I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been drawn to the Special Report of the English Land Restoration League, 1893, entitled, Among the Agricultural Labourers with the Red Vans, in which it is stated that the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Woods and Forests are the principal landowners and Lords of the Manor of Bishops Cannings, Wilts; that they let out the land, as other Wiltshire landlords do, in large holdings; and that they let the cottages with the land, instead of retaining them in their own control and allowing the labourers to hold their cottages from and pay rent to the Crown; whether he is aware that, in his Report upon the agricultural labourers of Wiltshire, furnished to the Labour Commission, the Assistant Commissioner expresses the opinion that it is desirable, in the interests of labourers, that farmers should not have many cottages at their command; and that practically the same opinion has been expressed by the other Assistant Commissioners; and whether he will undertake that on the Crown Estates only such cottages shall be let with the farms as are absolutely necessary for their requirements, and that in the case of cottages so let the Crown shall, as is done on Lord Bristol's Estate in Suffolk ( vide Report of Mr. Wilson Fox, A.C, page 18), reserve the right of taking possession of them by giving one mouth's notice in order to prevent any possible improper conduct on the part of the farm tenant towards the cottage tenant?

I have not seen the papers referred to, but I should explain that it is the usual practice on the Crown Agricultural Estates to let with a farm such cottages only as are reasonably needed for the labourers required for the proper working of the farm. That being the case, it is not considered expedient to reserve power to resume possession of such cottages, and such a condition might seriously prejudice the letting of a farm. There is no desire, subject to supplying the wants of a farm, to prevent labourers from taking their cottages direct.

May I ask whether, in reference to these Crown Lands, the right hon. Gentleman will take the first opportunity of providing as far as possible the means for the cottage tenants to obtain plots of land at a reasonable rent?

I am unable to say what powers the Commissioners have to provide holdings for their cottagers, but I will inquire into the matter and inform the hon. Member at an early date.

^* : Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Report of the Assistant Commissioner for the Counties of Norfolk and Suffolk states that on Lord Leicester's Estate 1,000 cottages are held by the occupiers direct from the landlord? And is he aware that the same is the case on the Lytham estate in Lancashire?

That may be so; and I repeat we have no desire, subject to supplying the wants of a farm, to prevent labourers from taking their cottages direct.

I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether Mr. Charles H. Urquhart, the newly-appointed Sheriff Substitute for Sutherlandshire, has a knowledge of Gaelic?

^* : Mr. Urquhart was appointed by the Sheriff an Honorary Sheriff Substitute, to act only during the absence of the Sheriff Substitute. He has not a knowledge of Gaelic.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he will state when the additional cruiser for the Scottish Fishery Board, referred to in the Estimates, will be ready; and whether her speed will be greater than, or at least equal to, that of the fastest steam trawlers?

The Fishery Board is actively engaged in procuring a steam vessel for the protection of the fisheries on the West Coast. I will inform the hon. Member as soon as the arrangements are completed. The Fishery Board and its professional adviser will satisfy themselves as to a sufficient rate of speed.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the extremely unsanitary state of Ruabon parish, caused by the delay in dealing with the disposal of the sewage of the district, and to the danger to the health and lives of the inhabitants caused thereby; and whether he will take immediate steps to remedy this condition of things?

The Local Government Board are aware of the urgent need of a system of sewerage for Ruabon. The Rural Sanitary Authority submitted a scheme, but when the inquiry was held with regard to it by one of the Board's Inspectors considerable objection was offered to the proposal of the Sanitary Authority on the ground of the cost which it would entail. Two alternative schemes have since been considered by the authority, and at their request one of the Inspectors of the Board again visited the district last month. The Board have informed the authority that it appears to them that the scheme originally proposed should be adopted, at the same time suggesting some modifications with a view of diminishing the cost. The Board have no doubt that the Sanitary Authority will come to an early decision in the matter.

,I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether there are not only single houses but groups of houses at which the Post Office decline to deliver letters; and, if so, whether he will endeavour to provide that there be at least an occasional delivery for every inhabited house in the United Kingdom?

The hon. Member's statement is quite correct; but the houses which do not enjoy an official delivery of letters are becoming fewer every day, owing to the constant attention which is being given by my Department to the extension of deliveries in rural districts. An arrangement for affording even an occasional delivery at every inhabited house in the United Kingdom, however inaccessible, would, I fear, entail a very heavy outlay and a large addition to the staff, such as I should not feel justified in sanctioning; but if the hon. Member has in his mind any particular house or group of houses that is now excluded from delivery and will let me know particulars, I shall be happy to consider whether the desired accommodation can be afforded.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty why officers in the Navy are not permitted on their resignation, involving the loss of retired pay and widows' pension, to retain their rank and wear their uniforms the same as officers in the Army who resign in similar circumstances; and whether, as the removal of this grievance would cost nothing while it would do away with a feeling of injustice experienced by many officers who have spent the best years of their lives in the Navy, the Admiralty will place naval officers in this respect on the same footing as those in the Army?

The questions suggested by my hon. Friend appear to be fully answered by the fact that if an officer resigns his commission in the Navy he ceases to have any connection with Her Majesty's Service. Military officers who resign their commission cannot wear the uniform and retain their rank. The Rule permitting retention of rank and uniform applies to military officers who retire after 15 years' service with gratuity or retired pay.

^* : Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is the custom to allow naval officers to resign in order to avoid a Court Martial, and that all who do resign, from whatever cause, are under the suspicion that they have resigned to avoid an investigation into their conduct? Is not that the grievance of which the officers have complained?

I am not aware of that.

I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he will cause inquiry to be made into the circumstances under which, on Tuesday the 3rd instant, a number of water bailiffs attacked some fishermen in the Moray Firth, near Jemimaville, and fired upon them several times; and whether he will state what justification the water bailiffs had for attacking fishermen engaged at sea?

^* : From the information which I have thus far obtained, it appears that while the water bailiffs appointed by the Conon Fishery District Board were preventing what they believed to be illegal fishing, they were resisted by the fishermen, and one of the bailiffs was badly injured. I learn to-day that the fishermen have been committed for trial for assault, but that no charge has been lodged against the bailiffs. A gun seems to have been discharged in the air by one of the bailiffs without the intention or effect of injuring anyone, but there does not appear to have been any other firing. The whole facts of the case will doubtless be brought out at the trial.

