asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention had been called to the fact that on September 6, at Arthurstown, after the adjournment of the Court, upon the trial of the defenders of Somers' Fort, the New Ross brass band was playing in a wagonette, which was proceeding in the direction of Rams-grange, and was stopped and attacked by the Constabulary, by the direction of one of their officers, who surrounded the wagonette, took some of the instruments by force, and knocked them against the sides of the wagonette in such a way as to render them useless, and rammed a rifle through the drum; whether he is aware that some of the members of the band were dragged by the constables from the wagonette, in some cases cut and bleeding, and five of them were arrested and taken into the barracks, but afterwards released, and that one of those arrested, John O'Neill, was, while inside the barracks and bleeding from a baton wound, knocked and stoned in the yard by constables; whether he is aware that a disturbance in the village ensued, and that in one of the baton charges an old man of 73, named Patrick Kennedy, who was standing at a corner, was struck by a constable's rifle on his head, causing a wound of three inches in length, and fracturing the skull; and, whether he will make inquiries as to the alleged reason for attacking the band and the people, and furnish the name of the officer who gave the order for the attack?

(who replied) said: The Inspector General of Constabulary reports that it is not the case that the police attacked the band; on the contrary, an attack was made by the bandsmen on the police. On the occasion in question a large demonstration was organised in the town in connection with the trial of certain prisoners, and it became necessary, in the opinion of the local authority responsible for the preservation of the peace, to take the precaution of prohibiting band-playing in the streets. Notwithstanding this prohibition the band referred to proceeded through the town playing, and the crowd which surrounded it commenced to stone the police, who, upon their stopping the wagonette in which the band was and ordering the playing to cease, were attacked by the bandsmen. Any injury sustained by the instruments was due to the fact that they were used by the band as weapons in their attack on the police. The three principal members of the band, not five (as stated in the Question) were arrested, and subsequently released, to be prosecuted at the next Petty Sessions, where they pleaded guilty and were fined. There is no foundation for the allegation in regard to the treatment of John O'Neill, who was one of the three arrested, nor was any complaint made as to a man of the name of Kennedy having been struck by the police. There is no foundation for the statement that the police struck any person with a rifle.

Seeing that there is a direct conflict of testimony on this subject, will not the Government order an independent inquiry into the facts of the case?

I think that in this case there is less ground than in any other for taking such a course, inasmuch as the persons charged pleaded guilty.

asked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether any Sanitary Authorities have submitted for the confirmation of the Board, under "The Labourers' Allotments Act, 1887," a Regulation restricting the cultivation to spade labour and prohibiting the use of the plough; whether the model Regulations issued by the Local Government Board suggest any such restriction or prohibition; whether any Sanitary Authorities have submitted for confirmation a Regulation providing that no person shall hold more than one acre of land altogether, including the acreage of any allotment already held by such person; whether sub-section 3 of section 8 of the Act allows a Sanitary Authority to let to any one person one acre of land in addition to the acreage of any allotment already held by such person; and, whether the Local Government Board will refuse to confirm such restrictive Regulations.

In some instances Sanitary Authorities have submitted Regulations under the Labourers' Allotments Act, 1887, which would restrict the cultivation of the allotments provided by them to spade labour. The model Regulations issued by the Local Government Board do not suggest such a restriction. In some cases Sanitary Authorities have submitted Regulations which provide that a person who, at the time of applying to the Sanitary Authority for an allotment, already holds an allotment, either from the Sanitary Authority or otherwise, shall not be tenant of an allotment the area of which, together with the area of any allotments already held by him, would exceed one acre in extent. Sub-section 3 of section 7 of the Act provides that a person shall not hold any allotment or allotments acquired under the Act exceeding one acre; and it would be competent for the Sanitary Authority so to frame their Regulations that a person might hold from them one acre of land in addition to the acreage of any allotments otherwise held by him. The Board do not consider, however, that, under ordinary circumstances, such a restriction as that referred to would be unreasonable; but before confirming any such Regulation they will, of course, consider any objections which may be made by persons locally interested.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, When he will be in a position to inform the House what proposals the Government are prepared to make with regard to the Employers' Liability for Injuries to Workmen Bill?

, in reply, said, that when the Bill came before the House again he would be prepared to inform the House what course the Go- vernment intended to take with regard to it.

asked when the Bill was likely to come before the House again?

said, it was impossible to state the time with any precision.

Is it likely to come before the House this week?

I think not.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether any expenditure, apart from the ordinary salaries, has been incurred in maintaining the navigation on the Lower Bann since the Report of the Royal Commission upon the drainage schemes was published; and, if so, what is the amount, if any, of such expenditure; what proportion of such expenditure has been incurred since the introduction of the Bann Drainage Bill; what is the amount of the fees received since the commencement of this expenditure, and who is responsible for it; and, whether the Trustees of the Bann Navigation are prepared to state that during the expenditure the navigation of the Lower Bann has been kept free?

(who replied) said: The Secretary to the Trustees of the Bann Navigation states that, inasmuch as the Trust is for Navigation in connection with drainage, no separate account for each has been kept; and he is, therefore, obliged to furnish the following Return, which embraces works executed for the purpose of drainage as well as of navigation. Since July 1, 1886, the expenditure (apart from the ordinary salaries) and the receipts have been as follows:—Half-year to December 31, 1886, expenditure £509; receipts from Grand Jury £400, from tolls, &c. £27; June 30, 1887, expenditure £240; receipts from Grand Jury £200, from tolls, &c. £16; December 31, 1887, expenditure £410; receipts from Grand Jury £400, from tolls, &c. £21; June 30, 1888, expenditure £86; receipts from Grand Jury £400, from tolls, &c. £23; period to November 10, 1888, expenditure £69; receipts from Grand Jury £300, from tolls, &c. £17. The Trustees have accounted for these tolls to the respective Grand Juries of the counties of Antrim and Londonderry, except as regards those received during the last mentioned period, which are standing to their credit in the bank account of the Trustees. The Secretary further adds that the navigation has been kept free during the expenditure.

asked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, If he can state the number of applications to have fair rents fixed awaiting adjudication in the unions of Carrick-on-Shannon and Boyle; and, if he can state when the Sub-Commissioners will hold their next sittings in these unions?

The Land Commissioners report that the numbers of fair-rent applications referred to are—in the union of Carrick-on-Shannon, 552; and in the union of Boyle, 848. Lists of cases for hearing are at present being printed for that portion of the union of Carrick-on-Shannon which is in the County of Leitrim. No dates have yet been fixed for Sub-Commission sittings for the other portion of this union, or for Boyle; but they will be held as soon as possible.

asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the Government of India has before it a proposal for the construction of a railway from Chittagong to Dibrugarh; whether one of the conditions of the proposal is the concession of land and of certain coal and petroleum rights; and, whether he can state the full particulars of the proposal, and by whom such proposal is made?

The Secretary of State has received two such proposals, which have been sent to the Government of India for consideration and report. Until a reply has been received, it is undesirable that the particulars should be made public.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he can state by whom, and on what charge, Friedrich Schumacher was arrested, on the 13th of September last, at Leman Street, East, Police Station; whether complaints have reached him that, after being arrested and locked up in a cell, a written paper, and, if so, to what tenor, was presented for signature to the said Friedrich Schumacher, and that he was told that he would be released if he signed the paper, and on his signing the paper was thereupon released; whether the charge against the said Friedrich Schumacher was duly entered in the charge-sheet of the day, and submitted to the magistrate in ordinary course; if so, what was the magistrate's decision thereon; and, if not, what reason has been given; and, whether a private inquiry into this case was conducted at Scotland Yard, and by whom; if so, on what date, and what, if any, action has since been taken in the matter?

I am informed by the Commissioner of Police that Schumacher was arrested by an Inspector, and charged with being a suspected person, found on the premises of the local Inspector at Leman Street Police Station. I have received no complaint on the matter; but am informed that the Inspector, in consequence of what Schumacher said, removed him to the Inspector's office, where he made a statement, which was reduced to writing, in which he satisfactorily explained the circumstances which led to his being found on the promises. He was not told that if he signed the statement he would be released; but he did so voluntarily, and was released. The charge had been entered on the sheet in the usual way; but was not submitted to the magistrate. The matter was inquired into at Scotland Yard on the 8th instant by the Assistant Commissioner and the Chief Constable; and the Inspector was reprimanded for the irregularities of his conduct, and a sergeant who had not acted properly in this matter has been reduced in rank.

asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, What are the limits of the "certain British territory" in New Guinea which has been erected into a separate Possession and Government by the name of British New Guinea; whether the whole of that territory is really in the effective possession of Her Majesty; and, how it was acquired, whether by conquest, cession, or how; if by cession, by whom it was ceded? The hon. Gentleman also asked, Whether the creation of British New Guinea to a separate Government meant that it was separate from Queensland, or remained under that Colony to the same extent as before?

The boundaries are those of the Protectorate, which have already been laid before Parliament. They will be found in the new Letters Patent which have just been printed for Parliament, and will be distributed to-morrow or Wednesday. The answer to the second paragraph of the hon. Member's Question is in the affirmative. In reply to the last paragraph of the Question, I have to state that Her Majesty's Government are advised that the territory must be regarded as acquired by settlement. With regard to the hon. Member's supplementary Question without Notice, I can only repeat the statement that there has been an Administrator appointed for New Guinea.

asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether there are any Rules regarding the appointment of Europeans to the Indian Police, and if the appointment of the Honourable A. Hay to be Superintendent of Police is in accordance with those Rules; also whether it is entirely contrary to the Rules proposed by the Civil Service Commissioners; and, if he will ascertain from India whether the Honourable A. Hay was subjected to any test of his knowledge of the Native language, of Police Law, and of Native manners and customs, before he was appointed Superintendent of Police?

There are Rules regarding the appointment of Europeans to the police in the various Provinces. The Secretary of State has no reason to doubt that the appointment of Mr. Hay as an Assistant Superintendent has been made in accordance with them. No Rules proposed by the Civil Service Commissioners are anywhere in force. There is no preliminary examination for admission to the Burmah police; but an officer would lose his appointment if he failed to pass certain examinations in the Burmese language and Criminal Law within a prescribed time.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the attention of the Government has yet been directed to the fact that in large districts of County Donegal, especially the coast and in the mountainous inland parishes, the potato crop averages less than half the usual yield, in many places the return supplying little more than bad seed for next spring, and that the people have, in consequence, been compelled to sell their pigs at serious loss because unable to feed them, while the small farmers have nothing to depend upon for food for themselves except a little oats; whether, if not fully informed, the Government will make immediate and careful inquiry into the condition of the district, and take adequate steps to meet any impending calamity; and, whether it is the intention of the Government to proceed at once with any public works in any, and, if so, which, of the districts referred to?

(who replied) said: Inquiries are being made into the whole matter. It will, however, necessarily take some days before they are completed, and therefore I will ask the hon. Gentleman to defer the Question until Thursday, for which day a Question of a similar nature has been put upon the Paper by the hon. Member for South Donegal (Mr. Mac Neill).

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he can state at what time the Land Commissioners will sit to hear the cases listed for hearing in October of last year in the union of Strabane?

(who replied) said: The Land Commissioners report that as regards the portion of Strabane Union which is situate within the County Donegal no date has yet been fixed for the sitting of a Sub-Commission; but that it is probable there will be a sitting therein early in the ensuing year. As regards the County Tyrone portion of the union, the cases listed up to October 29, 1887, have just been heard.

asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether, on or about the 31st of July last, the Chief Justice of Her Majesty's Superior Court of Justice in the Bahama Islands adjudged that Thomas Taylor, for contempt of Court, should receive 30 lashes, and suffer a term of penal servitude, the said contempt consisting in an assault committed on the Justice whilst sitting on the Bench; whether the sentence of whipping was carried out; and what course Her Majesty's Government propose to take in the matter?

also asked, Whether any information has been received as to a sentence of penal servitude for life and flogging passed by the Chief Justice of the Bahamas on a man named Thomas Taylor; whether it is correct that Taylor, having been sentenced to seven years' penal servitude, committed an assault upon the Chief Justice, who thereupon increased the sentence to one of penal servitude for life, and ordered the man to be flogged; if this be so, was the sentence inflicted after any trial for the assault; was such increased sentence imposed in respect of the original offence, or as a punishment for the assault; and, is there any record of the infliction of such sentence being Passed?

On the 27th of July Thomas Taylor, having been sentenced by the Chief Justice of the Bahamas to seven years' penal servitude for burglary, committed an assault upon the Chief Justice in Court, and on the 31st of July the Chief Justice sentenced him to penal servitude for life, and ordered him to receive 30 lashes. The increased sentence appears to have been inflicted as a punishment for the assault as a contempt of Court without any trial. The Secretary of State has not been informed whether the sentence of whipping was carried out. A report of the sentence, which is stated to be a correct copy of the record, is contained in The Nassau Guardian newspaper of August 1. The Secretary of State has given instructions that Taylor is to be released after serving the sentence inflicted on him for the burglary; and that the Chief Justice has been informed that should any such grave miscarriage of justice occur again, it may have very serious consequences for him.

Will the hon. Gentleman inquire whether the sentence of whipping was carried out?

I will.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Government will take into consideration the necessity of adopting more stringent measures for the suppression of the thieves' literature, and other demoralizing and indecent publications, which are now so extensively circulated among the young, and which led to the Tunbridge Wells murder and so many other crimes?

The Government are as anxious as my hon. Friend to suppress demoralizing and indecent publications, and the recent prosecution of the publisher of M. Zola's works, by the direction of the Attorney General, is an instance of their action in this direction. It must be borne in mind that prosecutions sometimes do more harm than good, by making obscure publications more widely known; and that it is desirable not to prosecute unless it is tolerably certain that a jury will convict. Subject to these considerations the Government are prepared to take all the measures that the law permits.

asked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether his attention had been called to the very serious loss of life among platelayers and other permanent waymen the last year, and especially during the winter months; whether his attention had been called to the evidence at the recent inquest on two platelayers killed near Syston Station on the Midland Railway; and, whether, having regard to the increased danger to these men in foggy and stormy weather, the Board of Trade will make representations to the Railway Companies both as to stricter observance of their existing Regulations for the protection of platelayers in their work, and as to the desirability of employing additional men or boys to watch for the approach of trains, and of giving some practical trial to automatic fog signals and other mechanical appliances for warning the men?

in reply, said, that during the last eight years official Returns showed each year a material and steady decrease in the number of fatal accidents to platelayers and other permanent waymen. The decrease was considerable in the first two months of the current year.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Who is at present the Head of the Criminal Investigation Department; whether the Home Office communicates with him directly, or through the Chief Commissioner of Metropolitan Police; and, whether arrangements have been made at the Home Office for the investigation of Crime apart from Scotland Yard?

Mr. Anderson is, at present, the Head of the Criminal Investigation Department. The practice at the Home Office has been to communicate directly with him on matters relating specially to his Department. Where more than Departmental interests are involved, communications are made through the Commissioner. The answer to the third Question is in the negative. The investigation of crimes committed in the Metropolis is entirely in the hands of the Department in Scotland Yard.

Will the right hon. Gentleman now take the opportunity of giving the House some definite information with regard to the position of Mr. Monro?

I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman a Question of which I gave him private Notice on Friday—namely, whether the reason given by Mr. James Monro for his resignation of his office of Assistant Commissioner of Police was, that under the system pursued by the Chief Commissioner, he could no longer be responsible for the administration of the Criminal Investigation Department; and whether the Papers on the subject are to be laid on the Table of the House?

I have given the hon. Member for Bethnal Green information on which he has put a Question with regard to Mr. Monro. I informed the hon. Gentleman that I was enjoying the benefit of the advice of Mr. Monro on matters relating to crime. Among these matters I may mention that I have had a consultation with him on the whole subject of the organization of the Criminal Investigation Department, with which he is more familiar than any other man in the country, and I need hardly say that his advice is most valuable on the subject. As to the Question put to me by the hon. Member for Kennington, I have stated to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green that Mr. Monro resigned because of differences of opinion which had arisen between himself and the Commissioner on questions of police administration.

If that is the case, will the Home Secretary lay on the Table of the House the important documents which will show exactly the position in which Mr. Monro stands at present, and the absolute reasons which caused his resignation of a most important public position?

I have quoted with literal accuracy the terms of Mr. Monro's resignation. It is not the custom to lay Papers of that sort before the House.

Then I am afraid, Sir, we must get them to-night.

asked the Lord Advocate, Whether in the Remit by the Secretary for Scotland to a Committee of Inquiry now sitting on the Sasine Office, and other Departments of the Register House, Edinburgh, the Register of Deeds Office had been included; and, if not, whether he will state the reasons for its exclusion?

The Register of Deeds Office is not included in the Reference to the Committee. The Committee was appointed to inquire into the establishment and cost of the Sasine Office, and the establishment and cost of the Office of the Director of Chancery. The Reference was not intended to be of a general description, but was appointed with specific regard to the Departments named.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the amount arising from a portion of the Probate Duty and sundry licences which are to be paid into the "Exchequer Contribution Account" of the Bank of England, in aid of local taxation, may and will be applied to the relief of the local and poor rates levied during the financial year, March, 1888, to March, 1889?

Yes, Sir. The proceeds of the licences mentioned in the 121st section of the Local Government Act and of one-third of the Probate Duties during the financial year, 1888–9, will be applied, in accordance with the provisions of that section, to the relief of local rates for that same year.

asked the President of the Local Government Board, If the election of County Councillors in the County of Middlesex are not to be conducted on the system of single member electoral districts; and, if so, what is the ground for departure from the requirements of the Act; and, whether he is in a position to direct that the requirements of the Statute shall be complied with?

The Court of Quarter Sessions for the County of Middlesex have formed single-member electoral districts for the election of County Councillors throughout the administrative county; and where an electoral division is co-extensive with an area for which a separate list of voters has been made, one County Councillor will be elected for such division at the first as well as at future elections. Owing, however, to the large population of several of the urban sanitary districts and parishes, the Justices have found it necessary to divide some of them into two or more electoral divisions, which are not co-extensive with areas for which there are separate lists of voters. In such cases, the electoral divisions within the area for which there is such a list must be combined for the purpose of the first election, and must return more than one County Councillor. The Local Government Act provides for this. A separate list of voters will, in future, be made for each electoral division; and one County Councillor will be elected for each division at all elections held after this has been done.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Chief Inspector of Factories has recently, in more than one case, refused to prosecute under the Truck Acts where the employer has claimed to make deductions from wages on account of fines; and, if so, whether, having regard to the 1 & 2 Will. IV., c. 37, s. 3, and 50 & 51 Vict. c. 46, s. 13, such refusal to prosecute was made with the consent of the Government?

The Truck Acts, as the hon. Member is aware, are silent on the subject of fines for negligence or misconduct of the workmen; and a clause on the subject proposed by the hon. Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst) was not embodied in the Act. My own view, after careful consideration of the point, has been that where the contract for hiring provides for fines and for their deduction from wages, such deduction is not within the Truck Acts, and it is with my consent that the Chief Inspector has refused to prosecute in recent cases. It is, of course, open to anyone to raise the question for judicial decision.

asked the Lord Advocate, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that no Councillor of the burgh of Hamilton is allowed to take his seat till he has paid two guineas for a burgess ticket, which practice tends to prevent working men from coming forward as candidates for the Town Council; whether the charge is a legal one; and, whether he will endeavour to get it reduced or abolished?

By the 20th section of 3 & 4 Will. IV., c. 77, no person is entitled to be received and inducted as Councillor who shall not previous to his induction be entered a burgess of the burgh; but a person elected Councillor is entitled to be entered burgess on payment of the ordinances to the common good of the burgh. Those fees in the case of Hamilton amount to two guineas. I am informed that a gentleman recently elected a Councillor at Hamilton has refused to admit the legality of a demand for payment by him of this sum, and has paid under protest. I presume that his contention is based on the provisions of the Act 39 Vict. c. 12. As a dispute has thus arisen falling to be determined by a Court of Law, it would be improper that I should prejudge it; and, for the same reason, it is premature to consider whether legislation is necessary.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, By whose authority Henry Glennie, after having been arrested on Wednesday, September 19, at 10 p.m., on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Mrs. Wright at Canonbury, was kept in custody without being brought before a Court of summary jurisdiction until Friday, September 21; and, by whose authority the prisoner, in the interval between his apprehension and the examination before a magistrate, was, upon three separate occasions, questioned by a police officer—namely, about 11 a.m. on September 20, about 10 p.m. on the same day, and about 11 a.m on September 21?

Henry Glennie was detained during the time named by the local Inspector in charge of the case while the necessary inquiries were being made for the purpose of ascertaining whether the prisoner ought to be sent before a magistrate or ought to be released. The case was a very serious one, and 14 persons had to be found and brought to the station, in order to complete the identification of Glennie. It was not until late on the night of the 20th that the identification was completed. He was brought before a magistrate on the following morning. Glennie was questioned on three occasions on the authority of the local Inspector who was present. He was asked whether he could refer to any persons who could prove where he was on the night in question; and whether he had any explanation to make regarding a plumber's bag which had been already identified as belonging to him.

Do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman approves of the practice of police officers putting questions to prisoners in custody for the purpose of using the information obtained against them afterwards?

In that general form I should certainly not approve of it; but I think it is only fair to a man charged with crime to offer him the earliest possible opportunity of excul- pating himself. That, I understand, is what took place.

Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the most eminent Judges have again and again condemned the practice of questioning prisoners by police officers?

Yes, certainly, if questions are put with a view to prove them guilty; but if with a view of affording a prisoner an opportunity of giving an explanation to exonerate him from the charge against him that does not seem to me to be the same question.

In consequence of the unsatisfactory nature of the answer I have received I shall call further attention to the subject.

asked the President of the Local Government Board, When the Reports and maps of the Boundary Commissioners, which were laid upon the Table of the House in July, will be distributed to Members?

