, who rose to move the rejection of the Bill, said, that probably the reason why the hon. Member for the Abercromby Division had said so little about the merits of the Bill was that the merits were few and the demerits many. Although, as had been said, be (Mr. Snape) did not represent one of the divisions of Liverpool, he could claim a much closer connection with Liverpool than the hon. Member for the Abercromby Division; for whilst that hon. Member was not a resident, a citizen, or a ratepayer, he himself happened to have been for more than a quarter of a century a resident, a ratepayer, and a citizen of Liverpool, and he thought he had a right to speak when it was sought to impose upon him the obligation which this Bill involved. The Bill came down from another place as a Private Bill, but it was a Public Bill in its objects and in the principles involved. It proposed to commute certain statutory obligations that had been incurred by Liverpool in years gone by under several Acts of Parliament with reference to 10 city churches and two parish churches. The provisions in reference to the parish churches did not form the most objectionable feature of the Bill. The parish churches were much older than the city churches. Allusion had been made to the fact that, "with reference to the two parish churches, the churchwardens and those present at the Vestry meeting had approved of this proposal for commutation. He could only say with reference to such Vestry meetings that the attendance at them was very small, the fact of their being held was little known, and had the ratepayers been aware of what was going on at the Vestry meetings there would have been considerable opposition to the proposals. The rate for these two churches, being levied under Local Acts, survived the general Act of 1868 abolishing the compulsory church rate. But the 10 city churches occupied a very different position. The land on which they stood was given in some cases by the Corporation. Some of them had to be maintained by the Corporation under Acts passed about a century and a half ago, and that body had also to pay the stipends of the clergy, in many instances, either partially or wholly, and in other instances the salaries of the clerks, sextons, organists, and other officials. These Acts were passed by the Corporation in its unreformed state, when its members were more or less associated with the Slave Trade and with the traffic in slave produce, when it was elected by a limited number of freemen, who were in large degree of the most corrupt character, and every one of whose votes had a price. One of the City Councillors had described the transactions with regard to the establishment of these churches as—

"A most flagrant act of injustice, done with the desire not to supply spiritual aid, but comfortable positions for the friends of Councillors."

There was, at least, this to be said in favour of that view—that the original incumbents bore the same name as many of the City Council, and were probably relatives. But very few of the ratepayers had any voice in the matter. So late as 1834, when a poll was taken in reference to these churches, only 63 voted for and 30 against, so that out of 165,000 persons, a mere fraction expressed their opinion on this question. It was obvious, therefore, that the churches were built not by the will of the town or the voice of the ratepayers, but by a small section under the system which prevailed at that time. They were told sometimes about the pious ancestor; where was he in this case? The churches were built not out of the pockets of the pious ancestor, but out of the City Funds. This had involved the city in a cost of £117,000 for the buildings, and about £250,000 for the stipends of the clergy and officials. In return for that the Corporation had received by selling the advowsons £20,000. That was the whole return for this large expenditure. During the last five years the average payment out of the Corporate Funds had amounted to £2,667 per annum. This waste of public money had become a scandal. In spite of the large amount of money thus paid most of the churches were entirely empty. The exception was St. Luke's, which had an able, energetic, and attractive clergyman. Many of the other churches were in populous districts. What was their position according to a Census taken in 1887, also in l889,and again by friends of his own on two Sunday mornings within the last three weeks. St. Luke's, as he had said, had a large congregation. St. Thomas' had only 139, most of them children; St. Michael's, 200, including children; St. John's, 101; St. George's, with sittings for 2,000, had a congregation of only 76; St. Paul's, with sittings for 1,800, had only 16 of a congregation, most of whom were children. St. Martin's, surrounded by a large working class population, with sittings for 1,900, had a congregation of only 32; St. Ann's, 16 adults and 15 children; and Trinity, 14 adults and 47 children. There was another church, St. David's, which deserved special mention. It was in a unique position as a church in England with. a Welsh service. This Bill asked them to give a large sum of money to be paid out of the Corporate Funds to a church with a Welsh service attended by some 39 persons. Originally the sum asked to commute the obligations for the 10 city churches was £100,000. Then it came down to £97,000, and now, after a considerable amount of huckstering, it was reduced to £95,000. That represented more than 35 years' purchase. It was monstrous and scandalous to ask the House to sanction such an exorbitant and exacting arrangement. The Bill offered to demolish two of the churches, and make the sites open spaces. The site where St. George's was built was originally granted by the Duchy of Lancaster for a ground rent of £6 13s. 4d. The church of St. John's was built and the site given by the Corporation, and now the clergy asked Liverpool to pay a large sum of money for sites of churches which had been given to them free of cost, because the churches were empty, and of no use. The contention of the Bill was that the money for these churches might he used to build and endow churches in Liverpool or the neighbourhood. That was to say, the Liverpool ratepayers were to be asked to pay out of the Corporate Fluids to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners a large sum of money in order that churches might be built not in Liverpool, but the wealthy suburbs, places well able to provide churches for themselves. It was said that the Corporation was a party to the Bill; but he denied that the Corporation of Liverpool initiated the negotiations which had led to the Bill. The Corporation was in no sense a party to it. It was the Parliamentary Committee of the Corporation, a small body, whose action was not endorsed by the Corporation by a proper statutory majority. The Council had refused to pay any of the coats or raise any money to carry the Bill into effect. In consequence, the opinion of the town had not been declared on this matter in a town's meeting, as the Borough Funds Act required. For the purpose of the Act it was necessary, and the Bill proposed that the Corporation should be empowered to borrow further money. Surely the Corporation was capable of asking for that power without the aid of the Bishop and clergy? He asked the House to reject the Bill, because it made an exorbitant and monstrous demand upon the ratepayers without obtaining their assent. It was a distinct attempt to get behind an Act of Parliament—a most salutary law, the Borough Funds Act—and the Bill was derogatory to Christianity, whose interests it professed to have in view, by manifesting a grasping and rapacious policy, which could only tend to keep the masses of the people further away from the influence of the Church and of religious life.

said, he rose to second the Amendment. He had no desire to lessen the prosperity of the Church, and he quite agreed that no ecclesiastical property ought to be taken away without due and just consideration of all the rights involved. He thought the Bill made an utterly unreasonable and most extravagant demand upon the ratepayers, and was, in many of its clauses, totally unjustifiable in principle. The Mover of the Bill said that it represented the opinion of Liverpool; but how did he know that? There had never been a ratepayers' meeting on the question, and he believed that if it had been possible to take a popular vote, the result would have been adverse to the proposals of the Bill. Although this was nominally a Private Bill, it involved some most important general principles. For instance, it involved the principle that if they took away these churches they were bound to compensate not merely the incumbents and the other officials connected with the churches who were personally interested, but also a number of anomalous and nondescript people who had no vested interest and who had no personal claims whatever upon the funds which were concerned. He knew the principle had been recognised in previous Acts; but he maintained that it was totally contrary to the spirit of the age and to the ideas that were taking hold upon public opinion. He was sure the time was coming—and he hoped it had come already—when the House would refuse to allow any further application of that unreasonable mode of levying ecclesiastical compensation. A considerable part of this church accommodation was now unnecessary, and the Ecclesiastical Authorities said to the Corporation — "You must buy it." There was no reason why the incumbents should not be justly and even generously compensated, and he would not say that the owners of advowsons should not be paid whatever compensation might be regarded as just; but he objected to the compensation of the church, which might and probably would be removed to some wealthy neighbourhood, so that the compensation for removal would be given to rich merchants, cotton brokers, and people of property, who could well afford to provide their own church accommodation. He protested against compensation of this kind, and strongly objected to swelling the great fund already in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and, therefore, he hoped the House would reject the Bill.

said he did not propose to travel over the wide and discursive topics referred to by the hon. Member for the Heywood Division, and the still larger field which had been suggested by the hon. Member for Leicester. He thought he might say that while many of these comments were decidedly irrelevant they were no less decidedly in conflict with local history and also with historic fact. When the hon. Member for Heywood referred to the fact that an offer was made to compromise a very difficult and vexed question soon after the passing of the Municipal Reform Act, he did not mention that the failure of these negotiations had been from then till now a matter of most sincere regret. He thought it would not be inappropriate if he should quote against the hon. Member for Leicester the authority of his venerated father, who certainly had a greater local knowledge, and not less sympathy with the cause than the present Member for Leicester. He found that when the compromise was rejected by the Corporation in 1838 it became the subject of discussion, and he might say that on a comparatively late occasion the late Sir James Pieton said that—

"The defeat of that expedient was considered a great triumph by the Liberals at that time. What had been the consequence? If the lump sum of money had been paid, it would have been the very best expenditure on the part of the Corporation. Far more than the interest of the money had been lavished on the churches, and so matters would go on from generation to generation unless some method were fixed upon: and that method should be to revert back to the principle laid down by the Conservative Corporation"

of 1835. There was there a significant illustration of the wisdom of settling this discord and irritation at a time when they "were in the way." The hon. Member for the Heywood Division (Mr. Snape) had referred, somewhat ungraciously, to the constitution of the Liverpool Corporation at the time these obligations were undertaken; but he might, at least have given credit to them that when early in the 18th century the town was growing with remarkable rapidity, and the population was outstripping the spiritual accommodation, it was at the prompting of the community that the Corporation assumed the responsibility of providing more accommodation. In every successive Act there had been evidence to show that the policy of the Corporation met with public approval. Of course, it might now be said that the Corporation 180 years ago had not attained to the enlightenment and wisdom that were possessed by this later generation; but at any rate they acted according to their views, and their wisdom had been justified by more recent experience. The House was not dealing with the question of the principle of religious endowments, or with an isolated act of injustice or unwisdom; but they were required to pass judgment upon a long series of acts done by the Corporation extending over 100 years, and coming up time after time to the House and meeting with its approval. So that, whether the Corporation were wise or unwise, whether the expenditure was judicious or injudicious, it was, at any rate, approved by the House, and the House was responsible for the present position of affairs. The first question, then, that would suggest itself was how the measure came now before the House. Somewhat in conflict with the statement of the hon. Member for Heywood, he would mention that negotiations between the Ecclesiastical Authorities and the Corporation had proceeded from time to time, and the result was that the compromise included in the Bill was adjusted some time ago. Having begun with the round sum of £100,000, it was reduced to £85,000. Then the Corporation proposed to embody the terms of the compromise in a Bill; but that Bill could not be promoted by them except with a statutory majority of two-thirds of its members. The hon. Member for Heywood had referred in somewhat disparaging terms to the fact that only 29 voted for the Bill and 11 against it; but it would have been instructive to the House to know how the majority and minority were constituted. He would like to call the attention of Liberal Members to the fact that of the majority in favour of the Bill 13 were Conservatives and 16 were Liberals. So that of the majority, the Liberal Members of the Council formed the majority. The composition of the minority against the Bill was still more striking and significant. Nine out of the 11 Members in the minority were Irish Nationalist Members, and only two English Members of the Liberal Party. He did not know that the Irish Nationalist Members had any special interest in the subject; but he might mention that all the Irish Nationalists who voted against the Bill belonged to the Roman Catholic denomination. He would, however, rather come to the question as to whether the bargain was in itself equitable. They would have very little difficulty in arriving at a judgment on that point if they took the figures as accepted on both sides. The annual Corporation payments, all obligatory by Statute, came to £2,930; the commutation to the sum of £95,000 at 3 per cent. was equal to £2,850, so that the Corporation would actually gain by the transaction. There was another aspect of the case so far as the Corporation was concerned, for, besides giving no more than a fair and equitable compensation for fixed charges, the Corporation acquired two sites of churches and churchyards which were of very great value. One of the churches was on the highway to the river, and the clearing of the site would be a great public improvement. The other site was in the immediate rear of St. George's Hall, and had an area of fully three acres, and when that was opened out an improvement would be made which would beautify the town and make it more healthy. Then, as regarded the parish, Its legal obligations involved a sum of £1,630 a year, to which £170 a year had to be added for the cost of collection, making altogether £1,800 a year. That commuted at 3 per cent. into £48,000 meant, not 35 years' purchase, as the Member for the Heywood Division had said, but 27 years' purchase, which was no more than good ground rents would realise. Another advantage which would be derived was that the Corporation was relieved from all charges for the maintenance of the fabrics, and that was a very serious and growing annual charge. He should like, in refutation of the inaccurate historical statements made by hon. Gentlemen on the other side, to explain how the present state of things originated. It was originated by express Acts of Parliament extending from 1704 to 1839. When the hon. Member for Leicester said that the Corporation should act in a straightforward way, and that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners should not be entrusted with further and extravagant sums of money, he evidently knew little of the history of the arrangements by which the state of things was created. He would know that in the heart of Liverpool was situated the castle surrounded by a ditch. After the Corporation had decided to make Liverpool a parish of itself distinct from Walton, and to erect a parish church, the site of the castle and ditch was granted on lease to the Corporation

"The better to enable the said mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses to maintain and provide for the rectors of the parish church of Liverpool, and the parochial chapel within the said town."

So that there had been a substantial advantage in that respect to the Corporation, for the area thus given was 6,270 yards in extent, and it now constituted a property worth, at any rate, £500,000. That property was given on the condition that it was to be

"Set apart and appropriated towards providing the maintenance of the rectors of the said new church and parochial chapel and their successors, and to be applied to no other uses whatsoever to the prejudice thereof."

The sale of the advowsons in 1835 realised to the Corporation not £10,000, as stated by the hon. Member opposite, but £20,500, so that to put it in a very brief and compendious form, the Church had not obtained any advantage not imposed upon it. First of all there was the Act of Parliament and then the Castle site. If the income derived from that was set against the cost of the Church, there would be a distinct gain to the advantage of the Corporation. Apart altogether from those considerations, it would be exceedingly desirable that a source which caused great local irritation and public disputation should be avoided and if possible healed. This was an opportunity by which that amelioration might be reached; and for that reason, if for no other, it seemed exceedingly wise that this measure, based on equity and approved by the people, should be carried into effect. He therefore strongly urged the hon. Member to withdraw his Amendment, for he was sure it would be a matter of extreme regret to the community to which the hon. Member belonged if this compromise should not be allowed to be carried out.

said, he wished to give the reasons why he thought the House should pass a Bill which had been agreed upon by the representatives of the people both in the City Council and in the Vestry of Liverpool. The hon. Member who had moved the rejection of the Bill had confused two issues. He said that the Bill had not obtained the assent of the Corporation of Liverpool by a statutory majority before it was brought before the House. It was perfectly true that it had not obtained the necessary majority to authorise the Corporation to go to the expense of promoting the Bill, and therefore, very rightly, the Bill was being promoted by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. But on every occasion when the Bill had been brought before the Corporation that body had by a large majority affirmed its assent to the principle—in one case by 28 to 11, and in another case by 31 to 5. He conceived, therefore, that they had clear proof that the Bill had the consent of the people of Liverpool by their authorised representatives, both in the Corporation and in the Vestry. He believed, so far as he had been able to make out, that the bargain initiated by the Corporation was good for the people of Liverpool, and he did not see that it in any way took the property with which the Bill dealt out of the power of Parliament in the event of disendowment. The question was whether a Bill which had been affirmed by the Corporation, both when that body consisted of a majority of Conservatives and when it consisted of a majority of Liberals, should be sent to a Committee or be rejected on the Second Reading.

did not think the question was so simple as the hon. Gentleman regarded it. He honestly stated that if he thought the bargain a good bargain for to-day, he should not be inclined to postpone its settlement because of any vast changes in the composition of the Church which might take place in the future. But very important principles lay behind the proposal. He w did this charge come upon the city? By Acts which dated as far back as 1714. He was glad to hear the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Picton) say that incumbents and others who had vested interests in these churches should be fully compensated. That was a wise principle which he hoped would never be departed from, because it was no fault of the individual that he was put into that position, and he ought to be cempensated if by any great or unexpected reform his opinion was damnified. But he could not admit the principle—and he did not think it was wise even for Conservatives to admit it—that because a public body more than a century ago devoted certain public funds for public purposes they were bound to continue the allotment of these funds to that purpose for all time. The hon. Member for the Everton Division (Mr. Willox) had pointed out that under the Bill two churches would be abolished and two valuable public sites would go to the Corporation. But this money was now not wanted for these two particular churches, because they had ceased to have any congregations. That was admitted by a clause in the Bill. The question he wished to put was—What was this money voted for? Was it not voted for the congregations themselves? and if the congregations had disappeared he contended that the money should return to the city. He thought it would be wise on the part of the dignitaries of the Church in Liverpool to meet the Corporation by giving these particular churches which had ceased to have congregations to the city as a gift for public purposes. The money, he held, should not be diverted from the congregations to the Church at large, and to the rich churches of Liverpool. He was sure that when, the Corporation, even as far back as 1714, gave this money for these churches, they did so not with the view of helping the rich congregations, but for the purpose of assisting the poor congregations. Great stress was laid on the fact that the Bill was carried by a majority of the Corporation. Those who were in favour of the spirit of local government to its fullest extent should, he admitted, be slow to interfere with the action of Municipal Bodies, and still slower when that action had been the same both when the majority had been Liberal and when it had been Conservative. But it must be remembered that this Bill was not carried by such a majority as would enable the Corporation to pay the expenses of promoting it. That meant that the ratepayers of Liverpool had not an opportunity under the Borough Funds Act of expressing their opinion the Bill. He thought he might urge that on a question involving such large issues the ratepayers of Liverpool had a right to be heard. Therefore the House would exercise a wise discretion in sending the Bill back to the ratepayers in order that they might decide whether they were prepared to enter upon so large a bargain.

said, admittedly the principle of the Bill had much wider application than in so far as it referred to Liverpool. It was not denied that the continuance of this charge upon the Liverpool Common Fund was a serious grievance and an injustice to a great portion of the inhabitants of Liverpool. The Act referred to was carried more than a century ago, when people had very little to say in these matters. He admitted it was desirable the present condition of things should terminate; but there was no reason why Parliament should be bound for all time to onerous and unjust conditions under which the original Act laid the city. He was inclined to think, if the question was presented in that light, the House would not be willing to affirm the view put forward on the opposite side. In his judgment the compromise which was spoken of was all on one side. It had been pointed out by those who supported the Bill that the fund would remain in the hands of a public authority which was responsible to Parliament— namely, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. But that would be a very small consolation to the people of Liverpool who had to part with the money. If Disestablishment took place, the fund would be treated as a national fund, and Liverpool would lose her special interest in it. It would, in his opinion, be a scandal on the part of Parliament to fix upon any community such a charge as this in favour of the Established Church. This was really a proposal to make the people of Liverpool hand over a sum of money of which Disestablishment would before long relieve them. He regarded the scheme as entirely one-sided and unjust, and he should oppose the Second Reading of the Bill.

