said, he was glad to see the President of the Board of Trade in his place, because the right hon. Gentleman would probably be able to answer an inquiry which he had made yesterday. The question he desired to put to [the right hon. Gentleman was one of great importance. In Liverpool the Conservators of the Mersey were looted up to as the protectors of the interests of the Conservancy. Admiral Spratt was the Acting Conservator of the Mersey; but it had been stated that Sir John Coode had been appointed to advise and assist the Conservators; and he wanted to know what were the scope and object of Sir John Coode's appointment? If they were simply to advise the Conservators of the Mersey there could be no possible objection; but if Sir John Coode's evidence was to be given before the Committee of the House of Lords in aid of the promoters of this Bill, it was felt that the interests of the Mersey would in some degree be jeopardized. Therefore, he wished to know what were the scope and object of Sir John Coode's appointment, and if he had been appointed with the consent of the Conservators of the Mersey?

said, the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Whitley) would be aware that the Mersey Conservancy consisted of the First Lord of the Admiralty, the President of the Board of Trade, and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, assisted by the Acting Conservator, Admiral Spratt. When this Bill was first promoted the Promoters sought to throw a great responsibility on the Conservancy, in requiring their approval to the works to be done in the estuary; and the Conservators felt, after consulting with Admiral Spratt, that they required further experienced advice before they could give any satisfactory opinion on the matter submitted to them. They, therefore, insisted that the Promoters should agree to the insertion of the clause by which they would undertake to pay the expense of any professional assistance which the Conservators of the Mersey might think fit to call in. That clause had been agreed to, and it was in accordance with its provisions that the Conservators of the Mersey had now appointed Sir John Coode, as an engineer of wide experience in similar matters, to advise them and assist Admiral Spratt. He was not at all connected with the Promoters of the undertaking; but he would be employed in a consultative capacity on behalf of the Conservators of the Mersey.

expressed his satisfaction with the explanation.

, who had a Motion on the Paper that the Bill be considered on that day week, said, he did not propose to move the Resolution which stood in his name; but he thought the House would permit him to call attention to a few facts in connection with the Bill. It would be in the recollection of the House that the Committee, some three years ago, gave certain powers to the Metropolitan District Railway Company to make ventilators on the public land; but it was not until those ventilators were absolutely put up that the attention of the public was called to their inconvenience. As soon as the inconvenience was felt the matter was brought before the House. As was well known, the House had always a strong objection to interfere with anything a Committee had previously decided, and very rightly so; but when this question was submitted to the House special Instructions were given to consider the matter in connection with another Metropolitan District Railway Bill which was submitted to the House. It was then expressly stated that, as a matter of principle, there were strong objections to undoing the work of a Select Committee. But, in this particular instance, so great was the inconvenience occasioned that the House considered it right to depart from its usual course, and the usual course was departed from by a majority of 110 in a crowded House, and powers were given to the Committee to close the ventilators in the different streets of the City and upon the Thames Embankment upon reasonable terms. He should now like to call the attention of the House to what the Railway Company did after these Instructions had been given by so large a majority of the House. When the Bill came before the Committee the Railway Company simply defied the House. They asked the Committee this question—"Are you going to pay any attention to the Instruction which has been given to you by the House of Commons?" The Committee took time to consider, and then said that they were going to pay attention to it. Whereupon the Hail-way Company rejoined—"Then, we will drop our Bill, and you cannot, therefore, carry out the Instructions of the House." They did drop their Bill, and the Instruction could not be carried out. But the authorities of the City of London and in the Metropolitan area, after beating about in order to see what further steps they could take for stopping the nuisance occasioned by these ventilators, and after a consultation between the City of London and the Metropolitan Board of Works, came to the House and stated their case, declaring that the only way to get rid of the nuisance was to promote a Bill, and to ask the House to suspend its Standing Orders with regard to it, thereby making it a Public Bill. The House was so convinced of the nuisance, and so desirous of adhering to the opinion they had previously expressed, that they at once gave this power of suspending the Standing Orders, and two separate Bills were brought in—one by the City of London, in regard to ventilators within the jurisdiction of the City, and the second by the Metropolitan Board of Works, in regard to the ventilators which had been constructed upon the Metropolitan area. Those two Bills were referred to a Select Committee; and he must here say a word in regard to the action of the Railway Company, because he thought the conduct pursued by the Company would receive the condemnation of all who respected authority. When Bills went before a Committee of the House it was supposed that the Committee would listen to nothing but the arguments addressed to them by the counsel representing all the parties concerned; that they would hear the evidence laid before them, and then decide upon the merits of the application. But he regretted to say that the Metropolitan District Railway Company took a course unprecedented by any Railway Company in the United Kingdom, because they resorted to out-of-door agitation, in order to bring pressure to bear upon the Committee. There might have been seen in Pall Mall and all over the streets huge placards, with advertisements, announcing—"Awful slaughter!" "Wholesale slaughter of the working classes!" "£40,000 of the ratepayers' money going to be thrown away!" and other devices, never resorted to before by a Railway Company.

rose to Order. He wished to ask the hon. and learned Member if he had any proof that the Railway Company were responsible for these placards?

said, he had this proof—that when the time came for stating their case the Railway Company put forward their engineer, and did not put into the box either the Chairman of the Company or the General Manager. He had, further, this authority for the assertion he made—that the advertisements appeared in every station on the District Line; and he was sure that if the Committee had been able to examine and cross-examine the Chairman and the Manager of the Railway Company, they would have been able to ascertain where the money came from, and it would at once have been admitted that, at any rate, the Company paid for the advertisements. He did not think that any further proof was necessary. If the assertion was untrue, let the Railway Company come before the House and deny it. The agitation did go on, and it was conducted in the most obnoxious and objectionable form. The Railway Company tried, by outward pressure brought to bear upon the Members of the House, to influence the decision by getting up a workman's grievance. They represented themselves as the champions of the working classes; whereas everybody in the House knew that every beneficial institution the Railway Company had introduced had not been at the instance of the Railway Company themselves, but at the instance of the House. Even while their Bill was passing through the House, it was necessary to watch them, and to bring in clauses to protect the interests of the working classes. When he saw the Railway Company holding themselves out as the champions of the working classes, and defying the City and the Metropolitan Board of Works, he was reminded of the old proverb of "Satan reproving sin." The House of Commons had always taken up the rights of the working classes, and it was absurd and ridiculous to assume that the District Railway Company were their champions, and that the House of Commons was against them. He believed the House would concur with him that such conduct on the part of the Railway Company was highly reprehensible and objectionable. He did not think, however, that it had any effect upon the Committee, the. Chairman of which he was glad to see present in his place. He felt certain himself that it had not. He now asked the House to inquire for a moment what it was that took place before the Committee. Two of those ventilators were situated in the City of London. One was extremely dangerous, and the other very harmless. The City of London only objected to one of them, and the Committee ordered that one to be closed. Therefore, the City of London were perfectly satisfied with the decision of the Committee, which ordered the ventilator in Queen Victoria Street to be shut up. But with regard to the Metropolitan Board of Works, their case was altogether different. There were eight ventilators to which the Board objected; but the Committee decided that only two of them should be shut up, that one should be altered, and the other five should be left untouched. He was glad to see the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works in his place, because he believed that, acting for the ratepayers and on behalf of the public at large, the Metropolitan Board were greatly dissatisfied with the decision arrived at. They looked upon these ventilators as a source of danger to the public, and as a nuisance in many ways. The Committee had requested the Railway Company to suggest a clause by which the nuisance might be abated, and the Railway Company suggested that the whole matter should be referred to arbitration. In regard to the nuisance, although he could not give evidence, he would make a statement for himself, and he believed that that statement would be fully corroborated by other hon. Members. Those who walked up and down the Thames Embankment before the attention of the House of Commons was called to these ventilators would be aware that volumes of steam and smoke used to issue from these apertures. ["Oh!"] He was speaking of what took place three or four months ago. No doubt, as soon as the matter was brought before the House those large volumes of smoke practically ceased, and very little would be seen to issue from the ventilators as persons walked up and down the Embankment. Why was that? It was evident that the Railway Company did not wish the nuisance to be seen so long as the rod of the House was held over them; but if this Bill passed there would then be nothing to prevent these volumes of smoke from coming out again, and, if any objection were raised, the reply would be that the ventilators had been sanctioned by Parliament. If the Railway Company wished really to abate the nuisance, let the ventilators be placed under the Railway Commissioners. There were three Railway Commissioners, who had not very much to do; and if this Railway Bill were subjected to the authority of the Commissioners, with power to interfere in the case of any nuisance that might be created, the public, no doubt, would be satisfied, because if the matter went before the Railway Commissioners it was quite clear that the nuisance would very soon be abated. But the question for consideration now was, what the House would do. The House had taken the matter on themselves, and the only question was whether they ought to reject the Bill in the amended form in which it had come down from the Committee. In his opinion, one-half or a quarter of a loaf was better than none; and as the Bill had still to go through the House of Lords, he would venture to let the matter stand where it was, the House retaining to. itself further action, if necessary, in the next Session of Parliament. If that were the opinion of the House, he would ask permission to withdraw the Resolution which stood in his name on the Paper, and he would allow the Bill to pass for the present.

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman move any Amendment?

No.

said, he did not wish to inquire into the manners and morals of the Railway Company. He considered that the whole question of what the Railway Company did, or what they were supposed to have done, was entirely decided. The only question before the House, and the question constantly present to him, was whether these ventilators were necessary for the health of the persons who travelled by the railway. He was entirely convinced that they were, and he exceedingly regretted the action which had been taken by the City of London and the Metropolitan Board of Works. He was satisfied that there would be great and growing discontent even in regard to this partial action on the part of Parliament in shutting them up. In the interests of those who travelled on the Metropolitan District Railway, he desired to say a word. As soon as the subject had been discussed, he had been waited upon by representatives of the working classes in London. As a matter of fact, the borough he represented—Southwark—was not materially served by this railway. Fortunately for the people of the South of London, they generally travelled upon open railways, where it was not necessary to have special means of ventilation; but the working classes of the South of London felt very much for their brother workmen, who complained seriously of the course pursued in respect to this railway. He was told that there were no less than 200,000 working men in London who were prepared, if they had had an opportunity—which, however, was refused to them—of being heard before the Committee, of stating their views upon the matter. In the absence of the information which they could have given upon the subject, the Report of the Committee was necessarily an ex parte one; and, therefore, he contended that it did not take into account various important considerations which ought to have been before the Committee in relation to the question of public health. Now, what had been done in regard to these ventilators? They had been constructed in comparatively innocuous places, and a great deal of sentimentality had been uttered in regard to them. The House had been told of pestilential vapours, injurious both to man and vegetation, constantly issuing forth in puffs of smoke and steam. But they were evils which existed only in the vigorous imagination of his hon. and learned Friend. He (Mr. Rogers) confessed that he had not seen anything of the kind. The fact of the matter was that the whole amount of steam which came out of the ventilators was not half so noxious, and certainly not one-half as visible, as that emitted from one of the steamboats that plied up and down the Thames, and which they did not wish to interfere with at all. The steam and smoke from these steamboats certainly created a very considerable nuisance. But the nuisance from the ventilators was very trifling indeed. In point of fact, the particular kind of coal used on this railway was one by which very little smoke was created. Of course there was a certain amount of steam emitted; but it was quickly dispersed into thin air, without any injurious consequences to health or vegetation. The Committee which sat upon the Bill had closed three ventilators—one at the instance of the City of London—and he regretted exceedingly that the opportunity escaped him of attacking that Bill which enabled the City to close that ventilator. He was informed, on good authority, and he had spoken to several of the guards and permanent officials of the railway since the ventilator had been shut up, that the closing of that shaft would very much interfere with the pointsmen and engine drivers, and that, in future, there would be great risk of danger to persons who used the railway in that direction. He presumed that the ventilator was closed on account of a general disinclination on the part of the City of London—for he could explain it on no other ground—to have light let in upon their proceedings.

rose to Order. He wished to ask whether his hon. Friend was justified in attacking the City of London on this question?

