I think that the House will allow me to state the course which the Government find it necessary to take in regard to this Bill, and incidentally the policy they intend to pursue in regard to the very important questions concerned in the telephone system. The Bill now before the House is one which in itself is moderate in character. It really seeks to obtain for the New Telephone Company statutory powers similar to those provided for the Post Office by the Act of 1863, except in one particular. I do not know that the powers asked for would be found excessive if it were desired by Parliament to place a private Telephone Company in possession of separate statutory powers. But those have never hitherto been given in telephonic business. That business is in a very different position to gas, electric lighting, and water undertakings, because none of these trench upon or touch the prerogative of the Crown. But it has been decided by a High Court of Justice that telephones are telegraphs, and are therefore a monopoly of the Post Office, and accordingly no separate power has ever been conferred upon Telephone Companies, but they have carried on their proceedings under licence from the Postmaster General. I need not trouble the House with the whole history of the proceedings in regard to the telephone system; the House is familiar with it, and only a few years ago the subject was inquired into by a Committee. But still I should like to remind the House that the policy pursued by my predecessors, of either Party, was to grant licences to commercial companies for the erection and maintenance of telephones, and these licences at first restricted were afterwards made universal all over the Kingdom, and in fact 13 companies were granted powers. It was intended by my predecessors that there should be thus commercial freedom, so that the public might be efficiently served by the competitive efforts of these companies. The result cannot be said to have been wholly satisfactory, for gradually these companies have nearly all been amalgamated or absorbed in one large company—the National Telephone Company, which has made greater advances than any other company in the country. But there are some that are not so absorbed—one small group headed by the New Telephone Company, by whom the present Bill is promoted. The result, as I have said, has not been wholly satisfactory. There have been many representations of late by Public Bodies of the inadequacy of the telephone system; and only yesterday I received a very large deputation from the London Chamber of Commerce, who represented that it was very desirable—in fact, that it was most important—that Her Majesty's Government should bring in a General Powers Bill to afford facilities for the development of the; telephone not only in the Metropolis, but in the towns throughout the country. In view of what we believe to be the general opinion, and in accordance with the constant policy of the Post Office, it will be my duty, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill, and à fortiori the Bill promoted by the National Telephone Company, not at this moment before the House, but which has been read a first time, and which asks powers much wider than were ever asked by the Post Office. The feet is, that owing to the failure of the intentions of the Government, the telephone system has made less progress here than it has in any country in Europe. In France and in Germany it has made very great strides, and a considerable percentage of the people use the telephone here. Only a very small fraction of our inhabitants are in the enjoyment of these facilities; and in London, the largest city in the world, there is not a quarter so much use of the telephone as in Berlin. Certainly the terms of the licences issued by the Post Office have had something to do with hindering the development of the system. The licences confine the companies' operations. They are very much restricted by the clause which forbids the writing down and delivery of messages, which process is allowed in France, where the telephone belongs to the Government. They cannot communicate with the Post Office except under considerable charges; they cannot carry their lines along railways, roads, or canals where the Post Office has the entire concession without paying very heavy way-leaves. In these ways the companies are very restricted in their operations. Not to weary the House, but to proceed to the point at which I desire to arrive, I may say that ever since I have occupied my present office I have given earnest attention to this subject with a view to providing a system which would facilitate instead of retard the development of the industry while sufficiently guarding the Post Office monopoly, which, though an ugly word, expresses a great interest of the country acquired at great cost. The two objects are not incompatible, and it is our desire that the Post Office should give the greatest encouragement, and be in alliance with Telephone Companies if means can be devised by which the Telephone Companies may develop their system. That there is a real danger of the valuable public property — the telegraph system—being injured by the extension of this telephone system, is proved by the fact that wherever the telephone system has been principally developed there the growth of the telegraph revenue has been checked. The telephone system has been more considerably developed in Lancashire and Yorkshire than elsewhere in this country, and there the growth of the telegraph revenue has been most checked. The concessions which might be made to the Telephone Companies are mainly these—that messages might be transmitted by telephone and communicated to the public telegraph wires so that there might be free communication between the two systems; that messages might be sent from any telephone subscriber to be delivered to his correspondent by the Post Office; that they might be sent by post as letters or by express messenger service; that no charge should be made by the Post Office for the work of taking down the telephonic messages and despatching them by telegraph or by post; that any way-leaves along railways and roads should be reduced from the present charge of 20s. per mile per annum to a nominal sum, and, lastly, that companies should be allowed to establish call offices, where practicable, at post offices. Other concessions might possibly be made so that the public interest in the telegraphs might be adequately secured; but these are matters of detail. We are prepared to facilitate legislation giving certain moderate powers for the construction of telegraphs by the licencees. These concessions, if granted without corresponding provisions for the protection of the public revenue, would be very dangerous. For if the Telephone Companies were in communication with all the large towns, and sent messages all over the country, undoubtedly the system would to a large extent supersede the use of the telegraph, and, consequently, largely diminish the telegraph revenue. Therefore, it is an essential feature in any scheme, if carried out, that the Government should have possession of the trunk wires. Of course, experts in these matters will readily understand me. Telephone exchanges consist of a comparatively small number of private wires leading to houses or offices, and these groups of wires are connected by main wires with other exchanges in the same town, and by means of trunk wires with other towns. It is our view that we ought not to interfere with the commercial business of the companies in establishing local exchange systems as widely as possible wherever their enterprise may lead them, but that the junction of those systems should be in the hands of the Government. The trunk wires should be in the hands of the Government, in order that the public may have their portion of the sum paid for the messages in the same way as for telegrams; but that would be fixed at a moderate rate, so as not to check the development of the telephone. As regards main lines in towns connected with several exchanges, it is desirable, although not necessary, that they should be in the hands of the Post Office, because if Telephone Companies become largely developed there will come to be an infinity of thick Cable wires connecting these exchanges; and, as in New York, the time may come when these might be inconveniently multiplied to the public danger, and the Local Authority, as in New York, might be compelled, at immense expense, to remove them from their airy height and place them underground. If the rival Telephone Companies were to be possessed of the power of operating in the same towns or area, or possessed powers to take up the public streets and lay down underground wires, there would be infinite confusion and disturbance of traffic, and private rights might be encroached upon. But if the Post Office has power to make the main connections, they could lay wires side by side to accommodate all the different exchanges — the exchanges renting separate wires for their own service; and so the work would be done with the least possible disturbance, and it would increase the accommodation to the public. But any such powers would be naturally viewed with great jealousy were they not exercised in strict harmony with the Local Authorities; and it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government, both in the additional powers they propose to confer and the additional powers which they propose to seek from the House, to carry the Local Authorities with them throughout. Local Authorities will be communicated with in the first place with reference to exchanges and street works, and in reference to connections with private houses the rights of owners must have consideration. Another question is, how far is this extension of licences to proceed? It is contrary to sound policy that licences should be given to men of straw, who merely acquire them for the purpose of selling them and for levying blackmail, in a sense, upon existing companies and solid organisations; and, therefore, the view of the Government is that fresh licences should not be given all over the country. That almost follows on the desire of Government to possess the trunk wires. Wherever the Local Authority are satisfied that a telephone exchange is desirable in their area, and the Government are satisfied that the licencees are in a position to carry out their undertaking, and that it is in the public interest desirable that they should have a licence, then they will be granted a licences for that area. Most of these things can be done under our existing powers; but it is my intention, on the part of the Government, to move in a few days for leave to bring in a Bill to confer additional powers on the Post Office in regard to telegraphs and telephones. It would be improper for me now to indicate what those powers will be. They will be very moderate, and will not infringe any private rights; and in every case we shall carry the Local Authority with us everywhere. There will be a slight extension of existing powers where they are insufficient for the development either of this new modern enterprise or of small extensions of telegraphs where public necessity requires. It is extraordinary how Local Authorities and private individuals can interrupt the making of most moderate extensions for months. I do not think I need go further into the matter just now, but I do not think the House will be prepared to establish private companies in so strong a position in opposition to Government telegraphs as would be created by this Bill. I move that the Bill be read a second time this day six months, though I have every reason to believe that the promoters do not intend to press it in view of the statements I have made.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to say whether the Local Authority will have to give special permission for the construction of a telephone system, or will it be sufficient if the Local Authority does not object when the application is made?

It would be better not to go into detail of the proposed Bill just now; but, generally speaking, the hon. Gentleman will find that the interests of Local Authorities and individuals are strictly guarded.

The Government having intimated their intention to bring in a Bill on this subject, I beg now to move the adjournment of the Debate.

I hope there will be no misunderstanding as to this Bill. The Government could not, under any circumstances, agree to the Second Reading of this Bill.

The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned many particulars upon which he thinks concessions might be made to Telephone Companies; but I think it is only fair to postpone this Bill for a week, until we see what the Government proposals actually are.

What is the object of repaying this money? Is it not now forfeited? Why should the money be given back to the Railway Company?

This is a mere matter of form. According to the Act this money will be liable to be forfeited, and it is arranged in such cases as a perfectly legal transaction that the money should be refunded. It has the approval of the authorities.

moved—

"That it be an Instruction to the Committee to whom the Bill is referred that provisions be inserted in such Bill for protecting the town of Tenby and its neighbourhood from the effect, by way of flood, of the overflows into the River Teme from the proposed waterworks at Burrington, near Ludlow, or for providing ample compensation for the damage caused by such overflow."

I object to this being taken now, and I would like to ask whether the proposed Instruction is itself in Order as being an Instruction to a Committee, on a supposed matter of fact on which the persons supposed to be aggrieved will have full power to appear before the Committee by counsel?

There is no objection to the form; but if the hon. Gentleman objects, it will go over from today.

Then, Sir, I beg leave to object.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether the scheme sanctioned in August, 1891, for the improvement of the salaries of rural postmen has been extended to the Strabane district; and whether James Sloane, a postman from Stranorlar to Drumkeen, has received the benefit of the said scheme; and, if not, why not?

The scheme referred to was carried into effect throughout the United Kingdom in August last. It, however, applies only to rural postmen who do a full day's work. James Sloane, the postman from Stranorlar to Drumkeen, walks only ten miles a day, which does not constitute a full day's work, which is reckoned at twelve miles; and, therefore, he is not entitled to any increase of wages under the general revision. His wages, however, were raised a few weeks ago from 11s. to 12s. a week.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty when he proposes to have a coastguard station erected on Bere Island, in Bantry Bay?

On behalf of my noble Friend I have to say that there is already a coastguard station at Lawrence Cove, Bere Island, consisting of three houses held on lease, and there is no likelihood of a new station being built. A coastguard signal station is now being erected on the island.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether soldiers 50 years of age, under conditions mentioned in Small Book of 1853, page 6, are not entitled to a pension after 12 years' service; and, if so, whether he will take steps to advertise the fact?

I explained on the 14th inst. these soldiers are not entitled to a deferred pension, the misprint in one part of the Small Book having been shown to be a mistake by the explanation given in another part. There could be no need to advertise, as every man enlisted before the mistake was corrected must long since have reached the age of 50, and on preferring any claim he considered himself to have must have received an explanation of the error.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether, in view of the great commercial importance of the question of telephonic communication generally, he will inform the House when licences will be granted by him to companies which have established telephonic exchanges in many localities throughout the country, and which are now inactive in consequence of the delay arising out of the withholding of such licences by him; and whether he is aware that in the township of Denton, near Manchester, which is a district isolated from that city, all necessary apparatus for a telephonic exchange has been for some time erected, and that the subscribers are anxiously waiting for the opening of the local exchange, which the solicitor to the Post Office has prohibited until the licence has been granted?

I am about to state to the House the policy which Her Majesty's Government proposes to pursue on the whole question of telephonic communication. Any companies which have established exchanges without licence—and, therefore, in contravention of the law, as explained in a well-known judgment of the High Court—are in a false position; but I will give consideration to the case of Denton.

The statement the right hon. Gentleman has already made applies to the first part of my question, but I would still ask whether he could grant provisional licences in districts where exchanges have been established and all appliances provided until the passing of the Bill which he has foreshadowed?

It would be quite competent to grant licences to such places, but every case must be judged of on its own merits; and to the case of Denton, to which the hon. Member refers, I will give early consideration.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the report of an inquest held at Her Majesty's Prison, Maidstone, on 10th March, upon the body of Samuel Wilson, aged 50; whether it is a fact that, after his committal by the Cranbrook Magistrates for seven days' hard labour for vagrancy, the deceased, who was in a low physical condition and had no overcoat, was driven by the police 14 miles in an open trap during bitterly cold weather; and whether, since the evidence showed that death was due to pneumonia contracted as a result of this exposure, steps will be taken to generally enforce the recommendation of the Coroner's jury, that in future, under similar circumstances, prisoners shall be conveyed in closed conveyances?

My attention has been called to the inquest on Samuel Wilson at Maidstone Prison. I am informed that during the two days prior to his removal from the lock-up at Cranbrook, Wilson ate his meals and made no complaint as to his health, and that there was nothing to lead the Police Authorities to suppose that he was otherwise than in a good state of health. The prisoner was fairly clad, and was supplied with a rug for the journey. He made no complaint on arriving at the prison. The doctor at the inquest was unable to say that the prisoner took cold on the journey to the prison. I understand, however, that in future steps will be taken by the local police to provide covered conveyances for the carriage of prisoners when the weather is inclement.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a number of the tenants on the estate of Lord Rathdonnell, at Gortnacarra, Drummully, County Fermanagh, entered the Land Court in January, 1888, for the purpose of having judicial rents fixed; can he explain why these cases have not yet been investigated; and if he will state how much longer these people will have to wait before their cases are dealt with?

The Irish Land Commissioners report that three applications to have rents fixed were received in January, 1888, from the estate mentioned in the question. These cases with others have been listed for hearing by a Sub-Commission who have been sitting for the Unions of Lisnaskea and Clones since early last month.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General what length of time the principal clerkship in the Accountant's Office, General Post Office, Dublin, has been vacant; whether there were any officers in the Accountant's Office competent to fill the vacant position recommended by the head of the office; and, if any, why some one of them was not appointed; whether Mr. Parkinson's salary in the Accountant's Office will be £100 per annum in excess of the maximum allowed to the principal clerk there; whether the latest holder of the position now vacant in the Controller's Office had an official income of £490, although the maximum of the class is £390; what objection there is to allow Mr. Parkinson, whose salary is £500, to fill the vacancy and remain in the Controller's Office, where he has acted as chief clerk and assistant controller for many years, and thus remove the grievance which the transfer inflicts on the clerks of the Accountant's Office; will he state how long Mr. Parkinson has been chief clerk in the Controller's Office; and on what grounds he is considered better suited for the principal clerkship in the Accountant's Office than in the superior position which he has held in the Controller's Office?

The principal clerkship in the Accountant's Office, Dublin, had been vacant about one year. I have already stated that the senior clerks in that office were not considered competent for that post; but I must decline to say what recommendations were made by the head of the Office. The Office was re-constituted on the seven hours' system, and all the clerks received an increase of pay for the longer hour of attendance. The reply to the third paragraph is "yes." To the fourth, the salary of the last holder of the place was £400, in addition to which he received an allowance of £90 for loss of fees. Mr. Parkinson is considered to be better suited for the duties of the Accountant's Office than for that of the Controller. He had been chief clerk in the latter office for 18½ years. I must decline to answer the last paragraph. The Head of a Department must distribute the staff in the way which he considers most useful to the Public Service.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General, with regard to the exanation for male telegraph clerks which was held in Dublin in July, 1891, on the condition that successful candidates should spend three months at the school without pay, after which time salary was to commence at 12s. per week, can he state how many of those who passed at that examination are now under pay; what length of time they have received it; how many have been three months in the school, and have not received pay; and if any have not received it will he state the reason; whether a new rule has recently been issued requiring telegraph clerks to attain a certain proficiency before getting any salary; and if the clerks who have joined the Service before the new rule was issued will come under its provisions?

The officers referred to are not examined as telegraph clerks, or as we say telegraphists, but as telegraph learners. They are lads without telegraphic knowledge, and are required to obtain such knowledge before they can be appointed. They are not charged for the tuition they receive in telegraphy, nor are they paid while receiving it. Two of the telegraph learners who passed at the July competition became proficient in telegraphy on the 4th March, and received appointments with pay of 12s. a week, and two more have since that date become qualified and will be appointed without delay. Twenty-six of the remainder of the competitors who entered the school of instruction a little more than three months ago are not yet qualified, and cannot therefore be appointed at present. It has always been the rule that the learners should attain a certain proficiency in telegraphy before being appointed.

I beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland whether the Judges in whom it is proposed to vest the exclusive jurisdiction in all bankruptcy matters arising within the jurisdiction of the existing local Courts of Bankruptcy are also Judges of the local County Courts, and are also Recorders for Belfast and Cork respectively; whether their duties as such Judges and Recorders compel them to hold courts from time to time at various places scattered over the large areas comprised within the jurisdiction of their respective County Courts; are such Judges obliged, in addition to transacting the ordinary business of their County Courts, to hold special sittings from time to time at various places for the purpose of holding Land Sessions; and have they, in addition, to preside over the local tribunals for disposal of Admiralty business, and also to hold Courts as Recorders of Belfast and Cork; and, if so, how often do these Judges hold Courts for the transaction of bankruptcy matters?

My answer to the first three paragraphs is in the affirmative. As to the fourth, I am informed that in Court the Registrar who attends the office every day arranges a sitting of the Court whenever a case is ripe for hearing. In Belfast the Court is held every Monday.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that an officer of the 2nd Welsh Regiment, stationed at Aldershot, sentenced Private Thomas O'Grady to 48 hours' punishment for refusing to remove a shamrock from his cap, O'Grady not being on regimental or any other military duty at the time; and whether this conduct of the officer was authorised by any of the Queen's Regulations?

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that Private Thomas O'Grady, of B Company, 2nd Welsh Regiment, stationed at Aldershot, was sentenced to 48 hours' punishment for wearing a shamrock in his undress cap on St. Patrick's Day, although he was not on duty at the time; what Military Regulation did he infringe by wearing the shamrock; and upon whose authority was he so severely punished?

I beg to ask the Secretary of State "for War whether his attention has been called to the fact that on the 17th instant an officer of the 2nd Welsh Regiment sentenced Private Thomas O'Grady to 48 hours' punishment for refusing to take a shamrock from his undress cap when ordered to do so, although O'Grady was not on duty at the time; and can he state under what Regulation this officer acted?

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that Private Thomas O'Grady, at Aldershot, received 48 hours' imprisonment for refusing to remove a shamrock from his cap on St. Patrick's Day, he being off duty at the time; and if he will state what Regulation was infringed by O'Grady's conduct?

I have not yet received the Report which has been called for from the General Officer commanding at Aldershot; but, judging from the question. I would say the soldier appears to have been punished for disobeying an order.

Will the light hon. Gentleman have any objection to insert in the invitations to Irishmen to join the Army that they are liable to be insulted for wearing the shamrock?

In consequence of the answer of the light hon. Gentleman, I beg to give notice that on the Third Reading of the Army Annual Bill I will move that it be re-committed, in order to insert a clause dealing with this matter.

Is it not the fact that the late Duke of Clarence were the shamrock with his regimentals when he attended York Cathedral at the consecration of the late Dr. Magee as Archbishop of York? MR. E. STANHOPE: It is perfectly obvious that I ought to have notice of that question.

Is it not a fact that the Lord Lieutenant on St. Patrick's Day were a shamrock when reviewing the troops, and will the right hon. Gentleman see that this, treasonable practice is discontinued in the future?

Perhaps the House will allow me to say that I only received private notice of this question yesterday. I have telegraphed to Aldershot, and no doubt a written Report is now on its way, although I have not yet received it.

Will the right hon. Gentleman put off the Third Reading of the Army Annual Bill, which is down for to-night, until he gets that answer? I must press for an answer. Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to press through the Third Reading?

I do not see any object in pressing it on to-day. I am perfectly ready to put it off till Thursday.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General, with regard to the examination for male telegraph clerks which was held in Dublin in July 1891, on the condition that successful candidates should spend three months at the school without pay, after which time salary was to commence at 12s. per week, can he state how many of those who passed at that examination are now under pay; what length of time they have received it; how many have been three months in the school, and have not received pay; and if any have not received it will he state the reason; whether a new rule has recently been issued requiring telegraph clerks to attain a certain proficiency before getting any salary; and, if the clerks who have joined the Service before the new rule was issued will come under its provisions?

The officers referred to are not examined as telegraph clerks, or as we say telegraphists, but as telegraph learners. They are lads without telegraphic knowledge, and are required to obtain such knowledge before they can be appointed. They are not charged for the tuition they receive in telegraphy, nor are they paid while receiving it. Two of the telegraph learners who passed at the July competition became proficient in telegraphy on the 4th March and received appointments with pay of 12s. a week, and two more have since that date become qualified and will be appointed without delay. Twenty-six of the remainder of the competitors who entered the School of Instruction a little more than three months ago are not yet qualified, and cannot, therefore, be appointed at present. It always has been the rule that the learners should attain a certain proficiency in telegraphy before being appointed.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he will give any special reason why the assistant superintendents in the Telegraph Department at Bristol, with services ranging from 27 to 33 years, were passed over recently, and Mr. S. Righton, an assistant superintendent of the Postal Department at Bristol, with only 22 years' service, was selected for promotion to the postmastership of Penzance?

Only one of the two first-class assistant superintendents in the Telegraph Department applied for an appointment as Postmaster, and he did not receive one, because Mr. Righton was much more highly recommended.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he is able to state the measures taken by the London and India Docks Joint Committee on his recommendation for the protection and safeguarding life in the event of the recurrence of fogs?

I directed Captain Pitman (my Chief Superintendent at Poplar) to place himself in communication with the Dock authorities, and I am happy to say that they willingly agreed to erect stanchions and chains at a number of places agreed upon. Captain Pitman has now repotted to me that the directors have made every effort to provide for the safety of the public by adopting all reasonable precautions. I understand that the London and India Docks Joint Committee alone have ordered no less than seven and a half miles of chains and stanchions.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether in his education scheme he will consider the advisability of establishing annual prizes for each class in every school in Ireland as an alternative to compulsion; what would be the cost of establishing such annual prizes on the following scale:—1st class, 60s.; 2nd class, 50s.; 3rd class, 40s.; 4th class, 30s.; 5th class, 20s.; 6th class, 10s.; and what is the estimated cost of applying compulsion to school attendance throughout Ireland?

I am afraid the alternative scheme which the hon. Member suggests would hardly be as effective in securing the attendance of children as the one we propose. I have not at present figures which would enable me to give the information sought in the second and third paragraphs of the question.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will consider the desirability of amending the law so as to prohibit the taking in pledge by any pawnbroker of charity clothing marked as such?

