, in moving that the Speaker do now leave the Chair, said: Sir, I think that it would be in accordance with the course usually pursued by the House on these occasions that we should go into Committee on the Vote of Credit, and that upon getting into Committee I should propose the Vote and state to the House such considerations as I think bear upon the question whether the House should grant the Vote or not. I regret that the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) proposes to raise as a preliminary question the division of the Vote of Credit, and to ask the House to affirm that the expenses on account of the Soudan Expedition shall be considered separately from those on account of military and naval expenditure. Having this proposal before, what I intend to do is as follows—to state very briefly indeed the reasons why I hope that Motion may not be addressed to the House. I may succeed in that object, or the hon. Member may persist in pressing the Motion on the House. If the debate should become general and broader questions are raised, and there is a desire for further information as to the general merits of the Vote, I should have no alternative but to state to the House what I had intended to say on the Vote itself. At present, I will only speak on the question of the division of the Vote. I have no hesitation in admitting that where two Votes are proposed in the nature of Votes of Credit for Services which are not only distinct, but which are likely to remain distinct until they are respectively accomplished, the proper course is to submit those sums as separate Votes of Credit, and to ask a separate authority from the House to deal with each, so that the money granted for each may be applied to that for which it was granted, and not for the other. But the consideration which has led us to submit this sum in one Vote is of an entirely practical character. It is that, although in their apparent objects these Votes are separate, yet in their possible application they are not separate. I have before stated to the House that under no circumstances would the Government take upon itself to apply to the Soudan Expedition the Votes we are about to ask under the head of special preparations; but I reserved entirely, and I hope the House may approve our reserving, the discretion to apply the money taken for the Soudan Services to purposes which would fall under the head of special preparations. The very ground on which we make our proposal with regard to the Votes for the Soudan Services is that the grant admits, and even, to some extent, contemplates, the application of a portion of the money for what we now know as special preparations. Under those circumstances, it would be very inconvenient that we should be tied either to spend in the Soudan money not required for purposes in the Soudan, or else that we should be under the necessity, before we could use any of these moneys granted by Parliament for the special preparations, which we deem to be of the highest material importance, of again giving Notice, again raising debate, and again proposing a separate Vote of Credit for the purposes for which we ask special preparation. Well, Sir, that appears to us to be a reasonable view of the case; and, if it is not, I must put it to the House that if it is not distinctly unreasonable in the view of the House, nothing could be more inexpedient than that, upon a question which is one of practical convenience rather than of distinct principle, we should go to an issue with anything like lengthened discussion, and with division of Party forces in face of the world, and at the present moment, and in the present circum-stances of the Empire. I thought. Sir, that I had pointed out that a perfectly unexceptionable way of raising the discussion was reserved to any Gentleman by moving the diminution of the Vote in the Committee; but I do not dwell on that. I hope the House will not see ground for entertaining even that Motion. I sincerely hope that there will not be a disposition to press the Amendment now before us. It would certainly be our duty to resist it; and I think it would be far more convenient that we should be allowed to go into Committee, and that I should be allowed to make my statement. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir Stafford Northcote), if he saw-cause, or any other, would then either demand time or take whatever course he pleases; but we should have, at any rate, a single question before us, and we should not be divided at the very threshold of the matter by discussion on a point of procedure, with respect to which I think it is hardly to be doubted that we have reserved to ourselves reasonable discretion in asking the House to vote this gum in such a way that moneys granted primâ facie for the purposes of the Soudan may, should it appear to be practicable, be applied for the purposes of the special preparations. I move that you, Sir, now leave the Chair.

, in rising to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that the Vote of Credit to be submitted in Committee of Supply on account of the Soudan Expedition should be considered separately from the Vote of Credit to be submitted on account of other Military and Naval expenditure,"

said, he could assure his right hon. Friend that in putting his Amendment on the Paper he was not at all actuated by Party motives. Nothing of the kind was contemplated. He had no particular personal desire to press his Motion. In order to ascertain whether it was necessary to take any preliminary objections to the Vote, he had consulted the authorities of the House. His only motive in submitting his Amendment was to secure, if possible, a clear and intelligible discussion of the two very different matters proposed to be submitted to the judgment of the House. He objected very much to the Votes being so proposed, because he believed it involved an entire departure from a long line of precedents, and might be fraught with mischievous consequences. There had been, since the Crimean War, an almost uninterrupted series of Votes of Credit; and every single one of them, down to this one, was taken for a separate Service. The present proposal of the Government involved a departure. He instanced the Votes of Credit for South Africa, for the Abyssinian War, and the Vote of Credit in 1870, when there was war in Europe. Votes of Credit in those days were given under rules much less stringent than existed now. His main contention, however, was that the Vote for the Soudan should not be a Vote of Credit at all, but a Supplementary Estimate. The Vote for £11,000,000 was divided into two parts, and these were again sub-divided. As to the £4,500,000 for the Soudan, after making allowances for all the demands that the Prime Minister had enumerated, including even the Nile steamers, there was a balance of £2,750,000. This was for military expenditure; but there was to be no expedition to Khartoum, and there were to be no further operations in the Soudan. It would be easy for the able official accountants to give an approximate idea of what proportion of this balance would be needed for the cost of the occupation of Suakin by the British or Indian troops. Then, as to the £6,500,000 for special preparations. The naval expenditure was to consist of £2,500,000, and the Prime Minister told them how that was to be spent—in torpedoes and guns for the Navy. Now, what the Prime Minister was asking for was that not only should the £4,000,000 under "special preparations" be appropriated to military expenditure, but that, without any definite authorization, he should be able to draw upon the £2,750,000 nominally taken for the Soudan, but which it was calculated would never be wanted for the Soudan. Thus, a sum of £6,750,000 was asked for for the Army, to be disposed of in any way the Government liked. Why? Because their mismanagement of the Army administration had been so grievous and glaring that it was the only way they could possibly find for covering the deficits in the Army Estimates. By the alteration of the rule applicable to this matter, the Government had been able to elude financial scrutiny during the past few years. Upon the authority of the Accountant General, he could state that when once a Vote of Credit had been agreed to the House parted with all its control over the expenditure of the amount of that Vote. So much was this the case, that in 1879, in a letter printed at the end of the Appropriation Accounts of that year, the Lords of the Treasury said—

"Votes of Credit are not current only for the year in which they are taken, and my Lords make it a rule to substitute for them wherever possible Supplementary Estimates. These latter leave less discretion to the spending Departments."

In 1879, when a Vote of Credit was agreed to in reference to the war in South Africa, the Comptroller General was unable to certify that the amount of money voted for that war had been actually expended for that purpose, and not for general purposes. From a statement made by the Prime Minister, it appeared to be perfectly competent for the Government to make a reasonably close approximation to the expenditure which still remained to be incurred in connection with the Soudan. The Government had, therefore, all the materials before them for proposing a Supplementary Estimate instead of a Vote of Credit. The presenting of such an Estimate would be in accordance with the advanced financial arrangements of the country, with the strong recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee, and with the rules laid down by the Treasury itself, and to be observed by the spending Departments when asking for sums on account like the present. The Prime Minister had told the House last week that he would give them an assurance that no portion of the Vote of Credit to be taken for the Soudan Service should be appropriated for the other Service. He, for one, feared that the language of the right hon. Gentleman on the present occasion would somewhat detract from that feeling of confidence with which hon. Members might otherwise have been inclined to look back to the right hon. Gentleman's utterances of last week. Before this question was disposed of, he trusted that three right hon. Gentlemen opposite, who were experienced Parliamentarians—some known for their political consistency, and some less remarkable for that quality—would take the trouble to look over the speeches which they had severally delivered in a famous debate in 1878. The right hon. Gentlemen to whom he referred were the Members for Ripon (Mr. Goschen), and for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), and the present Prime Minister. On the occasion to which he referred, the present Opposition brought forward a proposal similar to that now introduced —namely, a Vote of £6,000,000—to enable the Government of the day to make a show, as was thought right and proper, before the world, in view of certain hostilities which they anticipated would occur. He did not know that he should put the House to the trouble of dividing upon his Amendment, because he believed that the end he had in view would be fully satisfied by his drawing attention to the technical question. He had taken the course he had done because he was somewhat afraid that it might be ruled that the Motion he had placed upon the Paper could not be put from the Chair, and that it could not be brought forward in Committee of Supply. He begged to move that, in the opinion of that House, it was desirable that the Vote of Credit to be submitted in Committee of Supply on account of the Soudan Expedition should be considered separately from the Vote of Credit to be submitted on account of other military and naval expenditure.

said, he begged to second the Amendment. He understood that the hon. Member (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) who had moved it did not desire to go to a division, nor did he (Sir Henry Holland) desire to do so; but he seconded the Motion as a protest against the course—the unprecedented course—adopted by the Government in moving one Vote of Credit for two distinct services, one of which should have been provided for by a Supplemental Estimate. This question of Votes of Credit and Supplemental Estimates had many times been discussed in the House and before Public Accounts Committees, the object, of course, being to give to the House as large a power as possible over the expenditure, and full means of ascertaining and checking it; and in 1880 the point was closely considered by the Public Accounts Committee which sat in that year, and he would venture to read to the House one paragraph of their Report—

"Your Committee have arrived at the opinion that in all cases of special service, where the Department can make a fairly definite Estimate of the Service, and of the general head under which the proposed expenditure will mainly fall, it is desirable that a Supplementary Estimate should be presented, as in the case of the Indian Native troops; and that Votes of Credit should, as a rule, he only resorted to when from the nature of the services to be performed it is very difficult, if not impossible, to give any fairly approximate Estimate of the amount required."

Now, the hon. Member who moved this Amendment with so much ability had shown beyond all question that it was perfectly possible to make a very fair Estimate for the Soudan expenses; and a Supplementary Estimate should, therefore, have been presented, and not a Vote of Credit asked for. He was quite aware that in many eases a Vote of Credit was absolutely necessary, and there was less objection to such a Vote now than there used to be, as the expenditure under it was so much more closely watched; but the feared that a great blow would be struck at Votes of Credit if proceedings of this kind were to be sanctioned. All precedent pointed to this—that a Vote of Credit should be confined to one special and separate Service. He certainly had understood the Prime Minister to say some days ago that though this Vote of Credit applied to two Services, the money asked for in respect of one Service should not be applied to the other; but it now appeared that the money asked for for the Soudan Expedition might be applied for the Special Preparation Service.

That, Sir, is a point of very great importance upon which I do not wish to be misunderstood. I will venture to say that I can hardly have been misreported in the very careful words I used on the occasion to which the hon. Gentleman refers. I then gave a most distinct pledge that we should not apply to the Soudan any of the money voted for the special preparations. I gave no pledge whatever in the converse sense. On the contrary, we have always stated that our policy was to hold the Forces in the Soudan available for service elsewhere.

said, he was sure the Prime Minister would acquit him of any wish to misrepresent what had been said. He had only stated what he had understood; and he must add that when the Prime Minister said that the Soudan money might be applied to the other Service, it was not a great stretch of imagination to suppose that the converse treatment of the money voted would also be allowed. He would not detain the House any longer, but he ventured to think that this kind of Vote of Credit for two Services was without precedent, and should not be allowed to pass without a strong protest.

I do not feel that I am competent to deal with the speech of the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) in regard to the financial argument of which he made use; but if the House should desire that this question should be fully discussed, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and others will deal with that part of the subject. I will now endeavour to stale to the House the extreme inconvenience, amounting almost to impracticability, which would ensue from following the course pursued by the hon. Member for Queen's County. Probably the House will be of opinion that the hon. Member has not been very successful in quoting precedents. He referred to the year 1878, when he said there were complications in Europe and in South Africa; but I did not understand him to say that separate Votes were taken in that year. Even if that were the case, the House will perceive that the question of that year was altogether distinct from the present one. In regard to the alleged precedent of 1870, the hon. Member did not say that in that case two separate Votes of Credit were moved. The hon. Member only referred to the Report of the Committee on Public Accounts, which stated that the extremely irregular and objectionable practice had been followed in 1874 of applying sums in the Vote of Credit for the Abyssinian War Votes long before in the payment of the liabilities of that year. Altogether, the hon. Member's argument appears to me to be rather against Votes of Credit than an argument in support of the particular proposition that this Vote of Credit ought to be divided into two parts. Before we laid this Vote of Credit upon the Table we considered the alternative measures of procedure, and we adopted deliberately the course we have adopted, without any political object whatever, and with a view to the financial convenience of the Services and of the War Office. We certainly did not adopt that course with the view of withholding any information from the House. In the statement accompanying the Vote of Credit, the Government has placed the House in possession of as full information as they are able to give. Neither did they adopt this course in order to prevent the House raising any issue it chose, for that that could easily be done is abundantly evidenced by the Notice of Motion given by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). The reasons which influenced the Government are briefly these. The general preparations determined upon by the Government contemplate the employment elsewhere of a very large portion of the Forces either now in the Soudan, or which may have been raised for the operations there. The extra cost of the Force which would thus be released would cease to be a charge in the Soudan operations. Large quantities of supplies and stores have already been ordered and despatched to Egypt. So long as the troops are engaged in Egypt these stores, although the troops may be available for service elsewhere, will continue to be charged for the preparations made for the Soudan. It will be impassible, under the system of the War Office accounts, to break up these charges in the accounts and to distinguish the part chargeable to the garrisons left in Egypt and the troops employed in the Soudan from the charges for the Forces available for service elsewhere. When the accounts of the Army Expenditure of the year are completed, an approximate statement will be made in the form of an Estimate, showing as far as can be done the charges incurred for the two services; but I am informed by the financial authorities of the War Office, it will be impossible to support that statement by vouchers in the way a Parliamentary account is supported so as to satisfy the Auditor General. For instance, the claims of the contractor for the supply of meat at a station is for the quantity delivered in bulk to the Commissariat. No distinction is made between that to be consumed by the Cavalry, Infantry, Artillery, or Militia; much less is there any distinction of the claims for the food of those men who may have been added to the Forces as the result of either the general preparations or the Soudan operations. Similarly as regards stores, the reserves of small arm ammunition have been largely diminished by the issues to these troops, and orders have been given to make up these reserves. It is not possible to distinguish in the charges for wages in the accounts of the Royal Laboratory the extra wages due respectively to these two causes. For the reason therefore that a separate account, in the proper sense of the word, cannot be kept of the expenditure as occasioned by the two causes, one Vote has been asked for; but the Paper circulated with the Vote may be taken as fairly distributing the charge, on the assumption that all extra expenditure upon that portion of the Force in Egypt, which the Government has determined to with draw as soon as possible, shall, so long as it may remain in Egypt, be regarded as chargeable against general preparations. There are other reasons which prevent the division of the Vote. They are, no doubt, reasons of a highly technical character; but they are the reasons which have influenced the financial advisers, and I doubt whether the requirements of the law can be met if the House were to insist upon the proposed division of the Vote. If no necessity for general preparations existed, if the troops could be brought back from the Soudan, if the establishment which had been increased on account of the Soudan War could at once be reduced to its normal strength, if the provision of supply for the Soudan Expedition could at once be stopped, the money necessary for the House to provide on account of the Soudan Expedition would be near the amount stated in the Papers presented to Parliament; but, in the present circumstances, no such process will take place. The troops who are employed and who are necessary to be employed in the Soudan, will not be brought home. They will be held available either in Egypt or in any other station which may be thought necessary for general service. Supplies for their use will not be stopped, but, on the contrary, increased. Considering, therefore, that the two operations are so closely and inextricably bound together, it appears to me absolutely impossible, and would tend rather to the confusion of the House, and to diminish rather than to increase the real control which the House has over the military expenditure of the country if the course proposed by the hon. Member were taken. I trust the House will not be disposed to agree to the proposal of the hon. Member, but will accept the assurance of the Government that this course has been taken, not by any means with the intention of diminishing the control of the House over the expenditure, or of hiding any information from the House which we have the power to give, but simply from the cause I have stated of rendering the money voted by Parliament most available for the general service of the country, in whatever part of the world it may be required.

