said, that in bringing forward this Bill on behalf of the Metropolitan Board of Works, he would remind the House that it was essentially a continuation measure of the powers already given to the Metropolitan Board. At the time those powers were granted they were tentative. They were powers granted in response to a Report brought up by a Committee of the House whose recommendations were embodied in the Bill of 1878. Those powers referred, in the first place, to existing theatres; and, in the second place, to theatres which had to be built. In both cases the powers which were granted were only with regard to one certificate, and left out entirely the question of supervision which was necessary whenever any alteration was made in a theatre. It had since come to the knowledge of the Metropolitan Board of Works, in carry ing out the Act during the past nine years, that many theatres, which, in old times, had received a certificate from the Board, had been entirely altered, and altered in a manner which was not conducive to the public safety. The Bill, as it was now introduced by the Metropolitan Board, contained a provision that the Board should have power to enter the theatres, to examine them, and lay down such conditions as were necessary for the public safety. Those powers, however, could not be exercised arbitrarily, because there was a clause in the Bill providing arbitration wherever there was a difference between the proprietors of the theatre and the Metropolitan Board of Works. The opponents of the Bill had drawn up a manifesto which consisted of extracts from the report of a deputation to the Home Secretary last year, and the principal fault they found with the Board was that the powers now proposed to be conferred by the Bill had already been exceeded, and that requisitions had been made on the theatre proprietors which were not justified. Now that statement was absolutely false; because 98 per cent of the requisitions made upon the theatre and music-hall proprietors, both old and new, had been confirmed, and out of six appeals from theatre owners only 16 out of 93 requisitions made by the Board had been unconfirmed, while only 11 out of 105 requisitions made in regard to music halls were unconfirmed. One of the principal reasons why Parliament handed over to the Metropolitan Board the charge of theatres was to be found in the Report of a Committee which sat upon the subject, and it was because the Board had at its disposal a staff of officers who were accustomed to building, and because they had been made the authority for supervising the buildings erected in London. It was, therefore, thought that they were for those reasons the proper persons to have charge of the theatres as well. The present Bill could only be objected to by those theatre proprietors who had the intention of not carrying out their duty to the public by making alterations after they had received a certificate from the Board. He might refer to the Grand Theatre, which was burned down as lately as last December. On inquiry into that disaster, and on referring to the original plans under which the certificate of the Board was granted, it was found that a most serious alteration had been made after the certificate of the Board had been granted, and that a dwelling house had been constructed in the very centre of the theatre—namely, out of the smoking foyer in the front, and that bedrooms had been built over it as well. In the case of the Comedy Theatre two new houses had been added to the frontage of the theatre, and incorporated with it. In addition, they were built in an improper manner, without the walls which were necessary for preventing a fire from spreading from the stage to that part of the theatre set apart as the auditorium. He thought these were sufficient reasons why the Bill proposed by the Metropolitan Board should receive the assent of the House, and be referred to a Select Committee. One of the allegations of the opponents of the Bill was that during the nine years the Board had had charge of the theatres they had not overtaken the work they were called upon to do. As a matter of fact there had been, including old and new theatres, music halls, and places of entertainment, each covering an area of over 500 square feet, which was the minimum the Board could take action upon, a total of some 458 licensed upon inspection, in regard to which plans and elevations had been made by the Board. He thought that if the Metropolitan Board of Works were to be disestablished, as they were told, under another Bill now before the House, that still the Board would not be doing its duty if it were to relegate into futurity any provisions for the safety of the public which it felt necessary to carry out. As he understood from the newspapers that it was the intention of the Government to confide those duties to a future County Council, he would only say that he felt he should have done his duty in the interests of the safety of the public by pressing this Bill to a Division, so that those who declined either to bring in a Bill on the subject themselves, or to allow the Bill to go forward, should bear the blame of any catastrophe which might take place. He begged, therefore, to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

said, he rose for the purpose of moving the rejection of the Bill introduced by the Metropolitan Board of Works, and he did so on the ground that, quite irrespective of the question how long the Metropolitan Board of Works was to remain in existence, it was most improper to be entrusted with the charge of the safety of the public in our theatres. When the Board asked for further powers, it was desirable for the House to look back to the powers they already possessed. In 1878 the Board obtained the powers with regard to the Metropolitan theatres which had been referred to by his hon. Friend (Mr. Egerton), but for four years—and he had already called the attention of the House to the fact—down to 1881, the Board made no movement at all. It was not until after the question was brought prominently before the House that the Board began to stir, and at that time the Home Secretary, who was then the right hon. Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt), stated officially that the Board had ample powers and everything that was necessary in regard to the supervision and safety of theatres. That answer was repeated year after year by the Chairman of the Board, the late Member for the Hornsey Division of Middlesex. The Metropolitan Board now maintained that they had not had sufficient powers in the past. Certainly they had not done their duty, for after the lapse of nine years, during which they maintained that they had ample powers, they now came to the House of Commons declaring that their powers were inadequate, and asking for the extension of them. The persons who were interested in the theatres and music halls in the Metropolis comprised a very numerous body, and represented a capital of between £2,000,000 and. £3,000,000 in the Metropolis alone, besides directly giving employment to 150,000 people, independent of those who were indirectly employed. These gentlemen were altogether opposed to the action of the Metropolitan Board. They did not object to inspection. On the contrary, they invited it; but they objected to the way in which it was carried on by the Metropolitan Board. They were quite willing that the Home Secretary, or any authority he might appoint, should inspect their theatres and carry out whatever alteration might be considered right and safe in the interests of the public. But they wanted the system to be carried out on steady and consistent lines year after year, and not to be conducted in the arbitrary and whimsical manner which had been adopted under the Metropolitan Board, so that it could never be known what was required to be done. One year a Committee of the Metropolitan Board went round to inspect the theatres and give instructions that certain alterations should be made, and when those alterations had been made, perhaps at the cost of thousands of pounds to the lessees and managers, three years afterwards another Committee was appointed that went round the theatres and said that all that had been done was wrong, and required such and such other alterations to be made, the result being that the lessees never knew whore they were, or what they had to do. Another question to which the proprietors of theatres objected was the loss of time involved. Owing to the red tape system of the Board, plans were lodged with them for many months without eliciting an answer. Lastly, it had been elicited by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) that the official appointed by the Board to look after these matters was the very official who was always applying to the theatrical managers for orders for admission, with an indication that unless he received boxes and orders, the work which the Board had power to do, and which was under his management, would be pressed forward. On all these grounds, he did not think that the Board was the proper authority to be entrusted with increased powers, and he, therefore, begged to move the rejection of the Bill.

said, he had much pleasure in seconding the Amendment. So far as the result of inquiry went, it was plain that the Metropolitan Board of Works had made a muddle and a mess of the inspection of the theatres of the Metropolis. Up to the present moment, a considerable amount of extra expense had been thrown upon the proprietors of theatres, and there was a possibility, if this Bill passed, that the rates of admission in some of the East End districts would be considerably increased. He also objected to any proposal for placing further powers in the hands of a moribund body like the Metropolitan Board of Works, who, no doubt, would muddle this matter as they had muddled many others.

said, that as that occasion seemed to be seized by some hon. Members as an opportunity of throwing stones at the Metropolitan Board of Works, and as that was the constant practice of some Members who were opposed to the Board, he thought it would be in better taste, seeing that the Board was to be put upon its trial, that no observations should be made on either side meanwhile to prejudice the case. He was one of those who believed that the opening inquiry would redound to the credit of the Metropolitan Board, and that those who had made allegations against it would find that they had been misinformed. However, the immediate question before the House was whether additional powers should be given to the Metropolitan Board, for the continuous inspection of theatres, so that the Board might know that the arrangements they had sanctioned were being faithfully carried out from year to year. The best answer to the objection which had been raised with regard to giving additional powers to the Board was this—that before the Bill came into operation, or, at any rate, its operation could be deferred, a new body would have been created, and therefore the objection was a very frivolous one, that the Board were not the proper persons to have the charge of the theatres, seeing that in the course of another 12 months the Council of the County of London would have all the powers of the Board transferred to them, and would then be the authority to be entrusted with the control of all matters of this kind. If the additional powers sought by the Metropolitan Board were vested in the Home Secretary the Board would be very glad indeed to get rid of a very troublesome part of their work; but he understood that that responsibility was declined by the right hon. Gentleman, who thought, and probably rightly thought, that it would be better to leave it to the proposed new authority which was to represent the County of London in the future. He asked the House to consider the matter from that point of view. The Metropolitan Board, on various grounds, were desirous of leaving the law affecting the Metropolis in such a state that their successors would have the greatest possible assistance from it in discharging their duty. Experience, however, had shown the Metropolitan Board that their present powers were not sufficient. He could only claim for the Metropolitan hoard that there had been no serious disaster in the theatres since this jurisdiction had been given to them, and it was only for the purpose of making the jurisdiction more complete that the Bill had been introduced. When the proper time came the County Council would take over the duties of the Board, and he hoped that the unjust suspicion which seemed to prevail among certain persons as to the action of the Board would be removed. He begged to support the second reading of the Bill.

said, the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just sat down had expounded the extraordinary doctrine that when the Metropolitan Board brought in a Bill for further powers, it was bad taste on the part of the House to consider the matter of public notoriety. The hon. and gallant Gentleman knew very well that not only was an investigation now going on with regard to the Metropolitan Board of Works, but that, to a great extent, that investigation was deemed necessary on account of their action in reference to Metropolitan theatres. The hon. and gallant Member said that in all probability the Board would disappear in the course of 12 months. If that were so, why did the Board waste the money of the ratepayers in bringing in a Bill which was only to be in operation for a year? He hoped the Home Secretary would meet the question by distinctly stating that the Government objected to the provisions of the Bill. It had been intimated that, under the powers already vested in the Metropolitan Board, the officers of that body were always running about for orders for the theatres, and it had been proved that the whole Metropolitan Board of Works was a greedy, cadging body.

rose to Order. He asked if it was competent for the hon. Member to speak of a public body as a "greedy, cadging body?"

said, he would withdraw the term, and say that the Board were the reverse. It was the habit of one Committee of the Board to visit the theatres and propose a series of alterations. Another Committee came in shortly afterwards, and altogether reversed the decision of their predecessors, requiring fresh alterations to be made. He would not say that the managers of theatres were ruined by this action, because they had a profitable business; but they were put to great annoyance and expense. He trusted that the matter would not be entrusted to the new County Council that was about to be called into existence. Instead of being the best authority, he was afraid that it would be almost as bad as the Metropolitan Board. He hoped the Home Secretary would have the courage to take over to the Home Office the power of looking into the condition of the theatres in regard to fires, and he believed that would be a change which would be satisfactory to the Metropolitan Members, and also to the public.

said, he looked upon the question purely from a public point of view. Prior to 1858, the duty of protecting the safety of the public visiting the theatres from the consequences of fire was vested practically in the Lord Chamberlain. Parliament in its wisdom passed an Act, in 1878, transferring the duty to the Metropolitan Board of Works; and, notwithstanding the attack made on the Metropolitan Board by the purist Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), he (Mr. Webster) asserted that the Board had done its duty to the Metropolis and to the people who frequented the theatres honourably, faithfully, strictly, and well. If an inquiry were to take place, he believed that that would be found strictly true. The Bill now before the House simply gave the Board continuance powers. At the present time they had power to inspect theatres and see that they were so constructed as to give security to life against fire; but they had no power to go in from year to year, and see that the theatres were in the same condition as they had been left. It was in the power of the Board to go down to the theatres now and to see that the passages and exits were in proper order; but, after having given their certificate, they had no further power to assert that everything had been kept in the same condition. That was an improper state of affairs, and ought not to be continued. All the Metropolitan Board asked was to have more continuance powers, so that they might, from time to time, inspect the theatres in the interest of the public. It was stated that the Metropolitan Board would cease to exist. It might, or it might not. In all probability it would; but the new County Council would have so many duties to discharge that it would have no time to go into the question of the protection of life in the theatres from fire. Therefore, the Metropolitan Board desired to place in the hands of the new Council the best Act of Parliament they could, and he could not believe that the House of Commons would say that it was undesirable to protect the public safety, either in the theatres of the Metropolis or elsewhere. The hon. Member for the Uxbridge Division of Middlesex (Mr. Dixon-Hartland), who moved the rejection of the Bill, and who appeared to have taken charge of all questions relating either to the rating of Londoners, or any matter in which Londoners were primarily interested, either in the administration of their local concerns or the protection of their lives and properties from the ravages of fire, presumed to know more about these questions than the Metropolitan Board and all the other authorities in London. Perhaps the hon. Member might not be aware that Petitions had come to the Metropolitan Board in favour of the Bill from various Local Boards in the Metropolis.

said, he desired to say a few words on the Bill. He could not help regarding it as somewhat unnecessary under the circumstances. It was introduced on behalf of the Metropolitan Board of Works; but they did not know whether the proposals in the Local Government Bill with regard to London would be adopted or not. If they were, the existing powers of the Metropolitan Board would be transferred to the new Council. The hon. Member who spoke last (Mr. R. G. Webster) had a little under-stated the existing powers of the Board. He did not say that those powers were sufficient for the protection of theatres—probably they were not—but they were more extensive than the powers in the hands of any authority in the Provinces. The Act of 1878 gave the Metropolitan Board power to point out what works ought to be carried out in the structure of new theatres, and also to point out, within reasonable limits, what alteration should be made in old theatres. But the Board had also power, under the Act of 1882, to see that doors and exits were properly constructed. The greater theatres were in a much better condition as to safety and protection than theatres elsewhere; and whatever urgency there was in the matter with regard to the Metropolis, there was more urgency with reference to the Provinces. As had been pointed out, the Local Government Bill proposed to transfer the powers of the Metropolitan Board to the new Council of the County of London. Perhaps, under the circumstances, the best course would be to wait and see how the Local Government Bill went on; but it might not be impossible before the Bill left the House to introduce clauses in that part of it which related to the new Council of the County of London in regard to the inspection of theatres. But, be that as it might, the present moment seemed to him to be inopportune for giving further powers to what he might call a moribund body, which would probably never have an opportunity of putting those powers into force.

Sir, viewing this Bill as a whole I can only add my voice to the chorus of general approval which has been given to it by almost every speaker who has taken part in the debate. I also desire to follow their example, and not to discuss at any length the principles of the Bill, but rather those provisions of it under which I take exception. There are three main provisions of the measure of which I disapprove. I do not think I can vote for the provision in favour of selecting members of the County Council as aldermen are selected now in the Town Councils, because I think the time has gone by when any Board such as it is proposed to establish should be otherwise than directly elected, and not selected by any system whatever. Therefore, I object to the provisions which relate to selected members. I also object to the provisions which deal with the police, and I shall be prepared to support any well-devised Amendment to get rid of the proposal which gives a jurisdiction over the police, in order to place the management of that body under the sole control of the County Council. My great objection, however, is to the licensing provisions and the Licensing Clauses of the Bill. My first two objections have already undergone considerable discussion, and I propose, therefore, to deal at once with the Licensing Question, in which for a great number of years I have taken a special and a particular interest. These provisions seem to be threefold. First, they transfer the licensing authority from the magistrates, as at present constituted, to the new County Council to be elected by the ratepayers. Now, it seems to me, that that transfer is a natural sequence of the Bill, because if the entire administration of the country is to be handed over to the new County Council, the administration of the Licensing Laws and the power to deal with finances under the Licensing Laws should also be transferred to the new body. If the proposals end there, I should have great pleasure in supporting them. The change of the Local Authority is, I think, an improvement rather than otherwise, in as much as it hands over a question of such vital importance to the people of this country to the ratepayers in touch with their Representatives, instead of leaving it in the hands of an irresponsible body of men, of whom, however, I wish it to be understood that I have nothing disrespectful to say. But the Bill goes further—one of the clauses proposes to give to the County Council power to refuse to renew public—house licences. This proviso appears to me to be entirely unnecessary, because such a power exists in the present licensing authority, and would, of course, exist in the licensing authority that is set up in its place. I therefore think it would be wise to omit that clause altogether, as it is absolutely unnecessary. Then the Bill goes on to give to the new Councils power to close public-houses on Sunday. This is carrying out the idea which has been expressed from both of the Front Benches of this House. I have no great objection to urge against it, except that this House has more than once affirmed, by large majorities, the principle of Sunday Closing over the whole of the United Kingdom; and temperance reformers prefer to watch until they can get what they have been aiming at for many years—namely, the entire closing of public-houses on Sunday. There is, however, a fourth proposal which is a most serious one—I refer to the Compensation Clauses of the Bill. Whatever boon is given to temperance reformers is entirely cancelled by the monstrous proposal to create and compensate an entirely new vested interest which is to be entitled to compensation. I shall be glad if the House will examine this proposal a little more closely. In the first place, there is one attempt on the part of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill (Mr. Ritchie) to meet the injustice which un- doubtedly prevails to the people who suffer from the existence of public-houses, and who have no power to resist the creation of new public-houses. The right hon. Gentleman proposes in the Bill to bring such questions within touch of the people; but his proposals are limited in two ways—first, by the Compensation Clause, and, secondly, by certain transfers of revenue to the County Council. I fully recognize the serious character of the opposition which has been brought against another view of the Compensation Clause by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain), with whom on most points I act heartily in concert. In the speech delivered by my right hon. Friend yesterday, he referred to the proposal to transfer the revenue derived from public-house licences to the County Council. The right hon. Gentleman said—

"It has been objected, in the first place, that the transfer of the licences from the Imperial to the Local Authority would give the latter an interest in a traffic which is injurious and objectionable."

I certainly hold that opinion. The right hon. Gentleman then goes on to say—

"I cannot help thinking that the right hon. Baronet (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), and those who think with him, have not really the courage of their opinions and sufficient faith in their cause when they put forward such an argument. If this traffic is, as they say, an evil traffic, if to get rid of it is an advantage to the district concerned, if they are satisfied that they at once convince the majority in many districts of these facts, and probably, in the long run, the majority in all districts, why should they be afraid of these clauses?"