The law already provides for the return to the true owners of goods unlawfully pawned, and I am not aware of any necessity for making exceptional legislation in respect to charity property.

I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office what amount of unappropriated surplus is in the hands of the Patriotic Fund Commissioners; and what is the amount of undistributed prize money in the hands of the Government?

The last Report of the Commissioners of the Royal Patriotic Fund, and Soldiers Effects Fund Society, shows a calculated surplus of £120,065; and the latest account of the undistributed prize money shows a balance of £78,500.

I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office upon what data the calculation is based that to pension the survivors of the Crimean campaign would involve the equivalent of a capital sum of £1,160,000; and whether there is any reason to believe that there are more than 3,000 survivors not in receipt of pension, besides about 1,000 who now receive a pension of less than 1s. a day?

The data for estimating the number of survivors from the Crimean campaign are not very definite, but it is known that 51,715 men were in the Crimea at the time when Sebastopol was taken, and that 13,581 in all were invalided home. It is calculated that the number now surviving without pension would be about 10,000, having regard to the ordinary rate of mortality among soldiers. The calculation as to cost of pensions was based on the above figures.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the following cases:—Joseph Talbot, No. 1,706 6th Dragoons, enlisted 27th February, 1856, who served through the Indian Mutiny, and is now in the West Bromwich Union Infirmary; Elija Hodgkins, who served both in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny, and is now an inmate of the Home of the Little Sisters of the Poor, at Harborne, near Birmingham; Benjamin Hoggarth, who enlisted in 1845 in the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoons, and afterwards volunteered for the 6th Carabineers, Reg. No. 837, and after serving in the Crimea and throughout the Mutiny is now in the Union Workhouse at Lancaster; John Hodgson, who enlisted in the Grenadier Guards in 1849, and is now in the Lancaster Workhouse; also Emanuel Proctor, enlisted in 1853, served through the Indian Mutiny, being present at eleven engagements, including the taking of Banda and Kirwee, and who also is now in Lancaster Workhouse; and whether he will cause full inquiry to be made with a view to provision being afforded to these old soldiers?

I will cause inquiry to be made as to these cases, but I am afraid I cannot undertake to provide for all old soldiers, irrespective of service and character.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has further considered the case of Surgeon Major Briggs of the Army Medical Staff, with the view of his being re-instated in the position which he would now occupy in the Service if he had not retired?

Yes; I have further considered this case, and I am of opinion that Surgeon Major Briggs should not suffer any loss as regards promotion in consequence of an act which was performed under a pressure which no one could have resisted. Surgeon Major Briggs will, accordingly, be restored to the seniority he held before retirement.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has received numerous resolutions from Poor Law Boards and other representative bodies in Ireland (in the interest of the Irish cattle dealers), in condemnation of the proposed new truck rate for the carriage of live stock on Irish, railways—namely, a charge for the 14-foot cattle wagon in use in Ireland at the same rate as charged for the 18-foot waggon used on the English lines; and whether the Board of Trade has given its favourable consideration to a proposal on the part of the Irish railway companies for this rate; and, if so, whether, in deference to puplic opinion in Ireland on the subject, and in consideration of the fact, as alleged, that such rate would be equivalent to a tax on Irish enterprise, in connection with her cattle trade, he will give the matter his consideration, with a view to having the proposed schedule of rates amended?

I have received several resolutions from Boards of Guardians and other bodies in Ireland with regard to the maximum rates for the carriage of live stock proposed in the schedule applicable to Irish railways, which are not, however, exactly as stated in-the question. The maximum rates proposed were settled after careful consideration of the present statutory powers of the Irish companies and of the rates actually charged at the present time. The schedules are at present under the consideration of a Joint Committee of the two Houses sitting upstairs, and any proposals for amendment contained in petitions presented on the subject will doubtless receive the careful consideration of that Committee. It will be my duty, as it was last year, to carry into effect any decision at which they may arrive.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware of the urgent need of legislation which is experienced by many who are connected with the administration of the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Acts both in England and Scotland; whether the recommendations of the Royal Commission, who sat ten years ago with Lord Aberdare as Chairman, and two Members of the present Cabinet as members, have had his further consideration; and whether he intends during the present Session to renew his efforts to pass the required Bills through Parliament?

I recognised the need of legislation in this matter by the introduction of the Bills of 1889–90. These Bills were largely founded on the recommendations of the Royal Commission to which the hon. Gentleman refers, and contained many, useful provisions to which no substantial objections have been raised. I hope the progress of Government Business may be such that I may be able to ask Parliament this Session to consider proposals for such legislation.

I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he really in tends to proceed with his Motion on the Paper to-day for the appointment of a Committee to consider the financial relations between England, Ireland, and Scotland; and, if so, whether he will take some steps to have the question brought forward at a time when the House will be able to have some discussion upon it?

During the last week and for the next few days, there has been, and will be, such pressure of Business that I do not think the Leader of the House will be able to put this Motion at any time except after twelve o'clock. I would have put it at twelve o'clock, but in view of the objections put down by Welsh Members, who said that was no use, because they would come down to the House and block it, I have not put it down every night. But so soon as the chief pressure of Business is past I shall confer with the First Lord of the Treasury, with the view of taking it at a time when a short discussion could take place. If there is a regular long Debate upon it, of course it must take its turn with other Business.

Are we to understand that the Government has abandoned its intention of appointing a Committee?

My answer surely could not convey that meaning. I said as soon as we have disposed of the most urgent Business I will confer with the First Lord of the Treasury and take it at a time when a short discussion could take place.

Is there any objection to the circulation of the Paper prepared by the Treasury, which probably contains all the information which the Committee will have before it?

Surely my right hon. Friend has missed his Parliamentary Papers. This already exists as a Parliamentary document, and has been presented some time since.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that between 70 and 80 Members of this House signed a memorial to him in August, 1890, asking that the royalty on mines royal should be charged upon the profits, and not the pro-duets of such mines, he will consider, and, if practicable, give effect to, the resolution of the Mining Section of the London Chamber of Commerce passed last week, that, in the opinion of that section, royalties on all royal metal-liferous mines should be paid on profits, and not on products?

I wish to remind the hon. Member that I think I have twice or three times during the last fortnight, in reply to similar questions, stated that my mind is open upon the question, but that I could not come to any decision until the Royal Commission on Mining Royalties have reported. That Commission is inquiring into the matter, and I think it would be premature to come to any decision until we have the evidence taken by them and their Report before us.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state the amount of the costs of the Chancery suit which are now being recovered at the instance of the Crown from the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil; and whether there has been any decision upon the Acts of William and Mary relating to gold and silver mines until the suit which has led to the seizure and probable sale of his property?

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is true that the Office of Woods and Forests have issued writs for the recovery of their costs in a recent, action against the junior Member for Merthyr; and whether the properties attached are the private property of the hon. Member?

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that two freehold estates belonging to the junior Member for Merthyr have been levied upon for the payment of costs in an action brought by the Attorney General to restrain the defendant from working for precious metals on his own land; and whether the defendant has repeatedly offered to pay any proportion of the profits which, in the opinion of the Government, may be reasonable by way of royalty to the State, but that such offers have always been refused?

Perhaps I may be allowed to answer these three questions at the same time. The amount of the costs in the suit are about £400. I am not aware that there has been a decision before under the Acts of William and Mary. Writs have been issued for the recovery of the costs in the recent action against the junior Member for Merthyr, and the properties attached are prasumed to be the private property of the hon. Member. The hon. Member has offered to pay royalties in proportion to profits as distinguished from the present system of mining royalties. I would wish to add to this answer to the specific question put to me, that I have several times been in communication with the hon. Member, and he has urged that the question of the payment of the costs incurred by him should be made to depend on a change in the present royalty system. I was compelled to inform him that it could not be so treated, and I pointed out to him that there was a judgment against him, and that he should pay those costs in the ordinary way. It is with the greatest possible regret that the Department proceeded in this matter, but they had no choice, and the hon. Member preferred to pay by execution rather than in the ordinary way.

I wish to ask whether it is the fact that the sale is to take place on Saturday, or whether it is the intention of the Government to carry it into effect?

I am not aware that that is the date fixed, but I do most earnestly request any hon. Members who may have influence with the hon. Member to point out to him that he is putting himself in a false position by compelling the Government to levy for costs which have been given against him in a Court of Law. The Commissioners of Woods and Forests have given as much time as possible, and I have endeavoured by every means in my power to obviate the necessity of the extreme step of execution, and I do trust it will be possible for the hon. Member so to act as to avoid the necessity for further procedure.

I crave the indulgence of the House for a very few moments to ask for what I consider a very necessary explanation from the Government in regard to the action of the Commissioners of Wood and Forests towards myself. I will state to the House nothing but bare facts, and the House will judge for itself whether I have a cause of complaint or not. In 1884 I went to North Wales, and I worked there for three years, and expended my capital and my energies without any interference whatever on the part of the Crown. I had no information from them, although it was well known what I was doing. In 1888, having erected machinery, and admitting—as I do admit—that I knew the condition of the law, I anticipated that no sane Government would for a moment attempt to stop the development of industry in any part of this country. Having expended many thousands of pounds, I was drawn into the Court of Chancery because I would not submit to what I could prove before any competent tribunal were most unjust and iniquitous charges. I offered to pay to the Crown any proportion of the profits they might choose to charge me. I left it to their consciences whether they would charge me half the profits; but I explained to them that it was impossible for me in justice to the industry and to myself to pay the proportion they wanted. I will not trouble the House with examples to show why we cannot pay this royalty. Any hon. Gentleman acquainted with the mining industry knows the fact that we simply cannot do it. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh told the House three years ago that two-thirds of the mines in the Colony of Victoria were shut up in consequence of the law passed some years ago by which they were charged 1s. 6d. an ounce on the value of the gold produced. Well, Sir, we went into Court and the case has lasted for three year. Sixty thousand pounds were locked up in land for that period of time, for there was an injunction against me to restrain me working these lands. The case came on, and Mr. Justice North said:—

"Although it may be that you have cause of complaint I can only administer the law as I find it, and there is another place where you can obtain a remedy and there you may be able to obtain it when an opportunity presents itself."

The opportnnity never has presented itself, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when the Member for Denbighshire and other gentlemen waited upon him six years ago, directly after he came into office, to explain that it was impossible to carry on the industry in this way, then and all this time since we have only obtained from the Chancellor of the Exchequer a promise to consider the question. The right hon. Gentleman, however, did promise to give his immediate attention to it as soon as the Mining Section of the London Chamber of Commerce had held their meeting and come to a resolution on the subject. A fortnight ago they did pass such a resolution, and in answer to a question the right hon. Gentleman said—I am aware of the fact that they have passed this resolution, but I must wait till the Royal Commission have presented their Report. The result was that last week we were compelled to discharge 60 men, all of them men who were desirous of providing for their wives and families, in North Wales, in consequence of not being able to treat these low-grade ores, where these men are employed, and from which they get a livelihood. Between 70 and 80 Members of this House, 30 of them sitting on the other side of the House, and one of them on the Treasury Bench, signed a memorial to the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking him to consider this matter, and to charge any royalty he liked upon profits, but not upon products. He paid no heed whatever. I have been in correspondence with him. It is perfectly true he explained he could not allow the question of payment of these costs to be a condition precedent to the granting of one of three alternatives which I have proposed. The alternatives are (1) that he shall take such a share of the profits, instead of the products, as he and his advisers shall decide upon; (2) that he should reduce the amount of royalty to about a half; and (3)—and this suggestion was followed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt)—that a small nominal royalty should be charged upon the product from now until such time, say five or seven years, when it would be proved what the industry could carry, and what it could pay. These are the explanations which I have to make with regard to my nonpayment of the costs, and the Crown may proceed to sell my property, for I will never voluntarily pay the costs.

I do not know how far I am entitled to reply to the hon. Gentleman, who I thought was about to make a personal explanation with regard to his non-payment of costs, but who has entered into a discussion on the general policy of the Government. I may say I cannot at all accept the narrative which has been put before the House by the hon. Gentleman. There are many particulars in which I dissent from it. I have given my attention to the matter, and have found it an extremely difficult one to deal with, and so difficult has it been considered by the House that it has been referred to the Royal Commission as one of the questions of Mining Royalties. In that case I must say, hoping soon to have the Report of that Commission, that it appears to me to be but light to await the issue of that Report. But I may say that in the interval—and I think the hon. Member ought to have stated it—there have been concessions made by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, who have offered a scale charging very little indeed upon the low ore. The very point which the hon. Member suggests ought to be done has been done, and I believe I am right in my recollection that that very scale has been accepted by others, and is now in practice in some quarters.

I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer—I understand this Royal Commission is about to present its Report, and that Report will deal with this question one way or the other—is there any reason why the Crown should not postpone the question of costs, which, after all, is an optional question, and one of equity, until the Report of the Royal Commission has been presented?

I am rather surprised to hear such a suggestion from the right hon. Gentleman. I think he is scarcely sufficiently aware of the whole of the legal proceedings which have taken place and the general transactions between the hon. Member and the Government. The question of these costs is apart from any change in the law; and I put it to the right hon. Gentleman whether it is a proper precedent to set, that anyone may try an action and then refuse to pay the costs unless the law, against which he was acting, were repealed, and that the question of the payment of those costs should be made dependent on a change in that law. I must say I think it would not promote the interests of justice and the course of judicial proceedings if such a precedent as the right hon. Gentleman suggests was set up. I am extremely sorry, as I said before, at the position I am placed in with regard to this matter.

If I might be allowed, Sir—

Order, order! This matter cannot go any further. The hon. Gentleman rose upon a matter of personal explanation, because he thought some reflection might be cast upon him for refusing to pay the costs of the judicial proceedings. I think the hon. Member has already given sufficient personal explanation.

The Leader of this House lately developed an opinion to the effect that the Government have expounded their views upon the introduction of this Bill, and that there is no need for anything further to be said upon that stage of the Bill. I absolutely demur to that proposition. I hold that when a Bill is not only important but novel, it is desirable that the views of independent Members should be expressed, and when, in addition to the Bill being novel and important, it is an Irish Bill, the Irish Members being a small minority here, it is expedient and necessary, even before the House is asked to affirm the principle of the Bill, that the views of the Irish Members should be heard. I have, in the first place, to protest against the mode in which the division of the money has been made. I should not have uttered a single word upon this subject if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made the slightest reasonable effort to fulfil the promise to appoint a Committee to consider the financial relations between England, Scotland, and Ireland. That promise was given two years ago, in reply to a speech which I made on the Budget Debate. The whole of one Session and parts of two other Sessions have since passed, and although the question to be determined by the Committee was a question of the fundamental principle which ought to govern the contribution of each of these three countries to the Imperial revenue, the right hon. Gentleman, in the whole course of that long period, has never thought it worth his while to put down the Motion upon any day at such a time as would save it from being blocked by the act of any individual Member. I think I am entitled to say, when the Motion has been treated in such a manner, there is no serious intention of promoting it, and I, for the future, will not attach any serious Parliamentary importance to any promise made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If the division of the education grant is to be proportionate to the contribution of each country to the Imperial revenue, the grant ought to have been divided as if taxation were being remitted. And, if taxation was being remitted, what you would have done would have been to take the tax which presses most hardly upon the working people, and which presses most hardly upon the poorer countries in this partnership as compared with the richer. You should in that case have remitted the. Customs and Excise, and, if you had done that, you would have given 12 per cent. to Ireland, 13 to Scotland, and 75 to England. If this is a United Kingdom at all, and if there is a matter of common concern—of common and inseparable concern—it is the question? of primary education; and I maintain if there were any reality behind your theory of a United Kingdom, you would have taken the whole of this education grant and divided it between the three countries upon the basis of the average school attendance. If you had done that, Ireland would have been entitled to one-sixth or one-seventh of this money, and not to one-ninth. On these occasions I am reminded bitterly of the statement of Pitt, that one of the objects of the Act of Union was to give Ireland—a poor country—the advantage of being allied with a wealthy country. Upon every occasion when a financial question comes up here, if you were the poorest country in the world, and we were the wealthiest, you could not be more eager and resolute to take advantage of us in every transaction. Our share of the education grant, on a fair division, would be £300,000, not £200,000. Whenever it is a question of placing Ireland at a disadvantage then the union between us is close; but whenever it is a question of distributing advantage, then your Unionist becomes a Separatist in the twinkling of an eye, and he makes off with the lion's share of the spoil. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, taking the £200,000, has accepted a policy of compromise. He has been asked to give the whole of this money by way of a capitation grant. He has adopted the course of compromise, substantially giving one half of the money in capitation grants and the other half in improving various classes of salaries. If the right hon. Gentleman could make good his statement, that the benefit to the three religious communions would be substantially the same as if the money had been given either wholly for capitation grants or for class salaries, it would have been an element of considerable strength. I notice, however, that although two objects of this legislation are first to abolish school fees, and second to improve the condition of the teacher, it is not altogether clear to me that the condition of the teacher will be improved. I rather think the position of some teachers will be injured. Upon the other hand, although the object is to abolish school fees, and, although the fees in Ireland are only £100,000 a year, you do not abolish school fees, there is a balance left, although the money to be given is twice the amount of the school fees. I think it would be convenient if the meaning of this trans action were immediately made clear. There are some obvious defects in the scheme of the Chief Secretary for Ireland to which I must advert. The first is the case of the assistant teachers. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary proposes to make some improvement in the condition of the assistant teachers after seven years' service. First, let me ask him what he means by seven years' service? Does he mean seven years' service as assistant teacher? If so, that will work great injustice, because the general case, the ordinary case, of these assistant teachers is that many of them serve as principals in a rural school before they become teachers in a town school. I am informed, by a person thoroughly competent to give an opinion, that if you insist upon this condition of seven year's service there will not be a dozen assistant teachers in Ireland who will get the benefit. The question is not one of service, it is a question of classification. What is the grievance of assistant teachers? It is that although the assistant teacher shares with the principal the responsibility of all the work of the school, at the highest possible classification he only receives the salary of the lowest class. £35 is the salary he receives; £70 a year is the salary of the highest class; and although the assistant teacher by passing examinations may have placed himself in the first position of his class he is not thereby entitled to a salary of £70 a year, but only receives £35. In like manner with respect to female teachers, the principal receives a salary of £57, but the assistants receives only £20. I am told in regard to those assistant teachers, in the case of a male this salary does not mean more than £1 per week, and in the case of a female teacher of the highest class only 10s. a week. The sum of £10,000 a year would place this question on a satisfactory basis. I would urge the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to endeavour, possible, to give assistant teachers their full class salaries, for there is a great difference between them and the principal teacher, because of the fact that he gets a share of the fees and the whole of the capitation grant. Work mistresses in the school receive a salary of £12 a year, and they are entitled to a share of the fees; but I am informed that their actual share is so insignificant that it does not amount to more than £1 a year. It is discreditable to a great State to employ women in the position of work mistresses for such remuneration. If the work is worth being done at all it deserves to be done at a better rate than 5s. a week. And I would request the right hon. Gentleman to take the present opportunity of making an advance in that respect. I know that the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) has recently been, with much energy and chivalrous wrath, assailing the convent schools, both on public platforms and in numerous magazine articles which have come from his pen. He has said that the teachers of these convent schools are under-trained, and that their teaching is indifferent. What test would he like to apply? Convent schools, like all other schools, are inspected and examined by the Inspectors of the Board. Is there any better test of the capacity of a teacher or of the efficiency of a school than the test of inspection and examination by an independent Inspector who is a servant of the State? And I may here say further that the Inspectors are usually Protestants. I refer to the last official Report of the Commissioners on Education, and I find there the most conclusive evidence in support of the contention that convent schools, apart from their excellent technical training, are, take them all round, the most efficient schools in Ireland. Comparing convent schools with the national schools, the result of the examinations show that the percentage in the infant schools is 1 to 3 per cent. on the side of the convent schools. And, as you go upwards from class to class, the percentage in favour of the convent schools as compared with the national schools becomes higher and higher until you reach the highest class, and there the advantage of the convent schools as compared with the ordinary schools is 16 per cent. I would remind the Chief Secretary that the convent schools, notwithstanding these results, are paid less by one fourth under the head of capitation grant than is paid elsewhere, and in the equivalent class of salaries, less than the less efficient national schools. Take the schools of the Sisters of Charity in King's Inn Road, Dublin. I have seen the return of 20 percentages showing the results of the examinations in these schools, in reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic, and out of 20 percentages in those convent schools, 17 reached 100 per cent., two 99 per cent., and one was 98 per cent. With respect to the national schools, in the girls' department 20 percentages show that only in five cases did they reach the maximum, and that the remaining cases ran down lower than 60 per cent. And yet the Sisters of Charity are paid by way of capitation grant less than one-fourth of what is paid in the girls' department of the Central Model School under the head of salaries alone. I trust the hon. Member for South Tyrone, after hearing what I have just stated, will cease to make attacks on those convent schools which he cannot substantiate; and I trust further that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary will attend to the facts of the case, and not to the magazine articles of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. Any proposition, therefore, which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has to make in the direction of a more equitable distribution of the capitation grant will be gladly accepted. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman on the introduction of the Bill produced on my mind a feeling of the deepest disappointment. I expected to hear him propose some elective element on the National Board, to throw open the supply of school books, as in England, to public competition, or to reform what I call the scandalously, wasteful, and most inefficient system of the model schools, or to make some provision for technical education. But for those reforms, so eminently required, I fear we shall have to wait until an Irish Parliament takes them in hand. Then the Chief Secretary has admitted that by the efforts of both Catholics and Protestants there has been a continuous growth of unmixed schools. He said:—

"The question of religion in Ireland has very considerable influence on education. It is a system which was intended to combine secular and religious instruction, but there has been a great growth of unmixed schools. We have practically a system of denominational education in Ireland, and there has been an increased disposition on the part of Catholics and Protestants to provide separate schools."

The hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) rushed into the lists against the right hon. Gentleman and denied the growth of unmixed schools, and appealed to 500,000 of Irish Protestants, and finally to Ulster, in support of the mixed system. The facts are on the side of the Chief Secretary, and not on that of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. The assertion of the Chief Secretary was that, by the continuous efforts of both Catholics and Protestants, there has been a growth of unmixed schools, and they have practically established a system of denominational education. In the year 1867, when the Powis Commission was appointed, the mixed schools were 60 per cent. of the whole number, and the unmixed only 40 per cent. By mixed schools I mean those which are attended by children of more than one religious belief, and by unmixed schools I mean those attended by children of only one religious belief. In 1890 the mixed schools had fallen to 47 per cent., and the unmixed had increased to 53 per cent. The attendance at unmixed schools in 1867 was 380,000, and in 1890 it was 569,000; so in the course of 20 years the number of schools had increased by three-fourths, and the attendance by one-half. That justifies the statement that there has been continuous effort. The hon. Member appealed to Ulster, appearing to think that in the facts as they stood in regard to Ulster, he would find a better support than in the rest of Ireland in regard to the maintenance of a system of the restriction of religious instruction to schools where only one religion attends. The hon. Member said there was a strong feeling among Protestants in favour of a mixed system. In Ulster, in 1867, there were 380 unmixed schools attended by 50,000 children, and in 1890 the number of schools had risen to 1,150 and the attendance to 150,000. So that while all over Ireland the unmixed schools had only increased by three-fourths, in the Province of Ulster the number had trebled, and the attendance also. The hon. Member also appealed to the Protestants of Ireland; they are more determined opponents of mixed schools than the Catholics. In 1867 the Catholic unmixed schools all over Ireland were 2,300, and the attendance 360,000; and in 1890 the number of schools had increased to 3,400—that is, by one-half, and the attendance to 468,000, an increase of one-third. Taking Protestant Ireland in 1867 there were 196 unmixed schools, attended by 20,000 children, and in 1890 there were 979 schools with an attendance of 100,000, so that while the Protestant schools in Ulster had trebled in number, the Catholic schools had only increased by one-half; and the Protestant unmixed schools in Ireland had actually multiplied fivefold. I expected that the right hon. Gentleman would have said that the Government had determined to adopt the recommendations of the Powis Commission, which was composed of seven Protestants and seven Catholics. Eleven of the Commission, including a majority of Protestants, were of opinion that in the majority of schools attended by children of one creed and in localities where the other creed was provided with another school and where there could be no religious minority, it was expedient to remove all restrictions on religious teaching. They also suggested that they should draw up a schedule of such schools, to be confirmed by Parliament, and that in such schools religious teaching should be allowed. The right hon. Gentleman, who says that the system is practically denominational, appears as the spokesman of a Government which is determined to maintain the rule, which has no other foundation than fiction, and which was made when the national system was established—that religious and secular education should be separate. In these 4,400 schools in Ireland, where there can be no religious minority, you actually will not allow a text of Scripture to be exhibited on the walls, and in the Catholic schools a crucifix or picture to be seen; nor will you allow any religious fact to be conveyed or dogma explained at any time except for a few moments at the beginning and end of the day when the ordinary instruction is not in progress. I say such a rule, founded on fiction, is offensive and irritating. Thus, while the system is denominational, so far as the people can make it so, you maintain a secular system so far as the power of the State can maintain it in that condition. The mixed schools in Ireland were, by the last Return, 3,800 in number. If we leave out 50 schools where there are Protestant and Catholic teachers, and take the remaining part, we find that while the total number on the roll is 467,000, the religious minority is only 34,000. In these schools all over Ireland there is only a religious minority of 1 in 13, proving clearly that these schools remain where the minority is so small that it cannot have a school of its own. I complain with energy that upon this question of the claim for freeing the schools where only one religious belief attends, the Member for South Tyrone has been busy with his misrepresentation. He has spoken of this as purely a Catholic claim, and said that the Catholic Bishops wish to expose Protestant children to some danger to their creed.

That they might, not that they will.

Their object is to bring the children into a Catholic atmosphere, to induce them to imbibe the Roman Catholic creed. The Protestants claim it for their unmixed schools as much as the Catholics for theirs. It is to the interest of both parties to retain the rule where there is or can be a religious minority, in the school; but the Catholic Bishops and laity, and the Protestant Bishops and laity, are at one in Ireland on the claim that where a school is unmixed and where it can be nothing else, because the other denomination has a school of its own, the rule made 50 years ago on the establishment of a different system should no longer be enforced. By maintaining this rule yon shut our the Christian Brothers from the work of primary education, and this is a gross and most unjustifiable grievance. The Christian Brothers were the pioneers of primary education in Ireland long before this Parliament cast a single thought on the subject. In 1802 the Christian Brothers established their excellent system and showed what could be done; and if they had not led the way, I do not know when you would have moved. You did not move for 30 years, and during that time they made their system successful, distinguished, and beloved by the people. They are shut out because you maintain the rule that no religious emblems must be exhibited. They have schools in Gibraltar, Calcutta, and in Newfoundland, and in all these places they are State-aided. Their schools are admitted to the scheme of the Science and Art Department at South Kensington, and I think they have shown that there are no more efficient schools connected with that Department. If the Christian Brothers had schools in Eng-land, conducted on precisely the same principles as those in Ireland, they would be entitled to the fullest aid from the State. This anomaly cannot be defended, although it may be retained. There never was a body of teachers who deserved better from the State, or who have ever been treated Worse. It is demanded that if they be admitted to the benefit of the grant they must take down the crucifix, though a Protestant child should never attend the school. Though this body preceded you by 30 years and made their system a great success, you expect them to strip themselves of all their characteristics as a religious teaching Order for the sake of pecuniary gain. But if you adopt a system of compulsory education, you will not be able to shut them out. They have schools in 60 of the principal cities and towns of Ireland, and in these schools they are the sole educators of the Catholic youth, and in 30 of these towns there is no choice between the Catholic and the Protestant schools. If in any of these towns a Catholic parent is summoned for not sending his child to school, he may say that Parliament has granted free education, and that he cannot send his child to the school of the Christian Brothers without paying a fee. If you have established free education you can not send the parent to gaol for not paying a fee. You cannot refuse to pay the fee for the child. I now come to the question of compulsion, which divides itself into two parts—the mode of compulsion and the principle of compulsion. Where an English precedent makes in favour of liberty, you ignore it in Irish affairs; but where an English precedent favours restriction, you are eager to apply it to our case. The right hon. Gentleman proposes to fix the school age and the age for employment on the basis of the English system—school age from 6 to 14, no employment before 11, and none before 14, except on certificate. You inquired carefully before you put the system into operation in England. Why should you not also inquire in Ireland? In any case I would say that it would be absolutely necessary to have some form of inquiry as to the conditions of life and labour in different parts of Ireland before you can fix the Irish school age and age of employment. I object altogether to having the precedent of English restrictions applied to Ireland. You will not be able to recommend any fixed scheme of this kind until you have an inquiry to show that it is suited to the particular conditions of Ireland. When you started compulsion in England it was optional, and it was so for some years. Why do you not apply that precedent to Ireland? You propose that County Councils shall have the power to decide whether compulsion shall be applied or not but in the towns under municipal government you propose to at once apply compulsion. This is about the most curious proposal ever made to the House. Why should there be this difference between town and country?

It is a question of the machinery.

That is the strangest part of the proposition. In the country where there is no Local Authority you act in a spirit of deference to local opinion, and will wait for the creation of a Local Authority to express an opinion on the question of compulsion. But in the towns where you have a Local Authority you do not wait, and the spirit of deference becomes the spirit of despotism. Such an extraordinary reversion of reasoning has never come tinder my notice. How does the right hon. Gentleman think his system will work in Belfast or Derry? In Belfast a fourth of the population is Catholic, while the Local Authority is purely Protestant. Do you propose that this Protestant Local Authority shall appoint the School Attendance Committee, by which a Catholic parent may be prosecuted? A proposition more fatal to the harmony and progress of education could hardly be imagined. In the non-corporate municipal towns you propose that compulsion shall at once be enforced. Here you will have a high franchise for the election of the Corporation; and so a few people, never more than a few hundred, will elect the Local Authority which will appoint those who will have to carry out the principle of compulsion, such as the school attendance officers. The most absurd part of the scheme is that the County Council, which is an elective authority, is to decide if compulsion is to be applied to the county; but you leave to the National Education Board, wholly nominated by the Lord Lieutenant, without a representative of the people on it, the real and essential question of the standard of annual attendance. Everything depends on this. If there is a low standard compulsion means nothing, and if there is a high standard it may be undesirable. Suppose a County Council decrees compulsion in the expectation that a certain figure of school attendance would be fixed by the Board, and that the figure fixed by the Board is not that expected, but is considered by the Council to be oppressive, will the Council have power to withdraw the decree of compulsion? If they are allowed to withdraw, the decree of compulsion breaks down; and if they are not, you create a deadlock between the Elective Board and the Government Board. I say with confidence that the power to fix the standard of attendance is the fundamental power of the whole case; and if you give elective authorities power to decide the question of compulsion, you should give an elective authority power to determine the standard of attendance. I suggest that you must appoint an Elective Committee for all Ireland, composed, say, of one member of each County Council and Corporation, which shall determine for each district the standard of attendance. Otherwise the differences of the system will be conflicting and so inharmonious that it would not work. I do not argue against the principle of compulsion. I will admit that compulsion would be good if you could show a manifest necessity for it, and if you were convinced that it would achieve what was desired. But in the present case I beg the House to consider the influence of religion on primary education in Ireland, and to think what would be the result if the ministers of religion were ousted from the sphere of usefulness which they now filled and their places taken by policemen or other agents selected by the Government. There is a difference also in the way in which compulsion would be regarded by the people of England and the people of Ireland. The English people, if compulsion were imposed upon them, would feel that it was imposed by an Assembly which they had themselves elected; but the Irish people would feel that it was imposed upon their country by an Assembly in which the opinions of the Irish Members are constantly disregarded. It is possible that coercion, if properly applied, might be useful in Ireland if ordered by an Irish Parliament; but on the eve of the establishment of an Irish Parliament, I should hesitate to think the subject of compulsion in Ireland was a suitable one for this Assembly to deal with. I believe the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Jackson) founded his claim for compulsion, to some extent, on the fact that greater progress had been made in the matter of school attendance in England, but the figures which he gave were entirely misleading, tie showed that the increase in the number of children examined in England between 1872 and 1890 was 8·83, but he did not show that the increase was greater since the introduction of compulsion, and that, in fact, compulsion was responsible for the increase. As a matter of fact, since compulsion was introduced the increase had only been 1½ per cent. In the figures which the right hon. Gentleman has given with respect to the decrease in the school attendance in Ireland, he has not attached proper weight to the decrease of population in that country.

I took it on the population of two years.

However, we come back to the main fact that the great increase in school attendance in England took place in the years in which compulsion was not applied, and I do not think any Member of this House will contend that, when a comparison of the school attendance with the population shows an increase from 6½ to 10½ per cent. of the population, that is a fact which justifies or suggests compulsion. I must now call attention to a remarkable blunder which the right hon. Gentleman has made in his figures. He has taken a comparison between the two countries, and stated broadly that the average attendance in England as compared with the number on the register was equal to 90 per cent.

No; I think the figures I gave represented the average attendance in England as equal to 80 per cent.

That makes a very considerable difference; but, still, take it at 80; and he represented that in Ireland the average attendance was only 60 per cent., leaving a difference between the two countries of 30 or, as he now would say, 20 per cent. As a matter of fact, the average attendance in England is only 77, and I maintain that a mistake of 3 per cent.—I thought it was 13—in a case where a Minister founds an argument on his figures is greater than ought to be made. But look at the real facts. In Ireland we have 22 per cent. of the people on the register; in England you have only 16½ per cent. With the present population of England there might be upon the register 5,800,000, but the Returns only show 4,800,000. Where are the other 1,000,000? If compulsion is like charity and begins at home, I should think it might, with advantage, be applied to England. If the Irish register were only one-sixth of the population, the attendance would not be 60, but 74 per cent. But the right hon. Gentleman, when dealing with these comparisons, has forced up the attendance in England and Scotland and forced it down in Ireland, and he calls the percentage 13 for England and Scotland and 10 for Ireland.

I take the full responsibility for those figures.

I regret to hear the right hon. Gentleman say so, because he was warned that the attendance in 1890 was abnormally low in consequence of the epidemic of influenza and other causes, and was warned that he ought to go back and take the figures of the previous year. But beyond that he has taken no account whatever of the children who attend other than the national schools. If the right hon. Gentleman takes the responsibility for the figures—

I do.

Then how does he justify them? He has ignored the fact that 20,000 more children were included in the school attendance in the previous year, and he has taken no account of the Catholicschools of the Christian Brothers, the Protestant schools of the Church Education Society, and numerous other smaller voluntary schools which number, I should think, something like 60,000 children. That brings up the percentage of attendance in proportion to the population to 12, and in England and Scotland it is only 12¾. Is a difference of ¾ per cent. a sufficient basis for an argument in favour of compulsion, especially when you remember that whereas in England and Scotland the country is three-parts urban, in Ireland it is three-parts rural? The difference is so slight that I contend that I am entitled to say that the attendance in Ireland under the voluntary system is as good as it is in England and Scotland after all these years of compulsion. I do not oppose the Bill, but on the Second Reading the Government will have to justify themselves.

I should like to make an explanation of what I said on the subject of the teaching of the nuns. I hold that the nuns are untrained teachers, and that they are indifferent teachers because they are untrained. I did not intend to convey any slur upon these ladies, but merely to found an argument in defence of the model schools, as against the schools in which the teachers are, as I say, untrained.

The hon. Member for South Tyrone forgets that these nuns are educated ladies who have been specially trained before they go into these schools, and are quite competent to teach. The only reason why the word "untrained" can be applied to them is because they do not submit themselves to examination, and therefore have no certificates; and the highest test to which the training of a teacher can be submitted is that of efficiency. The model schools in Ireland are, with few exceptions, monuments of the incapacity of the National Board—monuments of the dual administration and extravagance of the system of national education in Ireland. I have asked the Chief Secretary a question with respect to the assistant teachers, and I hope he will see his way to reduce the period of seven years during which they must remain in that position, and be unable to read a higher salary than £35 a year. The present system places a premium on indolence and a disqualification on industry, and I hope the period may be reduced to a nominal one, and at most not more than three years. References have been made to the denominational system, and I will say that it has not lost its hold in Ireland, but, on the contrary, has struck wider and deeper roots into the hearts of the people; and if you want to make primary education a success in Ireland, and you desire to introduce compulsion, you must treat Irish education according to Irish ideas. If the overwhelming majority of the Irish parents require that a certain system of education shall be maintained, that is their business; if they prefer a system in which religion is combined with secular instruction, that is their business; and if this money is to be applied to Irish education, it should be applied in such a manner as the Irish people desire. The treatment of the Christian Brothers by the Government is, I hold, a scandal and a disgrace. At a time when widespread ignorance prevailed in Ireland, these fathers, in the spirit born of missionary zeal, went to Ireland, and in the face of obloquy, of calumny, and frequently of persecution, they founded these schools, but the Government have refused to recognise the self-sacrificing labours of that body. The education given by the Christian Brothers is of a higher standard than that given in the national schools. In Ireland technical education is receiving an increasing amount of attention, and I hope it will soon be part of the education given in the primary, in the secondary, and even in the higher class schools. The Christian Brothers notably at Cork, Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick, are the only teaching body giving technical education in connection with ordinary education. They give practical lessons in the sciences and the arts as applicable to industry. Now, Sir, there are no technical or other difficulties justifying the Government in excluding the Christian Brothers from this Bill. The only difficulty is the narrow exclusive bigoted spirit of the Commissioners of national education in Ireland. All over Ireland, the Town Commissioners, Corporations, Poor Law Boards, and other Local Bodies representing public opinion, have in large numbers signed petitions to the Government asking them to give some attention to the claims of the Christian Brothers; and I tell the right hon. Gentleman that no Bill which excludes them or which fails to include the Christian Brothers as a teaching body will be satisfactory to the people of Ireland. If compulsion is introduced, and children are forced to go to school they will go to the Christian Brothers school. Then why refuse the Christian Brothers any State aid? You cannot logically do it. I entreat the right hon. Gentleman to go forward with this Bill in no niggardly spirit. Let him consider Irish opinion, and Irish feeling, and not the opinions of that prejudiced and reactionary body, the Commissioners of national education.

I only wish to touch upon one point, and it is this. The hon. Member for West Belfast said that the idea of applying compulsion to Ireland must have arisen in the brain of the abstract theorist who had not devoted a quarter of an hours examination to the practical working of the system now in actual operation. Yes, Sir; but he very carefully left out the practical application. He omitted to refer to the great number of illiterate voters in Ireland, and the practical evidence we have there as to the imperfect education given in Ireland at the present time. At the Election of 1885, there were no fewer than 98,000 illiterate votes cast in Ireland, and of these 90,000 were cast for Nationalist candidates. I might therefore fairly assume that the 90,000 were members of the Roman Catholic Church, Now, Sir, as regards the question of compulsion I admit it ought not to be enforced through the agency of a police officer. That was tried in the beginnings of the compulsory system in England, and was found to fail, and now in all places, as far as I know, the policeman has nothing to do with compulsion, but there are attendance officers, independently of the police, who look after the school children, and see that they are sent to school. If compulsion is to be introduced, as I hope it may be, I hope no mistake of that kind may be made. School attendance committees ought to be created to look after the matter, and to insist upon the attendance of the children at school. In Ireland local arrangements of that kind might easily be made, and if made would meet some of the difficulties which would undoubtedly otherwise exist. I hope, Sir, it will be found that compulsion can be applied to Ireland with the same advantageous results as followed its application to England and to Scotland.

As a Protestant representing a Catholic constituency, I desire to say something respecting this Bill. I am not going to cry down the present system of national education in Ireland. It has conferred upon the country immense benefits. Englishmen must remember that what is called undenominationalism in Ireland is not the same as undenominational in England. What is called undenominational teaching in England would be called Protestant in Ireland. The undenominational system in Ireland has entirely broken down. There was an effort to dissociate education from the religious establishments, and it failed. No Protestant parent would allow his children to go to a school in connection with a convent, nor would a Catholic allow his child to attend one of the national schools under Protestant management. In Enniscorthy the Christian Brothers had all the teaching, and in the model schools in the town there are Protestant children who come between five and six miles to get there, passing many national schools, nominally undenominational, on their way. The reason of that is that the parents do not care for their children to attend these national schools because of their Catholic atmosphere. The percentage of schools with mixed attendances is rapidly declining, and the tendency to become denominational is more rapid than it ever was, and it is more marked in Ulster than in any other part of Ireland. Moreover, in Ulster, where the schools are undenominational, the standard of education is lower than it is in other parts of Ireland. The statistics show that the Catholics are as progressive in the matter of education as their Protestant brethren. The Christian Brothers have largely increased their teaching power. Since the year 1870 they have added 76 schools, and they are making strenuous efforts in the cause of education. There is no parallel to it in the United Kingdom. From 600 to 700 men are devoting their lives, living on the simplest fare, taking only the necessaries of life, tearing themselves away from their families and submitting to a long initiatory discipline, in order that they might devote the Whole of their lives to teaching. That is a wonderful and an ennobling spectacle. They give a better education all round than the national schools, including history, and I have remarked that men educated thereat are, if possible, more liberal in their feelings than those educated at the undenominational schools. I think it is only fair that the teachers of these schools should be placed on a par with other teachers, as they are in England. We all feel that they have hitherto been badly treated, and we hope that they will receive more consideration in future.

I have only risen for the purpose of giving a word of advice to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who will sooner or later have to face these claims of the Christian Brothers. They cannot much longer be ignored, because, as has already been pointed out, the education of nearly the whole of the urban population is in their hands. The most leading and influential men in all the large towns of Ireland are the pupils of the Christian Brothers, and the people of Ireland are ardently attached to them. You cannot permanently ignore an organisation of that kind and exclude it from the educational arrangements of the country. The Christian Brothers system is regarded in Ireland as the true national system, and not the so-called official system that goes under that name. It is one in fact that is particularly adapted to the genius of the Irish people, and I believe you will not do much good in the way of education so long as you refuse a grant to the Christian Brothers, just because religious emblems are displayed in their schools. As to the question of compulsory education I am myself very strongly in favour of universal free education. One other point to which I would refer is the lack in this Bill, as in other Educational Bills, of any provision for including the teaching of the Irish language, which I consider to be a disgrace to the Government. I would strongly urge upon it the advisability of substantially increasing the salaries of the teachers, and of not keeping out in the cold the Christian Brothers who have done such a good and substantial work for the people of Ireland.

I have never supported a Coercion Bill in this House; but I am nevertheless, glad that this is a sort of Coercion Bill. It is as much the duty of a man to have his children instructed as it is to feed and clothe them. A man who neglects to educate them is a criminal, and I should like to see him treated as such. There is no greater blot in the history of any people than the action of the Government of this country with reference to education in Ireland. In England, from 1870, after Mr. Forster had brought in his Education Bill, the criminal statistics of that country went down 40 per cent. and it is evident that if you educate the people there will be less need for the lawyers, for policemen, and for gaolers. I therefore hold that it is far cheaper to have compulsion in the matter of education than to keep up gaols and penal servitude establishments, with all their paraphernalia. As for the Christian Brothers, I agree that they should have assistance from the State for the purposes of education, and I hope that the Government will not give up the principle of compulsion. I need scarcely say that the education now given in Ireland is given more with the idea of making the boys clerks than to render them fit for manual labour. There is not a single technical school which can be properly so called, and there is, therefore, no chance of their obtaining technical education. We have nothing in Ireland to compare with the education that is given in England in that respect. I hold, however, that no system of education should be made a proselytising system. I hope that the Government, when dealing with this question, will deal with it in a generous spirit, so that the schools of Ireland may be made useful to the people. It is not pleasant to go into our schools and to see in the wintry weather the poor children huddled together with no fires, shivering with the cold, and not properly clothed. How can you expect such children to learn? Even the teachers must fail to have any heart in their work under such conditions. Altogether, the teachers are a very excellent body of men and well deserving of support. There have been many instances in which they have been very hardly dealt with, and I am of the opinion that the Government should do something for them and prevent them being victimised by the managers. We believe that justice and humanity calls not only for intervention but redress. Before they lose their prospects and all chance of a pension an independent inquiry should be made. I will only say, in conclusion, that I am in favour of compulsion in regard to education, and the more compulsory you make it the better I should like it.

Sir, I am very glad to hear that the hon. Member for South Armagh is so strongly in favour of the principle of compulsion. I think, Sir, he was a little too hard on the hon. Member for West Belfast, because I did not understand the hon. Member for West Belfast to argue against the principle of compulsion. I think he said he was quite prepared—

What I said was that the hon. Member for West Belfast did not give a definite statement as to whether he was in favour of compulsion or opposed to it.