I hope the House will permit me to say half-a-dozen words in support of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor). I trust myself that the Amendment of the hon. Member will be something more than a protest on this occasion. The noble Lord the Secretary of State for War and the Prime Minister have both informed the House that there is no great matter of principle involved in the question. I am not, therefore, without some hope that the Government will yield to what appears to me to be the exceedingly legitimate and reasonable proposition of the hon. Member; and if the Government are not disposed to take that course, I hope, for my own part, that the hon. Member will press his Motion to a division. I confess that I was much surprised myself at the form in which this Vote was originally presented to the House, and it seems to me that the Amendment of the hon. Member simply places it on its natural and its legitimate footing. What is the position of the House in regard to this question? The Vote which is now before us deals with two questions, not only separate in them-selves, and which, therefore, as the Prime Minister said, ought to be treated as distinct, but with regard to which we may hold, and many of us do hold, very different opinions as to the course we ought to pursue. Now, as to the first question—that which relates to military preparations—if the Government come forward on their own responsibility and say that this Vote is required for the safety of the Empire, which under their guidance has recently been greatly in peril, I apprehend that there will be very little difference of opinion, and, without hesitation, I have no doubt the House of Commons will grant whatever sums are demanded for securing the safety of the Empire. But with regard to the Vote for the Soudan, that Vote appears to me to stand on a totally different footing altogether. Now, I think there is a great deal to be said on the question of the Soudan, and the Votes which the Government are asking for that Expedition now. I am not going to enter into details upon the question; but before this Vote is granted for the Soudan, the Government will certainly be called upon to reconcile the statement of their policy announced a short time ago with the totally different attitude they are adopting at the present moment. The House will assuredly require some further explanation with regard to the way in which it was induced to sanction the money for the construction of the Suakin-Berber Railway. The House will remember what occurred on that occasion. Many of us, and myself among the number, always regarded the construction of the Suakin-Berber Railway as all moonshine from the first. But what happened? When the noble Lord asked for a Supplementary Estimate on a former occasion, he said that the very first thing Lord Wolseley wanted, after the fall of Khartoum, was the despatch of an expedition to Suakin. And on his responsibility, as a Minister of the Crown, he came forward and told us that the railway was absolutely essential to the safety of the Expedition and the Forces under Lord Wolseley. We now find that the railway is not to be made to Berber, as I certainly thought it never would be, and we shall require some explanation from the Government before this Vote for the Soudan is granted. I think it will probable be the case that while the House will grant whatever money is required, it may be necessary for us to accompany that grant of money with something like a Vote of Censure on the conduct of the Government for the way in which, as far as I can ascertain, they have been making ducks and drakes of the money of the British taxpayer. Our position is this. We desire to do nothing whatsoever to stand for a moment in the way of granting money to the Government for any military preparations that may be necessary to secure the safety of the Empire; but at the same time we are determined to exercise the full right of criticism, and if necessary of censure, with regard to the way, as far as we can gather, the money will be expended in the Soudan. Under the circumstances, I would throw out a suggestion of this nature—that the money should be divided as the hon. Member proposes —that the Vote for military preparations should be taken first; and that having been done, and the statement of the Government having been made in reference to the Soudan, that the debate on the money necessary for the Soudan should be adjourned for further consideration.

said, he hoped that unless the Government had a better case to put forward they might find it convenient to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member. He did not think he had ever heard a weaker and more confused case put before the House than that stated by the noble Lord. The Government had carefully abstained from committing themselves as to their policy in the Soudan; and until they announced their intention to abandon operations in that country it was manifest that the amount to be expended there should form the subject of a distinct Vote. The Prime Minister had deprecated a discussion of this question in the face of Europe with a great appearance of division in their counsels; the right hon. Gentleman was anxious that they should present to Europe an united front. He maintained that the Government were themselves provoking that division of opinion by resisting the Motion of the hon. Member. What was the inevitable result of the course which the Government were taking? When the Speaker was got out of the Chair the Committee would begin to discuss, first, the Soudan Vote, then the Afghan Vote, next the Soudan Vote again, and then the Afghan Vote again, and, lastly, the military preparations. Hon. Members on the Opposition side who were prepared to support the Government in any course they thought necessary for defending the honour of the country in Asia would be forced against their will to appear as critics of the Government when dealing with the Soudan. It was the action of the Government which compelled them to import into the controversy in Committee of Supply those questions on which there were acute differences of opinion between the two sides of the House. It was really a case of "tacking" on the part of the Government. The Government knew perfectly well that the Opposition were prepared to support them, and to do all they could to help them out of the muddle into which they had got in Afghanistan. They knew very well that if they were to divide this Vote, giving a Soudan half and an Afghan half, the Opposition would be unanimous as to the latter half, whereas on the Soudan portion there would be vehement Party controversy. It was to prevent the country seeing in the clearest manner how they had again "tacked" in regard to their policy of two months ago that the Government had included these two entirely different Votes in one. He hoped the Government would even now think fit to accede to the Motion of the hon. Member He could assure the Prime Minister that if he would do so he would adopt the best course of avoiding that appearance of division in Committee of Supply in the face of Europe which he was so anxious to prevent.

said, that the noble Lord, in the course of his speech, had stated that there might be money, previously voted for stores in the Soudan, but not expended on actual service in the Soudan, which would be in hand to be expended for other purposes not mentioned—that was to say, for purposes mentioned in the Vote of £6,500,000. They were asked to vote in a lump money which was really going for two entirely different purposes. Now, although he did not believe that the Government were actuated by the motive attributed to them by hon. Gentlemen opposite, he objected to the idea of money being voted for one purpose and then being used for another. Under the French Empire the system of virements grew up by which enormous sums were voted in one way and applied in another, involving immense abuse. He hoped that in this country they would not enter upon that course.

I wish, Sir, to support the observations that have been made by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. W. Fowler). From his experience in such matters, I think the House would be justified in attaching very considerable weight to any remark falling from the hon. Member on a financial question. I must say, after what we have heard from the noble Lord the Secretary of State for War, it appears to me to be an extraordinary thing that the arrangements of the War Office should be in such a condition that it is utterly unable to take an accurate account of the stores and provisions of various kinds that may be re-shipped on the Coast of Egypt and transported elsewhere. I believe there is no person engaged in any great operation in this country who would not be prepared to insist that the charge connected with the employment of any number of men and any quantity of materials in any particular service in which he was concerned should be properly computed and ascertained. But I object to the proposal of the Government, because it appears to me to be an entirely new departure. We have had Supplementary Estimates and Votes of Credit to meet a national emergency before; but I do not remember that any single Vote of Credit has been taken to cover the expense of two entirely distinct objects. Can it be necessary that there shall be one Vote of Credit to deal with two totally different emergencies?—for that is the gist of the complaint which is now made. There is one point on which I would particularly insist, and that is that when a service was foreseen, when it became perfectly well known to Her Majesty's Government that troops would be required, that provisions would have to be furnished, and that a railway would have to be made, and when they asked for a Supplementary Estimate, as they did in the last financial year, for purposes in Egypt, they were bound to include in the ordinary Estimates of the year the expenditure which they contemplated and had decided upon. The noble Lord the Secretary of State for War told us that contracts had been entered into, that large payments had been made and liabilities incurred, and all actually without the vote of Parliament. Parliament has not sanctioned these estimates or these liabilities. They are included in this Vote of Credit. If the late Government had attempted to do anything of this kind, great financial authorities on the other side of the House would have told us at once that we were violating all the Rules of Parliament and defeating the proper control which Parliament is entitled to exercise over the national finances, and thereby over the enterprizes in which the Government may embark. I say that if a portion of this money has been paid, if these engagements have been entered into, Parliament ought to have been informed in the ordinary and regular way; they ought to have been included in the Estimates laid before the House in February last; and a proper opportunity would thus have been afforded for discussion. But I object strongly to our being asked in this way to make provision for two distinct services in one Vote of Credit, thus depriving the House of the power of adequately discussing those objects separately, and taking from hon. Members the power of protesting as effectually as they desire to do against one portion of the Vote while they wish to support another.

My right hon. Friend at the head of the Government took pains the other day to explain the principle applicable to this Vote. The right hon. Gentleman opposite and the hon. Member for Cambridge say—"Here are two Votes for two absolutely separate objects, which have no connection or dependence the one upon the other." That is not an accurate statement of the fact. If it were, I should entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I accept altogether his financial doctrine on that subject. But the very basis of the statement of the Government which has already been made to the House is that these two matters are not separate, but that they have to a certain degree a dependence the one upon the other, and that the proposals that have been made with reference to the Soudan have relation to the position of the Empire in other parts of the world. Therefore, the whole foundation of the right hon. Gentleman's argument fails, because the two things are not distinct, but to a considerable degree dependent on each other. My right hon. Friend at the head the Government stated with reference to the Vote of Credit and with reference to the Soudan that certain operations might be undertaken or might not be undertaken in the Soudan according to the pressure of the necessities of the Empire elsewhere. Well, it is obvious to anybody who considers that proposition that there are future contingencies under which the releasing of the Forces in the Soudan—I think that was the phrase employed—for service elsewhere may be greater or may be less. The consequence is that the exigency of the demand for the Vote in respect to the Soudan may be more urgent and larger in one contingency than in another; and therefore it may be possible that the sum asked for the Soudan may not be under the circumstances entirely wanted to be expended in the Soudan. And here I am not alluding to the past expenditure, which alone the right hon. Gentleman referred to in his remarks, for stores and matters of that kind, but to the expenditure which may or may not take place in future. If that be so, and if the policy be such as I have described, is it not most reasonable that if by releasing Forces in the Soudan you do employ those Forces, or have them at your disposal elsewhere, you should have the means, if so it be, to appropriate such surplus as may remain alter the Soudan Vote to purposes elsewhere? That is the extent and the only extent of the transfer of moneys now proposed; and the two objects are not independent of each other, but have relation one to the other. That entirely disposes of the objection of the hon. Member for Cambridge, and therefore the question of virements does not arise in this case. It is very desirable that we should at all events come to an early decision on this point. The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) is not always charitable in his interpretation of the motives of the Government. I am very willing to deal with facts. The hon. Member always knows our motives, and it always seems to him that they are the worst possible. He thinks that our object in making this proposal is not that which we have avowed, and which is patent on the face of the Vote—namely, that if there be a surplus available from the Soudan it should be applied to the ge- neral purposes of the defence of the Empire, but that we desire to evade discussion and to escape the Vote of Censure which the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire, with his authority with his Party, has been good enough to announce in the present juncture of affairs. Surely, however, if we desire to evade discussion in regard to the Soudan, we could not do it. When we go into Committee on tin's Vote, it will be perfectly open to the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire to refuse all moneys for the Soudan as he seems to desire.

The right hon. Gentleman has evidently misunderstood me. I said I would do nothing whatever that would stand in the way of the voting of money for special preparations necessary for the safety of the Empire, but that the two things were totally distinct, and it might become a duty to propose a Vote of Censure in regard to affairs in the Soudan.

I do not object to the hon. Member moving a Vote of Censure if he thinks it is a favourable moment. By all means let him do it to-morrow if he likes. But I was answering the hon. Member for Hertford, who alleged that we wish to evade discussion in respect to the Soudan. We could not evade it if we wished, which we do not; and there will be every facility for the hon. Member for Hertford to discuss the question of the Soudan on this Vote. He can say what he likes upon it, and he can refuse the money which is asked for.

said, he thought that it was a great pity that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had made the speech which he had just made, because it was a most unfortunate thing that Her Majesty's Government and the Members of Her Majesty's Government should endeavour to make it appear that there was in that House on that night any difference of opinion upon the main matter before them. He thought that it was a great pity that there had been any controversy at all upon it. It had been caused by the Home Secretary and the Members of the Government who, instead of confining that controversy to the technical question raised by the hon. Member for Queen's County, had endeavoured to give it a wider scope, and to make it appear as if the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire had desired to pass a Vote of Censure on Her Majesty's Government. The fault was entirely that of the Government. The Government wished to propose in the House two Votes for purposes really distinct. They knew that one would be granted by the House without any difference of opinion at all, and as to which it was most important that that unanimity of the House of Commons should go forth to Europe to-morrow. The Government knew that there was another Vote on which differences of opinion must arise, and they had deliberately mixed up these two, and it was they who were to blame if there was any want of unanimity shown. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had told them to wait till the matter was before Committee of Supply; but no one knew better than the right hon. Gentleman that it was impossible really to raise the question there except by moving that the Chairman leave the Chair. Did the right hon. Gentleman think that any Member on that side of the House would take the responsibility of moving the reduction of this Vote? They knew the sort of speech which would be made by the Prime Minister. It was only at this time that the proceedings of the Government could be called in question. Her Majesty's Government had chosen to fly in the face of Treasury Orders, of the Committee of Public Accounts, of the practice of the House of Commons, and of all precedents that had ever been set. He thought that with regard to this Motion the Government would have been in a better position without the speech of the Home Secretary. For his own part, he entirely disagreed with what had been said by the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War as to the joining of the expenditure which had been incurred with that to be incurred. It appeared now from the speech of the Home Secretary that there was a reason for mixing them up, and it was a serious one, which the House could not help taking note of. It appeared from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that the Government were still halting between two opinions, and that they were in the future intending to incur expenditure with reference to the Soudan, as to which they had not made up their minds whether it was to be strictly Soudan expenditure or general expenditure. He had ventured to object two months ago to the expenditure of money and the slaughter of Arabs without any distinct policy being stated. His arguments had then been ridiculed by the Home Secretary and other Members of the Government; but since then the slaughter which he had predicted had taken place. The time had now at least come when there should be no doubt in the minds of Her Majesty's Government. If the Home Secretary was really speaking the mind of the Government in this matter, and if there was any doubt or hesitation in their minds as to how the Vote was to be spent, it was most essential that they should have a more certain voice than that of the Home Secretary before the House of Commons should be asked to do that which it was perfectly ready to do—namely to place in the hands of Her Majesty's Government ample funds for the purpose of making special preparations in the present condition of affairs.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, in challenging somebody to propose a Vote of Censure, reminded him of one of Dickens's attorneys who had shown a touching anxiety to be kicked before witnesses. He could not but think that the provocative bearing of the Home Secretary was singularly inappropriate in what should have been a business discussion. It had been pointed out by the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) that the money asked for in this Vote was for a double purpose. He failed entirely to understand the reasons for the extraordinary reticence on the part of the Government and their mysterious references to special purposes. It appeared to him that this was the same policy as that of the fabled ostrich; it was an elaborate pretence of hiding what could not be hidden. The conduct of the Government gave too much reason for the suspicion that they were trying to evade inquiry into their Soudan policy, and it would provoke the proposal of a Motion in Committee which would plainly and distinctly set their Soudan expenditure upon one side for the special examination of the House.

I wish to say a few words especially to the Prime Minister. It appears to me that the sense of the House in this matter is all very much in one way. I have heard a good many speeches in favour of the separation of the Vote, and the absolute silence of hon. Members behind the Treasury Bench shows that they have also felt the force of the observations which have been made. For my own part, I feel greatly the force of these observations; and though I do not go so far as my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) seems to have done in implying that there is an intention on their part of tacking, yet the way in which the Vote is proposed is a way in which the stronger case will carry the weaker. I am unwilling to be put in a position in which we are not to get a full discussion of that part of the Vote which relates to the Soudan. There is a practical unanimity with regard to the special preparations Vote. We have not the same unanimity with regard to the conduct and views of Her Majesty's Government with reference to the Soudan; and before that Vote is passed it is probable that the House will desire to have some more definite and clear assurances of the policy of the Government with regard to the Soudan. We have been waiting until a proper occasion shall arise —which I suppose is to-night—to learn what the policy of the Government is with regard to the Soudan. Now we are placed in this difficulty, that we can only hear the statement of the Prime Minister immediately before we are asked to vote money. I wish, under the circumstances, to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will think it possible to meet the objections which have been raised by making a division of the Vote itself, and proposing first that part relating to special preparations and afterwards that relating to the Soudan?

The right hon. Gentleman will perhaps allow me to correct him in the supposition that I was about to make a lengthened statement on this subject while the Speaker is in the Chair. My intention has all along been to make that statement in Committee. The right hon. Gentleman appears to think that he will suffer some great disadvantage from a combination of these two services in one Vote; and he seems to think that it is in my power to relieve him from that dilemma by the course he suggested, which he apparently thought would not necessarily involve any fundamental difficulty in the plans of the Government. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that he is in error in both those suppositions. It is competent for any hon. Member to move a reduction of the Vote of £4,500,000 asked for the Soudan, and that will distinctly raise a question on which any objections that may be felt to the conduct of the Government in regard to the Soudan can without prejudice be stated. I will reply to the right hon. Gentleman's appeal by appealing to him to take the opportunity which such a course will present, and so relieve himself of the difficulty which Her Majesty's Government cannot relieve him from without striking at the basis of the policy which we have announced. That policy is to hold the Forces in the Soudan, while they remain in the Soudan, available for service elsewhere. In that policy we ask the House to uphold us. The hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) must know that the business of concentration in the Soudan is a serious military operation; that the withdrawal of a considerable Force from the heart of the country is a costly and even to some extent a protracted business; and it is totally impossible for the Government to draw that line and divide the Vote. I shall state frankly to the Committee, when that stage is reached, that Her Majesty's Ministers are asking the House to a certain extent to vote money with regard to which, in certain contingencies, the Government will have a choice. I cannot tell to what extent it may be necessary for us to apply the Vote in regard to the Soudan to the purpose of special preparation. It may or it may not be that £2,000,000 out of the £4,000,000 will be spent in the Soudan and the rest elsewhere. If we had not the liberty of applying the £4,500,000 as we required the only course for us would be to continue to ask £4,500,000 for the Soudan, because the money might possibly be spent there, and £12,000,000 for special preparations, because the money may be wanted for that purpose. The result would be that we should have to ask Parliament to spend £2,000,000 more. I do not, however, think it desirable to ask Parliament to authorize the Government to spend £2,000,000 more than they are likely to want. It would not have been right to make such a demand and to require the Chancellor of the Exchequer to add these £2,000,000 to the sum which on Thursday will be asked for in Committee of Ways and Means. That being so, I think I have shown that while on the other side the objection to the course we propose is of a technical character, on ours it is a matter of substance, inasmuch as it enables us to apply motley granted for the purpose of the Soudan to other objects. As to the Soudan Enterprize, we have bound ourselves not to prosecute offensive operations or to undertake an early advance on Khartoum; and our Forces remain there only until we can safely bring them home or make them available for employment elsewhere. I cannot but think that our proposal is a reasonable one, and that the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends will have ample opportunity of raising the Soudan question, by moving the diminution of the Vote, and making that Motion the means of censuring Her Majesty's Government for its conduct with regard to the Soudan.