I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he will state for what services the Procurator Fiscal for the Island of Lewis received the sum of £50 10s. as extra remuneration during the year ended March 31, 1893?

^* : The sum of £50 represents a commuted allowance paid to the Procurator Fiscal by the County Council of Ross and Cromarty, in respect of services rendered and outlays disbursed by him on travelling expenses and payments to witnesses in connection with criminal investigations conducted by him, which did not result in trial. This arrangement was adopted by the County Council as the best mode of settling payments which were formerly defrayed out of the County Rogue Money. The additional 10s. represents three small fees of 3s. 4d. each due to the Fiscal in respect of three prosecutions to which his concurrence was necessary.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether the Education Department will take steps to require the managers of the national schools of Cheadle, Staffordshire, to make the structural alterations in their schools without further delay? At the same time, I may also ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in carrying-out the requirements of the Education Department, in regard to the National Schools of Cheadle, Staffordshire, the managers are proposing to encroach on the graveyard, either for a playground or any other purpose; and, if so, whether they will receive the sanction of the Department?

The structural defects of these schools were notified to the managers last June, and they informed the Department in September that plans were being prepared to remedy them. Plans were submitted last mouth, and have since been under revision, and the managers state that the sum required to carry them out is being raised by subscriptions. The Department will see that there is no undue delay in carrying out the work. With regard to the second question asked by the hon. Member, the Department have no information, but I will have inquiry made.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what is the cause of the delay in the construction of the deep-water pier at Killybegs; and if he is aware that the town and neighbourhood have suffered much loss and inconvenience owing to the demolition of the old quay before the building of a new pier?

^* : The delay in dealing with the question referred to is due to the fact that no agreement has yet been come to with the Congested Districts Board as to the nature of the work to be undertaken, and the financial arrangements which would be necessary. I am not aware of the circumstances alleged in the second paragraph, and I must point out that a new boat-slip—a convenience never before enjoyed by Killybegs—was built down to low water of spring tides at the time that part of the old pier was absorbed in the station ground.

^* : May I point out that the right hon. Gentleman has not answered my last question? What is the cause of the delay?

^* : No agreement has been come to with the Congested Districts Board. There is also a legal difficulty.

Is it not a fact that the right hon. Gentleman, so far back as last September, gave a distinct undertaking that this work should be expedited with the utmost possible haste? What is the legal difficulty?

^* : It is quite true that I expressed a desire that something might be done. The legal difficulty has reference to the powers of the Board of Works and of the Congested Districts Board respectively.

Having regard to the serious results of this waste of time, will the right hon. Gentleman now do his best to expedite the work?

^* : Certainly, I am anxious it should be pushed forward, but I fear it will require legislation.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what is the cause of delay in laying upon the Table of the House the Report of Her Majesty's Irish Fishery Inspectors respecting the Inquiry held by them in Scotland relative to the fishing by Scotch fishermen off the Southern Irish Coast?

The Report has been laid on the Table.

I inquired at Dublin Castle the other day, and was informed that it had not been laid.

The hon. Member cannot have heard that, because it was laid on the Table on the 20th of February. Wherever the delay in printing and circulating it has occurred I cannot say. The Irish Office, at any rate, are not responsible.

^* : I was made aware for the first time this morning that it had been laid. Last week, when I called at the Castle, the Secretary to the Fishery Inspectors told me it had not been laid. He promised to ascertain the reason, and he telegraphed to London, I believe, and heard that it had not been so laid. On the evening of my call at the Castle I received a letter from him that same evening stating that it had not been laid.

Well, it was laid on the 20th of February.

Do the Government propose to bring in a Bill dealing with the suggestions contained in the Report?

As soon as we can.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, when the Consulate at Angora was established, and the Vice Consulate at Mossoul revived, the post at Mossoul was given to a resident native; whether Angora had been a full Vice Consulate till 1887; whether, when the Consulates were revived, those of Adrianople and Mogador were suppressed; whether he is aware that the Manchester Chamber of Commerce has protested against the suppression of the Consulate at Mogador; and whether, in view of the political complications likely to ensue from the suppression of the former, and the detriment to trade that may follow the suppression of the latter, he will consider the expediency of reviving these Consulates?

^* : Mr. Nimrod Rassam, a resident native, has been appointed Consular Agent at Mossoul. The appointment had no connection with the appointment of a Consul at Angora. The post at Angora was a salaried Vice Consulate till 1887, when a Vice Consul was appointed without salary. In 1893 a salaried Consul was appointed. The Consulate at Adrianople was suppressed when the Consulate at Angora was created. The previous organisations in Morocco had no bearing on the arrangement in Turkey. A representation was received from the Manchester Chamber of Commerce about the transfer of the Consulate from Mogador to Dar-el-Baida. The British trade with the latter place is slightly greater, on the average, than that with the former, and the latter was considered to be the better position for the Consulate. Her Majesty's Government have not heard of any political complications likely to ensue from the suppression of the Adrianople Consulate. As regards the Mogador Consulate, the creation of two paid Consulates would lead to an increase of expenditure, which would not be justifiable unless its necessity were proved, but the question of detriment to British trade from the altered system will be watched.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that James and George Thomson (Limited), engineers and shipbuilders, Clydebank, near Glasgow, holding an Admiralty contract, had sub-contracted with the Clyde Bridge Steel Works and Mossend Steel Works for the supply of steel plates for the Government contract; whether these firms employ non-Union men, and pay their workmen less than Trades Union rate of wages; and whether, in issuing contracts and sanctioning subcontracts, the Admiralty had made inquiry, and taken full precautions in accordance with the Resolution of the House of the 13th of February, 1891?

Orders have been placed with the Moss-end Works, but not with Clyde Bridge, so far as we know. Both firms are on the Admiralty list of approved steel-workers. The Admiralty have no information on the points raised in the second paragraph of the question. The Resolution of the House is communicated to all Admiralty contractors, and to firms on Admiralty lists for supplies of materials. Both Mossend and Clyde Bridge have been acquainted that the Admiralty expect those entrusted with contracts to adhere to the conditions of the Resolution.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland how many schemes for the construction of labourers' cottages have been sanctioned in the Dingle Union since the passing of the Labourers (Ireland) Acts; whether any of these schemes have been carried out; and whether any of them will be carried out?