Very well, Sir, I will not enter further upon that point; but I would like to touch upon one or two points raised by the hon. Member for West Belfast. And first as to his objection as to what is done in Ireland, his statement is hardly well founded when he says that less is done for Ireland than for England or Scotland. I think his contention was that Ireland did not receive a fair share of her contributions to the Imperial Revenue. Well, Sir, there have been some figures presented to the House which, I think, show that at all events the expenditure from the Votes for Irish purposes is certainly quite proportional, and, indeed, more than proportional, to the income derived from Ireland. I will take the two years 1889 and 1890. The total revenue contributed by the three Kingdoms shows that Ireland contributed £1 12s. 5d. per head of the population, and received an expenditure of £1 1s. 6d. per head of the population, leaving as a contribution to Imperial purposes the sum of 10s. 11d. per head. In the case of England the contribution was £2 11s. 8d., the expenditure was 13s. 8d., leaving as a contribution for Imperial purposes £1 17s. I think those figures will pretty conclusively show that at all events Ireland does not suffer by reason of a lack of expenditure in proportion to her contributions. Now, Sir, I do not complain of the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Belfast. I recognise the fairness of the spirit in which he stated his point, in a matter in which, admittedly, he takes great interest. He made a short reference to the question of school fees, and asked how it was or upon what basis the 6s. limit was selected by the Government as the point at which schools are to be freed. Well, Sir, on former occasions I pointed out that the 6s. limit had been adopted, not because there was any special reason for it beyond this. Personally, I should like to have put it higher in order to set all schools free up to 8s., which is about the equivalent of what the schools will receive from the Budget Grant, but there is one great difficulty to be faced. The object of the Bill is twofold—first, to free the school-pence; and, secondly, to give additional assistance to the teachers. Practically, if you free the schools up to 8s., and 8s. be taken as the contribution given by the Bill, then this result will follow: that the teachers in the schools at and above the limit of 8s. would receive no benefit under the Bill at all. It is proposed to charge no fees in any schools where the average receipts from school-pence do not exceed 6s. Therefore, all the schools where the average fees are under 6s. would, under the operation of the Bill, be made free. However, this is a question of detail, and I cannot claim perfection for the Bill in every respect. The hon. Gentleman has urged that assistant teachers may have been principal teachers for a period of time, and may then have been transferred to other schools, where they had to hold a lower position. I will look into that point, and see whether it is likely that it will interfere with the object which I have in view in fixing seven years as the period of service which an assistant teacher must have had before he becomes entitled to the benefit of the scheme and to the bonus that is proposed. The seven years' period was very carefully considered by the Education Department, and I wish to point out that it is extremely undesirable to take any action that will tend to encourage assistant teachers in making no further efforts to better their status. It will be generally admitted—I say it without disrespect to the teachers or to their work—that the assistant teacher who has continued in that position for ten or twelve years has either mistaken his vocation to some extent or has not made sufficient effort to pass the examinations for the higher grade.

An assistant teacher may have passed the higher examination without receiving the higher post.

lam informed that the assistant who has qualified for the higher grade seldom remains more than seven years as an assistant. The advantages given to the assistant teacher by the Bill are very considerable. The salary of the third-class assistant teachers is about £35 a year, and it is proposed to give a bonus to the male teacher of £9, and to the female of £7 10s. That is a very large increase. But this is not necessarily the only remuneration which the assistant teacher receives. In the 1890 Report it was shown that the average income of 618 male assistant teachers was £53 9s. 7d., and of females £43 4s. 11d. The salaries of the two classes are £35 and £27 respectively. Now, Sir, if you begin by making an addition of 20 per cent. to the class salaries, and if you give assistant teachers further bonuses of £9 in the case of males, and £7 10s. in the case of females, the teachers will get a large increase. They must recognise that an honest effort is being made to benefit them as a class. As to the question of technical education it is a subject rather for regulations of the Department, and, practically, all arrangements are within the power of the National Education Board. The Board is, as a matter of fact, gradually extending the payments made for instruction in technical subjects. The hon. Gentleman the Member for West Belfast dealt with the very difficult question of the Christian Brothers' schools. That is, I admit, a very difficult question; but it is not quite a fair statement of the case to say that the Christian Brothers are excluded from the benefits of the primary education scheme contained in this Bill. It must be borne in mind that for a period of five or six years after the National Education Board was instituted the Christian Brothers did make compliance with the rules and regulations of the National Education Board. They themselves withdrew voluntarily, and, however much the sacrifice might be to their credit, it cannot in any sense be urged that they have been excluded by the National Education Board. Let us for a moment consider what consequences must follow supposing an exception is made in favour of the Christian Brothers, by which they are admitted to the advantages of result fees and all the other advantages which are given to other schools. It will be admitted that the Christian Brothers' schools voluntarily withdrew, because they desired to give sectarian education in their schools. I think that cannot be denied. But supposing you make this concession to them, it is obvious that you must make it to the Church educational schools, you must make it to the Catholic national schools, to all the Presbyterian schools, and to the Church of Ireland schools; and, therefore, you will have purely and simply not only denominational teaching, but schools separated into denominations, and you will set up in Ireland a system of sectarian education throughout the length and breadth of the land. That may be good or not according to the different view taken of it, but I venture to say that it is contrary to the fundamental principles upon which national education in Ireland rests. So far as I can judge, that would be absolutely contrary to the policy of Parliament, and of this country in recent years. [Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: In England.] Yes, contrary to the policy Parliament has applied to England. In England we give a certain amount of freedom in regard to emblems which is not given in Ireland, but Ireland and England are not the same in that respect, and we must face that fact. In England you have set up School Boards which have gradually permeated every district, but I think there would be very strong opposition to applying in Ireland the principle of School Boards in the same way as it has been applied in England. I doubt very much whether it would be in the power of the Government, certainly not this Session, to pass a measure imposing upon Ireland School Boards as they have been imposed upon England. Practically, we are in this position: it is in the power of the Christian Brothers' schools to bring themselves into connection with the National Education Board, and so to get all the advantages which are given to any other schools in Ireland. [Mr. SEXTON: HOW?] By simply conforming to the regulations of the National Education Board. Can it be contended that it is necessary for the purpose of education? If so, then you must condemn all the Catholic schools and the other schools in which this system is followed out at present, and I maintain that it is not necessary for the purpose of education. Education is the question we have in hand, and I do not feel myself justified in accepting the responsibility of making a concession which must bring about consequences such as I have described. Bear in mind, also, that there are the 3,800 mixed schools of which the hon. Member for West Belfast spoke as existing in Ireland; and if you apply this principle, you must provide in every district of Ireland a separate school wherever those schools are in operation. Obviously a Protestant child, at any rate under present conditions and circumstances, would object to attending a school presided over by Roman Catholics and where the principles of a particular creed are taught. Therefore, as a matter of course, if you adopted a plan of that sort, you must follow out the logical consequences and provide separate schools in every district in Ireland. The hon. Member, referring to the question of compulsion, asked why we should differentiate between the towns and the country. There are several reasons why we should do so. I might ask the hon. Member whether he could suggest how or why we should differentiate between the City of Belfast and a city like Glasgow? So far as those places are concerned, at all events there are schools within reasonable reach of all the children who would be called upon to go into them, but it is not necessarily the case in the country; and, therefore, the Bill provides, as one of the reasonable excuses that may be made for a child's non-attendance at school, that there is no school within two miles of its residence. That may be the case in many districts in Ireland, but, of course, it is not so in the cities. In the towns there is no reason why the whole of the children of school age should not be at school and receiving the benefits of continuous education. The hon. Member pointed out, in reference to certain figures that had been quoted—and he pointed out very fairly, although I did not agree with his conclusions—that from 1870 to 1880—certainly to 1876 or 1878—there was greater progress made in bringing children to schools, as shown by the average attendance, than has been attained in later years. But for that fact there is an obvious reason. From 1870 onwards there was an enormous increase in the number of schools and of the school accommodation provided in this country. I think the hon. Member hardly did justice to the fact that, although compulsory attendance was not universal, there was a power on the part of School Boards to adopt bye laws, and in a great many cases they did adopt those bye-laws; and wherever they were adopted in a particular district, of course there compulsion was applied—I will not say to the fullest extent, but in an effective manner. Again, the earlier application of those compulsory bye-laws drew, if I may say so, on a larger reservoir of children in non-attendance, or not in average attendance, than was the case in later years.

No doubt; but the Commissioners say there are a million of children unaccounted for.

They say there are a million of children unaccounted for. No doubt that is a very large proportion; but I do not know that we have any complete statistics on the subject. It is calculated that of those who might be in average attendance at the Board schools the children of school age represent about 20 per cent., or one-fifth, of the poputlaion.

Oh, no; 23·74.

That is putting it rather higher, I think, for, at a rough rate of calculation, it should be one-fifth.

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to state that the Commissioners say that children of school age are 23·74 per cent.; that the number of children who ought to be on the rolls is 20 per cent.; and that the children who ought to be in daily attendance would be one-sixth.

Well, I will not press the point. I do not quite agree with the figures, but for my purpose it makes little difference whether we take 20 or 23 per cent. But, of course, there is a considerable percentage of allowance to be made for the children who would not, under any conditions at present, be on the register or in average attendance at Board schools. I think the conclusion, however, cannot be avoided—and I do not think the hon. Member for West Belfast will deny it for one moment—that the application of compulsion in England has tended to produce a great improvement in the average attendance in the schools. The hon. Member seems to doubt its efficacy in Ireland. He points out, and very fairly, that the number of children on the rolls in Ireland in proportion to the population is actually greater than it is in England, and, therefore, you may infer that the parents in Ireland are so favourably disposed towards promoting the education of their children that they put them on the registers and rolls of the schools. But the child being put on the register, what is wanted is some power of securing that it shall make, at any rate, a decently continuous average attendance. But I think everybody admits that to receive the full benefits from the education given in the schools it is desirable that the attendance should be as continuous as possible. Now, Sir, the hon. Member suggested that we did not deal with Ireland as we had dealt with England and Scotland, and he rather indicated than said that he would like to see a period during which compulsion should be entirely optional not only as regards the country but also as regards the towns. I think any one who has taken an interest in this question must admit this fact, that although in 1870 there were great doubts in the minds of a great many men, who had done a great deal for education in this country, as to the wisdom of applying compulsion—and those doubts were only removed gradually—no one who has seen the beneficial effects that have followed from this legislation would desire to go back to the conditions antecedent to 1870. The condition of Ireland in this respect is no different from the condition of England, and I would appeal to the House not to refuse in the case of Ireland what I claim to be the benefits of compulsion applied to education as it has been applied in this country. The hon. Member referred to several other points which I think, perhaps, it is not necessary for me to touch upon; but I should like to say on the question of compulsion, and specially as regards big towns, that it has been supported by every authority which the House would pay regard to. It was supported, if I remember rightly, by the Powis Commission, it was strongly supported by the Technical Commission, which sat so long and inquired into the question of technical education not only in this country and in Ireland, but also on the Continent, and they said that the foundation of everything must be the application of the system of compulsion. I do not gather that anybody is really opposed to the principle of compulsion. I admit that it ought in Ireland to be applied with the greatest care; I admit that it ought to be applied so as to try to avoid all those difficulties which we know exist in the way of it. But I think we have taken precautions. To whom is to be entrusted this power? The power of forming these attendance committees and of applying compulsory powers is to be given in Ireland to the elective bodies representing the Local Authority in the various towns. Well, now, taking the case to which the hon. Member referred, I am quite sure that the Local Authorities in that case would be in sympathy with the general body of the people by whom they were elected and amongst whom they lived, and I feel confident and have no doubt whatever that when the principle comes to be applied it will be found that all the difficulties that have been conjured up will disappear in the reasonable exercise of the powers vested in these Bodies. I would like to make just one quotation from a speech by Archbishop Walsh in 1890. He was following the proposer of a resolution at the Teachers' Congress, and said something on the question of compulsion, guarding himself carefully by pointing out that he must be taken as expressing only his own opinion, as he had not consulted his colleagues, and, therefore, did not feel at liberty to speak in any general way or in a more definite sense, as he was not aware of the views of the other Bishops on the point. He said—

"It is understood, then, I trust, that I speak only for myself. So far, however, as the City of Dublin is concerned, I say here publicly, without hesitation, that I should most gladly welcome the introduction of an effective measure for securing the regular attendance at school of the children who at present rarely attend there, if indeed in some cases, they attend at all."

That is really, I believe, what the Bill is calculated to effect, and, speaking my own view, I would say if you will give to the principle of compulsion, as regards attendance at school in Ireland, a trial; if you let us test it in the towns, I am satisfied that the benefits resulting from the application of this power will be so great that there will not be for any long time any district in Ireland to which the principle is not extended.

The right hon. Gentleman said that the policy applied to Ireland was the same as that applied to England. I will put this simple question to the right hon. Gentleman. Would the Christian Brothers, with such an institution as that in Ireland, be deprived of the educational grant if it existed in England? If a Christian Brothers' school existing in England would be entitled to the grant, the same school is entitled to the grant in Ireland. The policy is not the same. We do not want schools in Ireland to be used as proselytising instruments by either Catholics or Protestants; we do not want the liberty of the Catholic to be greater than that of the Protestant, or the privilege of the Protestant to be greater than that of the Catholic. The Catholic school is no more sectarian in its real essence and purpose than the Protestant school, and Catholic schools exist all over Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman says that the Christian Brothers were not excluded from the National Education Board, but does not he know very well that the reason the Christian Brothers departed from the National Board was that after six years of trial they found that they could not carry on their work in accordance with their own principles and those of the National Board? The right hon. Gentleman said that some hon. Gentlemen on this side were bigoted on the question of education. With what consistency does that come from the right hon. Gentleman and from that Government? Last year in their Bill they made the compromise not to take notice of the religious character of a school, so long as it fulfilled the requirements of the Department, in respect to the grant. If you take any school in a country district in England under the management of a rector of High Church tendencies, I undertake to say that you would find on the walls the very same emblems as those on the walls of the schools of the Christian Brothers. Yet this Anglian school is entitled to the grant, and the Irish school is not entitled to it. I would like to know how you defend that. The right hon. Gentleman says there is a difference between the two countries; I will tell you the difference between them. In England there is a powerful and growing party in favour of an entirely unsectarian education. In Ireland there is no such party, and no representative of such a party. Therefore, you refuse the grant to Ireland where there is no unsectarian party, and you give it in England where there is such a party. In Ireland there are many schools outside the National Board; I would give the grant to everyone of them without exception if their secular education was up to the standard of the National Board. I put it to the hon. Member for South Tyrone, what is the difference between an entirely Protestant school under the National Board and a similar school under the Church Education Board? The right hon. Gentleman says the Government shrink from creating a system of sectarian education in Ireland. We do not ask you to do so; we ask you to simply recognise what exists. In the Bill of last year you did not create a system of sectarian education in England. So far as mixed schools are demanded by a locality we do not wish to diminish them by one, and in fact we are precluded from doing so by the interests of the children. The whole point of difference between us and the Government is that they refuse to apply to Ireland the principle which they have applied to England. You cannot apply to a nation a system which that nation rejects, and anyone who attempts to do that either in Ireland or in any part of the world is a pedant and not a Statesman. Let the Government apply to England the principles they apply to Ireland in this matter, and I think that small as will be the Tory Party in this House after the next General Election, it would under those circumstances be infinitely smaller. I think we have convicted the Government of a great injustice, and have established our claim to an alteration in the principles which are applied to Ireland.

Certain points have been raised with respect to various provisions, but I think on both sides of the House the Bill as a Bill is approved. The hon. Member for Derry raised the question of assistant teachers, but it must be remembered that a large proportion of these only remain assistant teachers for a very short time and then go off into other avocations. If, however, the money at the disposal of the Government were unlimited I would support the hon. Member; but when I remember that any sum that was paid to the assistant teachers would be taken from those who had been longer in the service, I do not see my way to support any change. I should, however, gladly support the hon. Member for Tipperary on the question of technical education, and I think if the Chief Secretary could see his way to accept that suggestion that would be the very best way in which this fund could be used. I see that the right hon. Gentleman proposes in his Bill that the attendance committees for the country districts shall be selected by the County Councils. I am very anxious that the County Councils should not in any way be connected with educational questions, either directly or indirectly. Many hon. Members have expressed the opinion that it would be better if clergymen of any denomination do not sit upon the County Councils. But hon. Members may take it for granted that if the question of education comes before the Councils both Catholic and Protestant clergymen will consider it their duty to obtain seats on the Board. On that ground, therefore, I should like the County Councils to be entirely disconnected in this matter. Then with respect to the claim which has been made on behalf of the Christian Brothers, I do not wish to appear in the light of a bigot, but we must remember that in touching this question we are raising the question of denominational education. The hon. Member for the Scotland Division said that there was no demand for undenominational education in Ireland.

What I said was that there is no general demand for it as there is in England.

Well, I will take it that the bulk of the Irish people are in favour of denominational education, and that there is no considerable animosity against it. When the question is deliberately and openly raised I shall he prepared to discuss it with an open mind. We shall then have an opportunity of taking our constituents into our confidence, but hon. Gentlemen opposite will see that it is letting in the thin end of the wedge if any grant is made to the Christian Brothers. That is a principle that we are required by our constituents not to permit. If the subject is raised on a Bill or a Motion we can discuss it fairly on its merits. The hon. Member for the Scotland Division also referred to the question of emblems, and it has always been difficult to understand how the crucifix can be considered a purely Catholic emblem, or why St. Peter is any more Catholic than Protestant, because we make just as strong a claim to St. Peter as the Catholics do. But the hon. Member knows perfectly well that there is a feeling in Ireland that these things are essentially Catholic emblems, and that constitutes the difference. We could not agree to a grant being given to the schools of the Christian Brothers, because they are denominational, and we have not been authorised to agree to it. At the same time, Irish Members opposite should understand that we would not oppose it on sectarian grounds.

In the chief town of my constituency there are only two schools. One is an exclusively Protestant school, under the National Board, maintained by Protestants, and attended by Protestant children. The other school belongs to the Christian Brothers, and it is attended by about 500 boys. Supposing that a parent is summoned for not sending his child to school, and he is unable to pay the school fees?—how would a case like that be settled? I think we should have an explanation on that point. For my own part, I protest against the exclusion of the Christian Brothers from having a grant. Of course, some people are unable to pay the school fees for their children, and are, therefore, obliged to send them to schools in the district which are exclusively Protestant. Those schools are under the management of the National Board. As to the nuns in the convent schools in Ireland being untrained, those who are acquainted with such establishments must know that the ladies undergo a severe training in their noviciate. Therefore, I must protest against their being called untrained. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland will, during the progress of this Bill in Committee, consider the point I have raised as to the difficulty of working the Act in towns in Ireland, where only two schools exist, as in the chief town of my constituency.

I rise to repudiate the sentiments of the hon. Member for East Down, who does not in the least degree in this respect represent the constituency for which he has the honour of sitting, and which he will cease to represent at the General Election.

I would like to point out, in reply to the hon. Member, who said that this concession that we seek for the Christian Brothers is only the thin end of the wedge, that it was introduced long ago. I should like to know why the line should be drawn at the Christian Brothers, who are charged to so large an extent with the education of the people of Ireland, and yet receive nothing from the Government in regard to it? I must say that my enthusiasm for compulsory education would be greatly diminished if the enforcement of the system is to devolve upon the police.

There are two points which present themselves to the minds of all who have listened to this Debate: One is, that the pupil teachers of Ireland deserve to be placed in a position equal to that of the teachers of England and Scotland. Both Protestants and Catholics are agreed that a denominational system of education is the only system which is likely to succeed in Ireland. We all know that the question of Irish education is a debatable one, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary should bear in mind that there is a division of opinion with regard to it on his own side of the House. There is no division practically, however, on this side. As an Irish Protestant and a Cork man, I cannot listen to what has been said tonight without standing up for the rights and privileges of the Christian Brothers, and I hope their claims will receive all the consideration which they so deservedly merit.

I have had some experience with regard to the work done by the Christian Brothers, and I therefore feel it necessary to say a few words in this Debate. Three or four very large elementary schools in England are conducted by the Christian Brothers the Brothers living together according to their rules; and I have seen the Brothers teaching in the habit of their Order, which in Ireland they do not do, and the usual emblems of the Catholic Church are exposed to view, and with all this the Protestant Inspector attends. In like manner in Ireland training institutions are conducted by nuns, and these ladies have been complimented by the Board upon the perfection of their system. I hope that there will be no attempt to injure the system by stupid opposition. Speaking for myself, I am entirely in favour of a system of compulsion, but my admiration for the system would probably be very much qualified if in the carrying it out the agency of the police were proposed to be employed. Certainly I do not want to see our people shadowed by the police from the cradle to the grave. With this reservation I am in favour of seeing compulsion wisely used to secure that our young people shall go out to the labour of the world fitted by education, which now, in a great measure, they are not.

I feel that I need all the indulgence of the House when I again bring under consideration one of the most complex and troublesome questions of the Criminal Law—perplexing and tortuous where especially it ought to be clear. In the terms of my Motion I have to move—

"That the Common Law doctrine of Conspiracy, by which persons are made punishable for combining to do acts which in themselves are not criminal, is unjust in its operation, and ought to be amended."

To this the hon. and learned Member for Holborn proposes to move, as an Amendment, that—

"This House declines to pledge itself to any alteration of the Law of Conspiracy until it has had an opportunity of considering the proposed Amendments in a definite form and embodied in a Bill."

