 and closed at 10.30. The result was that on both sides of the House nobody was satisfied with the Clause as it stood. A great many criticisms were offered, and the Home Secretary felt doubtful as to whether the Clause as it stood in the Bill would meet the case, and determined to reconsider the matter, with the result that he has put down a new Clause which embodies many of the points on which criticism was raised on, I think, both sides of the House. But there it is, a new Clause which involves the marriage law of persons resident in Wales who, we have been told by Members on both sides, often desire to get married in the Church whether their particular views are those of Church people or they are merely parishioners and really belong to one of the Free Churches, as they are called. Therefore we have got in this Clause 22 to consider, not merely a

    1555
    question that concerns the Disestablished Church, or any new Church that is going to be set up under the Clauses of this Bill, but we are going to deal with the rights of the citizens in Wales in which they are closely interested, whether they are members of the Established Church or members of a Free Church.
    For that purpose a new Clause has been put down by the Home Secretary. Are we to suppose that an adequate discussion can be obtained by those Members who are interested, as I believe a very large number of persons is interested, in the discussion which will take place on Clause 22? The new Clause 22 will be one of the Clauses which will be disposed of between 7.0 and 10.30 on the second day. When we were discussing the marriage law we had a number of very interesting speeches from hon. Members opposite which were certainly valuable contributions, and which showed that there were a great many common opinions represented on both sides. Again, we are not merely fighting about the Establishment of Free Churches, whether this Bill should pass or not; we are fighting about a matter which goes to the very root of the whole life of the people in Wales; and I cannot conceive that more time is not required to discuss the new Clause which has been put down by the Home Secretary. A wholly inadequate time has been given to a matter which is really outside the purview of this Bill, which has a far-reaching effect far beyond the scope of the Bill, and the law on which does not concern Members who are interested in this Bill only, but concerns a far wider range of persons. Let me take the commutation scheme. The commutation scheme is obviously a business proposition which may be discussed and criticised from a great many points of view, but at the root of it is the question of finance and the terms that are given under the Clause proposed.
    Suppose a proposition which concerns the lives of some 800 or 900 persons was brought before this House in which we had to consider what were the terms on which the value of those lives should be commuted, and if we were to consider what basis of life insurance table-should be taken in order that the various interests concerning those 900 persons should be equitably dealt with, does any person suppose that it would be possible to have that subject finally discussed, or that there could be a discussion on the new Clause, which will end at seven o'clock on the first
    1556
    day, or upon the Schedules, which have to be dealt with, and many other matters, in the three hours from 7.30 to 10.30. We have never had this commutation scheme before us. The propositions involved in it received no discussion. We do not even know the basis upon which the Home Secretary has approached the matter. Yet you are asking is to deal finally with those proposals and deal with them adequately in the balance of time which may remain when we have discussed the new Clause in the three hours allowed or the second day. Once you state that proposition it is quite obvious that this House is not doing its business, and has not been fair to those men whose vital interests are concerned, and if we are prepared merely to pass the Home Secretary's scheme, which may be good or bad, without further discussion we are not giving the opportunity that ought to be given to various Members of the House, who represent the interests of those 900 persons, of stating their views upon it, and it is quite likely that we shall overlook some very important provisions. We really are only asking the House to register the views of the Home Secretary, which may be well founded or not, but which not unnaturally a great many Members wish to criticise and examine. The Home Secretary himself has put down, apart from the Schedule, three pages of Amendments. It is quite likely that a large number of those are introduced to meet requests made on our side of the House or in order to take up stitches which have been obviously dropped as the Bill passed through Committee.
    At the same time we have got to deal with them, and though there are some which may be accepted at once with a word or two, there are some others which certainly want some sort of explanation, and if we were to ask the Home Secretary to explain the Amendments that he has proposed in those three pages I believe, even if we except those that are proposed merely as Amendments agreed upon by both sides, there would still be left a sufficient number which, if we were to ask the Home Secretary to explain them adequately, would really take him the whole time that can possibly be spared after we had dealt with any new Clauses and the commutation scheme. I will go to one old friend that was discussed in Committee—that is the Schedule. The Homo Secretary has quite frankly told us that Schedule I. is very difficult to

    1557
    understand. We are grateful to him for having put down some Amendments to it. These Amendments, I dare say, are very good indeed, but they are just as difficult to construe, and they make the Schedule no easier. If we were thoroughly to discuss and understand what we were doing by Schedule I., again I am quite certain time would be required even with the best will of all parties in this House. Schedule II. I am glad to say, has been made more simple. The Home Secretary only proposes to leave out a portion of it, what were previously called the Marine Insurance Clauses. We have got a rather more simple Clause, but we have got the Schedules before we come to the Commutation Schedule. All that is so difficult that the Home Secretary felt himself at a disadvantage in dealing with it, and we are asked in accepting the Amendment to believe that the advisers of the Home Secretary, who really have not been very successful in their lucid drafting so far, have now suddenly changed and become so clever and lucid and clear that we may accept the Amendment as proposed to-day in the very difficult Schedule without question. That really means that the House is passing over Schedules and part of its work without adequate discussion and without adequate insight into the business we have got to do. I do not want to prolong my criticism of this proposal, but if the object of the Report stage is to make plain what was previously scanned with indifference, if the real object of that stage is to try and smooth difficulties and put right what has been obviously left wrong, then I say in a complicated Bill like this we have not time in two days to do all that work, more particularly when we have to deal with such an important question as commutation and other matters to which I have referred. On those grounds I associate myself with the observations and criticisms that have been made, and, as a protest, I vote against this allocation of only two days to the Report stage.
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: For the discussion of all the questions involved the time which is allocated under this Resolution is really rather ridiculous. On a Bill of this character two days are of no real value for discussion, especially as a large part of the measure in Committee was not discussed at all, and more particularly because there is an enormous amount of new matter which awaits debate. What
    1558

    happens under this allocation of time? You have two days, each day divided into two parts—that is to say, we shall have four Amendments discussed and four Divisions, as we always have under the guillotine, and as it has actually happened in the present instance. It does seem to me, therefore, that you might almost just as well dispense with the Report stage altogether as to have four Debates on four points which were probably discussed in Committee before, or if they were not discussed in Committee, ought to have been discussed in Committee before they come up for discussion with Mr. Speaker in the Chair, and under the rules which apply to the Report stage. For myself, I am most anxious that the four discussions we are to be allowed by the Government should be discussions which would really be valuable in the long run. The first question of importance must obviously be the new commutation proposal of the Home Secretary. Speaking for myself, t do not think, as it stands, that it is of any good, and unless there be a real discussion on that new Clause you are certainly not giving it a fair chance of its even being properly put before us. I know it is optional, and has to depend on the governing body of the Church whether they will enforce it or not, but unless it is discussed in this House it will be prejudiced in the first instance.
    We want to know what is at the back of the new Clause, how it was brought up, by whose authority, by whose advice? There are as many questions on that new Clause and the new Schedule as on any other part of the Bill. I submit that half a day is not too much to deal with very complicated subjects of that description. But what will happen? On your allocation, the whole of Clause 1 and the larger part of Clause 3, and the new Clauses cannot possibly receive any discussion on the Report stage at all. On the second half of the first day, the question that will occupy the time of the House will be as to the future relations of the Church in Wales and the Church in England, which must be raised on the Convocation Clause. As to that, if you are going to proceed with Disestablishment and Disendowment, we should know exactly what relations you are going to allow to the Church in Wales and to the Church in England, and it is not too much to ask that a whole half-day should be given to that discussion. Of course, far more should be given. I do not think the Government in the least.

    1559
    realise what this may mean. They think it is going to be an easy job; it is not going to be a more easy job than the Home Secretary's difficulties under Clause 13. Obviously, the whole subject cannot be discussed in the time allocated, and the future relations of the Church in Wales will have to be raised, no doubt, in another place.
    On the second day it is quite obvious that we shall deal with the Disendowment question, but I hope that we shall be allowed to alter the second day's programme so that we may get an opportunity of dealing with Clause 8—the ninety-nine lines Clause, which contains practically the whole of the Disendowment proposals, of which only about a quarter will be reached under the two days which are given. The second half of the second day I hope will be given to the farther consideration of the secularist proposals, on which the position of Churchmen is not really understood We really wish to convince the hon. Member for Swansea District (Sir D. Brynmor Jones) that what he means by religious purposes and what we mean by religious purposes are two different things. He wants the money for what we call merely ancillary purposes, while our purposes are much more vital than his purposes, and I think if of the utmost importance that the discussion of that subject should be carried further. That is the Report stage of the Rill as you are going to take it. There are to be four debates leading to no real result. On the Report stage you have to revise the drafting and details in Committee, and here we have the Home Secretary saying that it is enough, to put down Amendments to raise questions which do not need to be incorporated in the Bill at all. I remember putting down one or two Amendments simply for the purpose of obtaining an explanation, and I ask whether the legislation of this country ought to be carried on merely by the Home Secretary looking through the Order Paper and selecting Amendments for discussion.
    Mr. McKENNA: The hon. Gentleman is not representing quite fairly what the state of the ease is. The Amendments which were referred to by the Noble Lord opposite were in each case Amendments to which reference had been made in Committee, and which stood in the names of
    1560
    hon. Members opposite and which I agreed to introduce on Report.
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: They were never discussed; neither of them was reached. For instance, one on Clause 2 was never reached, and we were even unable to vote against the proposal of the Government. On the question of the clergy of the Disestablished Church in Wales to sit in this House we were never allowed to take a vote. Under this Bill a Roman Catholic priest in Wales is not allowed to be a Member of this House, and yet a member of the Church of England in Wales is allowed to sit in this House. We were never allowed to take a vote on that. I think our experience of the Government allocation of time both on the Committee and on the Report stage of this Bill justifies us in making this strong protest against the degradation of the Committee and Report stages under the whole system of the guillotine. An enormous number of vital points have been shut out altogether. Look at what you have done. At the end of the last two or three days you are raising absolutely minor points which, if you had not got a guillotine, probably would have run through in a few hours. Under your guillotine system, long before a discussion comes on, long before it is known what points are likely to be made, the Front Bench come to the conclusion that they will have at such and such an hour such and such a Clause.
    I do urge the Government when they are drawing up these Resolutions for allocation of time to try and draw them up in a way more in consonance with the requirements of the Debates of the House. They are bad altogether, and I do hope that next Session we shall see some restoration of freedom. Where a Debate is obviously obstructed the Closure is a necessity, but what happens? You do not use the Closure when you have the guillotine, and the Debate is kept on to suit both Front Benches, until the Guillotine falls and until the Whips get together the Members, who have not heard a word of the discussion. That applies to both sides alike, and I do speak feelingly in the matter. On this Bill, as on another Bill, the Debates were carried on by a mere handful of Members particularly interested, and the majority of the Members of the House did not take the slightest interest in those Debates, nor did they listen to them. All that is entirely due to this allocation of time—[HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"]—and until you get rid of

    1561
    that, and until the Debates are real—that is to say, coming to an end when it is right that they should come to an end and when it is the sense of the House that they should come to an end—
    Colonel GREIG: They would never come to an end without the Closure.
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I am speaking about the allocation of time. I am not opposing the Closure; I said that the Closure is necessary, but I think I am justified in saying that an allocation of time such as we are discussing today is really degrading debate in this House, and I do make a strong protest against the absolutely absurd allocation of time, both in the Committee stage and on the Report stage, given to this Disestablishment and Disendowment Bill.
    Mr. MOUNT: I do not wish to follow my hon. Friend in his attack on the general application of the Closure and the Guillotine, because I entirely agree with everything he said; nor do I desire to follow the line taken up by some of my hon. Friends in front of me, because on the main questions that have been discussed we have not been satisfied, and we want farther opportunity for discussion on Report. My main objection to this allocation of time is that which has been at the bottom of all the speeches which have already been delivered, namely, the allocation of only two days. I should like to draw the attention of the House to the allocation of time on the second day, and to what we have to discuss on (hat day. My Noble Friend the Member for Hitchin (Lord Robert Cecil) pointed out that there are on the Paper sixty Amendments in the name of the Home Secretary. No less than twenty of these Amendments are to Clause 8—that is to say, on the second half of the second day there are thirty-eight Amendments to be put from the Chair before we get a discussion on the new Schedule. I do not pretend that all those Amendments are Amendments on which a Division will have to be taken, but there are certainly some of them which will have to be discussed and divided upon. My Noble Friend mentioned some, and there are one or two others to which I should like to draw the attention of the House. On Clause 21 it is proposed to insert words to the effect that the bishops of the Church in Wales shall not as such continue to be Ecclesiastical Commissioners or Governors of Queen
    1562
    Anne's Bounty. That is a proposal to which I think we should take strongest objection on this side. We ought to have some explanation from the Home Secretary of what is meant by that Amendment. It is perfectly clear that after seven o'clock on the second day a considerable portion of the time of the House will be taken up in passing Amendments which are in the name of the Home Secretary. It is perfectly clear we shall not get beyond Clause 8 before the guillotine falls at seven o'clock.
    As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Pollock), the Report stage ought to be an opportunity to smooth out the difficulties which have arisen on the Committee stage, and I would even go further and say it ought to be an opportunity to discuss and consider matters of machinery for which there had not been opportunity on the Committee stage. On the fourteenth day of the Committee stage we had Clauses 23 to 28, and we only discussed Clause 23 and a few lines of Clause 24. There were many matters of machinery, but still matters of importance, which ought to have been but which were not discussed. I would point to three matters. Take Clause 18, which applies the revenue taken from the Church. There is one rather striking alteration in the Bill of this year as compared with former years. In former Bills the objects, charitable eleemosynary and other public purposes for which the money taken from the Church might be spent, were not to include those for which provision was made out of the rates. Those words have been omitted out of this Bill and we ought to have some explanation why that has occurred. Reading the accounts of the Debate in 1909, when there was a slight alteration in the objects, I notice that the Prime Minister gave as his reason for making that alteration that some of the objects which were provided for in former Bills had already been provided for in the rates. Yet in this Bill we are giving power to the county councils to spend this money taken from the Church on objects on which money may have been spent out of the rates. I think it would have been right to have had the opportunity on Report stage to discuss that question. There is also the question of vestries which has not been discussed, and, although these matters are matters of machinery, they are matters which the House might very usefully discuss and particularly where no questions of principle were involved.

    1563
    We have not had a single word from the Government benches with regard to Clause 27, which provides that tithe is still to be paid. I am quite aware that since the discussions in this House have been guillotined, in the way they have been of late by the present Government, the public interest in our debates has very largely fallen off. After all, I think some public use is served by debates in this House by drawing the attention of the public outside the contents of this Bill. I believe a large number of the constituents of hon. Members representing Welsh constituencies still believe that when this Bill is passed into law, tithe rent-charge will no longer have to be paid. It would have been only right in my opinion that we should have had some opportunity of making it quite clear by debate in this House that that is not so, and that there is special provision in this Bill for the payment of tithe rent-charge in the future. Again, in that Clause we heard for the first time of the question of the lay impropriator, but we have never had the opportunity of discussing it. Those are matters which have been entirely shut out on the Committee stage, and we should have had some opportunity of discussing them on the Report stage. I am bound to admit when the Government cut down the Report stage to the exigeous amount of two days, and considering that they have the question of commutation to meet, that their difficulties were very great in properly allocating the time. I cannot congratulate them upon the manner in which they have done it.
    Mr. ALFRED LYTTELTON: I beg to move, in "Second allotted day," to leave out the words "the remainder of the Bill," and to insert instead thereof "Clauses 8 to 17."
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. A. LYTTELTON: I beg to move, in "Second allotted day," before the words "new Schedules," to insert the words "The remainder of the Bill and."
    Amendment agreed to.
    Viscount WOLMER: No doubt the Amendments moved by my right hon. Friend are an improvement on what was originally proposed by the Government because I do not think anything could possibly have been worse. But, as a matter of fact, even with my right hon. Friend's
    1564
    improvements, the whole of this Closure Resolution is farcically absurd. It is extraordinary that this House, after having destroyed the connection which has existed between the Church in Wales and the Church in England for over 800 years in something like sixteen days of so-called discussion, is now going to complete that process by two days of fatuous Report. I do protest against the extraordinary contrast which has been shown between the solemnity, sacredness, and antiquity of the subject with which we are dealing, and the levity with which it has been dealt with by this House, and especially by the Government. Here we are on the eve of the Report stage, with over forty pages of Amendments, of which there are sixty Government Amendments, and we are asked to discuss the whole thing in two sittings of six and a half hours each. Could there be anything more grotesque or absurd! Surely we have realised now that the House of Commons, as a deliberative Assembly, has for all practical purposes ceased to exist. We have lost all power of moulding Bills and of framing Bills. We are not free representatives who come to take part in shaping the measures which are to become Acts of Parliament. It is the Government that does that, and the Government apparently regard the whole of the Committee stage as simply a series of some Second Reading Debates in watertight compartments. They take the Bill and they divide it into, say, sixteen compartments, and they say the House of Commons shall be allowed to have a sort of Second Beading Debate at the beginning of each of hose compartments. Private Members have absolutely no opportunity of discussing the Bill as they would wish, or as the arguments brought out in debate would point to be in the most advisable way. There is no method or possibility of framing the discussion according to the needs of the case at all. It is simply, as it were, an elaborate sham fight from beginning to end, organised so that the battle may end at the time when the Closure falls and the umpire walks in and declares that the Government have scored a magnificent victory.
    We have had the additional disadvantage of being given odd week-ends for the discussion of this vitally important measure. We have never or hardly ever during the early stages of this Bill had three or four days' continuous discussion. We were always given an odd Friday or

    1565
    a Monday, presumably because the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister, who have never been present, preferred to spend their week-ends in the country. So it has been absolutely impossible for this House to engage in a deliberate, decent, or proper discussion of this most solemn question. If we look at the Amendment Paper before us we can see the manner in which the Government regard the functions of the House of Commons. These elaborate Second Reading Debates are intended by the Government merely as a sort of assistance to them in deciding what the law shall be. One or two of them, generally junior Ministers, condescend to attend during the Debates and they note some of the inconsistencies or greater absurdities that are pointed out in the course of the Debate, and they put down on the Report stage either new Clauses or a series of Amendments, and then come and tell us that those are to meet us and to deal with the questions that we have raised. We cannot tell whether it does meet us unless we are given some opportunity of discussing the question across the floor of the House. It may be intended to meet us, but frequently when the Government have intended to meet us they have done the very opposite. Therefore to say that these are concessions intended to meet our criticisms is simply to add insult to injury. The fact is that the Government have been polishing up a measure which they drafted in their offices. The Amendments are not Amendments having behind them the deliberate sanction of this House after free and fair discussion.
    I should like to call attention to the manner in which these Amendments and concessions have been made. They have not been the result of free debate; they have not been the result of any debate at all, because the most important concessions were made before the Debate
    occurred. Invariably the changes have been the result of the secret wire-pulling which the hon. Member for Carmarthen Boroughs (Mr. Llewelyn Williams) in a fit of temper so eloquently described one evening when he discovered that £15,000 had escaped his clutches. They have been the result of secret wire-pulling, of intrigues with the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Gladstone), the hon. Member for Morley (Mr. France), and with such other Liberal Members as have con sciences; of consultations with the Chief Whip, the Liberal Publication Department, the Liberal Executive Committee in Wales, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, if you like, and other bodies; so that the Government think they have made the most advantageous bargain for them selves. That is not government by the House of Commons; it is government by—
    Colonel GREIG: Is the Noble Lord in order in discussing the relation of the House to a particular Bill, or in discussing any question other than that relating to the allocation of time on the Report stage?
    Viscount WOLMER: I was pointing out that the Amendments that we are asked to swallow wholesale without discussion are not Amendments which have behind them the authority of this House. That statement cannot be contradicted. They are simply the result of logrolling and intrigue, and to ask Members to swallow wholesale these pages of undiscussed Amendments is an insult to the House and to the subject with which the Bill deals.
    Main Question, as amended, put.
    The House divided: Ayes, 288; Noes, 146.

    Division No. 564.]

    AYES.

    [5.49 p.m.

    Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

    Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

    Brocklehurst, W. B.

    Abraham, Rt. Hon. William (Rhondda)

    Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

    Buckmaster, Stanley O.

    Acland, Francis Dyke

    Barnes, G. N.

    Burke, E. Havlland-

    Adamson, William

    Barton, W.

    Burns, Rt. Hon. John

    Addison, Dr. Christopher

    Beale, Sir William Phipson

    Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R.

    Beauchamp, Sir Edward

    Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)

    Ainsworth, John Stirling

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

    Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sidney C. (Poplar)

    Alden, Percy

    Bethell, Sir J. H.

    Byles, Sir William Pollard

    Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)

    Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

    Carr-Gomm, H. W.

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

    Boland, John Plus

    Cawley, H. T. Lanes., Heywood)

    Arnold. Sydney

    Booth, Frederick Handel

    Chancellor, H. G.

    Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A.

    Boyle, D. (Mayo, N.)

    Chapple, Dr. William.Allen

    Baker, H. T. (Accrington)

    Brace, William

    Clancy, John Joseph

    Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

    Brady, P. J.

    Clough, William

    Clynes, John R.

    Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

    Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

    Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

    Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)

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

    Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.

    John, Edward Thomas

    Priestley, Sir W. E. (Bradford)

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A,

    Jones, Rt.Hon.Sir D.Brynmor (Swansea)

    Primrose, Hon. Neil James

    Cotton, William Francis

    Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

    Pringle, William M. R.

    Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

    Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

    Radford, G. H.

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

    Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

    Raffan, Peter Wilson

    Jones, Leit Stratten (Notts, Rushclifte)

    Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts, Stepney)

    Raphael, Sir Herbert H.

    Crawshay-Williams, Eliot

    Jowett, Frederick William

    Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

    Crooks, William

    Joyce, Michael

    Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

    Crumley, Patrick

    Keilaway, Frederick George

    Reddy, M.

    Cullinan, J.

    Kennedy, Vincent Paul

    Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

    Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

    Kilbride, Denis

    Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

    Davies, E. William (Eifion)

    King, J.

    Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

    Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth)

    Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon,S.Molton)

    Richards, Thomas

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

    Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

    Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

    Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire)

    Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

    Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)

    Delany, William

    Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

    Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

    Denman, Hon. R. D

    Lewis, John Herbert

    Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

    Devlin, Joseph

    Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

    Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

    Dickinson, W. H.

    Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

    Robertson, Sir G. S. (Bradford)

    Dillon, John

    Lundon, Thomas

    Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

    Donelan, Captain A.

    Lyell, Charles Henry

    Robinson, Sidney

    Doris, W.

    Lynch, A. A.

    Roche, Augustine (Louth)

    Duffy, William J.

    Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

    Roche, John (Galway, E.)

    Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

    McGhee, Richard

    Roe, Sir Thomas

    Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

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

    Rose, Sir Charles Day

    Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.)

    Macpherson, James Ian

    Rowlands, James

    Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Rowntree, Arnold

    Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

    M'Callum, Sir John M.

    Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

    Elverston, Sir Harold

    M'Curdy, Charles Albert

    Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

    Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

    M'Kean, John

    Scanlan, Thomas

    Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)

    McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

    Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

    Essex, Sir Richard Walter

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

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

    Falconer, J.

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

    Sheehy, David

    Farrell, James Patrick

    M'Micking, Major Gilbert

    Sherwell, Arthur James

    Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

    Manfield, Harry

    Shortt, Edward

    Ffrench, Peter

    Markham, Sir Arthur Basil

    Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

    Field, William

    Marks, Sir George Croydon

    Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

    Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward

    Mason, David M. (Coventry)

    Smith, H. B. L. (Northampton)

    Fitzgibbon. John

    Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.

    Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

    Flavin, Michael Joseph

    Meagher, Michael

    Snowden, Philip

    Furness, Stephen

    Millar, James Duncan

    Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert

    George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd

    Molloy, M.

    Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

    Gilhooly, James

    Molteno, Percy Alport

    Sutherland, J. E.

    Gill, A. H.

    Mond, Sir Alfred Moritz

    Sutton, John E.

    Gladstone, W. G. C.

    Mooney, J. J.

    Taylor. Thomas (Bolton)

    Glanville, Harold James

    Morgan, George Hay

    Tennant, Harold John

    Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

    Morrell, Philip

    Thomas, J. H.

    Goldstone, Frank

    Morison. Hector

    Thorne. G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough)

    Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

    Thorne. William (West Ham)

    Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

    Muldoon, John

    Toulmin, Sir George

    Greig, Colonel J. W.

    Munro, R.

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    Griffith, Ellis J.

    Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C.

    Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

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

    Nicholson, Sir C. N. (Doncaster)

    Verney, Sir Harry

    Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

    Nolan, Joseph

    Wadsworth, J.

    Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

    Norman, Sir Henry

    Walsh, Steohen (Lancs. Ince)

    Hackett, J.

    Norton, Captain Cecil W.

    Walters, Sir John Tudor

    Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)

    Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

    Walton. Sir Joseph

    Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale)

    Nuttall, Harry

    Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

    Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

    Wardle, George J.

    Hardie, J. Keir

    O'Brien, William (Cork)

    Waring Walter

    Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

    Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

    O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

    Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

    Harvey, A. G- C. (Rochdale)

    O'Dowd, John

    Wason. John Cathcart (Orkney)

    Harvey. T. E. (Leeds, West)

    O'Grady, James John

    Watt, Henry A.

    Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

    O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

    Webb, H.

    Hayden, John Patrick

    O'Malley, William

    White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

    Hayward, Evan

    O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

    White, Patrick (Mcath. North)

    Hazleton, Richard

    O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

    Whitehouse, John Howard

    Helme, Sir Norval Watson

    O'Shee, James John

    Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

    Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

    O'Sullivan, Timothy

    Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

    Henry, Sir Charles

    Outhwaite, R. L.

    Wiles, Thomas

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

    Palmer, Godfrey Mark

    Wilkie, Alexander

    Higham, John Sharp

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    Williams, J. (Glamorgan)

    Hinds, John

    Parry, Thomas H

    Williams. Lleweivn (Carmarthen)

    Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

    Pearce, William (Limehouse)

    Wilson, W. T. (Wersthoughton)

    Hodge, John

    Pearson, Hon. Weetman H. M.

    Wood, Rt. Hon. T. Mckinnon (Glas.)

    Holmes, Daniel Turner

    Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph (Rotherham)

    Young, Samuel (Cavan. East)

    Horns, C. Silvester (Ipswich)

    Philips, John (Longford, S.)

    Young, William (Perth. East)

    Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

    Pointer, Joseph

    Hudson, Walter

    Pollard, Sir George H.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.

    Hughes, S. L.

    Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

    1568

    1569

    NOES.

    Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

    Grant, J. A.

    Neville, Reginald J. N.

    Amery, L. C. M. S.

    Greene, W. R.

    Newdegate, F. A.

    Ashley, W. W.

    Gretton, John

    Newton, Harry Kottingham

    Baird, J. L.

    Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

    Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

    Balcarres, Lord

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

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

    Banbury, Sir Frederick George

    Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

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

    Barnston. Harry

    Haddock, George Bahr

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

    Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

    Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)

    Parkes, Ebenezer

    Beckett, Hon. Gervase

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

    Peel, Captain R. F.

    Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

    Harris, Henry Percy

    Perkins, Walter

    Bennett-Goldney, Francis

    Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)

    Pole-Carew, Sir R.

    Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-

    Hewins, William Albert Samuel

    Pollock, Ernest Murray

    Beresford, Lord C.

    Hickman, Colonel T. E.

    Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

    Bird, A.

    Hill, Sir Clement L.

    Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

    Boles, Lieut.-Colonel Dennis Fortescue

    Hill-Wood, Samuel

    Remnant, James Farquharson

    Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

    Hoare, Samuel John Gurney

    Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

    Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid)

    Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy

    Royds, Edmunds

    Boyton, James

    Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

    Rutherford, John (Darwen)

    Bull, Sir William James

    Horne, E. (Surrey, Guildford)

    Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)

    Burdett-Coutts, W.

    Horner, Andrew Long

    Sanders, Robert A.

    Burn, Colonel C. R.

    Houston, Robert Paterson

    Sanderson, Lancelot

    Butcher, J. G.

    Hume-Williams. William Ellis

    Sassoon, Sir Philip

    Campion, W. Ft.

    Hunt, Rowland

    Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'p'l, Walton)

    Carlile, Sir Edward Mildred

    Hunter, Sir C. R.

    Stanler, Beville

    Cassel, Felix

    Ingleby, Holcombe

    Stewart, Gershom

    Cator, John

    Jessel, Captain H. M.

    Strauss, Arthur (Paddington)

    Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Joynson-Hicks, William

    Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central)

    Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

    Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr

    Talbot, Lord E.

    Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)

    Kerry, Earl of

    Terrell, G. (Wilts. N.W.)

    Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.

    Kimber, Sir Henry

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

    Clyde, J. Avon

    Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

    Thynne, Lord Alexander

    Courthope, G. Loyd

    Knight, Captain E. A.

    Touche, George Alexander

    Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe)

    Larmor, Sir J.

    Tryon, Captain George Clement

    Craik, Sir Henry

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

    Walrond, Hon. Lionel

    Cripps, Sir Charles Alfred

    Lee, Arthur H.

    Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)

    Croft, H. P.

    Lloyd, G. A.

    Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud

    Dalziel, Davison (Brixton)

    Lccker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

    Wills, Sir Gilbert

    Duke, Henry Edward

    Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.

    Wilson, A. Stanley (Yorks, E.R.)

    Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

    Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

    Wolmer, Viscount

    Faber, George Denison (Clapham)

    Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee

    Wood, John (Stalybridge)

    Falle, Bertram Godfray

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

    Worthington-Evans, L.

    Fell, Arthur

    Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich)

    Wright, Henry Fitzherbert

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes

    MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh

    Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

    Fletcher, John Samuel

    Macmaster, Donald

    Yate, Colonel Charles Edward

    Gardner, Ernest

    Magnus, Sir Philip

    Yerburgh, Robert A.

    Gastrell, Major W. H.

    Mason, James F. (Windsor)

    Younger, Sir George

    Gibbs, G. A.

    Meysey-Thompson, E. C.

    Goldsmith, Frank

    Mildmay, Francis Bingham

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Pike Pease and Mr. Bridgeman.

    Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton)

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

    Goulding, Edward Alfred

    Mount, William Arthur

    Ordered, That the proceedings on each of the two allotted days given to the Report stage of the Established Church (Wales) Bill shall be those shown in the second column

    Allotted Day.

    Proceedings.

    Time for Proceedings to be brought to a Conclusion.

    P.M.

    First

    …

    New Clauses

    7.0

    Clauses 1 and 2, and Clause 3 to the end of Sub-section (4).

    Remainder of Clause 3 and Clauses 4 to 7

    10.30

    Second

    …

    Clauses 8 to 17

    7.0

    The remainder of the Bill and new Schedules, and any other matter necessary to bring Report stage to a conclusion

    10.30

    of the following Table, and those proceedings shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at the time shown in the third column of that Table:—

  RAILWAYS (No. 2) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): In moving the Second Reading of this Bill, I think it will be well to review the position, the reasons that led up to the Bill, and to the undertaking of the Government. Hon. Members remember very well the sudden and serious strike on the railway systems of Great Britain in August of 1911. It was such as almost to cause a complete cessation of the traffic on those railways. The Government intervened in order, if possible, to bring about a settlement, and to put an end to a position which, not only on national, but at that time on international grounds, was a very serious one indeed.
  I will not go through the various stages of the negotiations which took place. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and myself on behalf of the Government, which had intervened, invited a settlement by bringing together the two parties. A deadlock had ensued on the question of so-called "recognition," and that deadlock had become very acute. We sought to see whether the representatives of the companies would meet the representatives of the men. There was also the point as to how far the question of recognition would be accentuated by the result of the inquiry of the Royal Commission which Ave were urging on both sides.
  In addition to that the question arose— and a very serious one it was to the railway companies—as to how far, if they accepted the Royal Commission, and what it might entail, it would involve increased cost to the railway companies. The representatives of the railway companies pointed out that the inquiry proposed would necessarily lead to an extension of the system of Conciliation Boards, and that that inevitably would lead to increased cost. They pointed out that there was at the present time a legal doubt as to what extent such increased cost, due to the improved conditions of labour, would be held to be a valid justification for an increase of the rates by the Railway and Canal Commissioners. They insisted that, if on national and international grounds, we put pressure upon them to accept our proposals, they were entitled to ask that this matter should be cleared up.
  1572
  That appeared to the Government, and those who represented the Government, to be a reasonable demand in itself, and especially so under the circumstances of the case. We were pressing the railway companies very hard to agree to proposals very distasteful to them in many ways, and to accept also a position which would undoubtedly lead to increased expenditure on their part. It seemed fair to us that if we forced the companies to comply with that pressure, that that should be accompanied by a recognition of their moral right to recoup themselves, to a certain extent, for that engagement.
  That is how the undertaking of the Government arose. The Government having given this undertaking, the representatives of the companies thereupon agreed with the representatives of the men to accept to the full any recommendations made by the Royal Commission, even though they might involve recognition, and even although pecuniary liabilities might be thereby involved. The result of that acceptance was that the leaders of the parties met on very friendly terms, an agreement was come to, the strike was brought to an end, and a grave calamity averted. The undertaking of the Government was publicly announced at the same time as the terms of the agreement appeared. That undertaking, I think, at that time was accepted by the public as a whole and by the country as fair and satisfactory. Undoubtedly the end of the strike was a great relief to the public and the country. This undertaking contributed materially to the ending of the strike.
  The intervention of the Government, it should be recollected, was not only in the interest of the country itself, but primarily in the interest of the traders, for it was enormously to their interest that the strike should be brought to a speedy conclusion. I feel very confident if the proposal which I am now making to the House by means of this Bill had been made at that time, with all the circumstances of the case fresh in the minds of the country, there would have been a unanimous support to the proposals now being made.
  The undertaking was to the following effect:—
  "The Government will propose to Parliament next Session—"
  This was August, 1911—
  "legislation providing that an increase in the cost of labour due to the improvement of conditions for the

  1573
  staff, would be a valid justification for a reasonable general increase of charges within the legal maxima, if challenged under the Act of 1894,"
  The Government, having given that undertaking, are honourably bound to carry it out at whatever cost to themselves.
  I should like at once to state two things and emphatically. In the first place, there has never been any question as to the Government not redeeming their pledge. In the second place, I have heard and seen it stated that the railway companies concerned threatened the Government that if they did not carry out their undertaking the concessions given to the men would be withdrawn. There is no truth in that statement. As regards the delay that has undoubtedly taken place in fulfilling the engagement of the Government, there is a very simple explanation. The undertaking having been given, the question arose as to the best method of carrying it out. It so happened that before the strike, and apart altogether from any undertaking of the Government, we at the Board of Trade had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to introduce a Bill dealing with various railway matters, some of them in connection with a railway conference which had taken place a little time before, some in connection with the Report of the Committee presided over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Russell Rea) in reference to amalgamations and combinations and so on. That Bill was largely in draft before this strike took place. The natural course appeared, therefore, to insert the undertaking of the Government as a Clause of that Bill. That Bill, I may point out, dealt with a large number of matters and met a considerable number of grievances on the part of the traders. Unfortunately, as I think, that Bill met with the strenuous and active opposition of some of the representatives of the traders here and outside and of some of the chambers of commerce and others.
  It became clear after a time that the Bill could not be persevered in without an expenditure of time which we were unable to give to it during that Session. Personally, I very much regret the fact that I could not proceed with that Bill. I believe that that Bill, as a whole, would have been, if it had been allowed proper consideration and passed, decidedly advantageous to the traders. They would have had the opportunity in Committee of raising a discus-
  1574
  sion, and obtaining a decision, on a large number of questions in which they are seriously interested. The traders would not have the Bill. They killed the Bill, and with it what was then Clause 2 of the Bill.
  The position, therefore, became altered. It was clear that the hope of carrying a Bill was waning. I think in these matters I possess a somewhat sanguine temperament, hoping by dint of conversation and in other ways to assist towards carrying Bills; and I therefore hoped against hope perhaps somewhat too long. At all events, as soon as it became clear that that Bill was dead, and would have to be withdrawn, it also became clear that the Government must carry out their undertaking to do what they were honourably bound to do in some other way. The only method open to them under the circumstances was to introduce a one-Clause Bill dealing with their undertaking and that undertaking alone. That is the Bill of which I am now-moving the Second Reading. We cannot in this Bill deal with the various questions in which the traders and others are, interested. We shall have to deal with those at some future time in another Bill.
  I apologise to the House for what is a rather long preface to what is, after all, a comparatively small point, and one which, in my opinion, has been considerably exaggerated, misunderstood, and in some ways misinterpreted. I have read to the House the undertaking which the Government gave. It was:—
  "The Government will propose to Parliament next-Session legislation providing that an increase in the cost of labour due to the improvement of conditions for the staff would he a valid justification for the reasonable increase of charges …"
  Clause 2 of the original Bill was not perhaps very happily worded, but the present. Bill of one Clause, which takes the place of that Clause 2, is at all events simple and clear. The traders undoubtedly were alarmed, under, I think, considerable misunderstanding as to the character of the old Clause of the original Bill. Undoubtedly some were alarmed lest the protection they have enjoyed under Section? of the Act of 1894 against arbitrary increase of the rates would, under that Clause, be swept away or be considerably weakened. They were also alarmed lest the railway companies, under that Clause, would have a free hand without challenge to impose a rise in rates at their own sweet will. Some of them were also fearful even that the maximum rates would disappear under the Bill. There was really no foundation for any of those fears in regard to that

  1575
  Clause. Those fears were founded on a misconception of the old Clause. That Bill has been displaced by the new Clause which I am asking the House to accept.
  What does this Clause do? What is the defect in the law which the railway companies are anxious should be removed? That is a very technical question, and rather difficult, I am afraid, to make clear to hon. Members who have not given these particular points of this particular question their active consideration. I must, in the first instance, recall the peculiar position in which the railway companies stand if they wish to make any increase of their charges, and I shall endeavour to explain to the House the precise position of the proposals of the Bill in reference to that matter. The existing law is, broadly, that railway rates are limited by certain maxima fixed by Act of Parliament, within which maxima the actual rates can be fixed by the railway companies themselves, but only fixed subject to this qualification, that if the rate is raised that increase can be challenged before the Railway and Canal Commissioners, and in that event the company must justify it as a reasonable increase. If they are unable so to justify it the increase is not allowed by the Commissioners. That is to say the railway companies, alone of any commercial industry, are both limited in their charges by their fixed maxima, and at the same time they are subject to the liability of proving the reasonableness of any increase of charge even within the statutory maxima fixed by Parliament.
  It was not unnatural therefore that the railway companies should feel that these special disabilities placed upon them operated somewhat harshly, especially at times like these when they see other industries, commercial industries, and others, recouping themselves for the increased cost of labour in a way not open to themselves. But the companies are not asking, and have not suggested to us, that they should be freed from either of these disabilities, namely, the maximum on the one hand, and the position of being open to challenge to see whether the rise is right and reasonable, on the other. What they are asking is, that, as legal doubts do exist in reference to the increase of rates due to increased cost of labour, they should be removed. The position is this: The Act of 1894, to which I have referred, while throwing on the railway companies the onus of
  1576
  having to prove the reasonableness of any increase in charges of which complaint may be made, gives no indication of the circumstances which should be taken into account by the Court in deciding in a particular case whether the increases complained of are reasonable or not. It has been well established by the action of the Railway and Canal Commissioners that they would regard an increase in the cost of working a particular class of traffic as a valid justification for a corresponding advance in the rates charged for its conveyance, unless indeed there is some special reason to the contrary, such as, for example, the likelihood of the increased cost being only temporary and not of a permanent character. There is, however, some doubt as to how far a general increase, apart from a particular increase, in the cost of working a railway would of itself justify advances in particular rates; how far an increase due to a general increase of cost can be allocated to particular traffic. Some of the decided cases, especially the earlier ones, have lent colour to the view that it is necessary to show that there has been an increased cost of working the particular traffic on which the rates have been raised. At the same time, in some of the more important cases which have been lately decided, an increase of working expenditure due to increase of wages for the men and other causes has been one of the important grounds on which the companies have claimed justification for their action, and in this claim they have frequently proved successful.
  There is still, however, considerable doubt as to how far a general increased cost of working due to an actual increased cost of labour—an important element" in increased working cost and one which is generally permanent and not temporary—how far this would be considered by the Railway Commissioners as a justification for an increase in a particular rate. The position, therefore, is that there is this doubt and expense, uncertainty and difficulty confronting the railway companies in these circumstances if they raise the rate in order to meet the increase due to improved conditions of labour, which may not unnaturally deter the companies from bringing into force improved conditions which they appreciate as justifiable, but the burden of which they cannot wholly afford to bear.
  The sole object of this Bill is to remove that doubt, and as regards the

  1577
  Railway and the Canal Commissioners to put the increased general cost arising from improved conditions of labour generally on the same basis as any increased cost arising from and directly affecting any particular branch of traffic. I can hardly hope I have made the matter quite clear to the House, because, as I say, it is a technical matter. The real difference is to allow a general increase of cost due to increased cost of labour which absolutely cannot be allocated down in detail to any particular class of traffic—that that should be allowed as a justification for the increase of a rate, although it cannot be shown in that particular case that the absolute amount allocated to that particular traffic represents the increased cost of handling of that traffic in question.
  The Bill will enable the Railway and Canal Commissioners, when they are asked to adjudicate on a particular increase in rate which the company proves to be part of a bond fide scheme for meeting the cost of improved wages and conditions, to look at the problem as a whole; and if the railway company can prove that the increase in rates on the whole are reasonable in view of a general increase in wages, then any particular increase of rates which the company can prove to be not unreasonably high in comparison with the increases of other rates, will be considered to be justified under the Bill.
  That is the position. How are we meeting it under the Bill? It will be seen by hon. Members, if they are good enough to examine the Bill as it stands, that before the railway company can utilise its provisions to justify an increased charge, they must absolutely prove—and the onus is entirely upon them —that the increased charge has in fact been made under the circumstances contemplated in the Government undertaking. In the first place they must, if challenged, show that owing to an improvement in the conditions of employment—shorter hours and other matters— their labour is actually dearer than it was before; that is to say, that it is costing them more in proportion to the work done. This point has been much misunderstood in some quarters. It will not be enough for the company under this Bill to show merely that they had raised wages or reduced hours; they must prove that they are actually in the aggregate paying a larger amount than before for work done, and in so far as simultaneously or in con-
  1578
  sequence, they are able to diminish the number of their employés, that would be taken as a set-off to the increased cost to them.
  Secondly, the company must then prove that the whole of the increases in charges which have been made are made solely in order to meet this rise in the cost. Further, the company must prove that these increased charges are not as a whole more than are reasonably required to meet the additional cost. For instance—and this is an important point which I should like to emphasise—it is common knowledge that the railway companies have already made certain increases since August, 1911, in season-tickets, excursion tickets, week-end tickets, and in some cases, tickets generally; and it has been suggested that they have thereby to a certain extent reimbursed themselves for the improvements they have made in the conditions of employment of their staff. In our view the Bill is so drawn that increases which have taken place in passenger fares since August, 1911, would be properly taken into account in estimating what was really required in order to meet the improved conditions of labour, and that will no doubt be considered as a set-off against the increased cost which the railways incur.
  Finally—and I would ask the traders especially to note this point, for it is a point in the old Clause upon which there was a good deal of comment, and which I undertook to consider if the Bill had gone further, and to see how far I could meet it—the company must show, in regard to any increase of rates that is challenged, that it has not concentrated an unreasonable proportion of the total increase in the charges on the particular increased rate of which complaint is made—that is to say, they are not putting an unreasonable amount on any particular branch of traffic. It is only if the railway company emerge successful from this four-fold ordeal which I have detailed that the Railway Commissioners will consider they have justified their position entitling them to obtain the increased rate.
  It will thus be seen, in the first place, that no additional or hitherto nonexistent power to enlarge or increase a rate is conferred upon the railway company, and the maximum is in no way affected. Secondly, it is clear the Bill leaves on the railway company the entire burden of proof for a justification of the rise, and the burden also of proof that both.