Sir Arthur Otway, I will, Sir, endeavour to explain, as clearly as I can, the nature and grounds of the Vote which we now submit, trusting to the indulgence of the Committee, because I am conscious—I have, I am sorry to say, for months past, been conscious —of an habitual hoarseness, which may make the function of listening very disagreeable and irksome. I trust that the Committee, at least in some degree, now understand that, if there is anything unusual in the nature and character of this Vote, it arises, not out of a caprice of ours, still less out of an unmanly intention of avoiding controversial debate adverse to ourselves, but out of the nature of the case. We have before us a case, Sir, for which in a material point there is no precedent known to me. We propose a Vote of Credit amounting to £11,000,000; £6,500,000 being likely to be spent in what we term "special preparations," and being secured from being spent for any other purposes; £4,500,000 being likely to be spent in and in connection with the Soudan, but being in a degree that I cannot at present define capable of being spent for another purpose—that is to say, the same purpose as our special preparations. And I ask leave of the Committee to repeat my words, that, adhering to the policy we have announced to the House of holding the Soudan Forces available for service elsewhere, I believe that we have had absolutely no option except either to ask the House to vote money which may be wanted in the Soudan, with the power to use it for the purpose of the special preparations, or else to vote twice over a very large and uncertain sum of money, to which course, I believe, strong and just and even insurmountable objection might be taken. Moreover I will point out that, until it is shown that there is some other course open to us, the objection with regard to the special nature of this Vote entirely falls to the ground and is worthless. Sir, the peculiarity in the case to which I refer is, of course, this: I know of no instance, either in or beyond my own recollection, since the financial system of this House was well developed—and, indeed, it hardly had come to be thoroughly developed when I first became a Member of this House—in which it has been the duty of the Government to propose to the House at one and the same time two very large sums of money for military purposes, one of which, the second, may run into the first, although the first is not to run into the second. We ask it upon this ground: It is essentially bound up with the policy of holding the large Force now in the Soudan available for transfer and for service elsewhere. That is the justification of the course which I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. W. Fowler) should be taken upon no ground except that of strong necessity, and of making the best choice we can between rival inconveniences. I certainly, for one, would never have dreamed of taking it on any other ground, and I believe that I am speaking for my Colleagues when I so speak. It is thought by some that we take this course because it evades a Vote of Censure upon us on account of our policy in the Soudan. It appears to be assumed that it would have been competent to Members of the Committee to say, first of all, that they would give us the money for special preparations, and, secondly, give us the money for the Soudan Vote, but that in giving the money for the Soudan Vote they would combine with it a Vote of Censure upon the Government. Sir, I believe that it would not have been competent, either in point of form or in point of substance, for the Committee to have taken that course. I do not think that it is upon record that an attempt has ever been made to take such a course. This the Committee may do with perfect consistency—they may give the money for the Soudan, founding that Vote on the necessity which has been created, and they may reserve to themselves the discretion of censuring the Government, notwithstanding that they have voted the money. Surely that doctrine is sound, because, otherwise, why vote the money for the special preparations until you are satisfied that in everything which touches them we deserve your approval? I do not suppose that you are quite prepared to affirm, as one Gentleman has declared to-night, that we and not Russia are responsible for the difficulty in which we stand. [An hon. MEMBER: Hear, hear!] Another hon. Gentleman cheers, so that there are two persons, at any rate, who will be in the predicament of either refusing money for special preparations or else of being content to reserve to themselves for some future occasion the power which they undoubtedly possess, and may very legitimately exercise, of censuring us for the wrong principles upon which we have proceeded, or for the want of judgment with which we have endeavoured to apply the right principles. There appears to be a mistaken idea pervading the minds of young Members of this House, and, indeed, of some old ones, that the granting of a Vote of Credit which it is not intended to refuse is an usual occasion for bringing the Government to trial upon matters to which the Vote relates.

Your Party did it in 1878.

I am very much obliged to the noble Lord. My memory goes back to 1878, and it goes back somewhat further. I do not bring forward a proposition of this kind without being prepared to examine and to stand by it. As the noble Lord challenges me to begin with that extraordinary precedent, I may say that we had in 1878 a Vote of Credit proposed to this House which is without parallel in our history. We fought that Vote of Credit upon principle. We objected to the most dangerous precedent then established. We objected to the purpose which it had in view. I will on this occasion save hon. Gentlemen the trouble of doing what they are fond of doing—of paying me the compliment of quoting me—and I will quote myself. Someone said tonight—"I wish the right hon. Gentleman would read the speech he made in 1878." It was a most unkind wish. He could not have doomed me to a task more irksome and unacceptable; but, anticipating what was likely to happen, I was beforehand with the hon. Member, and I do not think there is one word which in the same circumstances I should not be ready to repeat. I hope the noble Lord will, when any former speeches of his are referred to, be always in a position to quote them with as much security. On that occasion I ventured to say—

"So far as I know, there is no case when a Conference of the Powers of Europe has been called together where those Powers, as a preliminary to its assembling, have increased, or taken powers to increase, their naval and military establishments."—(3 Hansard, [237] 949.)

I believe no novelty more astounding in form and in substance is to be found than the astonishing proposal that, when the Powers of Europe were about peacefully to meet for purposes of the highest deliberation, to be conducted by pacific means, in the common interest, and with the highest authority in the civilized world, that peaceful meeting was to be disturbed by the clash of arms, and that one of the Governments which are to take part in the proceedings of that Assembly is to spend £6,000,000 in military pre- parations, for the sake, forsooth, of strengthening its hands.

What about Alexandria?

Interruptions of that kind are totally irrelevant, and are hardly compatible with the decencies of this House. If it be true that on this occasion, with respect to the money we ask for the Soudan, there is a disposition to refuse it upon principle—if the case is really analogous to that of 1878, when our desire was not to grant one farthing of those £6,000,000 for what we deemed to be unlawful and evil purposes—if that parallel prevail, by all means let opposition be made to what we now propose in whatever way you may like to make it. But I understand, on the contrary, that you are prepared to vote the money, and it is on that supposition that I argue. It appears to be said that we ask for information. What information had we given us? I hold all the information given, and it was this, as I summed it up at the time—

"I have heard a great deal said about the Vote of 6,000,000 being intended to strengthen the hands of the Government, to protect British interests, and to put us on a footing with other Powers."

I should like to know, after receiving information such as that, in what point were we one jot the wiser? We knew nothing of what was to be done. We knew nothing of the Salisbury-Schouvaloff Agreement. We knew nothing of secret Covenants with other Powers, although the Powers of Europe were at the time assembled in Council. We knew nothing of Anglo-Turkish Treaties; we knew nothing of the occupation and administration of Cyprus in particular, to be assumed in defiance of the Treaty of Paris and the law of Europe. All these things were concealed. These were the matters on which we ought to have had information, and if we had had it I am not sure that even the last Parliament would really have voted the £6,000,000. But, Sir, undoubtedly, if that is the sort of information that you want, we can give it; we want the hands of the Government strengthened, we want British interests protected, we want British honour guarded. All these generalities, which were all that we extracted from you upon a former occasion, we are ready to return; but we have not the audacity to pretend that, in paying you off with such coin as that, we think we are really giving you political information. Sir, the fact is that, so far as I am aware, it has not been the practice of this House to choose Votes of Credit as occasions for general discussion of the matter to which they refer. I will appeal in support of what I have said to the evidence of facts. There are certain occasions which I will not quote, because if we were in the middle of a great war like the Crimean War, and after providing so many millions for the Navy and so many for the Army, my right hon. Friend (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) were to demand a Vote of Credit over and above, there then could be no occasion for discussion, for the policy of the war must be a thing notorious to and accepted by the House and the country. Votes of Credit of that kind may be given without discussion. I will take another case when it was not so. It was a Vote of Credit proposed when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Indeed, it was a double Vote of Credit proposed in 1860 for the purposes of the China War. We began on the 16th of March by proposing a Vote of £850,000. The hour was late, and the necessity was great. There was no statement, and no debate. There was merely a protest made that the Vote was only allowed to pass on account of the great urgency of time in connection with our financial needs. On the 19th the Vote was reported in the regular mode, and debate arose. But the debate which did arise was entirely upon military detail and nothing else; and, although undoubtedly that Vote was upon a very serious subject of policy—a subject which required discussion, and which obtained discussion—it was not discussed on the occasion of the Vote. In the month of July we had to propose, unfortunately, a very much larger Vote for purposes connected with the same Expedition. In that month what happened was this: We had sent to China in the interval certain offers of peace. These offers had failed. Military operations became necessary, and we had to ask for no less than £3,356,000 on the 12th of July. Again there was no statement of policy in connection with it. There was, again, a military debate. Late in the evening Sir John Pakington—not Mr. Disraeli, who de- manded no discussion upon it—said he would like, at the end of the speech, a fuller explanation as to the definite objects of the war; and Lord John Russell, in the space of a very few minutes, said he thought that the right hon. Gentleman, belonging to the former Government, was as much responsible for the war as the Government then in Office, and that the terms of peace then offered were quite reasonable. So that there was no discussion on either of those occasions—practically no discussion and no arraignment of the Government. But, Sir, it may be said, and said truly, that the war was going on. Therefore, I will quote a case which will amply mate good what I have said, and when no war was going on. This was the case of the Vote of Credit which it was my duty to propose when I was Prime Minister in 1870. It was a Vote of £2,000,000 of money. On the 1st of August Mr. Disraeli raised, a debate on the critical state of affairs on the Continent of Europe. It was in the course of that debate that I stated the intention of the Government to ask for a Vote of Credit without defining the purposes of the Vote further than this —not very much unlike the information we got in 1878. I said—

"We are neutrals in the war. We are on terms of unequivocal friendship with both the parties, and our object is to maintain a dignified and friendly position."