Mr. Speaker, I must say my hon. and learned Friend is hard to please. This time last year I brought in a Bill definitely putting my proposals, and my hon. and learned Friend moved and carried the rejection of that Bill; and this year, when, as the hon. Member knows, I cannot bring in a Bill and can bring in a Resolution, he meets that also with a notice of rejection. My hon. and learned Friend does not to-night venture to call in question the principle of my proposal, and it must be taken against him that he admits a remedy is required; and upon him and those who support him in his proposal to reject my Motion rests the responsibility of shutting both gates of the House of Commons against reform. The proposal, now in the form of a Motion, has been considered since last year by that great representative body, the Trades' Union Congress, which met at Newcastle, and they, through their Parliamentary Committee, recommend me to re-introduce the measure. My hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) was President of that Congress, and his brilliant incumbency will long be remembered as revealing in his person qualities new even to those who have long known and admired him. In virtue of his position on that occasion he will to-night second my Motion, thus giving practical testimony that the people he represents feel the need of reform and are not of the opinion of the Solicitor General who, going to his constituents and having to make an apologia for opposing the Bill, told them that working people do not need the Bill, because they are protected by the Conspiracy Act of 1875. I take it that my hon. Friend (Mr. Burt) now supporting my proposal gives evidence that the workpeople know their own needs, at least, as well as the Solicitor General. Now, the question I want to submit to the House is not a legal question at all. I do not want to bandy law about it. I submit to the House a broad question of legislative policy, on which the opinion of the House to-night is worth more than the learning of all the Judges who ever occupied the judgment seat. But first I must refer to a dull and passionless legal text book. Roscoe mentions cases in which a charge of criminal conspiracy may be maintained, and then says the vagueness of the definitions leaves in the hands of Judges to declare it to be a crime to do almost anything which the Judges regard as a moral wrong or publicly or socially dangerous. Now, the most advanced pronouncement on the Law of Conspiracy is that delivered by Baron Bramwell in the well-known case "Queen v. Drewitt," and this has been commented upon by Mr. Justice Stephen who seemed to think that the law on that occasion was too widely laid down, for as he said, it would include such a case as that of two brothers, who might agree to exclude a sister from their society in order to influence her against a marriage they considered objectionable. The Bramwellian doctrine, thus challenged by Mr. Justice Stephen, is set out at length in that important declaration of Chief Baron Palles in the action of "Blunt v. Byrne," in which the Chief Baron declares that it is by virtue of the Bramwellian doctrine the Plan of Campaign in Ireland is an illegal conspiracy. Then the extreme doctrine of conspiracy has been re-stated recently in the House of Lords in the judgment in the Mogul shipping case. Baron Bramwell has given reasons for the strange legal paradox that that which is not wrong when done by one man becomes wrong when done by two men. One of these reasons is that a man may encounter the action of a single person, but would not be fairly matched against the action committed by several persons; and the other reason is that, on the principle De minimis non curat lex an individual action may not be punishable, but that action being committed by several acquires such an importance that it may be treated as a crime. So it comes to this: that a piece of oppression practised by a local magnate and master of half a county may be insignificant and beneath the notice of the law; but when a few dock labourers try on the same game, then the Law of Conspiracy may be invoked to provide punishment. This is enough to justify our statement as to the doctrine. I will now mention two instances to show the operation of this doctrine—one for this country and one for Ireland. The Solicitor General affirms that workmen are protected by the Act of 1875; but under that Act only trade disputes as between employers and their workmen are protected. But workmen have disputes among themselves, and in the conduct of these disputes they may combine, and then they subject themselves to the full rancour of the legal doctrine I have referred to. The late Lord Advocate gave me the particulars of a case tried in Glasgow last year. Two men were tried and convicted under the Common Law of Conspiracy of the crime of having combined to deprive a man of his means of livelihood, using threats that if the man were retained in his employment they would withdraw the members of their trade union from that employment. The Sheriff directed the jury that this did not come within the protection of the Act of 1875, and the men were convicted and punished. But, mark, these two men were convicted for conspiracy under Common Law for a similar offence to that which Mr. Bompas at Plymouth tried to make the crime of intimidation and failed. That which Mr. Bompas declared to be intimidation and a crime was declared by the Court above not to be a crime. I do not know that I can give a better instance of the legal alchemy by which crime is manufactured out of innocent materials than this Glasgow case. I say that in the present state of the law, while in a trade dispute between masters and men the masters are protected, in a dispute between men and men the men are not protected under the Act of 1875. Now I turn to Ireland, and there I find the worst examples of this docrine and these anomalies. There the most conspicuous instances of oppression and tyranny are to be found, and some of the victims are, no doubt, in the House at this moment, and will, I hope, make their voices heard on this question. In the beginning of the Session of 1889, you, Sir, from the Chair, reported to the House that you had received a message from a Resident Magistrate in Ireland relating to Mr. William O'Brien, a Member of this House. He was found guilty of criminal conspiracy, and his offence is found thus recorded on the Journals of this House; his offence is described as having

"With divers other persons, whose names are unknown, taken part in a criminal conspiracy—to wit, a conspiracy to induce certain persons in the said county whose names are unknown, and who then were, or who might afterwards become desirous, to hire or occupy any land or lands in the said county from which any tenant or tenants, occupier or occupiers, had theretofore been or should thereafter be evicted by due process or course of law, not to hire, use, or occupy any such land or lands."

Now where is the crime? Puzzle, to find the crime. It is certainly no crime not to take land—rather a virtue, perhaps, in these days—and it certainly is not a crime not to take land if a man does not desire to take land. But here is a Member of this House, driven from this House and subjected to the grossest ignominy, because in an alleged combination with people unknown he induced people in this dubious state of mind not to take possibly evicted farms. It is to our shame that we listened with patience while you, Mr. Speaker, read this wicked nonsense from the Chair. It is the law—I do not deny that; but that a Resident Magistrate should be able so to deal with a Member of this House is a shame and a disgrace to us and to this House. Well, the hon. Member was sentenced to four months' imprisonment for that offence. The same day Mr. Speaker read another letter stating that the hon. Member had received another sentence of six months' imprisonment for a similar offence. Shortly afterwards I find on the Journals the record of Mr. Carew being sentenced for a similar offence. These instances are sufficient for the illustration of my contention that the doctrine of combination cannot be sustained. I think possibly I have said enough to justify my Motion. Three things do I object to in the present state of the law. In the first place, the principle, which, without careful limitation, makes men criminally liable for such an offence as combination, is a monstrous principle, fundamentally unjust—a legal paradox this House has never sanctioned and never will deliberately sanction. In the second place, the law is uncertain, and it is capriciously administered—anybody will admit that. It is most unfortunate that the opinion should prevail in the popular mind that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor; but we must all admit there is ground for the prejudice when we find in Ireland and in Scotland poor and innocent men sent to prison for combination, while real offenders who bring about combinations are left unprosecuted. I do not want to allude to notorious and conspicuous cases; but I may mention that some time ago a number of persons were anxious to commit a criminal offence—a slight offence, a venial crime—and their object was to call attention to an iniquitous law which created the offence. They sought the counsel of a Minister of the Crown, and he advised the commission of the offence. I do not blame him for his advice. He agreed—shall I say conspired?—with these persons to publish a letter in the newspapers inciting persons to the commission of the offence. I do not say that was a criminal conspiracy, but I do say it looks uncommonly like what would be construed into criminal conspiracy under almost any other circumstances. I do not say any great harm was done; but when the Minister who arrogates to himself the right to tamper with the law of England in this fashion is a Member of a Government which allows the Law of Conspiracy to punish political opponents, and, as far as they could, have tried to bring degradation upon Members of this House, and when this Minister is also a strenuous opponent of this reform, then, I say, I do not recognise his claim to consistency. I do not know that it is necessary for me to let the "cat out of the bag," or, rather, the Solicitor General out of the bag. I am sure I do not want to press the point unfairly—it was put with undeniable force the other day by the hon. and gallant Member opposite (Admiral Field). Here is the criticism from his own supporters. The Standard said—

"It is certainly necessary to remind the Solicitor General that this doctrine of active protest is capable of indefinite expansion, and would unquestionably cover the case of many of the Irish lawbreakers whose proceedings he has never hesitated to denounce."

I think that is a fair and reasonable criticism, only it is unjust to the Irish law-breakers, so-called, who have broken no law but this law of combination. The practice of the Solicitor General is, however, capable of a much further extension than that. This law is one that certainly is unfitted for administration by inferior Magistrates. It may be right to trust it to the administration and explanation of a legal genius like Lord Bramwell; but I say it cannot be right that Sheriffs' Substitutes in Scotland and Resident Magistrates in Ireland should be able to deal with the liberties of our citizens under a law so vague, so uncertain1, and undeterminate. That is all I have to say by way of criticism. Now, Sir, I am invited to state my remedy. I tried it by way of a Bill last year, and I will put the case shortly. What we propose is this: (1) to put the Law of Conspiracy on a definite statutory basis; (2) to get rid of the Common Law doctrine, and put this general principle in its place: that no agreement or combination is to be considered criminal unless it is to do an act which is or would be a crime if committed by one person; and (3), if there are any exceptional cases—though I doubt if there are any which ought to be treated as criminal in combination, though the acts themselves would not be a crime if committed by one man—then let these cases be defined and put in the Statute. Sir, these are the remedies we propose, and they were suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian a few months ago to a meeting of delegates in London. I well remember the criticism passed on his speech the next day by the Conservative Press. The Standard said that Mr. Gladstone's proposals were too monstrous to be considered, whilst the Globe, which is a rival as well as a colleague of the Standard, said that Mr. Gladstone's proposals were so obviously reasonable that it was a wonder he took the trouble to enunciate them. Now, Sir, my hon. Friends would doubtless ask for a precedent, and on that point I will mention first of all the legislation of the Tory Party in 1875. In 1875 they carried through a Bill—of course, the legislation was not theirs; many of my hon. Friends were engaged in bringing it about—but in 1875 they carried a Bill which enacted this: that an agreement or a combination to do any act is not to be a crime if the act committed by one man would not be a crime. It is true that Act was limited to certain classes of trade disputes, but the principle is there; and if it is good and just and sound as applied to trade disputes, why should it not be made a rule of law? There is another precedent. Following upon the partial legislation of 1875, there were the wider proposals of the Commission which sat in 1879. That was as powerful a Legal Commission as ever, sat and it reported a model Legal Code proposing to do what in point of fact this Bill proposed to do—namely, to abolish all prosecutions for conspiracy at Common Law, and to provide that no man should be prosecuted for conspiracy unless he conspired to commit a crime or was guilty of a conspiracy which had been specifically made a crime. That is virtually what we are proposing now. There is a further step that we propose. In the year 1880 the Tory Party was in power, and Sir John Holker, who was then Attorney General, with the support of Mr. Cross, the then Home Secretary, laid upon the Table a Criminal Code Bill which was the same substantially as the Bill reported by the Criminal Code Commissioners. Therefore, Sir, twelve years ago a Tory Government, more enlightened than the present, proposed a Bill virtually the same as that which we now place before the House. Our opponents for the last five or six years have been labouring and striving—I think without much success—to convince the people of England that the Liberal Party is sacrificing the interests of England to a policy of Home Rule. Later they have changed their tack, and without greater prospect of success they are trying to convince the Irish people, or a section of them, that they, in their turn are going to be sacrificed to British interests. In the name of the Union they are for ever striving to sow a policy of disunion, of jealousy, and of distrust. There is one question, at all events, to which this policy of severance will be applied in vain, because upon it the interests of both people are the same because the interests of labour in every form ate the same; and that is the question which, humbly thanking both sides of the House for their indulgence I now beg to submit for their impartial consideration.

I have great pleasure in seconding the Motion of my hon. and learned Friend—he has covered the ground with such fulness and ability that I need say but little. The right of combination on the part of workmen has been fought almost inch by inch during nearly the whole of the present century; and I think that if in the Act of 1875, to which my hon. Friend has alluded, there had been embodied the Amendments suggested from the Front Opposition Bench, very little, if anything, would have been left to be desired so far as the full right of combination by the workman is concerned. At the beginning of the century Trades' Unions were illegal conspiracies; they were afterwards tolerated, but still, left outside the law, they had no protection for their funds. In the Acts of 1867, of 1871, and of 1875, the claims of the workmen to a considerable extent were fairly recognised. When the Act of 1875 left this House, there was an attempt—perhaps not altogether satisfactory—to define intimidation as something done in such a manner as would justify a Justice of the Peace in binding over the persons threatening or intimidating to keep the peace. Now, Sir, most of the cases that have come before the Justices as affecting the workmen may be classified; under two heads—one relating to the interference and pressure put upon non-unionists, and the other relating to the question of picketing. For myself, I must say that, so far as I had any influence, I have always used it in the direction of persuading rather than forcing workmen directly or indirectly to join combinations. I think the trades' organisations are sufficiently strong to be able to be just, and to rely on their merits to attract workmen into them. But with regard to threats, most of them have been by workmen, or perhaps secretaries of Trades Unions, intimating to employers that if a non-unionist were not dismissed the Union workmen would cease to work. Well, Sir, that is not a policy that I should myself advocate; but I contend that such advice is not criminal, nor should it be actionable at law. On the other hand, while I would advise the workmen not to adopt these methods of influencing their fellow-men, I would equally condemn—and I trust the House would join me in condemning—employers who resort to something analogous in issuing a black list and telling their fellow-employers not to employ the persons whose names are there given. That such cases occur, and occur frequently, there cannot be the shadow of a doubt. My hon. Friend the Member for the Wansbeck Division of Northumberland (Mr. Fenwick) has called my attention to a case tried in Sheffield a short time ago, where the employers sent round a list intimating that the men whom they named should not be employed. The Trades Unions brought against these employers a charge of conspiracy. The case was tried, the facts were admitted, and the Judge declared that, although these facts were perfectly clear, there was no malice on the part of the employers, and he dismissed the case. I feel inclined to say that if there is not at the present time one law for the poor and another for the rich, there is certainly but too often one method of administering the law for the rich and another for the poor. Now, Sir, what is needed in connection with this question is a clearer definition of what constitutes; intimidation. There have been numerous cases tried since that of "Treleaven v. Curran" showing the need of a definition of conspiracy. That case was tried before a full Bench of Magistrates, and the sentence of £20 fine or six weeks' imprisonment which they passed was upheld by the Recorder of Plymouth on appeal. The same thing occurred in the prosecutions that took place at Newcastle-on-Tyne; but when these cases came before a Bench of Judges, with the Lord Chief Justice at their head; they were proved to be illegal, and the practical result of the decision was that intimidation must be a threat such as, if Carried into effect, would be a criminal offence. Well now, Sir, there are many cases, as I have said, arising out of picketing. Picketing was conceded 17 or 18 years ago. It is carried on in a time of war; passions are aroused, and there is a tendency to go to extremes. At the present time some employers of labour are suggesting the abolition of picketing. It is too late in the day to talk of that. If 17 or 18 years ago peaceful picketing was sanctioned by the House of Commons, the workmen, now that they have much more political power, and now that their Trade Unions are much more influential, will not abandon picketing; and whatever may be the solution, picketing without violence will have to be allowed by law. The employers complain that the existing law is not strong enough, and they complain of the difficulty of getting evidence; but I must say that many employers put obstacles in the way of workmen obtaining evidence on their own behalf. The hon. Member for Wansbeck has put into my hands a letter relating to a case tried at Bolton, where nine men on strike were charged with assault and intimidation, and being all included in one summons were debarred from giving evidence the one in favour of the other. Instances such as this, and those quoted by my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. E. Robertson), show that there is necessity for considerable amendment of the law as affecting Trade Unions, and I have therefore much pleasure in seconding the Motion.

I beg to move the Amendment which I have placed upon the Paper. Before addressing myself to it or to the speech of the Mover of the Resolution, I wish to say a word or two in reference to the observations of the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt). I listened with great attention to them, in order to ascertain whether there was any grievance of which workmen had any right to complain, but I cannot find that any grievance is even alleged. There has been a great desire in all parts of this House since 1875 to deal fairly by workmen engaged in trade disputes; and I have always been under the impression that the Act of 1875, until the decision of the Recorder of Plymouth last year, had given universal satisfaction. When the Bill of my hon. Friend was under discussion in this House some time ago I cited the opinions of those who represent the working classes and showed that they had expressed themselves to that effect. I quite agree with the hon. Member for Morpeth that if the decisions of the Recorder of Plymouth and the Recorder of Newcastle had not been reversed on Appeal there would have been a grievance. But those decisions have been reversed, and the grievance which was supposed to exist has been dispelled. When the Act of 1875 was before the House of Lords they considered that it was not necessary to define "intimidation," and the decision of the Queen's Bench has proved that the Lords were right. The hon. Member for Morpeth said cases frequently occurred where criminal charges were made and a large number of persons were included in one summons or indictment, so that all the persons charged had their mouths shut. I admit that cases of that kind sometimes arise; but they are not peculiar to the Law of Conspiracy—they arise in every branch of the Criminal Law. The proper way to remedy that hardship would be to amend the general procedure in criminal cases, so that accused persons might give evidence on their own behalf. I agree with the hon. Member that there should be the same law for the rich and the poor, and I do not understand how any difficulty can arise in applying the law in the same way. If employers combine against their workmen to do anything unlawful, they are liable under the Law of Conspiracy just in the same way as workmen are. The hon. Member referred to the Sheffield case, but I am not fully aware of the circumstances.

I cited a case mentioned by the hon. Member for the Wansbeck Division. The facts are, as I understand, that a list was sent out by the employers to their fellow-employers giving the names of persons they were not to employ, and the Trades Unionists summoned the employers for having conspired to prevent the workmen from getting employment. Of course, it is for the House to consider whether that is conspiracy or not, but I think it is.

Well, there seems to have been no evidence of intimidation, and I suppose the masters are entitled to the same immunity as the men. At all events this is a case of yesterday; and it is a remarkable thing, when we consider the long period which has elapsed since 1875, and the vast number of strikes which have taken place in England alone, without speaking of Ireland or Scotland, that there is no case with reference to which any complaint can be alleged except this one which has only just arisen, and of which we have but an imperfect account. I will now address myself to the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman; but I do not propose to follow him into the various topics with which he entertained the House. He asserts in his Motion that the Law of Conspiracy is unjust and that it should be amended. If he means that the Law of Conspiracy is not perfect, and that it is not in accordance with the aspirations of philosophical jurists, perhaps he might say the same of many other branches of our law. If the House wishes to consider this as a practical question, I think it will, before it throws overboard the law which now protects the subject against conspiracy, or makes any alteration in so intricate and difficult branch of the law, ask to be informed of the conditions by which the proposed alteration is to be accompanied. It is a very easy thing to find fault, but no one can have given attention to this subject without knowing that there is a large class of cases only punishable under the Law of Conspiracy which in no civilised country would be allowed to go unpunished. What do hon. Gentlemen say to conspiracies to bring false accusations, to pervert justice, to defile women, to defraud, or to destroy the liberties of men by exposing them to the fear of starvation? But, if you repeal the Common Law of Conspiracy, what is the kind of protection you are going to give to the subject who is now, in many of these cases, protected by it alone? If persons are to be punished for combining to do any act, unless such act is of such a nature as to constitute a crime when committed by one person, you must face this alternative—either you must allow many conspiracies most dangerous to the public to be unpunished, or you must; make the law much more stringent and oppressive than it now is as regards acts done by one person alone and add a number of new crimes to the Statute Book. I want to know whether those hon. Members who are in favour of repealing this law are prepared to do that? Are they prepared to frame a new Criminal Code? That is what the hon. and learned Gentleman who moved the Resolution suggested should be done, but his Resolution is discreetly silent on the subject. I do not say that it is impossible to define in the mechanical manner inevitable in a Code offences against the Criminal Law, but it is a task of extreme difficulty. The academical definition of criminal offences so as to embody them in the exact language of a Code has been found to be a matter of the greatest complexity; and only the other day in this House, with reference to the codification of the law of murder, we were told that the matter was one of such difficulty that it had baffled the ablest and most learned men in this country. Conspiracy is one of the most difficult and complex matters, and yet we are asked to repeal the Common Law, and then trust to some fortuitous or miraculous circumstance which will provide us with a Code to take its place. My hon. and learned Friend mentioned that Lord Bramwell had attempted a definition with reference to conspiracy, which Sir James Fitzjames Stephen had pointed out was too wide. The hon. and learned Gentleman asked what I should say to that. Well, I should say that it is an instance of the difficulty of accurately defining an offence. The principles which regulate the law may be perfectly well known, the nature of an offence may be fully expounded in books of authority, and yet a definition may be a task almost beyond the skill of the jurist. All definitions that have been attempted have been found to be either too wide or too narrow, and they have only served to prove how intensely difficult it is to codify or define crimes. I would refer here to a book on the Law of Criminal Conspiracies, written by a high authority, Mr. Justice Wright, who says in a passage well deserving of attention—

"There may be cases in which acts done by several persons in agreement ought to be punished, although the same acts ought not to be punished if done without agreement. But these ought to be specified and carefully defined."

All our authorities agree that there may be, and ought to be, offences which when committed by one person do not bring him within the Criminal Law, but which when committed by many persons bring them, and ought to bring them, within that law. If my hon. and learned Friend admits that, then his only complaint must be that the offences are not specified and defined. I want to know who is prepared to specify and define such cases? Do not let us throw away the Common Law, which at present grants us protection, until we see our way to some definition of the new law. I am not prepared to admit that the present law is in any way unreasonable. Let me for one moment ask the House to consider what is the distinction between a wrong and a crime. A wrong is a matter of civil action, but a crime is cognisable by the Criminal Law. The only line we can draw is that a wrong becomes a crime with reference to the importance of a public right violated. When a wrong affects the lives and liberties of the subject it becomes of such public importance that it is a crime. So when you do an act which affects property in such a way as to be dangerous to the public interest it becomes a crime. If a man obtains goods by fraud he is not amenable to the Criminal Law, unless the fraud is committed in such a way as to constitute a false pretence or to amount to larceny. But if several conspire together to obtain goods by fraud, although not amounting to a false pretence or larceny, then the act belongs to a different category, because it is dangerous to the public well-being. It is the conspiracy that gives a new character to the offence. If you abolish the Common Law of Conspiracy, you must add a long list of new crimes to the Criminal Law. You will find in foreign countries where conspiracy is not criminal, except in cases where the persons conspire to do an act which would constitute a crime if done by one alone, that there is much less liberty than we enjoy, because in those countries it has been found necessary to adopt the principle of making a vast number of acts crimes when done by one person alone. In Italy, for instance, you have a long list of offences which we should never think of treating as crimes in this country, because they are of such a nature as to constitute no danger to the public interest when done by one person alone. Unless you preserve your Law of Conspiracy, you will be obliged to make the law much more severe than it is with reference to individual acts. My hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Robertson), in dealing with this subject, said why did a Conservative Government in 1875 introduce a special law dealing with trade disputes? I think I can give him a very good answer to that question. Trade disputes are, for the most part, carried on by Trade Unionists. They are men under the authority generally of Trade Unions; they are, commonly speaking, peaceable citizens, and they commonly carry on these disputes without any infringement of the law. And, in 1875, the Conservative Government thought it would be right and safe to make an exception of the Law of Conspiracy as affecting Trades Unions. The result has proved that they were wise in making that exception. My hon. and learned Friend said or suggested that the Criminal Code Commissioners many years ago had endeavoured to provide a Criminal Code, and that they did in that Criminal Code introduce many offences and sought to abolish the Common Law. It is quite true that the learned Commissioners devoted eight months of their time to compiling with great haste—because eight years would not have been too much for the under taking—a Criminal Code. But I would remind hon. Members opposite of the way in which that Code was met on their side when it was introduced in this House. The hon. and learned Gentleman now the Member for Brigg (Mr. Samuel Banks Waddy) described that Bill not as an amendment, but as a revolution of the law. And after it had been introduced to this House it was criticised on all hands, and it was found, although the work had been done by men of great ability, yet it had been done in such haste that it was not a Code which this House could adopt. The most conclusive argument against that Code was the fact that the Lord Chief Justice of England, Sir Alexander Cockburn, a man of great and remarkable ability, wrote a Memorandum, which was laid on the Table of this House, and was devoted to the consideration of the first part of the Code. The Lord Chief Justice showed that of that portion of the Code with which he dealt in his Memorandum there was hardly a single section that was not so imperfect or so ambiguous as to give rise to grave doubt and uncertainty. From that time to this no one has ever thought of reviving that Bill; it has been allowed to lie unnoticed in the Library of the House. Governments have come and Governments have gone, but no one has taken the responsibility of re-introducing that Bill. Yet it is this old and long-neglected performance that my hon. and learned Friend now seeks to call to his aid. I will only say that last Session, when the hon. and learned Gentleman introduced a Bill upon the subject of conspiracy, he was very careful not to adopt the definitions of the Code he now professes to admire so much. I ask the House to uphold the Rules of our Common Law. From time to time they have been sanctioned and confirmed by the common sense, of the English people, and they have been tried by experience. I trust we shall not throw away the protection which the law confers upon the peaceful and industrious until we know what are the new safeguards to be provided. I beg, Sir, to move the Amendment which stands in my name.