I must address a few words to the House on this matter, because I happen to be one of the Representatives —I fear a very unworthy Representative— of that body which the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Picton) has been good enough to describe as a bloated Corporation—I mean the Ecclesiastical Commission. I cannot understand the opposition to this Bill. The object of the measure is merely to authorise the carrying out of an arrangement between the Church Authorities of Liverpool on the one hand and the Corporation and the Parish Vestry on the other. That arrangement has been assented to as far as the Parish Vestry is concerned by the inhabitants in Vestry assembled. Nothing could be more complete than that assent. As far as the Corporation is concerned, I do not think the House will accept the argument of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) that they have not also given full assent to the proposal. Their assent was, on the second occasion, one of 29 voting on one side and 11 on the other. That was surely amply sufficient as a token of the assent of the Corporation to the principle of the Bill—namely, the commutation of an annual payment imposed on it by Parliament. The Borough Funds Act does not bear upon the question. That Act simply requires the consent of two-thirds of the Corporation to the promotion of a Bill by the Corporation, and has nothing to do with a bargain that has been arrived at as in this case. An hon. Member opposite seemed to think it a very unjust thing that the people of Liverpool should be saddled with an annual payment by the Private Acts which have been referred to. That may or may not be so, but the opinion that the payment is unjust will not relieve the inhabitants of Liverpool of the liability to make it. Can the hon. Member suppose that Parliament will ever relieve them of that liability? What must necessarily happen if the Church of England be disestablished and disendowed is that this money must be dealt with by Parliament as part of the property of the Church. Liverpool would certainly never be relieved of the liability to make the payment in return for nothing at all. If the representatives of the inhabitants of Liverpool have voluntarily agreed to give,£95,000 with the object of discharging that liability, is it not an extraordinary thing for the advocates of local self-government in this House to decline to give a Second Reading to a Bill which simply carries out that agreement? Large issues have been raised in this Debate, I think quite unnecessarily and wrongly raised, and there has really been something like a waste of the time of the House in that respect. [Cries of "Oh!"] Well, I think the way in which the speech of the hon. Member who moved the rejection of the Bill was received showed that a large majority of Members thought he was travelling very wide of the real issue. As, however, these large issues have been raised, I think I am entitled to ask the Home Secretary, or my hon. Friend (Mr. Leveson Gower) who sits with me on the Ecclesiastical Commission, to give the House some indication of the course Her Majesty's Government intend to take with regard to the Second Reading of this Bill. Of course, if it is considered wrong to devote part of the money to a church outside the boundaries of Liverpool, or if in any detail the Bill requires amendment, that might be a matter for consideration.

In answer to the words which have just fallen from my right hon. Colleague, I beg to say, speaking not in any way on behalf of the Government, but merely as a Member of the Ecclesiastical Commission, that I certainly hope this Bill may be allowed to go to the Committee. One of the chief points which has been under discussion to-night is the rate of commutation adopted. I would ask the House to remember that, as my right hon. Friend (Sir M. Hicks-Beach) has pointed out, unless and until the Local Acts are repealed the Corporation of Liverpool has got to pay this money, and that they fully recognise and accept the burden which is thus laid upon them. I would submit that if the question of the rate of commutation is to be considered it can be considered with more fullness and with greater advantage in the Committee. That being so, personally I shall vote in favour of the Bill, though, of course, I am merely expressing my private opinion as a Representative of the Ecclesiastical Commission.

said, he wished to correct a statement he had made earlier in the afternoon. He had spoken of a select Vestry. He had not meant to use that term, but to say an open Vestry.

expressed a hope that the House would assent to the Motion without further delay.

said, he would offer no opposition to the Motion now, but he should like to make one observation in reference to the appointment of a Hybrid Committee. He had sat on several Hybrid Committees on London County Council Bills, and had found that there was a great deal of practical inconvenience in having such Committees appointed on political lines and having upon them one or two members of the London County Council. It appeared to him to be rather odd and out of place that the tribunal which had to decide upon a Petition of the London County Council—for that was what it really was —should have upon it some of the suppliants, who were thus made judges in their own case.

said, he should like to draw attention to the fact that on previous occasions, particularly with reference to the Metropolitan Board of Works, it had been the practice for the Chairman of the Board to be on the Committee, and that during recent years several members of the London County Council had served on Committees on London Council Bills.

said, he merely mentioned the point because, when the Committee came to be nominated, some Members would feel disposed to object to the presence on the Committee of members of the County Council.

remarked that the proposed quorum would consist of only three Members. He thought that a very objectionable proposal, and desired to call attention to the fact that there was on the Paper a Motion for a Committee of a somewhat similar nature. That was a small Committee, and the quorum proposed was three. He therefore held that in a Committee of this size the quorum should be larger.

I have no objection to a quorum of five.

said, he had a Motion on the Paper for the rejection of the Bill, but he would pass over that, and move the rejection of Clause 45. By this Bill it was sought to obtain powers to execute certain important works in London at a cost of nearly £5,500,000, which sum was to be raised by the County Council in the usual manner. Clause 45, against which his Motion was directed, was a code in itself, and contained 18 sub-sections and 11 sub-sub-sections. Under this code the owners of property in London would be taxed twice over in respect of the same thing; it proposed to create an entirely novel system of taxation, and to impose a mortgage upon a man's property without his knowledge and against his will; it would override and, in effect, alter contracts entered into for valuable considerations between persons sui juris. It violated the first principle of the representation of ratepayers, because it imposed charges upon a class interested in property without giving them adequate opportunities of controlling the election of the spending body, and it would confer power to alter the incidence of taxation without reference to that House. In order to prove these assertions he would call the attention of the House to the existing principles of rating. It would, no doubt, sound rather elementary, but the principle which, after centuries experience, the country had arrived at was to bring in all property for taxation upon an assessment at the full actual annual value, fixed de anno in annum, and revisable quinquennially. Convenience pointed to the occupier as the best person from whom to collect the rates, and the law had left it to freedom of contract between those interested to settle in what proportion the rates should be borne. Under this clause the ground landlord was made the object of attack, and, under cover of a Bill for the purpose of raising money on the principle of betterment, it was sought to alter the incidence of taxation as between the ground landlord, the lessee, and the occupier, and to override the contracts made by them. The Bill proposed that all the landlords in certain areas should be declared liable to have an improvement charge put upon their property. The charge was to be imposed at the sweet will of the County Council, and that body was not to be compelled to declare what properties were to be charged until several years after the completion of the works of improvement. There would for a period of seven years be a kind of lis pendens against the proprietors, lessees, and occupiers in the given areas, and for that period they would have great difficulty in disposing of their several interests, for they would inevitably be met with the objection that an improvement charge of unknown amount might be imposed upon their property. The County Council were to have the right at any time within seven years after the completion of the works to make a provisional award defining which lands should he liable to the improvement charge and to what amounts. None of the interested parties need be heard before the award was made. The Council was to put the charge at half the value of the supposed improvement of the property, and this enhanced value was not to be arrived at by the assessment or by a valuer, but again by the mere will of the Council. That charge was to be a mortgage on the freehold of the property, and if the property decreased in value the Bill provided no method for reducing or annulling the charge. The Council were then to pass a resolution adopting their own award— again without hearing the parties—and were to advertise it twice, and then, for the first time, to give notice to the parties affected. One month's notice was allowed to make objection, and if the mouth expired without the owner or lessee sending in objections the award was made absolute and the charge became a mortgage on the property, on which 3 per cent. interest was to be paid until the debt was liquidated. Suppose objections were made within the mouth, then an arbitrator must be appointed, and in that matter the owner, lessee, or occupier had no voice at all. He was not to be heard even on the question of such appointment. The London County Council might go to the Local Government Board and ask it to appoint an arbitrator forthwith, and the Board would appoint a man with the powers he had described. The arbitrator might state a case for the opinion of a Court of Law; but he might put it in his own words and in his own way, and he was not bound to do so except at the instance of the County Council. The incidence of the charge, too, was very peculiar. If the property was in possession of the freeholder, then the charge was to take effect on the freehold. If the freeholder was not in actual possession then it was to take effect in such a way as the London County Council by their award or arbitrator might apportion between the freeholder and the other parties. No regard was to be had to existing contracts between the parties. There was nothing to tell the arbitrator that he was to receive evidence as to what these contracts were. All these and other processes were to take place at the peril of the owner, occupier, or lessee, having to pay costs if they objected at all. For the first time parties whose property was affected against their will had to object at their own peril. Interest on the mortgage had to be paid at 3 per cent.; but the increased annual value of the property would be assessed as well, and at the present rate of taxation there would have further to be paid about £6 13s. 4d. per £100 besides this interest, so that the owner would be taxed twice over for the same increase in value. But that was not all. It would scarcely be believed that this Bill did not propose to say what was to be done with the proceeds of this improvement charge when it came in. There was no liability imposed upon the County Council to account for it. There was no public Auditor, and there was absolutely no appropriation of the money. It was for them to explain how they proposed to get over that difficulty. They had two Reports of Committees of that House, both of them large Committees, and upon these Committees some excellent Radicals sat. One was the Town Holdings Committee, which sat for several years, and made its final Report in 1892, declaring that no sufficient cause had been shown for interfering with existing contracts for the payment of rates. Then there was Mr. Goschen's Committee of 1870, which reported that, in the event of any division of rates between owner and occupier, it was essential that such an alteration should be made in the constitution of the bodies administering the rates as would secure the direct representation of the owners. The Town Holdings Committee also reported that in the case of a division of the rates the claims to such representation must be met within the four corners of the Bill. The American system had been quoted. He was personally acquainted with the system of taxation in America. Their system was altogether different from the English system. They did not impose taxation on annual values, as was the case here. The condition of the country did not yet render that desirable. They were, therefore, compelled to adopt the taxation of capital. It became a sort of private improvement rate. A man had, however, only to pay the tax one way, and not, as in this Bill, both ways, that is, on capital and on annual value also, or twice for the same thing. That showed the great injustice of this Bill. Even that was not all. Clause 12 provided for the set off of betterment against any compensation a man was entitled to for property actually taken from him, but there was no converse clause by which a man might set off against betterment a charge for worsement, say for loss of business by reason of the divergence of traffic. If the man who had a charge put upon him for betterment had other property injured by the scheme, he was not allowed to set one against the other. There were hundreds of cases in which under schemes of this kind the traffic was lost entirely to certain streets, and in this proposal there was no provision made for the unfortunate devils who carried on business in these streets, and who would be worsened instead of bettered. Although there was nothing said on the subject—for naturally the London County Council had no great desire to bring their points too prominently before the London public—the Bill empowered them to tax vacant lands during the time they were vacant. That was done, not by even mentioning vacant land, but by a provision which enabled the County Council to place on freeholders in possession of property, without saying whether built upon or not, the charge of 3 per cent. interest. It was entirely opposed to public policy that such lands should be taxed; it destroyed the marketable value of lands intended for building purposes, and injuriously affected the employment of the working classes. Then, again, the beneficent provisions of the existing Acts, by which the value of property was revised every five years, was not included in the Bill. He could not believe that the London County Council, which had many astute minds, overlooked that matter. He believed it was intentionally omitted. If, when the quinquennial valuation of property was made, it was found that property had not depreciated in the meantime, it would not answer the purpose of the County Council to reduce the charge. Another point to which he wished to direct attention was the injustice this proposal would do to those holding mortgages on properties. The improvement charges were a mortgage not on the improved interest of the property only, but paramount to all existing interests. What would hon. Gentlemen say who were trustees of money placed on mortgage in London when they, without notice, found themselves not first mortgagees but second mortgagees? Trustees should consider their duties. It was a breach of trust to invest as second mortgagees under the law, except the instrument specially provided for it. He w were the County Council going to provide for that objection? But his main objections to this wretched Code were that it introduced a novel and unjust system of taxation and without representation; that it delegated to the London County Council a power which the House should not delegate to any Body in the United Kingdom—the power of altering the incidence of taxation, a power which, according to every Constitutional principle, should be retained by the House, and by the House alone.

said, the hon. Gentleman who had moved this Instruction to the Committee had made a speech which he would see, on consideration, to be really a suitable speech for Committee upon the clause. What the hon. Member asked the House to do was to reject the clause, and not to allow the Committee upstairs to take into consideration the principle of betterment, and he made that proposal on what appeared to be a misconception of the situation. The hon. Gentleman seemed to think that this question of betterment was some utterly novel principle which the House had never before considered. The fact was that the London County Council had brought before the House on two separate occasions—in 1890 and 1192— in which improvements were contemplated, and for these improvements the principle of betterment was proposed to be employed for the provision of the necessary funds. These clauses were sent to the Committee upstairs by the united approval of both sides of the House. Mr. Ritchie, who was on both occasions President of the Local Government Board, stated that the principle was already embodied in Acts of Parliament. There was no foundation for the statement of the hon. Gentleman that the principle was entirely novel, for not alone had it been accepted by the House as worthy of consideration by the Committee upstairs, but it was actually existing in our present legislation. There had long been existing in London, at any rate, in principle and practice, what he would call a bastard system of betterment, which had been employed frequently by the Metropolitan Board of Works, and employed after by the County Council, and by which, when improvements were carried out of distinct advantage to a given district, besides the general rate charged on the whole of London, by which part of the cost was defrayed, there was a special rate placed on the immediate district concerned. That special rate acted in many cases very unfairly, because it put a second charge on a large amount of property, which was so distant from the improvement that it received no special benefits apart from the rest of London from the existence of that improvement. What the London County Council now proposed was an extension of that principle — namely, that the second charge should be confined to the district which was shown by investigation and arbitration under the Local Government Board to have received special benefit from any particular improvement. The principle of betterment had been adopted in the He using of the Poor Act, 1879, in this way—that when a man claimed compensation in respect to property taken from him for the building of houses for the working classes, if it were found that other property of his was improved by the same transaction, the one thing was set against the other. Then, again, in the He using of the Poor Act of 1882 the betterment principle was actually enforced in the way the London County Council desired to apply it—namely, that when a district was improved by the removal of houses the cost might be placed, partially or entirely, on the remaining houses in the area benefited. The principle had, therefore, been abundantly admitted, and was now actually in operation in legislation. The Committee which had decided against employing the principle of betterment for the improvement of the Strand did so on the ground that it was not applicable, as brought forward by the County Council, particu- larly to the improvement to which it was proposed to be applied. All the House was asked to do was to allow the Committe upstairs to consider the clause. It would be for the Committee to adopt or reject the principle, or to suggest restrictions and Amendments, and when the Report of the Committee was before it the House could take any steps it liked in the matter. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Instruction to the Committee stated that owners of property would, if the clause were adopted, be put to great advantage in respect to future possible transactions with their property, because it could be said that the property was liable to a charge being imposed on it by the County Council. Anyone who read the Bill would see that the County Council would have no power to fix a charge. The County Council indicated, in order to shorten the proceedings, what charge ought to be put on the property; but the matter went before the arbitrators of the Local Government Board. The hon. Gentleman said that the County Council might get arbitrators favourable to themselves appointed. Was there anything in the past history of the Local Government Board which proved that such a thing was likely to happen?