The Local Government Board inform me that a scheme for the erection of 10 cottages has been sanctioned in the Dingle Union, but that this scheme has not been carried out by the Guardians. The scheme appears to have been abandoned in consequence of the financial state of the Union; and, so far as the Local Government Board are aware, there is no intention of carrying it into effect.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the rate of mortality in the Shikapur Prison, in the Bombay Presidency, during the last three years, has exceeded 100 deaths per 1,000, whilst in most of the prisons the rate is below 50 per 1,000; whether he can assign any reason for this high death rate, and will he cause inquiries to be made whether it is in any way attributable to the system of prison discipline in force in India?

Before the right hon. Gentleman answers, I should like to ask him if he knows of Another instance where the death rate is on so very heavy a scale? Is not 50 per cent. largely in excess of the mortality in English prisons? Is the death rate in Indian prisons not increasing?

^* : I am informed that the rate of mortality in Shikapur Prison has not during the last three years exceeded 100 per 1,000; but that it has done so on three occasions during the last 15 years, the last of those occasions being in the year 1892. The cause of this high death rate in 1892 was an epidemic of pneumonia, which at the same time quadrupled the death rate among the free population of the town. It is, however, recognised by the Indian authorities that the Shikapur Prison is an unhealthy one. Steps have accordingly been taken, and further steps are contemplated, which will enable them before long to accommodate elsewhere the prisoners who are now confined there.

Is it not the fact that attempts have been made to improve matters by giving extra warm clothing, in order to guard against this increased mortality? Do not the official Reports show, too, that the death rate in the prisons has been brought down nearly to the average mortality of the ordinary population?

I believe that is so.

The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question. Is not the death rate double the rate of mortality in English prisons?

I cannot answer such a question without notice.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will cause to be printed and distributed to Members the Regulations made on the 21st of May, 1892, by the Board of Trade under Section 2 of "The Merchandise Marks Act, 1891," and shortly thereafter presented to Parliament, relating to the prosecution of offences under the Merchandise Marks Act?

Yes, Sir.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether any of the Sheriff's officers, Constabulary, or other persons engaged in serving notices of eviction upon the Arran islanders, spoke Irish; and whether the contents of those notices were explained by the legal officers to those tenants who speak Irish only?

I am afraid I must ask the hon. Gentleman to defer this question till Thursday next. It was only placed on the Paper this morning for the first time, and local inquiry, which will involve some time, is necessary.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the unanimity amongst all sections of Irish Members respecting the immediate necessity of amending the constitution of the Irish Lights Board, he will introduce a Bill this Session upon that subject?

We are in communication with the Irish Lights Board on the subject of the Memorials sent to the Board of Trade, and in due course the question will receive full consideration. I cannot promise to introduce a Government Bill until I see some prospect of its being dealt with by the House. A Bill has already been introduced by a private Member, which, as soon as printed, shall be considered.

Arising out of that reply, may I ask the right hon. Gentle-man whether, considering that all sections of the Irish Representatives are united in agreeing as to the necessity of this Bill being passed into law, he will press the Government to pass it?

That is exactly the question I have answered. As soon as we can see a prospect of passing it it shall be done.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can now definitely state the date upon which he will introduce the Bill to remedy the defects in the Irish Education Act of 1892; and, if not, when will he be in a position to make the announcement?

I hope to be able to introduce it on Monday.

On behalf of the hon. Member for Denbigh, &c, I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education if he could state how many of the County Schemes framed under the Intermediate Education Act (Wales) have now the validity of law; what is the precise position of those Schemes which were suspended by the action of the House of Lords last year; and whether the Government contemplate any steps to provide for Schemes being more rapidly carried into law?

Out of 14 Schemes which have been submitted to the Education Department seven have so far become law, and an eighth only awaits Her Majesty's approval at the next Council. These seven schemes include those for the Counties of Cardigan and Merioneth, out of which clauses were struck by the House of Lords last September, and which have become law in their altered form. Two Schemes are now on the Table of both Houses, against which Addresses are to be moved in the House of Lords to-day. The process by which these Schemes become law is certainly tedious, but I do not think any alteration of the Intermediate Education Act can be now contemplated by the Government.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Government are in possession of a Report from Captain Macdonald, the officer specially appointed to ascertain from reliable sources the causes of the outbreak of hostilities in Uganda in January, 1892; and whether he will lay this Report upon the Table, or state the reasons why it is not communicated to the House?

^* : This Report has been received, but, as I stated last week, it cannot be regarded as disposing finally of the questions either of fact or of principle with regard to the only point arising out of this war which is still in dispute—namely, the claim to compensation put forward by the Catholic Missionaries. Her Majesty's Government are, therefore, not prepared to present the Report to Parliament.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if the column headed "owners" in the Return of Parliamentary Electors lately issued includes resident owners and duplicate entries; if he is aware that in the Horsham, or north-western division of the County of Sussex, there are only 339 non-resident voters on the Register, whereas the number of ownership voters is given in the Return as 1,037; if he has any objection to give a further Return showing the number of ownership electors on the Register in each Parliamentary county or division thereof who neither reside nor carry on business within the division where they are registered, and showing the number of such electors who actually voted in each division at the last election held therein; and if, until such further Return is obtained, he will withdraw a Return which might lead persons to suppose that the 497,247 electors returned as "owners," or a majority of them, are not resident or do Dot carry on business within the division for which they are so returned?

The Return to which the hon. Member alludes includes both resident and non-resident ownership voters. It is not, I think, misleading, for it does not profess to give only the non-resident owners. The hon. Member will find a Return presented to the House in 1883 in which the number of non-resident ownership voters is given for each division. It states the number for West Sussex to be 589. Since then the division has been sub-divided, and I think, therefore, the hon. Member may be accurate in saying that the number of non-resident owners in the Horsham Division is only 339. It would be impossible to obtain a Return from official sources in the form asked for in the third paragraph of the hon. Member's question.