  1579
  the amount and the distribution of the increase is reasonable. Further, though the Bill dates, and properly dates, back to August, 1911, it will not be retrospective or bring into account any arrears of rates—that is to say, any increase of rates due to the improved conditions of labour that may be made under the Bill will be calculated only on the basis of meeting the increased cost of working the railway after the Bill comes into operation as compared to August, 1911. The companies will not be able under the Bill to claim any arrear of burden for improved conditions of labour up to that period.
  Perhaps the House will allow me to recapitulate what I have said in regard to the position of railway companies, and what they will have to do if they avail themselves of this Bill. In the first place, the sole possibility of justification for an increase of rates under the Bill is an actual and operative improvement in the conditions of the employment of the staff. Secondly, that there is, and must be, a net increase in the cost of labour: an actual increase on the labour bill, and due, not to normal increase of work, but to improved conditions of the staff itself. And, thirdly, that the safeguards of Section 1 of the Act of 1894 are neither weakened nor diminished, and that the onus of proof is left upon the railway companies.
  I hope I have also shown that the proposal in itself is a fair and just one, and especially justifiable in the circumstances and under the conditions on which the undertaking was given. Indeed, as far as I am aware, the equity of the principle involved was never really contested by the various representative deputations which I saw from lime to time in connection with the first Bill. It was admitted on all hands. Objection was taken, not to the principle, but to the method in which it was thought that that principle was going to be carried out under Clause 2, of which it was said that it went far beyond the undertaking of the Government to the detriment of the trader. This cannot, I think, be justifiably alleged in reference to the Bill now before the House, which I think does accurately carry out the undertaking of the Government in the letter and in the spirit, and with, I think, adequate protection for the traders themselves.
  One argument, which I have heard used I must deal with, and it is that improvements which have been made in the condi-
  1580
  tions of labour by the various railway companies, or by some of them since August, 1911, under the Conciliation Boards are not adequate. I am not going to give an opinion upon that matter; but that seems to me to be a very inadequate argument for opposing this Bill. A company cannot benefit under this Bill by one halfpenny except to the extent of its actual improvements in the conditions of labour. If they have improved the conditions of labour to the extent of £10 they can only get back that, or part of it. If they have improved the conditions of labour to the extent of £100,000 they can get that back, or a certain proportion of the increased cost. One of the objects of the Bill is to encourage and enable railway companies to improve the conditions of labour in their service. I am sure the House itself would desire to remove rather than maintain any serious barrier in the way of improved conditions of service under the various railway companies.
  It has been urged upon me from various quarters in connection with this Bill, that one or other of the questions in which traders are specially interested—such as owners' risk, increases of passengers' fares and terminal rates—should also be incorporated in the Bill. It is some gratification to me to discover that traders and others now, but unfortunately too late, are appreciating the virtues of my former Bill, because the greater part of those questions, which they are now urging should be incorporated, are questions which were included in the former Bill, or if it had been allowed to go to Committee they would have been discussed and put into the Bill if the Committee had so chosen. I am glad to find that regret is now expressed at the demise of the former Bill.
  As regards these proposals, I should have been glad if it had been possible to enlarge the scope of this measure and include some of those matters to which reference has been made. But none of them could, of course, have been inserted in this Bill unless they could be treated more or less as non-controversial measures, otherwise the position would have been exactly the same with this Bill as it was in regard to the other measure, only it would have been aggravated because we are now later on in the Session. I did my best in regard to some of those matters to ascertain if there was any likelihood of any arrangement being come to, and I found there was not. Under those circumstances it must be obvious it was not possible to insert any

  1581
  of those provisions in the Bill., and they mast be dealt with at some future time.
  I have endeavoured, as shortly as I can, to place the House in possession of the reasons which animated the Government in giving this undertaking. I have endeavoured to show, as clearly and shortly as I can, the actual result that would ensue from the actual operations of the Bill. It may properly be considered a small matter and not one of far-reaching importance, but I think it is one the railway companies are entitled to claim. In itself the Bill is not inequitable. It is so guarded as to adequately protect the trader, and at the same time it enables the Government to carry out an undertaking which it is bound in honour to fulfil. I hope, under these circumstances, the House will be good enough to give the Bill a Second Beading, and allow it to go to a Committee of the Whole House.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: I am sure that the House has listened with great interest to the very able exposition of the Bill which has just been put before it by the right hon. Gentleman. I think he has made an extraordinarily good case for what appears to some of us to be a very bad Bill. I should like to recognise, first of all, the seriousness of the position, both national and international, in August, 1911, when the bargain was made with the railway companies, of which this Bill is the result. I should like to recognise the great importance of safeguarding the interests of the railway workers of this country, because there is no sort of employment which it is of greater national importance to maintain under proper conditions than that of service upon our great national railways. I wish to recognise frankly the necessity on the part of the Government of fulfilling the pledge which they made, and of which this Bill purports to be the fulfilment. I think the railway companies are justified in having some provision made under which they will be able to recoup themselves for any reasonable loss they have suffered. I do not agree with the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman that if this Bill had been produced immediately after the settlement of the railway strike it would have met with the unanimous approval of this House. Those interests, at any rate, which I represent have from the very first expressed their objections to the proposals of the Government and their intention to resist them when embodied in a Bill. I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has referred to the
  1582
  No. 1 Bill, which was originally introduced by the Government in fulfilment of this pledge. That Bill did contain what this Bill does not, namely, some quid pro quo to the traders of this country, and particularly the agriculturists whom I for the moment am representing. It did give some consideration to them in return for their having to pay the whole cost of the settlement of 1911. What the Government then said, in fact, to the contending parties was: "We will undertake that neither of you shall suffer any loss as the result of this strike; in fact, one o shall substantially gain; shall pay the Bill."
  The public had not suited, and bearing in traders, admittedly for some years past, have suffered serious hardships at the hands of the railway companies, and admittedly have had grievances which ought to be remedied, as the Member for South Shields (Mr. Russell Rea), who was Chairman of the Committee upon Railway Agreements and Amalgamations, must admit, it is only fair to incorporate into a Bill of this character some sort of a quid pro quo to the traders who will have to pay the cost. The right hon. Gentleman said, I think rather unfairly, that the traders killed the former Bill. If they did I was not aware of it, and it must have been killed on account of their objections mainly to Clause 2, which is the only Clause now to be found in the present Bill. The traders welcomed several of the Clauses that were incorporated in that Bill, particularly that relating to owners' risk rates, and cheapening of the procedure under which they might approach the Railway Commissioners. It would have brought some advantage to them, and it was only their opposition to this particular provision which is now incorporated in a single Clause Bill to which they objected, and to which they had a right to object. If that Bill was killed, I suggest to this House and to the right hon. Gentleman, that it was killed by the objections of the railway companies to those Clauses which would have benefited the traders and not by the objections put forward by the traders themselves. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman, in all seriousness, where is the need for this Bill? It purports to amend the Railways and Canal Traffic Act of 1894, Section I, which reads:—
  "Where a railway company have, either alone or jointly with any other railway

  1583
  company or companies, since the last day of December, 1892, directly or indirectly increased, or hereafter increase directly or indirectly, any rate or charge, then if any complaint is made that the rate or charge is unreasonable, it shall lie on the company to prove that the increase of the rate or charge is reasonable, and for that purpose it shall not be sufficient to show that the rate or charge is within any limit fixed by an Act of Parliament, or by any Provisional Order confirmed by Act of Parliament."
  When that Act passed through this House it was recognised that these maxima operated injustice to many traders of this country, particularly those engaged in the smaller and unorganised trades. That particular Section provided that wherever an objection was made before the Railway Commission it would be incumbent upon the railway company to prove the reasonableness of the increased charge. Although it is perfectly true that this Act did not in terms say that an improvement in the conditions of labour of the railway staff would necessarily be construed as a reasonable cause for an increase in railway rates, there is in fact any amount of case law founded upon that Act, which proves up to the hilt that it is the law of the land to-day that such circumstances shall be taken into account and shall be held to be a valid justification for an increase in rates. I suggest to the House that in fact this Bill diminishes the protection which the traders already enjoy under the Act of 1894. The other day I asked the right hon. Gentleman a question as to the necessity under the circumstances of introducing this Bill, and his answer was:—
  "The Act of 1894 requires a railway company to justify an increase of rate before the Railway and canal Commission, if challenged, but does not indicate what circumstances are to be regarded as a valid justification in any given case—"
  It is perfectly true that the Act does not do that, but the Case Law founded upon the Act undoubtedly does.
  "It has been doubted how far the improvements in regard to the conditions of labour can justify the increase of a particular rate."
  There are any number of cases to show that that is a sufficient justification, but these words are added:—
  "unless and in so far as the cost of that particular traffic has been effected by the general rise. The Railways (No. 2) Bill provides that, on proof of the various matters enumerated in the Bill, a general rise in the cost of working due to improved conditions of labour, introduced since August, 1911. shall be treated as justifying a reasonable increase in a particular rate."
  1584
  My objection to that answer is that it withdraws from the traders a recognised consideration which is always taken into account by the Railway Commissioners to their advantage, and that is that the cost of the particular traffic in every case shall be considered. I venture to hope the Bill will be amended in this respect, but, as it stands without Amendment, it is quite possible for a railway company to increase the wages of the staff engaged in a particular class of traffic either on the railway itself, or at a port, or even outside the railway altogether in the collection and delivery of goods, and to throw the burden upon all the other classes, or certain of the other classes, of traffic wholly unaffected by this particular increase and dealt with by a totally different class of railway servant altogether. I should like to put quite shortly my objections to this particular Bill. I am bound to say that the explanations of the right hon. Gentleman to some extent modifies my apprehensions, but I should like to see them incorporated in the Bill, and I hope, if the interpretations which he puts upon the Bill are correct, he will allow us to incorporate in the Bill certain Amendments which will enable those interpretations to be the interpretations of the Railway and Canal Commissioners when they have to consider these matters. I put forward these three objections to the Bill as it stands today. In the first place, the Commissioners are not bound to take into consideration any circumstances under which a railway company, while improving the conditions of their staff, have increased their revenue apart from the increase of rates. Secondly, the Bill does not provide that the additional expenditure is to be met by an increased rate only upon the class of traffic in which such employés are engaged. The best instance of that, of course, is an improvement in the conditions of those employed in dealing with passenger traffic, and as a result a particular class of goods traffic having to suffer the increased burden. My third objection may or may not be a substantial one. It is that rates may be charged in relation to traffic coming from various ports which, in fact, will be less than and will not suffer the increases which will be imposed upon what I may call the inland traffic. In other words, the foreign importer will gain an advantage at the cost of the English producer or the English trader.
  Mr. BUXTON: I have read paragraph (d) very carefully indeed, and I think it really meets that point.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: I am bound to say that, as paragraph (d) is expressed at the present time, it does not appear to me to meet the point at all, but, if the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to accept Amendments in the light of his explanation, I quite agree it may be made to meet the point. It has been laid down in several different cases, and notably in that of Smith and Forrest against the London and North-Western Railway Company, that considerations as to an improvement in the conditions of labour on railways are a proper justification for an increase in rates. Perhaps the House will allow me to read part of the judgment in the case of Smith and Forrest, which is to this effect:—
  "If it is shown, after all the elements of cost and I economy have been taken into consideration, that the I necessary cost per ton carried will, under uniform conditions, be increased without any compensating circumstances, then it is prima facte reasonable to increase the rate by the same sum. To justify an increase of rates it is not sufficient to prove that the cost of working the traffic as a whole has increased, but it must be shown there has been an increase in cost of working the particular service or branch of traffic in respect of which the rates have been raised."
  I am afraid I have not got it here, but the judgment goes on to say an improvement in the conditions of the railway servants is a proper justification for an increase in the rates, allowing, of course, for compensating advantages moving to the company in other directions. The element of the economy of working appears not to have been taken into account at all in this Bill. May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman—I am sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer will agree—that, if you are going to improve the conditions of railway service, you are going to increase its efficiency, and therefore its value to the railway companies. If that is so, it cannot be fair to put the whole of the increased cost upon the trader. A rise in wages does not necessarily increase the cost to the railway company, because a smaller number of men may be employed and the cost of work done by the railway company may be even less than it was before. This Bill does not take into account a very large number of respects in which railway companies are economising at the present time. In the first place, there is a large amount of labour saving machinery being used upon the railway systems, as elsewhere. It takes no account of a fall in the cost of raw materials. Most of them are high now,
  1586
  but they are not always as high as they are to-day, and there is no reason, if they fall, why the public should not get the benefit of such a decrease in cost. Railway companies of late years have economised considerably by having running powers over other railway systems and also by the system of "transhipment" which, I believe, is a technical term and expresses that process by which small consignments are carried to a certain centre (often resulting in great delay so far as the consignee is concerned), and then distributed according to the convenience of the railway companies in parcels going to a certain destination.
  There are two main factors which I am sure everyone who is engaged in trade today must realise make for economy. One of them is the much more powerful engines which are being used by the big railway companies, and the other is the enlargement in the size of the average wagon and in the average train load. Those are matters which ought to be taken into account by the Commission, and I suggest that under this Bill they will not be taken into account, and that the trader will not get the benefit due to him in respect of them. There has actually been, in consequence largely of the increase in the size of wagons and the use of more powerful engines, a very considerable reduction in recent years in the number of men employed upon the railways. In 1907 the total number of men employed was 621,000. They had fallen by 1910 to 609,000. Apparently, the rates of the railway companies are not less than in former years, and the services performed by their servants are certainly not less than they used to be. In 1901 the receipts per goods mile of railway amounted to 73.25d., and in 1910 that had risen to 95.4d. The variation in the quantity of goods carried upon the railways is perhaps the most significant fact of all, and is an evidence of the process which is continuing and which I suggest will continue at a greater rate in the future. The quantity of goods and minerals carried have increased, and the mileage over which they have been carried has substantially decreased. These are the figures: In 1901 the quantity of goods and minerals carried by the railway companies amounted to 416,000,000 tons, and they travelled over 173,000,000 miles; in 1910 the quantity had increased to 515,000,000 tons, and the mileage travelled had decreased to 155,000,000 miles. In other words, 99,000,000 tonal

  1587
  more were carried in 1910 than in 1901, and they travelled over 18,000,000 miles less. The railway companies are therefore all the time effecting economies in their cost of running and in their staff, and I suggest that in the Bill as it stands those economies will not be credited, as they ought to some extent to be credited, to the traders who are now asked to pay the bill. It seems to me that the traders ought to get some quid pro quo under this Bill. It is perfectly true that the railway companies have to pay a higher rate of wages than formerly, and as time goes on they will probably have to pay a still higher rate of wages, but they employ fewer men and they are doing an extended business, earning much larger revenue, and practising economies every year.
  Lord CLAUD HAMILTON Lord CLAUD HAMILTON indicated dissent.
  7.0.P.M.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: It will be open to the Noble Lord to point out that they are not, in fact, increasing their revenue at a greater pace than they are increasing the cost of their labour. I suggest this all shows that the cost per unit of service has considerably decreased in recent years, and will considerably decrease as time goes on. The railway companies always act under pressure, but seldom act, so far as the trader is concerned, in the absence of pressure. In other words., they will follow the line of least resistance. When they are attacked by wealthy and organised traders, who they realise are in a position to take their case before the Railway and Canal Commission, they will be prepared to give in to their reasonable requirements. But how about the poorer traders—the farmers, the small shopkeepers, and those who have neither organisation nor wealth? In every one of those cases it must be recognised that the question whether or not the increase is reasonable, can never come to trial. They cannot afford to bring their case before the Railway Commission, with all its cumbrous machinery, and with the enormous expense which such proceedings involve. May I appeal to the President of the Board of Trade to realise what is the main purpose and constitution of his Department? It is to protect the trade and industry of this country, and particularly that class of trade and industry which is least able to protect itself. The attitude of the Board of Trade up till the last three or four years has been one of
  1588
  considerable suspicion when the railway companies have reduced the amount of inter-railway competition by working arrangements or amalgamations, but lately the attitude of the Board of Trade has been to encourage those amalgamations, and whereas after encouraging those amalgamations they ought to have looked with still greater suspicion upon any increase of rates on the part of the railway companies, and ought to give still greater credit to the traders in respect of other considerations which would tend to economy in the working of the railways, they introduce a Bill under which they practically say they will take good care that a railway company and its servants shall not suffer; but at the same time the traders have had withdrawn from them the privilege they have hitherto enjoyed of asking the railway tribunal to take into account all considerations, and not merely one only, in the event of rates being increased and complaint being made thereof. So far as this Bill is concerned, I hope that if the House is going to accept it— I trust it will not do so—it will be on the understanding that first of all a time-limit is put into the Bill, because the right hon. Gentleman has already stated that he would have brought in a larger and more comprehensive Bill to deal with some of the grievances of the traders if time had permitted in this very overcrowded Session. In the second place, I hope he will be prepared to consider sympathetically all reasonable Amendments that may be put down to the various Sub-clauses, in order to give some greater protection to the traders and secure for them, if possible, some quid pro quo in consideration of the fact that they are asked to pay the whole cost of settling the serious railway strike of 1911.
  Mr. WILES: I think the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken in his view that the Bill will pass through the House with very little opposition. I should like to point out to the President of the Board of Trade the very great alarm which has been caused to the traders throughout the country by the measure—not only among manufacturers, merchants, and agriculturists, but among the small shopkeepers and traders; they are all alarmed, and they all fear that this Bill will allow the railway companies once more to further increase their charges. I quite admit the difficulty which the right hon. Gentleman was put into at the time of the railway strike. We all sympathised with him in

  1589
  that difficulty. We know he, then promised to introduce this Bill. The hon. Member who has just spoken has asked him to act generously in his consideration of Amendments during the Committee stage; I also make a like appeal to him. He has already met the traders by putting the onus of proof of the reasonableness of the increase in charges on the railway companies instead of on the trader himself. That is a concession. But the trading community view with great alarm the railway combine. We know perfectly well that all the great companies are working very closely together. They confer week by week, they arrange their rates, and there is practically no competition at the present time among the companies. It may be said that they spend a great deal in advertising. It does not interest me as a traveller to know that the Midland Railway is Cock o' the North or that the Great Western leads to Cornwall, which is made to look like a map of Italy. That is an absolute waste of money. We know that the railway companies have settled their rates and fares, and by whatever line you travel you will be charged the same price. We are getting, indeed, towards the position that if this railway-combine continues we shall have all the disadvantages of State ownership without any of the advantages.
  I contend that the railway companies have ample power without this Bill to so increase their charges as to make up the extra amount they have promised their servants. Speeding up and gearing up has been going on for some time. Many privileges which traders have enjoyed in the past have been curtailed. Annoying charges have been imposed, small no doubt individually, but amounting in the aggregate, so far as the company is concerned, to a very large sum. I could give instances. The charges for the traders' tickets have been put up 10 per cent. The trader could not go to the Railway Commission and make a complaint of that; he has no remedy in that matter. He has to submit to the charges, because he is in the hands of the railway company. Again, many facilities have been withdrawn in regard to the use and unloading of trucks and wagons, the charges have been altered for the return of empties (an operation which, I believe, was at one time carried out free of charge). All these sums, though small in amount, must add largely to the revenues of the great railway companies. It is perfectly true that the rail-
  1590
  way company, if it wants to increase its charges, has, to go before the Commissioners, but then it is very easy for a railway company, with its millions of capital, to do that. It has its own legal staff, and it has expert knowledge at its fingers' ends. But it is a very difficult thing for a small trader, or indeed for a comparatively large one, to make the railway company prove its case before the Commission. If this Bill passes, I think it will be very difficult for the small trader, who has a very keen competition to meet—much more competition in fact than the railway company—it will be very difficult for him to go before the Commission to prove his case.
  In the past when advantages have been given to railway companies it has been usual to give some quid pro quo to the trader. There are many ways in which that might be done. In Committee many of the traders' Amendments might be inserted. The companies might be compelled to provide sufficient trucks and wagons for the purposes of their traffic; at many railway stations there are no weighbridges; lighters at our ports are delayed by the insufficient wharfage accommodation, and I think that provisions might be inserted in this Bill which would remedy some of these grievances; especially at a time when the traders of the country are being made to think that they are to provide the increased pay granted by the railway companies to their employé Again, I have been reminded that there is no guarantee to the traders that the extra cost to be incurred in wages will be given to the men who most need an increase. There are the higher officials who control the railways, or some might go to the directors. [An HON. MEMBER; "They get so little that it would make no difference."] I would suggest that they should direct the railways without any charge in the future, and then we should admire them more than we do at the present time. I raise this question of a guarantee that the wages will be paid to those who most need the added income because if this Bill is passed we want to be in such a position that there will not be another strike. I hope the President of the Board of Trade will insert an Amendment in this Bill enabling the officials of his Department to examine, from time to time, the railway companies figures and to ascertain to what classes of employés the increases of pay go. The Board of Trade ought to see that the money which

  1591
  has been handed over to the railway companies is spent in the right way. It ought to see that the porters who only now get a living wage by a combination of low wages and tips get some of this increase. If we could be assured of that, I believe the House would be much more ready to support this Bill. When we get a reply from the Government I hope we will be given the promise that, if we support this Bill on Second Reading, some of the Amendments which I have foreshadowed 'wall receive favourable consideration, because they will give the trader some protection and some assurance that the money he is to hand over is not all going to be appropriated by the railway company in any manner they choose.
  Mr. J. H. THOMAS: I desire to say, first of all, that I am not speaking in the name or on behalf of the party with which I am associated. I am speaking entirely for myself, but as one who was a signatory to the particular agreement, and who therefore knows all the circumstances responsible for the promise. I do not differ in the least from the history of the case as summarised by the President of the Board of Trade, but I desire to emphasise the fact that so far as the men who were parties to that settlement were concerned they were not in the least bound by any promise. We were not consulted. Had we been consulted, we should have absolutely refused to have bound ourselves in that direction. I want to make it perfectly clear that in no part of the settlement were the representatives of the men in any way committed to this proposal. I desire to remind the House of the significance of the statement made by the President this evening, a statement which I am bound to say, in my opinion, is not calculated to help the passage of the Bill. He said that at the particular period when the Government made this promise the propositions they submitted to the railway companies were very distasteful indeed to the companies—those are his own words—and he went on to say that he and those acting with him had considerable difficulty in persuading the railway companies to accept them. There are two answers to that. Whether or not the Government had persuaded them it would have made no difference. The only difference would have been that the strike would have gone on longer. [Sir F. BANBURY: "Oh!"] That is my opinion. The hon. Baronet is en-
  1592
  titled to his. The most important point is that at that moment there were 100,000 railwaymen in receipt of less than £l a week. That is undisputed by the Government's own Return, although it has been denied several times. The Noble Lord opposite (Lord Claud Hamilton) dissents from that, but I may tell him that in his own particular company, at the time I am speaking of, August, 1911, there were 5,607 men, or nearly one-third of the running staff, rated at less than £l a week. Therefore I repeat that the statement that it was distasteful to the railway company to give anything higher than £l a week is not calculated to help this particular Bill.
  This is the first time that Parliament has been asked to give further powers to any employer in consequence of the successful efforts of trade unionism. There are two points to remember in this connection. I very readily admit that the railway companies are not in the same position as other employers. I frankly say that in another industry an increase in the miners' wages has undoubtedly been placed upon the consumer, but it is also significant to note that while you accept the one proposition, you have also to accept the proposition that the railway companies are not subject to the same competition as other employers. Therefore the one thing is counterbalanced by the other, inasmuch as they are State privileged and to all intents and purposes have a monopoly. I very frankly say that the advances, with which I am going to deal with in a moment, which have been given as a result of that settlement were technically advances that the men would not otherwise have obtained, and that the Railway Commission's Report did enable the men constitutionally to obtain that advance of wages regardless of the times which the particular agreements and awards were carried. So far as the traders' complaints are concerned, I have only to observe this: That if the traders are complaining very much to-day, as they are, it only shows their indifference in the past to the conditions of the railway men. It is significant to note that, while all the time people have been talking about the wretched conditions of railway men, and while we have been protesting against the conditions under which men work, the traders were quite indifferent as to what the conditions of the men were so long as they were not affected by the rates. In fact, we on these benches think that not

  1593
  only their action, but certainly the Debate up to this stage, has clearly demonstrated that the real way to deal with this situation is by State ownership and no other.
  I come now to what, after all, is the honour of the Government in this matter. The Government say that this Bill is being proposed this evening to redeem a pledge that they made to the railway companies. I frankly say that that is the situation so far as I understand it. But what was the pledge to the railway men? If the Government's honour is at stake in this matter, then I am going to submit that instead of introducing one Bill this evening to redeem their pledge and promise to the railway companies, they ought as well to have brought in a Bill to redeem their promise to the men. Let us see what it was. As a part of the settlement to which the Board of Trade were parties, made when this pledge was given, what did they promise us? They said to us, before "we signed that agreement, before we left the room, before we would have committed ourselves to have settled the strike, that whatever the findings of the Railway Commission might be, if any railway company refused to abide by them or accept them, legislation was to follow. That was the promise made to us. I raised the question in this House, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer also made the pledge from that box. It was followed up by a letter to the Board of Trade, and I am going to quote an extract from a letter from the Board of Trade to substantiate it. On 7th September, in reply to the communication we sent, they said:—
  "I am directed by the Board of Trade to refer to your letter of the '27th August, and in reply I am to state that the Board are aware that in the course of the formal communications between the representatives of His Majesty's Government and of the railway men which led up to the negotiations by which the general dispute of 19th August. 1911, was settled, the question was raised whether, in the event of one of the parties declining to accept the recommendations of the suggested Commission", the Government would propose legislation. The Hoard are also aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, stated in the House of Commons on 17th August, 131', that if the Government accepted the recommendations of the Commission they would be prepared, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, immediately to take administrative action with reference thereto, and if they discovered that their administrative powers were insufficient and inadequate it was their intention to take steps to strengthen those powers."
  That was the promise made by the Government. That was the Chancellor of the Exchequer's promise made to the representatives of the men. Why have they not redeemed that promise as well as redeemed the promise to the railway companies? They have striven to bring the
  1594
  Irish railway companies in. They have failed to persuade the Irish railway companies to accept the settlement to which they were parties. If they have failed, then they are bound by the pledge so made to introduce legislation in order to compel them to come in. Therefore, I am justified in saying to the House to-night that it is not fair dealing with the men to expect us to support a Bill which redeems one side of the pledge, while at the same time we know perfectly well that our side of the pledge has not been carried out, and that apparently there is no intention to-carry it out.
  Incidentally this Bill applies to Ireland. It gives the Irish railway companies power to raise rates. The obvious answer to that may be, "Unless they can prove an increase in wages, then they will not get the benefit of this Bill." My answer to that is that this settlement was not a settlement of wages alone. It was a settlement of machinery, and the whole of the machinery is a part of the settlement. For these reasons we are justified in asking the Government to give some answer this evening to this side of the question. A further point to which I desire to draw attention is that while that applies to Ireland, they have also failed to compel an English railway company to observe their side of the contract. I have repeatedly debated in this House the refusal of the Central London Railway Company to deal with the Conciliation Scheme, and I have pointed out that six men were dismissed because they endeavoured to carry out that scheme. The Board of Trade offered their services and said it was a case for arbitration. 4 representative of the railway company, speaking from the opposite side of the House, agreed to accept arbitration on the point. We accepted it, but, because they had a bad case, they absolutely refused to go to arbitration. I say that is a violation of the pledge given in that particular settlement.
  Mr. BUXTONmade an observation which was inaudible.
  Mr. THOMAS: But they were men who went out on strike and the Railway Commission reported in favour on certain machinery which enabled the men to avail themselves of this scheme. The men were dismissed because they were trying to carry out the recommendation of the Royal Commission. Therefore, in that sense, it is germane to it, and, I think,

  1595
  very important. Part of the settlement was that, in addition to the Royal Commission which was set up immediately work was resumed, all traces of illwill would be removed, no distinction would be made between strikers and non-strikers, and, so far as the railway companies were concerned, everything would go on as if nothing had happened. What are the facts? Repeatedly we have asked the Board of Trade and this House to take notice of what we believe to be alleged victimisation on a certain railway. It is only fair to other railways to say I am not making a general charge, and it is well that I should specifically mention that, so far as that side of the question is concerned, the railway companies in the main have acted absolutely honourably with the exception of the one I am going to deal with. These questions were raised in this House. The Board of Trade were consulted. They agreed to appoint one of their Commissioners. Probably hon. Members will have seen in this evening's papers the heading, "No Victimisation Proved." That is the result of the Commissioner's investigation. The Commissioner sat and heard nine cases of alleged victimisation. Surely hon. Members, even railway directors, will see how difficult it much be to prove victimisation—the hundred and one excuses surrounding railway life, the difficulties that lead railway men to make some mistake, and then you can conceive the difficulty of proving victimisation. Out of the nine cases this learned Commissioner inquired into only one is proved, and of it he says:—
  "Under all these circumstances I cannot resist the conclusion that in this case of the mileage train, non-strikers have received preferential treatment, and in particular Chorlton was taken off a mileage train at the particular time in question because he was a striker and, in my opinion, in this respect the men concerned have been penalised in violation of Clause 2 of the Agreement of 19th August, 1911."
  As to the other cases, he says that he was not satisfied that they are proved. But imagine the doubt that exists. In one case he says:—
  "In this case I have considerable doubt, but in view Of no hard and fast rule existing I was influenced by the superintendent's statement."
  In another case—this is the Midland—a striker complained that a non-striker receiver preferential treatment. He appealed to his superintendent; he went to Derby to see the superintendent, and this is what the Commissioner said:—
  "Shepherd appealed to Mr. Owen in respect of the promotion, and at that interview, in explaining the
  1596
  reason why the other man was selected, Mr. Owen referred to the strike and in terms which would naturally lead Shepherd to suppose that he did not view those who took part in it with favour. I am not surprised, therefore, that this case should be regarded with suspicion by the men.
  Although in this case he gives the benefit of the doubt to the railway company, imagine the doubtful circumstances surrounding it. What is his general conclusion? After investigating the whole of the case he says that the railway companies, on the report sheet of the men, mark in red ink the fact that every man struck work, and he says:—
  "Without suggesting that the company should not have a record of strikers and non-strikers, it seems to me that it would be possible to keep such a record of the service sheet which is used for purposes of discipline and promotion. The company's officials stated, as must have been the case, on the assumption that the agreement of 19th August, 1911, is being carried out, that for the purpose for which they required to consult the service sheet the red ink is entirely unnecessary. This matter is relevant to the specific case as a piece of evidence which was common to all, although I venture to emphasise its importance if it is desired to remove suspicion and friction for the future."
  When there is such evidence as this, instead of a railway company accepting the settlement in the spirit and letter, instead of them forgetting all the incidents connected with the strike, when we are now called upon to give this company further power as a result of this particular settlement are we not justified in saying that not only is it possible to say, but we are justified in saying, that it is for the Board of Trade themselves to take action in the matter? With regard to the Bill, how are the persons aggrieved going to prove an injury? I shall be reminded that on the wording of the Bill itself the proof rests with the railway company. The point I desire to draw attention to is that the railway companies have to show an increase since 19th August, 1911, in the conditions of employment of their staff. I want to know what the definition of "staff" is in this connection. It will be an easy matter for them to show an increase if you look to the general manager, the superintendent, and everybody connected with the staff, but I think the intention is—and I feel sure the railway companies will not object to this—any increase in connection with this scheme.
  Surely it is not the intention that the traders are to suffer for something that has no connection with the strike or with the men involved. Therefore the words of that paragraph ought to be that it must be shown as an increase to those affected in this particular scheme. It is true that there are some railway companies to-day

  1597
  paying higher dividends than they did last year. The Welsh railway companies are. The Taff is paying 4½ per cent., or equivalent to 10 per cent, as against 10 per cent, last half-year. The Rhymney are paying 10 per cent, as against 9 per cent, last year. That would be the general situation of the whole of the South Wales railways. The point I desire to emphasise is that this is not going to be a fair test, because between 1900 and 1910 there was practically a revolution in railway work. It was in this particular period that an enormous increase of traffic took place, and it was in that particular period that speeding-up was so noticeable. It was also in that particular period that the amalgamation and the working agreements came into operation, and the result is that when this agreement of 19th August, 1911, was made the railway companies were in the position of being able to say, "We are carrying millions more traffic, earning millions of pounds more revenue, and employing fewer men than we were ten years ago." The effect of that is that you have an increase following on a period when the railway companies themselves have had all the benefits. Then I want to know how it is going to operate in another way. In my own Constituency, the Midland Railway Company raised the wages of their labourers from 18s. to £l per week. That would be shown as net increase, I suppose. But practically at the same time that they gave the increase, with all the credit of establishing a minimum of £l, they put them on three-quarter time and they were only earning 18s. 1d. Therefore in that respect they would have shown an increase by employing a larger number.
  Mr. BUXTON: That is not so. The question, as I pointed out twice, is one of aggregate additional amount for the same work, and in this case undoubtedly that would not be so. It is not a question of men; it is a question of the amount of pay.
  Mr. THOMAS: But surely the right hon. Gentleman must know the difficulty. Take this week with the corresponding week of last year. We have been subject to considerable fogs. There must be scores of districts over the railway system of this country whore the operating charges would be double this week what they were twelve months ago by the overtime, Sunday time, and a hundred and one things which have delayed and blocked traffic. By no stretch of the imagination can it be shown that the wage bill in that case would be more. It
  1598
  would not be on the weekly rates but on the wages of the men that they put their overtime, Sunday time, and the hundred and one other things. If that is the intention of the right hon. Gentleman it certainly cannot be carried out in that Clause, and there ought at least to be a Clause in the Bill compelling the railway companies to show the rates of wages of every grade of their staff separately. Then you will be able to see exactly the situation.
  Mr. BUXTON: The Railway and Canal Commissioners decide the question and the question is, "Has a particular railway in a particular period to meet a certain increase, and is the labour so much dearer for that period as to justify any increase in the rates?" Obviously the Railway and Canal Commissioners will inspect accounts and books to satisfy themselves that they were actually put to this additional cost for labour.
  Mr. THOMAS: If the Railway and Canal Commissioners are themselves going to obtain that information, what is the difficulty and objection to the information being obtained by the traders and the men themselves? That is the situation in a nutshell. It is hardly true that it would operate in the way the right hon. Gentleman says. Take a concrete illustration. I know a railway company that, in order to separate the employés have put some men on the staff at an increase of 8s. per week. That brings them out of the category of ordinary workmen. There may be an increase in officialdom and supervision, but none of the real increase goes to the men actually performing the work, and therefore I think that is a point that ought to be safeguarded in a Clause of the Bill. I hope that, without any heat or passion, I have established to the House one proposition, namely, that I should not have hesitated to have supported this Bill if the Board of Trade had been in a position to say, "We are carrying out both sides of the bargain." The Irish railway companies were intended to be included. They have refused the pressure of the Board of Trade up to now. They have made all manner of excuses about the strike. The fact remains that the Government promised us that they would be included, and we have looked to the Government to fulfil their obligations. In the second place, the Midland Railway Company have violated the agreement as entered into by the men and the companies, and to which the Board of Trade were a party. It is for the Board of Trade to say what steps

  1599
  they are going to take to deal with this situation. This is the only opportunity one will have of raising this question, and I have availed myself of it. I am sure that the general sense of the House will be that, while the right hon. Gentleman should fulfil any pledge given to the railway companies, he should not be a party to the carrying out of a one-sided pledge.
  Mr. PETO: Is the Amendment that stands in the name of the hon. Member for South Wiltshire (Mr. C. Bathurst) before the House?
  Mr. SPEAKER: No. The Motion is, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Mr. ROWNTREE: We shall all recognise I think, the character of the pledge that was given to the railway companies eighteen months ago, but I think many of us on this side of the House have doubts whether the Bill as drafted does not go beyond carrying out that pledge, and possibly goes further than its authors ever intended. I think we also feel that there are other conditions entered into at the time which have not been carried out, and that therefore we shall have to be very careful before we pass this Bill as it is before us to-night. The Bill surely marks a new departure. Under the Act of 1894 the companies had to prove that an increase of any rate or charge was reasonable, if complaint were made that it was unreasonable, but under the new Bill the companies are merely called upon to prove that an increase in a rate or charge does not exceed the increase in the wages, and they are not required to show that there has been a real increase in the total cost of handling and conveying the traffic. I am informed on the best authority I have been able to consult that if this Bill went through as it is before the House now, a railway company might handle its traffic at a lower rate than it is doing at the present time, and yet put this net increase in the cost of wages upon the trader, or, in other words, upon the consumer. Having consulted the best authority I could, that is their deliberate statement, and I cannot but feel if that be so, it is a very serious point which requires the most careful consideration of this House. May I suggest to my right hon. Friend that from the speeches we have listened to to-night it is perfectly evident that new circumstances have entered into railway policy which require
  1600
  the most careful consideration of this House?
  May I very briefly summarise these changes? There has been the introduction of power propelled vehicles, first for passengers and now for goods traffic. There has been in recent years the abandonment of competition between railways, and I would call the attention of hon. Members to the fact that that abandonment has been arranged without the consent of this House. The third point I would mention is the progress of science in the matter of railway transportation, enabling both goods and passenger traffic to be conducted with greater economy than before. The fourth point is the widespread and deep discontent among railway servants, stimulated by the increase in the cost of living, and by modern methods of operation on the railways. No one can have listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas) without realising that there are solid grounds for that dissatisfaction. If it be true that comparatively recently you had 100,000 men on the railways of this country earning under £l a week, you cannot be surprised that there is dissatisfaction, and I venture to think that there will be this dissatisfaction until such time as the railway companies have recognised the need of granting to their men a minimum wage, and of giving them a wage that will enable them to live as civilised people. But there is one other point in connection with this labour unrest which I think demands the attention of this House, and that is, that just because of the introduction of scientific methods in the operation of railways—to the introduction of which I do not object, and which indeed I consider absolutely necessary—the result is that there is at the present time a feeling that it is almost impossible to get promotion on the railways. In the old time people were willing to accept low wages to start with on the railways, because they naturally expected promotion would follow; but now with the new system as you find it on the railways to-day, it is almost impossible for more than a few to get promotion, and therefore the low rate, men used to start with should surely be increased. That is felt by the men, and it is one reason for the continuance of the unrest.
  It is these five factors, which have all to be taken into account, which brought about the unrest that resulted in the appointment of Conciliation Boards, and that brought about the

  1601
  strike. It is these factors that are really behind the introduction of this Bill. What I desire to point out to the House is that whilst this Bill may legalise the pledge that was given, it does not settle matters. The difficulties remain, and I would suggest that it is the duty of the Government not simply to legalise the pledge, but to do their best to settle the difficulties as they find them to-day. This unrest at the present time exists, not only among employés, but also among traders and shareholders, as I think the hon. Member opposite has pointed out once or twice in this House. It exists also in the general public. I do not wish to dwell further upon the question from the standpoint of labour, except to say that one of the chief reasons why the men at the present time are not satisfied is because, looking to the future, they do not see much chance of their lot being bettered. They see that electrification is naturally going to increase. They see that modern methods are spreading, and that they are going still further to make it difficult for them to find full work. They are doubtful whether they are getting their fair share of these economies or their fair share of the result of increased traffic.
  8.0 P.M.
  This naturally leads to unrest among traders, because they feel, as things are at present on the railways, that there is danger at any time of a strike. A trader has not simply to think about what he pays for freights. What he desires is certainty, and the danger of the present situation is that communication by railway is made uncertain, as some of us experienced a few weeks ago in the North when we could not send our goods on the North-Eastern Railway for three or four days. I think we shall all agree that it is the duty of the Board of Trade to take these factors into consideration, and to try to do something, not only to give legal effect to the pledge, but to deal with those points to which I have called attention. This unrest among traders will increase, because they see that now, when railway companies are making economies and competition has been banished they are asked to face increased charges. The traders, with all respect to the directors of railway companies, are not altogether satisfied with the present management, and the more progressive directors of railway companies are themselves profoundly dissatisfied with it. I only give one illustration of the kind of feeling that traders have with regard to management. They cannot understand how railway
  1602
  managers and directors are able to run their business when they do not keep proper and vital accounts. Any trader looking for the first time into the accounts of a railway company, must be struck with the point: How does the railway manager or director make proper comparisons from year to year? The question of statistics is vital in connection with this matter, and I think I can show that it vitally affects the problem of labour.
  A manufacturer knows at once what is the cost of the article he manufactures. He knows what he pays for raw materials, for labour, for packing. He knows his overhead charges; he knows the total cost. He knows the price he obtains for his article, and he knows the profit he makes per hundredweight or per £100 of sales. That is exactly what the railway company does not know. There is no railway director in the House who can tell us the cost of carrying a passenger or a ton of goods a mile, or what he received for carrying a passenger or a ton of goods a mile. These statistics, which are given by practically every other country except Portugal, are vital to efficient railway management, and the difficulty that railway men have in connection with this matter is that the railway companies are unable to satisfy those who negotiate with them, that they are getting an adequate share of increased traffic, increased turnover or economies. In any ordinary business, if there is an application for an increase of wages, a man who negotiates with those desiring the increase is able at once to show what the effect of that increase will be upon the cost of the manufactured article, and very likely will discuss what will be the effect of raising the price of that article to cover that increased cost. That is exactly what the railway companies cannot do, and until the railways can give those figures it will be impossible to get the settlement on the railway systems of this country that will be desirable. Anyone who will read the paper written by Mr. Acworth, one of the greatest railway authorities in this country, and by Sir George Paish, written and discussed at the Royal Statistical Society in June, 1912, will be convinced that this question of the statistics is most urgent and important, and I am not surprised that Sir George Gibb after hearing those papers, said:—
  "Before we give you power to increase your rates and fares which may be quite necessary, you must show by much more detailed information than your accounts give the necessity for the increase which von demand."