I should like to tell my right hon. Friend and the House why we are afraid of these clauses. These clauses give an interest in the retention of public-houses, in consequence of the transfer of the revenue derived from licences. I think it is quite enough for us to have to deal with the interest of the ratepayers in this House; but if we are to add to the difficulty, our work will be greatly increased, and, in my opinion, there is no necessity whatever for this transfer of the licence revenue. The same amount might easily be given from other sources without creating this embarrassment and establishing a palpable injustice. In those particular sober communities, where they have already limited the number of public-houses and the proportion of public-houses to the population is much smaller than any other districts, they are, by the Bill, fined for their sobriety, and a premium is given for districts which have been most lax in granting licences, and where, consequently, there are more paupers. In one town which I know very well there has been a large increase of pauperism, owing to this laxity, and additional burdens have been laid upon the rates. In districts where the people have been most sober, where great moral and Christian sentiments are strongest, in districts that are most anxious to reduce the facilities for the sale of intoxicating liquors, in endeavouring to give effect to their wishes the people find themselves face to face with a heavy money loss. It is proposed by the Bill to hand over the revenue derived from public-house licences to the County Councils; and, secondly, to pay compensation. We have heard a good deal of the £300,000 which it is said would be forthcoming for the County Councils from this revenue being made over to them and rendered available for the payment of compensation. I understood, from the gesture of assent which the President of the Local Government Board gave to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, that he consented to devote this revenue to the compensation of publicans whose licences may not be renewed. But how far is that sum likely to go, and is it for the publicans and the ratepayers to find the necessary sum to compensate the owners of public-houses which the County Councils, in touch with the people, refuse a renewal of the licence? I will venture to give a few instances which have come under my notice in regard to this question of compensation to publicans. About seven years ago, in a mining district, a small six-roomed house with a quarter of an acre of land was put up to auction. A firm with which I am connected bid up to £390, and then stopped; the property was sold for £400. In the following year it required a licence, and when four years later minerals were discovered under the house, it was purchased by my firm, who let down the soil upon which it stood. The manner in which the compensation was awarded is precisely the same as that which it is proposed to award com- pensation under this Bill. The question was referred to arbitration, and the result was that the value was assessed at £2,200 for the six-roomed house, owing to the fact that the owner had secured a licence. The house was not in a village itself, but half-a-mile from a village, so that £1,800 appears to be the value attached to a country public-house. Let me give another case, an instance of a suburban public-house outside the metropolis. In 1884, a house at Woodford was sold for £800. It is now carried on as a public-house under the name of the Railway Bell; the occupier of the house, who was also the owner, died in 1886, and in 1887 the house was sold by auction as a licensed public-house and fetched £8,800, and therefore the value of a suburban public-house licence not in London, for Woodford is in Essex, some miles from London, is £8,000. Let me give another case of a public-house situated in London itself, which it was found necessary to pull down. The case went for arbitration and the owner of the public-house was fortunate enough to secure the services of my hon. and learned Friend opposite the Solicitor General (Sir Edward Clarke), so that no one can be surprised that he got the fullest amount the jury could possibly award. In that case the difference between the value of the house as a dwelling-house and as a licensed house was no less than £38,000.

There was no case of that kind in which I was concerned. There was, I believe, a transaction in which £38,000 was paid, not as the difference between the value of a licensed house and a dwelling-house, but as the value of the whole property.

Then I will lot the case go; but I will give another instance -which occurred last year in which the difference between the value of an ordinary house and a licensed house was assessed at £32,000. Therefore if the House will accept these figures, it will be seen that £1,800 is the value of a country public-house licence, £8,000 of a suburban, and £32,000 for a gin palace. I suppose for the sake of argument we exclude the London gin palace, and take the probable value of public-houses throughout the country in the same way as the value of a licensed village public-house and suburban public-house. It will be found that the average compensation to be given under the arbitration clauses of this Bill throughout the country will be nearer £5,000 than any other sum. Let me take the case of my own constituency, Barrow-in-Furness. Suppose that it is proposed to reduce the number of public-houses there by 30. There are there 53 public. houses, 16 beer-houses, and 50 licenced shops, or 119 in all. What I want to emphasize is, that whatever compensation is going to be given for the suppression of the licensed public-houses will come almost entirely out of the pockets of the ratepayers, and that this ear-mark revenue of which we hear so much will be ridiculously insufficient. Taking the average licensed public houses in Barrow, and placing the compensation at £2,000 for each, as the difference between the value of a licensed house and an ordinary house, if 30 are suppressed there will be a loss to the revenue derived from licence duties of about £600 per annum. That alone would be a distinct consideration to the ratepayers, and here is where my objection to the Licensing Clauses of the Bill comes in. We should have to persuade the ratepayers, before they get rid of the evil of establishing public-houses, to a loss of revenue amounting to £600 a-year. The average payment per house in the county is £17 18s., and the beer-houses £3 10s. But the question of compensation also comes in, and if 30 houses are to be bought on the basis of a village public-house in the neighbourhood of Barrow, the total amount paid in the shape of compensation will be something like £60,000. To provide compensation for the abolition of a single public-house in Barrow-in-Furness, the licensing authority would have to save £240 a year for nine or ten years, for that is just the amount which the earmarked increase of 20 per cent would produce annually. It is therefore abundantly clear that the publicans must be compensated out of the pockets of the ratepayers, and the question, as it is called, of compensation from the publicans themselves may be entirely dismissed from consideration. And now let me refer for a moment to some of the arguments brought forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birming- ham. The Government have endeavoured to create a vested interest, the burden of which must fall on the public. My right hon. Friend made a remarkable statement upon the existence of a vested interest. He said that the highest Local Authorities had been consulted by more than one Government, and that their opinion was that there was an undoubted vested interest in a licence. He also told us that he had drafted a Bill of his own when he was President of the Local Government Board. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend is not in his place, because I should like to ask him if he consulted his own Law Officers at the time, and what their opinion was. One of those Law Officers—the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James)—is in the House now, and I hope he will give an answer to the question as to what his opinion was in regard to this vested interest. There is another distinguished Law Officer sitting in another part of the House, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hackney (Sir Charles Russell). I wish to know if the right hon. Member for West Birmingham put into his Bill any clauses which provided compensation for the publicans; and, if so, what they were? I think the answer to that question will be a valuable contribution to the discussion. I should also like to know whether the present Law Officers of the Crown are prepared to declare that there is an undoubted vested interest in a licence? If they are prepared so to declare, why is a clause introduced into the Bill to create that which already exists? I have always understood that the great, if not the sole, object of legislation is to make provisions which do not already exist. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham also told the Temperance Reformers that the principle of Local Option will be accepted and practically applied under this Bill, and he said that under the Bill the majority of the inhabitants of any licensing district will elect representatives to the County Council, which has the power to do away with every licence in the district if it thought fit. What would it cost the ratepayers of Barrow-in-Furness to get rid of the whole of their licensed public-houses? The cost would make that an impossibility; but let us consider how the principle of Local Option, if it be accepted, is to be applied under this Bill. I always warned my hon. Friend the Member for the Cockermouth Division of Cumberland (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), when he has brought forward from time to time his general Resolution in regard to Local Option, that when he came within real touch of the House, he would find that a great many Members had voted with him who did not intend what he himself intended by Local Option. Those of us, however, who have studied the question, know what we mean by it. What we want is that the ratepayers of any given district should have placed in their hands the power to protect themselves efficiently against having public-houses thrust upon them against their will by the licensing authority. That is my definition of Local Option. How is Local Option going to be applied under this Bill? In the first place, let me take the example of my own constituency. I am afraid that, as the Bill stands, Barrow-in-Furness may be deprived of the separate right of licensing; because, under the Bill, it will become a portion of a licensing district only. Suppose the people of Barrow declared their wish to reduce the number of public-houses by one-half, or wish to elect a Prohibitionist candidate to advocate the suppression of public-houses altogether, that would be an expression of opinion on the part of the ratepayers that, as far as their opinion goes, it is in favour of the principle of Local Option. But the member whom they send to the County Council will be associated with six representatives from other districts, so that he will have to face six other representatives, all of whom, from anything we know, may be elected in the publican's interest. For instance, if his borough is in Lancashire, one of the representatives may be a Liverpool man in favour of that heresy which has brought about so much drunkenness in Liverpool-the heresy of free licensing. Under these circumstances, we should not know where we are. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham says that the Bill practically gives Local Option; but, as a matter of fact, it only gives a particular district a ninth voice in deciding what shall be done in regard to its own district. I have already referred to Sunday Closing. We believe that the House of Commons is absolutely prepared to close public-houses on Sunday. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham contended that no fresh vested interest can arise under the Bill. That is perfectly true; but there is nothing in that, for there are already as many licences in existence as the trade can carry, as they can be removed from one on to the other, so as to last for all time. My right hon. Friend also says that compensation is fixed on a fair and moderate basis, to be paid out of the pockets of the publicans themselves. I am certainly astonished that my right hon. Friend should make such a statement as that, in the face of what he would have discovered if he had gone through a single sum of division and subtraction. I have already shown how insufficient the ear-mark revenue will be to provide compensation. My right hon. Friend says the publicans are conducting a legal traffic, over which the Legislature has, to a certain extent, thrown its shield and protection. I absolutely deny that legislation has thrown its shield and protection over the public-house. The express intention of all the Bills which have been passed by this House in regard to the sale of intoxicating liquors has been to throw the shield and protection of the Legislature over the people, and not over the public-house. What is the public-house? It is created for the benefit of the public, and the contention of the law is that he is the servant of the public, and for that purpose he gets his public-house licence for one year and no longer. That is the vested interest of which they say so much. Why has he to come up every year to get the licence renewed? It is because the State knows it is a dangerous trade, and it has retained in every Statute which has been passed the right to revise that trade, to restrict it, and, in my judgment, the right to prohibit it. The publican is required to come up at the end of 12 months to show that he is as respectable a man as he was when he began. It is a great delusion to suppose that any man may be a publican. I know an instance where money was subscribed to start a man in a public-house, but it was found that he had been convicted of felony, and therefore could not hold a licence. He could start a grocer's shop, and was good enough to have a seat in this House, but he was not good enough to be entrusted with a licence that would enable him to carry on a dangerous trade. The whole licensing legislation of this country has been to interpose a shield and protection between the people and those who are engaged in a dangerous trade. What is the reason why a policeman can walk into a public-house at any time and see what is going on? He cannot walk into any other business place, and the reason why he can enter a public-house is because it is recognized as a trade which creates crime; that it is a poverty-creating trade; and, furthermore, it is placed under the supervision of the police because it is a dangerous trade. The object of the Licensing Laws of the country has not been to throw a shield and protection over a legal trade, but over the people; and it is because the proposals of the Government and the present Bill are reactionary, and contrary to the principle on which all legislation right along the line has hitherto proceeded, that I intend to give them my uncompromising opposition. Let me compare the compensation under this Bill with that which was proposed 16 or 17 years ago by Mr. Bruce, now Lord Aberdare. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham said that the Temperance Reformers were responsible for the defeat of Mr. Bruce's Bill. But that idea is altogether fallacious. I was one of the Temperance Party which he says opposed the Bill, and secured its rejection. He added that in his opinion they had made a great mistake. I should quite agree with my right hon. Friend if that were true, and that they did make a great mistake; but it is altogether incorrect to suppose that the Temperance Reformers secured the rejection of the Bill. I myself at that time called one of the largest meetings ever held in Liverpool, at which a resolution was unanimously passed, calling on this House to give a second reading to the Bill, and a meeting of the United Kingdom Alliance expressed its approval on the second reading. Their opposition to Mr. Bruce's Bill was no more than that which my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham himself offers to the present Bill. The right hon. Gentleman says that he is in favour of the second reading of the Bill; but he has told the House that he does not intend to support the proposals contained in it in regard to the police. We supported Mr. Bruce's Bill, and were prepared to vote for the second reading; but, at the same time, we declared our objection to the Compensation Clauses. Therefore, the Temperance Reformers were no more opposed to the second reading of Mr. Bruce's Bill than my right hon. Friend is now opposed to the present Bill. Let me look at the effect of the Compensation Clauses in the Bill of 17 years ago. They proposed that every publican's licence of whatever description should be continued annually, subject, of course, to good behaviour, until the General Licensing Sessions held after the expiration of 10 years from the commencement of that Act, and should absolutely determine at the end of such Sessions. Compensation was no more recognized then than now. It was only recognized as a matter of expediency, with a desire to get the Bill through in some way or other. The compensation was put at 10 years' lease of the licence, and after that the vested interest ceased, and there was only to be one licence for every 1,000 inhabitants. The offer made to the Temperance Reformers 17 years, ago as compared with that offered to them to-day, was generous in the extreme. I did my best to get Mr. Bruce's Bill passed, but I had not much influence at the time, and my action was confined to Liverpool. If the Bill had passed, the vested interest of the publican would have disappeared at the end of 10 years. In Mr. Bruce's Bill we saw finality; where is finality under this Bill? The thing is to go on for ever. A 10 years' lease was given in Mr. Bruce's Bill in consequence of the growth of temperance sentiment, and the effect of the measure was to create a competition between public-house proprietors as to which of them should be bought up. Under the present Bill, whenever it is necessary to fix compensation, the authorities will have to go back to 1888 in order to find out what the value of a public licence was in that year. I cannot imagine that my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board intends to persevere with the Compensation Clauses of the Bill. I understood him to say, in the speech he made yesterday, that the Church of England Temperance Society have passed resolutions in favour of his Compensation Clauses.

Allow me to explain. What I said was that my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Manchester (Sir William Houldsworth) was a prominent member of that society, and he had expressed his approval of the general principle of the Bill in reference to licences.

I should like to read the resolution which was passed by the Church of England Society, and which was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Manchester. It is as follows:—

"That this Committee does not recognize any vested interest in a licence, and, consequently, any right to compensation on its withdrawal. That the only equitable claim to compensation would be for money laid out, loss sustained, and disturbance of a tenant. That in no case could it agree to compensation being made a first charge on the rates as proposed in the Bill. That the above equitable claim would properly be met by an increased percentage on the licence duties as proposed by the Bill, and the application of a certain portion of the licence duties to that purpose, such application being a first charge on these duties."

I cannot understand how anybody moving a resolution of that nature can support the clauses in the present Bill, in which 99 per cent of the compensation is to be drawn out of the pockets of the ratepayers, and not out of the pockets of the publicans at all. On the contrary, I regard it as a strong condemnation of the Compensation Clauses of the Bill. There is one other point I should like to refer to before I sit down. Under the Bill boroughs with a population of less than 50,000 will lose their individual licensing powers. I have a list of places here which, according to the Census of 1881, had a population of less than 50,000 people, but all of which now have a population of more than 50,000, and represent a population altogether of nearly 500,000. On behalf of the people of those boroughs who are interested in temperance reformation, I ask the right hon. Gentleman to keep for them their power of licensing, without being complicated with eight other members of the County Council who would have to vote upon it.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman; but there seems to be a little misunderstanding upon this point, which I should like to explain. It does not necessarily follow that by the Bill boroughs under 50,000 will not be Licensing Authorities within themselves; because it is possible that they may have six representatives in the County Council, and, therefore, be capable of being licensing divisions.

I will not pursue the matter further, except to say that, according to the Bill, boroughs under 50,000 people are not to have a separate licensing jurisdiction. Among the towns which had a population of less than 50,000 in 1881 who have now more than 50,000 are Great Yarmouth, a municipal borough; Tottenham, a local board district; Barrow, a petty sessional division co-equal with the area of the Bill; Wigan, a quarter sessions borough; Hanley, a municipal borough; Merthyr Tydvil, a local board district; Devonport, a municipal borough; and York, also a municipal borough. All these boroughs at the last Census had populations between 45,000 and 50,000. But I have got no figures except in regard to the boroughs of Wigan and Barrow. The population of those boroughs is now much beyond 50,000, and has probably reached 55,000. At the time the Census was taken, the population of Wigan was greatly diminished by a strike among the miners, which caused many hundreds of families to leave the town, and brought down the population by many thousands. This is clearly proved by the fact that there were 1,300 empty houses at the time the Census was taken, representing, at least, a population of 7,000. I think it is unfair to impose upon these boroughs, which have now a population of more than 50,000, disabilities and want of authority simply because, seven years previous to the introduction of this Bill, they contained a less population than 50,000. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. F. S. Powell) has asked me to press the case of his own constituency upon the President of the Local Government Board. I hope something will be done for the boroughs I have mentioned, in order to secure for them the right of dealing with the question of licensing in their own way. I think the facts I have brought before the House completely demolish the contention of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham and the President of the Local Government Board, that there is any appreciable amount of compensation to be got out of the publicans themselves. I shall certainly give my uncompromising opposition to the so-called Compensation Clauses of the Bill. I think the Government would act wisely by withdrawing them altogether, leaving the whole licensing to be dealt with by separate legislation. I must warn the right hon. Gentleman that if he persists in wedging a Licensing Bill into a Local Government Bill, it will be the duty of the Temperance Reformers to move a considerable number of Amendments in an endeavour to improve that Licensing Bill, and he must expect a considerable number of evenings to be devoted to discussing a question which a large number of Members believe to be of paramount importance to the welfare of the country, and to resisting proposals which they believe will build up a solid wall between them and the accomplishment of the object of the Temperance Reformers that they will never be able to break down.

Sir, there is in one respect, at all events, an agreeable contrast between the speech which we have just heard and that delivered last night by the hon. Baronet the Member for Cumberland (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), because the hon. Baronet attacked Her Majesty's Government very bitterly upon the licensing proposals they now make, and said that the shame of those proposals must rest on them, and he wound up by alleging that the policy embodied in the Licensing Clauses was never exceeded in the meanness of its conception, the injustice of its scope, or the cruelty it inflicted on the industrial classes. The hon. Member who has just sat down, who is equally entitled to claim to be an ardent supporter of the temperance cause, has, on the other hand, dealt fairly with the proposals of the Government, and recognized that in the Licensing Clauses of the Bill there is a real attempt to deal with a difficulty that has baffled Parliament for many years past. I do not propose to enter into all the details of the speech which has just been delivered. No doubt some points of detail have been raised by my hon. Friend which could most properly be treated in Committee, and which are matters of fair discussion and argument. The point referred to by the hon. Gentleman as to the numerical limit of population of towns which are to be allowed to remain licensing areas is one that may very well be dealt with in that way; but, taking the Licensing Clauses as a whole, the Government has proposed them deliberately and carefully, with a regard, on the one hand, to that which it believes to be fair and right to the interest of those engaged in that trade; and, on the other hand, to the desire which Parliament has expressed very often that there should in some way be given to the people themselves a power of dealing in their localities with the granting of licences. I wish to show how the Government has tried to deal with the various difficulties that have arisen in connection with this matter. But first I will answer the challenge which has been thrown out by my hon. Friend who has just spoken as to the opinions of those who are responsible for advising the Government on matters of law in regard to any vested interests on the part of the licensed victuallers. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) was Home Secretary I expressed the opinion which I now repeat, and which represents the advice on which the Government has acted and is prepared to act. It is that under the Licensing Statutes Justices are not justified in refusing to renew a public-house licence simply upon the ground that there is no need for it, or that there are too many public-houses in the neighbourhood.

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman state under what Act of Parliament that power exists?

