Sitting of 1 March 1916

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
IRISH UNIVERSITIES ACT, 1908.
Paper [presented 29th February] to be printed. [No. 31.]
MUNITIONS OF WAR (AMENDMENT) ACT, 1916.
Paper [presented 29th February] to be printed. [No. 32.]
MUNITIONS OF WAR (AMENDMENT) ACT, 1916 (SCOTLAND).
Paper [presented 29th February] to be printed. [No. 33.]
BANKRUPTCY COURTS (IRELAND).
Annual Returns presented of the Official Assignees of the King's Bench Division in Bankruptcy in Ireland and the Local Courts, Belfast and Cork, for the year 1915 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
PAWNBROKERS' RETURN (IRELAND).
Copy presented of Returns from the City Marshal of Dublin for the year 1915 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION.
Copy presented of the Sixty-eight Report from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England and Wales, with an Appendix [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
NAVY ESTIMATES, 1916–17.
Estimates presented for the year 1916–17 [by Command]; Referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 34.]
POST OFFICE (MONEY ORDERS).
Copy presented of the Money Order Amendment (No. 3) Regulations, 1916, dated 20th January, 1916 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
MERCHANT SHIPPING (LOAD LINE AND DECK CARGOES OF WOOD GOODS).
Copy presented of Report of the Committee appointed by the Board of Trade to advise on the Load Lines of Merchant Ships and the carriage of Deck Cargoes of Wood Goods [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
TRADE AND NAVIGATION.
Accounts ordered "relating to Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom for each month during the year 1916."—[Mr. Runciman.]
STREET ACCIDENTS.
Address for Return "showing the number of Accidents resulting in death or personal injury known by the police to have been caused by Vehicles in streets, roads, or public places during the year ending the 31st day of December, 1915 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 150, of Session 1914–16)."—[Mr. Brace.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    OPIUM SUPPLIES.
    Mr. SAMUEL SAMUELasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) if the War Trade Department consulted interested consumers who manufacture morphia from imported opium whether the re-export should be allowed; if the War Trade Department withheld permits in order to accumulate stocks of unsold opium in this country with a view of the manufacturers buying it at their own prices later on; whether he has considered if such action will prevent the

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    further import of opium into this country and divert the trade to other countries after the War; and (2) if he will state the reason that permits are being withheld for the re-export of Persian opium to the United States, Japan, and other neutral countries; is he aware that the stocks in London are already 1,000 cases and that there are further supplies of about 500 cases coming forward; and is it the intention of the Government to permanently injure the trade of this country by compelling merchants to sell direct to consuming countries without passing through the United Kingdom?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN (representing the War Trade Department): Opium is of special importance for the treatment of the wounded, and, in view of the great demand for this drug and of the special conditions affecting the usual sources of supply at the present time, it is not considered that the present and prospective stocks are in excess of what may reasonably be regarded as necessary for the requirements of the country. There is no foundation for the suggestion that there has been any restriction of exports in the interests of the manufacturers of morphia, nor is it considered that the policy of the War Trade Department in safeguarding home supplies will have the effect indicated in the last part of the questions.
    Mr. SAMUEL: Does His Majesty's Government think that such action will prevent supplies coming to this country?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I would like to have notice of that question.

    CONSULAR SERVICES.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the total annual cost in 1913 of the Consular services in the United States and in Spain; and what percentage that cost bore in each case to the value of our exports in that year to each of those countries?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord R. Cecil): The amounts expended on the Consular service in the United States and Spain respectively in 1913 were £33,527 and £7,626—that is, about .05 per cent. of the value of our exports to the United States of America and .07 per cent., of our exports to Spain.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked if the work and responsibilities of Consular officers in certain neutral countries have been increased since the War began; if so, whether our Consular services in such countries have been strengthened numerically and better remunerated; and if the services of all Consular officers who were formerly employed in enemy countries are now being fully utilised?
    Lord R. CECIL: The answer to the first and third parts of the question is in the affirmative. The staff in neutral countries has been generally increased, and in some of them very largely. Extra remuneration is not given to members of the salaried Consular service for increased work in the present crisis, but is given to some Consular officers who are not in the regular service.
    Mr. WATT: Have any commercial men been appointed to these positions?
    Lord R. CECIL: I should not like to answer that without notice. The hon. Member will see that it is impossible for me to carry in my mind all the additions to the Consular service.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked if British Consular officers are entirely under the control of and solely responsible to the Foreign Office or if they are in part controlled by or responsible to any other Department; and, if so, which Depart ment and to what extent?
    Lord R. CECIL: British Consular officers are entirely under the control of and solely responsible to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, except in regard to the administration of the Merchant Shipping Acts, on which subject they receive instructions from the Board of Trade.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked whether the high cost of living in Russia, as compared to other countries, is taken into account and fully counterbalanced by higher rates of pay and allowances to British Consular officers in Russia?
    Lord R. CECIL: The cost of living in Russia was carefuly considered when the present rates of pay for British Consular officers were fixed in 1913.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state whether any countries require documents relating to exports to them from this country to be

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    certified before their Consuls here, and fees to be paid for such certifications; and, if so, will he consider the advisability of requiring that similar Consular certificates should be required in respect of imports intended for this country and of devoting the fees derived therefrom to the strengthening of our Consular service?
    Lord R. CECIL: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answers given to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Melton on the 26th of January and 22nd ultimo.

  MILITARY SERVICE.

    CLERICAL WORK (WAR DEPARTMENT).
    Mr. ROWLANDSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether preference will be given to the soldiers unfit for further active service in the clerical work of the War Department before taking the physically unfit for active military service from civil employment?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant): Ex-soldiers are, as far as possible, employed on the work of the War Office in preference to civilians. No civilians within the limits of the recruitable ages are being taken on as clerks.

    MARRIED MEN.
    Mr. PATRICK MEEHANasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether any arrangement has been made by which married men with large families serving at the front will, as far as possible, be replaced by men with less or no dependants; and, if not, will he consider the advisability of adopting such an arrangement?
    Mr. TENNANT: No, Sir, no such arrangement is in operation. It would not be practicable at present to adopt it, but the matter is one which will not be overlooked.
    Major NEWMANasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to a resolution passed recently by the East Riding of Yorkshire Recruiting Committee, stating that serious injustice would be perpetrated upon the married men of military age who had attested under the group system unless the Government saw fit to bring in compulsory military service for those married men who had failed to attest; and whether he has received other resolutions of a similar nature?
    Mr. TENNANT: No, Sir, my attention has not been called to this resolution, but I have received a resolution of a similar nature.
    Major NEWMAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this resolution actually expressed the general opinion of the country?
    Mr. TENNANT: I do not think that I can be taken to believe that one resolution expresses accurately the composite opinion of the country.
    Major NEWMANasked the Prime Minister whether he has studied the measures adopted by our Allies to mitigate the dislocation of business, the breaking-up of homes, and domestic hardship which may be entailed by married men when called up for service; and, if so, whether he will lay the result of such investigations upon the Table of the House?
    The MINISTER OF MUNITIONS (Mr. Lloyd George, for the Prime Minister): I would refer my hon. Friend to the answers given yesterday by my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the President of the Local Government Board, to which I cannot at present add anything.
    Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Prime Minister if, when he gave his pledge to the married men who attested under Lord Derby's scheme that they should not be called up till the unmarried men had been called up, by compulsion if necessary, he made any reservation regarding the possible exemption of large numbers of able-bodied unmarried men of military age; and whether the numerous exemptions of such men now being granted by the tribunals constitute a violation of his pledge to the married attested men?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Derby scheme from the outset contemplated that men who were in various ways indispens able to the country should be exempted from military service. This is made clear in the letter of 19th November from Lord Derby to the Prime Minister and in the Prime Minister's reply of that date.
    The tribunals are doing their work very well, and the number of exemptions is not due to any laxity on their part, but to the large number of men claiming to be starred, badged, or in reserved occupations. This has caused the Government much anxiety, and steps are being taken

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    not only to revise all lists of starred and badged men, but materially to reduce the number of reserved occupations.
    Mr. McNEILL: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that if the exemptions were to reach an unnecessarily large figure it would constitute a violation of the pledge to the married men? [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."]
    Mr. BIRD: Will the revision be retrospective?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I understand that it will have that effect.

    ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY (GUNNER F. ELLENDER).
    Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of No. 14,756, Gunner F. Ellender, 15th Division, C Battery, 73rd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, who enlisted in August, 1914, at the age of sixteen years, against the wishes of his parents, and, although not yet eighteen years of age, has been on active service in France since July, 1915; if he is aware that correspondence, with a view to having the boy sent back to England, has been passing between his relations and the military authorities for eleven months, and that his birth certificate was sent to, and acknowledged by, his commanding officer several weeks ago; if he will say who is responsible for such delay in sending the boy back from the front; and whether, especially in view of the fact that Ellender's parents have five other sons serving in the Army, he will take immediate steps to have the boy transferred to a unit at home until he attains nineteen years of age?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am having inquiry made into this case.

    RETIRED OFFICERS WITH THE COLOURS (PAY).
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether previously retired officers serving with the Colours draw full service pay in addition to their retired pay; and, if so, what amount would be saved if they only drew service pay?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the last part of the question I would refer my hon. Friend to
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    the answer I gave to the hon. Baronet the Member for the Barnsley Division on the 24th February.
    Mr. HOGGE: Can my hon. Friend remember the amount?
    Mr. FORSTER: I think I said I could not give the amount.

    MERCANTILE MARINE.
    Mr. PETOasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can now state what arrangements it is proposed to make to give effect to the exemption or exception from the provisions of the Military Service Act, 1916, of officers and men in the Merchant Service?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Runciman): The hon. Gentleman will have seen the notice which appeared in the Press yesterday informing officers and seamen of the Mercantile Marine that they are entitled to exemption from the provisions of the Military Service Act. A placard to the same effect will also be exhibited at Mercantile Marine offices and elsewhere. If officers or seamen receive notices to present themselves for military service they should return the notices to the military authorities claiming exemption.
    Mr. PETO: Is it not necessary for them to obtain any certificate at all showing that they are exempt from service?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Evidence will, of course, be required that they are serving in the Mercantile Marine. Discharge certificates in the case of seamen and the usual certified statements in that of officers will no doubt be effective for them.
    Commander BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the statements published by the Admiralty and the Board of Trade, the Army Council will issue specific orders to recruiting officers to cancel previous notices served on ships' officers and men of the Mercantile Marine other than stewards of passenger liners; and instruct them not to enlist merchant seamen until an agreement between different Government Departments is reached?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am in communication with the Board of Trade as to the quickest and most effective administrative means

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    of protecting officers and men in the Mercantile Marine. There is no question as to the principle involved nor is there any disagreement. The Board of Trade are today drafting suggestions on the matter, which will no doubt be approved and passed to recruiting officers.

    WIDOWS' SONS.
    Mr. WATTasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the action of tribunals under the Military Service Act who are refusing exemption to single men who are the sole supports of their widowed mothers; and whether, in view of his pledge given to the House and the country on 5th January on the introduction of the Military Service Bill, he will take any action in the way of instructions to tribunals or otherwise to have that pledge of his fulfilled?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I must refer my hon. Friend to the letter addressed by the President of the Local Government Board to the Central Appeal Tribunal on 23rd February.
    Mr. WATT: Did not the Prime Minister say in this House that to take these men would be a monstrous state of affairs?
    Mr. WATTasked the President of the Local Government Board whether, in his letter of advice to the tribunals under the Military Service Act, he has indicated to them that in the case of only sons of widows who are dependent on those sons for financial support they ought not to be exempted where the mothers will, after the departure of their sons, have means of subsistence; whether this means that no only sons of widows will be exempted on the ground of hardship; and, if so, whether, in view of the pledges made to the country in the various discussions on the Bill, he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Long): I do not admit that the interpretation given in the question of the letter I sent to the Central Tribunal is correct. In that letter I gave illustrations of the circumstances in which it seemed to me that serious hardship might be considered to arise in connection with the sons of widows. My letter could not be read as meaning that no only sons of widows will be exempted on the ground of hardship.
    Mr. WATT: Has the right hon. Gentleman not said in his letter that there would be no serious hardship for widowed mothers as long as they had means of subsistence?
    Mr. LONG: I do not know what words the hon. Gentleman is quoting from. I have got a copy of my letter before me, and I do not recognise his description. What I have done quite clearly is to indicate what is the duty of the tribunals. They have to consider all the facts of the case and come to a decision according to the facts and the Statute. There is nothing in my letter which justifies the assumption that sons of widows who come within the category of suffering serious hardship would not be exempt?
    Mr. ANDERSON: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider it was going against the Regulations if cases are brought forward in which the sole support of widowed mothers have been refused appeal by these tribunals?
    Mr. LONG: I really cannot answer a general question of that kind. As I stated, I am quite prepared to consider definite cases brought before me, but so far I have not received one.
    Mr. WATT: Did not the right hon. Gentleman write that letter to stiffen up backs of the tribunals?
    Mr. LONG: No. I wrote it in order to discharge my duty and in order to answer questions according to what I thought the right answer to be given. I did it after very careful consideration, and I am prepared to abide by every word contained in it.

    SCOTTISH BANKS.
    Mr. CURRIEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether the Government's Committee in Scotland on substitutionary clerical and commercial labour reported in favour of the employment of women in banks in place of men released for military service; whether he could state, approximately, what proportion of clerks in the service of each of the Scottish banks has been so released; whether one of their number, while permitting and encouraging its clerks to enlist, has not co-operated with the Government in the employment of women; and whether the bank in question is employed by any Department of the Government?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): I have received no report dealing specially with banks, but I understand that the Committee were generally in favour of the employment of women in place of men released for military service. As regards the other parts of the question, I have no official information, but if the facts are as stated the tribunals can be trusted to deal with the matter.

    CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
    Mr. EDMUND HARVEYasked the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the case of a conscientious objector who appeared before the local tribunal at Harpenden, on 22nd February, and stated that, being unable to undertake any kind of military service, he was prepared to undertake work of national importance, whereupon the tribunal refused to consider any such suggestion and, on the applicant's referring to the speech of the Home Secretary, made in the House with reference to this point during the passing of the Military Service Act, 1916, informed him that they had no time to read speeches, and that the tribunal was not a debating society; and whether, in view of his own instructions and the expressed intentions of the Act of Parliament, he will take steps to prevent similar action in the future?
    Mr. LONG: I have seen a copy of the application and a note of the decision of the Committee who exempted the man from combatant service. He has, I understand, appealed from the decision. The case does not seem to demand any action on my part.
    Mr. HARVEY: Does the right hon. Gentleman not see that the question I have raised is that the tribunal refused to consider the applicant's desire that he might undertake service of national importance. This is a governing case. It is of vital importance to people that the tribunal should have considered an option that was given by Parliament in the Act?
    Mr. LONG: The information before me does not agree with the statement made by my hon. Friend. I have seen an account, a brief account, in which they appear to have considered the whole case. They have exempted the applicant from combatant service, and he, if not satisfied, can appeal, which he has done.
    Mr. HARVEY: Has the right hon. Gentleman not read the full account which I handed to him and in which it is clearly stated that the tribunal would not consider this point?
    Mr. LONG: They have considered it, because they have granted exemption from combatant service. If he is not satisfied, there is an appeal; but it is quite obvious they have considered it.
    Mr. HARVEY: The tribunal said they would not consider this offer. It is not considering it if they at once say they will not consider it. I wish to give notice that at an early date I shall raise this question, if the President of the Local Government Board is not able to make a public statement which will be of some assistance to tribunals.
    Mr. SPEAKER: We cannot accept conditional notices.

  CHARGE OF ASSAULT AGAINST RECRUITING OFFICER.
  Mr. GRANTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he is aware that Second-Lieutenant Plummer, while on duty as a recruiting officer at Aberlour on 3rd December, 1915, without warning or cause brutally assaulted a man named Stewart, who was present to be recruited, knocking him down and then kicking him so severely in the face that the wounds had to be stitched; that Second-Lieutenant Plummer was three hours late for a written appointment with the recruits; that the local military authority suppressed any Press notice of the incident; that the officer in question gave money to Stewart to suppress any further proceedings; that no report other than that made by the local military authority has been made upon the incident; and if he can say if Second-Lieutenant Plummer still retains his commission in His Majesty's Army?
  Mr. TENNANT: This case has been brought to my attention by my hon. Friend. It has given rise to much correspondence, which is not yet complete. I will inform my hon. Friend when a decision has been reached.
  Major Sir C. HUNTER: Has the right hon. Gentleman caused a Court of Inquiry to be held into this matter?
  Mr. TENNANT: No Court of Inquiry has been held.
  Mr. PETO: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that civil proceedings were started, but were quashed by order of the military authorities so as to keep the matter from the public?
  Mr. TENNANT: I am not aware of anything of the kind.
  Mr. PETO: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire?
  Mr. TENNANT: There is an inquiry going on.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: A military inquiry?
  Mr. TENNANT: It is not what is called a Court of Inquiry, but an inquiry by the War Office.

  ENEMY PRISONERS OF WAR (IRELAND).
  Mr. P. MEEHANasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he will state how many prisoners of war are at present interned in Ireland and the approximate cost annually of their maintenance and support; whether these prisoners have been employed at any work of public utility; and whether, having regard to the treatment of English prisoners of war in Germany and their compulsory employment in reclaiming slob lands and making new roads, he will consider the advisability of forthwith employing prisoners of war in Ireland in cleaning the River Barrow and other Irish rivers, the flooding of which has this winter devastated whole districts, destroyed tracts of arable land, and rendered the proper tillage of a vast area impossible?
  Mr. TENNANT: The answer to the first part of the question is 575. As regards the second part, I fear I cannot give the annual cost of maintenance without considerable research, which I am reluctant to impose upon the Department, already much overstrained. No such employment as in indicated in the third part of the question has been found for these prisoners. The men in question, being all civilians, cannot be forced to work otherwise than in the maintenance of their camp. I understand that the German Government enforces no labour on interned civilians.

  ARMY COMMISSIONS (IRELAND).
  Sir THOMAS ESMONDEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he is
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  aware that a number of candidates for commissions in the Army from Ireland have entered various Officers' Training-Corps with a view to qualifying for commissions, and that some of them have been already recommended for commissions by the officer commanding of their different training corps, but that they are now informed that commissions are only obtainable through the ranks owing to a change in the Regulations; and whether he will see that candidates for commissions from Ireland, who have already entered Officers' Training Corps in Ireland or in England, are allowed the benefit of the conditions on the strength of which they joined originally?
  Mr. TENNANT: The general rule now in force is that commissions shall not be granted to any candidate who has not passed through the ranks of a cadet unit unless he has previous military experience as an officer. Cadets of contingents of the Officers' Training Corps who have attained the age of eighteen and a half years and are approved by the Army Council will be eligible for admission to a cadet unit. The granting of a commission will depend upon whether the cadet, after his course in the cadet unit, is reported as suitable in every way to hold a commission. Membership of an Officers' Training Corps will not by itself qualify for a commission.

  SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR.
  Mr. HOGGEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War what are the total emoluments of the Secretary of State for War?
  Mr. FORSTER: The amount issued from public funds as the emolument of the present Secretary of State for War is £6,140 per annum, being the salary of Lord Kitchener as Agent-General in Egypt, less the regulated amount issuable to the present High Commissioner.
  Mr. HOGGE: Is that in addition to the £5,000 he receives as Secretary of State for War?
  Mr. FORSTER: No, Sir.
  Mr. COWAN: What is the period of the Secretary of State for War's appointment as Commander-in-Chief—for the period of the War, or for a period of years?
  Mr. FORSTER: I cannot undertake to answer that question. I shall require notice.
  Mr. WATT: Does the salary remain the same although the duties have been reduced?

  MEDAL FOR BRAVERY IN FIELD.
  Mr. HOGGEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether the award of the new war medal for bravery in the field will be retrospective?
  Mr. TENNANT: It will be open to commanding officers in drawing up lists of those whom they wish to put forward for the award of the new medal to take into consideration previous good service.

  REMOUNT DEPARTMENT.
  Mr. P. MEEHANasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office if he will state why the Remount Department have practically ceased to purchase horses for Army purposes in Ireland and are at present importing horses from the Colonies and else-, where at considerable expense, notwithstanding the abundant supply of horses in Ireland suitable for all branches of the Service which have been purchased and maintained by their owners to meet Army requirements; and whether the agents or representatives of our Allies will be allowed a free market to supply the wants of our Allies from the stock of horses in Ireland, as the embargo on the exportation of horses and the cessation of Government buying is inflicting losses on Irish horse-owners who have to keep over their stock owing to the price of provender?
  Mr. FORSTER: The Remount Department ceased buying horses for the Army in Ireland on a large scale when the supply of horses of suitable age and stamp ran dry. It is intended to recommence purchase in the spring, when this year's crop will have reached maturity. Under these circumstances it is not considered desirable to permit the export to foreign countries of horses which may be required for our own Army.
  Mr. MEEHANasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office the average price paid in Ireland by the Remount Department for horses required for Army purposes; if he will state the average price paid in Canada and elsewhere; and if he will state the freight per head paid at present on horses imported from Canada and elsewhere?
  Mr. FORSTER: I regret that it is not considered in the public interest to publish the information asked for by my hon. Friend.
  Mr. MEEHAN: Is it the fact that £30 per head is paid for the importation of horses in this country?
  Mr. FORSTER: No, Sir; nothing like it; nothing approaching it.

  GLYCERINE COMMANDEERED BY GOVERNMENT.
  Mr. MEEHANasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office if all the glycerine produced by Irish soap manufacturers has been commandeered by the Government at the price of £59 10s. per ton; if the War Office are paying American soap makers £250 per ton for glycerine and, if not, what price is being paid the American makers; if he is aware that the percentage of glycerine in the fats used in making soap is 10 per cent., and that the American manufacturer, owing to the price paid him for his glycerine, can afford to pay £20 per ton more for his fats than the Irish manufacturer and make his soap as cheaply; and if he is aware that the stopping of the importation of American soap during the War, owing to the increase in the production of British-made soap, would place at the disposal of the War Office an increased supply of cheap glycerine?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative.
  As regards the second part, no glycerine is being bought from America by the Ministry of Munitions.
  As regards the third part, the answer is in the affirmative.
  As regards the rest of the question, I am not aware of the price being paid by American manufacturers of soap for their fats, nor what it costs them to make soap. All possible steps are being taken to increase the supply of cheap glycerine for war purposes.

  RECEIVING DEPOT (IRELAND).
  Mr. MEEHANasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether a receiving depot will be established in Dublin for all supplies made in Ireland; and if

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  the War Office will procure a Report as to the urgency and expediency of establishing such a depot from their superintendent engineer for Dublin and the South of Ireland?
  Mr. FORSTER: I regret that I have nothing to add to the answer which I gave on 9th December last to my hon. Friend the Member for the St. Patrick's Division of Dublin. I will send my hon. Friend a copy of this answer.

  ENEMY ALIENS.
  Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether a Russian subject, Peter Petroff, has been interned on a warrant of the Home Office for the duration of the War; whether any charge has been or will be preferred against him; and whether his internment is due to the denunciation or evidence of persons other than the police?
  Mr. KINGasked whether a Russian subject, Peter Petroff, is now interned in Edinburgh Castle together with German prisoners of war; whether any charge has been preferred against him in connection with the cause of internment; and, if his internment is to be for any length of time, whether it is intentional that he is not being interned with others of his own nationality?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer these questions. Petroff has been interned under an order of the Secretary for Scotland under Regulation 14B of the Defence of the Realm Regulations, to the terms of which I would refer my hon. Friend. His case has been considered and his appeal refused by the Scottish Advisory Committee. He is at present detained in Edinburgh Castle, pending a decision as to his final place of internment.
  Mr. HOGGE: Has my right hon. Friend not promised that this man shall have a civil trial?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: No, Sir.
  Mr. KING: Will the right hon. Gentleman not consider whether civil trial could not be extended in this case, especially in view of his being a Russian subject and opposed to Prussian militarism?
  Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I have no official knowledge whether this man is a Russian subject or not.
  Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will say what are the several classes of friendly race or sympathies who are technically of German nationality other than persons of French race from Alsace-Lorraine; and how many of the 14,000 un-interned alien enemies technically of German nationality belong to such classes?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Herbert Samuel): In addition to the natives of Alsace-Lorraine there are Poles and a few natives of Schleswig-Holstein and of Heligoland, and there are also aliens of German race but friendly sympathies, e.g., those who have been long established here or in an allied country, sometimes from infancy, and have sons fighting for the Allies. I regret that I cannot give more detailed figures than those already furnished in answer to previous questions.
  Mr. McNEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the people of Holstein are distinctively of German race, and is there reason to suppose that their sympathies are opposed to Germany, and would not the same apply to many of the Poles?
  Mr. SAMUEL: It does apply to a considerable number of them, but each case is considered on its individual merits.
  Mr. McNEILL: The right hon. Gentleman does not therefore assume that in the case of a member of one of those particular nationalities he is therefore friendly to this country and a subject for consideration?
  Mr. SAMUEL: I do not assume that he is therefore friendly to this country, but it is assumed that he is therefore a subject for consideration, and the case is inquired into. He is not treated as in the case of a pure-bred German.
  Mr. McNEILLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will say for what reason some 3,700 male Germans and Austrians of military age, other than Czechs, Poles, Southern Slavs, and natives of Alsace-Lorraine, remain still uninterned, notwithstanding the announcement by the Government eight months ago that all such persons would be interned with as little delay as possible?
  Mr. SAMUEL: If the hon. Member will refer to the announcement of the Government's policy made by the Prime Minister on the 13th May and my predecessor on the 10th June, he will see that the internment of male alien enemies of military age was to be subject to exemption for special reasons on the recommendation of the Advisory Committee.

  DEFENCE OF THE REALM ACT.

    PUBLICATION OF LEAFLETS.
    Mr. PETOasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps the Government proposes to take, either by enforcing the provisions of the Defence of the Realm Act or otherwise, to put a stop to the publication in this country in the "Labour Leader" and other journals, or in the form of leaflets, of matter calculated to be of use to the enemy in adversely influencing public opinion in neutral countries by conveying erroneous information as to public opinion in this country on the subject of the Military Service Act, the production of munitions, and other questions vital to the prosecution of the War?
    Mr. SAMUEL: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for the Elland Division on the 17th January.

    GLASGOW UNIVERSITY GRADUATE.
    Mr. WATTasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that a man called John M'Lean, a graduate of Glasgow University, has been arrested in Glasgow on a charge of making certain speeches in which harsh things were said of the present Coalition Government; whether he has been handed over by the police authorities to the military authorities for trial; if so, whether his Department is responsible for this handing over for military trial; and whether it has up till now been the practice in this country to courtmartial members of the public for making strong speeches?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: In regard to the two earlier parts of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate to the Member for East Edinburgh on the 17th of February. The answers to the two latter parts of the question are in the negative.