  1603
  This is the position with which we are faced to-day. There is disaffection among railway men; there is opposition to the efforts of the companies to throw the whole burden of the increased expenses upon the public; there is the endeavour of the managers to reduce expenses by modern methods; there is a grudging acquiescence in the community of interest principle of railway co-operation, and it is grudging because no adequate control is being granted to the public over the co-operation that has taken place. What I want to urge on the Government is that, if we are asked to pass this Bill, to give legal effect to this pledge that has been made that the Government should agree or give some indication of their intention at an early date to appoint a Committee of Inquiry to discover the real economic condition of railway companies and the public policy to be pursued in future. Railway competition is dying. So is the competition which we have relied on in times past in order to get reasonable fares and adequate facilities of traffic. We know that in very large portions of the world railways are owned by the State, that the monopoly is in public hands. The United States has adopted another principle, the principle of public control. The Federal Government have appointed a commission of experts, the Inter-State Commerce Commission, which gathers complete information with regard to all these questions that we have been speaking about, and anyone who will look at the reports of American railways will see how excellent is the information they provide.
  This Inter-State Commerce Commission deals with all points relating to rates, fares, and wages, and looks even at the dividend on the capital provided by those railways, and tries to hold the balance even between the different interests affected. I am told by those who have looked most closely into the question of the American railways that, while, of course, there are difficulties, this judicial body has done much latterly to make the system of the railways not only up to date and efficient, but to satisfy the different interests affected. I submit again the time has come for the Government to take a new survey with regard to the present condition of railways in this country, and appoint a strong Commission to advise Parliament as to what should be done. No Commission can advise unless it is given statutory authority to get the information that is needed to be put before the
  1604
  Commission to enable it to give the right advice to Parliament. I am one of those who think that the present Government in the last six years has done much. Personally I think it has done more than any other Government to ameliorate the conditions of the workers of this country. I trust that they will not be afraid to grant this inquiry, and if they do I think that would be the initial step to bring about permanent rest on the railway systems of this country and also much better prospects for the traders as well.
  Mr. BURDETT-COUTTS: I do not wish to say a word on this subject which would impede the progress of this Bill, because it seems to me that the good faith of the Government with regard to great and important interests, like railway interests, is involved, and it would be a bad thing for the commercial stability of this country if any Government, whether one that I liked or one that I disliked, were to break a pledge entered into with a great commercial interest. But that is no reason why, as we are certainly making a new and very important move in this Bill, that this Bill should not be made a starting point for some endeavour on the part of the Government to obtain a satisfactory system of control over the railways of this country. The hon. Member who has just spoken, if I may venture humbly to compliment him, as an old hand in dealing with some of those statistical matters, has spoken with great clearness. He has pointed out that we have no adequate statistics from the railways to inform this House as to what services the railways are really performing for the great privileges given to them by this House. I do not speak for shareholders, as I happen to have hardly any of that somewhat varying commodity myself; I do not speak for directors, for I am not a director of a railway, and I think it would be a great pity if the question were viewed by either party from the directors' point of view solely; but I do speak on behalf of some better attempt at scientific organisation of our greatest industry in this country. I would emphasise the point that the hon. Member has made as one of great importance; that is with regard to the change in the position of the railway industry now from what it was a few years ago. The Committee on Railway Accounts, which sat for three years, which heard a vast amount of evidence on this question of statistics, and before which I think the great part of the free and independent

  1605
  evidence was in favour of a better system of statistics, presented a Report which had two sides to it, what I may call the official railway side and the side in favour of vitalised statistics, which would be of some use to the public.
  I have always maintained that the Government and the President of the Board of Trade made a great mistake in leaning to the official railway side rather than to the more enlightened one of a better system of statistics. But if it was the case then, it is certainly doubly the case now, because, as has been pointed out, the railways of this country are no longer competitive undertakings. Competition has been replaced by co-operation, and, where you have a monopoly of a great interest like the railway industry in private hands in my opinion that is an unsafe position, and it as a position which must eventually lead to one of two alternatives—either you must have the railways State-owned, or you must have the railways under effective public control. I will not attempt to detain the House by explaining or even enumerating my reasons for being strongly against State-owned railways in this country, but I am strongly in favour of a thorough system of public control. I endorse all that the hon. Member has said about public control, efficient public control, being absolutely impossible unless you have full and accurate data to enable those who exercise the public control to really know what they are doing.
  The efforts of the Committee of Inquiry, which sat for three years and called so much evidence, proved abortive in my opinion because they resulted only in a mechanical division of the present Accounts embodied—the Railway Companies (Accounts and Returns) Act, and not in any great system of statistics to inform everybody connected with railways as to what is really going on and what services the railways are performing—a system of statistics which would inform not only shareholders and directors themselves, but the Members of this House, who I really believe, in spite of all their industry, have to approach these railway subjects without adequate information, because the information is not supplied by the only source from which it can come, that is the railway companies themselves. I do believe myself, that Committee on railway accounts having proved abortive, the next step that ought to be taken would be the appointment of a large,
  1606
  influential and expert railway commission, not only to go into that question of statistics, but to survey the whole position of the railway industry in relation to the obligations which are laid upon it by the privileges granted to it by this House, in relation to the interests of the traders of the country, and, above all, in relation to the labour employed on the railways. I believe in reference to the labour question that more thorough information would remove us from the field of prejudice and passion, and lead us to consider the real facts of the case, and achieve something towards the solution of the increasing labour problems in this country. I cordially support the hon. Member's proposal urging the Government to appoint a Royal Commission.
  Sir ALFRED MONO: I beg to move, as an Amendment, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the question to add the words "this day three months."
  I do not intend to follow the last two speakers in the very interesting discussion of the question of statistics and the appointment of a Royal Commission, except to say that so far as I am personally concerned, I am entirely sceptical about the value of a Royal Commission in achieving anything. We had a Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways. They sat four or five years, they exhausted the energies of a large number of very influential people in this country, and they got together a large amount of information, after which they made a most important report as to the trade of this country which has been absolutely a dead letter ever since. I think this matter is much too urgent to be referred to a Commission, and that it ought to be dealt with much more promptly than it would be by the method suggested, a method which would involve our waiting probably another four or five years before obtaining a report. In reference to the Bill before the House, I wish to refer in the first instance to the very interesting speech of the President of the Board of Trade, who made a statement that surprised me very much, and which I do not think on reflection he would really care to maintain, namely, that the traders and their representatives killed the Bill which was called Railway (No. 1) Bill. As one who, with others, to some extent represented the traders at several discussions with the President of the Board of Trade on this Bill, and as one who had attended several deputations to him, and therefore was to

  1607
  some extent responsible for the policy pursued towards that measure, I must confess that I think the President of the Board of Trade made a somewhat unfair representation when he said that the traders had killed the Bill. It is quite true that the Bill contained inter alia a number of Clauses intended to carry out what the traders desired, but practically not one of them in an unamended form would have been of very much use to the traders in any case. That Bill also contained Clause 2, which was very objectionable from the traders' point of view, and the question was how many pills the traders would be induced to swallow with the amount of jam provided. The traders, very naturally, endeavoured to get as much jam as they could for their pill. On that, the Government killed the Bill.
  I do not suppose the Second Reading of that Bill would have taken any longer or required any more time than the Second Reading of this Bill. That Bill could have gone to Committee upstairs, where it could have been licked into shape, as it very sadly wanted to be. At any rate, we succeeded in doing away with, what we considered, the most obnoxious part of that Bill, and that was Clause 2, and we succeeded in getting the Government, I will not use stronger words, in inducing the Government to introduce a new Bill and a new Clause in a different shape. When the President of the Board of Trade talks about the unfounded fears of traders regarding the operation of the old Clause 2, I can only say respectfully that those unfounded fears were shared by every trading community and by every legal adviser of every trading community throughout the whole country. The fact that, the Government introduced another Clause, drafted in entirely different fashion, is surely in itself some evidence that they also cannot have been satisfied that the objections which were made at the time to Clause 2 as it originally stood were entirely unfounded. What is the reason why those with whom I am associated still continue our objection to the introduction of this Bill at all in any shape or form? The reason is because we have maintained from the beginning that the pledge given by a Member of the Government at the time of the railway strike was a pledge which must have been given in either ignorance or misapprehension of the law existing at that time on the question of the raising of rates before the
  1608
  Railway and Canal Commission Court. I cannot conceive, if the Government had before them at that time the case of Rickett Smith and others versus the Midland Railway Company, or a whole number of other cases, that they would have ever for a moment entertained the notion that special legislation was required at all to deal with a matter which was being dealt with, and had been dealt with continually, before the Railway and Canal Commission.
  It is admitted to-day by the President of the Board of Trade, although it has taken some time to get the admission, that it had been the practice before the Railway and Canal Commission for railway companies to plead rise of wages and shortening the hours, among other reasons, as reasons for increased rates, and that those causes had succeeded a majority of times when that plea had been made. I would just like to refer to the judgment of Mr. Justice Collins in the case of Rickett Smith and others versus the railway company. He said:—
  "The evidence of Mr. Turner and Sir Henry Oakley and the tables put in by them, satisfy me that there has been a substantial increase in the working expenses in the coal traffic large enough to cover the increase of rate. I think, therefore, that the defendants have discharged themselves of the burden cast upon them, and have shown that the expenses of conveying their coal traffic have increased to an extent much greater than the increase of rate, and that this increase is attributable to general causes affecting the whole coal traffic and therefore that of the applicants."
  That consideration of increased wages and salaries comes up again in the case of Charlow Collieries Company versus the North-Eastern Railway Company, and at great length in the classic case of Smith and Forrest versus the London and Northwestern Railway Company and ten other railway companies. In all those cases the question of increased cost of working and increased cost of labour was pleaded, and successfully pleaded. I have never yet been able to understand why could not the railway companies, if they did settle the strike by higher wages, have raised the rates, and, in the extraordinarily doubtful case of their being challenged, which does not occur once in a thousand times, those increased rates could be justified in the ordinary course before the Railway and Canal Commission. Why could they not do what they had done over and over again before? In the course of this long-drawn controversy I have never been able to understand why they did not wish to adopt that course, unless the railway companies wanted to be put

  1609
  in a better position than they were under by the Act of 1894.
  Undoubtedly, if the original Clause stood as it was in the Bill originally, and which I have no doubt was highly approved of by railway managers, the railway companies would have obtained something very much to their advantage. They would have obtained a Bill which would have put on the trader the burden of proof, though how he was to do it I never could understand. That would have put them in a very much superior position than they were under the Act of 1894. Now I understand another reason is advanced to-day by the President of the Board of Trade. He said there was a legal doubt. We never heard when it was expressed or whether it is shared by the Railway and Canal Commissioners. We are told there is a legal doubt as to this question: whether, if you generally increase the wages all over your line you can then raise the rates and justify the increase in a particular rate, the cost of which may not have gone up at all, by pointing out that you have increased the wages on an entirely different part of your line. If that is the contention I can understand it. Of course there is no possibility under the present law, nor ought there to be any possibility under any law, of any such absurd proposal being entertained. It means that if a railway company improved the conditions and wages in one of their hotels, say in London, they could thereby justify an increase in the rates of coal, say in the Midlands. That is a very new principle to lay down in railway legislation, and it is a principle which I do not think the traders ever will or ought to accept. Under the Act of 1894 the Railway and Canal Commission always held that the railway company must show that the particular traffic whose rates they are raising is more costly to handle, and not a mere general statement, "We have increased our wages and shortened our hours, and we propose to increase the rates from Manchester to Warrington on coal so much per ton."
  It seems to me that the practical point is that there is an increase of a particular rate from a particular station to a particular station on a particular trader's goods of a particular kind. That is the only way in which an increase of rate can be raised by the trader at all before the Railway and Canal Commission. He cannot go there on the general ground that the whole of the coal rates have been
  1610
  raised. He can only go there on the ground that his rates from A to B, on coal which he is sending from A to B, have been raised, and that that increase, as far as it applies to his traffic, is unreasonable. That has been entirely overlooked by the President of the Board of Trade today. He interpreted the Bill in a most extraordinary manner, and one which surprised us who are used to dealing with these matters. He said that the increase in the passenger trade could be set against the working cost under Clause 1 (c). But the title of the Bill is "a Bill to amend Section 1 of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1894." The Commissioners have always interpreted Section 1 of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1894, as dealing entirely with the rates or charges of good traffic. They have declined, and I think will continue to decline, to hear anybody who tries to talk about passenger traffic. If under this Bill anyone appears before the Railway and Canal Commission, and says, "I wish to prove that passengers' fares have been increased by 10 per cent.," the Court will answer, "We have nothing to do with passenger fares; we have no jurisdiction over them, and we rule out your evidence." If the Government had passed the Amendment of the Act of 1894 proposed, I think in Clause 1 (2) of the first Railway Bill, by which they were going to give the Railway and Canal Commissioners control over passenger fares, that contention might have held good.
  This is a very important point; that is why I press it. If you simply interpret this Bill, according to its title, as amending the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1894, every legal authority will confirm my statement that the Railway and Canal Commission have interpreted that Act as dealing entirely with goods traffic and not with passenger traffic, and consequently in interpreting this Bill they will not allow any regard to be had to what has happened in connection with passenger traffic or passenger fares. Whatever the intention may be, unless those words are altered, that is what I am advised, and I believe rightly, will undoubtedly happen. One of the defects of the Bill as drawn in the beginning is that this fact has not been clearly grasped. Continually we have passenger and goods traffic and wages intermingled in the Bill. For instance, I do not know whether under the Bill an increase of the wages paid to the servants engaged in passenger traffic could or could not be argued by the railway company. I

  1611
  believe the intention has been that it could. I am, however, a little doubtful on the point now, because it seems to me that if the Railway and Canal Commission will not allow an argument to be raised as to an increase of passenger fares they may also refuse to allow railway companies to argue with regard to an increase in the cost of handling passenger traffic. At any rate, that point wants to be cleared up.
  It is suggested the company have to show an increase of cost in the working of the whole of their system, and not in the cost of working the goods traffic only, and that therefore they have to bring in the question of improving the conditions of employment of their passenger staff. It cannot be argued that the railway companies cannot and do not habitually separate the labour cost of their goods traffic and the labour cost of their passenger traffic. As a matter of fact, our experience before the Railway and Canal Commission has shown that when railway companies want to separate the labour cost, even of one particular form of traffic, such as coal or anything else, they are perfectly able to do it, and continually do so. The argument that you cannot separate the cost will never be made by a practical railway manager. This question goes to the very root of the Bill. Another point of considerable importance to us is that no allowance is made for any economies which railway companies may be able to secure in other directions. Changes are constantly occurring. The electrification of our railways is going on at an increasingly rapid rate. In a few years' time the whole cost of railway working may be entirely different from what it is to-day. It is really an absurd time at which to introduce such a limited Bill. The railway company have to prove that the rise in the cost of working the railway results from improvements in the conditions of employment of their staff. I understand that that has been interpreted by the President of the Board of Trade to mean that the total cost of working the railway must be higher than it is at the present time. It does not seem to me that that is very clearly carried out. I would rather read it as meaning that there has been a rise in the cost of the labour part of working the railway owing to the improvement of the conditions of employment. Paragraph (b) is quite simple, and paragraph (c) is not very objectionable—
  "that the increase of rates or charges made for the purpose of meeting the rise
  1612
  in the cost of working is not, on the whole, greater than is reasonably required for the purposes."
  That is a very simple point to ascertain; in fact it would be almost impossible to deny such a statement made on expert evidence. But when you come to paragraph (d)—
  "that the proportion of the increase of rates' or charges allocated to the particular, traffic with respect to which the complaint is made is not unreasonable…"
  it seems to me from the way in which the Bill is interpreted that you are not to deal with the increase on a particular traffic, but you are to say, "My labour bill has gone up, and I allocate so much to this particular traffic." If that is so, it will be impossible for anybody to argue whether it is reasonable or unreasonable. I do not see what basis you have to go upon. I do not see what statistics could be utilised to enable anybody to determine what proportion of a general increase was reasonable or unreasonable in regard to a particular kind of traffic. The Bill would not be so bad if you had not to turn over the page. The paragraph continues:
  "the Commissioners shall treat the increase of rate or charge as justified."
  They are two innocent-looking lines, but they make a very great inroad into the freedom of the Commissioners as it exists to-day in the matter of determining what is a reasonable or an unreasonable increase of rate. The Commissioners are empowered to determine whether an increase of rate is reasonable. In considering whether it is reasonable or not under the provisions of the Act of 1894, in accordance with the judgment of Mr. Justice Wright, in the case of Smith and Forrest versus London and North-Western and other Companies, they are not precluded from having regard to any circumstance which may tend either to justify the increase or to prove it "unreasonable," That is a very wide freedom. The Commissioners might decide that for a particular kind of traffic the increase was such that it would kill that traffic, and was therefore unreasonable. They might decide that for particular reasons of that character, or for reasons of a different character. That freedom is entirely taken away from the Commissioners under the Bill as it stands to-day. If the railway companies can show that the cost of working is high, that they are paying better wages, that the

  1613
  allocation is not unreasonable, and so on, the Commissioners would have no option but to declare, whether or not the increase is justified, they are bound to declare. That raises a very, very serious point, and I would like to hear from the Board of Trade as to whether they would not consider that point, and change the very peremptory word "shall"—an extraordinary word to use of this tribunal of high standing—and to replace it by the more reasonable word "may." That would introduce what would be considered by many of us a concession of considerable value in a Bill in respect of its future working, and one which would make us more reconciled to a measure which we have certainly no great love for.
  There is another point which I want to raise which ought, I think, to be raised here. There is the very important and serious question of undue preference. That question may arise in the following shape: An increase of rates having been justified under this Bill, and a decision given by the Commissioners in favour of the company, the company discover at a later date that another or a similar kind of business has got a lower rate. They might desire to go to the Commissioners on the ground of undue preference, but they will probably be informed that they cannot reopen that question, because the increase has been declared, sanctioned, and the matter is res judicata I raise that point because of a case that happened some time ago in a reverse direction in connection with cartage at Hull and Goole. The cartage at Hull was free; the cartage at Goole was charged for. The traders at Goole went to the Railway and Canal Commissioners on the ground of undue preference, and the Court decided it was undue preference, but gave no directions how the matter was to be dealt with. The railway company raised the rates and charged for cartage at Hull; whereupon the Hull traders went to the Railway and Canal Commissioners and objected to the increased rates. The Court held they could not change it on the ground of increased rates, as they had already given a decision on the ground of undue preference. You may get this difficulty in a reverse way, and in a much more serious way under this Bill by separating in a way part of the issue and appealing on one particular, point. That is a very serious thing, because, after all, I do not know why you should not appeal on the question of increased rates on the same
  1614
  condition as in other alterations. If you are going to deal with this matter at all the whole matter ought to be dealt with. The question is one for very serious consideration, and I mention it in order to draw the attention of the President of the Board of Trade to it at a later stage.
  I have said we do not like this Bill. I may say that the traders feel, and have some right to feel, the way they have been treated in this matter. We have a Board of Trade—in my judgment a Board of Railways. The traders of the country are concerned in this and similar legislation very considerably, and the poor trade is treated as a kind of Cinderella. We have in a humble way for years now been asking for an Owners' Risk Rates Bill, and a Bill was practically passed through this House by common consent six years ago in a form approved by the Board of Trade. All are agreed that something should be done, but we never get anything done. We never get pledges that the Government are "honourably bound to fulfil" as in the case of the railway companies. It is only railway directors that manage to do that, and the traders will only succeed in getting what they want by pressure on any Government, I do not care what its political complexion. You have again the question of station to station rates and the question of terminal charges. You have got endless questions concerning traders, and agriculturists, and questions industrial. We never get, although we try very hard, one little Clause to deal with one of our grievances. Why have we not got what we require? Because the railway directors will not agree to our having it. That is the only reason. The Board of Trade, I know, are anxious to do something for us. Why have they not succeeded in doing it? Because it is vetoed by the "power behind the throne." The traders are a long-suffering body. Personally, I shall be pleased to move the Resolution that stands on the Paper in my name in order to give them an opportunity of showing whether or not they agree to this, and to show that they are not to be treated in this way. Year by year our grievances are going on and becoming intensified. Facilities are being withdrawn every day.
  We have had during the last six years Debates and speeches in this House upon this subject, and the only result of our agitation and our conferences has been this very ironical one, that the railway I companies are going to have it made

  1615
  easier for them to increase the rates of the traders. It reminds me of the amusing Chinese play I saw the other night at the St. James's Theatre. That is the result of all our efforts. We have not had any kind of pledge or any kind of promise from the President of the Board of Trade. He has given us no indication that he will do anything for us or will endeavour to do anything for us either now or in the near future. In all seriousness I would say that this cannot continue. I do not think that either the Board of Trade or those in the Government realise the feeling that is growing in the country amongst business men of all kinds, classes, politics, and creeds. I would readily acknowledge the friendliness of the President of the Board of Trade and his readiness to discuss these matters in a friendly and conciliatory manner, but I must say when it comes to the actual facts what, we have to do is this: We are asked to vote for a Bill under a pledge which we considered unnecessary; which the Government never asked whether we would accept. It is our credit being used once more in order to pay somebody else's debt.
  Mr. PETO: I beg to second the Amendment standing on the Paper in the name of the hon. Baronet the Member for Swansea. It is also standing in my name. I entirely agree with the concluding remarks of the hon. Member's speech. I would like to emphasise the fact that in this Bill every consideration is left out except the one consideration that the Board of Trade or the Government had at the particular moment that they entered into the contract, of which this Bill is to be the justification and fulfilment. Every question that relates to the trade of the country, every question that relates to the advance of science, and to improvement in transit, not only in this country, but in every other, and the gradual reduction in the cost of moving goods, all these things are left out entirely, and the railway companies are given carte blanche to shift their liability on to the shoulders of the trading community as a whole. I object to this vicarious generosity on the part of the Board of Trade. It is very easy for a Government Department to pursue that course, and when they find themselves up against serious responsibilities and have to carry out a definite policy which is to protect the interests of the trade of a country to say. "We will shift
  1616
  our responsibility on to the shoulders of the directors of the railway companies, and we will pass a short Bill in order to enable them in turn to shift their responsibility on to the shoulders of the traders as a whole." I say there is no proof whatever, as is supposed by this Bill, that there is to be a rise in the cost of working the railway companies, or that it is possible to prove that that is directly due to the increase of wages or emoluments of the staffs.
  9.0 P.M.
  I suggest that there are various circumstances, entirely opposed and widely differing, which are all operating every day upon the cost of working our railways and upon the ratio between expenditure and gross receipts; and it is not right to pass a Bill to enable the railway companies in effect to say, "We have given an increase of a penny an hour to our men, and we must pass it on to the trading community." In Sub-section (c) the word "reasonable" is used, and in Sub-section (d) the word "unreasonable" is used. In these Sections we have these vague words, which are to have an effect like the word "Mesopotamia," and are to provide a good deal of work for lawyers in arguing the meaning that these words are to bear. The railway companies are to be enabled to exercise a little generosity, and then they are to say, "It costs us so much but it has nothing to do with our management or with the handling of our goods, and therefore you must allow us to pass it on to the shoulders of the trading community." This Bill is mandatory in character, as the hon. Baronet has pointed out, so that the Railway and Canal Commissioners are directed as to exactly under what circumstances the railway companies may prove their case. I think that is a monstrous proposition. My next reason for objecting to this Bill is that I see in the very first lines of the Bill that the increase is to be within the maximum. I regard that as simply throwing dust in the eyes of the traders. These maximum rates were settled over twenty years ago, and to say as long as they are within the maximum that that is any kind of protection is almost an insult. The next thing I desire to point out—and I merely mention it in order to show that I have not overlooked it—is that I see no injustice in the present law and no difficulty in dealing fairly between the railway companies and the traders; there is no legislation required whatever. If all the relevant circumstances of the case are taken into consideration, the Railway and Canal Commissioners have already power, and

  1617
  I could quote a number of cases which show that they have used that power of taking into consideration this very factor of increased wages for the staff of railway companies in considering whether an increase of railway rates is justified or not. Against that we have the fact that there is undoubtedly the practice in that Court of taking into consideration what are the relevant economies and legitimate economies as one which is absolutely essential to take into consideration when dealing with this question at all. When I went with the deputation to the President of the Board of Trade in October last this very question was raised and discussed, and he said in effect that it was the intention of this Bill to take into consideration economies which resulted directly from increased pay of the railway servants. He said where that is the direct relation the onus will clearly be upon them to show that it was a net addition to their expenditure. I do not see that even with that limitation that this principle is recognised in the Bill, but I am perfectly certain that it was clear to that deputation that it was not the intention of the Board of Trade at all to take into consideration the whole of the great questions which are not directly connected with the wages of labour, but which operate to increase or decrease the cost of working the traffic of the country. Therefore we come to this, that this is a Hill to say that if in one particular direction the railway companies do what every trader in the country is doing, and will be bound to do, that is, gradually to pay better wages to the wage-earning classes of the country, the railway companies are to be the one trade in the country who are not to make their proper arrangements to bear their own burdens, but are to have a Bill passed through Parliament to throw them upon the country. What is the effect of that? Railway companies could not exist; railway dividends, of which we hear a good deal, would dwindle away to nothing; but for the trade of the country which they have to carry, and we are to embark upon the principle that it does not matter what arrangements they make to increase the cost in one direction, they are always to be able to diminish the amount of the traffic they carry by increasing the cost of carriage in another direction—by imposing fresh burdens upon the country. That is not in the interests of the working classes, because they depend upon the prosperity of the trade of the country, and
  1618
  that depends upon many factors and among them largely on a reasonable cost of transit.
  What is the cost of carrying goods in this country? We are saddled here with the cost which is twice as high per ton mile as any of our continental competitors, which is three times as high as it is in the United States of America; while that is so, it is perfectly monstrous to say that there can be no economy that the railway companies can carry out, and that if there is to be any increase to the railway companies they must throw it on to the trading community, and still further increase the monstrous rates which now are charged for carrying goods. The point has been already made that there is no proof that the increase in wages will directly increase the cost of work. It has been indicated that great economies have been made in one direction. Locomotives were referred to; the traction power of locomotives has increased enormously; in the last thirty years it has nearly doubled. Look at the trainloads they can haul now. What docs that mean? Firemen and engine-drivers ought to be paid more for driving locomotives that haul twice as much as formerly, and the railway companies think it proper to take the whole of the advantage they derive from the natural increase in the improvements and facilities due to the march of science. It is a wholly wrong arrangement altogether. On this question of what is reasonable or unreasonable it is idle to put those words in this Bill or argue the question at all until the members of the trading community have had real accounts put before the Board of Trade which the trade can analyse and judge for themselves. I understand there was a Departmental Committee in 1910, which considered the question of railway accounts and statistics, and it was then settled that it was desirable, in the interests of the trading community, that reasonable railway accounts should be rendered, but nothing has been done. Until we have reasonable railway accounts rendered, and until we can plainly see to what the increased cost of working is due, and where the economies come in, it is impossible for anybody to say that the increase in wages is a factor which ought to be charged as an increase of rates. Besides that, all these economies, speaking broadly, are due to advances in improved methods, better railway beds, improved steel rails which have superseded the old iron rails, and the best railway tracks in

  1619
  the world, as well as the best locomotives; and once our trains get going we need not fear comparison with any country in the world. The whole question can be summed up as one of getting the load behind the locomotive which the railway companies have not tackled, and they are still using methods more suitable for the forties and the fifties.
  This is not the moment to go forward and lay down that if there is any increase in wages the cost should be charged on the trade of the country. It is not as though there had been a decrease in the ratio of expenditure to gross receipts, because it is exactly the opposite. In 1870 that ratio was 48 per cent., and in 1911 it was 62 per cent. If you translate that gigantic difference into pounds sterling, you come to the conclusion, speaking in the absence of detailed account, which we ought to have, that although the gross receipts per mile have very nearly doubled in that period, the increase being from £2,900 to £5,400 per mile, in spite of that and all the economies brought about by improved methods of traction, and improved railway beds, we find that there is a difference of £17,000,000 a year, which, if the companies had been able to maintain even their old ratio, which depended upon a primitive state of the science of haulage, there would have been £17,000,000 a year in the way of economy which the railway shareholders and workers could have shared without imposing any increased burden upon the trade of the country at all. Hon. Members specially interested in justifying the position of the railway directors might point to the increase in rates and taxes. That accounts for about £4,000,000 out of £17,500,000, and we have still £13,500,000 unaccounted for. I say, without hesitation, if the railway companies did not preserve their one relic of what used to be competition, that is this stupid jealousy and isolation in certain directions, and if they would co-operate to deal with the problem of getting the goods traffic of a certain centre on to their railways by a central clearing house in the centre of London, instead of having seventy-four railway goods stations, with 700 trains travelling every day simply between one goods station and another; if they would concentrate their attention on that problem, there is the biggest field for economy and the biggest business proposition ever put before any country.
  1620
  The whole of the figures have been gone into by Mr. Edgar Harper, and he has estimated the cost of the central clearing house at £14,000,000, and the saving £9,000,000 a year. While there are these gigantic possibilities, which must appeal to every hon. Member of this House, while the goods stations are of one dimension and spread out until it becomes impossible to handle the goods traffic except by the antiquated methods they now use, we shall never make any advance. The companies still use the little hand-truck, and instead of adopting an electric system which costs ½d. per horse-power, the methods they adopt cost 3s. 4d. per horse-power per hour. To say that we must pass a Bill to make good the cost of the increase in wages, while these gigantic economies lie at their feet which they will not touch because it would necessitate real co-operation between the different railway companies of the country, while that state of things exists, it is monstrous to ask us, as representing the trading community of the country, through the mouth of the President of the Board of Trade, to deal with this question in this niggling and pettifogging manner as if there were not great economies to be made which the railway companies will not touch, and as if we had any right to lift railway companies into a position of singular privilege, and at the same time make all the rest of the traders not only bear their own burdens, but the burdens of the railway companies as well. Until the railway companies can show us a reasonable cost of goods transit there should be no question of increased railway rates. I realise that there is one great handicap to the trade of this country which can largely be removed and which this Bill proposes to increase, and that is the monstrous cost of handling the goods traffic of the country. Those who support the railway interests will say, "Surely we do not get too much dividend. "What I say is that you should blame the right people. There is plenty of dividend to be earned and plenty of opportunities of paying good wages if you will only scrap the antiquated method of getting the goods on to your railway and deal with this question in the same manner as you have dealt with haulage.
  Mr. GLANVILLE: I have listened to this Debate from the time it commenced, and I quite agree and realise that the circumstances which have led to the introduction of this Bill indicate that the proper

  1621
  solution of the entire question of railway management is the national ownership of the whole of the railways in the Kingdom. Unfortunately we cannot get there yet, and we have to pass this Bill, and although we are inclined to support it with the feeling that if any undue disadvantage comes out of this Bill to the nation, it will go into the pockets of the individual railway shareholder and railway companies rather than into the pockets of the State, which would be the case if the railways had been nationalised. Hon. Members have talked about the carriage of goods and the nation's trade, but I think we must get back to that which led to the introduction of the Bill. We, all of us, remember the railway strike, and I think there were very few Members in the House at that time who would have suggested we should not be prepared to pay proper wages to the workers on the railways even if the nation had to pay something extra in consequence of the handling and carrying of goods and passengers. That was the origin of the negotiations the Government conducted with the railway companies. I do not think they were in any respect satisfactory. The Government agreed for the sake of peace and for the sake of settling the strike that the railway companies should have certain concessions made to them. I think the Government were very much to blame for not deliberately laying down what concessions the companies should be forced to make to the men when they were giving a promise to them that they would introduce this Bill. I have heard the Government attacked because they have introduced this Bill, and I have heard the Government attacked many times lately because they had not introduced it, so it seems to me utterly impossible for them to satisfy the whole of the Members of the House whatever attitude they take up.
  The whole of this question arises in connection with the wages of the men working on the railways, and not in connection with the handling of the goods of the nation. It rises entirely because the men working for the railway companies did not think they were, and do not think they are getting a living wage. That produced the strike, and possibly may produce another. It is because this Bill opens the door to the possibility of railway companies in future, as well as since August, 1911, dealing with the men in their employ and meeting them, and takes away from the railway companies the
  1622
  power of saying to the men "We cannot do this; we cannot afford to do it," that I am prepared to support the Bill at the present time. I trust it will be amended later on, but, if it is not, I am afraid I shall have to vote against it ultimately. If we can get out of this Bill that which will give to the men who work for the railway companies something approaching to a living wage, then I for one am prepared to see an extra charge for the handling of the nation's goods by the railway companies' servants. I have something like 2,000 railway men in my Constituency, and I do not believe half of them get a wage of more than £l a week. They have to pay 7s. a week rent for two rooms, and, if they try to get more wages, they are told by the railway company, and truthfully told, "We are not paying adequate dividends to our shareholders." I have no particular interest in the railway companies or their shareholders, but I realise the difficulty of the position, and it is because I want to see the men working for the railway companies treated the same as the men claimed to be treated and were treated when they turned out in the original dock strike—it is because I want to see them get a fair living wage—that I am prepared at this particular point to support this measure. The railway companies have been allowed even too long to work their men on starvation wages. If this measure goes through, their position will be weaker and even more rotten than it has been in the past, and it is for that reason I am prepared to support the Government on this Bill trusting something drastic to coerce the railway companies may be introduced at a later stage.
  Mr. FIELD: I happen to be the first Irishman to speak on this question. The Irish railways have been brought into the discussion in a very extraordinary fashion. I entirely agree with what has been said by certain Members with regard to accounts not being furnished by the railway companies. They do not want to furnish any accounts. They do not want to give any information whatever. When you ask for a rate book at certain Irish stations, they say it is not printed. They will charge you a certain rate, but give you as little information as possible. Some hon. Member to-night made the suggestion that we ought to have a Royal Commission. I do not agree with that suggestion. I sat on a Committee of this House shortly after I came here twenty years ago

  1623
  to my misfortune. Mr. Mundella, the President of the Board of Trade, was Chairman. It sat for almost two years, and the result was nil. My experience is that there is a kind of imperium in imperio in this Assembly, and, no matter what may be the result of a Committee or Commission, the railway interest in this House so permeates the majority of the Members and so governs the Government that you really can do nothing with them. My experience of the Board of Trade is that of the hon. Member who said, instead of it being a Board of Trade, it was a Board of Railways.
  The rates on the Irish railways at the present time are the highest in the world, and unless I am entirely mistaken, the pay of the railway men in Ireland is almost the lowest in the world. I have had some connection with the Amalgamated Railway Servants Society's operations in Ireland, and I know that, as a matter of fact, there was more trouble in Ireland in bringing the Conciliation Boards into operation than in any other part of the three Kingdoms. If this Bill is extended to Ireland, I believe it will do more harm to the traders of Ireland than perhaps to the traders in any other part of the three Kingdoms. I am, and I always have been, a believer in the nationalisation of railways. I think there will be no proper settlement of this question until the rail ways of Great Britain and Ireland are either nationalised or brought under proper control. I believe all public utilities ought to be owned and operated for the benefit of the people. The President of the Board of Trade, in his very peculiar speech in introducing the measure, talked about recouping the railways for the increased expenditure on account of giving the men more wages. He said, "Why could not the railways act in the same way as private tracers?" The railways are in an entirely different position from a private trader. A private trader has to meet competition, but the railways at the present time have to meet no competition. I happen to know something about railway affairs because I have studied them, and unless I am mistaken, the railway companies in the three Kingdoms are pooled, so that it makes no difference whether you send your goods by one railway or another. Any profit that may result is divided amongst the whole railways. Therefore, there is no competition. It is practically
  1624

  a monopoly; and what the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade stated cannot be true. The position of the railway companies is entirely different from that of private traders.
  There is no public control. We have what is called a Railway and Canal Commission, but what does that amount to? It means that if you go to that Commission with regard to any matter in dispute you want to have a very large sum of money in your hands. I happen to be a member of the Port and Docks Board in Dublin. We had a dispute with the Irish railways, and it cost us £4,000 to settle it. You want some kind of cheap tribunal to step in and settle these disputes between traders and railway companies. I have every sympathy with the railway men, in whose interests, we are told, this Bill has been brought in. I want the railway men to be better paid. I do not agree that traders have no sympathy with railway men, and I venture to say that their representatives in this House have, like the Nationalist party, shown great sympathy with Labour Members and done all they could to help them. But there are other parties concerned in this matter besides the railway men. There are the traders. The President of the Board of Trade is supposed to represent trade. What is being done for trade in this Bill? Suppose you had no trade in the three kingdoms, what would become of the railways? The parties most interested in this matter are left out of consideration altogether. The parties concerned are the public, the traders, the railway men, and the railway owners; the public and the traders are practically left outside. We have heard a good deal about railway men being victimised. I agree that under no circumstances should a railway servant who has made a stand for his class be victimised. But neither should the passengers be. They are entitled to the same protection as every other class in the community.
  There is one particular grievance I want to bring before the President of the Board of Trade. I do not know whether he can deal with it at present. It is the question of the owner's risk rate. Some hon. Members have alluded to it very briefly, but it appeals to me that the absence of an owner's risk rate, making the railway as carriers liable for what they carry, is a grievance felt in regard to the whole system of our railways. As a matter I of fact, in Ireland we are obliged to sign

  1625
  consignment notes which absolve the railway company from all liability of any kind whatsoever. They may deliver our stock at Liverpool or not, they are not liable for any loss thereby caused. It is time the Board of Trade carried out in a spirit of humanity their administration of the railways. I submit that these consignment notes are illegal, but still, if you do not find them, the companies will not carry the goods at all. Then, again, they have what they call terminable rates, and here, too, there is a grievance. The majority of the people who use the Irish railways really have not money enough to go into litigation before the Railway and Canal Commission. I would respectfully and urgently request the President of the Board of Trade to give more attention to these matters. Apparently, he thinks he has nothing to do but to bring in a Bill of this kind in order to get it passed by the House.
  This is a very serious matter. The whole of the enormous volume of commerce in this country, particularly our inland commerce, to a very great extent depends on the manner and cheapness with which the goods are carried. The people of England apparently think the idea of nationalisation is played out, and that anyone who talks about it is a red-hot Socialist. But as a matter of fact, all over the world, the nationalisation of railways is progressing, and America, which was the paradise of private-owned railways, has come to recognise the fact that public control must, in the great interests of the community, be exercised over the railways. I have studied this question. I know that it has produced marvellous results in America. It has bettered the condition of the railway men. Although I am inclined to vote for this Bill, simply because I cannot help it, I want to warn the President of the Board of Trade he must not imagine that this is going to be a permanent settlement of the railway question. If he thinks that, he is under an entire mistake. The only reason why I vote for this Bill is because I want to see the railways carried on. I do not want another strike. I want the business of the country carried on. This railway question is closely concerned with the commercial prosperity of the country and it undoubtedly is in the most unsatisfactory condition. You cannot have a good service unless you have a contented staff, and if you want good and honest work you must pay a decent wage, and you must not allow a system of victimisation because certain men make a stand for their fellows and participate in a
  1626
  strike. I hope the President of the Board of Trade will approach this matter in a more generous spirit, that he will consult not only the railway directors, who, I know, claim that they have to protect the interests of the shareholders, but that he will bear in mind above all things that the peace, prosperity, and well-being of the people is at stake. If the railway shareholders imagine that they will be allowed to tyrannise over the people and get further liberties they are entirely mistaken. I am sure the time will come when not only the railway directors but the President of the Board of Trade will be obliged to succumb to public opinion in this matter.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I wish to draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to a point which is interesting to me as a Member for a Highland county. I quite recognise that the Government is placed in a position from which it cannot retreat During the strike of 1911 it made this bargain, and in honour it is bound to fulfil it. Though I confess that I rather objected at the time to such a bargain being made on behalf of the Government, I made the best of what was actually done, and I hoped that if the Government did fulfil its side of the bargain the railway companies would also fulfil, in the spirit and in the letter, what I conceived to be their side of the bargain, in other words, I thought that all the railway companies in the country would at least bring back their trains to the status quo ante; that is to say, that all the facilities which had been given for the convenience of the public before the strike, should be restored. The first Railways Bill which my right hon. Friend introduced, I carefully studied, and I was going to make the best of a bad job, and had persuaded myself to be satisfied with it. One condition in that Bill was that if any railway company did withdraw such facilities as I have mentioned, that such withdrawal should be treated in the same way as the raising of a rate was treated, namely, that it might be challenged by the public, whose convenience had not been consulted, before the Railway and Canal Commission. What has happened? We have heard a great deal about the benefits which are to be got by railway companies, and we have heard a great deal about the protection of traders; but, so far as I am aware, no single hon. Member, on one side of the House or the other, regretted very particularly in any case the position

  1627
  in which the ordinary public are compelled to find themselves by the introduction of either the first Railways Bill or this one. I think the first consideration of the House of Commons should be the convenience of the public. Railway companies, by legislative decrees and otherwise, have had enormous benefits conferred upon them, and Parliament, as representing the people, has given the companies those benefits because they recognised that in the long run they would be capable of allowing the public in this country to have proper facilities.
  The particular example which is in my mind at the present moment is the case of the Highland Railway Company. The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down spoke of the fact that there is now no competition between the railways. At any rate, there has been in recent years a considerable abandonment of competition. You have in the North of Scotland only one company—the Highland Railway Company—which has a complete monopoly. For many years before the strike there ran from Inverness a train which left that town at 10.50 at night, which was called the midnight mail. The railway company for years past has found its dividends increasing. Up to the strike that train ran every night. It was a great convenience to the public. The agricultural farmer from the North, tradesmen, business men, and men who had business correspondents in the North, found themselves in the South in one night. What has happened? If a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Cathcart Wason), or my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness (Mr. R. L. Harmsworth), wishes to go to Glasgow or Edinburgh, he has to take two days to perform that journey, simply because the Highland Railway Company has not fulfilled what I say in honour bound it ought to fulfil, in the spirit and the letter, that part of the agreement which my right hon. Friend made with the railway companies. I do not blame the Government for that. I did blame the Government until I heard the speech of my right hon. Friend. Then I saw that the present small Bill of one Clause was forced upon him by the various interests which he found represented by deputations and otherwise at the Board of Trade. While I grudgingly give my support to this Bill to-day—I do so very reluctantly indeed, but I can see that the right hon. Gentleman
  1628
  has been forced to introduce this short Bill—I hope that in the course of future discussions, possibly in Committee, that he will see his way to introduce such a term as I suggest, namely, that the abandonment of facilities which existed before the strike should be treated in exactly the same way as the question of the raising of the rates, in other words, that if the railway companies who have made this fortunate bargain with the Government choose not to keep it in the spirit and the letter, then the public, whose convenience is not being consulted at all, should have the right under the Bill to approach the Railway and Canal Commission and have their interests consulted and proper facilities given.
  Mr. G. TERRELL: One realises that the President of the Board of Trade is in a very difficult position in this matter. It is perfectly true that the whole of the trouble arose at the time of the strike in August, 1911. The Government interfered. They were bound to interfere when they were called upon by hon. Members below the Gangway opposite, and they brought, to a large extent, this difficulty and trouble upon themselves. If they had treated the strikers then as the Chancellor of the Exchequer afterwards treated the doctors who showed signs of striking, we should have had none of this trouble with these railway people. I am sure the railway companies could have managed the difficulties with which they were brought face to face, had it not been for Government interference.
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): Government interference with what?
  Mr. G. TERRELL: Government interference in the meetings which were held, and the negotiations and arrangements which led to the agreement which is the foundation of this Bill. Hon. Members below the Gangway opposite had at that time a very important influence on the Government. They had considerable voting strength in this House, which was of importance to the Government, and, of course, was only natural that the Government at that time should endeavour by every means to secure a continuance of that support. The doctors to whom I have referred had very little support, naturally they were left in the lurch, and I am very sorry to see they have collapsed.
  Mr. GOLDSTONE: With £1,500,000!
  Mr. G. TERRELL: The hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas) talked about 100,000 railwaymen who at the time of the strike received less than £1 a week, and who, in consequence of the strike, had been able to get an increase in their wages up to £1 a week. I have a very great interest in this measure, because I represent a constituency where £1 a week is considered great wealth. My people have nothing like £1 a week; 13s. or 15s. a week is what they earn. If this Bill is passed in the form in which it is submitted to the House, it will mean a heavy tax upon their industry, which is agriculture. Agriculture has to bear a heavy freight in its conveyance to market. If this Bill is passed in its present form it will put up the railway rates. It is very easy to put them on the people who are not here, or not directly represented, and little by little the people I represent will be oppressed by these increased rates. I put a question to the President of the Board of Trade about imports of foreign milk. Here for the first time within the last few months, a trade has sprung up—mine is a dairy constituency—in foreign milk. I believe a year ago there were practically no imports of foreign milk. The answer which the President of the Board of Trade gave me to-day showed that during December last ninety-three tons of foreign milk were imported at Southampton alone. That is a new business, and it is a competitive business. It is going to oppress the poorest of the poor—my Constituents—and unless we watch very carefully a Bill of this sort an increased burden will be put on agriculture which will make it more difficult for the farmer to exist and more difficult for him to pay the living wage to his workers which we should all like to see him pay. A great deal of criticism has been directed against the railways. We are told that all would be well if the railways were nationalised. I am no believer in nationalisation. I have a pretty intimate acquaintance with railway men, and I have no hesitation in stating that our British railway men are the most competent and the most intelligent railway men in the world. I mean those who have the management and control of the railways.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: Directors?
  Mr. TERRELL: Directors and managers and the responsible heads of the different departments. Is there any country in the world where the record for speed and safety combined is as high as it is in this
  1630
  country? The American railroad man imagines that he is very go-a-head, and that he knows everything that is to be known, but he is not above coming over here and poking round among our railways and finding out little developments which help him in his country. Of course, when you make comparisons of traffic and big and small train loads, the conditions in different countries differ entirely. But taking our railway people as a whole, I think they are the most intelligent body in the world. I know them intimately, and I have no hesitation in expressing my opinion. Remarks have been made about nationalisation. You will only get an increased cost of working. You will not get the same competition which exists to-day —the best form of competition—to produce the best service. I regret that there is no competition in rates—that there is a sort of general pooling of rates—but there is the most valuable form of competition, and that is the competition to give the best service, and the result is that we who use the railways get the fullest benefit and the fastest and safest trains which the world produces. Of course, one feels that any increase in railway rates would be a heavy burden to the trade of the country. I have extracted some figures which show that in whatever direction we move we should not handicap ourselves by putting extra burdens on the trade of the country, because after all trade, to a large extent, depends upon the cheap transport of materials. I have figures showing that on material that is approximately worth £40 to £50 a ton the through rate from Cumberland to Sheerness is 74s. a ton. That is a terrific burden on the industry. Then there are other rates. From London to Cumberland for castings the rate is 38s. 6a. a ton. I have schedules of figures before me, and I can say that if, by reason of these arrangements which the Government propose, any serious addition is made to the rates the railway companies charge, it will indeed prejudice our trade.
  I have put a Motion down on the Order Paper as a suggestion to this House that, while we should exclude our own home trade and our home industries from the operation of any increase in railway rates, there is no reason why we should not increase the rates on goods of foreign origin. I have no doubt that in due course I shall have an opportunity of moving my Motion if it is not out of order. That is the direction in which we should proceed, and I hoped that the President of the Board of

  1631
  Trade would have made a suggestion in that direction. If this Bill means the addition of any burdens on agriculture, I regret to say that at a later stage I shall have to oppose it vigorously, but if the Bill is going to leave things as they are—it is almost too much to hope that it will relieve agriculture, but certainly agriculture cannot afford any heavier burdens than it is at present bearing—I will support it. I hope the President of the Board of Trade will indicate that he is prepared to afford some relief to the agricultural interests of the country.
  Mr. BARNES: I shall not follow the hon. Member in his extraordinary figures and statements, which are somewhat reminiscent of the more robust speeches about Protection and Tariff Reform which we used to have from those benches some years ago. But I rise to oppose the Bill. I grant that the Government were in a serious position in the Autumn of 1911, when a serious strike took place which had to be settled somehow or other. There was a serious position nationally and internationally, but I want to suggest to the Government that the railway directors were responsible for that serious position and should be held to their responsibility. A great deal has been said, and said truly, with regard to the absence of statistics. We have not any covering the railways as a whole in regard to wages and many other things, but promises were made by the railway companies that advances of wages should be given and that they would make it up in this way. Advances of wages have been given I am told by the hon. Member (Mr. Thomas), and no doubt some considerable improvement has been made, but in the absence of general figures now and again one comes across a sort of fragment of a tragedy showing what is going on even now. About ten days ago I read in a Scotch newspaper, I think the "Glasgow Herald," a resolution adopted by a public authority in a town called Kirkintilloch, close to Glasgow. The local school board there had had to deal with children who were going to school unfed, ill-clad, and not in a position to absorb the education provided for them. Public moneys were used to feed and clothe these children. Inquiry was made and it was found that the bulk of the fathers of these children, only a fortnight or three weeks ago, were men in the employ of a particular railway in the receipt of the magnificent wage of 19s. per week.
  1632
  That is to say, now eighteen months after promises were made by the railway companies we find the railways still being carried on, so to speak, as a parasitic industry, that the wages paid are insufficient to maintain a family in decency and comfort, and that actually the families of railway men are being maintained in part by public money. If there was no other reason than that I should vote against the Bill.
  Two years ago we were told by Mr. Sidney Webb that 100,000 men were working for £1 a week, or under. I remember the Noble Lord opposite contested the statement, and in fact was indignant that it had been made. As a matter of simple fact, when the strike arose we found that 97,000 were working for £1 a week or less on these railways, and that at a time when we had the statement as the result of the investigation made by Mr. Seebohm Rowntree that 23s. 9d. was the lowest sum on which it was possible to keep a family, not in comfort and luxury, but in sufficient physical efficiency to enable the man to go and do his work. Since that time railway men up to now have not been getting a wage sufficient to keep them in physical comfort. I wish to point out the significant word "shall" in one of the Clauses. I think it is the first time I have ever seen "shall" in an Act of Parliament. The Commissioners are divested of all power as to what takes place between them and the railway companies. The railway companies put up a case that they have made certain advances in wages, and if they make out a case that they have spent so much as increased cost in the wage bill, then the Commissioners must give them the opportunity of making up that cost by putting on increased rates. To that I object.
  10.0 P.M.
  I object to this Bill also on general grounds. It is really a subsidy to incompetence as well as a tax upon the people. Railway directors are now protected, and like all protected folk, in the absence of the spur and pressure of the outside world's competition, they carry on their business in a slovenly way. Mention has already been made of the waste on advertisements. That is palpable to anybody who goes into many of the towns and who sees great boards put up advertising the beauties of certain districts. That is not necessary, because the railway companies have arranged with one another to avoid competition. Take the railways running into Kent. You have two or three

