asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he has received a memorial from the Veterinary Portal Inspectors under the Privy Council of Ireland praying for an inquiry into and redress of certain grievances; whether the Irish Government have yet determined so to improve the terms of employment of the Portal Inspectors as to place them on a footing analogous to that of the Veterinary Surgeons employed by the English Privy Council; and, whether, considering that the whole time of the Irish Portal Inspectors is wholly at the disposal of the public service, the Government will consider a scheme for their superannuation?

The Memorial in question has been before me; but, in present circumstances, I do not think the Government would be justified in considering the question of changes in the position of these officers who, I may observe, stand at present—in most, if not all, essential particulars — very much on the same footing as similar officers in England.

asked the Lord Advocate, Whether his attention has been called to the appendix of a pamphlet entitled A Report by the Sheriff of Inverness, Elgin, and Nairn to the Commissioners of Supply of Inverness-shire; whether the "statements" of various persons, of which the greater part of that appendix consists, are declarations made before Sheriff Ivory in the course of a formal judicial inquiry; if so, whether it is in conformity with the practice of Scottish criminal administration to publish them; whether Sheriff Ivory published them with the cognizance or consent of the Home Office or Crown authorities; and, whether he has any objection to lay upon the Table of the House Sheriff Ivory's "Report," and the replies of the Lord Advocates of the last and preceding Governments to the official letters addressed to them by Sheriff Ivory contained in the "Report?"

I have seen the Report by the Sheriff of Inverness to the Commissioners of Supply of that county, as also the Appendix thereto. It is certainly not in accordance with the practice of Scottish criminal administration to publish information obtained in the investigation of criminal charges. The inquiry, in the course of which the statements contained in the Appendix were made, was one of a kind which, fortunately, does not often require to be entered upon in Scotland. It had reference to certain complaints which had been made by the police in regard to the conduct of a public official; and the primary question was whether he could with propriety be allowed to continue to hold his office. It was thus not a criminal investigation in the ordinary sense, though, for analogous reasons, I should consider it my duty to treat any information furnished to me under such an inquiry as confidential, except as regards any official persons who might require to consider it. I am not aware that the consent of the Home Office or of the Crown Authorities was either asked or obtained to any publication of the statements referred to. I cannot undertake to lay the Report upon the Table of this House, as it was made to a duly constituted County Authority having important statutory powers and duties with respect to the police of the county; and, although the official referred to was not in the service or under the control of the Commissioners of Supply, reasons are given in the Report which led the Sheriff to consider it proper to include the information in question in it. As I regard any correspondence between the Lord Advocate and the Sheriff of a county concerning a pending inquiry into the conduct of an official holding an office in a local Court as confidential, I cannot undertake to lay on the Table any letters, either from my Predecessor in Office or from myself, on the subject.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If the Local Government Board's attention has been called to the misconduct and neglect of duty of Dr. Croker, dispensary medical officer of the Ballymacarrett Division of the Belfast Union, in refusing to visit a poor woman named Garland, at 7, Skipton Street, Ballymacarrett, who was dangerously ill in labour on the 5th ultimo, although a red line was issued by the relieving officer of the district, and personally served on Croker by the woman's husband; did Croker inform Garland that he would not go himself, but would send the official midwife, although Garland told him that he had already secured the services of a midwife, who had declared that surgical aid was indispensable, as the case was most difficult and dangerous; and that, notwithstanding this information, Croker still refused to visit the poor woman; is it true that afterwards a neighbouring surgeon (Dr. Gibson), out of sympathy for Garland in his distress, attended Mrs. Garland, and found that his services were most urgently needed; did Garland, on the 20th ultimo, make a complaint to the Guardians of Croker's conduct; was any inquiry made into the allegations; and, if so, what was the result; how often has Croker been charged with similar neglect of duty; and, will any steps be taken to prevent a repetition of such conduct towards the suffering and destitute poor in this district?

A complaint was made regarding the nonattendance of Dr. Croker on the occasion referred to, and the matter is at present under inquiry by the Dispensary Committee of the Board of Guardians in question. The Local Government Board will see that it is fully investigated.

asked the Lord Advocate, Whether his attention has been called to an article in The Perthshire Constitutional of the 26th instant, entitled "Extraordinary Eviction Case in Perthshire," wherein it is stated that a Mr. Buchanan Hamilton, under an ancient feudal law of Scotland, had recourse to a process known as "putting to the horn," so that he could remove into the street the whole of the goods and chattels, valued at upwards of £1,000 sterling, of a feuar named Thomas Buchanan, from his villa residence, enter upon and take possession of the premises because the said feuar owed two years' feu duty, amounting only to £32; if it be true that the proprietor has advertised for sale Mr. Thomas Buchanan's villa property, amounting to the sum of £5,000 sterling, in order to secure the payment of £32 due to him for feu duty; and, whether there are not more constitutional, and less violent, methods by which landlords can recover debt; and, if not, whether Her Majesty's Government will consider the expediency of amending the Law of Scotland, as to the recovery of debts, so as prevent such violence to the feelings of the community as was caused by the case referred to, as well as the wanton destruction of so much valuable property?

An article has appeared in The Perthshire Constitutional to the effect stated by the hon. Member, and I have made inquiry into the circumstances of the case, which is a most unfortunate one. Mr. Thomas Buchanan, the feuar in question, and his sister, are both well-known litigants, and have besides long objected to pay taxes, preferring that their goods should be seized and sold rather than that they should meet these debts. They seem to have latterly come to regard the payment of an annual sum of feu-duty, for certain villas belonging to them, in the same light; and I believe it is true that, under very special circumstances, the superior has had recourse to the remedies stated in the article in question. These remedies, although stringent, are quite legal; and I am constrained to think they were adopted in the belief that they would lead to payment sooner than other less severe measures. This, I am sorry to say, has not been the case, and the law was allowed to take its course. The villas were consequently advertised; but I understand they have since been withdrawn, and I hope that the feuars will adopt the simple and obvious course of paying this small debt.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord. Lieutenant of Ireland, If the case of Robert Cuddy, junior, formerly referred to, has been tried at the Dungannon Petty Sessions; if there were 12 magistrates, including a resident magistrate, on the bench; if Robert Cuddy, junior, 15 years of age, was summoned by the district inspector for that he did "appear in disguise, to the terror of Her Majesty's subjects;" whether 17 witnesses were examined, and the magistrates unanimously declared that there had not been a single piece of evidence to inculpate the defendant; and, if this was the case referred to by the honourable Member for South Tyrone as intimidation by an Orangeman?

In reference to this Question, I would like to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, Whether of the 11 magistrates named 10 were Orangemen, several of whom have themselves taken prominent part in riotous Orange demonstrations; whether the witnesses were described by the Crown Solicitor as being hostile to the Crown; whether the evidence was given with extreme reluctance and prevarication, and was at variance with what they told the police; whether, notwithstanding, it was proved that at least 10 farmers' houses had been visited by night, and that several persons admitted it was the defendant who visited the houses and questioned them as to whether they were Orange men or Nationalists? ——

Order, order! The hon. Member is now, in the form of a Question, making a counter-statement of considerable length, and it is impossible that a Minister can answer a Question so asked. It would be more regular for the hon. Member to put down the Question in the ordinary way.

Well, Sir, my name is referred to in this Question. If I am not allowed to intervene I will have to ask the indulgence of the House to amend my statement.

The hon. Member must give Notice in the ordinary way.

I think I will be in Order in asking this much, at all events—Whether steps will be taken to institute prosecutions for perjury against the witnesses, and to prevent magistrates who are notorious Orange partizans from adjudicating in such cases?

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that I can answer the last Question without Notice and consideration. The Papers in this matter were laid before the Attorney General, who considered there was a primâ facie case for investigation, and directed a prosecution. The case, accordingly, came before a Bench of 11 magistrates—whether they were Orangemen I cannot say—one of whom was a Resident Magistrate; and, after hearing the evidence of several witnesses, they unanimously decided that no case had been made out, and discharged the defendant. I would suggest that the latter part of the inquiry should be put to the hon. Member whom it concerns.

I beg to give Notice that on Monday I shall put a further Question on this subject.

asked the President of the Board of Trade, If he will state what arrangement has been made to provide for the better education of the children of lighthouse keepers in Ireland; to enable the keepers to attend Divine Service on Sunday; and, what rock stations are to be made relieving ones?

I can only refer the hon. Member to the President's reply of the 19th March last, and repeat the assurance therein contained, that full consideration will be given to the question as soon as the detailed information asked for from the Lighthouse Authorities has been received.

said, he did not wish to trouble the hon. Gentleman; but he wished to ask if he could give any idea of the intentions of the Government?

That depends on the correspondence we receive from the Lighthouse Authorities.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, For what reason the public and the Volunteers are still excluded from Westminster Hall?

In reply to my hon. Friend, I can only say that as being responsible for the public safety I do not feel justified in now ordering any departure from the arrangements which at present obtain as to the admission of the public to Westminster Hall.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, on Monday evening 6th May, an assault was committed by a caretaker named Connell, in the employment of Thomas Phelan, of Clonmel, on James Daniell, at Cloonan, county Tipperary, in the presence of two policemen, who declined to interfere until Daniell in self-defence struck Connell, when the police arrested both parties but discharged them before they arrived at the police barrack; whether subsequently Connell visited the house of Daniell, and, shouting, swore he would shoot every one of them, meaning Daniell, whom he believed was in the house, also his mother, an old woman who is bedridden, and her daughter; whether he made furious efforts to force the door open; whether, when Daniell reported the matter to Sergeant Madden at Cloonan, who had witnessed the previous assault, he paid no attention to the complaint until Connell's son came to tell him of his father's condition; whether, when Sergeant Madden arrived on the scene, he refused to arrest Connell when requested to do so by Mr. Charles Meagher, of Cloonan House; whether a complaint of the policeman's conduct has been forwarded to the District Inspector of Carrick on Suir, Mr. Lopdell, by Mr. C. Meagher; and, whether he will see that a full and fair inquiry will be made into the matter?

It appears that the quarrel between the parties described took place in the presence of the police, but at some distance from them. Connell gave Daniell a push, and Daniell retaliated with a blow. The police then appeared and separated them. They did not think the matter serious enough to bring before a magistrate, both parties being well known in the district. They accordingly informed the parties they could take legal proceedings against each other by summons. The same applies to what happened on the second occasion.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Has Colonel Spaight, Local Government Board Inspector, Ireland, visited the parish of Glenbeigh, county of Kerry recently, by order of the Board, and has he made his report of the condition of most of the people of that parish; and, if so, will he be pleased to give the tenor of that report by having a copy of it placed upon the Table of the House?

Colonel Spaight has recently visited Glenbeigh and reported on the condition of the people there. The tenour of his Report is that much distress prevails in the locality, owing to want of employment and the stoppage of credit. The Local Government Board have issued an Order under the recent Relief Act, authorizing the Guardians to give outdoor relief under the provisions of the 2nd section, and have directed their Inspector to attend the next meeting of the Guardians and confer with them as to the administration of the relief. I have stated the purport of the Report; but it is not usual to lay such documents on the Table.

Might I be permitted to ask the right hon. Gentleman a Question on the same subject, of which I have given private Notice? It is, Whether the same state of affairs does not exist in more than that locality in Kerry; whether in Dingle there is not a state of general distress existing approaching to famine in many cases, and also in some of the islands?

I have received no Report from these localities; but I will make inquiries.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is intended to ask His Highness the Khedive to give "the bronze star" to the troops employed in the Nile Expedition of 1884–5, as was done in the case of the expedition to the Eastern Soudan in 1884?

No, Sir. The subject has been considered; but it has not been thought desirable to give effect to the suggestion contained in the Question.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he will give the names of the Income Tax Commissioners for the district of Seisdon; and, if not, would he state on what ground he objects to do so?

(who replied) said, he found, on inquiry, that it had never been the practice to publish the names of these Commissioners.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether he will lay any further Papers upon the Table in reference to the Arklow Harbour works and the extra cost arising from the defective plans and construction?

The Papers about Arklow Harbour that have not already been presented to Parliament are being examined, with a view to the presentation of such further Papers as it may seem desirable to publish.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he can state what progress has been made with the consideration of the case of the Civil Service Writers since March last, and the reason for the unusual delay in arriving at a decision on the subject?

(who replied) said: I can only refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave on the 6th instant on this subject to the hon. Members for Central Hackney and Gravesend—namely, that the question of the Civil Service Writers is receiving the most careful attention of the Treasury; but that I cannot undertake to fix the date at which the decision of the Treasury will be arrived at.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether any, and if so, what, reply has been received to the promised inquiry as to the fatal cases of vaccination in the Island of Rügen?

Her Majesty's Ambassador at Berlin has not yet forwarded the Report which was called for in accordance with the suggestion of the hon. Member; but His Excellency's attention will again be called to the matter.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether, under the new Convention with Spain, goods, the produce of British Colonies, entering Spain or Spanish Colonies, will enjoy most favoured nation treatment?

Her Majesty's Government are no less desirous to secure any commercial benefits for our Colonies than for the Mother Country, and they have therefore taken care to secure that goods and manufactures, the produce of British Colonies, should enjoy under the new Convention with Spain, when ratified, most favoured nation treatment in Spain and the Spanish Colonies.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether fishermen in a boat belonging to the American fishing vessel D. J. Adams recently entered the basin of Annapolis and purchased bait while within three miles of the shore of Nova Scotia; whether Article 1 of the United States Convention of 1818, which now regulates all questions of fishery rights on those coasts as between American and British subjects, specifically forbids American fishermen from approaching within the three miles limit except for purposes of shelter, repairing damages, and purchasing wood or water; whether the D. J. Adams has in consequence been arrested by the British authorities; whether any other cases of illegal infringement of the existing fishery agreements have been reported to Government during the past six weeks; and, whether, seeing that Her Majesty's Government promised on April 19th to spare no efforts to settle any disputes that might arise as to the exercise of fishery rights under the 1818 Convention, steps are now being taken to arrange this particular dispute, and also permanently to terminate so unsatisfactory a state of affairs?

I beg to refer the hon. Member to the answer given in the House last night to the Question of the hon. Member for Central Sheffield by the Under Secrecretary of State for the Colonies, to whom Questions on this subject had better be addressed. Another case of seizure occurred last April, in which the United States vessel was released. In regard to the last paragraph of the hon. Member's Question, Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that until the facts of the case of the D. J. Adams have been established, it would be premature to consider the question of any diplomatic action.

asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, If the French Ambassador has been given clearly to understand that Her Majesty's Government cannot upon any consideration entertain His Excellency's proposals for the further acquisition by France of the New Hebrides Islands on the Australian Coast, and the consequent abandonment of the valuable work of civilisation among its independent native population of the British Presbyterian Church?

There appears to be some misunderstanding on this question both here and in the Colonies. The facts are simply these. The French Government some time ago laid certain proposals before Her Majesty's Government, embodying a declaration on their part that they would not send any convicts to the Pacific, and a consent on our part to the French Government occupying the New Hebrides. Her Majesty's Government were of opinion that this proposal, which would put an end to the question of sending any convicts to the Pacific, was worth full consideration; but that in no case could it be entertained, excepting under three conditions—(1) that it provided full protection and freedom for religion and for trade in the New Hebrides; (2) that it was accompanied by the cession of the Island of Rapa; and (3) that the opinion of the Australasian Colonies, to which Her Majesty's Government attached the greatest importance, should first be ascertained. The Earl of Rosebery informed the French Ambassador that it was necessary to consult the Australasian Colonies, and that, therefore, no answer could be given till the end of April; but he did not disguise from the French Ambassador that, in his opinion, it was, to say the least, improbable that the Colonies would assent to the French proposals. The telegraphic answers from the Colonies are unfavourable, excepting those from New South Wales and New Zealand, of which the Governments were disposed to entertain the plan. M. Waddington has been privately informed by the Earl of Rosebery of the nature of these answers, and of the probable result; but no formal reply has been given, as the correspondence with the Colonies is not yet complete.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, If he has received the Resolutions from the Association of Irish Non-Subscribing Presbyterians, passed at a meeting in Belfast, on Tuesday 11th May 1886, which contain the following passage:—

"That the peace and prosperity of Ireland and the satisfaction of the just aspirations of her people are dear to all its members, and they will welcome any measure in which these objects are adequately recognised; but that they firmly and respectfully reject the overtures embodied in the provisions of the Government Bill on the grounds that this measure, by subverting the present Constitution, which preserves the rights and liberties of Ireland through the legislation of the Imperial Parliament, will introduce fresh conflicts in Ireland, will disturb the public confidence essential to economic welfare, and will stimulate the sentiment of separation from Great Britain;"

and, if he will lay his reply upon the Table of the House?

Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that Question I should like to ask him if he is aware that this meeting was attended by only 26 persons; also that an Amendment declaring approval of the policy and the measure of the right hon. Gentleman was supported by one-third of the meeting; and whether he is aware that the hon. Gentleman who puts this Question has of late repeatedly and publicly advised his friends to base the success of their opposition to the policy of the Government not on resolutions, but on rifles?

I think this is a Question which does not arise fairly out of the Question on the Paper, nor do I think it ought to be answered.

I will not make any comment whatever on the Question of the hon. Member. Whether it be a fit subject in any respect for remark at the present moment or not I reserve for further consideration and for the opportunities which debate may legitimately offer; but at present I confine myself to the Question. It is not for me to say that the meeting which has taken place requires the Parliamentary Notice which the hon. Member has given it; but as he has given it that Notice, I think the Notice ought to be a little more complete than he has made it. He does not appear to have read the entire document that proceeded from these gentlemen.

If the right hon. Gentleman will pardon me for interrupting him, I asked the Clerk at the Table if I could put in the entire document, and I was told I could not.

That shows, I think, the difficulty of putting partial Questions of this kind. My contention is that the paragraph, as it stands, does not represent the genuine and legitimate feeling of the meeting, or of the majority referred to by the hon. Member opposite. I hope I may be permitted somewhat to enlarge the reference made to the sentiments of this meeting. The paragraph, I believe, is a perfectly genuine one; but the meeting followed it up by saying—and they do this in order to strengthen their argument advanced in the paragraph quoted—

"That they feel themselves justified by their previous attitude to measures of the Prime Minister, especially his disestablishment policy, in urging upon him to withdraw the Bill with a view to a policy which shall more maturely deal with the difficulties of the Irish Question, and that in urging this course on Mr. Gladstone they believe they are expressing not merely their own convictions of what is right, but the view also of a not inconsiderable body of Irishmen who have appreciated most highly the spirit and the power of his leadership."

That is what has prevented him from reading out the later paragraphs. I am glad the hon. Member has enabled me to bring this under the notice of the House. With respect to my reply, I do not think it is worthy of being enshrined in a Parliamentary Paper. It is not very long, and I am perfectly willing to read it to the hon. Member if it be agreeable to the House—

"Sir, I am desired by Mr. Gladstone to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 11th instant, forwarding a copy of a resolution passed at the special meeting of the Association of Irish Non-Subscribing Presbyterians on the subject of the Bill for the future Government of Ireland. While regretting that the Association are unable to approve the Bill, Mr. Gladstone is glad to be reminded that he has been in harmony with them on many occasions. He observes, also, with satisfaction that they perceive there is an Irish question which they wish to be seriously dealt with; and he has no doubt if Parliament should deem further time to be required for treating the particulars of the measure in a satisfactory manner, it will in the course of the free discussion now proceeding make known its wish accordingly."