Will the right hon. Gentleman carry the Return of which he speaks up to date?

The Return can only be obtained at considerable cost, and I fear, too, that could not be forthcoming within a reasonable time.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether investigation has been made into the occurrence alluded to by Captain C. H. W. Donovan, when he stated at a lecture on the Matabele War at Aldershot on the 20th of March, at which the Duke of Conn aught presided, that it was painful to remember that all their gallant comrades, as well as Lobengula himself, might have been saved but for the cowardly, avaricious treachery of a couple of the police; and, if so, by whom the investigation has been made, and with what result?

The matter referred to is being investigated. On the 25th of March Sir Henry Loch informed us by telegraph that the report was based on a statement made to Mr. Dawson by natives, that Lobengula had sent two messengers with a box of gold, saying that gold was the only thing that would stop white men; but that Lobengula had not sent any message saying that he would surrender if Major Forbes stopped. Sir H. Loch further stated that the two messengers in question were known, and that one had returned to his kraal, but had been sent for. Two troopers have been arrested on suspicion, and will be tried by the civil power if sufficient evidence is forthcoming against them. But I gather from the Local Authorities that up to the 13th instant evidence was not forthcoming. I presume that Captain Donovan's assumption of the guilt of the men, and the inference he draws from it, are merely founded on the newspaper telegrams of the alleged occurrence. If he has any special knowledge on the subject, it would be an advantage that he should bring it to our notice.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Mr. John Darcy, Veterinary Inspector for Manorhamilton Union, has been, or is about to be, dismissed by order of the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council, although he has been 15 years in the service of the Board of Manorhamilton Union, with the sanction of the Privy Council, and has always discharged his dutes in a satisfactory manner; is there any reason for thinking that he is not at present as well able to discharge the duties attaching to his office as ever he was; is he aware that the Board of Guardians unanimously requested the Veterinary Department to retain Mr. Darcy in his office; and does the Veterinary Department now insist on the dismissal of Mr. Darcy on the ground that he does not possess sufficient knowledge of the proper means of distinguishing swine fever from other diseases by post mortem appearances; and, if so, what provision does the Department propose to make for a man who has given it 15 years' service?

The Board of Guardians have called upon Mr. Darcy, their Inspector under the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, to resign his office. This step was taken at the request of the Veterinary Department, it having been reported by two of its professional Inspectors that Mr. Darcy, who is not a veterinary surgeon, does not possess such a knowledge of the contagious diseases of animals as would enable him to sufficiently discharge the duties of the office, and Mr. Darcy admitted his inability to detect swine fever by post mortem examination. The question of the efficiency of this Inspector only came under the notice of the Veterinary Department in connection with the work of the Swine Fever Act of 1893, and the Veterinary Department consider it specially important that the Local Authorities should have the services of the most competent officers obtainable to aid in the suppression of the disease. It is the fact that the Guardians passed a unamimous resolution in favour of Mr. Darcy, but they subsequently called for his resignation. These Inspectors are not entitled to either pension or gratuity on ceasing to hold office.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether a Memorial has been received by the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland from three children, praying for the gratuity which was lost to them by the untimely death of their father, Stephen Walsh, for 30 years teacher of Glackawn, County Leitrim, National School; is he aware that the teacher, Stephen Walsh, handed in his resignation to his manager, and applied for the usual retiring allowance before his death, and that the National Board refuses his gratuity to his children on the ground that their father died before the District Inspector reported on his application, and that the mother of these three children also died on 6th March last; and will he take steps to have the gratuity, claimed to be due to their father at the time of his death, handed over to the school manager or other person or persons for their benefit?

The facts appear to be generally as stated in the question. The provisions of the Act of Parliament dealing with applications of this kind require the Commissioners of National Education to certify to the Lord Lieutenant that they are satisfied that a male teacher who would be entitled to a retiring allowance under the Act has become incapable from permanent infirmity of mind or body to discharge his duties, and if such certificate be forthcoming the Lord Lieutenant, with the consent of the Treasury, may grant to such teacher a gratuity. In the present case, the teacher died on the 28th of August, and the application for the gratuity was not received by the Commissioners until the 31st of August, and they had, therefore, no legal power whatever to certify to the application for a gratuity under the provisions of the Act. The Act also provides that if a teacher dies in the service, the premiums paid by him shall be paid to his legal representatives with interest at £3 per cent. per annum. This provision of the Act has, I am informed, been complied with.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the investigation instructed by the Marquess of Ripon, in his Despatch, No. 28, of 15th February, 1894, into the occurrences at Fort Victoria, has now been made, by whom, and with what result?

The inquiry will be conducted by Mr. Surmon, Assistant Commissioner of Bechuanaland. As has been already statad more than once, it would have been useless to have begun the investigation until those concerned had mostly returned to Mashonaland. But the time for the investigation to take place seems now to have arrived, and consequently instructions were sent about a fortnight ago to that effect.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Local Government Board will recommend to all Municipalities and Local Authorities the advisability of discontinuing the practice of several horses in separate carts being chained together head to cart tail, and being led or driven by a single carman, to the injury of the horses, inconvenience to traffic, and danger to pedestrians?

There is no provision in the existing law under which Local Authorities can prohibit a practice of this kind. Last year the Corporation of Salford in a Private Bill proposed a clause prohibiting the practice. The clause was opposed, on the ground that it would add to the cost of coal. It was rejected by the Select Committee. This year the Corporation of Manchester has made a similar proposal in a Private Bill. If the clause should be adopted by the Committee in the House it may be worthy of consideration whether Municipalities should not be empowered to make a bye-law on the subject.

On behalf of the hon. Member for the Walworth Division of Newington, I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether the telegraph clerks of the Foreign Branch of the Central Telegraph Office have sent in a Petition complaining of the unsanitary condition of the room in which they are engaged; whether, in despite of this fact, some of the clerks have been placed on duties necessitating their attendance for 54 hours weekly instead of 48; and whether he can suspend these long duties at least until the unsanitary conditions of the branch have been remedied?