  1633
  lines, and the town of Chatham is filled with railway stations. There is a railway station in almost every street, and a great number of unnecessary trains are run. I submit, if the wages of railway men were raised—and nobody can say that there was not need of it—these railway companies ought to have been left to make up that increase on the wages bill by increased efficiency, just as other people have had to do before. Sixty or seventy years ago great agitations were carried on in this country, having for their object the protection of factory workers—women and children. The hours of labour were reduced after a great deal of agitation. The factory owners at that time said that all their profit was made in the last hour, and that if it were cut off the factories and mills would have to be closed, with the result that ruin and devastation would stalk the land. The House of Commons was not deterred by that from passing the Factory Act, which gave women and children a little more leisure. The mill owners found more efficient ways of carrying on their industries. Scientific and improved methods were applied to them, and as a result the increased wages bill of the mill and factory owners was more than made up by the increased product due to the increased intelligence and improved health of the people, as well as by the more scientific methods of carrying on business. I would leave railway directors to do the same thing in making up the increased wages bill of their men.
  A great deal has been said recently about a minimum wage for agricultural labourers. It is said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is in favour of a minimum wage for agricultural labourers. I hope we shall find that agricultural labourers will get a minimum wage before long. Are we going to have the proposition put before us that that wage, or increased wage, shall be taken out of the increased price of food, because it seems to me the two things are exactly parallel one with another. If you are increasing the wages of railway men and enabling the companies to make up that by increased charges on the public, exactly the same arguments underlying that would support, it seems to me, the protection of food coming into the country, and enabling food raisers in this country to charge a higher price for it. I am not in favour of the one or the other. For my part I believe with the hon. Member for Bermond-
  1634
  sey (Mr. Glanville) that the ultimate solution of this problem is in the railways being run by the community for the community's good instead of the private profit of shareholders. We have had experience of that in regard to the public ownership of the trams in this country. Here in London, in the memory of many hon. Members, we had the old horse system— the greasy old system—which used to prevail under private ownership and control. You have the trams now owned by the county council. The men in that service have been given higher wages and shorter hours of labour, and there has been no need to charge higher fares. On the contrary the charge is not now more than half what it was at the time of the private companies. [An HON. MEMBER: "The ratepayers are paying for that."] If hon. Members object to the illustration from London, let them go to Glasgow, and they will see that exactly the same thing is taking place. The tramway system, instead of being for private profit, is now run for the public good, and a sum of from £90,000 to £100,000 a year is raised by the tramway system for public funds. That sort of thing is going to take place with the railways of the country, but I am going to do nothing that will increase the heavy imposts already laid upon the community by the idle shareholders.
  Mr. THOMAS TAYLOR: It appears to me that many of the remarks to which we have listened are very wide of the immediate object of this Bill. We have had references to the interests of railway directors, and we have had enormous schemes propounded, such as the nationalisation of the railway, but surely this Bill has not got to wait for such schemes as those? I am not a railway shareholder; I have not a single share, and I have no brief for the railways, because when goods are charged more by the railways I shall have to pay, and I am already paying an extra on my contracts. But we are told that all the advances which already have been made will be deducted over and above the amount necessary to pay the net increase in the wages. I might find fault if I wished. I might say it is the fault of the railways that we have not the full benefit of the canals of the country. On the other hand, in reference to what has been said about the great advantages which railways derive from having new engines, steel rails, and all that, we have to remember that the railways have given us very superior accommodation compared

  1635
  with what we used to get even a couple of years ago. For instance, they have provided corridor carriages, with dining and lavatory accommodation, for third-class passengers. Then the railways themselves have been severely bled by the landlords of the companies. There is one point which has not been kept before the House, and, in my opinion, many of the speakers have forgotten it. The railway companies, when they have an advance in the cost of their manufacture—which is the carriage of goods— cannot charge it on the trader. They are not allowed to advance it. One hon. Member stated that it was unfair to the trader to make any advance as he has to stand his own increased expense. But traders as a rule do not stand the increased expense Manufacturers do not stand it. They just put it on. The consumer pays. Hon. Gentlemen opposite may disagree with that, but I tell them that it is so. The railways have made an agreement with the Government, and if they cannot advance the carriage of goods they may ask, "What are we to do? Are we to make a wholesale advance in the men's wages and not be able to meet it?" The country was in a state of chaos at the time that this agreement was made, and I fancy that if the country was to-night in the state in which it was when the Government made this promise to the railway companies, this House would honour the Government cheque, and that is what I propose to do.
  Colonel LOCKWOOD: I always had the greatest respect for the hon. Member for Bolton for the way in which he won his election. Since his first speech in the House I must say that my opinion of his fairness has increased. His diagnosis of what is really in this Bill is quite accurate and worthy of praise, and I hope we shall have many occasions on which we shall be favoured with his remarks. If it is possible for a Tory and a railway director to speak without entering into polemics, T should like to say the few words I have to say on the settlement of this question. No railway director, no sensible man, on whichever side of the House he sits, could possibly think that this Bill was a permanent' settlement of all railway difficulties. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Dublin (Mr. Field) can hardly think in his heart that the effect of this Bill would be to enable such a singularly innocuous individual as myself to
  1636
  attempt to tyrannise over the British public. We have had, as we always have on railway affairs, a very long and interesting discussion, ranging over every possible subject connected with railways, railway accounts, railway promotions, and the nationalisation of railways—everything connected with the railway question. Though I have often envied the position of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, I confess that when I heard the various questions that were addressed to him, I did think that perhaps after all, the position of a private Member stated that it was unfair to the What is the discussion we are entering on to-night when the Government ask us to pass the Second Reading of this Bill? It is not really a case of a Liberal against a Conservative, or of railway directors against traders. It is absolutely and entirely a fulfilment of a pledge given by the Government, not a Liberal Government or a Radical Government, but given by the Government of this great country.
  The circumstances were on an occasion of really momentous gravity. The directors of the great system that controls the railway industry of the country were asked to confer with the Government. They were requested by the Government of the day—it does not matter what Government it was—to come to the assistance of the Government in settling the strike that then took place. The directors, without consulting the shareholders or their interests, or doing anything except what they thought was really right at the moment, and I believe that they were right, to assist the Government of the day, at once promised their assistance in every possible way, not in accordance with their wishes, but what they believed was the necessity of the moment. In return, a pledge was given by the Government, and I for one never doubted that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would fulfil to the letter any engagement he entered into. I think my trust in him has been fulfilled. I think this Bill does carry out the pledge of the Government. I could have wished it had been brought forward sooner. I agree with the President of the Board of Trade that had it been brought forward sooner, probably the opposition to-day would not have been so great. But that is an arguable point, and I said I did not wish to enter into polemics. I say, as a railway director, I think it does fulfil the pledge of the

  1637
  Government, and I would ask the House to think for one minute if it is not fair that the great industry which came to the assistance readily, and not grudgingly, with a cheerful heart, came at once to the assistance of the Government in a time of great national emergency, is not entitled to a fair fulfilment of that pledge. This is not Railways (No. 1) Bill; it is Railways (No. 2) Bill, which puts upon the companies the onus to prove their case before the Railway Commission; and when you look at the various surrounding safeguards, the whole of which tend more in favour of the Government than of the companies, I do not think that anyone can imagine that the railway companies have the best of the bargain. But we had no wish to make a bargain. We desired to assist the Government, and I think we showed our readiness to do so. In return the Government made certain pledges which they have fulfilled by bringing in this Bill, and, in the meantime, I ask the House—irrespective of whatever future reform may be needed in railway management, and I do not believe that the final word has arrived one way or the other, and when necessary we shall be ready to debate it and deal with it—to support the Government in carrying the Second Reading of the Bill.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: We have had a long and interesting Debate upon not merely the subject matter of this Bill, but, as my right hon. Friend reminded us, upon all matters connected with railway management. It is rather a difficult task in this House—and anyone who has been here long enough will realise it—to recommend any measure which seems in the slightest degree to favour railway companies. There is the whole combination of traders and agriculturists, chambers of commerce, representatives of labour, and all those who have a grievance, either a personal or a business one, against railway companies in general, and perhaps against some railway company in particular, and this Debate shows how prejudices raised among traders, agriculturists, and passengers really interfere to a certain extent with a decision, under this Bill, of a very limited issue. As I have been reminded in the very shrewd speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton (Mr. Thomas Taylor), we are not deciding great issues to-day. There are many questions raised by my hon. Friends below the Gangway with which I am in complete sympathy, and on which I
  1638
  have expressed in the House my views, and done my very best to promote some of their ideas. But they have nothing whatever to do with the issue we have got to decide in this Bill. Nationalisation may be a good thing or a bad thing, but it has nothing to do with this Bill. The grievances of the traders may be substantial, and I think they are; but they have nothing whatever to do with this Bill. I think there is a real grievance, and I have always thought it, in the preference which is given to sea-borne traffic. I know it is exceedingly difficult to bring it home, because of the way in which the accounts are kept. I have always been convinced, and my stay at the Board of Trade convinced me more than ever, that there is a real genuine grievance in that respect, but that has nothing to do with this particular Bill. Those are things which should be gone into. Wages in many respects are very much too low, and the hours of labour are also perhaps much too long, but there again that has nothing to do with this particular Bill. This Bill, as we have already been reminded, is a Bill to redeem a definite pledge given by the Government of this country in a very grave crisis. It was a crisis which was grave not merely from the point of view of trade, commerce, and industry of the country, but there was a very grave international situation, and in endeavouring to settle we had to make an appeal, not merely on the first ground but on the latter ground as well, to the patriotism of all parties to make a real effort, even if it involved real sacrifices, to put an end to what threatened to be a very dangerous internecine conflict in this country. The railway companies then undertook to accept certain conditions and terms with which the leaders of the men at the time subscribed, and that condition was submitted to my right hon. Friend (Mr. Buxton) and myself and to the Prime Minister. They assented to it, and there was an end of that trouble—the very serious trouble.
  We feel in honour bound, not merely personally, but as a Government, to use whatever influence we possess with the House, to see that that pledge is redeemed not merely in the letter, but in the spirit. I do not say that the mere fact that a Government has undertaken a bargain, if it is an improvident bargain, would justify the House of Commons in sanctioning it. I should like to put one or two considerations before the House in order to show that it was not an improvident bargain. What does it mean? There

  1639
  was very serious doubt not merely in the minds of the traders, but in the minds of the advisers of the Board of Trade and of the Board of Trade as to whether you could take into account an increased charge attributable to improved conditions of labour in your charges. My hon. Friend very well stated the proposition by pointing out that any other employer of labour could take all those charges into account. If there is a great settlement between colliery owners and their employés, or great cotton spinners, or in any other industry which involves a heavy increase in the labour bill, they pass it on, and they are entitled to pass it on. It would be absolutely impossible to conduct any business except on that principle. There was very great doubt as to whether the railway companies could do what every other trader or business man in the country is competent to do. Somebody suggested, I think it was one of the hon. Members for Glasgow, the case of the cost of food and a minimum wage, but then there is absolutely free and unlimited competition, and there is no Act of Parliament or statutory body to prevent you putting on the charges. If you said that a railway company could put on any charges that competition allowed, you would not require an Act of Parliament to enable them to do this. But when you have an Act of Parliament which, according to the interpretation put upon it by the Board of Trade and the Railway and Canal Commission, prevents their taking into account in adjusting their rates, increased charges for labour, I think it is unfair not to allow that element to be introduced.
  Sir A. MOND: My right hon. Friend did not hear my speech. I quoted no less than five cases before the Railway and Canal Commission in which increased wages had been taken into account as an element, justifying an increase of rate. Therefore, I think that to put it as a general proposition that that element cannot be taken into account is not correct; there must be some other point, which we should like to hear.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: My hon. Friend says there are five cases in which wages have been taken into account If he has any experience of such litigation he must know that there are cases on the other side.
  Sir A. MONDdissented.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: My hon. Friend must not contradict me when I have information from the Board of Trade that there are cases of the kind. At any rate, unless there was a doubt about it, why on earth should I, or the Board of Trade, or the Government, or the railway companies desire to introduce this power? If the power already exists, what possible hardship will it be to the trader to have an Act of Parliament which simply declares what my hon. Friend says is already the law of the land? There is no intention to introduce any new element. If my hon. Friend says that the element is already established by law, we only want it to be clearly set out by Statute. If he thinks there is any element introduced beyond that, we are perfectly willing to consider on the Committee stage any point of that kind that he can raise.
  Let me put the case from the point of view of labour. I have put it, first of all, from the point of view of the trader or business man, and I have said that we are simply giving the railway companies a right which is now extended to every business man in the country. I should have thought that, from the point of view of labour, it was exceedingly desirable that this should be done. Let me point out to my Labour friends what it means. If the view of the railway companies, as fortified by the Board of Trade, is correct, namely, that they have no power to take into account increased charges for improved conditions of labour, what does it mean? It is a barrier in the way of the fair consideration of every demand which labour puts forward. When a demand is put forward now in any other business, the trader says, "Can I pass it on to the consumer?" If he can, it undoubtedly eases the matter for him, and makes it much less difficult to concede the demand.
  Mr. THOMAS: Will my right hon. Friend allow me to point out—
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I know the point of my hon. Friend. Perhaps he will allow me to continue. When my hon. Friend and his colleagues put forward a demand upon the railway directors for increased wages, if those directors have to say, "Well, this will come out of dividends, and reduce the earnings of the company, but we cannot take that into account in the slightest degree in any adjustment of charges," that is certainly an element of opposition and hostility in the minds of the directors against in-

  1641
  creasing the wages of the workmen. I should have thought that the workman was the very last person in the world who would have wished that consideration to weigh against him when his case was presented. From that point of view I should have thought it would be well that the railway company has a free hand—well, not a free hand, but has the means of escape from an impossible position. I can well understand a demand, and a justifiable demand, being put forward by labour. There has been an improvement during the last fifty years, and I hope that that improvement will continue. There has been an improvement all over the world. Supposing, then, you get a demand put forward for a substantial increase in wages, or a reduction in the hours of labour, which would involve a considerable increase in the burden upon the railway company. [An HON. MEMBER: "It would not."] Perhaps the hon. Member would for a moment conceive the possibility of such a thing. If there was such a demand put forward it would increase the burden upon the railway company and would put the railway company in a very serious position. I can understand the argument of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Blackfriars (Mr. Barnes), who takes the view that shareholders ought not to get dividends. From that point of view the opposition is defensible, but from no other point of view. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] If you assume that that is a fair premise, then I say the objection to this Bill is perfectly defensible, but from no other point of view is it defensible. I do not think that that is a position which will be taken up by a majority of Members on either side of the House.
  I come to another point. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond) has suggested a doubt as to whether this Bill does not go beyond its obvious intention. My right hon. Friend is certainly willing to consider that, but that is a matter for Committee. If my hon. Friend in Committee moves an Amendment which makes it perfectly clear that the Bill will not be utilised for any purpose that goes beyond its obvious, and fair intention, my right hon. Friend and I will certainly give it the most favourable consideration. Other questions have been put in the course of this Debate which are not strictly relevant to the Bill proposed. But, as has already been pointed out, a Debate on a Railway Bill usually wanders beyond
  1642
  the limits of the particular issue that is involved in the Bill itself. There has been the expression of a feeling from both sides of the House that the traders are suffering from grievances which ought to be removed; and that agriculturists are suffering from grievances. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I do sympathise with that view. I have already expressed it. I think there certainly ought to be some fuller investigation of the position of the railway companies in regard to sea-borne goods. It is one of the necessities of the situation; for the simple reason now that the traffic comes across the sea the trader has the choice of perhaps half a dozen lines. It makes so little difference in the matter of freight whether you deposit your goods at this port, or a port fifty miles away, or even 100 miles away. It increases the charges so very little. The traders are in the position of having half a dozen railway companies in keen competition with each other, and it is worth the while of the railway company to cast the terminal and permanent charges upon the home trader in order to secure the carriage of the sea-borne goods. I am perfectly certain there is very great cause for that inquiry. My hon. Friend the Member for York also made out a very strong ease in respect of certain grievances in which the trader undoubtedly suffers.
  There is cause for investigation. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond) that the worst method of investigating a case of this kind is a Royal Commission. It is the least expeditious and the least effective. What happens is, you have representatives of railway companies and representatives of the traders, and other interests that are fighting each other, and you cannot get a well-considered impartial recommendation, and the result is you get three or four different reports written from different points of view, not one of them in the least helpful to the Government Department that wants to find a real solution of the problem. And it takes no end of time. When I was at the Board of Trade my hon. Friend was a member of a Committee appointed to inquire into the matter. It was a Committee on which railway managers were present, and I am sure it did excellent work. I am sure it would be possible to have some inquiry of that kind again. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is considering the matter, and he is hopeful of being able to make an announcement at

  1643
  no distant date. I am sure something should be done. No one is satisfied with the situation now. Agriculture is complaining, and it has good ground for complaint. The small trader cannot protect himself. His grievance is that he cannot go before an expensive tribunal like the Railway and Canal Commissioners, where you have to employ special counsel, very often with high fees, and experts, who are also very expensive. To invite a small trader to fight an action before the Railway and Canal Commissioners is very often to invite bankruptcy for him. And satisfactory results do not always follow. You have to fight the railway companies, who have at their command men trained all their lives and who have full command of the accounts, and it is an almost impossible proposition to invite a small trader to go before that Commission to investigate his grievance. There ought to be a better, more expeditious, and cheaper tribunal to investigate the grievances of small traders. A powerful combination of traders can protect itself and fight with great success.
  An HON. MEMBER: For instance, Brunner, Mond and Company.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: My hon. Friend (Sir A. Mond) is well able to hold his own, I am sure. Then there were cases presented by the hon. Member for Blackfriars (Mr. Barnes) of expensive competition in some places, railway companies running unnecessary trains, having unnecessary stations, and double staffs. In some places there is competition, while other places, where there is a monopoly, are starved. All these things require to be looked into, and looked into thoroughly, and I am firmly of the mind that there is more to be done by way of reconsideration of our railway system, not merely for the protection of the shareholders, but at the same time for promoting the trade and industry of the country. That has been the subject of discussion for the last few years. I have always been of that view, and I think it is well worth while considering. All these considerations are not strictly relevant to the very narrow limited issue in this Bill. Still the House insists, and I think rightly insists, on taking advantage of any Railway Bill that comes forward to present its grievances and the grievances of the traders of this country. I think we have had a most useful discussion from that
  1644
  point of view, and I hope my hon. Friend will see his way, on the promises I have given to look into these matters, and to give fair consideration to every Amendment, which makes it clear that this Bill will not travel beyond its purpose, to withdraw this Amendment, and allow us to move that the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
  Sir A. MOND: In answer to the appeal made by the right hon. Gentleman I feel that, in view of the promise he has given on his own behalf and on behalf of the President of the Board of Trade, that they will favourably consider Amendments in Committee which will limit the Bill to what they intended it to mean, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Mr. MORTON: I object to the Amendment being withdrawn.
  Leave to withdraw Amendment withheld.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: I think it is only common justice to the railway companies that the House should give a Second Reading to this Bill. The House should remember that the amount of interest paid on railway investments does not average more than 3½ per cent. Traders want increased facilities and railway companies are unable to find the money at the present time. Owing to the high price of money in the market railway companies will not find money to develop new districts and provide fresh accommodation unless they can be assured of a fair return for their money. As a trader I am constantly asking railway companies to give increased facilities and provide sidings accommodation and the reply always is, "We have no money to make these alterations, and unless we get increased rates no company ever can face the cost of developing new districts." It is all very well for the hon. Baronet who moved this Amendment to argue in the way he did when his firm pays 30 per cent, on the whole of its capital, and really a dividend of 60 per cent. It is not reasonable to argue that these facilities should not be given because the shareholders are receiving too much. Shareholders, like other people, are entitled to a fair return for their money. An hon. Member said it was subsidising incompetence to allow railway companies to make these new charges, but the hon. Member is under an entire delusion on this point. It has also been said that the salaries of directors amount to such a large

  1645
  sum that it is a burden on the industries of the country. I do not hold any shares in railway companies because I should not be content with 3½2 per cent. interest on my money. When I hear people say that the directors are mismanaging the business of the railway companies, I reply that the directors have nothing to do with the management of railways. I am constantly dealing with railway companies, and I never see the directors. When traders are unable to agree with the general manager and he says he must report the matter to his directors, you may take it that, as a matter of fact, they are not going to get what they ask. The railways are exceedingly well run by the general managers. Why do the representatives of labour oppose this Bill? It is distinctly drafted on the understanding that no increased rate shall be granted unless it is proved that increase in the rate is paid in increased wages. Some say it may go to the directors and to the superior officials. Railway companies pay low salaries even to their superior officials. Surely when permanent rates which the companies cannot raise are fixed by Act of Parliament and the whole cost of living has risen all through the country, the price of all commodities being higher, it is not unreasonable for the companies to ask the House to put them in a position to give their men a living wage! There are men on the South Eastern Railway working twelve hours a day for 16s. per week. I do not say the South Eastern reflects very much credit on the management in the past; but even in that case the position is entirely owing to the enormous price they had to pay for the land. I represent an industrial district where large numbers of men are engaged in the moving of the coal which has been obtained from the mines. The people connected with the collieries receive a minimum rate of wages, and men on the railways engaged on similar work receive lower wages for longer hours. The men want higher wages, but the companies say they are not in a position to pay them. If only the cost of increases granted by the railway companies is placed on the public, the public will not have very much to grumble about. I would say this with regard to the question of settling what the rates will have to be. The total amount of the mineral and goods traffic is 500,000,000 tons. Of that 400,000,000 tons are minerals and 100,000,000 tons are goods. This is the most paying
  1646
  part of the whole business of the railway companies, and my complaint against railways companies is that they will never separate their accounts. Under this Bill a railway company has to prove that a rate is not unreasonable, but how can either a trader or a railway company prove to the satisfaction of the Railway and Canal Commission that a rate is not unreasonable? I have had cases before the Railway and Canal Commission. I think I had the first case with which the Leader of the Opposition ever had to deal when he was Under-Secretary at the Board of Trade. I brought to his notice a case of secret rebates being given by a railway company, and he caused the company to discontinue them. Unless the railway companies are placed in a position when before the Railway Commission to show the cost, of the traffic they are moving, it will be impossible for the Railway Commissioners to give a judgment which is either reasonable or just. I hope the Government will accept the Resolution I have on the Paper, in which I ask that the railway companies be required to separate their accounts. Will not the President of the Board of Trade secure this separation? The companies say they cannot do it. But any engineering works and any industrial concern will tell you approximately the cost of any article they produce, and why, when you have lines dealing with mineral traffic, should it not be possible to show approximately the cost of it. If the right hon. Gentleman will get that concession on behalf of the traders—because it is the trader who really wants the information—he will remove an important grievance. I think the Labour party are unwise in not accepting this proposal. It has nothing to do with the nationalisation of the railways. Personally I am in favour of that. I am convinced if all the railways were under one system and empty trucks had not to be returned to the source whence they came, the traffic could be worked much more cheaply.
  The only question we have to decide is whether the railway companies should have the right to make these increased charges in recompense for the extra wages they are going to pay to their workmen. If the companies do not increase the pay of their workmen, the Board of Trade must take steps to see that they do not get power to increase their rates. We ought to have some guarantee to that effect before the Bill leaves this House.

  1647
  Take the case of the South-Eastern Railway Company. Their men are still receiving 16s., although the company have increased the charge for season tickets. The Government ought to take steps to see that these low-paid men shall receive such an increase as will enable them to keep their wives and families in decent comfort.
  Mr. WEDGWOOD: I am interested in railway undertakings, and I can assure the last speaker that I do not have to put up with 3½ per cent. interest. I am confident it is quite easy to ensure a return of at least 5 per cent. Hon. Members know perfectly well that we have to calculate the yield and not the mere return on £100. The prices of railway stocks in this country are better now than they have been at any time during the last ten years, and anyone who invests in railway stocks at the present time makes a very good purchase. I only say that because I do not want the House to assume that I have any bias whatever against railway companies. My interests are with the railway companies. In spite of that, I do think that the Government have in this Bill gone beyond the pledge that they gave to the railway companies in August, 1911, and that that pledge, even if they had not gone beyond it at all, is not binding upon all the Members of the House of Commons. The Prime Minister, in giving that pledge, stated quite clearly that he pledged himself and his Government, but that he could not pledge the ordinary private Member. Of course the railway companies to whom the pledge was given knew perfectly well that it was impossible to bind any private Member of Parliament, however much you may talk about the strength of the party machine and allegiance to the party Whips. Although I say that this Bill is based on a pledge given by the Prime Minister, it does, in four distinct points, go far beyond that pledge. In the first place, anyone who will read paragraph (a) will see that it is not merely on an increase in the rates of the low-paid staff that the railway companies are to base a claim for a rise in rates. The conditions of employment of their staff include the salaries paid to managers or to any people employed in the higher salaried posts. That, however, is a Committee point. There you are going absolutely beyond the pledge of the Prime Minister.
  In the next place, the House will observe that we are not dealing simply with the
  1648
  rises of wages given by the railway companies at the conclusion of the strike. This Bill holds for all time, and for all subsequent rises of wages the railway companies are insured against having to suffer any loss. That puts them in a very peculiar position, a position in which many other similarly constituted industries would like to be. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton (Mr. Thomas Taylor) stated, in the case of the ordinary industry subject to free competition the manufacturer puts the price of the increased wage upon his article, and the consumer pays. But there are many other industries besides the railway industry which are monopolies, and these are unable to increase the price of the article to the consumer. Every argument uttered in favour of this Bill so far as railway companies are concerned can be applied with equal validity to gas companies, tramway companies, electric light companies, in fact to all public franchises based upon monopolies. AH those industries are unable to increase the price to the consumer, consequently they will have, equally with railway companies, a perfectly valid ground, according to the arguments put forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the hon. Member for Mansfield (Sir A. Mark-ham), for coming to Parliament and demanding that whoever suffers the vested interest, the monopoly shall not suffer, and that the charge for increased wages shall be transferable to the whole community, which means, in the long run, the wage-earners of the country.
  11.0 p.m.
  That seems to be going beyond the book and beyond the pledge. You are not merely saying that the rises of wages, by which the railway companies met the striking railway workers a year and a-half ago are to be transferred on to the back of the public. You are saying to railway companies and implicitly to all monopoly owners in the country, "We give you in future the right to charge any increased cost of wages upon the consumer"—that is, upon the wage-earners themselves. The hon. Member (Mr. Barnes) referred to the agricultural question, and asked very pertinently whether, when we have a minimum wage for agricultural labourers, the Government will come forward and say to all the farmers and small holders. "We give you a statutory right to sell your potatoes and turnips and what not at a 10 per cent, increased price because of

  1649
  this minimum wage of the agricultural labourer." I do not think we need trouble in that case to give the farmers that right, because, after all, it would come out of the rent. The fanner would no longer be able to pay his present rent. Rents would fall and prices would not rise. But exactly the same principle applies to the railway companies, as was illustrated by the hon. Member (Mr. Barnes), because if you do not give to the railways this privilege of transferring the charge on to the community their dividends will fall, which means that the returns for the franchise conferred upon the railway companies by Parliament will be less by the amount, that they are compelled to reduce their dividends. In these two points, first of all, by including the higher-salaried posts as well as the low wages in the Bill; and, secondly, by including any increase of wages for all time, I think the Government are going beyond their pledge.
  There is a third point I wish to mention—a point originally raised by the hon. Baronet (Sir A. Mond). He pointed out that the promise of the Government was to make it quite clear to the railway companies that the increase in wages might be taken as a ground for demanding an increase in the particular rate, that hitherto you had got to show that an increase in the wages on a particular branch line should justly be made a ground for a higher rate upon that particular line, and that the increased rate of wages for people working goods trains should be a valid ground for demanding an increase in goods rates. The charge outlined by the Bill goes far further than that. It does not merely say that if there is any particular increase in the wages in a particular district or a particular trade, an increased rate should be able to be demanded by the railway companies of traders. It says that an increased rate of wages anywhere shall be a sufficient ground for demanding an increased rate for the whole railway system, so that if you give the waiters in some of your hotels increased wages, that would be a good ground under this Bill for demanding an increase for the trade in minerals, and if you pay your dockers in Hull or railway workers in Crewe a living wage, that will be a sufficient ground for demanding an increase of freight for the agricultural produce of the country. The important promise of the Government was that they would give the railway companies power to put in a legal form what they already claimed before
  1650
  these Railway Commissioners. In this Bill they have something that goes far further than that which gives them a right to demand a general increase of rates on account of any incidental increase of pay.
  Then there is another point in which they have gone beyond their pledge. The traders of this country were perfectly justified in imagining that when the Government did, after all these years, take up this question of general railway rate legislation, at least they could put right some of those grievances which have been admitted by Government after Government and Commission after Commission which has considered those grievances, the question of owners' risk rate, the question of terminal charges, and the question of demurrage. I think we might have expected that when the Government carried out their pledges to the railway companies made in August, 1911, they should at the same time and in the same Bill have carried out some of their pledges to the traders of the country, and so put right some of those manifest injustices which railway companies are at present able to practise at the expense and at the risk of traders. The Chancellor of the Exchequer referred to the preferential rates granted on the transit of sea-borne goods to the centre of the country. That is a grievance of agriculturists. I think if you will go to any chamber of commerce, you will find that their grievances are every bit as bitter and as well founded as the grievances of agriculturists. I do hope that this Committee, or whatever form of inquiry it is proposed to set up, will go into the grievances of the traders as well as those of the agriculturists, and will see whether it is not possible to do a little bit more justice to the traders of this country. The hon. and gallant Member for the Epping Division (Colonel Lockwood) made a point—it was also made by the hon. Member for Bolton (Mr. Thomas Taylor)—which I know appealed to the House very strongly. They say that if the ordinary trader is able to charge consumers more when they pay increased wages for labour, railway companies should also be allowed to do so. That is not so. Is it just, they ask, that railway companies should not be in a position to get the advantages ordinary traders can get? Let us be quite clear on this point. Any man who invests in a railway company does it on conditions which he knows perfectly well. He knows that the Government control, and rigidly

  1651
  control, the freight rates to be charged by that railway company. He knows that in investing in that company he must take into account all the conditions as to the termination of lease, or the regulations made under the Act of Parliament which created the railway. He goes into that with his eyes open, but in this Bill you are giving people who have invested their money in this business with eyes open and knowing the risks they run, an enormous advantage. You are giving them a privileged position not enjoyed by them now, and I say it is the business of this Parliament not to increase but to decrease privileges.
  Mr. BUXTON: We have already promised that any Amendments with reference to particular proposals in the Bill will be carefully considered. I hope, therefore, the House will now come to a decision.
  Mr. MORTON: We have been told from several sources that every question in connection with railways has been mentioned. One has been left out and that is the provision of "sleepers" for third class passengers.
  Mr. SPEAKER: It has been left out because it is not relevant.
  Mr. MORTON: I do not want to discuss it to-night. I am opposed to the Bill be cause, in my opinion, it is unfair to agriculturists and small traders. That affects my constituency, and I am bound to take some interest in the matter. We are told that by the Act of 1894 the railway companies have already got power to increase rates to the maximum with the consent of the Railway Commissioners. I am told that if the Bill is passed you will put it the other way, and that they will be able to increase rates unless some one is strong enough to go to the Railway Commissioners to get them reduced. That is altogether wrong. In my opinion it does a great injustice, especially to the small traders. We are told that the Government gave some pledge in this matter. I do not think that the Government should give any such pledge without consulting at least their own party. I have not much sympathy with the people who got up the war scare in August, 1911—
  Mr. BUXTON Mr. BUXTON rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Question put, "That the Question be now put."
  The House divided: Ayes, 237; Noes, 55.

  Division No. 565.]

  AYES.

  [11.12 p.m.

  Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

  Cotton, William Francis

  Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

  Addison, Dr. Christopher

  Crooks, William

  Greig, Colonel J. W.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Crumley, Patrick

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Cullinan, J.

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

  Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)

  Davies, E. William (Eifion)

  Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

  Armitage, Robert

  Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

  Arnold, Sydney

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

  Hackett, J.

  Baker, H. T. (Accrington)

  Dawes, James Arthu

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

  Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

  Delany, William

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale)

  Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Hacourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Devlin, Joseph

  Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

  Barton, W.

  Dillon, John

  Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

  Beale, Sir William Phipson

  Doris, W.

  Harris, Henry Percy

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

  Duffy, William J.

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

  Birrell, Rt. Hon Augustine

  Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Boland, John Plus

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  Hayward, Evan

  Booth, Frederick Handel

  Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

  Hazleton, Richard

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Elverston, Sir Harold

  Helme, Sir Norval Watson

  Boyle, D. (Mayo, North)

  Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

  Hemmerde, Edward George

  Brace, William

  Essex, Sir Richard Walter

  Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)

  Brady, P. J.

  Falconer, J.

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

  Brocklehurst, W. B.

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Holmes, Daniel Turner

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Ffrench, Peter

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Field, William

  Hudson, Walter

  Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar)

  Flennes, Hon. Eustace Edward

  Hughes, S. L.

  Byles, Sir William Pollard

  Fitzgibbon, John

  Inbleby, Holcombe

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

  Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

  France, G. A.

  Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)

  Chancellor, H. G.

  Furness, Stephen

  Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Chapple, Dr. William Allen

  George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Gill, A. H.

  Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

  Clough, William

  Ginnell, L.

  Jones, Willaim (Carnarvonshire)

  Clynes, John R.

  Gladstone, W. G. C.

  Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts, Stepney)

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Glanville, Harold James

  Joyce, Michael

  Cornwall Sir Edwin A.

  Goldstone, Frank

  Kellaway, Frederick George

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

  Nuttall, Harry

  Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

  Kerry, Earl of

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Rutherford, John (Lanes., Darwen)

  Kilbride, Denis

  O'Connor, John (Klldare, N.)

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

  King, J.

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Scanlan, Thomas

  Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

  O'Oowd, John

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

  Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

  O'Grady, James

  Sheehy, David

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

  O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

  Shortt, Edward

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  O'Malley, William

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

  Lewis, John Herbert

  O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

  Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

  Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  O'Shee, James John

  Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

  Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich)

  O'Sullivan, Timothy

  Sutherland, J. E,

  Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Sutton, John E.

  Lundon, Thomas

  Parry, Thomas H.

  Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)

  Lynch, A. A.

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Tennant, Harold John

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Pearson, Hon. Weetman H. M.

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  McGhee, Richard

  Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A, (Rotherham)

  Touche, George Alexander

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

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Toulmin, Sir George

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Pointer, Joseph

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  M'Callum, Sir John M.

  Pollard, Sir George H.

  Tullibardine, Marquess of

  M'Curdy, Charles Albert

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

  McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

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

  Walsh, Stephen (Lanes., Ince)

  M'Micking, Major Gilbert

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

  Walters, Sir John Tudor

  Manfield, Harry

  Pringle, William M. R.

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

  Markham, Sir Arthur Basil

  Radford, G. H.

  Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

  Marks, Sir George Croydon

  Raffan, Peter Wilson

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Marshall, Arthur Harold

  Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Mason, David M. (Coventry)

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

  Watt, Henry A.

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Reddy, M.

  Webb, H.

  Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

  Meagher, Michael

  Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

  Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

  Whitehouse, John Howard

  Millar, James Duncan

  Richards, Thomas

  Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

  Molloy, M.

  Richardson, Albion (Peckham)l

  Whyte, A. F. (Perth)

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Morgan, George Hay

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

  Muldoon, John

  Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

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

  Munro, R.

  Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Murray, Captain Hon, A. C.

  Robinson, Sidney

  Wotd, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)

  Nicholson, Sir C. N. (Doncaster)

  Roche, Augustine (Louth. N.)

  Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)

  Nolan, Joseph

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Young, William (Perth, East)

  Norman, Sir Henry

  Rose, Sir Charles Day

  Norton, Captain Cecil W.

  Rowlands, James

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.

  Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

  Rowntree, Arnold

  NOES.

  Baicarres, Lord

  Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

  Outhwaite, R. L.

  Barnes, G. N.

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

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Barnston, Harry

  Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

  Perkins, Walter F.

  Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

  Hickman, Col. T. E.

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Bird, A.

  Higham, John Sharp

  Primrose, Hon. Nell James

  Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

  Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

  Pryce-Jones, Col. E.

  Boyton, James

  Hunt, Rowland

  Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Jessel, Captain H. M.

  Sanders, Robert A.

  Burn, Colonel C. R.

  Knight, Captain E. A.

  Stanler, Beville

  Cave, George

  Larmor, Sir J.

  Talbot, Lord E.

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

  Terrell, G. (Wilts, N.W.)

  Courthope, G. Loyd

  Macpherson, James Ian

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

  Eyres-Monsell, B. M.

  Mond, Sir Alfred M.

  Tryon, Captain George Clement

  Fletcher, John Samuel

  Money, L. G. Chlozza

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Gibbs, George Abraham

  Morrell, Philip

  Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.)

  Goldsmith, Frank

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

  Younger, Sir George

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Newton, Harry Kottingham

  Grant, J. A.

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

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Morton and Mr. Martin.

  Gretton, John

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

  Question put accordingly, "That the I The House word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 229; Noes, 52.

  Division No. 566.]

  AYES.

  [11.21 p.m.

  Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)

  Balcarres, Lord

  Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North)

  Addison, Dr. C.

  Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)

  Boyton, James

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Brady, P. J.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Barton, William

  Brocklehurst, William B.

  Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)

  Beale, Sir William Phipson

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Armitage, R.

  Benn, W. W. (T. H'mts., St. George)

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Arnold, Sydney

  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine

  Buxton, Rt. Hon. S. C. (Poplar)

  Baird, J. L.

  Boland, John Plus

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Baker, Harold T. (Accrington)

  Booth, Frederick Handel

  Cave, George

  Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

  Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

  Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich)

  Cecil, Evelyn (Asten Manor)

  Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)

  O'Sullivan, Timothy

  Chancellor, H. G.

  Jessel, Captain Herbert M.

  Parry, Thomas H.

  Chapple, Dr. William Allen

  Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

  Pearson, Hon. Weetman H. M.

  Clough, William

  Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

  Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)

  Phillips, John (Longford, S.)

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)

  Pollard, Sir George H.

  Cotton, William Francis

  Joyce, Michael

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Crumley, Patrick

  Kellaway, Frederick George

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

  Cullinan, John

  Kennedy, Vincent Paul

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

  Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)

  Kerry, Earl of

  Pringle, William M. R.

  Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth)

  Kilbride, Denis

  Radford, G. H.

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

  King, J.

  Raffan, Peter Wilson

  Dawes, J. A.

  Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

  Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)

  Delany, William

  Lardner, James Carrige Rushe

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

  Denman, Hon. R, D.

  Larmor, Sir J.

  Reddy, M.

  Devlin, Joseph

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

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Dillon, John

  Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)

  Redmond, William (Clare, E.)

  Doris, William

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)

  Duffy, William J.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Richardson, Albion (Peckham)

  Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley)

  Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

  Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

  Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)

  Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Essex, Sir Richard Walter

  Low, Sir F. (Norwich)

  Robinson, Sidney

  Falconer, J.

  Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)

  Roche, Augustine (Louth)

  Farrell, James Patrick

  Lundon, T.

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Ffrench, Peter

  Lynch, A. A

  Rose, Sir Charles Day

  Field, William

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Rowlands, James

  Fitzgibbon, John

  McGhee, Richard

  Rowntree, Arnold

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Maclean, Donald

  Russell, Rt. Hon. Thomas W.

  Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)

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

  Scanlan, Thomas

  France, G. A.

  Macpherson, James Ian

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

  Furness, Stephen

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Sheehy, David

  George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd

  M'Callum, Sir John M.

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  Gibbs, G. A.

  M'Curdy, Charles Albert

  Shortt, Edward

  Ginnell, L.

  McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

  Gladstone, W. G. C.

  M'Micking, Major Gilbert

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim)

  Glanville, H. J.

  Manfield, Harry

  Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, W.)

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Markham, Sir Arthur Basil

  Sutherland, J. E.

  Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)

  Marks, Sir George Croydon

  Talbot, Lord E.

  Greig, Colonel James William

  Marshall, Arthur Harold

  Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Mason, David M. (Coventry)

  Tennant, Harold John

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

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)

  Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)

  Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.

  Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, North)

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

  Meagher, Michael

  Touche, George Alexander

  Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)

  Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

  Toulmin, Sir George

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

  Millar, James Duncan

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Hackett, J.

  Molloy, Michael

  Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

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

  Molteno, Percy Alport

  Walters, Sir John Tudor

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale)

  Morgan, George Hay

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Muldoen, John

  Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay

  Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)

  Munro, Robert

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

  Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C.

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Harris, Henry Percy

  Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

  Webb, H.

  Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale)

  Nolan, Joseph

  White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston)

  Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry

  Norman, Sir Henry

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Norton, Captain C. W.

  Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

  Hayward, Evan

  Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

  Whyte, A. F.

  Hazleton, Richard

  Nuttall, Harry

  Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)

  Helme, Sir Norval Watson

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

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

  Hemmerde, Edward George

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)

  Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.)

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Young, Samuel (Cavan, E.)

  Higham, John Sharp

  O'Dowd, John

  Young, W. (Perthshire, E.)

  Hobhouse. Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

  O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)

  Holmes, Daniel Turner

  O'Malley, William

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.

  Hughes. S. L.

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus

  O'Shee, James John

  NOES.

  Alden, Percy

  Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)

  Martin, Joseph

  Barnes, George N.

  Elverston, Sir Harold

  Money, L. G. Chiozza

  Barnston, Harry

  Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.

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

  Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

  Gill, A. H.

  Morton, Alpheus Cleophas

  Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish-

  Goldsmith, Frank

  Newton, Harry Kottingham

  Bird, A.

  Goldstone, Prank

  O Grady, James

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Grant, J. A.

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

  Brace, William

  Gretton, John

  Outhwaite, R. L.

  Bridgeman, W. Clive

  Hickman, Colonel Thomas E.

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Burn, Colonel C. R.

  Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)

  Perkins, Walter Frank

  Byles, Sir William Pollard

  Hunt, Rowland

  Pryce-Jones, Col. E.

  Clynes, John R.

  Ingleby, Holcombe

  Richards, Thomas

  Courthope, George Loyd

  Jowett, Frederick William

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)

  Knight, Captain Eric Ayshford

  Rutherford, Watson (L'pool., W. Derby)

  1656

  1657

  Sanders, Robert Arthur

  Watt, Henry A.

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)

  Wedgwood, Josiah C.

  Sutton, John E.

  Whitehouse, John Howard

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Peto and Mr. Pointer.

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)

  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next, 3rd February.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Lord BALCARRES: I understand the Chancellor of the Exchequer desires to announce an alteration in the arrangements for Government business.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Yes. For the convenience of hon. Members opposite, next Thursday we shall discuss the Lords Amendments to the Scottish Temperance Bill, and it is hoped by mutual arrangement to conclude that discussion about 7.30, and then we shall take the Supplementary Estimates, which will be continued on Friday.

  SUPPLY.
  Resolved, "That this House will, Tomorrow, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to His Majesty."—[Mr. Gulland
  WAYS AND MEANS.
  Resolved, "That this House will, Tomorrow, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Ways and Means for raising the Supply to be granted to His Majesty."—[Mr. Gulland.]

  CIVIL SERVICES (SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1912–13).
  Estimate presented of the further Sums required to be voted for the service of the year ending 31st March, 1913 [by Command]; Referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 490.]
  The Orders for the remaining Government business were read, and postponed.
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 14th October, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Lord BALCARRES: There was some conversation earlier to-day about the business for Thursday and Friday of next week. I understand that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a further statement to make.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am very much obliged to the Noble Lord for giving me the opportunity of announcing a slight alteration made in the order of business. For the convenience of hon. Members opposite, I may say that next Thursday we shall discuss the Lords Amendments to the Temperance (Scotland) Bill. It is hoped by mutual arrangement to conclude that discussion about 7.30. Thereafter we shall take the Supplementary Estimates, which will be continued on Friday.
  Lord BALCARRES: I am much obliged.