My hon. and learned Friend does not usually find it necessary to interrupt in the middle of a speech to put such a question. I should not have made such a statement if I had not been prepared to go into the matter. I listened last night with great interest to the speech of the hon. Baronet the Member for Cumberland, who argued against the idea that there was a vested right or interest on the part of those licensed to keep public-houses. The hon. Baronet founded his proposition chiefly on a sentence which he quoted, and which I myself have seen quoted in a number of temperance publications; and he said that Mr. Justice Field, in the Court of Queen's Bench, in the month of November, 1882, stated that the Legislature recognized no vested interest at all in any holder of the licence. I have seen that sentence before in inverted commas, and the hon. Baronet quoted it last night. The case referred to was dealt with by Mr. Justice Field, and decided in the Queen's Bench in November, 1882. In the first place, I have carefully gone through the five different reports of the decision, and the judgment in the case, and in no one of the reports will the sentence which the hon. Baronet quoted to the House last night be found. In the next place, the decision was not a decision on this point at all, but on a different Act of Parliament. Anybody who refers to any of the reports of the case will find that the Judges laid great stress upon the words of the Act which had quite recently been passed, and upon which they were called to put judicial construction. The Act related to beer dealers and retail licences. The words inserted in that Act were these—

"Notwithstanding anything in Section 8 of the Wine and Beerhouse Act of 1869, or in any other Act now in force, the licensing justices shall be at liberty, in their free and unqualified discretion, either to refuse the certificate for the sale of beer,"

and so on, or to grant the same. Mr. Justice Field and Mr. Justice Stephen had to deal with the case in question under the Act of 1882, and having before them the words, "in their free and unqualified discretion," said that those words indicated exactly what they stated—namely, that there was to be no suggestion of any kind as to the limit of their unqualified discretion. That is being quoted in every circular sent out by the United Kingdom Alliance and other temperance bodies; but I am afraid that the hon. Baronet has been misled into attributing to Mr. Justice Field an expression which that learned Judge never used. So much for the authority which the hon. Baronet quoted last night. The question now before us arises on the Act of 1828, as dealt with in the Acts of 1872 and 1874. The Act of 1872 established a clear distinction between the granting of a new licence and the renewal of an old licence. The words of the Act were that where a licensed person applied for renewal—(1.) he need not attend at the annual licensing meeting unless required by the Justices. In ordinary cases, licences which are upon the register are to be renewed as a matter of course. Not only need not the licensed person attend unless required, but (2.) the Justices are not to entertain an objection unless written notice of intention to oppose has been served upon the licensed person seven days previous to the meeting; and (3.) the Justices are not to receive evidence except on oath. Those were the provisions in the Act of 1872. The Act of 1874 went still further, and provided that the notice to the licensed person to attend, without the service of which the Justices had no right to entertain an objection at all, could only be given to the licensed person on some ground personal to himself. The state of things stands thus. Suppose the Justices were to make up their minds before the Licensing Sessions were held that they would not grant a renewal of any of the licences, the Court of Queen's Bench would interfere on a mandamus and compel them to deal with the licences separately, and they cannot refuse any licence to a person already licensed unless they call the person before them. The Act of 1874 said—

"Whereas by Section 12 of the principal Act it is enacted that a licensed person applying for a renewal of his licence need not attend in person at the general annual licensing meeting unless he is required by the Licensing Justices so to attend, be it enacted that such requisition shall not be made save for some special cause personal to the licensed person to whom such requisition is sent."

asked, whether the hon. and learned Gentleman held that the words "some special cause personal to the licensed person" meant "personal misconduct"—on the part of the licencee?

Sir, in my opinion, the words, "some special cause personal to the licensed person," would mean some cause such as personal misconduct, or the permission of conduct in the house which could be made a subject of complaint against himself. It is impossible to contend that if there were 50 licences and the Justices came to the conclusion that 48 were sufficient, notice to the other two to attend would be for a special cause personal to them. I say that, taking these Statutes altogether, it is not competent to the magistrates to refuse the renewal of licences which have been previously granted except on some special cause personal to the holder of the licence. The hon. Baronet last night asked whether any lawyer would venture to contend that there was a vested interest in licensed premises? I answer that there is, and I believe that the Acts, properly read, do give to the licensed victualler a vested interest in the continuous enjoyment of his licence. The condition of the property, moreover, I should think, was a personal cause, as the licensed person had to keep it in good order. At Common Law anybody who chose had a right to keep a public-house. There have been restrictions imposed by Statute, partly for the sake of good order and partly for the benefit of the Revenue; and ever since the time of Henry VII., when the provisions were first introduced with regard to the power of the Justices to license, this trade has always been considered and dealt with by the Legislature as a lawful trade. I submit to the House that it would be impossible for the Legislature, with any fairness and honesty, substantially to confiscate the property of a very large number of persons carrying on a lawful trade without giving compensation. It has never been suggested or maintained by any responsible Leader or Party in the House that that course would be a fair course. But, Sir, this is not a mere question of legal right, upon which lawyers may, and very likely will, differ. It is also a question of what is fair and just. It ought to be borne in mind that, besides publicans' licences, there are beer-houses, which were licensed before the 1st of May, 1869. It is impossible to contend that the owners of these beer-houses have not a vested interest, for the magistrates have no power of refusing a renewal of such licences, except on four specified grounds. When this question is being considered there is also another class of licences that ought to be borne in mind—namely, provisional licences, granted in respect of premises not already erected. By the Act passed in 1872 these most salutary licences were provided for. Before that, speculative persons used to take corner plots and build houses in the hope of getting a licence when the houses were completed, and used to go on applying year after year, till at last, out of sheer pity, a licence was not unfrequently granted. Since the passing of that Act, however, very few houses have been built as a matter of speculation, and in the mere hope of getting a licence. Now, the custom is to apply for a provisional licence, which is granted upon the plans being submitted to the magistrates, and it is confirmed when a certificate is presented to the magistrates signed by the architect and testifying that the building has been completed according to the plans. Can anyone say that it would be fair or honest that when a man had gone to the expense of building a house according to plans approved by the magistrates the licence should, after a year or two, be taken away without compensation? There is a deliberate invitation by Parliament to people before they build public-houses to go and consult the magistrates as to the position of the houses and the arrangements they propose to make, and an implied pledge is given that they will be continued in the enjoyment of these premises. The very illustrations given by the hon. Member for Barrow in regard to the value of licences show how unfair it would be to cancel them without compensation. It would be outrageous that a man who has purchased a licensed house and paid many thousand pounds upon the generally prevailing idea as to the right to a continuance of a licence, and its value based upon that right, should suddenly find himself mulcted in £8,000 or £9,000, by being deprived of the licence which he bought. I do not think that is a policy which would be likely to be accepted by the House, and I do not know of any person occupying a prominent position in any Government who has supported it. It has always been hoped that this question would be, in some way or other, dealt with in a Local Government Bill when brought in. The suggestion of the temperance reformers has always been that, there not being an elected body to grant licences, it was desirable occasionally to have a plébiscite on the subject to enable the ratepayers to say whether they would have any more licences granted in the district. The whole question has always been beset with difficulties, and no one has ever defined the area in which each plébiscite should take place. So long as the Justices were the Licensing Authority there was, perhaps, a scintilla of reason at the back of the appeal that an occasional plébiscite should be taken; but if the House should find itself fortunate enough to be able to deal with the whole question of Local Government, and if it should establish for the purpose County Councils, which will be directly elected by the people to represent them in local matters, it would be sheer absurdity to have an occasional plébiscite of the people to say whether they disagree with the Board they themselves have elected. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley) are both, I am glad to say, of opinion that this question ought to be dealt with by the Local Government Authority. The hon. Member for Barrow said he hoped the Government would abandon the proposals in regard to licensing, except those transferring the licensing authority from the Justices to the County Council. But the mere transfer of authority, without safeguards, from the Justices to the local Governing Body would do a great injustice, against which I have been and am now protesting. The Justices are bound by the law to which I have referred, and they have to deal with persons to whom they or their predecessors had given a privilege, and over the exercise of which privilege it is their duty to watch. But if the power were transferred from the Justices, who are governed by these Acts of Parliament, and have to exercise judicial functions, and who would be compelled by a mandamus to deal with each separate case, and not make a rule to govern a set of cases—if these Justices are to be replaced by an elected Body without judicial functions, but with absolute capacity to deal with the matter just as it liked, and if no provision were made for compensation, we should have done the mischief of handing over the interests of those who had embarked in a lawful trade to the tender mercies of a chance majority in any particular district in any particular year. Suppose that absolute authority were handed over to the local Governing Body without any check upon the cancelling of licences, and this power were to be largely used, great agitation and excitement would prevail. We might have all the houses in a particular district shut up at a particular time by a Local Authority, with the smallest amount of real knowledge of the wants of the neighbourhood, or consideration for the wishes of the minority of the people. What would be the result? I venture to say it would be quite intolerable. It would be difficult even to keep public order where the public-houses were shut up in this way, unless the sense of the people was very strongly in favour of such a step, in which case such a drastic measure would be quite unnecessary, as the public-houses would be starved out. In ordinary cases the inevitable result would be that a club would start up in almost every public-house that had been closed, and the wishes of the people would be strong enough to prevent any adequate check being placed upon the multiplication of clubs. I think the question of clubs is, after all, most important. A very poor service, indeed, would be done by the Temperance Party to the cause they had so long and ardently advocated, if, by a despotic act, they succeeded in shutting up the whole of the public-houses in a particular district, unless they had previously prepared themselves to deal with the difficult question of clubs. Then it is necessary, I submit, to make some provision with regard to compensation. The hon. Baronet, no doubt, remembers the year 1880. It was an epoch in the temperance agitation, which had been going on for many years before that. Before 1880 there had been almost from year to year a proposal of a definite character put before the House of Commons. The Permissive Prohibitory Bill provided that a certain majority should have the power of closing public-houses altogether. That Bill was before the House with varying fortunes for a considerable number of years before 1880, but it was killed in 1880, when the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) declared that though the Bill had received large support, he did not know five Members who really believed in its provisions and desired to support it. There was in those days a weakness in regard to the second reading, and many Members voted in its favour who would have voted against it if they thought it was likely to pass. After the Election of 1880 there came a Parliament of temperance proclivities, and the hon. Baronet opposite enjoyed his golden hour. The Resolution which was rejected by 100 votes in March, 1880, was carried by a substantial majority three mouths later; but in the hour of his triumph the hon. Baronet heard the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) complaining that in the Resolution the question of equitable compensation found no place.

The House passed it, though.

Yes, Sir; if the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian voted for the Resolution, he voted for it with that reservation, and it was accepted by other Members of the House, with the knowledge that in the mind of him who would be the chief authority in that Parliament the question of compensation was closely and inextricably connected with the question of putting an end to the liquor traffic. Five years passed and nothing was done, and from 1880 until the present time no one had ventured to bring forward a positive proposal for introducing Local Option in the sense in which the hon. Baronet uses that expression. I appeal to the hon. Baronet to look back upon that history, and say if it is fair for him to attack the Government in the terms he used the previous night for attempting to deal with the matter? It has been complained that licences are dealt with by an authority irresponsible to the people. The Government says—"Let them be dealt with by an authority created by the people, and directly responsible to the people." There has been a very ardent combat over this question of compensation. Reference has been made in the debate to the defeat of the Bill of 1871, and the hon. Member who spoke last repudiated the idea that the temperance advocates in the House had defeated that Bill. The hon. Member is justified in Ins repudiation, because the temperance advocates in this House have never defeated anything except a Liberal Government. All those abstract Resolutions, which may mean anything or nothing, and which half-a-dozen different people interpret in half-a-dozen different ways, are all very well; but as soon as the question of compensation was approached, it was always found that among those who knew most about the circumstances of the case there was a unanimous opinion that some provision with regard to compensation must be made. The Bill of 1871 proposed to give compensation in the shape of a fixed tenure of 10 years.

That was withdrawn.

I am aware of that; but I do not know how the hon. Baronet and his Friends can reconcile this with a profession of no compensation. Yet it is now put as an alternative suggestion from the other side—as something better than that which the Government now proposes. Surely, Sir, the hon. Baronet and his Friends could not accept that suggestion. Every week of every year they are making speeches in which they declare that it is an intolerable grievance that there should be so many public-houses as now exist, and if they consented that all these public-houses should continue for another 10 years, they would be guilty of something very like an infringement of the great principle which is the basis of their agitation. Well, they may not be able to accept a proposal of that kind; but that is no reason why they should not accept the proposal of the Government. The Government propose that, after the passing of the Bill, no new interest should be created in a licensed house. As to the existing houses, in respect of which, according to all equitable considerations, a vested interest does exist, surely the fairest thing is to say that there shall be an additional tax upon those who are carrying on the business, and that when a public-house is put an end to, compensation shall be paid in respect of it out of that tax or from the general funds of the county. The hon. Member for Barrow seems to have a very feeble faith in the principles which he advocates. He warned the House not to accept the proposals of the Government, on the ground that the tax on licences would constitute an overwhelming temptation for localities, and that these would be prepared to favour the existence of licensed houses, in order not to lose the contributions derived from them for the relief of local burdens. That is a very feeble faith indeed. I have always thought the hon. Baronet and his Friends bad an unlimited belief in their own power to convert the people. I am not going to minimize the evils of excessive drinking. I know too much of the effects of excessive drinking upon the classes low down in the social scale; but, as far as the great majority of the working classes are concerned, I believe if we took an assembly of men, as numerous as that which the House of Commons contains, and these men were met together at a Trade Congress or a Trade Association of any kind, we should find at least as strong a repugnance on the part of them, as a body, to excess in intoxicating drinks as we find among Members of this House. I believe it is in that direction that the true work of the hon. Baronet lies, and if he can but succeed in spreading that feeling still more widely there will soon be no ground at all for hesitating to award compensation to the publicans. If the public-houses ceased to be used by the people they would cease to be valuable property, and it would become possible to deal with the publicans on very easy terms. If the great temperance associations had confined themselves to the propagation of the principle of abstinence, and had not indulged so much in the Christian virtue of finding fault with other people, the attainment of this condition of things would be still nearer than it is. There are some other matters which have been referred to, but which will more properly be dealt with in Committee. I hope I have shown the House, at all events, that the Government have dealt with this question with an honest desire to put an end to a controversy which has affected, and sometimes determined, political struggles for 20 years, without any really satisfactory result in legislation. Stopping with the passing of this Bill the creation of any new interest, making arrangements whereby partly, if not wholly, from the contributions of the trade itself, compensation shall be paid when the property is taken away without any fault on the part of the man who had enjoyed it, I hope it will be found on consideration that the proposals of the Government are fair and reasonable proposals, and that the House may well accept them as the solution and termination of a very difficult controversy.

said, it was to be regretted that the debate on such a large measure as this should have a tendency to run largely in the direction of discussion of the Licensing Clauses. He was, however, himself about to err in that direction in following some of the remarks which had been made that day on both sides of the House; and he submitted that it was not altogether unimportant that the House should consider those clauses very carefully, with a view, if possible, of arriving at some definite conclusion which would lead them to a solution of the question. The present supplied golden opportunities which ought not to be lost. Governments were not fond of dealing with this question; it was not once in 20 years that a Government would be found which would undertake the responsibility of dealing with a subject involving such large interests, and which was surrounded by difficulties of no ordinary character. The chief objection which he had heard urged to the Licence Clauses of the Bill coming from the Temperance Party was on the ground of compensation. That had been ably dealt with by the hon. and learned Solicitor General (Sir Edward Clarke), whom he was utterly unable to follow in the clearness and lucidity of his exposition; but there were one or two considerations connected with the question of compensation, and the amount of compensation, whatever it might be, that had not been dealt with in the debate, one or two of which, without labouring them, he should like to indicate to the House. The contention was that there was absolutely no right or title to the renewal of a licence. Now, if there was absolutely no such right, what was the meaning of the appeal to Quarter Sessions? If the Justices had in the first instance an absolutely unfettered power to terminate licences at the end of a year, what was meant by providing an appeal from their decision to Quarter Sessions? Again, how did hon. Members reconcile their contention with the justice of the practice to which the hon. and learned Gentleman had referred, whereby a person applying for a licence was called upon to bring up his plans to the Licensing Authority and make alterations in them at their suggestion? Could it be contended for a moment that the Legislature contemplated that magis trates should insist upon expensive buildings and great improvements to property, intending to terminate the licence at the end of the year, or holding that they had absolute right to do so without any cause?

I never said "without any cause."