That, Sir, was the statement made by me on the part of the Government on the 1st of August. On the 2nd of August, no war existing, we being in no way a party to any quarrel, being in no difficulty and in no danger—though we had an object in view, of which the House was aware like the public, in a general way—we asked the House, without a word of statement, for the £2,000,000, and without a word of objection it was given. On the 8th of August Earl Granville produced a Treaty in the House of Lords, and I produced a Treaty in the House of Commons, which we had concluded with a view to the neutrality of Belgium. Some discussion then took place. Mr. Disraeli, in particular, said that he thought that the proceeding was a good and a manly proposal. There was a general concurrence in the House, and such short debate as took place was not of a contentious cha- racter. But what I am contending is that that debate occurred a week after the Vote of Credit. The Vote of Credit had nothing to do with it, and the circumstances in which the Vote of Credit was proposed were again deemed to be circumstances which made it wise not to choose that moment for a general discussion on the merits of the question. Well, now, Sir, what is the present case? I am not at all surprised that Gentlemen in this House should say that the Government are censurable in their determination to ask no money in the present Vote for the prosecution of offensive operations in Egypt. I think that is a question of a dignity and order perfectly warranting the conduct of anyone who may think fit to call the attention of the House to it at a proper time; and if any Vote of Censure is to be moved on the Government for such a purpose from the proper source, and with proper authority, it will have from us every proper attention and accommodation. We shall give every opportunity for its being discussed, whatever its issue is to be. But what we wish to do now is simply to make understood the purposes of this Vote, and to give the opportunity which it has been the custom of the House to use, though I do not wish to tie it down to that custom, for discussing the military provisions which, it is the object of the Vote to make. The first thing we ask is a Vote of £4,500,000 for the Soudan, as being likely to be spent in the Soudan, but with the plain declaration, which is the basis on our part of the whole of these proceedings, that, as far as we are concerned, and quite apart from any wider opinions that any of us may entertain against the proceedings in the Soudan, we are all determined, so far as we are concerned, that the Soudan shall not by anything hereafter to be done offer an impediment to the full discharge of the duties of the Empire, with the whole purpose and the whole power of the Empire, in whatever quarter of the world they may happen to lie. For this reason, avowedly and undisguisedly, we ask you to give us this money, because the troops are now in the Soudan. We cannot say how much of it may be spent there, because it is possible that none of it may be spent there, except in connection with certain specified objects there or for bringing the men home. We ask you distinctly to give it to us with an unfettered discretion to apply it elsewhere for higher purposes and for higher duties, if necessary. I hope that is intelligible, and I hope that will not be mixed up with any question of technical fidelity to rules for voting money which on every ordinary occasion we are most desirous strictly and rigorously to maintain. With regard to the Soudan portion of this Vote, explaining it as I have now explained it, the state of the case is this: I have nothing of a substantial character to add to what I stated on the 20th of April, when, on the part of the Government, and in words agreed upon with and by my Colleagues, I said that we had found it necessary to review the whole situation of the Empire, and that we considered the time to be one at which it was necessary to hold its entire resources well in hand for use and for application wherever they might be wanted. If the Committee does not agree with that proposition, let them reject the proposal we now make. If the Committee does agree in the proposal, they may canvass, they may criticize, they may censure, they may expel and eject the present Government, if they like, and most welcome they will be; but they cannot withhold from us the money which we ask. I wish broadly to draw this distinction between the granting of the money on a Vote of Credit which we ask, and the reservation of the amplest liberty on the part of the House to discuss the merits of the question, and to visit upon the heads of responsible and guilty Ministers a Vote of Censure or whatever penalty they may deserve. At the same time, while that is really the substance of the proposition that I make on the part of the Government as the basis of this plan, the Committee may naturally remind me that it is not the first declaration made this year on the subject of the Soudan. On the 19th of February, when the House met, I made a declaration on behalf of my Colleagues not less formal, not less binding, than that to which I have now referred. I therefore go back to the 19th of February and the discussion of that evening, and to the decisions which at that time I announced to the House as having been taken by the Cabinet, and having received the sanction of Her Majesty. When on the 4th of February we heard of the betrayal of Khartoum, the Cabinet was of course summoned, and it was gathered together next day. The desire of the Cabinet at that time was to endeavour to prevent the spreading of the disturbance to do everything that could be done on behalf of General Gordon, if he were alive—and at that time we had no means of judging whether he was alive or not, or even whether he was continuing resistance or not—and if possible, of course, to go forward at once to the accomplishment of the purpose of Lord Wolseley's Expedition. That was our starting point. As I stated on the 19th of February, Lord Wolseley pointed out to us that we must move forward from that starting point. There were, he told us, two plans of military operations, one based on the idea of taking Khartoum, and the other based upon the abandonment of that object. We thought, Sir, that we were not justified, under the circumstances of the hour, in the abandonment of that idea; and we therefore adopted the plan pointed out by Lord Wolseley, which was meant to reserve to us a full discretion upon the facts as they then stood before us to go forward to Khartoum at a later period, presuming it to be impracticable to effect its capture immediately, and presuming, of course, that Parliament should be found disposed to sanction such a plan, and that we ourselves, on further consideration, should find reason still to adhere to it. On that ground we founded the statement that I made on the 19th of February, and retained to ourselves in full the power to marching to Khartoum. I referred at that time to various circumstances, and I think that, upon an impartial view, or upon any intelligent view, it must be admitted that many of those circumstances have since that period undergone serious change. In the first place, the heroic General Gordon, we know, has sealed his purpose with his blood. Of that we had no knowledge whatever at the time when we came to the decisions of, I think, the 6th of February. We saw at that time, as the world saw, an indefinite but possibly a very great danger in the effect that might be produced both upon Egypt and with regard to the defence of Egypt, and likewise in other quarters of the East, by a simple policy of retirement in the face of a triumphant Pretender to the dignity of a prophet. The Mahdi was then triumphant, and his position was a very grave factor in. the case before us. That position has greatly altered. In the flush of his triumph he attempted to move down the river; but not many days were required to show to him the vanity of that operation. He retired to Khartoum. He has retired from Khartoum. He is attacked in his own seat. Loft to themselves and not immediately menaced by us, a rival or rivals have started up, and the Mahdi is not the formidable character that he was in the first week of February. As to the defence of Egypt, we in no way relax the obligations under which we hold ourselves to stand. In my announcement last Monday on the part of my Colleagues, we declared that we held to that duty, as we had held to it before. As respects the general effect of the betrayal of Khartoum upon the East, what we had then to contemplate was that, if we had ordered a retirement of our Forces—a retirement accompanied with general inaction in the East—we should have had to compute the probable or possible effect, not in Egypt only, but beyond Egypt—throughout the East and in the Indian Empire—of that retirement. That was the alternative before us then. I could almost wish it were the alternative before us now; but it is not so; and the policy that is necessary in the existing circumstances, which I shall say nothing to exaggerate or to worsen—the policy that is before us now is of necessity a policy of preparatory action in the East, which puts wholly out of view any apprehensions that either a timorous or a prudent man might have entertained in the first week of February, in connection with the possible moral effects of the betrayal of Khartoum, and the apparent triumph of the Mahdi. There were other smaller, or rather, narrower considerations, although very far indeed from being unimportant. I mentioned to the House at that time that there were several topics which we were unwilling summarily to brush aside; though we did not bind ourselves to do anything beyond what might be found reasonable and practicable in regard to them. One of them, though I did not give it a very prominent place, was the question whether the possession of Khartoum would enable us to impose a serious check upon the prosecution of the Slave Trade. I may say that an examination does not at all tend to show that the possession of Khartoum would have any vital or any very appreciable influence on that evil traffic. A very important consideration, both at that moment and throughout the whole of last year, was this—to whom did General Gordon hold himself bound in honour at Khartoum? General Gordon was under the belief, and that belief we derived from his telegrams, sporadic as they unfortunately were from the necessity of the case, that a large portion of the population of Khartoum were deeply bound up with him in interest and feeling, and that their fate was dependent upon his. But the evidence positive and negative before us—what we have heard and what we have not heard, connected with the betrayal of Khartoum —does not, so far as it goes, support that belief of General Gordon. What is quite plain is this—that with his heroic character and his extraordinary gifts he exercised a power of fascination upon a few of the natives and soldiers who were in personal contact with him, and there is some reason to suppose that he mistook that for a general attachment of the soldiers, and even for something more. We have no reason to suppose that any considerable body ever attached themselves to him, and we have not indeed sufficient reason to suppose that the general population of Khartoum—though I have no doubt some of the immediate adherents suffered in their lives or fortunes—suffered by what has taken place. There was, further, a consideration with respect to the establishment of a Government at Khartoum; but there, again, we are not at present entitled to assert, of our own knowledge or conviction, that the Government of Khartoum is at this moment worse than it was four or live years ago. As regards the Egyptian garrisons, one or two of the smaller garrisons have quite recently been relieved, and the principal garrisons hold their ground. We are not able to say what is their exact condition, what are the motives of their present conduct. We are not able to say that it is not in their power, if they cease to represent Egyptian supremacy in the Soudan, to leave the country. That is a question on which we can give no positive opinion. We never have admitted that we were bound to use the forces and sacrifice the blood and the treasure of England in the heart of the Soudan for the relief of those garrisons, whom we did not send there, and with whoso despatch we had no concern whatever. Though we should have been very glad, had it been in our power, to assist them in removal, it would have been a piece of guilt and folly were we to have made that a capital object of our policy, and to expend British life and treasure in relieving them. This is only a reference to changes or modifications of circumstances, but I shall say no more on the Soudan. I go back upon my main proposition. That proposition is that it is a paramount duty incumbent upon us to hold our Forces in the Soudan available for service wherever the call of duty and honour may summon them in the service of the British Empire. I have heard with great satisfaction the assurance of hon. Gentlemen opposite that they are disposed to forward in every way the grant of funds to us, to be used, as we best think, for the maintenance of what I have, upon former occasions, described as a "National and Imperial policy." Certainly, an adequate sense of our obligations to our Indian Empire has never yet been claimed by any Party in this country as its exclusive inheritance. In my opinion, he would be guilty of a moral offence and gross political folly who should endeavour to claim, on behalf of his own Party, any superiority in that respect over those to whom he is habitually opposed. It is an Imperial policy in which we are engaged. With respect to this Vote, I have, indeed, heard comments upon the smallness of the Vote. But it is the largest Vote of Credit that has been asked, as far as I know, within the last 70 years, unless it were in the time of the Crimean War. What I wish to observe is this, that the Vote is a little larger than it looks, because while it is stated at £6,500,000, in the first place, it is contemporaneous with a large increase of charge in the annual Estimates for the Army and Navy, dealt with by the House in the course of its regular duty. In the second place, possibly, and more or less probably, it contemplates receiving a considerable addition from the other branch of this Vote of £4,500,000 which we have put down as likely to be spent in the Soudan; and thirdly, and more important than either of those two items, which I do not hold to be trivial, it must be borne in mind that this case is primarily an Indian case of military preparation. Those who want to know what is the total amount of effort now going forward, and the total amount of the charge likely to be entailed by the present preparations upon the subjects of Her Majesty, would require to know, which we certainly do not yet know, what will be the cost of the vigorous and effective measures which, as we hope and believe, are being taken in India, to enable the Government of that country to meet its share of the present obligations. A demand for information is always a plausible demand, often a reasonable demand, never a demand to be treated with anything but respect. Let us consider what is the present position, and what is the mode and conduct on the part of the Government adapted to that position. It is not a case of war. There is no war before us, actually, or I may even say, perhaps, proximately—although I am slow to deal with epithets that are, of course, liable to some latitude of interpretation. I am not called upon to define, and I should find much difficulty in defining, inasmuch as it does not depend upon any choice of mine or my Colleagues, the degree of danger that may be before us. We labour, we have laboured, and we shall continue to labour, for an honourable settlement by pacific means. One thing I will venture to say with regard to that sad contingency of an outbreak of war, or a rupture of relations between two great Powers like Russia and England—one thing I will say with great strength of conviction, and great earnestness in my endeavour to impress it upon the Committee. It is this: We will strive to conduct ourselves to the end of this diplomatic controversy in such a way as that, if, unhappily, it is to end in violence or rupture, we may at least be able to challenge the verdict of civilized mankind, upon a review of the correspondence, upon a review of the demands made and refusals given, to say whether we have, or whether we have not, done all that men could do by every just and honourable effort to prevent the plunging of two such countries, with all the millions that own their sway, into bloodshed and strife, of which it might be difficult to foresee the close. In my opinion, the question before the Committee at this moment—not the final question—but the question at this moment is a simple, I might say even a narrow question, though in itself a great and important question. What we present to you is a case for preparation. Is there, or is there not, a case for preparation? Look at the facts before you. Try them by that test and by no other. Do not let us urge our own foregone conclusions about the misconduct of Russia or anyone else; do not let us enter into the judicial part of the case—only into that part of it which is prudential. Upon that aspect of the case, and upon that alone, asking for no credit as to the future and no acquittal as to the past, we say it is a case for preparation. All the facts that are within your knowledge are enough to make it your bounden duty so to prepare. Therefore, Sir, if I am asked for more information, my answer is this—it is impossible for us to give you full information. We could not, at this moment, open up the Correspondence that has been going on. We could not lay before you the unsifted intelligence, still less the rumours that have reached us. We could not enable you by any possibility, to judge of a question that has not yet reached a state of maturity for judgment. The evidence is not complete. The development is simply going forward. Do not let us too sanguinely count on a favourable issue. At the same time, do not let us despair that reason and justice may, on both sides, prevail over narrower and more unworthy feelings. We cannot give all the information we possess. If we did give it, it would not place you in a position for conclusive judgment. Were we to give part, we should infallibly mislead you; and, therefore, we stand simply upon what is patent and notorious, and say that, on those patent and notorious facts, with which the whole world is acquainted as well as we are, there is a case, and abundant case, for preparation. Now, Sir, in order to show that I do not speak wholly without book, shall I, in a very few moments before I sit down, sketch rudely and slightly an outline of these patent and notorious facts? The starting-point of our movement in this case is our obligation of honour to the Ameer of Afghanistan. He stands between us and any other consideration of policy or of danger. Our obligations to him are not absolute. We are not obliged—God forbid that we should ever be obliged—to defend him, or to defend anybody else, were he misled into a course of tyranny, against the just resentment of his subjects. We are not bound, contrary to our just duty, to sustain him, even in a course of folly. We are bound by no such obligation; but we have a contingent obligation to give him our aid and support; and I think everyone who hears me will say that that obligation should be fulfilled in no stinted manner, if it really be a living obligation, contingent only upon this one condition, that his conduct is such as we can honestly approve. That is the present condition of affairs in connection with the Ameer of Afghanistan. I have stated distinctly to the House that there have been full communications between him and the Viceroy, and that the language which he holds, and the principles which he announces, are those which absolutely entitle him to call upon us, in concert and in council with him, acting for him and as far as we can acting with him, to protect him in the possession of his just rights. Well, Sir, in this view a plan was framed for the delimitation of the Frontier between himself and what was until yesterday Turcoman territory, but has now become by a rapid process Russian territory. I am not about to enter into any invidious comment. We have made, under the force of circumstances, very rapid progress ourselves in various quarters of the world, and the idea which, beyond all, I desire to carry along with me in every step of this painful and anxious process, is a determination to make every allowance and every concession to those with whom we are dealing that we should claim, and that we should expect for ourselves. Therefore I only say this territory has rapidly become Russian, and Russia, as the head of this Turcoman country, is now in immediate contact with Afghanistan. A plan was framed for the delimitation of the Frontier. That plan has, unhappily, been intercepted in the sense that it has not yet taken effect in action. The question of the delays in the progress of that plan is a question that may have to be carefully examined hereafter. I am not about to examine these delays now. I am not about to make them in any way a matter of charge, but I must point out the injurious effect that they have had in practice; for they led to advances—to military advances upon debated ground, that were obviously, and on the face of them, and in a high degree dangerous—dangerous to peace, dangerous to goodwill, dangerous to the future settlement of the question. Aware of those dangers, we set ourselves to work to bring about an agreement with the Government of Russia, by which we hoped they might in a great degree have been neutralized. That agreement was concluded on the 16th of March, although it has passed by the date of the 17th of March, inasmuch as, I think, that was the day on which it was telegraphed by Sir Ronald Thomson to Sir Peter Lumsden. The Committee will perhaps recollect the substance of that agreement, and my announcement of it in this House. It made a deep impression on my mind. The agreement consisted of a covenant and of a reservation. The covenant was that the Russian troops should not advance nor attack provided the Afghan troops did not advance nor attack. That was the covenant. There followed the reservation, and the reservation was, "unless in the case of some extraordinary accident, such as a disturbance in Penjdeh." I well recollect the feeling which the reading of that reservation created in the House. The same feeling had been created in our own minds before we announced it in the House. It was obvious that we were just as much entitled to insert reservations on our side. I only now refer to this matter in order to exhibit, as well as I can without injustice, the spirit in which we have endeavoured to proceed—a spirit of liberal construction and interpretation wherever we thought we could apply it without sacrifice of honour or duty. I think it will be admitted that exception might have been taken to that reservation as covering God knows how many and what contingencies, had we been disposed to examine it in a spirit of cavilling or of criticism. But we de- termined, to give credit for its having been conceived—yes, we thought it our duty and we acted upon that duty—to take it as conceived in honour and good faith. We so construed it, and I do not repent having so construed it. I do not say that the construction is shown to have been wrong, but, come what may, I shall not repent having put that construction upon it. However, it was so taken, and I am bound to say that, although I think the House was somewhat startled by the reservation, it was generally, and I believe wisely, accepted by the House as a binding covenant. Sir, it was a very solemn covenant. It was a covenant involving great issues. There were thousands of men on the one side and on the other —on the one side standing for what they thought their country, on the other side standing for what they thought likewise their patriotic duty, standing in the face of one another without a definite course to contend for, but placed in a position of dangerous contiguity, and with the peril of bloody collision. This engagement came in to stand between the living and the dead, to stand between the danger and the people who were exposed to it, and we hoped and we believed that it would be recognized as one of the most sacred covenants ever made between two great nations with the strictest fidelity, and that if, unhappily, a deviation occurred there would be a generous rivalry between the two Powers to search it out to the bottom, and to exhibit to the world how that deviation had come about, and who was the person, or who were the persons on whom lay the responsibility. All this, Sir, remains in suspense. What has happened? A bloody engagement on the 30th of March followed the covenant of the 16th. I shall overstate nothing. At least I shall not purposely overstate anything. I hope I shall not inadvertently overstate anything. All I shall say is this—that that woeful engagement on the 30th of March distinctly showed that one party, or both, had, either through ill-will or through unfortunate mishap, failed to fulfil the conditions of the engagement. We considered it, to be, and we still consider it to be, the duty of both countries, and, above all, I will say required fur the honour of both countries, to examine how and by whose fault this calamity came about. I will have no foregone conclusion. I will not anticipate that we are in the right. Although I feel perfect confidence in the honour and intelligence of our officers, I will not now assume that they may not have been misled. I will prepare myself for the issue; and I will abide by it, as far as I can, in a spirit of impartiality. But what I say is this—that those who have caused such an engagement to fail, ought to become known to their own Government, and to the other contracting Government. I will not say that we are even now in possession of all the facts of the case. But we are in possession of many; and we are in possession of facts which create in our minds impressions unfavourable to the conduct of some of those who form the other party in these negotiations. However, I will not wilfully deviate from the strictest principles of justice in anticipating anything as to the ultimate issue of that fair inquiry which we are desirous of prosecuting, and are endeavouring to prosecute. The cause of that deplorable collision may be uncertain. What is certain is that the attack was a Russian attack. Whose was the provocation is a matter of the utmost consequence. We only know that the attack was a Russian attack. We know that the Afghans suffered in life, in spirit, and in repute. We know that a blow was struck at the credit and the authority of a Sovereign—our ally—our protected ally—who had committed no offence. All I now say is, we cannot in that state of things close this book and say—"We will look into it no more. "We must do our best to have right done in the matter. Under these circumstances, I again say, there is a case for preparation; and I hope that the House will feel with me, after what I have said about the necessity we are under of holding Soudanese funds available for service elsewhere. I trust that they will not press upon us a demand for time, which can have no other effect than that of propagating, here and elsewhere, a belief that there is some indecision in the mind of Parliament; whereas I believe that with one heart and one soul, and one purpose only, while reserving absolute liberty to judge the conduct of the Government, and to visit them with its consequences, they will go forward to meet the demands of justice and the calls of honour, and will, sub- ject only to justice and to honour, labour for the purposes of peace.^*

said that, before discussing this Vote for the House of Lords, he would like to ask the Government for some explanation of a proceeding which appeared to him to be most extraordinary. They had put down on the Paper Classes I. and II. of the Civil Service Estimates, and in the ordinary course the Committee would have been invited to consider the remaining Votes in Class I. before proceeding with any Vote in Class II. They were now very suddenly informed that the Government had postponed one Class of the Votes, and they were at once asked to plunge into Class II. of the Estimates when they had had no intimation whatever that it was the intention of the Treasury to bring that Class under the consideration of the Committee. Before this Vote for the House of Lords was disposed of he wished to ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what was the explanation of that proceeding, and why Class II. was to be considered in the first instance before the remaining Votes in Class I. were taken?

said, he had intended to give an explanation of the reason why this Vote was taken out of its order. As a matter of fact, there were only two Votes left in Class I. One of them, which related to the Houses of Parliament, had been postponed, owing to the fact that the Committee appointed to consider the question of the restoration of the outside of Westminster Hall was still sitting, and therefore it was impossible to take that Vote; and with regard to the second, he had been asked by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) on Thursday night to postpone

^* NOTE.—See subsequent remarks on April 30th—page 1127.

it for the present. It was a Vote which, amongst other things, had reference to harbours, and there was also an intimation that it was not desirable to discuss it until the Report upon Arklow Harbour was in the hands of hon. Members. He made that explanation in order to justify the course which had been taken. It had been his intention to proceed with the Votes in their regular order. He was still in the hands of the Committee, and if they desired to go forward with the Vote in which the harbours were concerned, he was quite prepared to take it. He had thought, however, that in postponing it for the present he was simply complying with the wishes of the Irish Members, and therefore it could not be said that anybody had been taken by surprise.

said, he recollected the circumstance to which the hon. Member referred. The hon. Member had certainly been invited to consider whether it was not desirable to postpone the Vote for Public Works in Ireland. The suggestion, in point of fact, emanated from himself, and the Secretary to the Treasury said he would consider the suggestion; but he had never for a moment thought of suggesting that all the other Votes in Class I. should be postponed.

said, there was only one other Vote, and that was for the Houses of Parliament.

said, that in regard to the Vote now under discussion, he would ask the hon. Member to explain the circumstances in which the Fee Fund of the House of Lords now found itself placed. He believed that the Fee Fund was, to a certain extent, called upon to defray certain salaries and pensions, and he imagined that the pensions, at any rate, which were so drawn from the Fee Fund, were perfectly within the cognizance of the House of Commons. He wished to know what was the amount of the Fee Fund, and what was the amount of the pensions paid out of it, which pensions were indirectly supplemented by something from this Vote?

said, the pensions now amounted to a sum of £2,783 per annum, which was much smaller in comparison with previous years.

asked what was the amount of the Fund?

said, the amount received during last year in fees was £32,470, of which nearly £30,000 was paid into the Exchequer. The pensions were calculated upon the salaries, and he believed the House of Commons had no power of reducing them.

desired to have some explanation of the reason why the Librarian of the House of Lords had a salary of £810 a-year, and also an official residence. Upon the average, the House of Lords generally rose about 7 o'clock in the evening. He thought that was rather a high average, because that House frequently rose as early as 5 o'clock. The House of Commons generally sat until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning; and while the Librarian of the House of Lords had an official residence, which included light, coal, and freedom from all taxes, the Librarian of the House of Commons, who was up until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, had no official residence at all. He wished, further, to know upon what principle official residences in the Houses of Parliament were granted? He had intended some time ago to move, and he would do so shortly, for a Return showing what the official residences were, and the authority under which they were granted. It seemed to him that, although the House of Commons had not been in existence for much more than 30 years, it had already become an official rabbit warren, overridden by persons who came there and occupied official residences without any authority at all. He could not understand why the Librarian of the House of Lords should have a residence supplied to him, while the Members of the House of Commons, who were engaged in the discharge of their duties until all hours of the morning, had scarcely a place in which to lock up their papers. It was certainly undesirable to give up those enormous buildings to residences for officers who were in receipt of large salaries. He did not suppose there was in the British Empire an official who was paid for the duties he had to perform a higher salary than the Librarian of the House of Lords. He would invite hon. Members to go into the Library of the House of Lords and compare it with that of the House of Commons. They would find that very few of the books were ever removed from the shelves—complete lassitude prevailed from one end of the building to the other—and yet the officer in charge of the Library had an official residence to protect him from the night air in case he might otherwise have been required to go home at a late hour. In order to secure an explanation, and have a clear understanding why this official residence was provided, he would move to reduce the salary of the Librarian of the House of Lords from £810 to £500. The item would be found at page 83, sub-section 6.