, in reply, said, he hoped they would be ready for distribution to Members on Wednesday or Thursday next.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he can state the exact reason why the late Head of the Detective Department in the Metropolitan Police resigned his position; whether it is the fact that Sir Charles Warren has now practically the direct control of the Detective Department; and, whether, in view of the constant recurrence of atrocious murders, and the failure of the new organization and methods to detect the murderer, he will consider the propriety of making some change in the arrangements of Scotland Yard. The hon. Member also wished to know, whether it was true, as reported in the newspapers that afternoon, that Sir Charles Warren had tendered his resignation, and that it had been accepted?

I have already stated the reason why Mr. Monro resigned in answer to a Question from the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Pickersgill) on the 6th instant, to which I beg to refer the hon. Member. I have not got the document with me; but I have no objection to read to the House the letter. [Mr. GENT-DAVIS: Some time this evening?] With regard to the remainder of the Question of the hon. Member, I have to say that Mr. Anderson has now the direct control of the Criminal Investigation Department, but under the superintendence and control of the Chief Commissioner, as provided by statute. The failure of the police, so far, to detect the persons guilty of the White-chapel murders is due, not to any new organization, or to any defect in the existing system, but to the extraordinary cunning and secrecy which characterize these atrocious crimes. I have already, for some time, had under consideration the whole system of the Criminal Investigation Department, with a view to introducing any improvements that experience may suggest. With regard to the final Question of the hon. Member, I have to say that Sir Charles Warren did, on the 8th instant, tender his resignation to Her Majesty's Government, and that it has been accepted.

asked the President of the Local Government Board, If he is aware that a Revising Barrister, Mr. Yarborough Anderson, has recently disqualified for the county franchise workmen who occupy their houses rent free during employment, and whether this decision is in accordance with the provisions of "The Local Government Act, 1888;" and, if not, whether, inasmuch as this decision so injuriously affects the great majority of the miners in the Bishop Auckland Division and other districts of Durham, the Government will take steps or facilitate an endeavour to remedy the injustice, especially in view of the fact that, during the Committee stage of the Bill, Ministers gave positive and distinct assurances that the wording and intention of the Bill obviated all danger of any doubt being cast on the validity of the miners' claim in this respect?

The law which applies to the registration of miners occupying houses rent free during their employment is set forth in the decision of the High Court in the case of "Smith v. Overseers of Seghill," which will be found in The Law Reports, 10 Q.B.D. I have no information as to the facts of the cases which are referred to in the Question which would enable me to express any opinion as to whether the action of the Revising Barrister was in accordance with the decision of the High Court in the case alluded to. If, however, there was any ground for dissatisfaction with his decision, there might have been an appeal to the High Court. The Government clearly have no power to interfere as regards the decision of the Revising Barrister in particular cases.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether an order for Government work that was given to Messrs. Almond, of Willow Walk, Bermondsey, was being manufactured on the premises of Messrs. Ross and Co., who were struck off the list of contractors in March last; whether the Government had to countermand the work being done at Messrs. Ross and Co.; and, whether he is aware that Messrs. Ross and Co. are getting orders for Government work under cover of others?

, in reply, said, that it had been found that some Cavalry accoutrements ordered in May last from Messrs Almond were produced by Messrs. Ross and Co. Messrs. Almond had been informed that this could not be permitted, and they had promised that it should not recur. He was not aware that Messrs. Ross and Co. were doing any work whatever for the War Office.

asked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether a county elector can vote for more than one member of a County Council; and whether he has reason to believe that any doubts have arisen on the subject?

There has been some difference of opinion as to whether a county elector can vote for more than one member of a County Council. I am of opinion that Section 51 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, which provides that no person shall vote in more than one ward, is applied to the electoral divisions in a county; and that, therefore, at the same general election for the county no person can vote in more than one electoral division of that county.

In an electoral division of London an elector may vote for two members.

Clearly.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he contemplates offering any additional reward for the capture of the White-chapel murderer? The hon. Member explained that he did not ask this Question from any desire to embarrass the Government; but simply because considerable excitement prevailed in the East End of London.

Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that Question, I wish to ask whether he has taken into consideration the propriety of extending a free pardon—which, as I understand, applies only to the last murder—to the preceding murders, especially having regard to the fact that in the case of the first murder, committed last Christmas, according to the dying testimony of the woman, several persons were concerned in the murder?

Owing to the public interest taken in this question, I hope the House will allow me at greater length than is usual in answering a Question to state why I have hitherto refrained from offering a reward in the Whitechapel cases. Before 1884 it was the frequent practice of the Home Office to offer rewards, sometimes of a very large amount, in serious cases. In 1883, in particular, several rewards, ranging from £200 to £2,000, were offered in such cases as the murder of Police Constable Bowies and the dynamite explosions in Charles Street and at various Railway Stations. These re wards, like the reward of £10,000 in the Phœnix Park murders, proved in effectual, and produced no evidence of any value. In 1884 there was a change of policy. Early in that year a remarkable case occurred. A conspiracy was formed to effect an explosion at the German Embassy; to "plant" papers upon an innocent person; and to accuse him of the crime in order to obtain the reward which was expected. The revelation of this conspiracy led the then Secretary of State (Sir William Harcourt) to reconsider the whole question of rewards. He consulted the Police Authorities both in England and in Ireland; and the conclusions he arrived at were—that the practice of offering large and sensational rewards in cases of serious crime is not only ineffectual, but mischievous; that rewards produced, generally speaking, no practical result beyond satisfying a public demand for conspicuous action; that they operate prejudicially by relaxing the exertions of the police; and that they tend to produce false, rather than reliable testimony. He decided, therefore, in all cases to abandon the practice of offering rewards, as they had been found by experience to be a hindrance, rather than an aid in the detection of crime. These conclusions were publicly announced, and acted upon in two important cases in 1884—one, a shocking murder and violation of a little girl at Middlesbrough; the other, the dynamite outrage at London Bridge, in which case the City authorities offered a reward of £5,000. The principle thus established has since been adhered to, I believe, without exception at the Home Office. The whole subject was reconsidered in 1885 by Sir Richard Cross in a remarkable case of infanticide at Plymouth; and again in 1886 by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Childers) in the notorious case of "The Queen v. Louisa Hart." On both occasions, after careful consideration, and with the concurrence of the best authorities, the principle of offering no reward was maintained, and rewards were refused. Since I have been at the Home Office I have followed the Rule thus deliberately laid down by my Predecessors. I do not mean that the Rule may not be subject to exceptions—as, for instance, where it is known who the criminal is, and information is wanted only as to his hiding place, or on account of other circumstances of the crime itself. In the Whitechapel murders, not only are these conditions wanting at present, but the danger of a false charge is intensified by the excited state of public feeling. I know how desirable it is to allay that public feeling; and I should have been glad if the circumstances had justified me in giving visible proof that the authorities are not heedless or indifferent. I beg to assure the hon. Member and the House that neither the Home Office nor Scotland Yard will leave a stone unturned in order to bring to justice the perpetrator of these abominable crimes, which have outraged the feelings of the entire community. With regard to the Question of the hon. Member below the Gangway (Mr. Hunter), it is not proper that I should give an answer on the sudden. I will, however, carefully consider the question.

I beg to thank the right hon. Gentleman for his explanation, and to say that I agree with him entirely.

said, he wished to explain why he offered a reward in the case of the last murder.

said, that the hon. Gentleman would be out of Order in making any explanation at that time.

asked the First Commissioner of Works, How the right of individuals to drive along Constitution Hill is given, whether it is arbitrarily given, or whether it is regarded as an appanage inherent in the past or actual tenure of certain offices; and, if the latter, what are the offices to which it is an appanage; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a list of those enjoying this privilege?

At present all foot passengers and persons riding on horseback can pass up Con- stitution Hill; but special permission must be given through the Home Office for carriages; and I am informed by the authorities at the Home Office that this privilege is enjoyed, among others, by certain high officers of State—such as Cabinet Ministers and Ministers from Foreign Courts—and that Cabinet Ministers are granted the privilege on quitting Office. I am informed that it is also granted during tenure of office to Lords of the Treasury and Admiralty, Under Secretaries of State, and officers attached to the Headquarters Staff of the Army, and that no public purpose will be served by laying a list on the Table of the House.

asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Why Sir John Pope Hennessy has not returned to Mauritius; and whether he has been granted extension of leave, and for what reason; and when he is going back?

It had been arranged that Sir John Pope Hennessy should return on the 30th of October; but he has been granted an extension of leave, on the ground that his presence is necessary at the trial of an action at law to which he is a party, and which has been set down for trial in this month. He is going back by the mail steamer which leaves Marseilles on the 1st of December.

asked Mr. Attorney General, Whether he is aware that the clerk to the magistrates for the borough of Haverford west was appointed as such clerk when a member of the Town Council, and has since been continued as such clerk whilst a member of such Town Council; and that, at the recent municipal election, such clerk was nominated and elected Town Councillor, and is now nominated as Mayor, in direct contravention of the 45 & 46 Vict. c. 50, s. 159, sub-section 2; and, whether the Government will take any action in the matter?

I have inquired into the matter mentioned in the Question of the hon. Member. I am informed that the clerk to the magistrates was not nominated or elected Mayor. It is true that he was appointed clerk when a member of the Town Council, and has since continued to act as such clerk. I am informed, however, that there is a Private Act of Parliament relating to Haverford west, and that its position is quite unique; and, further, that prior to his appointment the opinion of counsel was taken, who advised that his appointment would not be a breach of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882. I will look further into the matter; and should I have any reason to doubt the correctness of the opinion given I will communicate with the hon. Member and the clerk to the magistrates.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he will consent to the appointment of a Royal Commission, or of a Select Committee of the House of Commons, to inquire into the general efficiency and working of the Tweed Acts of 1857 and 1859, and into any grievances arising from the operation of the said Acts?

The Government do not think it necessary to appoint either a Royal Commission or a Select Committee to inquire into the working of the Tweed Acts of 1857 and 1859, as the whole subject will be dealt with in the forthcoming Salmon Fisheries Bill. In order to give the right hon. Gentleman and the House full information as to the substance and matter of the Bill, the Government propose to lay it on the Table of Parliament before the close of this present Session.

Is it the intention of the Government to include the Tweed under the general laws of the country, instead of being governed by its own Acts?

The right hon. Gentleman asks a Question on which I can give him no accurate information. If he will repeat it on a future day I will give him the information he desires.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, in view of the fact that, to the Mortmain and Charitable Uses Bill, there had in the House of Lords been introduced Amendments previously negatived by this House, and which had been, without Notice, considered and agreed to by this House, it is the intention of the Government to propose such alterations in the Standing Orders as will prevent the consideration of Lords' Amendments being brought on in this House without the matter appearing in the Orders of the Day, or without previous Notice?

, in reply, said, he agreed that the House should be informed of any material changes made in a Bill in the other House before asking assent to them. He would consider, during the Recess, whether Rules should be framed to secure that object.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, When it is his intention to move the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the question of State Colonization, which he was good enough to promise on the part of the Government on the 9th of August last?

, in reply, said, he hoped that the matter would come before the House in a few days. Undoubtedly an opportunity for debate would arise on the Votes. He by no means wished to convey that there might not also be a debate on the Motion for a Committee, if the House generally desired to prolong the Session for the purpose.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether it is contemplated to introduce any new Government measures during the present Session in connection with Ireland?

It is my intention, on Thursday, to make a statement with regard to the legislative intentions of Her Majesty's Government during the present Session.

asked the First Lord of the Treasurer, Whether it is contemplated to present a Supplementary Estimate in respect to the expenses of the Royal Commission now sitting to inquire into the allegations of The Times against certain Members of the House and others; and, if not, how the expenses which have been, and are being, incurred are to be met; whether any sum of money from the "Secret Service" is, or has been, expended in aiding The Times, directly or indirectly, to secure witnesses or other evidence; whether any money expended (if so expended) in procuring or in arranging evidence for The Times will be carried to the current expenditure of the year; and, if so, under what head it will appear in the Estimates; and, whether The Times, or those representing The Times, have had access to any sources of information in the possession of the Government, but not in possession of the House, and not accessible to the Members accused, or to their representatives?

The hon. Gentleman asks me four Questions. With regard to the first, a Supplementary Estimate will, if necessary, be presented at the commencement of the next Session of Parliament, to meet the expenses of the Royal Commission referred to. Pending the presentation of that Estimate, the expenses will be, and are, defrayed in the ordinary course from the Temporary Commission Vote, Sub-head K, "Commissions not specifically provided for." As to the second and third Questions, no sum has been expended from the Secret Service Vote in aiding The Times, directly or indirectly, to secure witnesses or other evidence. I will state to the House what the attitude of the Government is with regard to the last part of the Question. An application was made to the Irish Government on behalf of The Times for access to specific sources of information and for specific information, and this application was granted, unless where, in the opinion of the Law Officers, the information sought was privileged from disclosure in the interests of the Public Service. Where a similar application was made on behalf of the other side the same course was followed. The Government propose to act to all parties in the spirit of a letter written by the Chief Secretary for Ireland to Messrs. Lewis and Lewis on the 7th instant, an extract from which is as follows:—

"I shall have great pleasure in allowing you to see, and, as far as you think desirable, to copy, any transcripts of speeches in the possession of the Irish Government which you may apply for; and shall, further, be glad to give you any information, not of a confidential character, upon any specific point respecting which you may ask for it in the interest of those you represent."

That is the attitude of the Government to both the parties interested.

Arising out of this Question, I would ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will inquire into the allegations of a certain newspaper, that Mr. Justice A. L. Smith is a landlord in County Tyrone, Ireland, whose rents had been largely reduced by the Land Court; and, if so informed, whether the Government will take means to have him relieved from his duties on the Commission now sitting?

Order! order!

I rise to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies a Question of which I have given him private Notice. I may, perhaps, say that on Friday, without previous Notice, I asked the hon. Gentleman whether the Colonial Office had received a telegram from the Prime Minister of Queensland and the Leader of the Opposition there about the appointment of a successor to Governor Musgrave? The hon. Gentleman at once replied that the telegram, a copy of which appeared in the newspapers, had been received and forwarded to the Secretary of State. I now wish to ask him whether he is yet able to inform the House what answer has been, or will be, sent to this message?

Her Majesty's Government have considered this question, and have decided that the Colonial Ministers should be called upon to state their objections to the appointment of Sir Henry Blake. I cannot do better than read to the House the telegram which has been despatched to the Colony—

"Inform your Ministers that Her Majesty's Government are not prepared to take any action upon the telegram communicated by the Agent General, and previously made public, respecting the Governor. They prefer that any communication on so serious a subject should be made in the usual formal manner to the officer administering the Government. Request your Ministers to state to you the specific reasons for which they object to the appointment of a gentleman of high character who has administered responsible government with great discretion and success."

As the telegram published in the Press referred to the letter addressed to the Agent General in reply to the request that the Colonial Ministers might be consulted as to the new Governor, it seems desirable to read that letter to the House. It was in the following terms:—

Would the hon. Gentleman give us the exact words of the Prime Minister of Queensland's telegram—whether the demand was that we should "submit" the name of the Governor to them; or whether the suggestion was that it would be expedient to "communicate the name of the new Governor before his actual appointment"?

said, he had read the words of the telegram to the House. Those words were correct; but he did not see that it made any difference in the sense.

asked, if the answer which had been sent to the Colony was by telegraph; and if the reply to it would also be by telegraph, or would be deferred till the despatches?

This is by telegraph. The answer will probably be by despatch.

Sir, I desire to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty a Question of which I have not been able to give him private Notice, but which, no doubt, he will be able to answer. He has, on more than one occasion recently, and especially at the banquet at the Guildhall last Friday, stated that Her Majesty's Government have decided to make a further expenditure on the Navy. I would ask him when does he propose to give the House of Commons any information on that subject; and will he take the opportunity afforded by the approaching discussion of the Navy Estimates to make a statement to the House?

The right hon. Gentleman was Chairman of a Select Committee upon the Navy Estimates which made certain recommendations; and I have publicly announced that, when the time arrives, the Government will be prepared to give effect to those recommendations. I think it will be more convenient when the Navy Estimates come on that the discussion should, in accordance with the Rules of the House, be confined to the individual Votes under consideration; but, of course, it is in the power of hon. Gentlemen to put to me any Questions, which I will answer to the best of my ability.

The matter to which I refer is quite outside any recommendation made by the Committee. The noble Lord stated that a few years ago a great shipbuilding programme was entered upon; that the financial operations involved in it had now ceased; and that the Government had resolved to call upon the country to make a fresh and further effort in that direction. I submit, the House of Commons is entitled to know as early as anyone what is to be done; and I should have thought the Government would have been prepared to explain the matter to the House of Commons at the first opportunity.

I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has accurately quoted my words. What I did say was this—that a large shipbuilding programme had been originated three years ago, and that programme was now practically completed. For the future the hands of the Government were financially free, and therefore I hoped that next year a fresh and bolder start—a more sustained effort—would be made to bring the Navy up to the state of strength and efficiency which Her Majesty's Government consider to be necessary in the interests of the country.

May I ask my noble Friend if the House may take it fur granted that no special proposal for extra expenditure on account of the Navy will this year be made by the Government to the House?

We do not propose to ask for any additional sums this year. Our proposals have strict reference to the Estimates of next year.

Are the Army and Navy Estimates to be taken this week?

I am afraid not.

Before the Adjournment of August a Return was promised relative to the emoluments of the Attorney and Solicitor Generals. I would ask the First Lord of the Treasury why this Return, which does not occupy two foolscap pages, is not yet printed and in the hands of hon. Members?

I exceedingly regret that the Return has been so long delayed; but, as the right hon. Gentleman is very well aware, the Government are not responsible for the delay. The information is available for the House, and is literally on the Table of the House; and if the House desires to proceed with the Vote there is no reason why it should not do so.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether his attention had been drawn to a paragraph in The Observer of Sunday, to the effect that arrangements had been made for a deputation of Conservative Members of Parliament to wait on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to lay before him statements of objections to the proposed Wheel and Van Tax Bill; that the proceedings would be private, but that it was believed that they would be immediately followed by the withdrawal of the measure? He would further ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, considering the great loss and inconvenience being suffered-in all parts of the country through the indecision of the Government on this question, he could not now make an announcement?

I am always very glad to take what rest I can, and therefore I did not read the paper in question on Sunday. The hon. Member will not be surprised, therefore, to hear that I have not heard of the paragraph nor of the deputation, nor of any of the other consequential movements to which he refers. I have already stated that I propose to make a statement with regard to Public Business on Thursday, and that is all I can say now.

said, that he feared there was no chance of taking the Irish Estimates this week.

said, he wished to call the attention of the Committee to this very unsatisfactory grant, and to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) the desirability of placing the Mercantile Marine Fund altogether under the Board of Trade. This was one of the cases in which a deficiency had been going on increasing for years; it was a Department that was not under the Treasury, nor was it under the control of the Board of Trade. In looking over the accounts he found that the fees from surveys produced in 1885–6 £55,000, while the receipts front surveys were only £33,000. The surveys consequently cost £30,000 more than the fees brought in. In 1886–7 the survey fees amounted to £24,000, while the cost of maintaining was £57,000. He thought the proper thing to do in a case of this kind was that when public work was being done by a Government Department, such fees should be charged as would defray all the expenses without necessitating an appeal to Parliament for a Vote of this nature owing to the expenses having largely exceeded the fees. The Vote itself did not show the total expenditure, although he saw that a deficiency, which amounted to £9,700 in 1886–7, had been increased this year to £13,700. Now there was another point which he wished to raise again, and he was glad that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) was in his place, because in regard to the question he desired to raise he could not help feeling that the Board of Trade had acted like a dog in the manger. He referred to the case of distressed seamen who were sent home from distant parts abroad. Time after time various Governments of India had called the attention of the Board of Trade to the fact that distressed seamen were paid off in India at the rate of 2s. to the rupee. The Board of Trade were quite aware that in the articles that were signed between the seamen and the shipowners there were clauses by which the seamen agreed to be paid off in India under certain circumstances at the rate of 2s. to the rupee. Of course, the seamen knew nothing about the operation of the articles they signed, and even if they did know they would not trouble themselves about the matter, because they intended to go out in a particular ship and return in her, not calculating that anything might happen to them before they returned home; but when they got to India it was possible that they might be attacked by dysentery, fever, or something or other arising from the influences of the climate, which necessitated their being sent to the hospital. The result was that they were unable to return home in the ship, and they were paid off in the shipping office in India, which meant that they were deprived of one-third of their wages. It took a ship three months to go out, and a seaman received one month's wages in advance, so that they would not have more than six weeks or two months wages to draw in India; by being paid in rupees at the rate of 2s. to the rupee they were actually defrauded of one-third of their entire salary. Having been so swindled out of their earnings they naturally became distressed seamen, and required to be sent home at the cost of the Indian Government. Parliament was now asked to contribute a sum of money to make up a sum of £20,000 a year to be expended on distressed seamen, but a great deal of the necessity of this contribution would be removed if the Board of Trade would pay attention to the representations and protests of the Indian Government. If the Board of Trade would interfere and prevent the shipowners from taking this advantage of the seamen there would be no distressed seamen to be relieved, and it would not be necessary to have this Vote. The Board of Trade were practically responsible for the Vote, and for having it brought before Parliament in this form. Unfortunately hon. Members knew very little about it, although it was one of those Votes upon which they had a constant increase. He noticed that there was one item of decrease; it was the case of a well-paid policeman in Liverpool who had been in the receipt of £120 a-year for acting as policeman of the Merchant Shipping Department of the Board of Trade there. This year the amount of that salary was deducted from the Vote, so that the Board of Trade was richer by the sum of £120 a-year. He thought the Committee ought to have more facts upon these matters, not only in regard to the surveys and the grant to distressed seamen, but as to the reason why the fees of the engineers were continually augmented. He certainly hoped to hear from the right hon. Baronet the President of the Board of Trade why the old method of manufacturing distressed seamen, by which they were defrauded of one-third of their wages, was continued, and whether he was prepared to take any step to correct the evil?

said, the Committee would observe that although the estimated receipts amounted to nearly £6,000 more than they were the last year given in the Vote—namely, in 1886–7, yet the Grant in Aid remained precisely the same—£40,000. He regretted that the Committee had so very little explanation about the Vote, and he thought they would derive none from the Appropriation Act which would be presented at the end of the Session. For a long time it had been known that this Fund was not upon a very satisfactory footing; but, nevertheless, there was no information before Parliament on the subject. He thought it would only be fair to the Committee that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, in asking for this Grant in Aid, which was certainly not justified upon any statement now before the Committee, should give them some information as to the actual state of the Fund, which for a long time had not been in a satisfactory position.

said, he also thought that the Committee was entitled to have something beyond the scanty information contained in the Estimate, which was altogether inadequate, and in some cases absolutely misleading. This was a sum which the Board of Trade seemingly put before the House as a matter of duty by a certain Act of Parliament, and the 45 & 46 Vict., c. 55, required the Department to deposit its accounts year by year. He would read to the Committee what the Auditor General said upon this matter in his Report upon the state of the Accounts for 1886–7, the last statement with which Parliament had been favoured. The Auditor General pointed out that under the Act 45 & 46 Vict., c. 55, a certain sum of money—namely, £40,000, was to be annually voted by Parliament for five years; but that period of five years expired on the 1st of April, 1888, and it would be possible then, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General, to review the operations under the authority of the Act. Notwithstanding that statement of the Auditor General, notwithstanding the debate which took place on this very question in August, 1887, and notwithstanding still more the promise given by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer in answer to a Question from himself (Mr. Craig), the Mercantile Marine Fund was still in a most unsatisfactory position. "The question of the Mercantile Marine Fund," said the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer—

"Is a matter which was brought under my attention some weeks ago, and I think that these accounts require to be most thoroughly examined."—(3 Hansard, [318] 1664.)