, in rising to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, it is expedient to raise a larger portion of the Revenue of the Country from Import Duties, and that such Duties should be levied on certain descriptions of fully manufactured Foreign goods, entering into competition with similar goods of our own make; and that the Revenue so obtained should be applied to the reduction of the Duties on tea, coffee, and cocoa, and of other burdensome imposts,"

said: The Motion of which I have given Notice may be objected to on the ground that it amounts to a proposal to resort to an exploded policy of Protection. An Amendment has been put upon the Paper by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Howell) in which such a view is set forth. I have no doubt the hon. Member will advocate his Amendment with ability and fairness; but I hope that the House will not too hastily conclude that this is a mere Motion for the revival of old-fashioned Protection. I think I shall be able to show that it is something very different from that. I shall submit that the measures which I have ventured to suggest would have the double effect of enriching the Revenue and of tending to improve the condition of some of our great industries. That there is much room for improvement in both these directions cannot, I think, be contested in any quarter of the House. The work of carrying on the Government of the country becomes more and more costly year by year. In 1850 the sum of £55,000,000 sufficed to meet the Expenditure of the State; but in 1885 £100,000,000 was demanded of us, and this year we are required to pay £90,000,000. Now, while this increase in Expenditure has been going on, the means of raising the requisite money have been contracted in pursuance of a policy adopted 40 years ago, when we had a totally different set of circumstances to deal with. There has been of late years no increase at all in the elasticity of the Revenue; on the contrary, we have noticed, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has called the attention of the House to the fact, that every source from which we obtain Revenue is somewhat on the decline. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has, indeed, this year discovered some encouraging symptoms in the increased consumption of foreign eggs, bacon, and rabbit-skins; but I am not able to say that this discovery has tended to remove; the uneasiness and anxiety which hangs so heavily over the manufacturing districts. The smaller class of tradesmen in the country are suffering to a degree which few persons outside that class can conceive; there are thousands of them; who would have been far better off today had they retired from business four or five years ago. The middle class, as we call it, feels also with increasing severity the pressure of taxation. The Income Tax is a heavy burden on many persons who are ordinarily accounted rich, but who find it very difficult at the close of the year to solve the homely problem of making both ends meet. The facts and figures show that the working classes are by no means as well off as many people suppose them to be. We are, indeed, constantly assured that; the working classes were never so prosperous as they are now. But there can be no doubt whatever that the working classes are suffering grievously though silently. The Returns of their Friendly Societies, if we could get access to them, would prove that fact beyond all dispute. There are one or two of these Societies which have made known a few important facts bearing on that point—for instance, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers has informed the country that it had 4,000 men on its funds at the beginning of the year. The Society of Carpenters and Joiners also had 3,904 men on its funds; and it is well known that the drain upon the resources of these Societies has been growing more and more severe for the last two or three years. As for the volume of trade, it is, taken alone, an utterly delusive test of the prosperity of a nation. The argument is that as long as the quantities go up it does not matter much how far the values go down. You are to look at the quantities alone as the test of a nation's prosperity. That is to say, that if tradesmen and merchants are selling a larger quantity of goods this year than they did last, it is quite immaterial to ask them at what price they are selling them, or at what profit. This is the scientific way of looking at it; but it is not the way in which the matter is looked at by merchants and tradesmen who are obliged to make their books balance at the end of the year, and who could never do so on this principle. That the decline of the value of our commerce is very great can easily be ascertained by anybody who will refer to the Board of Trade Returns. No doubt, if I were to make any statement which I did not prove, I should be instantly contradicted; therefore, I feel it my duty to support my statements by the facts which I have been able to procure. As to the declining values of some of our chief commodities, I desire to call the attention of the House to the fact that we exported cotton goods in 1880 to the value of £63,662,443; in 1884 that had fallen to £58,935,154. In iron and steel our exports amounted in 1880 to £28,390,000 in 1884 they had fallen to £24,496,000. Chemical products, which the Earl of Beaconsfield looked upon, and rightly, as testing the condition of many trades, sank from £2,384,000 in 1880 to £1,403,000 in 1884. Linen manufacture showed a falling off of about £700,000. Concurrently with this downward movement, there has been an ominous decline in the value of some of the imports of the raw material of our industries. We are not only exporting less, but naturally we are importing less of the raw material of some of our manufactures. I will take raw cotton as an example. In 1882 we imported raw cotton to the value of £46,654,570; it fell to £45,047,796 in 1883, and to £44,485,889 in 1884. These figures are not often adduced in discussions of this kind, because it is much more convenient to assert that any proposal having the end that I have before me is a stupid, ignorant, and mischievous Protectionist proposal; it being always easier to abuse an argument than to answer it. But I can assert that in Lancashire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire these facts are sinking deeply into the minds of the working classes. I would not be understood to say a disrespectful word of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Howell), who has placed a Notice of Amendment to my Resolution upon the Paper; but I would call the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that the industry with which he is best acquainted and most familiar is the one which is least likely to be affected by foreign competition; nor is it, indeed, in London at all that we shall first see the serious results of unfair foreign competition and hostile tariffs. We shall first find them in the great centres of our industries. One of those centres I myself have the honour to represent; and I can most truly assert that there is no question there which so touches the interests of working men—there is not a Scotch or English question—not even the Irish Question—which so deeply concerns the working men as this question of the conditions under which they carry on their own trade. One is frequently met on the threshold of the discussion by a denial that any serious depression exists. Only a few nights ago in this House I heard the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Bryce) give it as his opinion that the degree of commercial depression had been much exaggerated. I do not think that he will find a dozen men engaged in business who will agree with him. On the 6th of this month, the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers) told the House that—

"I certainly believe that the panic itself has been mightily exaggerated. I am quite ready to admit that the Manchester cotton spinners are badly off, and if the time were suitable I could give a reason for it. I believe, further, that the coal and iron industries, except in the case of intelligent men like my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Bernhard Samuelson), are suffering, and I think a good case could be made out to show that the agricultural interest is in a state of great depression; but the depression is either temporary or remedial. I do not believe that the great mass of the industry of the country is in a state of depression. I find that pauperism is decreasing; that the deposits in the savings' banks are increasing; and that, on the whole, the extra penny of Income Tax produces as much as it did before. Of course, I shall be told that the officials at Somerset House look after it more sharply than they did. That, no doubt, is one of the explanations the panic-mongers are always prepared to offer; but I believe that one of the most mischievous things which has occurred in this country is the incessant declamation about the depression of trade, and that if the facts were really known it would be found that the public at large have been gulled."—(3 Hansard, [305] 447–8.)

It seems, then, that we may have the cotton industry depressed, the coal trade depressed, the iron trade depressed, and the agricultural industry depressed, and yet we may still have the main sources of industry in the country remain in a flourishing state. I should like to know where the hon. Member for Southwark supposes that the main industries of the country are carried on? Of course, it would not be worth while, having an admission such as this before us, to go into the assertions just quoted and show their inaccuracy; but it is a great inaccuracy to assert that pauperism is decreasing. The fact is, that at the end of 1883 the number of paupers in the country was 714,704, and at the end of 1885 it was 743,478. The hon. Member is, I believe, a distinguished Professor; but it is an unlucky circumstance that Professors generally have thus far shown themselves unable to get a good tight hold of this Trade Question. It is not a subject to be settled, or even to be understood, by the application of what they are accustomed to call fixed laws and immutable principles. It can only be comprehended by going out into the actual world of trade and ascertaining what is really taking place there, and not what ought to be taking place if theories are working well. Anyone who does that will find that our great industries are no longer expanding in accordance with the increase of population; while some of them are absolutely declining. I shall be obliged to prove this statement in order that it may not be contradicted at a subsequent period of the evening, and I will very briefly mention a few facts to the House which I think are certain not to be contested. In Macclesfield, prior to 1860, there were 55 mills at work, employing 14,000 hands. There are now 30 mills entirely closed, and not more than 6,000 or 7,000 hands find employment. Mr. Dixon, the President of the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce, stated to the Royal Commission lately that the value of house property in that town had gone down 30 or 40 per cent, and the value of land outside the town at least 40 per cent. He further said—

"Then there are the American duties. I had a fine trade with America about 25 years ago—a magnificent trade. I had an agent there who was paid £400 a-year to keep stock there, and who did a big business. It is all gone, and I do not send sixpenny worth to the United States to-day."

The cotton trade, which some Members representing London constituencies seem to think is a matter of extremely little consequence, is in a state calculated to excite the most serious anxieties of those who have a large capital at stake in it. I do not state this as a mere matter of theory, but as a matter of fact, after personal inquiry throughout the larger part of the cotton district. But, lest my opinion should be regarded as of no concern, I would ask the House to look into the valuable Report of the Royal Commission on the Depression of Trade, where they will find a great body of evidence on the subject. I will only, however, trouble the House with one locality as an example of what I mean, and I will take the best locality which can be found in the whole of the country—namely, Oldham. I choose that because it represents more than one-fourth of the whole cotton spinning trade in Great Britain. The mills in Oldham are fitted up with the best and newest machinery. The co-operative system is largely adopted; immense amounts of capital have been invested, and great enterprize has been shown, and yet the Spinning Companies, which made on an average 7 per cent in 1882, and 7½ per cent in 1883, made but 5 per cent in 1884, and returned actual losses in 1885. Mr. S. Andrew, the Secretary to the Oldham Master Cotton Spinners' Association, makes the following important statement:—

"But what I say is, that the margin between the raw material and the manufactured article is less than ever it has been before in the history of the trade, at least for the last 30 years; and that, therefore, in that sense, trade is more depressed to-day than it has been during that time."

There is universal depression; and no one, I believe, who represents the cotton districts in this House, will assert that the trade of any district is advancing in proportion to the increase of the population. In other branches of trade it is getting but too common for the manufacturers to remove their capital and their means of carrying on their business to other countries. That is being done to a much greater extent than many people in London are aware of, and if continued it will inflict misfortunes upon the working classes such as few of us, I believe, dream of at this moment. It is by no means difficult to drive capital away from any country. It may be done by over-taxation; it may be done by offering to foreign nations undue advantages; it may be done by menaces and threats used sometimes in political controversies; but when once capital is driven away it is not so easy to tempt it back again, nor will it be easy to send our working people after it. The working classes at present are completely bewildered by what they see going on around them. The silk weavers, to whom I have referred, went down without a struggle; but then they belonged to what is called a weak industry, and, of course, weak industries ought to perish—at any rate, so the philosophers say. I, for my part, deeply regret to see any industry of this country perish; I deeply regret to see an industry belonging to this country—an ancient and once profitable industry—die out as the silk trade is doing. I think it is a national misfortune. Do you suppose that 1,500,000 operatives engaged in the cotton and textile industries will sink so quietly? At this moment they see their employment going from them; they see the mills going upon short time, and they do not understand what it is that is hurting them. When they do understand it—and the truth is beginning to dawn upon their minds—you will find that there will arise a Rights of Labour Question in England which will astound many eminent statesmen, and cause some of the philosophers to wish that they had never been born. Now, the existence of this depression is sometimes admitted. Occasionally, even in this House, it is admitted; but it is generally coupled with brilliant predictions that it will pass over soon—that it is a thing of yesterday, and to-morrow it will be gone. Now, I should like to know upon what bases these sanguine predictions of returning prosperity are founded. Practical men can see very little sign, if any, of renewed prosperity. They may hope for better days, but they cannot point to any signs of their return. The truth is, that the whole conditions under which we are trading with the rest of the world have been entirely changed since 1846. At that period the kind of manufactures which were required for the daily use of mankind could not be obtained by foreign nations unless they came to us for them. They had not learned to make them for themselves. They sent us their cotton, or their corn, and we sent them back our manufactures; and while that system lasted I need not say that nothing could be more advantageous to the nation. There are many perfectly honest and simple-minded persons who believe that this system is in operation to this hour. Mr. Cobden thoroughly believed that it would remain in existence for an indefinite period. He said, some years ago—

"If we bought corn largely from America, the Americans would be obliged to take our manufactures from us in exchange. This would lead to an increased demand for labour in the manufacturing districts, which would necessarily be attended with a rise of wages, in order that the goods might be made for the purpose of exchanging for the corn brought from abroad."

Now, that is the way the system did work for a time; but a great change has come over it. America to-day actually does not buy enough commodities of us to serve as an equivalent for the raw cotton which we are obliged to buy of her. In 1844 we purchased of her raw cotton to the value of over £31,000,000; our total exports to her of our products and manufactures was valued at £24,500,000. We bought goods of her of various kinds to the value of £86,250,000; and our sales to her, as just quoted, brought in only £24,500,000. That is the condition under which we are carrying on trade with the United States. Let me refer the House to the statements of Mr. Ellis, Chairman of the well-known firm of John Brown and Company, and other large establishments. He was asked before the Royal Commission—

"Is it the case that those from whom we are importing this considerable supply of food are taking in return an increased amount of our produce?"

He said—

"No; it is not."

"You agree," he was asked—

"that that must react upon those who are engaged in the manufacture of products which might be exchanged for that imported food, and that diminished employment in consequence results in the diminished production of wealth in this country?"

He said—

"It must be so."

Mr. Lord, of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, testifies that

"Many trades that formerly had their centre in Birmingham, solely for the world's supply, are now distributed for competition between four or five different countries.

And so it is with the trades of other districts. Now, in former days it was held to be the duty of every practical statesman to modify the commercial system of a country in accordance with the changing attitude of that country towards foreign nations. This was the principle laid down in this House by Mr. Huskisson, and quoted more than once as authoritative and binding upon us by Sir Robert Peel. Mr. Huskisson, on the 21st of March, 1825, said in this House that he recommended certain changes—

"Because the circumstances and state of the world have changed; and it becomes us, as practical statesmen, to deal with those [commercial] interests with a reference to that change…. General theories," he added, "however incontrovertible in the abstract, require to be weighed with a calm circumspection, to be directed by a temperate discretion, and to be adapted to all the existing relations of society, with a careful hand, and a due regard to the establishments and institutions which have grown up under those relations."—(New Series, [12] 1098.)

Sir Robert Peel quoted that statement of Mr. Huskisson, and asked the House whether these were not the words of practical wisdom? Most people, if they approached the subject with fair and open minds, would answer "yes;" but in these days we are, as we think, more enlightened. We maintain that we have devised a commercial system which is beyond reach of change or improvement, and which must remain unalterable for all time to come, no matter what course may be pursued by the rest of the world, or what the condition of our own working men may be. I say that no one ever lived, or ever will live, who will be able to devise such a system of trade as that. It must be modified to suit the changing circumstances around us, in our own condition, and in the necessities of the working men. If the world changes its attitude towards you, you must change yours towards the world. This is part of the "immutable law," if philosophers only knew it. But we say we will never depart from the principles of 1846, and foreigners most earnestly commend our firmness and hope we shall stick to it. It enables them to come into this country and compete with us, and with our workmen, on terms of every possible sort of disadvantage to us. They say that if they can support their own industries they can always find a market for their surplus products, as they can pour them in upon us at any price—at unnaturally depreciated prices—not fairly competing with us at all, but competing at prices below the fair level. In that way they can make their industries flourish no matter what may happen to ours. Now, I maintain that even if a certain amount of cheapness were the result of this—if, for instance, you could buy foreign cotton goods in this market at a smaller price than you could buy similar goods of our own make—I do not hesitate to assert that it would not be an advantage to this country. It would not, in the case I have referred to, be an advantage to this country to buy cheaper cotton goods if our great cotton industry were weakened thereby. You cannot injure any great industry without bringing losses and misfortunes upon thousands of persons who stand beyond the circle of that industry. It used to be thought in this country that you could injure the agricultural interest, and that the manufacturing interest would still flourish. Well, we are paying dearly for that piece of folly, and shall have to pay more dearly still hereafter. The old theory was—and I dare say we shall be told pretty much the same thing again, presently—that consumers alone must be studied. But what the thousands of working men distributed throughout this country begin to understand is that you cannot have a nation of consumers unless they are first producers. It is quite impossible that you can proceed upon the theory that you are founding your industries and carrying on your trade for the benefit of consumers, leaving out of regard altogether the producers. I would not, however, venture to state to the House any opinion of my own upon this subject, because I can give it the opinion of one who is a high authority. I am quite sure hon. Members will receive with respect the opinion of the present Prime Minister on this important person, the consumer. In receiving a deputation of various Trade Councils on the 18th of May, 1881, he said—

"We do not regard with any satisfaction the system under which an artificial advantage is given in our markets to the products of foreign labour, the principle to be observed being that of equality. Some people say it is a good thing, because the consumer gets the benefit of it; but I do not think that any benefit founded on inequality and injustice can bring good even to the consumer."

Now, I will quote one more piece of testimony from the other side of the House. I do not know whether the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. John Morley) is a political economist or not, but I suppose he would be regarded as some sort of authority. I will give the House what he said on the point some years ago—

"The orthodox doctrine has been that the interests of civilization are best promoted by the supply of his goods to the consumer at the lowest possible rate."

I need not, perhaps, say that this speech was not made in the House. It was calculated for the meridian of Lancashire. He went on—

"But the social idea interposes. It is clear, on reflection, that the economic proposition is not really tenable, and that nobody acts as if it were so."

So much for the consumer. Inequality and injustice, the Prime Minister says, are to be avoided. Well, these are the very things that our working men are now complaining of. What they say—and, of course, the subject presents itself to them in a very simple fashion—is, "We see that the foreigner will not take a single thing that we make without putting heavy taxes upon it, and the wise people up in London, the great philosophers and statisticians say—'That does not hurt you, but the foreigner who puts the tax on.' But our masters tell us that it has had the effect of diminishing the demand for our goods in America, and Germany, and every other country; and, therefore, it does hurt us very considerably." They say—"This is very unfair indeed, and there ought to be some means of putting a tax upon foreign goods also which come into direct competition with ours." It may be said that our workmen have not been properly trained; but if you look around a little further beyond the sphere of our workmen, you discover something which, I think, must often astonish hon. Gentlemen who have been brought up to take a certain narrow view of this question, and who never look beyond it. It is that every nation on the face of the earth adopts the system which I desire to recommend, only carrying it to a very much greater extent than I am prepared to advise. What they say is—"Foreigners who come to our ports, who have the advantage of our commercial facilities, of our police and everything else that they require, ought to pay, and shall pay, a certain proportion of keeping up the Government." And, as we are all aware, they have pursued that course for years and years. It is not because they have not been pelted incessantly with Cobden Club pamphlets that they have not abandoned it. There have been enough Cobden Club pamphlets and leaflets discharged upon America almost to bury it alive. I have seen the air white in that country with Cobden Club pamphlets, and, of course, the general effect of them is to deepen the belief of every foreign nation which receives them in the virtue and value of Protection. It is the most protective influence that I am aware of in existence at this moment. I am personally always delighted to assist in the dispersal of these documents, as an agency for promulgating my own opinions. You will find, on turning over these invaluable pamphlets, and you will also hear in other quarters, of the "Large Free Trade Party in the United States." But it is only in this country that you hear of that Party. When you go to the United States, naturally enough the first thing you do on getting up in the morning is to go out and look for the Free Trade Party. But you never see it, for the simple reason that it is not there. All the Free Traders in any State in the Union might easily be put into a one-horse omnibus without the slightest inconvenience either to the horse or to themselves. There is, no doubt, a large party who demand tariff reform; but tariff reform is a very different thing from what we mean by Free Trade. The Tariff Reformer in the United States is no more adverse to the system of raising the chief part of the Revenues required at the Custom House than the out-and-out Protectionist; and if any one on the other side of the House says the American tariff reformer is the right thing to be, I say that I am a tariff reformer, and earnestly desire to see that kind of American Free Trade adopted here. But we say that the Americans on this subject are a poor benighted set of people—we say that they do not know their own interests, and that they ought to come to us to be taught the elements of political economy. Well, I have no doubt the Americans would come to us to be taught political economy, or anything else, if they could see their way to make it pay; but what they contend is, that this is not a question of political economy at all, but a question of the welfare and prosperity of their people. And they point to the result of their system as affording the clearest proof of the superior advantage of their policy. We hear a great deal of our prosperity since 1846, and no doubt we shall hear a great deal more about it presently; but I should like to know very much what our prosperity has been, compared with that of the United States, during the last 25 years? Why, there is nothing in the history of mankind at all to be compared with it for a single instant. I could quote evidence on the question almost without limit; but my time, I know, is brief, and I am anxious not to overburden the House with evidence, in order that I may not unnecessarily occupy even a moment of time. I must, however, call the attention of the House to the fact that the growth of America and American industries has had nothing to do with its land; but that the pure growth of its industries under the system of Protection has been simply startling. In 1850 there were only 957,000 hands, all told, employed in American manufactures; in 1880 there were 2,700,000. In 1850 the whole produce of American manufactures was valued at a little over $1,000,000,000. In 1880 it amounted to $5,369,000,000. Between 1871 and 1883 the increase of cotton worked up by the Americans was 569,000,000 lbs.; our increase was only 362,000,000 lbs. Now, if everything withers up under Protection, if Protection is fatal to the growth of industries, I hope that some ingenious Member will be so kind as to explain how it is that America has made this wonderful progress, and what right she has to these industries at all under such an unsound system as Protection. The fact is that America must be a standing wonder to everybody who believes that a protected system is necessarily fatal to industry. We are told that we must not tax foreign goods, because to do that would be a violation of the sacred principle of Free Trade. Well, Sir, it seems to me sometimes that there are very few sacred principles beyond the reach of violation in these days. We have recently heard, on very high authority, that there is no such thing in the British Constitution as a fundamental law. And as for political economy—poor political economy!—that is bundled out of the window unceremoniously whenever it is in the way. Hon. Gentlemen opposite often tell us that the Democracy is bound to be victorious over other forces in the State. ["Hear, hear!"] Well, I am not going to dispute that; but let me tell those hon. Members that the triumph, when it comes, will be accompanied by some results for which they are little prepared. The first thing which the triumphant Democracy will demand will be high, if not protective, tariffs. ["Oh, oh!"] It is easy to say "Oh, oh!" but if anyone who says it will point out to me a single Democracy on the face of the earth that is not protective he will be doing a substantial service to his side of the question. You cannot alter facts by crying "Oh, oh!" in the House of Commons. There is no important Democracy on the face of the earth at this moment which has not adopted high or protective tariffs. You would suppose that the Americans certainly do not need Protection for their agriculture, yet they have a duty equal to 5s. a-quarter on corn, they have a duty on cheese, a duty on butter, and commodities of that kind, all of which they produce in vast quantities and send over to this country. I regret to say that more "Cheshire" cheese comes from America than from that part of the country I have the honour to represent. In France, again, the peasantry have repeatedly demanded a higher duty on agricultural produce; and if anyone supposes that when the land of this country is divided into small allotments, the cultivator will stand by sweetly smiling whilst the foreigner comes in and undersells him, he must be a dreamer of dreams. The facts will be too much for that theory, and it will perish with the rest of the theories which were good enough 40 years ago. Though they were good enough in 1846, they have no real applicability to the circumstances in which we find ourselves placed in 1886. Sir, the subject is much too vast for me to hope to do more than touch the mere surface of it. I would only point out that what our working men at present seek is not a protective tariff. What they ask for is only a moderate scale of duties upon manufactured goods. ["No, no!"] Well, my constituents ask for it. I am returned to this House by as large a number of working men as any single Member opposite. ["No, no!"] I was elected to this House by more than half of the total possible vote of my constituency, and they ask for such duties; and perhaps hon. Members will condescend to permit me to speak for my own constituents. They ask that a moderate duty should be put upon goods which come into direct competition with their own; and it would be no answer to them to assert, even if it were true, that political economists are against it. But it is not true. People only think it is true, because they will not read books on political economy. I do not blame them, because of all the dry, despairing books to get through those on political economy are the worst. I have here some extracts from the great political economists—from Adam Smith downwards; and if I were not afraid of wearying the House and exhausting my time I would read them. I will, however, assert that everybody who goes through Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, and the works of other writers, will find that they never deny that it is good policy for one nation to put duties upon the commodities of another nation, in return for a similar policy adopted towards themselves. I will read to the House three lines from another authority on the subject, who says—

"The only mode in which a country can save itself from being a loser by the revenue duties imposed by other countries on its commodities is to impose corresponding revenue duties on theirs."

That was written by John Stuart Mill, who used to be accounted a good enough Liberal for anybody or anything. Perhaps now he would not be reckoned such an high authority; but, at any rate, his authority was great. Now, what are the causes of the existing depression? They vary very much in different localities. I hope no hon. Member will do me the injustice of supposing that I am going to assert that moderate duties on imported goods will have the effect of restoring all the industries of this country. I do not put forward any such absurd theory; but it is highly important to ascertain, as I have already endeavoured to show that there is depression, what are the causes of that depression? Now, there are two causes to which nearly all the Chambers of Commerce agree in tracing it, at least in part—namely, foreign competition and hostile tariffs. The evidence may be found in the Reports of the Royal Commission; but a few, a very few, extracts, by way of indicating the nature of that evidence, I will ask permission to give.

"These are at the bottom of all our troubles,"

reports the Chamber of Commerce for Barnsley and district to the Royal Commission. Cardiff reports—

"Hostile tariffs have materially affected our iron and steel trades."

Huddersfield complains of

"The large import of foreign yarns, which is monthly increasing, and gradually beating down the home spinner in our own markets."

Leeds reports—

"Foreign tariffs have seriously injured the trade of this district."