  DELHI (TOWN PLANNING SCHEME).
  Mr. KING: I want to call attention to a very important event that has happened in connection with the site at Delhi, the new Capital of India, where in a few months or years the new Imperial city will be rising. We were surprised to see in our newspapers yesterday morning the information that the Government of India have decided to entrust the preparations of the designs for the Government House and another important building at Delhi to Mr. Edwin Lutyens and Mr. Herbert Baker. We were also told that these two gentlemen would assist in the selection of designs for further public buildings, and were to act generally as the principal architectural advisers for the new Capital. I was surprised at the information, for this reason; that for a few weeks past I have had weekly questions to the India Office upon this subject. Upon the Adjournment on 20th December I raised the whole matter and was lulled to rest by the hon. Gentleman who temporarily presides with great ability and with really a surprising amount of knowledge under the circumstances at the India Office. He informed I me with regard to the appointment of I architects for Delhi that:—
  "The ground plan of the new city has not yet been settled. "We have not yet received the final report of the Committee that had to settle the ground plan. The

  1659
  Committee will probably report in March, and no doubt the report will be published very shortly. Until that report hag been published, and until the ground plan has been settled, I am afraid it is a little premature to consider this question of architects and architecture."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th December, 1912, col. 1954, Vol. XLV.]
  We are still more than a month from March and we have no idea yet of any scheme by the Town Planning Committee being presented and published. Six weeks before that was possible, the architects are already appointed, and apparently plans have been prepared on which the whole system of the new Delhi has been settled. On behalf of the House I protest against this selection because it seems to me there are several pledges that have been broken. First of all there is the pledge that the Report of the Town Planning Committee should be published and should be open to public criticism and that there would be opportunity for artistic suggestion. Secondly we were told again and again that there would be some sort of competition in connection with the appointment of the architects. That was said on the very first day that there was an announcement of the new city of Delhi, and it was repeated on the 20th of last month by the hon. Gentleman who represents the India Office. I admit there were certain difficulties in the appointments of architects by open public competition, but the hon. Gentleman used these words:—
  "I can assure hon. Members who are anxious to see the principle of public competition adopted in connection with Delhi, that the Secretary of State, in so far as he possibly can, intends to adopt it and to bring it in."
  We have three architects already appointed, but not a hint of competition, and apparently these three architects are to appoint any others that may be necessary. I think therefore the House needs some explanation upon this point. There is another point. I received an assurance that Mr. Begg, who is well known as consulting architect to the Government of India, should be consulted on this matter. He is a very well known man and I hold in my hand a report he published containing a large number of illustrations of public works all over India, carried out under his supervision. It is a very remarkable volume. I do not believe Mr. Begg could possibly have been consulted, since the promise was given to him only three weeks ago. The third point is that we were told the question of the style of buildings should be settled after the Report of the Town Planning Committee had been laid before the House. So far as I
  1660
  can make out the plans of the Government have already been drawn. They have been drawn in anticipation of the appointment of certain architects, and Mr. Lutyens and Mr. Baker by rushing into print have already committed themselves to the style that should be adopted. I greatly regret that. Those two gentlemen are of course very able men and distinguished architects and have done very fine work. Especially I desire to say that about Mr. Baker whose work in South Africa in the way of public buildings is very remarkable. And, by the way, as this whole story sounds so very suspicious may I at once say that Mr. Baker, the architect, is no relation whatever of the hon. Member of the same name who is about to reply.
  Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present. House counted, and forty Members being found present—
  Mr. KING: I shall endeavour to bring my remarks to a very speedy close because I think I have already made an indictment sufficient for the hon. Gentleman to answer. I wish to say a word or two on behalf of public competition. I urge most strongly that competition should, if possible be introduced, because that is the one means by which you can avoid influence and jobbery. Competition in connection with our great public buildings has produced remarkable results. Competition was responsible for the noble building in which we are now assembled, and it has produced the Liverpool Cathedral and the plan for the London County Council offices which in a few years time will beautify London and especially this part of it. I appeal to the hon. Member to give us a promise that if possible there will be some form of competition in connection with the new Delhi. I will put four questions to the hon. Member. In the first place why this peculiar haste? On the 20th of December we were told "wait until March; nothing can be done before then." Before January is out architects are appointed. Secondly, will the Report of the Town Planning Committee be published? The object of this Report was in order that the public might have something to go upon before the plans were decided upon. Is it the intention now that the Report will be published shortly? Thirdly, is competition entirely given up or can it still be brought in? Fourthly, will public opinion, artistic criticism, and

  1661
  Parliamentary discussion count for anything at all or will this great Imperial scheme which is being watched by all of us at home with such intense interest as a matter of supreme importance to the future well-being of our Indian Empire be carried out in a straightforward manner and will some notice be taken of popular opinion and artistic criticism?
  Captain MURRAY: I do not entirely agree with the views of the hon. Member in relation to competition. It is not necessarily the case that by competition the best men axe always obtained. I am prepared to leave it to the Government of^ India to obtain the best man where they can, and not to tie them down to any particular form of architecture, Renaissance or otherwise, as suggested by the hon. Member.
  Mr. KINGindicated dissent.
  Captain MURRAY: I know the hon. Member did not suggest it this evening, but I think he suggested it in a speech a few weeks ago. There is one other subject upon which I should like to say a few words, and it is in regard to the Council Chamber which it is proposed to erect for the Imperial Legislative Council. On the Motion for the Adjournment for the Summer Recess I drew attention to this matter and urged the Secretary of State, when considering the plans submitted to him, to introduce a separate Council Chamber for the Imperial Legislative Council, detached from the Viceroy's quarters. The Under-Secretary of State for India, who is not at present in the country, in replying to the remarks which I then made used these words:—
  "Roughly speaking, the design of the central building in the city of Delhi is that there should be a separate Durbar Hall, on one side of which will be the official residence of the Viceroy, and on the other side, in the other wing, there shall be a hall for the meetings of the Council."
  He added:—
  "I submit to the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the arrangements we are making are quite sufficient for the needs of the moment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 7th August, 1912, col. 3313, Vol. XLI.]
  Although he is doing what may be sufficient for the needs of the moment, he may find at some future date, which I do not myself think will be very far distant, that the Imperial Legislative Council may, and possibly will, require larger quarters and that this one wing of the Viceroy's quarters will be left empty and no one will know what to do with it. That is a practical consideration which I would urge upon the hon. Gentleman who now
  1662
  represents the India Office. No sufficient reasons have to my mind been put forward why the imperial Legislative Council should not be provided with separate quarters. It was proposed to erect a separate Council Chamber in Simla and no objection was taken at the time by the Government of India, so at least I am informed, to the plans put forward. If this was the case in Simla, I do ask the hon. Gentleman whether there is any reason why a separate Council Chamber should not be provided in Delhi? I hope that the Secretary of State has not yet closed his mind to the suggestion which I made a few months ago and which I repeat to-night.
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY Of the WAR OFFICE (Mr. H. Baker): The hon. Member who spoke first suggested at the outset he was intending to bring a very severe indictment against me, and I confess as he unfolded his speech it seemed to be such. I have very great respect for my hon. Friend and I should be very sorry if such an indictment were true, but I think I shall be able to show in the short time I have at my disposal that he has to some extent misstated the true situation and that the indictment in its main features totally fails. His main complaint was that the announcement made of the policy of the India Office in this respect did not correspond with certain answers I had given to questions and with certain statements I had made in debate in this House; also I think he said that there had been peculiar haste in the appointment of the architects to deal with the architecture of Delhi. The promise—so far as it was a promise—I do not think it even went to that extent—was at the most an indication of what the intentions were of the Secretary of State at the time I gave it. Since then certain events have happened which made it necessary to take a much earlier decision than we anticipated would be necessary. I may tell the hon. Member that early in January the Secretary of State received a telegram from the Viceroy in which he suggested that Mr. Lutyens and Mr. Baker— I am glad the hon. Member in passing called attention to the fact that I have not the good fortune to be able to claim relationship with that gentleman—should be appointed. The receipt of that telegram was of much importance, because the Viceroy's judgment in this question is entitled to and must carry very great weight indeed with the Home Government.

  1663
  But a much more important reason was that Mr. Baker having been suggested it was necessary for the Secretary of State to get in touch with him so that the arrangements might be made. It so happened that at that time Mr. Baker was in Rome, and he was under an engagement to return to South Africa in a short time to carry out certain works which he was executing there for the Government. It was necessary, if the Viceroy's plans were to be carried out that Mr. Baker should be intercepted and that the Government of South Africa should be persuaded to give him leave to proceed to India at this the only opportunity without any delay. There were special reasons which were in the mind of the Secretary of State for acting without hesitation or delay on this point. My hon. Friend may suggest that the choice of Mr. Lutyens and Mr. Baker by the Viceroy was open to criticism. As far as Mr. Lutyens is concerned, I believe there was no explicit criticism, but there was an undercurrent which seemed to suggest that in the opinion of the hon. Member it would have been better if someone else had been chosen. As regards Mr. Lutyens, the very first suggestion that he should be actually appointed was contained in the telegram from the Viceroy which I have quoted. As regards Mr. Baker, the hon. Member himself freely admitted that his experience in South Africa was on the whole an admirable training for the work in India, and constituted a strong credential for his appointment. But I do suggest that in a matter like this we must consider the opinions of the Viceroy as of the very highest importance. The Viceroy from the very beginning has taken a very great interest in the new capital. It must largely be left to his judgment who shall be employed, and what shall be the style of architecture. As soon as possible after that accident, which all of us deplore, the Viceroy turned his attention to this matter again and sent another telegram, which called for immediate decision. I should like to remind the hon. Member that in a speech which the Viceroy made on the 25th March last he expressed himself very strongly in favour of the Indian style of architecture, which I believe commends itself to the hon. Member. As to the second point raised by my hon. Friend I have to say that the scope of the appointment which has been given to Mr. Lutyens and Mr. Baker is strictly limited. They have been asked
  1664
  simply and solely to act as architects for Government House and one other important building. My hon. Friend suggested that Mr. Lutyens had already prepared the plans and shown them in public. I do not believe that that is the case.
  Mr. KING: I did not say published. I said it was known.
  Mr. BAKER: If plans have been drawn, and I do not believe they are plans in the architectural sense, I can certainly say they are not final, and that they will be open to the criticism, which I am quite sure will be sympathetic criticism, of Mr. Baker, and that between them these plans will assume a shape acceptable to the great majority of good judges. With regard to competition, as I say, the scope of their appointment is strictly limited. They will be the architects of these two buildings, and will be generally prepared to advise on the rest of the buildings for the new city. But with regard to all other buildings except these specific two which have been mentioned, it is the present intention of the Secretary of State, so far as possible, to allow competition to come in. In the discussion we had upon this matter on the Adjournment not long ago my hon. Friend will remember that the difficulties of competition were expressed not only by me but also by an hon. Friend of ours who is at this moment absent in India, and who is a practical architect. There are very great and obvious difficulties in the way of having open competition, but I can assure my hon. Friend that so far as it is at the time found to be possible, competition will be allowed for all the rest of the buildings, and they are very numerous and varied in character, which will be required to be erected in the City of Delhi.
  I turn to the question put to me by my hon. Friend (Captain Murray). I have little or nothing to tell him for his satisfaction. I am informed there is nothing to be added to the replies given to him on this subject earlier. Although these two buildings, which he said should be separate, are to be brought under one roof, they will in every other respect be absolutely separate. As I think the Under-Secretary said when he was dealing with this matter, they will be as completely separate as your house, Mr. Speaker, is separate from this Chamber. Though it is thought that the bringing them under the same roof, though separate in arrangement, is a measure appropriate to the present time,

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  there is nothing whatever to prevent, with the vast area we have in the new City of Delhi, when the time comes and circumstances have changed, the erection of separate buildings.
  I think I have dealt with all the questions put to me by my hon. Friend (Mr. King). He complained that there was peculiar haste. I have explained the two special circumstances which caused that haste, which were altogether unexpected and unforeseen at the time I made my reply to him. He asked whether the Report will be published. I cannot give him an explicit statement upon that point. I think that in all probability it will be, but it is necessary, before the Secretary of State gives a positive answer, that the Report should be received. That Report has not yet been received.
  The hon. Gentleman asked that competition should be admitted. I assure him that there are practical difficulties which alone stand in the way of competition, but for
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  the erection of buildings for the rest of the city there will be competition so far as is possible. Lastly, he asked whether opportunities would be given for public criticism and Parliamentary discussion. It is not for me to say what opportunities should or should not be allowed for Parliamentary discussion. We have had friendly interchanges on this matter by discussions at Question Time and on the Adjournment, and I think the hon. Member has done a great deal to draw attention to the present state of affairs. I assure him that any considerations which ha may offer will certainly be brought before the Secretary of State and I am sure will receive all the attention they deserve.
  It being half an hour after the conclusion of Government business Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put.
  Adjourned at Twelve o'clock.

  Stamp Office (Preston).
  Stamp Office (Preston).
NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.
  MATERNITY BENEFIT.
  MATERNITY BENEFIT.
  UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT.
  UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT.
  CHEMISTS' PANEL.
  CHEMISTS' PANEL.
  DISTRICT NURSES.
  DISTRICT NURSES.
  Old Age Pensions.
  Old Age Pensions.
  Evicted Tenants (Meath).
  Evicted Tenants (Meath).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  Land Purchase (Ireland).
  National Education Board (Ireland).
  National Education Board (Ireland).
  Proceedings in Bankruptcy (Ireland).
  Proceedings in Bankruptcy (Ireland).
  Borden Camp (Painting Contract).
  Borden Camp (Painting Contract).
EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE.
  CONCESSIONS.
  CONCESSIONS.
  Opium Conference.
  Opium Conference.
  Railway Rates.
  Railway Rates.
  Marine Inquiries (Costs).
  Marine Inquiries (Costs).
  Fish Delivered in Aberdeen (1911).
  Fish Delivered in Aberdeen (1911).
NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT 1911.
Provisional Regulations, made by the Irish Insurance Commissioners as to notices to be given by insured persons transferring from the Voluntary to the Employed Rate: Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and to be printed. (No. 198.)

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.
Debate on the Amendment to the Motion that the Bill be now read 2a, viz., to leave out ("now") and add at the end of the Motion ("this day three months") resumed (according to Order).
LORD ASHBOURNE: My Lords, no one can possibly over-rate or over state the importance of this Bill, both for its own sake and its construction. The noble Marquess, in his introduction of the Bill, presented his views in a very interesting way, and some topics of a rather novel character in a curious way. He made a point of the alleged fact that the great mass of Irish legislation to be found on the Statute Book is separate legislation; that there is one mass of legislation which is conversant with Great Britain, and another and separate mass of legislation which is conversant with Ireland, so that really if a change were made by setting up another Parliament to take charge of Irish legislation it would not be a very big change after all. That, however, is an extremely misleading way of putting the case, and the argument is not founded on fact. Of course, the Statute Book contains a vast number of Statutes common to the whole Empire, but some Statutes are only conversant with England, some are only conversant with Scotland, and some are only conversant with Ireland. Let me point out, however, that a great mass of the Statutes that are said to be separate for Ireland are Statutes which follow English Statutes with only a variation of methods to suit the conditions of the country with which they deal. Practically they accomplish the same objects as similar Statutes in England, and they cannot be called separate legislation. Those which are different Statutes peculiar to Ireland are Statutes dealing with special objects and introduced specially in reference to Ireland.
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I need not tell your Lordships that I have the honour of being an Irishman myself, and I am fairly well acquainted with the position in Ireland as well as the position in both Houses of Parliament for the last thirty years. I am always interested, but not always surprised at the things I hear about Ireland. It seems to be thought that one can say almost anything about Ireland and trust it to pass muster on the ground that the Trish are a novel, a curious, and a very interesting people. But to call us a Crown Colony, to say that we are governed like a Crown Colony, and that that damning fact is masked by the presence of the Chief Secretary for Ireland in the Cabinet of the Imperial Government and by 100 'Members at Westminster—a tolerably big mask, I think—struck me as extraordinary and unreal. I am content, however, to leave it there. But the noble Marquess said that the Government of Ireland was carried on by an arbitrary Government from outside. Again, that struck me as a curious way of putting it. It was as if the Irish—a particularly gifted race, with many attractive qualities, able to understand most things, and, when they like, able to be deceived as little as any people in the world—are a silent people, given to taciturnity on occasions, and that they are a people who would submit, in or out of Parliament, to be governed without much protest by an arbitrary Government from outside. If any one but a man of the very high character of the noble Marquess said that, I can tell your Lordships that I would deal with it in a short and not a complimentary way.
Then the noble Marquess went on to say that the needs of Ireland were estimated by a large British majority, uninformed and uninterested. What on earth the large British majority have done to have their character taken away in that manner baffles my comprehension. I had the honour of occupying a seat in the House of Commons for some years, and I have kept myself pretty well informed of what has gone on there since. Knowing what I do I am bound to say that the suggestion that Irish affairs are not attended to in the House of Commons, that the Irish Members do not get ample audience, and that the Irish are a people who would stand being silenced can only be met in one way—that is, by stolid incredulity. The noble Viscount opposite, Lord Morley,

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was a distinguished Member of the House of Commons, as he is of your Lordships' House. He knows everything about this question, and he must recognise, as I do, the enormous mass of legislation which has been passed through both Houses of Parliament in the last quarter of a century in reference to Ireland. That legislation has been immense. Enormous remedial Acts have been passed; millions have been poured out for the benefit of Ireland. All that has been done by the Union Parliament with the aid, the sympathy, and the encouragement of Ireland. The suggestion that an uninformed and uninterested English majority is exercising an arbitrary power in passing these measures is impossible. I will not attempt to deal with such a statement further than by repeating it and handing it over to the mercy of those who have heard it.
The idea of suggesting that the Irish Members are men who would be walked on, and that they would not get a hearing when they needed it, strikes one as being entirely unfounded. Ireland has had a varied history, illuminated occasionally by flashes of silence—I am dealing with the last quarter of a century—but she has never held her tongue when she thought that wrong was being done to her. The idea of telling one that Trish Members do not get ample audience and that English Members are not thoroughly informed as to what is going on—well, it is an idea that certainly does not err upon the side of over accuracy. Mr. Redmond has been filling the rôle of a gracious and benevolent dictator for some time past. During many years he has played a great part in the history of Ireland and of the House of Commons. The idea of suggesting that he has not been able to look after the interests of Ireland, again such an idea is not worthy to be pressed in serious argument.
In the course of his speech the noble Marquess said that he supposed there would not be much objection to Private Bill legislation being dealt with otherwise than it is at the present time. In that matter I agree with him, and I may say at once that I think it is a change which might well be considered with advantage to all concerned. But the noble Marquess went on to say, as if it were merely putting a little coping stone on a moderate sized
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wall, that the one remaining element of the fabric—namely, a representative body—should also be restored. That was like putting a full stop to a long sentence. The noble Marquess ignores entirely the history of this question and of the present time. You must look at the Bill in the full extent of its magnitude. You must realise its stupendous character. It is an immense Bill, which will work an enormous constitutional revolution. The Bill mutilates the Imperial Parliament; it destroys the central Administration of the Empire; it divides the Treasury in a most amazing way in its functions and its powers; it interferes with the integrity of the Customs, and entirely breaks up the unity of the whole postal system. I will not go into all the changes involved by the Bill. Those I have mentioned to your Lordships are amply sufficient to show that it is a Bill which tears the whole Constitution to pieces in respect of salient and most important points. Whether it reconstructs the fragments in a satisfactory way is quite another question.
Before these vast changes can be entertained or be made effective by law, the question arises, Why should this be done? What is the pressing, urgent need? Where is the occasion for not leaving things to go on in a way that is most prosperous? What is the advantage of upsetting the present condition of affairs when there is peace in Ireland, when wealth is rapidly increasing, and when all the ameliorative legislation which has been passed by the Imperial Parliament is pursuing its beneficent course? Why is this time selected for urging forward this stupendous Bill and for interfering with—I use the mildest word I can—the Union. I am aware, of course, that the Government may not be exactly the people who can give a complete answer to that question. But we know the reason why. In this matter can we not learn something from the history of all other civilised peoples in the world? Can you point to any other civilised nation which is doing what is sought to be done by this Bill? Take Europe. Why, the struggles of all great Empires and peoples is to try to bind every section of the country in a union under which they can all assemble to pursue common objects and purposes. I have observed that persistent reference is made to Canada and to South Africa.

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I accept the reference. What do those countries show? That what they most value and seek is the accomplishment of a union such as His Majesty's Government in this old Empire of ours are deliberately trying to break up. Surely the teaching of the Dominions is entitled to most respectful consideration. We have been fortunate enough in this debate to have had the pleasure of listening to speeches from Earl Grey and the Earl of Selborne, who were able to give valuable testimony about Canada and South Africa. There is not one of your Lordships who can have heard those speeches without intense interest, because of the knowledge they displayed and the manner in which the subject was treated. I do not say that we would agree with everything said, but their arguments from first to last were entitled to the fullest consideration. What did they show? That the struggle of these vast Dominions of the Empire had been to work out a plan of union and give effect to it.
Take the Bill itself. I do not propose to go in detail through every portion of it, nor yet to confine myself to any special part of it. Take this vast change and apply it to your knowledge of Ireland and what your friends tell you about Ireland. Can anyone say they believe that it is generally needed, or that it is generally desired? Ulster, as every one knows, is resolutely and fiercely opposed to it. The noble Earl on the Government Bench who spoke last night endeavoured to belittle the question of Ulster. Well, the time has passed for belittling Ulster. The fact is, Ulster is in grim earnest, and, no matter what people may say who are a long way from it, Ulster cannot be ignored and forgotten. Take the other Provinces. Though the bulk of the people are in favour of the Bill with various degrees of liking, I would be very sorry to be loved by every one I value in the same way that the people in those three Provinces look on this Bill. There is no enthusiasm for it. There may be a kind of approval in many places, but I am positive that there is a vast amount of hesitation and indifference about it in an enormous number of places. I have noble friends who live not in Ulster but in other parts of Ireland and are very competent to speak on the subject. They have nearly all said that if you get the Irish people together in a crowd there is a kind of feeling that they like to shout with the largest number. That is a very human feeling, but my friends say that if you were
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to break up the crowd into its component parts and ask the men in detail what. they think, when there is nobody to report what they say, it would be God help the judgment many of them would pass on the Bill.
No; the Bill may have to be submitted to and even cheered on some occasions, but it is not liked. It is a new departure, and the people are full of doubt about it, even of mistrust. The Government came before us more or less in the character of prophets. I respect prophets, but one's interest in them varies, and I am afraid on the question of home Rule the Government are more or less false prophets. I do not blame them for that; they cannot be better than they have been made. Mr. Gladstone was a man of genius and of magnificent courage all his life, when he was young and when he was old. He brought in, with all the full weight of his genius behind it, the Bill of 1886. Yet that Bill was impossible, was unworkable, and would have surely led to bankruptcy. Then came the much altered Bill of 1893, with absolutely fresh financial provisions which were vastly changed in Committee, but I believe if it had passed it would, putting the matter in the mildest way, have done no good to Ireland. It was finally rejected by the House of Lords with the full approval of the country. If it had passed there would have been no Land Purchase Act of 1903, and the position of affairs in Ireland have been very much damaged.
VISCOUNT MORLEY: The noble and learned Lord will remember that there was a Land Bill tacked on to the Home Rule Bill of 1886.
LORD ASHBOURNE: That I remember—a Bill which Mr. Gladstone would not allow to be read or referred to in the House of Commons. Mr. Chamberlain, in the middle of a powerful speech in which he tore to pieces the Home Rule Bill, said that Bill did not stand alone because it was linked to another Bill. The right hon. gentleman then said that he proposed to deal with that other Bill. I remember well, when Mr. Chamberlain said that, the matchless alacrity with which Mr. Gladstone rose and how he astounded the House by saying that the permission he had received from the Sovereign to state what occurred did not extend to the Land Bill. I had the good fortune to be present on that occasion. It was one of those incidents which can never fade from memory.
VISCOUNT MORLEY: I want it clearly to be understood that the Land Bill was persevered with.
LORD ASHBOURNE: Not that Bill.
VISCOUNT MORLEY: Yes.
LORD ASHBOURNE: Well, I will not pursue the topic, but will be satisfied with the incident I have recorded. I must confess that I like simple Bills which one can understand, and it is not a labour of love to go through this Bill. It is complicated, involved, confused, and difficult to understand, and it is founded on one cardinal fallacy—that Ireland is a nation of one people. We have been asked ad nauseam, "Why not give Ireland and the Irish people this measure which they are all seeking?" If there is one thing which is plain, it is that there are two Irelands, differing as widely from one another as any people can be who are separated by the most obvious divisions. Lord Killanin said last night that people might talk of there not being two races, but he was perfectly confident there was not one, and that was, I think, a neat way of putting it. But I stand for two, and I know the representatives of the two people. I say, therefore, that it is quite idle to treat Ireland as if it were one nation and its inhabitants were bound together in unity. There are the people of Ulster and many outside Ulster who agree with the Ulster view. Earl Beauchamp referred last night to a small population in a small part of Ulster, whereas there are admittedly over 1,000,000 people who share the views expressed in Ulster. If you take it that the rest of Ireland approve of some principle of Home Rule, you cannot put it higher than that. From the vague statements made by some Ministers it was impossible, before this measure was introduced, that people should know or dream what it would be like. We may take it that they knew there was to be some kind of Home Rule proposal, and that commended itself to those parts of Ireland outside Ulster in a kind of tepid way.
What is the argument of the Government? It is that a persistent demand to let Ireland govern herself exists, and must be recognised, and that the opposition of no minority should prevail against it. That is the Government's argument. Surely it ignores the reality of things, the plain facts. It is not a question of a majority or a minority in a contested election. It is
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a question of the inhabitants of Ireland, who are not a united people, who are not one Irish race, but at least two races. Let me remind you also that this difference is not one of to-day or yesterday, but is a matter of centuries. It is one of the commonplaces of Irish history. Ireland may be called and treated as a unit, if you like to call it so, only during the Union. The minute the Union is removed, or is sapped or weakened, it brings into relief the fact that the inhabitants of Ireland cannot be treated as one. You must look at the facts of the case, and the facts are as I say. Earl Grey, in his interesting speech, made a reference, which struck me very much, to the position of Ontario if sought to be united to Quebec, when dealing with the Ulster question. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack dealt with Earl Grey's speech in an interesting way, but he only answered the points that had no particular reference to this Bill, and he passed by entirely the allusion to Ontario and Quebec, though I think it was a matter which was entitled to much consideration. I sympathise, however, with the noble and learned Viscount in his wisdom in passing it by.
I spoke just now of sapping the Union. This Bill does more than that. It reverses the order of things in Grattan's Parliament, which was composed of Protestants and English. What this Bill proposes is to substitute for Grattan's Parliament a Catholic and a Nationalist Parliament. What I have to say to your Lordships is that if the Parliament of 1782 was wrong, this cannot be right. You objected to the Parliament of 1782—I do not say you wrongly objected to it—on the ground that it was Protestant and English. But does that entitle you to put in its place, when you restore a Parliament to Ireland, a Parliament essentially Catholic and Nationalist? This fact is ignored in the Bill, and yet we are told to trust the Irish people as if they were one race. Why, the last thing in the world the Bill does is to trust the Irish. It shows distrust in every line. It looks as if the Government believes that the Irish could not be trusted with their own money, but would rob with one hand what they got with the other. There is, I say, distrust and disbelief from beginning to end. The Government tell us the Bill has not been discussed on its merits. Lord Ashby St. Ledgers said that we had been discussing the details and

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allowing the principle to go by the board. That is not so, and I repudiate the statement in the most emphatic manner. It is true that some noble Lords have raised the question of federalism, but nearly all who have spoken have declined to accept the principle of the Bill, beside arguing, as they are entitled to do, against its details. In Ireland we have had a varied history, as everybody knows, or at least ought to know after all they have heard. We have had a dependent Parliament, an independent Parliament, and we have the Union, and now this mongrel Bill mangles all the ideas on which those great constitutional authorities were based and creates a Parliament which cannot collect its own taxes, although it has its own Executive, its own Post Office, and the right to dabble in its own Customs. They have taken the Union principle with forty-two Members who are to continue to sit at Westminster, and whom I may describe as forty-two free lances. They will be open to argument, and it may possibly be that they will be open for an engagement. It is hard to find a clause in the Bill which gives you pleasure, but I confess that I take positive pleasure as an Irishman in reading Clause 26. If a prize were offered for the most complicated, most unworkable, and most unintelligible clause in the Bill I would fearlessly choose Clause 26 and would expect to get the prize on the spot. At first when it was presented it was absolute chaos, but then some men of sense got at the Government and said, "This will never do at all; it will not pass muster; you must get an Order in Council, and then you can always say, if there is a hole in the clause, the Order in Council will set it right." It will not. The Order in Council is an English Order in Council, and it is to deal with an Irish clause. It is to say only how these people who are to be brought over here in connection with the revision of the financial scheme are to be selected. Mr. Gladstone, when dealing with a similar matter, used the celebrated expression that the wit of man could not deal with a clause that had in it the in-and-out business. Yet under this clause these poor unfortunate Irish delegates are to come over to Westminster and hang about the doorway waiting to be admitted. Who, I should like to know, is to tell them when to come in and when to go out? Who is to say when the revision question is on and when it is off? The whole position is perfectly impossible.
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I do not propose to say much about finance to-night, because to do so after the great speech by my noble friend Viscount St. Aldwyn on this branch of the Bill would be unbecoming of me. He went into the subject in a manner which was entitled to the highest respect and consideration. I always hear Lord Welby, with his superb belief in the Party to which he belongs combined with his knowledge of the Treasury, with respect and interest because I know he is not going to give way an inch. Others might be swayed by argument which would convert most men, but he knows better. Lord Welby admitted that the finance of the Bill appeared to be complicated—it was not much of an admission—but then he boldly said that on consideration it would be found to be less so. That may be. I do not intend to give it that consideration. I am satisfied to believe that it is as bad as Lord St. Aldwyn has described. The extraordinary thing is that considering the very able men who are dealing with this Bill—I must get over my habit of praising the Government—you find dual power in legislation all through the Bill causing the most extraordinary complexity. The result is that it is very hard to understand. The Imperial Parliament may tax and the Irish Parliament may tax, too, and there must be constant friction. Lord St. Aldwyn spoke of the two Chancellors of the Exchequer—the English and the Irish. Mr. Lloyd George, of course, has a name which is tolerably familiar in this country, and I would like to hear him in conversation with an intelligent Celt who is doing business for Ireland. I have a respect for the adroitness of Mr. Lloyd George, but I have a profound respect also for my own countrymen, and it is impossible to say who would come out best. I have a strong idea that the Irishman would put his comether, his soft sawder, upon Mr. Lloyd George as much as he was capable of doing, and what would be the result no human being can tell. I do not propose to discuss the question of the Post Office, but I suppose the system proposed in the Bill will work in some kind of way. I do not propose either to discuss the Customs, though that is a very entertaining subject. It will at least be admitted that there is duality in the Customs and duality in the Post Office.
Then let me take land purchase—an immense question. That is reserved, and

731
that being the case why is land administration handed over to the Irish Government? Most people would think that wherever land purchase went, land administration should go also, as they are so closely interwoven. The Irish Parliament will nominally have nothing to do with the price to be fixed for land purchase, but the land administration may so cut down the rents as to affect prices enormously. It is obvious that these matters require great consideration, and I am afraid they have not been as fully considered as they deserve. After what has been said of the Exchequer Board by my noble friend, Viscount St. Aldwyn, I do not feel justified in going into that matter. But I should like to point out that it is to be composed of two Irish Treasury clerks and two English Treasury clerks, with a neutral Chairman—God help him ! I do not envy the position of that Chairman in some circumstances with the quorum of three. Supposing he was present with only the two Irish Treasury men. It is conceivable that he might find himself, no matter how neutral he was, in a minority. Then he would have to announce to his Treasury that he had been beaten after argument. It might be, on the other hand, that the two English Treasury men would be in the majority, and then I suppose something else would happen.
Now I should like to ask what kind of a Viceroy you are going to have. That is a most interesting subject, and has attracted a great deal of attention. I am told that the Office is to be like that of a Colonial Governor with a tenure as durable. Many extraordinary circumstances may arise in connection with the action that he will be called upon to take under this Bill. When is he to be swayed by the Irish Ministry and when by the English Ministry? Suppose a measure is submitted to him which he thinks is wrong, and he refers it to England. He is told, in reply, that it should not be allowed to pass, or should be postponed. Supposing then he tells this to his Ministers in Ireland, and the Chief Minister says, "This won't do. We believe we are right; we are sure you are wrong. We won't stay on but will go, and there is no one to succeed us." What is the poor Viceroy to do? What is the poor English Government to do? The Viceroy has announced that the Bill is a bad Bill, and has been told that he must not pass it. Then he is informed by the
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Irish Government in the politest way—and, remember, the Irish are nothing if not polite—that that will not do, that the people outside will not have it, and that the Irish Ministers could not face the music. They would say to the Viceroy, "You really must reconsider the question," and the poor Viceroy would have to reconsider it in the light of the views of the people "outside." What is really going to happen in such circumstances as these I do not know. I merely mention it as an interesting conundrum.
Then, again, supposing that there a tremendous question of law and order, what would be the position of the Viceroy? The noble Marquess knows that under the Letters Patent of a Lord Lieutenant he has the power of giving orders and directions to the Commander of the Forces. He has also the power of declaring Martial Law. Supposing he is asked to give directions to the Commander of the Forces and to proclaim Martial Law, and he says, "This is too strong an order for me. I think the circumstances do not justify it." What is he to do if his Irish Ministers do not agree? It is because of these things that I say the Viceroy must be a complex many-sided man. He will always be torn in two or more by contending feelings, and I really wonder what kind of man he will have to be. He must, according to the traditions of the office, be a man of means. He must have good manners, and he should have good address. He must be accessible, although reserved, and if he is wise he will be occasionally blind, he will be sometimes deaf, and very frequently dumb. In fact, thinking of historical analogies I have made up my mind that he would want the meekness of Moses, the firmness of Cromwell, the shrewdness of Macchiavelli, and the diplomacy of Talleyrand. I hear that the Government have a man in their eye for the place. I think it would be kind not to tell him too suddenly of the good fortune which is in store for him, because "where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise."
There is one matter I feel bound to mention, though I feel ashamed of having spoken so long. What about the safeguards? They are always trotted out and paraded before us by supporters of the Government, but what are they in the Bill. You would think that everybody in Ireland was to be in a straight waistcoat

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after this Bill passes. The fact of the matter is that the safeguards are not really worth the paper on which they are written. Mr. Redmond said that if the Irish Parliament abused its statutory powers, we should only have to stretch out our arm, and, if they insisted on wrong doing, we could set them right. This deceives no intelligent man. There is no one so good at being deceived as the man who will not see; but men who keep their eyes open will not for a moment he taken in by that kind of talk. What is the use of stretching out your arm if there is no one within reach? What is the good of telling the Irish Ministry which you have called into existence that it must mind itself, and must not persist in a course of wrong doing? The Lord Chancellor, for whose views I personally have an infinite respect, said, when I ventured in one slight interruption to ask him how you could interfere with the Irish Executive, there was some early clause in the Bill and any one who could read could understand it. I can understand the clause, but I cannot understand for the life of me what good it would do to any human being. I take it that if the Government in Dublin are doing something which is objectionable or permitting it to be done by others, and the Prime Minister of the day in England sends word "This won't do; you must change it," the answer of the Irish Ministry would be straight and to the purpose. It would be, "My dear fellow, it is awfully good of you to tell me, but will you mind your own business." Mr. Asquith said "Name your safeguards, and I will put them all in." But he did not. Ulster, I admit, made a big request. They said, "Leave us out of the Bill; leave us alone; we want to stay with you." But other safeguards were suggested and in vain. In the Constitution of the United States of America there is a provision which says that no law should be permitted whereby any person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law in accordance with settled principles and precedents, or could be denied the equal protection of the law. The point about that is that it looks like commonsense. Mr. Gladstone, when it was brought to his Bill in 1893, put it in the Bill; but when it was presented to Mr. Asquith in the House of Commons it was refused. I cannot understand why that clause was not accepted, because it is a matter of sense and a matter of fairness. It may
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be that Mr. Redmond had some other views in reference to it. I do not know.
The question of Ulster is an immense question. Any one who heard the speech of the most rev. Prelate the Archbishop of York on that subject must have been profoundly stirred by the ability and the sincerity which he displayed. He was friendly to many ideas in the Bill—that is to say, he was a friendly critic—but his point with regard to Ulster was that at first he had been against the Ulster view, and was not impressed by its reality; but he had since been impressed by the grim earnestness of these men, and he felt that it was a question that could only be dealt with after an appeal to the nation. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack dealt with the question with peculiar dignity and reticence, and said that he hoped that the opposition of Ulster would die out. Every one hopes for everything in this world; but what is the good of answering people who are in grim earnest and who have shown their resolution for years past, by the hopes and expectations of those who are living comfortably over here without a particle of danger to face? It is a question full of gravity, and people ought not to belittle it. Earl Beauchamp said it was not the whole of Ulster that was concerned. We know that, but when we refer to Ulster we mean mainly the four counties in the North-East of Ireland, and that Ulster contains the great city of Belfast with its splendid enterprise, magnificent trade, and enormous resources. It is there that this question is being so severely felt. The question affects over a million people, and it is only for the sake of convenience that it is called an Ulster question.
How is this question to be faced? I am not an Ulsterman, but I know a great many Ulster people and I respect them. They are firm, resolute, determined, courageous men who when they say a thing mean it, and, if they mean a thing, do it. This is a great question that you cannot leave alone; and what I ask is this, Why are they when they are willing to stay in the country, when they have been devoted servants of the Empire, when they have worked for you, when they have fought for you—why are they to be driven out from your protection like this? These are the plain facts of the case. The noble Marquess opposite said it was not so hopeless as it looked. Well, there is not much

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encouragement in those words. It is the barest comfort that can be suggested to any one. Mr. Bonar Law, in his speech on the Third Reading of the Bill, used words short and simple to Mr. Birrell. He asked the Chief Secretary, Could he say upon his honour that he believed that Home Rule could be imposed on Ulster without bloodshed? No answer was given. No Minister, no man of any position who respects his character or knows that his words carry weight, has faced that question. These men are in grim and resolute earnest. They are not mere babblers or talkers. Many of them are men of your own flesh and blood, and are of your own race. It is not a game of "bluff." They have fought your battles, they have struggled for your fame, they have honoured your reputation—what are you going to do to them if they persist in deadly earnest in the determination that they will not yield? No Minister has answered that question.
I would like, before closing, to read a few words from John Bright. The Lord President, of course, knew him intimately as a colleague and a friend in a way I cannot presume to speak of, but I had the honour of sitting in the House of Commons with him and of having some acquaintance with him. Every one who knew the way he was bound to his colleagues and to Mr. Gladstone will realise how earnestly and with what tenacious affection he would cling to them. Yet these are the words he used in 1886 in connection with Mr. Glad-stone's Home Rule Bill—
"I cannot consent to a measure which is so offensive to the whole Protestant population of Ireland and to the whole sentiments of the Protestants of Ulster. So far as its loyal and Protestant people are concerned, I cannot agree to exclude them from the protection of the Imperial Parliament."
Those are grave words, and they announce a conclusion come to most reluctantly by Mr. Bright when he separated himself from Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues whom he loved to honour. Are the Government prepared to take the tremendous risks involved in imposing on Ulster a Bill which drives them from the protection of the laws, under which you and they have been born and bred? It is impossible to think of a graver or a more serious responsibility. If you refuse to appeal to the nation for guidance in this hour of difficulty and stress you cannot
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say that you have not been warned. The warning has been given you in the gravest, the most earnest, and the most impressive way. Yours is the sole responsibility for the decision which you take. The Government alone are responsible, and no one can lighten the weight of their immense responsibility.
LORD WEARDALE: My Lords, in intervening in this debate immediately following the noble and learned Lord who has just addressed us, I am aware that I am succeeding a statesman who may be called one of the veteran leaders in the opposition to the cause of Home Rule. He has addressed to your Lordships a speech, as is always the case with him, both eloquent and humorous, and from his point of view extremely convincing. If I now venture to intervene at this moment it is because in a much more modest capacity I have been, perhaps almost as long as he has, a supporter of the opposite principle—the principle of Home Rule for Ireland. I first stood as a Parliamentary candidate in 1880, and I advocated it then. I was afterwards a humble follower of Mr. Gladstone during the great controversies of 1886 and 1893. If I venture to recall these personal reminiscences it is in order to emphasise that I am not a latter day convert to the principle of Home Rule, and that I remain as faithful to it to-day as I have been in the past.
Having made that declaration I desire to speak from the somewhat detached standpoint of an unofficial and independent Liberal. That position enables me to deal with the matter in a somewhat broader spirit that can be exhibited by those who are called upon to specially advocate a cause. I would first of all recognise that we are now discussing this question in a very different atmosphere from that which prevailed during the controversies of 1886 and 1893. At that time the most violent passions were excited, the greatest rancour existed, and all sorts of expressions were used which, happily, have been entirely absent from our discussions on this occasion. The truth is that twenty-five years have brought about a great change in the public temper. A new generation has come into existence, for whom Home Rule has no longer the terrors that it inspired in the past, who have seen its operation in different forms in other lands, and have witnessed the blessings

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it has conferred. At the same time we have to remember that profound changes have been introduced into Ireland itself, largely, almost wholly, due to the efforts of the Party opposite, to whom I wish to give the utmost credit in this matter, by the passage of Mr. Wyndham's Land Purchase Act. That Act has, I hope, given a fair prospect of a complete settlement of the agricultural discontent which was one of the most potent causes of the inflamed public feeling when last this question of Home Rule was under review. That great measure of land purchase is still but half completed, and I am sure I can express the hope that the Government will do all in their power to further the operation of Mr. Wyndham's Act to its full completion.
During the course of this debate I have been struck not only with the different atmosphere, but also by the tone of several speeches which have been made. I do not allude only to the speech of Lord Dunraven, who has long been the foremost advocate of the policy of conciliation in Ireland. I would refer also to the speech based on different lines, but equally remarkable, of Earl Grey, in which he advocated the federal system. I was surprised to hear him affirm the entire antagonism which he supposed exists between nationalism and federalism. I agree entirely with the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack that there is nothing in the measure which conflicts at all with the extension of federal principles to other parts of Great Britain. An admirable speech was made last night by Lord Killanin, who, although he takes up a position quite opposed to the principle of Home Rule, spoke in a sympathetic way of the majority of his fellow citizens in Ireland, which was and is very hopeful. We had a further speech from another noble Lord who comes from Ireland, Lord Oranmore and Browne, who lives most of the year amongst his fellow-countrymen. His speech also, though he resists the measure, was, I thought, encouraging by reason of its tone and temper. If that is the case I really think the time has come when an appeal may be made to what I may call moderate opinion in this matter in order to endeavour to arrive at some sort of conciliatory process which will bring both Parties together in order to try to thrash out a measure of devolution of Irish affairs which shall be satisfactory to all parties in the State.
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I observe that the principal objections that have been taken to this Bill on the other side are, in the first place, that Ireland no longer wants Rome Rule. On what is that statement based? I heard a noble Lord on the opposite side say that from personal observation he was quite sure that the cause of home Rule was weakening in Ireland. I turn to "Dod's Parliamentary Companion" and find that the particular district in which the noble Lord resides is represented by a Nationalist Member, and there never has been the smallest prospect of a Unionist candidate commanding the popular vote in that particular district. Surely that in itself, and also the fact with which we are all familiar, that the number of Irish Members pledged to Home Rule has never diminished but has always remained a constant quantity in spite of all that has been done in the direction of the killing by kindness policy in Ireland—surely that is significant enough as showing us that the demand for Home Rule in Ireland is deep-seated in the minds of the people. It may be a sentiment, but sentiment rules the world very largely and is not a thing that can ever be ignored. All I will therefore say is, there is positively no proof whatever that Home Rule has diminished in favour with the people of Ireland. The second objection which has been taken is that the Government have no mandate. I am afraid I am unable to assent to that proposition. There could be no elector at the last General Election who was not perfectly conscious that the first measure which would be introduced under the Parliament Act when it became law would be a measure of Home Rule for Ireland. Therefore so far as a mandate is concerned I say it not only existed, but that the last General Election was almost a direct mandate to the Government to introduce a measure of this character.
The third point upon which emphasis has been laid is with regard to the time given to the discussion of this measure in the House of Commons. I am bound to say there may be some ground for criticism, but not as to the amount of time. Fifty-nine days were given, as I understand, to the discussion of the Bill at its various stages. But it cannot be denied that under the unfortunate exigencies of the Parliament Act the Government have endeavoured to rush through Parliament three portentous measures in a time wholly