He (Mr. Craig) certainly failed to see any symptoms of a thorough examination in the present Estimates. It was quite the reverse. The right hon. Gentleman, however, in continuing his remarks, gave an undertaking that the subject should be thoroughly examined, and intimated that it was possible a very important decision might be come to with regard to it. "There can be no doubt," added the right hon. Gentleman, "that the Mercantile Marine Fund is in a very unsatisfactory position." He would ask what had been done in consequence of that statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer? What was the examination which had taken place? Where was the Statement of Accounts? The Statement put before the House dealt only with a very scanty and paltry portion of the Mercantile Marine Fund. The hon. Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark) seemed to think that this Fund referred only to surveys; but it referred to all the payments for lights, for maintenance of new buildings, and a variety of other subjects connected therewith, the survey being only a small portion of the Fund. The entire question of the light dues and the lighting of our coasts was solely bound up with the Mercantile Marine Fund. Last year the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that the Fund was in a very unsatisfactory position, and the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade read a Paper which professed to explain the condition of the Fund. It appeared from that Paper, singular as it might be regarded by the Committee, that the Board of Trade had actually engaged in a large loan transaction for the purpose of lending money borrowed at a not very reasonable rate of interest—namely, 3¾ per cent per annum, in order to fill up the void in the Fund. The expenditure of the Fund for 1886–7 was something like £600,000, while the income was only £400,000, and a difference of £200,000 was made up partly by a loan of £150,000, or a portion of a loan to that extent, partly by selling the property of the Fund, and partly by spending the balance taken over from previous years. It did seem to him a most extraordinary thing for the Board of Trade, after what occurred last year, to present these accounts again in the same unsatisfactory and almost misleading form. Under the Act of Parliament he had already cited, the details of the accounts were required to be given to the Auditor General, so that they might be examined and audited. Had they been examined and audited? [Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: Yes.] The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade said that the accounts had been examined and audited; but what did the Auditor General say? That gentleman reported that they had not been examined at all. Perhaps it was necessary to explain that under this Fund came the expenditure on lights. The expenditure by the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House for English lights amounted to £262,000, and the expenditure on the Irish lights was £96,000 more. What did the Auditor General say in regard to that expenditure? That officer said that no due and adequate details had been furnished to him of the expenditure of the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House, or the Commissioners of Irish Lights, nor was he in any way cognizant of the distribution of the considerable sums expended by those Bodies. Now, if the accounts were audited and examined, as the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade seemed to think they were, why did the Auditor General make such a remark as that? Then, again, why was there not a detailed account of the expenditure in connection with the Mercantile Marine Fund set before the Committee on this Vote? Were the lights of this country—the greatest mercantile country in the world—to be entirely withdrawn from the purview of the House of Commons? Had Parliament no duty to discharge in respect of the efficient lighting of our coasts, and also in regard to the economical manner in which the work was done? Were the Mercantile Marine to be saddled with the burden of these lights in perpetuity without having any right to exercise control over the expenditure? Where was the proof of economy in these matters? Parliament did not know what this money was spent for or what it went for, except under a short and narrow head. Last year, when they dealt with the subject, there was a great outcry about some trifling expenditure on the part of the Northern Lights Commissioners, who appeared to have spent some portion of their money upon a dinner. They were found out only because they sent in detailed accounts. Apparently the other Commissioners did not, and therefore nothing was known of the doings of the Commissioners of Irish Lights or of the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House, although it might be perfectly well believed that the Elder Brethren occasionally banqueted and entertained Her Majesty's Ministers and distinguished guests. If that were so, he wanted to know from the right hon. Gentleman why the accounts of those Bodies had not been examined, because it would appear from the Report of the Auditor General that they had not been dealt with at all. It was all very well to be told that there was no finer Body in the world than the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House, and that their lights were perfect and efficient. What he wanted to know was whether the funds were economically administered and the maintenance of the lights properly provided for? For his own part he did not think they were. A friend of his, a practical shipowner, told him that the expense of the English lights, light for light, having regard to the quality, was about four times as much as the lights on the French coast. Why should that be? Would the Board of Trade say that we got value for our money? It was all very well to say that we had raised the light dues. Yes; but had they secured the economical administration of the Fund? Certainly he did not think that we got full value for our money, and he thought the time had come when we ought to deal with the question from a national point of view and insist on the perfect lighting of our coasts and the proper maintenance of the lights, together with the erection of new lights. His own opinion was that the whole of those matters should be administered by some Government Department, or by some other body directly responsible to the House of Commons. He did not propose to make any Motion at the present moment, but he would await anxiously the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, in order to ascertain why the promise of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year had not been fulfilled. When that explanation had been given he should be prepared to take such course of action as he might think fit.

said, he desired to ask for an explanation of an item of £156,000, which appeared in the Vote at page 176, in reference to Queenstown.

said, the item in question appeared, through a misprint, as if it had been on the Estimates for the year 1887–8; but that was not the fact. The item referred to the year in which certain charges were first put on the Mercantile Marine Fund, and did not refer to the last year. In regard to the remarks of the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. Craig), he thought the hon. Member was perfectly justified in asking him to give the Committee some account of the administration of the Mercantile Marine Fund, and in referring to the promise which was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year in regard to it. In the discussion which took place on this subject last year, the hon. Member for East Donegal (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) brought the condition of the Mercantile Marine Fund under the notice of the Committee. It was then pointed out that the Fund was practically in a state of bankruptcy, and the Government were asked to look into the matter, and to take some steps, either by lessening the expenditure or increasing the receipts, to restore it to a state of solvency. That was the point he thought to which the promise of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred. The Mercantile Marine Fund was only incidentally touched by the Vote now before the House. Under the Act 45 and 46 Vict. c. 55, certain charges, formerly borne by the Votes of that House, were imposed on the Mercantile Marine Fund, which was mainly derived, as the hon. Member opposite stated, from light dues. In return for the imposition of those charges a grant of £40,000 a-year was promised by the Treasury for five years, to recoup the Fund for the expenditure charged upon it. He might say upon that point, in passing, that the result had been anything but satisfactory to the Mercantile Marine Fund; the charges then imposed upon it were under-estimated by a considerable amount, and the Mercantile Marine Fund had lost £9,000 a-year by the arrangement. He should be glad if the Committee could assist him in persuading his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jackson) to look into the matter, with a view, if possible, of placing the Vote on the footing it was intended to occupy when the legislation of the 45 & 46 Vict. c. 55 was passed. He came now to the question of the financial condition of the Mercantile Marine Fund. In the year 1884 a reduction of no less than one-fourth of the amount of light dues paid was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain), who was then President of the Board of Trade. The Fund was then considerably in credit, and it was anticipated that the light dues would increase. He did not think, however, that sufficient allowance was made for the increase in the expenditure which subsequently arose. The result of that diminution of light dues was that in the subsequent years the Fund got heavily into debt. It appeared, from a statement he had before him, that in 1886–7 there was an excess of expenditure over income of £157,000. When he came into Office at the close of February last he found that in 1887–8 there was an excess of expenditure over income of £98,000, and that the defficiency of 1888–9 was estimated at the same sum. The deficits incurred had been made up by borrowing £250,000 from the Trustees of Greenwich Hospital, and a large portion of that money had been expended in making up the deficiency of the years 1886–7 and 1887–8. He did not wish to go back on the policy of his Predecessors. No doubt, the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Mundella), who would be able to speak for himself, had felt that, in spite of the condition of the Mercantile Marine Fund, there was a great difficulty in increasing the amount of the light dues, owing to the depressed condition of the shipping interest. He thought it a mistake that the light dues were not increased; and as soon as he came into Office he had to consider the promises which had been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and what course he ought to take in the matter. He soon decided that it was absolutely necessary that an increase should be made in the light dues for the current year. By an Order in Council, which took effect on the 1st of June last, the light dues were increased by adding to them half the amount taken off in 1884. The result would be that the deficiency in the accounts of the Fund for the year, instead of being £98,000, as estimated, would be less than £20,000; and from the natural increase of light dues there would be a balance to the good in 1889–90. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Craig) said they ought not merely to consider the receipts but the expenditure. He quite agreed with him, but he did not think that the hon. Member was correct in his interpretation of the answer which he quoted from the evidence of the Auditor General. Accounts were submitted to the Auditor General for the purpose of audit. The point to which the answer referred was, he thought, merely the expenses of the Trinity House in management, dinners, and matters of that kind. But it was asked why these details were not submitted. It was because the Trinity House had a private Fund of their own in no way subject to the Government, out of which they bore those expenses, with the exception of a small allow ance, also made to them, of £1,000 a-year. It was considered impossible, therefore, to call upon them to sub mit the accounts of that Fund to the Auditor General. So far, however, as the public receipts from the light dues and the expenditure of that Fund were concerned, he believed that the Auditor General had the matter fully before him, and that the results were published and submitted to Parliament. If anything could be done which would bring this subject more completely under the cognizance of the Auditor General he should be glad to see it done, because he agreed with the hon. Member that the expenditure of the Fund should be closely criticized, in order to see that the light dues were properly applied to the purposes for which they were intended. As to the administration of lights, he was not at present disposed to agree with the suggestion of the hon. Member that they should he administered by a Government Department, rather than by the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House, the Northern Lights Commissioners, and the Commissioners of Irish Lights. He very much doubted whether the lights would be better or more economically administered by any Government Department than by those who were at present intrusted with their care. Of this he was pretty clear—that, at any rate, one of his Predecessors of the Board of Trade, who entertained a strong opinion in accordance with that urged by the hon. Member, when he came to look fully into the matter was converted to the opposite view. He thought he had now answered the questions which had been asked by hon. Members opposite, and if any further information were required he should be very happy to give it.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had correctly stated to the House the position of the Mercantile Marine Fund, and it was deplorable that the Fund should have been allowed to fall into a practically bankrupt state as that in which it was in at the present moment; at the same time he must certainly refuse to take any responsibility for the condition of affairs when he was at the Board of Trade, because he found when he went there that the Estimates had been settled by his Predecessor and the Heads of the Departments, and the Treasury for the time being, and he had nothing to do but to submit them to the House. They had already been settled by the right hon. Gentleman himself, and no Estimates were submitted by the new Government. In respect of the old method, one thing was quite clear—that if the shipping of the country was to bear the heavy burden of the light dues, there ought to be some careful and accurate statements made up annually to show how the money was expended, and that the Fund was being economically administered. Grave doubts prevailed generally on that point in shipping circles. It was believed that the money was wastefully expended. He did not make any charge at all against the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House, and he did not know how far the shipping interest was satisfied with their administration; but at least they ought to be quite clear about it. There ought to be no keeping back of accounts. The accounts ought to be carefully audited, and subjected to the same criticisms as the other accounts submitted to Parliament. He did not quite understand how the right hon. Gentleman was justified in assuming that the paragraph from the Auditor General's Report did not apply to this Fund. The Comptroller and Auditor General said that he had not been made cognizant of the distribution of considerable sums allotted to those bodies. Surely the Auditor General ought to be cognizant of the matter, and the expenditure of these very considerable sums ought to be submitted to him and subjected to the same rigid scrutiny as all other public expenditure. It had always seemed to him that the lighting of our coasts was a National question, and in no other instance had the charge been placed on the shipping. It was most essential for the Admiralty itself that the lights should be efficiently maintained, yet he believed that the Admiralty contributed nothing towards the cost. At any rate, this was a most un satisfactory mode of managing the accounts, seeing that at one time they had a surplus collected from the Mercantile Marine Fund, and at another time a deficiency which had to be made up from the Consolidated Fund. He thought that what was required was some better system of administration. It ought to be administered in such a way that Parliament could obtain more complete information as to the contributions to the Fund and the mode in which the Fund itself was administered. He thought the whole matter was one which ought to be subjected to the strictest scrutiny at the hands of the House.

said, there was one point upon which he should like to say a word. He thought the right hon. Baronet the President of the Board of Trade was mistaken in the explanation he had given in regard to the answer of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Question put to him last year. The Question itself was put to the then Secretary to the Board of Trade (Baron Henry de Worms) in these terms—

"It has been been stated that an account is presented to this House showing the state of the Mercantile Marine Fund. I do not see where the cost of administering the lighthouses is stated."—(3 Hansard, [318] 1663.)

On that occasion the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in reply that—

"The question of the Mercantile Marine Fund is a matter which was brought to my attention some weeks ago,"

and then the right hon. Gentleman proceeded to give the other answer which he had already presented to the House.

said, he did not question the accuracy of the quotation made by the hon. Member from the evidence of the Comptroller and Auditor General. But if the hon. Member would refer to the evidence given by Sir Charles Ryan at a later date, on the 28th of June, he would find that the Chairman asked Sir Charles whether, on the whole, he was satisfied; and the answer was—

"I am satisfied that the main principle on which the Comptroller and Auditor General was appointed was that he should have full accounts submitted to him of the expenditure. That I believe has been done, but there are other arrangements which did not come so fully under his cognizance. However, so far as I am able to form an opinion, I am quite satisfied with the arrangement the Board of Trade has made."

said, the damaging statements contained in the Report of the Auditor General were that considerable sums of money were paid out of a Fund over which he had no control, and that he had not audited them.

said, the accounts in question were paid out of private property.

asked, whether the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House published any accounts, and whether such accounts were accessible to the House?

said, he could only answer that Question to this extent. The accounts of the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House, to which reference was made, which were not audited, and which were not to be audited, and which, so far as he knew, were not furnished to Parliament, related only to certain small items concerning small expenses incident to the management of the business of the Elder Brethren. It had been argued, after the Comptroller and Auditor General had called attention to the matter, that in future a certain sum should be set aside, and placed at the disposal of the Elder Brethren for these purposes. It was, however, limited distinctly to a certain sum. So far as the accounts themselves were concerned, the general accounts for lighting, &c., they were all submitted to the Secretary to the Treasury, and forwarded to the Public Accounts Committee. The hon. Member would find in the evidence taken on the last Committee that the Auditor General expressed himself quite satisfied, not only with the general accounts, but also as to the propriety of the arrangement that had been made in reference to those items.

Are those accounts published?

No.

said, he wished to pursue this matter a little further. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade said, in reply to a Question which he (Mr. Molloy) had put, that the money which was spent was the private property of the Corporation. He wished to know where that private property came from? Did it come from subscriptions and private contributions of individual members, or how did it arise? If it did not arise from private subscriptions, he did not see what excuse could be made for keeping the accounts secret. It was evidently a large sum of money which was expended, over which they were told that they were to have no control, or to know anything. He maintained that if they were not private contributions given by individual members, the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House had no right to keep the accounts secret, or to spend the money in feasting, which, the Committee was told, they did to a considerable extent. He, therefore, asked why the distribution of the money arising from that property was not made public, and audited so that Parliament could have some control over it, or, at any rate, offer some advice upon it? The least they were entitled to know was the source from which the money arose.

said, that no answer had been given by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade to the very grave statements made by the hon. Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark) as to the complaint that merchant seamen were discharged in India, and, when discharged, were paid off at the rate of 2s. per rupee. It was the duty of the Board of Trade to protect our seamen, and to see that no injustice was done to them. He presumed that the statement of the hon. Member was made after careful inquiry; therefore he thought that some answer was due, and that some explanation was necessary. If such a practice existed, it was certainly a great scandal, and it was the duty of the Board of Trade to call the attention of the shipowners to such an infraction of the law. Everybody knew that the officials in India were paid in rupees; but then the engagement and contract was made in rupees. The merchant seamen were dealt with very differently. It now seemed that they were paid off in India at the rate of 2s. a rupee, whereas the value of the rupee was only 1s. 5d. or 1s. 4½d. If they were paid in gold, they would be able to obtain cash according to the currency of the country. He hoped that the matter would not be passed over in silence.

said, that he should be very sorry to pass it over. The difficulty was that the seamen signed a contract note to the effect that any sum due to them in wages in the event of their being discharged in India should be paid at the rate of 2s. per rupee. What he had endeavoured to do was to warn seamen, so far as he could, not to sign such a contract note at all; but to insist upon being paid in India at the proper rate of exchange.

said, that, in his opinion, to call that practice by its right name it was little short of a swindle.

said, the facts had been placed before hon. Members in Blue Books, and he had been somewhat astonished that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had not said anything about it. Perhaps the best course would be to move the reduction of the Vote, in order that be might take the opinion of the Committee upon the matter. In the first place he was prepared to admit that the Peninsular and Oriental Company and other large Companies did prepare a contract note which the seamen were supposed to hear read before they signed it; but everybody who knew anything about the matter knew that a clerk mumbled something of which nobody knew the purport, and the seamen afterwards signed it without knowing what it was about. If they did know, they invariably thought that it was not likely to affect them. It was under such circumstances that a seaman signed a note; the ship left this country, and on its arrival in India he found that it was necessary for him to go into hospital, and then when he was discharged, and the ship went away, instead of obtaining wages at the rate of £3 a month as it was agreed to be paid, he was only paid £2 a month, owing to being paid, not in gold, but in a depreciated currency. He thought that in this matter the Board of Trade ought to have carried out the wish of the Indian Government, who had asked Her Majesty's Government to pass a short Bill to compel the seamen to be paid off when discharged at the current rate. It was the red-tapeism of the Board of Trade, both under the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) and others, which had prevented that being done. From time to time during the last seven or eight years the Bombay Government, in particular, had petitioned the Government in India on the subject, and the Government of India had sent Memoranda to the Board of Trade asking them to do something, but hitherto nothing had been done. The Indian Government complained that these poor people were placed on their hands. Now, under the Truck Act an employer was prevented from paying for labour in kind, and under that Act this occurrence could not have happened. Whenever a seaman was left behind in India he was swindled by the shipowner, and the Board of Trade did nothing to protect him, and the result was that a sum of £30,000 had to be contributed by the State in order to enable distressed seamen to be brought back home. His only object in calling attention to the question was to ask the Government to prevent such a disgraceful scandal in the future. He had called attention to the difference between the fees for surveys and the sums which were paid for such surveys. In 1885–6 the expenditure was £55,000, while the survey fees only amounted to £33,000, leaving a deficiency of £22,000. The same thing occurred in 1886–7, when the survey fees amounted to £24,000, and the salaries and expenses to £57,200, showing a difference of £33,000. He, therefore, thought he was justified in mentioning the circumstance, and maintaining that the survey fees ought to bear the whole cost of the survey. He regretted to say that under this Vote the Committee were unable to get any information in regard to the survey. The public work done by the State purported to be done by fees, but in this instance it was done partly by a grant from Parliament. He thought that it should be done entirely by fees, and that the public, who got the benefit of the work, should pay the cost.

said, he was sorry to say that whatever might be the effect of charging insufficient survey fees, when they came to consider the expense of the surveys, the Government had no power to raise the fees while the law remained as it was now. At present the fees were, with one or two exceptions, as high as they were authorized to be charged by the existing law; whether the law should be altered in order to enable higher fees to be charged was another question, and he promised to give consideration to it. On the other hand, he hoped the hon. Member would not divide the Committee. Nothing could be done by the Board of Trade with respect to the payment of wages of the exchange value of 2s. per rupee unless Parliament invested the Board of Trade with power to interfere. The hon. Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark) accused him and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) of red-tapeism in the matter, but the hon. Member had himself admitted that it was impossible for the Government to insist that the seamen should be paid in any other way after they had signed the contract note. So far as the law at present stood, they could do no more than they had done already—namely, endeavour to warn the seamen against the contract note.