    BRITISH TOILET SOAP MAKERS.
    Mr. MEEHANasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that Irish and English toilet soap makers are handicapped in competition with American rivals as, owing to the impossibility of procuring brass, nickel-plated, and tin tubes and boxes, they cannot present their goods attractively as heretofore, and the public purchase the attractive American article; if he is aware that many of the American manufacturers put the addresses of their London agents on their boxes, and the public cannot tell whether they are Irish or English made; and whether, in view of the importance of restricting the purchase and consumption of imported articles, especially where, owing to the exigencies of the War, these articles have a competitive advantage over the home-manufactured ones, he will take practical remedial action?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I have nothing to add to the reply which I returned to a similar question addressed to me on the 24th February by the hon. and gallant Member for the Enfield Division of Middlesex.

    HONOURS FOR SOLDIERS.
    Sir ARCHIBALD WILLIAMSONasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that 597 French and Belgian decorations were conferred upon British soldiers on one day last week; and whether a corresponding recognition of the eminent services of soldiers of our Allies has been made by the British Government?
    Mr. TENNANT: Yes, Sir; large numbers of British decorations have been conferred on members of the Allied Forces fighting in the various theatres of operations.
    Sir A. WILLIAMSONasked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the Government to recommend the grant of posthumous honours by handing to the families of deceased soldiers the medals which the soldiers earned?
    Mr. TENNANT: The war medal of a soldier entitled to receive it who has died before issue, is issued to the family of the deceased, unless otherwise bequeathed by will. As regards other medals, such as the Distinguished Conduct Medal, I am not in a position at present to add anything to what I stated on 20th December in reply to the hon. Member for East Wilts.

    RUBBER AND TIN EXPORTS COMMITTEE.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister whether the Rubber Committee will be continued as a separate Committee under the new arrangement whereby the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is to control all questions relating to blockade?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN (representing the War Trade Department): The Rubber and Tin Exports Committee was appointed by the Board of Trade to control the export of those commodities, and they advise the War Trade Department as to whether licences for export should be granted or refused. The position of the Committee in relation to the Department is at present receiving the consideration of the Minister of Blockade.
    Mr. HOGGE: Can my hon. Friend say where all these communications should be addressed to? Is it to the new Minister of Blockade or to the conveners of each separate Committee?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I think that for the present anybody applying for a licence for rubber should apply to the Rubber and Tin Exports Committee at the Board of Trade.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Docs the hon. Gentleman consider there is any likelihood under the new arrangements of these applications being expeditiously dealt with?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Yes, Sir.

    TERRITORIAL RESERVE BATTALIONS (DOCK LABOUR).
    Mr. HOGGEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether men are now being taken from the Territorial Reserve battalions for use at the docks; and, if so, under what kind of arrangement?
    Mr. TENNANT: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for the Barnsley Division on the 24th February. As regards the last part of the question, I have not yet obtained the information.

    RAILWAY CONGESTION.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether men from
    1054
    Home service battalions unfit for foreign service will be used to relieve the congestion on the railways?
    Mr. TENNANT: I think that, should occasion arise, men of the category mentioned should be used in preference to those who are fit for foreign service. But I am not aware that occasion has yet arisen.
    Mr. HOGGE: Has the right hon. Gentleman never heard during the War of the congestion of traffic on the railways so that men cannot get goods?
    Mr. TENNANT: I do not say that I have never heard there has been congestion, because I believe that has been so, but not to occasion this particular alteration.

    SUGAR DISTRIBUTION.
    Mr. E. HARVEYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has been in communication with the Royal Commission on the Sugar Supply in order to secure improvement in the method by which sugar is apportioned to the wholesale dealers, with a view to regularising the supply to retail sellers; and whether he can indicate the possibility of any new Regulations to deal with the matter?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I have no reason to suppose that the arrangements made by the Royal Commission for the distribution of sugar among the wholesale dealers are other than satisfactory, but if my hon. Friend will furnish me with particulars of any cases in which there are grounds for complaint of unfair distribution I shall be glad to consult the Royal Commission in regard to them.

    NATIONAL RESERVE (POST OFFICE EMPLOYMENT).
    Mr. ROWLANDSasked the Postmaster-General whether a number of men of the National Reserve were employed by the Post Office at various railway stations and post offices in December last on other than military duties; whether a small payment was made to some; and whether it is his intention to make a payment to all of the men for their services?
    The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): If the hon Member will be so kind as to give me

    1055
    particulars of any cases in which men of the National Reserve were employed by the Post Office without payment I should be pleased to make inquiry on the subject.

    MUNITIONS.

      NATIONAL FACTORY (IRELAND).
      Mr. P. MEEHANasked the Minister of Munitions if he will state how many national munition factories have been established in Ireland; if all the necessary machinery for the manufacture of shells has been supplied to such factory or factories; and if it is his intention to establish one filling factory at least in Ireland?
      Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: One national munition factory has been established in Ireland. Part of the machinery has been delivered and is at work producing shell. With regard to the last part of the question, it is not at present intended to establish a filling factory in. Ireland as the output of shell in Ireland does not justify the erection of a special filling factory.
      Mr. MEEHAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the remainder of the machinery will be supplied?
      Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: It is coming from America and for machine makers in this country. The Irish factory is getting its proportion. We are distributing it according to the quantity received. I cannot tell my hon. Friend when the rest will come.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if the men who are idle owing to the non-arrival of this machinery are entitled to exemption by the tribunals?
      Mr. SPEAKER: That question is not relevant to the one on the Paper.

      NATIONAL SCHOOL TEACHERS (IRELAND).
      Sir THOMAS ESMONDEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he will consider the question of granting a war bonus to national school teachers in Ireland, in
      1056
      view of their difficulty of meeting the increased cost of living out of their limited incomes; and if he will accede to their request to have their salaries paid monthly, at least while the War lasts?
      The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): I have considered the subject of the first part of the hon. Member's question, but the difficulty to which he refers is one which affects the rest of the community in common with national teachers, and I fear I can hold out no prospect of a war bonus being granted to meet it. As regards the second part of the question I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to the question of the hon. Member for the Leix Division of Queen's County on the 28th October last on this subject. I may point out that the loss to the Treasury entailed in making the alteration from quarterly to monthly payments is incurred at once and consequently the suggestion contained in the last part of the question is impossible.
      Sir T. ESMONDE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how much the loss would amount to?
      Mr. BIRRELL: I have gone into it and it is an enormous sum. It would require thirteen payments in one year instead of twelve, and although it could be recouped after a long time at the first start the loss would mean many thousands of pounds.
      Mr. P. MEEHAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of the married teachers in Ireland are practically on the verge of want? Will he see if anything can be done to give them decent salaries?
      Mr. BIRRELL: I am very sorry, but all persons suffer when the cost of living is so greatly increased. I could not deal with the question of the national teachers alone.
      Mr. MEEHAN: Should not the people who are entrusted with the education of the youth of Ireland be given a salary on which they can maintain a family with self-respect?
      Mr. BIRRELL: Yes; I hope that that still continues to be done.
      Mr. LYNCH: Has the right hon. Gentleman taken into account that this expenditure is a capital sum, and that the interest would come to a very reasonable amount?
      Mr. BIRRELL: I can assure the hon Member that I have carried on this discussion with the Treasury for the last eighteen months, and I do not think he can inform me of anything I do not already know.

      IRISH OATS (PURCHASES).
      Sir T. ESMONDEasked if the Government have as yet made any purchases of Irish oats for Army purposes; if so, to what extent; and if the authorities propose to make use of the existing supply of Irish oats before making further purchases abroad?
      Mr. BIRRELL: Beyond the fact that 10,000 tons of Irish oats have, as I understand, been purchased on behalf of one of our Allies, I have no information on the subject of the hon. Member's question.
      Sir T. ESMONDE: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire into the matter?
      Mr. BIRRELL: I have made inquiries and obtained the information that 10,000 tons of Irish oats have been purchased on behalf of one of our Allies.
      Sir T. ESMONDE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how much was purchased for ourselves?
      Mr. BIRRELL: I can inquire.

      NAVAL AND MILITARY SERVICES (PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES).
      Mr. ANDERSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he has received a petition from the magistrates of Berwick asking the Government to retain a portion of the separation allowance of soldiers' wives; whether the magistrates invited the support of the clergy in this enterprise; and whether any answer has been returned on behalf of the Government, and, if so, what answer?
      Mr. FORSTER: I do not trace the receipt of the petition in question, but I should not be prepared to withhold compulsorily any portion of these allowances; while for voluntarily saving the War Savings Certificate scheme seems to meet the requirements admirably. Any influence
      1058
      which the clergy or other benevolent persons can bring to bear in furtherance of this good object would be well bestowed.

      SOLDIERS INVALIDED (TUBERCULOSIS).
      Mr. ANDERSONasked how many of the 2,770 soldiers invalided out of the Service in 1915 on account of tuberculosis were found under the terms of the Royal Warrant to be entitled to a pension; and how many were not so entitled?
      Mr. TENNANT: 1,641 were awarded pensions and 1,129 claims were not accepted.

      SOLDIERS INVALIDED (TUBERCULOSIS).

        Colombia (Claim of William Boshell).
        Sir T. ESMONDEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, if he will state what is being done with reference to the claim of Mr. William Boshell against the Government of Colombia for compensation for the confiscation of his property; and whether, in view of the fact that this case has been proceeding for some eleven years past, he will take measures to have the matter equitably arranged by arbitration or otherwise without further delay?
        Lord R. CECIL: I have at present nothing to add to the information contained in the letter which was addressed to the hon. Member from the Foreign Office on 16th February. The nature of the instructions addressed to His Majesty's Minister at Bogota was stated in that letter.
        Sir T. ESMONDE: Is there any likelihood of this case being concluded within a reasonable time, seeing that it has now lasted eleven years?
        Lord R. CECIL: A great deal has been said about this case naturally during the last eleven years. Perhaps the hon. Member will be good enough to talk to me about it.

        Ceylon (Education Grants).
        Mr. CHANCELLORasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, under the recent amendment to the Ceylon Education Code, Grants are made con-

        1059
        ditional on the Department of Education being satisfied that the owner, manager, or teachers of the school have not associated themselves in any way with movements or societies which are concerned in any political or social programme directed against the Government or calculated to disturb public tranquility and excite unrest among any class of His Majesty's subjects; whether unrest has been caused by the Government opening about 1,000 liquor shops among them against the wishes of the Buddhist population, whose religion forbids the use of intoxicants; whether temperance societies have been formed to save the population from Government temptations by teaching them to be faithful to their religion; whether, in consequence of the amended Code, many schoolmasters have had to resign from such societies or lose their Grant; and whether he will cause the removal from the Code of this Regulation, which is believed to indicate the Government's hostility to temperance teaching, and under which all advocacy by school teachers of any kind of political or social reform can be penalised?
        Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I have no information as to the amendment of the Education Code, nor as to the resignation of schoolmasters in consequence of it, but I will ask for a report from the officer administering the government of Ceylon. With reference to the second part of the question the excise policy of the Ceylon Government has been frequently explained in this House by my predecessor; I "would refer for example to the questions and answers appearing in the OFFICIAL REPORT for the 1st July and the 24th July, 1912. There is, of course, no foundation for the suggestion that the Ceylon Government desires to discourage temperance, or is in any way hostile to societies whose real object is the promotion of temperance; but I regret to say that it has been established that many of the so-called temperance societies have been largely used for the propagation of views of which it would be impossible for any Government to approve.

      NEW MEMBER SWORN.
      Captain Sir Owen Crosby Philipps, K.C.M.G., for the Borough of Chester.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  SUPPLY.

    NAVY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1915–16.
    Considered in Committee.
    [Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    1. "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916, for additional Expenditure on the Wages, etc., of Officers, Seamen, Boys, Coastguard, and Royal Marines."
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): I am afraid I must make a draft on the patience of the Committee not quite of the very moderate dimensions of the Question put from the Chair. Much more is involved than the spending of a £10 note. This is a merely nominal or token sum, and it is due to the Committee that I should seek to explain this somewhat cryptic document. The Committee will remember that for 1914–15 Parliament sanctioned Navy Estimates in detail as usual, and these were being worked to when war broke out. For the last eight months of 1914–15 we continued to work to those Estimates as far as possible in regard to approved Services, and over and beyond those were the War Services of those eight months. They were met, in so far as they were not met by the Estimates of 1914–15, out of the Vote of Credit. These expenditures have been submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor-General in an Appropriation Account. That Account renders a statement of appropriations in respect both of the sums voted in the Estimates 1914–15 and the sums drawn from the Vote of Credit. Referring to that Account, I gave the following reply to the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for West Dorset (Colonel Sir It. Williams), on 18th January last:
    Colonel Sir R. Williams (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Appropriation Account showing the Grants of Parliament for Navy Services for the year ended 31st March, 1915, and the sums which actually came in course of payment in that year, will be presented to Parliament in the usual form, giving information in detail under the various services for which , provision was made?
    1072
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Admiralty (Dr. Macnamara): The question raised has received careful consideration, and we have consulted the Treasury in the matter. It is considered that in the national interest the Navy Appropriation Account for the financial year referred to should be confined to the abstract statement of expenditure under Votes (those numbered 8 to 11 inclusive being merged in one total), with particulars of balances irrecoverable and correspondence, matters of a confidential character being omitted. There will, of course, be no curtailment of the usual facilities afforded to the Comptroller and Auditor-General of access to all papers and documents relating to the account as a whole, and, in addition, an account containing more detailed information will be prepared and can be issued if so ordered as soon as the public interest permits.
    Mr. Leif Jones: May we take it that accounts are being kept so . that hereafter, when the War is over, we shall receive as full information as in an ordinary year?
    Dr. Macnamara: The Estimates themselves have been published, and the Appropriation Account is being prepared by us largely on the lines of the Estimates as published, but I hope that my hon. Friend will not pin me down to every particular detail. As I have said, "an account containing more detailed information will be prepared and can be issued if so ordered."
    [OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th January, 1916, cols. 176–77, Vol. LXXVIII.
    So much for the Estimates 1914–15, and the rendering of the Appropriation Account as to the application of the money which Parliament voted. I come now to the Estimates for the current financial year 1915–16, and for which I am now asking Supplementary Estimates. Details of the Estimates on the old lines were quite out of place. For each of the seventeen Navy Votes we asked Parliament to vote a token Vote of £1,000.
    It was further arranged that a token sum of £100 as an Appropriation-in-Aid should be taken under each Vote. That is to say, the Estimate under which each of the several Votes was taken is as follows: Gross estimated expenditure on each Vote, £1,100; Appropriation-in-Aid,£100; net amount voted for each Vote, £1,000. The whole Estimates for 1915–16 then stood: Gross estimated expenditure, £18,700; Appropriations-in-Aid, £1,700; net amount voted by Parliament, £17,000. That procedure was followed in accordance with the Treasury Minute of 5th February, 1915, published as Command Paper, 7,790. It will perhaps help the Committee if I read an extract or two from that document. It says:
    "My Lords are satisfied that it is not desirable even if it were possible to present to Parliament detailed Estimates purporting to provide for the cost of the War. To state only two difficulties, it is not possible to estimate at what date the War may be expected to end, if at all, in 1915–16, and it is not in the public interest to disclose through the estimates of expenditure the nature and extent of many of the operations for which provision must be made.

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    It therefore becomes necessary to ask Parliament to make provision for the cost of the War in 1915–16 (as in 1914–15) by Votes of Credit.
    The question then arises to what extent, if at all, it is possible or desirable to present Estimates in the customary form for Navy and Army Expenditure apart from the cost of the War.
    It is clear that in a war like the present, in which the whole resources of the country are involved, any attempt to distinguish between ordinary charges for Navy and Army Services, and expenditure arising out of the War, must be entirely arbitrary and artificial."
    Later they say:
    "There appears, therefore, to their Lordships to be no satisfactory alternative to dispensing during the continuance of the War with Estimates in the ordinary form for Navy and Army Services altogether, and making provision for the whole of the services as part of the general war expenditure by Votes of Credit.
    It is, however, in Their opinion, very desirable in the interests of sound administration and for the preservation and continuity of practice and record, that Army and Navy Expenditure, both that of a recurrent nature and that arising out of the War, should be accounted for under the customary heads and sub-heads, as shown in the Navy and Army Estimates for 1914–15 and previous years.
    My Lords accordingly propose, if provision is made for these Services by a Vote or Votes of Credit, to give directions that the Appropriation Account of such Vote or Votes shall be prepared under the respective Votes and Sub-heads of Navy and Army Services contained in the original Estimates for 1914–15 as laid before Parliament, subject only to such variations (to be approved by Them) as the nature of the expenditure may require, and further that the amount of the provision included under each such Vote and Sub-head for 1914–15 shall be shown upon the Account for purposes of comparison.
    By way of providing a statutory basis for such an Appropriation Account and at the same time securing to the House of Commons adequate opportunities (apart from the debates upon the Vote or Votes of Credit) of discussing questions which ordinarily arise upon particular Votes, it is proprosed to present separate Estimates, in each case for a nominal amount (say £1,000) only, for the respective Navy and Army Votes.
    The amount so voted will be appropriated in ordinary course, the substantive provision under each Vote being drawn from the Vote or Votes of Credit which will be framed on the same lines as the Votes of Credit for the current year with the addition of the words 'and for general Navy and Army Services in so far as specific provision is not made therefor by Parliament.'"
    Finally, this Minute dealt with the question of Appropriations-in-Aid. Let me give a short extract referring to that:
    "My Lords accordingly propose that the substantive Appropriation-in-Aid of the receipts should be left over to be made upon Supplementary Estimates under the respective Votes later in the financial year, when the amounts can be more precisely ascertained, a nominal Appropriation only being made on the original Estimates, and that the receipts as they accrue should be retained by the Departments and applied by them in reduction of Exchequer issues from the Vote of Credit."
    So much for the token Estimates of 1915–16, which show: Gross Estimate, £18,700; Appropriations-in-Aid, £1,700; net amount voted, £17,00;. This brings me to the Supplementary Estimate that I am presenting. I hope that its necessity
    1074
    and purpose has been made perfectly clear to the members of the Committee. It is with the question of Appropriations-in-Aid that this Supplementary Estimate is for the time being solely concerned. The Committee knows that Appropriations-in-Aid are a form of revenue, and that they ought, in theory, to be paid into the Exchequer. There was a time when they were so paid. They have not been so paid in for many years. They have, with the sanction of Parliament, been used in diminution of the Parliamentary Grants. In this case—these 1915–16 Navy Estimates—Parliament has authorised the Admiralty to utilise Appropriations-in-Aid to the extent of £100 for each of the seventeen Votes, or £1,700 in all. That is the nominal figure. But under the Treasury Minute of 23rd January, 1888, this appeared:
    "The total amount of extra receipts (Appropriations in-Aid) which may be applied in aid of the gross expenditure in any year is to be strictly limited by the total amount of the estimated extra receipts as shown in the Estimates for the year, and any excess of actual receipts beyond the total of the estimated receipts will, when ascertained, be surrendered in the same manner as ascertained surpluses on Grants are now surrendered.
    The amount which the Admiralty estimated to receive and apply in reduction of expenditure from the Appropriations-in-Aid is, as I have said, £1,700. That is the nominal figure, but the substantive amount we now expect to receive for this year, 1915–16, is £4,500,000. That additional Appropriation-in-Aid is as close an estimate as we can make. It is a large advance on our normal Appropriation-in-Aid. In 1914–15 we estimated to receive just over £2,000,000. I may be asked, and properly asked, how is it now you expect to receive £4,500,000 when your normal revenue from Appropriations-in-Aid is something in the region of £2,000,000? The answer generally is that we have made large issues to Allied Governments on repayment, and it will be observed that we have put the whole of the Appropriations-in-Aid, nominal and substantive, under Vote I. That is in accordance with the proposal of the Treasury on 9th February this year, and is, of course, merely a temporary expedient. Appropriations-in-Aid, as the Committee is aware, are, so far as practicable, distributed under the Votes which make the Service possible, for which the Appropriation-in-Aid is a return. For example, we get a contribution of £100,000 in aid of Navy Votes from the Government of India for His Majesty's ships in Indian waters. We credit the amount on receipt

    1075
    to the various Votes which bear the services towards which the £100,000 is a contribution—that is to say, the Votes for the pay of officers and men, victualling and clothing, medical establishments, shipbuilding, naval armaments, miscellaneous effective services, half-pay and retired pay, and naval and marine pensions and gratuities and compassionate allowances. When we come to the 1915–16 Appropriation-in-Aid, we shall in due course distribute it in the Appropriation Account. Here Section (4) of the Appropriation Act, 1915, will come to our rescue. That Section provides:

    "(1) So long as the aggregate expenditure on. Naval and Military Services respectively is not made to exceed the aggregate sums appropriated by this Act for those Services respectively, any surplus arising on any Vote for these Services, either by an excess of the sum realised on account of Appropriations-in-Aid of the Vote over the sum which may be applied under this Act as Appropriations-in-Aid of that Vote, or by saving of expenditure on that Vote, may, with the sanction of the Treasury, be temporarily applied either in making up any deficiency in the sums realised on account of Appropriations-in-Aid of any other Vote in the same Department, or in defraying expenditure in the same Department which is not provided for in the sum appropriated to the service of the Department by this Act, and which it may be detrimental to the public service to postpone until provision can be made for it by Parliament in the usual course.

    (2) A statement showing all cases in which the sanction of the Treasury has been given to the temporary application of a surplus under this Section, and showing the circumstances under which the sanction of the Treasury has been given, shall be laid before the House of Commons with the Appropriation Account of the Naval and Military Services for the year, in order that any temporary application of any surplus sanctioned by the Treasury under this Section may be submitted for the sanction of Parliament."

    After this long explanation, for which I must apologise, but which I thought very necessary in view of the form of the Estimate, the Supplementary Estimate I am now submitting needs no further comment. It asks authority to utilise additional Appropriations-in-Aid to the extent of
    1076
    £4,500,000. Parliament has already voted £17,000, and we have its authority to use £l,700 Appropriations-in-Aid; that is to say, a gross expenditure of £18,700. And now we expect an Appropriation-in-Aid of £4,500,000, making £4,501,700, and, with the Parliamentary Grant already voted, £4,518,700. But Parliament must be asked to vote something to-day in order that we may be authorised to utilise these Appropriations-in-Aid, and therefore we have come for a token Vote of £10, which will make a gross authorised expenditure of £4,518,710.
    Colonel Sir R. WILLIAMS: The Committee is obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the very clear explanation he has given of the reasons for this Supplementary Vote. It involves a great many details which he has made abundantly clear, and I shall not trouble the Committee further than to say that I think the Admiralty have followed the right procedure in this case. The whole of the details of these Appropriations-in-Aid will subsequently come under the review of the Public Accounts Committee and also of the House, and I am quite satisfied the course taken is the right one.
    Mr. LEIF JONES: I confess my gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman for the explanation he has given of the Supplementary Estimates, but I do not know whether there will be a certain disappointment in the Committee as to the amount of information which the public will derive with regard to these sums. There was, I think, an expectation in many quarters that we should have been told something of what the Navy has been doing during the last twelve months.
    The CHAIRMAN: This is only a Supplementary Estimate, and no large question of policy or principle can arise. They come on the main Votes of the year.
    Mr. JONES: I was not intending in the least to go into that matter. I was only referring to an expectation, no doubt wrongly based, when this Supplementary Estimate came on. All I wish to say is that though we have not been able to have any explanation to-day as to the actual origin of these increased Appropriations-in-Aid, £4,500,000 for the Navy and £18,000,000 for the Army in the next Vote that comes on, it is probably undesirable at the present moment that we should have any discussion of the amounts, and therefore I do not ask for any information. I only rise

    1077
    to emphasise a point I put to the right hon. Gentleman in a supplementary question some time ago that the accounts not now presented to Parliament should be kept so that when the War ends we may get in the usual form the full accounts for the period with which we are now dealing. My right hon. Friend has said, "As far as possible." The point I want to urge upon him is that as far as possible, especially as regards Appropriations-in-Aid, they should be as fully detailed over the whole period of the War as for the ordinary twelve months, and I want to ask the Department not to make an excuse of the fact that they are dealing with a much larger period to lessen the information which would ultimately be given to the Public Accounts Committee and to Parliament. That is the whole point I want to make. We cannot raise the issues now, but we do want to go fully into them as soon as the War is over, when we have to consider the vast expenditure that has been made. We have £4,500,000 Appropriation-in-Aid for the Navy and £18,000,000 Appropriation-in-Aid for the Army. It never was intended when these Appropriations-in-Aid were given to the different Votes that they should grow into these very large sums. What was supposed was that very trifling sums were received under subheads, and it was not thought worth paying these into the Exchequer in the ordinary course, and therefore the Departments were allowed to have them to play with, or, rather, to work upon. The situation is very much changed when you are dealing with sums of £4,500,000 and £18,000,000, and I think it raises the question whether the whole of these sums should not, in accordance with ancient practice, be paid directly over to the Exchequer.
    Sir T. ESMONDE: This is an estimable Vote, and I am quite in favour of it, and desire to see it passed. I do not approach this question from the point of view of the body with which I was connected for many years, but from the point of view of those in the Navy. This Vote refers to the pay of officers in the Navy, and I wish to suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty that the amount for pay ought to be increased.
    The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Baronet is mistaken. His opportunity for raising that point will arise upon the main Vote for the New Year, and it cannot. be raised on a Supplementary Estimate. I
    1078
    think next week, or the week after, the main Vote is to be taken, but this is a Supplementary Vote for the current year.
    Sir T. ESMONDE: May I ask what can we raise on this Vote? This Estimate deals with the pay of officers and men, and I would like to know if we can discuss that point?
    The CHAIRMAN: The rates of pay cannot now be discussed. I think the right hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench has exhausted all that can be said on that matter. All we are concerned with now is merely the method of presenting this account.
    Sir T. ESMONDE: Would it be in order to urge that the pay of these officers should be reconsidered?
    The CHAIRMAN: Those are questions of policy, and they can only be discussed on the main Votes for the year, and not on a Supplementary Estimate. Questions of policy cannot be discussed on this Vote unless some departure in policy is involved. That has been a long-established rule.
    Sir T. ESMONDE: There is a slight departure in policy in connection with the pay of officers and men in respect of the messing deduction which has been increased since the War broke out. Surely that is a question of policy which we might discuss now?
    The CHAIRMAN: That is not involved in this Vote. The only thing involved is the procedure with regard to the Public Accounts Committee, which the right hon. Gentleman has just described.
    Sir T. ESMONDE: I only want the right hon. Gentleman to give more money to the Navy.
    Mr. HOHLER: I should like to know the position in which we stand. We are now being limited to a discussion as to whether the procedure is in order, but surely that cannot be right. May we not inquire as to whether or not this money includes certain things, whether or not certain rates have been reduced, or whether certain men have had an increase in their pay, or whether the pay is excessive or extravagant in certain Departments? Surely we may inquire as to what are the merits of this Vote? I have listened with admiration to the compliments paid by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, but he has just