said, he presumed that the Commissioners of Sewers, who promoted the Bill, were part of the City of London, and he regretted that the worthy Alderman was unable to accept a good-humoured jest upon the Corporation as to what went on in the City. With regard to the other two ventilators which were to be closed, there was no doubt that when they were shut up a good deal of the space now rendered comparatively pure would be vitiated. In regard to the general course taken by the Metropolitan Board of Works, it would be observed that just beyond the point where the last ventilator of the Railway Company was opened within the jurisdiction of the City there were a great many spaces which had been utilized on the line of the railway itself, and which might have been employed for building purposes. That was to say, that part of the space belonging to the Company had been devoted to the good of the public, showing that the Railway Company had not been altogether influenced by selfish considerations. He should like to know what was the reason that the ventilator had been closed in Parliament Square? He believed that the only reason assigned was that it was an historical spot. No doubt Tothill Fields was an historical spot; but that did not seem to him to be an adequate reason. The circumstances of the case rendered it absolutely impossible that the Metropolitan Railway could make openings in the streets except with the sanction of the House of Commons, and two years ago Parliament went into the question deliberately, and, whether rightly or wrongly, did give that sanction. He thought Parliament acted rightly when they preferred to consider the public health rather than sentimental considerations. The sanitary condition of the railway as soon as the ventilators were opened was, he believed, somewhat remarkably improved; and he regretted very much that this compromise had been entered into, because he believed that it would be injurious to the people who travelled by the Underground Railway. Although after what had been decided on previous occasions it was unlikely that he should carry the Motion, he, nevertheless, felt it his duty to move, as a protest, that the Bill be considered on that day three months.

said, he quite concurred with the remarks of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Brighton (Mr. Marriott). The Metropolitan Board of Works—and he believed their feeling was shared by the great majority of the inhabitants of London, and also by the majority of that House—could not help expressing great surprise at the decision of the Committee after the repeated votes which had been given by the House of Commons; but as the Committee had given due consideration to the matter, he could only say, on behalf of the Metropolitan Board of Works, that they were prepared to accept the decision of the Committee, and to go on and take the Bill up to the House of Lords. At the same time, they reserved to themselves the power of doing whatever they thought fit in the House of Lords, dependent on the action of the Railway Company. They were prepared to take what they could get now, and to reserve to themselves the power next year of doing what they might think necessary, if they found that the health of the inhabitants was suffering from these ventilators, and he was very much afraid that that would be the case. The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Rogers) had been good enough to introduce the question of the steam issuing from the ventilators. He did not know whether the hon. Member had listened to or read the Evidence before the Committee. If he had, he did not think the hon. Member could have asserted that the smoke from a penny steamer was much more objectionable than that which came from these ventilators. He would give the House an extract from the Evidence given before the Committee, of which his right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Stansfeld) was Chairman. It was stated to the Committee that 10 tons of coal were used every day on the railway, and that that coal gave forth 600,000 cubic feet of carbonic acid gas, which went all over the River and the Gardens, and destroyed the trees and flowers and every description of vegetation. It was quite evident, therefore, that the hon. Member could not have read the scientific evidence which went to prove the amount of damage actually done. His hon. Friend said that he represented the opinions of the working classes. All he (Sir James M'Garel-Hogg) could say was that he had had as many representations from one sort of people as from the other, and that he had received a considerable number of persons who represented the working classes. He knew, however, how much value to attach to the testimony placed before him, because he was well aware that there were a certain number of people who, instead of representing a class, only represented themselves. He hoped the House would allow the Bill to pass, and would accept the decision of the Committee, although they were not getting one-tenth part of what they ought to have got. On behalf of the Metropolitan Board of Works, he was prepared to accept the conclusion of the Committee; but the Board reserved to themselves the power hereafter of taking further steps in the matter.

said, that, with the permission of the House, he would withdraw the Amendment.

said, he could not think the hon. and learned Member was really serious in moving the rejection of the Bill. It must be remembered that it had been introduced in conformity with an Act passed by the House last Session, after the whole question had been fully considered by the Select Committee; and there were now before the House a considerable number of Bills, which had been introduced in conformity with the provisions of that Act. It must be remembered that the Notices for this Bill were given in November last; that the Board of Trade had held local inquiries, and had heard evidence from all quarters; and these Bills were now brought before the House, after great deliberation and discussion, in the shape of Provisional Orders by the Board of Trade. Exceptional facilities had been given a few days ago to the opponents of these Bills, and any persons interested in the matter would be entitled to be heard before the Committee. He trusted that the House would adopt the usual course of sending the Bill to a Committee; because it would be a very hard case indeed that the inhabitants of London should be deprived of the advantages of the electric light, or that the Companies which were willing to supply them should be impeded in their operations. If the Metropolitan Board of Works and the Vestries, which constituted the local authority, could not agree among themselves they could go upstairs before the Committee and settle their disputes. It was not at all right that the House should be called upon to settle them upon the second reading of the Bill. He sincerely hoped that no hindrance would be imposed by the House at this time of the Session to the trial of this very important experiment, so far as the inhabitants of London were concerned.

wished, as shortly as possible, to state some reasons why he supported the Amendment for the rejection of the Bill. One reason was the great inconvenience occasioned by the action of the Board of Trade in including in the Bill districts which had agreed to the Orders, and other districts which had not, be-cause it necessitated a district which was opposing one Order to oppose the whole Bill, and go to considerable expense in appearing before the Committee. He regretted that the plan adopted should put the parties to such great inconvenience and expense. He did not understand why the Orders which had been opposed could not have been dealt with by separate Bills. This Bill affected two portions of the locality controlled by the Board of Works for the Westminster district, which, according to the Electric Lighting Act of 1882, was the lighting authority for that district. The Order had been granted in direct opposition to the wishes of that Board, and no opinion had been expressed in its favour, or, indeed, as to the desirability of electric lighting at all by the inhabitants. The two districts were Victoria and South Kensington, both of them rich and important districts; and if a monopoly were given to a Company to light those districts great difficulty would be thrown in the way of the local authorities in obtaining a well-considered scheme for lighting the whole district, because the rich districts—the best for paying and trade purposes—would be taken up and the poorer portions of the locality left out. He thought the Government and the Home Secretary would agree with him that it was important that the poorer parts of the district, for police and moral purposes, should be as well lighted as the richer. The Board had received applications from two other Companies who were prepared to light the whole district—one of them the Edison Electric Lighting Company, and the other the Metropolitan Brush Electric Lighting and Power Company, and they had also received applications from private individuals for licences under which the whole district might be lighted, and a revision of the terms would take place at the end of every seven years. They, therefore, objected very strongly to having a certain portion of the district taken away and given to a particular Company, when other competing Companies had given notice of their desire to deal with the whole district. He submitted that the intention of the provisions of the Electric Lighting Act of 1882 was to encourage electric lighting on terms agreeable to the local authorities, and that the Board of Trade should only step in and grant Provisional Orders where the opposition of the local authorities was of a vexatious character, and contrary to the wishes of the inhabitants. That, however, was not the case in this instance. The Electric Lighting Act of 1882, in Section 3, dealt with and contemplated the granting of licences, and then Section 4 went on to deal with the question of Provisional Orders. The Board of Works of the Strand district, acting on that clause, had already granted licences for the lighting of their whole district, and the present Bill utterly upset and superseded their authority and their opinion in the matter. It might be said that, according to the warding of the Act, the licence had to be confirmed by the Board of Trade; but he submitted to the House that the intention of that provision was only to protect the interests of the consumers, and that it was not intended to supersede entirely the opinion of the local authority. Nevertheless, according to the present Bill, the wishes of the local authorities were entirely superseded, and the power to light these districts was handed over to Companies who would practically have a monopoly and the power of charging exorbitant prices for 21 years, instead of there being a possibility of revising the terms at the end of every seven years. For this, among other reasons, he hoped the House would not consent to the second reading of the Bill, or, if they did, that it would only be on the understanding that the opposed Orders were struck out.

said, the noble Lord who had just sat down had given some reasons for objecting to this particular Bill now before the House; but the hon. and learned Member who moved the Amendment had given no reasons whatever in support of it, except the general fear, which, no doubt, governed his whole conduct in the House, that they were proceeding too fast, and his desire to stop all legislation, which appeared even to extend to Provisional Orders. Under these circumstances, he (Mr. Chamberlain) would confine his remarks to the objections of the noble Lord. If the Bill were read a second time it would be allowed to go to the Hybrid Committee already appointed, before whom all objections to it would be very properly and fully heard. The noble Lord had an idea respecting the intention of Parliament in connection with the Electric Lighting Committee which was not at all warranted by the facts. The noble Lord appeared to think that Parliament intended that these Provisional Orders should only be granted with the goodwill and consent of the local authority. On the contrary, it appeared to him (Mr. Chamberlain) that the object of Parliament in passing that Act was, in the first place, to protect the community at large against anything in the nature of a permanent monopoly, such as in the case of gas and water; and, in the second place, to protect these important experiments from being stifled in their inception either by want of enterprize or by competing interests, or by the prejudice of the local authorities. When the Board of Trade had to consider the applications made to them they found a very general wish on the part of the local authorities that they should be left entirely alone. That was not an unnatural desire; but if the Board of Trade had yielded to it, this important experiment, instead of having a beneficial result, would absolutely have been stifled in its inception, and there would have been no chance of any further progress being made. Under these circumstances, what the Board of Trade thought it best to do was to hear the authorities and all their objections, either to particular Companies or to the proposed terms of an Order. These objections were carefully weighed and considered, and, as far as possible, were attended to by the Board of Trade; but where they took the form of mere general refusals on the part of the local authorities to allow any wires to be laid down in their districts for the purpose of electric lighting, and a desire to have the whole matter left to them to say when and where the experiments should be made, the Board of Trade thought it their duty to pass over such objections on the part of the local authority, because they did not think it fair to the ratepayers, or to the probable consumers, or to the Company who were willing to provide electric lighting, to allow the local authorities to stand in the way of the experiment and to prevent it from being carried out. As to the Westminster Board, they, and they alone, among the local authorities, although they had been invited again and again to appear before the Board of Trade and state their objections, had refused to attend, and their opposition had to be dealt with in their absence. The case was carefully considered, and it was owing to their own ladies that the particular objections of the Westminster authorities were not able to be heard and fully considered. They had now another opportunity of appearing before the Select Committee, and of being represented by counsel, or in any other way, before the Committee, in order to object to the granting of an Order. The noble Lord complained that opposed Orders had been placed in the same Bill as Orders which were not opposed. The Board of Trade could not tell beforehand whether an Order was opposed or not, and it would have been very convenient if they could have done so. For instance, he found to-day that a notice had been given at the last moment to oppose an Order which up to that time had been unopposed; and, considering that circumstance, he should no longer resist the Motion of his hon. Friend behind him (Sir George Campbell), but would consent to refer the Electric Lighting Provisional Order Bill (No. 6) to the same Hybrid Committee. That Committee would be able to hear the evidence in all of these cases.