said, the same hardship was suffered with respect to the Mexican, Chinese, and other currencies. He thought that a short Act might be easily passed to remedy the evil, by compelling payment to be made at the current rate for the time being.

said, there was one point in the questions he had put to the President of the Board of Trade which the right hon. Gentleman had not answered, and that was, why the Grant in Aid was kept at exactly the same proportion—namely, £40,000, while the receipts were estimated to be considerably in excess of what they were in previous years? He might call attention to the fact that, by the Act under which the payment of £40,000 had been sanctioned for the last five years, it was stated that the accounts of the Mercantile Marine Fund should be deemed Public Accounts, and examined and audited accordingly. The last Report of the Auditor General complained that no details were furnished as to the expenditure incurred by the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House, the Northern Lights Commissioners, and the Commissioners of Irish Lights, nor was he cognizant of the expenditure of considerable sums allocated by those Bodies. He contended that full accounts ought to be furnished, and that under the Act of Parliament they were entitled to demand them. It was clearly the intention of the Act that they should be furnished.

said, that an account of the Mercantile Marine Fund was furnished every year, and he thought the hon. Gentleman could not have been in the House when he had entered into an explanation of the matter. He understood the statement of the Auditor General to be qualified by a later statement, from which it appeared that all that was not submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor General was the private expenditure of the Trinity House in entertainments and other matters. That expenditure, with the exception which he had mentioned, was defrayed out of their private funds, and not from money derived from lights. With respect to the £40,000, the sum was fixed for five years, and the period expired last Session, when the accounts ought to have been balanced. The Treasury, however, did not take the same view of the question as he did. He would endeavour to put the matter on a better footing before the next Estimates were framed.

said, that the Treasury stated that they had no control over this Vote.

said, that in rising to oppose this Vote he must say it appeared to him a monstrous thing that in a country like this they should have a grant for Secret Service at all. It was more monstrous when they remembered the fact that when, some years ago, a sum of £10,000, charged upon the Consolidated Fund, and since taken off by Parliament, was in full swing, the amount of the Secret Service money was absolutely less than it was now—that was to say, that the total for Secret Service charged separately on the Estimates, with this sum of £10,000 added, was much less than the sum the Committee were now asked to vote. The Vote showed a decrease of £10,000 on the sum they were asked to vote last year, but it was still many thousands more than it was even 10 years ago; and he thought it was not too much to ask what Department had the spending of the money, and why it should be possible to put such a question as that which was put to the Government early in the evening by his hon. Colleague (Mr. Labouchere). There ought not to be a possibility of suggesting that some Department used the money of the nation outside the knowledge of Parliament and beyond its control. Certainly, such a matter was one on which Parliament ought to express an opinion. It was not true that what was called Secret Service money had never been examined into by Parliament. There was one notable instance on record in the Journals of the House where very high personages were dealt with for the misappropriation of Secret Service money. Nothing of that kind, of course, was likely to occur in these times of straightforward honesty; but one would like to know what Secret Service money was intended for. If it were used by the Foreign Office, let there be a special record of the sum placed at the disposal of the Foreign Office; if it were required by the Home Office, let there be a similar record in regard to the Home Department. He objected to the putting down of one general amount when one Minister alone might have the disposal of it, so far as the House of Commons knew, and he protested against the Committee of Supply being asked to vote this Estimate blindly year after year. It used to be said that the £10,000 charged on the Consolidated. Fund was as necessary as any other part of the Secret Service money. But under the pressure of public opinion that sum was withdrawn, and it was then found that it was not necessary at all. He had heard that even within the last eight years the Secret Service money had been employed in bringing Members up to that House to vote. He should not have thought that the assertion could be true if he had not been told that one of the Members himself had boasted that he had his railway fare paid out of this Fund. Even then he was inclined to believe that the Member in question made a vainglorious boast that had not the slightest foundation, because he could not think any Minister would sanction such an improper transaction. The occasion was a Division in which, personally, he had taken considerable interest, although he was not allowed to take part in the proceedings of the House at the time. On another occasion, it was alleged that a portion of the Secret Service money was employed in connection with an election scrutiny. If money was to be paid at all for secret service, it ought to be paid openly so far as the Departments which employed it were concerned. He intended to divide the Committee against the Vote as a matter of principle. He thought, when the matter was under discussion last year, that there was some disposition on the part of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jackson) to state what portions of this Fund were paid to particular Offices. He saw no reason why such information should not be given. He did not suppose that much of it found its way to the Board of Trade, or that that Department was ever likely to deal with Secret Service money. But it ought not to be possible for any hon. Member like himself, who happened to be of a suspicious turn of mind, to suppose that the right hon. Baronet the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) could over have any portion of the £40,000 voted in the shape of Secret Service money placed at his disposal.

asked if the hon. Member moved the reduction of the Vote?

said, he made no Motion. He opposed the whole Vote.

said, he had waited in the expectation of seeing some Member on the Treasury Bench get up to defend the Vote, and he only interposed because he saw that the Chairman was about to put it without a word of explanation from the Government. He did not go quite as far as his hon. Colleague in his objection to this Vote. He would not say absolutely that there ought to be no Secret Service money paid, but he agreed with his hon. Colleague that the Secret Service money ought to appear on the special Votes of the Departments which spent it. There used to be a notion that all the Secret Service money was spent by the Foreign Office; but he thought that notion was pretty well dissipated at the present moment, and it would be found that very little was spent in the Foreign Office. His hon. Colleague had just stated that it occurred, only a short time ago, that a Member of that House—he (Mr. Labouchere) presumed a Conservative or a Unionist—received his railroad expenses for coming up to that House to vote. A distinct charge was, therefore, made. Was there to be any investigation into it? Was the Vote to be passed without any explanation whatever? He had often heard it said about this Secret Service money that in days when the Irish Party were not united, as they were now, it was employed in securing the votes of the Irish Members by paying what was called their "expenses" in coming over to this country to vote for a particular measure. The Irishman was round the corner, but he used to write to say that he was at Galway, or Heaven knew where, and could not appear until his expenses were paid. The money was given to the man round the corner, and the Irish Member soon made his appearance in the House. There had been all sorts of abuses in regard to the employment of this Secret Service money, and, without insisting on knowing how every penny of it was spent, the Committee ought to know by what Department it was spent. He was now about to make another assertion. Hon. Members on the other side of the House would remember the numerous occasions on which O'Donovan Rossa had been abused in that House. It was said to be perfectly monstrous that O'Donovan Rossa should be receiving money here, there, and everywhere for the purchase of dynamite to destroy the Government of England. Now, he was prepared to assert, without fear of the Government being able to show that he was wrong—he was prepared to assert that Secret Service money was, at that very time, actually being given to O'Donovan Rossa, and that the funds which hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Benches opposite complained of being given to O'Donovan Rossa were supplemented by contributions from the Secret Service Fund by Her Majesty's Government themselves.

What was the date?

said, he made a general statement, and left the Go- vernment to deny it. Would they grant an investigation into the charge? Would they appoint a Special Commission? Not a bit of it. There could be no doubt that money had been expended in this way, nor could the fact be doubted that it had been thrown away. As his hon. Friend had stated, up to a few years ago the Secret Service Vote was supplemented by the payment of a sum of £10,000 out of the Consolidated Fund. That sum of £10,000 had now been docked off. It was never denied that the money was spent by each political Party, when in power, for its own Party purposes. As each was tarred by the same brush the abuse was allowed to remain, until his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James), with his stern independence, belled the cat. [An hon. MEMBER: It was the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill).] He believed he was right in asserting that it was the right hon. and learned Member for Bury, supported by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington, who came forward to bell the cat, and put a stop to this gross abuse. The consequence was a saving of £10,000 a-year. Personally, he desired to have some explanation of the sum which appeared in the Estimates this year under the head of Secret Service money. He wished to be informed if there was any reason in the world why it should not be put down in the Votes of each of the Departments to which it was paid under the head of "Secret Service?" Parliament would then know, in a general sort of way, what each Department spent. At present they knew nothing whatever about it.

said, there was one aspect of the question which was an exceedingly serious one, but which had not yet been brought before the Committee. When the discussion upon this Vote took place in Committee of Supply two years ago, it was found that the Secret Service money voted by Parliament had been set aside by each Party in turn, to a considerable extent, for its own electioneering purposes. When that fact transpired much indignation was expressed on both sides of the House that such misuse had been made of the Secret Service money of the country. How stood the matter at this moment? Every Minister who spent any portion of the Secret Service money voted by the House had to make a declaration that it had been spent for what he considered to be for the benefit of the State. The Comptroller and Auditor General touched upon that matter in his Report this year. He stated that the documents transmitted to the Exchequer and Audit Department in connection with this Vote consisted simply of the amounts which had been expended by the Officers of the State. In his Report upon the Public Accounts of the year 1884–5 the Auditor General stated that he was unable to accept the statement of the Minister as satisfactory proof of payment under the provisions of the Exchequer and Audit Department, and, for a similar reason, this year he was unable to certify to the correctness of the present account. He (Mr. Molloy) considered that this was a very serious aspect of affairs. It was distinctly stated that the accounts of money voted by that House for Secret Service of the most dangerous character in the hands of any Government, and which ought to be submitted to the Auditor General and audited year after year, were so unsatisfactorily presented that the Auditor General was unable to certify as to their correctness. Now, what did this mean? It meant that the whole control of the House of Commons over the expenditure of the Secret Service money had ceased to exist. The object of the audit was to prevent any misuse being made of it. Under this condition Parliament had, year after year, granted this money, and yet, year after year, the Comptroller and Auditor General told them that he was dissatisfied with the accounts sent in, and he refused to certify them. That fact, he thought, was serious enough, as far as it went; but the object of the Auditor General's certificate was this. It was admitted by Parliament, generally, that under certain circumstances, which had arisen from time to time, it was necessary to spend money for the benefit of the State, and to spend it secretly. In order to check the misuse of the money, Parliament had insisted upon this condition being attached to the Vote—that the certificate of the Minister by whom the money had been spent should be submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor General, and passed by him. Did the House of Commons intend to continue going on to vote the money while the Government declined—he desired the Committee clearly to understand that he did not speak of any one Government in particular—while the Government declined to give any account in accordance with the conditions and agreement made with the House when the money was voted? He had said, when the subject came up in that House two or three years ago, that great indignation was expressed on both sides when it was discovered that the money had been used for electioneering purposes, and there was a clear understanding that no such gross misuse of the Secret Service money was to take place again. A form of certificate was prepared, and that form of certificate was assumed by the House to mean that the misuse of the Secret Service money for electioneering purposes would never occur again. What was the form of the certificate? He was sorry that he had not got a copy of it with him; but it was a declaration by the Minister that the portion of the Secret Service money spent by him had been spent, in his opinion, for the benefit of the State. Some hon. Members might remember a speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer two or three years ago. The right hon. Gentleman, in addressing some enthusiastic Unionists, informed them that the salvation of the Empire depended upon himself and his Colleagues remaining in Office. That was the opinion which, no doubt, the right hon. Gentleman still held, and might be pretty accurate from the right hon. Gentleman's point of view. No doubt it was an opinion that was expressed honestly, and that if another Ministry were in power to-morrow a similar statement might be made from the same conscientious conviction. If it were a fact that the salvation of the country depended upon the Tory Party—for that was the Party with which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was serving in Office—then he maintained that under the certificate which a Minister who employed Secret Service money had to send to the Auditor General in which he declared that he was perfectly satisfied with the way in which the money had been spent, there was nothing to prevent it from being used in contesting seats throughout the country. It might be said that in the course of the debate there was an agreement that that was not to be. Quite true; but what had the Judges said two or three weeks ago in regard to a very public case, and the debates of that House? The learned Judges said they knew nothing of the debates which took place in the House of Commons; but that it was their duty to construe according to the language of the Act of Parliament. Therefore, he said that any Minister, without any dishonour to himself, could construe the form of certificate to mean that he was absolutely justified either in paying, out of this Fund, the expenses of his own election, or in paying the expenses of a contested election for any other Tory candidate who wished to enter Parliament. Under the circumstances, he thought the Committee would be acting wrong if there were not some more distinct and clear understanding and arrangement about the employment of the Secret Service money than would exist if they consented to pass the Vote as it stood. In regard to agreements made in that House, they were as much bound by the letter of the certificate as they were by the letter of an Act of Parliament. It had been shown that in the first instance the Auditor General had refused to accept the certificate, and had applied to Parliament to assist him in the matter, so that proper control might be had over the expenditure. It was further believed that the practices which caused so much indignation, two or three years ago, as to the misuse of this Fund for Party electioneering purposes, existed now to as great an extent as they ever did. It was of no use for a Minister to rise in that House and say that it was no such thing. He could not bind others. There might be a change of sides in the House; many things might happen; and, therefore, they were bound to have such a cut and dried agreement with regard to the expenditure of the Secret Service money as would prevent any gross abuse in future.

said, the hon. and learned Member for King's County would perhaps pardon him if he said that the hon. and learned Member had confused in his mind two Funds. He had spoken—and the whole of his speech had been directed to the same point—as if the Secret Service money the Committee was now asked to vote might be used by the Minister for electioneering purposes. He entirely agreed with the hon. and learned Member that if any of this money was used for electioneering purposes such use would be not only immoral, but dishonest. When his noble Friend the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) was Chancellor of the Exchequer the possibility of that occurring was put an end to. Under his noble Friend's instructions, he (Mr. Jackson) had brought in a Bill which put an end to the sum of £10,000, which had hitherto been borne, not upon this Vote but upon the Consolidated Fund, and which could be spent, and had been unquestionably used, for electioneering purposes. His noble Friend decided that the money should no longer be so used and that the practice should cease, and consequently that sum of £10,000 was not brought under the cognizance of Parliament every year. As a matter of fact the Fund of £10,000 had ceased to exist, and none of the money now voted could be spent in electioneering purposes. The hon. and learned Member had referred to the certificate of the Minister through whose Department the money passed, and which he had said the Comptroller and Auditor General declined to accept. He might point out to the Committee that with regard to the certificate it was a question which had been in dispute, or in abeyance, more or less for two or three years; and the Government were of opinion that some arrangement ought to be made to meet, as far as possible, the Comptroller and Auditor General's views. As he understood, the objection of the Comptroller and Auditor General was not that he had reason to doubt that the expenditure had taken place on the part of certain Ministers, but that from an Auditor's point of view he could not accept the form of the certificate as a sufficient justification for passing the accounts, and therefore could give no voucher to Parliament in reference to the expenditure. This was precisely one of the cases in which, when the Government, upon its responsibility, came forward and said it was necessary that a certain sum of money should be placed at their disposal in the interests of the State, only to be used when the details could not be placed upon the Votes, the Government must appeal to the House of Commons to support it. The new form of certificate, however, had been laid before the Public Accounts Committee this year, and it must be borne in mind that the Public Accounts Committee was a Committee appointed by the House, and that Committee had reported upon it. Their Report was to this effect—that in reference to the Secret Service money, the Treasury had proposed that the Minister should be responsible for the expenditure, and should be required to give a new form of certificate as follows:—

"I hereby certify that the amount expended in Secret Service under my directions was so much, and the balance in my hands on the 31st of March was so much; and I further solemnly declare that the interests of the Public Service required the above payments out of the Secret Service Fund, and that they were properly so made.

In their Report the Public Accounts Committee said that the Comptroller and Auditor General had not yet expressed his opinion on the sufficiency of the new form—in all probability he would do so on the first opportunity; but, considering the nature of the service for which the expenditure was incurred, they were disposed to consider that the certificate, as amended, answered all reasonable Parliamentary requirements. He thought, therefore, the Government had shown that they had been most anxious to bring this question into a proper position. They had done all that they could, and, at all events, they had satisfied the Public Accounts Committee that what they had proposed was reasonable.

said, he was sorry to obtrude himself again; but the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury appeared to have missed the whole point of the observations he had addressed to the Committee. He made no charge against any Minister—that was not his object at all—but he contended that from the form in which the certificate was drawn it might be conscientiously subscribed to by any Minister who had used the money for Party purposes.

No.

said, he would ask the hon. Gentleman to point out what there was in it to prevent him? If the Minister considered, as he might fairly and honestly consider, that a particular purpose was for the benefit of the Public Service, even if it included elections in the interest of his own Party, he could honestly, under the certificate, spend the money in that way. What he maintained was, that there ought to be something in the declaration which would have the effect of preventing the possibility of any future misuse of the money, and there should be a distinct declaration that it had not been used for Party purposes. They knew that it had been used by every Government for Party purposes in the past, and to avoid that abuse in the future he would suggest that some words should be inserted in the certificate which should make it clear that the Secret Service money had not been used in any sense for Party purposes.