If there was one portion of the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down which interested me more than another, it was that portion in which he pointed out that so far as the Law of Conspiracy of this country is concerned, that law is in a state of uncertainty. And, I contend, there is no portion of our law which should be placed upon a firmer basis than that portion which involves criminal jurisdiction. When my hon. and learned Friend rose to move his Amendment I expected he would have made some attempt to answer the observations of the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution, and so show that there was some firm and substantial basis on which the Law of Criminal Conspiracy exists at the present time. The hon. and learned Gentleman gave three illustrations—false accusations, attempts to defraud, and attempts to defile women—which he said could be touched by the Common Law doctrine of conspiracy, but are outside Statutory Jurisdiction. I deny that the hon. and learned Gentleman, in making these statements, has established any basis of certainty, on which he places the criminal jurisdiction as affected by the Common Law doctrine of conspiracy in this country. Let us look at these illustrations. False accusations involve charges of perjury.

No.

I am surprised to hear the hon. and learned Gentleman say that.

I spoke of false accusation as involving slander.

My hon. and learned Friend says that a man who slanders another is only liable to civil process, but that if two men combine to slander another they would come under criminal process. Why should it be criminal for two men to do it if it be not criminal for one man to do it? As to the second illustration, I cannot call to mind a case in which an attempt to defraud could be made the subject of criminal process, but I am inclined to admit that the law of false pretences does not stand on a very satisfactory basis. And what of the third illustration—the question of defiling women? I think the Act passed in 1885—the Criminal Law Amendment Act—is quite sufficient to protect women, and it has had considerable effect in that direction since it was passed. I understand that the hon. and learned Gentleman contends that the Law of Conspiracy should be maintained on its present basis, inasmuch as it hits offences which are not touched by the Criminal Law at the present time, and I was interested to read a letter in the Times this morning, written by one who sympathises with the hon. and learned Gentleman's views as expressed in this House. This letter was signed "B." We are accustomed to see these letters from time to time in the Times, and we have little doubt that they emanate from the pen and the distinguished brain of a noble Lord, who was at one time one of the Lords Justices of the Queen's Bench Division, formerly Baron of the Court of Exchequer—Lord Bramwell. If I am wrong in attributing this letter to the noble Lord, I shall be glad to take the earliest opportunity of apologising for attributing to him the inaccurate statements contained in the letter. The letter gives two illustrations which the writers say cannot be touched by the Criminal Law, but are effectually attacked by this Common Law doctrine of conspiracy The writer says—

"The best thing will be to refer to a case that every Member of Parliament must know—that of one of their body who was convicted of a conspiracy with a woman to debauch a girl. What the man did was not in itself the subject of criminal proceedings. It was his conspiracy with the woman that she should help that made his guilt. So of the woman. She did nothing that could be punished but for her doing it in conjunction with the man."

It is not necessary to give the name of the defendant in the case, which was painfully notorious in this House; but I took the trouble to look at the indictment to see if the case justified the conclusion that it could not have been touched but for the Common Law doctrine of conspiracy. I found that the first five counts alleged offences under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, and the other four counts included charges of conspiracy. The defendant pleaded guilty to the four counts of conspiracy and to one of the charges under the Criminal Law Amendment Act. In the report of the proceedings in a paper of 6th May, 1891, I found that the prosecuting counsel pointed out that it was on the fourth count under the Criminal Law Amendment Act that the prosecution sought the conviction of this man. Therefore, the suggestion that the prosecution, to obtain a conviction, had to fall back on the Common Law doctrine of conspiracy, is without any truth whatever. What is the second illustration?—

"Let me take the plainest case. A man comes to me to buy goods, gives himself a good character wholly false, and refers to a third person. The referee confirms the good character, knowing it to be false. Neither could have been convicted for his separate lie. Is it not reasonable they should be for the joint one? Each has done an unlawful act which the law would treat as unlawful, though not indictable."

That, again, is absolutely inaccurate. I understand that by false character the writer means that the man gave himself a false character with regard to his financial position, and so obtained credit or attempted to obtain goods; in either case he commits a misdemeanour. It is absolutely decided that a man who goes to another and makes a false representation as to his financial position, and so obtains goods by false pretences, may be indicted and convicted. These two illustrations are on a par with those of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and do not afford adequate reason for retaining the uncertain state of the law in regard to conspiracy. The introducer of the Motion has very high authority for the contentions he has put before the House. In 1887 the then Sir James Stephen produced a Digest of Criminal Law, and quoted these charges of conspiracy, and they by no means extended so far as to exclude a combination to do an unlawful act or combination to achieve a lawful act by unlawful means. To what ridiculous lengths does this Common Law doctrine lead us? The hon. and learned Gentleman must contend that it is criminal conspiracy to combine to do an unlawful act. Suppose my hon. and learned Friend and myself are out riding, and instead of keeping to the high road prefer to trespass on the adjoining fields, we are combining to do an unlawful act, and are joint trespassers; does the hon. and learned Gentleman contend that we should be indicted for criminal conspiracy for that? The definitions given in that Digest appeared in the Code of 1878, to which the attention of the then Lord Chancellor was directed by the Law Officers of the Crown, the Attorney General being Sir John Holker. In 1878 Sir John Holker introduced in this House a Bill dealing with criminal conspiracy on the basis on which it had been dealt with by Sir James Stephen in his Digest and Code, in both of which he eliminated this wild and indefinite doctrine for which the hon. and learned Gentleman is contending. That Bill was referred to a Commission composed of Lord Blackburn, Lord Justice Lush, Mr. Justice Barry, and Sir James Stephen. Their Report absolutely eliminated this undefined doctrine of criminal conspiracy. That Report says—

"There is, perhaps, no distinct authority for the proposition that there are at Common Law any criminal conspiracies other than those referred to."

Those referred to were conspiracy to commit crime, and especially to defraud—

"Some degree of obscurity may arise from the use of this word 'unlawful,' and the Commissioners propose to sweep away the Common Law, and turn all conspiracies which have been recognised as crimes into statutory offences."

Therefore I am right in saying that my hon. and learned Friend has high authority for this Resolution. After this was reported on, it was introduced in 1879 and 1880. It was subjected to a scathing criticism by Sir Alexander Cockburn in a letter to Sir John Holker in June, 1879; but in that letter there was not one line of criticism or one word of fault found with the action of the Commissioners, which, in fact, is the action taken by the Mover of the Resolution.

The whole of the arguments on this occasion have been placed before the House so clearly by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. E. Robertson), that I do not propose to go at any length into the legal aspect of the question. But I may say something on the object which I understand the hon. and learned Gentleman has in view in his Motion. There is no man who has considered this question at all who will not admit that there is no branch of English law in which there is so much uncertainty as in the Law of Conspiracy. My hon. and learned Friend read one extract from a text book describing that law; here is another which I think is very accurate. It is in so common a book as Burn's Justice of the Peace. I think the author was Mr. Justice Talfourd—

"The offence of conspiracy is more difficult to define than any other for which indictment lies, and is, indeed, rather to be considered as governed by positive decisions than by any consistent and intelligent principles of law. It consists, according to all the authorities, not in the accomplishment of any unlawful or injurious purpose, nor in any one act moving towards that purpose, but in the actual concert or agreement of two or more persons to effect something which, being so concerted and agreed, the law would regard as the object of indictable conspiracy."

Then it proceeds—

"But it is not easy to understand on what principle conspiracies have been held indictable, when neither the end nor the means are in themselves regarded by the law as criminal. Mere concert in itself is not a crime. If, then, there be no indictable offence in the object, no indictable offence in the means, and no indictable offence in the concert, in what part of the conduct of the conspirators is the offence to be found? Can several circumstances, all perfectly legal, make up an illegal act?"

This description of conspiracy indicates a most dangerous condition of the law. It is obvious that it leaves each Judge, before whom the case comes, to give the definition which presents itself to his own mind and opinion in each particular case. Now, this doctrine of conspiracy is not an old doctrine in English law; it is comparatively a recent doctrine. In its application it may be said to have begun to be largely applied towards the end of the last century and the beginning of the present century. Then the Judges began to apply the Law of Conspiracy to all things which they imagined were politically or socially dangerous. That was the origin of such decisions as that of Lord Mansfield in 1783, when he said—

"The illegal combination is the gist of the offence. Persons in possession of any article of trade may sell them at such prices as they please; but if they Confederate and agree not to sell them under certain prices, it is conspiracy."

So that any man may work at what price he pleases, but combination not to work under certain prices is an indictable offence. And so things went on, and Judges began, each according to own idea, to apply the doctrine of conspiracy according to what they called the "principle of public policy." There was an old Judge who said that "public policy" was an unruly and dangerous horse to ride. Certain contracts have been held to be bad in law on the ground of public policy, a branch of the law which should not certainly be left to the Judges, for we are also told—

"The Judges are more to be trusted as interpreters of the law than as expounders of what is called public policy."

And whenever I see a letter signed with a big "B" I am reminded of that sentiment. Our charge against this law of conspiracy is that it is a vague law, a law which rests in the breast of the individual Judge who comes to try the case. According to the hon. and learned Member for Holborn it is plain that different Judges hold different opinions as to what is indictable for conspiracy. But why need speculate upon that which has happened? I will begin with the Recorders, and I find that Mr. Bompas came to a decision which every one except the Solicitor General regarded as bad law. That decision came under discussion last year. I thought it was bad law, and the Solicitor General, with that courtesy which I always acknowledge, said: "If the judgment of the learned Recorder be upset, no doubt the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby would be entitled to be congratulated on the unexpected accuracy of his law." A year has expired, and I claim the congratulations of the Solicitor General. I have long been waiting the opportunity to offer him my congratulations, but the moment has not yet arrived. I am glad that this Plymouth law has been declared to be bad law, though it is laid down by the Recorder and supported by the representative of that constituency.

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will give way while I say that I expressed no opinion whatever as to the accuracy of the law laid down by the learned Recorder. Several months before that Debate I had written to the Recorder telling him that I thought his decision was wrong, but, as Solicitor General, I was bound to abstain from discussing the decision whilst it was under appeal.

Then I do not quite understand the "unexpected accuracy of the Member for Derby." That seems to have been an act, therefore, of gratuitous courtesy. I am afraid I cannot relieve the Solicitor General altogether, because I find that he did a very unsafe thing. He went further and attempted to lay down what was the Law of Conspiracy. He said—

"If there was an intention to do an injury to a person, and combined action for the purpose of carrying that intention into effect, in whatever form and for whatever purpose the injury was intended to be inflicted, he thought that would constitute a criminal offence, and be punishable as such."

That is the very thing which, in the passage read by my hon. Friend in moving this Motion, was condemned by Sir Fitzjames Stephen as bad law.

The right hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, excuse me again. He has made a mistake in one word of the quotation. It was not a statement of law. The word, instead of being "would" constitute a criminal offence, was, I think, "should" constitute a criminal offence, &c.

I quote this from the Times report which I had by me. I suppose the Solicitor General is reading from a corrected interpretation. When the Solicitor General is on the Bench he will be able to make that the law. He says it should be the law, and I have no doubt that when he comes to administer the law he will declare that, to be the law which he thinks ought to be the law. That is the way in which English law is made, and I venture to say of this particular decision that if it was not bad law it ought to be, and it is exactly this decision which has been condemned by Sir Fitzjames Stephen. This is bad law in the sense that the Bramwellian law is bad law. The decision in the case of the Queen v. Drewitt was such bad law that this House interfered and passed the Act of 1875 in order to do away with a great injustice to the operative classes of this country; and if the Solicitor General should have the opportunity of creating such bad law as is expressed in that sentence, no doubt Parliament will find it necessary immediately to interfere as it did in the case of the bad law of the Judge on a former occasion. The idea is, that if two persons combine to do any injury to another person, that is a criminal offence, quite apart from the question of malice if injury is created. It is exactly of that view that Sir James Stephen said—

"If this be correctly reported, and is good law, it would follow that if two brothers had a sister who was about to contract a marriage they disliked, and agreed together to exclude her from their society in order by the threat to prevent the marriage, they would be guilty of an indictable conspiracy."

So, in the same way, some people are of opinion that if there is a combination to break a contract there is something very shocking in it. There is nothing shocking in it at all. If a man agrees to marry a woman whom the relatives of the man thought it was undesirable he should marry, and they used their influence to prevent the marriage, are they guilty of an indictable conspiracy. According to the principle laid down by the Solicitor General it would be so.

No.

I will read the words again. Is there no injury if a man is prevented from marrying a woman. There is not the smallest doubt that it is an injury to the woman. That is precisely the point that all these cases have proceeded upon. In all these cases there has been an intention to injure the employer by raising the wages, and all the Trade Union cases proceeded on that doctrine, but in 1875 Parliament interfered and did away with that Judge-made law which proceeded on that principle altogether. We complain, first of all, of the uncertainty of the law, and then we complain of the inequality of the law. Because this uncertain law was inflicting injustice upon the Trades Unions you repealed it in respect of Trades Unions, but you left it in full operation against every other class of the community, and that is an enormous evil and a great injustice. You have by the Act of 1875 protected a particular class from the operation of this Judge-made law of conspiracy: why should you not protect all the other classes. If this Judge-made law was unjust as between employers and employed in trade disputes, so it may be unjust to other classes not within this definition. I am doubtful whether the agricultural labourer could come under that Act of 1875, and there certainly are many other classes who would not. It may be said: Is there any danger in this matter? That seems to me to be the sort of argument that is employed. I have never been more impressed with the danger of the thing than by a decision which was given the other day in the House of Lords in the great shipping case which is known as the Mogul case. To show the uncertainty of the present law the House of Lords was unanimous in the case. It was only a case of competition between two shipping companies, and certainly could not come under the Law of Conspiracy. But there is this remarkable circumstance: that although the House of Lords was unanimous about it, there was so great a Judge as the Master of the Rolls—of whom I desire to speak with the greatest respect—who thought it was an indictable offence. How dangerous it is that you should have a law that can be so misinterpreted. Here you have the Recorder of Plymouth, the Recorder of Newcastle, and the Master of the Rolls, declaring that certain things are indictable under the Law of Conspiracy, and they all turn out to be wrong. What a state of the law this is that exposes the community to the judgment of a Court of First Instance, and it may be to a Court of Second Instance, and to the pains and penalties of this Law of Conspiracy which depends upon the single opinion of the particular Judge. What we want is that this should no longer be the case. Take a single sentence from the Lord Chancellor upon this subject. He says:—

"I do not deny that there are many acts which may be lawful if done by one individual, which when done by a number of persons become unlawful."

We should like to know what these many acts are, and the people of this Country have a right to know what acts become unlawful when done by two men, and how are they to know what a Judge would think unless there is some declaration on the subjects. You have no light to expose the people of this country to the uncertainty created by the Law of Conspiracy. What does the Commission say upon this subject. It says:

"An agreement to do an unlawful act has been said to be a conspiracy, but as no definition has been found of what constitutes unlawfulness it occurs to us unsatisfactory that there should be any indictable offence of which the elements should be left in uncertainty and doubt."

That is exactly the Resolution of my hon. Friend. That is what we want to see affirmed. How is it met? And here I come to the question of what the Government are going to say on the subject. Do they say that the Law of Conspiracy as it stands at present is satisfactory? If so, they assert that the Commission on the Code, consisting of great Judges, supported by their eminent Attorney General, Sir John Holker, were wrong. Sir John Holker and the Judges who drew up this Code have declared in the most definite way that the Law of Conspiracy is wholly unsatisfactory, and ought no longer to be left as a Common Law offence. Are the Government going to take that view? I do not believe there is any man who will say that the Law of Conspiracy in its present vague and undefined condition is a safe or a just law. If it be so, and if the Judges are to be trusted to define conspiracy, why was the Act of 1875 passed? It was passed because it was found that the Judges could not be trusted in these semi-social, semi-political, questions to lay down a safe and a just law. They laid down a law which was unsafe and unjust, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James) and myself endeavoured year after year to bring the injustice of that law under the control of Parliament. These eminent Judges who formed the Commission desired that the Act of 1875 should be applied to the whole Common Law of Conspiracy, and that it should be codified as it had been codified with reference to Trades Unions. But the Member for Holborn says it is impossible that that can be done. Why not? If you could do it in 1875 with reference to Trades Unions, why not now with, reference to other sections of the community? Did these eminent Judges consider there was anything in the difficulty which has been raised by the hon. Member for Holborn? Not at all; they set to work and did the thing; and when it is said, "We will not pass this Resolution because you do not place before us a Bill, you do not show us how it is practicable by legislation to do this thing," we do show it you. We show it you in the Code in the decision of these eminent lawyers; we show you that the thing can be done with perfect safety. These eminent men did not think there was any danger in repealing the Common Law, and I should like to know what Member in the House of Commons has authority so great as these Judges, who sat to declare whether it is safe or unsafe to do away with the Common Law of Conspiracy. I should like to know whether the Home Secretary is going to say that it is unsafe, and that Lord Blackburn, Mr. Justice Barry, Mr. Justice Lush, and Mr. Justice Stephen have recommended a thing that is unsafe? You say we cannot draw up a Bill. Why here it is, drawn up in this Code by a Commission of the highest authority. If hon. Gentlemen opposite say there are things that are wicked in this Bill which these ignorant men whose names I have just given have recommended, let them in their wisdom undertake the matter. If you do not trust this Commission, and you think they were not fair Judges, add what you please; but, at all events, accept the principle that the thing ought to be defined in order to secure the liberty of the subject. Conspiracies to pervert Judges, to defile women, to murder and to defraud were considered indictable offences, and so was to prevent by force the collection of taxes. What does this show? It shows that these eminent Judges thought it was perfectly possible to specify and define these things, and that it was much safer to deal with them than to leave them in the breasts of the Judges, each of whom might form a different opinion upon them. I do not desire to detain the House, for I feel that the authorities we have to rely upon are sufficiently strong. We say, first, that the law is uncertain; that cannot be denied. We say that at present it is left entirely in the breasts of the Judges to determine what shall be conspiracy and what shall not; and it is no exaggeration to say that the Law of Conspiracy is dependent upon the opinion of a Judge as to what are social and political rights. But that is not a state of the law which ought to exist, and we say that the consequent danger is a thing which Parliament ought to take notice of, as it took notice of it in 1875. The hon. Member for Holborn said that the Code drawn up was a discredited Code. I am sorry the hon. Member should speak in that way of a Bill introduced by Sir John Holker. On the contrary, I say that the Code shows that this thing has been carefully considered by great and reliable authorities, and that they have seen no danger in repealing the Common Law of Conspiracy. That being so, what we affirm is that, having such a basis as this to go upon, we ought to make a declaration in the House of Commons that this is a matter of urgent importance and that it ought to be dealt with. And we propose in the Resolution of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundee to affirm that the Law of Conspiracy is a vague law, a dangerous law, and an unjust law, and that the people of this country are entitled to have clearly and precisely declared and defined a law which affects their liberties and their dearest interests.

The speech of the right hon. Gentleman, if he will forgive me for saying so, was not directed to the Resolution before the House. The Resolution before the House substitutes for the present definition of the offence of conspiracy a much narrower definition, and in that degree unquestionably a simpler and easier definition. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman has been directed to a new series of articles in a Code or in a Statute Book by which the different kinds of conspiracy which he thinks ought to be dealt with in the Criminal Law are to be separately laid down and separately defined. The greater part of his argument was directed to giving examples of what he alleges were the absurdities of the existing Common Law of Conspiracy. Unhappily, the examples of the right hon. Gentleman were all beside the mark. He began by reading from I know not what text book the case of two brothers combining to induce their sister to abstain from a certain marriage, and he said they might have been indicted for criminal conspiracy.

The quotation was a commentary by Mr. Justice Stephen upon the theory of Lord Bramwell's ruling in the case of the "Queen v. Drewitt."

Neither Lord Bramwell nor any other Judge ever laid down a proposition so monstrous and absurd as that two brothers, combining for the benefit and advantage of their sister, to prevent her from entering into a marriage of which they disapproved, were thereby guilty of criminal conspiracy. Instead of citing these stray remarks from text books, it would, I think, have been more to the point if the right hon. Gentleman had cited a single decided case in any one of the law books in which a result so ridiculous had ever been arrived at. He did, indeed, cite one case—and that was the decision of the Recorder of Plymouth. Mr. Bompas—as an exhibition of the ridiculous results of the Law of Conspiracy. But will it be believed that the decision of Mr. Bompas turned entirely upon an endeavour to interpret a Statute introduced by the right hon. Gentleman himself? for his magnum opus is an attempt at defining conspiracies in the case of trade disputes in the Statute of 1875, and it was the language of that Statute as to the meaning of intimidation that was the whole subject-matter of Mr. Bompas's decision.

The Act of 1875 was not my Statute. I will not even throw the responsibility of it on the Government, because the clause which led Mr. Bompas astray was an Amendment introduced in the House of Lords.