regarded the speech of the right hon. Gentleman as a very extraordinary one, because it seemed to be based on the supposition that the measure passed last year was intended entirely to prejudge the question whether electricity, or any other form of lighting, was to be the lighting of the future in the Metropolis, or any other part of the country. There really seemed to be an onus probandi now to prove that the country was not given over entirely to electric lighting as the lighting of the future. In regard to the Westminster Board of Works, the President of the Board of Trade must be aware, from the correspondence which had taken place between the Board and himself, that they had repeatedly objected to being forced against their will, and without any manifestation of feeling on the part of their constituency, to adopt any particular system of electric lighting. At the present moment it could scarcely be assumed that electric lighting had yet reached its final stage of development; and if it had not reached that final stage of development, that it was to be at the discretion of the Board of Trade how far experiments were to be made in various parts of the country. In this instance the district, of which the Westminster Board was the local authority, was to be the corpus viri which was to get very little benefit in case of success, and to pay the whole cost of the experiment; and the arrangement itself was to be concluded for 21 years. The whole of the richer portion of the district would be handed over to the Company it was sought to establish; and if at any future time the local authority, acting by means of a licence or a Provisional Order, sought to grant privileges to any other Company who desired to introduce a different system, they must be told that they must either work by means of another Company who had a present monopoly, or that they must buy that other Company out, and proceed with their own experiments at a great disadvantage. He contended that where they had a great district like Westminster, and when there had been no manifestation of opinion on behalf of the inhabitants favourable to the immediate introduction of electricity, where also they had a local board which was altogether unfavourable—he did not even think there was a minority of one in favour of the experiment being tried at the present moment—it was most objectionable that the President of the Board of Trade should step in and override and supersede all expression of popular feeling. The right hon. Gentleman said—"I will select the Company I will hand you over to; you shall be bound neck and heels for 21 years; no one else shall have the opportunity of trying a rival system; and if you try a rival system you must introduce it under every kind of disadvantage." It was said that they were to have an improved system of local government for the Metropolis next year. If they were to have municipal reform in London, he certainly thought they should postpone the consideration of this question until they had a larger and more responsible body to attend to the introduction and development of so important an element in the future as the electric lighting of the Metropolis. The Westminster Board were unanimously supported by their constituents in opposing this Order; but the Board of Trade had most emphatically shown their contempt for the existing local authority by altogether disregarding and overriding their opinion in a matter in which they had the unanimous support of the ratepayers. Having done this, they might, at any rate, allow the matter to stand over for the comparatively short time which it was understood would elapse before a comprehensive system of Metropolitan Government was introduced. He could not imagine a more fit and proper subject to be referred to the higher intellect of the body proposed to be established than the consideration of the important question it was now proposed to settle by the mere ipse dixit—sic volo, sic juleo—of the Board of Trade. Seeing that the opinion of the local authority had been emphatically expressed, and that it was endorsed by the constituency, he should support the Amendment.

said, he thought the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had misinterpreted the remarks which had been made by the President of the Board of Trade. All that this Bill did was to enable those who wished to adopt electric lighting to have an opportunity of doing so. His hon. Friend said that they ought not to have the power of doing this without inquiry. He quite agreed with the hon. Gentleman that it ought not to be done without inquiry; but they had already had an extensive inquiry last year by a most able Committee, who went into the whole question, and had it carefully investigated with the assistance of the Board of Trade. Surely, as far as inquiry was concerned, there had been a great deal of it, and the time had now arrived when they should put this invention into practical operation. They were told that these Bills were intended to give a monopoly to particular Electric Lighting Companies. He thought that was a misuse of the word "monopoly," because if any Electric Lighting Company which obtained an Order under these Bills did not carry out the work in a proper manner, or if it could be shown that other Companies could do the work so much more cheaply, there was nothing in the Bill to prevent other Companies from coming in. But, if they were to wait until the era of enthusiastic inventors was over, they would never practically get anything done at all. If they passed these Orders, the public would have the benefit of them. It must be remembered that the electric light had to compete with candles, lamps, and gas; and, therefore, it was to the interest of the Electric Companies to provide the public with electric light on as reasonable terms as possible. The House was told that the Bill referred only to the richer districts, and left out the poorer ones. Now, his own belief was that the poorer districts would be those which would be most valuable for Electric Lighting Companies to take up, because they would be the districts where electric lighting would be most continuously required. The electric light would be at work during the whole year in the houses and workshops of the poorer districts; whereas the richer portion of the population went away from London during a considerable part of the year. In the interest of the poorer members of the community, he begged the House to allow the Bill to go forward. It was not simply a question of lighting, but of fresh air as well, as hon. Members knew very well who had experienced the improved atmosphere of the Library, and other parts of the House into which the electric light had been introduced. There were thousands of workpeople who had to work in close and confined rooms in the Metropolis; and it was important, for sanitary purposes, that they should have the advantage of this system as soon as possible. The people of Westminster, who were said to object to the inclusion of their district in the Bill, would have an opportunity of stating their objections before the Committee to which the Bill was to be referred; and, therefore, he hoped the House would agree to the second reading. He thought that the Resolution passed the other day dealt a somewhat severe blow against the system of Provisional Orders; but, as it had been adopted in one case, he presumed it would be done in regard to the rest of these Bills. Therefore, if the local authorities of Westminster, or of any other locality, had anything to say against these Bills, they would have a full opportunity of ventilating their views before the Committee upstairs.

said, the hon. Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock) had expressed a hope that the House would agree to the second reading of the Bill. He (Mr. W. H. Smith) regretted that it was not in the power of the House to agree to those portions of the Bill which were unopposed, and that there was no way of separating the opposed from the unopposed parts of the Bill. On behalf of his constituents he thought he was entitled to be heard against the proposal to include the Southern district and the Westminster district in this Bill. There was no evidence whatever that a single constituent in this district desired to have these powers forced upon him. The ratepayers of Westminster looked with great distrust upon the effect which the exercise of these powers would produce. The local authorities of the district, whose duty it was to make the necessary provision for the lighting of the district, objected altogether to the provisions of the Bill, so far as Westminster was concerned. In one case, the local authorities had already granted a licence for seven years to another Company, which licence would be destroyed by this Company if the Bill passed. He thought it was most undesirable that the experiments about to be made should be tried, not only against the wishes, but at the expense of the inhabitants of this part of London; and he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade would consent to exclude these particular Orders from the Bill. If that were done, there would be no opposition to the second reading of the measure; and he believed it would be perfectly possible to proceed with the Orders that were opposed in a separate Bill, when, of course, the local authorities interested in the question would be able to oppose them directly in the House. He strongly objected to any attempt to impose heavy charges upon the ratepayers in opposition to their wishes; and there was a strong feeling in the locality that the provisions of the Bill ought not to be forced upon the inhabitants against their consent. He thought it was a very strange exercise of the power of the Board of Trade to call upon the ratepayers of the Metropolis to appear in a Committee Room to oppose a Bill which would practically give a monopoly to some three or four Companies. It seemed to him to be quite unreasonable that this power should be exercised by the Board of Trade at the expense of the inhabitants of the Metropolis. As he had said, the effect of passing these Orders would be to give a monopoly to particular Companies, and, in the case of the Westminster district, to exclude all other Companies. He thought everyone must see that it would be a most unwise and improper course to allow any Company to take up a single portion, or one or two isolated portions, of a large district like that of Westminster. They could well afford to wait for another year for the further development of electric lighting; and, on behalf of his constituents, he might say that they were perfectly willing that the experiments which the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock) said were in course of being made should be made in the interim, so that they might next year have the advantage of the best inventions.

said, he was surprised to hear the somewhat contemptuous tone in which the President of the Board of Trade had spoken of local authorities. As regarded the question of general policy, he quite agreed that a great deal might be said in favour of trying the experiment of electric lighting. What he objected to was, that Provisional Orders should be passed in favour of three or four monopolist Companies, who, within one month of the passing of the Bill, would have obtained possession of the best parts of the Metropolis, and the power of portioning them out among themselves. About one-half of London was proposed to be given over to the Metropolitan Brush Company, which had been started as a Limited Liability Company, with a capital upon which £3 per share had been paid up, notwithstanding which the shares of the Company were at present, he was told, in the market at a few shillings a share. He thought that fact showed that the Company were not in a favourable position to undertake extensive works. It seemed to him, however, that the floor of that House was not the proper arena for discussing the details of these questions. The President of the Board of Trade had done what he (Sir George Campbell) had asked him in the first instance to do—namely, he had consented to refer the Bills to a Hybrid Committee, where the evidence of all who were interested in the matter would be heard. A well-constituted Committee would be able to sift the good from the bad, to accede to those local authorities who wished to allow the experiment to be tried in their district, and to exempt those local authorities who were opposed to it. This Bill proposed to confirm an Order for the introduction of electric lighting into the area of Kensington. The Vestry of Kensington represented him as his local authority, and they had passed a formal resolution, asking for delay. But the Board of Trade replied—"Either do this yourself, or let somebody else do it." Upon that intimation, the Vestry said—"We do not understand the matter sufficiently to oppose the Bill, and therefore we will throw the responsibility upon you. We have not consented to the introduction of your scheme, and you are unreasonable if you choose to force into the district these Provisional Orders. The responsibility rests with you, and not with us." He should vote for the second reading of the Bill, on the understanding that it would be referred to the Hybrid Committee already appointed.

said, he did not desire to discuss for a moment the merits of these Provisional Order Bills; but, having been a Member of the Committee to whom the question was re- ferred last year, he thought it was only right that he should say a few words. The Act of last year, undoubtedly, contemplated that in many cases licences would be given by the local authorities under certain safeguards then provided; but it also contemplated the possibility that there might be some local authorities—he did not say it in any disagreeable sense—who would obstruct, and who would not desire that electric lighting should be introduced at all into the districts connected with them, however much individual ratepayers, like himself (Mr. Stanhope), might desire it to be introduced. Such obstruction might have the effect of putting off the introduction of electric lighting until an indefinite period. Therefore, the Committee of last year introduced the system of Provisional Orders, by which the Board of Trade was to have power in certain cases, by granting Provisional Orders, to supersede the authority of those who were concerned, and to empower Electric Lighting Companies to introduce the system. At the same time, it was intended to surround that permission with such safeguards as the Select Committee of last year considered to be adequate. It was proposed that the Board of Trade should have the power of doing, in regard to these Provisional Orders, what they did in the case of other Provisional Orders—namely, that they should give full notice to all the parties concerned of their intention to hold a local inquiry, so that they might hear the views of the people most interested. As far as he could learn, in the present case, the Board of Trade had fulfilled all the requirements of the Act, and had called upon all the persons who were interested in these Orders to state their cases be-fore them. In the case of Westminster, he was informed that the local authorities had refused to state their case; and, if so, it was somewhat hard that they should now come down to the House and ask the House to reject the Bill on the second reading, having persistently refused to state what their opposition was to the Provisional Orders proposed to be granted by the Board of Trade. He thought the House would agree with him that there was no reason whatever for departing from the ordinary course which the House adopted in these cases—namely, of reading the Bill a second time and referring it a Hybrid Committee, before whom the whole case might be heard.

said, he was unwilling to take up the time of the House again; but, in common justice to the position which he occupied, and having had a great deal to do with the President of the Board of Trade in reference to these matters, he felt bound to say that the attacks which had been made by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), and his hon. Friend the Member for East Gloucestershire (Mr. J. R. Yorke) upon the Board of Trade, were not at all fair. The Board of Trade had displayed the greatest courtesy and the utmost possible consideration towards every local authority. In his (Sir James M'Garel-Hogg's) official capacity, he had been in communication with the President of the Board of Trade upon the subject, and he had invariably been received with the greatest courtesy, and he believed every member of the District Boards would say the same. Of course, there was a great deal of divergence of opinion on the subject. One Vestry wanted one thing, and another Vestry wanted something else; indeed, many Local Boards appeared not to know their own minds. He thought it was a great pity that the Westminster authorities refused to appear before the Board of Trade. All that the Metropolitan Board of Works wanted in the matter was, that there should be power to revise the charges for the electric lighting every seven years. He did not know how his right hon. Friend regarded that proposition, and he admitted that the whole question was a very difficult and complicated one.

said, the course pursued confirmed the propriety of the action taken by himself last year in opposing the Electric Lighting Bill when it was rushed through the House in a Saturday afternoon's Sitting. He expressed a fear at that time that the effect of such hurried legislation would be to take some hundreds of thousands of pounds out of the pockets of inventors and place them in those of needy patentees, causing an enormous loss which for many years would not be replaced. Nevertheless, the Bill was passed, and this was the natural outcome of it. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade gave a pledge, when the Bill of last year was passed, that all those who were interested in the matter should be fairly heard, and he believed that that pledge had been fulfilled in the spirit in which it was made, because all persons had been invited to attend before the Board of Trade. But that fact did not alter the principle which underlay these Bills—namely, that the ratepayers, and those who were fairly elected to represent them, were not to deal with their own concerns except with the approval of the Board of Trade. That principle, however, had been accepted, and it was too late to complain now. He fully understood the suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), that opposed Bills ought not to be included in the same category as unopposed Bills. He wished to put a technical question to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, which he thought was of importance to those who had an interest in the matter. He wanted to know why it was that each Order contained in the Bill had not been printed separately? If any person desired to obtain a copy of a particular Order, he could only do so by paying 3s. 6d. for the whole 10 Orders contained in the Bill; whereas, if each Order had been printed separately, he might have obtained it for 6d. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would take that matter into consideration, and see whether, in future, he could not print each Order separately, so that the expense to the ratepayers who were affected in particular districts would not be so heavy as it was at present.