said, he rose to move to reduce the salaries of the Law Officers of the Crown by £4,000—namely, the Attorney General (for non-contentious business) £2,000, and the Solicitor General (for non-contentious business) £2,000. This reduction was one which he had proposed last year; but at that time the Committee was not prepared to give effect to his views. He did not oppose the Vote from any personal or Party motive. He should have been just as much in favour of reducing the salary of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hackney (Sir Charles Russell), if he had happened to hold the Office, or that of any other Attorney General, as of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite; because he thought the English Government paid their Law Officers "not wisely," but very much too well. He did not think the public were really aware of the amount of the emoluments the Law Officers of the Crown received. He presumed that he would not be in Order if he were to refer to the Scotch and Irish Votes in this connection. He would therefore leave the task to the Scotch and Irish Members, who, no doubt, at the proper time, would discuss the Votes for their respective countries. At the present moment he proposed to confine himself to the consideration of that part of the English Vote which related to the salaries of the Attorney and Solicitor General. About 50 years ago the salary was abolished by the Whig Government of the day when they were economizing on every hand. The Government cut down the salaries, and allowed the Law Officers to be paid on the ordinary scale for such work as they were asked to do for the Government, and so economical were the Government that they refused to allow their Law Officers to use Government stationery, but compelled them to provide their own pens, ink, and paper. To such a degree was this course pursued, that "Honest Jack Campbell," who was then in Office, complained bitterly of being condemned perpetually to the Office of Solicitor General, "with its scanty emoluments," and added to that the further grievance—a somewhat odd one for a Whig—that he had "to find an independent seat in Parliament" for himself. The emoluments rapidly increased as the work increased, and in 1871 Mr. Lowe, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, changed the mode of payment by a stroke of the pen, altered the system of payment, and curtailed the emoluments. He instituted a system of fixed salary for so-called "non-contentious business," with fees, in addition, for "contentious business." The principle upon which Mr. Lowe had acted was practically confirmed by a Departmental Committee, which sat some six years later. It now appeared from the Return which he held in his hand, and which was referred to early in the evening by his right hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler)—a Return which he had moved for on the 9th of July, but which was not yet either printed or distributed—it appeared from the Return that the amounts paid to the Law Officers were considerably greater than had appeared from the information which he had had in his possession last year, when he made a similar Motion. From this Return, which he thought would considerably astonish the Committee, he found that the total annual emoluments of the Attorney General, on an average of 10 years, was £11,375, made up of a fixed salary of £7,000, and average emoluments from fees for "contentious work" of no less than £4,375. He found that the average emoluments of the Solicitor General amounted year by year to £8,900, so that the average yearly sum paid to those two Law Officers of the Crown amounted to no less than a sum of over £20,000. Secretaries of State and the Prime Minister were only paid at the rate of £5,000 a-year; and it did seem to he a very great disproportion indeed to pay an Attorney General nearly £12,000 a-year, and the chief Secretaries of State only £5,000. In the course of the debate last Session, the Attorney General, replying to his remarks, practically admitted the great discrepancy, but proposed to remedy it, not by reducing the salaries of the Attorney and Solicitor General, but by raising the salaries of the Prime Minister and the Secretaries of State up to the level of that the Attorney General. In these democratic days, he (Mr. Buxton) thought that the House of Commons would consider a great many times before they assented to such a proposal as that; and he, for one—for once not in accordance with the traditions of the Liberal Party—proposed to level, not up, but down, in the matter of official salaries. Again, not only did the Attorney General receive a salary and emoluments which amounted to £12,000 a-year, while the Prime Minister received only £5,000 a-year, but there was a further great disproportion in the mode of payment. For the salary received by the Prime Minister and Secretaries of State, they were supposed to, and practically did, devote the whole of their time to the Public Service; while the Attorney and Solicitor General, in addition to receiving salaries for what he might call the ornamental, and payment at the ordinary rate for the useful, part of their work, were allowed to take as much private practice as they liked, in addition, during their official life. He did not wish to dwell upon the serious evils which must lately have forced themselves upon the minds of every Member of the House in that connection. He believed his hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. P. Stanhope) intended to raise this question and discuss it from the aspect which it had recently assumed; and he would not, therefore, dwell upon that particular feature of the case, but would only say in connection with it that while he, for one—and he thought he might speak for every other Member of the House in respect to that matter—was not disposed to blame the present holder of the Office for that which had arisen, it was nothing less than a grave scandal that the official adviser of the Government should take part in a case which was really and to the fullest extent of a political nature. No doubt the hon. and learned Gentleman had merely followed what had been the tradition of the Offices of Attorney and Solicitor General, and he did not wish to blame the hon. and learned Member, but he thought it was high time that this system of allowing the Law Officers to retain their private practice, while they were paid large salaries for undertaking public work, ought to be brought to an end. The hon. and learned Attorney General might be "like Cerberus, two gentlemen at once," but he did not think the hon. and learned Gentleman ought to have two personalities where the duties of his Office were concerned. Putting aside the question of the political aspect of the case, surely it was not right that the private interests and the public duties of a public official should come in such acute conflict, as they necessarily must do in the case of our Law Officers, who, although paid considerable salaries for devoting themselves to the public service, at the same time were able to take private work for which they were paid in addition, and which they could only carry on by, to a great extent, neglecting their public duties. Take the case of the Royal Commission which was now sitting. Was it physically pos- sible for the present hon. and learned Attorney General, who, day after day, week after week, month after month, had to devote his time and attention to a great case in the Law Courts, to give that time and attention to his public duties which we, who are paying him a salary of £7,000 a-year, are entitled to demand at his hands? Sir Richard Baggallay, who was Attorney General at the time, gave evidence before the Committee of 1877, and said that he was strongly of opinion that any Attorney General who desired to fully discharge the duties of his Office must give up his private practice, at any rate while Parliament was sitting. It would seem that some 60 or 70 years ago an Attorney General of that time, Sir Stephen Shepherd, did absolutely give up his private practice in order that he might visit the various Departments and devote the whole of his time to the duties of his Office. That state of things was, however, as Campbell put it, "corrected" by Sir James Scarlett and others, and unfortunately it was not now in force. They were told that if the Attorney and the Solicitor General were forced to give up their private practice they would have to be paid a larger salary than they received at present. But he did not believe that, paying as they did on the average to those two Law Officers something like £20,000 a-year, they could really come to Parliament and say that the loss would be so great in giving up their private practice that their salaries ought to be increased. In the debate in that House last Session, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton said very truly that they could not buy champagne at the price of small beer; but they were paying at present such a very large salary that they could obtain the services of the best man in reference to these particular Offices. It seemed to be thought by some that the proposal which he now made was so revolutionary, and would reduce the Attorney General to such an impecunious position, that it would be impossible to obtain the services of good men. It appeared to be supposed that his proposal was to put the Office up to tender and to accept the lowest bid for it. But even if his proposal were adopted, the average emoluments of the two Offices would still be some £16,000 or £17,000 a-year; and he did not think that was too small an amount to ask those gentlemen to take for discharging the duties. It was quite possible that it might entail a certain pecuniary loss for the Attorney General to accept the Office; but he would ask the Committee whether political life did not mean a pecuniary loss to every one of the Members of the House? He did not see why the lawyers alone should be entitled to plead the sacrifices they made for the service of their country. He did not say that everyone who came into that House was actuated by the highest motives. They were actuated by different motives; some by ambition, some by a desire for advertisement, some by the belief that the House of Commons was a very good club, whereas, as a matter of fact, it was the worst and most expensive club in the world. But whatever might be the motives by which they were actuated, he thought there was no class except the Legal Profession, who, by their own admission, were in any way actuated by pecuniary motives in entering those doors. He put aside the class of "guinea pigs," because, no doubt, some men came there to give their valuable services to Boards of Directors, and to gain some pecuniary advantage by having "M.P." added to their names; but, putting that class aside, he did not believe that any other class in that House made anything out of politics, and he did not see why lawyers should be the only class who desired to make something out of politics. His hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General (Sir Edward Clarke), in a speech which he delivered not very long ago, in regard to a fusion of the two branches of the Legal Profession, had stated that there were 115 offices of an aggregate value of £300,000 a year, to which the branch of the Profession to which he belonged could obtain access, and to most of those offices the easiest access was through the doors of that House. In addition to that there were the Attorney Generalship, the Solicitor Generalship, the Judgeships, and also the very highest Office in the Realm—that of Keeper of the Queen's Conscience. Now, it seemed to him that they treated their lawyers rather as spoilt children. Not only were all those pecuniary advantages, by obtaining a seat in that House, open to that particular class, but for some reason, which he did not appreciate, the lawyers were allowed to get off all the hard work of Private Bill Committees, while their work in connection with other Committees was lightened as far as possible. The result of all this was—and he thought it was the unanimous opinion of other Members—that they had too many lawyers in the House, and that it would be a good thing if they had rather fewer of them. Now, he did not think so meanly of the class of lawyers as they seemed to think of themselves. He did not believe that the Attorney or the Solicitor General was actuated entirely by the question of emoluments in accepting Office. He believed that they looked at other considerations besides—that they recognized that it was a high honour to hold their Offices, and that by holding them they were doing a great service to the country. He believed, therefore, that if we paid our Law Officers a somewhat reduced salary, we should still retain the services of the best men, and, at all events, secure men who were quite competent to do the work that had to be done. In the debate last year the hon. and learned Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) did hit on what he (Mr. Sydney Buxton) thought was a considerable blot in the present system. He stated that his was the only Department in which there was no permanent staff, and the result was that Attorney General after Attorney General, going quite new to the work, had to pick it up as he best could, and was placed in a position of great disadvantage in consequence of that state of things. He gathered from the remarks of the hon. and learned Gentleman that he suggested it would be a good plan that there should be a permanent office connected with the Attorney General, with a permanent staff of clerks, who would be able to give advice to the successive holders of the office, and place them in such a position that they would be able to take up the thread of the work at the place where their predecessor had left off. But even if Parliament accepted that proposal and created this office, he did not think the actual pecuniary advantage to the Attorney General would be very great. There was some inconvenience to him, no doubt, in not being able to carry on the work with the aid of permanent officials, but the actual ex- penditure which the absence of permanent clerks entailed would not be more than £200 or £300 a-year. Lastly, he thought there was this most important point involved in the question. He believed that the fact that we paid such very high salaries to our Law Officers tended to keep up the cost of law and of justice in this country. The special fees given to the Attorney General tended to raise the general standard of fees; and, to his mind, one of the chief scandals of the day was that law was the luxury of the rich, instead of being the protection of the poor. In conclusion he trusted the Committee would understand that in moving the reduction he did not desire at all to aim at the present holders of these Offices; and if his object would be better gained by moving, in order to raise the principle, a mere nominal reduction he would do so, instead of moving the large reduction of which he had given Notice. If in the course of the debate that suggestion were made he would be glad to adopt it, and to move a reduction of £5 or £100, or some other nominal sum. Until, however, the suggestion was made, the Motion he intended to submit to the House was that the salary of the Attorney General should be reduced by £2,000, and that of the Solicitor General by £2,000.

said, that before the hon. and learned Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) rose to reply he desired, upon this Vote, to refer to a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews) that afternoon. He should be glad if the hon. and learned Gentleman would give the Committee, without fee, the advantage of his legal opinion on the point which he (Mr. Bradlaugh) had raised upon the Truck Act [Cries of "Order!"] He respectfully submitted that the hon. and learned Attorney General was the responsible Law Officer of the Crown, and the hon. and learned Gentleman had himself, on this question on Friday last, expressed an opinion upon the construction of the Act. He believed he was perfectly regular in challenging the answer which the hon. and learned Attorney General gave on Friday.

Does the hon. Member desire to question the hon. and learned Attorney General on a special legal point?

said, he wished, in discussing the question of the hon. and learned Gentleman's salary, to find fault with the hon. and learned Attorney General, as the responsible Law Officer of the Crown, for having apparently misled the Home Office by an incorrect construction of an Act of Parliament.

The hon. Member holds out an alarming prospect to the Committee by that intimation.

I do not understand you to say that I must not challenge the opinion of the hon. and learned Gentleman. I would ask whether it is competent for me to do what I have indicated upon this Vote?

I think it would be an abuse for the hon. Gentleman to do so.

The moment you say that I will say nothing further.

said, he regretted that no Member of the Government had risen to answer the very able speech of the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Sydney Buxton). He wished to repeat, in the first instance, the complaint he had made at Question time, that the Return as to these emoluments had not been placed in the hands of Members before the discussion. He quite understood, as the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) had stated, that the Government were not responsible for the delay in the printing; but the Government were aware that this debate was coming on, and that the Return was not printed. Here they had a Return ordered on the 9th of July to be laid on the Table of the House, and it had been presented on the first day of the re-assembling of the House. He thought there ought to be some controlling authority over the printing of the House, in order that a short Return, which might be printed in a single night, might be placed in the hands of hon. Members. The consequence of the delay in this instance was that he would have to read the Return to the House, and he intended to do so, because the figures were very misleading. His hon. Friend had only given the figures as they appeared, but it was greatly to be regretted that owing to the carelessness which had taken place somewhere—he did not say where—in reference to this Return, he should be obliged to trouble the Committee with the whole of the figures. He was not going to follow his hon. Friend (Mr. Sydney Buxton) in his attack on the Legal Profession. The criticism of his hon. Friend was of a sort that was frequently passed upon lawyers. He did not know that the Legal Profession were in the habit of saying that there were other classes of Members who were too numerous in that House; but it always was a taunt flung at the Legal Profession that they were too numerous there, and that the House would be glad to get rid of them; but he would tell his hon. Friend that that was a question which rested with another body to decide—namely, the constituencies themselves. The argument was always used whenever a legal gentleman became a candidate; but if the constituencies chose to send a number of legal gentlemen to the House of Commons, the responsibility rested solely upon them. The point he wished to submit to the careful consideration of the Committee was, first, that the remuneration which the country paid to its Law Advisors was such as to justify it in requiring that these officers should give the whole of their time to the Public Service. His second proposition was this—that the public legal business of Her Majesty's Government was of that magnitude that if it was to be properly and efficiently discharged it would occupy the whole of the time of the Law Officers of the Crown. The Return which he had before him went back as far as 10 years ago, and showed the remuneration which was paid to the Law Officers from 1878 to 1887. He was sorry to say that it had not come down to the present year 1887–8; but, at the same time, that would enable them to discuss the question with more freedom, because any remarks which might be founded upon the Return would not apply to the present Law Officers of the Crown. In 1878 the amount paid to the Attorney General was £12,156; in 1879, £12,337; in 1880, £11,811; in 1881, £11,997; in 1882, £11,901; in 1883, £10,710; in 1884, £9,914; in 1885, £9,848; in 1886, £10,266; and in 1887, £12,109. That amounted, in round figures, to not much short of £12,000 a-year. The highest figure reached by the Solicitor General was £11,148, and the lowest £7,913. The question was, ought the country to command for those salaries the whole of the time of the gentlemen who received them? His hon. Friend did not call the attention of the Committee to the remuneration which was paid to the Law Officer who might be more happily brought into contrast with the Law Officers than any other—he meant the Lord Chancellor. The gross amount of remuneration received by the Lord Chancellor was £10,000 a-year. They had, therefore, this fact—that the Attorney General was receiving more than the Lord Chancellor and the Solicitor General nearly as much. The objection would be raised that they could not expect any great lawyer to forego his private practice, even for those large salaries, and that, if he did, he might not be able, when his period of Office came to an end, to resume the private practice which he previously had. He had the greatest possible respect for, and admired much, the genius and ability of the men who now held the position of Law Officers, but he did think that £12,000 a-year would command the services of the very ablest and most eminent men at the English Bar. Not only did the Attorney General receive a large salary, but he became the head of his profession, and this gave him a status and position which was of the greatest value to him supposing he remained in private life, and it also gave him the right—he thought he might use that word—to claim the succession of certain high judicial offices if they become vacant. Therefore, in dealing with this remuneration of £12,000 a-year, they had also to deal with the rank and status, and the crowning of the legitimate ambition of a long professional life. He did not believe that an Attorney General who returned to private practice, after devoting himself entirely to the duties of his official position, would find that he had been injured at all. A good article would always command a good price; and a distinguished advocate returning to the general practice of his profession would not be without professional appreciation. He did not wish to introduce anything personal into the debate, but he should like to say that his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James), when he was Attorney General, did not take private practice, but devoted his great powers to the service of the State. He need not tell the Committee that when his right hon. and learned Friend resumed his practice, he resumed the very high position which he had previously held, and his clients were only too glad to avail themselves of his services. He did not think that there was anything in either of those two objections which ought to induce the House to hesitate to deal with this matter. There was another important matter to bear in mind. It was not a question of whether a man ought to give them the whole of his time for the remuneration, for if the remuneration was inadequate to induce him to give the whole of his time it would have to be increased. But he did think that the Attorney General and the Solicitor General ought to give the country the whole of their time. The country needed it. The amount of legal business was increasing from day to day, and the amount of work now to he done was very much greater than it was 10 or 15 years ago. He was satisfied that no hon. Member would get up and say that it was too much to ask that a Law Officer should devote the whole of his time to his official work. They might get men of colossal ability able to devote their time to the two things—that was to say, their public duties and their private practice; but Parliament had to legislate for the average, and he was satisfied that it was necessary that the House and the country should receive the whole of the time of the Law Officers of the Crown. He was not going, as he said at the commencement, to argue the point whether their salaries were too great or too small, although that was a point which his hon. Friend had raised, and which other Members would discuss. He should certainly, however, vote for any Motion which would enable the Committee to express its opinion upon the question as to whether the Attorney General and the Solicitor General ought to give the whole of their time for the salaries they received.

said, he would follow the example of his right hon. Friend (Mr. H. H. Fowler), and refrain from entering into a controversy with the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Buxton) as to the utility of having so many Members in the Legal Profession in the House. It might be that there were too many of them; but he would submit to the hon. Member for Poplar that the legal Members of the House fulfilled a useful, though a humble, function. They were the hewers of wood and the drawers of water to the whole House. ["Oh, oh!"] Yes; if they were not engaged in debating clauses in the many Bills which came before the House, they were employed in the Lobbies in drafting and drawing up Amendments. It might be that the function was not a very lofty one; but he would point out that in the Legislatures of America and France the proportion of lawyers was certainly not less than the proportion which existed in that House. But to come to the question under discussion, he wished to say that he found himself, in the main, in accord with his right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler). It seemed to him (Mr. Haldane), in the first place, that there were one or two difficulties which the Committee would do well to bear in mind before coming straight off to a conclusion upon this subject. They saw the Attorney General sitting there conducting Bills through the House and answering Questions; and they knew that this was only half of his work—that he conducted a very large part of the business of the country, while he also discharged very important functions at the Bar. He was not merely the advocate of the Crown at the Bar; but he occupied a position which might almost be called quasi-judicial. He decided when it was proper that the Crown should assert its rights, and did this sometimes under very delicate circumstances; and he kept in check a whole train of officials, and a vast amount of machinery, which he had to control, not as a partizan, but as a man who was bound to see that which was fair done on all sides, and without regard at all times to the interest of his client. If they took the Attorney General and made him out-and-out a Minister in the House, it would be impossible for him to perform those functions at the Bar which were performed under the present system. The change which was suggested by his right hon. Friend was one that would carry them a great deal further than securing the whole time of the Attorney General for the Public Service. The objection had been raised as to whether they could get men of ability and position to do the work on these conditions. It was surmised that some of the learned gentlemen who had held the Office of Attorney General during the last few years had had private practices which brought them in at the least £20,000 a-year; and, therefore, the acceptance of the Office involved the sacrifice of the difference between that and £10,000 or £12,000 a-year. Still, he believed the position would be taken, because it brought with it elevation to a high Office of State; and a man occupying the position of Attorney General was rewarded in a way that was not to be measured by money only. He believed they could get men to do the work; but it seemed to him that the proper course and the logical consequence of the suggestion before the House lay in the direction of a much larger change than merely abolishing the private practice of the Attorney General. It had always seemed to him to be an anomaly that the chief Legal Adviser of the Government should be the Lord Chancellor, sitting in the House of Lords, and being a Member of the Cabinet. Lord Brougham proposed, for reasons which were thought to have great weight, to separate altogether the judicial from the administrative functions of the Office, and if that were done, the chief Law Advisor of the Government could sit in the House of Commons and be supported by a Solicitor General. Some change would have to be made in course of time, and he thought it ought to be in that direction. There had been no Attorney General more able, courteous, and industrious, and more willing to assist Members on all sides of the House, than the present holder of the Office; but, whatever the capacity of the Attorney General, it was impossible that one man could do the enormous amount of work which devolved upon the Office in these days, and at the same time attend to practise at the Bar. They were now on the verge of a period when legal reforms would make larger demands than ever upon the energy and time of the Attorney General, and that House would require the assistance of a Law Officer, with the position and influence of a Lord Chancellor, able to devote all his time to the conduct of legislation. It was impossible that an Attorney General could be sufficiently versed in the mysteries of all the branches of the law to give sound advice to the Government, unless he devoted all his time to the work, and to the collection from experts the materials for useful legislation. Therefore, it seemed to him that what they should aim at was, in the long run, having a system under which a Minister would occupy such a position as he had described, bearing, it might be, the name of Attorney General, but, at the same time, having the influence and prestige of the Lord Chancellor. It might be that the Solicitor General would preserve his present position and be the head of the Bar, as the Attorney General was at the present time. In any event it seemed to him that a change in that direction would be one on the principle that his hon. and right hon. Friends had suggested when they submitted that it was necessary fur the Law Officers of the Crown to give more of their time to their official business than they did at present. It was because he believed in that principle that he should vote for the Motion.

At the commencement of this discussion I must say that I had a strong prepossession in my mind that there was a plausible case to be made out for the proposition which the hon. Member opposite has submitted to the Committee; but in the course of the discussion, although it has been maintained solely by advocates of change, I have become convinced that the House would err if it departed from the present arrangement. In the first place, I may point out that if there is a disease that we have to remedy, the remedy which would be suggested might, in all probability, turn out to be worse than the disease. The hon. Member who originated this debate was of opinion that the Attorney General ought to have an office and a staff of clerks in order to discharge his duty properly. Why, the whole of the efforts of economists and reformers in this House have been directed to keeping down the bulk of the Civil Service. At present the Attorney General and the Solicitor General have no vested interest in their Offices; they have no right to pensions, or retiring salaries, or things of any kind. We pay them well while they occupy their official position, and when they are out of Office the State has nothing more to do with them. But once set up these Offices with the staffs, and the cost will soon exceed any reduction we may be able to make. The hon. Gentleman who submitted the Motion has proposed something more alarming still; he contemplates that we should set up a new Department; not only a bureau, but a Ministry of Justice, with an immense staff of officials—high officials, as well as clerks. There may be a great deal to be said in favour of the establishment of a Ministry of Justice; but I hope that the House will not for a moment contemplate making any change in this respect at the present moment. To come to the main question, the point I maintain is this—that the hon. Gentleman who proposed this reduction thinks that the Law Officers of the Crown should give the whole of their time to the service of the State, and ought not to take private practice. Well, the adoption of a Rule of that kind will not result in economy in money, so far as the Committee of Supply is concerned, because it is not proposed to reduce the salaries; therefore, having regard to the position of the Committee of Supply, we are not directly interested as to whether the Law Officers shall or shall not take private practice. What we are interested in is the country shall secure the ablest lawyers it can obtain for the position of Attorney General and Solicitor General. When the Committee remembers what important issues may depend upon the legal advice the Law Officers gave to the country—I imagine that it has more than once been that absolute issues of peace and war have depended upon that advice—we cannot over-estimate the importance of securing the best and brightest geniuses which the country can afford for these positions. If it could have been shown that the Law Officers of the Crown had done their work imperfectly on account of the private practice which some of them undertook, then I think that a sufficient case would have been made out; but the hon. Gentleman who submitted the Motion, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), who supported it, and the hon. Member who spoke last—and who, under the guise of support to the Motion, brings forward a scheme of his own—did not attempt to insinuate that the work of the Law Officers of the Crown had been badly performed on account of private work. I ask then, would it not be unjust, where no case be made out for it, certainly, to alter the relations between the State and its Law Officers which were settled upon after careful consideration years ago—would it not be unjust to lessen the attractions merely on some theoretical fancy that we might get better work out of our officers than we did? I fully expected that the hon. Member who submitted this Motion would point out to the Committee some definite case where private practice had interfered with the due discharge of the duties of the Attorney General and Solicitor General; and in the absence of any evidence to that effect, and with a strong presumption that the evidence is in a contrary direction, I have abandoned altogether the idea I originally held that a case could be made out for the change. So far as I am concerned, I am utterly unable to give any support to the Motion which is made to alter the present system.