I did not cast any reflection on the fairness of the Local Government Board.

said, the hon. Member had suggested that the County Council would be able to go to the Local Government Board and suggest the appointment of a favourable arbitrator. What did that mean but that there would be collusion between the London County Council and the Local Government Board of the most nefarious character? The Local Government Board would appoint the arbitrators fairly, as they had always done; and these arbitrators would act fairly, as they had always done, even in transactions just as important as any that were likely to arise under this Bill. Then the hon. Gentleman tried to make out that this would be a double charge upon property. That was not the case. The hon. Gentleman might as well have said that the charge for the School Board and the charge for the Vestry brought a double rate on property. The County Council did not propose a new rate. All they said was that if, by the expenditure of the ratepayers' money, any property was found, after investigation, to have been improved to the extent of £200, £100 should be taken towards defraying the cost of the improvement. He asked the House to remember that if they declared that the charge for improvements must not be thrown upon the group of persons benefited, but upon the occupying ratepayers, they would go against the recommendations of every Commission that had reported on that matter from 1886 to the present moment. The hon. Member also declared that if property improved was to be subjected to a charge, the owners of property worsened should be recompensed. But that was the law at present, and it was because it was the law that the County Council proposed to make a charge for improvements. Everyone knew the case that arose out of the Putney Bridge improvement. A new bridge was built, and a public-house which had been on the main road was placed in a bye-road. The owner of the public-house brought an action for compensation; the jury awarded him £1,100; there was an appeal, but Lord Herschell, the highest legal authority in the country, supported the decision of the jury. That being the ease, there was no doubt that the London County Council would be called upon to make good any damage done to property by the improvements they might any out, and all they asked for by this betterment clause was tit for tat—that where property was bettered they should get some return for the improvement.

said, it was only fair to mention that many of the schemes proposed in the Bill had been abandoned by the County Council, and what was now proposed was an expenditure of £500,000 instead of £5,500,000. He considered the time of the House fruitlessly occupied by the present discussion. The proper time to discuss the matter was when the Bill came before the Committee. He thought the principle of worsement should be included in the Bill as well as the principle of betterment; and with regard to betterment, the question arose whether it would not be better treated by a reference to the annual value of the property three or four years after the improvements had been effected, instead of a preliminary inquiry of a problematical nature, at which experts would be sure to contradict each other? No doubt a betterment provision of some kind was wanted, but the London County Council had not in their wisdom found the right way to levy it yet. The principle of betterment was admirable. He supported it in theory, hut its proposed application was generally inequitable. He did not think it was impossible to arrive at a just conclusion; but they had not vet arrived at that conclusion. There was no reason whatever why they should not send the clause to the Committee upstairs, to see if they had anything to suggest for the guidance of the House in the matter.

I entirely agree with what the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down said in regard to this matter. I am not going to discuss the betterment principle, or the details of this somewhat difficult question, especially in its application. But I would remind the House that this Bill is going to a strong Hybrid Committee of nine Members — a somewhat unusual course; and when a Bill is sent to a good Committee of that kind the House intends that the Committee shall examine into its defects and report to the House, and if its defects are insuperable the House, no doubt, on the THIRD READING, will reject the Bill. It seems to me that it is most desirable, owing to the difference of opinion on the matter, that the Committee should have a full opportunity of examining the Bill in detail, and of hearing evidence, and of seeing whether they can devise some practical mode of carrying out this system of betterment; the Committee may think the whole matter impracticable, and so throw out the clause. But what the proposal before the House means is this: that having appointed a strong Committee of nine, we are to send them up the Bill with a mandatory Instruction that they are not to deal with this particular clause; that they are to deal with the rest of the Bill, but in regard to this particular clause they are to strike it out. That would place the Committee in a somewhat false position, and I hope the House will take the usual course of allowing the whole Bill to go up to the Committee and be examined by them.

said, that as the House had heard the views of the majority of the London County Council on the subject before them, perhaps they would allow him, as a Member of the minority, just to say one word. The hon. Member for Woolwich had said the greater portion of the Bill had been dropped. Practically, what remained was the improvement of the approaches to the Tower Bridge and Vauxhall Bridge, and the minority of the London County Council considered that the principle of betterment was not applicable to these matters. Wood Lane, Hammersmith, was, by a clause in the Bill, exempted from the principle of betterment. He thought it was reducing the principle of betterment to an absurdity when the House was only asked to approve of the principle of it as applied to the approaches of the Tower Bridge and the Vauxhall Bridge. He was told—he did not speak with authority—that in the case of the approach to the Tower Bridge the idea of the Progressive Party in the London County Council was that betterment there would amount to something like £10,000; and he asked anybody who knew anything about the neighbourhood of Vauxhall Bridge what would be the result of building a new bridge and widening it in the case of betterment? All parties in the London County Council might agree ultimately as to the principle of betterment; but at this moment they were not prepared to accept the principle as applied to this emasculated Bill.

thought the London Members opposite must admit that it was rather hard that, owing to the procedure which the London County Council had adopted with regard to the principle of betterment, London had been kept waiting so long for the execution of improvements which were so desirable. He would not go into the merits or demerits of the principle of betterment. He submitted, however, that this vexed question could be dealt with in a more satisfactory manner by a Public Bill than by the piecemeal method which had been hitherto adopted by the London County Council. One Select Committee might sanction betterment, and in another year another Committee might reject it. So that they might have in one part of London the betterment principle applied, and in another part of London not applied, with regard to street improvements. As far as he knew, hon. Members on his side of the House had no prejudice on the subject, and were quite open to conviction. So far every scheme for betterment which had been introduced had been rejected by Select Committees on the ground of their impracticability; but that did not convince hon. Gentlemen on his side of the House that there was not equity in the principle, but let it be applied after thorough discussion in a public and general Bill.

I may, perhaps, venture to offer my advice on the present occasion, as this is a question which came up once or twice during the period of Office of the last Government; and as my right hon. Friend (Mr. Ritchie), in whose charge the policy of the Government then was, is no longer among us, I may be allowed to take his place. On each of those occasions the advice tendered by Mr. Ritchie was similar in substance to that given by the Chairman of Committees. It was proposed that a Bill should be sent up to a Grand Committee, evidence was taken, and the result was that the Betterment Clause was rejected. I see no reason to advise my hon. Friends to adopt a different course on the present occasion. But I must warn the House that it is perfectly clear that, should the Committee pass the Betterment Clause in its present form, there would be a severe and protracted contest at a later stage, and the whole scheme would be endangered. In my opinion it is most inexpedient that this question, affecting potentially the whole property of the Metropolis, should be left to be dealt with by Select Committees upon no established principles laid down by Parliament. Let it be recollected that betterment means possibly a very arbitrary form of taxation, and in the only country which we need consider where it has been introduced it has been fenced round and accompanied by safeguards in the interests of individual rights which the London County Council do not desire to imitate. This House, in the Lands Clauses Bill, has laid down the principles under which private property is to be taken for public uses, either by Public Bill or some other method, and has laid down the broad principles upon which, if at all, private individual owners are to be called upon to pay for public betterment, so that we may avoid the inconvenience— I had almost said the scandal—of the London County Council coming forward with biennial Bills treating with these vast interests and asking them to be decided by the action of a Select Committee. There is a great question of policy involved. I agree with my hon. Friend who has just spoken that it is not for us to say that no form of betterment can be conceived which shall be just equally to the individual and to the public; but the claims of the County Council, so far as I have been able to understand them, by no means carry out such an ideal. Do let the Government or County Council, through a Public Bill, consider whether it is not possible, and, if possible, whether it is not eminently desirable, to lay down a broad general principle dealing with the matter, by which much time would be saved, great injustice obviated in the case of individuals, and no ground left for thinking that by the action of a body not wholly divorced from politics and faction injustice is intended upon a particular class of the community.

As the right hon. Gentleman is not prepared to recommend the House to reject the clause at this stage of the Bill, I do not think it necessary to say more than a very few words. The right hon. Gentleman has said that, in his opinion, it would be far better that this question of betterment should be dealt with in a general law, and should not be left to clauses proposed by the London County Council for special occasions. I venture to say that nearly the whole of the principles of our Private Bill legislation have been gradually built up by precedents arising out of particular cases, and I think, on the whole, there is some convenience in that course. By degrees you apply the principle, and you have experience as to the working of it, and gradually it is embodied in a general Act dealing with all cases, and I venture to think that that will probably be the case in the principle which is now under consideration. I may remind the House that the principle of betterment has practically been admitted by the Legislature in several cases already. The hon. Member for Shoreditch pointed out several modes in which the Legislature has practically sanctioned it. He forgot to mention the case where a Local Authority is empowered to take land and houses to which additional value is given by a public improvement, such as the widening of a street, so that they may obtain the increased value. That is a principle which has been gradually introduced into Parliament, and it was only finally affirmed in 1877. Experience has shown that that is a very inconvenient mode of getting the increased value. I venture to hope that the Select Committee to which the Bill is referred will sanction the principle, and make such Amendments as they may think fit. I believe that in the case of the Strand Improvement Bill, which went before a Committee of which I was a Member, the Committee would have approved of the principle of betterment had the case been one to which it could have applied. But that was not a case in which it could apply, and, therefore, the majority of the Committee objected. I believe there would have been a majority on that occasion in favour of the principle had the case been one in which betterment could have applied.

said, he merely rose for the purpose of asking leave to withdraw his Motion. He did not want to prevent the Bill being discussed in a Select Committee, but he hoped it would not be considered that he was at all out of Order if, when the Bill came back, he discussed to the bottom the principle of betterment. [Cries of "Order! "]

said, the hon. Member had no right of reply.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether there are a number of places of public religious worship, certified as such, and exempted by Statute from liability to rates, the trust deeds of which are not enrolled in Chancery; and whether there is any means whereby such trust deeds may be inspected by the public; and, if not, whether the Government will take into their consideration the expediency of providing the public with an opportunity of inspecting them at reasonable hours?

I shall be obliged if the hon. Gentleman will defer this question for a few days.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if, having regard to the great expense and inconvenience to the country, to regiments, and to individual officers, non-commissioned officers, and men, of transporting from station to station all the furniture, &c, of messes, and all the furniture of officers, and married sergeants and privates, he will re-appoint the Departmental Committee, named by his Predecessor about 1882, and abandoned in consequence of the Egyptian War, to consider if it would not be cheaper and better for the Government to furnish the messes and quarters?

The question of furnishing officers' quarters and messes was considered, as the hon. Member says, some years ago; but the capital expenditure in carrying out such a proposal would be very considerable, and could only be incurred gradually. Some progress in that direction has been made.

Will the Report of the Committee be laid on the Table?

I must ask for Notice of that question.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if, having regard to the deficiency of upwards of 1,400 subaltern officers in the Volunteer Force, he will consider the possibility of forming the numerous detached public school corps into an Administrative Battalion, with a headquarter staff and central organisation in London, directing their military training into channels fitting them subsequently to receive commissions in the Force?

A proposal similar to the suggestion in the question has been received, and will be considered when opportunity offers. At present there are no funds available for such a purpose.

I beg to ask the Parliamentary Charity Commissioner whether his attention has been called to the dissatisfaction which exists in different parts of Wales at the provision in the schemes for intermediate education in Wales framed by the Charity Commissioners which fixes an upper limit of age, and which thus precludes students above the age of 17 from the benefits of the intermediate schools; and whether, in view of the fact that the above provision will have the effect of excluding a. large number of deserving students from the use and advantage of the schools, the Charity Commissioners will consider the desirability of extending the limit of age?

The upper limit of ago fixed by the large majority of the schemes for intermediate education in Wales is 17, with an extension in special cases to 18, a limit adapted to the case of scholars proceeding to the Welsh University Colleges. In schools which prepare for the older Universities the upper limit of age is fixed at 18, with a like extension to 19. To meet the case, special to the present condition of secondary education in Wales, of young men desirous to attend school, in order to supplement a defective education, or to resume education interrupted by work or business, a temporary extension of the limit of age has been provided in some schemes; but it is considered that when the 70 new schools under the Welsh Act shall have brought secondary education, at a suitable age, within general reach these special cases will not be numerous.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether, in consequence of the unexpected difficulties attending the operations, the Neptune Salvage Company have lost money by the salving of H.M.S. Howe; and, if so, what steps the Admiralty propose to take with a view to further remuneration for the work?

The Admiralty have no knowledge of the cost of the operations to the Neptune Salvage Company, and consequently have no views as to any further remuneration.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland is he aware that, previous to the late Government making a grant of public money for the railway from Skibbereen to Baltimore, evidence was given by several witnesses as to the necessity for this railway running down to deep water so that smacks could come alongside; and that plans of such a railway proposed to run to deep water were produced by the engineer of the undertaking, and accepted by the Commissioners; if he will ascertain on what occasion, and by what department or authority, that scheme was changed, and the understanding come to at that meeting was not adhered to, and that the railway was stopped short at a place where it can be of little use to the fisheries; if plans and estimates for a pier and extension of the railway thereon have been prepared; and if he will, as head of the Congested Districts Board, urge on that Board the importance of and necessity for carrying out, this work as originally designed?

I understand that the first three paragraphs of this question were substantially dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury in reply to a question put by the hon. Member for North Fermanagh on 20th February last. As regards the last paragraph the matter has been under the consideration of the Congested Districts Board, and comes again before them at their next meeting.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to a case heard on the 5th instant at the Hampstead Petty Sessions, before Mr. B. W. Smith, in which a youth named John Bunny was sentenced to two months' imprisonment, without the option of a fine, for having speculated a penny in an illegal lottery which was being conducted on Hampstead Heath; and whether, having regard to the previous good character of the lad, he can see his way to recommending some mitigation of the sentence?

Yes; but I under stand that the sentence was imposed, not for the offence of having speculated a penny in an illegal lottery, but in the belief that Bunny belonged to, or was assisting, a gang of men who were conducting such a lottery, and cheating the bystanders. I have communicated with the Magistrates, who assent to some mitigation of punishment. I think the imprisonment he has already suffered is sufficient, and I have accordingly ordered his discharge.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General why letters despatched from Aughnacloy by the 12.24 train are not delivered in Belfast until 8 o'clock p.m.?

The hon. Member is under a misapprehension. Letters despatched from Aughnacloy by the 12.24 p.m. train reach Belfast at 3.35 p.m., and are delivered at 4.15 p.m., not 8 p.m., as assumed by the hon. Member.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether his attention has been called to a statement in The Daily Chronicle of the 27th instant as to the number of children compelled by law to receive instruction in the public schools of Leeds while in a state of total or partial starvation; whether he can communicate any results of the inquiry that is proceeding into this subject; and when he expects to lay the completed Report before the House?

Inquiries were addressed to 20 of the most important School Boards on this subject, and the Department have now received replies from 15, among which is the Report from Leeds on which the statement in The Daily Chronicle referred to by the hon. Member was based. The Reports from some of the largest Boards, however (including those of London, Birmingham, and Liverpool) have not yet been received, and until the inquiry is completed I do not think it would be advisable to lay any partial results before the House.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland is he aware that on Wednesday the 26th a crowd following a Nationalist band throw quantities of stones at Christ Church, Londonderry, also at the Craig Memorial Schools, breaking the windows and otherwise injuring the buildings, and that a large number of Nationalists assembled shortly after near the spot and lighted bonfires; and what steps does he intend to take for the repression of such disorder and for the protection of Protestant property in the city and neighbourhood?