remarked, that in passing the second reading of the Bill, they would confirm the principle of it in regard to every Order contained in it. He objected to the grouping together of several Provisional Orders in one Bill of enormous dimensions. He believed that one of these Orders confirmed a grant to the Swan Company of power to lay down wires for the lighting of the Southern district of the Metropolis. He was informed that the Strand Board of Works had themselves applied to the Board of Trade for an Order to empower them to light their own district, and they had made a provisional contract with another Company—not the Swan Company —to supply the light; but, not with-tanding, there was an Order contained in this Bill in reference to the Strand as if nothing whatever had taken place on the part of the Strand Board of Works, who were the local authorities; and the object of the present Order was to confer on a separate and distinct Company precisely the same powers which the Strand District Board of Works claimed for themselves strictly under the provisions of the Electric Lighting Act. He ventured to say that there never had been a more objectionable proceeding on the part of the Board of Trade or any other Public Department. He should, therefore, oppose the second reading of the Bill if it went to a Division.

begged to move the Resolution which stood in his name, and which, he believed, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade was prepared to accept.

said, he wished to offer one or two observations on what he considered the unreasonableness of the Government in attempting to force this Vote through the House under the present circumstances. The Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy for the present year had not yet been furnished. When the Commission was established a provision was made that the annual Report of the Commissioners should be laid on the Table of the House within 21 days of the commencement of the Session, and for the present year this had not yet been done, although they were now half through July. He had, on a previous occasion, asked the Under Secretary to the Board of Trade to endeavour to get the Report presented as soon as possible in the Session; and the hon. Gentleman, on that occasion, assured the House that no unnecessary or avoidable delay should be permitted to interfere with its presentation. Nevertheless, it had not made its appearnce at an earlier date than in previous years, and last year it was not furnished until the middle of August, when it was of no practical use whatever. The Returns contained in the Report were of very serious national importance, and he was sure that the people at large had no idea of the growing importance of this question of lunacy in regard to England. In order to give an idea of the increase of lunacy, he would ask permission to read a few figures which appeared in the Returns. In the year 1859 the total number of lunatics in the country was 36,762; by the year 1882—that was to say, in 23 years—the number had increased to 74,842. Whereas of the lunatics in 1879, 15,000 only were in county and borough asylums, and 7,963 in workhouses; last year, although the number in workhouses had not very materially increased, the number in county and borough asylums had gone up from 15,000 to 42,000. The population in the same time had increased only from 19,650,000 to 21,460,000. The total number of lunatics to the population 23 years ago was only 18·67 in 10,000; last year it had risen from that proportion to a total of 28·34 in 10,000. He said that when the nature of lunacy was considered, such an increase, in proportion to the population, became a very serious national question, and that the Report of the Lunacy Commissioners was one which must arrest the attention and secure the consideration of Parliament. Therefore, they ought to be possessed of the information which the Commissioners had to furnish before they were asked to vote the money which was now demanded without any consideration of the great question to which he had referred. The proportion of lunatics in workhouses in 1859 was 25 per cent; the proportion in workhouses last year was also 25 per cent; but an enormous increase had taken place in the number of lunatics who were inmates of asylums, hospitals, and licensed houses, which meant that an enormous number of afflicted persons who ought really to have been kept in the workhouses had, in order to save trouble to the authorities of the workhouses, been sent off, sometimes in shoals, to the county and borough asylums; and their being so sent off involved an amount of cruelty and inhumanity which was almost impossible of belief until the whole of the circumstances of the case were examined. This question of pauper lunatics in workhouses had been pressed on the Government in the Report of the Commissioners year after year; but, so far as he was able to ascertain, without any practical result whatsoever. The evil had become so great that the Committee were now entitled to ask the Government whether they intended to take any immediate steps with the view to its amelioration? In the Report of the year before last the Commissioners said, with respect to Middlesex—

"There can be no doubt that the question of making additional provision for the insane poor of Middlesex has again become a pressing one;"

and they went on to say—

"The aged and infirm are very numerous, and there are a large number of them who might he adequately cared for in the workhouse infirmaries. Under present circumstances, however, there is but little pecuniary inducement to Guardians to retain such persons in workhouses, or to receive them back again from asylums, the weekly cost of maintenance here, 9s. 7½d., being actually reduced to 5s. 7½d. only, by the 4s. a-week returned from the money voted by Parliament."

While in the Report of last year, at page 158, they had a very good illustration of the effect of this system. The Commissioners, in speaking of the insane in workhouses, said—

"In our experience there is now frequently a tendency to send to the asylum patients who might he sufficiently cared for in workhouses. We have no doubt, indeed, that the effect of the Parliamentary subvention of 4s. a-week, allowed to Boards of Guardians for every insane patient maintained in an asylum, has, in many instances, tended to promote the removal to asylums, and has prevented the return back to workhouses from asylums of patients who could, with slightly more liberal provision in the way of food and supervision, be adequately dealt with in workhouses. The rate of maintenance in county asylums is in many districts so moderate that, deducting the 4s. subvention, the cost to the Guardians is less than if the insane person were retained in the workhouse."

That was the whole secret of the removal of pauper lunatics to the county and borough asylums. Then came the sequel to these observations of the Commissioners. The Report continued—

"A remarkable example occurred last year at Halifax of the manner in which a large demand was, as we think, improperly made upon asylum accommodation for cases requiring only workhouse care. At this workhouse there have been for many years very good lunatic wards for upwards of 90 imbeciles of both sexes, and our Reports of annual visits have usually been favourable, as regards the condition and management of these wards and their inmates. It appears, however, that the accommodation in the workhouse for ordinary sick paupers had latterly become inadequate, and no further building on the same site could be sanctioned by the Local Government Board. In order, therefore, to give the necessary additional room for the sick, the Guardians decided to remove the imbeciles to the South Yorkshire Asylum at Wadsley, and to appropriate to the sick the wards thus vacated. This proceeding was objected to by the Committee of Visitors of the asylum, but could not be successfully resisted so long as the individuals to be removed could be certified to be insane, and so long as there was vacant room in the asylum. In the course of last summer accordingly 74 imbeciles of both sexes were thus transferred from the workhouse to the asylum."

That was most monstrous and inhuman. These imbeciles were a class of people who required to be treated as if they were in their second childhood, yet they were confined in lunatic asylums, made to consort with persons whose association had about it something hideous and terrible, and thus the faint glimmering of the hope of recovery, which might have been entertained before, was utterly extinguished by their transfer to lunatic asylums. The Commissioners went on to say—

"We addressed the Local Government Board on the subject of this improper absorption of asylum accommodation, and the consequent injustice to the payers of county rate, of placing upon them a charge which, as it appeared to us, ought to be borne by the payers of local poor rates; and we expressed a hope that the Board would continue to urge upon the Halifax Guardians the propriety of making speedy provision for their imbecile poor, not requiring asylum treatment."

Such was the Report of the Commissioners last year. "What the present attitude of the Commissioners was with regard to these workhouses they did not know, because the Report for the present year had not been furnished. The Report of the Commissioners contained the following extract from the Report of the Visiting Commissioner in November last, with regard to the Dudley Union Workhouse:—

"In my Report of the 18th of November, 1880, I stated as follows:—'Attention has been drawn by the Visiting Commissioners for several years past to the overcrowding of the lunatic wards, but it continues to be as great as ever, and nothing has been done, nor, as Car as I can learn, is anything in immediate contemplation, with a view to remove or abate the evil which in the male lunatic ward day-room is, indeed, becoming worse every year. In the dormitories of this ward also the beds are so close that they touch each other at the sides, and the patients have to climb into and out of their beds over the bottom. Apart from the insufficient space, it can easily be imagined how objectionable it must be for insane patients, many of whom are of dirty habits, and some addicted to bad practices, to sleep in beds actually touching each other. The above description (of a year ago) is applicable in every respect to the state of these dormitories to-day (Nov. 1881), and the day-room is more overcrowded than ever. I saw today 60 patients jammed together at tables not affording proper room for more than half that number taking their dinners in the greatest discomfort, though the food was good and abundant. I have never seen such persistent overcrowding without the prospect of an early remedy. On the 23rd of February last the Guardians, I am informed, stated to the Local Government Board by letter that they proposed "in a short time to build schools and other accommodation for children a short distance from the workhouse, and by making a portion of the space now occupied by the school children available for the use of imbeciles, the overcrowding complained of will be eventually relieved." Plans were, I understand, prepared early in the present year, but they are still (Nov. 1881) in the board-room, not even opened for examination, and there is, of course, no immediate prospect of anything being done to relieve the serious condition of matters above described.' "

In laying this subject before the Committee, he had used the ipsissima verba of the Commissioners without interposing any comment of his own, his sole object being to place the matter before the Committee strictly upon its own merits. He believed he had shown, not only the very serious growing importance of this question of lunacy, but also that the existing accommodation was utterly insufficient to meet the need of the community. He believed also he had shown sufficient ground for demurring to this Vote being forced through the House, as the Government were endeavouring to force it through, in the absence of the Report of the Lunacy Commissioners, without which it could not be sufficiently and intelligently discussed. As far as he was aware, there should be no difficulty in presenting this important Report, and he could not understand how the Vote could be taken in its entirety without it. The contention that it must be taken at once for the Service would not hold water for a moment; because, if it were necessary that the money for this Department should be voted immediately, it would be equally necessary that it should be voted for Classes III. and IV. and for the Civil Service Votes. But the Government did not propose to take any other Votes than those of Class II. The suggestion, therefore, could not be serious, because there had not been a single argument brought forward in support of it. But, if the Government were not disposed to take a Vote on Account, which he considered a very reasonable proposal; if they were not content to postpone the Vote until the House was in possession of the Report of the Lunacy Commissioners for the present year, he hoped that, at any rate, they were in a position to give some satisfactory information with regard to the difficult points in the previous Reports of the Commissioners to which he had called attention.

said, he wished to draw the attention of the Govern- ment to one point in connection with lunatic asylums, in the hope that between this year and the next something might be done to remedy a defective state of things. It had been several times brought to his notice that a great number of the women who were inmates of asylums were insufficiently and improperly supplied with clothing. It was absolutely essential with regard to many of these asylums, and especially private houses, that great attention should be paid to the clothing of women, a matter with which men were not sufficiently acquainted. It had been mentioned, on many occasions, that the Visiting Justices and other visitors had reason to doubt whether the women, under the existing circumstances, were properly clothed, having regard to the seasons of the year. In some cases it was almost impossible for a visitor to ascertain for himself whether that was so or not. He had to take the word of the female attendants; and the suggestion he (Mr. Inderwick) had to make was that it would be desirable, in the interests of the female patients in those houses throughout the country, that there should be a certain limited number of duly qualified females appointed, either temporarily or permanently, as Inspectors, or Assistant Inspectors, who might assist in those investigations which were essential for the personal comfort and good treatment of the unfortunate women in question.

said, that the changes in this Department had resulted in a profit of £6,000 a-year. He wished to know whether a corresponding reduction was made in the Estimate, or whether the Commissioners continued to draw the same salaries as before?

said, he wished to ask whether the Government had yet make up its mind to relieve the counties of their burdens with regard to criminal lunatics? His hon. Friend the Undersecretary to the Treasury presided last year over a Committee which made recommendations with reference to this subject, and he would be glad to know whether those recommendations had been carried out, and, if so, in what position the matter now stood? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could inform him whether any cells had been fitted up in any prison or prisons designated for the reception of criminal lunatics, or whether any steps were taken in that direction? He ventured to hope that some steps had been taken to relieve counties of those burdens, which they ought not to bear, in respect of criminal lunatics.