The officers in question did send in a Petition, and the matter is being investigated. Before the receipt of this Petition no complaint had reached me of the condition of this room which, on the contrary, has of late years been materially improved by the substitution of the electric light for gas. Eleven officers out of 250 were called upon to perform 54 hours of duty in one week and 42 in the next, making an average of 48. This was the case in two successive fortnights. Since then the alternation of long and short duties has been daily instead of weekly. The arrangement is necessary to prevent waste of force, and I see no reason for altering it.

On behalf of the hon. Member for the Walworth Division of Newington, I beg to ask the Postmaster General if the weight of single newspapers passing through the Post Office for ½d. stamp frequently reaches six or eight ounces, as compared with the limit of two ounces for ½d. stamp by book post; and if he is prepared to recommend an increase of the ½d. limit for book post to four ounces?

It is a fact that the weight of single newspapers passing through the post for ½d. frequently exceeds six or eight ounces; the postoge on registered newspapers being fixed by law at ½d. each irrespective of weight; Looking at the loss already incurred on postal packets carried at the halfpenny rate, I am not prepared to recommend that the ½d. limit for book packets should be increased from two to four ounces.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the "Settlement" in regard to Matabeleland will be laid before the House, and an opportunity be given for its discussion before it is finally adopted by Her Majesty's Government?

"The political Settlement" of Matabeleland is now in an advanced state of preparation; but the necessity of communicating with South Africa by post will prevent its presentation before, at earliest, the end of the month. We propose, as soon as the scheme for settlement is finally com- pleted, to circulate it to Parliament in the form of a Blue Book, before the Order in Council based upon it is issued. The Order in Council will, however, be then prepared and submitted to an early Council, in order that the new form of administration may come into operation at the earliest possible date.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there is any copy of the Code of Laws now existing in Matabeleland in the Colonial Office; and whether, in regard to corporal punishments for offences or crimes, any distinction is made between white men and black men?

The laws in force in Matabeleland are the customary native laws, and those in force in the Cape of Good Hope prior to the 10th of June, 1891. There are in the Colonial Office treatises on the Common Law (that is, the Roman Dutch Law) and copies of the Statute Law, in force in the Cape of Good Hope. I cannot pledge myself to say whether or not there is any instance of a distinction in these laws as to cases in which corporal punishment may be inflicted on men of one colour, but not on men of another colour. But my impression is that there is not such a distinction.

Will the hon. Gentleman inquire whether there is such a distinction or not?

I will see that the matter is looked into.

I beg to ask the Comptroller whether, as the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have allowed the demolition of a large number of houses on their Finsbury estate, which has resulted in unhousing a great many of the working classes, it is the intention of the Commissioners to set aside a portion of the estate for working class dwellings, so that some of these people may be re-housed within a reasonable distance of their employment?

The Ecclesiastical Commissioners have from time to time devoted considerable portions of their estate in Finsbury to the erection of artisans' dwellings. There has been no important removal of dwellings recently, but the Commissioners have in the years 1891 and 1893 sold rather more than an acre of land to Guinness's Trust at a reduced price for the erection of labourers' dwellings. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners are of opinion that they have made provision for the housing of a larger population than that displaced from their estate.

Have not fresh buildings been pulled down within the last few months?

I have no information to that effect. If my hon. Friend has more recent information and will give it to me, I will see that steps are taken in the proper quarter to deal with the matter.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the resolution recently passed at the Cork Quarterly Meeting of the Methodist Church protesting against the action of the Police Authorities on Sunday, 25th March, in allowing a mob to freely indulge in what the resolution describes as savage and cowardly attacks on the Protestant preachers, and to the allegation in the said resolution that the police supplemented the operations of the mob instead of affording protection to the Protestant preachers; whether he has caused inquiry to be made into the said allegations; and if he has asked the representatives of the Methodist Church at Cork the grounds of such allegations, or given them any opportunity of proving the same?

On the 9th instant my attention was drawn to the resolution in question, which embodies language to the effect quoted by the hon. and learned Member. The resolution, I may observe, appeared to me to be founded on reports which had been published in certain newspapers, and inasmuch as previously to the receipt of the resolution I had been furnished with full and detailed Reports by the police relative to the several allegations preferred by these newspapers, I did not consider it necessary to direct a further investigation into matters which were manifestly founded on these newspaper reports. However, the Police Authorities have now acted on the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member by interrogating representatives of the Methodist Church who were present at the meeting at which the resolution was passed. Six gentlemen in all were interviewed, and the following is the result:—The chairman of the meeting states that no evidence of any kind was adduced in support of the resolution, nor is he aware that any such evidence exists. He also states that, so far as his personal observation of the police in this matter goes, his evidence is in favour of their conduct. The proposer of the resolution says his information was solely founded on hearsay, derived from one of the preachers, his cousin, and that he is not prepared to bring forward evidence in support of his resolution. The proposer's cousin stated that the conduct of the police was rough on the date mentioned, but that he had no charge to make against them individually or collectively, and that the police on all occasions protected the preachers to the best of their power. This gentleman, I may add, violently resisted the police on the occasion in question. The seconder of the resolution admitted that he had no evidence to give or charge to make against the police, individually or collectively. Another gentleman, who was present at the meeting and agreed to the resolution, stated he personally knew nothing about the matter, and that he took for granted that whatever the proposer and seconder of the resolution said was "all right." And, finally, the police questioned a sixth gentleman who took a prominent part in passing the resolution. This gentleman said he had no charge of any kind to make against the police, and that he was not present on the occasion of the alleged police misconduct. I have since heard, however, that the sixth gentleman now withdraws this statement and endorses the terms of the resolution, but it is clear that the withdrawal loses its significance in the face of his first statement that he was not present at all at the proceedings of March 25.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been directed to the circumstances connected with the death of Robert Royal, platelayer on the London and South Western Railway, at Vauxhall; and whether he is prepared to compel all Railway Companies to carry out the recommendation of the coroner's jury and appoint look-out men whilst gangs of platelayers are at work?

Yes, Sir; my attention has been directed to the case in question. The Regulations as regards Inspectors, gangers, platelayers, and others employed on the permanent way were carefully considered by the Railway Companies in 1889, and the correspondence on the subject was presented to Parliament. From these Regulations it will be seen that there is always a foreman or leading ganger over each gang employed on the permanent way, who is provided with a copy of the time table, and platelayers are ordered to protect their operations by sending out flagmen. These Regulations are within the discretion of the Railway Companies, and I have no power to modify them.