I am happy to say the Report received from the Constabulary Authorities does not show injuries of the serious extent indicated in the question. It is not true that Nationalists assembled and lighted bonfires. I regret to add a small pane of glass appears to have been broken and two others injured in the church and two panes were broken in the Memorial Hall. The crowd following the band consisted mainly of women and children. The subject of band-playing after dark in the City of Londonderry is under consideration by the Magistrates.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what are the material facts relating to the rioting in Belfast, and the measures adopted for the restoration of order; what explanation is given of the uninterrupted smashing of windows in North Street last Friday night in presence of a body of police, the wrecking and looting of Connolly's house on Saturday night whilst 150 constables were stationed within a few yards, and the absence of police from the Queen's Island on Monday at the time when many of the Catholic workmen were assaulted, and all of them were expelled, and the fact that such attacks and expulsion were in pursuance of a resolution adopted at a meeting held the previous Saturday having meanwhile become publicly known; what is the number of Catholic workpeople driven out of employment, and how many have been allowed to return to their occupations; how many houses have been attacked and damaged by the rioters; how many soldiers, constables, and workmen and other civilians have suffered physical injury; how many arrests have been effected, and what sentences have been imposed; whether the daily procession from the Queen's Island, through the city, of workmen armed with sticks and bars, throwing iron missiles and stones into the houses of Catholics, will be any longer permitted; and why the police were withdrawn from the route of this procession last Wednesday? In putting this question, I wish to ask whether the piece of iron produced—a long iron bolt with a knob at the end—is not a specimen of the missile used; whether these bolts are not taken in great quantities from the Queen's Island works, and flung about the streets and through the windows of houses occupied by Roman Catholics?

Yes; I believe that the missile the hon. Member has shown to the House is the kind of thing, together with nuts and rivets, that find their way by some means or another out of the works. In answer to the second paragraph of the hon. Member's question, the smashing of windows was not uninterrupted. The police interfered promptly, and succeeded in driving each party to its own quarters. The mischief at Connolly's house—which it is an exaggeration to call wrecking and looting —was done by a running mob who were being pursued by the police. The police put out the fire which it had been attempted to kindle, and dispersed the mob. If the police had not been both present and active there is every reason to believe that Connolly's-house would have been sacked. As for the absence of police from Queen's Island on Monday morning, the injuries received at the breakfast hour were not of a serious character, and the whole of the affair did not last two minutes. The presence of the police before any overt art had taken place would have been regarded as a demonstration and a provocation, and probably the Protestant workers would have said to the Catholics —"You have brought the police here, and you shall go." Catholics themselves felt that this would have done more harm than good. After what had occurred at the breakfast hour, in case there should be workers in the yard who were afraid to go home, a force of military and police was stationed along the road to afford protection to anyone who might need it. As to the third paragraph, the Government have no means at their disposal for ascertaining how many men were driven from their employment.

Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that there are about 900 Catholics usually employed in the Queen's Island works?

The Government, at all events, have no means of ascertaining how many Catholic workers are employed there, nor have they been informed that they have all been driven out. In any case, many workers of both religions absented themselves from work owing to the excitement of the last few days, but undoubtedly a large number of Catholic workers were thrown out of employment owing to compulsion on the part of their Protestant fellow-workers. There were many affrays between women at mills and factories. The police saw some, separated the combatants, and took names; but their policy in the case of these Amazonian squabbles was to disperse and protect, and not to arrest. It is impossible for the Government to insist on the restoration of Catholic workers to their employment. Although a constable was provided for every citizen in Belfast, they could not prevent the Protestant workers from demanding, if so minded, the expulsion of the Catholic or any other of their fellow-workers. We can only see that protection is afforded, and trust to the energy of public opinion in Belfast and resolute action on the part of employers, neither of which, I am happy to say, have been wanting on this occasion. My hon. Friend will be glad to know that many are understood to have returned to their employment, and we trust that in a few days bitterness will be allayed. In the meantime, any active interference or meddling by the police would be injudicious, and do more harm than good. Three public-houses were attacked, windows broken, and some bottles were stolen, but the police were in time to prevent these attacks becoming more serious. Windows, some of them expensive plate-glass, have been broken in some 20 houses. No case of injury to a soldier has been reported. One constable was seriously injured at Queen's Island. His temple was fractured by a blow from an iron bolt. No cases of serious injury to civilians have been reported. A number have received medical treatment for cuts and bruises. As to arrests, we find it difficult to distinguish precisely between arrests connected with this particular disturbance and general disturbance on account of the excitement, but we are doing our best to have an accurate Return prepared. Meantime, about 45 persons in all have been arrested. A large number are still in custody on remand. Of those already dealt with, some have been imprisoned for one month or two months without the option of a fine, and eight were discharged. As to another paragraph of the question, it is the habit of these workmen at all times to march in bodies from their works to their homes, and while acting in accordance with their usual habit they will not be interfered with; but when a portion of these workmen or their followers break glass or commit assaults with iron bolts and rivets, then it will be the duty of the police to disperse the persons guilty of this riotous conduct and to arrest the ringleaders. This is exactly what happened on Tuesday evening in North Street, when the mob which accompanied the workers became disorderly and dangerous, and consequently was broken up by the police, and 25 arrests made. The police were not, as a matter of fact, withdrawn; but, in the exercise of discretion by those in command, the posting and disposition both of the troops and police were so varied as to enable them to act with the greatest efficiency. It would, for obvious reasons, be prejudicial to the Public Service to enter into detail as to the measures adopted, in the use of the police and the military, for the restoration of order. I can only assure my hon. Friend that those measures were the best that careful forethought and experience could suggest; that they were devised and ordered with the sternest impartiality; and the plans so arranged have been carried out by the authorities on the spot — Magistrates, military, and police—at once with prudence and with vigour. It is right to add that, though there have been regrettable exhibitions of a violent and unmanly spirit, the local leaders on both sides have made active and honourable efforts in the cause of peace and order, which we may now regard, I hope, as having boon satisfactorily established.

While accepting the reply of the right hon. Gentleman to the general question and also sharing his hopes for the future, I desire to ask how it is that District Inspector Seddal, who charged and dispersed the mob successfully on Tuesday, and who testified in evidence that the mob was the most riotous he had ever seen, and would have constituted a menace to the public peace of any town in the world, has already been removed from his station in Belfast to another district; further, what reply the right hon. Gentleman has sent to a letter addressed to him on Wednesday last by a committee formed in Belfast for the protection of the homes, lives, and properties of Catholics—a letter fearing that the apprehensions expressed in a previous letter had been only too accurately borne out, and in which they ask, as a matter of necessity, that the sole charge of the police shall be in the hands of a capable officer free from local influence and uncontrolled by the Local Authority; and, finally, whether he has observed the proceedings of the Belfast Custody Court on Wednesday last, when a gentleman named McKibbin, a prominent member of the Orange Society, addressed the Court on behalf of the accused, the accused being already professionally represented; whether the Commissioner of Police sat upon the Bench?

I rise to Order. I desire to ask, Sir, whether this is a question arising out of the answer, and, if not, whether it ought not to be put on the Paper in the usual way? If it is a supplementary question, of which private notice has been given, ought it not to be put after all the other questions on the Paper have been answered?

If supplementary questions in any way arise out of the original question of which notice has been given, it is perfectly in Order to put supplementary questions, and not to wait until the end of Question time.

Is it the case that the Commissioner of Police took his seat on the Bench, and delivered from the Bench a speech in the nature of evidence, after conference with Mr. McKibbin, in which he urged the Adjudicating Magistrates to remand the cases—a course which they declined to take? I have to ask whether the Government will take steps to secure that unauthorised persons shall not interfere with the proceedings of the Courts, and that the Commissioner of Police—who is distrusted, I have shown, by that class of the community most threatened—will, if he gives evidence, be required to do so not in a speech from the Bench, but in the usual way—on oath and in the witness-box?

May I ask the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been called to the admirable handling of the Belfast Police on a recent occasion when the great mass of the people went into the streets and demonstrated in. favour of the Union?

I should like to ask one or two supplementary questions. Is it not a fact that, so far from threatening the Custody Court, Mr. McKibbin, who was a very influential resident in the disturbed district, attended the Court in the interests of order and peace, and asked His Worship,

"In consideration of the quiet state of the city and the fact that the residents of the Shankhill district had formed themselves into special constables to preserve the peace, to deal leniently with the prisoners"

and that he was quite prepared to give a guarantee from the inhabitants of the Shankhill district that the peace would be kept; whether Mr. Commissioner Singleton, the responsible officer in charge of the police, replied

"That he was quite willing to assist Mr. McKibbin and meet him half-way, as he was entitled to the thanks of the entire town for his services upon the Shankhill Road ";

whether Mr. Commissioner Singleton further stated that

"There was no doubt the main body of the Islandmen behaved themselves as well last evening as any people coming from their church on Sunday";

and whether the disturbance was not due to a small mob of rowdies not under control who followed the workmen; whether the Chief Secretary can confirm the following information which he had just received by telegraph:—

"Considerable number Catholics frightened out of employment at Island only; but will go back now under protection of the Protestant workers. Catholic paper praises action of Protestant employers. Mischief confined to rowdy boys; all will be well now";

and whether it was not a fact that the Roman Catholic; workmen have been escorted and protected by their Protestant neighbours and fellow-workmen; whether the Chief Secretary's attention has been called to a document extensively circulated in Belfast by the Belfast branch of the Irish National Federation in which—in spite of the fact that the Orange Lodge, No. 9, of West Belfast, and the Grand Lodge of Belfast had made every effort to pre-serve order and restore peace—it is stated that

"The Orangemen of Belfast are endeavouring once again to deluge the streets with the blood of sectarian strife";

and whether he thinks that, under existing circumstances, such language is calculated to assist the efforts of those "leaders of all parties" who are endeavouring to restore order in the city?

I submit that the questions which the hon. Member has just put to me are, if I may venture to say so without offence, rather an abuse of the purposes of a question. I mean that, put in such form, they are clearly not questions designed for the purpose of getting information from a Minister, hut for giving information. [Cries of" What about Sexton?"]

Mine were facts.

I am bound to say that my hon. Friend has asked me about matters of fact.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of Order I should be glad to know whether I am in Order in asking for information on definite points, all of which were referred to by the hon. Member for Kerry; and whether I am not in Order in asking for information in a case in which one of my constituents has been evidently attacked by name?

The hon. Member was not out of Order. One would, of course, wish to reduce supplementary questions to the narrowest possible bounds, but the questions asked by the hon. Member arose out of the questions put by the hon. Member For North Kerry.

I did not hear in any part of the interrogatories of the hon. Member for West Belfast questions to which I can answer "Yes" or "No." The telegram to which he referred relating to the restoration of Catholics to employment under the protection of their Protestant fellow-workers states, I believe, the truth. At one point the Protestant workmen did undoubtedly protect their Catholic fellow-workmen. In answer to the question put by the hon. Member for North Kerry, I have to say that Mr. Seddall is a most meritorious officer, whoso services during this disturbance have been very valuable. Therefore, any change that has been made in his position is for police reasons only, and certainly is not of a penal character. As to the letter sent to me from the Catholic Bishop of Belfast and other gentlemen, I may say that that letter was a long document containing four principal allegations of fact. I am making inquiries now into these allegations, and from the information which I have received as yet I believe that three out of the four allegations are without foundation. As for charges of partiality and incompetency against the police, I need make no inquiry, but can give a most distinct and categorical denial to all assertions or suggestions of that kind. The plans which were made by the police were made; by men of the greatest experience with perfect foresight and absolute impartiality, and I think that result, comparing with what has happened on this occasion with what has happened, unfortunately, on some previous occasions in Belfast, shows that the police and the authorities are not open to the charges which are implied or made against them in the letter which has been referred to. With reference to the alleged occurrence in the Belfast Custody Court, I cannot give an answer before I have made further inquiry. Mr. Singleton, who is a Town Commissioner, is also a Magistrate, and, therefore, has a right to sit upon the Bench. I have communicated with him, and at a later date, if my hon. Friend cares to resume the subject, I shall be willing to answer him.

I know that Mr. Singleton is a Magistrate; but if this Magistrate wished to give evidence, he should have given it in the witness-box upon oath, and should not have made a speech from the Bench.

In consequence of the positive and categorical character of the denial which the right hon. Gentleman has thought proper to give to certain statements submitted to him by the Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor, and to the fact that the denial rests on statements made to him by Commissioner Singleton, will the right hon. Gentleman rest content with being the mouthpiece of that denial, or will he allow the Catholic Bishop of Belfast or other persons concerned any opportunity of bringing their statements to the test of formal and precise inquiry?

I shall state in my reply what is the tenour of the denial made to the four allegations. I will invite the Roman Catholic Bishop to favour me with any further observations he may wish to make. I have no particular desire to be made the mouthpiece of one set of individuals as against another set, but I have confidence in the information which is given to me by the officials in Belfast. As far as I can see, Mr. Singleton has performed a very difficult part with great tact, great prudence, and great dexterity.

Will the right hon. Gentleman be willing to receive a deputation?

I will receive any communication that may be sent to me.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the shipowners of Hull, and particularly the Messrs. Wilson, have refused his offer of mediation in the trade dispute now going on there; whether he is aware that they have also refused to meet the representatives of the workmen to discuss the causes of the dispute, with a view to arriving at a settlement; and, in view of the fact that this refusal has caused a continuance of the dispute and the retention of the Naval and Military Forces of the Crown to prevent a breach of the peace, will he state what further action he or the Government propose taking in the matter, with a view to bringing the dispute to a close?

On the suggestion of an hon. Member of the House—a shipowner and a member of the Shipping Federation—a meeting took place last Monday week, at which the hon. Member for Middlesbrough and other Members were also present. At that meeting terms were agreed upon as a basis for the settlement of the whole dispute. It was well understood by those hon. Members that this would be submitted to the men at Hull and to the Shipping Federation. The latter Body submitted other proposals, which were described as an ultimatum; and as they wore unacceptable to the workmen as they stood, the matter ended there. The question with regard to the Naval and Military Forces has been already answered by the Home Secretary. The Government have no power to compel employers to employ or workmen to work on terms to which they do not agree.

Then I will ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that this dispute affects 50,000 persons, he will give an opportunity of discussing the question one day next week?

I am afraid that I must see the question in the most definite form, and have an opportunity of considering it, before I can give an answer as to whether the Business of the House can be interrupted for the discussion of this subject.

said: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade a question of which I have just given him private notice—namely, whether it is true that the chief obstacle to a conciliatory settlement of the Hull dispute is a Member of this House—— ["Order, order!"]

Order, order! The hon. Member says he has just given the right hon. Gentleman notice. That is hardly sufficient notice.

I handed a copy of my question to the right hon. Gentleman.

It, was only 10 minutes ago.

Whether it is true that the chief obstacle to a conciliatory settlement of the Hull dispute is a Member of this House—a supporter of the present Government; and whether——

That is not a matter which is under the cognisance or control of the Government.

I will read the latter part of the question, Sir:— "And whether this in any way accounts for the readiness with which the Military Forces were sent to his assistance, and for the evident——"[Cries of " Order, order!"]

Order, order! The hon. Member is making a statement which ought not to be put into a question.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he is aware that subsequently to the discontinuance of telegraphic communication between the Sunk lightship and the shore, a ship, the Enterkin, was wrecked near the said lightship, and 28 persons drowned; that the signals from the lightship could not be seen owing to the fog; but that, had telegraphic communication with the shore existed, the 28 lives might have been saved; will he have the communication restored; and is he aware that by connecting it with the post office system and charging for messages, the undertaking can be made self-supporting?

My Department has no official knowledge of the circumstances attending the wreck of the Enterkin, but it would appear that telegraphic communication with the Sunk lightship would not have been of any avail to prevent the sad loss of life which then took place. The wreck appears to have taken place on the North Galloper Sands, which are at a great distance from the Sunk lightship, and the signals of distress do not appear to have been noticed at that lightship. I would remind the hon. Member, however, that the whole question of telegraphic communication with lightships has been referred to a Royal Commission, whose first Report was presented to Parliament early this year, He will see, on reference to that Report, that the immediate restoration of communication with the Sunk is not proposed, but that telegraphic communication with the Kentish Knock lightship is recommended; and I may explain that the Kentish Knock is much nearer the scene of the wreck of the Enterkin.

Do I understand that the unanimous recommendations of the Royal Commission on this subject have been set aside?