I hesitated somewhat taking part in this debate, considering whether it would be well that I should do so, having occupied the position of Attorney General, and being unwilling to suggest that my successors in that Office should be placed in any worse position than that which I had occupied. At the same time, it seemed to me that it might have been suggested that I was wanting in moral courage if I declined to state my views in regard to this Motion. My hon. Friend behind me (Mr. Buxton) has placed two propositions before the Committee. One of them is that the Law Officers of the Crown are over-paid, and that there should be a deduction made from their salaries; and, secondly, he has put forward the proposition that after that deduction has been made the Law Officers of the Crown should confine themselves to their official duties, and refrain from engaging in private practice. I would advise my hon. Friend, who wishes to raise the question of principle, to separate the proposition that the Law Officers of the Crown should not engage in private practice from the proposition that they are over-paid; because it can hardly be expected that the Committee will very largely support the proposal that the Law Officers of the Crown should confine themselves to public duties, if that proposal is coupled with the proposition that they should also have their salaries considerably reduced. But as a question of principle, whether the Law Officers should or should not engage in private practice, I would guard myself from being supposed to make the slightest reflection upon any of the distinguished men who have engaged in private practice, and have satisfied their consciences that they have properly discharged their public duties. Still less do I desire to make the suggestion that those who now occupy the Offices are not also able to discharge their public duties conscientiously. But I think that the Public Service would be benefited if the Attorney General's time was entirely devoted to his public duties. I want no such thing as the formation of a Judicial Department. I do not want to see the opportunity afforded for the creation of new offices; but I do wish to see provision made—it may be by the Law Officers themselves—for some continuity between the proceedings of one Attorney General and his successor. There should always be some tradition maintained from one Law Officer to another; but, at present, the Law Officers go out of Office, leaving nothing behind them for the information of those who follow—no records, or anything of that kind. No clerk remains; and when the new Law Officer goes into Office he has to select whom he may to assist him, and he always obtains persons utterly ignorant of what his Predecessors have hitherto been doing. The Law Officers of the Crown are also relieved from all direct communication at present with the various Offices and Departments of the State. The Departments ought to be entitled at any time to appeal to their Law Advisers—there is a necessity for centralization in this matter. The necessity for this has been very great. As an instance of that, until my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) brought his great energy to bear on the Post Office, the Post Office even refused to allow the Law Officers an official bag, and one of the consequences of that refusal on the part of the Post Office was the enormous sum of money this country had to pay in respect of the Alabama Claims, and the close prospect we had to face for some time of a war with that country. The letter containing the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown, which would have enabled the officials to stop the progress of the Alabama, was stolen, with the result that communications were made to the builders, and the vessel, whilst still unbuilt, left the builders' hands and sailed away during the night. All I would ask for is this—not that there would be a new Department formed, but that the opinion of the Law Officers should be at all times accessible to every other Department of the State. Every other Department has to depend upon the Law Officers for advice; consequently, the Law Officers, who have to give that advice, should be accessible to every Department. That is not the case at the present moment. When the Head of a Department requires legal advice, he does not go straight to the Law Officers, and say—"Tell me what I ought to do," but it takes days before a legal opinion can be obtained. It may be said that in making this proposition we have all precedent against us. I am aware that until lately there have been no claims made upon the Law Officers to perform their duties as they now perform them. The duties of the Law Officers have in recent years been greatly increased. At one time they were not expected to attend the House unless specially summoned. It was thought, in years gone by, that the Law Officers were so hardly worked in attending to their official duties that their presence should not be required in the House of Commons; consequently, unless sent for on special occasions, or to give a vote for the Government, they did not attend in their places. Well, notwithstanding what the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Buxton) has said with regard to there being too many lawyers in the House already, I must say that the most arduous attendants in the House of late years have been the Law Officers of the Crown. They have to attend Standing Committees, and they have to be in attendance here in the House, and all this extra duty has been thrown upon them of late years, in addition to the legal functions they previously performed for the State. I now ask myself, if the first claim upon the Law Officers is that of the Public Service, how can the Public Service be best served? The Government should say to the Law Officers—"We ask you to be in attendance in the House, to give your advice at all times and under all circumstances; and we ask you to devote your energies to the Public Service, and the Public Service alone." We ought to ask the best men who can be obtained; and we ought, therefore, to take care that we do not lower the Office of Attorney General or Solicitor General, so as to make it unacceptable to the best men we can obtain. I cannot help entering a protest against comparisons being drawn between the position of Prime Minister and other Ministers and the Law Officers. Those who become Ministers, as a rule, give up nothing; they only receive their salary in addition to their previous income. But the case of the Law Officer is very different, for he, before he accepts the position, if he is a worthy person to fill it, has a large private practice, and if the emoluments of the Office are considerably reduced we shall not get the best men to fill it. I do not think the Committee would wish anything to be done which would render it impossible for us to obtain the best men to fill the position of Law Officers of the Crown. My view, therefore, is—and I do not enter into details as to income—that the Law Officers would willingly seek the comparative repose, after years of contention and strife, which will be afforded by abstention from private work, if that abstention were made a condition of their appointment. I do not accept the view of those hon. Gentlemen who think that this arrangement would put the Law Officers out of touch with the Profession. I think those claims upon his services which required him to deal with contentious business would still keep him in full touch with his Colleagues at the Bar; so that if this view I put forward be accepted, it seems to me that it will detract nothing from the estimation in which the Law Officer of the Crown will be held at the Bar. It seems to me that the position will be more highly esteemed, and still more valued by members of our Profession, if it is felt that the Law Officers are removed from the ordinary strifes of forensic life, and are made almost the arbiters of the administration of justice. I may say, in conclusion, that although I am thoroughly aware of the great power and capacity of my predecessors and successors to discharge a large amount of work, yet I think the suggestion I made should be accepted; although, of course, I would not desire any arrangement to be made in the future to apply to the present Legal Advisers of the Government.

I did not intend to intervene in the general discussion on this Vote at this stage. I only rise to correct a slight misapprehension which has been occasioned by the misinterpretation of some observations which I made last year. I am as opposed to the formation of a new Department as the noble Lord behind me (Lord Randolph Churchill), or as the right hon. and learned Member for Bury (Sir Henry James); and what I said on the last occasion was this: I pointed to the fact that there are no official clerks of any sort or kind in connection with the Law Officers' business; and that the Law Officer has to rely on the consideration and personal kindness of his Predecessor for ascertaining even what papers there may be. I pointed out that every Law Officer pays a very considerable sum, counted by hundreds, it may even be by four figures, for getting such assistance as is necessary to enable him to carry on his work; and what I suggested was not that any new Department should be formed, but that the Attorney General might well consent to a reduction of his salary in order to pay two or three ordinary clerks who should be handed on from Attorney General to Attorney General. No one who has occupied the office will deny that the greatest labour is imposed upon him, because he has not the opportunity of having even one clerk to assist him in doing his work. I said nothing last year from which it could be suggested that I take a different view on this matter to that of the noble Lord. I think that if there were some permanent ordinary clerks to do the work, there would be quite as much profit and remuneration to the Law Officers as at present, and a better discharge of their public duties.

said, he was glad the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General agreed with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James) in thinking that there were some defects in the present system. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury complained of the want of continuity in the work of the office; and he had, at all events, acquiesced in the view that the Law Officers of the Crown should confine their attention to Government business. This was a great advance in the views entertained by Gentlemen who had previously held the position of Law Officers of the Crown; and he could not help thinking that it was all the result of the debates which had taken place in that House. As to the remark made by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill), that no definite case had been made out where the private practice of the Attorney General interfered with his public duties, he (Mr. Stanhope) had intended to make out such a case; but, in view of the proceedings which were taking place before certain Judges, he was unable to fully develop his contention in that direction. On some future occasion, however, he should have to call attention to proceedings now going on, and to point out that the action of the Attorney General, in regard to them, was absolutely at variance with his responsibilities and duties to the Crown. There was this to be said, which would not in any way reflect upon what was going on before the Commission to which he referred—namely, that it was a trial upon which the fate of Parties depended. It was, above all, a political trial; and that the Attorney General of this country should, in the exercise of his private practice, give to one side in that trial the sanction of his eminent official position was not a thing at all approved of by impartial public opinion. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury thought it was necessary that they should pay large salaries, in order to obtain the highest legal talent for the service of the State. Well, he (Mr. Stanhope) could not agree or assent to that proposition. In the United States of America they had an Attorney General who, so far as he was aware, was a man of great eminence, but for his duties he received a salary of only £1,600 a-year. In France, which was a country of considerable grandeur, and which was not given to financial economies, they had an officer corresponding to our Attorney General, who received only £1,400 a-year; and salaries on the same scale were given to the Law Officers of the Crown in Germany. Consequently, he could not conceive for one moment how it could be contended that we in England should consent to the payment of these large and bloated salaries in order to obtain the highest legal talent. Certain legal gentlemen had spoken in the course of the debate, who seemed to assume that it was an almost essential condition that an Attorney General, in order to hold that position, should be earning something like £20,000 a-year at the Bar; and, as a consequence, that the fitness of a man to be a Law Officer of the Crown was to be measured by the amount of his fees at the Bar. He regretted very much that they had arrived at that view of the Ministerial Offices in connection with the Legal Department of the State. He had hoped that, in view of the distinctions derived from official positions, we could get capable Legal Officers to perform the duties required of them for less than was at present paid; and he trusted that in saying that, the Attorney General would not suppose that he was casting any reflection upon him. He certainly, however, believed that capable gentlemen could be appointed to legal positions in the Government at a very large saving to the State. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington seemed to infer that the proposition of his hon. Friend (Mr. Buxton) was one for the creation of a new Department—for a Ministry of Justice—which would lead to enormous expenditure. The noble Lord had pointed out that this would involve the creation of a number of new salaries, which would outweigh the aggregate of the salaries of the Attorney General and Solicitor General. He (Mr. Stanhope), however, would point out that the Attorney General and the Solicitor General were not the only officers in connection with the Legal Departments of the Government. Almost every particular Department had got either a counsel or a solicitor connected with it. When he went into this question last year, he had been able to show that fees were paid to various legal gentlemen other than the Law Officers of the Crown, amounting to hundreds of thousands a year. Consequently, he ventured to say that, by a re-arrangement of the Legal Department of the State, and by having at the head of it efficient officers at less exaggerated salaries than those at present paid, who would give their whole time to the Public Service, they would have much better and much more satisfactory results than those attending the present arrangement. He had already said that it would have been his desire to have criticised at some length the action of the Attorney General in "another place;" but, it appeared to him, that it would be better to do so when those proceedings were closed, and when it would be possible to go into a fuller development of this important matter.

said, he thought the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Buxton) must be highly gratified at the course this debate had taken. Perhaps after the observations which had been made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James) and the Attorney General, he would hardly think that the Committee was prepared to follow him in the precise line in which he had put his Motion on the Paper. The main thing they had to secure was the best possible legal services which could be obtained for the State. It would be a penny wise and pound foolish policy to look for a reduction in the salaries of the Law Officers of the Crown. As he understood from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury, if a nominal reduction were proposed he would be able to vote for it, as indicating that it would be well if one or both of the Law Officers of the Crown were restricted to their public duties and debarred from public practice. He (Mr. Illingworth) thought that would be an eminently satisfactory advance in the consideration of this great subject; and he, for one, would make an earnest appeal to his hon. Friend (Mr. Buxton) to withdraw his Motion, and move a nominal reduction for that purpose, and not for the double purpose as contained in the Motion as it stood.

said, that if the Committee would allow him to withdraw the Motion, he would move that the Vote be reduced by the nominal sum of £5. That would be the course he should like to follow; but he had understood that as he had put his Motion down in certain terms he was obliged to move it in those terms. If the Committee would allow the matter to be put as a matter of principle, in that way many hon. Members, no doubt, would be glad of the opportunity of voting for it. As to what had fallen from the Attorney General, he (Mr. Buxton) had stated that all the hon. and learned Gentleman suggested last year was that a clerk or two should be provided to assist him in carrying on his work. He (Mr. Buxton) did not think it would be desirable to create a large public Department; and as to his reference to the number of lawyers in the House, he had only made it jocularly, and had not intended the Committee to take it so seriously.

Is it your pleasure that the Motion be withdrawn?

I should like to say a word or two before the Motion is withdrawn. We have had a very interesting debate, which has wandered altogether from the proposition originally made, which was that a reduction should be effected in this Vote for the reason that the Law Officers of the Crown are paid too highly, and also as indicating the opinion of the Committee that these officers should give up their private practice. I listened with great attention to what fell from such an experienced lawyer as the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James), and I also listened with attention to what fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) and others; but I do not propose to discuss in detail what fell from them on this occasion. I do, however, want to draw attention to one point—to a question which requires the fullest debate and discussion. Why was it that the right hon. and learned Member for Bury retained his office for six or seven years; and why was it that he remained to the last an efficient and valuable Law Officer, able to maintain his position for his Party against the numerous lawyers in the House? It was largely because the right hon. and learned Gentleman has never lost touch of legal practice and procedure—that he continued in that daily conflict with the most eminent men at the Bar, which had originally given him his position. To decide such a question as this—namely, whether private practice is to be allowed to the Law Officers of the Crown or not, in a moment of caprice, of transitory and irregular discussion, would be exceedingly rash on the part of the Committee. Let the Committee consider the sort of questions upon which the Law Officers have to advise. Every day, in my own Department, I am continually seeking the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown. They must have a perfect knowledge of, and familiarity with, the course of judicial decisions and the constantly growing law, to be able to give their advice on the variety of points that arise, and such knowledge is not to be obtained by reading. If the Law Officers of the Crown were not in constant touch with the law as administered in the Courts from day to day, they would not be able to advise the Crown as they did. If the Law Officers were prevented from taking part in cases heard before the House of Lords, and in other Courts, the advice they would be able to give to the Government for legislative purposes would lose considerably in value. If Parliament were to deter its official lawyers from doing what they did now, and keeping themselves in constant touch with the practice of our Law Courts, the consequence would be detrimental to the Service. I do not urge these arguments as decisive—I do not mean to urge that they outweigh those offered on the other side—but all I wish to say is, that if you do prohibit your lawyers from private practice you are entering upon an entirely new path, and you will have Law Officers of an entirely different kind in the future. Of course the public business of the Law Officers of the Crown was their primary duty, and everybody was agreed that no private business should be taken except when the public practice was satisfied to the last item of demand. In his opinion it would be a very grave change in the Office if, instead of having a tried lawyer familiar with the course of judicial decisions and constantly growing law, they were to substitute a man less in touch with the outside world and with the opinions of others. To deprive themselves of such an advantage would, in his opinion, be very unfortunate. He was now simply pointing out that the Government could not consent to a substantial or nominal reduction of the Vote.

said, it seemed to him that the Committee had made a mistake in assenting to the withdrawal of a Motion for a substantial reduction of the Vote and substituting one for this miserable £5. He had not yet discovered from any announcement made from the Treasury Bench what the Government intended to do. His hon. Friend's complaint was that the Attorney General received too much salary, considering that he did not give up all his time for the amount of that salary. It had been suggested by other Members of the House that the Attorney General should not have any private practice; but they had not heard from the Government, or from any official source, that it was proposed to meet the suggestion made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James). As matters stood now, the Attorney General received £11,500 per annum, besides which he had a very extensive private practice. They know that the Attorney General was at present engaged in the case before the Special Commission. He would not ask him precisely what he got in the case, but he was sure a gentleman of his talents, having regard to the fees of lawyers, would have a very handsome remuneration. At any rate, this case was going on from half-past 10 in the morning until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and he presumed that the Attorney General not only received his fee, but, according to professional practice, a daily refresher also, and in that case he presumed he would consider it his duty to be present in the Court every day. On the supposition that the Attorney General received 100 guineas a-day, and taking the period during which this Commission would sit as 25 weeks, the Attorney General would receive, besides his very handsome salary for doing the business of the country, 10,000 guineas. Let them double that amount and they would see what the Attorney General could get. They were told by the Home Secretary that the Attorney General was in touch with his "mother earth." As far as he could understand it, the Home Secretary meant, that if he did not engage in contentious business, he would lose touch with the public. But he was engaged in contentious business; he received £7,000 per annum as Attorney General, and the rest came from the contentious business in which he was employed, and it seemed to him that it would be infinitely better if they were to come to some arrangement and obtain from the Government an assurance that the Attorney General should have a definite salary as Attorney General—that he should be employed in the contentious business of the Government, but that in no case should he have any private practice. He did not wish to go into the case of the Commission, but the Attorney General must know that his position was a thoroughly false one. His position was false from being both a Law Officer of the Crown and also counsel in a case in which the Government was interested, but which was also a private suit on the part of an individual. He should like to have a substantial reduction of the Vote, because, as it at present stood, the Attorney General was receiving his salary for only a portion of his time; but having given up the idea of a substantial reduction, the Committee ought to understand whether the Government accepted the proposition that the Attorneys General should be simply and solely Law Officers of the Crown, receiving salaries on that account, and that they should not be allowed to undertake private practice. If some arrangement of that kind were come to he did not think it would be necessary for his hon. Friend to divide the Committee.

said, that if this were a Party question he would not rise from those Benches to express his hope that the Government would accede to the proposition before them. If it were a Party question its supporters would naturally be those who sat on the Speakers' right, as the present Law Officers would not be affected, and their successors would, though at some distant date, be taken from the Opposition. The great advantage of the Law Officers of the Crown confining their attention to the business of the Crown had been shown by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James) to be in the continuity of the work, but two objections had been made to the proposal. It was said, in the first place, that we should not get the best men for the office, but he did not think it inconceivable that we should be able to get the best men for the salary of £7,000 a-year, besides a good deal more for contentious business as well as a good deal of Patronage and an absolute certainty of promotion. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had also urged that the Government would not get such sound advice from an Attorney General who was not continually engaged in contentious business. But his fees amounted on an average to £4,500 a-year, which sum, as the Government paid low fees, represents contentious business to a much larger amount. Now, were they to believe that no counsel could be trusted to give sound advice unless his income from contentious business largely exceeded £4,500 a-year? There had been great objection made to the Judge Advocate General, who had not much official work to do, taking private practice, and if the objection held in one case, it held still more forcibly in the other. He must express his regret that his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General held a brief in the case before the Commission; he thought it a great misfortune for the Government that he should do so, and he knew that this opinion was held by many Members on that side of the House, because it was generally supposed in the constituencies that it was the Government and not The Times which was conducting the prosecution.

said that the proposition before the Committee was that they should come to a resolution which should prohibit future occupants of the Offices of Attorney General and Solicitor Gene- ral from taking private practice. The Committee would see that the Government, so far as the present occupants of these Offices and themselves were concerned, might accept that proposition at the hands of a future Government with comparative equanimity. This question had been raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) and by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) in 1866, and the conditions on which the Law Officers were to hold their Offices were expressed in a Treasury Minute issued in that year.

said, that was with reference to a dispute which had arisen with respect to the terms of the arrangement. The right hon. Member for Derby and himself settled that question in the interest, as they supposed, of the Government and the public, but there was no reconsideration of the whole question.

said, the position of the Law Officers of the Crown was examined into at that time, and a determination was arrived at, and it did not appear to these right hon. Gentlemen to be desirable to make any change in the status of the Law Officers. He had said that if they were regardless of their duty to the country, and the best method of carrying on the business of the country, the Government might accept at once a proposition of this kind, but he thought they would be to blame if they did so without examination. The Government would of course have to examine a proposal of that kind very closely with reference to what they believed to be the permanent interests of the country in the course of the next two months, and they would hereafter state the conclusions at which they had arrived. In these circumstances he thought the Committee would feel that the Government would not be justified in making any such promise of so serious a change as that now proposed affecting the future government of the country; and he, therefore, trusted that the hon. Member would withdraw his Amendment on the assurance he had given.

said, it seemed to him that the course proposed by the right hon. Gentleman was perfectly reasonable, and that they could not expect Gentlemen opposite at once to fall in with the proposal which his hon. Friend the Member for the Poplar Division of the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Buxton) had presented to the Committee. But he believed that the right hon. Gentleman would have gathered from all that has fallen from hon. Members on that side, and upon his own side of the House, that there was a very general and strong opinion in favour of preventing the Law Officers of the Crown carrying on their private business. On the understanding that the Government gave their serious and careful consideration to the proposal to be made next year, he would advise his hon. Friend to withdraw his Amendment.

said, he rose to Move the reduction of the Vote by £1,000 for the purpose of calling attention to a case of hardship on prisoners who had been unjustly convicted, and who had suffered wrongful imprisonment, and whose case he desired should have further investigation at the hands of the proper authorities. On the 13th of January, 1879, about half-past 5 in the evening, three men were near a farm in the county of Northumberland, standing by that farm were three persons of the name of Robson—a farmer, his son, and his brother; there had been shots heard and three men arrived within sight of the three Robsons; they walked in the direction, of the Robsons, who thereupon followed them, and they were joined by a man named George Ware, his wife, two daughters and a son. These having collected into a knot of nine people, the three men thereupon walked off, and the question was whether the Robsons should follow the three men and take the gun from them. Words passed, and upon the Robsons attempting to follow the men, the one who had the gun shot in the direction of the group of people, killing one of them and severely wounding several others; the men got off and were not seen again that night; but three persons were apprehended on that charge, named Walford, Hardwick, and Morgan, and who lived eight miles away from the farm where the crime had been committed. They were confronted with the Robsons, and when so con- fronted the Robsons identified them, the Magistrates committed them for trial, and they were tried at the Assizes at Newcastle on the 24th April, 1879.

said, he would ask the hon. and learned Gentleman in what way the circumstances he was relating were connected with the present Vote.

said, he understood that the Vote was for criminal prosecutions and quasi-criminal proceedings. The object of his remarks was to induce an investigation in the form of quasi-criminal proceedings in the case of these men.

said, it was possible the question might be raised on the Vote for the Home Secretary's Office, but it could not be raised on the present Vote.

said, if the hon. and learned Member would lay before him in private the facts of the case, the subject should be attended to.

said, this Vote had been challenged year after year, and defended by the Representatives of the Treasury for the time being; the same objections had been taken, and the same arguments had been urged in defence of the officials responsible. He could only call to mind one Secretary to the Treasury who had recognized the force of the objections urged against the Vote.

asked if the hon. Member proposed to discuss the Vote generally?

said, he proposed to object to Sub-head H.

pointed out that an hon. Member had a Motion on the Paper with reference to this.