These are the Reports of the Chambers of Commerce. Then, the Liverpool General Brokers' Association say that the effects of foreign competition are "very serious," and that foreign tariffs are "ruining some important trades." The Bleachers' Association declare that they are suffering from excessive import duties. The North of England Iron Manufacturers' Association send word that foreign tariffs and bounties

"Have annihilated almost all trade with Germany, Russia, France, Spain, and the United States of America."

The Paper Makers' Association earnestly desire "perfectly Free Trade with other countries," and declare

"That the tendency of much modern legislation has been to handicap the British manufacturer as against his foreign competitor."

I have many more extracts here, but I refrain from reading them. The whole tenour of these Reports is that foreign competition and hostile tariffs, between them, are murdering British commerce. It ought not to be so. They ought to benefit British commerce. The more competition and Protection in the world, the better it will be for us as Free Traders. So say the theorists. But it does not work so in practice. Let a man turn his eyes from the books on political economy, or his rows of statistics, and look at the world around him. He will see that the machinery is not working as he supposed, and that something has gone wrong with it. The Birmingham Chamber of Commerce — Birmingham, of all places in the world—traces the cause of depression partly to "foreign competition in neutral markets." Neutral markets! This statement will very much astonish many distinguished persons who have been systematically assuring us that Americans and other nations cannot compete with us in neutral markets. I have briefly endeavoured to show that in these subjects the Professors have put themselves out of court. They will have to go through a course of practical training, and endeavour to study the real causes which are at work in producing depressed trade, before their evidence is entitled to be heard. But why is it that so many of these wise men imagine that foreign nations cannot get into neutral markets? What is there to prevent them? If people who hold to the delusion that Americans and others cannot compete with us there would but look into the Consular Reports of which we have heard lately in this House, their eyes would be opened. In Japan the trade of the United States is now nearly as great as our own. In Shanghai and other Chinese ports our Consuls report that Lowell is threatening Manchester. In India American competition is daily becoming more formidable. We, ourselves, spend nearly £5,000,000 a-year in buying their manufactures—not much, it may be said; but I would rather see this £5,000,000 spent in articles made by English men and women. I believe it would be better for us. The American and Swiss watch trade is utterly ruining our own; in fact, there is no description of trade in which foreign competition is not making itself felt more and more. Of course, it must be understood that we are only at the beginning of this business. It cannot be shown, nor do I wish to show, that the amount of foreign goods coming in here is equal to the amount of our goods going into foreign countries; but the advantage the foreigner is gaining over us is increasing, and is affecting us more and more every year. You may depend on it that it will increase. There is nothing to stop it. When there is a surplus of any description of foreign goods in any foreign market it is poured in upon ours, and sold for what it will fetch. ["Hear, hear!"] Though some one says "Hear, hear!" I must, for my own part, repeat the assertion that I have made, that I do not consider that mere cheapness is everything in such a question as this. If you ruin your own industries, the cheapness of the foreign goods which you buy will not make you richer. Since foreign competition is thus inflicting practical injury upon us, according to the Reports of these Chambers of Commerce, what I want to ask is why you should not raise revenue from it? That principle, as I have shown, is adopted by every other nation. I desire that a portion, at least, of the Revenue which we require should be raised from duties upon certain descriptions of goods. It will be said—"Produce your list; you are only dealing with the matter in an abstract manner, and there are no goods on which you could levy a tax." Well, before I sit down I will produce a list. I do not wish to deal in an abstract manner with this question. I have the deepest conviction of its importance to the working classes of the country, and I will produce a list presently. But what I wish to point out is that, although I am well aware that I shall not be successful in my object to-night, yet that we shall be compelled to adopt the system I propose by two irresistible forces—the one is the stress of our own necessities, and the other is the demands of our working men. They will insist, in spite of all the doctrinaires in the world, and of all the sleepers in the enchanted palace of 1846, in having fair play for their industries. At present, they are told that there cannot be any distress among them, because pauperism is not increasing. I never heard such an argument as that produced on a Conservative platform. If you want to be told that nothing will be done for the working classes until they are registered as paupers, it appears to me that one has to go to the so-called Liberals. Now, Sir, I think that is a most cruel and a most delusive and misleading test to apply to them. Before the working man subjects himself to what he considers, and I think rightly considers, the great disaster of going to the workhouse for food or for shelter, he will pass through such depths of suffering as few can have any conception of. He will part with everything—with his clothing, with his furniture, with the very bed on which he sleeps, and when everything is gone—when he sees that all is over—not a few of them have turned round and calmly faced the most terrible of deaths—death by starvation—rather than go to the workhouse, and bring this disgrace upon themselves and their children. Is that a spirit which should be taken advantage of by any Party or any Government in this country? Should it be laid down as a settled principle that nothing shall be done for the working classes, and that it shall not be admitted that their trades are depressed until they are registered as paupers? All I can say is, that any Party or any Government which takes its stand on principles of that sort is doomed already, and mankind will pronounce that it deserved its fate. All the political nostrums and quack remedies it can invent will not save it. I have addressed thousands of working men—cotton operatives, and others—on this subject, and I know their feeling well. Their industries are in a depressed state. In the very borough which I represent the working men are in a condition which I do not hesitate to describe as most anxious, even if not highly alarming. Go from London—from the theorists, the philosophers, the statisticians, and the wise men who tell us there is no depression, and that it is all imagination, and in a few hours you may find yourselves in the district represented by the noble Marquess the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington), where some mills are actually falling into ruin, or in other places where the operatives have been put on short time. These are things which bring visibly before our eyes the depression of trade existing in the country, and make us confident that the men engaged in these trades will not submit for ever to be ruled by doctrinaire theories, or be told, as they are in the passage which I read from the speech of the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers), that the main industries of the country are unaffected by depression. Sir, the main industries of the country are deeply affected by depression at this moment. I am aware that I ought not to address the House at this length; but my apology must be the extremely complicated and difficult nature of the subject. I should not feel that I had done my duty if I did not candidly produce the list of articles on which I think a duty would be levied, and could be levied, without the slightest injury to any class in this country. It is, of course, only a partial list of our imports of foreign manufactured goods. The figures which I propose to give are from the Board of Trade Returns. Taking the Returns of 1884, which is the last year accessible to me—I suppose we shall get those for 1885 about Christmas — I find that we imported into this country foreign silk manufactures to the value of £10,984,073; the woollen goods imported from abroad were £8,712,032; cotton, £2,669,460; iron and steel, £2,693,422; leather, £2,234,969; alkali and chemical manufactures, £2,204,196; embroidery, cordage, and other articles, £3,125,163; glass, £1,615,716; paper, £1,403,446; iron in bars, £1,165,948; clocks and watches, £1,043,263; furniture, £1,024,888; lace, £930,890; linen manufactures, £537,339; unenumerated manufactured goods, £6,305,730, making a total of £46,650,535. These are foreign manufactured goods, every article of which we can make quite cheap enough for the supply of our own people. Upon them I would place a duty calculated at about one-third, on the average, of the various protective duties imposed by foreign countries on our own goods. Twenty per cent would produce £9,330,000; [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Sir William Harcourt): Hear, hear!] The Chancellor of the Exchequer is evidently very grateful to me for desiring to make him a present of £9,330,000; and I am not surpised at his gratitude, when I know that he has been obliged this year to resort to the humiliating device of suspending the Sinking Fund in order to raise a paltry £500,000. Therefore, when I propose to make him a present of over £9,000,000 I am not astonished at the effusive nature of his gratitude. I venture to suggest that a portion of this money might be devoted to the reduction of the duties on tea, coffee, cocoa, and other articles in daily use among the working men. Although the amount I have stated was received with derisive cheers from the officials on the Treasury Bench, yet it may be known—I suppose it must be known to any Chancellor of the Exchequer—that it considerably exceeds the amount of the proceeds of all the duties on tea, coffee, cocoa, dried fruits, and other articles which are used so much in the daily life of the working classes. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer considers this amount so contemptible, let him take it and remit the duties which press so heavily on the working men. The duty on tea, for instance, amounts to 25 per cent, and to 20 per cent on other articles in daily use by the working men. The amount raised by all the duties on tea, coffee, cocoa, raisins, currants, and similar articles, is £5,138,797. Therefore, we might take off all these unnecessary burdens and have a handsome margia left of £4,000,000, which would save us from the necessity of falling back upon the Sinking Fund to make up the inevitable deficit in next year's Budget. Now, Sir, this is the proposition which I venture most respectfully to submit to the House. I thank hon. Members for the patience with which they have listened to me, and I appeal to them not to condemn my proposition offhand on account of what has been said upon it by somebody else at some other time. I trust that they will, at least, consider the arguments which I have put before them. Especially I beg that they will give heed to the earnest appeals which come to them from working men, and will do whatever may be possible to assist the great industries in which they are engaged, and to avert the great and unmerited sufferings which are now impending over their heads. Sir, I beg to move the Resolution.

, in rising to second the Motion, said, the time was when he would not have done so, because it contained matter which was inconsistent with that following of Free Trade which had always been one of the persistent objects of his life. In his youth he was told by Mr. Cobden, to whose friendship he had the privilege of being admitted, that Free Trade was one of the greatest possible benefits that could be conferred upon any nation. He had held that view all his life long, and he had looked with hope to see the time when we should receive the benefits of Free Trade. He was quite sure that he still was, and that he would ever remain, a firm and consistent believer in the principles of Free Trade. He had seen with satisfaction the great sacrifices that had been made by this nation to become practical Free Traders; but though those sacrifices had been great, he was confident they would be recompensed if, having made them, a system of sound Free Trade were universally established. But a long time had passed since we began to make sacrifices; and he wanted to know how long we were to continue making sacrifices, when we saw, as plainly as possible, all the other nations of the world refusing to join with us in this hunt after that Free Trade which we all desired? But we had not got it. Free Trade consisted of free buying and free selling. Free buying we had got, but free selling we could not, because other nations refused to receive within their territories the goods that we sent to them. Free Trade was a very pretty game to play at if all the players would observe the rules. We did; but other countries did not, and that was the cause of our bad trade. The prosperity of the country depended upon its labour. We allowed other nations to freely compete their labour with ours; but other nations did not allow the products of our labours to go into their territories and compete with theirs. What, then, ought to be done in the altered circumstances of the case? We ought to reconsider our position. That, he believed, would be the advice of Cobden himself had he been spared to witness the failure of his bright anticipations. We had waited long enough for Free Trade, and should wait no longer—not that he should object to waiting if delay did not cause suffering to thousands of our fellow-countrymen. He waited for the realization of another dream—the prevalence of universal peace; he wrote for it, he spoke for it, he hoped for it; but he did not object to waiting for that, because by so doing he did no harm to any mortal man. But by waiting for Free Trade which never came they inflicted an infinity of suffering upon their fellow-subjects. Cobden said—"Wait for five years, by which time all the nations of the earth will have become Free Traders;" but nearly 10 times that period had passed since the utterance of that prophecy, and it was still unfulfilled. If we saw that there was no probability of foreign nations following our good example, ought we not, as sensible men, to take our own action in the matter? He would put a duty upon all commodities where the labour of the foreigner entered into competition with the labour of Englishmen, excepting always raw material—such as jute, silk, and the like—and that article of universal consumption—corn. The people had said—"Thoushalt not put a tax upon corn;" and no Minister would ever dare to commit the crime involved in its taxation. Besides, there was the echo found in the breasts of everyone to the most beautiful sentiment uttered by the lamented Sir Robert Peel. The words were engraven on his statue in Manchester—

"It may be that I should leave a name sometime remembered by expressions of goodwill in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labour and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food—the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by a sense of injustice."

Whilst, then, the English language endured it would be considered a crime to put a tax on corn. He would be told that if our domestic industries were protected many necessary articles would be made dearer. Our steam engines, our doors and windows would be a little dearer. He knew that that would be the result; but surely they would all gladly pay a little more when, with the extra cost, would come the grand satisfaction of knowing that the wages earned in the manufacture of these articles had gone into the pockets of British workmen, and were spent in the neighbourhood where the workmen resided. As matters were at present we sent hundreds of millions every year across the sea to swell the gains of the foreigner, and we never had any of the money back. Money was the life blood of a nation. Here we were letting it go too fast; we were bleeding ourselves to death. It was better to pay a little dearer for commodities than to be forced to find employment for thousands of unemployed workmen. In Manchester the unemployed were even at that moment demanding the erection of public works, for which the taxpayers would have to pay. He desired to knock down that idol of the Cobden Club called cheapness. Cheapness was not the only desirable thing. Employment was better—content and happiness were better. Several millions were spent annually in the purchase of manufactured silks coming from abroad. What a different state of things there would be in the East End of London and in the Northern districts if only half the sum so spent could find its way into the pockets of British workmen. When the imposed duties were first taken off, thousands of manufacturers and merchants were ruined, and thousands of working men were brought to destitution. It was thought that the foreigner would follow our example by abolishing his import duties; but he did not, and would not, do it. The time had come when we ought to revise our fiscal system thoroughly, taking an independent course. The reason why the members of the Cobden Club remained uninfluenced by the arguments against the continuance of our Free Trade system was that their feelings would be hurt by the admission of the failure of their doctrine. Saying, "Wait, and trust in Free Trade," they posed as soothsayers and oracles, careless of the injury done to the industries of the country. Recognizing that "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick," and seeing no probability of the realization of the Freetraders' anticipations, he trusted that the House would agree to the Motion of his hon. Friend.

, who had given Notice of the following Amendment:—

"That, in the opinion of this House, any proposal to revert to the old and discarded policy of Protection is misleading and mischievous in its tendency, and opposed to the best interests of the trade and commerce of the Country, and injurious to the welfare of the working classes,"

said, he was anxious that this question should be debated on its merits, as it had been dangled before their eyes on several occasions. He approached this subject from the standpoint of British working men, among whom he had lived and been associated with all his life, and of whom he was one now. It was very gratifying to hear from hon. Gentlemen opposite of the interest they took in the British working man. But it was a striking fact that of the 10 or 12 Members of that House who most distinctly represented the working classes not one could be found who would support such a Motion as this. So far as he knew the views of his hon. Friends, they were all on one side in this controversy. He was not a Free Trader because Free Trade was the policy of the Liberal Party, for if he felt that the opposite policy would benefit the working classes, he would, irrespective of Party, go for the protection of native industry. He was a Member of the Liberal Party because Free Trade was one of the cardinal points in its policy. He was a Cobdenite not merely because he believed in Free Trade in imports and exports, but because he believed in the whole of the large-hearted policy of that large-hearted man. The reason that the country had not yet obtained all the advantages and the blessings of Free Trade was because it had as yet only adopted a portion of that policy—that portion dealing with free imports—but had not yet crowned the edifice and secured the advantages of Free Trade in land. When hon. Gentlemen supported this, then he would have more faith in their professions of regard for the welfare of the working classes. It was said by hon. Gentlemen opposite that the democracy desired to see the imposition of import duties; but that he entirely denied. It was also said that if the labourers obtained their three acres and a cow, or their 12 acres and two cows, which would be better still, they would all become Protectionists. He was quite willing to run the risk of this. The hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Jennings) had referred to America; but that was scarcely a happy instance, for America had at present her hands full of industrial difficulties — difficulties, however, which he sincerely hoped she might surmount. Whatever view they might take with regard to her industries, or Free Trade, or Protection, it was sufficient for him to know that, so far as this country was concerned, it would be perilous in the extreme, and absolutely ruinous, to attempt to reverse the policy of Free Trade, even if the path on which they had started was wrong. It was, therefore, most injudicious and mischievous to dangle before the masses of this country the policy of Protection; for hon. Members on the other side of the House must know full well that it was now impossible for us to retrace our steps. Why did not the Conservative Party, during the five years it was in Office, from 1874 to 1879, attempt to do so if it was possible? During those years the exports fell, year by year, to an extent never witnessed in recent years. They began to fall when the Tory Government came into Office, and they continued to fall during the five years of Tory Government, only, in fact, beginning to retrieve their position when the Liberal Government came into Office in 1880. Yet the Conservative Government never made a step in the direction of Protection. They would find that the export of British and Irish goods in the last five years had increased by an average of £32,799,219 annually. Surely, as a matter of common-sense, if trade and industry were reviving to such an extent as they had done during the last five years, that could not be an argument for the re-imposition of Customs Duties on imports. There was one statement of the hon. Member for Stockport which he thought was a curious one, if the hon. Member had read the Report of the Royal Commission on Trade in its fulness. The hon. Member had said that they had not increased their exports to America, from which they imported such a large proportion of goods. In point of fact, the exports to America from this country had increased. Thirty years ago their exports to America had been £21,000,000, whereas it now amounted to £28,000,000. This whole question was a very wide and complicated one, and one in which he took considerable interest, because of his connection and association with working men. The hon. Member for Stockport had said that the textile industries in this country were in a sadly debilitated state.

What I said was that they were not flourishing in proportion to the increase of our population.

admitted that the trade of this country in many respects was not in that condition in which they would like to see it, and they would be glad to have a return to the condition of affairs that existed in 1872 and 1873. That, however, was hardly a fair way of looking at the question; what they had to deal with was the current of trade over a given number of years, and he disputed the correctness of an estimate drawn merely from this year or that year instead of a period of years. There had never been a time of greater depression and of misery to working men, except before the introduction of Free Trade, than the period of 1878–9, when trade had gone down and down in almost all respects. During the five years of Tory rule, when they had had the opportunity of dealing with this question from their own stand-point, they had imported more silk goods in the gross than in the last five years. But taking the current trade over a number of years, he maintained that progress had been continuous, with the exception of the period from 1875 to 1879, when the Tory Party was in power. During the last five years the excess of our exports of iron manufactures over the preceding five years amounted to close on £37,000,000, and in steam-engines, machinery, and other mill work alone, the increase was close on £20,000,000; and there was this singular fact—that while they were complaining of the import of foreign manufactured goods, how did the foreigner manufacture these goods? By the latest and best possible machinery made in this country, that formed one of the stable exports of this country. If hon. Members wanted to deal effectually with this question, and were to put an embargo on manufactures from abroad, they had better stop the engines and machinery made in this country for exportation, and which go from England to the Continent, and stop the emigration of English artizans. They could no more do the one than the other. As to the shipping trade of this country, those who spoke about its going to the dogs did not know anything about the statistics of the case. The truth was, that there was scarcely a single industry that did not show an improvement in its export trade during the last five years. Nearly every ship that came into their ports, whether under a British or foreign flag, went out again loaded with a greater tonnage than that with which she arrived. What did that mean? That she took away more goods than she brought. He challenged the accuracy of the hon. Member's figures as to raw materials. They must not forget, when they examined English trade, that other countries developed as well as this; and, although a patriotic Englishman, he ventured to rejoice that other countries were advancing in civilization. But he did not think there was cause for anxiety. He knew there was a fall in prices; and if by any reasonable means they could increase the prices without injuring the great masses of the people, he should be glad to see it done. Cheapness of production was not everything. Some of the things from which they suffered came directly from the manufacturers, and some of those who were called political economists, who had had too great a belief in the cheapness of production. There were other things which ought to be considered; and if English manufacturers had paid more attention to the quality of their products they would not have suffered so severely. They flooded foreign markets some years ago with inferior goods until shiploads of their goods rotted in foreign and Colonial ports, because they would not unship them. They sent so much of this shoddy material of one kind or another abroad that people began to think that they had better pay a higher price for home manufacture. The subject of technical education had been talked and inquired about for a long time, but nothing had been done for it. Our workmen were expected to compete with all the world; but they were not taught how to do it. He urged that something should be done in this direction. What he desired was that something should be done so as to bring home to our artizans quicker and better methods of production, so that in design, quality, beauty, and finish we should be able to compete with all quarters of the world. Another thing from which the trade of the country had suffered were the high railway rates; and he was glad the Government were hastening on a solution of that question. Then there was the question of mining rents and royalties, in which his hon. Friend beside him (Mr. Mason) took an interest. The truth was, that the capital of this country was locked up in too few hands, and ought to be employed in more numerous channels. But a return to more prosperous times was certainly not to be secured by the re-imposition of protective tariffs.

said, he thought no one could ignore the fact that this subject interested the constituencies of this country more keenly perhaps than any other question. He did not speak of the new agricultural constituencies, whose Representatives, as they heard the other day, were busy tasting samples of adulterated beer; but any one who had experience of the politics of large towns must be perfectly aware that when all other subjects failed the mere mention of our fiscal policy always exacted the greatest interest and attention. He was not prepared to admit that what were called the "labour" Members in that House represented, in any peculiar degree, or spoke with any special mandate from the labouring classes in this country. Who sat for the large towns in this House? The Representatives of the large industrial centres were on the Opposition Benches, not the Ministerial. ["Oh!"] Was it not so? How, then, about London? How about Liverpool, Sheffield, Oldham, Stockport, Manchester, and Leeds? How about Lancashire? The Radicals were driven out of the large towns to the uttermost parts of the country. Liberal candidates had been rejected by the great working-class constituencies, and had been forced to take refuge in the bowels of the earth—in the mines of Cornwall, in the Islands and Highlands of Scotland, in the barns and farmyards of that which its own Representatives had pictured as a beery Bœotia. He had had, unfortunately for himself, a considerable experience and a pretty long apprenticeship as a Metropolitan candidate, and had invariably found that the intelligent working man of London, at any rate, was by no means satisfied with our present tariff system, and regarded it with suspicion and misgiving. A large proportion condemned it, and they all, irrespective of Party, regarded it with an open mind and as an arguable question. The mental attitude of the working classes upon this question contrasted very favourably with that of gentlemen in high places—Cabinet and ex-Cabinet Ministers, writers of leading articles, and members of the Cobden Club, who from mere cowardice and laziness in trenched themselves behind a formula adopted 40 years ago under totally different conditions of production. He must exempt from the category of cowards and laggards the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Thorold Rogers), who, whatever his errors might be, certainly could not be accused of either cowardice or want of industry. As a matter of fact, nothing was more unhistorical or more unscientific than the attempt to exalt the doctrine of free imports into the regions of natural laws or self-evident propositions. It was thoroughly unhistorical, because we had only been a free-trading nation for the past 40 years; and it was most thoroughly unscientific, because the principle of political economy depended entirely upon the circumstances of the society to which the application was proposed. The history of Free Trade was not at all, as the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Howell) seemed to imagine, creditable to the Whigs or to the Liberal Party. The statesmen in the last century whose names were associated with Free Trade were Lord Bolingbroke and Mr. Pitt, and the opponents of the Commercial Clauses of the Treaty of Utrecht were Sir Robert Walpole and his friends. The opponent of the Commercial Treaty with France was Mr. Fox. The manufacturing classes placed themselves at the head of the movement from which they had derived all the advantage, while all the risk and sacrifice was bound to fall upon the landed classes. It was his opinion that if this country had retained low duties, instead of abolishing free duties, they would, as Greville had said in his Memoirs, have been felt by nobody, and they might have been raised at any moment if the Revenue required it. The history of Free Trade did not show the movement to be any monopoly of the Liberal Party. The truths of political economy, as he had said, depended entirely upon the condition of the society to which it was proposed to apply them. Forty years ago England enjoyed a virtual monopoly of manufactures. We wanted corn, and we knew that other countries must come to us for goods in payment for their corn. But all this had been changed. Other nations had borrowed our capital to make their railways; they had learnt our language, and stolen our patents, and copied our processes. They now ran us neck and neck in every market of the world. The electric telegraph and the adoption of a gold standard by Germany had simply revolutionized the banking business of the world; and, therefore, he said, it was perfectly impossible to maintain, from a logical point of view, that the fiscal system which was good for the country 40 years ago was good for the country at the present day. His idea of a sound commercial policy was a policy based on mutual concessions and mutual advantages—concessions and advantages to be secured, not by Cobden Club essays, but, if necessary, by a tit for tat tariff, and to be embodied in Commercial Treaties. The policy of Commercial Treaties was practised, and successfully practised, every day upon the Continent and in the United States. It was practised successfully between Spain and the United States in 1867, and between Spain and Germany in 1883. He would like to ask the House what more ridiculous result could have happened to this country than that which befel us when Mr. Cobden's Commercial Treaty expired in 1880? We sent over to Paris the right hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea and a packet of Cobden Club essays. The Parisians received them both with civility; but the result of it all was not a happy one. He did not rise to submit the Motion or the Amendment to an exhaustive analysis. He was very much afraid that the House was thoroughly debauched by the absinthe of Repeal, and was not in the condition to go deeply into this or any other question; but he rose for the purpose of showing the absurdity of treating this as a closed question, and to express his conviction that there was no subject in which the artizans of our large towns were more deeply interested, and that there was no result which they could more legitimately claim from their Representatives than this—that, as far as commercial legislation was concerned, they should be placed upon equal terms of competition with their foreign rivals.