said, the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) had spoken of the great cruelty of removing imbeciles from the workhouses to lunatic asylums. Actually, the matter was quite the reverse of what the hon. Member had stated. He could assure the Committee that as soon as the removal of these unfortunate persons was effected the very greatest care was taken of them. It was, however, no question of treatment that they had to deal with; it was entirely a question of expense. They had to consider the question as to whether imbeciles of quiet character ought to be removed to lunatic asylums on the ground of expense. The hon. and gallant Member behind him (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) had pointed out that a great number of lunatics had of late years been transferred to asylums, and that in consequence the Lunacy Commissioners had been obliged to put undue pressure on the counties to furnish new asylums. The question here was not the kindness or the character of the asylumns, but whether there was any danger that the public might incur a much greater expense than was necessary in order to take care of these afflicted persons. They stood in need of some means to deal easily and conveniently with the persons who were not so insane as to require extensive care; they wanted some means of dealing with imbeciles, a certain number of whom could be taken care of in the workhouses, because they were able to do some kinds of work, and could be allowed to go about at large—although he must say the number of imbeciles of this description was not very large. Were they to improve the workhouses so as to retain these persons, or were they to extend the lunatic asylums? That was really the question. Or, again, were they to have separate imbecile asylums on a very extensive scale? The latter plan had been tried with regard to the Metropolis, as his hon. Friend well knew. The hon. and learned Member opposite (Mr. Inderwick) had referred to the question of female Inspec- tors. He did not know whether it would be well to import female Inspectors into the very difficult system of lunacy; but he knew, as a matter of fact, that very great care was taken of all women in lunatic asylums. In one asylum that he was acquainted with there was a matron, who was a person of great experience and of most undoubted character and ability; he knew that the recommendations which she had made, with regard to the comfort and clothing of the female inmates, had always been assiduously attended to by the Committee; and he did not believe that any greater care could be given to lunatic persons than was given by the matron to whom he referred. While he regarded the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member as worthy of consideration, he had great doubt whether any improvement of the kind desired would result from its adoption; while he believed that if any grievance actually existed under this head it could be dealt with satisfactorily in some other way.

said, he was glad to be able to inform the hon. and gallant Baronet opposite (Sir Walter B. Barttelot), who had inquired as to the Report of the Committee which sat to consider the question relating to criminal lunatics, that almost the whole of the recommendations of that Committee had been adopted by his right hon. Friend (Sir William Harcourt), and that instructions had been given to prepare a Bill dealing with the subject which would be introduced next Session. Wherever any of the recommendations of the Committee could be carried into effect without legislation, that, of course, would be done at once. With regard to the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton), who had referred to what had taken place in that House last year in connection with a Bill on this subject, he would point out that that measure had nothing whatever to do with the matter then under discussion. It was a Bill which came within the province of the Lord Chancellor; and, under those circumstances, he trusted the hon. and learned Member would excuse him for not going any further into the subject. With reference to the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Rye (Mr. Inderwick), that lady Inspectors should be appointed to visit lunatic asylums, the matter was, of course, an important one; but he should not be willing to give an answer with regard to it without further consideration. Lady Inspectors had, no doubt, been appointed in cases where they were fitted for the duties devolving upon them; but he was not prepared to say that the duty of inspecting lunatic asylums was one which it was desirable that they should undertake, or that they would be willing to discharge. The hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) had called attention to the fact that the Report of the Lunacy Commissioners had not yet been received. He (Mr. Hibbert) shared the regret of the hon. Member that this Report was not issued at an earlier date; and, having that morning sent to the Office of the Commissioners for information on the subject, he had received a reply to the effect that the Report would be ready to be presented to the Lord Chancellor before the end of the week, after which time it could be obtained on application by Members of both Houses of Parliament. Therefore, although they had not the Report before them at that moment, it would be sent in earlier than last year. He trusted the hon. Member for Queen's County would be satisfied with that assurance; and the Committee might rely that whatever power he had in this matter should hereafter be exerted to insure the presentation of the Report at an earlier period of the Session. He quite agreed with the hon. Member that the Report ought to be in the hands of Members before this Vote came forward. The hon. Member had also referred to the increase which had taken place in lunacy; but, although an increase had undoubtedly occurred, he believed there were causes by which that increase might be easily explained. Those causes he did not wish to enter into at that moment, because they would become matters of discussion on a future occasion. It seemed to him that the question as to whether some arrangement could not be made for the imbeciles and idiots in workhouses was very well worthy of consideration; and he thought that, perhaps, the difficulty might be overcome by having a cheaper kind of asylum, such as that in use in the Metropolis. He believed that one or two places might be prepared for them in which they could be trained, and possibly made useful members of society. That, of course, could not be done in lunatic asylums; and although it was true that, to a certain extent, the educational process might go on, yet it was almost impossible that the unfortunate inmates could be taught to do any useful work. He hoped that when they had adopted a system of County Government the counties would combine to deal with this question. He believed the suggestion he had made would be to the advantage of the poor people themselves, and also to the advantage of the authorities, inasmuch as it would relieve the pressure under which the latter now suffered. With regard to the remarks of the hon. Member as to the Middlesex, Dudley, and Halifax Unions, he could assure him that the matters referred to had been continually before the Local Government Board during the last year, and that the Board had given every assistance in their power to the county authorities for the purpose of getting the cases sent back from county asylums to the workhouses; but he regretted to say that their endeavours had not proved successful. He trusted, however, that the exertions which had been made would not be fruitless, and that they would shortly result in a more satisfactory state of affairs. He believed he had replied to the principal points raised by the hon. Member for Queen's County, whom he should be happy to supply with any further information that he might require.

said, he thought his hon. Friend the Member for Queen's County had done good service in drawing the attention of the Committee to the Reports of the Lunacy Commissioners, and to the late period in the Session at which those Reports were presented. He entirely agreed with the hon. Member that the Committee should be in possession of the Report of the Commissioners before they were asked for this Vote; and he would remind the Committee that the Vote itself afforded the only opportunity they would have of discussing the serious questions connected with Lunacy Reform. He had himself brought forward this subject on a former occasion, when he was met with great coldness and the absence of all argument on the part of Her Majesty's Government. The hon. Gentleman who had just spoken from the Treasury Bench said that next year there would be legislation on the subject of lunacy. He thought the Committee would agree with him in saying that it would be of the greatest advantage if, on the present occasion, they were able to review the lunacy legislation now existing, so that when the measure foreshadowed by the hon. Gentleman came forward the House would have the benefit of the opinions which had been expressed. The existing Lunacy Laws were full of anomalies; for instance, there were six Commissioners to look after 70,000 lunatics, while there were three Visitors for every 1,000 Chancery lunatics; yet, notwithstanding that the expense and waste caused by maintaining this system were very great, the Government attempted nothing in the way of reform; they remained, in fact, perfectly quiescent. The presentation of this Vote was the only opportunity for ventilating the reform of the existing abuses and reducing the very large expenditure which the Central Authority imposed on the local authorities in all matters connected with lunacy. He would not detain the Committee farther than to say that, in his opinion, it was wrong that the House of Commons should not have an opportunity of discussing, with ample information and at considerable length, the points which had just been referred to.

said, he entirely agreed that it was a matter of great inconvenience that the Reports not only of the Commissioners in Lunacy, but of other Departments, were not presented earlier. At the time when those Reports were most needed they could, as a rule, only get Reports which were two years old, and therefore only partially to be trusted. It was very difficult to see how the matter could be remedied; but, at any rate, it could not be done by merely saying, as the hon. Gentleman opposite had said—"We will try to do better next year." But the Returns on which these Reports were based were so voluminous that they could not be checked and considered in one day, and it was sometimes absolutely impossible to get the Reports into a proper position within the time required by Parliament. The case, however, might possibly be met by getting the Returns in by the 29th of September every year, instead of the 31st of December. He put it before the Committee that the delay was not the fault of the particular Department they were now speaking of; but that it arose from the difficulty of dealing with Returns of so voluminous a character.

said, he understood from the hon. Gentleman opposite that the Report of the Committee which sat to consider the question of criminal lunatics was to be carried out. He gathered, then, that the counties were to be entirely relieved of persons who had become insane after their trial, and that these were to be confined in one of Her Majesty's prisons. He ventured to hope that that was not a matter which would require to be dealt with by legislation, and that the county asylums would be relieved forthwith of criminal lunatics.

said, that one portion of the subject would require to be dealt with by legislation.

asked if he was right in understanding that criminal lunatics whose term had expired would be kept in some separate asylum, and not returned to the county lunatic asylums?

said, he thought that would have to be a matter of arrangement.

said, the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Salt) had mistaken the impression which the remarks which he had offered to the Committee were calculated to convey. He did not intend to convey that he thought the persons transferred from workhouses to lunatic asylums were likely to suffer from any want of kindness shown to them in their misery. So far from that being his meaning, he was convinced that the labours of the members of the Medical Profession in behalf of these unfortunate individuals were characterized by kindness and benevolence in the highest degree. He was well aware that there was no class whose kindness and patience was more taxed than that portion of the Profession which was concerned in the management of lunatics. The present system undoubtedly left much to be desired; but with regard to the kindness shown in the treatment of lunatics, he did not think there was any cause for complaint. He would ask the hon. Gentleman opposite whether he appreciated the serious difficulties which arose from the want of accommodation in workhouses? The Report showed that applications for admission had been refused within a year to 227 males and 218 females. That was a very serious consideration, and showed the point at which they had arrived with regard to the deficiency of accommodation. It showed, also, that it would be necessary to enlarge the present accommodation by the establishment of new institutions; and he said it was worthy the consideration of the Government whether there should not be intermediate asylums established, so that there might be a classification quite different from that which now existed, except in the Metropolis, leaving in the workhouses those who were imbecile and harmless, and who were capable of performing simple duties about the Union, and keeping in asylums those who required more serious care and treatment, at the same time relegating to the intermediate class those who were little better than imbeciles, and who ought not to be sent to lunatic asylums, not by reason of the treatment they would receive there, but by reason of the terrible association they would undergo with persons with whom no one but the insane ought to be compelled to consort.

said, if some intermediate establishment could be arranged for by counties, or combination of counties, no doubt they might be able to transfer to them less serious cases, and this would make room for cases which it was desirable should be treated separately in asylums. The magistrates in one county had established an asylum for chronic cases, which was worked at a small cost as compared with other institutions of the kind.

said, he hoped his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Stanley Leigh-ton) would continue to urge upon the Government the necessity of dealing with the large and important question of Lunacy Reform. He would not go into the question of the Vote, but would simply observe that the Government were to blame for the long delay which had occurred in dealing with this subject. He had himself taken up the question; but he did not expect that much good would result from his endeavour, because he was sure that real improvement must come from the Government of the day.

said, he had twice made a proposal to Parliament, which would have had the effect of carrying out the view of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Hibbert).

said, he was desirous of receiving some information with regard to one or two items in the Vote. First, there were the Extra Receipts, which were shown to be largely in excess of the amount credited last year; that, however, was probably due to the quantity of silver coined. But there was a large increase shown by the Estimate in the item of salaries, wages, and allowances, which had risen from £16,000 in the last Estimate to £21,250, which he hoped would be explained. There was also another point of importance on which he desired to receive information. He asked whether the Government had come to any decision with regard to the large quantity of light gold in circulation—whether it was intended to take any steps to grapple with the difficulty, which was a serious one, and affected the interests of a large portion of the people? It was, he believed, in the power of anyone to refuse to receive in payment a sovereign, or half-sovereign, under its legal weight; and it would be an exceeding hardship if that power were exercised. The amount of light gold in circulation was very large; and he believed that the law placed the legal liability for the loss upon the actual possessor of the gold, although, in many cases, it was absolutely impossible for a person to say whether the gold was light or not. If the strict rights of all parties were exercised, the inconvenience and the loss which would result must necessarily be very great indeed. It was not for him to suggest to Her Majesty's Government how they should proceed in this matter; but as there was a large profit annually accumulating on the coinage of silver—he believed there was no profit on gold—it might be a reasonable suggestion that the responsibility for the loss on gold, wherever it was not intentional, should fall upon the authorities who retained to themselves the right to the profit which accrued.