Does the hon. Member propose to reduce the Vote by the sum of £310?

Yes.

said, the hon. Member was quite right in asserting that it was an anomaly that, while the Librarian of the House of Lords had an official residence provided for him, the Librarian of the House of Commons had none; and he fully admitted that the Librarian of the House of Commons was much more entitled to an official residence than the Librarian of the House of Lords. But, as a matter of fact, this residence was entirely out of the control and management of the House of Commons. The House of Commons had no power whatever over the arrangements of the House of Lords in connection with their own officials. They could only control the salaries; but they had no power over the allotment of the residences. A Committee of the House of Lords managed the whole of the arrangements for the rooms required by that House, and the House of Commons had no control over them. He should be very glad if it were possible to propose a residence for the Librarian of the House of Commons; but that was another matter. He hoped the hon. Member would not press this reduction, because the Committee had really no power over the salary or the resilience.

asked who had the allocation of the residences in the Houses of Parliament? He put that question quite irrespective of this particular case. He wanted to know who had the right to grant those residences, and he would go to a division for the purpose of test- ing what the feeling of the Committee was in regard to the matter. Members of Parliament had no convenience whatever. They sat on a narrow bit of a bench about 14 or 15 inches in breadth, and about two feet high, and all they had in the shape of accommodation was a small box in a Lobby outside; whereas he found that nearly every official had a residence provided for him.

The observations of the hon. Member do not apply to this Vote, which is for the House of Lords. The Committee will come to the House of Commons Vote presently.

said, he wanted to know whether the official residences were under the control of the Chief Commissioner of Works, and why the Houses of Parliament had been allowed to become an absolutely official rabbit warren? The House of Lords rose sufficiently early to permit of its Librarian spending the rest of the evening at a theatre or a music hall; and why should he be provided with an official residence while the Librarian of the House of Commons, who was in attendance all night long, had none? He took it that the value of the residence in this case would be about. £310 a year, and, therefore, he proposed to reduce the Vote by that sum. The Houses of Parliament belonged to the nation, and this was a matter of great interest. Unless he received a satisfactory reply he should divide the Committee upon the Vote.

said, he could only explain, as he had already done, that the House of Commons had no power over the official residences, or the allocation of them in the House of Lords. It was a matter entirely under the management and control of the House of Lords itself; and he believed that the Lord Chamberlain made the necessary arrangements in connection with the allocation of rooms. He would remind the Committee that when the House of Commons required rooms for the Grand Committees last year they had considerable difficulty in obtaining them, and only succeeded in doing so after negotiations between the First Commissioner of Works and the House of Lords. In regard to the Librarian of the House of Commons, the provision of a residence for that officer would rest with the Speaker; and he would confer with the Speaker in order to see whether any arrangement for rooms could be effected. He was afraid that the great difficulty in regard to official residences in the House of Commons would be to find suitable rooms. He would, however, be glad to bring the matter before the Speaker in any way that would convenient]y raise the question. If the hon. Member wished to have a Return of the number of persons who had official residences in the Houses of Parliament, he thought it was a proper subject upon which information should be given, but beyond that he could not go.

said, that the explanation was quite satisfactory except in the most essential point. He wanted to know by what statute or authority the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Chamberlain, or any other official presumed to allocate chambers in the House of Lords, which belonged to the nation, to the occupation of any individual? The buildings and fittings were the property of the nation, and in Committee of Supply the House of Commons voted the salaries of all the officials.

said, it appeared to him that the question raised by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) was an important one. At the present moment there was a Bill before the House for reducing the judicial expenditure in Ireland, and yet in this case they had a number of useless officials who got annually nearly £50,000, for which the country received no value. He thought it was quite time the House of Commons commenced a systematic attack upon the officials of the House of Lords. He would suggest that Inspector Denning should be sent over to clear out the whole lot, and let them provide a place of their own, or meet, if they chose, in the "Westminster Palace Hotel. He thought they ought in that House to attack systematically anything connected with the House of Lords; and he thought the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) was perfectly justified in asking questions, and in moving the reduction of the Vote. He was somewhat surprised to find the empty state of the Benches opposite. If that class of persons who were described as "Robust Radicals" would really devote some attention to the discharge of their Parliamentary duties when these Estimates came on something effective might be done; but he was sorry to say that the "Robust Radicals" were at that moment solely represented by the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arthur Arnold). It did appear to him (Mr. Healy) extremely cool that the House of Lords should draw a sum of nearly £50,000 a-year, for which the country did not get 1d. of value, while the Treasury should display such great anxiety to cut down the little salaries that were paid in Ireland. The salaries put down in the Estimates were exceedingly large. There was the Lord Chancellor, whose official salary was stated at £4,000 a-year; the Black Rod, who was put down at £2,000; the Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod, who was in receipt of £1,000 a-year; and the principal door-keepers, who were put down as receiving £600 a-year. Those were all gentlemen who were not required to meet until about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and whoso duties were generally over about 6, after one hour's work a-day, which they had to perform for less than six months in the year. The fact was that those officials did not do 200 hours work in the whole 12 months; and yet a country, which was supposed to be distinguished for its common sense, went on paying those salaries year after year without protest or objection. There was one item put down under the head of this Vote as to which he should like to ask a question. He referred to an item of £350 which was charged for "Witnesses attending Committees." What was the meaning of that charge for the expense of witnesses attending Committees of the House of Lords? He would remind the Committee that the House of Commons had sent a Bill to that Chamber last Christmas, and they had never heard anything of the measure since. The House of Lords read the Bill a second time, and then choked it by referring it to a Select Committee, and it would appear that they had incurred an expense of £350 in trying to find out what the people of Ireland thought of the Bill; but what had become of the measure since then nobody seemed to know. He maintained that the House of Commons was entitled to known under what circumstances the expenditure of £350, to which he had drawn attention, had been incurred. In his opinion, the time had come when some attack in force ought to be made on those items of excessive expenditure. Here was a charge of £200 for the Se- cretary to the Lord Great Chamberlain, and all the other items were in proportion. Really something ought to be done in the way of making a vigorous protest against those ridiculous charges.

pointed out that the hon. and learned Member could give effect to his views in regard to this Vote when the question under discussion was disposed of. At the present moment the matter under consideration was a special item in the Vote relating to the salary of the Librarian of the House of Lords, and the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) had moved the reduction of the Vote by £310. The discussion ought, therefore, to be confined to that proposal.

wished to call attention to the fact that a question had been asked with reference to this Vote, to which no answer had been returned. The question was, under what authority, statutable or otherwise, a certain room had been appropriated to the use of a certain official? The suggestion of the Secretary to the Treasury appeared to be that it was by the authority of the Lord Chamberlain.

said, he had intimated that it was under an arrangement made by a Committee of the House of Lords.

said, the answer just given carried them no further than they had got before. He should like to know who had given the Committee of the House of Lords that power? Surely the House of Commons, which had command of the National purse, was the Body that ought to be consulted in reference to those matters, and he thought that that House ought to assert itself in the face of the Upper House. The House of Lords had shown no hesitation in encroaching on the privileges of the Commons by throwing out Bills which the House of Commons had passed, especially Bills relating to Ireland, whenever they were sent into the Upper Chamber; and the House of Lords ought to be made to feel that in regard to those matters of money expenditure the House of Commons had the power of control, and that there was some other power over the Palace of Westminster than that of a Select Committee of the House of Lords, headed by the Lord Chamber-Lain. That Committee had no right to give away rooms that belonged to the country at large; and seeing that the officials of the House of Lords were a great deal better treated in every way than those of the House of Commons, who were an exceedingly hard-working body of men, whose time was taken up from 4 o'clock in the afternoon very often until 4 o'clock in the morning, it was time that some satisfactory explanation was given of this Vote.

said, he had already given the explanation asked for. He might, however, state that at the time the Houses of Parliament were built a division was made of the amount of space available as between the two Houses, a certain amount being allotted to the House of Commons, and a certain amount to the House of Lords.

asked whether that division was made under an Act of Parliament?

said, he could not say that it was made under an Act of Parliament; but it was made under an arrangement that was come to at the time. Moreover, it should be remembered that several years ago a further arrangement was made, under which the House of Commons had obtained the use of one or two additional rooms which used to be occupied by the House of Lords. The House of Commons had, however, no power over the allocation of the rooms used by the House of Lords, nor had they any power over the regulation of the salaries of the officials of that House. Therefore, whatever opinions might be entertained with regard to the different accommodation afforded to the Librarians of the two Houses, the matter was one with regard to which the House of Commons had no power. They had, however, power, through the Speaker, of communicating with the Office of Works, and endeavouring to obtain accommodation for the Librarian of the House of Commons if the House should think it desirable to take that course.

said, he had generally found that on occasions of this kind the Treasury were willing to say that when the salary of a certain officer fell in, as, for instance, in case of death, they would give their attention to the matter. In a case of this kind, where the House might be extremely anxious to appropriate the residence allocated by the House of Lords as the residence of the Librarian of the House of Commons—an officer who was constantly kept at his post until the long hours of the morning—he wished to put it to the Government whether they would not come to the conclusion that, whenever the circumstances should arise that would render that residence vacant, they would take the necessary steps to ensure its being given to that officer who had by far the most occasion for it?

said, he could not make the promise asked for; but, as he had already intimated, he should be glad to bring the matter prominently under the attention of the Speaker, and he should feel as much gratified as anyone to see the Librarian properly housed in that building.

said, he was glad to see that attention had been drawn to the injustice done to the Librarian of the House of Commons; but he desired to state that in moving the reduction of the Vote on the grounds he had stated he had acted without communication with that officer in any sense or form, and, in fact, had carefully avoided mentioning the matter to him. Still, he felt that an injustice was done to the Librarian of the House, and he should be glad to see the injustice remedied. He had brought the question forward on another ground—namely, because he considered that there had been an assumption of right without any legal authority whatever. He asked, who really was the authority having charge of the Houses of Lords and Commons? Was it not the First Commissioner of "Works? If not, who was the official? who was responsible for the charge of the two Houses; or was there any responsible authority at all?

replied that the Lord Great Chamberlain was responsible for the House of Lords, and the Speaker for the House of Commons.

asked under what statutable authority, if any, such jurisdiction was vested in the two officers named in regard to the Houses of Lords and Commons? It seemed to him that the authority exercised proceeded on the title of internal assumption. He had looked into the matter—he would not say very carefully—but he had recently spent half-an-hour in looking at Acts of Parliament extending over the last 20 or 30 years, in order to find out whether there was any statutable authority under which the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Chamberlain, or the Speaker of the House of Commons presumed to allocate the different parts of that building to the detriment of the Members of the House of Commons—for it was to their detriment if it precluded them from the use of rooms which might otherwise be at their disposal—and he had altogether failed to find any such authority. They must remember the discussion that had taken place about the allocation of rooms for the telegraph and post offices, when it was made to appear that the jurisdiction was under some antiquated authority, 1he origin of which was anything but clear. Under the circumstances, he must press his Motion to a division; though he would not take that course if the hon. Member for Leeds (Mr. Herbert Gladstone), or the Secretary to the Treasury, would furnish the Committee with any definite information as to the statutable authority under which the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Chamberlain, presumed to exercise authority in regard to the allocation of private residences within that building. If that information were not furnished, then, as a protest against this allocation of private residences to officials who had no right to them, he should go to a division on the Motion he had submitted.

said, he always liked to go back to the beginning in discussing questions of this kind; and as a very interesting point had been raised by the subject brought under the consideration of the Committee by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan), he should like to ask the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury how it was that there seemed to be so little control in regard to the distribution of space in the House of Lords? How came it that there was so little control over that distribution on the part of the House of Commons? He should like to hear from the hon. Gentleman in what way the title to the land upon which the House of Lords stood was vested, and in what body? Was it vested in the House of Lords itself, or was it vested in some Committee appointed by that Body, or in some official appointed by the House of Lords, or in the Houses of Parliament generally? He should also like to know, going a little further than that, if the land were not vested by title, whether it was vested by prescriptive right; and. moreover, he would ask the hon. Gentleman a question as to the buildings themselves. He supposed the Houses of Parliament were originally built under the authority of a Vote of the House of Commons. He had no doubt the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury was acquainted with the history of those matters, and that he would be able, consequently, to enlighten his (Mr. Parnell's) ignorance. He assumed that those buildings, which were modern, were originally built out of money provided by a Vote of the House of Commons, and that they were in all probability erected under the direction of a Governmental Department of the State. If he were right in that assumption he should wish, further, to inquire whether the buildings so erected were vested in any particular body, and whether—this being a collateral inquiry to the other question as to the authority in which the land was vested—if the buildings were vested in some particular body, the hon. Gentleman would state in what body they were vested? He put those questions because it might turn out that the House of Commons had a very complete control, not only over the land on which the Houses of Lords and Commons was built, but also over the buildings themselves, and over every portion of those buildings. It must, he thought, be obvious to everybody that the control of the House of Lords over any portion of the buildings was of a very nominal and shadowy character; that if the interest in the ground on which the buildings stood were vested in some particular body under the control of the House of Lords, nevertheless the House of Commons was the authority outside the House of Lords in which the land or buildings were vested, and might say to the House of Lords—"We give you that notice to quit which is so very often given to Irish tenants." He believed that in this country it would only be a quarter's notice to quit, and that fading a possible surrender on the part of the House of Lords, the House of Commons could direct the sergeants and constables of the Metropolitan Police to take forcible possession of the building from which the Lords were evicted, and hold it according to the will and pleasure of the body of Trustees in whom it was really vested. They had heard something in the course of that discussion about the Lord Chamberlain.