said, the question of Free Trade had often been discussed in that House, and always with one result. He did not think that the result of that debate would differ from the result of similar debates in the past. There was no use blinking or disguising the fact that the trade of the country had lost its elasticity. In nearly every branch profits were very small; in some of them a large amount of trade was done without profit; the status of the working class was being lowered, and there were larger bodies of men unemployed, or partly employed, at the present moment than was the case 10 or 15 years ago. In these circumstances, it was not surprising that the attention of the House was frequently called to the subject. But, granted that we were suffering from long-continued and severe depression, were other countries, which had adhered to protective tariffs, any better off than we were? There had been labour riots in the United States, resulting from the same congestion of labour that there was here. There had been great depression in the iron and glass trades of Belgium; and there had been great distress in Belgium, in France, and in the United States. The strongest upholders of the protective system had been France and the United States, and they did not appear to have derived much benefit from it. The United States and France had plausible excuses for a policy of Protection, because they had something to protect — undeveloped manufactures, which, without some protection, would be exposed to fierce competition. The United States produced all the necessaries of life, and only exported its surplus of food. France produced nearly all her own food. The peculiar position of England was that her people depended upon a large importation of food and of raw materials, and there were no means of paying for them except by exports. To us, therefore, Free Trade was a matter of life and death. We had practically to import the food of one-half the population—of from 15,000,000 to 18,000,000 of people; and we had also to import the raw materials for the greater part of our manufactures. For the enormous import of food and of raw materials, amounting to about £300,000,000 sterling, we had no means of paying except by our manufactured goods. It was essential that we should be large exporters and the cheapest producers; and, unless we were the cheapest producers, our position was one of great danger. It was said we imported £2,000,000 worth of cotton goods; but we exported somewhere about £60,000,000 worth. The cotton trade depended for its existence upon our being the cheapest producers, and being able to control the foreign markets. It was the fact that we were the cheapest producers that enabled us to control the markets of India, China, South America, and Africa. In all these markets we had absolute Free Trade, or, at all events, the benefit of the Most Favoured Nation Clause, and we were, therefore, unaffected by competition. The amount of trade with those markets carried off by other countries was a mere bagatelle compared with our own. It was quite true that we were losing trade with the protected countries of the Continent and with the United States; but we were gaining trade with the British Colonies and in neutral markets. We did not possess the means of improving our position by altering our commercial policy. No doubt, our import of foreign manufactured goods, about £46,000,000 worth, was too large; and it was to be regretted that our manufacturers should not be able to reduce it by competition; but if we were to place the duties suggested upon that £46,000,000 worth of goods, what would be the effect? No doubt for a time we should give a stimulus to the trades of this country that are competed with now; for a short time there would be more profit and a greater employment of labour; but the ultimate effect would be to raise the cost of production in this country generally, and when that was done we should lessen our trade with the other countries of the world. That we should lose the command of the great neutral markets would be the inevitable effect of any policy of that kind. It was, therefore, to us a matter of life and death that we should be the cheapest producers. Still, the question arose—Why was it that other countries were able to send us any manufactured goods? Why were Belgium and France able to send us silk and woollen and iron goods? It arose from two causes. The first was that other countries had cheaper labour and longer hours of work than we had; and the second was that by the spread of technical education they had discovered finer and better processes than we had. Our remedy was to out-trump them by discovering still finer and better processes. This country was the storehouse of mechanical invention, genius, and contrivance; and it was our own fault if we permitted any foreign country to get an advantage over us by technical superiority. As to the wages and hours of other countries, the fact that the wages were lower and the hours longer at all events constituted a caution to our artizans and Trade Unions not to press their claims too far. He viewed with the greatest satisfaction the increased comfort of the working classes, and there was nothing he desired more ardently to promote; but we could not shut our eyes to the fact that we were exposed to risk in competing with countries where men worked 15 hours per week longer, and were content with 30 per cent lower wages. It was possible to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. If we lost any trade from these causes it would be difficult to recover it. No doubt this country suffered from the protective policy of other countries in recent years. It was admitted that many Cobdenite prognostications had not been realized; but there were no means by which we could affect the reactionary policy of other countries. We might, perhaps, have gained certain advantages if we had retained the power of negotiation. We might at one time have insisted upon Free Trade in the Colonies and throughout the British Empire; but the day for doing it was past, for the great Colonies were virtually independent, and we could influence them by persuasion only. The population of this country was growing with rapidity, while its trade was not. We raised less food to-day in this country than we did 20 or 30 years ago. There were now more than 30,000,000 of population to support in Great Britain, one-half of whom were supported by the importation of foreign food. The increase in our population was going on at a rapid rate; and it became a serious question to consider the wants of our large towns, where millions of people were underfed, and where employment was inadequate. The remedy which he would venture to suggest was in this direction. We possessed a Colonial Empire 60 times larger than the United Kingdom. In England we had 450 persons to the square mile, a considerable portion of whom were on the verge of starvation; in Australia, on the other hand, there was but one person to the square mile. What was the natural remedy in the circumstances? Surely it was to be found in some steps being taken to remove our congested population to some of those more favourably situated Colonies. Unless we adopted some course of this kind he foresaw increasing labour difficulties in all our large towns, with the concomitant spread of Socialism. For these difficulties he could see no remedy, except that of spreading our large and growing population over the vast area of our Colonies. There was one chief cause for the terrible cloud of depression which hung over, not only the United Kingdom, but Europe and America as well. There was surely something wrong in the commercial system. This state of things had now existed for many years. Nothing like it had been seen since the gloomy days previous to the repeal of the Corn Laws. What was the chief feature of this remarkable state of things? It was the astonishing fall of prices, which had been perfectly unexampled in their time. He had taken great pains to investigate this question; and he could assure the House that the average prices now existing in this country, the United States, France, and elsewhere were about 40 per cent lower than was the case 10 or 15 years ago. This had an immense effect upon the traders of the country, because it might be truly said that a very large portion of the trade of this country was virtually bankrupt just now. The real owner of commercial plant in this country at the present time might be said to be the mortgagee. Nothing could be more discouraging to industry, because this state of things really put an end to all enter-prize. This was the condition of affairs just now in the United States, in England, France, Belgium, and to a less extent in Germany. There must be some common cause for this condition of things; and he believed, after much study of the question, that the main cause was to be found in the foolish and reckless monetary changes which had expelled one-half of the money of the world from its proper use, and which had thrown the business operations almost exclusively on the other half. The result was that they had these falling prices. By this change, too, they had transferred a great portion of the property of the country from the hardworking toiling classes to the idle money-lending classes. If they wished to get rid of this disease of depression they must get rid of their absurd and foolish monetary policy. Let them go back to the position held by Europe up to 1873, and he believed the effect would be a remarkable resuscitation of industy. Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

said, he must compliment the hon. Member for Camberwell (Mr. Baumann) upon the felicity and the charm of his speech; but he could not help remembering that the 400 majority by which the hon. Member had secured his seat was due not to the intelligent interest which the English artizans took in the fiscal affairs of their country, but to the Irish vote. Neither could he help recollecting that when, during the end of the last and the beginning of the present year, money was so cheap that it could be borrowed at 2 per cent, thousands of acres of land were lying unproductive, while 20,000 dock labourers in London alone were starving. Some references had been made to the voluminous evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the Depression of Trade; but it was only fair that that evidence should be taken as a whole, and not treated in a piecemeal fashion. As a Member of that Commission, he might mention some of the facts that had come out in evidence. It was shown that there was unused capital, unused land, and workers idle by the thousand; that in agricultural districts the farmers' profits were swallowed up by landlords' rents; in mining districts depression was caused by the royalties to the lords of the soil swallowing up the profits of the mines; and, again, in the large centres of commercial industry, the system of ground rents to wealthy landlords made it hard for the industrial population to live—and those who were in work were earning what was hardly sufficient to keep body and soul together—and went far to explain the depression which existed. These facts ought not to be forgotten in discussing a subject of this kind. Under those circumstances, the evidence would bear a very different interpretation to that which it had been sought to place upon it.

said, that the subject brought forward by the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Jennings) had been placed before the House by him in a most taking form. The proposal was, in fact, to raise taxation on certain foreign manufactures for the implied purpose of benefiting the labourers of this country. The hon. Member had made a great deal of the fact that while the United States imported £86,000,000 worth of produce into this country we, in return, only exported £24,000,000 in the year to America. The difference of £62,000,000 the hon. Member treated as being a direct loss to this country; but while the Americans did not make us a present of that sum, we certainly did not pay for it in specie. The hon. Member must be acquainted with the fact that specie was not paid for those American imports, and that if our exports did not go to the United States directly they went indirectly. The prosperity which this country enjoyed under Free Trade was shown by the Returns of the Savings Banks, which represented the savings of the working classes. In 1846 the amount of money in the Savings Banks was about £46,000,000, while, at the present day, it had increased to £95,000,000. With largely increased wages, and with a greatly diminished price of articles of consumption, it could not be denied that the condition of the labouring classes had very considerably improved. Directly we placed a duty on foreign manufactured goods we should raise the prices of those goods; and, whatever might be the opinion of the hon. Member for Stockport, who claimed to represent a working-class constituency, he begged to say that, in his own constituency, the classes who worked in the mills were all agreed that Free Trade was absolutely essential to their well-being. An import duty would, no doubt, benefit the manufacturer; but it would certainly be detrimental to the labourer, since it would be impossible to tax manufacturing imports without taxing agricultural imports. That would, of course, put a tax upon food; and he should be surprised if the constituents of the hon. Member allowed him to advocate that. The hon. Member had spoken about the increase in the numbers of people who were employed in American textile manufactures; but he believed it would be found that the increase of population in America during the same period was in excess ratio to the increased numbers employed in those manufactures. The Seconder of the Resolution (Sir Cunliffe Brooks) was a gentleman connected with banking, and, therefore, well acquainted with all subjects relating to finance. The hon. Member said—"We throw hundreds of millions away every year, and never see them again." He believed the House would agree with him that that was a very startling statement. Where did the hundreds of millions come from, and where did they go to? He thought the hon. Member would find that there was more money in the banks, and more in the pockets of the people, than at any former period. In conclusion, he would observe that although he admired many of the pamphlets of the hon. Member for Flint (Mr. Samuel Smith), he entirely differed from that hon. Gentleman on the question of bimetallism.

said, that while he was unable to support the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Jennings), he was at issue with hon. Members on the other side of the House as to the facts of the present situation. The speech to which they had just listened was conceived much on the same lines as that of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Howell), and the hon. Gentleman seemed to him to deny that any great and unparalleled depression of trade existed at the present time. He was glad to notice, however, that the last speaker did not infuse into his remarks that bitterness of Party and class feeling which, unfortunately, disfigured the speech of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green. With regard to the question whether there was any real and serious depression existing in the country at the present moment, he should like to cite one witness who would have been accepted not long ago by all Members on the other side of the House as a witness of unimpeachable authority. Early this Session the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, at that time President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Chamberlain), in a very sound and admirable speech, spoke on a Motion brought forward by the hon. Member for Leeds (Mr. R. Dawson) with regard to Harbours of Refuge, and on that occasion he described the results of inquiries he had made in regard to the condition of the working classes throughout the country, and he admitted that there was a great deal of distress existing among the better class of artizans, which could not, and did not, come under the notice of the Boards of Guardians. He said he knew nothing more admirable than the way in which the more respectable of the working classes shrank from having recourse to the Poor Law for help in their difficulties, undergoing, as they did, great hardship and privation, and almost starvation, rather than have recourse to what they considered to be a degradation. The right hon. Gentleman confessed that the distress amongst the classes to which he referred was considerable, and that, unless there was a speedy diminution in the distress, it would be a serious matter for the consideration of the House what steps should be taken in the matter. Now, that was the opinion only a short time ago of a distinguished Member of the Liberal Party, who was, until recently, a Member of the Liberal Government, of the condition of the trade and commerce of the country. Such was the state of the country after five years of Liberal rule; and it was a complete answer to the statement of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green, that whenever the Liberals came into Office the trade and industry of the country at once began to improve. Now, not only did the depression of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke exist at that time, but it had since increased, as anybody who moved about in the manufacturing districts must know very well; and if hon. Members on the other side of the House had moved about in the manufacturing districts as he (Mr. Maclean) had, they would also know that there was a strong feeling amongst the working classes of those districts that foreign competition had a great deal to do with the depression of trade. [Cries of "No, no!"] Well, he knew that the feeling prevailed, to a large extent, amongst the working classes. He was not one of those who thought that was a feeling which ought to be encouraged by proposals to put taxes on the importation of foreign manufactures into this country. When people were out of employment and trade was bad their imagination was apt to be captivated by all sorts of schemes for the improvement of their condition. Most men were by nature Protectionists; and it required a strong and sustained effort, not only of the reason, but of the will, to confirm them in their faith in Free Trade. Persons engaged in daily labour had not the time or the opportunity to study the question deeply; and it was not unnatural that, in times of depression, they should think that relief was to be obtained by shutting out foreign manufactures. For himself, however, he did not think the proposal of the hon. Member for Stockport would have the result desired. His hon. Friend had suggested that the United States were prospering at our expense in the neutral markets of the world, in spite of their having a protective tariff. He believed that we had a stronger hold on the neutral markets of the world than any other competing countries, whether they were Free Trade or Protectionist. But, of course, the advantages in competition which we secured by Free Trade might be counterbalanced by other circumstances. It might be that other countries, where the cost of the raw material was smaller, or the markets nearer, or where the hours of labour were longer, might be able to force their goods into neutral markets in spite of Free Trade; but should we gain any advantage by abandoning Free Trade and increasing the cost of production to our producers at home? He certainly did not think that we should. The question was often asked, What country was prospering by Free Trade? He did not know of any country in the world which was prospering at the present time more than India was doing—she was enjoying considerable prosperity—and that was because India enjoyed the benefits of absolute Free Trade under British rule. His hon. Friend had drawn a distinction between consumers and producers which, to his (Mr. Maclean's) mind, involved a great fallacy. He said producers were not to be sacrificed in the interests of the consumers. But in England we were both producers and consumers, and especially we were consumers of foreign food and raw material; and it was a perfect fallacy to draw distinctions between the two classes. The great object which we should all have in view, in order to secure the prosperity of the industrial classes, should be to enable them to produce home manufactures at the lowest possible cost; and he would ask how was it possible we could produce at the lowest cost unless we had Free Trade for raw materials? His hon. Friend had been good enough to refer to the borough which he (Mr. Maclean) had the honour to represent—the borough of Oldham—as being in great distress. The state of things in Oldham, he regretted to say, was very distressing indeed. He acknowledged that the spinning trade, of which Oldham was the headquarters, was very much distressed, and far from satisfactory. At no time were the Oldham people more gloomy about their prospects. The witnesses who were examined before the Royal Commissioners on Trade Depression all agreed that at no previous time within their recollection were the profits on the manufacture of yarn in this country so small as at the present time. But could his hon. Friend point to a scintilla of evidence given before the Commissioners about Oldham to the effect that the cause of the depression was due to the importation into England of foreign manufactured goods? There were many causes for the depression. There were many markets which now produced a great deal of yarn that could compete successfully with the goods exported from this country. In India, for example, many cotton mills had been set up, and they were able to produce cotton yarns cheaply, because they had the raw material at their very doors. They imported coal from England at a very low rate; freights were cheap, labour was plentiful and cheap, and they got out the latest and most improved machinery at a cheap rate, and they acquired skilled supervision from managers from this country. Moreover, the superiority of manufacturing skill, which had hitherto given us a great advantage over competing countries, was constantly being diminished; and in India, also, there was a steady depreciation in the value of silver, which gave to the manufacturers of yarn and cloth in India a great advantage over the manufacturers in this country in the competition of yarns and cloth. Now these, he considered, were among the chief causes which contributed to the depression of trade in Lancashire. Now, he would ask, what would be the advantage of imposing a large import duty upon silk and other goods? He was not so strong a Free Trader as not to say that retaliation should be applied within a narrow compass or field, over which we ourselves had complete control, so that, for instance, we might avenge ourselves upon Russia, who was doing all that she could to prevent our trading in the far East. He had made such a proposition in that House, and hon. Gentlemen on the Ministerial side had laughed at the idea. That was a case where Protection might be resorted to with advantage; but the complexities of trade, industry, and commerce were so great and far-reaching in our trade with Europe that it would be impossible to adopt retaliation in some cases and not in others—to make bargains here and not in other cases without its having a retro-active effect on our own industries. He would take one instance in proof of this assertion. It would be remembered that the Commercial Treaty which Mr. Cobden negotiated with the Emperor Napoleon III. was announced with a great flourish of trumpets. In the Chief Secretary for Ireland's (Mr. John Morley's) interesting history of The Life of Cobden there was an account of the differences of opinion which prevailed between the Prime Minister (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) and Mr. Cobden, on the one hand, and the right hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) on the other, over the negotiations for the French Treaty. The right hon. Member for Birmingham thought it was our business to look solely to our own tariffs, without consideration for what France wanted in return. Mr. Cobden and the Prime Minister thought otherwise, and the Chief Secretary adopted their views. Commenting upon this difference of opinion, Mr. Morley remarked—

"An economic principle in itself, as all sensible men have now learnt, can never be decisive of anything in the mixed and complex sphere of practice."