    1079
    left me where I was, and all these things are conducted under a veil. Surely we may ask whether this money has been applied in a broad way; whether any savings have been caused by deductions; whether all the yards or machinery is being used to the best advantage. I do not wish to discuss a number of Treasury Orders and Regulations, and other matters which do not concern me for the moment. We quite understand that we are not to know now what the amount is, and it may be £100,000,000; but surely we may raise questions as to whether certain grievances have been redressed; whether there has been extravagance, and questions as to how you are dealing with the men who may be killed in the Service.
    The CHAIRMAN: The hon. and learned Member has put to me a long catalogue of questions, all of which would be appropriate to the main Vote of the year; and he has himself shown how impossible it is to allow those questions to be raised on a Supplementary Estimate. If the hon. and learned Member will' search the records for the last twenty years, he will find that my ruling is quite in accordance with precedent.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: I did expect when we received this Estimate that we should be told, at all events, how this money is going to be overspent before the end of the financial year, and that we should have presented to us a statement such as was indicated by the Regulations and in the Appropriation Act showing the different items. Here we have no such statement. I am not one of those who on this Vote is anxious to suggest that this proposal is objectionable on account of the largeness of the amount. This is just one of those years and occasions when we cannot complain. I think the Admiralty ought to be complimented, and we ought to be exceedingly grateful to the whole Department, if it really is a fact, as I gather from the right hon. Gentleman's statement, that they now find that their Estimates, notwithstanding all the work which has been done, were so accurate that they have only really overspent £4,500,000.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: We take token sums of £100 revenue Appropriation-in-Aid under each Vote. The substantive Appropriation will turn out to be £4,500,000, and this is the income coming to us.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: Then the object is to enable the money voted for one purpose, and not used for that purpose, to be made use of to make good deficiencies on other Votes? That is my view of what the Appropriation Act was intended to do.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: This is not the Appropriation Act.
    4.0 P.M.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: That is what the appropriations under the Act were intended to be. Here it is nothing of the sort. We are not even told, except by one illustration, the source from which the Appropriations-in-Aid are coming. I really think the Committee are entitled to know where you are getting the £4,500,000 Appropriations-in-Aid which you now propose to use to make up the deficiency of the original Estimate. We have not had that information.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes, I gave it.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: I was entirely unable to understand from the otherwise very lucid remarks of the right hon. Gentleman exactly where he was getting this sum of £4,500,000 which was not I anticipated, and which is now going to be used by way of credit in this Vote. If the right hon. Gentleman has, in fact, told the Committee, I am sorry to say that I did not understand him. I think the House of Commons and the whole country ought to appreciate the extremely excellent way in which the original Estimates were framed, if it really is a fact that they only want to use £4,500,000 Appropriations-in-Aid, and that the only amount for which they want cash for the purposes of this Supplementary Estimate is only £10. If that is the meaning of this Vote, we ought to be exceedingly satisfied, but if that is not the meaning, as I rather gather from certain indications that it may not be, then I think we are entitled to some further explanation from the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. LOUGH: The right hon. Gentleman's manner was so extremely conciliatory that I became suspicious that he was tempting the House of Commons to pass as a matter of form that which it really ought to endeavour to understand. As I understand it, he is seeking by this token Vote to secure permission to use a much larger sum of Appropriations-in-Aid for the purposes of the Navy than would be legal without the consent of the House.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Under the original Estimate.
    Mr. LOUGH: That, I think, is the object of the Vote?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes.
    Mr. LOUGH: Of course, no one wants in any way to place any restriction upon what the Navy requires. The Navy must get everything it requires, but why could it not be done in another way? Is not the object and effect of using these Appropriations-in-Aid to avoid the necessity of the Department going to the Treasury? If it can use these Appropriations-in-Aid it will not have to go to the Treasury and get its sanction for the expenditure. If the course put forward in this Supplementary Estimate had not been adopted we should have had an Estimate of a different kind. It might still have been a token Vote, but it would have been for the additional sum required, and the Appropriations-in-Aid would have been surrendered as usual. The object of this Vote is to enable the Department to use a large portion of the Appropriations-in-Aid without surrendering them, as it ought to do according to the law. We have not had the reason why this is being done, and I regard it with a little suspicion. Why not let the Appropriations-in-Aid be surrendered in the usual way and then obtain the sanction of the Treasury as hitherto? If it is not necessary to follow that course we ought, I think, to have some more direct reasons given us. I really do not see why we should be asked to assent to the Department using much larger Appropriations-in-Aid than usual or why they should not be surrendered and the additional money required obtained in the usual way. I think some more reason ought to be given us for adopting this unusual course.
    Mr. D. MASON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the £2,000,000 to which he referred represent advances to our Allies?
    Mr. HOHLER: I will put each of my questions to the right hon. Gentleman so that if any of them are not in order you may rule them out of order. You have referred me to precedents, but with great respect I am not aware that there is any precedent for such a crisis as this. As I understand it, these Appropriations-in-Aid are savings on other Votes. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I am told that is wrong, and I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman did not convey to me precisely
    1082
    what they are. In some way or other there is a deficiency on some Votes and the Admiralty requires more money. We never knew what was granted by the original Vote, but apparently more is required, and my questions to the right hon. Gentleman will be addressed to ascertaining whether or not in these further sums certain matters are included. The first question I propose to ask is whether there is included in this Vote provision for the widows of men of His Majesty's Navy who have been promoted lieutenants and who have died as such?
    The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is really contesting my ruling, and I cannot permit that.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I said at the outset that I rose with some trepidation, and I did my very best to make the matter clear, but I will take the points which have been put to me and try to answer them. My hon. Friend the Member for the Rushchiffe Division (Mr. Leif Jones) asked whether we should take advantage of the fact that we might have to present an Appropriation Account after more than a year to say that we could not give quite as much information as if it had been only for a year. I said earlier that I was not to be pinned down to precise details, but we should keep in the office the most detailed and complete statement of how we were spending this money—the £17,000 already granted by Parliament, the £1,700 Appropriations-in-Aid which we have authority to use, and this additional Appropriation-in-Aid plus the much larger sum which will be taken on the Vote of Credit—and when the proper time came we should be ready to submit it to the Public Accounts Committee and for the examination and criticism of this House. Then I am asked why we do not go back to the old method of disposing of the Appropriations-in-Aid altogether. If we sell a battleship and get a certain amount for it, why do not we pay that over to the Exchequer, instead of using it with Parliamentary sanction in abatement of Parliamentary Grants to be given? That is a very interesting point, and I would only advance one argument in favour of the present system. Supposing we do so—
    The CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman is raising a question of policy. That is a matter for the main Estimates and not for Supplementary Estimates.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I agree, and I will discuss the matter privately with my hon.

    1083
    Friend. I am afraid that the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. W. Rutherford) has entirely misunderstood the purpose of this Supplementary Estimate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Islington put it most succinctly in a sentence We now find that instead of receiving £1,700 for services rendered we shall receive £4,500,000, and in order to entitle us to use that £4,500,000 Appropriations-in-Aid instead of £17,000, the amount already voted, we have got to come to the House with this token Vote; which makes the total Vote this year £17,010. It is a question of the substantive Appropriation-in-Aid being larger than the original amount provided for. My hon. Friend asks why we do not say the source from which the additional Appropriations-in-Aid are coming. I said:
    "The £4,500,000 is as close, an estimate as we can make it. It is a large advance on our normal Appropriations-in-Aid. In 1914–15 we estimated to receive just over £2,000,000. I may be asked, and properly asked, how it is that we now estimate to receive more than twice the sum in 1915–16. The answer generally is that we have made large issues to Allied Governments on repayment."
    My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry (Mr. D. Mason) asks if these Appropriations-in-Aid mean that we are making grants to Allied countries. No.
    "The answer generally is that we have made large issues to Allied Governments in repayment for services rendered."
    Then my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington (Mr. Lough) asks why we do not surrender these Appropriations-in-Aid according to Parliamentary practice. My right hon. Friend suggested that we wanted to deal with this money without going to the Treasury. On the contrary, we are acting in strict accord with the directions of the Treasury embodied in a Minute of the 5th February, 1913, to the following effect:
    "That the substantive Appropriation-in-Aid of the receipts should be left over to be made on Supplementary Estimates under the respective Votes later in the financial year when the amounts can be more precisely estimated, a normal appropriation only being made on the original Estimates."
    That is exactly what we have done. We have acted on the instructions of the Treasury, which thus laid down the proper way of dealing with Appropriations-in-Aid.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: Having regard to the ruling of the Chair, and the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, I think we are bound to pass this Vote without any real criticism. I have been under the impression that the object of presenting
    1084
    Votes in this way was to give the House of Commons some information as to where the money was coming from, and what was proposed to be done with it. But the right hon. Gentleman has told us nothing of the kind. I can quite understand it is not politic at the present moment to go into details with regard to these matters, but I must congratulate the right hon. Gentleman once more on the way in which he is managing this business, and on the exceedingly able and astute manner in which the Vote has been put before the House, so as to make it impossible for anyone to understand it.
    Question put, and agreed to.

  ARMY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1915–16.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  2. "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916, for Pay, etc., of the Army."
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): My right hon. Friend has given so full and clear an explanation of the reason why the Supplementary Estimates are presented in this form that it is unnecessary for me to say anything in regard to that matter, except to state how glad I was to hear the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee give the practice his blessing. I have only a couple of words of explanation to add. The Estimates for 1914–15 showed that we anticipated an estimated Appropriation-in-Aid of £3,668,200. We have, as a matter of fact, come to the Committee with Appropriations-in-Aid amounting to £18,000,000—a very large increase indeed. I think it only right to give the main item without going into details, and I hope the Committee will not press for detail, but will be content with the main items of the increase. These are, as my right hon. Friend explained, sums which we have received from various sources in repayment for services rendered. We have received from India a sum of six millions sterling, including a very generous contribution from the Native States. We have received from the Colonies a very considerable sum, and I think the Committee will never forget that in addition to the splendid contribution which the Dominions

  1085
  have made in men, they have undertaken to bear, as far as possible, every penny of the cost. That accounts for a very large sum out of the Appropriation-in-Aid. We have received from the Allied Governments, in return for services rendered, a further large sum. I do not know that the Committee will expect me to go into further details. I rather hope it will not. These are the main sources from which this money has come, and I trust the Committee will, under the circumstances, agree to the Vote.
  Colonel LOCKWOOD: It is perfectly evident that the Committee is not in a mood to extract further information than has been given by the representatives of the Government on this subject, which is surrounded with difficulties, even if we wish to go more fully into the matter. I do not propose, therefore, to offer any criticism, but I think the Committee may join with the hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the War Office in his expression of deep gratitude to the Colonies and the Native States who have assisted us not only with men, but also been ready to do so with money.
  Question put, and agreed to.

  CIVIL SERVICES.

    DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR BUILDINGS.—(Class 1.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    3. "That a supplementary sum, not exceeding £37,330, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916, for Expenditure in respect of Diplomatic and Consular Buildings, and for the Maintenance of certain Cemeteries abroad."
    Mr. ASHLEY: I certainly require some information with reference to this Vote. There may, of course, be a very good explanation, but it does seem to me, when we are told by the Government that economy is an absolute necessity, extraordinary that our commitments abroad should be so largely increasing. Therefore it is only natural we should ask for some explanation of the reason for the increase. It appears to me to require a very clear explanation why we are going to spend this substantial extra sum of money on the Residency at Cairo. I quite appreciate that in the revised estimate it is probably quite right that £49,740 should be spent instead of the original estimate
    1086
    of £12,410 on Consular buildings and other matters connected with the Consular and Diplomatic services, because, since the War has broken out, our obligations abroad in neutral and friendly countries have very much increased, and therefore it may be perfectly legitimate in this case to spend more money in providing better housing accommodation for our diplomatic and Consular representatives. But I want some further information on the subject. I want to know why we should sanction this large sum of £37,330 for new works, alterations, additions, and purchases, including funiture, in connection therewith at the Residency at Cairo. Personally, I am not inclined to agree to vote this sum unless we have a very clear explanation on behalf of the Government.
    We had before the War, and have so far as I know now, a very excellent building where Lord Cromer and Sir Rennell Rodd resided. It is just outside the city of Cairo, by the side of the river, surrounded by ample grounds and constitutes a residence not unworthy of the chief Power which controls the destinies of Egypt. Now, because we have declared a Protectorate over Egypt, and have a High Commissioner instead of a Consular Agent, we are asked, at this moment above all, to spend the very large sum of £37,000 in enlarging and beautifying this building, and in purchasing extra ground. It seems to me insanity. It is not as if the British representative was badly housed before, and surely what was good enough for Lord Cromer and Sir Rennell Rodd should be good enough for the present High Commissioner. If the Government thought it necessary to enlarge the grounds, surely they might have waited until the end of the War. It is not to be supposed that land in Cairo will go up appreciably in value after the War is over, and to my knowledge for a sum of £37,000 the Government could have bought some hundreds of acres in the district where the Residency is situated. I will defer any further remarks until I have heard what explanation the Government have to give on this subject, and will content myself now with saying that I am not prepared to assent to the passing of this Vote without a very clear explanation of the reasons for it.
    The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Harcourt): I think I can make the matter perfectly clear, and I hope I shall be able to satisfy the hon. Gentleman in this matter. This additional

    1087
    ground is wanted, and has been wanted for some years, not for the extension of the Residency, which is not a residence, but is used for office purposes. There is a great congestion of room for office work in the Residency, and recently the pressure has become much greater owing to the change of our status in Egypt. Land adjoining the Residency has been in the market for some years. During the boom years in Egypt the price asked for the land was £12 per square metre. When values went down, the price fell to £7 or £8 per square metre. The year before last an offer for the land at £6 10s. per metre was refused. Circumstances have now arisen which make the owner willing to sell the land to any purchaser for £3 10s. per metre. The Commissioner in Egypt and the Foreign Office thought it was a matter of great importance to acquire it, and the Commissioner is of opinion that at that price it is a very good bargain. There was undoubtedly an anticipation that if we did not buy the land which we want now it would pass into other hands, and we should find ourselves paying a very much higher price for it in the future. The Egyptian Government were therefore asked to negotiate the purchase of the land, which they have successfully done, at that price, and the Supplementary Estimate will enable us to refund the sum so paid to the Egyptian Government.
    Mr. ASHLEY: How much is there of the land?
    Mr. HARCOURT: I am told it is about three acres. In addition to that, there are two accommodation roads thrown into the bargain without any cost, and there is also on the site a half finished house which may probably be adapted for office purposes. The hon. Gentleman is in error in thinking that we are spending any money here for alterations, additions, new works, and furniture. That is the heading under which the Estimate appears, but we are now only concerned with the purchase of this land, and it is not intended during the War to spend any money in building or even in adapting unfinished buildings. This was a moment at which we could acquire the land, and it was understood that we should lose the chance of doing so if we did not take it now. The price is regarded as a very favourable one by those who know the locality, and certainly it is about one quarter of the price which was asked in the period of boom.
    Mr. ASHLEY: Personally, I am not the least satisfied with the right hon. Gentleman's answer, and I think if I could look inside his mind he probably agrees with me, although he has, naturally, officially to defend this transaction. What does he tell us? He says that this land is wanted for offices. Why do you want three acres of land for offices? You have enough room upon it for the Home Office and the Foreign Office. It is a very large area of land, and I cannot conceive why it is necessary to spend £37,000 in buying three acres of land for the Residency in Cairo in order to build offices upon it, even if it were necessary, which I cannot see, to have these offices near the private residence of the High Commissioner. Surely it would be quite possible to have the offices a short distance off. It does not always follow that a man's office is in his back garden, as is apparently necessary here. As to the price, we all know that the prices paid for land in Cairo were ridiculous. If the Committee will believe me, land was sold during the boom time in Cairo at a higher price than was paid for any land in the City of London. Even if, as the right hon. Gentleman says, the land was valued at £12 per metre in the boom time, it does not follow that £3 per metre is the right price to pay now. Therefore, with all respect to him, I cannot see that it is necessary to spend £37,000 upon three acres of land, only to build offices upon it.
    Mr. HOGGE: I wish to associate myself with the criticism which has been made with regard to this transaction. If hon. Members will divide the £37,000, which is required for these three acres, by the figure three, they will discover that what the Government is doing is to pay £12,000 per acre for three acres in Cairo during a period of war. I have always wondered why the Germans wanted to reach Egypt. I now begin to understand that the Consular buildings there may have some attraction for the German Emperor. This is a most extravagant proceeding. I cannot understand how we stand to-day with regard to it. We are told by the First Commissioner of Works that the scheme has been negotiated already by the Egyptian Government, and that the land has been bought and paid for, so that practically what we are asked to do is to agree to the payment of that money without knowing anything at all about the transaction. That may be the ordinary practice, but it is not

    1089
    business to come to this House, after you have bought three acres of land at £12,000 an acre, and ask us to agree to it. I suppose that the sum having been paid, we shall have to foot the bill, but I desire to associate myself with the criticism offered by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Ashley) with regard to the extravagant waste in spending this amount of money in the purchase of land during a period of this kind. I could say a great deal more, but what would be the use of it? The transaction is done, and we cannot make anything of it, except agree with the criticism offered by the hon. Member, and say that we think this is a bad transaction, a wrong transaction, and a very wrong transaction, when we remember that everybody on the Front Bench is now preaching economy to the nation.
    Commander BELLAIRS: I only rise for the purpose of asking the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who is in his place, whether this transaction can be completed beyond recall without the sanction of Parliament?
    Sir F. BANBURY: Unless my memory serves me wrongly, there is a very great meeting going on this afternoon at the Guildhall, where three or four Cabinet Ministers have gone, at considerable trouble, to preach economy. It would be a very good opportunity if those of us who are here should endeavour to follow their example, and initiate a little economy in this place.
    Mr. HARCOURT: I do not know whether the right hon. Baronet is alluding to the economy on the Vote of the Office of Works for this year. It amounts to £630,000.
    Sir F. BANBURY: We should like it to be more, because we are spending £5,000,000 a day, and £630,000 a year is not a very great saving. I should like to know, with regard to this transaction, what took place and what is taking place now? Where are the clerks now who are to occupy these offices when the work is completed? I assume they are in some building or some house doing their work, and I should like to have some reason why the present building is not good enough for them. If they have been doing their work during these troublous times in the present building, could they not have gone on in that building, and then, if at the end of the War, it was found desirable to lodge them in more
    1090
    luxurious circumstances, perhaps we could buy three acres of land which costs less than £12,000 per acre. I do not know what kind of building it is proposed should be put up on these three acres. My knowledge of building is not very extensive, but I should imagine that to erect buildings covering three acres of land would cost a considerable sum of money. If the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is going to speak, perhaps he will kindly answer my questions.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: On the Paper this is described as a Supplementary Estimate, not only with respect to Diplomatic and Consular Buildings, but also for the maintenance of certain cemeteries abroad. Are we to understand that the whole of this Vote is required for this land only, and that no part of it is for the maintenance of certain cemeteries, and, in that case, why is that heading included?
    Mr. HARCOURT: That is the heading of the Vote under which I am bound to put it down.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: Personally, I have every sympathy with the Government in this matter. I have been to most of the capital cities in the Middle and East of Europe and also in other places, and I have always been struck with the parsimony of the British Government in these matters as compared with the display made by the other countries, more particularly by Germany, Austria, Russia, and France. It is the same thing in Bucharest; it is the same thing in Sofia; it is the same thing in other places. I am one of those who take the view that in the eyes of Eastern people especially it is advisable for the British Government and the British representatives to be as well housed, to have as large and as beautiful a garden, and to have all the equipage, appearance, and state at all events to match those of the representatives of other countries. I am sorry to say that in almost every one of these places, particularly those in the East of Europe and those analogous to Cairo which I have personally visited, we do not make the appearance, keep up the style, and impress the people to anything like the extent which any patriotic Englishman visiting these places would like to see us do. If this is going to vastly improve the housing and homing of the British representative in Cairo, do not let us look

    1091
    at this paltry amount. Although no doubt it is a big sum to give for land to add to a garden at a cost of £12,000 an acre, yet the people on the spot are probably better judges of these matters than we are. I appeal to the Committee to bear in mind the great advisability of doing everything in the presence of these Eastern peoples in a manner at all events equal to the appearance that is put forth by other nations, with whom, in every respect, we have to compete. We have to compete with them as regards trade, influence, and all kinds of other directions. We make a very poor show up to date in all these places by comparison, and I appeal to the Committee on this occasion not to look at this question as if it were that of £12,000 an acre for an additional garden, but to look at the question from the point of view of the Imperial interests of a country like our own.
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Lord Robert Cecil): I sympathise very strongly with what members of the Committee have said regarding the necessity for economy, and I quite agree that the present time is a very bad one for making expenditure of any kind. I am sure that is the view of the Egyptian Government also. I am perfectly certain they would not have recommended expenditure of this kind unless they were quite convinced that in reality and in truth—as I hope to be able to satisfy the Committee—it is really an economical operation and not an extravagant one. Those of us who have had the advantage of seeing the Residency at Cairo will sympathise a good deal with what the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Rutherford) has said. Of course, we all know that the history of our position in Egypt is a very peculiar one, that for a very long time the only position which our representative there occupied was as one of the Agents-General—a comparatively unimportant diplomatic officer who lived at Cairo and advised the Egyptian Government. As the Committee remembers very well, the course of historical events was such that he gradually acquired more and more influence and a stronger and stronger position in the country until in effect, I will not say he was the ruler of the country, but he was by far the most important person, and culminated, in the latter part of Lord Cromer's term of office, by his being by far
    1092
    the most important person in Egypt, and who really exercised a degree of authority over an extent of land and of population which made him second only to the very highest official in the British Empire. I venture to say that anybody who saw the official Residency of our Agent-General will agree with me that it certainly did not err on the side of extravagance or ostentation. Although I am far from recommending either extravagance or ostentation, I do not think the Committee should forget that fact when considering this proposal.
    What are we told by those who actually do the work? We are told that, as time has gone on, this building, which had not only to house the Agent-General and his family, but to provide offices for the very large amount of official work which he had to do, was getting more and more unsatisfactory and unsuitable for its purpose, that it was really impracticable to go on indefinitely with such very important duties that had to be discharged in that building without some extension. We are advised that in the strongest possible language, and from my experience in the matter, I should entirely assent to that as a very probable statement of fact. Therefore some enlargement of the premises has really become absolutely necessary, and that has been recognised for some time past. I have heard that the portion of the ground on which the Embassy stands is becoming more and more built over, and it is difficult to find any other site, and the obvious thing therefore was, if possible, to extend the existing building. There was this offer of the three acres adjoining. It had long been thought a desirable acquisition by the Agent-General. It was offered at £12 a square metre in the boom year. It gradually came down to £8, £7, £6 10s., which was the last offer they had. Then came this exceptional opportunity for buying the land, supposing they were right in thinking it absolutely necessary for the extension. They found they could buy at £3 a metre land which had once been offered at £12, and it was very unlikely ever to fall below £3 a metre, but will probably be of much larger value in years to come. That seems to me just the kind of occasion on which, even in times of great economy, expenditure is justifiable. If you get an opportunity of buying what is really essential for your business at a price much lower than is likely to be

    1093
    offered in any future period, it is an economy and not an extravagance to purchase. That is really the whole case. My hon. and gallant Friend (Commander Bellairs) asked whether the transaction was complete. I understand it is. The offer had to be accepted or rejected. The Treasury was, of course, consulted and approved the proposal, as did the Home Government. The transaction was entered into, and I understand the land has been purchased. So far the Egyptian Government are quite in accord with the general view that they do not propose to start building at present. They propose to wait till after the War, and will not incur any further expenditure till a more favourable opportunity comes. It appears to me under these circumstances that the expenditure is wholly justified, and in this case, as in many others, the only safe course for the Committee to take is to trust the man on the spot.
    Mr. MALCOLM: I have nothing to say against this Vote, and I think it is high time the Agency was sufficiently enlarged. I want also to associate myself with what has fallen from the hon. Member (Mr. Hogge), who pointed out in what an impotent position the House of Commons is, when it is only asked to foot the bill after the money has been paid and the negotiation has been finished. A case in point came to my notice only the other day when I was passing through Paris where a large building is going to be taken for the Government—I saw some indication of it yesterday in the newspapers—for viséing passports. A large building has been apparently taken. I suppose there are salaries to be paid—I know there is a staff to be engaged—for things which might very well have been done by a small enlargement of the existing Consular service. We cannot deal with that until after the transaction is completely through. It is a very unfortunate position for the House of Commons to find itself in. I do not say whether it is right or wrong, but it shows the impotence of the House of Commons that it cannot deal with these matters until there is no more to be said.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I presume the House can always reject a Vote, and the money will have to be found by someone else, so the House of Commons has power in that direction. I think my hon. Friend (Mr. Rutherford) was a little mis-
    1094
    taken as to the object of the purchase of the three acres. I do not understand that it is for a garden at all.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: A large portion of it is said to be.
    Lord R. CECIL: We shall not build over the whole three acres now, but the object of buying the site is to enlarge the building.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: If I had dreamt that you were going to build on the whole three acres and that that was the intention of buying, I should have felt inclined to oppose the Vote myself. I certainly understood that all that was going to be built was an extension of an office, in which case the greater portion of the three acres would be a garden.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I asked what was happening now. I understood it was for an enlargement. I asked, where are the people housed now who are going to be put in the new building? I understand they are now housed in the Consular buildings, and that they are uncomfortable in them, and that more space had been required for some time, and is still required. That may be so, though I do not see that that necessitates the purchase at present. When my hon. Friend says they asked £12 a metre, it is quite easy enough to ask any price you like, but you have to find someone who will buy it, and the asking of a price does not fix the value of an article. If I asked £5 for this pair of spectacles, for which I gave half-a-crown, it would not make them of the value of £5. I should like to ask why it is necessary to obtain such a very large site? Surely, if the people in question had been working in the Consular buildings up to the present, a very much smaller site than three acres would have given them the required accommodation.
    Lord R. CECIL: I understand this was the only way in which any extension could be purchased at all. You cannot buy just what you like. You have to buy what you can get.
    Sir F. BANBURY: If you are offered a large portion of anything you can generally get a smaller portion, or you might offer to buy the whole and resell the other. Is it contemplated that the land which is not required will be resold? That would be a way of finding out the real value.
    Lord R. CECIL: I do not think there can be any doubt that if it is not required it will be the object of everyone to re-sell it in order to recoup the cost, but it is not a good time to re-sell at present.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I understood that we had made an extraordinary bargain and that we had bought something extraordinarily cheap which was going to turn out very advantageous. The moment I talk about re-selling I am met with the answer, "It is a very bad time to sell anything." I do not quite understand it. At any rate we have an assurance from my Noble Friend that when it is possible to sell, and if it is not required, a portion of the land will be sold, so that the proceeds may go towards the cost of building the new offices, and that is something.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: My Noble Friend, persuasive as he always is, has made a defence which seems to me quite inconsistent with the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman beside him. My Noble Friend told us how much he was in agreement with my hon. Friend. (Mr. Rutherford), who, with his knowledge of Eastern capitals, said that our country made a very poor show. That is very likely true. I am not familiar with these places, but I have often heard that that is the fact, and in normal times no one would be move ready than I should to join in voting money to enable us to make a better show. My Noble Friend agrees with that, and he lays stress upon the poor residence that our agent has there, reminded us how the importance of Cairo has grown and implied that the residence is now entirely out of keeping with the dignity of the nation. That is all very well, but the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Vote took care to say that this was not required for any extension of the residence itself. It is not for making a more magnificent residence and it is not for improving the gardens. On the contrary, it is entirely for extending buildings and offices. It is not invariable for even a Cabinet Minister to live in a building which is contiguous with his office. It would be no great hardship supposing that the Agent-General, or whatever this dignified officer is called, had to use a Rolls-Royce to motor to the office. We have not been told why it is necessary that these offices should adjoin the residence. We have not even been told what the offices are. Offices is a general term. It sometimes means kitchens, dairies and so forth. Is it offices
    1096
    in that sense—an addition to the back premises of the residence? If not, what offices are they? Are they something corresponding to the Home Office, the Local Government Board and the Foreign Office? Surely we might have a few more details in order to be in a position to judge whether or not it is essential.
    5.0 P.M.
    We are told that during the War, at all events, nothing is going to be done and no building will take place. In other words, for the moment, at all events, all we are asked to do is to give to the British agent in Egypt an allotment of three acres and a camel. I suppose we are all quite ready to do that. The question is whether the price we are asked to pay is a reasonable price for this land. My Noble Friend has given us no information as to what his opinion is based upon, but he tells us it is a very favourable price and one not likely to be improved upon. What reason is there for accepting that view? We are told that the price originally demanded was £12 a metre, it came down to £8 and £7, and the last offer was £6, and now it is £3. I should say the inference from that is that in three months it will come down to £1. What reason has been given us for supposing that we have managed to get in not only on the ground floor but in the area? It is quite likely that so far from having made an excellent bargain we have made rather a poor one. The right hon. Gentleman gives us this scanty information about what appears to be a transaction of very doubtful utility having regard to the circumstances of the moment. Then we are told by my hon. Friend (Mr. Hogge) that we have nothing to do but to foot the bill. That is the only thing in my hon. Friend's speech with which I disagree. I do not see why we should foot the bill. I should have thought that it was an essential right of the House of Commons to consider this question before the transaction is finished.
    Mr. HOGGE: If my hon. Friend and the rest of the hon. Members will agree to reject this Vote, I am willing to vote with them against paying this money; otherwise, as I said, nothing will be done and' we shall foot the bill.
    Mr. McNEILL: After that explanation I do not differ from my hon. Friend. This is a matter which is not of consuming importance. We are not going to prolong the War by refusing this Vote, and I think it would be a very good lesson to