said, he had put down a Notice to move the reduction of the income of the Director of Public Prosecutions in order to call attention to the action of the Department. It was far from his intention to make anything in the nature of a personal attack upon the very valuable public servant who filled this post, but it seemed to him that during the past year there had been some actions on the part of the Department to which, in the public interests, attention ought to be called. The News- paper Libel Act of 1881 provided that no criminal prosecution for libel against a newspaper could take place without a fiat of the Director of Public Prosecutions being first obtained. He had noticed that that fiat had been given very indiscriminately—in fact he had been under the impression that the fiat was issued as a matter of course. It appeared, however, that this was not the case. Sir Augustus Stephenson had shown that this charge could not be maintained. The question, therefore, was as to whether the discretion of the Department had been exercised with reasonable care. He had been greatly astonished by one case, and that was the issue, by Sir Augustus Stephenson, of a fiat with reference to the proceedings against a newspaper in the case of "Wood v. Cox." In that case a newspaper had charged a somewhat well-known jockey with pulling horses; the jockey applied for a fiat and raised proceedings. In reply to a question asked by himself, the right hon. Gentleman opposite stated that the Director of Public Prosecutions granted a fiat when he considered that the libel affected the public and was calculated to disturb the peace of the community, and that those conditions were in this case satisfied. It appeared to him (Mr. Pickersgill) that where a jockey was charged in this way these conditions were not satisfied, and he was confirmed in his opinion by the remarks of the Lord Chief Justice himself in the course of the trial, who said that with regard to the action of the Public Prosecutor he could only lift up his hands in respectful astonishment. There had been other cases in which he submitted that the fiat of the Public Prosecutor had been improperly accorded. It had been his intention to go into those cases at some length, but he did not think it would be necessary for him to do that on the present occasion, because the Committee might perhaps be aware that a Bill was passing through Parliament which proposed to transfer the power of granting the fiat in these cases from the Director of Public Prosecutions to the Attorney General. He believed that the Bill was likely to meet with general approval in the House, and as the power of the Public Prosecutor in this respect would most likely be taken away from him very soon, the remarks which he had made on this sub- ject would perhaps be considered sufficient. A short time ago he had asked a Question in that House with regard to some bogus Companies and trusts; he had inquired as to why the Director of Public Prosecutions, whose attention had been called to the matter, had not taken any action. Since then a correspondence which had passed between the editor of The Statist and the Director of Public Prosecutions had been published, to portions of which correspondence he wished to refer. It appeared that in July last the editor of The Statist drew the attention of the Director of Public Prosecutions to the case of two bogus Companies, and the editor stated that there were substantial documents to proceed upon; he had the report of the liquidators, a copy of which he (Mr. Pickersgill) understood had been forwarded to the Treasury. The editor said in his letter that the liquidators' report fully confirmed the matters investigated and made public; that it showed a vast conspiracy, and that the conspirators had succeeded in obtaining hundreds of thousand pounds from their victims. A reply was sent to the effect that the City Solicitor had authority to commence a prosecution; that as soon as he had the necessary information he would proceed to do so, and that the Director of Public Prosecutions had given him all the information in his possession. In reply to this the editor wrote that he was not referring to the same affair, but that what he wished to bring before the notice of the Public Prosecutor were the misdeeds of a number of other persons. A reply was sent from the Director of Public Prosecutions to the effect that he had communicated with the City Solicitor, who acknowledged the receipt of his letter, which would be taken into consideration by him in connection with other papers in the cases which were already before him. He (Mr. Pickersgill) did not pretend to say, because he had not seen the documents, whether there was sufficient evidence upon which a prosecution might have been undertaken. His complaint was, that having a certain duty imposed upon him by Statute, the Director of Public Prosecutions had chosen to delegate the performance of that duty to another person of whom the Statute took no cognizance whatever. It seemed to him that it was the duty of the Public Pro- secutor himself, which he could not delegate, to investigate the whole of the cases and to determine whether or not there was matter for prosecution, and that certainly he had failed in the performance of his duty in referring the matter to the City Solicitor.

said, before his right hon. Friend replied to the questions of the hon. Member who had just sat down, he would ask what had been done with regard to the stopping the sale of impure literature? They had received a definite pledge at the end of last Session, and they thanked the Government heartily for the prosecution that had taken place, and they trusted that this policy would be pressed upon them by the public. He could tell the Committee than an immense quantity of impure literature still floated about the streets of our large cities. Only a few days ago, in Liverpool, two men were taken up for selling Zola's novels, but instead of being punished, they were fined a small sum by the magistrates and were allowed to go free almost without any check. Even in the City of London booksellers were in the habit of selling, in defiance of the law, books and publications which were in their very nature most offensive and injurious to the morals of the young as welt as others. Magistrates only imposed a slight fine, whereas, in his opinion, the offence was worthy of imprisonment. If a stop could be placed on this flood of impurity circulated through the towns and rural districts, he felt satisfied that it would do an enormous amount of good, and he felt sure his right hon. Friend would feel it to be necessary that vigorous methods should be taken to prevent these publications.

said, he hoped before the Committee came to a decision on a proposal to reduce the salary of the Public Prosecutor, the Government would give some information with regard to his duties, because unless more information was supplied than they were in possession of, he ventured to say that he should not only vote for a reduction by £1,000, but by a much larger sum. It might be that the information which he now asked for was accessible in some form or other, but he believed there were not three Members of the House of Commons who could give any reasonable, intelligent, and satisfactory account of the duties of the Public Prosecutor. He was much startled by the amount of the salary which the House of Commons was asked to give for this Department. The personal salary of the head of the office was £3,000 per annum; there were three Assistant Solicitors at £1,500 a-year each, who enjoyed, he might remark, a larger salary than the Heads of the Departments of the Board of Trade. There was a principal assistant with a maximum salary of £1,200, and six other assistants at a maximum salary of £900. He submitted that this was a very bloated and wholly unjustifiable expenditure unless they were told that the duties of the Public Prosecutor were of a more valuable kind than the Committee had reason to suppose. In every other Department there was a general understanding among the public as to what the duties were; but, speaking for himself, and, he believed, expressing the opinion of the public generally, he had no idea of what were the duties of this Department. He might compare this state of things with the arrangement made in Scotland with regard to a similar subject, and he would not have brought this matter before the Committee unless he thought it a subject which ought to be somewhat reconsidered. They had in Scotland a Criminal Department, and every man knew that if a crime were committed by which he was injured, whether great or small, it was the duty of the Public Prosecutor at once to take the case off his hands and prosecute it to a conclusion without a farthing of expense to the person injured. All that was done at a very moderate outlay. The cost of the Lord Advocate's Department amounted to a little more than £11,000 a-year, which included his salary and that of the Solicitor General, and although their public duties as Law Advisers of the Crown were by no means so important or responsible as those of their brethren in this country, still they were important, and they had the whole responsibility for public prosecutions besides. Then, again, in Scotland there was the sum of nearly £26,000 which provided for local Public Prosecutors in every part of the country, and accordingly in every locality where crime was committed it was at once treated as a public concern and prosecuted. He said if a similar system could prevail in England the country would not grudge a large expenditure upon it. It was this system which commanded the complete confidence of the public in Scotland; it was satisfactory in its operation, and the protection afforded by the system might be one reason why in certain of the more serious descriptions of crime Scotland compared favourably with England. Statistics showed in these a startling disproportion between England and Scotland, taking into consideration the numbers of population, and these figures were not to be attributed in any degree to the manners or character of the people, but mainly or exclusively to the superior system which existed in Scotland for the detection and prosecution of crime. If the Scotch system were introduced into this country, he believed that the expenditure would be comparatively small. That, however, was not at this moment the point at issue. As he had said, if there existed in England a system under which the work was done which was expected to be done, the public would be ready to pay for it; but if it were true that there were not three Members of the House of Commons who knew what the duties of the Public Prosecutor were, or knew under what circumstances they would be entitled to apply for his assistance, then he said that these large salaries, which implied exceedingly high responsibility on the part of the public officials, were improperly paid, and he had no doubt that it was the duty of the Committee to endeavour to reduce them.

said, he would ask the right hon. Gentleman to supplement the information asked for by his bon. Friend in one particular. This Department of the Civil Service was unlike the rest of the Service, inasmuch as it was distinctly of a professional character. There were in it one solicitor, three assistant solicitors, one principal assistant, and six other assistants; and, in addition to these, there were 20 clerks. He asked, with reference to the three assistant solicitors, the principal assistant and the six others, what were their professional qualifications; how they were appointed to the Office? On the first blush, the whole arrangement was extraordinary; and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to tell the Committee how the Government proceeded in filling up the appointments to this very important Office.

said, in answer to the last Question, he thought the hon. Gentleman would find all the information asked for in the Report of the Committee which was appointed by the Treasury last year. The Solicitor to the Treasury was, he believed, originally a barrister, but practised afterwards as a solicitor; Mr. Cuffe was a barrister, and the other assistants, he thought, were solicitors. Several officials in the Department had been transferred from others, and should consequently be considered rather as members of the Civil Service than as belonging to the Legal Profession. He might say that before the present system was organised there were separate Offices at the Board of Works, the Admiralty, and the War Office, which cost the country a considerable sum of money, and all the work of these Offices had been handed over to Sir Augustus Stephenson, while the greater part of the charge which appeared now upon the Estimate was amalgamated. Notwithstanding the abolition of the Office separately held up to that time, the only addition made to Sir Augustus Stephenson's salary was £500; his salary previous to that was one rising from £2,000 to £2,500, and it was increased to the extent he had mentioned in respect of additional work. The hon. Member for Lanark (Mr. Donald Crawford) had alluded to the Scotch system, of which he could not speak too highly, with regard to public prosecutions. But he would ask the hon. Member also to refer to the Report just mentioned in which he would find the fullest information. The Committee was a strong one; it was presided over by the right hon. and learned Member for Bury (Sir Henry James), and included Lord Justice Bowen and Mr. John Hollams, solicitor.

Has anything been done in consequence of their Report?

said, that question could be better answered by the Secretary to the Treasury. In reply to the hon. Member for Kirkcudbright (Mr. Mark Stewart), he could only repeat what he had said on a previous occasion—namely, that he would gladly institute prosecutions in the cases of sale of obscene and sometimes seditious literature when he could feel sure that more good than harm would be done by inquiry, the effect of which in the case of an obscene print in a back slum of London would be, perhaps, to send hundreds to buy what would otherwise be forgotten. The consideration had ever withheld him that it would be highly inexpedient to invest the sale of such things with, as it were, the dignity of a public trial at the Assizes, and to incur the delay, the expense, and publicity involved. If they could, on the other hand, seize the whole stock of such publications, and throw them into the sewers, it would be a very good remedy; but hon. Members opposite would object to such measures, and he could not complain of their objection, because such a course of proceedings undoubtedly involved dangers of another kind. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Pickersgill) had referred to the Wood libel case. The hon. Gentleman would readily admit that very great public interest was excited in the case. Considering what large sums of money were at stake in matters on the race course, what a considerable portion of the people was interested in the honesty and integrity of jockeys, and what a great danger to the public peace on the race course there was if it was supposed a jockey pulled a horse, it would be granted that the matter assumed proportions of public interest sufficient to justify an inquiry. He did not say it was right; on the contrary, he rather shared the opinion of the hon. Member that it would have been better not to have granted an inquiry in the case. As he was on his legs, and the Director of Public Prosecutions had been criticized, he hoped he would be allowed to say, in justice to the Public Prosecutor, that that official discharged his duty with extraordinary ability and unflinching integrity in the interests of the public, and with nothing like Party bias or regard for political considerations. The present Public Prosecutor did go as straight as any man could go. It had been complained that the Public Prosecutor did not prosecute more frequently, and the hon. Member for Bethnal Green suggested that the Public Prosecutor was at fault in not prosecuting the promoters of a certain bogus company. He would not pretend to give an answer, because he was not aware, of the details of the case; but it was, perhaps, as well he should enumerate the regulations which had been made for the guidance of the Public Prosecutor. The regulations were of but very recent date, and they were that the Public Prosecutor should only prosecute in cases in which the punishment was death, or when the offence was of a class in which the prosecutions had hitherto been taken by the Solicitor to the Treasury, or when he was ordered by the Secretary of State or the Attorney General to prosecute; or, lastly, where it appeared to him the offence, or the circumstances of its commission, were of such a character that a prosecution was required in the public interest and his action was necessary to secure a prosecution. The hon. Gentleman would see that the case of a bogus company was one in which no direct duty to prosecute lay on the Public Prosecutor.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had pleaded that he was not aware of the details of the case of the bogus company to which he (Mr. Pickersgill) had referred. That was an objection which was often raised in Committee of Supply. But in this particular case it seemed to him that a knowledge of the details of the case was not necessary, because he did not rely upon details, but upon the principle which was raised. A complaint of a conspiracy upon a large scale was laid before the Director of Public Prosecutions, by the editor of The Statist, accompanied by an official document, the Liquidators' Report, substantiating the complaint. The Director of Public Prosecutions replied that the subject of Abbott, Page and Co. was in the hands of the City Solicitor. If any information at all was in the possession of the Treasury Bench, the Committee ought to be told what were the circumstances under which authority was given to the City Solicitor in the case of Abbott, Page and Co. The editor of The Statist then said it was not the delinquencies of Abbott, Page and Co. of which he complained, it was a separate fraud apart altogether from that of Abbott, Page and Co. To the second letter the reply was, "That the letter will shortly be taken into consideration by the City Solicitor." In spite of what the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had said, it did seem to him that, having regard to the fact that in this case it was City men who were implicated, it was not in accordance with ordinary prudence to leave the matter entirely in the hands of the City Solicitor, and in an affair of this magnitude the duty lay upon the Public Prosecutor himself of forming au opinion upon the subject; and he could not but think that official neglected his duty in handing the letter over to the City Solicitor. So much with regard to that particular case. He desired to add a word or two with reference to the other matter he brought forward—namely,the case in which the fiat of the Director of Public Prosecutions was granted under the Newspaper Libel Act of 1881. He felt that a single case would not have justified him in preparing a complaint against a great Public Official, but the case which he mentioned in some detail was not the only case there was. He had the particulars of a largo number of cases, in some of which Judges had expressed very strong opinions, that a criminal prosecution ought not to have been commenced upon such a libel, and in other cases juries had expressed similar opinions. He did not think it was worth while now to refer in detail to those cases, because it was proposed by the Libel Amendment Bill, which was now before the House, to transfer the function to the Attorney General. He thought it ought never to have been put into the hands of any legal functionary of a less exalted position than the Attorney General. He would be glad, in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, if the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Home Department (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) would give the Committee some further information with regard to the circumstances under which, in the case of those Trusts and also in the case of Abbott, Page and Co., authority was given to the City Solicitor to prosecute, instead of the prosecution re- maining at the Treasury and under the direct supervision and control of the Statutory Officer, namely, the Director of Public Prosecutions.

said, that during the discussion upon this Vote some reference had been made to the Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the system of conducting the legal business of the Government, but he had not gathered from the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary whether the Government had taken, or intended to take, any action upon the Report of that Committee. The Report was a most valuable one, and he thought that the public would be more satisfied if the Government, which, he admitted, was a reforming and an economical Government, would add to their list of reforms a reform in this Department. One paragraph of the Report was as follows:—

"Your Lordships will observe from the evidence that all contentious business of a civil character, both in common law and equity, is conducted, not by the Treasury Solicitor's Department, but by agents employed for that purpose. Such agents receive one-half of the sum chargeable for costs beyond all disbursements. The average profits received by them during the last ten years was £3,599 11s."

He did not quite see the necessity to employ agents outside the staff. The necessity did not arise owing to insufficiency of staff, because he found that in another paragraph of the Report the Committee stated—

"That the staff of the Solicitor's Department is decidedly in excess of what is necessary in order to perform the professional duties discharged by it."

If that be so, why go outside and pay large sums of money to agents for conducting the civil and contentious business of the Department? He could quite understand that in the provinces it might possibly be, and very likely was, advantageous and economical to employ agents rather than that members of the staff should be sent down, but he understood that contentious business in London was discharged, not by the staff, not by the solicitors of the Department, but by agents engaged for the purpose. If that were so there was a real opportunity here for some reform. This was the Department in which a little while ago some of the contentious matter appeared to be whether cabs should be employed by messengers. There were seven messengers attached to the De- partment; and he understood that when a question arose as to hiring of a cab, a personal interview was necessary between the messengers and Sir A. K. Stephenson, the head of the Department. There appeared to be in this Department a straining at very small gnats and a swallowing of enormous camels. Surely the time occupied by the interview might have been better employed. He hoped the Government would give the Committee an assurance that the Report of the Select Committee, a Committee composed of gentlemen of very great eminence and experience, would not only receive attention, but be acted upon.

said, that the hon. Member for East Hull (Mr. Grotrian) had anticipated a point which he (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) rose earlier in the evening to make. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had referred to the Report of the Committee which had just been made the subject of remark. Having read the Report of the Committee, he could not, while the right hon. Gentleman was speaking, fail to admire the right hon. Gentleman's superb and sublime audacity, because the Report—which the right hon. Gentleman referred to so glibly as sufficient to answer all the observations made with regard to this particular Office—was of itself more than sufficient to condemn the Office in whole and in part. The Committee was appointed under a Treasury Minute dated the 11th July, 1887. In that Minute the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer called the attention of the Treasury to the Report of a Committee which sat previously to 1875 on the system of conducting the legal business of the Government, and he pointed out that since that year, in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee, a number of Legal Departments in other Offices, such as the War Office, the Admiralty, and the Office of Works, had been agglomerated in the Office of the Solicitor to the Treasury. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer went on to point out that the circumstances in which the successive steps were taken had not hitherto permitted any final regulation of the central establishment, but he thought that the limit of consolidation had been reached, and that the time had come to attempt to define permanently the duties of the several offices, and to determine the conditions of appointment, number, classification, pay, and duties of the staff required in future for the consolidated Department. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was of opinion that the inquiry would afford a favourable opportunity for considering whether any changes were desirable in the rules or customs which then governed the selection and payment of counsel employed in the various classes of Government legal business. Thereupon the Lords of the Treasury appointed a Committee; and he did not think the House would hesitate for a moment to accept whatever might be the unanimous conclusions of a Committee constituted as that was. The members of the Committee were:—Sir Henry James, Lord Justice Bowen, Mr. Henry H. Fowler, Mr. Frank Mowatt—a principal clerk in the Treasury—and Mr. John Hollams. What was the Report which the Committee made? These were the two points—

"The staff of the Solicitor's Department is decidedly in excess of what is necessary to perform the professional duties discharged by it;"

And, secondly,

"That many of the members of the staff are paid higher salaries than are necessary."

He doubted very much if there ever was a Report of a Committee more sweeping, more uncompromising, more absolute than that. There was too large a staff, and the members of that staff were too highly paid. What better ground could the Committee of Supply have for insisting upon a reduction of the Estimate which was submitted by the Government. This Estimate was framed in December, 1887. The Committee reported on the 8th of June, 1888. The Government had had five months to digest the Report. They presumably were not aware of the character of the Department for which they had provided in their Estimate. They were now enlightened. The Committee had informed the Treasury that the Legal Department of the Treasury was over-manned, and that, over-manned as it was, it was also individually over-paid, and yet the Government submitted to the House, five months after the date of the Report, this Vote in its integrity. They had not had a single word from the Government, although the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had spoken as to their intention to reduce this Vote, already condemned by so authoritative a tribunal as that they themselves constituted. Who were the witnesses before the Committee? The first was Sir Augustus Stephenson himself; the next was the Hon. H. Cuffe, an assistant solicitor; and the third was Mr. Chance, an assistant solicitor; and then came Lord Lingen, an ex-Treasury official; Sir Reginald Welby, a present Treasury official; Mr. Wakefield, the Clerk of Accounts in the Treasury Solicitor's Department. The only witnesses who were not Treasury officials were Mr. Mason, the Solicitor to the London and North-Western Railway Company; Mr. J. C. Fox, cue of the partners in the firm of Messrs. Hare and Co., solicitors, the agents to the Treasury Solicitor; and Mr. Justice Wills. More than two-thirds of the witnesses were actually interested parties, officials of the Treasury itself. There were only two really independent witnesses; one was a Judge and the other a Solicitor to a Railway Company. Having heard evidence from that limited class of witnesses, the Committee absolutely condemned the Department in most uncompromising terms as over-manned and as over-paid. And yet this Vote was submitted to the Committee of Supply without any suggestion from the only Member of the Government who had addressed the House of the least intention on the part of the Treasury to reduce the figures. Another very curious point about the Report was, that it enumerated all the officers who were employed in the Legal Department of the Treasury; it gave not only their numbers but their names and their rates of pay, and he found that the numbers did not agree with the numbers set forth in the Vote. There were 31 effective officers named in the Report; there were only 28 provided for in the Vote. The Vote showed a total of £18,493; the Report submitted in June, 1888—that was since the Vote was presented—showed that the total to be expended was £21,702. In other words the Report of the Committee, who had the most detailed information up to date, varies from the figures of the Estimate by no less a sum than £3,000, and in point of strength of staff the Report showed 31 officers as against 28 provided for by the Vote. The Committee's Report contained some very curious observations. The Committee reported that they were of opinion—

"That the principal injurious effects to which your Committee refer are, that if the persons so employed are possessed of vested interests or claims, the Solicitor to the Treasury has no immediate control over them: he cannot procure their dismissal without the commission by them of acts of gross misconduct, and he is hampered in securing, from time to time, the assistance of persons of ability and industrious habits."

What did that mean? Did it mean that the present staff of the Legal Department of the Treasury were not persons of ability and industrious habits; and if it did not mean that, what on earth did it mean? And if it did mean that, where was the authority of the Central Department of the Treasury in a case where persons in an over-grown and over-paid Establishment were indirectly referred to in a Report of such authority as this, as persons wanting in ability and industrious habits? He supposed there was not a Department of a single Civil Service in the world where persons who were wanting in necessary ability and industrious habits could be continued in their employment on full pay, in an Office which was manifestly and admittedly over-manned and over-paid, except the Treasury Department of the English Civil Service. As had been already pointed out, all contentious business in the Legal Department was conducted, not by the Treasury Solicitor himself, but by outsiders, agents employed for the purpose and the Committee reported—

"That as soon as there are members of the staff capable of conducting causes of a contentious character, the business now performed by the Treasury agents, Messrs. Hare & Co., should be carried on within the Department, under the direct supervision of the Treasury Solicitor. In making this recommendation your Committee desire to expressly state that they are in no way condemning the manner in which Messrs. Hare have conducted the business of the Treasury; and it may be worthy of consideration, if any reconstruction of the Solicitor's Department be effected in the future, whether the services of some of those who have hitherto so conducted that business may not be utilized."