That was an expression of opinion which would justify, not only special bargains and arrangements with other countries—Treaties of Commerce and the like—but it involved also the policy of retaliation. Experience had proved that both Mr. Cobden and Mr. Gladstone were totally mistaken in their estimate of what the effect would be of the Treaty with France, and that their departure from sound principle in this instance had been indirectly injurious to British trade with other countries. The exceptionally favourable treatment which England accorded to French productions had caused great irritation to Spain, which had lasted for 30 years, and it was not until a few weeks ago that that irritation had been removed. That showed what great harm might arise out of this kind of bargaining, and how difficult it was to have a commercial policy favouring one country at the expense of others, which would not do more harm than good to ourselves. His hon. Friend (Mr. Jennings) proposed a duty of 20 per cent on silks imported from France and other countries. But, in a Report presented on the manufacturing industries of France, it appeared that the silk industry at Lyons was depressed and languishing owing to the competition of German silks in which there was a mixture of cotton. The Lyons manufacturers were imploring the French Government to do away with the heavy import duty on the yarn spun at Oldham, in order that they might work it into their silks. Thus the effect of his hon. Friend's proposal would probably be to deprive Oldham of a large foreign market for its yarns. That trade gave a great deal of employment; and if a tax were imposed upon French silks it would be the duty of the English Government to find the manufacturers of Oldham another market. His hon. Friend proposed to unite two incompatibles—he stated that by the proposals he brought forward he would give to the Chancellor of the Exchequer £9,250,000 of Revenue, arising from import duties upon foreign manufactured goods, and that he would, at the same time, revive British industry. Well, the fact was the hon. Member could not do both. If he raised the Revenue, then the foreign goods must still be imported, and British industry would not be benefited. If, on the other hand, the import duties were high enough to exclude foreign manufactures and transfer the trade into British hands, then there would be nothing left to collect Revenue upon. He might do one or the other; but if he did one he prevented the realization of the other. His main objection to his hon. Friend's proposal was that it was a return to the old vicious circle. It was impossible to impose any particular duty without giving other industries the right to demand the same treatment. Why should one particular industry be protected and another left out in the cold? An import duty on corn would be demanded, and with the best show of reason, because the agricultural interest was the largest in the country. It was impossible to draw a distinction on the ground of raw material, as corn was the result of labour as much as manufactured goods were. These were some of the reasons why he considered that it was his duty to vote against the proposal made by his hon. Friend the Member for Stockport.

said, that the Legislature of this country was the most honest in the world; and that was so mainly because its Members had not the same temptations to overcome which beset the legislators of Protectionist countries. He could illustrate the truth of that statement by a reference to the business in which he was engaged. All the sulphur ore used in the alkali trade formerly came from Ireland. He thought an alkali maker did not require sulphur ore; and if a duty were put on sulphur ore from Spain sufficiently high to bring the Irish ore into use again, his business organization would make a profit of about £500,000 a-year thereby, and he could afford, to offer huge bribes to Members to bring that about. He therefore conjured the House to oppose a Motion which would endanger the honour and purity of the Legislature.

said, he would admit that a few years back the statesmen of this country need not have troubled their heads much about the employment of the people, because at that time labour had it all its own way. Things, however, had changed, and instead now of capital vying with capital to get labour, labour was vying with labour to get employment, and this would intensify as time went on, for the reason that the population of this country was increasing at the rate of between 200,000 and 300,000 a-year, and if we failed to get employment for our people now, how were we to do so in future years? The capitalist, whose capital consisted in gold, which was the accumulated labour of past years, cared very little how our Revenue was raised, whether from articles we could produce or not; but it was very different with the labouring man, whose whole capital consisted in his power to work. It was really a question of life or death with him whether he got employment for his labour, and, therefore, whether we raised revenue from articles which he produced or not. He protested against Gentlemen below the Gangway claiming to be the only Representatives of labour in the House. He claimed to be himself a Representative of labour, as he sat for a constituency of which the great majority were working men; and he could tell the House that the working men would not be satisfied until this question was thoroughly threshed out.

said, that every man who gave his mind to the thorough study of economic laws would see that for England, at least, the only chance was to continue in the path of Free Trade. There was a feeling in the House that the importation of manufactured goods into this country was necessarily an evil; but he believed that it was just as much a blessing as the introduction of food. The fact was that if they allowed the channel of trade to be free, men would only exchange goods one with another when there was a profit on the exchange; and it was just as good for us to import iron from Belgium, or manufactured cotton from the United States, as it was to import raw material. Did hon. Gentlemen think that the United States sent us a quantity of goods without getting paid for them? There were plenty of French cucumbers and other vegetables to be got in Covent Garden Market. Was it supposed that Frenchmen sent those goods without receiving goods in return? It was simply an easier way of producing what was wanted in this country. It was true that just now there was a very large excess of imports over exports; but those who had gone into the question knew that, taking a period of 10 years, the trade was balanced. In the first place, it was balanced by a certain amount of goods we sent to the States; in the second place, by the considerable number of interests paid on mortgage and railway stocks in America; and, in the third place, by the exports sent to India and China. What would become of our trade with India and China if it were not for the amount of goods which we imported from America? If we began Protection it must be practised all round. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Stockport had given an illustration of the need of Protection which came under his own observation. He (Mr. Ellis) would like the House to know how his own constituency was affected by the present condition of things. In London the authorities had wisely changed the method of making streets. They no longer put down blocks of granite, but asphalte which came from Switzerland, and timber which came from Norway. Neither the asphalte nor timber paid English duty; but by its use there had been displaced the labour of thousands of men in his constituency and in Wales and Scotland. If the other industries of the country were protected his constituents would come forward and say—"You shall not import timber; you shall not import asphalte; but you shall be compelled to use our granite." As the Representative of an agricultural constituency, he was amazed that the Mover of the Resolution proposed to leave agriculturists out of the question. If it was intended to raise the price of everything agriculturists used, surely it was proper to put a tax upon wheat. If he would tax anything at all, he would tax agricultural produce, the price of which had fallen to such an extent that we had a difficulty in competing with the rich land over the water. It was impossible to tax manufactured goods. He was a Free Trader, and he would do nothing of the sort. It was impossible to play with Protection. If adopted it must be adopted all round. A poor man, at one of the meetings he addressed on this question, told him a story which very aptly applied to this case. His friend told him that he went to the theatre in some agricultural town. The people in the front began to stand up, then the people at the back stood, then those in front stood upon the forms, whereupon the people at the back, in order to see better, stood upon the forms. In the end all the audience were standing on the forms, which led to the remark by someone present—"My friends, I think we had better all sit down, and then we shall just be where we began." If we taxed everything which we imported we should find more trouble in collecting the duty; but otherwise we should be just where we were before. There was in many parts of the country great depression of trade. There were two cures for it—one was to lessen the Expenditure of the country by at least £10,000,000 sterling, and the other was to use that £10,000,000 to extend emigration. By adopting remedies the burden which fell upon every man in the Realm would be decreased, and other customers would be created over the water. If he had his wish he would employ the ships now engaged in blocking the Greek ports in carrying emigrants to the fruitful shores of Western Australia.

said that, if he understood the argument of the hon. Member who had just spoken (Mr. Ellis), it was that in every period of 10 years matters righted themselves. But we were now coming to the end of a period of well-nigh 10 years. The present depression commenced about the year 1877 or 1878, and if things were to right themselves within 10 years a commencement must be made very soon. He had listened with attention and interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Howell), whose well-known experience of matters connected with the working classes entitled his words to earnest consideration; but he could not see that he threw any particular light upon the subject. The hon. Member asked why Import Duties were not imposed on home manufactures; but the answer to that was that duties were imposed upon them by foreign countries. He would give the House an illustration of what occurred to a well-known firm of ironmasters in Glasgow. Like many other commercial firms in this country, they had been driven by the condition of trade in this country to set up a manufactory on the Continent; and they had occasion, at the beginning of the year, to send out an engine the cost of which in this country was £600. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green said that the reason why foreign nations were able to compete with us was because they received machinery of the very best description from us. But what he did not say was this—that that machinery, before it went into a country whose products were here received duty free, was taxed upwards of 100 per cent. Therefore, the price which this firm had to pay for the engine costing £600 in this country before it could be laid down in their manufactory in Spain, exclusive of carriage, was £1,200, so that we not only handicapped our own manufacturers in this country by this fiscal system, but we handicapped our manufacturers when they went to other countries. A few years ago it required no small courage on the part of anyone to express in public any doubts as to the wisdom of the fiscal policy which we had adopted. It seemed to be in the minds of some Gentlemen little short of rank blasphemy, such magnificent claims were made in behalf of Free Trade, such vast results were attributed to it. Mr. Giffen, the well-known statistician, even claimed the increase in the population of this country as one of the results of Free Trade. That was to say, that the increase which had taken place since 1841, which amounted, according to the Census Returns, to 41 per cent, had resulted from Free Trade. But how about the increase that had taken place in the preceding 40 years before Free Trade? From 1801 to 1841 the population had increased 70 per cent; and therefore, when Mr. Giffen laid claim to Free Trade as a cause of the increase in population in the last 40 years, how did he account for the greater increase which took place before we had Free Trade? That was only one instance of the extraordinary attributes that were laid to the credit of unlimited Free Trade. The whole of our prosperity from 1850 to 1870 was laid by some people to the credit of Free Trade. Some were inclined to doubt that, and to ask whether it had not been effected in spite of Free Trade. There had, at all events, been some other causes at work. Lord Beaconsfield had pointed out that the enormous discoveries of gold had had something to do with the prosperity of the last 25 years. He had heard it said by thoughtful men that the present depression was owing, in a great measure, to the scarcity of gold; but, considering that at the present moment there was more gold in the world than at any former period, it was difficult to understand how the depression could be due to that cause. There were enormous discoveries of gold in Australia and California between the years 1850 and 1880. In 1850 the gold of the world was estimated at £630,000,000; in 1860, at £911,000,000; in 1870, at £1,175,000,000; and in 1885, at £1,504,000,000. The increase of gold must certainly have given a great impetus to the manufactures and industries of this country, so that it was hardly fair to ascribe their development exclusively to the establishment of Free Trade. Another great cause of the increase of our trade in the years between 1850 and 1880 was found in the wars that were then waged. These were the great American War which came to an end in 1864, the war between Austria and Prussia, and the Franco-German War. Those who remembered the immense impulse given to British trade by the demands which came from the countries which had been engaged in those wars would be slow to place all the prosperity of those years to the credit of Free Trade. But a short time ago those who expressed doubt on the subject of the vaunted efficacy of Free Trade were written down, and sometimes hooted down. Now there was certainly a change in public opinion. When the subject of our fiscal policy was referred to at public meetings speakers were listened to most intently. At Dumfries, two years ago, Lord Salisbury, when addressing a monster meeting, alluded to the subject; and he should never forget the effect that was produced upon the vast audience by the noble Lord's few words—which were not so clear and unmistakable as he could have wished them to be—but which, nevertheless, indicated that in the mind of the speaker there lurked some doubt as to the wisdom of the policy which the country had so long pursued. Between 1870 and 1884 the amount of our trade increased 24 per cent, while the amount of the trade of America and Protectionist Continental nations, taken together, increased 50 per cent. If Free Trade had really been the cause of our prosperity, it was worth while inquiring why the prosperity of Protectionist countries had increased in a greater ratio than ours. He should like to hear an explanation of that state of things from those who held that Free Trade afforded a sure path to prosperity. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) five years ago, referring to the apprehension that was felt by many people in consequence of the increase of our imports as compared with our exports, said that there was no cause for alarm, as the test of a man's prosperity was what he could buy, and that as long as our buying power increased there could be no reason to doubt our solvency. If the theory of the right hon. Gentleman were accepted there was undoubtedly cause for uneasiness now, for last year our imports showed a falling-off of £16,000,000—a great deal more than could be accounted for by a fall in prices, and our imports and exports together showed a shrinkage of £36,000,000. Hon. Members on this side of the House who spoke upon this question were often supposed to do so in the interests of agriculturists. But it was not only agriculture that was suffering just now. To take one instance, Sir Theodore Martin had lately stated that in consequence of the importation of Spanish lead, which could be sold at £8 5s. per ton, while English lead could not be produced at less than £8 15s., 169 lead mines had been closed in this country in the last five years, and 30,000 miners had been thrown out of work. Was it well that 30,000 men here and 30,000 men there should be thrown out of work, and that they should sit with folded arms as if it were an indifferent matter, resting content with the assurance that the existing state of things was good for the consumer? Were they alone right and every other nation in the world wrong? Every other nation saw the necessity of providing that every man should be a producer, and recognized that for him to be a consumer he must first be a producer, and they accordingly paid the first attention to his interests as a producer. We reversed that process. The importation of lead was about 100,000 tons a-year, and its price was £12 5s. a-ton, or a saving of about 10s. a-ton over native lead, which, on the annual amount imported, made a saving of £50,000. But the loss of wages thereby entailed was £1,250,000. The hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Jennings) had alluded to the United States Tariff Commission. A Member of that Commission had recently written a book, in which he pointed out that the effect of Free Trade in England was to drive English capital abroad, and that as a result English manufacturers were to be found all over the Continent. In self-defence, he said, English manufacturers were taking their capital elsewhere. The explanation usually given was that wages were higher in England than on the Continent; but wages were higher still in America; and yet that did not occur there. A short time ago he built a new farmhouse; and although the contract was given to a local tradesman, he discovered that all the woodwork, lead, and other material had been imported from abroad. That caused him to make inquiries as to the wages of skilled artizans in America as compared with the wages in this country; and the result of those inquiries was that, whereas in England the average weekly wage of the skilled artizan was 30s., in New York the average weekly wage was 54s. He thought it was a matter of satisfaction that a subject of such pressing and vital importance had been introduced and discussed in that House, and that it had been done so with so little Party spirit.

said, one of the advantages of getting old was that one returned to the old, old stories of one's youth with such freshness and pleasure. It was with that sort of pleasure that he had listened to the speech of the hon. Baronet, who reproduced all the old Protectionist arguments which many years ago resounded through the country. He did not wonder at that meeting at Dumfries to which the hon. Baronet had referred. It was said of Dumfries by someone—

"Paris may be a braw place, but for real pleasure gie me Dumfries,"

The hon. Baronet had taken his cue from the Marquess of Salisbury. There were few people, however, who in these days were bold enough to cling to the pure and unadulterated antique doctrine to which they had just listened. There was not a word in the speech of the hon. Baronet that referred to Reciprocity any more than there was in the Motion before the House, which sought to impose a mere duty on imports without reference to the fiscal policy of the countries from which the imports came. Any hon. Member who read the Resolution would not find one word about Reciprocity in it; it was to be a duty pure and simple. There was not a trace of their old friend Reciprocity, which it was formerly said by hon. Gentlemen opposite was needed for the protection of native industries. Therefore, it was a Protectionist Motion pure and simple. The hon. Baronet gave them an illustration concerning foreign material and work being used in building his house, which, for his own sake, he was glad he had been able to build at such a cheap rate. The hon. Baronet had specially referred to the importation of lead; but every man who had a roof over his head derived benefit from the cheapness of lead and other building materials, which enabled him to have a better house over his head than he otherwise would have for the same money if the importation of such materials was taxed. The hon. Baronet had argued that the loss more than counterbalanced the gain, as free importation destroyed and crippled certain industries, and thus threw numbers of men out of employment. That was the old fallacy, which, he thought, had disappeared like astrology and witchcraft. He did not know whether they still burnt witches at Dumfries; but possibly since the visit of the Marquess of Salisbury it had returned to the ancient faith. There was an admirable illustration of what the hon. Baronet had brought forward to which he would like to refer. It was given by the weightiest of all writers upon Free Trade, M. F. Bastiat. M. Bastiat had given this illustration—

"You want materials at a high price to occupy a great number of people, and to cost a good deal of money; that is the object of Protection. Well, exclude all oranges from warm countries which you may buy at a penny, and if you grow them in hot-houses in England you will employ builders and people who put up hot-water pipes, &c.; you will raise an orange which will be sold at 1s., to the great employment of native genius."

But these were the familiar doctrines of Free Trade, and these were doctrines which all men of common sense had long since discarded. The arguments used against Free Trade were of the most illogical description. It was argued that if high prices ruled they would occupy a larger number of people at higher wages. That was the whole theory, but it was an utterly unsound one. It was said by those who were in favour of Import Duties that if they were put on all would be well. That was the elementary doctrine that was put forward; but it was a doctrine which he thought all men of common sense and experience had long ago discarded. He had observed that it was a tendency of human nature, perhaps, for everybody to think that the system under which they lived was the cause of all their miseries, and that their neighbours were much better off than they were themselves. He was very much struck the other day by reading the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Depression of Trade in France. An hon. Baronet had alluded to France, and to numerous trades that were better off there than in England, and had spoken of English merchants who had gone over to Rouen and other places because trade could be so much better carried on there. Spuller, in his examination of the causes of depression in France, spoke of the situation of the working classes in France as one which could no longer be considered a question of wages, but depended upon far wider and international contingencies, and said that trade in France was directly affected by the growth of America and by Protection in Germany. Yet when he (Sir William Harcourt) came to read the Report he referred to be saw it stated that the cause of the depression of trade in France was due to the persistent prosperity of England. France thus complained of the causes of depression in France. Here in England, on the other hand, they were told by the opponents of Free Trade that the depression of trade in this country was due to the prosperity of France because it clung to the system of Protection. ["No, no!"] Well, he had listened carefully to the speeches that had been made in favour of the Motion, and he distinctly understood that it was argued that the prosperity of every other country was due to their not having adopted Free Trade. Very well, exactly then if the prosperity of every other country was due to that, then the prosperity of France was due to it. ["No, no!"] Well, he maintained that every other country said the same of itself. He was afraid that he was guilty of an act of great ingratitude, as the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Jennings) had offered him £9,000,000 per annum of taxation on imported commodities by imposing an ad valorem duty of only 20 per cent. They would remember those old lines of Canning—

"In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch

Is giving too little and asking too much."

They finished up—

"Nous frapperons Falck avec20 per cent."

The foreigners here were to be frappés with 20 per cent. The hon. Member (Mr. Jennings) who introduced the subject referred especially to silk. Silk was one of the commodities which the hon. Member would tax, and a great deal had been said about silk. In that same Report on the Depression of Trade in France, it was said that the silk trade was among the first to suffer in depressed condition of trade throughout the world; that a still more important fact was that St. Etienne goods did not happen to be the fashion, and that the public taste preferred the silks of England. That was the cause of depression in the silk trade in France—and the public in France preferred the silks of England, and even of Switzerland, yet silks had been the subject of special complaint by some English Protectionists. It was the same story all over the world. There were the same fallacies, the same complaints, founded on the same delusive statistics. The Report had stated that English goods were cheaper, and were produced under circumstances more favourable than those which governed the market of St. Etienne. So they were manufacturing silks, according to the French authorities, under circumstances more favourable than those which governed the market of the Protectionist of St. Etienne. He thought that the best vade mecum of Free Trade would be found in the Report on the Depression of Trade in England. In that Report they would find inevitable conclusions better than any of the books of economists, because it gave facts and figures, and the history of 40 years of Free Trade. He had been amused to see how very little this Report of the Commission had been studied on the other side of the House. In the years 1874 to 1879 there had been a serious fall in the exports of this country; and since that time they had very satisfactorily recovered, as hon. Members opposite would have seen if they had studied their own Report. He would give the House the figures. In 1854, when Free Trade might be said to have got into the saddle, the exports were £97,000,000; from 1855 to 1859 the exports had been £116,000,000; in the next five years, 1860–4, they were £138,000,000; in the next five years, 1865–9, £181,000,000; and from 1870 to 1874 £235,000,000. Then came that unfortunate five years from 1875 to 1880 when they had fallen from £235,000,000 to £202,000,000, a fall with which everybody was familiar except a few hon. Gentlemen opposite. In the years 1880–4 the exports rose again to £234,000,000. What nonsense it was to say that it was Free Trade that was killing our export trade. On the whole, our export trade had been increasing by geometrical progression. It was true that there had been intervals—he was not so foolish as to attribute it to the effect of any change in political Parties in a particular period, but there were circumstances in trade, as in weather and in tides, which varied from time to time. On the whole, however, our progress was onward, as everyone knew who examined into the matter. If hon. Members opposite really thought that for 40 years we had been pursuing a false fiscal system they would surely find some proof in the statistics of the country. If they looked at the statistics of the growth of the accumulated wealth of the country, whether from Income Tax Returns or other sources of information, they would see that it had greatly increased. If they had been pursuing a false system, would they not find that the profits of their trade had been diminished, and that the amount of their capital had been reduced? The contrary was the case, and in this period of Free Trade these figures had enormously increased. But the hon. Baronet said—Were we wiser than all other countries? If he wanted ideas on that subject, let him read Mr. Crowe's Report, and he would find that the complaints made here as being the result of Free Trade were the very complaints which were made more strongly in Protectionist countries. Again, he would refer the hon. Member to the last volume of the Report of the Trade Commission. He would find there most instructive Reports upon the condition of France. He would find, particularly at page 175, most interesting matter for reflection. He did not wish to weary the House with the figures. Look at Germany, which had developed a formidable rivalry of ourselves. Let him read the Reports as to Germany at the present time. Let him read the Reports as to the United States. He had reason to know something about the manufacturing industries of the United States. What did they find there? In every direction they had had complaints at home. Were there none of depression in the United States? Let them ask any American. On the trial of Charles I. someone asked where was Fairfax, and Lady Fairfax said—"He is not fool enough to be here." There was one hon. Member of that House who was not fool enough to be present on that occasion. He referred to the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Ormskirk Division of Lancashire (Mr. Forwood), who had written a letter on this subject. [An hon. MEMBER: He is here.]

said, the right hon. Gentleman was in error. It was his brother, not himself, who had written the letter.

said, he hoped it was in the family. The gentleman referred to came back from America, and he described the deplorable effect upon the condition of the population produced by the protection of native industries. But an hon. Member had gone beyond all the theories they had ever heard, and had spoken of cheap windows and cheap doors of farm-houses imported, and he told them that the people who made these cheap articles were paid much higher wages than were paid here. He had not yet been able to understand how it was that high wages made the commodities produced cheap; and if the hon. Member really could make him understand that everybody was to have higher wages and everything was to cost less he would join his economic school. But was it true that things were cheaper in America? There was the question of woollens and other articles of clothing. Now, the hon. Baronet said the working classes were very much interested in this question, and so he (Sir William Harcourt) discovered at the last Election in Derby. His election was due entirely to the fact that his opponent was a Fair Trader. He asked his constituents what it was they wanted to have cheaper, and he never got an affirmative reply. His opponent suggested many things. He began with clocks. Why should a man, he said, not have a cheap clock? Well, he remembered the time when clocks were very dear, and now it was a great advantage to find them in every cottage. But according to the protective theory the price would be raised enormously; and at last, before the election was over, his Fair Trader opponent was reduced to pianofortes and artificial flowers. It was no use telling the men of Derby to tax woollens or linens, because they knew they would pay more for their clothes and their shirts. He would tell the hon. Baronet why it was that wages were higher in America. It was because the cost of living was higher than here, and it had been made so much higher by these protective duties. He met a friend some time ago from America, who said a man might buy three suits of clothes here and save enough to pay his passage to and fro, and pay his hotel bill while he remained. Well, that was, perhaps, not quite so; but it was near the truth. His friend showed him a coat—it was a good coat, perhaps a better one than he was wearing, and his friend said—"What do you think I gave for that coat in the States? Eighteen guineas." Did they suppose the working classes of this country did not know that? There was no man who lived in the days of Protection who did not know it, and if he did not know it his father would have told him. When corn was 100s. a quarter, what was the working man's wages? Six and seven shillings a-week. He spoke to a man in the New Forest the other day, and he said that when he began life he had 1s. a-day, and a loaf was three times the price it is now. To quote the language of Sir James Graham, which he heard long before he had a seat in that House, in a debate on coercion, the working man knew the change which had taken place, and he knew the reason why. The people of England now knew the reason why. They knew why there were higher wages than 40 years ago, and they knew why the purchasing power of those wages was doubled. Did they think they were going to delude them with a Motion of that kind, to reverse a policy of such inestimable value to them and to their children? No. They would not find the people of this country so unintelligent as the Mover of that Motion believed them to be; and if he went to a division he would certainly be defeated.

Sir, nothing can be more striking to those who have listened to the course of this debate than the different manner in which the different speakers have approached this subject. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Howell) made an electioneering speech pure and simple; and he endeavoured to prove, by furbishing up all the arguments used at the last Election, and which I think were satisfactorily disposed of then, that all the bad trade which we have had in recent years is due to the policy of the Conservative Party. My hon. Friend who moved the Resolution approached the debate in a totally different spirit, and in his interesting and instructive speech there was much for every Member of this House to ponder over. My hon. Friend, indeed, spoke on behalf of a very important constituency, and he told us that he spoke especially on behalf of the working classes of that constituency. He told us that the views which he put forward are the views held by those whom he represents; and I do not think that anybody in this House can say that views put forward in that manner, and supported in that way, are not entitled to most careful attention and consideration on the part of every one of us. My hon. Friend pictured to us a mournful condition of things. He told us how trade has languished and fallen off, although, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who approached the subject in an entirely different spirit, everything is in a state of persistent prosperity.

I never said that. That expression was contained in the Report of a French Commission on the Depression of Trade in France. It was not my phrase.