    1097
    the Government if we took this opportunity of really showing the Government that the House of Commons can put its foot down and refuse to vote sums of money which it is asked to vote without having any opportunity of judging the matter beforehand. If my hon. Friends carry this to a Division I shall vote with them.
    Mr. HOGGE: I will tell.
    Mr. BRYCE: Perhaps the Noble Lord and the First Commissioner of Works may have information which would guide us. Do they know what amount of this three acres is intended to be covered by buildings? Have they got any plans? Can they tell us, also, whether this area of three acres actually touches the existing demesne? I understand it does. It would be absurd to buy three acres if you are only going to use a comparatively small amount of that area for the erection of buildings. I cannot conceive, as the right hon. Member for the City (Sir F. Banbury) said, that it can be possible to cover these three acres with buildings. You could put the Home Office, the Foreign Office, the Local Government Board, and the Board of Trade buildings on three acres. It must be an altogether extravagant amount of land to buy for any possible extension of the Residency which is required. What the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Rutherford) said is quite true. I know most of these foreign countries, and our representatives there are generally very badly housed. I believe at Salonika our Consulate was miles out of the town, entirely inconspicuous, whereas the German and Austrian Consulates were in very prominent positions in the city and had very large compounds round them, positions adequate and worthy of the great nations which these Consulates represented. On the other hand, ourselves, in the great majority of cases all over the world, are very badly housed and very unworthily housed. Therefore I have great sympathy with anyone who proposes that money should be spent for the purpose of having adequate housing for our representatives; but, at the same time, I think that three acres is a very large amount of land to cover with buildings. Perhaps the Noble Lord can tell us exactly what amount is to be spent upon the buildings. There must have been some plan and design of how the land is to be covered before the land was bought.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: The right hon. Member for the City of London has stated that the Committee have received an assurance from my Noble Friend that any of this land that is not required for the extension of the building will be sold. I did not understand my Noble Friend to give any such assurance. I would like to ask him, before the Vote is disposed of, whether he accepts the statement made by the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury).
    Mr. DILLON: This is a singularly interesting Debate. I have taken part in dozens of similar Debates in the past, and to hear hon. Members coming here at this period of the twentieth century and complaining of the House of Commons being put in an unfair position by a process which has been the habitual practice of this House for thirty years, to my knowledge, is very refreshing. It is rather edifying to hear hon. Members who have sat for a considerable number of years suddenly waking up to the evils of this system. I have protested many times in regard to these matters, but on the present occasion I find myself, to my amazement, in warm sympathy with the Government. I can speak with all the more force because I have been, as some hon. Members know, for long years a vigorous opponent of our system in Egypt. Whatever may have been the evils of that system, and whatever may have been the injustice which marked its inception, for good or for evil, you have now obtained a Protectorate over Egypt. Our representative in Egypt is no longer a Consular Agent, or the holder of some other ambiguous position. He is a great Officer of State, representing this country, and clothed with all the authority which comes from this Empire, being the Protector of Egypt. In view of that fact the House of Commons in the new and preposterous spirit of economy which is now being preached all over the place, haggles about buying three acres of land in Cairo for the purposes of our Consulate, the future home of the representative of the Protector of Egypt. How do you know that you would ever get the chance of buying that land again? How would you like it if it had been bought by some German agent and if you found when the War was over you could not get a single acre of land in the neighbourhood of the Consulate? Hon. Members say that three acres is a good deal too much. I do not think it is too much land considering the present position of our representative in Egypt, if he is to

    1099
    remain there. That is another question, but so long as he does remain there he should have an ample garden and enclosure and fair and full accommodation for his officials, and so that he can do his business in a dignified manner. That appears to me to be common sense and sound reason. To say that because we are now at War, and when this opportunity has been made available, which may not in all human probability be available after the War is over, we should hesitate to expend the sum of money asked for, is to my mind perfectly ridiculous. The fact is that what has been said by the hon. Member for Liverpool is absolutely true. Much of our present misfortunes and troubles in these Eastern countries are due to the fact that we have allowed ourselves to be outshone and outfaced by other countries. Those other countries have bought newspapers and carried on propaganda, and they have sent Ministers far superior to our Ministers in every way and supplied with ample money—
    An HON. MEMBER: Princes.
    Mr. DILLON: Yes, princes. At any rate they have had much higher standing, and in many cases they have been of greater ability, and they have been supplied with ample money to carry on propaganda and to carry on what does tell in all parts of the world, and especially in the East, and that is, a rather sumptuous method of living and of display. It is the fact that I think very little of the whole of our Egyptian system, but in the crisis in which we are placed, accepting that system as a fact which cannot be displaced, at the present time, at all events, I think it is the height of folly to criticise or harass our Government because they have done what, in my opinion, is an extremely wise thing.
    Colonel YATE: I want to offer my most hearty congratulations to the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and the First Commissioner of Works, for their pluck in having seized the occasion to buy this land. Three acres of land in Cairo is nothing compared to three acres of land in London. Three acres in an Eastern land is nothing. We want large, extensive grounds, and the only fault that I have to find with the Foreign Office, or the Office of Works, or one of our earlier Consular Agents in Egypt is that they did not have sufficient land when the Residency was first established. Despite the
    1100
    cry for economy that is now going on, and the exhortations to economy by the Government, although they give us so little actual practice of it, I am glad to say that they have gone in for this expenditure at the present time, and are not allowing such an opportunity to slip for the acquiring of the necessary land. I hope that it will make a great difference to our Residency in Cairo.
    Commander BELLAIRS: I am quite willing to believe that the transaction which the Government has carried out is a sound financial transaction. I also think it highly likely that the three acres might have been covered with very undesirable buildings, or they might have been bought by a German agent. I also think that in the East it is extremely important, seeing that appearances go for a great deal, that whoever represents the British Government should be well housed in every sense of the word. What I think the Committee complain of is that it was endeavoured to smuggle the Vote through without an explanation. But for the hon. Member for Blackpool (Mr. Ashley) rising—I think he was the only hon. Member who called attention to this matter—the Vote would have gone through without any explanation whatever. Surely, when the Government carry through a transaction above the heads of the House of Commons and without the sanction of the House, they should come forward and offer an explanation of the transaction in the first instance, when the Vote is submitted, rather than attempt to allow it to go through without any explanation whatever.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: May I ask whether my Noble Friend will reply to the question I put to him?
    Lord R. CECIL: What I said was that if it turned out that this land that was being bought was more than was actually required for our purpose—I do not mean to say that the Agency is to be compelled only to keep actually the bit of land that is built over; that would be absurd—we should, of course, be naturally anxious to sell it. I should have been glad if hon. Members could have seen the actual plan. It is difficult to convey to the House what it is, but it is one of those cases where an existing building cuts off a corner site which is enclosed by a road, and you really have to buy the whole thing or none at all. It is one of those cases in which you cannot get anything except the whole plot when it was offered. I think the Committee will

    1101
    recognise that this is a transaction which any private individual would certainly have embarked upon if the opportunity offered.
    Mr. BRYCE: The Noble Lord has not told us whether he has got any plans of the buildings which he proposes to erect. Does he know anything at all about them? I would like to associate myself with what has been said by the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon). I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Rutherford). If it is proposed to have a garden, I would support that. We want our great official in the East to have plenty of space round him, and to have a garden where he can go out in the evening and smoke his cigarette, and where he can have garden parties, and so on. You want that kind of thing out there. It is absolutely necessary for the honour of the country that our representative in these regions should be adequately and worthily housed. I did not gather from the Noble Lord or from the First Commissioner of Works that it was proposed to make an elaborate kind of dwelling for the chief. Apparently it is only some offices they mean to build. How much are we to spend? Surely there is some kind of idea what kind of buildings are to be erected.
    Mr. HARCOURT: No plans have been made for the erection of a new building on the site, and the price paid for the site includes an uncompleted building which is there now, completed up to the first floor, and which we are informed could be very suitably converted into offices when it is completed. We propose to spend nothing in completion work or in building during the progress of the War. I think I can explain to the Committee what the site is. Let hon. Members imagine that this box (the Treasury Box) is the site. There is the Nile on this side and the road on the other. The site we have bought is a three-cornered piece, bounded on one side by the road, and on the other by the Nile. The building which exists, and which would probably be adapted and completed, stands in the centre of this three-cornered piece. I am sure that it is a good bargain, and I hope that the Committee will approve of it.
    Question put, and agreed to.

    BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.—(Class II.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    4. "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £50,100, be granted to His
    1102
    Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, including certain Grants-in-Aid."
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Acland): I do not know if I can disarm wrath to come by explaining that this sum has not yet been paid and that it will not be paid unless and until the sanction of the House has been given and all the necessary proceedings have gone before Parliament, or by anticipating criticism by rising to make a statement of exactly what this Supplementary Estimate means. It covers one thing only, and that is the purchase of what in the public mind has been termed the Hall Walker stud—the stud of horses of Colonel Walker and the two estates owned by the hon. and gallant Member for the Widnes Division. In October last that gentleman offered to sell to the Government these two' properties, first the breeding establishment in Ireland called the Tully Estate, and second the training establishment in Wiltshire known as Russley Park. He offered to sell those properties at the price of £75,000, or any less sum as would be found to be a right sum by an independent valuation, and to make a free gift of his horses, which were two stallions, thirty brood mares, ten yearling fillies, twenty foals, and eight horses in training, together with cattle, fodder, utensils, furniture, etc., so that the Government might be placed in a position of having as a going concern a first-class breeding establishment, namely, the Tully Estate in the County Kildare and the stallion depôt named Russley with a nucleus of stallions, which were considered suitable for dealing with half-bred mares for the production of horses suitable for the Army.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say the value of the free gift?
    Mr. ACLAND: I am sorry that I cannot say everything at once, but I am going to cover that and give all the information that I possibly can. The Government decided in December last, after very full consideration by the Government and the War Office, to accept the offer. The purchase price was to be fixed by a valuer. The gift was accepted principally on military considerations, and the Army Council were very definite in putting forward the

    1103
    fact that it was essential for the future efficiency of their system of horsing our Cavalry that both in quality and in number the horses available for military purposes in the United Kingdom should be increased. They believe and, in fact, know that the foundation of the stock of horses suitable for military purposes is the thoroughbred, and the intention is to utilise the estate at Tully for breeding thoroughbred stock, and they hope to use the estate at Russley as a stallion depôt for a class needed for the production of horses suitable for military requirements, and that the Tully stud also will be very helpful in providing horses of the right stamp. The estates have been purchased. The money has not been paid pending the decision of the House. It is to be regarded as a national institution, and on that account it has been vested in the War Office on behalf of the Government, and the decision has been taken that it shall be administered and managed during the War, when the War Office has got a great deal to do without anything else being imposed upon it, by the Board of Agriculture; and that is why I have the duty of presenting this Estimate to-day.
    The President of the Board of Agriculture asked Captain Greer, who, I believe, is Senior Steward of the Jockey Club, to value the horses, and they had an independent valuation of the properties made by Mr. Eve. Mr. Eve's valuation of the property was £65,625, and Captain Greer's valuation of the horses at pre-war value was £74,000. I would like to say a word more about the properties which have been purchased. There is the valuation that Mr. Eve placed upon them, and there are certain other incidental expenses which are being incurred between the time of purchase and the 31st of March, and it is for that sum for the purchase of the properties that we are asking to-day. The properties are not subject to tithe or land tax, and Mr. Eve in making the valuation was satisfied that the hon. and gallant Member for Widnes had spent on the purchase of the properties and expenditure upon it a sum exceeding £102,000. These properties are, first the Tully Estate in the County of Kildare, near the Curragh, which is over 980 acres in extent, and consists of very good and richly pastured land, and contains a very good house, farm buildings, cottages, and ample stud accommodation. The Russley estate in England consists of 114½ acres of freehold, 10 miles south-east
    1104
    of Swindon. The land is in grass, and there are upon it a very fine block of stables and a house and cottages, and a new and very efficient water supply.
    With regard to the stud itself, I know nothing about horse-racing, but I am informed that there are two very high-class valuable stallions there, White Eagle and Royal Realm, which Captain Greer values at £15,000 and £10,000, respectively. The mares in the stud are also very valuable for breeding purposes, and they include several animals which Captain Greer values at over £l,000. With regard to horses in training at Russley two of them, Great Sport and Night Hawk were kept, and were sent to Tully, and will be used there as sires for the service of thoroughbred mares. I do not know the fees that are attached to the use of these stallions, but anyone writing to the director of the stud at Tully will be able to find that out. In normal times it is expected that a stud of that kind containing horses as valuable as these would be worked at a profit; but, of course, at the present time racing is, to a very large extent suspended, and prices which are obtained for service are so greatly reduced that it is not possible at the present time to run any breeding establishment of that sort at a profit. Therefore there will be a figure during the War which will be placed on the annual Estimates in due course for the upkeep of the breeding establishment at Tully.
    Sir F. CAWLEY: What will the estimate be?
    Mr. ACLAND: I cannot say; I am not sure that it has been absolutely finally decided. Recalling the figure to my mind, though I do not guarantee it to be accurate, the Estimate for the financial year 1916–17 will be about £4,000. The sum would have been larger were it not that Captain Greer has been good enough to undertake the post of director of the stud without any remuneration during the course of the War, as a war service, and I think that his service as director offers a considerable guarantee that the stud will be managed in the best possible way. It is apparently important that horses bred in a stud of this kind shall be tested on a racecourse, and therefore arrangements have had to be made whereby some of the horses that the Government now own shall be tested in this way. That will be done by leasing them to persons who are willing to test them in this way, and

    1105
    who, in the opinion of the director, can be relied on to do it on the best lines. This year seven of the two-year-olds have been leased to Lord Lonsdale on condition that he pays the expenses connected with the training and racing, and that if he makes any winnings he will return half the winnings after paying expenses.
    An HON. MEMBER: The Government are racing partners?
    Mr. ACLAND: I do not think when one owns property and leases it to someone else that one becomes a partner in use which he makes of it.
    Mr. McNEILL: Will the horses run under Lord Lonsdale's colours or those of the Prime Minister?
    Mr. ACLAND: Lord Lonsdale's colours for the purpose of racing. But there is very small chance of winning now compared with normal times, because there is so little racing at present, and with the same number of horses there is obviously less chance of winning big prizes. That being so, we think that the terms are as advantageous as can reasonably be expected, and I doubt very much whether anyone, except a person who is known to be such a thorough good sportsman as Lord Lonsdale, would take them on the terms which he has done. I understand that the intention is gradually to transform the training stud which is not primarily suited for the purpose of crossing with half-bred mares for the purpose of producing cavalry horses into a stud which will be primarily suitable for that purpose. It will be utter waste of the best stallions to send them to cross with half-bred mares. Nobody would think of that, and of course some of them, though they may be very valuable as racehorses, are not valuable for the special purpose of producing Army horses by being crossed with half-bred mares; but the object is gradually to transform the stud into one of which the primary duty will be the production of Army horses.
    Suppose that horses which are bred are not suitable for that purpose, they will be sold off. What we gain from the gift is having as a going concern two estates which are eminently suitable for the purpose which the War Office will require, and the nucleus of a stud which can be built up to the sort of stud they require for the purpose of producing Cavalry horses. They have decided that it is absolutely necessary, in the interests of the
    1106
    Army, that we shall start, as every other Continental country has to do, a system of breeding the horses we require, and the gift of the hon. and gallant Member will take us a long way on that path, and make things very much easier than they would otherwise be. Of course, this whole business can be objected to by persons who dislike the Government having any connection, direct or indirect, with racing. I do not know the view of the hon. Members here present, but, personally, I regard racing as a very low form of sport. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, Oh!"] I think I can justify that statement. Sport ought to combine physical skill with some element both of danger and uncertainty, and with regard to horse racing the physical skill and the danger are exercised purely vicariously, which I do not think is made up for by the uncertainty, which exists in it to a very plentiful amount. In regard to persons who value racing simply from the point of view of betting, I submit that this is not to regard it as as a sport at all, but something which is entirely useless to the country, if looked at from that point of view.
    If you are to have Government studs of horses that must be trained and tried as race horses are—although a great many race horses are of no good from the Government point of view—namely, to breed Cavalry horses, yet a stallion, in order to be proved and tested as the right type to be sire to Cavalry horses, ought to have had a racing career, and its stamina thoroughly tested in that way. Really, if you are to have the best stallion for the purpose of breeding these Army horses, we must, by leasing them for use at race meetings or in some other way, connect ourselves with racing. There is another objection which comes to my mind—and I see a certain number of Irish Members in the House—that the maintenance by the Government of a breeding establishment in Ireland might be suspected as showing an intention in some way to interfere with the scheme of development of horse breeding in Ireland already established. That is not so. It is practically an accident that the breeding establishment is in Ireland, and it is there, no doubt, because in Ireland there is the best grazing land for the purpose. So I have always understood, and I think nobody will contradict that. There is no intention that this Government establishment for breeding horses for Army purposes shall in any way supersede

    1107
    the existing scheme. There will be co-ordination between the different Departments responsible, and, whatever may be intended from another point of view, there will be no chance, from our point of view, of interference with the breeding of valuable horses in Ireland. The Irish scheme will no doubt be run on its own, and there is no intention, I say, to interfere with that scheme. I have tried to give as many facts as I could in a short time, and I hope to be able to answer any questions any Member may like to raise.
    Mr. McNEILL: I think the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down would have done very well if he had deputed the task which he has just discharged to the right hon. Gentleman beside him, for I think the Chief Secretary would have been very much better qualified to have introduced this Vote to the House. He certainly could not have known less about the subject than the hon. Member, and certainly might have made it more amusing. We have had to listen to a very moral and extremely solemn homily by the hon. Member. We have always been accustomed to look upon him as a great authority on many subjects, but we now learn that he is an authority on what is and what is not sport, and, on account of his dogmatic expression of opinion, he will be recognised in the House and the country at least as a competitor of Lord Lonsdale with the stallion whose name has been referred to. One thing in the hon. Gentleman's speech filled me with a good deal of surprise. In the transaction which the hon. Gentleman has stated to the House I think the Government have made a very good bargain, and done very wise and useful service to the country. Considering the nature of the transaction and listening as closely as I could to the hon. Member, I was unable to detect the slightest trace of appreciation on his part of the benefit conferred upon the nation by my hon. and gallant Friend, who has transferred to the Government this property.
    Mr. ACLAND: If I left out any mention of that it is absolutely an unpardonable omission, and I take this opportunity to say, if I have not already said so, that I think the House and the country owe a very great debt of gratitude to the hon. and gallant Gentleman. I had it on my notes to make that reference to the hon. and gallant Gentleman's gift to the coun-
    1108
    try, and if I did omit all mention of it in my speech, I certainly apologise most humbly for having done so.
    Mr. McNEILL: I entirely accept the handsome amend which the hon. Member has made. [HON. MEMRERS: "It is not an amend!"] I think it was a very serious omission, and I am glad to have given him the opportunity to supply that omission. I would like, if I may, to emphasise—the hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong—the nature of the benefits which have been provided by my hon. and gallant Friend, and which were not gathered from the hon. Gentleman's speech. He told us, to begin with, that the landed property which had been purchased by the Government was valued by my hon. and gallant Friend at £75,000, but my hon. and gallant Friend showed his public spirit, in a not too usual fashion, by saying that if he had in any way overestimated the value of his own property he was quite ready to let the Government have an independent valuation. That valuation was taken, and it was put at £65,000, about £10,000 lower than the property had been valued at by its owner. These questions of valuation come up in all sorts of connections, and there is far too general an opinion that when you get some impartial and disinterested person to put a value on land, then, lo and behold, that is its value; but, of course, as a mere matter of valuing, there is no reason to suppose that in this particular case the valuation put upon the land by the gentleman employed by the Government was—where there are local considerations—in any way more correct than that of the owner. I only mention that to show in how very generous a spirit my hon. and gallant Friend acted, because he immediately accepted the lower valuation and he allowed the land to go for that lower sum, although the Government told us to-day that the owner of the property, who valued it at £75,000, had himself spent on improvements a sum exceeding, £100,000. My hon. and gallant Friend has transferred to the Government valuable horses and other stock valued at over £70,000, so that the total value of the property he transferred to the nation comes to close upon £140,000, out of which he only gets, by the way of purchase money, the sum of £67,000.
    Under these circumstances I do not think the acknowledgment which the hon. Member addressed to us was at all over-estimated or overdrawn, and was not more

    1109
    than adequate. I do hope that the House and the country will recognise the value of this transaction from the public point of view, and will appreciate the extremely and unusually generous treatment which the country has received at the hands of the late owner of the property. There is one point in connection with the proposed treatment of this property by the Government which I was not quite able to follow. The hon. Gentleman said, I think, that the stud at Tully was to be used by the Government for breeding thoroughbred stock. I did not quite gather from him whether that stud farm is to be permanently employed for that purpose or, at all events, as long as it is worked by the Government for breeding thoroughbred stock. If so, I do not know how the business is going to be managed in the future. The proposal is that the thoroughbred stock is to be bred at Tully, and that the stud there is to be leased to sportsmen. I do not suppose they will be debarred from racing in order to manage these horses. What is going to happen to the thoroughbred colts and fillies in order to make them qualified for their business in producing Army horses. I did not quite follow what the hon. Gentleman said. I hope some Member of the Government will tell us what the procedure is going to be. I am not sure that there is any one, unless it be the Chief Secretary, who can do so. Probably the Chief Secretary and my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board are the only two sportsmen in the Government. The President of the Local Government Board will be able to supervise the Wiltshire part of the property, and the Chief Secretary no doubt will look after Tully; but he may not be in Ireland in perpetuity, and I want to know what is to happen when the right hon. Gentleman leaves Ireland?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): Captain Greer will remain on.
    Mr. McNEILL: There is another proposition to which I wish to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman. He has told us that Tully will be the breeding place for thoroughbred stock, and he has explained to us, with what appeared to me a good deal of obscurity, that certain sires which he mentioned were not suitable for producing Army horses. Probably—I do not know, of course—the hon. Gentleman may have got information
    1110
    from some expert on the subject, but I am inclined to think that in that part of his speech he has got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I think probably he has not been well informed about that. What I want to know is how this racing is to be carried on? The Government are now entering upon the production of thoroughbred stock, and they have a rearing farm and a racing establishment. For the present they are going to lease horses in training to very well-known sportsmen, who will race them in their own colours, and therefore qualify them for their use in the stud. Is that to be a permanent arrangement? There is some sort of partnership between the Government and Lord Lonsdale. The Exchequer apparently is to benefit to the extent of one-half of the winnings. I do not know whether that is confined to the actual prize money that is won or extends to the bets that may be made on the races. Is the right hon. Gentleman who introduced this Vote going to be the Minister responsible in Parliament for questions with regard to these establishments?
    Mr. ACLAND: Perhaps the Committee will permit me to make that clear. The arrangement was that the estates should be looked after by the President of the Board of Agriculture during the continuance of the War, but they are vested in the War Office, and immediately after the War is over they will be War Office establishments pure and simple.
    Mr. McNEILL: During the War there is practically no racing, but after the War is over, if the Ministry remains as it is at present, the right hon. Gentleman who will be responsible for answering questions on this subject will be the Under-Secretary of State for War. I suppose it is to him, when these Government horses are in training and are entered for the Derby and Oaks, and Gold Cup, and Cesarewitch, and Cambridgeshire that we shall have to ask questions as to the prospects of those horses winning those races? Until the War is over, fortunately, there is not a great deal of racing, because we should have to get our tips from the right hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board, and the right hon. Gentleman, with that modesty which always distinguishes him, has intimated to us that he would not be able to give us very valuable information on this point. It is a matter of some concern not merely that we should have answers as to the