A very good and practical suggestion. The outsiders who had been doing the contentious work of the Treasury knew their business. They were not mere red-tapeists, not mere clerks whose prin- cipal concern was to know how to shunt as much as possible of the daily routine business on some Department other than their own, or on to some members of the Department other than themselves. Messrs. Hare & Co. and those they employed, being in active business, and surrounded with the daily energy and excitement of public and open competition, knew their work, and they did their work, no doubt, very admirably. But what the Treasury wanted was such men on their own staff, and not a number of persons wanting in ability and industrious habits. The Committee went on to say—

"It is difficult to define the exact number of persons required to discharge the duties of the Department; but, as far as they can judge, your Committee are of opinion that if the Department were now to be established for the first time, it should consist of the Solicitor, who should perform the duties now discharged by Sir A. K. Stephenson, and three Assistant Solicitors;"—

They had Assistant Solicitors now; but what their qualifications were it might be invidious to say—

"Five clerks possessing qualifications similar to those possessed by managing clerks in a London solicitor's office;"—

What a sweeping condemnation of the whole system which at present prevailed at the Treasury—

"And such number of other clerks as may be found necessary to discharge the labours of the Office."

Then they came to something more in the nature of details. The three Assistant Solicitors were now receiving salaries of £1,500 a-year each, and the Committee were of opinion that those Solicitors should receive salaries varying from £1,500 to £1,000 a-year. They were also of opinion that five clerks should be paid salaries varying from £600 to £300 a-year, those salaries being at the present time nearly double. The Committee only reported upon these subjects to which he had referred. The subject upon which they did not report was the question of the changes which were desirable in the rules or customs which at present governed the selection and payment of the Counsel employed in the various classes of Government legal business. It was not clear that it was the intention of the Treasury that that should be taken in hand, inquired into, and reported upon. The hon. Gentle man the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jackson) had stated that he had some answer to make to an inquiry addressed to him on this Vote, and he (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) was inclined to suspect that the hon. Gentleman's answer would probably be limited to those points on which he had previously dwelt. It would be interesting, however, to know whether the Treasury meant to deal with that question as to which the Committee had not reported. It was perfectly plain that this Department was ridiculously over-manned and ridiculously over-paid. His hon. Friend (Mr. Pickersgill) had moved a reduction of the Vote by £1,000; but placing the most liberal interpretation upon the Report of the Committee, it was evident that the reduction of £1,000 was one which would be entirely inadequate. For want of a better Motion, however, he (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) would certainly vote with the hon. Member if he went to a Division. He thought that the Committee would see, from the extracts of the Reports he had read, that some radical or thorough reform ought to be taken in hand and pushed to immediate realization in the present financial year. If that were done, it would be found that the Vote, as now submitted to Parliament, was really unnecessary.

I will begin, not only by repudiating on behalf of the Government any blame which the Committee may be disposed to allot, but also by claiming from the Committee credit to the Government for having inaugurated the Committee which furnished the food for this discussion. It was because the Government were of opinion that the time had arrived when a complete and searching inquiry should be made into the condition of the Office in question, that they decided to appoint a Committee. Therefore, I shall claim for the Government every credit for the economy which resulted from the step thus taken. The Government were most anxious that they should, on that inquiry, obtain the services of men who would warrant the description the hon. Member for East Donegal (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) has given of it, and that they should have an authoritative expression of opinion. They were, therefore, most careful in their selection of men to serve on the Committee, and they were exceedingly obliged to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) for consenting to be a Member of it. Some hon. Members seem disposed rather to throw blame and to complain that the present Treasury Solicitor has an Office which is not only over-manned, but highly over-paid. That may be so; but that is not the fault of the present Treasury Solicitor. To the Office of which he is the head, there was added, subsequent to his appointment, the Solicitor's Department which then existed in the Office of Works, in the War Office, in the Admiralty, and in the Queen's Proctor's Office. When these solicitors were taken over, they were taken over at their then existing salaries, with their then existing staffs; and if the Treasury Solicitor at that time had wished to make a show of great economy, he might have called on the Government of the day to sanction the reduction of these establishments by granting terms of abolition pension, and in that way to reduce the charge for effective services. Apparently, at that time, it was thought to be more prudent not to grant abolition pensions, not to make any additions to the staff, and not to make any appointments when vacancies occurred. The staff then represented an annual cost of about £27,000. Reductions have been made which had effected a saving of about £7,000 a-year, and in addition to that, there has, in the matter of pensions, been a saving of about £2,000 a-year. I merely mention these facts in order to show that it is not fair to cast blame upon the present holder of the Office of Treasury Solicitor. I think that a perfectly fair question has been put to the Government—namely, what are they going to do in the present condition of circumstances; what action are they going to take on the Report of this very able, strong, and authoritative Committee? In reply, I may state that the action which they propose to take is, practically, to accept the recommendations of the Committee. That, I think, is a complete answer to all and every criticism which has been offered up to the present time. I may add, that since the issue of the Report of the Committee an Office has become vacant which represented a salary of £1,200 a year, and the Government have decided not to fill it. They have also decided, as other Offices become vacant, not to fill them until they bring the total staff within the compass of the lines of the recommendations of the Committee. I think the Committee, therefore, will probably agree that it is not necessary for me to go into the details of the questions which have been put, and the evidence which has been cited, because I take it the object of the Committee is to know what action the Government is going to take on the Report of the Committee which the Government itself appointed.

said, it was very interesting, of course, to get the statement they had just heard from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, and they were indebted to the hon. Member for East Donegal (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) and the hon. Member for East Hull (Mr. Grotrian) for extracting that much. He (Mr. Bradlaugh) did not know that it was the fault of the Treasury Solicitor that he received high pay, but he thought they might have had a little more from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury by way of detail as to what it was proposed to do. His (Mr. Bradlaugh's) recollection of the evidence, which had been so fully referred to by the hon. Member for East Donegal, included a matter which he did not think that hon. Gentleman had stated to the House. It explained why a great deal of the work which ought to be done by the Solicitor to the Treasury was done by other solicitors as his agents—why this Gentleman who was receiving £3,000 a year, as Solicitor to the Treasury, really did not act in that capacity at all. The Solicitor to the Treasury, frankly enough, in his evidence, said that he had had no experience as a solicitor. This gentleman was, therefore, appointed to an office which he was utterly incompetent to fill, and it was probably meant that he should only be a nominal figure-head, employing somebody else to do the work that he was employed to do. There had been occasions when Sir A. K. Stephenson had given the Government the benefit of his presence in the Police Court, but they had been very seldom, and in nearly every case where Treasury prosecutions had been conducted, they had been conducted by private firms of solicitors who would not have been required at all if the head of the Department had been a practical solicitor. They were told that it was not this Gentleman's fault that he had had to take over different solicitors from the different departments, but they were also told that all these payments were to be persisted in until the gentlemen now holding office died off. It was exceedingly difficult, no doubt, if the abolition of office was to be accompanied with pensions, to abolish offices and so swell the non-effective Votes, but he failed to see why the Government should retain the services of incompetent people at salaries they did not earn. Was it to be said that the Committee had nothing to do with it, and had merely to vote the amounts put before them? He did not think the Committee should do that, but that they should divide against the Vote for the purpose of showing their sense of the position in which they found themselves. If he (Mr. Bradlaugh) had a grievance against the mover of this reduction, it was that he had not moved a large enough reduction. He certainly trusted that the hon. Member would not require any pressing to go to a Division. In any case, he (Mr. Bradlaugh) should only do his duty to go into the Lobby against this expenditure, before the Vote was taken. As an illustration of the manner in which Sir A. K. Stephenson did the country the honour of appearing in Court, he would point out that costs amounting to £40 would have been enforced against some poor men—with the approval of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary—if it had not been for the intervention of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt); and when the costs came to be taxed they amounted only to £14 odd, so that, if the full amount demanded had been paid, somebody would have a made a considerable profit. If these were results for which they paid £3,000 a year, they ought to express their dissatisfaction by a Division. [Mr. MATTHEWS dissented.] The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary shook his head when he mentioned these facts, but the right hon. Gentleman had refused to allow an adjournment of the case to enable the facts to be gone into, when he (Mr. Bradlaugh) had applied for it, and he thought the Committee ought to mark its sense of what had taken place, and of the general position of the Solicitor's Department, by going into the Lobby. In this way they could show that economy had some meaning in it, and was to be translated into a practical Division.

said, he did not wish to detain the Committee, but merely to state that he had received a telegram from the hon. Member for Flintshire, who usually sat opposite (Mr. S. Smith), expressing his obligations to the Government, and especially to the hon. and learned Solicitor General, for the course taken in prosecuting the publishers of the translations of Zola's works. The hon. Member, who had sent this telegram in June or July last, had brought very forcibly before the House the question of the publication of obscene literature in this country, and had carried an Amendment on the subject, and he now felt very grateful to the Government for the course they had taken in prosecuting the publishers of this atrocious literature. His hon. Friend wished to draw the attention of the House and the Government to the necessity of doing more in the same direction through the Public Prosecutor.

said, it was rather unfortunate that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had referred the House to the Report of the Select Committee, to which, subsequently, such startling reference had been made by the hon. Member for East Donegal. After the references they had heard from the hon. Member for East Donegal, if anyone had hesitated previously as to what position they should take up on this question, and whether they should follow the hon. Member for Bethnal Green into the Lobby, that hesitation would now be dissipated. The more they looked into that Report, the less defence there was for the action of the Director of Public Prosecutions. At first his (Mr. J. Rowland's) impression had been that the Public Prosecutor had not sufficient time to devote to the cases which had been referred to, but when they remembered that such cases as that of the bogus Companies had occurred, they were forced to the conclu- sion that the Public Prosecutor had failed in his duty in refusing to receive information offered to him by responsible persons; when they found that, instead of being over-worked, this official had a staff at his disposal which was far too large for the business he had to do, and that the staff was over-paid, the conduct of this gentleman stood out still more for condemnation.

said, he also had a Motion on the Paper for the reduction of the salary of the Director of Public Prosecutions, but his object in opposing the Vote was entirely different from that of the hon. Member, who held that the salary of the Solicitor to the Treasury was too high. He did not wish to go into that question, but his complaint was that the service rendered for the money paid was altogether inadequate, and that the public did not get a sufficient return for their money—that the Director of Public Prosecutions did not do enough in the way of public prosecutions. He did not mean to blame Sir Augustus Stephenson, his contention being that the fault lay with the system under which public prosecutions were conducted, or rather were not conducted. Parliament and the country had decided that we should have a system of public prosecutions, and it was the duty of those who had charge of the Department to carry out public prosecutions; but at present, although no doubt thieves and murderers were prosecuted, the perpetrators of a large number of frauds and dishonest mercantile transactions were not dealt with at all. The country was honeycombed with commercial frauds that were not sufficiently followed up. He believed that it had been altogether a mistake to unite the office of Public Prosecutor with that of Solicitor to the Treasury. The Government had the Office of Public Prosecutor held by an inefficient person, and had evaded the difficulty by a re-organization which took the shape of adding the enormous duties of Public Prosecutor to those of a person who was over-burdened already. Judges and Royal Commissions had exposed the grossest frauds in the country, and there was no doubt, as he had said, that the country was honeycombed with all sorts of fraud, the effect of which was to prevent prudence and saving amongst the community. Nothing prevented prudence more than the insecurity of public Companies, and the difficulty in finding out where money could be safely invested. He maintained that the public had a right to be protected by the State against fraud just as much as they had to be protected against pickpockets. No doubt there had been one or two prosecutions in cases of fraudulent bankruptcy, but they were the rare exceptions. The bogus Companies and Trusts, with reference to which the editor of The Statist had taken action, were allowed to go on without punishment being inflicted on their promoters. The Public Prosecutor bad been communicated with by the editor of that newspaper, and information as to certain frauds had been convoyed to him, but the Public Prosecutor had evaded the inquiry. He (Sir George Campbell) did not say whether the Public Prosecutor ought, or ought not, to have undertaken the prosecutions in these cases, but he thought that the statements of the editor of The Statist ought to have been received in a different spirit than by the mere intimation that the City Solicitor was making inquiries. Was it for the City Solicitor to make inquiries in cases of this kind? No doubt the City was full of frauds, but those frauds had their ramifications outside the City, and therefore he maintained that it was the duty of the Public Prosecutor to move in such matters. Then there was the great Salt Trust, which was nothing more nor less than a great conspiracy. He had asked the Government the other day whether these trusts were legal or illegal, and the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had replied to him as though the point were raised for the first time, and had said that no one had brought the matter before his notice in a way which would justify his taking a legal opinion. The right hon. Gentleman had said this in spite of the fact that every species of public organ had disclosed the matter, and that very considerable authorities, through the Press, had expressed opinions adverse to this system of rings, which old laws of this country had held to be criminal. There were many old laws which held as criminal practices on the part of Companies or individuals in restraint of trade. Competent autho- rities, moreover, had asserted that there were even special laws against combinations to keep up the price of salt. He did not know whether this was really the case, but he thought, at any rate, that the subject was one which should be inquired into. He would point out, however, that there was one thing which the law of this country did affect, and that was the practice of conspiracy. They had heard a great deal of late of the law of conspiracy as applied to Ireland, and they had heard described as illegal combinations with the object of cutting down prices. Well, if these combinations were illegal, he thought that the law should be also brought to bear upon people who combined to keep up prices. At any rate, it was the duty of the Public Prosecutor to satisfy himself as to whether these rings, such as the Salt Rings, were legal or illegal, and whether or not those who took part in them could be prosecuted. He maintained that this country was singularly in want for machinery in bringing public attention to bear upon these things. They possessed such machinery in France, and to the fact that fraud was severely punished in that country was, no doubt, owing the circumstance that the people were so saving. The poor in Scotland were also, to some extent, protected from these conspiracies; but unhappily the law of Scotland was being emasculated by contact with her richer neighbour. He supported the Motion, not for the purpose of censuring any individual, but as a protest against a system.

said, he did not contemplate voting in favour of the reduction of this Vote, because the Public Prosecutor had failed to take criminal action against the Salt Syndicate, nor because that official had not prosecuted the authors of bogus Companies. It appeared that the original promoter of these bogus Companies had run away, although the editor of The Statist thought certain other persons should be prosecuted for having associated themselves with him. It might or might not be a proper thing to prosecute these persons; but at any rate, with reference to the fraudulent Companies, no decision could be come to until the Public Prosecutor had been heard; there might or might not be a case. But when he found, as he did in one case, that a summons was dismissed because the Prosecutor could not find about £40 costs, he felt an abuse existed; especially as Mr. Poland, he supposed, did not do the thing cheap, on the job, and it was a scandal that a prosecution should fail for a reason like that. What he asked was this—when prosecutions were undertaken by the Treasury or Joseph Chamberlain—[Laughter]—Peter Chamberlain, he meant—the Public Prosecutor did not fulfil the duties himself. For such cases Mr. Poland drew four guineas, and unless he had an explanation why the Public Prosecutor did not see to these cases himself, he should go to a Division.

said, he would point out to the hon. Member for East Donegal that the Select Committee to which reference had been made had reported upon all points referred to them; but by that strange and mysterious law which seemed to regulate the printing of documents for the information of the House, as they did not report upon one part of the Reference much more than four months ago, the Report was not well in the hands of Members. The Committee had reported that it was not desirable to make any change in the rules or customs which at present governed the selection and payment of counsel. The work appeared to the Committee to be performed in a satisfactory manner; but they had recommended one important change, which, to some extent, bore upon the matter the Committee were discussing some time ago—namely, that when the Attorney General went to prosecute in any case out of London he should not be, as at present entitled, by the etiquette of the Bar, to a special retainer of 300 guineas. The Committee recommended that this payment should cease, and that a different scale of emolument should be adopted. He (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) begged to thank the Secretary to the Treasury for the way in which he had spoken of the labours of the Select Committee, and for the promise which had been made to adopt the recommendation contained in its Report. He recognized the difficulty in which the Treasury were placed in this matter. They had allowed the office to grow into its present unsatisfactory condition. There was a staff of 49 members in the Treasury Solicitor's Office, of which the cost, exclusive of the Solicitor's salary, was £18,000, whereas the Solicitors' Department of the North Western Railway Company, which no one would say was of small importance, was conducted at a cost, exclusive of the Solicitor's salary, of a little over £7,000. He hoped the Secretary to the Treasury would not listen to any scheme for re-organization. The real crux of the question was whether the Government were going to allow any additional staff taken into the Office to become permanent members of the Civil Service? Hon. Gentlemen on that side had been, and still were, of opinion that they should not do so. They were of opinion that the Treasury should constitute a Court of Appeal, but that the Solicitor to the Treasury should engage and dismiss the various employés, whereas the present system implied so many vested interests and pensions in the case of those on the staff. They wanted the Treasury to say that the statement which had been made was not merely a friendly one, but that it should be a permanent decision binding on the successors of right hon. Gentlemen opposite; that a change was to take place; that they were to reduce the overgrown establishment of the Office, and re-constitute it on a new, economical, and permanent basis.

said, he was obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for what he had stated, but he thought that he had been a little too hard in his criticism at an earlier part of the evening on the non-production of the Report of the Committee. The Report which he made so much of was at the moment in the Vote Office and in print, and he mentioned that to show that they had endeavoured to produce the Report in time for use in the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman said that he did not want the Government to make a merely friendly statement—that he wanted something to be put on record. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that this was not the manner in which the Government were endeavouring to conduct their business, and that the reason why he did not enter into details was because he thought the statement made would cover the whole subject, and that it would be understood that the Government intended to give effect to it. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to a recommendation that certain clerks should not be members of the Civil Service. The Government were prepared to accept the recommendation of the Committee on that point, and in every respect, with the exception of the three assistant solicitors. The right hon. Gentleman would remember that the Committee were not unanimous on that point, and that two Members of the Committee who signed the Report expressed the opinion that the three assistant solicitors ought to be members of the Civil Service. So far as the assistant solicitors were concerned, he wished it to be understood that with these exceptions, which were for the moment in abeyance, the Government had accepted the recommendation of the Committee, and that the other members of the staff were not to be members of the Civil Service. He hoped that would satisfy the right hon. Gentleman. There had been a practical agreement arrived at in reference to the staff which was considered necessary in future, and it was to be placed on record at the Treasury what course was to be followed with respect to this Office. The points to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred would be placed on record and carried out actually in the form which he desired. He hoped he might appeal to the Committee at that somewhat late hour (10.30) to allow the Vote to be taken, and particularly would he appeal to the hon. Gentleman who had moved its reduction. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) had himself pointed out the difficulties in the way of giving effect to the hon. Gentleman's Motion. It would be inconsistent with precedent, and most unusual, to reduce the salaries of the existing staff, and he trusted that, on the authority of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Pickersgill) would be satisfied with the discussion which had taken place on his Motion. He thought the Government had shown that they had not been neglectful or wanting in care or attention with respect to the question brought forward, and he hoped he had satisfied the hon. Gentleman that the Government had endeavoured, as far as was in their power, to give effect to the recommendations of the Committee.

said, it was very satisfactory to hear from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury that he accepted the principle that with certain exceptions the solicitors in the Treasury Department should not be servants of the Crown. He hoped the hon. Member for Bethnal Green would not take a Division as to a deduction from the salary of the Public Prosecutor. There was no intention to leave things as they were, but it was only fair to the gentleman who filled the office of Solicitor to the Treasury to say that he was placed in a position of great disadvantage. The Establishments of other Departments had been sent over to the Solicitor to the Treasury; they had no experience in relation to the kind of business with which they had to deal, and in consequence they were in that respect inefficient. There was nothing which the Government should enter upon with greater care than the prosecution of Companies of the kind referred to; and he thought it was an evil thing to tell persons who became shareholders of Companies, in order to get large profits, that if they failed the Government would prosecute. It was much better to leave persons to trust to their own intelligence as to speculative Companies than to the Public Prosecutor. He remembered one of the most convincing arguments was used in that House by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), who, when he was asked to countenance a public prosecution in the case of Overend, Gurney, and Co., declined to do so, because it would have been giving aid to speculators, and saying to persons who wanted to get high dividends—"You are not to trust to your own intelligence." He protested against the teaching that when a man could not get back his money from a public Company he should be able to go to the Public Prosecutor and so commence a prosecution.

said, an appeal had been made to him which he regretted he could not accede to. Replies had been made generally by the Representatives of the Government, but, so far as his own remarks were concerned, he had not received any satisfaction whatever. The complaint on his part with regard to certain bogus Companies had, he thought, been missed by one or two hon. Members. He did not for one moment say that there had been a case for prosecution; he had not seen the papers, and it was absurd, in their absence, to express an opinion. But he had drawn attention to a City scandal, and he had protested against a case being handed over to the City Solicitor for investigation which ought to have been followed up by the Director of Public Prosecutions. He felt convinced that the door would be opened to the greatest possible abuse if they were to sanction this course of action on the part of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

said, he did not wish to take away the salary of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The only occasion on which he came in contact with that official was when he asked for a fiat to prosecute the Editor of The Western Morning News for a criminal libel on himself, in pursuance of which he had had the satisfaction of prosecuting Mr. Grosser and compelling him to make a public retractation and apology. Therefore, for his own part, he had to express satisfaction with Sir Augustus Stephenson in reference to the matter, which was of great importance to him at the time. But there was a question of later date, with reference to Trafalgar Square, to which he must call attention. Towards the end of July last the hon. Member for North-West Lanark (Mr. Cunninghame Graham) stated to the House that he would use his influence to have the meetings in Trafalgar Square discontinued upon a statement of the point at issue; this was to be done on the understanding that the legal and constitutional question would be distinctly and fully stated in a special case which was to be presented to a Court of Law, the draft of which special case he had in his hands. It appeared that an attempt had been made to strike out the wide legal and constitutional points which hon. Members on that side of the House desired to raise; and, on the understanding that these could be raised alone, he and his hon. Friends had consented to forego their right of meeting in Trafalgar Square. He asked the Chairman whether he would be within his right in saying anything further on this subject?

said, he presumed the hon. Member wished to challenge the view taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions. If that were so, he did not think that the matter would come under the present Vote.