Arising out of the question, and failing the adoption of the reasonable suggestions of the coroner's jury, will the right hon. Gentleman authorise his Inspectors to direct attention to the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway between Clapham Junction and Battersea Park, with a view to securing more escape recesses? Will he also have examined some of the six-foot ways, many of which, to my knowledge, are only 3 ft. 9 in. on some of the South London Railways? I have myself, between Clapham Junction and Battersea Park, known the platelayers to straddle a wall in order to get out of the way of the trains.

This is a now suggestion, not arising out of the hon. Member's question, but I shall be happy to consider any facts submitted to me by the hon. Member.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he will be good enough to state what Public Bodies in Scotland have urged upon the Government the necessity of training a larger number of teachers; and for what reasons 80 additional students have been admitted to the Training Colleges in Scotland in 1894?

Representations have been made by some School Boards, including those of Glasgow and Govan, urging that a larger number of students should be admitted to the Training Colleges. The number of female pupil teachers qualified for training was unusually large, as a result of a change in the date of the examination which closed their apprenticeship, and large numbers would be disappointed if this were not permitted. In order to meet this special and temporary difficulty, the Training College authorities stated that an increased number of students could be admitted without any increase of charge, and the Department accordingly extended the number of admissions, for the present year, by 85.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he is aware that the St. James's National School, in the City of Hereford (which has for many years been recognised by the Education Department), has been condemned because, being surrounded by public thoroughfares, the managers are unable to increase the playground and make other structural changes; and whether, under the circumstances of the case, he will reconsider the matter?

This school is reported by the Inspector (who pointed out its numerous and serious defects to the managers as long ago as November, 1892) to be inconveniently and unsuitably planned, with no playground, no cloakrooms, insufficient site for enlargement, and very bad offices. The Department have warned the managers that the Inspector will be unable to recommend any grant beyond the 31st of January, 1895, and have asked them whether they have any proposals to make. I will take care that any proposals the managers make shall be fully considered.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the total number of prisons in England and Wales in which women are confined; and in how many of such prisons lady visitors have been appointed?

There are 54 prisons which receive women, and 29 of these have lady visitors.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider the desirability of bringing in a Bill to repeal the Act of Parliament which requires a Member of this House, on his appointment to Office under the Crown, to go to his constituents for re-election?

The Government have no present intention of dealing with this question.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the Admiralty charts show no islets or rocks in the course of vessels sailing to and from Ullapool; that the sailing directions state that Loch Broom is remarkably free from rocks and islets, whilst the Report of the Treasury Committee of 1891 on railways in the northwest of Scotland states Loch Broom to be encumbered with islets and rocks; and that this Report of the Committee has been assigned as a reason for refusing the grant in aid of the Garve and Ullapool Railway extension scheme; and whether, seeing that the Report of the Treasury Committee is wholly at variance with the Admiralty chart and sailing directions, he will state whether the Treasury Report is correct, or the Admiralty chart and sailing directions?

The Hydro-grapher to the Admiralty informs me that there is no inconsistency in the two statements. Loch Broom is remarkably free from rocks or islets; but the statement in the Report mentioned, that the "approach to Ullapool is encumbered with islets and rocks," is perfectly correct, as, 10 miles outside the entrance to Loch Broom, up which Ullapool lies, and crossing the entrance of the large bay of which Loch Broom is an arm, a large number of islands and rocks are scattered about and encumber the approach from seaward, especially at night and to sailing vessels.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that a demand notice has been received by the Clonakilty Board of Guardians from the Income Tax Department for the sum of £5 8s. 1d. for profits arising out of two rents received from two labourers' cottages, built under the Labourers' (Ireland) Acts, in the Union; whether he is aware that for the past seven years, ending the 29th of September, 1893, a net loss of £1,840 has been sustained by the Board of Guardians on the cottages erected within the Union, and that an annual loss of £300 is at present sustained by the Guardians, being the difference between the rents received and the amount payable to the Board of Works; and whether, under the circumstances, he will have this tax remitted on all those cottages?

Boards of Guardians are not exempt from Income Tax (Schedule A) in respect of cottage property owned by them. It is reported to me that the assessment referred to in the question is on 120 (not two) houses, &c, described in the Valuation Lists as the property of the Clonakilty Board of Guardians. The Poor Law Valuation on this property is, in the aggregate, £191 15s., the duty on which is £5 8s. 1d. A certain adjustment seems likely to be necessary in respect to the interest paid to the Board of Works, and, if the rents received are less than the valuations, this will have to be allowed for. These matters can be arranged with the local Surveyor of Taxes (Cork).

As the Guardians pay to the Treasury every year more than they receive as rent for the cottages, there is manifestly a loss, and there ought consequently to be no assessment. Will the right hon. Gentleman not communicate with the Income Tax authorities, so that no claim should be made on the Guardians in this matter?

I will inquire into the matter. I have no knowledge of it personally.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will lay upon the Table of the House a full copy of the Paper from which he read, on the 12th April, descriptive of the procedure of dealing with surrenders from the Spending Departments to the Treasury?

The notice from which I read was an informal one, and not in a shape which can be presented to Parliament, but I have directed a regular Minute to be presented, and that I will lay on the Table.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will postpone the Second Reading of the Equalisation of Rates (London) Bill until the Return moved for by the President of the Local Government Board on the 16th April has been presented to the House?

I do not think we ought to delay this Bill, and we must take any favourable opportunity of pressing it on.

The Return will be in the hands of Members on Thursday.

I hope that, as the Bill excites great interest both in the east and west of London, it will be taken at a convenient hour and not late in the evening. We ought to have full notice as to when a Bill of this magnitude will be taken.

As the Return will only be in our hands on Thursday, I think Members ought to have an opportunity of considering the Report.

A proper opportunity will be given for discussing a Bill of such importance.

The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question whether the Bill will not be taken this week. He can hardly expect us to be prepared to discuss it this week if we only get the Return on Thursday. Will the right hon. Gentleman say the Bill will not be taken this week?