    1111
    particular questions to which I have alluded, but as to the management of the two branches of these estates, part of the property of the country, and that from time to time we should know how they are going on. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman who is at present responsible, or the Chief Secretary, will give us a little further information as to how those two branches are to be worked—one as an auxiliary to the other, and both of them for the advantage of the country, which owes so much to the generosity and public spirit of my hon. and gallant Friend Colonel Hall Walker.
    Mr. JOHN O'CONNOR: I have listened with very great interest to the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture. I desire to associate myself with the last speaker in his words of appreciation of the gift that has been made to the country by Colonel Hall Walker. I can assure him that it is appreciated in the county of Kildare in which the Tully Farm is situated. We all, in that county value the splendid animals that have been transferred by this generous gentleman to the nation. I have seen them, and I have been delighted with their appearance. I know their story, and I can assure the House that it is a very brilliant story indeed. Not only that, but the place itself is beautiful, and it is beautifully situated in the beautiful county that I have the honour to represent in this House. I can assure the Parliamentary Secretary that it is no matter of accident whatever that this county and farm was selected by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. He selected it wilfully and deliberately, because he could get no better in any part of the three Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. It is well known, not only in Ireland that this particular county is the home of what may be said to be a national industry. The people of that county are all true sportsmen and sportswomen, and it would ill become a Member for Kildare to offer any apology for being a sportsman himself. I trust, in future, when the Government go into this business, because we regard it as a business in Ireland, that they will reward their supporters by giving them the straight tip. This is a very important affair. Hon Members from other parts of the three Kingdoms may consider that the question is a small one, involving only an expenditure of £50,000, so far as regards Ireland. But in Ireland it is a most important matter, because there the
    1112
    raising and production of racehorses as well as others is a national industry. If there is any doubt about that in the mind of any person, let me invite him over to the Dublin Horse Show, and there he will meet visitors from all parts of the world who are interested in horse breeding. Go to any fair, or any race meeting, or any market in Ireland where horses are bought and sold, and there you will find the representatives of every Government in Europe purchasing horses—unparalleled horses, not only for Cavalry but for hunting. It is well known, without the Tully Farm at all, that Ireland is famous for its hunters as well as for its Cavalry horses. You might also find in those places to which I have referred the representatives of almost every crowned head of Europe buying suitable horses.
    I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the information he has vouchsafed to us, but I have a few questions still to ask him. There is, according to his speech, a new policy with regard to horse breeding. What, may I ask, are the reasons for this new policy? There is already in Ireland a policy with regard to this particular subject which may be said to be a national policy. It is presided over by a Government Department—that is, the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in Ireland. Grants are made by that Department for the purpose of maintaining sires in every county in Ireland. The county councils consider the subject from time to time and make local grants for similar purposes. The proceedings with regard to this national industry are presided over in every county by local county committees, and the Grants are made by the Department under the supervision of the elected agricultural council of Ireland. With regard to this national policy, is hunting to be maintained? With regard to this question of horse breeding in Ireland, have we not seen already that you have abandoned competition with regard to the production and purchase of aeroplanes? Have you not had two Departments, the Army and the Navy competing in this regard? Has it not been found mischievous and harmful for the best interests of the country and of the War? Will you still, with this example before your eyes set up in this country, and in Ireland, which is a country of importance with regard to the production of horses, two authorities also? I say that if you do you will find it to be mischievous and harmful in a great degree. Before this

    1113
    is done, have you consulted anybody in Ireland about it? Have you consulted the heads of the Agricultural Department of Ireland, who preside over this national institution which I have described to the House? I do not see the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture in his place, and I am sorry to find that the Chief Secretary has deserted the House the moment the voice of Ireland is raised in this respect. That is not, indeed, generally the case with regard to Irish subjects, for his attention to which we are all very grateful indeed.
    6.0 P.M.
    I am told on the best authority that no such consultation has taken place, and I assert, and I do it upon the very best information, that this policy that is about to be introduced will have disastrous results. There are men in Ireland, like the Earl of Dunraven, and many others I could name, who have devoted their best attention to this subject, as Lord Lonsdale has in this country, and as has the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Chaplin), who if he were in his place to-day would support the suggestions I am about to make, because I am not going to oppose the Vote. I suggest that there ought to be co-ordination between the authority that is about to be set up and the authority that already exists, and to which the nation is much indebted for the production of horses that are maintaining the credit and character of the country in the hunting fields and on the battlefields of Europe. If the right hon. Gentleman were in his place he would, I am sure, support the suggestion that I am making that nothing ought to be done that would interfere or diminish the interests of those who have done so much in the past in this matter, namely, the private owners. There is one private owner at least in the House at the present moment listening to me, and I trust he will support what I am suggesting. I wish the House to understand that the national institution to which I have referred, and which has been in existence for the past fifteen or sixteen years in Ireland, in the Agricultural Department, apart from private owners, has done so much, and has been so regarded as a useful system, and the best system, that it is about to be introduced into this country also. I am told that in the case of these horses and the others on Tully Farm that will take their place, though I hope that will be long, as I wish the horses that are there now a long life and a happy one, that their services are to be given at cheap
    1114
    rates. The right hon. Gentleman has not told us anything about that. I would ask him to consult Captain Greer, whom I know well. I have good reason to know him, as he declared me returned to this House some two or three times as Sheriff of the County, and I am very grateful to him for it. He will have in his possession White Eagle, Royal Realm, and Great Sport, and those horses go to the stud after all because of their victories and with all the glory of their achievements upon their heads. They will be put into competition at cheaper rates with the private owners in Ireland who have maintained the credit and the character of the nation for the animals they have produced. They have produced platers, hunters, horses for Cavalry, and even farmers' horses, and occasionally you might find a thoroughbred between the shafts of a Dublin jaunting car. I want to know whether or not the Grant of the Agricultural Department in Ireland is going to be diminished. I want to know whether or not the policy they have established and followed with so much advantage is to be interfered with. Above all, I want to know whether these horses at the Tully Farm, or their successors, are to be confined exclusively to thoroughbred purposes, and whether the policy that has been productive of so much good in Ireland is to be departed from. From the moment this proposition was made we took the greatest possible note of it in Ireland. We are grateful to the man who made the gift. He was popular in Ireland, especially in county Kildare. He made the part over which he presided, beautiful as it was, still more beautiful by his generosity and good taste. Therefore I do not wish to oppose the gift. But what we are all concerned with is that the gift shall be well used for the best interests of the country, and that it shall not be mismanaged as many other Government Departments, I fear, have been occasionally. We hope that the natural fears of the people of Ireland will, by the good management of this estate, be proved to be without foundation. I trust the hon. Gentleman will be able to satisfy me on the points I have indicated.
    Sir F. CAWLEY: I quite understand the hon. Gentleman opposite being in favour of the expenditure of public money in his own constituency. We are all in favour of such expenditure. But even he is not altogether satisfied, because he

    1115
    sees before him a certain amount of Government competition, and that some of his constituents may suffer as much as they will gain by the transaction. The Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs said that he was against any experiments that would cost money being made during the War. What is the Vote that we are asked to pass? The scheme is to spend £67,000 of capital with a probably annual expenditure of £4,000, and possibly more. That is what we are asked to pass in a time of war. It is difficult to understand the position of the Government. The Government, in a time of war, are inaugurating a new scheme and embarking upon a considerable experiment that will cost the nation a large amount of money. When we ask on what authority they are doing it the only reply we get is that the Army Council say that they ought to have more horses. There is no recommendation from any Committee. In fact, the Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture a year after the War commenced does not mention one word about a scheme of this sort. On the contrary, it insists on continuity of policy. Paragraph 19 of the Report says:
    "Continuity of policy is absolutely essential to the success of any horse-breeding scheme, and radical alteration of policy should be as far as possible avoided, unless and until it has proved ineffective to secure the object in view."
    This scheme is absolutely contrary to continuity of policy. What was the policy before? It was the registration of stallions, the award of premiums to stallions, and the leasing of Government brood mares to breeders. That scheme seems to have been fairly successful, because, whilst in 1911 there were only 311 registered stallions, in 1914 there were 1,471 travelling the country. The Committee made several other recommendations, but they did not make any recommendation of this sort.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: Because the gift had not been made.
    Sir F. CAWLEY: But they could have asked the Government for a gift of this sort. They went on to recommend certain other things, and said that possibly it might be well for as much as £100,000 to be spent. What they based their policy of spending more money upon was this very cry from the Army Council. I should like to call the attention of the Committee particularly to this point. In paragraph 12 the Army Council say that it is of the
    1116
    utmost importance that steps should at once be taken to arrest the deterioration of the light draught-horse stock in this country. As a matter of fact, I under stand that there have been plenty of other horses, and that the real shortage in the War has been in light draught horses. If anybody thinks they can get light draught horses from thoroughbreds they are making a great mistake. The Army Council went on to say in paragraph 64—
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: All this was before the gift.
    Sir F. CAWLEY: We know that; but this Committee was formed after the War had been going on for twelve months, and these are their recommendations. My point is that the Government had no recommendation from any Committee or from anybody to commence a horse-breeding stud of their own.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: Because they had not got it.
    Sir F. CAWLEY: With regard to these draught horses, the Report says:
    "It may be impossible to find enough sires of the requisite stamp, and in that case it may be necessary for special efforts to be made by the Board to breed this particular type of horse—"
    not to breed racehorses, but the type of horse wanted—not Derby winners or horses which carry about 10 stone weight. Troop horses have to carry 15 or 16 stone weight. What use are thoroughbred horses for a job of that sort? Still less are they of use either as sires or in themselves as Artillery horses. The Report goes on to say that a small class of horse, such as used to be in the London 'buses, are the horses that are very much wanted. Instead of saying anything about thoroughbred horses they speak about pony-bred horses, and they say that they wish to express their entire agreement with the opinion of the Committee appointed in 1912, that
    "ponies bred in the open are the natural reservoirs from which all our national breeds of light horses derive and reinvigorate many of their characteristics of temperament, courage, intelligence and resource."
    You will not get these horses from thoroughbred sires.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: How are French horses bred?
    Sir F. CAWLEY: Some from one sort, some from another.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: Always from thoroughbred sires.
    Sir F. CAWLEY: I am not talking about French horses. I know something about the breeding of draught horses, and I know that you will not get horses to draw guns from thoroughbred horses, and that is the kind of horse that is wanted. The Report goes on to say:
    "It is well known that the breeding of light horses has been on the decline for many years past. The increase of mechanical traction may be held to be responsible for this to some extent: but there are other contributory causes, and by no means the least of them is the fact that farmers have not found the industry a paying one."
    The Report of the Board of Agriculture for last year says that it is because farmers cannot get proper prices for their horses that the horses are not bred. That is the crux of the whole question. The real reason why these horses are not bred is that the Government do not give enough for them. If, instead of spending £67,000 in establishing a stud and £4,000 a year in keeping it up, they gave better prices to the farmers, they would get the horses they want. There is no doubt that there has been a scarcity of these light-bred horses. But there is one class of horse of which there is no scarcity, and that is the thoroughbred horse. I have no hesitation in saying there were more thoroughbred horses bred in 1913 and in the two or three previous years than ever before known in this country. Yet the Government are going in for the breeding of a class of horse of which already there is a plethora. At Tattersall's four days' Doncaster sales, at which nearly 500 horses are sold, there was a great demand for space; and Tattersall's can get a very great many more entries than they can take. No wonder thoroughbred horses are being bred. It may be accounted some sort of a gamble, but it is an industry where the prizes are numerous. Hon. Members may not know that some racehorses in their career earn in stakes alone, from £5,000 to £50,000. In fact, I believe one horse earned £58,000 in stakes alone. When there are so many prizes of that sort no wonder people breed thoroughbred horses. Besides, afterwards these horses go to the stud and very often earn in service fees anything from fifty to 300 guineas per mare. They make thousands a year for their owners. There is a great demand for them for breeding, not for Army purposes, as many people suppose, but for racing stud purposes—though it may be for Army purposes to a certain extent.
    What have the Government done? Instead of breeding horses that are needed, they are going in for breeding
    1118
    horses of a kind of which there are already too many. This kind of horse ought to be bred privately, but because the prizes are so great they are a kind of horse which the Government is going to breed. They are not going to try and breed the kind of horses really needed—not so far as I understand. Russley Park and Tully are not to be used to breed Army horses and mares. They are to be used to breed racehorses. I must congratulate the Government upon commencing their racing career in the time of war. The right hon. Gentleman, who spoke euphemistically, said that the Government, or at least Lord Lonsdale, was going to take half of the prizes gained. An ordinary person does not call them prizes. They are stakes. The Government are partners in a racing establishment. Let there be no mistake about that. So long as the Government take half of the stakes won—
    An HON. MEMBER: Are we going to bet?
    Sir F. CAWLEY: I do not know. I do not think the Government will bet as a Government. Individual Members may or may not; I cannot say.
    Mr. PRINGLE: It could be done in Exchequer Bonds!
    Sir F. CAWLEY: I do not think that I am saying anything derogatory of them in saying they are going to start racing, but on the grounds of economy I object entirely to this transaction. It is a transaction which has been entered into without any warrant whatever. As far as I can see the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Chaplin) has simply bounced the Government into it. I can see no other reason. The right hon. Gentleman has always been in favour of this matter; and even the recommendation from the War Office that Lord Kitchener sent is almost in the language of the right hon. Gentleman. I cannot help thinking that some of these recommendations are really almost inspired by the right hon. Gentleman. The War Office will not content themselves by just saying they want horses, but they say how many horses are to be got. I really do not know whether Lord Kitchener is any greater authority on horse breeding than any Member of this House. Yet he writes to the Committee, or the Board, giving particulars of the kind of horses he wants, and the way they ought to be obtained. It is very peculiar that his view exactly coincides

    1119
    with that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon! The Government have gone into this great experiment at a time when all of us think the utmost economy ought to be practised. I cannot think how members of the Government can go anywhere and preach economy and yet be parties to taking over this stud which will cost £67,000, and which cannot by any stretch of imagination be of any use for the War. As I have shown, the experiment is a very questionable one in time of peace. In time of war, when we need every halfpenny we can get, it is not fair to the nation to try such an experiment. So far as I am concerned, if a reduction of the Vote is moved, I shall vote in favour of it.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: Anyone who knows about this transaction ought not to remain silent for a moment after the speech to which we have just listened. It is not the fact that the Government and the House of Commons are being asked to pay £67,000 for this stud.
    Sir F. CAWLEYwas understood to dissent.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: Those were your words as you sat down.
    Sir F. CAWLEY: I am very sorry if I gave that impression. I do not want for a moment to reflect on the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has given the horses. He has given them in all good faith, but they entail expenditure on the Government.
    Mr. RUTHERFORD: I am just going to show that that is not the case. It is not fair to put in that shape at all, because we are not here to discuss points of detail of this exceedingly valuable stud and these two properties. What we are here discussing is whether we shall approve of the Government buying Russley Park and Tully, and incidentally to accept the magnificent gift of Colonel Hall Walker. That gentleman represented the Widnes Division of Lancashire, and he has offered a free gift to the nation of his extremely valuable stud of thoroughbred horses and mares; in addition to these horses and mares, which stood in his books at over £100,000, he has also presented all his cattle on both these estates, together with all the utensils, fixtures, fittings of different kinds, and all fodder and stock of every kind and description sufficient to go on with for months, without it costing the Board of Agriculture or anybody else
    1120
    a single penny to take over those two splendid places as going concerns. That is the gift which Colonel Hall Walker has made to the nation. The hon. Gentleman who spoke for the Government has told us that Mr. Trustran Eve in his valuation pointed out that upon those properties alone, accounts which were shown to him, showed that Colonel Hall Walker had spent over £102,000. I have no hesitation in saying that this is one of the most opportune and splendid gifts which we have ever had. It is perfectly futile for the right hon. Baronet who has just sat down to say to us: "You cannot do this or the other with this stud of thoroughbred horses." Everybody knows that if the nation, and particularly the War Office, has eventually to be provided with suitable horses, that for the getting of those horses nothing could help as a start and nucleus better than a thoroughbred stud like this. There are eighty horses and mares. Some of them have got worldwide reputations. These will be reputations, from an equine point of view, for many centuries. It is a magnificent gift, and I think we ought to be all very grateful to Colonel Hall Walker for it. When he decided to make the gift the only stipulation Colonel Hall Walker made was: "You ought, I think, to take over the two properties that have been made so valuable and so excellent in every respect by the way they are fitted up. I have spent over £100,000 upon them, but to-day in the depressed state of the landed market I value them at £75,000: I do not ask you to pay that sum, send your own independent valuer, and whatever sum he-fixes I am willing to accept." I cannot imagine a more handsome and spirited way of making this gift than that adopted by Colonel Hall Walker. In order to carry out the gift Colonel Hall Walker has been obliged, temporarily I hope, to resign his seat at Widnes. His constituents are very anxious to re-elect him, and he, I think, is willing to come back. All that he is waiting for is the passing of this Vote to carry out the purchase of the two properties. I hope that we shall meet this gift in the spirit in which it is made, and reserve any criticism of the method of carrying out and administering the gift until it can be organised. I hope we shall proceed to pass this Vote, and so avoid difficulty and delay.
    Sir T. ESMONDE: I do not desire to criticise the offer of this very fine stud; on

    1121
    the contrary, I should like to join with other Members in expressing my appreciation of the gift which has been made to the nation, and my realisation at the present time of its very great value. For many years, although I have not taken part in the Debates on agricultural matters, I have urged that we should have a Government horse-breeding establishment in this country, and in Ireland, the same as there are abroad. It has always seemed to me a most extraordinary thing that in these Islands, where we have always prided ourselves upon the excellence of our horseflesh, that no Government has ever taken the trouble to follow the obvious example set by foreign Governments, and to take the matter of horse breeding into their own hands. As regards this particular stud in Ireland, the step is one in the right direction. It is a most excellent step, and I hope it will be carried further. I do not know whether our Government will ever find money enough to start horse-breeding establishments on its own, but certainly if it does I shall be very glad indeed to see other owners of horses actuated by the same liberal spirit as has actuated Colonel Hall Walker and place their horse-breeding establishments at the service of the nation.
    The right hon. Baronet opposite spoke about breeding thoroughbreds. Of course you cannot please everybody, and I am very much reminded of a horse-breeding commission, of which I was a member, which sat in Ireland for a very long time, and went all over the country and examined all sorts of witnesses, and in the end came to conclusions. Everybody produced a report of his own, so that it is not possible to agree on the question of horse breeding as to which is the best type of horse suited for any particular situation. But I would leave that to the breeders of horses themselves. They are perfectly competent to know what is the best breed, and, with their experience, they ought to know what is the best way to produce the best results. But I would say this: if the Government want a particular kind of horse they can very easily get it by giving a price which would pay to breed that particular kind of horse. Of course in Ireland they can produce a heavy horse if it pays them. If the Government wants in Ireland, Scotland, or England horses for the Cavalry or the Army Service Corps they ought to offer prices which will pay farmers to breed such horses. That will bring them out of
    1122
    the difficulty so long as the Government has not sufficient courage to start horse-breeding establishments of its own. However, I think this Government is becoming a little more courageous. I wish the Government success in their endeavours in horse-racing. I hope they will be very successful, and particularly so as this particular stud has the advantage of being carried on in the county of Kildare, where what they do not know about horses no one can tell them. I would like to see other studs formed by the Government, and, quite apart from the differences of opinion about the various breeds of horses, I think the Government might, now that they have plucked up courage enough to start horse-racing, go a little bit further and give serious attention to this question of horse breeding in these Islands, which has been grossly neglected by Governments in the past.
    Mr. ROCH: I think everyone recognises, as has been said by every speaker, the generosity of the gift of Colonel Hall Walker, and I am sure nobody in criticising this transaction wishes to cast any reflection on that gift or to say anything than that it was a generous gift in every shape and form. But when you have said that, I think you have said everything that can be said about what is a most ridiculous scheme. Let us look at the circumstances under which we are living. In the ordinary time of peace I think this would have been an excellent thing to take advantage of, but, whatever you may say, no benefit will be derived from it for five, six, or seven years. Let us look at the transaction as it is presented by the right hon. Gentleman. There is an expenditure of close upon £70,000, and the upkeep to maintain this stud is going to be £4,000 a year during the War. The net result of that is that the Government is to take part in what the right hon. Gentleman described as a low form of sport. [An HON. MEMBER: "Ask him to withdraw!"] That is the result as presented—an expenditure of £70,000 and of £4,000 a year to take part in a low form of sport.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman said that as representing the Government?
    Mr. ACLAND: I may have said it was a rather low form of sport or not a high form of sport. I said that as a purely personal opinion. I do not think, compared with hunting or big-game shooting, racing is a high form of sport.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: I say it is rather an odd form of remark for a member of the Government to make.
    Mr. ROCH: Of course it is a serious rebuff, coming from that quarter, to what many of us regard as an excellent form of sport. But let us look at this transaction again on its merits. The right hon. Gentleman said that this stud was going to be transformed into a stud for breeding Cavalry horses. I cannot imagine, in taking advantage of that gift, a more ludicrous proposal than that. The sole value of this stud is that it contains some of the best horses in the world for racing purposes which are not of the smallest value for breeding Cavalry horses at all.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: Oh!
    Mr. ROCH: Really, I have bought horses and bred horses.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: So have I.
    Mr. ROCH: And the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows as well as I do that for breeding Cavalry horses, with the quality of this kind of stud, you would never venture to use them for breeding half-bred horses.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: The French invariably do.
    Mr. ROCH: Well, it is news to me, and if the hon. and gallant Gentleman were to advocate that the very best horses—
    Mr. J. O'CONNOR: With all respect to the hon. Gentleman's statement, allow me to say it is our opinion in Ireland, especially Kildare, that the thoroughbred is the foundation of this horse.
    Mr. ROCH: My hon. Friend really misunderstands me. I do not say the thoroughbred is not a suitable horse, but that no one outside Bedlam would dream of crossing sires of the high class of this stud with a half-bred horse. I do not think anyone has ever heard about it. All the criticism that I wish to make of this thing is that, while it may be a very valuable thing for the country in ordinary times to keep this high-class stud as a high-class stud, to transform it then, as the right hon. Gentleman said, into a stud for breeding Cavalry horses would really be a ludicrous proposal. That really is the transaction as I think it appears. It has no immediate need at all; it fulfils no immediate purpose. When you have said
    1124
    that, I think you have dealt with the matter frankly and honestly. As I said, in ordinary times of peace, to preserve this stud would be a luxury to the country, and it would be a luxury which in normal times nobody would say a word against; but this is a time when the right hon. Gentleman, I think in company with Cabinet Ministers, is going this week to the Guildhall, when this very day, while we are speaking, four Cabinet Ministers are going to get up and preach economy; yet here in the House of Commons, from the Front Bench, is being advocated an expenditure of £70,000 and of £4,000 a year which, on the showing of the Government spokesman, is during three or four years only going to be devoted to taking part in a low form of sport.
    Mr. BURDETT-COUTTS: I must apologise to the House and particularly to the right hon. Gentleman who has moved this Vote for speaking on this subject, because I am under the disadvantage of not having heard his speech; but there are one or two main points in this matter which I think stand out. First, may I say I join fully in the tributes that have been paid to Colonel Hall Walker for the obvious motives of generosity and patriotism which have led him to' make this gift to the nation? But the two points that seem to me to stand out most prominently are these: first, that this is a radical alteration in the policy of England in this matter. The hon. Baronet (Sir T. Esmonde) who spoke from these benches seemed to forget that this country attained the highest position in the world for all kinds of horses entirely on the strength and by the practice of private enterprise. I speak as a very large breeder of horses for thirty years. And may I say, in parenthesis, that, although my interest has been mainly in the breeding of what are called light-draught horses, perhaps the highest class of them, I have the highest possible admiration for the thoroughbred; I had a thoroughbred stud for some years, and I have constantly used the thoroughbred and am able to appreciate the value of his blood in crossing with other breeds, and in producing various kinds of horses. I have had under my observation, and I have been engaged in some of the discussions with regard to State-aided horse breeding in this country, and I confess, on the whole, having seen the extraordinary results that have been produced whereby England has supplied the whole world with the finest breeding stock of horses, I have been

    1125
    rather against State-aid in horse breeding; but I do recognise that now we have come to a very different state of things. The introduction of motors has undoubtedly greatly discouraged and greatly diminished the breeding of horses in England, and it is a question for consideration whether we ought not to adopt some, what I call, artificial means for keeping up what is a very necessary industry in the country—and I call them artificial means because they are means which have never yet been attempted in this country—and it is a great question whether, in view of the difficulties of breeding horses at a profit all over the country, we ought not to make some change in this respect and go in for a system of State-aid for horse breeding. Of course, the question whether we ought to make that experiment at the present moment is one for the consideration of the country.
    Sir F. CAWLEY: Might I remind the hon. Member that the Committee that has sat since the War commenced did not advise that?
    Mr. BURDETT-COUTTS: I quite admit that, but am not sure that I agree with it. The times have Changed, and many of the objections which I formerly held to State-aid have been removed by circumstances to which I have alluded. All the same, I do not think we ought to disguise from ourselves the fact that it is a radical change of policy.
    My second point is that if we started upon the basis of horses of the character that are included in this generous gift, it is a far more elaborate experiment than if State-aid were started upon a lower and more practical basis. For instance, this class of horse which Colonel Hall Walker has presented may be very useful to horse breeders in Ireland, but it is quite clear that you cannot produce from those horses directly horses that will add to the general supply of useful horses in the country, and if you are going in for an enterprise of that sort, you will have to breed the required horses gradually, and it would take you many years to produce a fixed type of light draught horses or Artillery horses. Take the ordinary Derby winner. In the first place it is false economy to use a, horse for breeding purposes whose service in the market stands at 100 or 150 guineas or more with a half-bred mare that can be served by a stallion with greater likelihood of producing good useful stock for 30s. or two guineas. I do not join in
    1126
    all this chaff about the Government going in for racing. I never heard that brought as anything like a libel against great Continental Governments which encourage the horse-breeding industry, and also go in for racing. I say that, apart from going in for racing, you must start a process of breeding the right sort of sire which you want.
    I can assure hon. Members that it takes a long time before you can make sure of arriving at a type of horse that will be useful for these practical purposes. It may take three or four or even more crosses before you get the horse you require which, from his conformation, bone, and quality all combined, you think is the right class to breed good light draught horses. You not only have to breed the horse, but you have to find out that he does produce good light draught horses. It is a long process. This is no doubt a most generous and patriotic gift, but what I want the House to understand is that it will be of very little use to the Government or to the State unless the whole experiment is handled on a large scale, and unless the Government is prepared to spend something like the amount of money which Continental Governments spend in their great systems of encouraging horse breeding. If the Government are not prepared to do that, I say that while fully appreciating this exceptional and remarkable gift, it would be far better to spend this £70,000, and this £4,000 a year, in purchasing thoroughbred stallions which do exist, and which, in the opinion of good judges, are known to be useful sires for half-bred horses. You want some system which will make certain that they are absolutely sound. That is one of the great difficulties. I will go further and say that you should not confine yourselves to producing sires which by their looks commend themselves to judges of hunters and thoroughbreds when seen trotting round the ring, but absolutely to sires which have proved themselves able to get the class of horse that the State requires for practical purposes.
    Mr. ROBINSON: I think we are all agreed that the speech which we have just listened to is one of great value, and if the Government had consulted the hon. Member for Westminster before deciding to take this step they might have adopted a different course. I do not dispute that this is a most generous gift, but it must