The Lord Great Chamberlain.

said, it had been stated that the Lord Great Chamberlain had the right to allocate the space in the other House. But no statement had been made as to how the Lord Great Chamberlain derived his authority. He (Mr. Parnell) assumed that that authority was derived from a Resolution of the House of Lords; but to go back a little further, how did the House of Lords derive its authority in the matter? Had the House of Lords anything more than a prescriptive right? He must assume that the land and buildings would be property to which there was some title, and he wanted to know what the title to that property was. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury did not appear to have full and sufficient information on the subject; but he trusted the hon. Gentleman would not consider that these inquiries were useless, and that when they came to discuss these matters nest year—or, better still, when they came to discuss them on the Report, because they could not control the action of a House to be elected by a new constituency—the Secretary to the Treasury would be able to furnish full information on the interesting questions that had been raised with regard to the original control of the land on which the Houses of Parliament had been built, and also with reference to the original control over the buildings themselves. If the hon. Gentleman were going to purchase property, even if the seller were so great a personage as the Lord Great Chamberlain himself, he would, before he paid for it, ask the Lord Great Chamberlain to produce his title.

said, there were some points that had been alluded to upon which he was not in a position to furnish information, and he thought he could hardly be expected to go back to the history of the building of the Houses of Parliament, and all the circumstances immediately connected with the allocation of the different parts of the building without Notice. All he could be expected to do was to describe the practical effect of the arrangements that were then made, and that he had endeavoured to do. He had already informed the Committee that the Lord Great Chamberlain was responsible for the arrangements carried out in regard to the allocation of space in the House of Lords on the one side, while the Speaker was on the other side entrusted with the requisite authority in respect to the allotment of space in connection with the House of Commons. He had also stated that from time to time the House of Commons had obtained more space for the use of Members and officers, and that that additional space had been given up by the House of Lords. If, however, the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) desired to go into the question more closely than he (Mr. Hibbert) was able to do at the present moment, he could assure the hon. Gentleman that he should be glad to obtain the information he desired, either on the Report of the Vote, or when it was again brought forward, supposing he should then hold the Office he now had the honour to fill. In any case, he should be happy to obtain the information, not only for his own sake, but because it had been asked for by the hon. Member.

said, the question before the Committee was a very narrow one, and with reference to the proceedings of the Committee of the House of Lords on the Office of the Black Rod he should like to ask a practical question. The Committee of the Black Rod had reported on this very subject with reference to the appropriation by the First Commissioner of Works of certain rooms below the Bar in the House of Lords. That Committee had reported to the House of Lords that the First Commissioner of Works had appropriated those rooms, and that they ought to be given up again to the other House. He should like to know whether any decision had been arrived at with regard to that matter, and whether the rooms referred to were to be given back again?

said, he had to state, in reply to the question asked by his hon. Friend, that his action in the matter alluded to had been called in question by the Black Rod Committee, who thought that those rooms, which had originally been allotted to the House of Lords, had been wrongly disposed of. The Committee on the Office of Black Rod had inquired into the matter, and had made the Report to which the hon. Member had referred; but he was not aware that any action had been taken on that Report. He had reason, however, to believe that the House of Lords were satisfied with what had been done. In reply to the question put by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), he had to state that in theory the assent of the Lord Great Chamberlain was necessary in relation to any change that might be made in the allocation of rooms in both Houses of Parliament, because he was the appointed Officer of the Queen, and the Houses of Parliament were a Royal Palace. But, as a matter of course, the Lord Great Chamberlain would not make any change in respect of the House of Commons without the concurrence of the Speaker; and, on the other hand, no change would be made affecting the House of Lords without the concurrence of the Committee on the Office of Black Rod. So that, practically, the decision with regard to those matters rested in the one case with the Speaker, and in the other with the Committee of the House of Lords.

was obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the information he had given, and he thought that what had so far been elicited had furnished proof of the very great anomaly, that not only the House of Lords but also the House of Commons could be turned out of doors by the Queen if it should please Her to take that course. It appeared that not only the ground on which the House of Commons conducted its proceedings, but also the Houses which had been erected upon it were the property of the Queen.

said, it seemed to him that the position of the two Houses of Parliament in regard to the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Queen, which had been termed an anomaly, was in strict analogy with everything connected with the Constitution; and that if everything belonging to that Constitution was to be pushed to its extreme logical conclusion many other things besides the relations between the Houses of Lords and Commons, as to their accommodation in this Palace, might be brought to a very uncomfortable stand-point. Having himself held the Office of First Commissioner of Works he must say that he had never, during his tenure of Office, found that any practical inconvenience resulted from the slightly confused relations between the great Officers of State. The Lord Great Chamberlain's Office was always conducted with the greatest prudence and respect for all the other authorities; and in the same way Mr. Speaker, acting through the First Commissioner of Works, had invariably pursued a similar course. Until the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had unearthed the question he had introduced that evening, he (Lord John Manners) had never heard of any difficulty arising out of the relations existing between the Lord Great Chamberlain and Mr. Speaker.

having risen,

said, before the hon. Member addressed the Committee he desired to call attention to the question they were then considering, and which they had for some time been wandering away from in a most extraordinary manner. It had been moved by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) that the salary of the Librarian of the House of Lords be reduced by £310; and all the points that had been raised in the discussion which was then proceeding had really nothing to do with that question.

said, he had moved the reduction of the salary of the Librarian of the House of Lords because he called in question the authority under which that officer was provided with an official residence, and that was the only way in which he could raise the question as to the advisability of giving an official residence to the Librarian of the House of Commons. The sum put down in the Vote that had been put from the Chair, as the salary of the Librarian of the House of Lords, was £810, and in addition to that amount the Lords' Librarian was provided with an official residence. The reduction he had moved was what he took to be the value of that official residence, not merely in the shape of house-rent, but also all the accompaniments of the official residence, including attendance.

said, he hoped the hon. Member (Mr. Callan) could have no idea of the number of times he had stated the same thing. He should think he was not exaggerating when he stated that the hon. Gentleman had made the same statement 50 times.

said, then he stated it for the 51st time now.

If the hon. Member makes remarks of that sort it will be my duty to adopt a very different course. I hope the Committee will now confine itself to the discussion of the Question immediately before it.

said, he wished to point out that the Librarian's residence included fire, and light, and attendance, which he took it amounted in value to more than £310. He should press the Amendment he had moved; and with all due respect to the Chair, he begged to say that he had not made the same statement more than three times, instead of 50, as the Chairman had stated.

The hon. Member having contradicted the statement I made just now, I will appeal to the recollection of the Committee as to whether I am not right in saying that I believe he has made the same statement in almost the same words more than 50 times?

said, the question that had been under discussion by the Committee was one that related to the power possessed by the Lord Great Chamberlain, and that had led to the further question whether the Lord Great Chamberlain had the allocation of the space on which the two Houses of Parliament stood? He took the noble Lord who had spoken from the Front Opposition Bench (Lord John Manners) as an authority with regard to Constitutional usage; and the noble Lord had assured the Committee that what had been commented upon as an anomalous arrangement was, in reality, strictly Constitutional. But when the matter was reduced to the stand-point of common sense, it was somewhat startling to be told that the Representatives of the people were liable to be evicted at the discretion of a Court official. That, he thought, threw some light on a recent occurrence, when the Speaker had felt it his duty to make new Regulations as to the admission of strangers to the Lobbies of that House.

called the hon. Member to Order. The subject he was raising had nothing to do with the Question before the Committee, which was that the salary of the Librarian of the House of Lords be reduced by the sum of £310. That Question had no connection whatever with the Regulations made by the Speaker in regard to the admission of strangers to the Lobbies of the House of Commons.

said, he would raise the question he had been about to have introduced on the next Vote.

desired to move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £350, which was set down as the cost of witnesses attending Committees during the year 1885–6. That appeared to be a constant sum, as a similar amount was taken for the same purpose in 1884–5; in fact, all the expenses of the House of Lords appeared to be of a constant character. Under sub-head M, for instance, £750 was taken each year for short-hand writers, and for miscellaneous expenses £350 was asked for each year. His reason for calling attention to that matter, and moving the reduction in question, was that he thought the House of Commons would do well to exercise a very severe check and control over the appointment of Select Committees by the House of Lords for the purpose of considering Bills, or, practically, hanging up and destroying Bills, which they did not like to oppose openly and directly, which had been passed by the House of Commons, and sent up to the Lords for examination and consideration. He thought that the Government were very much to blame in that matter—the Government, at all events, in the House of Lords—and he assumed the Members of the Government in the House of Lords were in constant communication with the rest of the Government in the House of Commons. He assumed that the action of the Members of the Government in the House of Lords was arrived at, and carried out, after consultation with the rest of the Government. But however that might be, he thought that the Government in the House of Lords, through Earl Granville, or the other responsible Leaders of the House, assented much too easily to the appointment of Select Committees for the purpose of considering Bills which had passed the House of Commons; and that they, in that way, heaped expenses upon the taxpayers of the country—in many cases very useless and unnecessary expenses. He desired very much to know how the expenditure of £350 for witnesses attending Select Committees of the Upper House was incurred? He confessed he did not understand whether all the money was expended on account of witnesses attending Select Committees, or whether some of it was expended on account of witnesses attending ordinary Private Bill Committees. [Mr. HIBBERT: Select Committees.] That was his (Mr. Parnell's) impression; but he was not quite certain on the point. They were asked to pay an aggregate sum of £1,500 for the expenses of the Select Committees of the House of Lords; and in order to bring the matter formally before the attention of the Committee of the House of Commons, he proposed to reduce the Vote by the sum of £350, being the expenses of the witnesses attending the Select Committees in question. Now, nothing was complete without an illustration, and in order to bring the matter home to hon. Members, he would give them an example of the way in which that money was spent. In fact, he fancied that that particular item was spent in regard to the very example he should give, as he had not heard that any other Select Committee necessitating the attendance of witnesses had been appointed lately by the House of Lords than the one he had in his mind. His example was the Select Committee which, was appointed by the Upper House to inquire into the subject of the Poor Law Guardians Elections (Ireland) Bill. That was a Bill which had passed the House of Commons, with very little opposition, in the Session of 1883. It was then sent up to the House of Lords, and rejected on the second reading by that House without any examination or discussion worthy of the name. In the Session of 1884 the Bill again passed the House of Commons, and was sent up to the House of Lords, which, on that occasion, appeared to be rather chary of throwing the measure out in the summary method adopted on the previous occasion. Their Lordships passed the second reading; but on the Motion for going into Committee they resolved to refer the Bill to a Select Committee for examination.

said, the hon. Member seemed to be directing his remarks to the conduct of the House of Lords. He (the Chairman) did not think that that could be fairly discussed in regard to Committees acting on Bills in that House. The hon. Member himself would see that the conduct of the House of Lords could hardly be properly discussed on an item of £350 to defray the cost of witnesses attending Committees.

said, he should, of course, bow to the Chairman's ruling. He would not further discuss the conduct of the House of Lords; but he submitted that it was necessary to go, to some extent, into what had been done for the expenditure of the money. It was necessary, in order that the Committee might judge as to whether they ought to vote this money or not, to consider the action of the House of Lords which gave rise to this item.

said, he did not desire to interrupt the hon. Member in any observations which were in Order. The province of this Committee was to vote certain sums, or to refuse them, for certain specific purposes. He doubted whether it would be in Order for the hon. Member to go into any great development of the action of the House of Lords, even by way of illustration; because this was a sum of £350 for a specific purpose of defraying the costs of witnesses attending Select Committees in the other House. He should say it would hardly be in Order to discuss the general conduct of the Upper House on such an item as that.

appreciated the point of the Chairman's ruling, and, of course, would bow to it. He saw that there was a considerable difference between the action of the House of Lords, from a Constitutional point of view, and the action of a Minister of the Crown. There was, of course, a considerable difference between the manner in which they would approach a Minister of the Crown, and the manner in which they might be permitted to approach a Vote with regard to the action of the House of Lords. Whereas they might freely go into the merits of the action of a Minister of the Crown with reference to any particular matter; whereas they might criticize his action, and the policy of his action, when they were asked to vote a Minister's salary, perhaps the same argument might not hold good with regard to the action of a Committee of the House of Lords, or of the House of Lords itself. He desired, with great respect, without wishing to express any opinion of his own, to bow most humbly to the Chairman's ruling. He would only say why he objected to this Vote for the expenses of witnesses brought over from Ireland for examination before a Select Committee of the House of Lords. In his opinion, those witnesses were not impartially summoned. Of course, he desired to keep himself strictly within the limits the Chairman had laid down, and not to transgress them in any way. He would suggest for the consideration of the Government whether they ought not to take up a firmer attitude in the House of Lords with regard to the Select Committees appointed by that House; whether they should so readily yield to the appointment of those Committees; and whether, when a Committee had been appointed, in the teeth of the Government's protest with reference to a Bill to which they gave their sanction—whether, when a Committee was appointed by the House of Lords in order to oppose a Bill which the Government, and which the House of Commons, had almost unanimously passed, the Government might not fairly set down their foot, and tell the House of Lords—"All we can say is this—if you appoint this Committee we shall not support the payment out of the public purse necessary for this Committee, when that payment is proposed in the House of Commons. We shall leave you to pay for such Committees yourselves." That Bill had been hung up in the House of Lords. It was a Bill which was admittedly necessary, and which nobody had a word to say against. It was a Bill of which they had heard the last in that Parliament; and, forsooth! the Irish and English taxpayers were to pay for the infliction upon themselves of wrong.

pointed out to the hon. Gentleman that though this amount appeared to be the sum that was voted in previous years, it was really not the amount that was expended each year. The amount was taken on the assumption that it would probably be required next year. £350 was not spent last year in defraying the costs of witnesses, but only £251; and the year before that the charge under the same head was only £119.

Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what Committees were appointed?

said, that he was not able to do that. He did not know anything about the Select Committees of the House of Lords; indeed, it was a matter with which the Treasury had no right to interfere; and he should doubt whether he should be in Order in going into the question of Committees. He was quite satisfied that he would not be in Order in expressing his opinion as to the action of the House of Lords upon the Poor Law Guardians Elections (Ireland) Bill; and, therefore, he hoped the hon. Member would excuse him from doing so. The hon. Member objected to this item because it might, he said, be put to the purpose of re-imbursing Irish witnesses who had been brought before the Select Committee on the Bill just mentioned. That could not be the case with respect to this particular £350. This charge was taken for Committees who would sit during the present Session; and, therefore, it was not known whether any such Committee, as the hon. Member referred to, would be appointed. Moreover, it could not be known whether any Irish witnesses would be sent for.

The Committee is sitting now.

begged the hon. Member's pardon, because he did not know that that was the case. This money might therefore be used for the purpose of paying the expenses of Irish witnesses; but perhaps he ought to draw attention to the fact that the payment for witnesses before Committees of the House of Lords was a matter with which the House of Commons had no power to deal.

remarked that the explanation of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hibbert) was very peculiar. The hon. Gentleman had stated that although £350 was set down for the expenses of witnesses attending Committees, only £251 was expended last year, and £119 the year before. That seemed to him (Mr. Biggar) to be a rather loose mode of estimating. In fact, they might just as well have no Estimate at all. They might as well, at the end of the year, pass a Vote that whatever was expended should be made legal. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury ought to tell the Committee whether or not he believed that the present system was an advantageous one, and whether he did not think he ought to adopt some revised plan of making Estimates? The money they were now asked to vote seemed to him (Mr. Biggar) to be expended for the purpose of doing harm rather than good; and he certainly thought that the Treasury, who was supposed to supervise the expenditure in all the Departments, should reserve to itself the right to put a veto upon expenditure which it belived to be unreasonable. In point of fact, the Treasury should assist the House of Commons in stopping any payments which they thought were useless. Now, the appointment of the Select Committee of the House of Lords upon the Bill to which the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had alluded, was unquestionably made with the object of defeating that very meritorious Bill, and also, if possible, to convey perfectly erroneous ideas as to the real facts connected with the Bill. The Members of the Select Committee were of a partizan character, and would endeavour to mislead the public with regard to the real merits of the case. He thought it should be within the power of the Treasury to refuse the expenses of admittedly useless witnesses, because if that were so, a very considerable saving of expenditure would be effected.

said, it appeared to him that the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Vote (Mr. Hibbert) did not possess information sufficient to enable him to give particulars which hon. Members were entitled to receive with reference to this item. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) suggested, in the course of his speech, that some of this money might have been used for the purpose of paying the travelling expenses, and the maintenance expenses, of Irish witnesses summoned before a Committee of the House of Lords. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hibbert) replied that he did not imagine such a contingency could arise with respect to any part of the present item.

said, he was not aware when he spoke that the Committee on the Poor Law Bill was now sitting. Had he been aware of that fact, he should not have made the re-marks he did.

said, the Committee was sitting; it was appointed last year, and had not yet reported; consequently, its investigations were now in course of progress. The assumption made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) was one which was substantiated by facts. What degree of information were Members of the House entitled to expect on items of this kind? He had always understood that every Vote in the Estimates was accounted for by some accounting officer; that there was someone whose duty it was to render to the Treasury and the House an account of the manner in which the last payment had been spent. Who was the person to account for this expenditure? Who signified to the Comptroller and Auditor General that the money granted to the House of Lords had been duly and properly expended, and what particulars would that officer afford as to items of that kind? Would he inquire in reference to what Committees that money had been spent, what witnesses had been called before those Committees, and what expense had been paid? He (Mr. Sexton) thought the Committee might claim to have put before them that information, because a very important question was here raised. Evidence brought before the House of Lords was very often used for the purpose of evading information; and he therefore asked in reference to what Committees that money would be applied? He would put a case to illustrate his meaning. A Bill passed through the House of Commons by a large majority, and was rejected by the House of Lords. A second Session it passed the House of Commons, and the House of Lords, being unwilling to incur the odium of rejecting it, though the merits of the measure were well known, and though it was obvious that no further inquiry was required into it, referred it to a Select Committee. In that way time was killed, the Bill was deferred for months—it might be for years—and in that way the wish of the House of Commons was defeated, and defeated to a large extent through the agency of the money they voted to the House of Lords. It was perfectly evident that if the purpose of the appointment of those Committees was to evade legislation the Government should challenge the House of Lords, and ask them to reject Bills finally, rather than to waste money in killing time and calling witnesses in matters on which no information was required. If the information he was now requesting in this item, and, in fact, in all the other items in the Estimate, was not forthcoming, he thought they would not be asking too much that the Votes should be postponed.

said, that it appeared to him that the House of Lords was too active in the way of obstructing useful legislation.