At any rate, the right hon. Gentleman gave us to understand that all is for the best under the best possible Government. My hon. Friend on this side of the House drew a picture of the national depression of trade; but I did not hear the right hon. Gentleman admit that any depression of trade exists at all. Not one word of sympathy escaped the lips of the right hon. Gentleman for the classes who are suffering from that depression of trade. It was a common thing a year or two ago to say that there was, in reality, no depression of trade at all. We are now getting rid of that delusion. Formerly, when we talked of it we were called Protectionists. We were told that we did not know what we were talking about, and the existence of the depression itself was uniformly denied. I am bound to say that the logic of facts has been too strong for that kind of derision; and nobody can deny now-a-days that a very serious depression of trade does exist in regard to many of the trades of the country. Indeed, I am afraid that there are symptoms of the depression of trade we complained of a year or two ago having gone on increasing in intensity until some fear that it has a tendency to become chronic. While, upon the one hand, the system of bounties and the system of foreign tariffs has tended to diminish profits, so, upon the other, the diminished consuming power of the country has largely tended to the same result. I was much interested in what we heard to-night with regard to capital from the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Howell}. He tells us that capital is in too few hands in this country. We have heard the same sort of thing before. We used to hear that the land of this country was in far too few hands; and the persistent attacks of the Radical Party upon the owners and occupiers of land has grievously increased the difficulties under which those classes have had to labour, has enormously diminished the value of landed property, and lessened the eagerness which formerly existed among all classes who invested their capital in land. But now the attack is going to be one upon capital. We are told that capital is in too few hands; and I do not hesitate to say that if the sort of language we have heard from the hon. Member is that which we are likely to hear in this Parliament, the only effect will be that, so far from trade showing any improvement, the tendency will be for capital to be driven out of the country, and to seek investment in other countries where it will not be exposed to such attacks. [An hon. MEMBER: Let it go to Ireland.] The late Government, believing that considerable depression existed, appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into that depression. We all remember that reception which that Royal Commission met with, and the jeers directed at it; but I think that there has never been a greater testimony to the wisdom of the late Government in appointing a Royal Commission than the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer now says it is a most valuable argument in support of Free Trade, and he thanks us, in fact, for having appointed the Commission. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: Hear, hear!] I know what the right hon. Gentleman means by that cheer. He suggests that we appointed the Royal Commission with a foregone conclusion. We did nothing of the kind. The late Government invited Members of the opposite Party, who were interested in the question of Free Trade, to take seats on the Commission. They refused to accept the invitation, and we were obliged to form the Commission without their assistance. We appointed the Commission with no foregone conclusion whatever, but with a desire to ascertain the state of the trade of the country, and what remedies could be applied, in order to remove the existing depression. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Jennings), although that Commission is still engaged in its inquiry, now comes forward with a definite and distinct proposal. That proposal resolves it self into several parts. As regards the first portion of it, urging that further Import Duties ought to be imposed, I have really very little to say. I, for my part, am of opinion that it will be of advantage to this country if the area of taxation can be enlarged, and the number of articles from which we derive a revenue can be increased. I am quite sure the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have been glad, when he brought forward his Budget the other day, and was under the unpleasant necessity of providing for a deficit, if he could have found any articles on which he could have increased the taxation of the country; and so, in the same way, I should be very glad to see one or two additional articles on which Import Duties could be levied, in order to give us greater weight in dealing with foreign countries. In our negotiations with foreign countries, in recent years, I believe that we have lost very much in having no lever, so to speak, with which to work. We have had nothing to give, and it was hopeless to expect to get adequate terms from foreign countries if we were not in a position occasionally to offer them something in return. I think I need not go further than the Spanish Treaty, the conclusion of which has been recently announced, because no one can deny that the greatest difficulty we have had to contend with in negotiating that and similar Treaties was the fact that this country was not in a condition to treat with any country in such a way as to show them that we could give them an adequate consideration for what we asked. My hon. Friend goes further than that, and he suggests that duties on articles imported should be levied upon goods entering into competition with similar goods of our own manufacture; and he has a plan, also, for disposing of the Revenue so raised. If my hon. Friend will forgive me for saying so, I cannot help thinking that that is too ambitious a proposal. I am not at all prepared to say that any increase of revenue, particularly if it were a large amount of revenue derived from the increased imposition of Import Duties, ought, in the first place, to be applied to the reduction of duties on tea, coffee, and cocoa. I cannot help thinking that the Income Tax-payers who have been called upon to make enormous sacrifices are entitled under such circumstances, at any rate, to the first place in the favourable consideration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Moreover, the proposal of my hon. Friend is not in itself a complete proposal. It could not stop where he leaves it. For instance, how is my hon. Friend going to meet the case of the farmer? He does not urge that any duty should be put upon food for the protection of the English farmer, nor does the English farmer urge that. We none of us put forward that contention; but what we do put forward, and are fairly entitled to say, is that if we are to be asked to pay an increased price for some of the goods which we buy in consequence of increased Import Duties for the benefit of certain trades at home, those who are interested in agriculture are entitled to ask that should they derive, at any rate, some advantage. They are entitled to say that the grievous burdens under which they are now suffering should have a favourable consideration at the hands of the Legislature, and that that favourable consideration should not be confined to the giving of an exceptional advantage to the trade of the country. That being so, I hope my hon. Friend will see that in bringing forward the Motion, and in putting before the House the views which his constituents and many other classes of the country entertain on this important subject, he has gained a great step. I trust he will also see that as there is a Royal Commission already considering the question, and as it is abundantly clear that, from his point of view, he is not able to take into the purview of the Resolution all the industries of the country, I hope he will consider that his object has been sufficiently attained by the discussion which has taken place to-night, and that he will not press the Motion further.

I do not propose to occupy much of the attention of the House, and shall confine myself to one single question which has been raised by the hon. Member for Flintshire (Mr. S. Smithy) — namely, the depreciation of silver. Very few persons have attempted to offer any explanation of the cause of the depreciation of silver. I think that Parliament is accountable for the depreciation in a great degree, and for a good many of the consequences which have resulted from the depreciation. Before the precious metals became the subject of coinage they were used as the medium of exchange and barter; and when large sums in value had to be conveyed from one person to another it was done by means of gold or silver vessels, ornaments, or works of art. I need not remind hon. Gentlemen that we are told in Scripture history that when what we should now call a subscription had to be made by the leaders of the Tribes of Israel for the building of the Tabernacle, that subscription was made up of chargers or dishes of silver and golden spoons. Of course, that was anterior to any time in which we have any record of coined money. The primary use of silver is thus shown to have been its manufacture into articles of luxury and splendour. In this country our system of legislation has reduced the commercial value of silver 40 per cent below its statutory value in coinage; and the action of this country has made it, as a commercial medium, almost useless in other countries. At present, by reason of our high duty on its manufacture, there is a difference in silver of 30 or 35 per cent, ad valorem, a loss of so much in connection with its use for ordinary purposes; and I think the existence of that duty is a matter which deserves the early consideration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That tax per ounce, measured as an ad valorem duty on ordinary articles of silver plate, has, I believe, completely broken down the trade. It is worse than any protective duty; for it is one which has absolutely destroyed that trade in this country. The value of silver has been very much reduced from two causes—first, owing to the large quantities of the precious metal produced in Nevada, and various other parts of North America; while its employment in coinage has not increased proportionately, and its conversion into articles of luxury has been absolutely cut off, and the commercial value of silver has been enormously depreciated in consequence. It would have been the same with any other important articles of commerce. Take the case of petroleum, or wheat, or any other article of commerce which forms one of the items of exchange between nations and nations. If such article had had a duty to the same extent imposed upon it as in the case of manufactured silver there would have been a similar depreciation of value with the same results. What I wish to press upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer is this—that at the earliest possible moment he should take this question of the depreciation of silver into consideration, and that he should consider the advisability of abolishing altogether the duty on silver plate, by which means we should be able to open up a market, and promote the use of silver to an enormous extent in other directions than those to which it is applied at the present moment. The very moment silver reaches this country the duty now imposed upon it begins to take effect; and the consequence is that it is now found more convenient to demonetize silver even in Germany than to utilize it for commercial purposes. I place this before the Government for their consideration. I believe that if we could reverse the principle upon which our legislation has been conducted, anything which could raise the commercial value of silver and lead to its remonetization generally would be of great advantage.

At this late hour I only propose to address a few words to the House; but I desire to express my view on this question, inasmuch as I have been sent here to give the opinion of my constituents on the very important question which is now before us. They entertain the opinion, and they think it is only reasonable that the House should have it placed before them, that it is not altogether just to the working classes of the iron and coal districts of Staffordshire that we should go on charging taxation upon the industries of this country, and at the same time allow the industries of foreign countries to come in and compete with our own, and permit the produce of foreign labour to be sold in this country scot free from all taxation whatever. I will give a case in point. I will give an instance of a colliery with which I am connected. We employ about 500 men, and we raise about 1,000 tons of coal a-day; every ton pays to the taxes of this country 6d., which means that we pay £25 to the taxation of the country for every day that we work the colliery. That coal is used largely in the manufacture of iron, and therefore the iron manufacturers are required to contribute in the same way to the taxation of the country. The unfairness of the system is this—that you allow foreign iron and steel from Germany, and foreign iron and steel from Belgium, to come into our district side by side in the market with the iron and steel which we produce. We have to pay this amount of taxation; but you allow foreign iron to come in scot free, and when we complain the only answer we get is—"You must endure these things." We know very well that taxes must be raised in order that the Government of the country may be carried on; but I would seriously ask the House how the English iron manufacturers and colliery proprietors can carry on their business against such odds? Of course, when I speak of the iron manufacturers and the colliery proprietors, I speak also of the iron workers and the colliers, because they are equally affected with their employers. Each ton of home-made iron pays, according to the labour expended upon it, from 8s. to 18s. towards our taxation. Therefore, every ton of iron you import comes into competition side by side, and duty free, with iron which is taxed from 8s. to 18s. a-ton according to the amount of labour put into it. Not only do we lose this amount of revenue by every ton of foreign iron, but it has this still more grievous effect—that it puts out of employment a very large number of our own men. What I ask is this—that it is only fair to the working classes that we should subject foreign-produced iron to the same amount of taxation we impose upon our own? Why should we love the foreigner so much? Why should we legislate in favour of the foreigner? Why should we back up the Railway Companies in importing foreign goods and discourage our own native manufactures? These are questions which require answering, and not the questions which we have heard to-night about depression of trade. It is not a question about depression of trade at all. The question is whether it is right and proper to tax the labour of the English workman and the collier, and at the same time allow the product of the labour of the foreign workman to come in untaxed? The English manufacturer has to compete in the markets of the world with the foreigner; and that is the reason why the foreigner can beat us. We, in effect, give a bounty to the foreigner to come in with his manufactured iron and steel, and other manufactured goods, to rob us of our home orders. Cannot hon. Members opposite see this? They say that they want cheapness, and to have our industries worked cheaply; but cannot they see that if they put taxation upon our own manufactures which is not put upon foreign manufactures, our own producers cannot compete with the foreigner as thoroughly as if both were taxed equally. Therefore, it is obvious that the taxation ought to be equal. That is what we ask for—namely, that the taxation we are called upon to bear should be equally borne by those who compete with us. I support the Motion of the hon. Member for Stockport, because, if carried into effect, it would help our working classes to live more cheaply, as the duties on tea and coffee would be taken away; or if not, and the foreign manufactured goods cease to come in, then we shall have more work to do in our own workshops to the extent of £46,650,000 a-year.

I should not have risen to address the House except for the reason that hitherto no Lancashire Member has spoken from this side of the House. Some hon. Members who have addressed the House this evening have based their arguments on the necessity of protecting working men. Now, I ought to know something about the condition of the working men of Lancashire. The hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Jennings) ridiculed the idea of the condition of the working men having been improved by the adoption of Free Trade. Either the hon. Member for Stockport is wrong, or I have spent my life to very little purpose indeed. What are the facts of the case in regard to the working classes? I know a manufacturing concern in Lancashire which is paying £75,000 a-year in wages. Before Free Trade measures were enacted the same concern would have paid only £40,000 a-year, and that was for 69 hours a-week compared with 56½ hours now. It now pays £75,000 a-year for 56½ hours' work a-week, whereas formerly it would have paid only £40,000 for 69 hours' work a-week; and what is the condition of the working classes compared with what it was formerly? They are better fed, better clad, better housed, and enjoy better health. [An hon. MEMBER: And are better educated.] Yes; and better educated; and if any hon. Member doubts that assertion, let him take a journey through Lancashire, and ask the opinion of any old people he may meet. He has nothing to do but to walk through such a town as Burnley, and he will find abundant evidence of comfort forthcoming in every direction. Life is brighter and better for the working classes than it was 45 years ago. I am speaking of what I know; but if there be any doubt the Registrar's Tables of Mortality will dispel the doubt. Life is longer than it was; and I would, therefore, advise the hon. Member for Stockport not to base his argument on the condition of the working classes. They know very well that they are better off than they were before. I will venture to say that there is no manufacturing country in the world where wages are not lower and the hours not longer than they are in Lancashire. The hon. Member for Wigtonshire (Sir Herbert Maxwell) mentioned an independent witness—Mr. Porter. Mr. Porter was sent by The New York Tribune, in the interests of the Protectionists of America, to find reasons for bolstering up Protection in that country; and yet Mr. Porter has been spoken of as an independent witness. I have read Mr. Porter's letters, and I know what they are. The hon. Baronet the Member for Altrincham (Sir William Cunliffe Brooks) mentioned the depression existing in Lancashire, and the large number of persons out of employment there. No doubt, there are many unemployed persons there, and we all regret the fact. But what are the reasons? Large mills have been built and furnished with the best machinery. The constituents of the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. J. M. Maclean) can turn out scores of new mills, well built, and furnished with the newest improvements in machinery; and the consequence is that old-fashioned mills have dropped out of the race, and the working men erupted in them have been thrown out of employment. There are some mills standing in Lancashire which were built 40 or 50 years ago, and they are not at all adapted to the present condition of the manufacturing industry. The hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Jennings) has offered the Chancellor of the Exchequer £9,000,000 a-year; but I wonder how he would get it. Either the volume of imported articles would diminish under a tax of 20 per cent, or there would be no protection to working men. I am afraid that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not get his money, nor would the workpeople be protected. Another hon. Member has stated that a Free Trade policy was certain to benefit the manufacturers, but that it imposes a penalty which the landlords have to pay. Can manufacturers build their mills in the air? They want land, and they must purchase it from the landlords. The building material also comes from the land, as well as coals to supply the steam engines. The land on which the workpeople live must be purchased from the landlords; and, as both houses and mills are built upon long leases, whatever becomes of the manufacturer the landlord is tolerably sure of getting his rent. I will not trespass longer on the patience of the House. I will only say I am quite sure the workpeople of this country know on which side their bread is buttered; and I believe they will not be led away by such arguments as have been advanced by hon. Members who support the Motion.

said, he was not going to be put down, neither was he going to waste time by giving a learned disquisition on Free Trade or Protection. They would be interested to learn the result of an actual experiment tried in an Australian Colony, for the truth of which he could vouch. It had not been contradicted when he explained the matter to his constituents. When the Victorian gold-fields collapsed, 70,000 able-bodied men found themselves wandering aimlessly about the streets in search of employment. They found the shops and warehouses like the shops and warehouses in London to-day—that is, filled with imported goods of all descriptions from America, Germany, France, and elsewhere. They asked themselves, "Can we not make these things?" "Yes," was the reply of their leaders, "but first we must put a duty on the imported articles." The tariff was accordingly imposed, and tens of thousands found employment. The large importers then erected large manufactories, and only imported, the raw or unmanufactured products on which no duty was imposed. [An hon. MEMBER: How about New South Wales?] The hon. Member who referred to New South Wales could know nothing about the subject. That Colony was partly Free Trade, but it was four times larger than Victoria; it had splendid pastoral resources, and also mineral resources, which Victoria had not; and it had a smaller population Twenty-two years had passed since Protection had been in force in Victoria, and only the other day one of the leading men there, who was formerly a Freetrader, wrote as follows:—

"Very many things are now manufactured in the Colony that were formerly exclusively imported, and these industries have been materially aided by the heavy protective tariff now in force. Among the articles and preparations may be instanced account books, diaries, stationery, dyes, glass, cloth, paper, cigars, starch, pianos, furniture, carriages, clothing, organs, chemicals, blasting materials, oilmen's stones, safes, brush ware, soap, agricultural implements, &c.

"In all, the number of manufactories, large and small, exceed 2,000 exclusive of flour mills, breweries, woollen mills, brickyards, potteries, soap and candle works, tobacco factories, tanneries, fellmongeries, and woolwashing establishments.

"These 2,000 manufactories employ over 40,000 hands, and a manufacturing plant valued at over £6,500,000."

Those hon. Members who still doubted might have ample evidence of the progress of Melbourne and the Colony of Victoria generally, if they would visit the great Exhibition at Kensington. [Opposition cheers, and cries of"Divide!"] Hon. Members might cry "Divide!" but he claimed to be heard on behalf of Kent, which undoubtedly was the most intelligent county in England. It was acknowledged to be so, and statistics proved it. ["No!"] Well, if hon. Members on the opposite side of the House wanted proof, he would point to the conclusive fact that at the last General Election Kent returned 19 Conservatives to Parliament, and not one Radical. He would not waste time, but give them facts. He quoted evidence to show that in June of last year one large manufacturer and merchant closed his mills in England, and imported from Westphalia goods into England, the labour alone of which represented £30,000. He (Mr. Heaton) contended that it would be difficult to persuade the working men of England that the £30,000 worth of work of which they were thus deprived was for their benefit. It meant starvation to hundreds of honest men, because the foreigner would not allow English goods to be sent to his country—a heavy tax was imposed. He had said all he desired to say, and in conclusion he asserted that in a very few years the working men of England would return a majority of Members to the House in favour of his hon. Friend's Motion.

The House has listened to a very discursive debate upon Free Trade, Pair Trade, and the Depression of Trade. But the subject which I have to submit to the House has reference to the question of mining royalties and the way in which they are levied. I think that this question has a great deal to do with the depression of trade through which the country is now passing; and there can be no question that industries depending upon coal and iron are affected very materially by the heavy rents and royalties which they have now to pay to the landlords of this country. There is, I think, a misconception abroad, both in and out of Parliament, upon this matter, which has only lately been agitated. A deputation waited upon the Home Secretary upon the subject in March last, and the right hon. Gentleman promised to lay the important statement then made to him before the Cabinet. No answer, however, has yet been received in reference to the message which the Home Secretary conveyed to the Cabinet; and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be able now to shed a ray of light on the views of the Government upon the matter, and we may expect the answer which we were promised in March. I am sorry to find that the right hon. Gentleman appears to have thought that the deputation went to him in order to get parties who had entered into bad bargains relieved from them by the State. Nothing was further from our object than that. We would not lift our little finger to give relief of that kind to any of the parties who have entered into these bargains if there were not a much more important question behind—namely, the relief of some of the great industries of the country and those who are dependent on them. I find that the same idea which was entertained by the Home Secretary has also taken possession of the ex-Home Secretary. Probably it is a weakness on the part of Home Secretaries to imitate each other, and the ex-Home Secretary appears entirely to follow the lead given to him by the present Home Secretary at the time we approached him at the Home Office. This, however, is not at all our object; but the object we have in view is to relieve those industries, and those who are dependent upon them, who are at present suffering from great hardship indeed in consequence of the greatly reduced wages which they are receiving, partly caused by the heavy royalties which, the mineowners have to pay to the landlords. The Resolution which I have placed upon the Paper states my views, and has received the sanction of those with whom I am acting in connection with this matter. I will read that Resolution to the House—

"To call attention to the system of Mining Royalties: and to move, 'That, in the opinion of this House, the existing system of contracting for Mining Rents and Royalties is unsatisfactory, and should be amended by the Legislature on an equitable basis in the interests of all concerned.'"