    1127
    not be overlooked that after the War began racing largely ceased, and the value of that stud decreased by at least one-half from the very fact that the same prices were not to be obtained by those horses during the War. [An HON. MEMBER: "Speak up!"] We have to consider the amount of expenditure we are likely to be drawn into in regard to this proposal. The speech we have just listened to shows very clearly that £4,000 a year is nothing like the figure that will be required, and it is a comparatively small amount compared with the sum that we shall be asked to vote in future years. It may have to be increased from £4,000 to £15,000, or even £20,000, and consequently I think that now is the time to make our protest against this expenditure. I do not think we should launch into an expenditure of this kind at a time like the present. If this scheme was going to help us to end the War, of course we should all say nothing about this expenditure, but it is not. I suppose the men employed in this stud will be exempted from service. If, instead of adopting this proposal, the Government had stopped hunting and racing and the raising of game in the country for the time being, they would have been doing a good deal more good. At a time when there is almost a famine in petrol a good deal of petrol is being used conveying bookmakers and others to race meetings. I regret that the Government are not using this money for something really valuable in the direction of true economy, and I am sorry they have not taken up another line.
    Mr. BUTCHER: I desire to congratulate the Government most cordially upon having availed themselves of the splendid generosity of the hon. and gallant Member for Widnes, and upon having made a most admirable bargain for the nation. By this gift and the opportunity which the hon. and gallant Member has given the Government we get not merely as a free gift this exceedingly valuable blood stock, but we acquire perhaps the best land in the world, and one of the best equipped establishments for breeding purposes that exists in the United Kingdom. Whether or not we go on in the same way as the hon. Member for Widnes did, breeding a very high-class blood stock, we have got this establishment in County Kildare, which is the best spot in the world for breeding horses for Army pur-
    1128
    poses. The hon. Baronet the Member for Prestwich suggested that blood stock was of little value in breeding Cavalry horses, but I think that is an entire misapprehension, and in this, I think, the hon. Member for Westminster, who has had much practical experience in horse breeding, will agree with me.
    Sir F. CAWLEY: I did not mean to make any suggestion of that sort. My point was that thoroughbreds were no good for producing the light draught horses which we want.
    7.0 P.M.
    Mr. BUTCHER: If you want to breed a heavy Artillery horse I know that you do not require a thoroughbred sire, but we want to produce Cavalry horses. During the early part of this War people were going all over the country buying up Cavalry horses at enormous prices, and where did they go? They went into the localities where there arc hunting stables, and masters of hounds and owners of horses most generously gave to the Army their best horses which were invaluable for Army purposes. But the Government could not get enough by private munificence, and they had to buy horses of the hunter type at enormous prices for Cavalry purposes. How were those hunters bred? They were bred, as all good hunters are bred, from high-class bloodstock sires mated with half-bred mares. I ask any man who has ever ridden in a point-to-point race or a good run with the hounds, has he not realised the value of having a strain of blood in his horse when he is getting to the end of a long hunt or race? It is exactly the same with the Army. If you want a good horse for Cavalry purposes in the Army you must have the blood strain in it, and the only way you can get that is by getting thoroughbred sires. How do you get these thoroughbred sires? The only way you can obtain thoroughbred sires for the country is by racing. That is the only stock on which you have to draw for thoroughbred sires, and just as you have to look to the thoroughbred sire for a good hunter so you have to look to the thoroughbred sire for a good Cavalry horse. The hon. Gentleman sitting opposite to me said, and I have no doubt said with absolute truth, that you would not use a Derby winner in the Army Service Corps.
    Mr. W. ROCHmade an observation which was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.
    Mr. BUTCHER: There I take issue with my hon. Friend. I did not say that you would use a Derby sire for the purpose of breeding either a hunter or a Cavalry horse, but you would use a thoroughbred sire, although he might not be a Derby winner. Therefore, when we start, as I hope we shall start, and as I hope we shall continue to keep up, a stock of thoroughbred sires, we shall probably not use Derby winners if there are any amongst them for the purposes of breeding Cavalry horses, but in a large breeding establishment, as every breeder of bloodstock knows, every horse is not a Derby winner. If you get one in a lifetime you are very lucky. Many private owners spend a great deal of money without ever getting one. There are in every breeding establishment a large number of horses which are nothing like Derby winners. They cannot win in a first-rate race, but they are good enough and the proper sort for breeding hunting and Cavalry horses. We want a breeding establishment in which we can get the sort of sire which would be a good sire for Cavalry horses. The hon. Gentleman opposite seemed to think it was a very terrible thing that the Government should ever receive half of the stakes which might be won when Government horses ran or were leased to run. The owner of a good horse is just as much entitled to receive the stakes which his horse wins as, at any rate, most of the Members of this House are to receive their salaries, and I would even go so far as to say as some of the Members of the Ministry are entitled to receive their salaries. I am not in the least shocked at the idea of the Government receiving half the stakes. They are perfectly honourable and fairly won in one of the great, one of the most honourable and best sports we have in England.
    Objection was taken because this purchase was made in war time. If this were a great gamble I should say that it would be inadvisable for us to embark upon it in war time, but when we have this magnificent gift offered to us in war time by an hon. and gallant Gentleman, an absolutely free gift coupled with the chance of buying at an exceedingly low figure one of the best breeding establishments in England, I say, notwithstanding that it is war time, we should be exceedingly ill-advised to reject it. The cost is small, but the advantage to the country in the future is very great, because I for one do not see that the time is yet coming when we can do
    1130
    without Cavalry horses in the Army. Therefore, we should be well advised to make this important advance, which we ought to have made long ago, in breeding horses for the Army. Anyone who went about the country at the beginning of this War and saw the enormous difficulty there was in getting horses of the right stamp for the Cavalry and horses of light draught for other purposes, and who saw the enormous sums which had to be paid for them, will be only too glad to know that the Government at last have embarked upon a course which in the future will furnish our Army with better and cheaper horses than we have ever been able to get before.
    Mr. HOGGE: I beg to move, to reduce the Vote by £100.
    It is almost unnecessary for me to make the speech I intended to make, because the bulk of the points I wished to put have been made in the preliminary discussion, but there are still some very pertinent questions to ask the Government, and I regret that the front Treasury Bench is occupied entirely by the Government foals and that no responsible Members of the Government are present. We were promised by the Prime Minister that in most of the discussions some Cabinet Minister should attend. I withdraw, and apologise to my right hon. Friend (Mr. Montagu). I am glad that he is here, because he will recollect the history of this transaction. He will remember that this offer was made by the hon. Member for Widnes (Colonel Walker). The Government delayed accepting it, if I remember rightly, until the point was reached at which the offer was to be withdrawn unless they accepted it. That is a very important point. It has not been met by my right hon. Friend who represents the Board of Agriculture (Mr. Acland). What was it that altered the opinion of the Government and induced them to accept this offer on the point of the offer being withdrawn? I hope that he is able to tell us what made the Government change its mind. I do not know whether or not it was the inducement held out to them that they could race themselves if they had them, but, at any rate, we are entitled to know.
    The House of Commons ought to realise, again, the position in which it finds itself. We are attempting this afternoon to buy the property of a fellow Member of the House of Commons. He has been forced to go out of the House because of the fact that we are going to discuss this matter,

    1131
    and he cannot come into the House until we have determined what we are going to do. That is a very false position for us to be in. We ought to have known at the moment the Government accepted the offer because it was going to be withdrawn what was the reason and what was the policy that induced them to accept it, and we ought not to be placed in the position of considering this at this particular time. I do not want to go into the question of horses. There are some very interesting horses in this particular stable. There is the Night Hawk, which, hon. Members will remember, won the St. Leger as a rank outsider. It was considered so poor a horse that not a single sporting tipster tipped it for the St. Leger race in the year it won it at 33 to 1. There are men in the House who know horses better than I do. I hope the only Cabinet Minister on the bench will be able to assure us that the form of Night Hawk has improved so much since the occasion on which it won the St. Leger as a rank outsider as to warrant them being more hopeful, when they enter it for any other race, that they will get half the stakes. There are a great many interesting points of that sort I could go into, but I want to reinforce the point with regard to the use that is going to be made of the stud. It is going to be used for producing horses for the Army. Broadly speaking, that is the use to which it is to be put. A large portion of it is a racing stud. If there is one thing which the present methods of horse-racing in this country do not do it is the producing of horses of stamina. I see my hon. Friend opposite who last spoke (Mr. Butcher) looking very horrified at that statement.
    Mr. BUTCHER: Certainly!
    Mr. HOGGE: He knows as well as I do that the average race run in this country is four furlongs and under.
    Mr. BUTCHER: I strongly resent the statement that the average race is four furlongs and under. I do not know any race of four furlongs. There are five fur-longs, which is much too short Perhaps the hon. Member has been to Doncaster, where the races are considerably over a mile?
    Mr. HOGGE: I have not so much time to attend Doncaster as my hon. Friend, and my recollection of the exact distances is perhaps not so familiar as his, but the only mistake I made was the slip of the
    1132
    tongue in stating four furlongs instead of five. [An HON. MEMBER: "You are wrong altogether!"] It is a point that can easily be settled by reference to any calendar of races.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: Does my hon. Friend know what is the age of a horse who runs in that sort of race?
    Mr. HOGGE: Yes, I know the age of the horses. They are two-year-olds, and are as wise at their sport as we are at ours. Again I make the assertion, which can be proved, that the bulk of horse-races run in this country are races of that nature. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] Let me put it in another way, which perhaps hon. Members will accept: "Races in which the horses trained for the purpose shall be, say, of a flash of speed rather than to run a long distance." That is accepted. Very well, that is all I intended to say. It shows how difficult it is sometimes to make yourself intelligible all round. Hon. Members will agree that it is a question more of speed than of stamina in the modern racehorse. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Well, if you do not agree, I cannot help it. The facts are against you, and that is so often the case that? am quite sure you must be wrong.
    Mr. BUTCHER: Everyone who has got a horse to run in a race—let us take point-to-point races as a good illustration—knows that he must have blood in him if he is going to win, and the only way to get that is to get it out of a thoroughbred stable.
    Mr. HOGGE: I have no objection to blood in a horse. I think there ought to be blood in every horse. I hope for the sake of the Government there is blood in the Coalition. After all, this is a proposal from the Coalition Government for the active prosecution of the War. It is a proposal which is going to produce horses for the Army. My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster (Mr. Burdett-Coutts), in the speech which he delivered just now, stated, I think, reasons which should induce the Committee to reject this Vote. He pointed out, in his very able speech, that the scheme was not going to effect the purposes which it had in view, and that the cost would increase from year to year. Is it not the case that we are not presented here with the full story? It is true that the hon. and gallant Member for Widnes is making a very valuable gift to the Government, but, if he had kept it to

    1133
    himself, would it not have become a liability on him during this period of War? Without uttering a word of depreciation of the hon. Member's gift, I ask whether, if it had not been accepted, it would have been a liability on him, and I suggest that that fact ought to temper our views of the transaction.
    We have been told by my right hon. Friend that they are going to enter horses for races. I suppose some have been already entered, although it is not known whether or not they will race. May I remind the Committee that we have not yet heard from the President of the Board of Trade whether the facilities for racing this year are or are not to be extended. As far as I am able to gather from the papers dealing with sport, it is the intention of the Government to increase the facilities for racing during 1916. If the Government own horses and provide more facilities for entering them for races in order to win stakes and make more money, that surely is a point which even members of the Coalition Government can appreciate. We ought to know whether, in the future, in this sport of kings, we are to be dominated by a Coalition Government partly owning horses. I understand that they are in association with a Noble Lord who was a well-known sporting member of this House, but who is not now a member, and with his business man on the Turf. Would it not be better for the Government to associate themselves with Mr. Bottomley in this connection? There is a man who knows the Turf from one end to the other. He knows how to make money out of the Turf, and he gives the best racing tips that can be obtained. Could not the Government make a better arrangement than half-and-half? Have they asked for tenders for this scheme? Is it simply another gamble in the choosing a particular man? Have they in fact looked round to get the best man?
    Although it is said we should not look a gift horse in the mouth, I do suggest that this Committee ought to examine this proposal very closely. Small boys are convicted in our Courts for street betting. What moral status will the Coalition Government have in legislating on betting or with regard to the Turf if they are part owners of horses which are entered in these races, and if they are providing the very material upon which these small boys are convicted? That is a point which ought to be taken into consideration. Again, is this House to be a Coalition
    1134
    Jockey Club? Surely if you want the most responsible men to govern the Turf you should get rid of the Jockey Club, which is a voluntary organisation, and make this Coalition Government the official organisation. Let me ask a few questions upon the finances of this transaction. We are told this scheme will cost us £4,000 a year. Does that represent the cost of the horses or merely the rates that will be paid on the establishment? My right hon. Friend told us there are eighty horses there, and he has mentioned a few that will be entered for races. Everybody, surely, knows what it costs to run racehorses for a year. At any rate the cost can be easily calculated. I suppose on the other side there may be some income from the service of stallions. Has there been any estimate?
    When my right hon. Friend gets up to reply, will he give us the figures on which his estimate is based? Will he say how much is represented by possible winnings, and how much of the estimate refers to matters which can be passed by the Accountant-General? Again, will an opportunity be afforded to Members of this House for viewing the stud? Will a pad-dock be provided in the vicinity of Westminster where the horses may be walked round for inspection by hon. Members before they decide in favour of this extraordinary bargain? I have never been faced during the War with a more ridiculous proposal than the one the Government have brought forward on this occasion. This Government has been appointed for the vigorous prosecution of the War. Its duty is to win the War, and while our leaders are more less absent from the Front Bench talking economy in the City, we, their humble supporters, are asked to erect a racing stud here at Westminster. Why, it is almost as bad as taking a quarter of their salaries in Exchequer Bonds! On these grounds I beg to move the reduction of the Vote by £100
    Mr. MEEHAN: I assume the reason which actuated the Government in finally accepting Colonel Hall Walker's offer was that they were getting a very good bargain; that they were profiting by the experience of the present War and therefore forming a national stud which, although it may not help us to win the present War, may help us to win future wars. I think this munificent offer should be accepted by this Committee. The hon. Member who last spoke mentioned the particular case of Night Hawk, a horse which won the St. Leger at long odds a

    1135
    few years ago. If he had taken the trouble to look into the pedigree of that horse he would have found it was simply a case of blood telling after generations; the good blood was in the original sire. The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Roch) suggested that the right hon Gentleman in introducing this Vote had intimated that these high-class animals should be crossed with half-bred mares. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman said anything of the kind. What he said was that these high-class animals should be mated with thoroughbred mares and that their progeny afterwards should be crossed with half-bred mares. I hope that the operation of this scheme will not be confined to the breeding of Army horses, but that horses will be bred for use in agricultural and other work. We find in Ireland that horses which have a good percentage of blood are the best horses for working on the farms. It is also the fact that Artillery horses bred in Ireland for war purposes have a good percentage of blood in them. There is one point upon which I wish to be quite sure, and that is whether the sires which are to be maintained at stud will be available for thoroughbred mares the property of private owners, or whether the use of them will be entirely confined to thoroughbred mares belonging to the Government. I do not quite agree with the hon. Member who suggested co-operation with Government Departments in Ireland. I would be rather shy of that. I would not care to depend on the advice we get from some of the Government Departments. I think every member of this Committee should join in appreciation of the munificence of Colonel Hall Walker, and I think we should be doing very bad work indeed if we rejected the offer so generously made.
    Major GUEST: I wish to point out how very valuable a start this in the matter of breeding horses from a military point of view. Sooner or later the Government would have to set up and maintain an establishment for breeding horses. That seems to be perfectly clear, and although the hon. Member for Westminster may be doubtful whether this is the best system of starting a national breeding establishment I welcome it as the initiation of a policy whereby the Government are seeking to secure that horses bred both for trade and for military purposes shall be of a suitable strain. I welcome the step the Govern-
    1136
    ment has taken, and I think we should be very grateful indeed to Colonel Hall Walker.
    Mr. ACLAND: I will try my best to answer some of the questions which have been asked in the course of this Debate. I should like to apologise in the first instance, for having introduced into the discussion some of my own views about horse racing. I do happen, in this connection, to object to those whose only association with horse-racing is betting regarding themselves as sportsmen. I do not look upon them as sportsmen in the truest sense of the term.
    Mr. J. O'CONNOR: I never bet.
    Mr. ACLAND: I am sure the hon. and learned Member is much too wise. [An HON. MEMBER: "I often bet!"] Then I am sure the hon. Gentleman can afford it. The next point I want to make is that I cannot claim that this expenditure is connected with the War. It is not, of course. The immediate value of having the stud depends upon what it will do for you four or five years hence. We believe that having this stud and developing it in the way that men like Captain Greer will do will be of great value to the nation in future times and in the event of a future war. It cannot be pretended for the moment, and no one does pretend, that for the immediate purpose of producing Cavalry remounts the gift is of the value it will be later on, but we believe that if the Government had not accepted the most generous gift when it was made many of the horses might have been sold and exported and that our thoroughbred stock would have been much the poorer if that had happened. That is the only connection with the immediate present which the gift has, however much it may justify itself, as we believe it will, as the years go by. I was asked what would be done with the mares and fillies that are produced. Presumably they will be sold at the best prices that can be got for them either as yearlings or after a more or less lengthy racing or breeding career as skilled minds such as that of Captain Greer suggest should be done. Considering the splendid stock presented to us, when normal times return certainly they will be no loss. The hon. Member for North Kildare (Mr. J. O'Connor) will be glad to hear that it is not intended to hand the management or ownership of the stud over to the Irish Department of Agriculture. The War Office will have a definite

    1137
    policy. They will know the sort of horses they want, and the sort of policy they wish to pursue in establishing and developing their stud. I feel sure it is better that the stud should be owned and administered by the persons who are responsible for producing the sort of horses they require rather than by an agricultural department.
    Mr. J. O'CONNOR: My suggestion was co-ordination.
    Mr. ACLAND: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will remember that I said there would be close co-ordination between the two policies—the policy of the stud and the official policy of horse breeding in Ireland, but there is no intention of handing the stud over for management by the Irish Department. The War Office regard the gift as being of very great value to them, and they will be quite willing to take it over as soon as their hands are rather freer. I believe that if they keep in touch with the official policy of horse breeding in Ireland they will do good to horse breeding in Ireland as well as do good to themselves in helping to produce the sort of horses they require. I have no knowledge of any intention of fixing the fees of these stallions at especially cheap rates. I believe this is going to be run absolutely as a business concern, and the fees at which these stallions will stand will be the highest that can be obtained both now and hereafter. There is no intention of making it a cheap business to help the small horse-owner or anything of that kind. The best fees will be charged that can be got. The hon. Member for Prestwich (Sir F. Cawley) brought up the point that in this policy we were embarking on a discontinuity of the policy which the Committee to which he referred recommended. To a certain extent that is true, but the Government is not discontinuing the policy recommended, namely, the policy of King's premiums and super-premiums with regard to stallions. There will be no break of policy in that regard. But it is considered by the War Office that some extension of that policy is really necessary for the horse supply of the future. The old-established policy of King's premiums and super-premiums will be continued, but it will be added to and extended by developing this stud on these estates for which we now ask authority for the purchase price to be paid.
    The question of breeding Artillery horses, although an important matter in
    1138
    itself, is a different matter. I am not an expert, and I do not know anything about the breeding of horses, but I do know that the use of thoroughbred stock for that purpose is a very different thing indeed from the use for crossing with half-bred mares to produce horses of the Cavalry type. I should have thought it would have been quite possible by the slow development of breeding as described by the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. Burdett-Coutts) to produce a great many more stallions of the type that are already included in this gift, the type, for instance, of the stallion "Great Sport," which is a type suitable for mating with thoroughbred stock. I believe it will be the object of the directors of this stud to increase the number of stallions of that type, but it is no loss to them, rather a gain, that they should have stallions such as "Great Sport," "Royal Realm," and "White Eagle." It will be a waste of money and material to mate them with half-bred stock at the present time, but by gradually working on the stud there is at the present time, and bringing other animals in, much can be done from the point of view of mating them with half-bred mares. It will be possible to build up a stud of very great value in the direction of Cavalry horses. Some reflection was cast on the fact that we were leasing certain two-year-olds to Lord Lonsdale for this next year. I do not think it was seriously suggested that the other gentleman whose name was mentioned to us would really be a superior person to race, manage, and look after these horses rather than Lord Lonsdale. I do not think we could have found a better man to do it than Lord Lonsdale.
    Mr. J. O'CONNOR: Are they only leased for one year to Lord Lonsdale?
    Mr. ACLAND: I think the arrangement is only for one year. I do not think he wants to go further, because, as I have pointed out, the President of the Board of Agriculture is only managing this stud ad interim, and it will be handed over to the War Office as soon as the War is over. The arrangement with Lord Lonsdale is only for one year, and I do not think we could have found a better man than Lord Lonsdale.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: Does it only apply to two-year-olds?
    Mr. ACLAND: The arrangement at present made only applies to certain

    1139
    selected two-year-olds. I was asked what the £4,000, which I gave as the figure for the upkeep of the stud and the two establishments for the year, would cover. That is more a question to be brought up on the Estimates. I did not pledge myself to that figure. It will come up for review on the Estimates in the ordinary course. My. impression is it is merely the cost of keeping up the two establishments, food for the horses, payment of the men who look after the horses, and such purchases and sales on balance as may go on during the year. Another question I was asked was whether the horses could be brought over here for hon. Members to inspect. "The answer to that is "No." If the hon. Member wants to see them he must go to Tully.
    Mr. J. O'CONNOR: I hope he will.
    Mr. ACLAND: I was asked whether the stallions would serve mares belonging to private owners. I believe that those which are suitable for that purpose will do so. One cannot tell wholly for the future whether there will be a sufficient number of mares in the stud to be served by the stallions of the stud, but it certainly is intended that stallions that are desired for that purpose should on the payment of fees on a business basis be at the use of private owners who desire to have them. There is no intention to keep these stallions solely for mating with the mares that are in the stud. If that went on indefinitely it would result in a system of in-breeding, which is undesirable. I have done my best to answer the questions put to me, and I regret that I am not a great authority on these matters so that I could give a better explanation.
    Question, "That a sum not exceeding £50,000 be granted for the said Service," put, and negatived.
    Original Question put, and agreed to.