Order, Order!

said, that if he were not in Order, he would confine himself to the items in the Vote. One of the methods of obstructing legislation pursued by the House of Lords was by referring Bills to Select Committees; and that seemed to him to be about the worst possible mode, as it incurred a large amount of unnecessary expense, and brought witnesses unnecessarily to London. Witnesses were summoned, particularly from Ireland, of a class unfriendly to the Party he had the honour of representing, so that that Party suffered particularly from that mode of referring Bills approved by the House of Commons to Select Committees when they reached the House of Lords. Irish Members were, therefore, bound in duty to, at any rate, offer a protest against that practice of referring Bills to Select Committees when the conclusions were really foregone.

said, they had had an interesting discussion some time ago with reference to the Vote for the House of Lords as to the particular body in which the ownership of the buildings and ground of the Houses of Parliament were vested; and hon. Members had been informed that the Houses of Parliament, being Royal Palaces, were vested in an official—namely, the Lord Great Chamberlain, as representing the Crown. The Lord Great Chamberlain, then, was really the owner, as representing the Crown, of the Houses of Parliament and the ground on which they stood. However, by usage or by custom, the right of allocating a portion of the space within the Houses of Parliament, and the right of dealing with the rooms of the Houses and with the internal arrangements of the Houses generally, seemed to have been transferred to certain bodies and certain individuals; and he supposed the Board of Works had already a great deal to say on the matter, at all events in the House of Commons. But what he wished to call attention to was this—namely, to certain inconveniences which had arisen, owing to the new Rules made by Mr. Speaker with regard to the admission of strangers. He wished to call attention to those inconveniences, and to suggest a remedy. After a recent occurrence in the House—an explosion of dynamite, which he believed took place in the lower corner on the Government side of the House—Mr. Speaker felt it necessary to interfere with the usage that had prevailed with regard to the admission of strangers, and to direct that no strangers should in future be admitted into any part of the House of Commons upon the order of a Member; and the right hon. Gentleman had taken upon himself the right of admitting all strangers to any part of the House. He (Mr. Parnell), of course, did not intend to allude at that moment to the right of the Speaker to make such Rules and Regulations, though he thought that that right might be seriously challenged; but he wished to point to one result of those Regulations. It was formerly the custom to permit Members' secretaries to write from the dictation of Members from the Tea Room of the House; but one of the results of the Rules of Mr. Speaker had been that Members' secre- taries could no longer see Members in the Tea Room, and were compelled to remain outside the precincts of the House altogether. It was not possible for Members to bring their secretaries to the Tea Room or any of the Libraries. He believed it would be possible, by going through a very roundabout form, to obtain permission for them, if there was room, to sit in the Strangers' Gallery, to bring them down to one of the Smoking Rooms of the House, and so to enable them to discharge their duties. But that would be a very inconvenient method; and so far as he knew, the private secretaries who were, or had been, in the habit of coming to the Tea Room for the purpose of performing their duties, had not attempted to perform them in any part of the House of Commons since the new Rules were made. Now, what he would suggest would be this—in fact, he might say he had communicated with the Speaker's Secretary on the matter, and had had the honour of receiving a reply that the Speaker was in communication with one of the officials of the House for the purpose of providing a room where Members might see their secretaries. What he would suggest was that proper provision should be made for the convenience of hon. Members in this respect, and what he wished to know was whether any steps had been taken to carry out that half promise of the Speaker? Was there any prospect of a room being provided for the purpose of enabling Members to see their secretaries? If not, would tables be set up in the Central Lobby, and writing paper and envelopes, &c, provided, to enable Members to dictate their correspondence to their secretaries? Would places be provided for secretaries to sit and write, and for Members to come and sign their letters after they had been written? To those Members of the House who had a large correspondence, and whose duties compelled them to be in somewhat constant attendance in the House, this system, under which it was impossible to see their private secretaries, made it extremely inconvenient, almost impossible, to fulfil their duties to those people who were in correspondence with them. It was almost impossible for them to answer letters, and at the same time attend to their functions in the House, because a man obviously could not be in two places at once. Even if a Member's office were in the immediate neighbourhood of the House it was exceedingly inconvenient to have to rush out between divisions and between times when it might be possible for him to devote a few minutes away from his Parliamentary duties to the carrying on of his correspondence. It was next to impossible for a Member to rush out into the street in the snow or the rain, or however inclement the weather might be, perhaps to catch cold, for the purpose of looking after his correspondence. That, he thought, was a matter on which private Members were entitled to ask that some room should be assigned to them to enable them to carry on their correspondence as heretofore. It was almost impossible for a Member to get through his correspondence now, unless he wrote his letters himself. That applied to a Member who had but a small correspondence; because, of course, in the case of a Member with a large correspondence it was obviously next to impossible for him to get through it at all. He hoped this matter might have considerably advanced since the beginning of the Session when, as he had already said, Mr. Speaker had informed him that he was engaged in communication with the officers who had power to deal with the rooms of the House. He hoped he might hear of there being some probability of a convenient, well-aired, well-warmed, and well-lighted room being given to Members for the purpose of getting through their correspondence.

said, he was not aware of the difficulty the hon. Member alluded to with regard to the rights and inconveniences of Members and their secretaries; but, no doubt, all hon. Members had had to submit to inconveniences since those unfortunate occurrences in Westminster Hall and the House of Commons. He was not prepared to give a definite reply as to the position in which the matter now stood; and he could only say that, so far as he was concerned, he should use his influence in order to secure to hon. Members the necessary means for transacting their business in the most comfortable manner possible. At the same time, they all knew there was not very much space at liberty in the House of Commons. With regard to a room being set apart for the use of Members and their secretaries, he could see no objection to the proposal personally, and he would promise to draw the attention of the Speaker to the matter once more. Even if a room were granted, he could not promise that it would be a very comfortable or desirable one for the purpose.

considered that the hon. Member for the City of Cork was a great deal too modest in bringing forward this question. The grievance was one which he (Colonel Nolan) could thoroughly understand, and which had been very much under his attention. The question was not merely one of providing for the convenience of Members. The Government had at their disposal some 30 rooms in the House—some Members of the Government having two, and some even three. [Mr. HIBBERT: No, no!] He thought the Chief Secretary for Ireland had two or three rooms, or ante-rooms. Would the hon. Member say how many rooms the Government had in the House? He (Colonel Nolan) believed it to be somewhere about 30.

I must point out to the hon. and gallant Member that these observations are not in Order on the present Vote. This Vote is for the payment of officials in the House of Commons, and it is not in connection with the Government nor the Speaker. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) made some observations for the purpose of eliciting information which seemed quite permissible under the circumstances, and, therefore, I did not stop him. But it will not be right on this Vote for anyone to impugn any arrangement made by Mr. Speaker.

I see there is an item here for shorthand writers.

said, the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had no business to speak unless he wished to address the Chair on a point of Order, as he (Colonel Nolan) was in possession of the Committee. As the hon. Member was not speaking to a point of Order, he (Colonel Nolan) should like to point out that the Serjeant-at-Arms was in this Vote, and he supposed, therefore, that it had something to do with keeping order in some part of the House, possibly in the Library. He (Colonel Nolan) wished to make a complaint with regard to the Library, and he would ask the Chairman whether he would be in Order in going into that subject?

The hon. and gallant Member may mention whatever he likes in connection with the Serjeant-at-Arms Department.

I also see the Department of the Chairman of Ways and Means down in this Vote. I object, Sir, to your having a room.

The hon. and gallant Member is perfectly in Order in alluding to that subject.

said, it was not because he had any fault to find with the Chairman's ruling, or because he did not think the hon. Gentleman had presided very admirably over their Committees; but he thought the Chairman's room ought to be sacrificed until the arrangements of hon. Members were satisfied. Members of the Cabinet had rooms behind Mr. Speaker's Chair, and right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Opposition Bench also had rooms. [An hon. MEMBER: Have they?] Yes. Hon. Members did not seem to be aware of those facts. The Whips of the Government had rooms outside in the Lobby, and the Whips of the Opposition had also got them.

There is no reference to these officers in the Vote under discussion. They are connected with the Building Vote, and that would be the proper place to raise this question. It would be competent to move the reduction of the salary of the Chairman of Ways and Means, or any other official of the House on this Vote, but not to discuss the allocation of rooms.

said, that if the Chairman ruled him out of Order on this point—if the Chairman ruled that he had no right to say that he (the Chairman) should not have a room—of course he would reserve his observations to another occasion.

said, he was astonished to hear the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Hibbert) say that he had heard nothing, up to that moment, about the matter he (Mr. Parnell) had submitted to him. Prom the letter he (Mr. Parnell) had received from Mr. Speaker, he was induced to believe that the matter had been brought under the hon. Member's notice, or under the notice of some other official. He had presumed that the hon. Member was the official under whose notice the matter would have been brought.

No.

Then under whose notice would it have been brought?

I think the Office of Works.

wished to say a few-words with regard to the Vote for the Department of Mr. Speaker. He observed that in that Department the House provided salaries for the Librarian, Assistant Librarian, Messenger in Library, Extra Messenger in Library; in short, all the officials connected with the Library. He believed that it would at once strike the Committee that the number of assistants in the Library was very limited indeed, in respect of the duties they were called upon to perform. Now, there had been a discussion a short time since in the Committee on the Vote for the Librarian of the House of Lords. They saw that a very large sum of money was voted to the Librarian of the House of Lords, and he certainly thought that this was a matter which might very fairly engage the attention of the Committee. In the American Congress a very large number of Librarians and assistants were employed to enable the Members to get on with their business. If one required to be informed about any question it was only necessary to go into the Library and state the information required, and within a certain time it was produced, and the whole subject made up, so to speak, cut and dried; but in the case of the Library of the House of Commons, every obstruction and obstacle seemed placed in the way of Members, not by the officials, who, considering their number, did more than their best for the purpose of serving and attending to the requirements of Members, but owing to the system which had been adopted of having a small number of officials who were overburdened with the task of getting down books for Members to read, which made it impossible for hon. Members to get the information they required when it was most wanted. Returning to the subject of shorthand writers and secretaries, if those assistants were not allowed access to Members in the House, he thought it the duty of the Government to provide shorthand writers for them in the Library for the purpose of taking down letters. He believed that with proper facilities the correspondence of Members could be got through with an immense economy of time, and that posts would be saved which were under the present arrangements very often lost. In his own case, he knew that between the impossibility of getting at his shorthand writer and the subsequent delay of his letters in the Post Office which always took place his business arrangements were very much interfered with. Besides the delay caused by missing the post, he found that his letters did not arrive until long after the time at which they should have reached their destination, having in the meantime been examined in the Post Office, and in some cases by the higher officials at the Home Office. But he said that if they were not to have access to their shorthand writers, the Government should put down a Vote for the purpose of supplying shorthand writers for Members who, by the aid of the new type-writers, would then be able to perform their duties to their constituents in a shorter space of time than they were now able to perform them in owing to the existing arrangements. With regard to the placing of paper and ink in the Central Lobby, he would point out that the Lobby was large enough to afford space for a dozen tables. He thought it would be competent to the Sergeant-at-Arms to place tables in the Lobby at which Members could conduct their correspondence, and he did not see why it should not be done. At present there was a little room at their disposal not much larger than the Table at which Mr. Speaker so ably presided; on the outside there was written, "For the use of Members," and inside the room there was a table and three very dim gaslights. Driven to extremity the other evening, he went into the room for the purpose of writing some letters, and he found the light so dim that it was impossible for him to see the tracings of the pen on the paper. He did not see why a table with the needful appliances should not be placed in the open Hall. Pens and paper were cheap, and there was no reason why Members who were driven away from the House and from the Tea Room by the arrangements of Mr. Speaker should not be allowed to write their letters in the Central Lobby, and that they should not, like the bird sent out of Noah's Ark, be unable to find a place for the sole of their foot.

said, he observed that while Mr. Speaker, of course, the Clerk of the House, Assistant Clerk, and Sergeant-at-Arms had official residences, and certain assistants had allowances from the House, it was, in his opinion, absurd that almost the only officer of high rank and position next to Mr. Speaker had no house allowance. He ventured to say that there was no officer except Mr. Speaker whose presence in the House was so constantly needed as that of the Deputy Speaker. That was a matter which had been considered by past Chief Commissioners of Works and past Financial Secretaries to the Treasury, and he would be glad to know whether it was intended to provide a residence for the officer he referred to?

said, they had had a discussion on the subject of a residence for the Librarian, and he was, therefore, unwilling to go again into that question; but he certainly thought that his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson) had made out a strong case for providing residences for officials whose presence was required in the House at any hour of the night, and he would take care that the subject was brought before Mr. Speaker. With regard to the suggestions made by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), he should be glad to lay all the hon. Gentleman's proposals before Mr. Speaker, who he was sure would, if it were possible, order a suitable room to be provided for Members who had to dictate to their secretaries.

said, it was stated in the discussion about an hour ago that the Librarian had no official residence provided for him; but he had ascertained since that time that an official residence was formerly provided for the Librarians, and that by some jerrymandering the present Librarian had been deprived of that accommodation. The total amount of this Vote, £51,772, was spread over three Departments—namely, those of the Clerk of the House, the Speaker, and the Sergeant-at-Arms. Taking the first of those Departments, he thought it was very strange that the Department of the Clerks of the House, which comprised a number of inferior officers, should receive under this Vote £26,201 a-year, and that the sum of £9,456 only should be allotted to the Department of the Speaker. He was ready to acknowledge that the 36 clerks in the first Department who drew this large amount as salaries were useful; but he wished to ask this question—Had those 36 clerks passed a competitive examination? He heard the Secretary to the Treasury say that they did; but he was bound to challenge that statement. He would like to know under what number of marks obtained at competitive examination Mr. Northcote, the son of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in that House, received his appointment? He asked the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury for the competition warrant. He asked the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan), who was entitled to the credit of having secured for the country the system of competitive examination, whether it was by public competitive examination, by private nomination, or by some test examination that those clerks were appointed? [Mr. HIBBERT: Yes.] But that was not competitive examination. His question was this—By what competitive examination had Mr. Northcote, within the last 10 days, received his appointment as a Clerk of the House? Was it by nomination, or was the appointment given to the best man out of, say, five or six selected for examination; in other words, was the examinatiom a sham or a reality? If the Committee were to vote this £26,000 a-year to the Clerks of the House, he said that they ought to have the right of nomination, or the appointments should be made after public competitive examination. Did the right of nomination lay with Sir Erskine May? If so, he would ask how it was that he only nominated the sons, nephews, and brothers of Members of the House? If hon. Members took up the list of clerks appointed, they would find that they were not men appointed by merit, but because they were relatives of Members of the House; and he said that that was a corrupt system, and a system which, if the country knew of its existence, would be at once put down. In the same way he took the Department of the Speaker. The most overworked Department was that of the Serjeant-at- Arms, which, he said, was an efficient Department; and the manner in which it was conducted afforded a contrast to the other Departments of the House.

said, he also wished to press the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan) on this subject. He recollected that the right hon. Gentleman had been very zealous to introduce competitive examination into the Foreign Service and Diplomatic Service, and that he had brought forward Motions on the subject. The question of competitive examination in those Services had been debated in the House of Commons, and he recollected that there were Motions and divisions upon it, and so great had been the strength of public opinion on the subject that it forced the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to establish the system of competitive examination. It now appeared that the service of that House was placed in an entirely different position from that in which the whole of the service of the State was placed. Therefore, he asked the Representatives of the Government now on the Treasury Bench why clerks were to be appointed to the subordinate positions in the service of the House without any competitive examination whatever? The nomination to those appointments appeared to him to be an undue power for any official to possess. Even Ministers of State had not the right to appoint clerks to Parliament. But here, in the House of Commons, in which the principle of competitive examination with regard to appointments in the Public Service had been established, it would seem that that was the only Department in the State which ignored its own rules, and allowed young men to be appointed without competitive examination before the Civil Service Commissioners. He understood the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury to say that Mr. Northcote had passed a test examination. He would ask some Member of Her Majesty's Government to say why it was that, with all their interest in the procedure of the House, no Member of the Government had insisted on the same competitive examination with regard to appointments in the service of the House as they had enforced in every other Department of the State? He should be glad to hear from the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, or the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, why that great abuse had been allowed to exist in the House of Commons when it did not exist in any other Department of the State?

said, he would point out, in reply to the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), that the appointments of the Clerks of the House were made by the Clerk of the House under an Act of Parliament passed in the Reign of George III. Up to the present time the appointments had always been made by the Clerk of the House under that Statute. There was no competitive examination in the case of those appointments such as had been suggested by the hon. Gentleman; but there was a test examination, and, looking at the clerks who entered the service of the House of Commons, he did not know that the system of test examinations in force had provided them with an inferior staff to those of other Departments in which competitive examination had been adopted. He had seen a great deal of the clerks of the House of Commons, and he thought they were men quite as capable of doing the work they had to perform as if they had been brought into the position by competitive examination. At the same time, he did not say that it was not a strong argument to urge that there should be competitive examination for those appointments; but he would point out that if any alteration were to be made, it would require consideration on the part of the Authorities of the House, and, of course, he was not prepared to enter into that question.