said, he would come to the word "cause" directly. He meant, of course, misbehaviour or misconduct. A provision of a very recent Act referred to by the hon. and learned Gentleman said a licence holder might obtain a renewal unless some complaint was made against him. Surely that meant that unless there was complaint of something personal the licence should be granted. Again, the Legislature provided that certain offences should be endorsed on the licence, but it provided also that after five years of continuous good behaviour those endorsements should be wiped out. Was not that a proof that the person licensed should, after five years, hold a clean licence? It implied that the licence should be under a sort of cloud for five years, after which time the endorsement was to be wiped out. How had all the rest of the world looked upon these licences? They had certainly not looked upon them as likely to terminate at the end of the year. In the case of public-houses large fines had been taken by landowners and even by large public bodies for leases, and contracts had been made for large expenditure on property. Was it dealing fairly between man and man that one party should take a heavy fine and insist upon a large expenditure with the intention of holding that at the end of a year, without misconduct on the part of the licence holder, the money expended on the property should be absolutely lost? Again, in the case of licensed houses being purchased under Act of Parliament by Railway Companies and other bodies, had anyone ever heard that it was seriously contended that the licences should not be renewed except for misconduct? Besides the legal grounds which the Solicitor General had stated, this matter rested upon universal practice. Now, if it were true that licences were terminable at the end of each year, how was it that in all the cases which had occurred in this century one could hardly put his finger upon a single case in which the licence was terminated except on the ground of misconduct? It might be asked whether there were any judicial decisions upon this point? The reason why they were unable to refer to decisions in the English Courts was because the appeals had rarely gone beyond Quarter Sessions; but the case of Clitheroe had been brought before the Judges in Dublin, who held that there was no justification for taking away the licence on the ground that there were too many licensed houses in the district. He would leave the legal aspect of the matter altogether, and say that there was a claim for compensation resting on the sense of what was equitable and just. The licensed victualler had a property, and to take it away without compensation was something very like confiscation. If the House were to give large powers of closing public-houses without compensation, had it been considered how such a power would work? He did not believe it would be possible to work such a provision at all, because it would break down when it came to the question of personal application. In the case put by the hon. Member for Barrow (Mr. Caine), what would the neighbourhood think of the justice of closing 30 public-houses without compensation, ruining the holders, and leaving the other 130 in the full enjoyment of their position and doing a better trade? The upshot of this would be that it would be found impossible to close the houses, because the sense of justice of the community would rebel against it. The hon. Member had referred to the Bill introduced by Mr. Bruce. But Mr. Bruce did not say that licence holders had no interest; he proposed to give them, in the way of compensation, 10 years' grace, at the end of which time the houses might be closed without any claim at all. His hon. Friend had expressed a preference for that plan. But let the House consider what it meant. If they gave seven, 10, or some number of years, after which no claim should be made, there would be an acknowledgment of some claim to compensation. In that case they seemed to be arming the licensed victualler with a tenfold power to claim compensation, because they were estimating it by a term of years. But what sort of agitation would be got up if, 10 years hence, it was certain that the licence holders would be deprived of their property without any fair compensation. He ventured to say, looking at the enormous interest involved, that at the close of that period there would be such an agitation that no other political question would get a hearing, and which would be disastrous to the Temperance Party in its results, and to the Government which attempted to carry out the operation. He desired to call the attention of those who so vehemently opposed this proposal to some of the things which were said by Mr. Bruce and by others against the attempt to deal harshly with this question. He remembered one passage quoted. It was a very instructive quotation. It referred to a town where large works were established, and the owners of those works being in possession of the land, and desiring the benefit of their workmen, wished to prohibit altogether the establishment of any licensed house on their land. They did prohibit it, but with what result? That the state of things was worse than if they had left it alone. If he remembered the figures aright, there was in the district at the time a population of 1,900, and there were 17 houses known to be selling illicit drink of one sort or another. The proprietors of the works being themselves the owners of the land, and having great power over it, made every effort to got rid of this state of things; but they found that as fast as they closed one of the houses another sprung up in another direction. The illustration might be multiplied a hundred fold. It always would be the case. If they went beyond what the feeling of the population was there would be a reaction, and, instead of getting a regulated sale of liquor for houses which the police could inspect and control, they would get houses without any regulation at all, and they would get a state of things in connection with the liquor trade very much worse than what it was at the present time. Surely the House might take a lesson from the successes of the past as well as from its failures. Would anyone in the House say that the state of things in regard to temperance in England was not better now than when Mr. Bruce introduced his Bill in 1871? He did not think anybody would get up and assert that. All of them were conversant with the immense improvement. They could hardly run their eyes over any newspaper without being aware of that. If they looked at the reports on the conduct of the population, say on a Bank Holiday, or on a great festival, they noticed expressions of opinion on all sides that the conduct of the people in this matter was rapidly improving. But the improvement was not the result of any Act of Parliament for the closing of public-houses; but it was the result of a better state of feeling amongst the people themselves. Many causes had contributed to the improved state of things—education, better homes, better means of enjoyment, and he did not doubt the efforts of many good men who had devoted their lives to the cause. But these men did not seem to have any faith in their own success. This improved state of things had been brought about, by influences which were all working for good, and solid good. Surely they had had enough experience of the failure of repressive legislation. The case he had quoted just now might be multiplied many times over. What he submitted was that intentions, however good they might be, could not be pleaded by Parliament in bar of condemnation if, shutting their eyes to the history of the past, and absolutely regardless of the consequences which inevitably followed, they took a false step in going beyond that which could be borne by the habits of the people at the time. He now desired to refer for a few minutes to the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie). He desired to acknowledge that the right hon. Gentleman had endeavoured to act in a spirit of justice to the trade with which he (Mr. Whitbread) was connected. He acknowledged that frankly, and if he made any criticisms upon the scheme of the Bill, he really made them with a view of endeavouring to remove some of the friction which he was sure would attend the working of it, and not with a view of really controverting the principles which it laid down. Now, if the object of the Bill, or if the object of those who were called the Temperance Party, was really to reduce the number of licences, let them consider for a minute how that could be done most certainly, and with least opposition. The proposal had been made more than once, and it was re- peated last night by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain), that the 20 per cent increase of the licence duty should be set apart to form a fund for the compensation of licence holders. He approved of that proposal entirely. He thought the increased duty should be set apart, but that it should be set apart so that the Local Authority could not use it for any other purpose; that it should be absolutely used for that purpose, and that purpose alone. He thought that at the same time, as they were making provision for extinguishing licences by compensation, it would be absurd, on the other hand, to be creating new licences, and Local Authorities should not be allowed to touch this fund for any other purposes or to grant a new licence in a district until the licensed houses in that district became less in proportion to the population than it should be according to some reasonable scale which could be agreed upon by the House. That scale, of course, would have to be different in rural and urban districts, and there would have to be a distinct scale for the City of London, owing to the enormous number of people who daily went in and out, and who needed refreshment during the time they were there. He should say that the value of the licence when it was bought should be the present value, and not the value as laid down in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill—namely, the value at the time of the passing of the Bill. He hoped he understood the idea the right hon. Gentleman had in his mind when he made that proposal; it was that the value of the licence would go up. But surely the proposal was a premium upon bad management of houses, because a man might have given £5,000 for a licence just before the passing of the Bill, and might manage it so badly that the value might run down rapidly to £1,000. If the Local Authorities wanted to get rid of that house, they would be compelled to give the pre-existing value of £5,000. It would end, of course, in the Local Authorities never consenting to buy up such a house, although it might be the very one they wanted to get rid of. Local Authorities would, of course, be able to grant occasional licences for fairs and race meetings, and things of that sort. Then it would be said at once there was no provision for the growth of towns. He should propose to provide for that by the existing law—by granting a little greater power than was now possessed by the magistrates. He would suggest that the authorities might be able to transfer a licence from one house to another house within the district if such a transference were on all hands desirable.

said, he had not exactly caught the hon. Gentleman's suggestion as to what should be regarded as the value of the licence.

said, his suggestion was that the value should be the value at the time the compensation was granted. He thought they would have enormous difficulty in arriving, say 20 years hence, at what was the value of the house at the passing of the Bill. Now, his hon. Friend the Member for Barrow (Mr. Caine) said it was absurd to propose to set aside the extra duty for compensation purposes, because the amount of the fund would be so small that it would do nothing. He was obliged to differ very much indeed from his hon. Friend on that subject, and he would here say at once that the estimate his hon. Friend gave of the value of licensed houses was exaggerated beyond all possibility. He could not understand where his hon. Friend got his figures from. All he could say was, that if the figures represented the hon. Gentleman's ideas of the value of licensed houses, licensed victuallers would like to have him on a jury which was called upon to assess the value of their houses. The hon. Gentleman arrived at his figures in a very extraordinary way. First of all he gave them a description of what he called a village house, which was established in the district of a mine with which he was connected, and which rose from the value of £400 as a dwelling house to £2,200 as a licensed house. What gave the House this increased value? The very same thing which gave the value to the mine. It was industry which created that value. It was the large number of persons drawn to the district, and he did not suppose that the value of the house when it was licensed as compared with the value when it was bought as a dwelling house was any greater than the value of the land when mineral was found in it as compared with the agricultural value of the land. His hon. Friend said it was a fair example of the village house. He (Mr. Whitbread) asserted that it was absurdly beyond the fair average value of village houses. Then the hon. Gentleman gave them the value of the suburban licensed house at £8,000. He had no doubt there were many suburban houses of the value of £8,000 and more, but he absolutely denied that that was anything like the average value. The hon Gentleman abandoned the case of the Liverpool Street house; he abandoned that on an explanation from the Solicitor General (Sir Edward Clarke). Then the hon. Member took them to a house at Knightsbridge, and said that the value of the licence there was £30,000. It was possible that that might be the case, but that was not an average case. If £30,000 was the value of the licence, surely that was an argument which could be used against his hon. Friend. Did not that show him that if people were prepared to invest such enormous sums in licensed houses they must believe that they had some claim beyond a mere annual claim? Then his hon. Friend said the average value of licensed houses all over the country was £5,000. Having some knowledge of the subject, he (Mr. Whitbread) was bound to say that that was exaggerated—it was exaggerated beyond all bounds. He did not believe that that was the average value of full licences in the Metropolis, where things were dearer than anywhere else. The hon. Member said that this fund would do little or nothing owing to this enormous value. He would tell the hon. Member why it would do a good deal. It would do a good deal for the very reason that, although the average value of houses might be high, those which would be compensated first would be of very low value. One of the most certain things connected with this trade was this—that bad trade was a poor trade. A man who was doing a good and legitimate trade would not risk his property and licence for the sake of encouraging drunkenness. It was the houses that could not live which were driven to courses which must be condemned, and the tenants of such houses would be only too glad to get out if they could get compensation of any kind. Those were the houses which would be first compensated. Then he submitted to the judgment of the House that what they wanted to aim at was the reduction of the number of licences, and he was not prepared to say that there were not too many licences—he thought that in the country generally there were too many licences. But when Mr. Bruce introduced his Bill he estimated the number of licensed victuallers and beer-house keepers at one in 182 of the whole population. Mr. Bruce then separated London from the Provinces and he showed that there were one in 300 of the population in London and one in 150 of the population in the Provinces. He (Mr. Whitbread) was sorry they had not got a Return which would throw some light on the subject now, because he was convinced if they had they would prove that they had arrived at a very different state of things. But still he agreed that it would be a good thing to further diminish the number of licences if that could be done with justice to the holders. But what he thought they did want was not a sudden and arbitrary and harsh and violent reduction, but a gradual reduction that could be effected without much opposition. There was great danger in going too fast. If they proceeded too fast in the matter of reductions other houses would spring up; some of them thinly disguised as clubs, and some not disguised at all. If more money were wanted than this 20 per cent he had a suggestion to make by which the difficulty might be met. If power were given to raise money on the security of half that fund, he thought they would get a large crop of licences extinguished by that means first, and they would have a fund to go gradually on with afterwards. They might ask, and ask with some justice, that a further portion of the licence duty should be allocated for this purpose. They would have justice on their side in making this claim, for the reason that this scheme of reducing houses by purchase was proposed to Mr. Bruce in 1871. It was proposed then that they should put a tax on the licences in order to form a compensation fund. They had reason to believe that Mr. Bruce lent not an unwilling ear to that proposal; but the opposition to the Bill of that day had reached such a pitch, that the Government felt themselves compelled to withdraw the measure. If that scheme had been adopted, if that op- portunity had not been lost, he asserted, without the slightest fear of contradiction, that the decrease in the number of licences would have been such as to bring it within any scale that would at that time have been laid down by Parliament. They had lost the last 18 years in that respect, and he hoped they would not lose the 18 years which would follow this. These opportunities did not come very often. Then he would only say that if the idea of a purchase fund was not adopted generally by the whole country, he thought that the licence holders in the Metropolis, or in the County of London as defined by the Bill, should be treated differently from those in the Provinces. They thought they had some claim, both owing to the large population of London and also to the interests concerned, to be heard. They thought, also, that the peculiarities under which licences were held in London, differing as they did in the main from the way in which they were held in the country, gave them a claim to separate treatment. It was a fact that in London the bulk of the houses—he should say certainly three-fourths of them—were not held by brewers, but were held by the licence holders themselves. That might make the difference between the applicability of any scheme to London and to the country. At the same time he did not see the difference himself, but it was a fact. There was another consideration. In London, licences changed hands with extraordinary rapidity, and there was always an open market for the purchase of licences. He was confident that he was within the mark in stating that, on the average, licences in the Metropolis changed hands every five years. He thought that he would be right in saying they changed hands every four years; he was convinced they changed hands, certainly, every five years. The result was that there had always been a perfectly open market. A house could not be run up against the Local Authorities. The Local Authorities would only have to employ their broker, just as the Government employed a broker to buy Consols, and no one could tell who he was buying for. No one would have to give one shilling more than the real market value at the time. There would be no need for them to give a fancy price in order to get possession. Now, this scheme did something both for the advocates of temperance and for the trade itself. It, first of all, took away from the Local Authorities any temptation to do nothing. There was a temptation for the Local Authorities, as the clause was drawn in the Bill, to use the money for the purpose of the rates, and not to embark in any system of buying out licensed houses. It also took away the charge that this compensation would be wrung from the rates imposed upon the people, because it would come from the new fund—a fund belonging in no way to the ratepayer. This was a new tax for the purpose of a new fund, coupled in the Bill with the promise of compensation. If they came to compensate licence holders out of the rates, he very much feared the effect of the agitation which would immediately arise. He thought the ratepayer would be told that it was unjust, in the last degree, to ask him to compensate the holder of any one of these houses. He thought the friction would be immense, and that the result would be that nothing would be done towards diminishing the number of licences. He thought the scheme he had sketched did offer a means, not as rapid as sonic wished, of reducing without friction the number of licensed houses in the country. It offered, on the other hand, to the trade this consideration—that it would put the extra tax to be placed on them by the Bill in a position where it could only be used for their own compensation. It would not be allowed to go into the common stock. He thought the scheme would also put the trade in this position—that their compensation would be secured. It would put their compensation in a place where it would stand. He was not too confident that if it was placed directly upon the rates in the way proposed by the Bill there might not be some risk at some future time of legislation overtaking them and leaving them without anything at all. He thanked the House very earnestly for giving him its close attention to the dry details of a plan of this sort. He again said to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie) that the suggestions he had made to him were made with a view of carrying out what he believed to be the object the right hon. Gentleman had at heart. He had not made them in any sense of complaining of the amount of compensation, or of the vast powers that were given to the County Councils, or of anything of that sort. His object had been, if he possibly could, to suggest something that might reduce the acrimony with which this question had been fought, so long as no compensation was proposed. If they could do anything to remove that acrimony, it would be a very great benefit to both Parties in the House, because the question had assumed proportions that made it overshadow almost every other political question. He believed that if they could remove one of the chief obstacles to a peaceful and self-working solution of the question—a fair compensation coming, not from the the rates, but from the extra tax on the licensed victuallers themselves—they would do much to facilitate the working of the measure, and to achieve that which both sides of the House desired to see—namely, that there should only be so many licensed houses in the country as were really wanted by the people, and that there should be a living for those who were licensed. There were many other topics in the Bill which he should like to have touched upon, but he was too sensible of the indulgence the House had granted him on this subject to weary them at any further length.

said, the question of the transference of licensing from the magistrates to the new Licensing Authorities had been so fully dealt with by the Solicitor General (Sir Edward Clarke) and by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) that it would not be fair in him to occupy the time of the House longer upon that subject, except to say that the principle which had been acted upon for many years was that when a person, whose character was always the subject of inquiry before he obtained a licence, had obtained a licence and invested his money in a public-house, there must be something against his personal character before the renewal of his licence could be refused. He hoped it would not be considered he used a strong term when he said it would be inequitable and unjust were it otherwise; it would certainly be striking a blow at the stability of private property, for which there was no precedent in past legislation. He was glad that the principle of vested interests in licences, other than the licences granted under the Beer House and Retail Wine and Spirit Act of 1869, were about to be recognized in this Bill, which he hoped would become an Act. There was another proposal in the Bill to which not much attention had as yet been paid, and that was the proposal relating to the closing of public-houses upon Good Friday, Christmas Day, and Sunday. He had always been of opinion that the closing of public-houses on Sundays and on holidays would not be attended with the good results the Temperance Party had in view; and he might say at once that in speaking upon this measure he had the same object in view as the Temperance Party themselves—that was to say, the moral welfare of the people. But if public-houses in large boroughs and populous districts were closed on Sundays, did those who advocated the closing of such houses not think, or had they not learnt from experience, that those whom they desired to force by Act of Parliament to be sober would provide themselves on the Saturday night with not only the necessary amount of drink to be consumed on the Sunday, but take care that they procured more than they wanted, and more than they would otherwise drink upon the Sunday? It certainly would not be desirable that there should be private drinking in private houses, if only for the sake of the bad example to wives and children, who might not otherwise be tempted into such evil practices. He thought that, if they might draw or gain any knowledge from experience, that had practically been the result of closing public-houses, where they had been already closed by Act of Parliament, on Sundays. He referred to Wales and to Scotland. He was told that in parts of Scotland there was a notice put up in public-house windows upon the Saturday night to "Remember the Sabbath Day." He was told that in Wales, in order to defeat an unpopular Act, the publicans drove a roaring trade upon the Sunday by not only selling drink at their doors to bonâ fide travellers, but also by keeping traps by which they might exchange traffic with their neighbours, and thus constitute people bonâ fide travellers. That was the kind of thing which took place in Wales and Scotland. But if they referred to statistics, if statistics were to be relied upon at all, they found that in the boroughs of Wales, where, of course, the greatest amount of Sunday drinking took place, there was as much Sunday drunkenness as there was in similar boroughs in England and if they turned to similar boroughs in Scotland, they found that the convictions for Sunday drunkenness in Scotland were largely in excess of the convictions for like offences in either England or Wales. He went further, and asserted that if they took the whole of the population of all the boroughs in England, and compared it with the whole of the population of the boroughs in Wales, they would find that the convictions for Sunday drunkenness were practically identical; but if they added the population of Wales and Scotland together, they would find that the convictions for Sunday drunkenness in Wales and Scotland, where Sunday Closing was in operation, were greatly in excess, per 1,000 of the population, of the convictions for Sunday drunkenness in England. But this was purely incidental, and it was, perhaps, not proper for him to mention it; he only did so in view of the provision of the Bill to delegate to County Councils the closing of public-houses within the county or specified parts of the county. In this measure the Government had great difficulties to deal with. They had this difficulty at any rate—that they had succeeded in pleasing neither the Temperance Party nor the licensed victuallers. Speaking for himself, he certainly congratulated the Government on having delegated to the County Authorities this very grave question. It was a grave question, it was one of great importance, and ought to be approached in the most serious manner, affecting, as it undoubtedly did, the vested interests of those who had put their money into the trade and the personal privileges of the people. What would be the effect if the Sunday Closing Question was left in the hands of Parliament? He could not help thinking that Parliament would in time be obliged to pass a Sunday Closing Act if things went on at the present rate. He did not say so because he believed the majority of the people in the country desired it or believed in its desirability, but because candidates were too flabby; they had not got sufficient stamina and backbone to say to those to whom they applied for election what they really thought, or to state what were the Constitutional aspects of this very important question. There was too much of the endeavour to nullify or cancel the influence of the organization, peculiar in itself, as having for its first motive the moral welfare of the people under the name of temperance, but having as its second string a powerful political agency, and that was the reason that, as time went on, if this matter was not delegated to the Local Councils, they would have candidates seeking the representation of the people, and saying, as he regretted to say he had heard them say—"Why should I refuse to accede to the views of a section of the people; it will not hurt me; if they like it, well, then let them have it." He maintained that was an entirely wrong view to take, for reasons with which he would deal presently. Now, what would be the result of delegating this question to Local Councils? He was told by a Petition which he received the other day from some temperance association that it was inadvisable that the question should be delegated to Local Councils, because the Councillors would not be elected upon the direct issue, but upon a general issue. That was exactly his ground for saying that that was practically what happened now in the case of the election of Members of Parliament. If the question were dealt with by Parliament and public-houses were closed by Act of Parliament, what difficulties would have to be encountered in endeavouring to repeal that Act of Parliament? It could not be done. But if this matter were referred to a Local Council to determine, if the first election of Councillors was not upon this direct issue, and if the Council took upon them to either close public-houses or to refuse to renew licences to licensed houses, it might be depended upon that the next election of Councillors, whether it be after three years, or whether it be in pursuance of the principle that one-third of the Councillors should be elected every year, would be conducted upon that direct issue. That was the reason he advised licensed victuallers to readily accept the proposal to delegate this matter to the Local Councils. There was another subject he should like to have recognized in connection with Sunday closing of public-houses. He noticed that, in connection with the authority which was given to the Local Councils to exercise their discretion in refusing to renew licences, an appeal was given from the part affected and from an adjoining licensing division affected by the refusal. Let him point out what would be the effect of closing public-houses in a specified area of the county. Did the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie) not think that there ought to be the same facilities of appeal afforded to the area affected by the closing of public-houses and the area adjoining the closed area? It must be perfectly apparent to the House, as well as to the right hon. Gentleman, that if public-houses were closed in a specified area of a county, the outside of that area would be immediately affected by the incursion of those who wished to drink upon Sundays. People would betake themselves from the closed areas to the adjoining areas which were not closed, so he thought the same facilities for appealing to the County Council before public-houses were closed ought to be afforded to the adjoining areas. But there was another question beyond that, and it was a question of compensation. He knew it would be said that if public-houses were closed on Sundays by County Councils, publicans need only take out six-day licences, and thus no compensation would be required. But if that argument was used it was applicable at the present time. Those who wished to act upon Sabbatarian principles could close their public-houses on Sundays and could take out a six-day licence now. The reason why men did not take out six-day licences now was that if they did they would drive their trade away to other public-houses who took out seven-day licences. The recognition in the Bill of the bonâ fide traveller would render the same argument applicable to the state of circumstances created by the Bill. Upon the question of compensation for closing public-houses he might quote a very strong example. In 1886 a Bill was passed through the House of Commons closing public-houses on Sundays in the County of Durham. That Bill went up to the House of Lords, and it passed a first and second reading there. After it had passed the second reading in the Upper House, a public-house on the Northumberland side of the Tyne, which had been put up for auction in the previous year, was again put up, and the auctioneer, while engaged in selling the house, commented upon the great advantage that would accrue to the house in consequence of the Durham Sunday Closing Act. The house went up in value, in consequence of the expectation that the Durham Sunday Closing Bill would come into operation, to the extent of between 30 and 40 per cent. He did not think it required a very great mind to grasp the fact that if a house in a non-closed area went up in value to the extent of 30 or 40 per cent, similar house in a closed area would be depreciated in exactly the same proportion. He thought that while they lived in the luxury of the present day, they entirely forgot the lot of the honest hardworking man. They entirely forgot that he was locked up possibly in his one room, with his wife and his family. They entirely forgot that he possibly might desire occasionally to get away from his house to where he could meet his fellows and converse with them on subjects of mutual interest between them. They entirely forgot that the well-conducted public-house was the club of the working man; and he (Mr. Milvain) thought that if power were given to the County Councils to close public-houses, the same jurisdiction ought to be extended to them to close clubs whether they were bogus clubs or clubs to which hon. Members of the House of Commons resorted. Numbers of clubs were perfectly certain to spring up the moment public-houses were closed, and he thought if there was one thing more than another which made the law respected and obeyed in this country, it was the equality of its application. What he had maintained, and what he should continue to maintain, was that if the County Councils had not the same power to close the clubs as they had to close the public-houses, the law was inequitable in its application, and there would be a new departure in legislation which had never been recognized or sanctioned before, and that was legislation distinguishing the masses from the classes. He knew there had been legislation of an official nature dealing with the masses in their capacity as workmen, but there had been no legislation of a social nature distinguishing them from the classes. What he wanted to see was equality in the law and equality in the application of the law. He did not wish to say any more. He had always taken an interest in this question of Sunday closing, and the more closely he examined it, the more difficult he felt it to be to deal with it; but he was sure of this, that unless it was dealt with in the equitable spirit he had described, it ought not to be dealt with at all.