    SECRET SERVICE.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    5. "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £50,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916, for His Majesty's Foreign and other Secret Services."
    Mr. KING: I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £100.
    1140
    Whenever the Secret Service Vote comes before the House I always take the opportunity of drawing attention to one or two peculiar circumstances connected with it. On former occasions, and in times of peace, I have always objected to the Vote because it is secret and because it attains, or attempts to attain, by methods kept from the public things which might just as well be attained in a public way. But at the present time the other view may be entertained, that as practically all our expenditure of a war nature is secret, all our Army expenditure, all our Navy expenditure, all our advances to our Allies and to our Colonies are kept entirely secret from us, what is the good of having a Secret Service Vote at all? All Votes for the War are entirely secret. As far as I can understand, they are not even to be put before the Public Accounts Committee. I, at any rate, have seen the Report of the Public Accounts Committee, as printed, and I do not understand that the expenditure of the War is set out there at all as we were given to understand it would be, or at any rate in such an intelligible form that we can understand what the expenditure on the War has been. Why have a Secret Service Vote at all when all the operations, to the extent of £5,000,000 a day, are carried on secretly? It is a mere absurdity. It is a contradiction in terms in these times to put forward a Secret Service Vote at all. I am sorry that no one connected with the Foreign Office is present. I think on previous occasions, as the Secret Service Vote is in some sort of way connected with the Foreign Office, we have had a representative of the Foreign Office to support and explain it. Whether that be so or not, I intend to call attention to two definite facts in connection with this Vote which I think are of some importance. If the Secret Service Vote is to be in any sense effective it ought to be kept secret, and at the present time there is a gentleman going up and down the country lecturing, and making a very large amount of money by his lectures, which he puts forward on the ground that he was employed for a good number of years by the Foreign Office on secret service. I refer, of course, to Mr. William Le Queux. If you go to any watering-place you will see advertisements of Mr. William Le Queux, stating that he will give to the public, in return for the purchase of a half-crown ticket, the benefit of his great experiences and the secrets of the Courts of Europe and of diplomacy

    1141
    which he has attained while he was in the Secret Service. If it is true that he was in the Secret Service, he ought not to be allowed to go about disclosing the secrets. If he was not in the Secret Service, he is a fraud, a deception, and a humbug, and he is also a discredit to the country and ought to be prosecuted under the Defence of the Realm Act for throwing discredit on the country and on the Foreign Office. I should like some explanation of what to my mind is a perfect scandal—the way in which Mr. W. Le Queux has been going about for months saying he was a friend of the late Marquess of Salisbury, that he had many intimate communications with him, that he was sent on a secret service mission with Secret Service money. And then he gets ex-Cabinet Ministers to take the chair for him at his lectures.
    HON. MEMBERS: Whom?
    Mr. KING: The gentleman known as Viscount Midleton, who in this House was known as Mr. St. John Brodrick, who was formerly Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, takes the chair for him. I have no doubt, therefore, that Mr. St. John Brodrick, with all his authority at the Foreign Office, backs him up. If it was not that this gentleman professes under such auspices to give away the secrets of the Foreign Office the matter would be of less consequence. But with this backing up it becomes a perfect scandal.
    There is one other, to my mind, important fact in connection with this Vote that ought to be met from the Treasury Bench—I refer to the case of Mr. Master-man. It has become an open secret, which anyone can see clearly by giving attention to the answers which have been given to frequent questions in this House as to the work, emoluments and method of pay of Mr. Masterman in his present position, that he is serving in the Secret Service and is paid out of the Secret Service Vote. I have always been a very great admirer of Mr. Masterman, but I do not agree with all his views, and I do not agree with a man being in the Secret Service and publishing elaborate statements of the policy of this country under his own signature. If he is in the Secret Service let him do secret work and not public work. I have it, everyone has it, on the very best authority, that he is in the Secret Service at present. Let him, therefore, do his work quietly and in secret. I am sorry I have not the
    1142
    attention of any Cabinet Minister, because I am perhaps misguided enough to think that these matters I am bringing before the Committee are of such interest and importance that they ought to receive the attention of a Cabinet Minister, and I hope they will get some answer now.
    The CHANCELLOR of the DUCHY of LANCASTER (Mr. Montagu): No.
    Mr. KING: They will not get any answer?
    Mr. MONTAGU: No.
    Mr. KING: Then I am very sorry.
    Mr. MONTAGU: I am now asking for money for the Secret Service. If my hon. Friend wishes to persuade us not to vote that money, he is perfectly entitled to do so. Secret Service money is money deliberately and repeatedly voted by Parliament about which hon. Members abrogate their right to ask any questions. If you do not like the Secret Service, do not vote it; but do not ask questions as to how it is spent, because then it is not Secret Service.
    Mr. KING: I am afraid I shall have to make my speech all over again. I have just been pointing out two definite cases of men who say they are in the Secret Service and are doing public work, and one of them is giving away, with the support of men who have been in the Foreign Office, what he declares to be the secrets of the Foreign Office. It is a perfect scandal, and it only bears out what I say, that if you vote money in secret you will have it misused and misapplied and you will put it into the hands of people who are quite unworthy of your confidence. I suppose as we are not to have any reply to my speech it is a case of either take it or leave it. I am afraid I shall be the only Member who will have the courage to speak out against this Vote, but I must, as a protest against the way in which my entirely well meant and serious allegations have been met, move a reduction of the Vote.
    8.0 P.M.
    Mr. BRYCE: I wish rather to dispute the rather drastic ruling of the Chancellor of the Duchy that no one is entitled to ask any questions on this Vote. It seems to me a monstrous doctrine that any Vote whatever should be proposed to Parliament and that no member of the Committee should be allowed to say anything whatever about it. That is what Is

    1143
    understand the Chancellor of the Duchy to state, because I do not take it as a ruling from him; he has no right to make any ruling. I want to suggest to the Government that as I presume all the expenditure on publicity comes under this heading—as Mr. Masterman appears to come under it, I presume other publicity comes under it—the money which we vote so readily, and which I do not think is at all large under the circumstances of the War, might be better spent. There are not very many opportunities of discussing the way in which the publicity money is spent. This appears to offer the only kind of opportunity one has for it. Germany spends enormous sums of money on her Secret Service. I do not suggest that the Government should follow Germany in bribing politicians and members of military staffs and so on, as she is said to do so largely in foreign countries. That is not the kind of thing I should recommend any more than I would recommend reprisals in the murder of innocent people by counter Zeppelin raids. These are things in which I think we had better leave the Germans to set the pace. But I think we might have spent more money—and I presume we spend some—in a better way in regard to publicity. In most neutral countries we have rather gone back in the judgment of the people simply because our case has not been presented to them in an intelligible manner. In Holland, in Denmark, in Sweden, in Norway, in the United States, even in Italy itself, I think a great deal more might have been done by the expenditure of money judiciously in setting our case as regards the War before the people of those countries. In every part of the world, in the South American Republics, in Mexico, and everywhere else, the Germans have spent very large sums of money in representing their case. The lies which they have uttered have never been contradicted. I was told the other day by a friend who came back from South America that every evening the German wireless is published in Spanish in all the towns. Similar methods of presenting the real facts of what is happening have not been adopted by the Government. It is a matter which has been called attention to in newspapers over and over again, and the Government have never met the case at all. I can give one remarkable case in my own experience. A good deal of money was spent on a Commission, which was headed by Lord Bryce, for examining into
    1144
    the atrocities perpetrated by Germany in Belgium and Northern France. That Report was printed in English and a certain number of copies were printed in various foreign languages, but I have had complaints from various foreign countries that no copies of that Report, which produced a very great impression on those who read it, were obtainable in many foreign countries. I know that in Sweden at the end of the year no copies had ever been seen. In the United States, in many parts where the Report was particularly designed to produce an impression, and particularly in the West where German influence is strongest, no copies were obtainable for many months after publication. It was an absurd thing that so much money should have been spent on so important an object, and either for want of a proper system of distribution or from want of expenditure of more money for printing additional copies, they should not have been obtainable in many parts of the particular neutral country where it was so desirable they should have been easily obtainable. I, therefore, do ask the Government to try to improve the system of publicity which, I suppose, exists. Of course, the whole matter is secret. We do not know whether there is any publicity expenditure at all, but if there is any publicity expenditure, I do ask the Government that such money as they do spend, and if necessary a great deal more, should be spent in having the case of this country as against Germany more properly represented.
    Mr. MONTAGU: The hon. Member who moved this reduction (Mr. King) and the hon. Member who has just spoken do not understand, or they have not understood what I said about the constitutional position. There is no reason for a representative of the Foreign Office to be here. This is a Vote accounted for by the Treasury, and the Treasury hands out this money to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, or the head of the Department, at his own command, for Secret Service. We ask no questions, and I can assure my hon. Friends that it has been the practice of the House for generations always to vote this money without discussion. The House of Commons, of course, has a perfect right to ask questions about any matter, but it has abrogated it in respect of Secret Service. Indeed, it would be no use at all having this money for Secret Service if we were to discuss details. I absolutely

    1145
    decline, and I do so with all respect, to answer an allegation that there is or is not publicity work carried on by the Government out of this fund. It would not help that publicity work, if it exists, to say that it is carried on by the Government out of money now voted by Parliament for Secret Service. We ask no questions. We simply vote the money. As a rule in peace time it is only £50,000, but this year we have voted £400,000. It might technically be said that the whole of that increase was a war increase, and I should have been within my rights to provide for the payment of it out of the Vote of Credit to the Secret Service, but I thought, and I think the Committee will agree with me, that it was fair to the House of Commons, seeing the freedom they give to us in the expenditure of this Secret Service money, to keep them informed of the total amount we are now spending on Secret Service, rather than take it out of the Vote of Credit. The House now knows that the expenditure for this year on Secret Service is estimated to be £400,000. In order to safeguard an increase of £350,000 over the peace amount, an expenditure which is not undertaken lightly, and in order that the House may once again have the privilege of reviewing the amount spent on Secret Service, we are taking a Vote for next year for only £200,000, with a certainty of a Supplementary Estimate, in order that we may keep the House informed of the total amount. I beg hon. Members not to destroy the whole purpose of this Vote by asking me about particular interests, or particular circumstances which they believe, and I would respectfully say they have no authority to believe, are included.
    The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Whitley): In order to put the matter on record for the future, I think I ought to say that perhaps I am to blame myself for lack of vigilance with respect to this Vote. Clearly the questions that have been addressed to the right hon. Gentleman are questions which, under the recognised custom in regard to this Vote, should be addressed to the Foreign Office, or, if they have to be debated, they should be debated on the Foreign Office Vote. I say that in order that it may not appear from the records of this Debate that a new practice has been entered upon.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: May I ask you, Mr. Whitley, as your ruling is somewhat important—of course I recognise that it fol-
    1146
    lows precedent in the matter—did I understand you to say that this falls under the Foreign Office Vote? That assumes that all the Secret Service is under the Foreign Office Vote. I understand that some of this money is spent in other Departments nearer home. Would I be correct in assuming that your ruling does not preclude the matter being raised in connection with the Vote for another Department, if there is reason to think that money is spent by that Department, and that you do not limit it exclusively to the Foreign Office?
    The CHAIRMAN: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. He is quite correct.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: I understood the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Montagu) to say that this Vote necessarily came under the Treasury, that it was a Treasury Vote, and that the Treasury paid over to the Foreign Office, without question, any payments presumably coming within the sum voted by Parliament which might be asked for by the Foreign Office. Under these circumstances I should have thought the Foreign Office Vote was not the occasion on which we could discuss these matters. I understand now, Mr. Whitley, that your ruling is at variance with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman.
    The CHAIRMAN: I do not quite appreciate the point.
    Mr. McNEILL: Then I will not press it. I do not know that it is very important at the present time. I want to say a few words as to what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman (Mr Montagu). I entirely agree with the principle that he has laid down that it would be absurd for the Government to come to Parliament and ask for a sum of Secret Service money if the Committee were to exercise their rights of probing into the purposes for which the money is to be applied. While I entirely agree with that principle, I think that the two examples which were given by the hon. Member for North Somerset (Mr. King) are rather exceptions. They are really not Secret Service matters. As the hon. Member has shown, one case is public property; that is perfectly clear. He mentioned a well-known writer who was going about the country lecturing, and who is claiming, rightly or wrongly, not to be employed in the Secret Service of the Government now—I have no doubt that if he were making that claim the Government would know how to deal with him

    1147
    Very promptly—but he claims that he is able to give interesting lectures based upon his past experience in the Secret Service of the Government. I do not think that the principle which the right hon. Gentleman has laid down in any way precludes him from replying to the case made by the hon. Member for North Somerset. On the contrary, I think that it would be doing a useful service if he were to reply to the case put by my hon. Friend and say whether this gentleman, Mr. William Le Queux, is or is not justified in claiming that he ever was employed by the Government in the Secret Service. If the Government could say that he never was so employed, then the stories he is telling in the country become mere cock-and-bull stories, and I think it is very likely they are. If, on the other hand, he was at one time employed by the Government in the Secret Service it cannot be any harm to the Secret Service of to-day if the right hon. Gentleman said that that was a fact, or if the Government, as I think they ought to do in that case, took some steps such as were suggested by my hon. Friend to put an end to this gentleman's activities. I quite agree that just as a Cabinet Minister is not at liberty when he retires from the Cabinet to publish his reminiscences, giving what he remembers of Cabinet transactions, so a gentleman who has been employed in the Secret Service ought not to be at liberty to publish his reminiscences, and I think the Government in such a case ought to take stringent measures to prevent him doing so.
    The hon. Member mentioned also the case of Mr. Masterman. I agree that that case rests upon rather a different footing. I do not know whether Mr. Masterman is being paid out of this £400,000 or not. It may very well be that he is being paid out of some other funds under the Vote of Credit. Mr. Masterman's salary has been the subject of a certain amount of discussion in the House, and it is perfectly well known—it is public property—that he is employed by the Government. In fact that has been admitted by the Prime Minister. It is also well known that he is receiving a salary. Therefore, so far as we have proceeded at present in regard to Mr. Masterman, we are not trenching upon any secret information in regard to which it would be to the detriment of the public service if the right hon. Gentleman had thought fit to reply. If Mr. Master-
    1148
    man's activities have ceased to be absolutely of a Secret Service character—if they were ever intended to be so—he had no one but himself to blame. With regard to Mr. Masterman's activities, I am not going to deal with them in any way indiscreetly. I think it is a matter which ought to be discussed, but as the Government think differently I am not going to discuss it. I may say this much, because it is well known, that Mr. Masterman began his activities in his present work, which I will not describe, by holding a meeting of London editors. The very last thing that you would expect for a Secret Service agent to do would be to explain his activities—
    Mr. MONTAGU: On a point of Order. I shall have to interrupt the hon. Member. The position that the Committee finds itself in is, I admit, a position of some difficulty. It is clearly out of Order to discuss Mr. Masterman's salary if it is not included in this Supplementary Estimate. I venture to submit, Mr. Whitley, that there is no indication that there is any part of Mr. Masterman's salary paid out of this Supplementary Estimate, and that, therefore, it is improper to discuss Mr. Master-man's activities now, and that such discussion has never taken place on the Secret Service Supplementary Vote before in this House.
    Mr. McNEILL: May I save you the trouble, Mr. Whitley, of giving a ruling upon the point raised by the right hon. Gentleman by saying that, in consequence of the attitude which he adopts, as shown by his point of Order, I certainly shall not pursue the subject any further.
    Question, "That a sum, not exceeding £49,900, be granted for the said Service," put, and negatived.
    Original Question put, and agreed to.

    NATIONAL GALLERY.—Class IV.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    6. "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £4,800, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916. for the salaries and expenses of the National Gallery, and of the National Galiery of British Art, Millbank."
    Mr. MONTAGU: I think I can, in a few words, give the House a complete explanation of this Vote. The late Sir H.

    1149
    Layard left a very valuable collection of pictures to the nation. These pictures being a legacy which was housed in Italy, as the Committee will remember, there was a certain amount of litigation about them. Finally it was found possible to arrange for their transport from Italy, but before they could be exported from that country duty amounting to £5,195 10s. had to be paid. A sum was voted by the House in the financial year 1914–15 for the purpose of paying the duty. It was not then found possible to transport the pictures, but, as it is clearly desirable to get possession of this very valuable collection, and as it is found possible to transport them now, I ask the Committee to re-vote the sum of money for the purpose of paying the duty.
    Mr. BRYCE: I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman what the rate of duty is, and also whether he thinks it is desirable that these pictures should be brought home at the present time? Is there not very considerable risk of the pictures being torpedoed or submarined if they are transported from the Mediterranean at this moment, less he can get them home through France and Italy? Even then there is some risk. I should think the safest place would be in Italy at the present time. I would like to know what the rate of duty was. I believe that at the time the bequest was left it was not imagined that any duty was going to be paid by the country accepting it. As the right hon. Gentleman says, there was litigation about it, and it cannot be helped. We shall be, I am sure, glad to pay even a larger sum in duty to obtain the benefit of this magnificent collection. There is one picture alone for which it would be worth while to pay the duty—the portrait of the Sultan Mohamed the II., by Gentile Bellini, which, as everyone who has seen it knows, is one of the finest portraits in the world, and will be an immense acquisition to our national collection. A great many of the other pictures also are of value, so that even although it is going to cost a sum of £4,800, or, I believe, a little over £5.000 when everything is included, the country has got it very cheaply and should be glad to pay the money.
    Mr. MONTAGU: I am sorry that I have not at the moment in the House the information as to the rate of duty, but I
    1150
    will obtain it from the Trustees of the National Gallery, and send it to my hon. Friend in the course of a post or two.
    Mr. BRYCE: I believe that the ordinary rate is 5 per cent.
    Mr. MONTAGU: I am not sure. As regards the proposal to remove the pictures, no place is very safe for pictures at present, and on the balance it was thought better to get them out of Italy when we could, rather than risk their remaining away from their destination.
    Question put, and agreed to.

    COLONIAL SERVICES.—Class V.
    7. Resolved, "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £49,828, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916, for sundry Colonial Services, including certain Grants-in-Aid."
    TREASURY CHEST FUND.
    8. Resolved, "That a sum not exceeding £l,847, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916, for making good the Net Loss on Transactions connected with the raising of Money for the various Treasury Chests Abroad in the year 1914–15."
    MISCELLANEOUS EXPENSES.—Class VI.
    9. Resolved, "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,700, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916, for certain Miscellaneous Expenses, including certain Charitable and other Allowances, Great Britain."

    STATUTORY COMMITTEE OF THE ROYAL PATRIOTIC FUND CORPORATION.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    10. "That a sum, not exceeding £414, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916, for the salary of the Vice-Chairman of the Statutory Committee of the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation."
    Sir HENRY DALZIEL: I was hoping that we might have some explanation from the Secretary to the Local Govern-

    1151
    ment Board with regard to this matter. I was under the impression that the salary to the Chairman of this Committee that was agreed to some time ago was' £1,500. It is now down here as £1,750, which is, I understand, the salary to Mr. Cyril Jackson, who has been appointed to the post. I am inclined to think that £1,750 is a little high for the duties that will be attached to the position. Mr. Jackson, no doubt, has been a very useful public servant. I understand that he occupied a post as inspector under the Education Department. Since then I believe that he has been chairman of the London County Council. Of course, the Secretary to the Local Government Board has been in a position to observe his qualifications for the post to which he has been appointed. Personally, I want to register my opinion that £1,000 a year, at a time when Ministers are spending their spare time in preaching economy, is quite enough for this post. I understand that it is a much larger salary than Mr. Jackson ever enjoyed while he was a Government servant before. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will give some explanations as to how this £l,750 has been arrived at.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): There was never any agreement made in this House on the subject. It was left to the Treasury to decide what the salary should be. The Treasury has decided that the appropriate salary for this office is £1,500 a year and £250 per year in lieu of superannuation allowance and pension rights. There are reasons why Mr. Jackson could not very well hope ever to enjoy a pension. First of all, the tenure is not secure. He has been only appointed for three years, and though that appointment may be renewed from time to time, there is not, of course, the same security of tenure as the Civil servant enjoys, and seeing that he has spent a very long life in the public service, he is of an age at which it would not be easy to offer him pension rights on any terms of contribution. As regards the amount of salary, I cannot help thinking that if, as we hope, the work of this body develops, the work will be of such an arduous nature, so continuous and so anxious, and requiring an administrator of great excellence, that a salary of £1,500 a year with £250 in lieu of pension rights will not be at all too much. I have some precedents to which I may refer—the vice-
    1152
    chairman of the Development Commission has £1,500 a year; the chairman of the Roads Board, £3,000; the manager, £l ,500; the Secretary of the Public Works Loan Board, £1,500; the chairman of the National Health Insurance Commission, £2,000; the deputy-chairman, £1,500; the chairman of the Prison Commission, £1,800; the chairman of the Board of Control, £1,800; the Charity Commissioners, £1,500; the Civil Service Commissioners, £1,500; the National Debt Controller-General, £l,500. So we have got a list of precedents for making the salary what it was. But, at all events, it was decided by the Treasury after a great deal of consideration. So far as Mr. Jackson's abilities are concerned, and his qualifications for the post, I think that the greatest of all his qualifications is the work that he has done on the London County Council. For nine years he has been on that body, and has occupied the chief post, chairman of the council itself. He was before that chairman of the Education Committee, and for a great number of years gave his time voluntarily to all kinds of work. He is perfectly suitable for this post. I can assure my hon. Friend that the twenty-seven members of the Committee, if they were to ballot to-day, would undoubtedly approve the choice of Mr. Jackson after they had seen his work for six weeks as their chairman. I am confident that they will have enough work to do in the future for him to earn the salary of £1,500 a year.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: I hope that my right hon. Friend will understand that I have absolutely no personal feeling in this matter. In fact I never saw Mr. Jackson. I know nothing about him at all, except that he was in the Government service, and he was chairman of the London County Council. I have no doubt whatever that he made an excellent chairman of the London County Council and did good public service, but that is not a point which we have any right to take into account in considering his salary. I would like to know whether Mr. Jackson is getting a pension from any other quarter in regard to his past services?
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: I understand not.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: Then we have to regard the proposal as being made exactly on its present basis. In reference to the comparison with the Road Board which has been made, I always thought that the Road Board was paid far too much, and the result has been that the Road Board

    1153
    salaries have been abolished altogether, because we are going in for economy; and I do not think it is quite right at a time? like this that in creating new offices we should be governed by the lavishness of expenditure which has been displayed in the past. You are preaching economy to-day, and you are telling everybody that they ought to give up luxuries and all that sort of thing, yet you are appointing a man to a post which I say is not worth more than £1,000, I do not care what the qualifications of Mr. Jackson may be. The Under-Secretaries of various Departments, who, we admit, discharge very important work, get, some of them, £1,500 a year. Why should an official of this kind, governed by a large Committee, and who has really to carry out what is superior clerical work, be paid £l,750 a year? If he had not been chairman of the county council for so many years he would not have got the post, and certainly would never have got this salary. The other point is as to what the understanding was. I think my right hon. Friend's memory is somewhat at fault. I think £1,500 a year was definitely mentioned.
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: I did not say it was not mentioned. I said that there was no agreement. So far as I recollect there never was any agreement made on the floor of the House, but the matter was left to the Treasury. The sum of £1,500 a year was undoubtedly mentioned.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: We could not go further than mention the salary, because that was not before us, but the statement was made from the Government Bench that it was £1,500, and are we wrong in assuming that that was the salary which was going to be attached to the post? Some of my hon. Friends who had to leave the House, if they had been here, would distinctly have reminded the right hon. Gentleman of the exact circumstances in which the sum of £1,500 was mentioned. That sum has now grown to £1,750, and I register my protest against that course being taken by the Government, who talk about economy, but are not practising it at the present time.
    Mr. RAFFAN: I would like some indication as to when the scheme is to come into operation. The Act was carried through under great pressure, and we were told that it was necessary that it should be passed, because it was a matter of emergency. As I understand, instructions have been issued by the county
    1154
    council that the scheme was not intended to be carried through until the end of June—that it was not intended to bring the scheme into operation until the beginning of July. If that be so, there can be no doubt that cases of extreme hardship are likely to arise in the country. One of the great objects of this scheme is that provision may be made for widows and for disabled soldiers who are not entitled directly to pensions. We are having complaints daily that cases of extreme hardship are arising at the present time. The man is not strictly entitled to pension, and widow is not strictly entitled to pension. But we are told that when the scheme is in operation these cases of hardship will be dealt with. But in the meantime these cases of great hardship now exist. I have one or two cases from my own Constituency, and no doubt similar cases are occurring all over the country. There is the case of a man in France who went out on active service and who was accidentally drowned while he was not on active service. The widow was informed that she was not entitled to pension. I am not here to dispute that, under the terms of the Royal Warrant, but surely the people of this country do not desire that the widow of a man who went out on active service to France, and was drowned there, should not receive any assistance to carry her over this difficult time? As I understand, the scheme is to come into operation in July. What is she to do in the meantime to tide over the six months? Is she to be compelled to go to the Board of Guardians to ask assistance, or to break up her home and go to the workhouse?
    I have another case, where a man was discharged as medically unfit, after serving in the Dardanelles. He suffered there from dysentery, and he was sent home on his discharge as medically unfit. The doctor stated that this man suffered from heart trouble, arising out of a former attack of scarlet fever. This attack occurred when the man was two years old. and, as a matter of fact, he never had a day's illness from that time until he had an attack of dysentery at the Dardanelles. He is now a broken and hopeless invalid unable to earn a single penny. He is thrown upon his parents. There is no pension for him; no assistance for him. When July comes, and this scheme comes into operation, then his case will receive attention, but in the meantime what is to happen to him? I can state another very hard

    1155
    case which I sent to the Financial Secretary to the War Office, who, I am bound to say, wrote to me very sympathetically, and I have no doubt he would have been very glad himself if he could have given some assistance. The man was sent home suffering from mental weakness. His parents were informed that he would be sent to an asylum if they were unable to keep him at home, but he was harmless if they could make a home for him. They have taken him home, and every effort has been since made in every quarter where there are Army funds, to secure assistance. We applied to the Royal Artillery Charity, and received a very kind and sympathetic letter enclosing a postal order for £2. That is the whole amount we have been able to get in any quarter of any sort or kind, and I do not know where else the parents can go. There, again, you do not wish surely that this poor man shall be driven into the workhouse asylum. In July his case will be heard. What is to happen between now and July? That is a point upon which I think the House and Committee will require information. It is a point upon which I am quite sure the country will insist upon having information. The Government will have to meet, by some means, these cases of hardship, and it will be very satisfactory indeed if the right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench can tell us now that in some way, during this interval, provision will be made to meet hard cases of the kind I have described.
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: If the hon. Member is under the impression that no work will be done by the Statutory Committee in the way of relieving hard cases, he is under an altogether erroneous impression. Where I think he has confused the point is this—that the Statutory Committee have made an agreement with the National Relief Committee that the latter shall finance the Statutory Committee in acting through their various local relief committees in regard to allowances. That part of the work of the Statutory Committee will continue to be done as it is done now with the present machinery. But the agreement to which I have referred does not in the least debar the Statutory Committee from entering upon the consideration of such hard cases as have been brought to the notice of the Committee today. Up to the present the Statutory Committee has very wisely commenced by explaining the conditions of eligi-
    1156
    bility for supplementary grants, pensions and allowances at different times. It is not in a position to give any money, because it has not got any money, but I hope very shortly when the Bill is actually in print that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will introduce, or allow me to introduce, a Bill which, with the consent of the House, will give the Statutory Body a sum of £1,000,000 with which it will be able to enter upon the work of the kind which has been alluded to by the hon. Member. It will be able to consider whether or not it ought to supplement certain State pensions or, where there are no such pensions, whether it ought to give pensions or grants in lieu of those pensions which for one reason or another were not given by the State. That is the position of affairs. In the meantime the Statutory Body has formed an Organisation Committee, a Finance Committee, and a Pensions and Grants Committee. The Pensions and Grants Committee are considering and will in a few weeks' time be in a position to afford some relief in some of these cases. With regard to the local committees, all the local committees and the local authorities are now in receipt of the model scheme which under the Act we were bound to draw. We have sent them out to all the county councils and all the county boroughs, and all those local authorities which are entitled to have-schemes of the kind. With those schemes we have sent various notes and very full instructions as to how best to draw up the schemes by the local committees which have to be approved by the Statutory Body. We hope that long before the end of June or the beginning of July that the local committees will have framed their scheme, and that those schemes will have-received the approval of the Statutory Body, and that the Statutory Body, along with those committees, will be able to sift many of those cases and, at all events, to give relief to a substantial number.
    Mr. RAFFAN: I am very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his statement. This is a matter of extreme importance. I am glad to hear that money will very soon be placed at the disposal of the Statutory Committee.
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: As soon as the Chancellor of the Exchequer can find time to introduce the Bill.
    Mr. RAFFAN: I am glad to hear that. The local committees cannot be set up for

    1157
    many months, as it is impossible for them to have their schemes drawn up and possibly suggested alterations considered. May I ask whether it would not be possible in any way for assistance to be given before those local committees are fully set up? If that is so, what is the method by which the cases can be brought before the Statutory Committee? Should particulars be addressed to the right hon. Gentleman, or is there any machinery which could be utilised in the meantime? If that suggestion is not a practical one, would it not be possible to enlarge the arrangement which he has made with the Prince of Wales' Fund whereby that fund might be authorised to deal with hard cases of this kind in the meantime, as well as supplementing separation allowances? It is not, of course, an ideal arrangement to suggest, but it would tide over the difficulty. I am quite sure that nobody realises more than the right hon. Gentleman that the distress caused by delay is very great, while I can assure him the irritation produced among the working men of the country is enormous.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Maclean): I think the hon. Member is going a long way beyond the scope of this Vote instead of confining himself strictly to the point.
    Mr. RAFFAN: I am much obliged to you, Sir. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman can he give any further indication as to whether anything can be done, or perhaps he will be able to tell me if I put down a question for next week?
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: The hon. Member will have a much better opportunity soon of discussing the question. I can assure him that there is no reason why the Statutory Committee should wait for the setting up of the local committees before considering these cases. Communications as to the cases can be sent to the Secretary of the Statutory Committee, 17. Waterloo Place, and they will be prepared for consideration.
    Mr. GILBERT: May I mention to the right hon. Gentleman the question of London? I know from past knowledge that no man has done more on this question of pensions than the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board. The position of London is rather different from that of other places where local committees are to be set up. As I understand the scheme of the new Pension Fund, a Statu-
    1158
    tory Committee is to be set up by the London County Council—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It is quite obvious, if we proceeded on these lines, we should be launching into a discussion of the whole scheme, and that would be out of order.
    Question put, and agreed to.

    MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    11. "That a sum, not exceeding £l,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916, for the Expenses of the Ministry of Munitions."
    Sir H. DALZIEL: I notice that there is an item in this Vote providing for guns. I would like to know if the Parliamentary Secretary could inform us if the Department is giving special attention to the supply of machine guns. I am continually receiving complaints in regard to this matter. I know we are in this respect much better equipped than we were at the beginning. I am very glad that is so, and I am afraid if we were not our soldiers would stand very little chance. Is special attention being given to this matter? get continual complaints from men who are absolutely handling the guns and there is a very urgent demand for more. Can the hon. Gentleman assure us he is doing everything he can in this respect? I would like also to refer to the question of trench-warfare supplies. I believe that the Germans have been greatly ahead of us in regard to matters of that kind. They have been able to make trenches with greater rapidity than we have. I have no doubt my hon. Friend has given attention to this matter and I hope he may be able to assure us that everything necessary is being done in this respect. May I ask also what are the facts of the case with regard to the supply of aeroplanes? It is stated officially that the Ministry of Munitions has that in hand, and it is stated by a member of the Government that it has been left to another Department. Are we to trust the Ministry of Munitions to give us an adequate supply of aeroplanes in the future, and can the hon. Gentleman tell us who is to be responsible for their construction in future?
    Sir T. ESMONDE: This is a very important Vote, and I do not think it ought to be allowed to pass without a word or

    1159
    two. We have had only two discussions about munitions since the Ministry of Munitions was established, and on both occasions the discussion has taken place in a practically empty House. I agree with my right hon. Friend opposite in regard to machine-guns. We all know the position in that respect, and if it was for that matter alone it would be a good thing that the Ministry of Munitions had been established. There are a number of questions that might be discussed on this Vote. I should like to say a word more, by way of warning, with regard to the housing schemes. A number of people, myself included, are strongly of opinion that the housing of munition workers would have been carried out much more expeditiously and economically in some cases if it had been left to the local authorities, and if local authorities had been allowed to carry out their own housing schemes. The Government, no doubt for good reasons, stopped local housing schemes and decided to provide housing accommodation under the powers of the Ministry of Munitions. I make no complaint about that. I only say that the matter should be very carefully watched, and when the War is over possibly questions may be raised as to how the money has been spent on the housing of munition workers.
    I should like also to refer to the manufacture of munitions in Ireland. I apologise for not having given notice, but I do not expect any answer, because the matter is at present being discussed; nothing is yet settled, and no definite arrangements have been arrived at. I would like to say in a friendly way that there is in my country a sort of suspicion—I will not put it so strongly as that—but there is a feeling that Irish resources are not being utilised to their fullest extent. I know something about the capabilities in the South. It may be that the Minister of Munitions proposes to utilise them. As far as we can see there is no doubt that Irish resources are not being utilised. I will not talk about 9.2 shells, as I understand that that question is in process of settlement. With regard to machinery, no doubt there are difficulties. I understand that there has been considerable difficulty in getting machinery from Sweden, for instance, where machinery had been contracted for and practically paid for. I would like to know whether those difficulites are likely to be settled within any reasonable period
    1160
    of time, as very important machinery is wanted in Ireland for the manufacture of munitions. On the general question of machines I think we have in Ireland at present machines that could be but are not being utilised. Probably the Secretary to the Department knows quite well to what I refer. I think those machines ought to be utilised. If the Minister of Munitions liked to take his courage in his hands, take his coat off, and turn up his sleeves, I believe he could get them, and I hope he will do so with as little delay as possible.
    We are an adaptable people in my country, and we are making extremely good and quite up-to-date 4.5 shells in Dublin on lathes made in the year 1847. That is rather an engineering achievement. We have adapted those ancient lathes, and as far as their output is concerned it is quite as good as anything that can be produced by any American machines at present. I hope the Minister of Munitions will take advantage of what machines we have, and see to it that all the machines that can be utilised in the manufacture of shells are so utilised, so that our shell makers may be given an abundant opportunity of turning out all the shells they possibly can. I am satisfied that they can turn out a great deal more than they are doing at present. After the experience of the past week everybody realises what the coming expenditure of shells is likely to be, and what strenuous efforts will have to be made by this country to bring about a proper provision in that respect. Irish manufacturers in the South are a patriotic people. They have put their hands in their pockets and, without making any claim upon the Government or asking for any Government assistance, done an enormous amount to increase the output of warlike materials. At present in the South there are firms employing 20,000 men, and they are perfectly ready to put their men to work on Government contracts if the Government will give them such contracts. There is one other small point—the question of soap and glycerine. I do not know whether that comes within the purview of the hon. Gentleman, but I think that if he would look into the matter he would find that we could render greater assistance than we are doing. On the question of fats, and things of that sort, I believe that Ireland could give much more assistance than is being given at present. We are anxious

    1161
    to do all we can, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will give us the opportunity.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY of the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Dr. Addison): In regard to the point put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kirkcaldy with respect to aeroplanes, I may say that the Ministry of Munitions is not, and never has been, responsible for the manufacture of aeroplanes.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: What about the future?
    Dr. ADDISON: I do not know about the future; all I can say is the Department has not been—
    Sir H. DALZIEL: Has my hon. Friend seen the official announcement by the Government on this matter that they will be responsible?
    Dr. ADDISON: In regard to the output of machine guns, as my right hon. Friend knows quite well, there has been an enormous increase in the output. I am glad to be able to tell him that the output of machine guns is beyond our anticipations, and that it is rapidly growing. He does not, I am sure, expect me to say any more than that.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: Hear, hear!
    Dr. ADDISON: In the matter of trench-warfare supplies, here again I may say that in some directions, at all events, the output of supplies has exceeded not only anticipations, but requirements. It is true that some things are more difficult to make than others. With some of the newer matters we have had a good deal of difficulty in respect to their initial stages, but the right hon. Gentleman can be quite sure that no effort is being spared to spur on the output of this class of munitions. The hon. Baronet opposite (Sir T. Esmonde) raised the question of the housing of the munition workers. I think he suggested that a number of the local authorities thought they could do the work more cheaply than the Ministry of Munitions. I can assure him that if that statement can be made good, we shall be only too delighted to hand over the work to such local authorities, because we have plenty of burdens of our own without giving ourselves more to do in this direction. But really I think he must have been a little misinformed, because in this matter we have been in communication with the local authorities, and wherever we are building or
    1162
    helping to build permanent houses we have given them over to the local authorities. In other cases where only temporary accommodation is provided by the Ministry of Munitions we do the work, although even in some of these cases the work is being undertaken by the local authorities. If the hon. Baronet can give me any information which will help us, I shall be exceedingly grateful to him. He suggested too, I think, that we were not as anxious as we might be to make as full use as possible during the period of the War of Irish resources. Quite sincerely I may tell him that such is absolutely foreign to our intention. The hon. Member below him (Mr. T. M. Healy) knows well that I have personally taken great interest in the organisation of this work.
    9.0 P.M
    We have sent men over to Ireland with instructions to make as full a use as possible of Irish resources, and I think the consensus of opinion is that they have done their work uncommonly well. Where there may be flaws in this work, I shall be very glad if the hon. Baronet will give me any information which will be of assistance to us. I know the particular question which he has in his mind, but you cannot always get additional machines that may be available and the men required together; but we are doing, and have done, that which we believe will be most useful all round. The hon. Baronet says he hopes that Ireland would be made of more use to us in connection with the provision of glycerine. I shall be very glad to receive any information he has to give us on that subject. He knows we have made comprehensive arrangements in respect to the whole national supply of oils and fats with a view to obtaining sufficient glycerine. Despite criticism, I think we could show that we have made an uncommonly good bargain for the nation in the matter of glycerine. We are much better situated in connection with the provision of glycerine than we would have been if we had not taken this comprehensive means of ensuring and controlling the national supply of oils and fats. I am glad to say in this connection that the trade, almost without exception, has seconded our efforts in a most patriotic manner.
    Mr. T. M. HEALY: Having visited various shell factories I think it is only due to the Government to pay a tribute to the

    1163
    efficiency of the gentlemen whom they sent over to Ireland. They are working in a land where they are largely strangers in an admirable way. There is a Scottish gentleman, Captain Downie, I think, who has planned out a factory with extraordinary efficiency. I have some little knowledge of machinery, and I have never known assembled in so short a time such an extraordinary collection of machines—many of them perhaps American—brought together with so great judgment in a country where there is great difficulty of transport and transit. Yet he assembled the whole with great rapidity, and to my mind with great judgment. I would now, as I have done on two or three occasions, represent to the right hon. Gentleman the necessity for more wood work being supplied to the country. He was good enough to see that a good deal was sent to Dublin, but we can do in the country with more than we have. The difficulty, I understand, is that there is no shell-filling factory in the country. I would strongly urge upon the Government that, as Dublin and Belfast have got some proportion of the work, that the city of Cork and the county of Cork should be so provided.
    They are within easy reach of the shell-making places of Dublin and elsewhere, but unless we get a shell-filling factory we cannot get our adequate supplies of wood work. If Ireland does not get her fair share, it probably will not be due to the lack of good will on the part of the hon. Gentleman opposite, or, I feel certain, of those who are in charge. On the question of petrol, may I say that I think it is an extraordinary thing that we have allowed monopolists, many of them not natives of this country, to advance, month by month, and almost week by week, the price of liquid fuel, whereas against solid fuel we have our Coal Act of last year which takes steps to provide against injustice. Many people think that petrol is a luxury of the rich. It is nothing of the kind. Since the introduction of the motor industry, deliveries by motor van are made from even small convent laundries. All over the country tradesmen are using petrol in their vans, and the Government use of it is essential. Why then should we allow, I care not whom, to do as regards petrol what we deny to our own coal producers the right to do? We have
    1164
    come down, not perhaps with sufficient vigour, but we have done something to prevent the price of coal being raised—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That matter arises in relation to the Board of Trade, and not on this Supplementary Vote.
    Mr. HEALY: If that is so, I will not pursue the matter, but will simply say that I believe we have the good will of the Department of Munitions in regard to Ireland, and that I feel certain they will not neglect to ascertain the absolute necessity of a shell-filling factory somewhere in the vicinity of Cork.
    Sir T. ESMONDE: I should just like to remark that I forgot to say that we feel very much indebted to Captain Downie for the success he has made of the national shell factory in Dublin. He has performed almost a miracle. I am thankful to the hon. Member for what he has Said, and may I support the claim of my hon. and learned Friend as to the necessity of a national shell-filling factory? It is a question the importance of which we all realise. Of course it is not for me to interfere with the decision of the Munitions Department, but I think the proper place for that shell-filling factory is Queenstown.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: Might I just say how pleased I was to hear the statement of the Parliamentary Secretary with regard to the supply of machine-guns and trench warfare supplies? I need not assure him our remarks were not made in any degree of criticism. I can assure him, so far as I am concerned, and I believe so far as the people outside are concerned, all feel a very great debt of gratitude. There have been difficulties and mistakes, which there were bound to be in a new Department, but I think we are gradually getting over them. I only wonder where we should have been to-day if the Ministry of Munitions had not been established. It is rather too awful, to think what would have happened if it had been left in the hands of the War Office. What is not generally understood outside is the working of the Department regarding supplies. To whom does the Minister of Munitions look for orders in regard to particular kinds of guns, trench-warfare materials, ammunition, and all that sort of thing? Does the recent change at the War Office affect that? Do the orders come now from the Imperial General Staff, or do they come from the War Office as before, or do they

    1165
    come direct from the War Council? I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell me whether they themselves have the responsibility of ordering without any official authority from another office. If they consider that machine guns are not supplied to a sufficient extent, have they the power on their own initiative to place orders, or have they to wait for some authority to give instructions?
    Dr. ADDISON: The procedure is that, either originating, say, from the General Council or the War Council, the requirements are stated to the Ministry of Munitions—that is to say, we have, as a matter of fact, I think in almost every ingredient of supplies, a comprehensive programme of requirements. The Ministry of Munition works on the programme, and in the course of its ordering it allows such margin as experience shows are desirable to discount errors, accidents, and delays of one kind or another. But we work on programmes of requirements which have been drawn up, of course, after detailed consultation, and, so far as the new design branch is concerned, the Director-General of Munitions is responsible for experiments and specifications after the settlement of design questions. The Army authorities requisition on the Ministry of Munitions for certain types of ammunition, and any alterations in specifications are determined by the Director-General of our own Munitions Department, who is in charge of that particular branch.
    Question put, and agreed to.

    MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS (ORDNANCE FACTORIES).
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    12. "That a sum, not exceeding £1,000, be granted to His Majesty to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916, for the Expenses of the Ordnance Factories, the cost of the
    1166
    production of which will be charged to the Army, Navy, Ministry of Munitions, and Indian and Colonial Governments etc."
    Sir H. DALZIEL: Some time ago, soon after the trouble with regard to shells arose, I was bold enough to make a demand that the ordnance factories should be taken from the War Office and placed under the Ministry of Munitions. At that time the suggestion met with a good deal of censure, but that transfer appears now to have been completed. I would like to ask if it has been absolutely completed and if it is working smoothly?
    Dr. ADDISON: Yes; the transfer of all the ordnance factories, so far as they manufacture or supply, is entirely under the Ministry of Munitions. As my right hon. Friend knows, there are in close association with some of the ordnance factories certain storehouses, and so on, which belong to the Quartermaster-General of the Department, and they are not under the Ministry of Munitions; but, so far as the manufacture and production of supplies arc concerned, they are entirely under the Ministry of Munitions.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Resolutions to be reported to-morrow (Thursday); Committee to sit again to-morrow.
    The Order remaining (Ways and Means) was read, and postponed.
    Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 21st February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Adjourned accordingly at Thirteen minutes after Nine o'clock.

WAR.
  TOTAL CASUALTIES.
  TOTAL CASUALTIES.
  MUNITIONS.
    TRANSFER OF ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT.
    TRANSFER OF ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT.
    CUSTODIS, LIMITED.
    CUSTODIS, LIMITED.
  ROYAL MARINES (PENSIONS).
  ROYAL MARINES (PENSIONS).
  PORTSMOUTH DOCKYARD.
  PORTSMOUTH DOCKYARD.
  COLOUR-SERGEANTS (ROYAL MARINES).
  COLOUR-SERGEANTS (ROYAL MARINES).
  MILITARY SERVICE.
    ULSTER DIVISION.
    ULSTER DIVISION.
    ROYAL EAST KENT YEOMANRY (COMMISSIONS).
    ROYAL EAST KENT YEOMANRY (COMMISSIONS).
    ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY.
    ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY.
    IRISH MIGRATORY LABOURERS.
    IRISH MIGRATORY LABOURERS.
    SCOTTISH PROVISIONAL BATTALION (PERIOD OF SERVICE).
    SCOTTISH PROVISIONAL BATTALION (PERIOD OF SERVICE).
    MEDICAL UNFITNESS.
    MEDICAL UNFITNESS.
    MARRIED MEN.
    MARRIED MEN.
  COLONIAL ALLOWANCES TO OFFICERS.
  COLONIAL ALLOWANCES TO OFFICERS.
  ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY (ALLOTMENT).
  ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY (ALLOTMENT).
  RECEIVING DEPOT, DUBLIN.
  RECEIVING DEPOT, DUBLIN.
  NATURALISED GERMAN SUBJECT, SHEFFIELD.
  NATURALISED GERMAN SUBJECT, SHEFFIELD.
  FORESTER PAPER COMPANY, LIMITED, ACTON.
  FORESTER PAPER COMPANY, LIMITED, ACTON.
  FLAX SEED SUPPLIES.
  FLAX SEED SUPPLIES.
  BRITISH WHEAT, BARLEY, AND OATS (AVERAGE GAZETTE PRICES).
  BRITISH WHEAT, BARLEY, AND OATS (AVERAGE GAZETTE PRICES).
  INTERNATIONAL TREATIES.
  INTERNATIONAL TREATIES.
  Income Tax (Annual Value of Land).
  Income Tax (Annual Value of Land).
NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.
  COMMITTEE OF INVESTIGATION.
  COMMITTEE OF INVESTIGATION.

SWANSEA HARBOUR BILL. [H.L.]
RIVER GLEN BILL. [H.L.]
ABERDARE AND ABERAMAN GAS BILL. [H.L.]
CANADA COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
COLCHESTER GAS BILL. [H.L.]
HORNSEY GAS BILL. [H.L.]
IMPERIAL CONTINENTAL GAS ASSOCIA- TION BILL. [H.L.]
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE AND GATES- HEAD GAS BILL. [H.L.]
SOUTH EASTERN AND LONDON, CHATHAM AND DOVER RAILWAYS BILL. [H.L.]
VAN DIEMEN'S LAND COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
YEADON WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Second Reading (which stands appointed for Tuesday next) put off to Wednesday next.

RETURNS, REPORTS, &c.
Merchant Shipping (Load Line and Deck Cargoes of Wood Goods)—Report of Committee appointed by Board of Trade to advise on the load lines of merchant ships and the carriage of deck cargoes of wood goods—Presented (by command) and ordered to lie on the Table.
Pawnbrokers (Ireland)—Returns from the City Marshal of Dublin for 1915:
Bankruptcy (Ireland)—Returns of the Official Assignee of the King's Bench Division in Bankruptey in Ireland and of the Local Courts at Belfast and Cork, for the year 1915:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and ordered to lie on the Table.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed. (No. 4.)
NAVAL PRIZE (PROCEDURE) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed. (No. 5.)

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF CREWE): Your Lordships will observe a Motion on the Paper for the suspension of Standing Order No. XXXIX for to-day. It is moved in respect of the Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill and the Naval Prize (Procedure) Bill, both of which have to receive the Royal Assent to-morrow. It seemed to us that it might be more convenient, should it be desired to raise any discussion upon the Naval Prize Bill, to take the Second Reading to-day and the remaining stages to-morrow which would give an opportunity to noble Lords, either to-day or to-morrow, to express their views.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be suspended for this day's sitting.—(The Marquess of Crewe.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Before your Lordships agree to this Motion I should like to put a question to the noble Marquess. I quite understand why the Consolidated Fund Bill must receive the Royal Assent to-morrow. But what is the urgency in the case of the Naval Prize (Procedure) Bill?
THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, legally and technically it is not absolutely necessary that the Naval Prize (Procedure) Bill should receive the Royal Assent tomorrow, but it would be of great convenience if that were possible. The Bill has passed through all its stages in the other House, and I hope your Lordships will facilitate its passage so that it may be placed on the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, we do not desire in any way to impede the passage of these Bills, but we do feel, as we felt all through last session, that every Bill is now given the character of being extremely urgent. If we could get an assurance from His Majesty's Government that we shall not be constantly exposed to a repetition of this practice, it would give us great satisfaction. I have come across instances of measures of great importance passed during last session in which most serious mistakes were made solely because your Lordships had not proper time in which to consider those Bills. Changes were hastily accepted in the course of a few hours, and now, not only on the part of members of this House but on the part also of His Majesty's Government I under-

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stand, there is considerable misgiving as to the changes which were made or were not made at the last moment owing to the great haste in which the Bills were passed through this House. I hope that what occurred last session is not going to be a precedent for this session.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, I cannot help thinking that this is a novel proceeding at this period of the session. At the end of a session, when time is very important, the Standing Order has been frequently suspended, but not at the beginning of a session. This is an important matter of principle: and although I would not go to the length of attempting to resist what His Majesty's Government have stated is an important matter to be done at once, I must enter my protest.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I can quite understand the feelings which have prompted noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite to say what they have. As the noble Duke behind me clearly stated, the Naval Prize (Procedure) Bill is not one winch the Government would think it right to press your Lordships to take through all its stages to-day and tomorrow on the ground of the national necessity of its receiving the Royal Assent to-morrow. Therefore if the House were to continue to press us in the sense in which noble Lords opposite have, we should be obliged to ask your Lordships to take the responsibility of putting the Admiralty to the inconvenience which my noble friend has mentioned. The Consolidated Fund Bill, as your Lordships are aware, is another matter. It contains technical points which have to be dealt with at a particular time. I may, however, remind your Lordships that the matter of Naval prize is one with which the Admiralty are anxious to proceed with as much speed as possible, because it has been a subject for some time of unfavourable comment from various quarters that the regularising of Prize Court proceedings in every respect has not been achieved by this time. Therefore I am inclined to think that my noble friend will feel that when the Admiralty are in a position to act immediately in one matter it is somewhat hard upon them that their efforts should meet with so cold a reception.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to
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say—and I believe on this occasion I speak for noble Lords who sit behind me—that we do not desire to be inconvenient in any way, and we shall not ask the Government to postpone the Bill on the present occasion. But we do honestly think that when a Bill is not urgent your Lordships' procedure ought to be carried out in its entirety, and the various stages of a Bill taken on the several days appointed for them.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
Bill read 2a (The Lord Hylton): Committee negatived: Bill read 3a.
Moved, That the Bill do pass.—(Lord Hylton.)
LORD MUIR-MACKENZIE: I am sorry to rise to a point of order. But the Motion standing in the name of the noble Marquess on the Paper reads that the Standing Order should be suspended for this day's sitting "in order to take the First and Second Readings" of the two Bills.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: It is quite immaterial.
Motion (by leave) withdrawn, and Bill to be passed To-morrow.

NAVAL PRIZE (PROCEDURE) BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, the object of this Bill is to deal with a small matter which has arisen with regard to actions which have been and might be brought against persons in the Naval service or in the employment of the Admiralty. Under the existing law these actions have to be brought within the United Kingdom, and, as your Lordships can readily imagine, this is not always a convenient practice. This Bill proposes to deal with that matter. Under the Act passed last year, prize proceedings can be transferred when they are taken against a ship or the cargo. The object of this Bill is to make such procedure apply in all cases. The course which it is proposed to adopt in this Bill is to repeal so much of Section 51 of the Naval Prize Act, 1864, as provides that actions and proceedings against any

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person in His Majesty's Naval service or in the employment of the Admiralty shall not be brought or instituted elsewhere than in the United Kingdom. That is accomplished by the first clause of this Bill. The second clause provides that Section 1 of the Prize Courts Act, 1915—which relates to the transfer of proceedings against a ship or cargo from one Prize Court to another—shall be extended so as to apply to all proceedings pending at any time in a Prize Court. It is felt that it would be a great deal more convenient, if any such actions and proceedings are instituted, that the question should be raised before and should be dealt with by the same Court as deals with the ship or cargo.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Duke of Devonshire.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.

THE SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, on the Motion for the adjournment. I would ask the noble Marquess what the intention of the Government is with regard to the future sittings of the House. On the first day of the session we had some discussion on the matter, and certainly several members on this side who are constant attendants are of opinion that it would not be at all an undesirable thing to restrict the meetings of the House to three days in alternate weeks. I do not think it very much adds to our proceedings to meet frequently with a small attendance and not very much to discuss. But if the meetings of the House were fixed for alternate weeks the debates would be more concentrated, and there would be larger attendances and better opportunities for discussion. Unless His Majesty's Government make up their minds as to what should be the sitting days of the House, some days in each week will be filled up. That is now the case for next week. Obviously the Questions that are on the Paper for next week could have been discussed with ample opportunity to-day.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I quite well remember the observations that were made at the opening of the session on this proposal at the instance of my noble friend opposite. We feel that we are really in the hands of the House in this matter. If it is desired that we should only hold sittings on
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a few days, it ought not, one would think, to be difficult for noble Lords who have Motions that they desire to place on the Paper, by a simple system of combination, to carry out the desire of the noble Viscount; and instead of there being possibly one Question to-day, one tomorrow, and one the next day, noble Lords might agree to put them on the Paper for the same day. But the noble Viscount will see, I am sure, that there is a difficulty in adjourning over a whole week, because he is aware that by the procedure of the House, supposing we were to decide, which I understand is what my noble friend wants, that next week should not be a sitting week and that we should adjourn from to-morrow till the Tuesday of the week following, no power would exist and no device would enable us to hold a sitting in between those dates, however urgent it might be to do so. It is not always quite easy to foresee when urgent financial matters, for instance, may come up from another place and have to be passed rapidly into law. We are unwilling, therefore, to make it the practice to adjourn over a whole week. I think it is not impossible, however, that the opinion which the noble Viscount has expressed, and the opinion which I am now expressing on behalf of the Government, may lead noble Lords to arrange their Notices in a manner which, in effect, would bring about what the noble Viscount desires. It would, of course, be possible for us to sit only two day as week instead of three—that is to say, we could make it a general rule to adjourn on Wednesday evening until the Tuesday following; and I should not be altogether indisposed to take that course if I was quite certain that it had the approval of the House. I remember that when we were discussing the matter before and I hinted some doubt as to whether the noble Viscount's plan would lead to much concentration or to shortening of business and avoidance of waste of time, my observation received not a little assent from noble Lords sitting in different parts of the House. I do not feel, therefore, quite confident that my noble friend, in his desire to meet on alternate weeks, would be supported by the majority of your Lordships. In those circumstances I am disposed to leave the matter as it is for the moment and see whether noble Lords, on the noble Viscount's appeal and mine, will not endeavour to concentrate their Notices a good deal more than they have done in the past.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I think there is a great deal in what the noble Marquess has said. I agree that it would be better to concentrate our efforts, but there is considerable difficulty in an absolute adjournment over a whole week. I might take an example from what has happened to-day. Had my noble friend been willing to let the Naval Prize (Procedure) Bill take its several stages, he would have read it a first time to-day and a second time to-morrow. But if next week had been one of the weeks when the House did not sit, the Bill could not have been proceeded with until the week after next, which would be a Considerable delay supposing the matter to be one of urgency. That is an illustration of what would happen if your Lordships put it out of your power to legislate for a whole week. There may be a way out of the difficulty, but I certainly cannot support the noble Viscount's suggestion. I am in favour of concentrating our sittings to particular days, but I should be sorry to assent straight off to an absolute adjournment over a whole week unless the Government were quite certain that the business of the country would not suffer.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, there is a great deal of force in what my noble friend has just said. There are
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no doubt a number of Peers who would be very glad to feel sure that for a certain number of days in the week there would be no meeting of the House, so that they might be liberated to attend to the numerous other valuable services to which they are devoted away from London. On the other hand, I think there are a great many of Your Lordships who would be sorry to part unreservedly for a considerable period of time with the privilege of meeting. In my opinion the only way in which this question can be satisfactorily arranged is by some kind of collusion between the independent Peers and His Majesty's Government. I think if Peers who take an interest in the business of the House could manage to concentrate that business and avoid dispersing their Notices over a very wide period of time, we might safely adjourn, let us say, from the Wednesday or Thursday of one week until the Wednesday or Thursday of the following week. That seems to me a possible arrangement, but I do not like to give any encouragement to the idea of abdicating altogether for any very long period our right to meet and transact business at a time like the present.
House adjourned at five minutes before Five o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.