No, Sir; the right hon. Gentleman is misinformed. They have not recommended the restoration of communication with the Sunk.

Will the recommendation, whatever it is, be carried into effect?

Yes, Sir.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the system of cold shoeing of horses with machine-made shoes having proved to be practicable and superior to the present system by dispensing with the transporting of forges and farriers from place to place, he will consider the advisability of causing its adoption throughout the Army?

During peace, half the number of Army horses are shod with machine-made shoes, and the shoes of the others are made by the farriers. In active operations, a much larger proportion would probably be machine-made; but their use and the practice of cold shoeing would not allow of the transport for farriers and forges being dispensed with.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if he is now able to state when the Report of the Departmental Committee on Swine Fever will be laid upon the Table?

The Report of the Departmental Committee on Swine Fever has been presented to me within the last few hours. I will lay it on the Table this evening, and I hope that it will be circulated in the course of next week.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the remarks of Mr. Justice Hawkins, made on Wednesday last in the course of his summing up in the ease of "The Queen against Bottomley and others," to the effect that as the law now stands there is no responsibility on Directors of Limited Companies who scandalously neglect their duty, and recommending that the law on the subject should be altered, and also recommending that the law should be amended so that Directors and promoters should be compelled to see that the prospectus set forth succinctly and clearly, so as to be intelligible to everybody, what the real effect of the contract was; and whether, having regard to the evils resulting to trade from the laws which regulate the formation of these Companies, he is prepared to bring in a Bill to amend those laws, or to promote the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the matters complained of?

The change in the law referred to by the hon. Member would raise a series of questions of an intricate and controversial character relating to the formation of Companies which could only be properly dealt with by a comprehensive revision of the law. I do not think that Parliament can be asked to undertake a work of such mag- nitude, and I must remind the hon. Member that the provisions of Section 10 of the Companies Winding-up Act, 1890, have not been fully tested up to the present time.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is now able to say when the Report of the Committee on Indian Currency may be expected?

This is a question of which I have no knowledge personally. The question should be addressed to the Under Secretary for India, who will give the right hon. Gentleman all the information available. I understand that there has been no delay in the presentation of the Report; it has not yet been drawn up.

Then I will put the question to the Under Secretary on Monday, and ask the reason of the unusual delay in the production of this Report.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government has received any information respecting the alleged fighting in Nyassaland, with what tribe Her Majesty's Commissioner is, or has been, in collision; and whether Papers respecting this outbreak can be laid upon the Table?

There has been a Slave Trade revolt on the Upper Shiré, headed by an Arab named Abu Bakr, and chiefly sustained by two large slave caravans. Two native chiefs joined the slave traders, but one soon withdrew and the other was anxious for peace when the telegram was sent. The rapidity of Mr. Johnson's action prevented the revolt from spreading; he received the most valuable assistance from H. M. S. Mosquito; the police reinforcements from India have now arrived, and there is no cause for anxiety. When the Despatches are received it will be considered whether they should be laid.

I beg to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty upon what principle compensation is given to established and other workmen employed in Her Majesty's Dockyards or their representatives in case of injury or death resulting from the negligence of their fellow-servants?

The compensation awarded to a workman for injuries sustained in the course of his employment is not affected by the fact that it may be attributable to the negligence of fellow-servants. The amount of compensation given in such cases is based upon the extent of the injuries sustained, and is fixed by the Treasury.

I wish to know how the practice of the Government compares with the practice that will be imposed upon private employers if the Bill of the Government respecting employers' liability is to become law?

I must ask for notice of that question.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that on Monday, the 17th inst., a serious outrage and encounter between the police and the people took place at Bodyke, in the County of Clare, in which firearms were used on both sides; and that this is the second case of firing at the police and those under their protection in this locality during the month; and whether any steps have been taken to put a stop to the use of firearms against the officers of the law?

Before the right hon. Gentleman replies, I wish to ask whether it is not the fact that the disturbances at Bodyke are the direct result of the action of the landlord in suddenly refusing to give those reductions in judicial rents which he allowed before the present Government came into power; and whether the Government will take steps to prevent this landlord from causing these disturbances by demanding impossible rents.

It appears to me that there is some matter of argument in that question.

Then I will content myself with asking whether the disturbances were not begun in consequence of the sudden refusal of the landlord to grant the same reductions in judicial rents as he had allowed for several years before the advent of the present Government to power? I wish to ask, also, whether he is aware that the shooting in this district was commenced by emergency men armed with Winchester repeaters and liberally supplied with drink?

In reply to my hon. Friend, I understand that, as a matter of fact, Colonel O'Callaghan did refuse to make a customary abatement. Not on Monday, the 17th inst., but on the previous Saturday night, some shots were fired in the direction of the protection post on the Bodyke property, which were returned by the police and caretakers. None of these shots took effect. The previous case of firing referred to was, in the opinion of the police, an act of bravado, as the shots did not appear to be directed at the police or bailiffs. Steps were at once taken to prevent the use of firearms in this manner, and on two different occasions since the last occurrence bailiffs have been engaged, under police protection, in the same locality in executing the law, during which no shots were fired. It is believed that the steps thus taken will prove effective.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state bow many evicted farms were taken by new tenants severally in the years 1890, 1891, and up to the end of August, 1892, in the Counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Clare; and how many such farms in the said counties have been taken by new tenants since August last?

Has the right hon. Gentleman any knowledge how many of these evicted farms have been taken by bonâfide farmers and by Emergency men?

I cannot answer that. I find that applications for Parliamentary Returns relating to evicted farms in Ireland have on all previous occasions on which they have been asked for been refused, and, on considering this precedent, and the reasons for it, I am afraid that I cannot furnish the details sought by the hon. Member.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will explain why the Lord Lieutenant has declined to give instructions to have returned to Patrick McMahon, a farmer, residing in Carrowmore South (Derryard), near the village of Doonbeg, in the County of Clare, a single-barrelled gun, taken from him by the police in August, 1888, although the local police sergeant, Mr. Benjamin Cox, J.P., and Mr. Harper, R.M., are ready, from their personal knowledge of McMahon, to testify as to his character?

I am causing a communication to be addressed to the hon. Member, from which he will find that the detention of Mr. McMahon's gun was not due to any suspicion in respect to his character, but merely arises out of an ordinary police duty.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the inquiries which he promised to make into the condition of the Rosscarbery district have been made; and whether the Government intend to take any steps in the matter?

I have had the advantage of a conversation with the Inspector who made the inquiries, and I cannot doubt that there is no reason to suppose that exceptional distress prevails in the district, and for this, among other reasons—that the amount of outdoor relief shows a falling off as compared with the same period last year. If the hon. Member will give me specific names and places where he says distress prevails, I will cause further inquiry to be made.

; Is it not the fact that the falling off in outdoor relief is due to the action of the Guardians of the district, who have unanimously declared that it is urgent that steps beyond those they can take should be adopted to meet the distress?

I was not aware that the Guardians had made that declaration. I repeat, if the hon. Member will specifically name places where the distress exists, I will cause further inquiry to be made.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the premises of two farmers, in the Killavullen district, have recently been set on fire, and that these two persons are the two Roman Catholic farmers who were publicly denounced by Thomas Barry, of Killavullen, at a Federation meeting, on the ground of their having signed a Petition against the Government of Ireland Bill; and if he has any information as to the cause of this outrage?

May I ask whether this matter arose out of a Poor Law election speech, and whether Mr. Barry can be held responsible for the interpretation placed on his speech by the hon. Member——

Order, order!

May I ask whether——

Order, order! The Chief Secretary.

The Constabulary Authorities report that the premises of one farmer in the Killavullen district were recently set on fire. No names were mentioned at the meeting indicated, but it is believed this farmer and his son were the persons alluded to. The police attribute the outrage to ill-feeling arising out of a recent contest for the position of Poor Law Guardian.

I beg to ask the Attorney General whether his attention has been called to the decision of the Court of Appeal on 17th April last in the case of "Templeton v. Russell" as affecting Trades Unions; whether he will consider how far the effect of that decision is to hamper Trades Unions in their efforts to maintain the price of labour; and whether he will consider the advisability of recommending the Government to deal with the question by legislation?

This case is under appeal, and it would, therefore, be premature to express any opinion upon it. I can assure my hon. Friend, however, that the matter will not be lost sight of.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is in a position to inform the House if the Government propose to take the next stage of the Local Government Bill before going into Committee on the Government of Ireland Bill?

No, Sir. We are strongly of opinion that the best course will be to postpone further proceedings on the Local Government Bill until we are able to devote and concentrate our attention on that important subject.

May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman can give the House any idea of the date when the next stage of the Bill will be taken?

It is quite impossible for me to fix the date when the Government of Ireland Bill will pass through Committee.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, looking to the fact that the time of private Members is now virtually absorbed by the Government, he will give facilities for the discussion of the Church of Scotland Reference Bill, which provides for the reference of the question of the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of Scotland to the Parliamentary electors of Scotland?

No, Sir. I cannot hold out any expectation in the direction referred to by the hon. Member. He must be aware that the Bill involves a Constitutional change of enormous importance, and in the present state of Public Business I cannot make any promise.

I beg to ask the First. Lord of the Treasury whether Lord Dufferin, then Chancellor of the Duchy in the Ministry of the right hon. Gentleman, in formerly ac- quainting the Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire in April, 1870, with the new arrangement for the appointment of County Magistrates, and in stating that it is intended by Her Majesty's Government that this arrangement should be a permanent one so far as it is in their power to render it so, acted on his own responsibility alone, or with the sanction and approval of the Cabinet or the Prime Minister, or both?

All the inquiries that we are able to make at present have been made, but we cannot trace the facts with regard to this question. I myself may, when I get into the country, have the means of ascertaining whether Lord Dufferin's measure in 1870 was referred to the Cabinet or not. I have not the least doubt that it came under my own eyes, and that I am responsible for it. Further than that I cannot go at present.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can state if it is the intention of the Government to give precedence to the Church of England in Wales Suspensory Bill or the Liquor Traffic (Local Control) Bill?

I have endeavoured to describe to the House the Business which it is our intention to bring before it until we commence the discussion in Committee on the Irish Government Bill, and it may be said, therefore, that the House has got its employment, so far as it depends on us, cut out for it for a considerable time. I am not able to enter into any question as to the precedence for any Bills with regard to which arrangements have not been already made.

What is to be the Business on Monday? I am aware the right hon. Gentleman has fixed a limit outside of which he will not go before taking the Committee on the Irish Bill; but we do not know the Business for Monday and also Tuesday. And may I ask, is there any change in the intentions of the Government with regard to taking the Irish Bill on Thursday?

Our hope is that Monday will be devoted to Supply, also other days; but, of course, it will be necessary to proceed with the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill. If that Bill should make further demands on the time of the House we must, of course, meet it. On Monday I shall mention what we anticipate as to the day for going into Committee on the Irish Government Bill. There are smaller Bills which I trust towards the close of the evening it will be possible to proceed with.

If the Speaker is got out of the Chair, will the Civil Service Estimates be first proceeded with?

Yes; they will be the first Order.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the resolution of the Incorporated Chamber of Commerce and Shipping of Cork, passed on the 31st ult., with reference to the loss of the steamer Kilburne at the Old Head of Kinsale, through fog, under similar circumstances to those attending the wreck of the City of Chicago, and in which the Council complain that no attention is paid to their repeated recommendations to the Commissioners of Irish Lights that immediate steps should be taken to erect at the Old Head of Kinsale the new lighthouse light and fog signal which the Chambers of Commerce of Cork, Belfast, and Dublin, the Liverpool Steamship Owners' Association and others recommended should be placed there, and respecting the practical operation of which testimony is contained in the recently issued Parliamentary Paper on Lighthouse Illuminants; and whether he will take any steps to have these recommendations carried out?

Last week the Cork Chamber of Commerce drew my attention to their desire that the light and fog signal at the Old Head of Kinsale should be improved, and they have been informed that whenever an application from the Commissioners of Irish Lights comes before me for sanction it will receive careful attention. The Board of Trade have no power to select a particular mode of improvement, or to favour the claims of one inventor in preference to those of others.

I beg to ask the Parliamentary Charity Commissioner whether he is aware that, on 6th May, 1886, this House passed a Resolution that every scheme of the Charity Commissioners ought to provide for the majority of the trustees or managers being directly elected by the ratepayers of the locality to which the charity extends; and, if so, whether he can state in what number of new schemes proposed under the Charitable Trust Acts and the Endowed Schools Acts, respectively, since 1892, the proposal has not been in accordance with this Resolution; and if he cannot now give the exact number, whether he will give the approximate number and inquire further into the matter?

I am well aware of the Resolution. Subsequent 1o its passing, the Select Committee of the House which inquired in 1886–7 into the working of the Endowed Schools Acts, referring to the Resolution mentioned in the question, say—

"Your Committee failed to satisfy themselves that this Resolution could be practically carried into effect."

The action of the Charity Commissioners in this matter, a full account of which will be found in paragraphs 29–37 of their Fortieth Report (for 1892), has been guided by the opinion thus expressed by the Committee. A Return is now being prepared which will show how every body of Governors or Trustees-in all schemes under the Endowed Schools Acts from January, 1886, to December, 1892, was constituted, and will be laid on the Table in a few weeks. In these circumstances, and in view of the varying character of the charities under the Charitable Trust Acts of the Commissioners, the numerical statement asked for would be imperfect and misleading.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that, in order to so balance the Egyptian Budget as to pay the bondholders their interest in full, forced and unpaid labour is still exacted yearly from the peasantry for repairing the banks of the Nile; whether he has observed that Lord Cromer, in his Report of 9th March last, admits that the abolition of this forced labour appears for the present, at all events, to be impossible, the question being chiefly one of finance, and also that the land assessment is in a few places somewhat too high, and that it is to be hoped that in course of time it may be possible to relieve whatever hardship arises on this account; and whether Her Majesty's Government, as responsible for the Government of Egypt, will take steps to secure that the claims of the bondholders are not met by forced labour and hardships inflicted upon the peasantry of the country?

The claims of the bondholders are the subject of an International arrangement beyond the control of Her Majesty's Government. By referring to Lord Cromer's Report, Egypt, No. 3 (1893), pp. 4, 12, 14, it will be seen that a large annual charge (£E400,000 has been incurred for the purpose of abolishing THE CORVÉE in its most objectionable form, and that the means of abolishing THE CORVÉE, in the limited sense now attached to it, is being considered by the Egyptian Government.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has received a tabular statement, said to have been posted from Lossiemouth 10 days ago, giving full particulars of the great increase in the goods rates charged by the great North of Scotland Railway and the Highland Railway since the beginning of the present year, amounting in the case of such important articles of commerce as flour, rice, grain, empties, &c, to a rise of 90 and even 180 per cent.; and whether, if the above statement has been received, he will institute inquiries, with the object of taking such steps as will prevent the serious consequences to the district resulting from these charges?

The Railway Companies have declined to accept the figures of the hon. Member, but their explanations are too long to trouble the House with. I shall be glad to show them to the hon. Member.

I should like to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that in an enormous number of other eases the Railway Companies are again departing from their promise not to fix any rates more than 5 per cent. above those in operation up to January, unless in very special circumstances?

And is the right hon. Gentleman aware that where the Railway Companies have made a reduction they have very often gone on the principle of reducing the rates to places where there is little traffic, leaving the rates to places where there is large traffic almost unaltered?

I should not like to give an answer to the general question. The whole matter is about to be referred to a Select Committee, which can obtain all the necessary information.

Does the right hon. Gentleman intend the scope of the inquiry to extend into the questions which have been raised?

It is impossible for any Committee to go into all these questions. The number of rates can be reckoned by millions; but I invite hon. Members to cite specific instances. We can then apply to the companies for an explanation.

Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that the cattle rates on English railways have been increased since 1892?

I recently gave the hon. Member three letters from the principal Railway Companies stating that this was not the case. If the contrary is the fact, the hon. Member ought to furnish particulars.

When is it proposed to nominate the Committee?

I hope to be able to nominate it on Monday.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the grounding of the fishing smack Greyhound, sustaining thereby considerable injury, on the tail of the East Hoyle Bank, near the mouth of the River Mersey, on the night of January 14th last, when making for Hoylake Harbour; whether he is aware that other fishing boats and yachts have grounded on the same place; and whether, as the buoy marked L. I., commonly known as "Jackson's Horse Buoy," placed to mark the entrance to the harbour, is practically useless on dark nights, he will ask the Trinity House Authorities to replace it by a gas buoy, and thus afford adequate protection to the Hoylake fishermen returning to their anchorage in Hoylake Lake in bad weather on dark nights?