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insufficient for the purpose. They may tell us that they were driven to do it by the circumstances of the case, but it is an unquestioned fact that certain portions of this Bill were never discussed in the House of Commons. More than that, I fear we must all admit—and it is a fault and responsibility which falls on both sides in this matter—that the new rules of the House of Commons with regard to time limit, to the "kangaroo" system, and also to the guillotine have so hampered free discussion and rendered it so difficult that it has in many cases, I know, made Members who would otherwise have taken an active part in the business of the House of Commons refrain altogether from so doing. I have heard it stated by friends of mine who do not happen to be officially associated with Party, that a kind of paralysis is creeping over the House of Commons. If that is so, it is a sad portent for the future. I hope it may not be correct. We cannot afford in a country like ours to let it be supposed for one moment that free debate or free discussion has been stilled or suppressed. It is all important that measures of this kind should receive that full examination which undoubtedly they require. Those seem to me three or four points upon which the Opposition mainly rest their case.
I come now to an examination of the Bill itself. As I have said, I have been familiar in the course of my political life with three different Home Rule Bills. Each one of those Bills was declared by its author to be a perfect measure which it was absolutely essential to be carried in that exact form in order to give contentment to Ireland. Every one of those measures proceeded on a different principle. The first one, the one of 1886, we all know was proposed on the principle of the establishment of an Irish Parliament and the reservation of certain subjects for treatment by the Imperial Parliament. In the present Bill we have another principle, that of devolution, which I believe to be the right one; but no one can say that Liberal opinion has been very constant on this essential matter. Also with regard to the retention of Irish Members, the first Bill—and my friend the noble Viscount below me (Lord Morley) was, I remember, its most eager advocate at that time—excluded altogether the Irish Members. The second one introduced them on what is called the "in and out" principle. The truth is, there has been a good deal of in and out amongst the leaders of the
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Liberal Party on all matters affecting Home Rule. The third Bill, this Bill, introduces Irish Members of a limited number for all purposes. I do not argue whether one or other is correct, but what I do say is that the ipse dixit of a Cabinet, their asseveration, supported it is true by well disciplined followers, that this is the only possible measure which can give contentment to Ireland, is hardly justified in the light of experience. I give the greatest possible credit to the Government for introducing what I believe I am sure they think is a well-considered measure. But what I contend, and what I think I have a right to assert, is that it ought to be capable of further consideration.
Then we come to the finance of the Bill. The financial clauses are, as we know, very largely the work of one very capable gentleman, the Postmaster-General. I have no doubt that the Postmaster-General is a financier of great gifts; but no one could have listened to the speech of Lord St. Aldwyn the other night without feeling considerable doubt as to whether, on the whole, the financial provisions of the Bill did not require re-consideration. That being so, what I contend is this, not that this Bill is not a good Bill—because I am going to vote for it with all my heart—but that it is a Bill capable of improvement, that it is a Bill that ought to be freely considered, and that it is a Bill which I daresay in the course of time may be moulded into a shape which will receive the assent of both Parties. That is the hope which I desire to express at the present time. It seems to me that great responsibility now rests upon both Parties in the State. It may be all very well for the Unionist Party to say, "We will defeat this Bill and throw it out on Second Reading." But it will reappear in a very few months. Are you going to repeat the same operation time after time without giving it further consideration? What are your hopes and aspirations in the matter? You have thought for twenty-five years that Home Rule was going to die. It is still there. Are you looking for some sudden interposition of Providence, some earthquake, which is going to sweep the Government from power? Are you simply waiting for a chapter of accidents, hoping that something is going to turn up?
It does seem to me that the Unionist Leaders ought to be able to indicate in the

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course of this debate, or at all events to take into immediate contemplation, the question of an alternative policy, in the direction of Home Rule, of course, but which would enable the Leaders of both Parties to meet together and thrash out something which will give contentment to both sides. That is the responsibility which I believe now rests upon the Conservative Party, and a no less serious responsibility rests upon the Government. The Government ought, as it appears to me, to leave wide open the door for conciliatory overtures of all kinds. They ought to be perfectly precise in saying that, although they have obtained the substance by the passage of this Bill through the House of Commons, and though they have got the Parliament Act as a reminder of the powers which they can use, they are still open to every friendly overture for the purpose of bringing about a settlement by consent. It would be a gross mistake if the Government in obedience to a somewhat too eager section of their supporters, were to hold the Parliament Act as a sword of Damocles over the head of the Conservative Party. Nothing will be obtained by threats. I should despise the Unionist Party if they submitted to threats; but I think and believe that if a different attitude were adopted, if both sides were to bring their best minds to consider this question in all its bearings, some via media would be found which would be satisfactory to all the Parties in the State. I know I shall be told that any suggested settlement also involves the serious question of Ulster. I am not going to say one single word to depreciate the resistance of Ulster. I respect the men of Ulster; I believe them to be most sincere and do not for a moment accuse them of "bluffing"; but what I say is that if the Unionist Party would only show sympathy for some measure of devolution the men of Ulster would soon fall into line. The men of Ulster have no desire to be left out of any scheme for the Government of Ireland. With them is most of the wealth and the industries and the business capacity of Ireland, and if the Government of Ireland were of a kind acceptable to them the men of Ulster would necessarily take a leading part in it, and it is right that they should so do. The choice, in short, is between a settlement with the consent of both Parties and generally acceptable, and the imposition, perhaps by force, of a plan, in its present form, repugnant to nearly half the people of these islands.
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I have ventured to make this appeal for conciliation on two grounds. I make it, I hope, not in too sanguine a spirit when I remind noble Lords opposite that some of them are interested in far-reaching schemes of Imperial federation. I cannot follow most of them in the various schemes which, in my judgment, are based upon fallacious fiscal systems; but in their general purport and aim I generally concur. I remind them also of the fact that in every Colony of the Empire there is an Irish element, in some of them in great numbers, who will ever be hostile to any scheme of Imperial federation so long as this Irish question remains unsettled. But I approach this question from an even broader standpoint. As an ardent advocate of the cause of universal peace I have long looked forward to the day when the people of the United States of America and Great Britain might be able to come together in such bonds of intimate fellowship that all good work of progress and civilisation might be due to their common effort, but as long as you have a hostile Irish element in the United States of America so long will that remain a dream and not a fact. Give to Ireland contentment by a proper scheme of Home Rule and you will not only satisfy the people of that land itself, but you will bring into sympathy with our race all over the world the millions of Irishmen who are at present unfortunately estranged.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, the noble Lord who has just addressed us in a speech of equal ability and candour—because there is no one more candid than the old Liberal Member of the House of Commons who comes up to the freer atmosphere of your Lordships' House—has more than once told us that there is a great difference between the circumstances and atmosphere in which this Bill is being discussed now and the previous occasions in 1886 and 1893. Like the noble Lord I remember both those occasions, and I sat in the House of Commons during the passage of the second Home Rule Bill. I remember the feelings that were excited and the prodigious interest with which the public followed every stage of the drama. That was due to special causes. Partly to the novelty of the experiment, partly to the towering personality of Mr. Gladstone, which excited in almost equal measure veneration and hostility, partly to the lieutenants who left his side in the struggle and some of whom

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were cast in a scarcely inferior mould to himself; but it was also due to a cause which the noble Lord has not mentioned The public mind was deeply stirred by the fact that Ireland itself had in recent years been convulsed with crime, that the weapons with which many of the agitators fought were stained with blood, and even the leaders were supposed to be not free from suspicion. That was the main cause, I think, of the high and intense state of feeling which prevailed at that time. The noble Lord is quite right in saying that the circumstances are different now. Few if any of those conditions now prevail. The subject is almost threadbare; every argument is stale and hardly admits of reiteration. Ireland is fortunately not only free from crime but is on a steadily advancing plane of prosperity.
Noble Lords opposite who look at this condition of affairs derive, from this relative quiet in regard to Home Rule, the conclusion that the country has changed its mind about it, and that the policy of noble Lords is looked upon with general satisfaction. They point to the great majorities by which this Bill was carried in the House of Commons and to the small part that Home Rule has played in recent Parliamentary elections. All that is true, but my diagnosis of the case is rather different from theirs. I agree with a hint thrown out in the speech of the noble Lord to whom we have just listened. I believe there is growing up a complete and dangerous paralysis of the constitutional machine in this country, and that it is the first fruits and the direct consequence of the Parliament Act. This Bill has been discussed in the House of Commons in an atmosphere of gloomy unreality, with empty benches, with good speeches often unanswered, subject to the insistent demands of the guillotine and closure, by men under the conviction that the Bill represents an executive act rather than a considered legislative product of the House of Commons, and in the last resort that it is a bargain with the Irish Party. In this House we are devoting the last of four days to the discussion of this Bill, but we know that we are impotent in the matter and are as "idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean." If that is the case with regard to the two Houses on this Bill, can your Lordships be surprised if there is a complete lack of interest and a spirit of indifference in the country? Noble Lords
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opposite say there is no great movement against this Bill. I venture to reply that there is not a vestige of enthusiasm for it. The people are occupied with schemes for social or industrial reform, they are concerned with the improvement of their own material condition, and I really believe that in the background many have the idea that in some way or other this matter will be settled, that the Bill will not pass into law, or that there may be a General Election before it is passed into law under the Parliament Act. This listlessness which is overspreading public affairs seems to me to be a heavy price to pay for the Parliament Act. It takes all the reality and the sting out of political life, and to my mind it will be a disastrous thing if the intense interest in politics of the people of this country, their pride in the House of Commons, their trust in a Second Chamber and in the last resort the consciousness of their own power, are broken down. That has been the mainspring of the vitality and the purity of our political life, and it seems to me that until you get the Constitution into a healthy condition again and enable all its members to play their part, the country will continue to be apathetic, because they see that they are powerless and that the two Houses of Parliament are equally impotent.
The noble Lord who spoke just now made an appeal to both Parties. I wonder if members of the Liberal Party realise the enormous temptation it would be to the Unionist Party equally with them to settle the Irish question. Ministers sometimes speak as if they were the only people who had an interest in solving the Irish question. But that subject—and I can speak for the more than twenty-five years that I have been in public life—has been a more consistent incubus and source of embarrassment to my Party than it has been to noble Lords opposite. Only two years ago, in the debates on the Parliament Bill, we used frequently to hear from them of the feelings with which they regarded the solid and impregnable barrier of hostile votes that existed to their policy in this House. They used to tell us that the dice were loaded against them here. Does it not sometimes occur to them that in the eighty Nationalist Members of the House of Commons the Liberal Party have also had the advantage of loaded dice? On every matter we have had to count upon the steady opposition of this phalanx of eighty men, always

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voting with the Liberal Party independent of their convictions, so long as Home Rule remained ungranted. Do you think that we, equally with you, would not like to clear the decks of all the troubled questions of Irish administration, finance, land, and education, which have so often taken up the time of the House of Common? Of course we would. The interests of our country as well as of our Party demand it.
Then the question arises, Why do we not accept your proposal? The answer lies in the Bill itself. We have to ask ourselves, Would this Bill give us the sort of settlement that we have in view? Let us see what has taken place in this debate. We had only to listen to Lord St. Aldwyn to realise that the finance of the Bill is absolutely unworkable, and must result in constant friction between the two Exchequers and the two Parliaments, and that the divorce between the responsibility of expenditure and the power of taxation must be a source of demoralisation to the Irish people. Lord Grey has pointed out that the Bill is a fatal obstacle to the solution he would like to see, a federal system. Lord Selborne would prefer a unitary settlement, and as clearly he finds in the Bill a barrier to any such solution. Then on the first night of the debate we had Lord Dunraven, who is in favour of Home Rule, and who is going to vote for this Bill, but who, with a conscientiousness which I greatly admired, pointed out every weak anal bad point in it, and assured us of this—that there is no finality in the measure. In the concluding stages of the Bill in the House of Commons Mr. Redmond made a moving speech in which he said he accepted it as a final settlement; but side by side came another speech from Mr. O'Brien, who is a scarcely inferior authority and who said that he could not in any way regard it as a final acquittance. If Mr. Redmond regards this Bill as a final settlement, I wonder whether he will pledge himself not to use the forty-two Members who are to sit in the imperial Parliament, or so many of them as he will control, to exact better terms for Ireland in the future. We are precluded therefore from accepting this Bill as a final settlement. For every ill it might cure it would create a dozen other ills; for every sentiment it would gratify it would outrage another sentiment; for every right it effected it would perpetrate a score of wrongs. These are some of the positive weaknesses of this Bill,
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Which have emerged in the course of this discussion.
But let us look at it from the other or negative point of view. Few will, I suppose, be found to contend that this Bill will give us peace in Ireland; it may even plunge us, although we hope not, into Civil war. Will it contribute to the peace of England or the security of the Empire? Will it save our money, improve our commerce, or render more stable our finance? We have the testimony of almost everybody who knows the House of Commons that it will not relieve the congestion of business in that House, for the simple reason that almost every question of importance affecting Ireland, excepting education, is a reserved service, and that we shall have at least forty-two Irish gentlemen there who, although numerically less powerful than the present contingent, will, I expect, be not less eloquent or less formidable, and who, perhaps, in a way will be more dangerous because of their almost irresponsible character and their fortuitous incursions into the proceedings of the House of Commons. Therefore the more you examine the Bill the more it seems to me is there very grave doubt whether it will reconcile any differences that now exist or have any finality of settlement in it.
There is another reason why in my opinion we cannot accept this Bill on Second Reading, and that is because of the Parliament Act. No one, I am sure, who intends to vote for the rejection of this Bill means to do so in any spirit of malice or revenge, because of the existence of the Parliament Act. There has been no trace of any such feeling in a single speech to which I have listened. We abominate that measure, and we hope to take the opportunity whenever we can of erasing it from the Statute-book. But those of us who frequent this House, even in its mutilated and truncated condition, have done our best to carry on its affairs, and there has been no sign of personal pique or mortification in our attitude towards this or any other measure that has come from the Government. But surely it is our duty with regard to this Home Rule Bill, which we hold has never been submitted to or discussed by the country, to give the people an opportunity in the two years allowed to them, fully to examine the measure before, by their silence, it becomes

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law. Further, in reference to the Parliament Act, I venture to say that we should render ourselves in a manner privy to it if, because we can no longer force an appeal to the people, or because we believe that this Bill is going to be carried over our heads, we should compromise our own convictions and assist the passage of the Bill into law. These are the principal reasons why we cannot accept the advice given to us to agree to the Second Reading.
A good deal has been said in these debates of Ulster, and Lord Londonderry stated the case yesterday from the point of view of an Ulsterman with a sincerity and conviction that commanded the sympathetic attention of the House. But I approach the Ulster question from an entirely different joint of view. I look at it from the standpoint of an Englishman whose connection with Ireland is purely accidental, and almost incomprehensible, who is free from any of those passionate emotions that arise from race or residence, and who can really approach the matter to some extent with the detachment of an outsider. When I speak of Ulster I speak, of course, of the four counties, with a population of about 1,000,000, or nearly one-fourth of the Irish people. You cannot deny to that part of Ireland an individuality and unity entirely its own. That comes partly from race, partly from history, and no doubt it has been accentuated by religion. But for the purposes of the Home Rule Bill the two features of the Ulster community which strike us most are these—first, that by the qualities of industry and self-reliance it has built up a high degree of material prosperity which renders it, from the point of view of the Government, essential to any scheme of self-government in Ireland, but which from our point of view entitles it to special consideration in any settlement that is made. The second feature which we cannot omit to note is that its geographical concentration renders it a very compact, organised, and formidable body of men.
To what is the intensity of feeling which prevails in Ulster due? I do not think it has been fairly dealt with in this debate. The noble Marquess who opened the debate on Monday spoke, I think, rather slightingly of the religious feelings of Ulster as being founded on what he called "the massive rock of prejudice." Another
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noble Lord, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, made a speech of marked sincerity and power, but he was disposed to treat the feelings of Ulster as negligible. He told us that they were the growth of the last sixty years, that they were largely religious and not, in his view, permanent. The first participator in this debate who brought before the House with any commanding force the real case and position of Ulster was the most rev. Prelate the Archbishop of York. I am not going to discuss how far the Ulster feeling has a religious foundation. I should like to avoid that subject altogether. We all of us know that religion enters into it, and where religion enters into differences of this description it has a most disturbing effect. For I suppose history teaches us nothing more clearly than that, those rents and fissures which have a religious origin always have the most ragged edges and are the most difficult to heal.
The important thing is that we should be clear as to what are the Ulster objections to this Bill, altogether independent of religious feeling, for religion but imperfectly explains the attitude of Ulster. Her objection has a much wider foundation. I will not use any high-sounding terms about loss of the flag, or exclusion from the common heritage of Englishmen or forfeiture of allegiance, and so on. I will use only the simplest language such as the case itself demands. Ulster simply asks to be left alone. She wishes the laws under which she lives to be passed in future, as in the past, by the Imperial Parliament. She is content with what lawyers call the status quo. How do you propose to deal with her? In the first place, you propose to expel her from this partnership to which she is so much attached. It is not too strong to say that you turn her out of the Imperial Parliament. How do I prove that? Out of the forty-two Irish Members to be sent in future to the House of Commons it is calculated that not more than eight will be Ulster Members. In this House at the present time we have twenty-eight Irish representative Peers. I do not suppose when the almost forgotten promise in the Preamble to the Parliament Act is carried out and your new Second Chamber emerges from the limbo in which it has ever since reposed, that much consideration will be given to Irish representative Peers, and such Peers as come to this House from Ulster will not come

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here specially on that account. Indeed it seems likely, when your scheme of constitutional reconstructon is complete, that there will not be more than twelve Ulster representatives in the two Houses of Parliament, and these twelve will be all that will be left to discuss the whole field of Imperial policy, Army and Navy, defence, trade, all the matters that concern Ireland as much as England. I say therefore it is a great and cruel deprivation to which you are asking Ulster to submit.
Then take the position as regards the Irish Parliament. You say you will force Ulster to enter the Irish Parliament, where she will be in a minority of, some say, one to four, or as it is more likely to be, of one to three. If I may adopt a domestic metaphor, you compel Ulster to divorce her present husband, to whom she is not unfaithful, and you force her to marry somebody else whom she cordially dislikes and with whom she does not want to live, because she happens to be rich, and because her new partner has a large and ravenous offspring to provide for. There is a sort of mediæval flavour about a marriage of that description which seems quite out of place in the freer atmosphere of the twentieth century. To this Parliament in Ireland she will pay the greater part of the taxation; she will contribute from Ulster the larger part of the revenue arising from Customs, and yet in the disposition of these revenue she will only have a voice of one in three, or one in four. The majority in this Parliament to whom you are committing her fortunes, her interests, and almost her very existence, will be persons whose interests are different from her own, whose occupations and trades are widely different from hers, who profess a religion different from hers, and who have hitherto in public controversy been disposed to treat her with a good deal of hostility and scorn. Yet you expect Ulster to accept that position not only with acquiescence but with humility and almost with gratitude.
You are asking too much of human nature. You are asking Ulstermen to submit to a sacrifice which not even their great love for their country can justify. And, further, Ulster is not to be given any compensation for what you are asking her to give up. Is there any respect in which Ulster will
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gain or have her position improved? I challenge the noble Viscount (Lord Morley) to tell me in his reply if he can name a single matter in which Ulster will profit under this Bill. It seems to be worse even than that. I should judge rather that the whole position of Ulster will be imperilled, because after all her position stands upon credit, and her credit stands on the finance of Ireland, and we have been told by the greatest financial authority in this House that the finance of the Bill is bad, and by no mean authority in the House of Commons that it is "putrid." [A noble LORD: Who said that?] It was the expression used by Mr. Healy.
What justification is there for overriding these feelings on the part of Ulster? I have only heard two grounds advanced from the opposite side in the course of this debate. The first is the attitude of optimism, the sort of blind, unthinking optimism which hopes that everything will turn out well, the optimism which rests upon no experience and has no foundation in reason, and is really the optimism of the gambler in every sphere. But what right have you to be optimistic? What is there that leads any one to think that these two parties are going to settle down together in the peace and harmony which you seem to anticipate? I can see no ground.
Then the second justification is the well-known and immoral and cynical plea that minorities must stiffer or at any rate must yield. Not only that, but if they decline to yield their resistance will be treated as a public crime. It is truly astonishing to hear such an argument from the Party opposite. Ever since the great Civil War there has hardly been a rebellion or insurrection in any part of the world of a minority either suffering or fearing oppression which has not been encouraged by members of the Liberal Party in England. They have constituted themselves the international champions of the right of insurrection. They have made us the busybodies, and I suppose foreigners would say the political Pecksniffs, of the world. When Parliament and the Puritans rebelled against the King, when the American Colonies revolted, when the French Revolution broke out—in every case of an insurrectionary- movement in the small States of Europe, whether it was Italy,

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or Greece, or Poland, or Hungary, or to go further afield, Armenia, or the Balkans, or the Sudan, always on the other side we have had sympathy with the minority which was rising against the majority, and we remember one case where a people were actually fighting against us, and we were told that they were persons rightly struggling to be free. Yet when Ulster proposes to do exactly the same thing, simply because it does not fit in with your policy, you accuse them of the wickedness of plunging the country into civil war.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: No, we do not.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Oh, yes. I do not say the noble Marquess, but over and over again in speeches of his Party I have heard the most fervid denunciations of the terrible responsibility that will rest not only upon Ulstermen if they engage in civil war, but also on those public men who contemplate it, or who regard it with any sympathy in their public speeches in this country.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Earl again, but I do not think he will find that any statement has been made by the Party on this side to the effect that if the inhabitants of Ulster were oppressed in the manner in which the peoples he describes have been oppressed in the past we should complain of their rising in rebellion.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I was not alluding to anything said by the noble Marquess or in this debate, but to language used outside. I accept for himself the disclaimer he has made. In the debate yesterday it was said, however, that it was intolerable that a small fragment of the Irish nation should be allowed to impose their will upon the whole nation. It all depends upon what the fragment is. When that fragment amounts to one-fourth of the people I think you have to reconsider your position. But is it the position of Ulster that they wish to impose a veto on the rest of the Irish people who desire self-government? Not, as I understand, for one moment. They are quite willing to leave the remainder of Ireland alone. What they say is, Govern yourselves, but do not govern us; and the gist of the whole matter is this—that the demand
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of the Nationalists is not merely to govern themselves, but to govern another body of Irishmen who do not wish to be governed by them—and not merely to govern them, but to coerce them if they decline to be governed. Is it surprising if Ulster or those who sympathise with her do not accept this new version of the doctrine of the rights of the majority?
What then is the attitude of the Government towards this Ulster problem? I should judge from what has passed in the course of this debate that they have not made up their minds in the matter. But during the last six months there have been occasions when they seemed to realise the gravity of the case. The first of these occasions was on the Second Reading of the Bill in the House of Commons, when Mr. Churchill made this remark—
"It is impossible for a Liberal Government or any British Government to treat cavalierly or contemptuously the sincere sentiments of a numerous and well defined community like the Protestant North of Ireland. We may think them wrong or unreasonable, but there they are."
Well, my Lords, that undoubtedly showed more than a glimmering in Mr. Churchill's mind of the realities of the case; and a little later in the same speech he went on to say:—
"Do they claim separate treatment for themselves? Do they ask to be excepted from the scope of the Bill? Do they ask for a Parliament of their own or do they wish to remain here? We ought to know."
If that was not an intimation of willingness on the part of the Government to consider some special treatment for Ulster, at any rate it was an invitation to Ulster to show its own hand. Three days later, in the same debate, Sir Edward Grey spoke thus—
"If Ulster defeats the solution which we propose or makes it impossible, we cannot afford to continue the present state of affairs. Some other solution will have to be found which will free this House and put the control of Irish affairs in Irish hands."
Surely that, again, was an admission from a most important Member of the Government of the gravity of the position about to be created.
Then came an interval, and after this interval Mr. Churchill went to Dundee, and he made the famous speech, so often referred to, in which he adumbrated the idea of ten or twelve Parliaments for Great Britain.

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It is true he said on that, occasion that he spoke for himself alone. I submit that it is very difficult for a Cabinet Minster, and particularly one so important, who, as a rule, shows no reluctance in speaking for other people as well as himself—it is difficult if not impossible for lain, so to speak, to segregate himself and to indulge in audible reflections upon a public platform. He may find relief in any private meditations he likes in the solitude of his own study. He may air them at meetings of his colleagues. I have no doubt he does. I sometimes think that there is nothing in the world which I should more like than to be concealed behind a screen at a Cabinet meeting of His Majesty's present advisers—more particularly on a day after a Suffrage debate in the House of Commons. However that may be, I do not think that Mr. Churchill can, when he makes a speech of this description in public, claim the protection that he was merely speaking on his own account with no responsibility, and, at it were, chewing the cud of private reflection on a public platform. At any rate, is quite clear that in that speech Mr. Churchill gave away the whole case for the proposed treatment of Ulster by the Government, because if Lancashire and Yorkshire may have Parliaments of their own, obviously you cannot deny Ulster, and if Great Britain will not be ruined by having ten or twelve Parliaments, clearly Ireland will not be ruined by having two or three. These were indications that there was something in the mind of the Government with regard to Ulster. But a little later, when the Committee stage in the House of Commons was reached —I do not know whether Mr. Churchill had been rebuked, or the Government had repented of their lapse into foresight, or, what is more, probable, Mr. Redmond had put down his foot—when the Unionist Party in the House of Commons moved two. Amendments, one excluding the four counties of which I have spoken, and a later one excluding the whole of Ulster from the purview of the Bill, both of those proposals were resisted by the Government and the Nationalist Party -and were thrown out by the House of Commons. So much for the attitude of the Government with regard to Ulster up to now.
What has happened in this debate? I have listened carefully for any indication from noble Lords opposite of the policy of the Government in regard to Ulster. They seem to cling to the idea that Ulster can be
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satisfied with what they call safeguards. The Prime Minister offered more than once in the house of Commons to accept safeguards if they could he suggested, The noble Marquess also said the other day—
"We invite the consideration of any methods by which without altogether destroying the substance of the Nil, it can be mule less alarming to its most bitter opponents."
He said also that the Government would be prepared to consider any such suggestions. That was language of the courtesy and consideration which we always expect and always receive from the noble Marquess; but does it amount to anything in practice? He invites us to make suggestions and amend the Bill; but it is not for us to amend the Bill. Is there any substantial amendment, if we do not throw out the Bill on the Second Reading, which we are likely to make, that would have a ghost of a chance of being accepted by the House of Commons? Are we to put ourselves once again into the humiliating position of putting Amendments into a Bill which will be contumeliously thrown back in our faces by the House of Commons? Is it not our view that there is no amendment which we could introduce that could possibly turn this Bill into one which we and Ulster would be willing to accept? Is not our position this, that the whole structure of the Bill is so faulty and unsound that no patchwork could make it better, and should we have any right to take a Bill conceived on lines that seem to us to approach the question from a Party and not a national point of view, to offer not a national but a Party solution, and try to transform it into something which as long as it retains its present structure it could never become? Therefore I venture to say it is not much good to ask us to move Amendments or to offer us guarantees and safeguards.
The minority in Ireland want neither guarantees nor safeguards; they want to be left alone. The only source from which I derive any real consolation as to what may happen in the time that lies before us is a passage from a speech which the noble Viscount (Lord Morley) made in May, 1911, when we were discussing the Parliament Bill. Speaking with special reference to Home Rule he used these words—
"Are we to suppose that the reiterated and deliberate arguments used in this House by very competent advocates are to count for nothing, and

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that they will make no impression at all on the mind of the voter? No one can think anything of the kind. There will be all this blaze of public opinion, perhaps some sort of blaze may come from the country immediately concerned. To suppose that a Home Rule Bill is to go through those two years unchanged, unmodified for the purpose of the Government is really to show a curious ignorance it seems to me of the legislative conditions in this country."
Those were significant words. All the premises in that utterance have been fulfilled, and it will be most interesting to hear from the noble Viscount how the remaining conditions to which he alluded are likely to be fulfilled also.
The noble Lord who preceded me suggested that this question might be settled, and could alone he settled, by the consultation and co-operation of all Parties. For our part we are content to see Ireland advance on her career of increasing prosperity with the institutions which she at present enjoys: but if consultation and co-operation are desired, surely the last way in which to effect that result is to adopt the methods embodied in this Bill. Reference has been made again and again to the precedent of South Africa. I happened to be in South Africa when the South African Constitution was being drawn up. The circumstances were even more difficult than those of framing a Constitution for Ireland, because the two parties were not only separated by great differences of race, religion, and so on, but had been actually engaged in war. You may almost say that the hands of the people who met in conference had been imbrued in each other's blood. How was it done? The four States elected their delegates and sent up their most important men. Those persons met in conference, first in Durban, next in Cape Town, and third, in Bloemfontein, the three capitals. They met without the embarrassing presence of the Press, and they discussed the matter in secret conclave. Between the sittings they met constantly, and I had the honour of meeting them and hearing them converse in private houses and elsewhere. Line by line, word by word, they went through the proposed Constitution. They did not approach the matter as antagonists; they approached it as statesmen. Not a single man had any desire to revive old sores or to score off the other party. They wanted to build up a new Constitution in which all could join for the benefit of the country. Something is to be learned from that. Further, when
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the Constitution had been drawn up, it was submitted to the Parliaments of the various States concerned, and in the case of one State—Natal—of whose adhesion there was some doubt, it was actually sent on referendum to the people.
If you are constructing a new Constitution for a country sundered by great differences that is the method and those are the lines on which you ought to proceed. But they are not your lines. What you have done is, first of all, to conceal your Bill from the country at the last election, then to conceal it from your own followers until it came before the House of Commons, then to bring it before the House of Commons as an arrangement between yourselves and your Irish supporters, then to use the closure and guillotine to carry it through the House of Commons, then to use the impotence of this House to deprive us of any opportunity of dealing with it effectively, and then to wait two years under your Parliament Act in order to force this one-sided Party solution upon the country. That is the great difference between the South African solution and the solution which you have attempted, and that is the reason why I think the best thing which those who desire some sort of peaceful settlement in the future can do is to get this Bill out of the way.
This Bill absolutely prevents any peaceful solution or settlement by consent; and the reason why I respectfully urge your Lordships to undertake the rejection of the Bill this evening is not merely because it is a bad Bill, not merely because it has not been submitted to the country, not merely because its finance is rotten, or because there is no finality in it, not merely because it has been forced through the House of Commons in the manner I have described, not merely because it is resented and will be resisted by Ulster, but because as long as this Bill holds the field and is in existence, it cumbers the ground and blocks the way to any pacific solution of the Irish question, and until you sweep it aside, as I believe your Lordships are going to do, you will have no chance of building again the fabric of Irish unity.
LORD SHEFFIELD: My Lords, I must say, although many speeches in this debate have been encouraging, that the speech we have just heard augurs ill for any future harmonious settlement of this question.

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The noble Earl who has just spoken seems to me to speak as if Ulster was Ireland or something more than Ireland, as if she was the dominant factor between II eland and the United Kingdom in settling the lines on which this question was to be decided. At the end of his speech he said, "No Bill that you bring in will satisfy us or will satisfy Ulster." Whatever the claims of Ulster may be, it is absurd to say that four counties with a preponderance of Protestants are to have the last word in the settlement of a great question such as this. The noble Earl rather confined himself to statements than to considered and serious arguments. He said, "You have accused us of playing with loaded dice by our preponderance in the House of Lords; but are you not playing with loaded dice by having eighty Nationalist Members in the House of Commons?" To talk of the elected representatives of the people, because they do not agree with your views, as loaded dice, seems to me a most absurd and, I would go so far as to say, an immoral attitude to take up towards constitutionally elected representatives. I won d ask the noble Earl whether his Party had the slightest scruple or hesitation in using those loaded dice when they were passing the Education Act of 1902. I am afraid the noble Earl is a gambler who, when the dice are in his favour, looks upon them as honest, but when they go against him considers them loaded.
I shall not delay the House by going into all the points the noble Earl made, but there are a few points I should like to touch upon, especially in regard to the way he handled the question of Ulster. We agree that Ulster does not mean Ireland; it means about one million people in four counties, of whom two-thirds, or possibly three-fourths are Protestants. The noble Earl said, "What an outrage it is that you should disregard Ulster's feelings and demands in settling the question of Ireland." Is he so sensitive with regard to Ulster because Ulster has threatened to fight and has held out threats of lawlessness, or is it because he feels that the great majority of the country as a whole ought not to override strong local convictions and sentiments in a part of it? I should be very glad to hear the noble Earl, when we come to the Welsh Disestablishment Bill, handling Wales as he proposes to handle Ulster. That will be a test of his sincerity, as Wales affords another example of a great section of the people of
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this country not wishing to be included in the general legislation and policy of the country. The noble Earl spoke of Ulster as married to a husband whom she loved, and as being divorced from him in order to be married to a new husband whom she hated. But it seems to me, looking at the history of Ireland, that Ulster was a part of Ireland long before Ireland was incorporated in the United Kingdom, and when I look at the history of Irish life and Irish public spirit and national activity, I find they were greatest at the time of the United Irishmen and Grattan's Parliament. Ulster was then the headquarters of Irish Nationalism, and rejected and resented the idea of being under the complete domination of England. I have not looked it up lately, but my impression is that when the Act of Union was being passed Ulster was not one whit behind the rest of the independent sentiment of Ireland in resenting the Union; in fact, we know the Union was passed with the acquiescence of the Catholics bat against the voice of Protestantism which had dominated Ireland so far.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Ashbourne, said that it was very difficult to compare the attitude of Ulster toward Grattan's Parliament, because that was a Protestant Parliament whereas this will be a National Parliament. Are we going to say, because it ill be a National Parliament, that the people of Ulster are not going to take any part in it? It seems to me, if you are going to have a national Parliament, that the people of Ulster, from their past history and ascendancy, would be essentially in the forefront. The noble Earl also showed a lamentable lack of acquaintance with history when he said that Liberals had been the friends of rebellion throughout the world and yet, now that Ulster, as he says, is about to rebel, Liberals show an inclination to coerce it. Sympathy with rebellions and insurrections, very often justly provoked by misgovernment, has no doubt been expressed by Liberals in the past. I would remind the noble Earl that the reason is that Liberals have a hatred of oppression, while Tories have, in the past at any rate, displayed sympathy with arbitrary modes of government. That is the reason why Tories have not been in sympathy so often with uprisings of nations as Liberals have; but, given a rebellion on Tory lines, I have never seen any hesitation on the part of Tories to withhold their support from it.

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When the Carlists were desolating Spain they were largely helped by English Tories; and at the time of the war between the Northern and the Southern States of America with regard to slavery, the Tories not only aided and abetted the Southern States in their desire to retain slavery but encouraged them so far as to countenance the equipment of vessels like the "Alabama," which brought down strong resentment against us at the time, and the whole thing ended in our miserable capitulation. You must examine the cause which produces the rebellion. When the rebellion has been against oppression and misgovernment, it has in the past received the sympathies of all Liberals; but when it has been in favour of arbitrary methods of government, the Tories have been anxious to show their sympathy. That is really the truth of the historical attitude of the two Parties towards rebellions. The noble Earl spoke of two Amendments which were moved in the House of Commons with reference to Ulster, one as to the four counties and the other as to the whole of Ulster. I have not looked up the divisions, but my impression is that in one case the Amendment was supported by the Conservative Party, and in the other case Sir Edward Carson said they would support the Amendment not because they believed in it but because it would embarrass the Government.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: On behalf of Sir Edward Carson I really must repudiate that, because I happened, only two days ago, to be reading his speech on that occasion. He moved the Amendment himself, and he deliberately repudiated the misinterpretation of which the noble Lord has been guilty.
LORD SHEFFIELD: I have not looked it up, and if that was not the attitude taken up by Sir Edward Carson I withdraw my remark; but, although it will be of no use for the purposes of this debate, I shall verify the facts afterwards. I have touched on the main points of the noble Earl's speech. He seemed to say the Bill was incapable of amendment, and he quoted a passage from the noble Viscount, Lord Morley, saying that it was not probable, with the acute debating power and the great ability that existed in this House, that a Bill could go for two years without being materially amended so as to satisfy the final opinion of calm men in the country.
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If your Lordships would go into Committee on this Bill you might be able to produce Amendments which would appeal to the judgment of calm and fair-minded men in the country; but if you reject the Bill on Second Reading you deliberately prevent any such course from taking place. As your Lordships know, under the operation of the Parliament Act by refusing to discuss the Bill except on the broad question of Second Reading you shut out any reasonable scheme of Amendment which the Government could consider.
I must say that the general tone of this debate seems to me to indicate a marked change in the attitude of the House and in the attitude of what I may call public opinion on this question of Home Rule. It seems to me that there is a general recognition that the relations of the Imperial Parliament at Westminster to Irish affairs need re-adjustment and must undergo a very material modification in the direction of some wide measure of self-government for Ireland, not of a mere parish council or county council character, but giving a substantial voice in, and control of, their own affairs in Ireland to a body responsible to an elected Irish Assembly. The speech of the noble Viscount who resumed the debate on Tuesday night was one of the most stubborn in opposition to any change of any speech we have heard in the House on this Bill. Yet even he, I think, admitted that some steps might be taken in the direction of the creation of provincial local boards with some limited power of legislation in local affairs. He did not go very far, but he indicated that that might be a basis of further discussion.
In my opinion the time has come to recognise the necessity for some special legislation which shall treat Ireland, not on the principle of a symmetrical and consistent scheme of devolution such as may be applicable to other parts of the United Kingdom, but by legislation which shall recognise as historical facts the separate nationality of Ireland and the substantial differences of feeling and sentiment which have prevented the fusion of Ireland with a unified system of administration. It is the necessary policy and duty of statesmen, not simply to propose abstract legislation according to what they consider the best solution of some question, but to consider the facts

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which surround a particular set of circumstances. That in the case of Ireland points to the absolute necessity of recognising what I may call the national dement in this matter. I think, further, that statesmen ought to be prepared to recognise the persistent demands of any large section of the community so long as those persistent demands are compatible with the safety and the important vital interests of the country as a whole. You have done that in many other cases. You have legislated for Wales; you granted them Sunday closing. You have legislated in various ways for different parts of the country, recognising that you cannot enforce what you think theoretically the best for the whole country in a part of the country which has diametrically divergent views; and, of course, you are entitled to refuse anything that strikes at the welfare and security of the country as a whole.
The noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, who spoke on Tuesday, pointed out, I think with great truth, the material progress of Ireland during the last thirty years—he might have said during the last fifty years. If material progress determined the character and the aspirations and policy of a nation, there might be a great, deal to be said for Ireland abandoning her demand for home Rule and remaining allied to her richer neighbour; but the more we have brought Irish representation to be a real reflection of the will of the Irish people, the more has her demand for self-government been emphasised. The Irish have sacrificed many things to the discipline and coercion which were necessary to give force and effect to their policy. I cannot help thinking that when the need for this strict discipline is removed by the satisfaction of their demand, their local political life will become freer and more varied, and they will gradually welcome as participators in the work of continuing Irish progress those, elements of the population which they are now forced to ostracise, and which, nevertheless, might be a valuable element in the administration, of Irish local life and government.
The noble Viscount also complained that Ireland would be worse off by the acceptance of this Bill. It may be so; but of course this Bill will be a year and a-half before it becomes law. He said he welcomed the Parliament Act because it gave time for
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discussion. If the noble Viscount can persuade the Irish people and their representatives that this Bill is disadvantageous to them, no doubt, as the Bill is promoted to meet a demand from Ireland, it will not be found necessary to go on with the Bill, because, after all, this Bill concerns Ireland more than England. As many noble Lords may know, I have never been a Home Ruler. I believe in the unity and central Government of this country, and I said when I spoke on the Address last year and repeat now that I would not support any Bill which did not give ample securities for the direct and effective supremacy, not only of the Parliament of this country, but the general Executive of this country. I am perfectly satisfied that this Bill is as strong as it is possible to make it for the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament and of the Executive responsible to that Parliament. The Bill, I adroit, does not give all the securities it ought to give to individuals and for unpopular minorities in Ireland, but that is a matter which I have no doubt could be amended in Committee, and if your Lordships went into Committee those Amend= molts would certainly be carried by overwhelming majorities and I cannot help thinking they would be accepted elsewhere. The noble Earl quoted from the Bill of 1893 and from the American Constitution a clause about liberty and property. If that clause were put in by this House it would be an opportunity to test the good faith of the Government whether they were willing to give those securities to individuals which they have reserved to the State. There is, of course, power in the Bill for an individual who thinks he is wronged by an administrative act to take it to the Law Courts and to the Privy Council, but that is expensive and would hardly be practicable in the case of many individuals unless there was some collective body to protect individual rights. These are matters which could be strengthened by an Amendment, but that is not a question for us on Second Reading.
The question on Second Reading is, Are we prepared at this moment to face the necessity of accepting the principle of some large measure of devolution and self-government for Ireland? That, I apprehend, is the principle we are voting upon on the Second Reading. Does any one think that the demand for Home Rule is diminishing? You have been reminded of the continuous majorities of Home Rule

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Members in Ireland, nobody daring to put up a candidate in opposition to them; and the Irish people have submitted to almost military discipline from their Members of Parliament which in their opinion was necessary to secure the coercion and the force wanted to give strength to their national demand. I cannot help hoping that we have by this Bill satisfied this national demand however much you may say this Bill does not satisfy it, because for the moment the Irish representatives say they are satisfied. While I agree that you cannot put any limit upon the aspirations and future demands of a nation, still you have this assurance of the Irish Members that under this Bill, if it becomes law, they will settle down to develop their own affairs in the best way they can, and when that is done I feel very hopeful that those large sections of the community which are at present unpopular with the large majority of the people of Ireland will be welcomed back to take their part in the administration and the local government of Ireland. That, I think and hope, will probably come about.
The details of this Bill have been subjected to strict scrutiny. Many well-founded objections have been made, and there has been a great deal of criticism, much of which is very true and forcible. The noble Duke who moved the rejection of the Bill dealt far more with Committee points than with principle. The noble Viscount, Lord St. Aldwyn, dealt almost entirely with the finance of the Bill. I shall not attempt to go into the question of finance. I have neither the time nor the special knowledge, and it would be improper for me to attempt to do so; but I listened with great interest to the observations of Lord Welby last night, which seemed to me to carry great weight, although, perhaps, they did not reach the ears of noble Lords on the other side of the House. I quite agree with Lord Curzon when he said that he hardly expected the House of Commons would accept substantial Amendments. They may not. But is it not very important that you should be prepared to set forth some counter proposals? You cannot imagine at this day that you are going on with a perpetual non possumus. You ought to show what you are prepared to concede if you are not prepared to concede Home Rule. There will, no doubt, be further by-elections, and your remedy is to appeal to the sense of the country at those by-
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elections. You say you would like to appeal to the sense of the country Well those local elections afford you something in the nature of an appeal, and you may be quite sure, if eight or ten by-elections took place and you vent down to those constituencies and set forth what would be a fair and reasonable scheme in your opinion of local devolution and self-government, you would in that way very easily attain your desire of getting the sense of the country on this measure. You have already had these opportunities, but you have not taken advantage of this alleged hostility to Home Rule to press that point on the electors at the by-elections that have taken place up to the present. All the Party managers and candidates have tried to present to the people what they think most popular and acceptable. For a time there was an attempt to present Tariff Reform. That did not seem to be very acceptable, so they then took up the Insurance Act and the grievance of the doctors; but there was a scrupulous abstinence from the question of Home Rule.
You say there is no enthusiasm in the country for Home Rule. I quite agree. I believe the country is sink of the whole thing. This question has been going on for the last twenty-seven years, and your Lordships must remember that we are not dealing now with a period when Ireland is affected by crime and conspiracy but with a period in which the improved conditions of Ireland have had their influence, and when Ireland is working as a whole on constitutional lines, although there may be occasional ebullitions indicating the old spirit. Ireland is certainly much wealthier than she was, and most people believe that the tendency is for a still better state of things in the future. Therefore I suggest that your Lordships should give this Bill a Second Reading with a view to placing your own case, by way of Amendments, before the country. If you do not choose to do that, then you must take the responsibility of this Bill coming up again to you in the same shape and at a time when it will be less easy to amend it. Next year you will be within about six months of the final decision. Next year you may, perhaps, be willing to offer some terms of compromise in Committee; but next year the Government will be much stiffer in looking at your proposed compromise, and six months later there will be no possibility of compromise at all and you will have to take the Bill as it