I believe I have heard almost everything that has been said during the course of this debate, and in rising to speak for a very short time I think I ought to say that I do not propose to repeat, if I can avoid it, any part of the arguments which have been used by hon. Members on whichever side of the House they may sit. I am anxious to give to the House a few remarks, in which I shall, as far as I can, call attention to certain points in connection with this Bill which have not hitherto been dealt with. I hope on that understanding I may receive the attention of some Members of the House who, like myself, have for many years taken a great deal of interest in this question. There is a remark that felt from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General to which I think I ought to call attention at the beginning. I do not propose to present any argument on the subject of licensing, either as to the powers proposed to be transferred from the Justices to the Councils, or to those subsidiary questions of which we heard so much during the course of the debate. But I think the House should notice what was elicited by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt), that is to say, the precise ground upon which the Government rest their proposal for compensation for loss of licences. It is a very interesting question, and, as such, I think the House should clearly understand the ground the Government has taken, because, to a certain extent, it is a new one. The legal technical ground laid down by the Solicitor General is, it would appear, the foundation of the view adopted by the President of the Local Government Board. The ground upon which the Government rest their case for compensation for the loss of licences is mainly a clause in the Act of 1874, which provides that the Justices, in giving notice to a licensee that his attendance is required on the occasion of his applying for the renewal of his licence, shall set forth the cause, personal to him, why the question of the loss of his licence is in debate. Now, that clause was moved by Sir Charles Dilke on the occasion of the Bill of 1874 being reported. It was not in the Bill as introduced by the Government at all, and it must have been based upon grounds of which we have no trace in Hansard—where it is only said that Sir Charles Dilke moved to add it to the Bill. I wish merely to point out upon what a very slender foundation the Government, according to the Solicitor General, had been advised to base their compensation proposals. I will now pass away altogether from the question of licensing. There are one or two remarks in connection with what was debated yesterday to which I should here like to refer. The hon. Member the Chairman of Ways and Means, to whose most eloquent and brilliant speech the whole of us attended with the greatest possible interest—though, after all, I do not think, in spite of his eloquence, he persuaded any very large number of the House—rested his objection to the proposed constitution of the Council because they are not to be elected according to a particular machinery which does not prevail in respect to elections to this House. He had urged this plan in the discussion of the last Reform Act, and I do not think from the very small support with which it was received then or has been received since, that it is likely to be popular. Therefore, in dealing with my hon. Friend's present suggestion, I think we may assume that it is outside practical politics. I am very sorry for it. My hon. Friend supported his proposal, as I have said with very great eloquence; but you require to persuade as well as to be eloquent, and I do not think anyone will dispute what I say—namely, that of those who listened to my right hon. Friend only a very small proportion were persuaded by the arguments he laid before us. But there was another speech yesterday to which I feel bound to refer. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) followed my hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means, and in the course of his speech he brought forward some very cogent arguments against certain of the proposals of the present Bill. But what I could not understand was what gadfly stung my right hon. Friend so that he should have felt it to be his duty to introduce into the discussion what every hon. Member up to this time on either side of the House had been careful to avoid—namely, irritating Party politics having nothing whatever to do with the present Bill. My right hon. Friend may have had his own reasons for introducing that language; but I think the House will agree with me that there is nothing as to which the Government feel more anxious, as to which this Bench has been more anxious, and as to which the whole House has been more anxious, than that this question should be discussed, if possible, altogether outside ordinary Party politics and considerations, and that each clause, each proposal, should stand or fall on its own merits. My right hon. Friend felt it to be his duty—and I am sorry to see he is not hero at this moment—in the course of his remarks to give us a piece of history. He said—

"Three years ago it was my duty to prepare a Bill upon this subject. It was never completed or submitted to the House, because the Government of the day thought it right to throw aside that measure, with all the other items of the programme upon which they had been elected, in order to take up a new programme upon which the country had not been consulted."

Well, my right hon. Friend, I presume, alluded to the Bill which he prepared, or which he found prepared, and which he, to some extent, altered in 1886—the Bill which was practically prepared by Sir Charles Dilke and other Members (myself included) of the Cabinet in 1885, and which my right hon. Friend found in the pigeon holes of the Local Government Board. But what was the position of my right hon. Friend in 1886? He had joined a Government the object of which was in the most formal manner declared to be to seek a solution of the Home Rule Question other than coercion. That was the object for which my right hon. Friend joined the Government of the day, and I cannot conceive why he should have suggested as he did yesterday, that his Bill was to have been the main Bill of the Session, but that it was pushed aside for another on the subject of Ireland. But I will venture to quote a sentence from a very well known speech by a Member whose authority he will not dispute, which exactly shows which was considered the more important measure between English County Government and Irish Home and the one to be brought forward first. The words are these:—

"The question of the extension of Local Government is another subject which is even of greater importance. It is a National question as well as a parochial question; and the pacification of Ireland depends on the concession to Ireland of the right to govern itself in the matter of its purely domestic business."

Now, that I take from a speech on the subject of Local Government, delivered by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) himself, on, I think, the 17th of June, 1885; so that, if it is necessary to answer the remark of my hon. Friend that his Bill was put aside, I answer him in his own words, whether he adheres to them or not at the present time. But, passing from those two speeches, I think the House will agree with me in this, that there is no measure of greater magnitude that either has been or can be proposed to Parliament at the present time than this Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board. Not very long ago—I think in the year 1884—I ventured to say, on the approaching introduction of the Bills for reducing the County Franchise and for the redistribution of representation, that those two measures, taken in connection with the Bill which must follow for establishing Local Government upon a popular basis, would form together the greatest administrative and representative change which had taken place in England since 1688. I was very much attacked for that language, and I was told that I was representing the policy of the then Government, or those that might succeed them, in introducing these measures, as a revolutionary policy. Well, Sir, have we not heard during the course of the present debate from the Friends of the Bill themselves that this measure is introducing a great revolution? I think we may take it for granted that, however much some parts of this Bill may be approved of here or approved of there, or disapproved of here and disapproved of there, the Bill, as a whole, will enact a greater reform and a more revolutionary change in our local administration than any measure which has been brought forward for years past or which has ever been likely to receive the approval of this House. Under these circumstances, what, to my mind, is of the first importance is that if we are going to make so great a change as this—a change which even its own authors say is revolutionary—we ought to spare no effort to do it thoroughly. It is of no use at all making a great change of this sort if we leave half of the work undone. That never has been the policy of wise legislators when so enormous a transformation of powers and authority has been brought before the Legislature. Sir, what happens if you do not make the thing thorough? There is no doubt of this, that public attention does not remain fixed upon a particular political subject for any great length of time. As it is, it has taken us 25 years to reach the point of the introduction of this Bill since the question of Local Government began to be agitated in Parliament and the country. I think I am right in saying that it was about 1862 or 1863 that the question first became prominent in the public mind; so that we have taken 25 years to get the question up to the point of a Government—a strong Government—making proposals on the subject. I think that if we let the occasion pass now for making the measure as complete as the time of Parliament during this Session will allow, we shall have the further consequential charges also of great magnitude relegated to some uncertain period; and probably we shall have to wait another 25 years before the measure is made perfect. Let me give the House an illustration of what I mean. I remember something like 17 or 18 years ago there was a great agitation in the country in favour of the reform of our military and naval system. That agitation reached its height about the year 1869 or 1870; and very great changes were made in our military and naval system—changes of great importance, changes very much resisted at the time, but which were carried through the influence of a strong Government. They were, however, far from perfect, and much more was required in the same direction. Now, I say that from that time till two years ago it was impossible in this House to obtain any attention to the question of Army and Navy reform. I had the duty for some years of being responsible to this House for the Army; and what are the facts? Why, that except upon questions of vested interests the House would not attend to any proposals for Army reform, and practically the same statement might be made with respect to naval reform. Fortunately, these subjects are now well to the front, and with the assistance of Committees and Royal Commissions now sitting, a great deal of good will, I hope, be done. But it is perfectly clear that, unless you take advantage of public feeling being strongly in the direction of some great change like this, and unless, whilst you are about it, you carry out that change thoroughly, next year or the year after the whole matter will be forgotten, and it will be impossible to get up the steam of imaginative expression, so as to carry further changes. This has been the policy of our great neighbour, France, in connection with this particular subject of Local Government. I do not know whether the House is aware that for some years during the present century, and up to the time of the Franco-German War, the state of affairs as regarded Local Government in France wanted reforming—a great deal has been left undone. After 1870 an opportunity for carrying out great changes, however, occurred, and chiefly under the guidance of M. Waddington, who is now the French Ambassador in this country, the whole question of French Local Government received a most thorough sifting and inquiry, and a great measure was passed reforming it in all its details—a more comprehensive and elaborate measure even than the one now before this House. The whole Local Government of France, whatever this party or that party may say of any particular provision, was put into a thoroughly satisfactory state. I do hope, therefore, that we shall not leave the thing alone now, and that, so far as we can go on the basis of the present Bill, we shall do our best to make the measure complete, and not trust to future Sessions and Acts of Parliament for doing so. May I say a word or two as to the changes which, I think, ought to be introduced now? A good deal has been said about the impossibility of dealing with the parish in this Bill, and, of course, of dealing with the Union, which consists of a number of parishes. I am ready to admit that the difficulties with respect to parishes are very great, and that there are a great number of parishes that would have to be combined or dealt with in some such way if we take in hand a thorough reform of the parish divisions and of the parish functions. And so with respect to Poor Law Union. But I would make a suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, which I think, perhaps, would be of some value. He has got now before him, or will have in a short time, the Report of the Boundary Commissioners; at any rate, he will have all of them before the end of the Session. When he has these Reports he will be possessed of the greater part of the materials for re arranging the Union boundaries, which present, no doubt, one of the great difficulties of this matter. Now, what I would suggest to him is this, that in the present Bill he should insert what would not be a very long or a very difficult clause, a clause not merely enabling but requiring the new Councils within a certain time—probably six or nine months would be sufficient after they have got into working order—to prepare schemes for the re-arrangement of the Poor Law Unions upon the basis of the District Council Divisions which will be created under this Bill. In some cases the Unions would be coterminous with the Council districts, and, in some cases, they would embrace two or more Council districts. There may be cases where the district should be divided, though outside the Metropolis I am not sure that there would be many; but if the right hon. Gentleman would introduce a clause requiring the County Council to deal with this re-division within a limited time, the back of the difficulty would be broken. There should be two additional provisions, one that where Unions overlap county boundaries, the two Councils should be compelled to confer and to act; the other, that if they fail or neglect their duty, it should be the province of the Local Government Board to perform it for them. The result would be that we should have within a reasonable time complete schemes for bringing the Poor Law machinery into harmony with the new county machinery, and upon these complete schemes the Government would be able to act. I hope I have made myself clear to the right hon. Gentleman. Well, that appears to be one of the omissions in the Bill.

was understood to observe that provision was made for the point referred to in the Bill.

The right hon. Gentleman says that these powers are to be granted; but they should be obligations as well as powers imposed upon County Councils by Statute, and not left to the option or caprice of each county. Then, with regard to education, I quite agree that it would have been impossible to have brought the school districts in every case within the provisions of this Bill—I mean the school board districts. That was out of the question; but I think it is very much to be regretted that directly and absolutely under this Bill the charge of intermediate education should not be given to the County Councils, and also that the County Councils are not given by the Bill responsibility for supervising the school boards, instead of leaving them, as they were now, directly under the control of the Education Committee of the Privy Council. I know there is a power in the Bill under which certain official duties can be transferred to the County Councils; but I think we ought to have gone further than that, and that the Bill should lay down distinctly what function should be transferred from the Central Departments. The thing, I think, might have been done easily, and by not more than two or three clauses in the Bill. Then there is another fault in the arrangements of the Bill, to which I think the right hon. Gentleman has already had his attention called. The right hon. Gentleman proposed originally that only a limited number of counties of towns should be created by the Bill—towns, most of them, of 200,000 or 300,000 population. I understand, though I do not think he stated it, and therefore I may be wrong, that he is going now to fix the limit at 100,000 inhabitants—that he proposes that all boroughs of 100,000 inhabitants should be counties for the purposes of this Bill.

A hundred thousand in 1881.

I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to put the limit lower. One hundred thousand is too high. You will choke the municipal life of a great portion of this country if you leave many flourishing towns of less than 100,000 inhabitants in quasi subservience to the counties. I would, therefore, strongly urge the right hon. Gentleman to see whether he cannot find a line very much lower than 100,000. My own suggestion would be more like 40,000. Thus he should get over that other difficulty as to licensing in boroughs which he explained to the House today, but as to which I am afraid, unless something of the kind is done, there will be still greater complications than he has now, depending on the accident whether in the County Council the borough has six representatives or not. On the subject of the control of the police, I heard with great regret, with many other hon. Members last night, the sentence in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman when, in answer to an appeal to retain over the police the authority of the magistrates, he used these words, which I took down at the time—

"By giving the appointment of the Chief Constable to the magistrates, we give them practically control over the police."

But that is exactly what the House does not want; it does not want the magistrates to have practical control over the police. The magistrates' duties in connection with keeping order directly in connection with the police are understood. They work well in the boroughs, and do not clash with the absolute control over the force exercised by the Watch Committees; and, so far as I know, there is no reason whatever why this difference should be made between the boroughs and the counties. I hope, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman will withdraw the doctrine he laid down last night. I should have liked to have said a few words on the financial question between the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler); but I have not time to go into the detailed figures. But I understand the question to be simply this, that while the President of the Local Government Board does not contest my right hon. Friend's general classification of local taxation, what he does is to criticize the figures which my right hon. Friend produced, and he lays special stress on the fact that during the last 10 years a certain number of rural districts have come to be classed as the intermediate districts.

Not intermediate, but urban districts.

I understood the right hon. Gentleman last night to say intermediate. However, I will take urban districts. The right hon. Gentleman does not controvert my right hon. Friend's figures.

I said the statement I made entirely upset the comparison of the right hon. Gentleman.

Surely he did not dispute the figures themselves.

I controverted the force of the comparison.

The right hon. Gentleman's object was to throw doubt upon my right hon. Friend's figures, and he endeavoured to correct them so as to bring them into harmony with his own.

I never said anything about bringing his figures into harmony with my own. I did not advance figures as against those of the right hon. Gentleman. All I stated was, that when he gave figures to the House showing what the increase of the urban rates had been during the last 10 years, as compared with the increase of the rural rates, he omitted to mention that a largo number of urban districts had been carved out of rural districts.

That is precisely what I understood, but I did not, perhaps, express it as clearly as the right hon. Gentleman has done. But the amount in dispute is not large, and when we go into Committee we shall have an opportunity, now that we have the right hon. Gentleman's figures and the figures of my right hon. Friend before us, of more fully discussing this important matter. All I would say at the present moment is that it will be a very important matter in Committee to see whether, under the plan of the right hen. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, in counties which contain a number of small boroughs as well as a large number of rural districts, the distribution of the funds in future at the disposal of the Local Authorities is not too favourable to the county at the expense of urban districts. I will say no more than that it is a question which has to be threshed out in Committee. Before I sit down, I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer could hear what I have to say as to the general financial construction of the Bill. What I understand as the financial plan of which the Bill and the Budget scheme are the expressions, is that in the present financial year, the County Authorities are to receive from the Exchequer £1,150,000—that is to say, four-sixths of one-third of the Probate Duties, and they are to receive from new local licences £826,000, making altogether £1,976,000, the present subventions being left intact.

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to correct him? There is the subvention to the roads to be considered.