I have ascertained that the fishing smack Greyhound stranded as described. I have had a list of the strandings in the neighbourhood of Hoylake prepared, but it does not appear that any stranding besides that of the Greyhound, since 1889, could be attributed to the want of a light. The buoy to which the hon. and gallant gentleman refers has been placed by, and is under the control of, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, who are the Local Authority. I cannot, therefore, move in the direction he suggests.

As I have received additional information since I put the question on the Paper, will the right hon. Gentleman permit me to communicate it to him?

Certainly.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council whether he has received complaints of the operation of Article 106 (b) (vi.) of the Code, which defines the qualification of scholars for evening school examinations and limits the qualification to those who are presented in two or more subjects; and whether, in consideration of the difficulty of acquiring facility in shorthand writing and the uselessness of an inadequate acquaintance with the art, he will relax the regulation relating to this special subject, and authorise scholars for evening examinations to be presented for shorthand examination without being obliged to take up another subject?

The rule referred to by the hon. Member is intended to ensure that evening schools in receipt of Government grant shall be places of education, and something more than more classes formed for instruction in a single subject without reference to anything else. I do not think it advisable to put shorthand on a different footing from other subjects of equal or greater importance.

I beg to ask the Solicitor General whether he is aware that the learned Judge of the County Court District in whose Court the winding-up of the Portsea Island Building Society was proceeding, although the liquidators have expressed approbation to the principle of the Bill entitled "The Portsea Island Building Society Relief Bill" now before Parliament, insisted on the liquidators using the funds of the Society to petition against the Bill, and that a proportion of 99¼ percent, of the persons interested in the assets of the Society have signified their assent to the principle of the Bill; and whether he can take any steps to prevent this use of the funds of the Society?

A large proportion, but not so large as 99½ per cent., of the persons interested have signified their assent to the principle of the Bill, and I think it is much to be regretted that the liquidators should be opposing it on technical grounds, especially considering the urgency and importance of the matter. But I am unable to take any steps as suggested in the question.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General, in view of the fact that an Order restricting the hours of work of labourers in the employment of the General Post Office to eight hours per day was made on the 26th July, 1892, will he explain why a certain number of labourers employed at the General Post Office, Dublin, were obliged to work ten hours per day up to 31st January last; and whether they have been offered any compensation for the overtime in which they were so employed from July to January, and, if so, how much?

I am not aware of any general Order under date of 26th July, 1892, such as that referred to. It has been the policy of the Department to adjust the work of porters and labourers so as to bring the official attendance to about eight hours per day. This has been done because it was found that some were working more and some less. In London the necessary investigations were completed and brought into effect at varying dates in 1892, some at the close of the year. In Dublin the investigation was completed and carried out on 31st January, 1893. I am not prepared to make the dates of all those changes other than the date when the changes commenced, or admit any claim for compensation. The adoption of such a principle would necessitate the postponement of arrangements in favour of the staff until the entire machinery had been investigated and decided on.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the assertion that, under Schedule D of Income Tax, the assessments of professional men have been largely increased without any justification; and whether there is any justification for that assertion?

I have no reason to suppose anything of the kind has taken place.

I rise respectfully to ask the permission of the House to make a brief personal explanation in reference to a distinct conflict of statement that occurred in the Debate on the appointment of Magistrates to the Lancashire Bench, on Tuesday last, between the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and myself. On that occasion the House may remember that I made a statement as to the composition of the Borough Bench of South-port before and after the period when the right hon. Gentleman had begun to exercise his prerogative of appointment, and I based upon the statement the charge that the right hon. Gentleman had shattered the political balance which previously existed by appointing a disproportionate and an inexcusable number of politicians—— [Cries of "Order!"]

The hon. Member, in making a personal explanation, will abstain from anything of a recriminatory character.

Of course I will defer to your ruling. What I was really doing was simply repeating to the House the statement that I made the other day, in order that they might clearly understand the grounds upon which I now ask to make an explanation. The House will remember that I made certain statements which, not once nor twice, but repeatedly, across the Table of this House, the right hon. Gentleman denied, and I have come here this afternoon to repeat those statements to the House. [Cries of "Oh!"] But, inasmuch as it is quite possible that the right hon. Gentleman may have utilised the interval since Tuesday in providing himself with further information on the point, I would wish first to ask him a question of which I have given him private notice—namely, whether he adheres to the statement he made on Tuesday as to the political composition of the Southport Borough Bench; if so, from what source he procured his information, and how he explains or justifies his statement?

If these proceedings are in Order I may say that I not only adhere to my statement, but add that the facts which I have ascertained since Tuesday do more than bear it out.

Inasmuch as the right hon. Gentleman has now definitely and emphatically adhered to the statement of last Tuesday, and inasmuch as I dispute in toto his case—[Cries of "Order!" and "Oh!"]—and am prepared to prove that I am right and that he is wrong — [Renewed cries of "Order!"]—I trust the House will bear with me a few minutes—["Order!"]— inasmuch as my veracity as the Member of Parliament for that Division —[Cries of "Order!"]—has been distinctly impugned. ["Order!"] I will substantiate my statements.

I rise to Order. I would like to ask whether the hon. Member for Southport is in Order in raising the discussion upon this point, which is simply a matter of fact. I mean that the hon. Member for Southport——

The better plan would be to put the facts as to what took place the other night in the possession of the House, and to state the composition of the Bench at Southport. I think that will be quite sufficient to put the House in possession of the facts as represented by the hon. Gentleman.

I will do exactly as you tell me. There are two opposite statements as to the composition of the Bench at Southport. I stated in the remarks that I made on Tuesday that there were upon the Bench at Southport at the present time 19 supporters of the present Government, Gladstonian Liberals, two Liberal Unionists, and 11 Conservatives. [Cries of "Names!"] I did at the time hand the names over the Table to the right hon. Gentleman.

Without giving me an opportunity of consulting about them.

I beg pardon—I handed over a book in which there wan a list of the names, and I told the right hon. Gentleman distinctly that I supplied it for his benefit.

I submit, Sir, that this is extremely irregular. [Cries of "Order!"] The hon. Member, during the Debate, handed across the Table a book, and desired me to accept the version of the politics of the Magistrates which he had marked in it. As I had none of my own data with me, nor any means of ascertaining whether what he had marked in this book was correct or not, it was obviously useless for me to read it, even if I could have done so while the Debate was proceeding; for I could not test his version.

I do not think I am concerned to deal with the last interruption. I do not wish to stretch my case. I was endeavouring to point out that in reply to, and in contradiction to, my statement, the right hon. Gentleman said on Tuesday that when he came into Office he found only nine Gladstonians and 16 Conservatives on the Bench; that his appointments had raised the number of Gladstonians to 15, as well as two working men, and that the number of Unionists remained 16 as before. Now, these figures are utterly and wholly incorrect. [Cries of"Order!"] I suppose I may be presumed to know—[Cries of "No!"]—something more about a borough with which I have been politically connected for seven years than the right hon. Gentleman, who, so far as I know, has never set foot in the constituency. [Cries of "Order!"]

Order, order!

And who, when I ask him for the source of the information upon which he based his statement, declines to give it to me. The statement which I made as to the numbers is correct. I pledge my word to it. I am prepared, if the right hon. Gentleman wishes me to do so, to hand to him not only the numbers but the names. But I am in a position to give the House a little information upon the point. [Cries of "Order!"] I am enabled to show to the House the way in which the right hon. Gentleman has arrived at his figures. ["Order!"]

Order, order! This is altogether unusual. The hon. Member will give what his version is of the state of the Borough Bench at Southport, and I have no doubt the House will believe that that is a perfectly bonâ fide statement on the part of the hon. Gentleman.

Well, Sir, I thought I had given my statement as to the numerical condition of the Bench, and I was proposing, when you interrupted me—[Cries of "Order!"]—when you called me to Order — I speak with perfect deference to your ruling—to point out to the House the method by which the right hon. Gentleman had arrived at his figures—["Order!"]—but if that is out of Order I shall not persist. I shall, therefore, briefly reiterate my statements. [Cries of "No!" and "Order!"] I do not know why I am subjected to these interruptions. My statement is that the figures which I put before the House on Tuesday last—namely, the proportions of 19, 2, and 11, are correct; that I am prepared to hand the names to the right hon. Gentleman; and that until he is able to substantiate his counter figures by some argument better than more assertion—[Cries of "Order!"]—I have a right to think that my case has not been answered.

I am at a loss to understand the extraordinary heat and vehemence which the hon. Member has imported into this question. [Cries of "Oh!"] I have never made it a question of veracity at all. I stated in reply to the hon. Member that his information was incorrect. I might just as well complain that he impeaches my veracity, but I have never made any such complaint. He has stated his view—I have no doubt he stated it bonâ fide—I have never imputed anything else; and now, will the House hear my view? I was attacked on Tuesday, without notice that any question regarding any Borough Bench would be raised, with regard to the Borough Bench of Southport, and therefore I was obliged to answer from such very scanty data as I happened to have with me. I have since then made careful inquiries in Southport from four different sources, and the information I have received is as follows: It shows that the case in favour of my view presented on Tuesday is even stronger than I made it then. When the late Government went out of power in August last there wore upon the Southport Borough Bench 20 opponents of the present Government.

No.

I must ask the hon. Gentleman not to interrupt me; I am stating my view of the facts. I know quite well it is not his view, but he really must be patient. I am informed that there were on the Bench 20 opponents of the present Government, or, deducting two Conservatives who had left the town though still on the list of Magistrates, 18 opponents of the present Government and seven Liberals. The state of the Bench at present, omitting, of course, the Mayor and ex-Mayor, who are not permanent members, and the latter of whom is not on the rota, and omitting the two Conservatives who are still on the list but who do not now reside in Southport, is as follows:—Opponents of the Government, 16; supporters of the Government, 13; working-men representatives, 2. I ought to say that one of these supporters of the Government is a strong anti-Home Ruler, but he is still in the habit of co-operating with the Liberals upon some other questions, unlike, I confess, most gentlemen of that Party in this House. Therefore, if I deduct him, and reckon him as neutral, I arrive at this result:—Opponents of the Government, 1.5; supporters, 13; working-men representatives, 2. I have only to add one fact as an illustration of the accuracy of the hon. Member. He said there was no vacancy on the Bench last October when I proceeded to make appointments, but there had been a vacancy caused by death, and a Magistrate on the rota had previously just left the town. I think the House may be also willing to hear that during the six years from 1886 to 1892, when the hon. Member's friends were in Office and he was Member for the Southport Division, the appointments to the Borough Bench were as follows:— Eleven Tories, one Liberal Unionist, and only one Liberal.

Absolutely incorrect.

The hon. Member no doubt relies on the information supplied to him, and I am obliged to rely on the information supplied to me. All I can say is, that I have done my very best to obtain the fullest possible information.

Give me the names.

I ought also to add that in view of this extraordinary series of appointments during these six years, what the political character—[Cries of"Order!]

Order, order!

If you, Sir, think that my statement ought not to go further, I will not pursue the subject.

thought, as this was an important Government Bill, the House was entitled to be treated with a little more respect than to be asked to accept it without the slightest explanation. This was not the first measure that the Government had attempted to rush through the House this Session without discussion. The object of this Bill was, as he understood, to enable the Government to reduce the balance in the Treasury Chest, and a very suspicious circumstance in connection with this proceeding was that it had only occurred twice before during the last half-century. In the absence of an explanation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, hon. Members could not know what were the intentions of the Government; but he gathered that they, in looking about for a means of improving their crippled finances, had found an opportunity of adding £300,000 to their Exchequer from the Treasury Chest. That did not seem a, proper way of dealing with the finances of the country. The right hon. Gentleman had declared that they ought not to trust to borrowing; but he had set a far worse example in proposing to reduce the balance of the Treasury Chest in order to lessen his deficit.

I gave a full explanation of the Bill in my Budget speech, and I am unwilling to waste more time after the whole day has been occupied before the first Order was reached —a memorable example of the difficulties under which Business has now to be conducted. The Bill is intended to sanction a most ordinary transaction.

moved the following Resolution:—

"That, in view of the recent declaration of the Postmaster General to the effect that there are no serious financial or administrative objections to such a step, the time has come when the charge for the transmission of letters from the United Kingdom to all parts of the British Empire should be reduced to one penny per half-ounce letter."

The hon. Member said: Mr. Speaker, in rising to move the Resolution which stands in my name, I am encouraged by the thought that the subject with which it deals is one which cannot, in any sense, be said to partake of a political or Party character. It is a subject with which, I think, all interests, whether commercial, or industrial, or social, that are represented in this House, must have a certain amount of sympathy. It is now upwards of seven years since this question was last brought before the notice of the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Henniker Heaton). He has, as we all know, done more than anyone else for the cause of Postal Reform in this country, and none of us will hesitate to give the credit due to him for the energy and perseverance with which he has pursued the object he has had in view. I can assure the House no one is more sensible than myself of the disadvantage in which this question is placed by my being where he ought to be to-night. I wish cordially to acknowledge the generous way in which he has put much information at my disposal for the placing of this subject before the House. On the occasion to which I refer, seven years ago, when my hon. Friend brought this question forward, the Resolution which he proposed covered a very much larger field than that which I am going to submit to the House to-night. His Resolution proposed that the Government should enter into negotiations with the Governments of other nations, with a view of establishing an International Penny Postage system. My desire to-night, Sir, is to press a much more limited and a much less pretentious object on the Government—namely, to extend to the Empire in general the incalculable benefits of the Penny Post which we have enjoyed in this country during the last half century. We do not go so far even as to urge that the rates obtaining in the United Kingdom should in all respects be extended to the Empire at once, though we should be glad if this could be done; but we confine our demand to this one simple, advantageous reform of the penny letter rate. I do not propose to enter into the history of the movement for Imperial Penny Postage; but I may be permitted to remind the House that the principle which underlies the object we have in view is identically the same as that which actuated the promoters of the original Penny Postage scheme in this country. The principle on which they acted was this: that the practice of regulating the amount of postage by the distance each letter was conveyed, however plausible in appearance, has no foundation in practice, and consequently the rates of postage should be irrespective of distance. Well, Sir, what we desire is that that principle should be extended from the United Kingdom to the whole Empire. It was the recognition of that principle which made the Penny Post such a great success. From 82,000,000 letters, in round figures, in 1839—the year before Sir Rowland Hill's reform was introduced—the number rose in the very first year of the Penny Post to over 169,000,000, or from the rate of three letters per inhabitant it was increased to over six. To-day, when the population has increased by very little more than one-third, there are no fewer than 1,800,000,000 letters conveyed by the post annually throughout the country, which is at the rate of over 46 letters per inhabitant in these Islands. Well, Sir, I do not doubt that there are many people in this country, and especially hon. Members of this House, who would not be sorry if there were not so many facilities for postal communication; but what we have to consider is not our own personal convenience, but the convenience of the community in general— the advantages to trade, the advantages to commerce, and the advantages to those thousands who go out from amongst us every year. If we carry this reform we ought to feel we are mitigating at least one of the drawbacks to emigration, and are doing something, at any rate, to bridge over the distance which divides those who have gone from this country from their friends, their relations, and their homes. It may be said that postage is cheap enough already. That may be true with regard to a very large number of people—the present rate cannot in any sense be regarded as prohibitive to those who are well-to-do—but, Sir, with the great mass of commercial correspondence in this country, I venture to say that cheapness is a greater object than rapidity or even the security of transit itself. The right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General may ask that we should put before him some real evidence that there is a desire for this reform. Well, in the first place, I could bring before him quotations from the entire Press of the country, Metropolitan and Provincial, and the Colonial Press as well. I have had in the last few days a large number of cuttings sent to me, and I cannot find a single one that is opposed to this reform. I will not venture to weary the House by reading more than one extract, and that shall be from a newspaper which, I am sure, hon. Members opposite will agree with in sentiment; it is The Star. On this question it says—

"The arguments for resistance to the establishment of the Penny Postage are weakening and diminishing; they were now only heard advanced in a half-hearted fashion, and it was known that the flood of public feeling on this subject could not be held back."