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stands, You say you are powerless to enforce the rejection of the Bill. I agree, and I think it is a very good thing that you are. But you still have the advantage of being able to amend the Bill, and the Amendments which you carried would represent the responsibility and thoughtful conclusions of the whole Party.
The most rev. Prelate who opposed the Bill said that if the Government promised to appeal to the country he would support the principle of the Bill, and he said that he had always been in favour of a large recognition of the claims of Ireland to some method of self-government. Then the noble Earl, Lord Grey, who has brought back such profitable experience and enlightenment from the Dominion of Canada, and many other noble Lords recognise the need for some form of self-government; and if a majority of this House refuse to recognise this principle I can only say that it seems to me to indicate a state of judicial blindness such as we are told the gods impose on those whom they have doomed to destruction. Can you doubt that there will always be a large majority of Irish representatives in favour of Home Rule? Assume you cut down the Irish representation to the numerical proportion their population entitles them to, that would still give you sixty-six, of whom I have no doubt at least fifty would be Nationalists, and that would be a heavy and an effective body in the House of Commons. But you have constituencies in the North of. England and in Scotland where the Irish population is a large element and determines the political conclusions of those districts. Those forces, from the operations of political expediency, have determined that Home Rile shall be incorporated as part of Liberal policy, and we have seen that occasionally Home Rule has been on the verge of being incorporated in some form or another within Conservative policy.
You have no security whatever that you can put this question aside. Suppose you contemplate some state of things which would give you a long period of political ascendancy, what is the price you would pay for it? You would have the Parliamentary machine, but you would have it with the same condition of things existing as exists at present with respect to the Irish Members. When you were in power you bribed them every three years or so
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with various concessions. You lived from hand to mouth with them for a time, and then they went back once more into dogged opposition. That affects the Parliamentary machine much more than closures or guillotines or anything of that sort, because you have the permanent dislocation and the continual deadweight of a dogged opposition which does not care a rap for your affairs and which is ready to take advantage of any crisis to upset British policy in order to enforce Irish claims. I think after all these years, quite apart from the Parliament Act, you are bound to deal with this question, and of course the Parliament Act makes it more imperative still.
I should like to say a word or two before I sit down upon one or two points which were made especially by the noble Earl, Lord Grey. I have tried, as far as I could, to deal with the Second Reading aspect of this question and not to deal with the details. The noble Earl indicated a wish for a federal solution, and therefore objected to this Bill as not leading up to a federal solution. May I point out that a federal settlement in the first place implies a written Constitution, a limitation of the powers of the central Government, the creation of a Law Court above the central Parliament which will consider whether its Statutes are or are not ultra vireo. I should object very strongly to limiting the power of the Imperial Parliament and the fundamental Constitution of this country, which gives us one Parliament supreme for the whole country. Finally, I think history shows us that a federation cannot work well when there is great disparity between the various States, and especially when one State is more powerful than all the other States put together. The history of Holland and other countries shows that. I quite agree, if you come to federation in this country, you could not make up the federation with four units, and you would have to cut up England also into several large subdivisions for local self-government. That is contemplating a vast change which the country has never thought out, and a change which I think would be mischievous and out of the sphere of practical politics. Another thing I think history shows is—you do not create a federation by breaking up a unified Government. Federation in history has been the drawing together of a more or less number of States for central purposes which were previously more or

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less independent. The way to relieve an overweighted central Government is not by federation but by devolution, and devolution is to my mind he proper way to relieve any overweight in the Imperial Parliament. I quite agree, therefore, with people who have said that this Bill is no help to federation but is an obstacle to it. The Bill is not constructed on federal lines, and if we are ever to come to federation the first thing we should have to do would be to repeal this Home Rule Bill which is now before us.
In dealing with Ireland we must recognise that legal incorporation has never been accompanied by organic assimilation, and it is this element, this persistent element of Irish nationality, which compels us to treat Ireland in a special way. There are facts in reference to Ireland which cannot be ignored but which need not be proclaimed and recapitulated. As the French say, it is not every truth that is of advantage to be told; and we can only hope that time and wise dealing may overlay the old strata with a new deposit of better feeling and conditions. I should be very sorry to prophecy a millennium from the policy which I am now supporting; but, as Shelley said, "Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind, the foul cubs like their parents are." Though the way is not clear and though the future may not indicate more than possibilities, perhaps probabilities, in no case certainties, of success, yet I am confident that to-day the only road to a healthy settlement and to reconciliation is in the direction, though not necessarily on the exact path, that the Bill before your Lordships indicates.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, I will relieve your Lordships from any anxiety that I am going through the somewhat discoursive oration to which we have just listened. I am not sure that what the noble Lord has said would not be applicable to almost any Bill that you could imagine, whether it had reference to the question now before the House or not. At all events, I am not going to protract the proceedings. I am only going to urge one point. I had, it is true, intended to go further into the matter, but it appears to me in the present aspect of the House that it is desirable I should confine myself to the one point which seems to me to arise here, and that is that this Bill as it is presented to us is a gross breach of faith. I think we have
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no jurisdiction to enter into such a question as this after the pledge that was given to us, I will not say by any one particular member of the Government, but by the Government generally. Sometimes there is great difficulty in ascertaining what the pledge is, but fortunately, although I think most irregularly according to the practice of the House, we have the pledge in the Preamble of the Parliament Act, which recites—
"Whereas it is intented to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of a hereditary basis but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation, and whereas provision will require hereafter to be made by Parliament in a measure effecting such substitution for limiting and confining the powers of the new Second Chamber it is expedient to make such provision as in this Act appears for restricting the existing powers of the House of Lords."
Two things arise from that Preamble in the Parliament Act. In the first place, it assumes that the Constitution of the country is not in the condition in which it is to be according to the provisions of the Act. Did any one imagine who voted for that Act that opportunity would be taken when the Constitution is slumbering, and before His Majesty's Government have made up their minds what is to be our Constitution, of introducing a Bill of this enormous importance proposing to tear up an arrangement—I will call it no more than that—which has lasted 100 years, affecting a great number of interests and raising questions which of course are the most important that can be raised for the government of mankind. You are bringing that Bill in at a time when the whole of our proceedings here are a farce. I feel great difficulty in getting up any excitement upon the subject. For what is it we are doing? We are pretending to debate; we are pretending to be making laws for this country. But in reality we are doing nothing of the sort. We are in the same position as the most ordinary debating society. We can express our views, and we certainly shall without the least doubt throw out this Bill, as we are entitled to do. But what then? We are as if we were discussing the question of an adjournment and of bringing out the merits of the proposed question that is to be adjourned, but with this difference, that when we have given our judgment on the subject nothing will follow from it. I confess I feel humiliated to be discussing a question

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as if I were endeavouring to convince my fellow-men about something when everybody knows that we are not able to effect anything by anything we may say or do. We can neither convince our fellow-men nor act upon what we ourselves are endeavouring to determine, because the Parliament Act tells us our powers are extracted. It is true that at seine time or another we are to have some of them restored, but they are not restored at present; and we are merely called upon for a barren expression of opinion which can have no operation whatever.
VISCOUNT TEMPLETOWN: My Lords, I will follow the example of the noble and learned Earl who has just spoken and limit my remarks to the fewest possible. This Bill which has been brought before us is of such an outrageous character, so fatal to the unity of this country, so unauthorised by the British electorate that I think it needs no words of mine to urge your Lordships to throw it out. By this Bill one-quarter of the population of Ireland consisting of those who are most loyal and true to the King and Constitution are to be handed over to, I venture to say, the avowed enemies of this country. What was the message that Mr. Redmond, who is supposed to voice the views of the Nationalists of Ireland, sent to this country a little while ago. He told us that they hated England as much as ever their forefathers did. Judging by the utterances of the Nationalists and in the Nationalist Press, Mr. Redmond voices very fairly their views. It is to such people as these that you are going, if you pass this Bill, to hand over the lives, the liberties, and the safe-keeping of the honour of the most loyal part of Ireland.
Why have Mr. Redmond and the Nationalists forced the Prime Minister to bring this Bill forward? It is because they wish to exercise unfettered control over a country and its finances, of which in the past their Party has always been the bane. We have heard it remarked that devolution might be a solution of this problem. For those whom I venture very humbly to represent in Ireland I wish to make it clear, as far as I understand their views, and they are certainly my own, that devolution is not a solution of this problem and we absolutely decline to recognise it as such. What we have been asking for has been much more ably set
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forth by other speakers to-night and on other days during this debate. It is simply this. For heaven's sake leave us alone, leave us in the Constitution of this country as we are at present, and leave us to pursue our way in peace. Does this Bill satisfy the Nationalists themselves? I am sure it cannot. If I were a Nationalist I would throw it back in the face of the Government with all the force of which I was capable. It is a fraud, a sham, a snare, and a delusion. Does it satisfy Ulster? Ask any one from Ulster whether he thinks the Home Rule Bill of the Government would satisfy Ulster. It is a snare and a delusion to both sides.
As regards the safeguards, Ulster will have none of them. The noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry, made that perfectly clear to you last night. I venture to say there is only one solution of this problem from the point of view of Ulster, and that is to be left alone. What Governments of the future may or may not think has nothing to do with me. I speak as one of the rank and file to-night, but I am speaking as one of the members of those organisations in Ireland with which I have the honour to be connected. In conclusion I have, only one word to say, and that is that the people of Ulster have warned this Government solemnly, righteously, and carefully what the result will be if they try and force Home Rule upon them. They will offer it the most uncompromising resistance, and I am perfectly certain that if the Government persist in forcing Home Rule upon Ireland the consequences must be on their own heads.
LORD BARRYMORE: My Lords, if I thought that this Bill was going to bring happiness and prosperity to Ireland without bringing danger and damage to this great United Kingdom and to the Empire, of which we are all so proud to think we are citizens, I would gladly vote for the Second Reading. But to my mind this Bill will disturb everything and settle nothing. It will not relieve, or only to a very slight extent, the congestion in the House of Commons. It will not get rid of the Irish Members from the House of Commons. In fact, it will only bring about a worse state of confusion, unrest, and difficulty between the two countries than exists at the present moment. Will this Bill content Ireland? The granting of a separate Irish Parliament is no new

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experiment. As your Lordships who know Irish history are perfectly aware, there have been Parliaments in Ireland before, and what has happened to them? There was the dependent Parliament which existed before 1782, and certainly Ireland did not prosper under that Parliament. There were perpetual troubles and bickerings and rebellions of all kinds, until at length when England was in a weak position, being engaged in great wars abroad, the Independent Parliament of Grattan was wrenched from the Parliament here at Westminster. That is the history of the last dependent Parliament. What will happen to this new dependent Parliament that it is proposed to create under this Bill? Its fate will probably be the same as that of its predecessor, or probably still more the fate of the Independent Parliament of Grattan when, after seventeen years of existence, the Exchequer was nearly bankrupt, the Empire was in serious danger, and it became absolutely necessary in the interests of Ireland and of the Kingdom to which it belonged to enact the Union.
I do not want to consider this question from the Imperial point of view, great and important as that is. That is a question which has been dealt with by abler and more qualified members of your Lordships' House than myself. Nor will I consider it from the point of view of the United Kingdom, important as that also is. Neither will I consider it from the point of view of Ulster, because my Ulster friends have spoken very strongly on that subject and they know the Province far better than I do. I live in the South of I he country, in the County of Cork, and I will only speak of my own feelings as one who lives in that part of the country and give you my opinion as to the probable effects of this Bill upon the great southern portion of Ireland which I know best. We are not in the same position as our friends in Ulster. Our friends in Ulster say they will not have Home Rule. We in the South cannot say we will not have Home Rule, because we are in a considerable minority, and if Home Rule is forced upon us we shall have to bow under it and get on as best we can. But we Unionists in the South dislike Home Rule just as much as do our friends in U1ster, and we probably fear it more because we have not the power which they have to assert themselves and maintain their
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position in the face of a Home Rule Nationalist Parliament. We have done all that we can. We have held meetings throughout the South. Every county in the three Southern Provinces has held meetings protesting against Home Rule. In the city of Cork we held two meetings, one in the largest room in Cork, containing from 1,200 to 1,300 people crammed to overflowing, and we had to hold an overflow meeting of from 500 to 600 people on the other side of the street. In addition to those meetings, young men engaged in business as clerks who were unable to come in the afternoon to our first meeting held a meeting for themselves and filled the hall, something like 1,200 of them, to protest against this Bill.
Nobody, of course, denies that there have been Irish grievances. There have been grievances connected with the land and connected with the industries of the country, which are starting to be flourishing but which alone exist in any large degree of prosperity in the North of Ireland. But such grievances as there have been the Irish Parliaments have entirely failed to grapple with. The country under these Irish Parliaments that are so fondly spoken of by the Irish Nationalists at the present moment was in a deplorable state, and the Irish Parliaments were the most hopeless of failures so far as the prosperity and the condition of the people of Ireland are concerned. There were perpetual rebellions and disturbances and coercion. Under the Parliament of Grattan, which lasted only seventeen years, there were something like fifty Coercion Acts. What Ireland has suffered from all through her history has been a want of continuity of policy and a want of security. The history of Ireland has always been composed of questions of confiscation, restoration, and reconfiscation. There has been no security or peace, and no man knew whether the property he owned or the industry in which he was engaged one day was going to be taken away from him the next. I am afraid we are suffering at the present moment to some extent, fortunately only sporadically, from demands for restoration or reconfiscation in the case of evicted tenants, under which people come back from over the water and do all they can to disturb and annoy peaceful citizens who have been working on their farms in peace for twenty or thirty years.

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The feeling of Nationalism, of course, is very strong in Ireland. We all appreciate that, but there is no reason why because we have that strong national feeling a separate and independent Parliament should be demanded. That is not the real reason why it is demanded. The real reason is that those who demand it imagine that they are going to get a greater state of prosperity under it than they have under the existing state of things. As I have said, these Irish Parliaments entirely failed to create prosperity. It is true that for a short period the merchant classes were better off, perhaps, than they are at the present moment, and the upper classes and the land-owning classes were certainly better off; but there was never any moment in the whole of Ireland's history when the country as a whole was as prosperous and when the people from top to bottom were as prosperous and happy and contented as they are at the, present day. You have only to go through Ireland to see the difference on the face of the country, the different appearance of the farm houses and the labourers' cottages, and the way in which the men are clad and their houses are kept and the wages they are getting. These have all grown out of the policy of the Unionist Party and Government, and have been only possible under the Union. The land question is in process of being settled under the Land Purchase Act and similar legislation, and Ireland is more prosperous to-day than ever in its history.
Yet it is suggested by this Fill to tear up and destroy a system which is working so admirably. In my opinion it would be perfectly wicked and criminal to do that. All that Ireland wants now is money and credit, and it seems to me that under the financial provisions of this Bill both money and credit will be lamentably short; and I fail to see how it is possible for Ireland to continue to prosper as she has done during the last twenty-five years if she is to get into a semi-bankrupt condition as she will very shortly do under this Bill. A great deal has been said about the dangers to Protestants under an Irish Parliament. As far as the South is concerned it is perfectly true that Unionist Protestants have been absolutely ostracised since the passing of the Local Government Act. We have no chance of getting on to any board of any sort or kind. I think
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that is more due to our politics than our religion, and I myself am not so much afraid of Protestants as such being trampled upon in the South as are many of my friends in Ireland.
I may be asked why it is, if what I say is correct, that the mass of people in Ireland still continue to vote for Home Rule. There are a good many reasons why. Most of the thinking people would very much like to give up their. Home Rule views, but people do not anywhere, especially in Ireland, like to change their opinions particularly if to do so would be unpopular. Irishmen dislike unpopularity. They have good reason to know that it does not do to be unpopular in Ireland, because very unpleasant things are apt to follow thereupon. Of course, there are a good many intelligent Home Rulers throughout the country who really are anxious to have Home Rule. There are enthusiastic patriots, men whose hearts are better than their heads, and there are nun who are politicians "on the make," a very large and dangerous class, and besides those there is the class who are simply out for plunder. The two last-named classes mingle very much together. They hope that under Home Rule they will get something which they have not got, even though that something may belong to somebody else. But I maintain that the peaceful, law-abiding, and thoughtful men throughout the country both dislike and fear Home Rule. There are thousands of men from one end of the country to the other who, if they were to talk to -me or to any of your Lordships individually, would tell us that they do not like Home Rule and that they fear the consequences, but although they speak to you and me in that way they still declare openly that they are Home Rulers anti will probably vote for Home Rule because it would be dangerous to do otherwise. But at the bottom of their hearts they are praying that your Lordships, if you have the power, will destroy this Bill, or that something or other may intervene so that it may never become law.
LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE: My Lords, I do not propose to detain your Lordships more than a few moments. I believe there is one point of view, however, that has not received very much attention in this debate, and that is the extraordinary position of. Radical Peers

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with regard to the passing of this Bill and the vote they are going to give upon it to-night. I was very glad to hear my noble friend who has just sat down call attention to that frame of mind in passing. I suppose in the whole career of the House of Lords there has never been a debate in which a more hollow simulacrum of statesmanship has been displayed by noble Lords opposite—I am not referring to the speeches; I am referring to the effective character of the debate—than in the proceedings which the country has witnessed during the last few days. It is very sad indeed. Statesmanlike, lofty, and patriotic as the speeches against this Bill have been, there is no effective force behind them of any sort at all. That is bad enough. But what is the position of noble Lords opposite? I suppose there is nobody who is hoping more heartily than they are that this Bill will he rejected by the House of Lords this evening. Their devotion to Home Rule is so shallow that they, more than anybody, must hope in their hearts that the Bill will be rejected.
What would the position of noble Lords opposite be if the Bill were to get through? Would it fit in with the career of their Party if they were to plunge Ulster into Civil war? Hollow and ineffective and inoperative as the vote will be that will be given from this side of the House, it is nothing compared with the shallow—I should like to use much stronger language if I were permitted—vote which will be given by noble Lords opposite. I do not suppose one of them will go into the Lobby without hoping most heartily in his heart of hearts at the moment he is giving it that his vote will have a different result. I am not going over the old ground of the "die-hard" movement, but I should like to know what the position of the House of Lords and of noble Lords opposite would be if they had got their own way and had created a sufficient number of Peers, as they threatened to do, to pass the Parliament Act. No doubt part of the bargain would have been that those newly-created Peers should vote for Home Rule. The Government Benches would have been packed with 500 Peers instead of being practically deserted, as they have been in the course of this debate, but the new Peers would have been in a curious position. They would either have had to desert their friends the Government, who had given them their Peerages, or
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else they would have been in the position of voting for a Bill which would have had the effect of immediately plunging Ireland into Civil war and bringing the Government to a very speedy termination.
I do not want to go over old ground about the Home Rule question. The noble Earl, Lord Curzon, very truly said, in the forcible and eloquent speech to which we listened with so much satisfaction, that the arguments for and against Home Rule were getting rather threadbare. He devoted a great part of his remarks to Ulster. I have had the honour of going over to Ulster and finding out for myself whether or not the attitude of Ulster was genuine. I do not know, and I have not been able to discover from the speeches that have been delivered by noble Lords opposite, whether they really believe in the genuineness of the feelings of Ulstermen. They would believe in them if they had been over to Ulster. People do not walk nine or ten miles or more from the fields into the villages after a long day's harvest work carrying their children in their arms and then meet in the market place and sing hymns and pray and demonstrate in the unmistakable manner in which I have seen these people perform these offices unless they were really in earnest. There is not the slightest doubt about the genuineness of the feeling of Ulster, and I am thankful for it. I cannot speak of the deep-seated feeling of Ulster with the same authority and eloquence as did my noble friend Lord Londonderry, but having attended what has been called the Ulster Demonstration I have not the least doubt about the earnestness of the men of Ulster, and, as I say, I am thankful for it. You have found yourselves up against a thing that no promises of Peerages or of presents of money can possibly dissipate or do away with.
I did not have the opportunity of listening to the speech which the noble Lord, Lord Ashby St. Ledgers, delivered last night, but I gather that his contention was that noble Lords on this side of the House had dealt with the details of the Bill rather than with the principle of granting Home Rule to Ireland. In listening to some of the speeches against this Bill I have been rather struck with the over elaboration of arguments in favour of what is called settling the Irish question, but I would tell Lord Ashby St. Ledgers that as

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far as I am concerned in my humble capacity it is not the details of this Bill that prompt me to vote against it and do everything in my power to resist it, and to go over to Ulster and fight by the side of the Ulstermen supposing it ever becomes law. it is not my objection to the details; it is my objection to the whole principle of separation in any shape or form. And I say, although public apathy may be made a certain amount of point of in a debate of this kind, there are thousands of thinking people in this country who object on principle to Home Rule for Ireland in any shape or form. This is not a peroration; it is the truth. They believe it will be absolutely fatal to the Empire, to the prosperity of Ireland, and to the safety of the United Kingdom.
There are thousands of the thinking portion of our fellow-countrymen on this side of the water who are not going to have Home Rule in any shape, or any substitute for it, whether it is devolution or federation or any other name you like to call it, either for Ireland or for any other part of the United Kingdom from whatever side it is proposed. There is a strong body of opinion outside this House who view all this talk about federation with a considerable amount of distrust, no matter from what quarter of the House it comes, who will object to anything of the kind, and who are determined that the proper body to govern the United Kingdom is the King, the Lords, and the Commons seated at Westminster. I f yon want to relieve the congestion of the Imperial Parliament it is pretty obvious that the best way to do it is to give the country a rest from the harassing legislation which has distinguished this Parliament, and I sincerely trust that if and when the time comes when noble Lords sitting on the Front Opposition Bench are again responsible for the government of the country the first thing they will do will be to restore' the ancient Government of the land in its effective form, and, having got the machine, give it as little to do as possible.
[The sitting was suspended at seven o'clock and resumed at a quarter past nine.]
THE DUKE OF MANCHESTER: My Lords, I wish to make one or two remarks upon this Bill without going over the ground which has been so much better covered by others. Ever since my boy-
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hood I have grown up with, and lived with, and shared the sentiments and the feelings and the fears of, my fellow-countrymen in Ulster. I feel, therefore, that as an Ulsterman I have some little right to speak about the sentiments and aspirations of Ulster. I have a vivid recollection of the first Home Rule Bill of 1886 introduced by Mr. Gladstone, and I have a keener recollection of the second Home Rule Bill; and I know the dreadful feeling of fear and apprehension that went through our whole community when the other House passed the Home Rule Bills on those occasions. I also remember and sympathised with the tremendous wave of joy and relief that passed over Ulster when your Lordships' House referred the of 1893 to the verdict of the people of England, who answered in no uncertain manner. Before that happy event took place, on each occasion I saw the stern and sad preparations that were made to resist the tyranny which we knew would ensue if the verdict had been otherwise and the Home Rule Bill had passed.
Then came a long period of Unionist government, and we watched with satisfaction the dying clown of old animosities. We felt a growing sense of security, and we felt that the long period of internal struggle and internal feud had finished, as we hoped, for all time. Things between the opposing parties got better and 'better, and finally, in 1903, came the Act which has been alluded to so often in the course of this debate—Air. Wyndham's Land Purchase Act, which, as your Lordships know, has absolutely changed the face of Ireland. That good work was going on, and feelings had all died clown when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman came into power, and in 1906 I as an Ulsterman had hardly any or no alarm at all as to the prospects of the future. The Government had an enormous majority, a majority which enabled them to disregard the bludgeon of the Irish Party, and, as I say, I felt no alarm at all. I thought the whole question had died a natural and pleasant death.
But with the advent of the present Government things took on a very different complexion. All our fears were again aroused. The Nationalist Party got into a position where they were able to hold the balance of power. The Land Purchase Act, I will not say was allowed to die, but it broke down for the time being, with the

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natural result that those who had not already benefited by it were discontented; and, finally, the People's Party ensured that the people should not be allowed to give their opinion on this subject of home Rule. The House of Commons became by the Parliament Act, or in consequence of it, an automatic voting machine. The Government pushed forward £400 a year, and the figure moved according to directions. Then indeed Ulster became restive. Then indeed threats were uttered, though possibly if the threats had not been uttered it would have been better. It would, perhaps, have been better to resist without saying anything about it. But be that as it may, threats have been uttered, and it was because Ulstermen knew that inevitably they would be called upon, if this Bill did pass, to act, and because they saw apathy in the country which might possibly allow a Bill of this sort to pass, and because, they knew if it did pass they would be called upon, not to utter threats, which possibly might have averted the calamity, but to do actions to avert that calamity which everybody on either side must have been put on their metal to avert, that things turned out as they did.
We signed our Covenant and, my Lords, it was a solemn thing. We called it the Solemn Covenant, and it is a solemn Covenant to us. We have been met with jeers from the other side; we have been met with jests about dummy rifles, and jests of every sort. I maintain that they were unworthy gibes. Your Lordships on the other side may differ from us, but you have no right to jeer at the heartfelt sentiments of a law-abiding and industrious community. Furthermore, I feel, apart from any individual right which may possibly have some weight, that it is injudicious to do so. The whole of Ulster cannot be expected to take up the cause and pursue it with the calm deliberate reasoning of your Lordships' House. Moreover, jeers are liable to arouse passions which otherwise might not have been excited. I am sure all your Lordships have been greatly impressed with the speeches on the subject of federation which we have heard. I confess that I have been greatly impressed with those speeches. But, my Lords, as was said in language that I could not possibly hope to imitate, this Bill has absolutely nothing to do with federation, and I personally feel, as Lord St. Aldwyn and Lord Curzon said, that it is a positive bar to federation. That may be,
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and I hope it will be—and I speak as an Ulsterman—the eventual solution of this terrible and vexed question which divides Ireland, which divides the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and which, as many people have said, in a sense divides the Empire. I hope that some measure of federation—I do not know how it is to he brought about; I leave that to my superiors and my betters—may be found to be a possible solution of this question. I might gladly for that reason alone vote for the Bill—that is, if it were a measure which led towards federation or which might be said to lead towards federation. But I should still vote against this Bill, because I should be extremely suspicious. To begin with, I should vote against it because it does not give Ulster a separate status from the rest of Ireland. I believe that every possible interest of what we call Ulster is absolutely separate and distinct from the interests of the balance of Ireland. In addition, I should be extremely suspicious of a measure which, taking in Ulster and the rest of Ireland as well, took this particular vexed question as the first step towards federation. If I might be pardoned for using an American slang expression, I would say if you want to try this experiment on the dog, Ulster does not want to be the dog.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, the noble Marquess opposite, we understand, does not intend to produce a foeman worthy of the noble Duke's steel, and I have, therefore, to follow him in this debate, although I am certainly not going to contest any part of his argument, with which I very cordially agree. All that I can do in the circumstances is to make one or two observations upon points which have arisen during the course of this long and interesting discussion. And may I begin by saying two or three words upon a complaint which has been made by more than one of the speakers on the opposite Benches, and which was made early in the debate, I think, by the noble Earl who holds a watching brief for the Irish Office, and repeated before dinner this evening by Lord Sheffield, that complaint being that many of us in dealing with this subject had directed our arguments rather to points of detail, and had avoided what Lord Ashby St. Ledgers described as anything like a frontal attack on the Bill. I must say that to my mind that is rather a surprising complaint. I should have thought that the speech

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delivered this evening by my noble friend Lord Curzon, and the speeches of my other noble friends behind me had been sufficiently frontal to gratify the fiercest fire-eater on the Benches opposite.
We have to remember, and it is perhaps worth calling the attention of noble Lords opposite to it, that there are two propositions which we expect them to establish. In the first place, they have to convince your Lordships that a Home Rule Bill is necessary at all, and, in the second place, they have to show that this Bill is capable of fulfilling the objects which it is designed to accomplish. If we are able to show, as I think we have been able to show, that this Bill is a thoroughly ill-considered and unworkable Bill, that it is bound to fail to accomplish the objects which its framers had in view, then, to my mind, we have gone quite as far in the direction of demolishing the proposals of His Majesty's Government as if we had confined ourselves merely to arguments upon the abstract merits of Home Rule. But am quite prepared to say two or three words upon those merits also.
We have heard a good deal as to the amount of public demand for the Bill of His Majesty's Government. We have been told that it has been persistently supported by a large body of Parliamentary opinion on the opposite side. I have:—to time this evening to discuss that part of the question in detail. I will only say this, that it does seem to me to be established beyond dispute that the support given to Home Rule by noble Lords opposite and their friends has been anything but consistent support. It has been fitful and intermittent support, and it is a matter of common knowledge that they allowed their Home Rule policy to be placed in the background of their public professions, and that it only resumed the prominence which it now possesses at a particular and easily discernible moment —when the course of the elections made it perfectly clear that His Majesty's Government were not going to obtain a measure of support sufficient to render them independent of the Irish vote.
Now, my Lords, one word with regard to the Irish demand for this Bill. Let me remind your Lordships that, although we may desire to give all due consideration to the weight of public opinion in Ireland, this Bill is not a Bill which deals with Ireland
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only. It affects the United Kingdom; it affects the Empire. We cannot, therefore, allow that Irish opinion, even if it could be assumed that Irish opinion was unanimous, is entitled to prevail without question. Now we ought not to forget that during the last two generations the Irish fraction of the United Kingdom has become steadily smaller and smaller. A hundred years ago the population of Ireland was one-third of that of the United Kingdom; twenty-live years ago it had fallen to one-sixth; now it is only one-tenth. In other words, the predominant partner, if I may borrow Lord Rosebery's phrase, is acquiring; greater and greater predominance with every year that passes.
Then we are also entitled to call to mind that Irish opinion is not solid opinion. There is the Ulster fraction, of which my noble friend behind me spoke with such force this evening. I do not think any one will be found courageous enough to say in this House that the Ulster fraction of Irish opinion is a negligible quantity in the calculation. The noble Marquess opposite spoke the other evening of what he called the aloofness of Ulster—rather a singular phrase, I thought. If he means by aloofness that Ulster has pretty clearly indicated that. she wishes you to keep your bands off her, I think aloofness is, perhaps, not a bad way of expressing that idea. The attitude of Ulster may be summed up in half a dozen words. Ulster believes that this Bill will be fatal to her best interests; she has absolutely no confidence in the safeguards which you have inserted in it; she has twice seen Home Rule fairly beaten in the open field; she bitterly resents that upon the third occasion a Home Rule Bill should be forced through Parliament under the shelter of the. Parliament Act; and she refuses to believe that you are going to coerce her into submission to a yoke which is hateful to her.
One word more about the Irish backing of this Bill. I doubt extremely whether we have a right to take it at its face value. Who are the politicians who are leading this movement? There is, I admit, a small group of extremely able, extremely industrious, extremely versatile individuals who have made this subject their own, and whose names are widely familiar. But with the exception of that little handful, the survivors of Mr. Parnell's lieutenants, the rest of these gentlemen are, so far as I am

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aware, persons who have not made for themselves any mark in public life by their knowledge of public affairs or by their acquaintance with the great constitutional and political questions which are raised by this Bill. I find amongst them a contingent of lawyers, not, I believe—with perhaps the exceptions to which I have referred—of any great eminence in their profession; there are a number of gentlemen upon the staff of the Nationalist journals, not, I believe, of any great eminence in the world of journalism; and there are farmers, worthy people, no doubt, but not, so far as I am aware, entitled to speak with the authority of experts upon questions affecting Irish agriculture. And, my Lords, let us not forget that these gentlemen have been in most cases imposed upon the constituencies which they represent by external authority, and that they are deeply divided among themselves. I may also add that so far as their recorded opinions are known, most of them seem to have lased their support of Home Rule on their desire to have a settlement of the question on national lines—that is, on lines widely different from the lines on which this Bill is conceived.
Then as to the body of electors who lie behind these Parliamentary representatives. The large majority of them—I do not think the noble Viscount opposite will contradict me—are peasants, and I venture to think that the Irish peasant is not a very good judge of the kind of political issues which this Bill raises, and certainly when it comes to matters affecting the rest of the United Kingdom we may well hesitate before we allow the Irish peasant to have a determining voice with regard to them. These voters have been profoundly misled as to the effects which home Rule is likely to have on their country. They have been led to believe—it is a matter of notoriety—that this Bill is going to bring them a new era of affluence and prosperity. They have been told that we have intercepted the national wealth of Ireland, and that the passage of this Bill will enable it to flow once more into its proper channels. A useful antidote to that particular kind of misrepresentation was, I think, administered by the noble and learned Viscount upon the Woolsack when he addressed the House on the Bill the other evening. He made a rather remarkable statement. He told us, assuming almost the manner of a physician prescribing for a patient, that what was really the matter
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with the Irish peasant was that the poor fellow had had too large a share of good things for some time past; that if we went on as we were going on now we should find him getting pampered, that the English standard was altogether too high for him and that we must teach him to live according to the Irish standard. I think that will be a rather rude awakening from the golden dream of this Bill. I fear that the noble and learned Viscount's words must have sounded unpleasantly to my noble friend Lord MacDonnell, whom I see on the other side of the House. Lord MacDonnell has written some extremely interesting and instructive letters to the Press upon this subject. I happened to look at one of them the other day. The burden of his song was that the simple life would not do for Ireland at all. He wants to go on having the country pampered; he has no idea of going back to the Irish standard. On the contrary he protests against the establishment of a standard of living and administration lower than that in England. And what is the moral which he draws? He says if you do adopt a lower standard they will become a discontented people. And that is what will happen if the prescription of the noble and learned Viscount upon the Woolsack is adopted in this case.
There is another reason for which I am inclined to discount a little the Irish verdict upon Home Rule. Ireland has been passing through a great agrarian revolution. It is a revolution which is not yet over. It has had several chapters. Ireland has had a melancholy chapter of famine and depopulation, a chapter which tells of a fall in population from eight millions to four millions. Then there has been another chapter, in its way not less melancholy—the chapter of crime, conspiracy, and disorder. We are now in the midst of a new and brighter chapter—the chapter concerned with the great policy of land purchase, the policy initiated by John Bright, carried through its earlier stages by my noble and learned friend Lord Ashbourne, and carried further forward still, and with great success, by the Government of Mr. Balfour at the time when Mr. George Wyndham was Chief Secretary for Ireland. My Lords, the concluding passages of that chapter have still to be written. I do not know whether you will write them, or whether we shall, but that they will be

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written I, personally, have no doubt whatever. The point upon which I wish to insist is this, that Irish society and Irish public opinion are not likely to adjust themselves to the new order of things which has arisen until the great process of converting the occupiers of the soil of Ireland into its owners has been carried through to a successful conclusion.
Let us not forget that to the Irish peasant political life really begins and ends with the land. The thing is beyond dispute. To begin with, let us remember that Home Rule as a policy was entirely abortive until it became connected with the agrarian movement. The noble Marquess looks incredulous, but he may, perhaps, remember the very scanty success which attended Mr. Butt's Home Rule compared with the conspicuous success which attended Mr. Parnell's Home Rule from the moment that he associated the Home Rule movement with the land question. Every one who really knows what is going on in Ireland at this time is aware that wherever the land question has been satisfactorily settled by means of purchase there the Home Rule movement has lost the greater part of its intensity. "The whole face of the land is changing, and the spirit of the people with it." Those are Mr. John Dillon's words, and they are absolutely true. But there is a better witness still. Mr. Birrell has made a discovery which he had the courage to announce the other day in the House of Commons. He told his hearers that to his mind the completion of land purchase was even more important than Home Rule. It is not every Chief Secretary who learns a salutary lesson so thoroughly, or who has the courage to admit that he has learnt it. I think Mr. Birrell is absolutely correct, and I would venture to go so far as to say this, that if you could offer an average Irish peasant the choice by a secret vote between Home Rule and a reduction of the rent charge which he pays either to the State or to the landlord—a reduction of, say 10 or 20 per cent.—he would unhesitatingly take the cash and let Home Rule go. Both sides are committed to the completion of the policy of land purchase, and I would, if I were a Home Ruler—which I am not—be very much inclined to say to my Home Rule friends, After all, you have waited for the best part of a generation for Home Rule and no harm has come to the country; on the contrary, you have made a progress of
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phenomenal rapidity—a progress not equalled by any other part of the community; wait a little longer until land purchase has been completed, and, in the meanwhile, in God's name leave the Union alone.
I turn for a moment to the Bill on the Table. I believe it to be a disastrous Bill, a disastrous bargain for all concerned. Ulster, at any rate, gets nothing out of it. My noble friend challenged the noble Marquess to tell him whether there was any single point in which Ulster would derive any advantage from this Bill. We know perfectly well that she derives a great many disadvantages, but she gets no compensation. What does the rest of Ireland get? It gets all the paraphernalia and trappings of self-government—Houses of Parliament, officials galore, public departments, but all these things under conditions which I venture to say no self-respecting community would accept, and which give the country the choice between that simple life which Lord MacDonnell so much deprecates and additional taxation, and preclude absolutely all possibility of a final settlement. It struck me as remarkable that Lord Ashby St. Ledgers in the course of his speech went out of his way to tell us that this was not to be regarded as the final settlement, but as a provisional arrangement pending the establishment of some general scheme of devolution which has not yet seen the light.
Then, my Lords, what does the rest of the United Kingdom gain under this Bill? We are told that this Bill is the precursor of some great measure of federation under which the Imperial Parliament is to be relieved of a great part of its duties, under which the affairs of the United Kingdom are to be better managed, and under which the British Empire is to be consolidated. If we are to believe the Prime Minister some scheme of this kind has been maturing in his brain for the last twenty-five years. Bas it made any advance? Have we ever seen even the outline of it? Will this Bill bring us one inch nearer to the federation either of the United Kingdom or of the British Empire? This Bill, from whichever point of view you regard it, is a misfit. It will not fit into any scheme of federation for this country; it will not fit into any scheme of federation for the British Empire. With regard to Imperial federation, have you during these twenty-five years taken any steps to ascertain whether any arrange-

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ment upon this basis would be agreeable to the great Dominions? I will undertake to say that they would laugh at a proposal basing a scheme of Imperial federation upon the outline of this Bill. As for the federation of the United Kingdom, have we got beyond the nebulous effusion of the First Lord of the Admiralty, the memorable proposal that the United Kingdom should be carved up into what he called, I think, great self-governing areas, each of them, I suppose, with its own Parliament, each of them with its own Executive, each of them with its own Chancellor of the Exchequer?
The noble Marquess was evidently aware that that was a vulnerable point, and he endeavoured to guard it. How did he guard it? He told your Lordships that it was not necessary for the purposes of the federation of the United Kingdom to hammer out a slavish copy of this particular Bill. No, my Lords, perhaps not, but as my noble friend Lord Selborne well reminded him the other evening, you cannot in any scheme of federation have conditions, particularly with regard to essential matters, wholly devoid of anything like principle or consistency. I remember noticing a speech delivered by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs which seems to me to reveal with absolute sincerity the true position of this nebulous project of federation. Sir Edward Grey said that in spite of anomalies this Home Role proposal might precipitate further arrangements which it may not be difficult to make. The obscure processes by which this precipitation is to be effected I must say fairly baffle my limited understanding. The fact is that so far as this Bill is concerned, the Colonial analogy, whether you speak of Dominion federation or provincial federation, is absolutely worthless. The Dominions do not claim the right to be represented here or to send Members to meddle with our domestic affairs, the right which you are conceding to Ireland. On the other hand, they do claim complete fiscal independence, the right which you are refusing to Ireland. And finally is there not this fundamental difference between the two cases? Owing to geographical reasons Ireland is indispensable to us; we must keep her, and we mean to keep her. Is it not true that if one of the great Colonies came to us and intimated that she desired to sever her connection with us we should, no doubt with great sorrow, and after having exhausted all the
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arts of persuasion, be obliged to yield our consent? If a similar proposal were made to us on the part of Ireland we should, I hope, intimate frankly and firmly that, while we had a battalion left, or a battery of artillery, or a gunboat, we would not tolerate anything of the kind.
One word about provincial Home Rule. I listened with great attention to the speech delivered by my noble friend Earl Grey the other evening. He is frankly opposed to this Bill; on the other hand, his suggestion is that we might adopt in the case of Ireland something like what we usually speak of as Canadian provincial Home Rule. I think the way in which he put it was, "Why not have an Ontario in Ulster, and a Quebec in the South and West of Ireland?" I have so much admiration for the interest which my noble friend takes in these great questions, and for the courage with which he attacks them, that I can assure him of my readiness to consider with a perfectly open mind any suggestion proceeding from him upon a matter of this kind, but surely it must have occurred to him that there are differences, and differences of the most fundamental nature, between the Irish situation and the Canadian situation. There are geographical differences. Look at the map. In the one case you have the United Kingdom, two compact little islands with altogether an area of 121,000 square miles; in the other case you have a vast and loosely-knit continent reaching from ocean to ocean and extending over nearly four million square miles, or, to be exact, 3,730,000 square miles.
Then there are political differences. Some of these were touched upon, I thought with considerable effect, by the noble and learned Viscount the other evening. But what, to my mind, weighs most of all is this, that the historical conditions are entirely different. The history of federation in all the great Dominions has been in the main the same. It has been a centripetal movement, a drawing together into one organised community of a number of smaller independent units. My noble friend Lord Selborne gave an interesting account of the growth of federation in South Africa. Let me remind your Lordships and my noble friend of that which happened in Canada. All that I will do is to read to your Lordships three or four lines from the famous British North

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America Act under which the federation of Canada was brought about. They run thus—
"Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have expressed their desire to be federally united into one Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland…it shall he lawful for the Queen to declare by Proclamation that these Provinces shall form and be one Dominion under the name of Canada, and on and after that day these three Provinces shall form and be one Dominion under that name accordingly."
My Lords, that was a marriage; what you are proposing is a divorce. In that case you were dealing with really three or rather four Provinces, each with its own Government, each with its own financial system. This is a breaking-up of the United Kingdom until now governed by one Administration and under the same financial system into a group of Provinces. All that I will add upon that subject is this, that if this question is ever to be faced something more is necessary than the mere suggestion that the system which has been tried and which has succeeded so well in Canada should also be applied to these Islands. Therefore, my Lords, I think we should look at this Bill upon its own merits and without reference to the alleged Colonial analogies.
There are two or three propositions which I think have been established by this discussion. In the first place, it seems to me beyond doubt that if this Bill were to become law and this country were ever to find itself in serious international trouble, Ireland under this Bill would be a menace to the safety of the Empire and to the stability of the Government of this country. I say nothing of tae- possibility of the refusal to pay taxes or to meet the various obligations due to this country. But I should like to put to the noble Viscount an imaginary situation. Let us assume that at such a time as I have suggested we had at Westminster a Unionist Government with a small majority. In that Parliament here there would be this little phalanx of Nationalist Members waiting their opportunity.
VISCOUNT MORLEY: Not all Nationalists.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Not all Nationalists, but the large majority of them. In Dublin you certainly would have the Nationalist Party in power, free under this Bill, for example, to carry any resolution that they might please in the Irish Parliament; you would have a
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Nationalist Executive; and the railways, the Post Office, the telegraphs, and, a few years hence, the Royal Irish Constabulary would be in the hands of that Executive. Now I am under the impression that one of the contingencies which the military authorities—my noble and gallant friend on the Cross Benches will correct me if I am wrong—have at various times had in their contemplation has been the possibility of a hostile raid on the Irish coast. With what hope of efficiency would the Government here set out to deal with an emergency of such a kind under the conditions which I have endeavoured to describe? If the noble Viscount tells me that any of these things are inconceivable, I shall be obliged to him if when he follows me he will tell me which of the conditions that I have assumed are in his opinion so wildly improbable as to deserve being dismissed and put altogether on one side. Until I am convinced to the contrary I shall venture to hold that these are risks which we ought not to run, and that it would be a betrayal of our trust to run them.
But, my Lords, even in times of peace I venture to maintain that if this Bill were to become law it would be a disturbing influence upon our public life, both here and in Ireland. The great attraction to many people e this Home Rule policy is that hopes are held out to us that it will give us relief from some of the cares and anxieties which at present attend our public life. I contend, on the contrary, that every clause in this Bill spells the possibility of friction. In Ulster under this Bill you will have a new Home Rule difficulty, probably more acute and more dangerous than any Home Rule difficulty of which you are aware at the present moment. Under this Bill you would have the absurdity, so it seems to me, of two Executives acting side by side in one and the same country. Under this Bill you would have at Westminster that little phalanx of Nationalist Members whose rôle is marked out for them as plainly as anything can be. They will be few in number, but they will possess infinite potentialities for mischief. They are not numerous enough to protect Irish interests at Westminster if they confine their activities to Irish interests alone. Their only chance is to demonstrate by their actions that they have to be reckoned with. The only chance for them will be to show that they can make themselves

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felt in connection with our domestic affairs, that at any critical moment their weight can be thrown into the scale in such a manner as to determine the issue one way or the other, and in that way they will secure a vantage ground in our Parliament which they will not be slow to use whenever the occasion requires it. My Lords, all this is not prophecy. The thing has happened, and has been happening under our eyes during the last few months in this very Parliament, and I am not one of those who believe that the art of log-rolling is likely to become a lost art.
My Lords, there are other reasons which I need only touch upon in passing. What of the persecution of minorities and of obnoxious individuals? I noticed that Lord Sheffield, in the interesting speech which he delivered this evening in support of the Bill, admitted frankly that upon that point the safeguards were not sufficient, and that further safeguards were needed. If that spirit of fair play which we are told to expect in the future is really so abundant in Ireland, why is it that there are areas in which it is impossible to expect any jury to find a verdict in accordance with the facts if the case is one in which Party issues are involved? Why is it that all over the South and West of Ireland, as Mr. T. W. Russell said the other day, Protestants are being squeezed out? Why is it that, as my noble friend Lord Midleton told your Lordships the other evening, the county councils, in spite of all the smooth words which were spoken at the time when the Irish Local Government Bill was passed, have been slowly but surely cleared of every one but Nationalists? My Lords, can we be surprised if Ulster is uneasy? Can we be surprised if very little credence is attached to the reassuring words which flow so readily from the lips of the apologists of Home Rule whenever these possibilities are mentioned?
One question as to the safeguards. Remember who the men are upon whom these safeguards are to be imposed. They are the men who have announced that they mean to dethrone once for all the English Government of their country, the very Government whose supremacy is recognised in this Bill by these carefully drawn clauses. Attention has already been called to the fact that at one point the safeguards are singularly incomplete. Why is it that you have omitted from this Bill the admirable words which you
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inserted in your own Bill of 1893, and which found a place in the Constitution of the United States of America? The noble Viscount knows the words I mean—the words which prohibit the Irish Parliament from depriving a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or whereby private property may not be taken without just compensation. Perhaps the noble Viscount will tell us why those words, inserted in the Bill of 1893, have been refused—because they were proposed —in connection with this Bill.
Then there is the veto of the Lord Lieutenant. I own that I cannot make up my mind whether the part which the Lord Lieutenant will play in this drama is intended to be a comic or a tragic one. The noble Marquess told us that the Bill would relieve the Lord Lieutenant of his dual position. I suppose it is true that the Lord Lieutenant has a dual position to this extent, that he is the representative of the Crown in Dublin, and that he is also the head of the Irish Government and takes part in the administration of Irish affairs. But this Bill is going to create a duality infinitely more flagrant and infinitely more dangerous than the duality of which you are going to get rid. The Lord Lieutenant is an Imperial officer responsible for the safety of the country. He has under him the Irish Constabulary and the troops, and in that respect he is, no doubt, under His Majesty's Government at Westminster. But then he is also, as the head of the Irish Executive, advised by Nationalist Ministers. My noble friend Lord Midleton asked a very clear cut question upon that point the other evening. The question he asked was, Whose servant is the Lord Lieutenant really? Is he the servant of the Government here, or the servant of the Irish Executive in Dublin? I think my noble friend Lord Ashbourne asked the same question, or a question very like it. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack threw some light on the subject. He interrupted my noble friend Lord Midleton, and told him that the Lord Lieutenant would receive general instructions—I presume the instructions under which his powers would be delegated to him under the Act —and that he would receive afterwards special instructions—further instructions, I presume—as to what is to be intimated from the Imperial Government "on appropriate occasions." I confess I should like