I think hon. Members will agree with me that that is a very moderate and fair Resolution, and perhaps more so than many persons in the country may feel disposed to accept as a sufficient solution of it. I think there can be no question at all that what is stated in the Resolution—namely, that—

"The existing system of contracting for Mining Rents and Royalties is unsatisfactory,"

is perfectly true. I admit at once that mining rents and royalties are at present governed by freedom of contract, and I think that freedom of contract is a very admirable principle indeed for the conduct of commercial operations. I believe most thoroughly in the principles of Free Trade, notwithstanding the arguments we have heard to-night, which are certainly arguments which have been answered over and over again, and exploded years ago. Have we a free market in regard to these mining rents and royalties at the present moment? Because to have freedom of contract we want a free market. The minerals of the country are at this moment in possession of the landlords. The landlords of the country are a limited number, and are practically masters of the situation. The minerals are the property of the landlords, and we know that the land, as well as the minerals, is a fixed quantity. You cannot increase it by a single acre, neither can you increase the minerals by a single ounce; and the landlords having possession of the land and the minerals are, as I stated before, masters of the situation, and can do as they like with regard to the minerals. But in reference to the monopoly which the landlords now enjoy, the principle has been recognized by this House that Parliament is entitled to interfere in dealing with this practical monopoly. We have already recognized the principle by interfering with land and rents in Ireland. We recognized the same principle in passing the Crofters Bill, and this House recognized it also the other night in carrying the second reading of the Railway Rates Bill without even a division. In so doing we have affirmed the principle I desire to lay down—that we are entitled to interfere with the system of contracting for mining rents and royalties. With regard to the question of royalties, perhaps the House will allow me to state a few facts in order to see how far they operate or affect the industries of this country. I will take, in the first place, the iron trade of the country. I think the House will admit that that industry is a most important one, the foundation, so to speak, on which rests the future greatness and prosperity of the country, the other manufacturing industries of the country depending largely upon its prosperity. What are the facts of the case in connection with royalties payable upon the manufacture of pig iron? I hold in my hand a very important and valuable work, published by a very high authority upon this question—Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell. The House will admit that no higher authority can be found, and he says that in Cumberland the royalties per ton upon pig iron amount to 6s. 3d.; in Scotland to 6s.; Cleveland, 3s. 3d.; in Belgium from 1s. 2d. to 4s.; in France to only 8d.; and in Germany still less—namely, 6d. These are startling and important facts, and very serious facts indeed, in connection with the foreign competition, of which we have been hearing so much to-night. How in the name of common sense can it be expected, all other things being equal, that this country can compete with foreigners abroad in the manufacture of iron, when the raw material can be got for 6d. a-ton in Germany, for which in Scotland we have to pay 6s., and in Cumberland, 6s. 3d.? It is unnecessary that I should argue that question any further, because it is quite patent to any ordinarily intelligent man that Scotland used to be the chief market for the manufacture of pig iron. It is fast losing its supremacy in that respect, chiefly on account of the heavy royalties the ironmasters are asked to pay for the minerals they use. English and Scotch manufacturers are handicapped to an enormous extent; and the result is that, whereas the iron used in the foundries of the West of Scotland was Scotch iron, it is now being supplanted. Glasgow is now importing pig iron from Cleveland at the rate of 1,000 tons per day, caused by the difference between a royalty of 3s. 3d. per ton in Cleveland and 6s. in Scotland—a difference quite sufficient to enable the Cleveland ironmasters to compete with the Scotch ironmasters in the Glasgow market. In answer to that it may be said—"Why do not the ironmasters give up their leases;" but when hon. Gentlemen talk in that way they forget that an enormous capital has been sunk by the ironmasters in their plant, and for them to give up their leases and abandon their works would simply mean ruin. They go on hoping against hope, and the result is that the present stock of pig iron in Connal's stores is enormously large—larger, I believe, than it has ever been before in the history of the iron trade. They cannot stop, but they are compelled to go on producing, and in consequence their stock is increasing at an unparalleled rate. A crisis is inevitable, if such a state of things continues much longer without a remedy. One point to which I wish to direct the attention of the House is this—that in Germany and France the State has retained possession of the minerals; and to show the difference between private ownership and State ownership, I may mention that in Belgium the royalties payable on the manufacture of a ton of pig iron ran from 1s. 2d. to 4s. a-ton; whereas in Germany they are only 6d., and in France 8d. per ton. We have recently heard of serious and terrible riots in Belgium. Why did those riots occur? It was because the ironmasters and mineowners say that they have been losing money; and therefore they attempted to reduce the wages of the men they employed to a point at which the men declared they are unable to live. Serious riots ensued in consequence; but the ironmasters and mineowners say that they cannot help the workmen unless the royalties are reduced to the same scale as those which are paid in France and Germany. They maintain that until that is done it is impossible for the Belgian ironmasters to pay their way, or for the trade to prosper. The coalmasters in this country say they have had to reduce the miners' wages in consequence of the high royalties they have to pay; and the ironmasters have not been able to find a market for their iron owing to the competition to which they have been subjected from abroad. The chief cause of this is the royalties paid both by the coalmasters and the ironmasters. These have stood at much too high a figure in past times; but, nevertheless, the rents demanded for the royalties have gone on increasing; and in order to make both ends meet the ironmasters and coal-owners have been obliged to resort to a reduction of the wages of their men. In my own Division of the county of Lanark, which contains probably the most important mining constituency in Scotland, the rents are fixed, and run from £500 to £5,000 per annum. The rent is independent of the royalties, but merges into the royalty when the quantity put out exceeds the rent. The charge, therefore, goes on increasing according to the quantity taken out; but supposing that the works are not going on the rent is still exacted, and the coalmasters have to do something to enable them to pay the rent to the landlord. The rent being a fixed sum, and the wages not being a fixed sum, the masters took advantage of the labour market, and reduced the wages of their men to such a point that the poor men are at present scarcely able to keep body and soul together. Perhaps I may be allowed to give an illustration in order to show how the case stands at present. In the county of Lanark some royalties are as much as 1s. 4d. a-ton; but while the landowner is receiving that sum the poor miner only gets 10d. a-ton for hewing the coal. In the North of England some of the miners are, I believe, actually receiving less than 10d. a-ton—in some instances as low as 7d. I know of one landowner in my Division who, at the present time, is deriving no less than £114,000 a-year out of his mining royalties; yet neither he nor his forefathers ever contributed one farthing towards the creation of that enormous income. There is no wonder that the poor miner points to cases such as this, and complains of the existing system, when inequalities such as this are known to exist. I am not surprised that the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Howell) should say that in this country capital is too largely accumulated in a few hands. In France and Germany the State has wisely retained the possession of the minerals in its own hands; and I think it would have been as well if in past ages this country had taken the same course. The power of doing that has now passed away. There can be no question at all that the State originally was the proprietor of the minerals. In Scotland, I believe, down to about 200 years ago, the Crown had possession of the minerals, and I presume that it was the same in England. I am not aware whether there was ever any repeal of the law in Scotland; but it certainly fell into disuse, and I believe that disuse in such matters is equivalent to repeal. I do not see the Lord Advocate present; but there are probably other legal Gentlemen present who will be able to correct me if I am wrong. In consequence of the law falling into disuse the landowners virtually became proprietors of the minerals without any special Act of Parliament to recognize their right; and now, of course, they are the legal possessors of the minerals of the country, and draw large incomes from this source of wealth. There is another point in connection with the working of these minerals to which I wish to direct the attention of the House, because it leads up to the Resolution which I have placed upon the Paper. The original method of entering into leases for the working of minerals in Scotland was not, as it is now, by paying fixed rents and royalties. It was a much more simple system. The recognized owner of the minerals received a given quantity of the output of the mine, or a given percentage of it. The effect of this arrangement was that the larger the quantity the larger the return to the landowner, who shared with the mineowner in the prosperity of the mine; but if the mine was not worked there was nothing to pay, or if worked moderately there was, consequently, a moderate sum to pay. I certainly think that that was a much more satisfactory arrangement than the hard-and-fast system under which the mines are worked now. I now come to what I would suggest as a remedy for the existing state of things. The remedy which I would suggest is a very simple one, and it is the following up the old Scottish system. I think it would be wise to revive that plan, rather than require the payment of a fixed sum, because there might be a fiery mine or a very wet mine, which will require great care, and be very expensive to work; and it is impossible to know, until experience has been obtained, whether it will be a profitable mine to work or not. I know of one case in which a sum of £50,000 was spent in sinking a pit and putting in machinery, and when it came to be worked it was found that it could not be profitably worked at the royalty agreed to be paid. The mineowner approached the landowner, told him the facts of the case, and asked for a reduction of the royalty, adding that unless he got a reduction it would be impossible for him to continue working the mine. The landowner, however, refused to make a reduction, and the £50,000 sunk in the mine was entirely lost. The mine itself is not being worked now. What I would suggest is that the old Scotch system should be revived. Perhaps it may be not quite so applicable to Bugland as it is to Scotland, although I confess I see none. The Scotch system was that a certain percentage should be paid to the landowner of the output by way of royalty. There may be a difficulty and difference of opinion as to what that percentage should be; some landlords take a different view from others, and until the coal is reached it is difficult to arrive at what the cost of working it will be. What I would suggest is that we ought to have a Royalty Court, or a Commission, or some other tribunal, to decide what would be a fair percentage of the output that should fall to the landowner from the working of the mine. I do not think there would be anything unfair in that. No one has any desire to take the minerals away from the landowner without giving compensation, or to compel him to part with any covenant he may have entered into with his tenant at a great sacrifice, unless the public welfare demands it. If the landlord and tenant are willing to go on with the lease they have entered into, let them go on; but the tenant should be entitled, if he has a grievance, to go before some regularly constituted tribunal, if the royalty imposed is too great, and state all the facts before the Court, with a further statement, supported by evidence, that he is unable to pay the royalty, and then, after full consideration, the Court should have power to compel the landlord to yield. I am glad to observe that the present Government have directed their attention to this question in connection with the Land Purchase Bill for Ireland. It is a proof to me that they are proceeding in the right direction; and although there is no desire to revive absolutely the old rights of the Crown, there is a disposition to restore the former arrangement with regard to the working of minerals. The clause of the Land Purchase Bill to which I refer is sub-section 2 of Clause 11, and I am glad to see the principle which it contains embodied in the Bill. It is a long step towards the adoption of the principle at which I am aiming, and I expect to see the Home Secretary rise in his place and say that he supports the Resolution which I intend to propose. The Royalty Court or Commission which I suggest should have power to settle all disputed cases in connection with ascertainable surface damages, way-leaves, and the like, besides a great many matters which at present it is very difficult to settle. I think it is most desirable that there should be some such Court with very full powers. Of course it must be an impartial Court, presided over in Scotland by Sheriffs of counties, and in England probably by the County Court Judges. I have no wish to interfere with the right of any individual where that is not affecting the people or the public interest; but I wish to arrive at an equitable solution of this most difficult question, so that the great industries of the country may be no longer unduly handicapped. I think I have shown the necessity for something being done, and I trust the Government will move in the direction I have indicated. I believe that under my plan the interest of the landowner would be sufficiently protected, and that we should be able to do justice to that large body of hard-working, industrious men, who are at present toiling very hard for the means of dragging on a miserable existence, and who are, at the same time, adding so much to the wealth of the country. I am quite sure that the House would act wisely if they decided to face the question, and it must be faced before long, and perhaps it may not then be faced so easily, or on so just and equitable a basis. If we face this question now I am certain that we shall find the future of the country less seriously imperilled than hon. Members opposite seem to believe. I have been a manufacturer myself for the last 30 years, and I know that foreign competition is certainly very hard upon us at the present time. But I have no faith in the Fair Trade nostrums which have been suggested as a remedy for the evil, nor do I take so gloomy a view of the future as is taken by many persons. I believe that by taking advantage of the skill and ability of our workmen, and the splendid machinery and appliances which the country possesses, we shall be able to hold our own against any country in the world, and I do not fear any competition whatever. All I ask is that we should be in a position to avail ourselves of the advantages we possess, and I am sure that the physical, mental, and intellectual power of our population will never be surpassed by any foreigners. We require nothing but freedom to enable us to develop the resources of the country to the fullest extent; and if something is done to relieve our coal and iron industries, and we make the best use of our wealth and our unrivalled mechanical appliances by taking advantage of these to the full, I have no doubt that England will still be able to hold her own in the markets of the world.

In seconding the Motion of my hon. Friend who has just sat down, I trust I may be permitted to say that I have listened to the debate which has taken place in this House to-night with considerable interest; and I feel certain, from what has been said, that we may safely calculate upon the sympathy and support of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite in carrying the Motion which has been so ably moved by my hon. Friend, Whatever may have been our thoughts, whatever may have been the opinions entertained by us previous to this Parliament, with respect to the attention which has been given to the interests of the working classes of this country in this House, so far as this Session is gone, I think the working classes must have been struck by the debates which have been so obviously, and I may say ostentatiously, started in their interest. Well, Sir, the question which has been brought before the House by my hon. Friend is one in which the constituency I have the honour to represent takes a deep interest, and one which they regard as of very great importance to them as a mining community. In my own Division in Northumberland, as indeed in almost every other Division in the county at the time of the last Election, there were many questions which secured a large amount of public interest and attention. Since that time the interest in many of these questions has subsided, or been considerably modified in its tone and expression. But the interest that was manifested at the time of the General Election in the North of England by the miners and ironworkers has not only not subsided with the lapse of time, but has positively increased in volume. It has intensified in its character, and increased in the forms of its expression. Is that to be wondered at when we consider how heavily the coal and iron industries of the country are handicapped by the oppressive charges and burdens which are laid upon them? Those who are laying an embargo upon the coal and iron trades, and placing the owners at a disadvantage in competing with the trade of other countries, incur great responsibilities indeed. I think I am correct in saying that there are many mineowners who have, for a number of years, not only received no return for the capital they have invested, but many who have positively endured a loss. Indeed, a friend of mine who is largely interested in the coal trade of the North of England told me the other day that he and the other members of his firm, for a number of years, have not received any return for their capital, and yet they have been paying to the lords of the manor, or the royalty owners, a sum of £20,000 per annum in the shape of royalty rents. Well, Sir, the wages of the miners have been reduced to the lowest possible point, to a point at which, as my hon. Friend has remarked, it is scarcely possible for them to keep body and soul together; and, indeed, but for the large sums that have been distributed amongst the mining population in the North of England from their trade organizations, many strong, willing, and able-bodied men, and men of independent spirit, would have been compelled, from mere force of circumstances, to seek relief from the Guardians. In Northumberland alone, since the beginning of this year, no less than £7,000 have been distributed amongst miners; and I believe I am perfectly right in saying that in Durham even a much larger sum than that has been distributed amongst the miners. During all this time, while those who pay the royalty have been receiving no return for their capital, and the wages of the miners have been reduced to almost starvation point, the landowners and royalty owners have been in receipt of large sums of money for rent, which, in all fairness, ought to have gone in interest on capital or in wages to the miners. The extent to which the coal and iron industries in this country are affected by these charges may be learned by hon. Members who care to consult that valuable work to which my hon. Friend referred. Or, if they do not care to go to the expense of purchasing that book, if they will turn to the Blue Book lately issued containing evidence given before the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the cause of Depression in Trade, they will find there the evidence of that gentleman most fully stated, who said, in answer to questions put to him by one of the Members of that Commission with regard to the extent to which trade in this country was affected as compared with other countries by royalty charges, that the royalties in Cleveland on every ton of pig iron amounted to 3s.; in Lancashire it amounted to 6s. 3d.; in Scotland to 3s. In Germany he said that the royalty on pig iron was something like 6d. a-ton; in the United States it varied considerably, being sometimes nothing at all, and sometimes as high as 6s. or 7s. a-ton; and in France it was 8d. But, Sir, there is this great difference between the countries named and our own. In those countries the royalties are in the hands of the State, whereas in this country they are the property of private individuals. I have often, in my experience, regarded it as a very unfair thing that royalty owners, who run none of the risk and submit to none of the privations incident to the miner's life, in many instances receive more in the shape of royalty than the man who descends with the line carrying his life in his hand, and who cuts the diamond and sends it to the surface. I regard this state of things as very unfair and very unsatisfactory indeed; and I hope that the Government, and the Members of this House also, will be disposed to accept the Resolution so ably offered by my hon. Friend, and that they will adopt his suggestion for the appointment of a Commission to inquire into the system that now obtains in charging royalty rents. I will only say in conclusion that the hand of a kind Providence has made our beloved country to teem with mineral wealth as, it would appear, a sort of set-off of compensation for our limited area of surface; and I regret that we have for so long looked upon this mineral wealth, this natural wealth that was undoubtedly placed there to minister to the comfort and happiness of the people, that it should be regarded by this country, while every other country has endeavoured to disregard it, as the property of individuals. I am glad to see, as my hon. Friend has stated, that in the Land Purchase Bill for Ireland what I consider to be a right departure has been made in this respect, for, undoubtedly, the mineral wealth of this country ought to belong to the nation, and not to private individuals. The terms of this Motion, however, do not go so far as to say that the Government ought to take all rights that private landowners have in the mineral wealth of the country; but the Government and this House are invited to express their opinion that the present system of levying royalty duties is unfair and unsatisfactory, and ought to be adjusted in the interests of all concerned. I beg to second the Resolution of my hon. Friend.

Sir, I wish to make a few remarks on the Resolution of the hon. Member for Mid Lanarkshire (Mr. Mason). Beyond all doubt, there is a grievance; the difficulty which arises is as to the remedy for that grievance. If, when? these royalties are fixed, the market price of iron is high they may be perfectly fair enough; but there comes a time when prices fall, and when they bear no relation to the price of iron. If the royalties remain unaltered under those circumstances, the lessee of the mine pays an undue amount to the owner of the soil, and, in consequence, has to pay less wages to the workmen. In such cases great hardships have been found to exist, and the effects of the system will be apparent to anyone who goes through the mining districts in this country. Well, Sir, how is that to be remedied? The question is a difficult one. Undoubtedly there is a grievance, and my hon. Friend, says he has a simple way of dealing with it. He would appoint a Land Court to adjudicate upon what should be the fair charge which a ton of mineral should pay. But I should like to ask my hon. Friend how far he proposes to carry his suggestion? It may be that the amount of the royalties was fixed when the price of minerals was high, and in that case it is only right that it should be paid: but is my hon. Friend prepared to say that when the royalties are fixed at a time when minerals are low in price there is to be an inquiry as to whether miners are not receiving unduly high wages? It seems to me that his proposal leads you to that conclusion; and, if so, it conducts you to a sea of difficulty from which you will not easily extricate yourself. My hon. Friend says "No;" but I ask, how far does he propose to extend the interference of the Court which he proposes to set up? Some hon. Gentlemen would, no doubt, say it ought to be extended to fixing the rate of wages generally. But I should like to know where that principle is to stop? I am not afraid of Socialism; but this kind of Socialism I am not prepared to contemplate until my hon. Friend shows me that there is no other remedy. We grant the evil to exist; but we ask, can it not be met by other means? I think the main difficulty arises from this—you have in land something which carries with it attributes of an anomalous character, not merely legal, but also political and social. The owner of land is undoubtedly placed in a position of great advantage in comparison with the man with whom he is dealing. It is not because land is a monopoly. There are other monopolies than land; capital is a mono poly. ["No!"] However that may be, in the case of land undoubtedly you have, what you have not in the case of capital, a peculiar status which enables the owner to assume a position of advantage in relation to those with whom he is dealing. And I say it is that which it should be the object of your Land Reform to remove. But I cannot think it is necessary to wait until then before you touch this question of mines. Why should there not be a Bill placed before the House of Commons to enable owners and managers to let land on the terms similar to those which existed under the Scotch system, the royalty varying according to the price, or, it may be, assuming the form of a share of the rent? You might embody some form of lease based on this principle in the Schedule of the Bill which is to bring this principle into operation; and you might in that way assist the owners of the fee simple, as well as limited owners, in conforming their contracts to the equity which ought to regulate transactions of this kind; in other words, you can extend the powers of limited owners enormously. Reforms of that sort would put persons dealing with the owners of land on a footing of equality, or something like it, and you would be introducing something approaching to a system of free contract. You would have a remedy which is calculated to bring about a better state of things in which men would have to rely on their own exertions. The Resolution of my hon. Friend is open to this remark—it is one which simply affirms that the law is in urgent need of reform. I believe it is. And I hold it is in urgent need of reform for the reasons I have stated; and, therefore, reserving as I do all assent to the proposal suggested by the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, I shall support the Resolution before the House.