; I am allowing for that. Next year the position will be this. The County Authorities are to receive from the Exchequer one-half of the Probate Duties—£1,800,000—and from the new licences, £826,000. From old licences they will receive £2,970,000, less subsidies £2,582,000, and the total effect of that will be that they will receive more than they do at present by, in round numbers, £3,000,000. The effect on the Exchequer will be a loss this year of something more than £1,150,000, and in future years £2,188,000. Well, Sir, how is it proposed to meet this draft on the Exchequer? There are two things which my right hon. Friend proposes to do; and I am only going to state the facts, not to argue whether his proposals are wise or not. He has to provide for the contribution which goes from the Exchequer to the Local Authorities, and he has also another object, which is to take off 1d. from the Income Tax; and he has bound up these two objects together in this way. He proposes to levy new taxes for the Exchequer to the extent of £585,000, and more local licences amounting to £826,000—altogether to add to the local and Imperial taxation, £1,411,000. But he takes off £1,550,000 through the remission of the Income Tax. I think I have stated that quite accurately. Now, if that is the case, if the proposal in connection with the local Budget and the Imperial Budget is to add further taxes—local and general—to the extent of £1,411,000, and to take 1d. in the pound from the Income Tax, at a cost of £1,550,000, with the prospect next year of a far greater burden on the Exchequer, would it not be far better to leave matters as they stand, abandoning altogether both the now local and Imperial taxes, not disturbing the Income Tax, with precisely the same result? I am not going to argue as to the policy of each individual tax which my right hon. Friend proposes to put on in order to realize the amount which his reduction of the Income Tax renders necessary, but as to the new local licences, I think my right hon. Friend himself is by this time aware that they are extremely unpopular, and will meet with very stout resistance. The Horse Tax, I would remind him, was abandoned by Sir Stafford Northcote because the exemptions were so great that it was impossible satisfactorily to collect the tax, and yet my right hon. Friend is going to impose it with still greater exemption than those which existed when Sir Stafford North-cote abolished it. And with regard to the proposed Cart and Wheel Tax, almost every day produces seine new modification, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade promises to a deputation or announces to the House. I am very much afraid that when these taxes come to be discussed in Parliament it will be extremely difficult to lay down either with respect to the Horse Tax, with respect to the Waggon Tax, or with respect to the Wheel Tax, a system which will not be so full of exemptions and anomalies that it will be practically unworkable. Now, let me repeat again what I said just now. I said you will not find it necessary to raise any new taxes if you leave the income Tax alone. Why not give the Local Authorities, instead of £826,000 in the shape of obnoxious new local taxes, as you propose to give them, an equivalent amount from the House Duty, say, one-half, or more precisely four-ninths, which would reach £840,000? This transfer and the non-enactment of the additional Wine Duty and stamps and other imports, will be just met by not taking 1d. off the Income Tax. I would suggest that for the consideration of the Government. Of course, this is not the time for debating in detail any change of this kind which affects mainly the Budget proposals; but, so far as local taxes are concerned, I would only repeat that I greatly deplore these additions to the charges on locomotion, just after they have been one by one abandoned; and if there ever was a time when the warning "Why cannot you let it alone?" was applicable, was the present.

said, the object of the Bill, the second reading of which he was about to move, was very simple. There was nothing at present to prevent a man calling himself an architect, surveyor, or engineer; while the public had no means whatever which would enable them to distinguish between those who were competent and qualified persons and those who were not. The promoters of the Bill desired to afford facility for distinguishing between men who had been trained to the profession of architects, civil engineers, and surveyors, and those who had not received such training. There were many difficulties to be encountered in effecting this—in the first place, there were the rights of many professional men which had to be considered; and, secondly, there was the very strong opposition which any new measure had to encounter. If he could put before the House the numerous objections to the Bill which had reached him, it would be found that they all answered one another. He had received letters telling him that the Bill was for the purpose of making architecture, engineering, and surveying close corporations; others said that its object was to make those professions open to the most inefficient practitioners. Most of the objections to the provisions of the Bill were matters which could be considered and met in Committee. There were eminent Bodies in the country which were fitted for conducting, under the Privy Council, an examination into the capabilities of persons for these professions, but at present there was no compulsory power in those Bodies. This power the Bill proposed to give them. At the present time there were many sanitary questions to be dealt with, but those questions could not be treated by ignorant men. The Legislature had taken care, by many enactments, that medical examinations should take place, and if other classes of professional men were compelled to be registered, he did not see why that rule should not be applied to those who belonged to the professions which were the subject of this Bill. He found that a sentimental objection was urged against the proposal—namely, that architecture was a mystic art, and that the ability of a man in that department could not be tested. But the same objection might be urged in the case of medical men. It could not be denied that a large amount of useful knowledge would be obtained by the proposed examinations, and that the public would be gainers in future by securing the safety which would result from those examinations. The desire of those who promoted this measure was simply the elevation of these professions and the protection of the public. He would conclude by moving the second reading.

said, as a member of the Medical Profession, he had had some experience of registration in that profession, and he would ask the House not to come to any premature decision upon the Bill. There was no kind of comparison between the Bodies with respect to which the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Duncan) had sought to establish an analogy. In the case of the Medical Profession, they had a homogeneous body developing itself until the time was ripe for the practitioners to be grouped together. The professions dealt with in the Bill appeared to him to be heterogeneous, and he was not prepared to see all those Bodies grouped in one Bill in order to establish an association of architects, engineers, and surveyors. He agreed that some steps should be taken for making architects more acquainted with sanitary matters, but he did not think that the Bill offered adequate means of arriving at that desirable end. He, therefore, urged the House to consider the matter further before agreeing to the Motion of the hon. and gallant Member.

said, he joined the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken in opposing this Bill. He objected to placing these three Professions on the same footing as the Medical Profession. At present, it was open to anybody who had talent and skill to practice in those Professions without having the opportunity of doing any serious harm. The employment given to the three Professions came, as a rule, from boards and business corporations, who knew their interest well enough to get the best men to do the work. It was only natural and necessary that precautions should be taken in the case of the Medical Profession, to the members of which men's lives were entrusted, and accordingly the public were entitled to every security that Universities and educating Bodies could afford, by ensuring that the members of the Profession should practice with efficiency and skill; but in the case of engineers, surveyors, and architects, the matter was entirely different. The institutes of civil engineers, surveyors, and architects were entirely against the Bill. They considered it a most invidious and entirely unnecessary measure. For those reasons, he hoped that the Division would be taken at once, and that the Motion for the second reading would be promptly defeated.

said, he rose to support the Bill for the very reason which had induced his hon. Friend (Mr. Gill) to oppose it. His hon. Friend seemed to think that this Bill was put forward in an exclusive sense, but he (Mr. Murphy) considered it rather an enfranchising Bill than otherwise. Its only opponents were the members of three very exclusive and select Bodies, who had their head quarters in London. There were, however, a great many admirable associations in other parts of the country, and in Dublin there was the Society of Engineers and Architects, who were in favour of the Bill. No doubt the London societies had great weight all the world over; but, as he had said, they were very exclusive, and it was to put an end to those close boroughs that the Bill was designed. He hoped the House would assent to the second reading, and if it were thought desirable, he would, for his part, be willing that, in Committee, the Bill should be made permissive.

said, that Clause 21 provided that after the 1st of January, 1889, no person should be entitled to take the name of architect, civil engineer, or surveyor unless he had registered under this Act. Now, that seemed to him to be introducing a proposition of the gravest kind, and he had not heard any adequate reason that evening in support of the measure, which must press harshly and severely upon a large class of persons. He thought also they should have the view of the Government on this subject, and perhaps the best course, under the circumstances, would be that the Debate should be adjourned.

said, he thought that anybody acquainted with the Professions intended to come within the scope of this Bill must feel that there was no real necessity for the measure, which, while it imposed restrictions on those who practised in the Professions, did not meet the evils of which the hon. and gallant Member had complained. He would only speak for the Society of Civil Engineers, and he asked the House to consider what had been the result of the works carried out by them during the last 50 years. No one would say that there had been any defects in the work which the civil engineers had performed during that period, or that the Profession had not been practised in a way satisfactory to the country. They had spent a large sum of money in the promotion of the science of engineering, and he thought it was a monstrous thing to say that men who were members of that body should not be allowed to practise unless they registered. Then, again, no doubt there were various views with regard to architecture; but in this case also, during the last 50 years, the practice of architecture had enormously improved, and he submitted that those who supported the Motion of the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Duncan) should show where was the necessity for this Bill, in what respect the Profession had failed, and how it was proposed to establish the examining Body, with regard to which there were no particulars or details given. Again, hon. Members knew perfectly well that during the last 13 or 14 years examinations were held for the purpose of testing surveyors and granting diplomas and certificates and for proficiency in sanitary science and such matters as were necessary for those who practised that profession. And, again, he said that if the Bill was to be passed, they would require some explanation from the hon. and gallant Gentleman and his Supporters as to the parts of the country where these examinations would be required. The House would understand that, having taken a great interest in these Professions for many years, he (Sir Richard Webster) would be the first to advocate that there should be efficiency in architecture, surveying, and engineering; but having had a large acquaintance with members of the Professions concerned, having carefully considered the Bill, and not being influenced by anything except his own knowledge, he thought that this was a measure which the House ought not to pass without it was fully explained in what manner the evils alluded to were intended to be met.

said, his experience was rather a sad one in this particular—namely, that some years ago he had advertised for an engineer at a salary of £300, and failed to hear of one who was sufficiently familiar with logarithms to calculate the proper weight for a fly-wheel. He fully sympathized with the object of the Bill introduced by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, but, nevertheless, could not support it, for the reason that, as it seemed to him, there was no guarantee in it for a thoroughly sound education, nor did the council which was to confer degrees appear to be properly constituted. He trusted, however, that hon. Members who had thought over the Bill would consider that better education for members of these Professions was very difficult to obtain in England, and he thought it a disgrace to the country that that should be so.

said, he would appeal to the Members of the House as to whether the engineers who had carried out tremendous works in all parts of the world should be placed in the position contemplated by the Bill. He failed to see why the 5,530 members of that Profession should be so treated, and he would point out that although the Bill was nominally for the protection of the public against incompetency, its object was very different. If hon. Members would look at Schedule A, it would be seen that the members of 23 societies were to be pitchforked into the Professions. The three leading Institutes of Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors had petitioned against the Bill. He was bound to say that its promoters were particularly patronizing, for they said that the Charter of the Institute of Engineers, now some 60 years old, was to be confirmed by them. The members of the Institute were very much obliged to them for this consideration; but they did not want the irresponsible authors of the Bill to confirm this Charter. He considered that engineers had done more than any other Profession to increase the civilization of the world. To what had been done in railways, steamships, electricity, and other branches of engineering, the great names of Stephenson, Brunel, Armstrong, and Siemens testified, and their works were the monuments of their greatness. The members of these Professions claimed higher ground than that assigned to them by the promoters of the Bill; and, if for no other reason, he trusted the House would reject the Bill.

said, on behalf of the body of architects he ventured to think that a more uncalled-for measure than the present could not well be conceived. While he recognized his hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Duncan) as a great authority upon guns of all descriptions, he could not consider him an equal authority on the particular subject with which he had associated his name. He was aware that there was a feeling abroad that the architect of the present day was not up to the requirements necessary with respect to the sanitation of houses; but he bogged to point out that, in that matter, it was not so much the architects who were at fault as the jerrybuilders, and that if the Bill were passed to-morrow, they would still have to guard against the latter. As was well known, the Royal Institute of Architects and the Architectural Association had long held the foremost place in the estimation of the profession and of the public; but a third society had been created within the last few years, and it had occurred to that Society that some ready means should be found for making it compulsory that architects should be registered. The Bill would not, in his opinion, effect any practical advance in the Profession of architecture. It was proposed that all the members of the various Societies should be entitled to be registered; and when he said that some of those Societies were, so to speak, of mushroom growth, the House would be able to come to a conclusion as to the merits of the members of those Societies in regard to the privilege which this Bill proposed to give them. If it were necessary to have a controlling body over the education of those who would practise the Profession in future, they should call to their aid a Society respectable as to its ago and reputation, which possessed a Royal Charter, and which numbered amongst its members some of the leading architects of the day, rather than place themselves in the hands of a Society established only three years ago. If, then, it was unnecessary that such a Bill should be passed with regard to the Profession of Architecture, it was nothing short of an impertinence to seek to control the Profession of Civil Engineers by this Bill. He therefore hoped that the House would say there should be no legislation in this direction, and that the Bill would be unanimously rejected.

said, as he had the honour to be President of the Surveyors' Institution, he wished to say a few words on this Motion. The provisions of the Bill constituted an attack upon the influence fur good which the Surveyors' Institution, incorporated by Royal Charter, exercised. The Bill was also an attack upon the Royal Society of Engineers and the Royal Society of British Architects. He thought the House would be careful in allowing a Bill to pass the second reading the purport of which was to do that which his hon. and gallant Friend, in his own Profession, would be the very last to countenance—namely, to allow those who had not gone through the necessary ordeal of passing through those Institutions for the purpose of getting the stamp of ability placed upon them, to arrive at a position which would enable them to compete with those who had passed that ordeal to place a brass plate upon their doors and style themselves engineers, architects, and surveyors. If such a measure were proposed in the case of the Army, no one would use more influence than his hon. and gallant Friend to prevent it becoming law. When it was considered that the members of the three Institutions attacked numbered rather more than 10,000, and that, as he was advised, pressure had been put upon many persons to induce them to sign the Petitions which had been presented to the House, he thought hon. Members would hesitate to allow the Bill to be read a second time. The House should bear in mind that to pass the Bill would be to throw odium upon institutions which had stood the test of time. If it were the pleasure of the House, there would be no difficulty whatever in having registration; but did any Member suppose that by giving a man the opportunity of describing himself upon his brass plate as a registered practitioner he would be capable of holding a position in any one of the three Societies in question? Or would anyone who had a house to build, or a large work to execute, think the brass plate a sufficient reason for employing the man who displayed it as his surveyor? Every prudent person ascertained the qualifications of the medical man he was going to consult; and those who opposed this Bill asked that the stamp of ability should not be placed on those who had not shown that they were entitled to it by the exercise of industry and by having passed the necessary ordeal, as was the case with the members of the Institution which he represented. He could not believe that the House would sanc- tion the principle of the Bill; and, for the reasons stated, he trusted that the Motion for its second reading would not be agreed to.

said, that the Bill was drawn exactly according to the Act which he had the honour of passing through the House in relation to the Medical Profession when the Liberals were last in power. But the House should recollect the circumstances under which that Bill was passed. The Medical Profession was a homogeneous Profession, so far as regarded the subjects which it had to undertake. It was not easy to reform the Medical Profession; and it was only after great care and consultation with all the examining Bodies and the practitioners that he was able to get sufficient support to pass such an Act. The Bill now before the House was framed on exactly the same principle—that was to say, there were certain qualified Bodies who were to go upon the general council. Then there were to be certain representative members elected for the three parts of the Kingdom. But who were the constituents in this case? There were no regularly qualified and registered people who could become electors at the present moment. They were to be constituted by the Bill. In the case of the Medical Profession the practitioners had been registered for many years, and they could properly form a constituency. But here it was proposed by the Bill to create a constituency, and a constituency, too, which was very unwilling to be created. The architects and engineers and surveyors were not at present identical; and the House could not in justice pass a Bill which met with so much opposition as this Bill did, and which was not founded upon the same conditions which enabled the House to pass the Bill relating to the Medical Profession.

said, he had listened to all that had been said by hon. Members against the Bill, but he could not help feeling that a good deal had been gained by drawing public attention to the subject.

I would point out that the hon. and gallant Member has no right of reply on an Order of the Day.

asked for leave to withdraw the Motion.

said, that the second reading of this Bill ought not to pass without some statement being made with regard to it. The Bill proposed that they should take a distinct step forward—a step which the House had not hitherto thought proper to take. It proposed that, in future, no one should have charge of a boiler or steam engine who had not received a certificate from the Board of Trade. This question had arisen last year in connection with collieries, and had met with a certain amount of discussion; but the House had decided, upon what he considered to be weighty arguments, that it was not desirable to introduce such a provision as was here proposed. He did not, by any means, say that no larger supervision than now existed ought to be had over steam boilers; but, at the same time, he thought they were entitled to say that the accidents arising from improper management were so few that they might assume that, generally speaking, proper care was exercised in the management of engines and boilers. Articles of that kind might be divided into two classes—namely, those which belonged to large and that which belonged to small works. He thought it must be admitted that in every properly conducted large manufactory it was the interest of the proprietors to see that the boilers were properly managed, because the loss arising from bad management altogether outweighed any small difference there might be between the wages of skilled and unskilled persons, and, therefore, in the case of large works, he was certainly of opinion that the Bill was unnecessary. With regard to the smaller works, he would like to know what reason there was to suppose that any certificate from the Board of Trade, or any similar body, would bring about a greater amount of care than was now exercised? It generally happened, where an accident occurred, that it was not so much from want of knowledge as from want of care, and he did not understand how a certificate could show whether a person was fit to be trusted in that respect. He was not speaking at random, because he bad in his mind one or two cases which had come to his knowledge within the last year or two. In the case of one accident, the man who had had the management of an engine for years was perfectly competent and would have passed any examination; but one day he came to his work in a state of intoxication, turned a handle the wrong way, and an accident was the result. That case, to his mind, showed how utterly inadequate a certificate of the Board of Trade would be to give any guarantee of character necessary for the management of an engine. With regard to boilers, he knew of a case the other day in which a boiler had been used for some time; there were no less than three persons more or less in charge, any one of whom would have passed any examination that the Board of Trade would prescribe. It happened that a slight injury occurred to the boiler, and it was then found that there was another defect which a proper examination would have shown to exist. These were typical instances showing the futility of a test by examination. This subject had been, from time to time, he believed, under the consideration of the Government, and it had been found extremely difficult to deal with it; therefore, he considered that he might fairly ask that the House should not support the second reading of the Bill, until it was shown that it would bring about greater safety than was now secured.