said, that for some time during the re-building of the Mint operations were suspended, and the staff was reduced much below its normal strength; but now that they were completing the work of re-building they had to increase the number of workmen, and therefore the cost of wages was increased to the extent of £5,000. The same remarks applied to the staff, whose operations had been suspended during the re-building. With regard to the loss on light gold, he would point out that old and worn silver was received at the Mint at its nominal value. But in the matter of gold there was not a fraction of profit, and the State had to bear the whole burden of the cost of coining. Under this arrangement a person might go to the Mint with a certain weight of gold, and have the actual weight returned to him in coin. To defray the loss upon light gold, even from honest wear and tear, would be a very serious matter indeed. His right hon. Friend would probably remember that nearly 40 years ago the State imposed the loss necessarily upon the last holder. He could not conceive that the State should assume to itself the burden of loss resulting from wear and tear; and, moreover, it was perfectly impossible to detect whether a coin had been lightened by circulation or mechanically. For the reasons he had given, he thought the holders, and not the State, should accept the burden of loss.

said, he was sorry to find the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Salt) putting forward excuses for the non-production of the Report of the Lunacy Commissioners; but there was another Report which was habitually in arrear, he believed, to a greater extent than that of any other Department. He referred to the Report of the Mint, which there was no reason whatever for delaying; and he trusted that the Secretary to the Treasury would take care that next year that Report should be in the hands of Members within not less than three months of the opening of the Session. He remarked that the Estimate for the Department for 1883–4 did not show clearly what was the profit to the country upon the silver coinage resulting from the fall in the price of silver; and he thought the Committee were entitled to some information as to how so large a profit as that of £75,000, entered as a receipt, had been made.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury to be good enough to explain how the loss on the gold coinage was four times as much this year as it was last? He thought there should be some set off against that from the profits on silver, and the still greater profit on the bronze coinage, which latter was only worth one-third of its nominal value. But his object in rising was principally to call the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury to the importance of coining a greater number of half-crowns, and discontinuing the coinage of florins. The coinage of florins was altogether a mistake, and was due to an insane idea entertained some years ago about a decimal coinage, which it was well known could never take root in this country. The florin was at best a mean coin, and was not regarded with the same respect as the half-crown; on the other hand, the half-crown was very useful, because with half-crowns and shillings you could pay any number of sixpences, which it was impossible to do with florins. He trusted the Secretary to the Treasury would be able to give an assurance that the coinage of florins would be discontinued.

said, there was one item in the Vote to which he desired to draw the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury—namely, the supply of bronze and silver coinage to the Colonies. It was an item upon which, in other years, the President of the Board of Trade had moved a reduction, which had been supported by the Secretary to the Treasury. [Mr. COURTNEY said, that that was a mistake.] At any rate, the hon. Gentleman had not voted in favour of the item when the President of the Board of Trade moved its rejection. He regretted the absence of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), who, in former years, had also been active in regard to this Vote, and the objections which the hon. Member had urged certainly held good now. He was afraid the hon. Gentleman, although he sat below the Gangway, was not likely to move a reduction of the Vote now. He wanted to know how the item of £1,500, which now appeared in the Vote, was ascertained; because last year, when there was a much larger amount of silver sent to the Colonies, the charge was less than £1,500. He wanted to make it perfectly clear that an unnecessarily large sum was not named in the Vote. He would also like to know from the Government the reason why there was a larger estimated loss upon silver this year than last year? Was it intended to increase the coinage of silver this year to any great extent? Last year £100 was taken for that item, and this year it was £250. He doubted very much whether in any year the amount taken for loss on silver had not been found altogether beyond what was necessary, and there was nothing in the Estimates to account for any increase in the loss on silver. He had searched in vain in the Reports issued in February last for an explanation. No doubt there had been a delay in furnishing certain Reports to Parliament, and there had been various complaints in consequence; but this Report had been furnished, and he hoped the Government would explain what their objects were in regard to silver coinage this year. So far as he understood the question—but he was not aware that he was altogether correct—there was a difference between the market price and the Mint price, which was 5s. 6d. an ounce, the market price being 51 or 52 pence at the outside, leaving a profit of at least 1s. 2d. If the Committee knew what amount of silver coinage it was intended to take in hand this year, they would be able, with some approach to accuracy, to check the Government demands.

said, that in reference to the observations which had been made by his hon. and gallant Friend behind him (Sir George Balfour), the delay which had occurred in publishing the Reports had been unavoidable. In regard to the comments of the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton), he was afraid that he could hold out no hope as to the suppression of the florin. The coinage of half-crowns was altogether stopped for years; but afterwards it was found necessary to re-issue them, owing to a desire expressed upon the part of bankers and others, who were of opinion that it was a most convenient coin. The issue of half-crowns had, therefore, been resumed, and both florins and half-crowns were now coined, the desire on the part of the commercial community being to have both. A florin was considered a useful and very convenient coin. As to the matter of loss on coinage, to which the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) had referred, that was a loss derived simply from this fact. A certain weight of gold had to be converted into coin; but in the process of making it into coin a part was lost and wasted. The same remark applied to the conversion of silver into coin, and this loss represented the waste during the process of converting gold and silver into coin. The hon. Member for Queen's County had referred to the action of his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade in former years in moving the reduction of this Vote in regard to the Colonies. Now, he did not think that he (Mr. Courtney) had ever supported that Motion. It was altogether a matter of pure bargain between the Mint at home and the Colonies, which were supplied not with Colonial, but with Imperial coin. The English shilling and the English sixpence were sent out at their nominal value, so that the Imperial Government received a sovereign for 20s. in silver, and consequently made a considerable gain. On the whole, there was a large profit on the transaction; and, having regard to this, it was not unreasonable that the Mint should consent to bear the cost of packing and freight. He might add that this year they were going to make more coin than usual—both silver and gold.

said, he thought the hon. Gentleman had given to the Committee some valuable information. He quite understood that the loss upon the coinage arose from waste; but that did not answer the question how it was that the loss was four times more this year than it had been before?

remarked, that the loss was greater, because a greater amount of coin had been made.

wished to know, in regard to the florin and the half-crown, if there were as many half-crowns made as florins? He believed that considerable inconvenience had been felt on account of the suppression of the half-crown for so many years. In regard to the Colonies, he thought they ought to get the profit as well as the loss. At present, they were charged all the waste upon the gold coinage; but they did not get the profit upon the silver.

said, that with respect to the supply, the object of the Mint was to supply half-crowns and florins as they were required. [Mr. WARTON: In equal quantities?] No; as they are asked for.

said, that the increase upon this Vote was not a very large increase; but it was one which seemed to require explanation. He found there was an Assistant Commissioner in the Trade Mark Registry who received £1,000 a-year; whereas last year there was no such item in the Vote. He wanted to know whether this salary was personal to the Office; and, if so, why the Office was not filled last year, and why it was filled this year at £1,000? The next item mentioned that the maximum salary of the Office was £800 a-year. He, therefore, wanted to know, in the first place, why this officer was receiving more than the maximum salary, and whether it was an additional Office that was not filled last year?

said, this was a matter connected with the re-organization of the Department. If his hon. Friend would turn to page 132 he would find that there was an Assistant Registrar down at £600 in connection with the Trade Mark Registry, and this Assistant represented the same Office; but instead of being restricted to Trade Marks he was now Assistant Registrar. The fact that he received £1,000 instead of £800 was due to the circumstance that the gentleman who held the appointment was formerly a Registrar in the Law Courts, which gave him that salary; and, as a matter of convenience, it had been considered advisable to employ him, rather than to give him the pension he would be entitled to on retirement.

asked if one of the two offices was a sinecure, or did one officer perform double duties? He found that this gentleman was down for £600 a-year, and that he also got £1,000.

remarked that the £600 was for last year.

asked upon what principle the Committee were taking these Votes, because he saw they were skipping over a good many Votes, and not taking them in their regular order.

said, there were six Votes, of which this was the last, which must be taken that night. Directly these six Votes were disposed of, the Committee would resume the consideration of the rest in their regular order.

said, he happened to have a Notice down on the Paper in regard to this Vote, which he took to be a very large Vote, considering that it was merely for administrative expenses. If they compared the Vote with the cost of the Department at the time it was first created, in 1852, they would find that it had enormously increased. There were some Departments which had to do with the Business of the country, which must, of necessity, increase largely as they became developed and the requirements became greater; but, in dealing with an administrative Department, if they once had the Department well organized, the increase ought to be very small through the additional work which might be placed upon it. Now, this Department of Public Works and Buildings, if they examined it carefully, was purely an administrative Department. There were charges in other Votes for the expenditure upon Public Buildings, the Royal Parks, and other things of one kind or another, which amounted to a very large sum indeed. The present Vote related merely to the cost of supervision. The Motion he had placed upon the Paper was not intended to challenge the Vote in any particular way, but to challenge generally the increase in the expenditure upon Public Departments. He had no doubt that the officers of a Department performed their duties very well; and he was sure that, so far as his right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works was concerned, the Department was admirably administered. But his object in saying anything at all about the matter was this—not that he expected so much to see the expenditure reduced, because he knew that was an extremely difficult thing. When they got an administrative Department up to a certain point it was impossible to reduce it. If they had a number of competent men around them, they must keep them, because they could not properly dispose of them otherwise. What he was anxious to prevent was the idea that these administrative Departments were always to be increased. He had taken this Department as a specimen, not because he objected in particular to this Department, but because it was a very good specimen, inasmuch as it was, as he had said just now, a purely administrative Department. There was nothing in the present Vote except what was for the expense of management in connection with other Business which was paid for in other Votes. It was a sort of Central Department over other Departments. Speaking from his own experience, and an experience which many other hon. Members must have had, he had found that whenever they were dealing with a Central Department they were obliged to keep a firm hand indeed upon it in order to prevent it from growing too large. A Central Department might be extremely economical and exceedingly effective; but a Central Department that was purely administrative might increase its work very much indeed, without increasing its staff, because it ought to have, in the first instance, a man at the head of the Department who was competent and capable of managing a large concern. Therefore, when the work increased it was merely the addition of a few clerks to carry it on. He had no wish to say anything that might assume the nature of an attack upon this Department; indeed, he had no wish to criticize its method of working, but he did want to see if they could not try, if possible, to check the expenditure upon the Central Departments of the Government. That expenditure had been growing year after year; and he was perfectly certain that although increased expenditure in some cases might be necessary, still, as a general rule, it would not lead to increased efficiency; and they must always remember this—that in dealing with administrative Departments of any kind whatever, whether they were Public Departments or Departments of a commercial character, it was to the interest of those who were at the head of the Departments, perhaps unconsciously, to make them as large as possible. The larger a Department was, the more the persons connected with it could lay claim to increased salaries, increased honours, and increased position. Although he did not for a single moment believe that the country was not exceedingly well served, and honestly and ably served, by its public servants; yet, whenever a public servant had it placed directly before his mind that by the increase of the Department he would obtain greater pay and additional honour, it was very difficult to induce such a man to study economy. Human nature was only human nature after all. Last year there would have been so many thousand letters sent out; this year there would be so many thousand more letters sent out; and thus the expenditure would go on increasing, being very much larger today than it was five or 10 years ago. No doubt there was a natural increase in the public work generally; but it all led to the idea of the exaltation of the Office, and the exaltation of the business generally, and consequently of increased expense; and he was perfectly certain that an increase of expense was not in all cases followed by an increase of efficiency. He did not for a moment blame the Government; but it was for the House to say that it would, so far as possible, require that its public servants—able, efficient, talented, honest, and patriotic as they were—should turn their minds not to the increase and enlargement of their Offices, but to the carrying on of the Public Business as efficiently as ever, but, at the same time, with the greatest possible economy, especially economy in details. Economy in details seemed a small thing to talk about; but it was a matter of very great importance. The economy practised in a Department coloured the whole administration of that Department. He had merely taken this Department because it was purely an administrative Department; and whether his right hon. Friend, who was well able to administer it, or anybody else, was in Office, he was most anxious that the principle should be laid down that these administrative Departments should, if possible, try to secure economy as well as efficiency. He was quite sure if nothing was done in that direction they would go on increasing their Estimates year by year, and would lose all control over them. New officers were appointed, and the expenses were increased, and the House might waste considerable time in discussing the Estimates; but nothing would be done unless they said—"Do, for goodness sake, let us feel that we are at the top of the tide of expenditure, as far as the Department is concerned." If he went into details he might show how many thousands of pounds might be saved without in any way sacrificing the efficiency of the Department; and he certainly wished to impress upon his right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works that the expenses of this particular Department had enormously increased since it was first created in 1852.