I can give no undertaking to that effect.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he can state when the railway between Newport and Achill Sound will be opened for traffic; is he aware that owing to the position of the site on which it is proposed to build the Mulrany station the approach road is rendered almost impassable to vehicular traffic in consequence of its zig-zag construction; and will he see that the station is erected on a more suitable site so that it may be possible to drive to or from it with safety?

(1.) I understand that the section from Newport to Mulrany will be opened in the coming July; and that from Mulrany to Achill will probably not be completed before August. (2.) The approach road to Mulrany Station not having yet been definitely located, the suggestion that it is impracticable is premature. (3.) The station is already in course of construction, and the hon. Member may be assured that suitable access to it will be provided.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the great commercial importance of canals as competitors with railways, and having regard to the information obtained by means of the recent Board of Trade inquiry respecting the revision of Canal Companies' tolls and charges, he can state whether he is prepared to take steps, and, if so, in what form, to free the canals now owned by Railway Companies, so as to make them, as formerly, independent competitive means of transport?

I do not understand what steps the hon. Baronet contemplates. If he suggests that the Government should purchase the canals owned by Railway Companies I am not able to hold out any hopes in that direction. We are, however, fixing maximum tolls for canals, whether owned by Railway Companies or not, which we hope will lead to an expansion of canal traffic.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the demand for the Reports of the Proceedings before the Joint Select Committees of 1891–92 and 1893 on the Railway and Canal Rates and Charges Provisional Order Confirmation Bills and the present importance of those proceedings to the commercial community, he will give instructions for the preparation of a full analytical index to them, similar to that published in regard to the hearing of objections to the Railway Companies' proposed Schedules before the Board of Trade in 1889–90?

The Report of the hearing of objections before the Board of Trade in 1889–90 was a Departmental Paper, and an index was prepared by the Board of Trade. The Reports of the Select Committee of 1892–93 are Parliamentary Papers, and the preparation of an index thereto is a matter for the House. As a matter of fact, however, an index was published with the Reports, and no complaint of its inadequacy has been received.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether the system of chiefly appointing discharged soldiers as letter carriers has been satisfactory; and, if not, whether he will any longer largely exclude civilians from employment in that service?

The system under which postmen's appointments are preferentially given to discharged soldiers and sailors has now been in operation for about three years, and has, on the whole, worked fairly well. I may state, however, that the system has since its introduction been modified to the extent of providing for telegraph messengers and other persons who have claims on the Department.

I rise to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer a question with a view to obtaining a clearer understanding than some of us at present have with regard to the Budget proposals. It is whether, having regard to the increasing yield of the adjusted Death Duties in future years, it is intended at present that the increased tax on spirits should be enacted for more than the present financial year?

I think I ought to have notice of the question. I could not answer it offhand.

I shall put the question again on Thursday.

Would the right hon. Gentleman have any objection to lay on the Table of the House a Return showing the amount he expects to receive from Ireland and Scotland in respect of the increased tax on spirits? And will he also promise to take care that the accounts will be so kept that we shall know at the end of the year what each country has contributed?

[No answer was given.]

I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House whether he is aware that Notice of the Motion standing in his name upon the Paper for the suspension of the Twelve o'Clock Rule to-night was only given at half-past 2 o'clock, when almost everybody had gone to bed, and long after the Whips had been issued? I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that is not a rather inconvenient custom? I also wish to ask him whether, supposing the discussion on the proposed Scotch Committee is not concluded to-night, he intends to ask the House to sit late next week?

I am sorry that the Sitting was so late last night; but the Government certainly did not anticipate it, and that was the reason why the notice was given at such an hour. The usual practice is to give it at the Adjournment of the House.

You should let the Opposition know.

I am sorry that earlier notice was not given, and I will take care that it shall be given in proper time in future. I think it ought to be done. I hope that we shall be able to conclude the discussion at a reasonable hour to-night.

I am not quite certain that I understand the purport of the right hon. Gentleman's reply. Is he not aware that with regard to the Amendment now before the House that no Cabinet Minister has as yet spoken, and that several important speakers among those who usually act with me have yet to give their opinions upon it? I have every hope and expectation that the Amendment standing in my name will be decided to-night, but with regard to later proposals of great importance I am not so certain.

I propose to place a Cabinet Minister at the disposal of the right hon. Gentleman at an early hour of the Debate. I hope that we may be able to finally dispose of this Motion to-night.

I desire to bring under the notice of Mr. Speaker and of the House certain facts and incidents which have lately transpired with regard to the conduct of business in this House. Before referring to the particular incidents, perhaps it will be necessary for me to say, for the benefit of those lay hon. Members who may not have studied the matter, that an Act of Parliament passed at the time of Elizabeth has been found to be exceedingly oppressive, and that Lord Macnaghten introduced in the House of Lords last year a Bill for the purpose of repealing that Act. The House will perhaps better appreciate the point if I use Lord Macnaghten's words instead of my own. Lord Macnaghten said upon that occasion—

"The law would hold that a vendor had done nothing wrong in collusion with the author of a voluntary conveyance to defeat this solemn instrument. It was, perhaps, a startling proposition that one man might honestly sell what was not his, and retain the price, and that another, knowing all the circumstances, might honestly help him to rob the owner, a proposition one would think puzzling to a lay mind, and to a legal mind not wholly satisfactory."