This statement of opinion from a newspaper is by no means the strongest that I have received. But it is from a newspaper which, I believe, appeals to the masses of the people, and may fairly be taken to represent their views on this question. The Chambers of Commerce have passed resolutions in favour of this reform, but the reading of these I will leave to the hon. Member for South Islington (Sir A. Rollit), who represents the Chambers of Commerce interest in this House. In the Colonies the Chambers of Commerce have also passed resolutions in favour of Imperial Penny Postage. I will read one to this House which I have received from the Office of the Board of Trade at Montreal. It is—

"That the Council of this Board be hereby instructed to urge on the Government and Parliament, by Petition or otherwise, the cheapening of the Imperial Postage."

Many other such resolutions have reached me. Last year, at the Congress of the Chambers of Commerce of the Empire, a strongly-worded resolution was unanimously carried in favour of Imperial Penny Postage. This, Sir, is no new proposal. It dates hack to the days of the original introduction of the Penny Postage into this country, when there were some people who advocated the extension of it, even in those days, to the Empire in general. It was discussed at the Colonial Conference held here in 1887, and I am aware not very favourably; but then, I am sorry to say, the Representatives who came over were some of them Chancellors of the Exchequer, and Chancellors of the Exchequer, even in the Colonies, though they have large responsibilities, have not large hearts. Again, this question came up for discussion in 1890, at the time of the Jubilee, and there were many people in this country who thought that the Government of that day had lost a grand opportunity of celebrating the Postal Jubilee by not extending the advantage of the Penny Postage to the Empire in general. Lastly, Sir, early in this year a deputation waited upon the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General from the Imperial Federation League, and elicited from him those remarks which are the basis of the Resolution which I submit to the House to-night. I venture to refer to one or two extracts from the speech which he made on that occasion from the report in The Times, in which paper the right hon. Gentleman was reported fully. I do this because I have been told that in the original form in which I put down the Resolution I had misrepresented what the right hon. Gentleman said. I do not think that I did overstate the case; but at any rate, in the form in which the Resolution stands, the right hon. Gentleman cannot, I think, take exception to it. After some preliminary remarks, the right hon. Gentleman said—

"I am not in any sense hostile to the proposal of a change of this kind."

I do not deny that the right hon. Gentleman warned the deputation that there were difficulties in the way; but what we say is that he expressly stated that those difficulties were not financial difficulties nor administrative, but of another character, which he proceeded to explain, and which I shall presently have to remark upon, He said—

"There are difficulties of finance and administration and other difficulties. I do not intend to say a word on the question of the financial difficulties. I admit that they are not serious. The administrative difficulties are considerable, but these are in no sense insuperable. I do not believe for one moment that these difficulties would be insuperable."

Well, then, Sir, he passed on to other difficulties which he did think serious, and which I shall refer to later on; but first I should like to say a word with regard to the financial and administrative difficulties which the Postmaster General admitted were not serious or insuperable in themselves, but in the minds of some hon. Members they constituted a bar to this reform. We do not deny that, in all probability, the introduction of this reform would result in a loss at first. It is difficult to say precisely what the loss would be. The right hon. Gentleman refused to accept the figures of his Predecessor (the late Mr. Raikes) in this matter. Mr. Raikes was questioned, only two years ago, on this subject,. and he explicitly stated that he estimated the loss by reducing the postage to the Empire in general to one penny at £75,000 a year. Even if the right hon. Gentleman does not accept these figures, if we put it at £80,000 or £100,000, we say that the advantage of the reform would far outweigh the cost. But hon. Members may ask why we should tax ourselves even to this small amount in order to benefit the Colonies? Our answer is, first of all, that it is not entirely for the benefit of the Colonies we should do this, but partly for our own advantage; and, secondly, we do not admit that it is necessary to find this extra money by taxation. I believe that there are other ways in which this money could be found without adding to the taxation of the country. The Post Office already saves us £3,000,000 a year of taxation. [Sir W. HARCOURT dissented.] The Chancellor of the Exchequer shakes his head, but the not revenue made out of the Post Office last year was £3,047,000. I am not one of those who contend the Post Office should not be a source of revenue to the country, but what I do contend is that the Post Office exists primarily as a source of convenience for the community in general, and that until the demands of the convenience of the community in general have been satisfied the Post Office has no right to hand over an extravagant surplus like this to the country. I am aware that this surplus has been diminishing of late years, but that is owing to increase of expenditure, and the increased expenditure is owing to charges being debited as expenditure that would not be so debited in any other Department in this country or in any other undertaking in the world. Upon this subject I should like to read a quotation from an authority which I am sure the House will receive with the respect and attention it deserves. It is some remarks which fell from Sir Arthur Blackwood, the head of the Post Office, at the Jubilee dinner in 1890. He said—

"I confess I should like to see the Post Office which is the greatest commercial department in the country, administered on something like commercial principles, and a portion, at least, of its large annual profit (which in reality is larger than it seems, owing to the system which charges capital expenditure against income) utilised for developing and extending its work for the general benefit of the public."

It is natural that the expenditure of the Post Office should increase if the cost of buildings—as, for instance, the new Post Office at Liverpool, which cost something like £600,000—is charged on the annual expenditure of the Post Office, and still more do we object to the whole amount of the subsidies which are paid for the conveyance of mails to the Steamship Companies being charged to the Post Office. Everybody knows that these subsidies are not paid entirely for the conveyance of mails, but are paid for the maintenance of the large steamers, and the possibility of wanting them in time of war as auxiliary troopships, while in some cases the subsidies are paid for carrying immigrants at exceptionally low rates, and our contention is that these subsidies are too high already, and especially the sum which is paid annually to France and Italy for the transit of mails across these countries. Well, Sir, with regard to the administrative difficulties I shall say very little. It is difficult to see what administrative difficulties there may be in the way of carrying out this reform. It may be that in Australia they may find some difficulties there; but that is a question with which we have nothing to do. According to the terms of the Postal Union, the Australians are obliged to deliver letters free that arrive on their shores: therefore, so far as the administrative difficulties in this country go, they must be very small indeed. I pass now from difficulties which the Postmaster General did not think were serious to those which he did think were serious; and amongst the latter was, oddly enough, the ardent desire of the Post Office, which seems to me to amount almost to a craze, for uniformity. He said—and to a certain extent I am ready to agree with him— that in carrying out a change of this sort we should try to carry the Colonies along with us. I admit it would be a very great thing if we could do that, but is there anything very shocking in 40,000,000 of people sending their own letters in their own ships to their own Colonies at their own price? and are they to be prevented from doing this simply because the Colonies do not seem to be able themselves to send their letters back to us as the same price? To borrow an illustration from a letter which my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury-wrote to the papers the other day, what is to stop me from visiting my friends and travelling third class if I am not well enough off to travel first class, though they may be rich enough to come and visit me first class? Then the Post Office say this reform would lead to greater anomalies than exist at present, and a letter, for instance, to Calais, which is only 20 miles from our shores, would cost 2½d., while a letter to Hong Kong, which is thousands of miles away, would cost only 1d. That may be so, but the Resolution I submit to the House to-night is that because Hong Kong and other distant parts are portions of our Empire, therefore they ought to be part and parcel of the same postal system, and that they should have the advantage in belonging to this great Empire. We should not be departing from uniformity, because at present there are anomalies in plenty to keep this one, if it would be an anomaly, company. For instance, at the present moment the Australians charge double for sending a one ounce newspaper to this country to what we charge for sending to them. I can quote anomalies equally great to show that the uniformity which exists in the Post Office at the present is not so great that we should hesitate to break it. Why should the Colonies object to our charging our services with this slight extra expense? On the contrary, I believe that the colonies would not only welcome our liberality, but would reciprocate, and that in a very short time. I come now to the last, and what I believe the right hon. Gentleman called the most serious of these difficulties—namely, the terms of the Postal Union. To make perfectly clear to the House what the right hon. Gentleman puts forward, I must state that he says the terms of the Postal Union place two objections in the way of this reform—firstly, that the rate was fixed at 2½d., therefore our hands are tied with regard to reducing it; secondly, that the Australian Colonies, who obstinately stood out in years past from joining the Postal Union, only joined on the understanding that the rate was not to be below 2½d. Those, I take it, are the two main objections which the right hon. Gentleman says stand in the way so far as the Postal Union is concerned. It is quite true that the Postal Union fixed the rate of postage throughout the Union at 2½d.; but it expressly reserved the right to any two countries in the Union to make what terms they liked for their own convenience for postage from one to the other. Now, I shall be obliged to read to the House the Article in the Postal Convention to which I have referred. Article 3 says that—

"The postal administration of neighbouring countries able to correspond directly with each other without availing themselves of the services of a third administration determine by common consent the conditions of the conveyance of the mails which they exchange acoss the frontier from one frontier to another."

But even more explicit than that is paragraph 2 of Article 21, which says that—

"The Convention does not restrict the right of the contracting parties to maintain and conclude Treaties, as well as to maintain and establish more restrictive Unions with a view to the improvement of postal relations."

Well, Sir, that is as plain as anything can be, and that was the intention of the Government. At the time the Convention was sitting on the 23rd June, 1891, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Thanet (Mr. James Lowther) asked the Postmaster General whether the Government would insist upon the reservation to this country of perfect freedom to make such arrangements as might from time to time be found expedient with regard to charges for postal communication within the limits of the British Empire, and the Postmaster General promised that care would be taken that the matter should not be lost sight of. And on July 17, 1891, the Government said they would insist on the reservation of perfect freedom within the limits of the Empire with regard to important particulars. Why should he not make an arrangement that would be satisfactory? Germany and Austria, Spain and Portugal, and the United States and Canada have made separate International Agreements with regard to postage. Under the arrangement between the United States and Canada the postal charges for a letter sent from Canada to the United States is 2½d., whereas the postal rate for letters sent from the United States to Canada is only 1d. Therefore, under the Postal Convention, a separate Treaty has been made between Canada and the United States, under which the former is allowed to charge double the rate which the United States charge. That seemes to me to establish the fact that there is nothing to prevent that country from entering into any arrangement she chooses with her own Colonies on the subject. With regard to the stipulation made to the Australian Colonies, and upon which the right hon. Gentleman laid great stress, that does not apply to the extension of Imperial penny postage. What the Australian Colonies stipulated for was that they should not be obliged to reduce their rate below 2½d. They did not object, why should they? to the reduction of our rate to them. The Australian Colonies not only stipulated that the rate should not be reduced below 2½d., but they actually stipulated that they should be allowed to reduce the rate as between themselves. After all England and Australia are just as much a part of the British Empire as Canada, but the stipulation made by Australia does not touch the rest of the Colonies. Australia and Canada do not constitute the whole Empire. There is nothing that stops us if it is expedient from having a penny post to other parts. We may send our letters to the West Indies, to South Africa, and to the East Indian Colonies at the penny rate without interfering with the terms of the Postal Union. This was a question on which the late Government consulted the Law Officers of the Crown, and their reply was exactly in the terms I have laid before the House. I hope that I have shown that the difficulties in the way of carrying out my proposal are small, if not, indeed, infinitesimal, as compared with the advantages that it will confer upon the Empire, and also that the change I suggest shall be made in the postal rate can be effected without the addition of a single penny to the taxation of the country. Under these circumstances I feel that we may urgently press the Government to allow the House to express its opinion on this question, and that even if they cannot see their way to carry out this reform at once they will, at any rate, show by their action tonight that they are willing to strengthen the hands of our representatives at the next Postal Convention in order that they may advocate this change before the representatives of the Colonies, and the other countries in the Convention. I feel there is much to be said by those who will follow me and who will speak with much greater authority and greater experience of this subject than I can, but I feel I may not look in vain for support to the different parts of the House. I know that on this side of the House the majority of the Members are in favour of this change, and I am sure I can look with confidence for support to hon. Members from Scotland, whose fellow-countrymen we know form some of the best Colonists in all parts of the Empire. I think I can appeal with even greater confidence to hon. Members from Ireland below the Gangway, who so often remind us that of the 15,000,000 of their fellow-countrymen a large number are scattered over parts of the British Empire, and I would earnestly ask them whether they will not support this Resolution, which will certainly benefit them to a very large degree. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary on a much less cosmopolitan and on a much more controversial subject than this intimated to his supporters that they might vote according to their convictions, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will allow his supporters to-night to vote according to their convictions. I do not think in the mind of any hon. Member there can be any honest doubt as to the desirability and the real merits of the matter. We feel that whatever the difficulties, whatever the risks, whatever the cost, we may look forward in the near future with confidence to the time when all British subjects will enjoy those advantages of communicating with one another as cheaply and as easily as we have been permitted to do in this Island during the last half-century. I beg to move the Resolution which stands in my name.

said, he was almost ashamed, in seconding the Motion, to repeat the crambe repetita of argument which had been so often hashed up, not only in the House, but in the innumerable controversies outside. He thought that the arguments were unanswered and unanswerable, and the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. J. Henniker Heaton), who had taken such a prominent part in this controversy, would one day have his reward by seeing his name associated with Ocean Penny Postage, as Rowland Hill's was in connection with Inland Penny Postage. He did not know whether the statement that had appeared in a leading London newspaper, that Her Majesty's Government had decided to make this much-desired Postal Reform a part of the work of the Session, was well founded; but he might remind the House that the present Government was nothing unless it was a Government of reform. He and others hoped it was also one that made for Imperial consolidation. Her Majesty's Government had got a chance of effecting a reform that would meet with universal acceptance, both in this country and in our Colonies, and they would show themselves in an unfortunate light if they allowed this happy opportunity to slip away. He was aware that the Post Office was rather unbelieving in spirit and obstinate in tradition, averse from adopting innovations unless adequate pressure was brought to bear upon the Department. Rowland Hill's proposal had been denounced as "utterly preposterous, unsupported by facts, and resting entirely on assumptions. "The mind of the Post Office moved strangely and quickly. For years the fivepenny rate to the East Indies and the sixpenny to Australia were spoken of as too sacred to touch. In a moment they disappeared, never to return, and no complaint was made. He was also aware that the Treasury closely watched any proposal that was likely to diminish the increasing Revenue that was derived from the Post Office.

Hear, hear!

said quite so; the right hon. Gentleman agreed with him in that view. But he might remind the right hon. Gentleman that he already derived more than £3,000,000 of Surplus Revenue from that source, and that that was the result of the turnover of a large and increasing trade. He believed that the Postmaster General himself would be only too glad if the Resolution were carried, so that he might go to the Exchequer and urge upon them that he was bound hand and foot to carry out the decision of the House, if not immediately, at some not far distant future. In the same way the War Office in the last Parliament had to carry out the Resolution about the equipment of the Volunteers. If the proposed Postal Reform were carried into effect, the House would never hear the Department grumble about the expense it entailed. He entirely agreed with Sir Arthur Blackwood, Secretary of the Post Office, when he said that—

"Nothing could be worse for the Department, and consequently for the public, than for the former to consider on the be-all and end-all of the Post Office Service the extraction of a large Revenue from the country."