said, he was quite ready to subscribe to the doctrines which had been laid down by his hon. Friend opposite. He could assure his hon. Friend that he had no desire to exalt his Office by increasing the number of officers; and he concurred with his hon. Friend that when an Office was properly organized, it ought to be able to increase its work without any undue increase of expenditure. At the same time, he was bound to say that the work of the Department now under the consideration of the Committee had accumulated during the last four or five years to such an extent that it had been found absolutely essential to increase the staff of surveyors, and it was to the increase of the staff of surveyors that the augmentation of the Vote was due. The hon. Member, however, would be glad to hear that since the Estimates were framed this year he had in another direction been able to make a considerable diminution. He had reduced the Assistant Secretary to the Department by £1,000 a-year, which he considered to be a considerable reduction. He found that the clerks could work the Office without an Assistant Secretary, and the Assistant Secretary had accordingly been retired. Therefore, while, on the one hand, he had found it necessary to increase the staff of surveyors, on the other hand, he had been able to reduce the expenses of the Office by the retirement of the Assistant Secretary. With regard to the work thrown upon the surveyors, he need hardly remind his hon. Friend that the Post Office work had increased enormously of late years. No one could have any idea of the in- crease during the last few years, and certainly during the present year it had been enormous. It had been found necessary to re-organize nearly every Post Office in the Kingdom, in consequence of the introduction of the Parcels Post; and, in addition to that, the Customs and Inland Revenue Offices had been the cause of great expenditure. It was absolutely essential that these charges should be incurred, in order to increase the efficiency of the Public Service; and it had, therefore, been necessary to add considerably to the staff of surveyors.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had mentioned the burden entailed upon the Department in consequence of having to send out surveyors in connection with providing increased accommodation for the Post Office. He wished to remind the right hon. Gentleman that there were certain quarters in which a visit from the surveyor had been promised, but in which the promise had not yet been performed. There was one case to which he wished to call particular attention—namely, the case of the Post Office at Plymouth. It had long been understood and promised that a surveyor should be sent down to Plymouth to consider the position in which the Post Office there was placed; but no surveyor had yet been sent. It was not a matter on which he intended to say much upon this Vote, because the immediate question before the Committee was the grant of money for work actually done; but he should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works would say something to supplement the observations he had already made in regard to the Post Office at Plymouth.

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman was quite right in saying that he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had promised to send down a surveyor to Plymouth to look into the Post Office and two or three other buildings there, and he should certainly have done so if it had not been for the enormous amount of work which had been thrown upon the surveyors. At this moment there were something like 200 Offices under the consideration of the Department. He could assure the hon. and learned Member that as soon as possible he would send a surveyor down to Plymouth.

said, the Office had been overburdened with work on account of the additional Post Office building. He believed great economy of time, money, and temper might be brought about if some of these details were left to the Departments themselves, and if the Central Authority were occupied more with supervision. He wished to throw out a suggestion—although he would not go deeply into the matter—he thought considerable time was wasted by requiring this excellent Office to do a great deal of the work of detail which would be more naturally performed by the Departments themselves.

said, there was a great deal in what the hon. Member had said with regard to the Surveyors, and he considered that a great deal more might be left to the local authorities in small matters. They ought, however, to look to the Chief of the Department, in whom he had very great confidence, to say whether and when surveyors should be sent out. They should not be sent out for every petty job that had to be done. The surveyor was responsible for the expenditure, and had to see that the money was properly expended.

asked for an explanation on certain points connected with this Vote.

said, that a charge was made on account of the examination and tabulation which had to be made in connection with the preparation of new tables for the grant of life annuities. The work had been taken in hand only recently, and from it was to be gained the result of the past experience of the National Debt Office. The Treasury were now in receipt of the Report of the Actuary of the National Debt Office, embodying the labours of that gentleman. As the matter involved many questions of extreme actuarial importance, it had been found desirable to refer the principle of the examination of the Government Actuary to an independent authority. As soon as the questions of principle involved were decided, the actual work of framing the new tables would be proceeded with with great rapidity. He was afraid the result would not be known before the House rose; but it would be made known during the autumn.

asked whether these tables were those in which the Post Office annuities were given?

said, they would be available for those annuities.

was understood to ask for information as to whether there was any amount included in this Vote for the administration of the Suez Caual?

said, the Committee ought to have some information upon this subject. A total sum of rather more than £500,000 seemed to him to be a most extraordinary amount to pay for the Stationery Office. the Vote was always increasing—there was this year an enormous increase. He did not contend that it was not necessary for the Vote to increase; but, at the same time, the advance which was being made under this head was so enormous that it seemed to him necessary that some explanation should be given with regard to it. He saw an increase for salaries, wages, and allowances; but about that he would say nothing. There was an increase for paper of £4,000. That was a great deal, and he was at a loss to know what had brought about such a large increase this year. Why should they have had more paper this year than last year? Then he saw an increase of £ 1,000 for parchment. Surely, that was an enormous development. The total amount this year for parchment was £11,000, which was an enormous sum to pay for sheepskins. There was a large increase, again, in the item of binding, the total being £49,000. Then there was an enormous sum for small stores, of which the details were given afterwards. The increase was £1,000, the total being£54,000. They were asked to vote £120,000 on those four items alone—namely, paper, parchment, binding, and small stores. There were other increases, into which he would not go at the present moment. This had always been a painful subject—questions had always been raised as to this Stationery Vote; and the Committee, no doubt, would agree with him that they were paying far too much under it. Last year they were paying too much, and this year they were paying even more than last year.

said, he was well aware of the natural jealousy of the Committee with regard to this item, which was one of enormous dimensions, and which grew every year, and, he was afraid he must add, would continue to grow every year. The increase in the Vote represented, to a great extent, the activity and range of our whole life. The greater the amount of activity which was displayed, and the greater the amount of Business which had to be done in Parliament and by the various Departments of the Government, the greater would be the amount of demand on the Stationery Office. As every Department and every Office had an increased amount of work thrown upon it, so were increased demands made upon the Stationery Office, not only for pens, ink, and paper, but for printing also. That was a general observation. But then the hon. Member went through several items, and took the item of parchment, for instance, as one upon which to make special complaint. Well, in this case the increase was simply in consequence of the growing demand for stamped parchment, which was supplied by the Inland Revenue and consumed by law stationers, solicitors, and others, who required stamped parchment for deeds. The increased amount expended on this item, of course, came back in the form of extra receipts—the receipts grew in proportion to the amount of parchment supplied. The increase which took place under the item for paper was to be accounted for by the fact that the Stationery Office was now taking upon itself a great deal of the supply which was formerly undertaken by the printing contractors. It might be taken generally that this Stationery Vote would increase just in proportion to the adoption of any new business or operation. For instance, the fact of the existence of the Land Court in Ireland accounted for an increased consumption of stationery, as did also the extensive operations which had taken place abroad. Altogether, it would be hopeless to endeavour to keep the Stationery Vote at the point at which it was at present, as it must always keep pace with the increasing activity of the different Departments, which were pushed on in their business by that House. As to the complaint of the number and cost of Returns, hon. Members knew perfectly well that the Government were anxious to keep within reasonable bounds the supply of Returns, which were moved for from time to time by private Members. They found it extremely difficult to do this, and were obliged to supply a great many documents of this kind, because hon. Members wanted them for some purpose or other, notwithstanding that very little information was contained in them. Some of these Retnrns were resisted, although the Government in that way gave great dissatisfaction to those who moved for them; but, whatever resistance they might make, there was no doubt that the total under the Vote for Stationery would go on increasing year by year.

said, that he had not intended in his observations to include printing for that House, although that item was pretty large.

said, he had ascertained that the table now entered in the Estimates, and which had been prepared upon his recommendation, showing the amount of stationery supplied to the various Departments, so as to show the cost for five years, as well as the cost for printing, would soon be completed, and that then the data would exist for ascertaining the excesses of the Departmental demands. For instance, he found that the Admiralty and War Office expenditure under this head had increased by £5,000. It could not be said that this increase was owing to the country having been at war, because the fact was that in time of war there was less money spent in stationery than at other times. The authorities were too busy to use pens, ink, and paper, [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen laughed; but he knew something of war, and that was his experience. When these tables were prepared they would be better able to criticize this matter than they were now. He wished to suggest to the Financial Secretary that it would be advisable to have the particulars arranged under the heads of England, Ireland, and Soot-land, as he believed the division of these enormous sums would be useful in comparing the Estimate for one with the Estimate for another. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) would find that there was a large increase for Ireland. There was a larger amount of business being done in that country than there had been, and he was afraid that there was no chance of any diminution.

said, the observations which had been made upon these items rather pointed to some modification in the system of accounts. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had explained that there were many items, the increase upon which was owing to a development of the supply of commodities which were paid for by the public. This was what they might term a profitable increase. It seemed to him that in these cases the charges which were made on account of that which was a profitable business, as was the Post Office and the Stamp Office, should be debited in the accounts to those Departments. It was true that year after year attention was drawn to the heavy increasing charge in regard to stationery; and it appeared to him that they were wandering away from what were legitimate charges for the Services of the State.

said, there were two points upon which he should like to ask questions. The first was as to the Parliamentary Debates—namely, whether any final decision had been come to about reporting or non-reporting of the proceedings of the Standing Committees? He did not wish it to be understood that he desired to have the Standing Committees reported; on the contrary, if the decision rested with him he should certainly not have them reported. He did not think it was necessary that a charge should be made in regard to this matter. But the question had been discussed repeatedly in private conversation and in debate, and he was anxious to know whether any decision had been arrived at on the point. He wished to be thoroughly understood as guarding himself against expressing any opinion in favour of reporting the Committees, because he believed they had quite enough Hansard at present. With regard to what had fallen from the hon. and gallant Member (Sir George Bal- four), he (Mr. Gibson) was prepared to make some statement; but as the hon. and gallant Member had gone away he should defer that statement to another occasion.

remarked, that there was a large mass of Papers distributed to Members of Parliament which must cost a large sum of money, and which was comparatively useless, as Members did not read one-half of it. He would suggest that, instead of Members being deluged with Blue Books, there should be some understanding arrived at in order that those Members who took an interest in a special subject should have the books on making application for them, or expressing their desire to be supplied with them. A great saving might be effected in this way. Hon. Members should be required to say what Papers they desired to have, and these should be sent to them, and they should not continue the practice of sending round all the Papers published to every Member. More than this, he was inclined to think that the Secretary to the Treasury might well consider that a great many Returns were moved for by private Members which were really, he should not like to say frivolous and useless, but, comparatively speaking, unnecessary, and added without sufficient reason very considerably to the expense. He did not want to say much about the Grand Committees; but he certainly thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gibson) was justified in putting his question to the Government. He (Mr. Hinde Palmer) was certainly of opinion that there was no utility in publishing the reports of the proceedings of these Committees as a sort of supplement to Hansard. He did not suppose the Government entertained any such idea; but, at any rate, the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite seemed to have some apprehension of the kind, and it was, therefore, quite right that the matter should be, if possible, cleared up.

said, he had a fear on this subject.