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the noble Viscount opposite to explain that rather cryptic utterance to us. What happens? The Lord Lieutenant receives these supplementary instructions directing him to deal in a particular manner with a particular emergency on an appropriate occasion. But then supposing the Lord Lieutenant deals with it in a manner which is not altogether to the taste of the Irish Executive. The Irish Executive thereupon resign. That means that the whole machinery of the Government of Ireland is brought to an abrupt standstill. And this is the Bill which we are told is to be the means of saving us from friction and enabling everybody to live on quiet and easy terms with his neighbour !
I venture to tell His Majesty's Government that these elaborate safeguards with which you have filled this Bill are of no greater value than the old-fashioned notice boards that you sometimes see in the country bearing a legend to the effect that, "Trespassers will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law." The notice board is not of much use unless you have somebody to apprehend the trespasser, unless you have a Court before whom you can try him, and unless you have the means of enforcing the decision of that Court. And in this case, remember, it is the Irish Executive itself which is likely to be the principal trespasser. Everything depends upon the Irish Executive. Are you quite sure that you can trust it? I do not think Ireland has ever had an Executive of her own—I think she once had one for a time, when the country happened to be in rebellion. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack endeavoured to reassure us. He said, "Oh, do not be anxious about the Executive; it is a Statutory authority, and it cannot go beyond the provisions laid down for it in the Statute." Won't it? The powers laid down for it in the Statute are extremely wide. They are co-extensive with the sphere of Irish legislation. They include such matters as local government, public works, post offices, agriculture, education, law and justice; and on the top of all that there is a general power of making laws for "the peace, order, and good government of Ireland." I venture to say that an Irish Executive armed with powers of that kind will be conscious of its strength and will show you that it means to use it and I do not believe that in using it it will allow itself
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to be trammelled by any of the supplementary instructions which the noble and learned Viscount seems to think can be showered upon it from time to time with the object of moderating its activities.
One more safeguard—the Senate. We note with gloomy satisfaction that a Second Chamber is a necessary ingredient even in the Irish Constitution, but the proposals of His Majesty's Government with regard to the Irish Senate show pretty clearly how their mind is moving with regard to the question of Second Chambers. In the Bill of 1886 the Senate stood at half the strength of the House of Commons; in the Bill of 1893 both Houses were smaller, but the proportion of half and half was still maintained; in this Bill the Senate will only number a quarter of the other House, the popular House. Then the term of office of the Senate, which was ten years in the Bill of 1886, fell to eight years in 1893, and it has fallen again to five years in the Bill upon the Table. I remember that when some of us tried our hands at a little Bill for the reconstruction of the House of Lords we had a clause, as this Hill has a clause, providing for joint sittings of both Houses. I was severely taken to task, I think by the noble Viscount, because he thought that my senatorial contingent was rather too numerous for his purposes. I think on this occasion we may turn the tables on the noble Viscount and ask him whether he really thinks that this exiguous band of legislators would stand much chance of making an impression upon the much more numerous members of the popular House. But my Lords, after all it does not matter very much, for I see that Mr. Healy, who is a shrewd judge of these matters, has announced that "the man who chooses to stand for the Senate is a lunatic." "Send as many as you like."
I do not intend to delay your Lordships with many observations upon the question of the finance of the Bill. That has been dealt with by my noble friend Lord St. Aldwyn, and up to the present no attempt has been made to reply to his criticisms. But this we may say, that the finance of the Bill pleases no one. Ireland—again I am obliged to quote Lord MacDonnell— will emerge from this arrangement "maimed and impoverished." Mr. Healy stigmatised the finance of the Bill by an inelegant adjective, which I think my noble friend Lord Curzon quoted;

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he said it was "putrid." The Association of the Irish Chambers of Commerce formally demand that Ireland should be allowed to collect and to spend the revenue of Ireland. But there is another protest which I think is deserving of some attention. A wail is apparently going up from the Public Departments in Ireland which object altogether to being put on an allowance calculated upon the basis of the expenditure of the year in which this Bill becomes law. They do not see the simple life at all. I wonder whether your Lordships observed a very weighty communication from the Commissioners of National Education upon this subject. They point out that elementary education in Ireland has been to a great extent starved for a long time past. They want more schools; they want more highly paid schoolmasters; they want more inspection; they want better buildings—they want all these things, and they point out with unanswerable force that if the expenditure is stereotyped at the rate of the year in which this Bill becomes law Ireland will be faced with large additional taxation or with the starvation of one of the most useful of its Public Departments.
From the British point of view the financial proposals of the Bill are not very attractive. Ireland is much wealthier than she was in 1886 or in 1893. In spite of all that, the terms of this Bill are much less favourable to us than the terms of the older Bills. The older Bills both required a contribution from the Irish Government, and neither of them, if I remember aright, proposed an initial charge upon the British taxpayer. This Bill saddles us with a deficit of £1,500,000, with an annual bonus of £500,000, and with schemes of land purchase and old-age pensions conceived upon a very generous scale, a scale which certainly would not have obtained if these things had been done after and not before Home Rule had been granted to Ireland. We have never cavilled at this liberal, nay, this lavish expenditure upon useful Irish projects so long as Ireland remained with us inside the Union, but when we find it is proposed to allow her to set up on her own account and to have her own Customs, her own Post Office, her own Parliament, her own Executive, then I think we have a right to look a little more closely at the bargain and to ask whether it is in all respects a fair one to the people of this country. But, my Lords, quite
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apart from the purely financial aspects of the arrangement, I suggest again that here in these financial clauses you have the raw material of endless friction and trouble. We are to collect the Irish Revenue and to pay Ireland an allowance which she can alter and can spend without our control; we can impose new taxation on her and she can impose new taxes upon us. Is this a solid foundation for a federal arrangement between the two countries? No self-respecting Government, whether framed upon National or Provincial lines, would assent to it.
But there is an even weightier bit of cricitism about which I must say one word. Before this Bill was put into shape His Majesty's Government appointed an expert Committee to advise them upon the whole question of its finance. That Committee took a great deal of expert evidence. The evidence has never been published. I do not know why it has been withheld. The report of that Committee, Sir Henry Primrose's Committee, contains some extremely remarkable statements. Roughly speaking, their conclusion was, in the first place, that the financial settlement ought above all to be a final settlement; and they said that the only foundation for such a settlement was to confer on the Irish Government "full powers for the raising of revenue as well as for expenditure in Ireland." They added—and mark these words—
"No other arrangement offers promise of a harmonious or convenient settlement."
Then in a series of remarkable paragraphs they proceed to enumerate the advantages which in their view would follow from the kind of settlement which they would recommend. I suggest to your Lordships that it is fair to argue that if these concessions are withheld, if these advantages are not to be reaped, it follows that the new arrangement, the arrangement which has been framed in defiance of the suggestion of the Committee, will have the very faults which the Committee desired to avoid. If therefore the Primrose Committee is to be believed the financial provisions of the Bill upon the Table will be out of accord with this general policy; there will remain points of financial contact which will engender friction between the two countries and stand in the way of harmonious relations; there can be no finality; the extravagance and waste that result from too close an assimilation of the scale of expenditure in Ireland to that of

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Great Britain will be perpetuated; and, finally, there will be in every branch of Government service a division of responsibility and a conflict of authority. What an indictment when one considers that it has been drawn up by the very Committee of financial experts whom His Majesty's Government appointed to show them the way in which they should deal with these matters !
My Lords, we have stated our case against this Bill. I submit to your Lordships that it remains unshaken by anything that has been said on the other side of the House. I do not want to suggest that the arguments are all on one side, but I do want to suggest that we have said enough to show cause why this Bill should not be forced upon the country under the machinery of the Parliament Act. I am not going at this hour of the evening to argue the question whether you have a mandate for this Bill or not. So far as I can make out, if you have a mandate it rests principally upon a speech which I delivered at Portsmouth during the election of 1910. But assuming that that oration had the weight which you are inclined to give it, I ask, Have you a mandate for this particular Bill, and, above all, have you got a mandate to pass this or any Bill through Parliament at a moment when, according to your own admission, neither House of Parliament is so constituted as to entitle it to deal with any question of really first-rate constitutional importance? I say neither House is so constituted. The House of Commons, acording to your own showing, is imperfectly constituted. You were a few hours ago going to add, I think, 2,500,000 voters to those who already enjoy the franchise. You were going to change the law as to registration, and you discovered at the eleventh hour—or was it the thirteenth hour—that the question of redistribution had to be considered as well as the question of reform. I say nothing of your readiness, if you were sufficiently pressed, to add anything between 6,000,000 and 12,000,000 women to the list of those entitled to vote. And what of this House? What of the House of Lords? You are going to give a new House of Lords to Ireland. What about our new House of Lords—the House of Lords which you have admitted you are bound by a debt of honour to provide us with. Where is our House of Lords? What right then have you, at a moment when one House of Parliament does not represent the people of this
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country and when the other House of Parliament is not only imperfectly constituted but powerless—what right have you at such a moment to force a Bill like this through Parliament? There is only one word for it—it is a constitutional outrage, and I doubt whether one more scandalous or unpardonable has ever been committed. Some noble Lords opposite have been good enough to suggest that we should pass the Second Reading of this Bill in order to discuss it in Committee and insert Amendments in it, and the noble Marquess spoke some fair words to us at the opening of this debate upon that point. My answer is that no Amendments that we can conceive would convert this Bill into a Bill to which we could as free agents accord a place upon the Statute Book. We have had some experience of attempting to amend Government Bills. Have your Lordships forgotten what happened in the case of the Parliament Bill in 1911? We were encouraged to put Amendments into the Bill, and we did so. How many of them came back? None. They were thrown back in our faces. My Lords, the Parliament Act is now the law of the land. Our duty is plainly indicated by the provisions of that measure, and I feel sure that your Lordships will not shrink from performing it.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT MORLEY): My Lords, I am sure I am only saying what all your Lordships will echo when I express our pleasure at seeing the noble Marquess back again in this place and able to deal with complete power with the topics before him. If Lord St. Aldwyn, who succeeded me in the office of Irish Secretary a great many years ago, had been in his place to-night I would have asked him whether either of us would have credited a prophet who had told us that in twenty-seven years from that date we should be, he and I, discussing a Home Rule Bill which had passed the House of Commons by a majority of 110. The noble Marquess has dwelt with considerable strength upon the nature of the Irish demand, but I confess I do not think he was very generous when he questioned the Irish backing. He spoke of the Irish contingent, as he called them, in language which I think was not quite as generous as he usually uses. He says some of them are journalists, some are lawyers, others are I do not know what, but people pursuing all kinds of low class callings.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: No, no.
VISCOUNT MORLEY: All I can tell your Lordships is that it was my fortune for a good many years to be brought into close and constant contact with the Irish contingent as it is called, and I have never known men whose public spirit and unselfishness I would more willingly recognise. As for emoluments, I hear sometimes ungenerous words used on that side. I wonder what the Irish contingent have got compared with the vast plunder that was got in old days for generation after generation by noble Lords who criticise them now with some severity! Then we are told that they are deeply divided. Well, they are not the only people who are deeply divided.
There is an immense difference in regard to the temper in which this debate has been conducted in this House, and that, I am told, was the case in another place. There is a great difference between the temper shown now and that shown when the Bill of 1886 was discussed and when the Bill of 1893 was before the two Houses. What is the difference, and to what is it due? There has been no talk about thugs and bandits; there has been none of the ferocity which was then displayed. The change of temper is due, I take it, to the Land Acts. Noble Lords are very free in assuming that land policy began in the year 1903. On the contrary, the land policy which Mr. Wyndham carried well and beneficently forward in 1903 would have been perfectly impossible if you had not had the two Acts of 1870 and 1881, which made purchase a feasible operation. There is no question about that. Then there is the advance in local government. That has been a very great advance, and is entirely due to noble Lords opposite. It has worked excellently on the whole. Among other tests of the business qualities of the Irish is that where they are put on their own reponsibility the rates have gone down. One or two points may be remarked upon, and they have been remarked upon in this discussion, but they may easily pass. That Act has worked well. Then there is the Agricultural Department. I hope your Lordships will let me say a single word, not merely on a point of affectionate memory but of historic truth—namely, that it was Mr. Gladstone who came forward—the most
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powerful man then in English public life—and used all the resources of his noble and capacious nature to bring home to his fellow-countrymen a recognition of the existence of a true and genuine national spirit in Ireland, and the fact that of that genuine national spirit there might be good use made both for England and for Ireland. If I may add one more sentence upon that point, I would say we went through dark and dismal days when the prospect of the Home Rule policy succeeding was not very hopeful; but many of us, men who have since risen to a position of recognised importance in the State, console ourselves and find compensation in the fact that those two Home Rule Bills have done much to create that change in international sentiment both on the part of Ireland and on the part of England and Scotland, and that was due to Mr. Gladstone's heroic efforts.
I do not at this hour propose to deal with all the points that the noble Marquess has made. Several of them were perfectly germane and well worthy of an answer, and on the point of finance we consider—certainly I do—that they were well answered by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack. But if anybody thinks that a great scheme of finance involving double relations between the two countries can be settled in such a way that no critic can find any fault with it, I think he must be a very sanguine person. The noble Marquess said the Irish backing was a little handful. We have had many noble Lords from Ireland here, and they have not said that; though Lord Ashbourne, who was formerly Lord Chancellor for Ireland, did say that Home Rule is not demanded by the democracy in Ireland. Then we were told by the noble Marquess and by others that if you talked to a single individual Irishman in the South and West of Ireland he would say that he did not care about Home Rule, but he would beg you not to mention it, and you must be very sure not to use language of that kind to anything like a crowd. What does that show? Surely it shows that the atmosphere of public opinion is a Home Rule atmosphere. I will not follow the noble Marquess into his conflict with my noble friend Lord Grey upon Canada and federation. For my own part, I feel the full force of the noble Marquess's reply to Lord Grey, and if there were a Division to-night upon that point I am not at all sure,

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though federation seems to have sprung up like a mushroom in the minds of many noble Lords simply as a way of avoiding meeting the circumstances of this Bill, that I should not have gone with the noble Marquess. But I will say nothing further on that now.
As to the noble Marquess's talk of the apathy of the Irish on the subject of Home Rule, I am told—I hope noble Lords will not scoff at this—that the contributions to the Home Rule funds within Ireland, not from across the Atlantic, were larger by about £2,000 than during any year since 1879. It amazes me that it should be necessary to submit that this demand for Home Rule, wise or unwise, and whatever fortune you may think it destined to, is not a mere artificial affair. That idea amazes me, considering how many of your Lordships must be well acquainted with the real conditions of Ireland. The noble Marquess spoke of the tremendous peril in which we should be put if this Bill were passed in case we were at war. Ireland, the noble Marquess said, might menace us and become practically a confederate with our enemies. What is this community which might at such a moment join your enemies? It is a community to which the very central element in the noble Marquess's own policy is to give them about £200,000,000, credit or cash, of your money. If I thought they were likely to join our enemy, I would not lend them £200,000,000 of money. Does the noble Marquess mean —and it would imply it—that if we were at war we should have to hold Ireland as hostile country? Those are points which I think the noble Marquess will find it rather difficult to answer. Then he asked about the omission from the present Bill of the clause in the Bill of 1893 about due process of law and so forth. He asks, "Why do you omit that? It is in the United States Constitution; it was in your own Bill of 1893. Why have you left it out now?" Really, is it upon a point of that kind that you are going to throw this Bill out? If there ever was a Committee point, that is one. That was a matter raised in one of those famous conferences of which we hear so much. I wish we might hear more, and of a more fruitful kind, of those Conferences, and if this were raised there would be no kind of objection to it.
I want to ask your Lordships' attention to this point bearing directly upon the
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centre and substance of the noble Marquess's speech. This House is rich in men who have seen countries and been responsible for governing countries far away from ourselves here, and to the men who have been observers of the conditions of government in other lands than our own I want to put this question, and I press it upon all your Lordships who are willing to listen. It is not an academic question, but one which goes to the foundation of this Bill, and I press it upon your Lordships. Can any noble Lord in this House tell me a case of a statesman or a body of statesmen trying to found a stable government upon a severance and divorce between land ownership and direct political power? I do not believe any such case can be found, and it would not be natural that such a divorce could subsist in any community. I submit that this is worthy of deep consideration. It will not affect the vote to-night, I dare say, but it may affect the thoughts of your Lordships and of the public. In any community I have ever I heard of predominant agricultural political influence has gone with the transfer of land. I will not go into the various historic cases. In Ireland the government was carried on by the great landlord class. By their own act and assent the landlords are going more or less. Who, then, will be left to possess political power? It is easy to see. There are the new owners of land, whom the noble Marquess like all of us desires to see multiplied and who are by far the largest element in the population of Ireland; a much smaller but highly important industrial class in a certain area; and then there are the officials. Who can doubt that the transfer of political power to the new propertied class is an inevitable certainty in a democratic system such as that of which we boast? Mr. Lecky—I hope the House will not grudge half a moment to the consideration of this point, which involves the ideal which lies beyond this particular Bill—said:
"Our object is, or should be, to create by a wide diffusion and rearrangement of landed property a new social type on a new conservative basis."
That consideration leads, of course, directly to Home little in some form or other, and I take it that my noble friend Earl Grey the other night was thinking of this when he said, dwelling upon the conservative character of the new possessors if they come

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now into possession of political power in Ireland—
"The fighting position taken up by Lord Lansdowne and the other Unionist leaders was to him absolutely incomprehensible, for it compels their natural allies to fire into the backs of their own troops. To continue for a day longer than was absolutely necessary in their present hopeless position appeared, from the Party point of view, to be crass stupidity."
I commend that to noble Lords opposite. It exposes the fundamental weakness of the action that your Lordships are going to take to-night. The noble Marquess has been unfortunately absent, and I think has not gathered from any information the extraordinary expression of opinion and leaning that has been exhibited in the House during his absence.
We have been told that there is no finality in the Bill. That has been made a very strong point. Do any of you dream that there is finality in the rejection of the Bill? If you win some day or another under the Orange flag, which I grieve to think is being reared, do you think there will be an end of "the wearing of the green"? There were great gatherings in Belfast, of the importance of which I do not wish to say a single disparaging word—I know it well. But other gatherings just as great, just as earnest, and quite as enthusiastic took place shortly afterwards in Dublin when the Prime Minister went there. I was asked last night by the noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry, what we were going to do with Ulster? He put it with great emphasis. I have not the least wish to shirk it, as I will presently show, but I do not believe that it is a very wise question. If it is, then I will put to noble Lords opposite a question perhaps not less unwise than the question "What are we going to do with Ulster?"—namely, "What are you going to do with Leinster, Munster, and Connaught?"
This I desire to impress on the attention of the noble Marquess. The Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, I think on the Third Reading of the Bill, made a remarkable deliverance. He was discussing some speech of Mr. William O'Brien's, and he said—
"There is a great problem in Ireland. I admit there is a problem, and if it were possible to solve it on lines of consent, nobody would be more pleased than I."
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Your Lordships may turn this Bill out to-night if you please, but the problem, in the opinion of the noble Marquess's own colleagues, remains. Some remarkable deliverances have been made in this House during the debate on this Bill. The noble Earl, Lord Grey, said that it is admittedly necessary to settle the Irish difficulty, and in the case of our Home Rule Bill of 1886 Mr. Chamberlain suggested the very idea which the noble Earl is now putting forward. Then let us take the noble Viscount, Lord St. Aldwyn, who made a powerful speech on Tuesday. What did he say? He pointed to the remedial work of the last twenty-five years, and said we should go on extending local government, promoting education, and settling land. Yes; but I was amazed when I heard the noble Viscount content himself with that, because that is the very path we have been treading for the last twenty-five years. But where are we? We are still face to face, as the noble Marquess's own colleague says, with a great problem. I cannot imagine a more extraordinary anti-climax to twenty-five years of observation than to say we had better go on just as we are doing.
Then we had the speech of the most rev. Prelate the Archbishop of York, who made perhaps one of the most interesting and serious contributions to our debate. The most rev. Prelate said—
"Few can deny that there is a real and an urgent Irish problem. Some recognition—
I commend this observation—
"must be found for the persistent and sustained desire of the Trish people to have some liberty to manage their affairs in their own way."
The most rev. Prelate went on—
"I agree that some measure of Home Rule is necessary, not only to meet the needs of Ireland but to meet the needs of the Imperial Parliament."
The most rev. Prelate will, I am sure, believe that I would not use an accent of levity about him; but is it not apparent that he has reached that stage which those of us who are accustomed to political controversies recognise as the stage when serious men realise that things as they are cannot be defended? I do not believe that I am at all overstating the most rev. Prelate's view. Things as they are cannot be defended. I am afraid the most rev. Prelate was rather captured by the sugges-

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tion, one of mushroom growth, to apply the federal system to Ireland. The federal system, may I venture to point out to the most rev. Prelate, cannot be constructed and settled in a day. Meanwhile what is to happen to Ireland? The most rev. Prelate told us that he would be satisfied if there was a General Election which would show whether the country did or did not wish that we should run the risk about Ulster. How can you go to the constituencies of the country with, "Will you or will you not have Home Rule?" You cannot put a bald plebiscite question of that kind, and I am not sure that Lord Balfour of Burleigh is persuaded that the referendum would work in such a case. What is the question going to be that you put to the country? "Are you for Home Rule?"
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: "Are you for this Bill?"
VISCOUNT MORLEY: "Are you for the Bill which was thrown out by the House of Lords on January 30?" One of the objections made by the most rev. Prelate was that the powers of the Irish body should be defined and the residue left to the Imperial Parliament—in other words, enumeration versus exclusion. That particular point, which is one of great importance, was considered by the Cabinet in 1886 and in 1893, and I admit that I rather think the late Lord Herschell, then Lord Chancellor, would have preferred the other way. But I cannot imagine a poorer poster than to go to the country with: "Enumeration versus Exclusion." You cannot put a single issue. One man will vote because he dislikes Home Rule or the Home Rule Bill; another man will vote because he is against insurance.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: That is not a referendum on the Bill.
VISCOUNT MORLEY: It all comes to that. If you have a referendum "Are you for this Bill or against it," the voter may say, "If I say I am against it I shall turn out the excellent Asquith Government in which I have full confidence." I am sure a great many of your Lordships must have had electioneering experience, and you know that this is not all done by disinterested and detached angels. Politics are politics. The noble Earl, Lord Curzon, Who spoke so powerfully earlier in to-
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night's debate, paid me the compliment of reading out some observations of mine when I was in charge of the Parliament Act in its passage through this House. I do not draw back from a single word that I then said. That is one reason why I regret the line which your Lordships are going to take. I then said that you could not suppose that a Bill which had been exposed for a year, say, to the blaze of public opinion and was withered by it would go on. In spite of all the uncharitable, ungenerous, and, may I add, untrue, words that are used as to the character of the present Government and its members, you must know that if there was a great blaze of public opinion against this Bill we should be disarmed. I implied this when I spoke on the Parliament Bill, and I say it now. We have had talk in this discussion about the Union, and we are accused of dissolving the Union. Now the Union of 1800 may have been a wise or a most unwise proceeding. It may have been a fatal misreading of terrible forces, or it may have been—I am bound to say it, though I am afraid it will offend some—it may have been a bold recognition of an overwhelming political necessity. Then, wise or unwise, the Act of Union was the work of great and powerful minds. But what a bitter irony has history thrown upon the working of the Act of Union. What irony has followed Mr. Pitt's noble words. He said the only remedy for Ireland is this—
"An impartial Legislature standing aloof from local party connections, sufficiently removed from the influence of contending factions, to be the advocate or champion of neither."
Aloof from local party influences ! Well, my Lords, the most systematic disregard of Mr. Pitt's noble ideal—used in other passages as well as in the one I have read—is known to history; and may I say without offence that it is in this House above all other organs of our governing machinery that that ideal of Mr. Pitt's has been most systematically disregarded. I am not going through the melancholy and dismal catalogue—you will find it most faithfully recorded by your own great Unionist historians—of reform after reform unhappily rejected here or protracted until its utility had gone.
There are two lines of cleavage in Ireland. One is religion and the other is land, on which the noble Marquess opposite has dwelt so well to-night. In this House

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there was not over all those years, there is not now for that matter, one single direct representative of the great mass of workers on the soil, those men who had given its value to a great deal of the soil; and there was always a steady phalanx of men of commanding weight, influence, and authority—I have known some of them and respected them—who personally or by their alliances and family connections thought that their interests were wrapped up in the maintenance of the most unhapppy and disastrous land system which was ever to be found in any country half civilised. I hope the House will not quarrel with me for quoting a roughish thing said by O'Connell. He said—
"As for going to the House of Lords on land, you might as well talk to a butcher about fasting during, Lent."
And there is some point in it. Lord Curzon said something about Ireland having been an incubus to his own Party. It is not to your Party only. This is what your historian, Mr. Lecky, said, and I commend it—
"There has scarcely been a period since the enactment of the Union in which Irish questions and Irish votes have not been made the chief weapons in party conflict."
You reproach us now with being the servants of Mr. Redmond and so forth. Do you suppose that this is going to end? It has gone on and may go on, but it will be less likely to do so if we have a smaller number of Irish Members here, and if Irishmen are given Parliament government in their own country.
Last night the noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry, mentioned, as he was well entitled to do, the name of Lord Castlereagh. Castlereagh was one of Mr. Pitt's right-hand men. As I heard the noble Marquess refer to Lord Castlereagh I wondered what Lord Castlereagh would have said—Castlereagh, the stedfast friend of Catholic emancipation, the large-minded adherent of Mr. Pitt's Irish policy—if he could have seen Unionists in the name of Pitt's Union going to Derry boasting, with incendiary eloquence, they were busy re-writing the history of two hundred or more years ago, confronted with the old dangers and the old enemies, and they were going to have the old victory. What would Castlereagh have said to that? You tax us with dissolving the Union of Pitt and Castlereagh. What made the Union necessary was the extension of the franchise by Grattan's Parliament,
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and I venture to say that what made Home Rule necessary and inevitable was the great extension of the franchise in 1884. An Amendment was moved by the noble Viscount opposite, Lord Midleton, excluding Ireland from the scope of this franchise, but the Amendment was rejected by a very large majority, and the Bill containing the Irish extension was carried in the House of Commons without contradiction. There was one speech made by a man of great oratorical powers of his own, and the bearer of a name famous in United Kingdom oratory, then Mr. Plunkett but now a member of your Lordships' House. He warned the House of Commons, in moving and passionate language—
"If you do this, if you admit to this new franchise the great body of Irish peasantry, we who have been friends together in supporting the Union will find that our day is over."
In a debate of this kind it is well worth noting that momentous fact—
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: May I remind the noble Viscount that the point was that between 30 and 40 per cent, of those proposed to be enfranchised were illiterate?
VISCOUNT MORLEY: The point was raised expressly by Lord Randolph Churchill. He made some extremely amusing and caustic remarks upon his Leader, Mr. W. H. Smith. Party dissensions are not new. But that does not matter. A great step was taken, and although the Muse of History is a very capricious jade, I think it will be found when history is sufficiently removed from the turmoil of to-day that having taken that step it was idle to think that you could retrace it.
I submit this to your Lordships. I have no desire to figure as an oracle of political wisdom, but there is nothing worse in the whole range of the political system than irresponsible power. Any one who has thought at all about these things in theory or observed them in practice will cheerfully admit that. The whole administrative system of Ireland is sealed, stamped, and branded with irresponsibility from top to bottom, and my noble friend Lord Crewe did not go a bit too far when he said, speaking from his own experience, which is very much mine, that it was really Crown Colony Government masked and disguised. I will not go into the details, because your Lordships are well aware of them. The Chief Secretary, the responsible Minister

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in Parliament, has to be most part of his time now, when sessions last from January to December, in London. How can he exercise direct supervision and control over his Departments, and how can the Departments keep themselves in touch with their Chief, or, for that matter, with opinion in Ireland? What responsibility is there for finance in the Irish Secretary? It is in the hands of the Board of Works, which is the British Treasury; and I would perfectly confidently appeal to any noble Lord from Ireland, whether he comes from Ulster or elsewhere, whether there is any sense of responsibility for Treasury money either in his own order or amongst humbler people. I confess I wish there was a little more sense of responsibility for the expenditure of public funds ever in this country. There are those who find us here somewhat slack, and lavish in expenditure, but in Ireland there is not a spark of sensibility for the British Treasury. It is a point of honour almost, if British Treasury money is going, to get as much as possible and on no account to let one single banknote or coin be given up. The result, of course, is wholly bad. Irresponsible power breeds irresponsible people.
Let me show how this bears upon the policy of those who aspire to be our successors. "We are going to develop in every way"—that is the new Unionist policy—"the resources of Ireland." In plain English you are going to continue this wasteful, inefficient, and demoralising system. Who is most likely to take the right measure of the resources of Ireland—the Treasury here or people it. Ireland? I remember in the early days of the Home Rule movement, when it was a question of what kind of legislative body should be set up, a clever, sharp-witted member of file Irish contingent said—
"I do not care what it is, provided it is in Ireland. The Protestant Synod would do."
That is a very sound view. You want some body in Ireland feeling the whole atmosphere of Ireland around them. That is what you want, and that it is one of the aims of this Bill to provide.
I desire to say a few words, late as it is, about Ulster. When I was first Chief Secretary I had not been many months, I think many weeks, in Dublin Castle before I learned a pretty severe lesson as to the heat and passion of Belfast and the North-East of Ireland. I knew well enough before the dark shadow that history had for
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long generations cast over the relations of Protestant and Roman Catholic in the North-East of Ireland. A fervent Northern Member of the House of Commons said the other day that the difficulty lies in the hostility between Churches. He said—
"If we thought for a moment that we should receive fair treatment from our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, and particularly from the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, we should look upon the proposal for Home Rule in a very different way and from a very different point of view."
That is a thoroughly straightforward and honest statement. The British Government is to be in the position of the Turk at the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem of preventing Greeks and Latins from cutting one another's throats. That is the ideal of some of these Northern gentlemen. When Prince Bismarck was having a controversy with the Roman authorities, one of His Majesty's diplomatic agents in Germany was requested to send him a full account of it, and he sent home fifty large printed pages which only got him down to Pope Gregory VII, and said he would send the next by the following mail. I am not going to inflict that method of treatment on your Lordships; but I ask your leave to make one or two remarks upon this matter.
The apprehension is that there is to be religious oppression and tyranny. But Mr. Walter Long said in the House of Commons—
"I know Ireland well; I have many relations and friends there, both Protestant and Roman Catholic; and I believe that religious difficulties will be settled by the common-sense of the people."
Some of your Lordships will remember that in that great movement which has been referred to to-night, half agrarian and half political, which the iron hand of Mr. Parnell guided and controlled and which enabled him to sweep all the Liberal seats at the Election of 1885, at which time, by the way, he was co-operating with the Party opposite, Rome always looked upon the proceedings in Ireland with a cold and doubting eye, pretty often darkening into a frown. I do not see why there should be this fear of what is called the Church of Rome. So far as an Act of Parliament can either guide or enforce a principle so subtle and delicate as the principle of toleration and religious equality, Clauses 3 and 4 of this Bill have clinched and clamped that principle beyond the power of evasion. For my own part, however, I have faith in something surer than any clauses in a Bill. It is my con-

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viction that faith in religious tolerance and religious freedom—not indifference, not sceptism, not disbelief—by one of those deep, silent transformations which do something to make history endurable, has worked itself not only into surface professions of men and women to-day, but into the manners, usages, and the whole habits of men's minds, and nothing will persuade me that this benignant atmosphere is not going to diffuse itself even in Ireland. Noble Lords opposite who have spoken in opposition to the Second Reading of this Bill have all, with one exception, told us of the good feeling that prevails between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
We have had in this debate not much, but some, of the usual reproaches about American money. The salient difference between the Old World and the New is that in the New World there is an absolute separation, so far as central government goes, between the spiritual and the temporal; and we may be quite sure, whatever else American influence in Ireland may amount to, its whole weight and force will be inevitably adverse to anything like sectarianism, oppression, or unfair play. The Orange sentiment is, and probably will always be, what it has been, whatever your Bill may be. If you get federation, the Orange sentiment will not be converted by the cleverest Bill that could be framed. But does anybody dream that the whole of the agriculturists of Ulster, all the sane and sensible people of Ulster, are members of the Orange lodges? They are not. The noble Marquess opposite would not suppose that they are. The enormous majority of countrymen in Ulster repudiate this dire tissue of suspicion and apprehension that is now being spread abroad by those who ought to know better, that there will be Civil war. It is all hypothesis. It is said that the new Irish Parliament will be guilty of every sort of enormity. It is mere hypothesis. On what theory of law or constitution is this hypothesis to give a minority who cherish it a title to menace the United Kingdom with Civil war if their veto is disregarded? Does anybody really hold such a pretension to be reasonable or even capable of a rational statement? The noble Earl, Lord Curzon, stated that he could not understand how it is that we, the Party who have always taken the side of people rightly struggling to be free, do not sympathise with Ulster. In all the cases
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that he named—Italy, Greece, and so forth—there was actual oppression and hateful misgovernment. No one says there is actual oppression or hateful misgovernment in Ulster. It is all hypothesis. The noble Earl said he was surprised and shocked at the cynicism of the statement that the minority must yield.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I said "suffer."
VISCOUNT MORLEY: Must suffer or must yield, I think he said. It comes to the same thing. You do not accept this attitude of the minority yielding. But your attitude was definitely stated the other day by Mr. Bonar Law. "Supposing," he was asked, "we submit to the electors this Bill as it stands and they approve of it, what will be the attitude of Ulster." Mr. Bonar Law replied—
"I cannot say what the attitude of Ulster will be, but I can at once say what my attitude will be. An election will make all the difference. We shall not then in any way, shape, or form encourage the resistance of Ulster."
The minority must suffer again. Where is the cynicism? I have more to say, but I will not detain your Lordships longer. Laws reach but a little way. Constitute Government how you will, you cannot depend upon its working without the assent and the co-operation of those who are governed. We have every reason to believe that the difficulties and troubles will be overcome, that the Bill will be worked in good faith, that it will strengthen that sense of responsibility which is the very salt of freedom. My noble friend Lord Grey the other night left fall this sentence—
"In the self-governing democracies an almost universal sympathy with the Irish movement in favour of Home Rule is to be found."
EARL GREY: Hear, hear.
VISCOUXT MORLEY: Your vote tonight is, and is meant to be, a vote against that movement and against all the principles that have made those self-governing democracies what they are. If you show to them and to the world that the British power of overcoming enormous racial and political difficulties is no longer available in this case, then indeed we may be open to some of the language used by Lord Curzon when he described the decline of influence and power in this country.
On Question, whether ("now") shall stand part of the Motion?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 69. Not-contents, 326.

CONTENTS.

Haldane, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Acton, L.

Hollenden, L.

Morley of Blackburn, V. (L. President.)

Airedale, L.

Inchcape, L.

Armitstead, L.

Kenry, L. (E. Dunraven and Mount-Earl.)

Crewe, M. (L. Privy Seal.)

Ashby St. Ledgers, L.

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Loch, L.

Lincolnshire, M.

Blyth, L.

Lucas, L.

Northampton, M.

Boston, L.

MacDonnell, L.

Butler, L. (E. Carrick.)

Marchamley, L.

Chesterfield, E. (L. Steward.)

Charnwood, L.

Mendip, L. (V. Clifden.)

Beauchamp, E.

Colebrooke, L.

Moulton, L.

Brassey, E.

Coleridge, L.

Nunburnholme, L.

Craven, E. [Teller.]

Courtney of Penwith, L.

Pontypridd, L.

Granville, E.

Cowdray, L.

Reay, L.

Kimberley, E.

Devonport, L.

Ribblesdale, L.

Loreburn, E.

Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

Rotherham, L.

Russell, E.

St. Davids, L.

Spencer, E.

Emmott, L.

Saye and sele, L.

Eversley, L.

Shaw, L.

Allendale, V.

Farrer, L.

Shuttleworth, L.

Gordon, V. (E. Aberdeen.)

Glantawe, L.

Southwark, L.

Glenconner, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L. (L. Sheffield.)

Hereford, L. Bp.

Granard, L. (E. Granard.)

Oxford, L. Bp.

Grimthorpe, L.

Stanmore, L.

Haversham, L.

Strachie, L.

Sandhurst, L. (L. Chamberlain.)

Hemphill, L.

Weardale, L.

Aberconway, L.

Herschell, L. [Teller.]

Welby, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Canterbury, L. Abp.

Camperdown, E.

Macclesfield, E.

York, L. Abp.

Cathcart, E.

Malmesbury, E.

Chichester, E.

Mansfield, E.

Norfolk, D. (E. Marshal.)

Clarendon, E.

Mayo, E.

Argyll, D.

Cottenham, E.

Minto, E.

Beaufort, D.

Coventry, E.

Morley, E.

Bedford, D.

Cromer, E.

Morton, E.

Devonshire, D. [Teller.]

Curzon of Kedleston, E.

Munster, E.

Leeds, D.

Dartmouth, E.

Northbrook, E.

Manchester, D.

Darnley, E.

Northesk, E.

Marlborough, D.

Dartrey, E.

Onslow, E.

Newcastle, D.

Denbigh, E.

Orford, E.

Portland, D.

Derby, E.

Pembroke and Montgomery, E.

Richmond and Gordon, D.

Devon, E.

Plymouth, E.

Rutland, D.

Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

Portsmouth, E.

Somerset, D.

Powis, E.

Wellington, D.

Dundonald, E.

Roberts, E.

Durham, E.

Rosse, E.

Abergavenny, M.

Eldon, E.

Rothes, E.

Ailesbury, M.

Essex, E.

Saint Germans, E.

Ailsa, M.

Fitzwilliam, E.

Scarbrough, E.

Anglesey, M.

Fortescue, E.

Selborne, E.

Bath, M.

Gainsborough, E.

Shaftesbury, E.

Bristol, M.

Graham, E. (D. Montrose.)

Shrewsbury, E.

Camden, M.

Grey, E.

E. Stanhope, E.

Cholmondeley, M.

Guilford, E.

Stradbroke, E.

Dufferin and Ava, M.

Haddington, E.

Strange, E. (D. Atholl.)

Exeter, M.

Halsbury, E.

Temple, E.

Lansdowne, M.

Harrington, E.

Vane, E. (M. Londonderry.)

Ripon, M.

Harrowby, E.

Verulam, E.

Salisbury, M.

Howe, E.

Waldegrave, E.

Winchester, M.

Huntingdon, E.

Westmeath, E.

Zetland, M.

Iddesleigh, E.

Wharncliffe, E.

Ilchester, E.

Wicklow, E.

Albemarle, E.

Innes, E. (D. Roxburghe.)

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E

Amherst, E.

Kilmorey, E.

Ancaster, E.

Leicester, E.

Bridport, V.

Aylesford, E.

Lichfield, E.

Churchill, V. [Teller.]

Bandon, E.

Lindsey, E.

Colville of Culross, V.

Bathurst, E.

Londesborough, E.

Combermere, V.

Brownlow, E.

Lonsdale, E.

De Vesci, V

Cadogan, E.

Lovelace, E.

Falkland, V.

Cairns, E.

Lytton, E.

Goschen, V.

Halifax, V.

Clements, L. (E. Leitrim.)

Mersey, L.

Hampden, V.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Merthyr, L.

Hardinge, V.

Clinton, L.

Methuen, L.

Hill, V.

Clonbrock, L.

Middleton, L.

Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

Cloncurry, L.

Minster, L. (M. Conyngham.)

Colchester, L.

Monck, L. (V. Monck.)

Iveagh, V.

Cottesloe, L.

Monckton, L. (V.Galway.)

Llandaff, V.

Crawshaw, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Peel, V.

Dawnay, L. (V. Downe.)

Monkswell, L.

Portman, V.

De Mauley, L.

Monson, L.

Ridley, V.

De Ramsay, L.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

St. Aldwyn, V.

De Saumarez, L.

Monteagle of Brandon, L.

St. Vincent, V.

Decies, L.

Mostyn, L.

Templetown, V.

Deramore, L.

Mowbray, L.

Bangor, L. Bp.

Desborough, L.

Muncaster, L.

Bath and Wells, L. Bp.

Desart, L. (E. Desart.)

Napier, L.

Bristol, L. Bp.

Digby, L.

Newton, L.

Durham L. Bp.

Dinevor, L.

Northbourne, L.

Exeter, L. Bp.

Dunalley, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Gloucester, L. Bp.

Dunleath, L.

O'Neill, L.

Liverpool, L. Bp.

Dunmore, L. (E. Dunmore.)

Oriel, L. (V. Massereene.)

Llandaff, L. Bp.

Ellenborough, L.

Oranmore and Browne, L.

London, L. Bp.

Elphinstone, L.

Ormathwaite, L.

Manchester, L. Bp.

Estcourt, L.

Ormonde, L.(M Ormonde.)

Peterborough, L. Bp.

Faber, L.

Oxenfoord, L. (E. Stair.)

St. David's, L. Bp.

Farnham, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Southwell, L. Bp.

Farquhar, L.

Playfair, L.

Wakefield, L. Bp.

Forester, L.

Plunket, L.

Worcester, L. Bp.

Foxford, L. (E. Limerick.)

Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

Gormanston, L.(V. Gormanston.)

Powerscourt, L. (V. Powerscourt.)

Aberdare, L.

Abinger, L.

Grenfell, L.

Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.)

Addington, L.

Greville, L.

Rathdonnell, L.

Aldenham, L.

Grinstead, L. (E. Enniskillen.)

Rathmore, L.

Alington, L.

Gwydir, L.

Redesdale, L.

Allerton, L.

Hampton, L.

Revelstoke, L.

Ampthill, L.

Harlech, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Armstrong, L.

Harris, L.

Rothschild, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Hastings, L.

Sackville, L.

Ashburton, L.

Hatherton, L.

St. Audries, L.

Ashcombe, L.

Hawke, L.

St. John of Bletso, L.

Atkinson, L.

Heneage, L.

St. Levan, L.

Bagot, L.

Hindlip, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Balfour, L.

Holm Patrick, L.

Sanderson, L.

Barnard, L.

Hylton, L.

Sandys, L.

Barrymore, L.

Inchiquin, L.

Savile, L.

Basing, L.

Kenlis, L. (M. Headfort.)

Seaton, L.

Bateman, L.

Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare.)

Sefton, L. (E. Sefton.)

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Kensington, L.

Sempill, L.

Belper, L.

Kenyon, L.

Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

Berwick, L.

Kesteven, L.

Silchester, L. (E. Longford.)

Biddulph, L.

Killanin, L.

Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.)

Blythswood, L.

Kilmaine, L.

Bolton, L.

Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

Somerton, L. (E. Normanton.)

Botreaux, L. (E. Loudoun.)

Kinnaird, L.

Southampton, L.

Bowes, L. (E. Strathmore and Kinghorn.)

Kinross, L.

Stuart of Castle Stuart, L. (E. Moray.)

Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.)

Lamington, L.

Sudeley, L.

Brancepeth, L. (V. Boyne.)

Langford, L.

Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)

Braybrooke, L.

Lawrence, L.

Templemore, L.

Braye, L.

Leconfield, L.

Teynham, L.

Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

Leigh, L.

Torphichen, L.

Burnham, L.

Lilford, L.

Trevor, L.

Calthorpe, L.

Lovat, L.

Tweedmouth, L.

Carew, L.

Ludlow, L.

Vivian, L.

Castlemaine, L.

Lurgan, L.

Waleran, L.

Cheylesmore, L.

Macnaghten, L.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Churston, L.

Manners, L.

Worlingham, L. (E. Gosford.)

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Massy, L.

Wynford, L.

Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.)

Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

Resolved in the negative accordingly, and Bill to be read 2a this day three months.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before One o'clock a.m. till a quarter past Five o'clock p.m.