I fail to see the pertinence of that interruption. If I have wrongly attributed the authorship of that Statute the right hon. Gentleman must really forgive me, because I have read so many speeches of the right hon. Gentleman's own and of his supporters, in which he and his Party claimed the credit of having at last done justice to the working man, that for the moment I thought he was the author of the Statute. And this very night the hon. and learned Gentleman who introduced the Resolution claimed credit to his Party for the authorship of the Statute of 1875. I will not pause to notice the speech of the hon. and learned Member for York, the greater part of which was devoted to a criticism of an anonymous letter in the Times. If he will forgive me for saying so, the hon. and learned Member only made his criticism effective at all by entirely misrepresenting, or not reproducing accurately, the meaning and effect of the two illustrations. The two illustrations given me in the letter were both easily capable of a meaning in which the acts which were guilty if done by several would certainly not be criminal if done by one alone. The act by which a young person was decoyed abroad could not have been reached by any process of Criminal Law except by a charge of conspiracy. I agree it may well be open to argument to what extent the Criminal Law should visit and punish injury inflicted upon one individual by a combination of several others conspiring together in order to bring about that injury. Such a subject is well worth consideration and discussion. I agree also with the right hon. Gentleman that uncertainty in the law is an evil, and that there should be the clearest possible definition and exposition of what the law is, especially in matters of Criminal Law; yet I think it is a greater evil if acts mischievous to society and injurious to individuals are to escape altogether out of the purview of the Criminal Law, because there might sometimes be a difficulty in framing a definition applicable to the infinitely varied facts which human ingenuity, human fraud, and human wickedness present. It is not so much the uncertainty of the definition as the application of it to the ever-varying circumstances presented by human ingenuity or human fraud that makes the difficulty. I will give some instances of them before I sit down—I mean of conspiracies which are perfectly new, which nobody dreamed of before the Act of 1875. Boycotting for instance? Yes; that is a new conspiracy, a new form of pernicious combination for malicious injury not though of in the year 1875 when that exemption was passed about which we heard so much. Now, let me go back for a moment to the Resolution before the House. The Resolution proposes to the House this rule: Let no combination be the subject-matter of an indictment on a charge of conspiracy unless it is a combination to do an act which, if done by a single individual, would be punishable by the Criminal Law, either by indictment or by summary trial.

Or unless the combination is expressly declared by Statute.

That is not in the Resolution; there is no word—

Neither is the other.

Oh, the other is,

"That the Common Law doctrine of Conspiracy, by which persons are made punishable for combining to do acts which in them selves are not criminal, is unjust in its operation—"

And ought to be amended.

Pardon me, I did not interrupt the hon. Member; but I would say to him that vagueness and uncertainty in Resolutions are almost as bad as vagueness and uncertainty in law. And if I may presume to pin the hon. Member to a definite meaning, I would interpret his Resolution by his speech, and assume that when he talks about "acts which are not in themselves criminal" he means acts which would not be the subject-matter of the Criminal Law if done by one person. That is an absolutely novel proposition, which has never been asserted by any authority on Criminal Law, and, to be in with, I say it is not asserted by the Act of 1875. It is almost too late for me to discuss the Act of 1875 as it deserves to be discussed. The Act of 1875 is the outcome of an extremely long course of legislation and judicial decisions which go back quite to the early periods of our history. Yes; the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt) may shake his head, but I venture to assert that it is so—that it is the outcome, in the first place, of the whole of that long series of Statutes which I may describe roughly as the Statutes of labourers; and, in the second place, it is the outcome of the Statutes of combinations, Statutes which I may say go back to the early times of our law. Two or three Royal Commissions at least have sat to investigate and inquire into the whole of these series of Statutes. I hold in my hand the Report of the last Royal Commission, which was composed of extremely learned men. Sir Alexander Cockburn was at the head of that Commission, and the other names would command the respect of anyone. That was the Commission of 1875, which preceded the legislation of that year. It examined elaborately into the whole of the decisions which constituted the law of labourers and of combination up to that time in England. It inquired into this particular subject of making combinations offences under the law when their aim is to do acts which are not criminal in the single person, and the Commission elaborately and at length, in their Report, negatived the view brought forward by the Mover of this Resolution, and held that the public safety and the public expediency demand that you should treat acts which are done by many in combination not to benefit others, according to the illustration of the Member for Derby, but acts done in combination in order to injure others with a malicious purpose—that such acts ought to be made the subject of Criminal Law, because the general principle upon which the whole Criminal Law proceeds—the principle upon which certain things are treated as crimes—is that the importance of the case is sufficient to justify that mode of treatment. Of course, we all know that the line between torts or civil wrongs and crimes is an artificial arbitrary line. There are many things just as morally blamable—which are moral crimes and only civil torts—as those which are beyond the line. I do not pretend to say that even in our Criminal Law the distinction is always clearly drawn. One familiar example would be the case of adultery. Among most European peoples adultery is treated as a crime. It is not so treated with us. Of course, that is a question which may be argued; but all I wish to say is that the line between civil torts and crimes always is an arbitrary line, and it is a question of argument and of expediency what acts you should put on one side of the line and what on the other. Well, the Commission of 1875 declared in favour of putting combinations to do acts which are not criminal, if done by one person, on the criminal side of the line and in the category of crime; and the Statute of 1875 carries that out, because it is singular that those who are always referring to that Statute should give us so imperfect an account of it. It is perfectly true that the 2nd section of the Statute of 1875 says that acts done in furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be indictable as conspiracy if such acts committed by one person could not be punishable as crime. But the hon. Gentleman forgot to quote Section 7 of the same Statute. Has Section 7 not got anything to do with conspiracy? It is the complement of Section 2 because Section 7 goes on to make crimes, if done by one, of a number of things that never were crimes before, and which were all those unlawful means which were habitually used and practised in trade combinations and combinations in furtherance of trade disputes. For instance, picketting—and I call the attention of the hon. Member for Morpeth—persistently following a person from place to place, hiding his tools, watching his house, following him—when there are two or more persons—in the streets. All these things are made offences. Consequently, by this Act, taken altogether, a combination to do any of these things becomes a criminal conspiracy. What a ludicrous misrepresentation of the effect of the Statute, then, it is to say that it lays down the broad principle that nothing shall be punishable as a conspiracy except a combination to do a thing which would be a crime if done by one individual person, when the very same Statute goes on to make crimes in one individual of things which had never been crimes before! Does the hon. Member suggest for a moment that it would formerly at the Common Law have been an offence to follow a person from place to place in the street, or to watch his house? Of course not.

Numerous decisions have been given, and this is simply an exposition of the law.

This was an attempt to embody the Law of Conspiracy as it applied to Trades Unions; and any hon. Member who will take the trouble to read the Report of those learned Commissioners, upon which this Statute is founded, will find that this is the precise advice they gave. They said, We would rather not deal with the Law of Conspiracy as a whole; it embraces too many matter's; it has too many ramifications; it is too wide and too multifarious in its application. We will not deal with it as a whole; we will deal with it in its specific application to trade conspiracies. The Statute, I admit, is not very skilfully drafted; the arrangement of it is a little awkward; but it picks out those things which were unlawful means—any means recognised as unlawful in previous decisions of the Courts, in order to constitute a criminal conspiracy—and makes them offences under the Act, and then says, "You will be guilty of criminal conspiracy only when you have done one of these acts which we make crimes, or any other act which is a crime by any Statute or the Common Law." Therefore, I say the Statute of 1875 does not support the proposition that the hon. and learned Member for Dundee attempts to derive from it. He also quotes the Code of 1880, and thereupon the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby was enthusiastic almost. He rose into lyric flights in his praise of the Code. But the Code does not affirm the proposition advanced in this Resolution. The Code is distinctly in opposition to the proposition that nothing is to be a conspiracy except a combination to do an act which would be criminal if done by a single person.

We do not say so.

Well, the Resolution says so. Tue right hon. Gentleman made a speech which was in reality a speech against the Resolution, a speech in favour of the Bill of last year, and also a speech against the Solicitor General (Sir Edward Clarke). These seem to be the three objects of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. It was not a speech in favour of the Resolution, but I am dealing with the Resolution. The hon. and learned Member who brought it forward claimed the Report and the Code of the Commissioners of 1880 as being in his favour. I say they are against him, and I will tell him why. We heard, for instance, something about combinations—

Would the right hon. Gentleman allow me to interrupt him for a moment? I think he has misunderstood both what I said and what my hon. and learned Friend said. The Resolution does not say that there ought not to be anything punishable that is done by two people which is not punishable when done by one, but would only be punishable by Common Law; it says that the Common Law should be amended so that, if punishable at all, it should be by Statute and not by Common Law. That is what the Resolution is.

That is what the Amendment says. The Resolution condemns the Common Law of Conspiracy, and urges that no act should be punishable as a conspiracy except combination to do an act which is criminal in itself.

The right hon. Gentleman has appealed to me several times—

I do not want to be corrected by more than one Member at once.

What I said was that the general proposition should be that a combination is not to be criminal unless the act would be criminal if done by one individual, or unless the combination is declared by Statute to be illegal.

I am sorry I omitted to add that latter qualification. But really that is not relevant to the point upon which I am arguing. I am arguing against the contention of the hon. and learned Member, which was that the Act of 1875 was in his favour, that the Code of 1880 was in his favour; and I am endeavouring to show that neither of them is in his favour upon that point, but, on the contrary, they both negative his proposition. Take the Code; I will give only one example: Conspiracy to defraud is one of the things which the Code determines to keep alive, and it makes a person guilty of an indictable offence who conspires by deceit or falsehood, or other fraudulent means, to defraud the public, or to affect the market price of Stocks or merchandise, or anything publicly sold, or to defraud any person ascertained or unascertained—persons known or unknown—whether such deceit or falsehood or other fraudulent means would or would not amount to a false pretence. I agree that the Code does not preserve all the Common Law cases; it preserves as many of them as the ingenuity of the draftsman could put into it. Then do not let it be quoted in favour of the universal and sweeping proposition affirmed in the Resolution. The Code is against it distinctly. I will give another instance. The Code contains a clause which clearly makes conspiracy to defile women an offence—and that is a combination to do that which is not an offence when done by a single person. So it is with a conspiracy to prevent Justice or to bring false accusations, to which I hope the hon. and learned Member for York will devote a little more careful study. The hon. and learned Gentleman seems to think that one could not conspire to bring a false accusation without committing perjury. But there may be half-a-dozen persons who keep in the background and put forward others as witnesses to bring a false accusation, whilst they themselves; abstain from coming to the Court of Justice. I regret that there are many things omitted from the Code which might have been contained in it. I will take for example the case of boycotting. There is rid section in the Code which deals with the question of boycotting.

Hear, hear!

I suppose the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee sympathises with boycotting. Let it be noted that this is a Resolution in favdur of boycotting and the Plan of Campaign. No actual case has been quoted in the course of this Debate, except the case of boycotting, for which this Resolution is at all wanted. As you know, the supporters of the Resolution have been challenged to produce a single case since 1875, and they have not done so. I can understand that hon. Members should sympathise with boycotting as applied to persons they dislike, such as landlords and persons who have the audacity to take evicted farms; but let me point out that there may be a case of boycotting for the purpose of depriving a person of the means of life; a whole neighbourhood may combine not to let a person have meat, fire, or any of the necessaries of life. That is what they euphemistically call "exclusive dealing." This may be done, not because the person has offended against their idea of what the land laws should be, but purely out of simple hatred and malice. Is that to be punishable by the Criminal Law or not? No man can be punished by the Criminal Law who singly refuses to sell any necessary of life to another, but if a large and powerful combination pursues such a policy for a malicious purpose, is that to be a criminal act or not? I challenge denial to the assertion that a case of boycotting such as I have described, not only ought to be a crime, but should deserve very severe punishment. The Plan of Campaign has been held to be a conspiracy within the Common Law doctrine, and it is equally certain that under the terms of the Resolution it would cease to bear that character. It would escape if the Resolution were adopted, for it is not a criminal offence for one man to refuse to pay his rent, to hand it over to others, or to arrange that the money due to the landlord should be spent in contesting his right. I am not suggesting that it ought to be; but I do think that when we see the wide-spread misery, injury, and social mischief which has been produced by combinations to do these very things, it would be a wise policy and a wise law that would enable such combinations to be dealt with by a Criminal tribunal, I should be very glad if any hon. Member could frame clauses which would be so definite as to embrace all possible combinations the object of which was to do injury to others. The difficulty of making definitions is not due, I believe, to defects in the law, but to the nature of things and to the varying characters that malevolence and human ingenuity can assume. Therefore, I think that the sweeping Resolution of the hon. and learned Member for Dundee would leave the law in a state much less satisfactory than it now is.

I cannot recollect any instance in which a Member of the House has displayed so complete a misapprehension of the character and object of a Resolution as that which has been displayed by the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. In the very few moments that remain to me I can hardly do more than re-state the proposition without being able to argue it at length. The proposition is that the Law of Conspiracy should be so amended that it should be no longer possible that at Common Law persons should be found guilty of crime for doing together that which would not be a crime if done by one person. The reason why that Amendment is insisted upon is because the law, as has been universally admitted, depends not upon definitions, which can be brought to the test, but upon the varying decisions of particular Judges. It is no exaggeration to say that Criminal Law of Conspiracy depends upon the view which a particular Judge may take of what constitutes political, or social, or even moral wrong-doing. But because we contend for definition of crime by Statute, does that justify the right hon. Gentleman in saying that we, on this side of the House, object to have brought within the range of the Criminal Law that which ought to be dealt with as matters of criminal conspiracy? No, Mr. Speaker, it does not. What we say is, "Define your crime. Let it be a creation of the Legislature by Act of Parliament, and not depend upon the varying or it may be capricious opinions of Judges." When the light hon. Gentleman refers to the Statute of 1875 as no justification for the position taken up by my hon. and learned Friend, he certainly cannot have examined the Statute very closely. That Statute, as regards the question of trade disputes, affirms the general proposition that no thing done in combination in furtherance of a trade dispute shall be a crime which would not be a crime when done by one person. The right hon. Gentleman, although knowing that that is contained in the 3rd Section, seems to think he makes a point in his own favour by referring to the 7th Section. Why, the 7th Section does, in the case of trade disputes, the very thing we are insisting should be done in all cases of criminal conspiracy — namely, it defines certain matters, some of which were criminal before, and some of which were not criminal before, which are to be exceptions to the general principle laid down in the 3rd Section. That is what we desire to be done in the present case; we desire that principle to be extended. The position of the right hon. Gentleman is the more extraordinary when one recollects the history of the Bill brought in in 1878 and afterwards in 1880. He has denounced that Bill, and he has denounced the views of the very able and learned Commissioners, whose recommendation was as follows:—

"We have taken the responsibility of recommending that crimes should no longer be indictable at Common Law, but only under the provisions of the Draft Code or some other Act in force for the time being … Section 5 will have the effect of preventing indictments at Common Laic for conspiracy."

Therefore, this Commission and the then Attorney General, Sir John Holker, Lord Halsbury, then Solicitor General, Lord Cross, and Lord Cairns, then Lord Chancellor, gave their assent, by the introduction of the Criminal Code Bill, to the principle which the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary now denounces. ("No, no.") Yes, yes. Hon. Gentlemen may say "no, no." I repeat "yes, yes." The right hon. Gentleman has made one remark with which I agree, and only one. He has said that the Criminal Law requires expansion from time to time. I agree; but the Legislature can from time to time deal with such instances, and it has shown its ability to deal with them; and whenever the necessity arises the Legislature may be trusted to deal effectually with them. Now, some reference has teen made to the Act of 1875, and it is said that no case of hardship can be alleged under it; but my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby has already pointed out that even that Act is wholly inefficient and ineffective, because it leaves unprotected all classes of disputes except trade disputes, and those only are protected which arise as between employers and employed. It does not touch disputes as between employés, nor does it touch disputes in other branches of industry than those of trade. If it is true that the law is vague, and therefore dangerous because vague, in cases where we have questions of conspiracy happily decided still in England by a Judge of the Superior Court and with the assistance of a jury, how much more dangerous is it in cases with which the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury is familiar, where there are delicate, vague, undefined questions of conspiracy dealt with by Removable Magistrates whose legal capacity is, forsooth! certified by the Lord Lieutenant, and especially when that authority is called upon to deal with a provision which enables the Removable Magistrates to inquire into cases of criminal conspiracy "to compel or induce persons not to fulfil their legal obligations?" The right hon. Gentleman has asked whether we are defending boycotting, and whether it should be within the Criminal Law. My answer is this. There are cases of boycotting, and there are cases of boycotting. Some I would reprehend as strongly as any man in this House, and put down firmly as against the best interests of society; but knowing the record of proceedings in Irish Courts as I do, and the use to which the provision of the Act of 1887 has been applied in Ireland, I say that if we wish to have a clear example of the absolute necessity of a close and accurate definition of the subject matters of criminal conspiracy we must look to the administration of the law as it has taken place in Ireland. I say that my hon. and learned Friend, in the admirable speech he made to the House, has justified his position by reference to the Act of 1875, to the action of the Commission, and to the Bill introduced on high Conservative authority in this House. He is also justified by the general considerations applicable to the case, and I think we must all admit that it is a source of danger to the country, and one which ought to be removed, that there should be the loose vagueness, which it is admitted exists, in such an important branch of our Criminal Law.

This Bill among other provisions authorises the Treasury to make an advance in accordance with the Resolution in Committee of Supply of £90,000 to be allocated to the Irish Teachers' Pension Fund, and we object to the issue of the money for such a purpose. This amount of £90,000 has already been devoted by Parliament to the service of education in Ireland. Irish Members have been extremely unfortunate in regard to this Vote. When it was taken in Committee of Supply we were absolutely in the dark as to the condition of the Fund to which it is proposed to allocate this money; we had no particulars of the Report on the Fund, nor had we knowledge of the personality of the individual from whom the Report proceeded; and while engaged in the effort to obtain information which ought to have been laid before us before the Vote was presented in Committee the discussion was prematurely ended by the application of the Closure. When the Vote was reported it became impossible for me to make the statement I desired to make, and practically, though this is almost the last stage of the financial operation, it is the only opportunity Irish Members have had of laying their case before the House. I avail myself of this opportunity to protest most earnestly against the alienation of this Fund, contributed by Ireland to the Imperial Revenue, and which Parliament has thought fit to give back to the service of Irish education—to no other purpose whatever. Parliament is bound in honour and honesty to devote this money to the cause of Irish education, because, in the Budget of last year, it was accepted by the House as a grant for that purpose, and the proposal was assented to by Irish Members. You are committed to the arrangement by a Parliamentary compact of the utmost stringency; you are bound by that compact, from which we, on our part, decline to release you. This money should have been voted last year, and why was it not voted? The Secretary to the Treasury, in a burst of candour, said he did not know to what use to put the money. Well, there need be no difficulty in finding a suitable use for it. True it is that last year the Government did not like the trouble to advance a suitable or convenient scheme for the application of the money, but why are we to suffer for their delay? Last year when this Vote should have been taken the Government had no idea of applying the money to the Teachers' Pension Fund in the way now intended; but in the course of the winter, and having time to cogitate the fact that they happened to have this Irish money lying unused, proved too strong a temptation. The Treasury had a difficulty to meet; and they determined, in an utterly unconstitutional manner, to appropriate this money, because they thought Ireland too weak to resist them. The Parliamentary compact bound the Government to devote the money to the service of Irish education in the current year, and I say the Government have no more right to divert this money from the service of the year to meet a deficiency in this Fund that may arise in the course of the Twentieth Century than they have to divert any other Vote from the service of the year. In policy and honesty the Government were bound; but by this diversion of the Vote, the first result of your policy, intended for the benefit of education in Ireland, will be to inflict an injury on Irish teachers. Free education was announced a year ago, and from the moment it was announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer it became more and more difficult in some parts of Ireland to collect school fees or obtain local contributions. Teachers during the past year have suffered serious loss by the diminution and, in some cases the cessation, of the payment of school fees and of contributions from local sources. Yet, in the face of this, you are going to take this money, intended by Parliament for the help of the teachers and the assistance of education, to make good a Fund which may not be in need of assistance for 40 years. The money should be applied to the immediate service of Irish education, and what is the reason you divert it to the Pension Fund? We have no information; we are as completely in the dark now as we were when the statement was made on 29th February. Not a Report has been laid on the Table, not a speech has been made to assist us to appreciate the actual position of the Fund. No copy of the Report of 1885 or of that of 1890—no communication from the Committee of Actuaries appointed to examine the assets of the Fund has been put before us. The Secretary to the Treasury explains that the Report is subjudice. I confess there is novelty in the plea. I have heard of questions in which the liberty of a man was concerned being sub judice, but never have I beard of a Report being withheld for such a reason. Well, though the Report is sub judice, that does not deter the Treasury from a definite application of this money. Is it not irrational to advance this plea, and yet to devote this money for the purpose of a fund where it has not been ascertained that a deficit exists? We have not a scrap of information to show us the money is needed for the purpose. It appears that an actuary has informed the Treasury that a deficit may arise at a future time, and I say on such a ground as that there is not sufficient justification for this appropriation. How was the Fund constituted? From a sum of £1,300,000 from the Irish Church surplus and subscriptions from the teachers. The Fund has nothing to do with the taxation of Ireland. The Treasury have had the Fund entirely under their control, and the Treasury are responsible for the original error, and for the effect of that error. It was an actuary from the War Office, appointed by the Treasury, who reported on the condition of the Fund, and upon his Report the rules were made. On the faith of the obligations undertaken by the Treasury the teachers made their subscriptions. The Treasury had the Fund under their control; they accepted the valuation made; they incurred fresh expenditure, they are bound by their rules to make good the deficit, if deficit there is, from Imperial sources, and not from money dedicated to Irish uses. It is an outrage, I say, to take this money from us to make good the future deficit. Is there a deficit at all? Perhaps hon. Members do not understand the point, and I cannot blame them if they do not. I have looked into the matter with such information as I can collect, and I find the Fund is not only solvent but prosperous. The capital sum of £1,300,000 remains untouched. The interest at 3 per cent. is £39,000, and the teachers' payments are £10,000 a year. There is, therefore, an income of £49,000. The charges last year were £36,000, and there is, therefore, a surplus revenue of £13,000, and, with the accumulated surplus since the Fund was founded in 1880, there should be £1,300,000 in hand. But the Secretary to the Treasury will say that, taking into account the future operations, the ultimate liabilities will leave a deficit of £190,000. That is to say, before the claim of each contributor to the Fund is satisfied there may be a deficit. That refers to a period 40 or 50 years distant; and this sum, which Parliament has set aside for the education of the year, is to be taken away from the purpose for which it was intended in order to correct an error for which the Treasury alone are responsible and to provide for a possible deficiency somewhere about the year 1940. Why take this £90,000? Assume there is a deficiency at the end of 40 years. At simple interest you would double the amount in the period after which the necessity for its use would arise, and it is obvious that at compound interest a much smaller sum than £90,000 would be sufficient to meet any deficiency that may arise. You have a precedent for dealing with such a contingency. Two years ago there was found to be a deficiency in the Constabulary Pension Fund. What did the Government then do? Did they appropriate Ireland's share of the Probate Duty, the Excise Duty, the Licence Duty, or any of the rebates made for taxation to Ireland? No; they placed on the Estimates a sum of £150,000 to be voted from Imperial sources to put that Fund in a solvent condition, and why not do the same thing now? You have taken advantage of the financial arrangement by which this Fund was established. When the interest on £1,300,000 from the Church surplus was devoted to purposes of the Teachers' Fund, you abolished the Vote of £8,000, which, until then, had annually appeared in the Estimates for the Fund, the Imperial Treasury saving £8,000 by the transaction each year, or £96,000 since 1880, and yet you come on this Irish Fund of £90,000 to make good a supposed deficiency your own egregious blunder has caused. What is the opinion of the teachers as to this allocation? By an unusual proceeding in Committee, the Chief Secretary interposed and read a telegram, purporting to come from the executive body of the teachers in Dublin, in which that body were represented to have passed a resolution approving of this appropriation of £90,000. But the executive body never passed such a resolution. A committee of that body passed a resolution in favour of the Education Bill as explained by the right hon. Gentleman. When the proper time comes we shall be able to show reasons why we differ from this approval. But my point is, that the telegram had reference to the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the Bill.