Yes; the right hon. and learned Gentleman feared that the Government might intend to have the Committees reported. He thought the suggestion he had made with regard to the non-circulation of all the Blue Books to all the Members of the House well worth consideration. Whenever books were published upon a subject in which hon. Members were particularly interested, such books should be supplied to them gratuitously; but all printed matter should not be sent round to them, irrespective of its character or of the requirements of Members.

said, the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Lincoln (Mr. Hinde Palmer) was a very good one. On the part of the War Office he should like to say that they were making careful inquiries every time a Return was moved for as to what was its expense. A very large Return had been moved for only very recently by the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot); but it was found to consist mainly of extracts from gazettes on soldiers' unclaimed balances, the printing of which would be so expensive that the Secretary of State had ordered it should not be printed. The Return itself was accessible in the Library to all hon. Members who wished to see it.

remarked, that the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir George Balfour) had suggested that when the country was at war the Stationery Vote was reduced. He trusted that they would not go to war in order to reduce the Votes. With regard to the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Lincoln (Mr. Hinde Palmer) respecting the non-delivery of Blue Books, there was this difficulty to be considered. When a Blue Book was printed, the printers did not know the number which would be required. A thousand copies of one Blue Book might be printed, and it might be found subsequently that 3,000 were required. There was no clue as to the number—no guide as to the quantity which should be supplied; therefore, the printer was obliged to furnish sufficient for the whole House. As to the question of the expense and convenience or inconvenience of leaving the Blue Books in circulation, or of keeping a number in the Office to be applied for, on the whole he believed the present system was more convenient and caused the least trouble. If the books were kept in the Office to be applied for, and only a limited number were printed, it would often be found that a Blue Book which was not expected to be of much interest when printed, but which afterwards became a matter of first consequence, would be so largely called for that the trouble the Office would be put to would be much greater than that experienced at the present time. There was very often a sudden rush for a Blue Book. No doubt the expense of the present system was very great, and he had often turned it over in his mind, being anxious to effect economy in detail as far as possible; but he certainly thought that the use of printing was so absolutely necessary for their daily life and their daily habits that little economy was to be effected in this matter. The enormous quantity of printed matter which they required in order to carry on their business satisfactorily would always necessitate a very large Vote under this head. But here, again, came in what he had ventured to point out just now—namely, that economy in these particulars depended more than anything upon the Heads of Departments. A really good Head of the Stationery Department would, he was certain, save the country thousands of pounds. He did not mean to say the present Head of the Department was not a perfectly good one; but he had seen economy effected by really zealous Heads of Departments in other concerns, and he was satisfied it might be done by these high officials if they were so inclined. A good Head of a Department, as compared with a careless Head, would save many thousands of pounds. He did not wish to suggest that the Department was not thoroughly and well organized at the present time; but he wished to draw attention to the necessity of looking after the Heads of Departments. As to Returns moved for by private Members, it was true that there were a large number granted which were almost useless; but that was owing, amongst other reasons, to the fact that very frequently the information given in one Return was, in a great measure, to be found in other Returns, so that confusion was caused; and sometimes in one Return they got very little more information than had been given in a Return which had preceded it. He did not think that difficulty would ever be really overcome until there was some new arrangement established with regard to the Statistical Returns. The statistics were prepared in the various Departments; the Departments were under pressure of other work, and of necessity the Returns were extremely incomplete and inaccurate. He hoped the day might soon come when they might have a Statistical Department, which would deal with all Returns, instead of their being dealt with by the several Departments. The preparation of Returns was a great trouble and a great source of expense; and he believed that some time or other the idea of establishing a small and efficient Statistical Department would be carried out with great advantage. That Department would have at its fingers' ends all the information Members might require, and when any Member desired information he would simply have to go to the Department and get it. There was just one other suggestion which occurred to him in relation to the expense of Returns—namely, that if it were possible, it would not be a bad plan to put upon each Return published the cost to the country of its preparation; because, if a Member who moved for a Return saw at the top, printed in tolerably legible words, "This Return is published at a cost of £20, £50, £100, or £200," as the case might be, it would be some little check upon the voluminous and the many unnecessary Returns which were moved for.

said, perhaps he might be allowed to say a word or two upon the subject of the many worthless, useless, extravagant, and somewhat frivolous Returns which were often moved for by private Members. They had a curious and very remarkable instance of that on the Paper of to-day, for he found upon to-day's Paper three very lengthy and very voluminous Returns moved for by the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Puleston), Returns which might be of some use to the hon. Gentleman himself in respect to some special object he had in view, but which could not be of any use or value to the House at large. He (Mr. F. Buxton) presumed that, as the Returns were on the Paper, the Secretary to the Treasury had himself sanctioned them—[Mr. COURTNEY: No.]—at any rate, had allowed them to be put on the Paper as unopposed. [Mr. COURTNEY: No.] He (Mr. F. Buxton) was glad to know that the Returns were to be op- posed; and he hoped the Committee would exercise its discretion in the matter, and require from the Secretary to the Treasury, before the Returns were passed, a statement of the expense and use of the Returns now moved for. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. Hinde Palmer) had referred to another matter of great importance—namely, the distribution of Parliamentary Papers to private Members. It was computed by the Stationery Office that during the last Parliament every Member who drew all his Papers received a ton of literature, through which he had to wade during that Parliament. Now, whether that Parliament did much good with ail that literature or not was, perhaps, an open question; but at least it would be undisputed that three-fourths of the literature was perfectly useless, and found its way into the waste-paper basket. The Controller of the Stationery Office had made a proposal as to the issuing of Notice Papers every morning to Members, instead of sending the Papers themselves. It was suggested that this Notice Paper should give a short digest of the contents of each Paper issued on the day, and that Members should have a counterfoil in which to fill in the Papers they required, so that they might draw only those Papers, and no others he (Mr. F. Buxton) had it on good authority that the Stationery Office would quickly find out what Papers would be drawn in the greatest numbers; and that if the plan suggested were adopted, there would be a saving of £5,000 immediately, and probably of a very much larger sum in future. The Stationery Office felt that hon. Members would not draw Papers of a dull and of a somewhat uninteresting character, but that they would draw others in much larger numbers. He himself had brought forward this subject on a previous occasion; but for some reason or another hon. Members seemed to like to receive their Parliamentary Papers, though those Papers might include some which were not of the slightest interest to hon. Members in general. The Controller of the Stationery Office had suggested that hon. Gentlemen should have the power of saying at the beginning of every Session that they would have all the Papers delivered to them as at present, and that those hon. Members who were of an economical and more careful turn of mind should be allowed, if they chose, after seeing the Notice Paper, to draw only those Papers they required. The Secretary to the Treasury was a Member of the Joint Committee of the two Houses which sat two years ago on this subject. That Committee reported that the proposal of the Controller of the Stationery Office was worthy of adoption; and he (Mr. F. Buxton) sincerely hoped that the Secretary to the Treasury was still of the same opinion, and that in the next Session, or in a very short time, they might see practical effect given to the suggestion of the Controller of the Stationery Office.

said, his hon. Friend was certainly a very determined advocate of this mode of saving expense in the Printing Department; but he (Mr. Rylands) was of opinion that, so far from the Parliamentary Papers being too much circulated, they might be made very much more valuable for the public good, if each Member of Parliament had the right to send one copy of each Parliamentary Paper to any place in the United Kingdom free of postage. He was quite sure that, while it might be perfectly true that many of the Papers published were not of interest to individual Members, there was scarcely a single Return or a single Paper published under the authority of Parliament which did not contain information of more or less interest to certain classes of the community; and he, personally, would be very glad if he had the opportunity—and he had no doubt other hon. Members would also be equally glad to have the opportunity—if, when he got his Parliamentary Papers in the morning, he found that one of them probably was of interest to persons connected with the Medical Profession, giving very important information with regard to subjects affecting national health, he could send that Paper down, say, to a member of the Medical Profession, in the district with which he was connected. There were other Papers published with reference to factories and mines which were not very interesting to individual Members of Parliament, but which contained matter of the greatest value and importance to the people connected with factories and mines. And so with regard to other subjects. There were Reports of Consuls and Secretaries to Legations with regard to foreign trade, and with regard to the several arrangements of foreign countries. These Reports contained a vast mass of most valuable information. It was quite true that hon. Gentlemen found that they were not able to read all the Papers themselves—it would take very much more than 24 hours a-day for any hon. Gentleman to read all the Papers which were distributed in the course of the day—but he did think that, considering the public who paid the money they were voting were very much interested in the Papers which were presented to Parliament, it would be a very wise utilization of the Papers published if Members had the opportunity of sending them to their constituents, or to public Libraries, or to people who might be peculiarly interested in a particular Paper. Now, he had frequently sent Papers in that way, either by parcel or by post; but, as hon. Gentlemen knew, Members of the House of Commons were exposed to very considerable infliction in the way of postage already. Every one of them constantly found that they were absolutely deluged with correspondence, not actually upon their own business, but upon the business of the country, and it was a source of great expense to Members to carry on that correspondence. What happened, however, in our Public Offices? Why, the rulers of the country and the permanent servants of the Crown had the privilege of franking; they could frank a great Blue Book without the slightest difficulty, and they could send, in fact, their private notes franked. He certainly considered a little more privilege might be given to Members of the House of Commons; and in regard to the circulation of Parliamentary Papers the privilege might be used for the public good. It would cost very little to send the Papers by mail; but it would give to the Parliamentary publications an enormous amount of importance in the public mind. His hon. Friend the late Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Duncan M'Laren) raised this matter in former Sessions. His right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain) had also introduced the subject in a former Parliament; and he (Mr. Rylands) believed that at one time they would have succeeded; but the noble Lord the Member for North Leicestershire (Lord John Manners), who was then Postmaster General, and who seemed rather disposed to make the arrangement, was controlled by the public officials. The public officials set themselves against the proposal. There were many of the public Libraries who would be very glad to have the Papers of a more interesting character. Now, in the Stationery Vote, there were payments made for expensive publications. What became of those publications? They were not even distributed to Members, though they were issued under the authority of the Government. They were not even sent to any of the local Libraries; but he could not help thinking that it would be for the public advantage if they were wisely and judiciously distributed amongst the Libraries of the country, instead of a largo stock of them being kept in some London building or other. Hon. Gentlemen had received a curious document issued by the Home Office in relation to an inquiry made by a Departmental Committee into the promulgation of Public Statutes. It was very interesting reading, and through the means of the document they found how the money was spent when a Department was able to manage matters without the knowledge of Parliament.

called upon the hon. Gentleman to address himself to the Vote before the Committee.

begged the Chairman's pardon. What he wished particularly to point out was, that if they desired to reduce the Stationery Vote, it was most important that the different items of expense, which were increasing every year under the control of the Departments, should be carefully investigated. An hon. Member opposite—when they were voting the Supplementary Vote on a former occasion—suggested that the Stationery Department might be subjected to a careful inquiry by a Committee of the House. He (Mr. Rylands) would be glad, in the case of those large Votes, increasing, as they were, year by year, if a system could be adopted of referring them, not to a Departmental Committee, but to a small Select Committee of the House, in order that it might be ascertained where the money went, and how it was wasted. He believed that if the House took the matter carefully in hand they would be able to effect many and very large economies.

quite agreed with a good deal that had fallen from the hon. Member for Andover (Mr. P. Buxton). He considered that a great deal of expense now incurred in Parliamentary Papers would be obviated if a little less red-tapeism was exhibited. He (Mr. Dixon-Hartland) had been sitting on the Grand Committee to which the Bankruptcy Bill was referred. Now, day by day, or nearly so, the Bill, as amended, was printed and circulated amongst the Committee. When the Bill had passed through Committee, he went to the Office and asked whether they would soon have copies of the Bill, and he was told they would not. He said—"The Bill has been printed day by day, and therefore it must be in type." The answer he received was, that it was printed in the Votes by one set of printers, and that when it was required to be printed for the House it was printed by another set of printers. The Committee would, therefore, see that the printing of the Bill twice must necessarily lead to great expense. He gave this example in order to show that a great deal might be done in the way of economy if matters were only managed in a common-sense manner.