The truth was that the Post Office was looked upon as the "benevolent uncle" of the State play, and expected to find money for profligate expenditure of the spending Departments— particularly for the Admiralty. A great deal of the expenditure of the Admiralty appeared in the Post Office Accounts, and was classed as Post Office expenditure. The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that the expenditure exceeded the estimate 1892–3 by £611,000, but out of that sum £483,000 was spent on an increase in the salaries of the staff of officials. In every Department of the State there was a large rise in expenditure; but that was due to the spirit of the age, because labour was every year getting a larger share. Thus, postmen were getting better pay, but the surplus of the Post Office still continued, and it was no reason against Postal Reform. Every prediction which the spokesman of the Post Office made in 1886, and upon which he based his opposition, had been falsified. He said—"Look at the immense loss upon the ocean postage and the loss by the Packet Service." The loss was estimated then at £425,000; now, in spite of the 2½d. rate, it was £407,000. There had been a great saving on the Packet Service of late years. In 1887 there was a saving of £20,000, in 1889 of £6,000, and in 1891 of £7,000. There had been a saving on the Indian and Chinese Service, and a small one on the West Indian. The only large loss incurred was on the Australian. He would call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to this consideration— that, though the Post Office was a great national business, it was conducted, so far as its accounts were concerned, as no other business was conducted. The cost of all the permanent buildings was set down as part of the annual expenditure, and that made it appear to be larger. That was a safe way to carry on business, and he did not object to it. He wished to call attention to the fact that the most onerous covenants were inserted in every contract for the Packet Service, and those covenants had nothing to do with postal business—they were dictated by political rather than commercial considerations. The mails, for instance, to the West Indies, with which they had a comparatively trivial correspondence, were paid for not merely for postal, but for general purposes. All this might be justified by political considerations, but it could not be justified on a commercial basis. The subsidies given served a great purpose; they helped to keep up the Mercantile Marine, which served as a nursery and reserve for the Royal Navy. But money spent for that purpose ought not to be set down as part of the postal expenditure. The Treasury, in approving of a proposal of this kind on July 18, 1889, said in their Minute that they were approving of a contract with the Canadian Pacific Railway for the conveyance of "Her Majesty's mails, troops, and stores" between Halifax or Quebec and Hong Kong, and "for the hire and purchase of vessels as cruisers or transports"—that the scheme was "not justifiable upon postal reasons alone" what would justify it being its great political and strategical value. In the Post Office Mail Contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Company there was, he found, a claim empowering the Admiralty, if it should consider it necessary for the public interest, at any time during the continuance of the Contract, to purchase or charter any or all of the vessels employed under it, the Company still remaining bound to perform the Postal Service by means of such other vessels as it might have or could get. Another clause enabled the Postmaster General, on account of "political circumstances," to alter the route and places of call to meet the exigencies of war or disturbances. The Company was also under the obligation, to the detriment of its own passenger accommodation, to carry naval and military officers, with their wives, and children, and baggage, upon the requisition of the Postmaster General in accordance with the terms of the Contract. In other instances the owners had undertaken to construct or alter their vessels in accordance with plans laid down for them by the Admiralty, especially to adapt them for use on armed cruisers in time of war. A Select Committee appointed in 1863 said—

"The claim that the Post (Mice should be charged with the whole expenditure of the packet or ocean service may be considered as barred by the important fact that few of the mail packets were established either by the Post Office or for merely postal purposes,"

And it was recommended that a fail-proportion of the expense should be charged to the Admiralty, and that the Post Office should be charged with the actual transmission of mails. These things ought to be taken into account in counting up the cost of such a proposal as was made now. He would leave it to the hon. Member for Canterbury to demonstrate to the House what saving would be effected if payment on a weight basis were adopted in lieu of fixed payments and if the Admiralty were accountable for the services rendered to it. The Times newspaper, weighing 4 oz. went to Australia for 1d.; and in every mail bag 90 per cent. of the contents were other than letters, and if the argument for special arrangements applied to letters, would it not apply equally to newspapers and packages? There were already special arrangements for some classes. Every schoolmistress, every sailor, and every official could post a letter from one part, of the Empire to another for 1d. Why should that privilege be confined to those classes? He did not see why a schoolmistress should be specially privileged to the exclusion of other classes of our Colonists. If the suggestion of his hon. Friend were not adopted, some difference might, at least, be made between the overland and long sea routes. Every day steamers were increasing in speed, and it might be possible to have special rates overland to Brindisi and have a 1d. rate for the long ocean route. A favourite argument of a former Postmaster General, the late Mr. Raikes, was that, while the internal 1d. post had an area of productiveness, the ocean post had no such productive area. It was remarkable that since the Debate of 1886 the increase in the internal post bad been only 3 per cent., while that of the ocean post had been 10 per cent., showing that the ocean post had an area of productiveness. He found from the Post Office Report that last year, 1891–2, there was an increase in Colonial parcels of 10 per cent., and of money from 1,400,000 to 1,450,000, and with regard to the Cape, which showed the largest augmentation, there was no less than 10 per cent. increase. Our Consul at Calais stated in his Report for 1892 that 1,604 Indian mail bags had been landed at Calais in one day, making a total of 61,802 bags for the year, the largest on record.

"Many still remember," he wrote, "when the overland mail for India consisted of some 28 small boxes which, when landed from the packet, could be pushed by one man in a small cart."

The hon. Member for Brighton had dealt with the argument that by this reform we should be interfering with the arrangements of the last Postal Union; but he was bound to say that if the Postmaster General should state that we had tied our hands by any arrangements until the next Postal Congress, very great discredit would rest on the officials of the Post Office. For years together pressure was brought to bear on the Australian Colonies to enter the Postal Union. They at last did so, and he hoped they had not been forced to make the declaration that they would not accept any change of the general rate until the next Postal Congress had assembled. The Postmaster General had tried to make out that the Colonies wore against the Imperial Penny Postage. If they were, they were officially and not really against the movement. But Australia was not the whole of the Empire. There were other Colonies to which the conditions of the Postal Union did not apply; and if a start was to be made, the experiment could be tried in those other Colonies if circumstances prevented it being tried in Australia. The Colonies would certainly not object to the reform. He believed they were in favour of it. The Postmaster General told a deputation that Australia objected to the experiment. Certain of the official classes might object, but the Colonists generally did not. Australia objected to the postal reduction to 2½d., but gladly accepted it when it was given. The objections came only from crusted officials in the Colonies, who did not express the opinion of the people. The Colonial Press was unanimously in favour of the change, and to the same effect he might quote the opinion of those Members of the House who had the largest experience and knowledge of the Colonies, such as the hon. Member for Longford, who had been Prime Minister of Canada, and other Irish Members who had lived for years in Australia. The Government had failed to make out their case that the Colonies were against the change. Let them make the change, and they would find that it would be cordially accepted by the Colonies. As to the opinion of Ministers themselves on the subject, the first Commissioner of Works had spoken enthusiastically in favour of the change in 1886. Surely they had not changed their minds since then? His right hon. Friend the Member for the Forest of Dean (Sir Charles Dilke) had stated in The Problems of Greater Britain—a book which certainly was not of a Jingo character, and did not support far-fetched and extravagant claims—that England in her postal communication with the Colonies was far behind every other country in Europe; and that the Colonies with one accord, whether they approved of Federation or not, wanted to see a change for the better in this respect. Indeed, he could not imagine any hon. Member not seeing the immense public benefit which would arise from the adoption of this reform. It was really a reform for the benefit of the working classes of the Empire, for it would bring them, so to speak, within hearing distance of each other. The change might not be so important now to the commercial classes with the existing rate; but cheap and easy means of communication were of inestimable benefit and advantage to the labouring classes. Everyone who had been in the Colonies knew what the arrival of a mail from home meant, and what pleasure it gave, and the easier, the cheaper, and the more frequent communication was made between friends and relatives at home and abroad the more happiness was woven into their lives. He had heard a gentleman who was a Member of this House tell an interesting and significant story. The hon. Member was in a country village, and, seeing an old woman leaving the post office with an unstamped letter in her hand, ascertained it was from her son in Australia and that she was not able to afford the 6d. postage. The hon. Member paid the postage, and the next time he was in the village the postmaster informed him that the reply brought £5 for the old woman, which contributed considerably to the comforts of her home. That story illustrated one side of the advantages of a cheap postal rate throughout the Empire. There were many who desired to see the Empire treated as a Postal Unit, into which the other great English-speaking Empire of the world, the United States of America, would sooner or later enter; and he hoped that official or departmental sluggishness would not be allowed to prevent our taking advantage of a real opportunity thus afforded for consolidating our Imperial system. The least vulnerable armour was made up of the smallest links. Imperial Penny Postage would be a small link, but it would be a strong one. He hoped the House would emphatically record its opinion in favour of the reform, so that as soon as possible the Postmaster General might be able to do something to piece together what was a most important and valuable part of our Imperial organisation, for he held that the means of communication were not one bit less important to the Empire than the means of defence. He had great pleasure in seconding the Motion.

I rise early in the Debate for two reasons —in the first place, because of an alleged declaration said to have been made by me to a deputation of the Imperial Federation League, which forms the basis of the Motion my hon. Friend opposite has moved: and, secondly, because it is well the House should be put in possession of the real facts of the ease before recording their votes upon the question, which everyone will admit is an interesting and important one. I am dealing now with the personal aspect of the Motion as it affects myself. It states that I said to the deputation of the Imperial Federation League that there were no serious or financial objections to the adoption of Imperial Penny Postage. I adhere to every word I said upon that occasion, but perhaps some explanation is necessary in order to convey to the House exactly what I meant. The argument had been used by a member of the deputation that the reduction of the Colonial and Indian postage from 2½d. to 1d. would result in a loss to the Revenue of £75,000. Dealing only with that statement, I said I could not admit the accuracy of the figure, but that, as far as that amount was concerned, I did not consider that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if on other grounds he was satisfied the reform was justifiable, would consider it a serious difficulty in meeting a general demand, both on the part of this country and the Colonies, if such demand existed and he had a surplus at his disposal. With regard to the question of administrative difficulty, I need not go further than what I said to the deputation. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester (Mr. Lawson) has suggested as an alternative to the Motion before the House, which is for establishing an Imperial Penny Postage, what is known as an Ocean Penny Postage. I have only to say that, as far as Imperial Penny Postage is concerned, there is no administrative difficulty in the way, for all it would mean is the reduction of the 2½d. rate to a 1d. rate; but Ocean Penny Postage, the alternative idea thrown out by my hon. Friend, would mean serious administrative difficulty.

I only put it forward as a future ideal, but I spoke in favour of Imperial Penny Postage.

Well, I am only dealing with it as an alternative suggestion—not as one suggested by my hon. Friend in preference to Imperial Penny Postage. But the Ocean Penny Postage would mean serious administrative difficulties. I do not say it would mean difficulties insuperable to the officials of the Post Office. They could, no doubt, overcome them. But it would mean new contracts, which form the heaviest item in the Postal Service; and, at the same time, it would be a system which would be wholly inadequate to meet the legitimate desire of the public in this country. What the public desire is, first, regularity; and, secondly, rapidity; and a system of Ocean Penny Postage by which letters would go from the United Kingdom to the Colonies by sea, and therefore in many cases by much longer routes, would not meet the demands of the public. I have come to the conclusion that whenever the time conies—and I do not say it will not come before long—for instituting a Penny Postage to the Colonies and India it would not be by an Ocean Penny Postage, but by the routes which now exist, which are the shortest and most rapid routes connecting the United Kingdom with the various branches of the Empire. The Ocean Penny Postage is not one to meet the demands of the public. In 1888, the Government of that day introduced an alternative route to the Australian Colonies by sea, for which the charge was 4d. instead of 6d. The mails, of course, took a much longer time in delivery, and, therefore, the alternative route was made very little use of, and certainly did not justify the experiment.

Has the right hon. Gentleman statistics bearing out that statement?

I am unable to give the figures, but I believe it is beyond dispute that the public made use of it only to a very small extent, and certainly not to the extent which had been hoped for. I mentioned that we should have new Packet Contracts if an Ocean Penny Postage were established. I should like to quote some figures as to the loss on these Packet Contracts. On the new Packet Contracts, in 1889–90 there was an estimated loss of £281,200; in 1890–1, the year before the 2½d. rate was established, the loss increased to £299,200; and in 1891–2, the year after the reduction to 2½d., it was £414,460. I have come to the conclusion, then, that an ocean system of Penny Postage is not one which would meet with general approval. Under the old rates of 4d. and 6d. the Colonial and Indian mails resulted in a substantial loss to the Post Office. The Colonial and Indian mails form a large proportion of the charge for the Packet Service, and I do not think it unfair to say that a very large proportion of the figures which I mentioned represent the loss upon the Colonial and Indian Service under the old rates. In 1891, the postage on Indian letters was reduced to 2½d. On April 17, 1890, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget speech, stated that this reduction would entail a loss in a complete year of £105,000 in addition to the loss already incurred under the old rates. Mr. Raikes, the Postmaster General in the same year, on the 8th May stated that still a further loss, in addition to the loss of £105,000 due to the reduction to 2½d., which was an addition to the loss incurred under the old rate, would be £75,000, if the rate were still further reduced to 1d. An estimate which I have made lately shows that the loss, if the postage were reduced to 1d. would be somewhere between £90,000 and £100,000 a year; in addition to the £105,000 which was the result of the reduction to 2½d., which was itself—as I have shown—an additional loss on the substantial loss incurred under the old rate. It is said that the loss would be compensated for by the increase that would take place in the correspondence. That is not the experience of past reductions, and there is no reason why it should be the result in this case. I ask the House to remember that, so far as Colonial letters are concerned, the Post Office has to deal with four services—the Inland Service, the Channel Service, the Foreign Land Transit Service, and the Sea Transit Service—before the mails reach their destination. It must also be remembered that the return letter from the Colonies to be delivered in the United Kingdom has to be dealt with by the Post Office—that is to say, there is also the inland service upon the return letter for which the Post Office receives no re-numeration. A very carefully considered estimate of the cost of the inland service on an out-going letter shows that it is something over ½d. It is difficult to arrive at an actual fractional estimate of the cost, but it is certainly over ½d. But then there is a similar charge of ½d. upon the incoming letter, and for the service performed on the incoming letter nothing is received by the Post Office. Therefore, on the outgoing letter and the return letter, the Post Office incurs a charge of over 1d. for inland service alone. Under these circumstances, I think it will be difficult for my hon. Friend opposite to prove that an increase in the correspondence would recoup the Post Office for the reduction to a penny rate.

I did not say that I expected the increase in the correspondence would pay. On the contrary, I said there would be a loss.

I am sorry I put an argument into my hon. Friend's mouth which he did not use. But it is an argument I have often seen, and I think the hon. Member for Canterbury has used it over and over again. The statement I have made shows that the greater the correspondence, the greater would be the loss to the Post Office. Now I come to the real difficulty of dealing with this question at the present time. It arises out of the Postal Congress at Vienna in 1891. There was a time when the Postmaster General had control over Colonial internal postal arrangements. That lasted up to the time when Legislative Assemblies were granted to the Colonies, and when they were allowed to make their own arrangements for their internal postal accommodation. An Act was passed in 1849 by which all the rights and privileges of the Postmaster General in this connection, except as to the internal arrangements in the Colonies, were referred to the Home Government; but from that time the Postmaster General practically ceased altogether to have any interference with the arrangements for sending the mails from the Colonies to the United Kingdom. In 1874 a new phase was entered upon, when the universal Postal Union was established. The Postal Union was recognised by Act of Parliament in 1875, and in 1876 British India and in 1878 Canada became members. Both these portions of the Empire were recognised as independent members of the Union, and were given all the rights and privileges of independent members. In 1890 the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown was taken as to the power of the Home Government to alter the rates of postage to the Colonies, whether members of the Postal Union or not; and they, instead of the opinion which my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton has stated, gave the most definite and distinct opinion that the Home Government had no right whatever to alter the rates of postage to Colonies during the continuance of the Convention and until the next Postal Congress was held.

I only quoted the opinion of the Law Officers with regard to those Colonies which were not members of the Postal Union.

That is quite true. All the important Colonies are within the Postal Union. India is a member of the Postal Union, and Australasia and Canada, and we hope to get very shortly the others. But the opinion of the Law Officers at that time was clear and distinct with regard to those Colonies that were members of the Postal Union, and it was that the Government had no right to lower the rate of postage either with or without their consent. The position of affairs wholly changed after the meeting of the Congress in 1891. At that time the Australasian Colonies had resisted the pressure that had been brought to bear upon them to join the Postal Union. As the Members of the late Government know perfectly well, and as the late Postmaster General knows, they resisted the desire that had been expressed that they should join the Postal Union; but in 1891 they agreed, after considerable difficulty and hesitation, to join the Union upon certain express and definite conditions. Those conditions were agreed to by the Congress, as I have explained to the House. I am now quoting from the officical record of the Postal Congress of 1891, which appointed a Sub-Committee to consider the question as to the terms upon which the Australasian Colonies should be allowed to enter the Postal Union. The Report of the Sub-Committee was to the effect that the representatives of the Australasian Colonies, acting on their instructions, did not think they ought longer to resist the general wish, and consequently they were about to apply to their Governments for authority; but they asked, however, to be guaranteed in the first place against an immediate modification, not only of the sea transit rates, but of the postal rate of 25 centimes, which was the rate settled by the Postal Union. The whole Congress embodied in its official record of the proceedings a paragraph which explained the conditions of the Australasian Colonies—namely, that the postal rates for letters should not be modified, but that the Australasian Colonies should have the right to maintain or establish between themselves postal tariff's lower than those of the Union. Now, I understand my, hon. Friend to say that means they were not to have imposed upon them lower rates than 2½d.; but there was nothing whatever in that declaration that bears that out; the declaration was clear and distinct, that they would join the Postal Union if they were guaranteed against a reduction, not only upon the rates of letters to England, but of letters from England to the Colonies, and a general guarantee that the rate of 2½d. should not be reduced until the next Postal Convention.

Will the right hon. Gentleman read the words?