said, in looking at that Vote for the House of Commons Officers, there was one matter connected with it on which hon. Members could all agree, and that was the uniform urbanity of the Serjeant-at-Arms and his assistants in everything relating to their convenience. With regard to the question of the examination of clerks on their appointment to the service of the House, he had listened with interest to the discussion which had taken place, and he was bound to say that he thought both the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) and the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) had done a public service in calling attention to that subject. Most Members of the House would agree with what had fallen from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury as to the general efficiency of the staff of Clerks of the House. His own experience was that they were both courteous and efficient. But that was beside the question; and although hon. Members might agree that the present clerks were fit to hold their office, it did not by any means follow that the system under which they were appointed was one which ought to be continued. Now, what were the arguments in support of the present system? The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, in justifying appointments by the Clerk of the House, had fallen back on a Statute of George III. But that Monarch ascended the Throne 135 years ago, and the Committee would know very well that a great many things happened in the Reign of George III. which no one would attempt to justify at the present day. Why should the Clerk of the House have this patronage? [Mr. HIBBERT: I have not defended the system.] He was glad to have that declaration from the hon. Gentleman. He asked why the Clerk of the House should have this patronage? Why should the Business of the most important Assembly in the country—the Business of the Departments of the House of Commons—be discharged by men appointed under a system which went back further than the days when, in the language of Lord Macaulay, votes were bought and sold in Smithfield? Why should the ghastly corruption of the 18th century have a place in the 19th? He maintained that if it were necessary to carry out the system of competitive examination in respect of the appointments of officials in the various Departments of the Public Service, it was equally necessary that there should be competitive examination in the case of appointments to the Departments of the House of Commons. With regard to what had fallen from his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) on the subject of the want of proper accommodation for Members of the House, he would point out to the Committee that one of the officials of the House of Lords had the use of six rooms. His hon. Friend had made the very moderate proposal that tables and chairs, with the necessary writing materials, should be placed in the Central Lobby, so that Members of the House under pressure of their own business and of public affairs should be saved from having to resort to the grotesque expedient of endeavouring to sign letters upon their knees. If the Government were not prepared to provide Members with shorthand writers, on the ground that it might interfere with the Post Office arrangements to which his hon. Friend had alluded, he pointed out that it would only be necessary for the officials of the Government to go into the Library and open and read the letters before they were posted. He would be glad to know whether the Chairman of Ways and Means was an official subject or not to any other official of the House—whether he was subject to the Rules laid down by the House with reference to such occasions when disorder arose in the House; when Report was made to the House, and when Report had to be made with regard to certain proceedings in Committee relating to hon. Members and otherwise? He believed he was correct in stating that the Chairman of Ways and Means was subject to no other authority than the Rules laid down by the Members of the House.

said, he had been rather astonished by the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury. The hon. Gentleman accused him of being a reformer; but he might describe the hon. Gentleman as an old retrogressive Tory, because his arguments were always made use of as reasons against reforms in the Public Service. The hon. Gentleman had made a statement in the course of his speech to which he could assent—namely, that the Clerks of the House were an admirable set of men. He quite agreed with that view; but the clerks at the Admiralty and in other Departments of the State were also an admirable class of men, and therefore the statement of the hon. Gentleman was no argument in favour of appointments to clerkships in the House of Commons being made without competitive examination. He might call attention to the argument in reference to the abolition of purchase in the Army, when it was said that the officers of the Army were so good that no change was necessary. But he wished to have an answer on the question of appointments from some Members of the Government—some of those reformers who with magnificent perorations wound up speech after speech on the subject of competitive examination. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan) could perorate on the subject of competitive examination in the Public Service, why could he not perorate on this subject relating to the clerks of the House of Commons? He thought the Committee were entitled to some further reply on the question that had been raised.

said, that, undoubtedly, the arguments of the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) were unanswerable. There was no reason whatever that the great principles of competition which had succeeded so admirably in the Civil Service and in the Army and Navy should not be applied to that House. The present state of things was an admitted anomaly. It existed because it was under cover of a Statute. There was no doubt that the general standard of public morality with regard to appointments in the different Services had been enormously elevated by means of the system of competition which the hon. Member had so eloquently described. The appointments in that House however, were admirably managed; and the reason of it was that they were in the hands of a gentleman who discharged his functions with public spirit enlightened by very great ability. The system was none the less anomalous; and he was quite certain that the legislative measure for which they were all sighing, and by which the Statute would be altered, would receive the most thorough and the most respectful consideration of the Government.

said, he was sorry to disagree with his hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), and he was glad to hear the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan). There was no one in the House who knew more about competitive examinations than the right hon. Gentleman. He (Mr. Onslow) was one of those who doubted whether the Public Services in England or abroad had been benefited by competitive examinations. In his opinion they had just as good men formerly as now. Certainly an exception ought to be made in the case of the House of Commons. The gentlemen who discharged the duties of clerks in the House should essentially be gentlemen; and he (Mr. Onslow) trusted implicitly in the gentleman who now made the appointments. He defied anyone to get, no matter what the system adopted was, a better class of men than they had at the present time. Considering that everything had worked well, and that no complaints whatever had been made about the clerks, he hoped his hon. Friend would not pursue hi3 course. He (Mr. Onslow) was very glad to hear that the son of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition (Sir Stafford Northcote) had recently received an appointment as Clerk in the House of Commons, and he thought that his views would be shared by every Member in the House. Whatever political views the gentleman who now made the appointments might hold, there was no one in the House who could accuse him of jobbery. Why not let things remain as they were now? They could not be improved; and better men could not be obtained. He hoped his hon. Friend would not press his Motion to a division.

said, that as a matter of fact there was no Motion before the Committee, and there would be no division. He should certainly, however, bring the subject forward on another occasion.

suggested that the hon. Gentleman (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) should bring in a Bill on the subject, in order to see with what energy the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hibbert) and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan) would address themselves to legislation on the matter. He (Mr. Healy) did not rise, however, to pursue this subject, but for the purpose of directing the attention of the Committee to quite a different matter. In the month of last July, when this Vote was proposed, he raised the question of the propriety of having a Select Committee of experienced Members to assist the Clerks at the Table in the revision of Questions, and in the assistance they gave to Mr. Speaker on points of Order. On the occasion to which he referred he drew attention to the enormous labours thrown upon the clerks, and to the fact that when a Speaker or Chairman of Committee was new to his duties, which, of course, was not the case with the hon. Gentleman (Sir Arthur Otway), it must necessarily happen that, to a great extent, the gentlemen who were in charge of the House, and who controlled all its functions, must be the officers at the Table. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers), in replying to him (Mr. Healy), said that the matter was one which was open to consideration, though it was not likely the House would be inclined to change its long-standing practice. Now, it appeared to him (Mr. Healy) rather a hard thing that the hon. Gentleman (Sir Arthur Otway) should have the power of summarily silencing Representatives of the people without there being any appeal. Whatever confidence was placed in the officers of the House, he could not help thinking it was advisable to have an influential, and impartial, and independent tribunal, drawn by lot or nomination from the general body of Members, in the same way as the Committee of Selection was drawn, to whom questions might be referred, and to whom Members would have a right of appeal. He could not but believe that, if such were the case, the rulings of the Chair would be received with much more satisfaction than they were at the present time. For instance, a Speaker, in a moment of pique, might rule an hon. Member to be out of Order, or a Speaker might misunderstand an hon. Member, and rule him out of Order. It was only the other day that he was ruled out of Order for referring to the Orange Party in Ireland as the "toothless Orange Party." The Speaker thought he said "truthless;" but that was altogether a mistake. Again, the word "snobs," which was used the other day, was ruled out of Order. Of course, those were only trivial instances of the inconvenience which arose under the present system; but when it came to be a matter of a Member losing his liberty of action in the House for an entire week—when he was excluded, not only from participation in the debates in the House, but from voting, and from attendance on Select Committees—it was very necessary that there should be a tribunal to whom questions of that kind might be referred. It could not be denied that the Clerks at the Table could exercise, if they were so pleased, almost uncontrolled power over the Speaker; because if the Speaker happened, as must be the case in a new Parliament, to be newly-elected, he was obliged, on nearly every question, to refer to the clerks for guidance. No one had more reason to be thankful to the Clerks at the Table than he (Mr. Healy) had, because he supposed he troubled them as often as anyone else, and he had never failed to receive illumination from them; he had generally found that he was wrong, and that they were right, upon matters on which he had had occasion to confer with them. They were gentlemen of many years experience in the House, and no one could pretend to have the same amount of knowledge of the Forms of the House as they; but he objected to any gentleman, no matter how great his experience, having the right to give, without revision, an opinion on which the Chair might act, and with regard to which hon. Members had no power of appeal. He really did think that if Gentlemen like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Raikes), or the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread), or Gentlemen who had filled official positions in the House, would undertake the duties, so to speak, of a Court of Appeal, very great good, would result. If hon. Members could refer to the Gentlemen he had mentioned for direction, if questions could be submitted to them for revision, if matters occurring one day could be adjudged upon the next day by such Gentlemen—not in hot blood, but in a cool and collected manner—if, when the Speaker, for instance, had ruled an hon. Member out of Order, or a particular expression to be out of Order, or had suspended an hon. Member for a week or a fortnight, or for the whole Session, an appeal could be made to an impartial and independent tribunal, it would be very satisfactory. An hon. Member who had incurred the censure of the Chair would feel much more satisfied if he knew that the ruling of the Speaker had been reinforced by the decision of an independent tribunal. Parliament would be much more democratic in the future than it was at present—at least, it was supposed that it would so become. Members of less experience would enter it, and there would probably be more friction between the democracy and the Chair than there was at present, and in that event it was very necessary that what he suggested should be adopted. There was one matter in particular in which the Clerks at the Table necessarily exercised an almost complete control. It was quite impossible that the Speaker could revise 50 or 60 Questions; and, therefore, the duty devolved upon the Clerks at the Table. If an hon. Gentleman asked a Question on foreign policy which was inconvenient to the Government, and it was stopped at the Table, it would be much more satisfactory to the Questioner if he could refer the matter to a Committee of Gentlemen on whom the House generally could place reliance. The hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett) and the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) would feel greatly relieved, if Questions of theirs were stopped, if they knew that an independent tribunal, altogether apart from the Clerks at the Table, had sat and pronounced upon the propriety of the Questions. He did not intend to take up the time of the Committee any longer. He had laid his views before the Committee on a previous occasion, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers) was good enough to say that, although they were not very feasible, they ought not to be entirely excluded from the scope of consideration. In view of what was happening, and in view of the fact that the Speaker in the new Parliament must necessarily be inexperienced, it was not right that Representatives of the people, who had been elected because, in the opinion of their constituents, of their fitness, should be expelled like unruly children from the Chamber simply, perhaps, upon the irate feeling of the Speaker. Of course, they knew that the present Speaker never lost his temper, and his remarks in no sense applied to that right hon. Gentleman. As to the Chairman (Sir Arthur Otway), he (Mr. Healy) must frankly acknowledge that on all occasions the right hon. Gentleman exercised the greatest consideration and courtesy towards all Members of the House.

said, that the hon. Member had made his suggestion with great moderation. He could find no fault with the hon. Member for bringing forward this question, or with the manner in which he had brought it forward. He must say, however, that at the first blush it appeared to him that the suggestion was one which could not be entertained by the House. The hon. Member had said that they looked forward to a more democratic Parliament in the future, and that other Regulations than those which at present obtained would have to be made. Well, that might be the case; but he thought that it was very undesirable for the House of Commons to look forward to what might be necessary in the future. What they had to deal with was the House of Commons that existed now; and it appeared to him that the powers which were intrusted to the Speaker and to the Chairman of Committees were adequate for the proper discharge of the duties of those Gentlemen, and adequate—but not more than adequate—for the preservation and maintenance of Order in debate. The hon. Member had suggested that the Clerks at the Table and the Speaker should be assisted by a Committee in the duty of revising Questions which were placed on the Paper. The hon. Member brought forward that subject last year, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers) gave, what appeared to him (the Marquess of Hartington), an extremely reasonable answer—namely, that the hon. Member himself and other hon. Members, who were a good deal in the habit of putting Questions to Ministers, would be the first to object to any such change of procedure if their Questions had to wait very long for revision—to wait, it might be, until all interest in them was lost. The hon. Member had carried his suggestion a good deal further, for he had said there should be a Court of Appeal, consisting of a number of experienced Members of the House, and that that Court of Appeal should have the power of revising the decisions of the Speaker and of the Chairman of Committees. Now, that was certainly a suggestion to which he (the Marquess of Hartington) could not give any concurrence whatever. It appeared to him that the powers which were intrusted to the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees were powers necessarily of a somewhat autocratic character—powers which were absolutely necessary for the preservation of the decency and order of debate in the House. If the functions of such a Committee as had been suggested by the hon. Member were anything but nominal, the exercise of such functions would, in his (the Marquess of Hartington's) opinion, be destructive of the authority of the Chair. How could a Speaker maintain any effective authority over the administration of the House, and expect to have his decisions respected, if his decisions were subject to appeal; and if in the course of a few days a Committee of experts, such as had been suggested, were to overrule the decision which the Speaker had given? It seemed to him (the Marquess of Hartington) that all they could do was to elect that Member from amongst themselves, in whose fairness, and impartiality, and knowledge of the Rules of their procedure, the House had confidence; and, having so elected that Member from amongst themselves, to place great powers in his hands and implicit confidence in his authority. For those reasons it was quite impossible for him to give any support to the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy).

said, that the proposition of the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) struck directly at the authority of the Chair. It was quite impossible, in the interest of proper debate, that the decisions of the Speaker or of the Chairman of Committees should be subject to appeal. The House selected its Speaker and its Chairman because of their authority in the House, and because they were learned in its traditions and its business; and they reposed in those Gentlemen the most absolute confidence. If it was shown that that confidence was not justified by anything in the rulings from the Chair, it was quite clear that the decisions of the Chair would not be of long standing. The adoption of the hon. and learned Member's suggestion would be destructive of all authority in the House.

said, that perhaps the Committee would allow him to say a few words for the purpose of correcting, to some extent, the remarks the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War (the Marquess of Hartington) had made. The noble Marquess had entirely addressed himself to this subject from the point of view of maintaining the authority of the Chair. He would ask the noble Marquess, was there no other authority in the House to maintain? Were the rights of the Representatives of the people not to be maintained? It was all very well to talk about the authority of the Chair. Nobody objected more strongly than the English people to the Infallibility of the Pope. The English people railed at Roman Catholics in the most extraordinary manner because they subscribed to the Pope's supreme authority upon Divine and religious matters; but here they were dealing with human affairs, upon which every person could form a judgment of their own, and with regard to which hon. Members met in the House all together upon an independent and equal basis. He asked the noble Marquess if it were not possible for them to have a hasty or angry Speaker; and was it to be tolerated that the rights of 600 Members of Parliament, elected by the people to carry out their will, should be entirely at the mercy of one man, without appeal? He thought it was very desirable that the Speaker and Chairman of Committees should have the right of revising their own decisions, and that right the present Rules did not give. If the Chairman of Committees ruled him (Mr. Healy) to be out of Order, he was bound to respect the authority of the Chair, because he had no means of questioning the decision; but if he had the means of arguing the point, without meaning any disrespect or discourtesy to the Chairman, he might be able to prove that the hon. Gentleman was in the wrong. It might happen that once in 10 times he (Mr. Healy) might be right, and the Chairman wrong; and, therefore, his point was this—that granted the Chairman might once out of 10 times be wrong, and he (Mr. Healy) right, the Chairman should have the right and power to revise his decision. At present, if the Speaker or the Chairman, acting upon the suggestion of one of the Clerks at the Table, said that he (Mr. Healy) was out of Order, or that an expression he used was out of Order, the Speaker or Chairman had no power to revise the decision. The decision appeared upon the pages of Hansard, and it became for all time a cast-iron decision. All he wanted was, that the Speaker or Chairman, as the case might be, should have power to revise his decision, if necessary, with the assistance of experts, so that if it should happen that an hon. Member, who had been ruled out of Order, was able, by letter or other private communication, to show the Speaker or Chairman of Committees that he had mistaken the argument addressed to him, and that the Speaker or Chairman was entirely in error, it should be within the power of the Chair to remedy his error. At present a Member, whose vote on a question of peace or war might turn the scale, could be suspended for a whole week, at the instigation of the Speaker; and it might so happen that during that week a most momentous decision was arrived at. As a matter of fact, the position of the Speaker in the House of Commons was more infallible than the Pope's position in the Catholic Church. The Pope was provided with a Council, but the Speaker of the House of Commons was provided with nothing of the kind. It would be to the advantage of debate, and it would not in the least detract or derogate from the position of Speaker or Chairman of Committees, if those Gentleman had some authority to guide them, independently of the Clerks at the Table. As he had said before, they had all very great respect for the gentlemen at the Table; but it was quite evident that those gentlemen were bound to impart into all their rulings something of what he might call a professional spirit. They very naturally desired to see the work of the Government done, and they did their best to facilitate the work of the House. A Committee of independent Members of the House, drawn from both Parties, would, he believe, take an independent and impartial view; and it was under these circumstances that he appealed to the noble Marquess not to be led away with the idea that there was nothing in the House to be preserved but the authority of the Chair. At present, when the political temperature was at a great heat, as it might be, for instance, if war were declared tomorrow, there would be no power standing between the rights of minorities and the position of the Chair. He maintained it was very desirable that there should be some Court of Appeal, go that if wrong had been done hon. Members should feel that there was an authority which should set matters right.

said, he noticed that; the Clerk of the House was provided with an official residence, and that the Clerk Assistant was also provided with an official residence. The second Clerk Assistant, however, was paid a salary considerably less than either of his colleagues, and he was not provided with an official residence. Now he (Mr. Sexton), approaching the matter in a most impartial spirit, failed to see the slightest reason for that distinction. He had frequently seen the second Clerk Assistant at the end of a long Sitting retire from the performance of his duty in such a state of fatigue as certainly to require rest upon the premises. If any difficulty arose from want of space, he (Mr. Sexton) certainly thought that the bachelor official of the House of Lords might very reasonably give up some of the eight rooms allotted to him to the second Clerk Assistant.