My hon. and learned Friend is a very good lawyer, and it is always easy for a lawyer to throw difficulties in the way of almost any proposition that can be made. I am not at all surprised that he should have suggested several difficulties in connection with this Motion; but I am not aware that any reform has ever been suggested, or ever could be suggested, against which difficulties could not be arrayed. Admitting, as the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Haddington (Mr. Haldane) has very candidly done, that the law is in urgent need of reform, it appears to me—and here I differ from the hon. and learned Gentleman—that the difficulties and injustices that exist, and that undoubtedly are most glaring, can be most easily rectified by the carrying out of the proposal which has been already sanctioned for the establishment of a Court in which an impartial tribunal will do justice between man and man. I do not see that there is anything so startling in such a proposition. And if it is said—"We do not know how you are going to extend this system; we do not see that it has anything to do with the matter," I reply that we shall extend the system just as far as we find it necessary, and that I shall rejoice when Land Courts are established all over the country to deal with agricultural as well as mineral matters. The difficulty my hon. and learned Friend suggested as to the raising of royalties when found to be too low will not arise at all, so far as I understand the matter, because the suggestion which was put forward very clearly by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lanark (Mr. Mason) was that a royalty should be established on a sliding scale; and that would necessarily imply that when the price of minerals was high the royalty owners should have, proportionately, a large share of the money; and, on the other hand, when the price fell their share should be proportionately diminished. That cannot be called an unfair or unjust proposal. I do not suppose that the owners would wish to have more than their fair share, though I am bound to say that in the history of our country they have always had a great deal more than their share. I take it, however, that in the democratic epoch we are entering upon the mineral owners, like other human beings, will be anxious to have only their fair share, and will not want to be put down as avaricious and greedy. In making a few remarks because of the position my Division of Cornwall occupies in connection with this subject, even at this late hour I wish to draw attention to two points that have not been touched on by hon. Gentlemen who have preceded me. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the Wansbeck Division of Northumberland (Mr. Fenwick), in his very interesting speech, dealt only with the coal and iron industries; but I want to draw the attention of the House to certain very flagrant cases in connection with other industries, because it must be understood that this is not a question affecting only one part of the country. When the House realizes that fact it will see how excessively important that question is. I would not say that it is more important; but it certainly is not less important than that question of Free Trade, the discussion of which has taken up so many hours this evening. There is no part of the country where there are any minerals worthy of being got where you will not find the keenest interest taken in this question of royalties; and, more than that, if you consider the incubus at this moment wearing down our mineral centres by reason of these excessive rents and royalties, and indirectly affecting every other industry in the country, you will at once see that the question of rents and royalties connected with mines goes to the root of the whole of that depression in our trade of which we have been hearing so much. I do not exaggerate very much the importance of this subject—though it may seem to some a common one—when I say that there is no class of trade or industry in the country that does not feel the effect of the depression consequent upon this great incubus. But the other point I wish to refer to for one moment, and which is part of the question, though no one has referred to it, is the excessive rents exacted, not only for the mere minerals, but in respect of what are called "way-leaves," or right of way over land. I shall be able to prove how, in one or two instances, trading interests are in this way crippled and fettered. With the permission of the House I would bring before hon. Members, in connection with that last point, one or two facts; and I do so because I do not want here to spin a long yarn, but desire by one grain of fact to dispel many tons of fiction. Here is a case from Aberystwith. I may say that constantly I am receiving information from all parts of the country—statements all corroborating each other—showing how just is the demand made in connection with this question. From Aberystwith I have this statement—that in a country like Wales, which almost entirely depends upon water power, most exorbitant charges are often made for watercourses and pools, and that fabulous sums have been exacted for what may be called practically worthless land. As far as this last statement is concerned, I have plenty of evidence I could lay before the House from my own experience in Cornwall. A further statement comes to me from Northumberland, which also bears on the question of way-leaves. I am told that in a certain place, in order to get the minerals to the railway, it is necessary to go over the land of another party. The party over whose land the minerals had to be carted by iron ways died, and it was endeavoured to obtain from his successor permission to use the right of way as hitherto; but it was refused. In another case which comes from Saltney, which is near Chester, information is given to me that in the case of a particular Welsh mine £4,000 were spent in opening it up, and metal-liferous veins 12 feet thick and 60 feet wide were found. Those who worked it were hampered in their proceedings by the difficulty of getting their produce to the sea coast, only two miles away, owing to the refusal of the landowner to allow a light tramway to be run alongside the hedges in two fields, and over some waste land all but bordering on the sea. In this case there were a number of unemployed miners in the district. The mine could have been worked at great advantage owing to the low prices; but in consequence of the hostility of this one man it was obliged to remain idle—through the selfishness of one man 100 were prevented from being employed. I say that it is a scandalous state of things that hundreds of men should be kept out of employment and mineowners should be ruined through the caprice of one man. I would ask the hon. Member for East Lothian what he would suggest in that case. It is not a question of adjusting rents and royalties according to the output of the mine; but here you have the rights of landowners, in respect of which you have to pay money. They say—"Here are the terms of the Land Bill—you may accept them, but you shall have none other." I say, whilst the present law of the country gives, as it does, absolute right to ownership over the land we are slaves to the landowners—nothing less. You cannot do justice between man and man and get these grievances redressed you cannot free our national industries from this incubus, which weighs them down and squeezes them under, until you have some reliable and impartial tribunal which can do justice in cases like this. Now, with respect to the question of rent. Here is a statement which has appeared in print, and which has not been contradicted, in which I am told that a colliery in the Midland Counties is now standing idle, and those who have it in hand are paying a large yearly minimum rent in preference to working coal which is practically unworkable. In another case a noble Lord insisted on being paid twice over for coal within a few years. These are cases which have only to be mentioned to carry to everyone's mind a conviction as to the necessity of having some authority to control and regulate the matter. I do not know whether hon. Members are familiar with the actual terms which are to be found in leases of one particular kind. I said just now that only coal and iron mines had been referred to. Some of the evidence I have refers to quarries, not only in Wales, but also in other parts. In my own part of the county, where at present the production of tin is the great industry, and also in another part of Cornwall, where the production of china clay is the principal industry, there have been worse cases of exaction and tyranny than are to be found even in those parts with which hon. Gentlemen are more familiar. I use the word "tyranny" with deliberate purpose. I have made use of the phrase before in addressing my constituents, and I have been pretty well found fault with for so doing. But I say that tyranny does exist. There are cases in which those engaged in the china clay industry dare not meet on a platform to confer with each other and bring their grievances before Members of Parliament who are trying to redress such grievances. This is the case at this moment with persons who sink their capital and labour in the china clay industry in different parts of Cornwall. These people have told me they dare not come and meet me for the purpose of ventilating their grievances for fear that when their leases run out in a few years' time they would not be able to get renewals. These leases are sometimes of a most extraordinary character in respect of the stringency of their provisions. It is customary in Cornwall for these leases to be of 21 years' duration only. The ordinary lease provides that the tenant may erect such buildings as are necessary for the effectual working of the china clay deposit. Anyone acquainted with the industry knows that there is a great deal of work to be done in connection with the preparation of the clay—that it is not merely digging deep down into the earth to get the best clay, but that it is necessary to lay out a great deal of capital, sometimes £8,000 or £9,000, in the erection of kilns, tanks, and other works. The annual rent is almost invariably one of several hundreds of pounds, which, however, is usually merged in dues when the clay is being obtained and is producing profit. But here is the injustice of the system. Should the tenant or lessee not find the clay in sufficient quantity to enable him to pay the dues to meet the rent, the rent has still to be paid. And the dues or royalties, in the case I am referring to of the china clay industry, are even heavier than any that we have heard spoken of in connection with the iron and coal industry, because the charge is from 1s. 6d. to as much as 4s. per ton, and many hundreds and thousands of tons of clay gexported from Cornwall fetch only 13s., 14s., or 18s. a-ton. At the end of 21 years—here is actually a quotation from one of these leases which I think is about as barbarous a piece of legalized confiscation as ever I came across—or sooner, if the lease is previously terminated, the tenant must leave the works, with buildings, sheds, engine-houses, shafts, water-courses, and everything except machinery and tools, in good and efficient order for the landlord to take possession of free, gratis, for nothing. ["Oh!"] Well, free, gratis, for nothing is not in the lease. This, as I said before, really amounts to a confiscation of the tenant's property—the property the tenant has himself created, and in regard to which, as has been pointed out, the landlord does not trouble himself to invest either capital or labour. There is another aspect of the question that I particularly wish to impress upon the House; and that is that in the event of the tenant's bankruptcy the lease is determined, and all the improvements which are made go to the landlord, just as if the lease had run out by the lapse of time. In such a case what happens? There may be other creditors; but the landlord exacts his rent or his dues, and the other creditors get no consideration whatever. Those other creditors may even have supplied the materials for building; but if the tenant has not paid for them, payment cannot be recovered from the property, even though the tenant is not in the landlord's debt. Then, the tenant cannot assign a lease without the consent of the landlord, and to obtain that consent very often a very high premium is charged. That is, generally speaking, a description of what happens in connection with the lease of a china clay estate in the Eastern part of Cornwall. Here are the facts of an exceptional case, certainly; but it shows what has happened in the past, and what may happen again in these particular cases. It is by the worst cases that you have to gauge the necessity for a reform of the law. Laws are not made for the purpose of regulating the actions of those people who are good, but to restrain the evil tendencies of those who are bad. In the particular case to which I wish to draw attention a lease was granted in the early part of 1873 to a person named Sargeant for the usual term of 21 years, the minimum rent being fixed at no less than £2,000; £2,000 a-year was to be paid for the first two or three years, and after that time it was to be £1,000 a-year to be merged in dues; and that £2,000 a-year the unfortunate man was compelled to pay in quarterly instalments and in advance. The dues were 3s. 6d. a-ton, and for every acre of land taken for the production of clay £100 was required. I may say in this connection that a great deal of the land—and I am speaking of what I know, for it is not long since I was over the land and examined it for myself—is mere waste, not worth 5s. an acre, much less £100. There are portions of the property that are cultivable, that have little farmsteads on them, and which are held under leases for life by an old lady. When I was speaking to her a few days since she informed me that, though the landowner was receiving £100 an acre for every acre of her land taken from her for the purpose of working this clay set, she had not received a single farthing of compensation. In the interest of these poor persons there ought to be some cheap means of having justice done them, as being the victims of that system. To conclude the facts of this particular case. This unfortunate lessee worked for three or four years, and spent £30,000 on engines and plant. I have examined the place where the clay is prepared and dried for export, and I found that everything was built in the most solid and substantial manner, of which no one can complain. The lessee went so far as to lay down two furlongs of railway to enable him to carry the clay from the drying sheds to the main line for export; in addition to that I understand he had to pay £100 an acre for making a road which ran across the line, and which was to be used in connection with the clay. Nearly two years after the working was begun the lessee began to return clay for export, and a considerable quantity was subsequently produced; owing, however, to an accident, the breakdown of machinery, and a violent storm which submerged the works, the cost of producing clay was so great that a very serious annual loss was incurred. Well, Sir, what happened? After spending £30,000 the unfortunate lessee found himself no longer able to pay in advance the proportion of rent which he was required to pay under the lease; he asked for grace for a few days; the answer, like that of Shylock, was—"No; I stand on the terms of my bond; I will have my pound of flesh;" the works were sold up for non-payment of rent; the amount produced by the dried clay did not exceed £650; the substantial plant and all the improvements became the property of the lessor, or, at all events, the lessee never received anything for them, and the lessee himself, broken-hearted, died in a foreign country. This, Sir, is a case where, owing to ruthless and harsh terms, a man who was doing his duty to his fellows by developing the industry of the country—by the way money was screwed out of him, and by relying too much on the generosity of a British landowner—was done to death. I do not think that any more forcible or conclusive instance than this is required in order to justify our demands that something should be done, and to convince us that we ought not to sit still and see our country going from bad to worse. I am aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been taunted this evening for being unwilling to admit that the country is going to the bad; but I think there is ample ground for hope with regard to the future, provided that these inequalities—these injustices—are removed. This is the chief matter which is agitating the country at the present time. I cannot imagine that anyone will deny that a remedy for these evils must be found, and that soon. My opinion is in favour of the remedy suggested by my hon. Friend, that a tribunal should be established which would deal with the question. It is an article of the Constitution that the subject who has a grievance shall have redress in a Court of Justice. If that is so, I fail to see why we should not get a remedy for our grievances, which are the result of the bad and obsolete Land Laws under which the country is at present suffering. Let us, therefore, direct our attention, with something like honesty, to this question. I myself am rather in favour of active legislation, founded upon evidence which is easily obtainable. It seems to me that any further discussion and inquiry will only lead to waste of time; and if any hon. Member in this House, or any hon. Member outside the House, can suggest any better remedy or any easier method of getting over our difficulties than the institution of a Mining Commission or a Mining Court, I shall be only too happy to render him whatever assistance is in my power to get such remedy adopted; but at the present moment I fail to see that the various grievances which exist, not merely with regard to rents and royalties, but also with regard to the arbitrary caprice of owners of land, can be dealt with better than by a Court of Justice established for the purpose of redressing them.

Although I differ from much which has been stated from the other side of the House, I think there is no doubt that there are some conditions connected with mining by which the lessees have suffered which are the reverse of fair. With reference to the question as to mines belonging to the nation instead of private individuals, I must point out that if they were the property of the former, the nation would have to do with regard to them one of two things. It would either have to grant a concession to persons wanting to work the mine—that is, let it by favour, or it would have to let it to the highest bidder, and the matter would have to be settled practically by competition. I think that the reason why rents are higher here than they are in some other countries is because competition is less in those countries. If I am wrong I shall be glad to be corrected; but I believe we have royalties belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall and the Crown which are practically let to the highest bidder; but there are certain things in connection with mining leases, and one in particular, upon which I have very strong opinions—it is that, at the conclusion of the lease, even although all the mineral may be paid for and a large quantity of it not yet got, the landlord has power to re-enter and re-let the mine to the former lessee, or anyone else, as though he had never been paid for it. Now, if the landlord is the owner of the fee simple he may act generously in these cases; but if the estate is in trust, he is bound, as trustee, to get the most he can for it; he cannot be generous; and he is under the circumstances I have described bound, so to speak, to confiscate the mine. Well, Sir, I believe that is wrong; and, further, that from the fact that many estates are in trust, and that the trustee is obliged to act in that manner, a totally erroneous idea of what is right or wrong in the circumstances described has become current. The remedy which I suggest is, that the lessee should have the power in such a case to refer the matter to the Court of Chancery, if he can show that the trustee does not give him that equity which one would expect to receive from a landlord who is the absolute owner of a mine. That suggestion is one which, in my opinion, is worthy of the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

Sir, I believe that the royalties in this country amount to a sum exceeding £6,000,000 a-year. As a rule, the royalty owner pays no portion of the local rates and taxes, and at the same time the rent may be raised by him, whether or not the mine is successful. Thus it is that you find the royalty owner has become rich by exertions, and the expenditure of the capital of others, which have been wholly lost. The word "royalty" implies that mines and minerals were not always private property. We had one law with regard to them from France, where originally they were the property of the State. Private property in mines lasted only for about 100 years, and in the 15th century the State again took possession of all mineral property. There is no putting them up to auction in foreign countries, as suggested by the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Blundell); but, first, there is a licence given for exploitation, and when it is found that the mine can be worked a lease is granted, and a royalty not exceeding 5 per cent is paid according to the Code upon the net—not upon the gross—product. Well, Sir, that seems to me to be a rational way of settling the difficulty. Of course, it will be said that it is an interference with freedom of contract. But freedom of contract has been interfered with time after time in regard to landlord and tenant; certainly Gentlemen of the Conservative Party would not maintain that there was anything wrong in interfering between landlord and tenant, because one of the Acts of Earl Cairns was to interfere, in the most marked way, with a lease. If a man broke a covenant the lessor had power to turn him out and re-enter; but Earl Cairns considered that this was a most unjust confiscation, and now no such thing is allowed; and, therefore, I do not think that we need be frightened by any such bogie as freedom of contract. All we ask is that with regard to this large industry there should be a just proportion in regard to the royalties received, so that the royalty owner may suffer or gain according to the fortunes of the mine.

Sir, even at this early hour of the morning I feel compelled to say a few words on the Resolution of my hon. Friend. In speaking on this question, it is a pity that we are compelled to proceed upon somewhat unsatisfactory grounds or computations, instead of having before us what we ought to have and what we seek to have—namely, the real facts and figures necessary in dealing with this question. In my opinion, a real inquiry into the amounts of royalties paid, and the mode of paying them, is not only desirable but necessary, if we are to promote the welfare of the country; and there are several Members of this House who are anxious to see this question thoroughly inquired into. I believe that a thorough inquiry into the question would not only reveal the existence of a most iniquitous system, but it would also prove in an astounding manner how, by these royalties and lordships, and so forth, trade is impeded and impaired, competition discouraged, capital, in some cases, destroyed, and workmen compelled to work for wages thoroughly inadeqate to enable them to live in anything like comfort. It is this inquiry which, if my hon. Friends will pardon me, I would urge upon the Government of the day, and not a mild Resolution such as that which has just been moved by the hon. Member for Lanarkshire (Mr. Mason). The inquiry should take two forms. It should be directed to discovering the amount of royalties paid, and the mode of paying them. It has been stated here, in the course of this debate, that the amount of royalties paid to the coalowners in some cases exceeds the amount received by the coal-hewer. Well, let me take that point. Take a colliery where 300 coal-cutters are employed, together with the other men who are necessary to bring the coal out, and so forth. They will be receiving 1s. per ton of coal. They cut three tons a-day each. Three tons a-day each for the 300 coal-cutters will mean 900s., and 900s. between the 300 men will be to them 3s. each; but to the one landlord it means that he himself, for doing absolutely nothing, receives 900s. Within a stone's throw of where I live, in the Rhondda Valley, which is known to be the Metropolis of the South Wales coal fields, there is at the present time a colliery lying idle because the Company have failed to work it with profit to themselves and pay the landlord the royalty which he demanded, which was 1s. per ton for every ton of coal which was hewed in the colliery. The leaseholders asked that that amount should be reduced; but no, not he. Like his representative, the Shylock of old, he demanded his pound of flesh; and the Company was thereby prevented from continuing to work the mine, the capital was lost, and the workmen were thrown out of employment. The landlord can afford to wait. "Better times will come by-and-bye," he says, "and I can afford to wait." Then, perhaps, another Company comes along with more capital, and he is benefited, because they will have to pay him a dead weight as well as the royalties. There is no paying anybody or anything until the landlord gets his share. Within a mile and a-half of the Rhondda miners' office there are 10 collieries, and when trade is fairly brisk they produce daily 8,000 tons of coal between them. It is computed that the royalties paid to the landowners for the coal worked in South Wales is 9d. per ton for every ton of clean coal, although there is an hon. Member from West Glamorganshire (Mr. Yeo) who tells me that they are paying 1s. per ton for large and small alike, which is still more iniquitous. However, these 10 collieries are producing 8,000 tons a-day between them. The property belongs to three landlords. Eight thousand tons per day means £300 per day, meaning that these three landlords are dividing between them £300 a-day. £100 each per day makes £1,800 divided between them every six days. Every four weeks these three gentlemen divide between them £7,200, and yearly they divide between them the nice sum of £90,000 odd, or over £30,000 each. Multiply this by 10, and you will find that in 10 years these gentlemen have received over £300,000 each; and, I should like to ask, for what? The South Wales coal fields have been producing for nearly the last five years at the rate of 16,000,000 tons per annum. Sixteen million times 9d.—what does that mean? Why, nothing less than £600,000 divided annually between the few landlords who own the land from under which the coal is collected in South Wales. Multiply this again by 10, and you will find that these landlords have been dividing between them every 10 years no less than £6,000,000. The capital of the employer may go to the dogs; the workmen may starve; but these people must have their pound of flesh. In this manner, Sir, it is computed that the landlords of the United Kingdom receive between them, in royalties of all kinds, no less than £36,000,000 annually; and it appears to me to be a very reasonable question to ask, for what? What have the landlords done for it? Have they put the coal in the earth? If they have, then let them be paid fairly for their labour; but since it has been put there by an all-wise Providence for the benefit of mankind, I should like to know what right have the landlords to these enormous sums of money? Then, Sir, if an inquiry of the kind I suggest were held—if the Government of the day will consent to have an inquiry into the amount of these royalties, and into the mode of paying them—I believe it will be found that for once, to say the least, they have done great service to the whole of the United Kingdom. I hope the Secretary of State for the Home Department will, this evening, give us some enlightenment on this question, and will tell us that he proposes to give us some investigation.

I have listened with great attention and interest to the speeches which have been delivered on this question to-night, and I can assure hon. Members that I have taken the greatest interest in the subject, and I have had the advantage of a long consultation with the miners themselves upon it. I need hardly say, moreover, that my sympathy is very great with the distress which has undoubtedly existed in many parts of the Kingdom among the miners for the last two or three years. But the question now before the House is a very special one, and it is not one which can be properly argued out in five minutes, even if I were merely to state what the proposals are that have been made on the subject. The hon. Member who opened the debate (Mr. Mason) referred to an opinion which I am supposed to have expressed to the miners' deputation which waited on me in March last. Well, I must tell my hon. Friend quite distinctly that I expressed no opinion whatever. I listened patiently to all the deputation had to say, and I asked a number of questions. I was very careful to ask what remedy they proposed, and I must say that I found the greatest diversity of opinion with regard to the remedies which ought to be applied. Some were in favour of inquiry, but others said that inquiry would be merely dilatory, and that it was the duty of Her Majesty's Government to bring in a Bill; but when I asked what the enactments were to be, I found that really no two gentlemen agreed. In that sense, therefore, I did not receive much assistance from the deputation, although I did get a good deal of information from them in regard to the practical working of these collieries. But the real question, after all, in regard to the distress is this. I will state it to the House in a very few words, and I believe I am stating what is correct. Some 12 or 14 years ago there were much higher prices in the market for coal than there are now, and mining leases were entered into with avidity by capitalists, who thought they could make money. But these prices have fallen now, and they have fallen very seriously, and the result of that fall is this—that these capitalists, who, in some cases, put as much as £30,000 into their mines, find that they have lost their money, and that they cannot pay the rents which they contracted to pay with such avidity a few years ago. Everybody knows perfectly well that there was a perfect scramble for mining leases a few years ago, and the usual results have followed on the fall in the market prices. It is an exceedingly difficult question to deal with, and differs materially from the question of farm rents. It is not a question of whether or not small farmers ought to have relief, but whether large capitalists ought to be relieved from leases which they have voluntarily entered into. When the miners' deputation came to me upon the general question of the depression in the mining industry I listened to them very attentively, and I made the most careful inquiries from them as persons of very large experience on the question. I also promised them that I would make further inquiries on the subject, and I did so. Among other things I inquired into was the subject which has been mentioned to-night; and I found that there had been given to the Royal Commission on the Depression of Trade most important evidence on this subject, and reference was made to the very valuable evidence which had been given before them by Mr. Lowthian Bell, who is a gentleman of very great experience and an eminent authority, who had given them a good deal of information of the greatest value. What I have done, therefore, in view of these facts, is this. I have sent the whole of the notes which I made when the miners' deputation waited upon me, and the papers and statements which they gave me, to the Royal Commission, and it will be their duty to prosecute the inquiry further. When they have done so, and have communicated to Her Majesty's Government, and have laid before them the views which they have arrived at on the subject, it will then become my duty to make a statement to the House, and it will be for the Government to decide what action it is desirable to adopt. I do not agree with those hon. Members who think that the Government should at once bring in a Bill on this subject. I am not prepared to bring in a Bill at once. A Bill to carry out what hon. Members have said to-night may or may not be desirable; but it should not be brought in without very careful consideration. That inquiry Her Majesty's Government do not think it would be proper for them to make, but we have great hope that when we do get the Report on this question we shall see our way to bring in some measure to deal fairly with the subject.

I have to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It is a Bill for the purpose of giving an appeal from the taxation of the expenses of candidates at Parliamentary elections by County Court Judges. Candidates at Parliamentary elections have found great difficulty in obtaining a taxation of their accounts. It is extremely desirable that taxation should be allowed, and that there should be a reference from the County Court to some tribunal superior to the County Court. I understand that it is considered that the Judge of Assize would be an undesirable authority for that purpose in England. I have consulted the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James), and I understand he would prefer a different Taxing Master. To that I have no objection. Since the discussion last Wednesday upon the Irish Bill I have thought it would be undesirable to move the Irish clause, pure and simple, without extending its provisions to England If hon. Gentlemen object to its extension to England I shall not press it. I simply introduce it so that there may be no jealousy between the two countries. I hope the House will allow the Bill to be read a second time. I shall be glad to postpone the Committee for a week.

It is well I should point out that this Bill is not even in print.

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to explain——

I have no doubt that it has been unavoidable, and it is because, so far as Ireland is concerned, there is no opposition to the Bill that I raise no objection to the second reading now. Of course, it is absolutely necessary that between now and the next stage any Amendments to the Bill should be very carefully considered. I understand that several hon. Members have Amendments to propose, and I have no doubt that the Amendments will be at once put on the Paper to permit of their proper consideration. Under the circumstances, and protesting that this must not be made a precedent, the Government will not object to the second reading.

I wish to call attention to the fact that the Bill has not been delivered. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary will agree with me when I say that it is very unusual for the second reading of a Bill to be moved when the Bill has not been delivered. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Holmes) has no objection to the Bill, so far as it applies to Ireland, and as the hon. and learned Member (Mr. T. M. Healy) agrees to postpone the Committee for a week, I do not object to the Motion. I have no doubt that in Committee the Bill, as applied to England, will be very carefully considered.

I presume the hon. and learned Member will agree not to take the Committee stage until Monday week.

Perhaps the House will allow me to say that I handed in the draft of this Bill on Tuesday, and that I was promised it should be delivered yesterday morning. It was only delivered this morning.

I object to this Bill being read a second time. It is very necessary it should be printed before we are asked to read it a second time.

It is printed.

The objection taken by the hon. Member does not necessarily preclude the Bill being proceeded with. The matter is one for the determination of the House.

I feel that it is quite possible we may be creating a dangerous precedent which maybe applied to other Bills. This is an Irish Bill in form, but applies to the United Kingdom. Many Members have left the House in the expectation that the Bill would not come on to-night, seeing that it has not been circulated. I do not myself object to the measure on principle, if it is understood that it is to be so dealt with in Committee as to be made applicable to England; but there may be those who have objection to it under any circumstances.

I do not rise to object to the appointment of this Committee. The appointment of this Committee is a very delicate matter, and I know that it has been very carefully considered by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Arnold Morley). At the same time, I wish to say that it does seem to me that 19 Members is a very large Committee to deal satisfactorily with the questions which will come before them. I hope the hon. Member will not consider the appointment of such a large number a precedent. This is a Committee appointed annually; and I trust that if the hon. Gentleman has the duty of proposing the Committee next year he will not think it necessary to nominate 19 Members because such a number was chosen this year.