said, that the passing of the Bill would not, as had been suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Preston (Mr. Tomlinson), lead to the wholesale discharge of men now in charge of engines and boilers unless they passed an examination. The examination which was proposed by the Bill was a very simple one, and every person in charge of an engine ought to be able to pass it. Discharges would not follow upon the passing of the Bill, because the 5th clause of the Bill provided that no man should be required to pass an examination if he had been in charge of a steam engine or boiler for the time of two years. Full protection was therefore given to men now in employment, and every effort made to disturb existing arrangements as little as possible. He was glad to see the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) present, because he would be able, no doubt, to inform the House, if it was necessary, that good results had followed upon the examination of men in charge of marine engines and boilers. The noble Lord the ex-President of the Board of Trade (Lord Stanley of Preston), speaking in "another place" last Session, on a kindred proposal to the one of his (Mr. Broadhurst's) hon. Friend, gave some important figures as to the good that had resulted from the examination of marine engineers; and he showed that since marine engineers had been required to pass examinations, and to obtain certificates from the Board of Trade, the loss of life from explosions at sea had almost altogether ceased. The hon. and learned Member for Preston (Mr. Tomlinson) asked what good was to follow this examination. Every good. They had the best of evidence that the greatest possible good—a large saving of property, and, what was still more important, great protection of life—had been consequent upon the examination imposed upon marine engineers by the Board of Trade. He presumed that every Member of the House knew that no marine engineer was allowed to take charge of a vessel unless he had obtained a certificate of competency from the Board of Trade. If it was necessary that the engineers even of small vessels should obtain certificates, how much more necessary was it in the case of our crowded towns, where boilers were found every few yards distant, many of them old and patched up and driven by most incompetent men. Whatever his hon. Friend (Mr. Fenwick) had in his mind in proposing the Bill, he knew what the Committee who prepared the Bill had in their minds. The Committee of the Trades Congress, of which he had the honour to be secretary, had in their minds the important fact that every year there were numbers of accidents, resulting in great injury to limb, and often in loss of life, through over-winding and incompetent supervision of colliery engines. This Bill was a strictly Conservative Bill. It sought to do no one a harm. It did not seek to disturb any trade, to advance any private interest; but its whole object was the protection of property and the protection of life. He claimed the support of every thoughtful Member of the House for the second reading of the Bill. Might he recall to the House the fact that on the last occasion on which they had a thorough debate on this subject—he was not then a Member of the House, but he was under the Gallery, and he remembered the debate as though he took part in it—a distinguished Predecessor of the Home Secretary, who was now Lord Cross, but who was then Home Secretary, took part in the debate. He remembered perfectly well that Lord Cross said that boilers had a language, if not like the language of human beings, yet as unfailing and as unerring in its indications, and that they only required a competent person to be in attendance upon them to understand the language of a boiler, and to be able to take such precautions that would prevent an explosion, and thereby prevent great destruction of life and property. There could be no stronger argument in favour of the second reading of this Bill than the speech of Lord Cross if there had been time to reproduce it. He was persuaded that the reproduction of that speech would have been sufficient in itself to carry the second reading of the Bill. But curiously enough the noble Lord, after making such a good speech, failed to support the Motion to which he spoke. He was only like many of his Colleagues and political Friends, who often made good speeches, but gave bad votes. Sometimes they gave very good votes, and made very bad speeches. Members on both sides of the House, however, were guilty of such failings. But he asked the attention of the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) for a moment, because this was a very important matter, and could not be disposed of lightly. The safety of hundreds of lives depended upon this or some similar protection being afforded. If the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade would only consent to support the second reading of the Bill to-night, and to vote for it, if necessary, he (Mr. Broadhurst) would guarantee that to-morrow the right hon. Gentleman's permanent officials at the Board of Trade would show him evidence of the most conclusive character to justify him and his Government in supporting the Bill. Let the right hon. Gentleman refer to the Reports made to the Board of Trade by the Departmental officers on the causes of explosions of boilers, and especially as to the number of explosions that had taken place in the case of boilers of traction engines. Why only a few years back, an explosion took place at Maidstone. He was speaking now, like the hon. and learned Member for Preston (Mr. Tomlinson), without his brief; but he had read on more occasions than one, that in that case some lives were lost and much injury was done, and that the coroner's verdict amounted in short to this—that the explosion and the consequent loss of life and loss of property would not have taken place had the man in charge of the engine been a competent and skilled man and fit for the important duty entrusted to him. If the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade would look up the Reports, he would find one concerning the running away and explosion of a traction engine some years ago at Rochester or somewhere in the neighbourhood. There was a celebrated manufactory of traction engines in the neighbourhood of Rochester, and if he remembered rightly the manufacturer of those engines gave evidence as to the cause of the accident, and confirmed the opinion that some legislation of this kind was necessary. In the case of one explosion which took place, it was found that a very economical driver, wishing to get all he could out of the engine with as little expenditure of coal as possible, had wedged down the safety valve with a brick. If this moderate and reasonable proposal, which no man ought to say a word against, had been in operation during the last 10 years, scores, if not hundreds, of lives would have been saved, many children would not have been left fatherless, and much destruction of property would have been prevented. Those were reasons which led him to support this Bill. He wished it, however, to be understood that he spoke entirely for himself. He must not be supposed to represent in any way whatever the opinions of his Colleagues upon the Opposition Bench, but he spoke as an independent Member. He sincerely trusted that the Government were, at any rate, agreed as to the second reading of the Bill, and he had no doubt that his hon. Friend in charge of the measure would after the second reading had been carried, be ready to consult with the Board of Trade as to any Amendments which it might be thought necessary to insert in the Bill in Committee. Let them distinguish this night, extraordinary as it had been, in legislative incidents, as one night in the Session when the House resolved to do its utmost to protect the lives of our great labouring community as far as they could by the adoption of reasonable proposals of this nature. He had great pleasure in supporting the second reading of this Bill.

said, that the boilers which predominated in country districts were of no danger whatever to anyone, and in legislating upon this question such a fact ought not to be forgotten. If they were to impose the proposed restrictions on the ordinary farmer, they would simply prevent him using steam on his farm in the same manner that he did at present. They knew that in many agricultural occupations, such as dairying, steam boilers were frequently used, and that the boilers for the most part were not of a very dangerous tendency, but were manufactured in order to do the simplest work, and in order that they would require little attention in management. But if any of the farm labourers had to go before a Board of Examiners to get certificates, and those certificates were to appear in The London Gazette before the men could attend to boilers, a great amount of mischief would be done to the country districts generally. Having said this he hoped that if his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) consented to allow the Bill to go further, he would take care that there was no harassing legislation in the Bill, for they wanted as much freedom as possible so long as there was protection of life and property.

said, there was in the Bill a good deal that was valuable, though it seemed to him they would have to correct one or two points. The principal point to be determined was who was the person really in charge of the engine or boiler. Unless they were careful as to the wording of the Bill, many persons would be thrown out of employment. If, however, it made clear who it was who was understood to be in charge of an engine or boiler, the House might safely assent to the second reading.

said, that a little knowledge was certainly a dangerous thing in the management of a steam engine or boiler. He was in favour of the second reading of the Bill, because he thought that all those who were brought in contact with those who had charge of engines and boilers should be safeguarded. He did not, however, agree with hon. Members who were of opinion that a man should be called upon to pass for the care of an ordinary farm engine the same examination as a man who wished to take charge of a marine engine, because marine engines were very complicated pieces of machinery and were altered in construction everyday. At the same time, a simple examination would be a safeguard in the case of all those who had charge of engines. He did not think it was necessary for a man to pass an examination as a fitter or constructor; but still a man who took charge of a boiler ought to have at least a slight knowledge of the working of a steam gauge. The fact was that, in many cases, old worn-out boilers were used upon farms, and they were a source of very great danger, not only to those who had charge of them, but also to those who had to work about them. Not only that, but they were liable to produce in many cases fires and other disasters. He hoped that those in charge of the Bill would be able to explain to the House what sort of examination, roughly speaking, it was sought men should be required to pass. He trusted that nothing of a very complicated nature would be required, because it would throw out of employment a very great number of men. He should support the second reading, and he could not help thinking that in Committee they could put in such restrictions as were considered necessary.

said, that an hour ago he was as little aware, as he supposed most hon. Members of the House were, that this subject would come up for discussion that night; but it had been his duty to consider the matter, seeing that the Bill stood on the Orders of the Day, and he had also had to consider it with reference to another Bill introduced by another hon. Member of the House for dealing in another way with this very important question. If he could believe that the effect of the Bill would be anything like what had been attributed to it by the hon. Member (Mr. Broadhurst), certainly he should recommend the House to give it a second reading. More than that, he should do his best to pass it into law. But the point they had to consider appeared to be this—not whether they were anxious, as he was sure all of them were anxious, to do everything in their power to get rid of the terrible dangers of explosions and the causes which now led to them, but whether the particular proposal before them was likely to attain that object. Reference had been made by the hon. Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst) to the qualification required for the engineers in charge of marine engines. As the hon. Member for North Somerset (Mr. Llewellyn) had already stated, it was hardly fair to compare the case of marine engines with ordinary engines. Marine engines were notoriously complicated to a degree, which the engines dealt with in this Bill, or a great majority of them certainly, could not be considered to be. It might be perfectly right and necessary to insist on qualifications in the case of marine engines, whereas it might not be so necessary to insist upon qualifications in the case of ordinary engines. Let him call the attention of the House to the fact that it had been found necessary, in order to exclude as many persons as possible from the scope of the Bill, to say that the mere fact that a man had had charge of an engine or boiler for a period of two years before the 1st of March, 1888, should be sufficient testimony that he was qualified to have such charge. But if that was to be a proper qualification, what became of the argument that all the accidents, or a large proportion of the accidents, were due to the absence of qualification on the part of the men who had charge of the boilers? The very proposal which the hon. Members in charge of the Bill found it necessary to insert in order to avoid depriving hundreds of men now in charge of boilers of employment, showed that the remedy they proposed would not really meet the difficulties they desired to grapple with. Reference had been made by the hon. Member for West Nottingham to the Reports of the Board of Trade. The Board of Trade had power, as the hon. Member was aware, to inquire after an explosion had occurred, and to take steps with a view of prosecuting, if necessary, the persons to whose fault the explosion might be due. He had here the Report of the Board of Trade dated the 31st of August, 1886, and in that document he found it stated that in the year 1885–6 there were 57 cases in which preliminary inquiries under Section 6 of the Boilers Explosions Act, 1882, were held. That was an increase in the number of cases as compared with previous years, though the number of lives lost fell below the average. What did the Report state as to the accidents in which inquiries were held? Thirty-two accidents were due to deterioration, corrosion, or defectiveness of the safety valve of the boilers; 16 to defective design or construction; six to ignorance, neglect, or carelessness of the attendants; and three to miscellaneous causes; making 57 in all. Now, the House would observe that of these accidents not a single one would have been avoided had this Bill been in operation. [Mr. BROADHURST: Yes, 16.] The Bill before the House would do nothing whatever to prevent defective design or construction of boilers. That might be dealt with by proposals for inspection, which were contained, he believed, in another measure now before the House. Ignorance was the only cause that could possibly be considered to be dealt with by the Bill, and that, as he had already observed, would hardly be guarded against when they admitted that employment for two years past was sufficient qualification. Neglect or carelessness could not be dealt with by the Bill, and, therefore, the result was that practically this Bill would have done no good whatever towards preventing any of the 57 cases of explosions in which inquiries were held by the Board of Trade during the year 1885–6. Now, what was stated in addition? Although such a large proportion of the explosions were caused by the neglect, not of the persons employed to look after the boilers, but of the owners, in no case had the facts been so proved as to warrant the Department in taking the responsibility of recommending a prosecution under the Criminal Law. So that in all these cases it was found impossible to make any person amenable for the misfortune which had occurred. What he wanted to hear from those who were anxious to give a second reading to this Bill was something more than general philanthropic sentiments in favour of preventing these explosions. The hon. Member for West Nottingham was full of such sentiments. He shared those sentiments with the hon. Member, and if, by the passing of this Bill, he believed anything could be done towards remedying this serious evil, he certainly should be one of its earnest supporters. But seeing that the working of this Bill, applying as it did to the small agricultural boilers all over the country, most seriously interfered, and unneccessarily interfered, with agriculture and with the smaller trades, he was bound to ask himself, before he gave his vote in favour of the second reading, whether it was really a Bill that would carry out the object of those who had brought it into the House. He could not satisfy himself that it was so, and, therefore, he would have to give his vote against the second reading.

said, he did not wonder at the hesitation of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) who had just sat down, if it was thought that the Board of Trade should licence every man who had charge of a boiler or steam engine, and supply him with a certificate show that he was capable of undertaking such duties. But, after all, the machinery by which it was proposed to accomplish this object was very simple, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman had under-rated considerably the advantages which might accrue from the application of the provisions of this measure. The right hon. Gentleman had said very truly that, in the case of marine engines, there was much more reason for an examination as to the qualification of the persons who were to take charge of them. Marine engines and boilers were much larger and much more complicated than those on shore, as a general rule, and an accident to one of them subjected those who were in the vicinity to the greatest possible danger. The explosion of a marine boiler pro- bably meant the destruction of the ship, and a probable loss of a great number of lives. He thought they were all of them agreed that there had not been much loss of life in connection with boiler explosions of late years; and, with regard to the Report of the accidents the right hon. Gentleman quoted, there was net one which was shown to be an unavoidable accident. The right hon. Gentleman stated that examination would not at all tend in any respect, so far as he could see, to diminish the number of accidents; but, on the contrary, he (Mr. Mundella) thought that if the men who had the control of the boilers and engines referred to in the Report the right hon. Gentleman read, had been intelligent men, the probability was that nine-tenths of the accidents would have been avoided. The right hon. Gentleman had quoted 32 cases where there was deterioration, corrosion, or defectiveness of the safety valves of the boilers, which caused the explosions. Well, an intelligent man, efficient for the discharge of the duty of taking care of a boiler, in each of these cases would have known that there was something wrong, and would have pointed it out—indeed, a man who knew his business would not have worked with a boiler that was defective; he would have declined to place his life in jeopardy under such circumstances. He (Mr. Mundella) know that employers of labour like himself knew little more than what they were taught by their engineers in regard to their boilers and engines; but there could be no doubt that intelligent engineers would find out that deterioration was taking place, and would not allow that to continue. The right hon. Gentleman said—"But you are willing to take as a test of intelligence that a man has been for two years in charge of a boiler." Now, that was not so; but the right hon. Gentleman would allow him to point out that even in higher professions they had, when they first brought men under registration, to accept the mere fact that they had, for a certain time, discharged the functions that it was necessary to consider them capable of discharging those functions. Take the case of the Medical Profession. Men who had not had the necessary qualifications had been allowed to register because they had been in practice when the registrations were first in- stituted. In the case of veterinary surgeons, he himself had passed a Bill under which a great many men were allowed to register who had been in practice five years, and he had found that amongst the men who had thus qualified were a number of ex-policemen and some few convicts. These men did not possess the qualification which the measure provided that veterinary surgeons in the future should possess, but they had had the experience of practice. The object of this Bill, although not so much to interfere with the persons who at present had the control of boilers and engines, was to secure that in the future none but intelligent and properly qualified men should be entrusted with such control. He (Mr. Mundella) knew that in his own county there had been many accidents from explosions entirely owing to the ignorance of those in charge of the boilers and engines, and if they could do anything to prevent such ignorance, he trusted they would not hesitate to do it. He saw that the Bill provided examiners, and he was certain that there were civil engineers in every constituency and district where engines and boilers were worked who would be able to give the necessary certificates of competency. By the system proposed, if a civil engineer put to an applicant for a certificate the necessary questions as a test of competency, and the applicant had answered those questions satisfactorily, the certificate would be given to enable that man to take charge of boilers of all kinds. Such a thing would be a safeguard to the public. He did not say that all the provisions of the Bill were perfect, but any that were considered faulty could be amended in Committee. If the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill would give along day to the Committee—that was to say, fix a day some distance off, say a fortnight or three weeks hence—he trusted the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade would allow the measure to be read a second time. The right hon. Gentleman could consider what Amendments might be necessary, and could take every precaution he pleased to bring the measure under the supervision of the Board of Trade, so as to prevent undue friction in its application. If the right hon. Gentleman would adopt such a course, he would be doing good service to the operative classes of this country.

said, he proposed to give the House an opportunity of taking a long interval for the consideration of the measure, for he proposed to move that the second reading of it be deferred until that day six months. He objected to the Bill not only because he had received a great many communications from his constituents against it, but because he objected to it on principle. First of all, with regard to the powers it contained, the borough he represented was situated in a county which probably had more boilers and knew more about these questions than any other county in England. ["No, no!"] He undertook to say they had more boilers in Lancashire— An hon. MEMBER: Than in Yorkshire?

said, he would, at any rate, undertake to say that they had more boilers in Lancashire, if Yorkshire was excluded, than in any other county in the country. It was the universal opinion of everybody practically acquainted with this subject in Lancashire, that the Insurance Companies, who were now inspecting boilers in the interests of traders, did their work and insured better examination and greater efficiency on the part of engineers than any State inspection could insure. That, he maintained, was a fact known to all practical men; and, beyond this, he would appeal to the House and ask if such a measure as the present were to be allowed to pass, where this sort of legislation would end? It proceeded upon a sort of notion that no class of the community, and certainly no traders, were ever able to manage their own business for themselves or conduct it without inspection or regulation. It was a class of legislation which they all ought to deprecate. It proceeded on the notion that in every department of trade the State or the Government, or the powers that be, whatever they are, were to be allowed to interfere and tell manufacturers what they ought to do and how they ought to do it—to tell them, in particular, what steps they ought to take to protect life and property. He thought it was in the works of Mr. Buckle—a gentleman for whom hon. Members on the other side of the house ought to have the greatest respect —that they found the doctrine laid down that all the good Acts of Parliament, or nearly all the goods Act of Parliament, had been Acts to put an end to previous legislation, because in all times people, well-meaning people, no doubt, had thought that trade ought to be treated in that sort of spirit by the Legislature, that it could be regulated and managed and controlled a great deal better by Act of Parliament than people could manage it for themselves. Now, what the traders of the country asked was to be let alone; they asked for freedom and liberty, and they asked it not only because experience had shown that all such regulations interfering with trades did harm, but because, in the view of Mr. Buckle, trade as carried on without restriction had been the great means of bringing about the happiness and prosperity of the country. The Bill rested upon a fallacy so far as it was thought that the State could with advantage regulate the private business of traders. The second fallacy upon which it rested was that it would secure all sorts of ability in those who were to undertake the management of boilers and engines, and that they would bring about all sorts of security if they could only enact some sort of limitation in those who undertook the work, and require them to pass examinations. He (Mr. Addison) made bold to say that every practical man in the House knew perfectly well that examinations were no good whatever in securing efficiency in any calling they liked to name—[Laughter]—yes, he maintained that examinations were of no use in securing proficiency in any branch of life. Many hon. Members had engineers in their employment, and he would ask those hon. Members if they would not trust these men quite as well, if not a great deal better, than if they had obtained, say, from someone on the opposite side of the House, a certificate of competency such as this Bill proposed to confer upon them? What was the proposed examination to go into? Was it to go into a man's sobriety, into his care, into his diligence and knowledge and scientific learning? How were they going to conduct such an examination? Who was to conduct it, who was to look after it? Such an examination as that proposed would go a very short way indeed towards securing the best men. It was said that such examinations were necessary in the Medical Profession; but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bright-side Division of Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) had shown thorn that they did not get the best men by examinations; but he (Mr. Addison), for himself, quite admitted that as regarded some professions—it might be his own and the Medical Profession—there might be some excuse for insisting upon examination and making them close professions. A great many people, however, on the other hand, thought that it would be better to throw the Professions open, and to have no such restrictions. But, whether that was so or not, why such restrictions should be extended to trade he failed to understand. The fact was, that all these benevolent schemes were a part of that great theory of Protection which hon. Gentlemen opposite were very active in proclaiming against in the simple matter of the Corn Laws, but were most active in defending and extending when it affected subjects and Bills of this kind. This required amongst hon. Members on that (the Ministerial) side of the House who were lovers of freedom, as well as of that freedom which every Englishman ought to have to conduct his business in his own way, the most viligant care and attention to watch these constant fallacies and attempts at Protection which came from the other side. No one desired to interfere with those people who watched boilers and engines except those who were anxious to interfere with all callings and to worry and badger all trades. There was no call or necessity for the Bill. The work of managing boilers and engines was done a great deal better than it would be done with it, and he hoped that those who attended to engines and boilers would be left in liberty and peace. He moved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

said, he begged to second the Amendment. He concurred with every word which had fallen from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Addison) as to the importance of taking all possible pains for the preservation of life from accidents to boilers and engines. The question before the House was whether the Bill now before them was such in its provisions as would secure safety in this respect. As a rule the large boilers in the country were in the hands of great capitalists, and no doubt they did their best to employ persons skilled in the management of boilers and engines and watched all these questions with the most delicate care, because they were the persons who would lose most heavily in the case of accidents. Although he put the matter thus on financial grounds he did not mean, and he thought no one would venture to impute for a moment to the great capitalists say of such counties as Lancashire and Yorkshire that they were careless of human life and negligent so far as the welfare of those who worked for them in their great manufacturing establishments were concerned. His friends in the North who were conversant with this subject and capable of giving an opinion in regard to it, thought that the great cause of explosions in boilers was not want of skill in their management, but negligence and carelessness and remissness, and that no examination and no certificate as to qualification and the testing of skill alone could be a security for good conduct and diligence. The adoption of measures for security for good conduct and diligence must always rest with those who had charge and management of the factories. It was to those who had control over the management of the engines and boilers that it was necessary to trust. Many hon. Members found it necessary to travel from time to time, some of them every week, many of them every day by railway. There was no examination for those who had charge of our locomotive engines, and there was no class of men who, so far as the public safety was concerned, had more responsibility resting upon their shoulders, and he said at the same time that there was no class of men in the country who did their work with greater care. The result of the care exercised by these persons was that explosions of locomotive boilers were accidents most rare in occurrence. Even when such an accident did occur he ventured to say that it was not from any fault on the part of the driver or stoker, but from some defect in the boiler of which only a scientific engineer could have been competent to judge. He spoke those few words as representing a great industrial district, and he hoped he might also be permitted to add his testimony to what had fallen from those hon. Gentlemen who had spoken on behalf of those persons employing boilers and engines in the agricultural districts. He knew something of what occurred in the sparsely populated agricultural districts of the country. He knew there were many boilers used by those engaged in agricultural pursuits and those following small industries in remote villages, who would have their trade very much impaired and restricted if the provisions of this Bill were imposed upon them. In these cases it was to the care and diligence of their servants that they would have to trust much more than in any examination, however well conducted, which might be rendered necessary by Act of Parliament.