The telegram made reference to the £90,000, and, as I understand, the teachers were under the impression that the allocation of the £90,000 was to be made in the Bill.

The teachers were under the impression that the addition of the £90,000 would have the effect of reducing the amount of their subscriptions to the Fund or of increasing their pensions. Here I have copies of resolutions from members of bodies representing national school teachers in Ireland, one and all condemning this appropriation of an Irish Fund to purposes from which they will receive no benefit, and which was intended for the current needs of education. I strongly and earnestly appeal to the House, even at this late stage, not to proceed with an act of misappropriation of Irish money, which is as unjust to the people of Ireland as it is discreditable to the House. I make an earnest appeal that this sum should not issue from the Treasury, but should remain until it can be allocated in proportion as bonus to teachers, and distributed to meet the needs of education in the ensuing year. I therefore think, in the circumstances, that the money should remain with the Treasury.

This matter has been already so thoroughly discussed that I am afraid I cannot add very much to what I have already said. With regard to the hon. Member's last suggestion, that the money should remain with the Treasury, he must be aware that unless the money is disposed of, it would have to be applied on the 31st March as a payment to the National Debt, and, therefore, the money would be gone so far as Irish purposes are concerned. I shall answer as shortly as I can the observations of the hon. Gentleman. There was no pledge whatever given to Parliament that this money should be allocated for Irish education. All that the House and the Members representing Irish constituencies have a right to expect is that the money, which is equivalent to the sum which was given for freeing schools in England, shall be allocated to some Irish purpose. Nor is it correct that there is in Ireland at present a great falling off at the schools. I am told by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland—

How does he know?

; Order, order!

I am informed by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, on his official responsibility, that the falling off has been only 1,500 in 1,750 schools in Ireland, and that in the model schools there has been no falling off at all. Is this an Irish purpose to which this money is to be voted? Anybody who reads the Memorandum which I have laid on the Table of the House will have as good an idea as can be conveyed of the actual state of affairs. I want to call the attention of the House to the fact that this Fund is a separate Statutory Fund created in 1879 out of the Irish Church surplus, and fed since then by the contributions of the Irish teachers themselves. The hon. Member has repeatedly, in the course of these Debates, spoken of the egregious blunders of the Treasury, and in particular has attacked an official as though he had committed some monstrous blunder. I really think language of that sort is very unjust to the Public Service. I invite hon. Members to wait until the Reports, with the opinions of the Committee of Actuaries, are produced. In 1885, owing to an error as to expectations of the future, the Irish teachers got a benefit to which they were not entitled. Surely it is a proper application of the money applicable to Ireland to pay now what was not paid in 1885. I cannot think so badly of the Irish school teachers as to believe that they wish to have, at the expense of the taxpayers of the United Kingdom, a benefit which, if they have it at all, ought to come out of the Irish money. The sum which the Committee of Supply allocated to the Irish teachers will go to meet a deficiency which at present undoubtedly exists, otherwise the benefits to be derived from the Fund will be diminished or the amount of the subscription will be increased. The money will help to make the Fund solvent. It will give the teachers the advantage of better terms in securing their pensions. The hon. Member spoke as though the deficiency was only a deficiency in prospect. It is a deficiency which exists at the present moment. It is too late to make any other application of the Fund in the present year. The money has been voted, and the Report of the Resolution of the Committee of Supply has been agreed to; and if the money is not placed at the credit of the Pension Fund in the present financial year, it will go, as I have said, to meet the National Debt.

The Secretary to the Treasury has twice in his speech raised the bogie that if this money is not applied to the Pension Fund it must go to the Consolidated Fund. This bogie is really of no consequence whatever. The Government can allocate the sum as they please with the majority they have; but they would probably be supported by the Opposition, and they would be supported by the Irish Members, if they followed the suggestion of the Member for West Belfast, and allocated the money to the teachers either by way of salary or capitation grant. The reason why the claim is made is this: You gave £800,000 for education in England for six months, and you will give a proportionate sum to Ireland. But the £90,000 in question here comes from Irish money. We contributed 11 per cent. to pay the English teachers for the six months. You are, however, going to put this £90,000 into the Treasury. I remember the noble Lord the Member for Paddington pointed out that a man who was just one grade above a born idiot could grab money to meet the National Debt and the expenditure of the year. If any one is above this grade of a born idiot he will find a still simpler plan. By a large majority he can create Irish balances and apply them to the Treasury balances, and Treasury surpluses. This money affords a good balance to the English Treasury, but it is no benefit whatever to the Irish teachers. We have resisted it in every possible way. Without any information whatever from the Treasury we have been told that this money must be applied to make good the deficiency. The Irish Members have been told they must be very careful what they say as to the actuary. I think the language of the Secretary to the Treasury is too severe. What are you going to do with a gentleman who in 1885 makes one calculation, and then six years afterwards declares it is wrong by a considerable amount. I think any man who does that should be held up to scorn before this House. Hon. Members are not paid for making these calculations, but the actuary is paid. Do you think I would have given you my vote on the English Education Bill if I had thought Ireland was to be treated this way? I know I could not have stopped the Bill, but I could have kept you a few days longer from passing it. I thought the Irish people would have got an equivalent to what the schools and the teachers and the parents in England got. How can the Ministry come forward and say they are governing Ireland according to Irish popular opinion when they only rely on 16 Members against 85. I do not believe these 16 care about the measure. I think they are voting simply because they do not like to vote against the measure. From a Party point of view I think they are highly to be applauded, but we are not acting from a Party point of view. If you had allotted this money in any way to benefit the teachers, we would have voted with the Government. Many of us are ready to show we will do that on financial questions. Your present proposal as to the application of the money is one of the consequences of our having the same Exchequer. We have no means of checking the account. You are simply plundering the whole people. This £90,000 was specifically promised to us, and it has always been held out as a proof that the Government meant to keep their promise to the letter, but they certainly have not kept their financial promises to Ireland in the spirit. Ireland has not got its fair share of the money voted. This particular sum will be of no use to the teachers. They repudiate it as being utterly valueless. You have confiscated this £90,000 to add to your Treasury balances. Of course, I am perfectly well aware the money is not absolutely lost, but it is absolutely lost to us. It goes to the Imperial Exchequer, and it is the same to us whether you apply this £90,000 to the Teachers' Fund nominally or apply it to the extinction of the National Debt. This is Irish money, and you should have voted it in accordance with the wishes of the large majority of the Irish Members.

; I think it is not unnatural that the Irish national teachers, who are an under-paid body, should wish to have money direct. The hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) has spoken to-night as if the Treasury were responsible for this deficit and for the insolvency of the Fund. Well, the actuary is, no doubt, responsible for the mistake. What has caused the difficulty is, that after this imaginary surplus had been created by the actuary fresh advantages were given to the national teachers, and it is by reason of the fresh advantages which were given to the teachers out of this imaginary surplus that the insolvency has been created. I say, whether the national teachers took that into account or not, we are bound to take it into account, and to let the national teachers understand that the insolvency of the Fund arises because of the fresh advantages that they have received out of this imaginary surplus. I put it to the House in this way. What the Secretary to the Treasury (Sir J. Gorst) stated is perfectly clear. He made a comparison of assets and liabilities of the Fund, and the hon. Member for West Belfast says, "That may be all very well. Your liabilities are not due immediately; they are due in the future." All I can say is, that if the hon. Member for West Belfast had responsibility placed upon him either in an Imperial Treasury or an Irish Treasury, and began work in that kind of way, I do not think he would go very far before he was pulled up. The real question is whether there was a deficit or not. We are informed that a deficit exists, and we are informed of the cause of it. I hold that we have a right to tell the national teachers that they have got advantages out of the imaginary surplus, and, so far as I am concerned, I intend to support the Government in their endeavour to make that Pension Fund solvent. I disagree with what the hon. Member for West Belfast said in the beginning of his able speech. He seemed to think that this matter had been hustled through the House by the Closure. I was present in Committee of Supply, and we spent three hours upon this subject before the Closure was imposed. On Report of Supply we spent two hours more upon it. By a reason which I regret, the hon. Member for West Belfast was on that occasion prevented from speaking; but to say that the matter has been pushed through the House is to go too far.

If there were advantages given to the teachers, they were based on a false financial position for which the Treasury was responsible. It is all very well for the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) to say he wants to make this scheme financially sound. So do we, but we do not want to take away that which is intended for an immediate advantage to make this scheme financially sound. The actuary made his calculation upon the fact that £8,000 were given out of Imperial Exchequer to the Pension Fund. His calculation must have been based upon that, because that contribution is stopped. It would appear as if his calculation was based on the fact that that was to continue, but it is not continued. How has the error arisen? We are left so completely in the dark, that we have to guess as to the manner in which this error was made. If what I have stated be not the case, then surely the Secretary to the Treasury should tell us how the error was committed. But here we have the fact that there was a deficiency of £8,000 a year up to the year the Pension Fund was constituted; and indeed to make good the position we are now in by that, you propose to take away that which ought to be applied to an immediate educational advantage, and apply it to this deficiency. It should be remembered that we are dealing with a body of men who are not well paid. We are dealing with men whose claims have been over and over brought before us, and who are admitted to be the worst paid members of their profession in the United Kingdom. I can assure the Government that there is in Ireland a very strong and angry feeling with regard to the course taken by them in this matter.

; This question has two branches. There is one which concerns the Irish Members, and I submit that there is another question which involves the English and Scottish Members, and that is whether there has been towards the Irish people good faith in this matter. We have already had it by anticipation, and when the General Election comes, a great deal will be made by many hon. Gentlemen opposite of the fact that the present Government has given free education to England and Wales and Scotland, and they will represent that as of very great value to the people of this country. But if that is so, and if the present proposal of the Government be adopted, what can be made of your claim to having done equal justice? Where is the case of treating Ireland with equal justice and with simultaneity with the rest of the United Kingdom? The course which the Secretary to the Treasury has been obliged to resort to is not worthy of the House of Commons. With regard to the deficiency in the Teachers Fund, it has been known for some time, but we have no Papers laid before us which will enable us to deal with this one question. Whence is the necessity for this hurry in voting this money before the case has been properly submitted to Parliament? Although the matter in one aspect is a small one, in principle it is a very important one, and you have given in it an additional illustration and instance of the gross unfairness with which Ireland is treated whenever she comes to be dealt with separately in this United Parliament. I should not have thought that a Government which has regard for its own consistency, or a Parliament which is going before the country on the ques-of the maintenance of a united system of government for the whole country, and in which the affairs of Ireland should have due consideration, would have presented such an illustration of their inconsistency—a proceeding than which in my judgment there has been nothing more unfair or shabby presented to the House of Commons.

I do not think that this Bill ought to be allowed to pass without some attention being called to the question of the gold mines in Wales. I will make another appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to enforce the execution on the property of the hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Pritchard Morgan). This was essentially a case in which some indulgence should be shown. The hon. Member for Merthyr has been engaged in developing the gold mines in Wales for some years, and the Government allows him to spend scores of thousands of pounds of his money in erecting machinery, and in other necessary ways to bring about a development, without in the slightest degree interfering with him. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer had put in his claim at the very start, the hon. Member might have come to other terms with the landowners, or he might have dropped his operations. This is not a matter which is personal to the hon. Member for Merthyr. It affects a considerable population in this particular district of Wales; and it affects a new industry which, if it be properly dealt with, may become one of great importance. I call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Report of Her Majesty's Inspector of Metalliferous Mines in North Wales, not as referring to the hon. Member for Merthyr, but as a matter of general public interest. The Inspector says—

"The bold effort which is now being made with excellent machinery to treat still poorer quartz deserves all possible aid and encouragement from those who have the interests of the Principality at heart; for, if it is once proved that the mining of poor quartz in Wales can be made to pay a fair profit, a portion of the capital now flowing out to the Colonies and foreign countries will be diverted to home enterprises. On the other hand, if any untoward circumstances were to cause the Morgan Mine to be stopped, all hope of profitable gold mining in this country would be given up by the public."

I fear that the rather harsh action that the Government has taken in this case will have the effect of stopping the Morgan Mine, which is really a very important experiment in gold mining in North Wales. I appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to afford some indulgence in this matter, and as I feel that some discussion will be necessary, I move that the Debate be adjourned.

I shall not put that Motion. It is an abuse of the Forms of the House.

I wish to refer to the action of the Woods and Forests Department with regard to the conditions which it imposes upon mining operations in Wales. A few years since, an application was put in by a miner to be allowed to mine for gold on a property in North Wales belonging to Mr. C. R. Williams. This application having been made to the Woods and Forests Office, a letter was written to Mr. Williams telling him an application had been made for the right to mine on his property, and that if he chose to put in an application himself the Woods and Forests Department would consider it in preference to that of the stranger. Mr. Williams said:— "I know nothing about mining, and I declined to enter into mining operations." The Woods and Forests replied—"If you will not mine on your own estate, which has cost £40,000, we will give authority to this stranger, this outsider, to come into your property and mine." Mr. Williams issued a manifesto, which was circulated throughout the district, and influence was brought to bear in some quarters with this result; that a licence was granted to Mr. Williams striking out all the labour clauses in the lease; and a compromise was affected between the landowner and the Woods and Forest Office by which £1 per annum was to be paid for 30 years, and 600 or 700 acres of land containing valuable minerals, the property of the State, were to be locked up for that period of time. I do not consider that consistent conduct on the part of the Woods and Forests Department. What I want is consistency and uniformity in the action of the Department. I object strongly to the Woods and Forests Office saying that one man is to pay a thirtieth part of his product, and another is to pay a twentieth. We have been voting this money for five or six years, and I think it is high time the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made up his mind as to what he is going to do. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not willing to deal with the matter, I appeal to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who knows something about this subject, to express his opinion upon it. There is a very serious phase of this question, and it is this: that the owner of the soil and the mine are absolutely precluded from entering into an agreement to work the minerals on terms of mutual profit and advantage, because the State steps in and prevents such an agreement being carried into effect. I put a straight question to the right hon. Gentleman the other day. It was this:—

"In the event of a mining industry, at a cost of £90, producing £100 worth of material, in other words, in the event of 10 per cent. profit being made on the product, docs the Government take two-thirds of it?"

Of course it does. Is there any other industry in the country that could be carried on under such conditions? It is impossible to carry on the gold mining industry in Wales if the Government insist on taking two-thirds of the profits. Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware of this fact that statesman though he may lie, he has totally disregarded the true principles of Free Trade and he is even abandoning a principle which some of his supporters would like to see adopted, namely, the principle of protection. There are hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of gold extracted from foreign ores in Swansea every year. These foreign ores are brought into Swansea and the extraction of the gold is carried on there, and yet there is absolutely and practically a tax on the raw product of this country. If they charge us a proportion of what we produce after the operation has taken place of bringing the material to the surface of the earth, it is obvious that they are literally and absolutely protecting, encouraging and supporting the mines of foreign countries as against the mines of this country. The right hon. Gentleman has been the sole cause this week of the discharge of 60 men in North Wales from their employment, and the wives and families of these men will probably bless the right hon. Gentleman in the end.

Notwithstanding that the time is unfavourable for entering into the subject at large, I must endeavour to correct the impression the hon. Member seems to convey as to the position of the Treasury in this matter. For information in respect to the hon. Member's personal case and to the general question, I may refer the House to the evidence given before the Committee appointed to inquire into the administration of the Woods and Forests. The hon. Member speaks as if the Treasury represents a body whose object is to extort from those who work the mines profits to which they are entitled. But the Treasury represent the taxpayers of the country; and the question is, what is due to the taxpayers, and what is due to the speculators who discover mines?

Mining on his own land.

Yes; but in the minerals beneath, the taxpayers have an interest, and it is that interest the Treasury are bound to defend. The hon. Member says that the taxpayers' share is so large that gold mining is practically impossible. But the hon. Member knew when he undertook his operations what the share of the taxpayers would be; and notwithstanding that knowledge, and his estimate of what his share would be, the hon. Member was able to sell his rights for a very large sum.

The right hon. Gentleman will excuse me. This is scarcely fair. I have sent to the fight hon. Gentleman a financial statement showing him that I am £50,000 out of pocket by my operations, and I have offered to submit him proof of this.

That is not the point.

It is the point.

Order, order!

I believe that some of the persons engaged, and, finally, everybody suffered very considerably over the transactions, and that is the point the hon. Member makes against those whose interests we have to defend—the taxpayers—in respect to the concessions made to those who work the mines. We have to see that the concessions made do not simply enable those who have gold on their land to sell that land at an enhanced price. It is our duty to see that proper precautions are taken in that respect, and that is one of the difficulties in the case. The hon. Member speaks as if he only had been maltreated, but the taxpayers have also suffered.

How?

I am not prepared at the moment to enter into the matter, and have to rely on my memory. In some of the matters to which the hon. Member called attention before the Court, and again on appeal, the law was so entirely against him that counsel were not called upon to defend the Treasury. The remark was made from the Bench—I have not the actual words—that the Court gave costs to the Crown because the Judges thought the taxpayer should not be called upon to pay costs incurred in an action which was brought to deprive the taxpayer of a portion of his rights. However painful the duty may be, if a Judge gives such an opinion, distinctly stating the action was such as ought not to have been brought, I must say it is scarcely justifiable for an Executive Government to forgo the costs which the hon. Member was condemned to pay. I need not enter into the question; there are two sides to it. While the Government are anxious to give every encouragement to the development of gold mining in Wales, and with that desire have made concessions in many directions, at the same time it is only right, in view of the important public rights involved, that we should, before proceeding further in the direction of concession, await the Report of the Royal Commission. If meantime we can take any steps, not with reference to the hon. Member particularly, but with regard to the gold mining industry, to prevent cessation of work, we have the greatest desire to do so. The hon. Member opposite has made an appeal with regard to the Morgan Mine.

The right hon. Gentleman will understand I make no appeal. I want no mercy.

The hon. Member wishes to be a Welsh Hampden, but I am now referring to the hon. Member for Carnarvon (Mr. Lloyd-George), who referred to the Morgan Mine. The hon. Member is no longer connected with the mine which bears his name.

I must correct the right hon. Gentleman. I am the largest shareholder by far. I object to be told that I, having started the mine in North Wales, am no longer connected with it. As a matter of fact I own nearly half the mine.

I was informed that the hon. Member had nothing to do with it. I may observe that the costs incurred were not in connection with that mine; and therefore I say, in reply to the hon. Member for Carnarvon, that I do not see that the action of the Executive can interfere with the working of the mine, and I hope the mine will not be closed. I can only repeat that it is our duty to look to the interest of the taxpayer in these matters.

Would it not be worth while, to prevent the stoppage of work, to put the tax or royalty, or what you may like to call it, on the net profits and not on the gross output?

I should like to emphasise the appeal of my hon. Friend. I think the Government have not quite realised two points in connection with this matter. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has not referred to one: that for three years, while capital was being spent on the mining property in Merionethshire, no warning, no notice was sent to my hon. Friend by the Woods and Forests Departments. A large amount of money was being spent on labour and on the setting up of expensive machinery, and yet no notice was sent by the Woods and Forests Department. But, when my hon. Friend began to obtain the fruit of the expenditure of capital and labour, then the Woods and Forests gave warning. Another point upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given no answer is that it is admitted that since the passing of the Act of William and Mary no judgment has been recorded in reference to this law, and the hon. Member in taking action really did a public service in getting a declaration on a law made 200 years ago, on which there had been no decision whatever. I hope the Government will listen to the appeal made by my hon. Friend (Mr. Lloyd-George) that proceedings should be stayed until the Royal Commission or Mining Royalties shall have made its Report, and the Government have decided their action on the recommendations that may be submitted.

My knowledge of the subject is derived from this Debate, and I must say I do not think the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given a very convincing answer.

I said it was not possible for me to give an answer at this time.

Well, I must deal with the matter as I find it. It comes to this: that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on behalf of the Crown, is imposing a fine on gold-mining operations in Wales, and in other parts of the country, which practically makes work impossible. Of course, the Chancellor of the Exchequer must defend the interests of the taxpayers, but I do not think that anything could be more foreign to the interests of taxpayers than that an important industry like this of mining for gold should be so handicapped by demands on behalf of the Crown as to make carrying on the work at a profit impossible. A Royal Commission is now conducting an inquiry. Has it not occurred to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he might have suspended proceedings against my hon. Friend—or putting him out of the matter altogether, not knowing him in the transaction—looking only at the gold-producing industry in Wales, and perhaps in Ireland, might he not suspend operations against this industry until the Royal Commission shall have made its Report? I must say it seems to me a matter of great concern that a large number of men should be thrown out of employment, and that an act of discouragement should be taken against an important native industry by the proceedings of the Crown in this matter. It is all very well to talk of the interest of the taxpayers, but surely it is highly to the interest of taxpayers that every form of industry should be stimulated, not discouraged. I can claim no special information on this subject, but I must say I think my hon. Friend has made out a case showing that an important industry is imperilled by a tyrannical exercise of the power of the Crown.

Having some knowledge of the Principality, I can assure the Chancellor of the Exchequer that there is a very deep feeling in Wales on this subject, and not confined to any Party. There is a general, and I may say, an universal, feeling that this is a matter calling for very serious attention from the Government. A good deal of credit is due to the hon. Member who has endeavoured to develop the industry which has already given employment to a considerable number of people, but which, under the present condition of things, cannot be conducted with success.

I hope the House will not object to the purely formal stage of Committee being taken as first Order to-day.