said, he would not stand between the House and a Division for more than a moment or two, but he was a manufacturer himself, with boilers of his own, and therefore was not likely to vote for the second reading of a Bill which would harass industry. He must say, however, that in listening to the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Addison) who had moved the Amendment, he had been very much astonished, as that speech had seemed to carry him back to the records of debates in this House some 100 years ago. There was not a word which fell from the hon. and learned Gentleman which might not have been urged against the Factory Acts and against all measures which had been passed for the protection of miners and sailors or against any provisions for the protection of the working classes in their various pursuits. It seemed to him that the hon. and learned Member with too much Buckle was made mad. The hon. and learned Member had carried Buckle's arguments to a conclusion which really brought them to this—that there should be no examination for medicine or law, in fact that there should be no examination for anything, but that everybody should be allowed to do everything he liked in this world without the slightest guarantee to the public of his proficiency or competency. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), in his statement about the number of accidents caused by boilers, had somewhat erred. The most frequent cause of boiler explosions, and, therefore, of loss of life through boiler explosions, was the inefficient working of the safety valves, and that was owing, in 99 cases out of 100, either to the ignorance of the man in charge of the boiler, or not very unfrequently through his incapacity at the time through drink. He (Mr. Winterbotham) did not think the Bill was perfect, but he believed that the simple examination and certificate of efficiency which it proposed would prove extremely valuable, and would have the effect of saving a great many lives every year. He appealed to the House on behalf of the working classes generally—he appealed in particular to hon. Members representing large working class constituencies to support the Bill. This was not a Party question, and he would ask hon. Members, whatever their political views may be, to vote for this measure as a step in the right direction. If they only saved a score of lives in the year by rendering the possession of a certificate of competency necessary—and it must be borne in mind that it was a certificate which could be very easily obtained—it was worth while passing the Bill. Certificates were necessary under the Factory Act with regard to the age of children; there was no difficulty in getting certificates as to eyesight in accordance with Board of Trade regulations for signalmen, &c.; and there would be no difficulty in getting certificates with regard to a few simple matters in regard to boilers. There was probably not a town in England where a civil engineer was not to be found, and where, therefore, a certificate under this Bill could not be procured. As to the Bill being harassing to agriculturists using small boilers, it seemed to him that Amendments could be proposed in Committee which would have the effect of preventing small boilers, such as were used in dairies, coming under the operation of the Bill at all. He urged hon. Members to support the Bill in order to prevent selfish employers employing cheap labour, for that was what it meant, instead of skilled labour, and thereby endangering the lives of their employés in factories and workshops.

I should like to say one or two words on this Bill, and in the first place, I desire to point out that this debate is remarkable in several respects. I would draw the attention of the House to the fact that not one single Member whose name is on the back of the Bill has addressed the House or given a single reason in support of the acceptance of the measure. Now, this being a Bill apparently promoted by those who profess to understand something about the question, one might have expected that they would have enlightened us upon the subject, and given us some knowledge of their reason for proposing the measure. It is rather remarkable that they have not done so, and there is another remarkable fact—namely, that not a single Member who has addressed the House has pointed to oven one instance where an accident which has occurred through the explosion of a boiler or an engine would have been prevented if this Bill had been in operation. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the Cirencester Division of Gloucester (Mr. Winterbotham) took to task my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade for what he said about the Report of the Board of Trade on this very question, and the hon. Gentlemen went on—I hope I am not speaking too strongly, but I am expressing my opinion when I use the words—to libel the men in charge of these boilers. He went on to say that these explosions occurred either from ignorance or through drink. Well, Sir, anybody who knows anything of this subject and of the attention which employers of labour pay to these matters, must know that no person in drink would for a moment be allowed to take charge of a boiler. I say it is a libel upon the men who take charge of engines and boilers in this country to charge them either with ignorance or with being in that condition in which the hon. Member supposes they are generally to be found.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman; but I spoke of accidents due to the inefficient working of the safety valve of boilers, and I said that in 99 cases out of 100 they were to be attributed either to the ignorance of the man in charge of the boiler, or to his being incapacitated through drink.

Well, I do not think the explanation the hon. Gentleman has offered to the House in any sense alters the conclusion that the House will arrive at, or in any sense challenges the accuracy of what I stated. Now, I had hoped, as I have said, that some Member of the House who has had practical experience of this question would have been good enough to say a few words to the House on the subject of the Bill. I cannot claim to have much knowledge of boilers and engines, but I can claim to have had some practical experience of their working, because, during my life I have been in charge both of a boiler and an engine, and when I hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) talking here about employers of labour in this country not knowing whether their boilers are being deteriorated by corrosion or not, and not being in a position to protect themselves, I marvel where he has lived, and how he can have forgotten that there are in this country boiler insurance and protection associations.

I did not say that employers did not know how to protect themselves—I made use of no such language. I was always accustomed to insure my own boilers, and I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman did the same. What I said was that my personal knowledge of deterioration and corrosion and defectiveness of the safety valve was not of much value, and that I trusted entirely to the engineers. I also called attention to my belief that if we had the circumstances of the 57 accidents reported to the Board of Trade read out, we should find that these accidents were not inevitable.

The right hon. Gentleman says that the employers do not know of the deterioration of their boilers. My point is this—that employers in this country can and do protect themselves from the want of their own individual and personal inspection by employing these insurance societies who undertake the business for them, and I will go further and say that as a matter of safety, not only to workmen engaged in the works, but also to those thousands of people who pass those works, the inspection by one of these Societies voluntarily undertaken is of much more value practically than any examination which would be obtained under the Bill. We have heard something about deterioration and we have heard something about corrosion; but what does the Bill propose to do? Does it propose to impose upon the engineer in charge that he shall go inside the boiler every time it is cleaned out and travel through the flues every time they are swept, because unless he does that it is absolutely impossible to say whether or not the boiler is free from corrosion. ["No, no!"] Somebody says "No," but I have had practical experience of this matter myself, having been inside the boiler and through the flues myself. If I do not speak with much practical knowledge, at any rate, as I have said, I speak from practical experience, and I maintain that so far as this Bill is concerned it would absolutely fail of its purpose. If its purpose is merely to effect the object of preventing explosions it should be made compulsory that every man, not only in charge of an engine and a boiler, but every stoker who fired a boiler, and therefore saw the water gauge and steam gauge and knew what pressure of steam there was, should also have a certificate. This would be essential, because everyone who knows anything about the matter knows that within a very few moments steam may rise to such a pressure that danger may ensue if anything goes wrong. No examination and no supervision in the sense in which this Bill is drawn could possibly prevent such a thing. Now, something has been said about marine engines and boilers, and I am sorry the hon. Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst), who spoke on this subject, is not here. Well, I am not quite sure, but I rather think that in the case of marine engines certificates are not required for the engineers of all steam vessels, but only for those of a certain class of steam ships. I rather think that certificates are limited to engineers of steamers engaged in the passenger trade and foreign going steamships. This Bill, if passed, would apply not only to large businesses where a great many engines and boilers are employed, but to every small manufacturing concern in the country, and it is quite clear to my mind either that those who drew the Bill did not intend it to apply to all small works or that they have failed to appreciate the difficulties which would follow if it did apply to them. Because what does the Bill itself say? It says that those engines or boilers to which the Act applies should be placed or kept at all times when at work under the supervision of some person holding a certificate of qualification under the Act. It says that one of these certificated men should not have charge of more than a certain number of boilers or engines, or of boilers or engines which were apart a greater distance than the Board of Trade should prescribe. That does not contemplate the man in charge of the boiler having a certificate, but it points to the man who is to have the superintendence having a certificate. It does not contemplate that the man who fires the boiler should have a certificate, but that this should be possessed by some individual who has the general supervision of the whole concern. I venture to say, from my own experience, that supervision of that kind would not prevent one single explosion which takes place under the present system, and, I say that if you carried it out further you would be guilty of an enormous injustice and would do enormous injury to the small manufacturers of the country, who keep one man not only to run the engine but also to fire the boiler. I must say I am surprised that men sitting for constituencies such as those of the hon. Members who promote this Bill should not have seen the effect of the measure. If they had seen it, I should have been even more intensely astonished at their bringing it forward; for it is a Bill which, in my humble judgment, would absolutely cripple the trade of the country. It will do no good in itself and will inflict enormous injury to a large class of working men.

said, the hon. Member had spoken with a warmth and vehemence that showed he was master of the subject. He complained that no Member in charge of the Bill had spoken on the second reading. Well, he (Mr. Fenwick) admitted the charge, but his answer was that he thought he was best consulting the wishes of the House in simply moving the second reading in the formal manner usual on such occasions. He had reason to believe there was general concurrence in the main principle of the Bill, and he made no speech, thinking the Division, if there was to be one, would be so much earlier. The hon. Member also said that no hon. Member had ventured to say that these boiler explosions attended with loss of life were caused by the ignorance of the men in charge of the engine or boiler; but he (Mr. Fenwick) wondered that it did not occur to the hon. Gentleman that the persons who were best qualified to give information on that subject were probably the persons whose lives were sacrificed by the explosion. Did the hon. Gentleman forget that only in last Session his own Government were engaged in legislation which provided for the examination of managers having charge of coal mines? Why did the Government deem it necessary to enact such strict provisions in that Bill to secure the competency of those in charge of mines? They were deemed necessary because of the serious explosions and loss of life that had occurred in coal mines; and while it was impossible to find culpable negligence on the part of those responsible for the management, notwithstanding that fact could not be proved, yet it was deemed expedient to bring in such a measure and provide for the examination of mine managers. The same principle was embodied in the Bill, simply seeking to ensure that persons who had charge of steam engines and boilers on land should have some technical knowledge at least of the machines with which they had to deal. The hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. F. S. Powell) seemed in his remarks to convey the idea that Members on the Opposition side attached little importance to the care and diligence of those who had charge of steam engines and boilers. Care and diligence he (Mr. Fenwick) was not disposed to under-rate in any calling; but all the care, diligence, steadiness, and sobriety you could command would be of no avail to reduce injury and loss of life to a minimum unless the man in charge had some technical knowledge of his calling combined with his care and steadiness. He had thought hon. Members opposite claimed to be the champions of technical education; ever and anon they were dinning technical education into the ears of Parliament and the country, and he might have expected they would readily support the main principle of the Bill, which was to ensure that one class of artizans should have some technical education in matters with which they were immediately concerned. Objections had been urged to the Bill on the ground that it would seriously interfere with trades, especially small trades in the country, and he was willing to admit there might be minor details of the Bill that would require careful attention in Committee, and he would be quite willing to accept any well considered Amendment that did not seriously interfere with the main principle of the Bill. It certainly was not his intention—and he among the promoters of the Bill was perhaps most responsible—to cause any vexatious interference with any trade, however small, and if the House accepted the second reading, he would give every assurance that he would consider any Amendment proposed in Committee with the view of preventing that the Bill in its operation should not press harshly upon any trade or manufacture. Also he was prepared to accept the suggestion of the right hon. Member for the Bright-side Division of Sheffield, and allow an ample interval for the consideration of Amendments before asking the House to take the Committee.

said, he should like to know whether hon. Members who favoured the Bill proposed that the Bill should include locomotive engines? If they did, then they could hardly have considered the subject sufficiently, for he found, under the Bill, that Inspectors were to be men who had two years' experience, or who held a certificate from the Board of Trade. Now, the men who had charge of locomotive engines were men of from 12 to 20 years' experience, and, apparently, there would be put over their heads, men with but two years' experience as independent Inspectors in regard to boilers.

pointed out that the provision for two years' experience was to cover those who were now in the service, as an equivalent for a certificate; in fact a service certificate, such as was given under the Coal Mines Act of last Session.

said, he was obliged to the hon. Member for the explanation. But there was another matter hon. Members had probably not considered, and that was the number of locomotives in daily use, He believed the number was from 12,000 to 15,000, and how were all these boilers to be inspected? The terms of the Bill were—

"Every engine or boiler to which this Act applies, shall be placed and kept at all times when at work under the supervision of some person holding a certificate of qualification under the Act."

How, he should like to know, was the supervisor to inspect these engines when at work? Was the "Flying Scotch-man" always to have an Inspector on board, or when was he to inspect the engine? It appeared to him that the provision was absolutely ridiculous. To have a Board of Trade Inspector inspecting every engine every day appeared to him an absolute absurdity. The expense of such a provision was an important item. If the Board of Trade was to employ Inspectors who would have to be competent men, Parliament would have to find their pay, and the House would soon find the expense something considerable. The objection had been urged that the Bill would interfere with every trade; but he spoke not only on behalf of the railway interest, but of the railway passengers, and protested against Inspectors of two years' experience being held as competent as drivers of 20 years' experience. No doubt, the Bill would interfere with all trades; but, on behalf of the railway trade and railway passengers, he should certainly vote against the Bill.

said, he had not heard anything that led him to suppose that the Bill would produce the good results that were anticipated from it. He should prefer, if there was to be legislation on the subject at all, for the purpose of giving more security to life from boiler accidents, that there should be constituted a system of compulsory inspection. He believed a regulation of that kind would be much more satisfactory in result than the Bill. If he was rightly informed, something like half the boilers in use were already inspected, and the result, he believed, was most satisfactory. There was the benefit of experience, and he thought it would not be difficult to pass a Bill through the House making inspection universal. He was satisfied that inspection of boilers, whilst producing better results, would be far less harassing both to employers and employed. Much had been said as to the effect of the Bill upon small employers, and undoubtedly it might be very unjust on many occasions. He did not very well see how such injustice could be avoided. There were many cases where small employers employed only a man to work a small engine, and this man would, under the Bill, have to hold a certificate, and if anybody not certificated meddled with the engine or boiler he would be subjected to a considerable fine, as would also the employer. But suppose the certificated man were ill or absent from his work for a day, the concern, whatever it might be, would have to be closed, for it would be impossible to immediately get another certificated man. He mentioned this to illustrate the harassing nature of the provision, and he firmly believed his hon. Friends were not on the right tack.

said, he believed the Bill, as it stood, would work very great injustice to a large number of small manufacturers who used engines. He really did not think any hon. Member, except the last speaker, knew what a large number of small engines were used by manufacturers, by builders, by farmers for farming, pumping, and ninny purposes. He granted that the intention of the Bill was good, and the idea of having boilers inspected was one that all would sympathize with. But the Bill was drawn on wrong lines entirely, and in principle it was wrong. It would not touch the great employers of labour, men of large capital who had skilled workmen of the highest calibre at command, but it would do serious injury to thousands of small rising industries in which a steam engine was used. If there had been the one single principle in the Bill, providing that boilers should be subject to inspection, he would not have opposed the second reading, but have waited to consider it in Committee; but he believed the principle was wrong and thoroughly unworkable, and, so far from doing good, it would be the cause of infinite mischief.

said, while he sympathized with its object, he felt constrained to vote against the Bill. They had far too much Government inspection and interference already. He appreciated the motive of those who framed the Bill, but he believed it would not realize the benefit they expected. He would rather place reliance on the spread of education and increase of intelligence among those in charge of engines. He was happy to observe even among unskilled labourers of the country very much more intelligence than was to be found among skilled artizans of half-a-century ago, and he looked forward to still further progress of information and thoughtfulness among those taking charge of engines and boilers.

said, he must object to the Bill in the agricultural interest, as it would be most harassing to tenant farmers who used engines for various purposes. No hon. Member could say many accidents happened from boilers used for threshing machines or fixed engines on farm holdings. It would often happen that the man who generally drove a threshing machine engine, from some cause might be unable to attend, and the threshing of a stack would have to be delayed if a certificated man was compulsory. In a rural district certificated men would not readily be found, but there might be another man quite capable of driving the engine, and who perhaps had taken turns in doing so with the regular engineer, and it would be hard that the machine should of necessity remain idle, because each of the two or three men with it was not not certificated. He was quite certain that, among the farming interest, there would be a very strong feeling against such a proposal. There was another interest that had not been alluded to. Did the House realize that, at the present time, among the fishing vessels in the North Sea there were a large number having a small engine on board, not to propel the vessel, but for working the capstan? The vessels carried five or six hands, and the engine perhaps was used only two hours a-day, and any of the men were quite capable of working the steam capstan.

said, he was sorry to interrupt, but the hon. Member had not observed that the Bill only applied to engines and boilers on land, and made no mention whatever of fishing vessels.

said, he found he was mistaken, and thanked the hon. Member for his explanation. His objection was on behalf of the agricultural interest, and he protested against such a harassing proposal. If such a Bill as this were passed, it might next be proposed that drivers of cabs, omnibuses, and perambulators should take out certificates.

said, he had listened to the debate with mingled surprise and sorrow, because, for the first time in the House, he had found a great part of hon. Gentlemen opposite engaged in the deification of ignorance. The whole attitude of hon. Members opposite had been in favour of ignorance as the best method of controlling scientific machinery. Surely if a scientific machine required study in the making, it required a certain amount of study for its action, and would be best managed by men of knowledge and experience. But the whole contention of hon. Members opposite was in a contrary direction, including the hon. and learned Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Addison), who contended that all legislation was wrong that did not upset past legislation. It was a pity he did not act on that view when the Crimes Act was under discussion. All that the Bill required was that a man should have some qualification for his duty—that any man controlling an engine should be competent, his competency being established by certificate or two years' experience, so that the argument of 25 years' experience being destroyed was altogether beside the question.

said, what he objected to was that engineers should be under the surveillance of Inspectors of only two years' experience.