That Act of Queen Elizabeth was passed, as all the Judges have admitted, for the express purpose of preventing frauds, which were perpetrated somewhat in this fashion: A man of mature age might settle his lands upon his wife and children, and subsequently he would sell his land, and after his death his family would claim the lands under the prior settlement, and the Act of Elizabeth was intended for the sole purpose of preventing frauds of this character. But in the light of day, and with the Judge-made law which we have with regard to this Statute, the effect has been the reverse, and conveyances which have been made bonâ fide "for love and affection " have been set aside by persons who have had full knowledge of the whole of the facts and connived at this fraud. The Bill passed in all its stages in the House of Lords and was sent to this House, and I understand that Lord Macnaghten requested the hon. and learned Member for North Norfolk to take charge of it. It passed through all its stages in this House up to the Third Reading. I wish the House to note that fact. The Third Reading was fixed for May 31 of last year; and when the hon. and learned Member moved it, the hon. Member for the Louth Division got up in his place and blocked the Bill. The block was subsequently withdrawn. The particular incident to which I desire to draw attention occurred at this moment. In Order that the House may be in a position to grasp the matter, I must now refer to a settlement made in 1885. Mrs. Ingram, a widow lady, settled upon her children, with remainder to her grandchildren, some property in Lincolnshire, which cost £60,000, and is now of the value of £30,000. The property was conveyed by an ordinary deed of conveyance to trustees under the settlement, and they were empowered to sell it and hand the proceeds over to the children. The trustees under the settlement received the rents and profits on behalf of the children, and heard nothing whatever respecting the matter until February 17 last, when a firm of solicitors (Messrs. Ashurst, Morris, and Crispe), carrying on business in the City of London, gave notice that they had been instructed by Sir Edward Watkin to inform them that on May 30, 1893, Mrs. Ingram had conveyed all these properties to Sir Edward Watkin for valuable consideration. I should mention that a marriage took place between the lady to whom I have referred and the hon. Baronet the Member for Hythe. She, being 80 years of age, married the hon. Baronet on April 1,1892. There was a marriage settlement, and it is essential that I should refer to it for the purpose of showing the House that at the time it was made there was no desire or attempt on the part of the parties to the marriage contract to interfere with this settlement. There is a clause in it which transfers certain properties to Sir Edward Watkin,

"Except any properties included in any still subsisting settlement heretofore made by the said Anne Ingram."

So that up to two years ago the settlement was regarded by everybody as legal and binding. On May 31 the block of the Bill took place. The hon. and learned Member for Louth states that it took place at the instance of Mr. John Morris, who wrote to him and asked him to block the Bill. The Bill was blocked on the 31st of May, the date of the conveyance from Lady Watkin to her husband was May 30th, and the deed was ostensibly executed on that date. But instructions came to block it on the 31st of May, and it was so blocked. Subsequently, the hon. Member for Louth wrote to Mr. John Morris, and said—

"I have had an opportunity of looking into this Bill. I see no objection to it, and I desire to know why I am requested to block it."

He received a reply from Mr. Morris, who at the time was staying with the hon. Baronet the Member for Hythe, and Lady Watkin, at Snowdon, stating that there was no further necessity to block the Bill, which by the grace of Mr. Morris was allowed to become the law of the land. I regret to say that I have not been able to get a copy of the initial correspondence which took place between these gentlemen. I am not entitled to it perhaps. I should mention that when the Bill was blocked the hon. Baronet the Member for Boston (Sir W. Ingram) asked the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Mr. Cozeus-Hardy) who it was who blocked the Bill. The hon. Baronet did not know the hon. Member for North Norfolk nor the hon. Member for Louth. The hon. Member for North Norfolk replied that the Bill had been blocked by the hon. Member for Louth, who said he did not know why he had blocked the Bill. When last month the hon. Baronet the Member for Boston told the hon. Member for Louth the effect which his blocking of the Bill had had, the hon. Member for Louth denied all knowledge of the conveyance, and some correspondence took place between the hon. Member for Louth and Mr. Morris, which it is absolutely necessary I should read to the House. The letter ran—

"House of Commons Library,

12th March, 1894.

"My Dear Mr. Morris, —Sir William Ingram has been to me to-day and complained that in the interval between my blocking that Conveyancing Bill of Cozens-Hardy and the removal of my block some deed was signed by Lady Watkin depriving Sir W. Ingram and his brothers of certain property. I told him that I was not aware of any such thing, and that I certainly would not have blocked any Bill to serve any personal ends of anybody had I been aware of it. I feel that I should write and ask you what is the explanation of this."—Yours faithfully, "(Signed) R. W. PERKS.

"John Morris, Esq."

A reply came from Mr. Morris as follows:—

"E. W. Perks, Esq., M.P.

15th March, 1894.

"Dear Perks,—In reply to your note you are entitled to an explanation, and after I have given it you may show it, if you like, to Mr. Cozens-Hardy, and if either of you say what I did was open to objection I shall be surprised.

"Some years ago Lady Watkin made voluntary settlements of estates in Lincolnshire on her sons. As the law stood before the Act in question was passed these settlements could be defeated by Lady Watkin conveying the estates to a purchaser for value.

"In the course of negotiations for a general settlement of all differences between Lady Watkin and her sons I drew the attention of the sons' solicitors to the subject of these settlements, and suggested that as part of the then proposed compromise they should be confirmed and made absolute, and terms were provisionally arranged between myself and the sons' solicitor for this being done, when one day he told me that Sir William Ingram did not care about its being included in the compromise, as he considered the estates of no value in consequence of the agricultural depression, and that, therefore, there was no risk of Lady Watkin's making a sale, as nobody would give anything for them.

"A short time after this I happened by the merest chance to see that a Public Bill had been introduced by a private Member into Parliament for abolishing the Act of Elizabeth relating to the subject, and at the time I applied to you it was being hurried through the Commons, and I have since learned that Mr. Cozens-Hardy, who had charge of the Bill, was Sir William Ingram's counsel, and had been advising him on the matter.

"Even if the Bill had been brought in by Government on public grounds I consider I should have been strictly within my right to take the steps I did to get a little time to consider it; a Bill altering the law on the subject of voluntary conveyances which had been in operation for 300 years.

"I am not aware that any different rule is applicable to a Bill promoted by a private Member and so framed as to give it an ex post facto operation, thereby depriving Lady Watkin of her legal right as to these estates.

"I prefer putting it to you broadly as a question of principle, that the few days' further time obtained by your block was really a personal convenience to myself, as I wanted to confer with Lady Watkin on the subject before she executed the conveyance, which was prepared and ready for execution before I applied to you. Lady Watkin was in Wales at the time, and I was unwell, and it was a convenience to me to go down a few days later than I did in consequence of my being unwell.

"I will only add that you knew nothing of any of these circumstances. You simply complied with my request as an act of courtesy to me, a favour which I should not have hesitated to ask of any Member.

"Sorry to trouble you with so long a story, but I could not put it to you shorter.

"Yours truly,

"(Signed) J. MORRIS."

I have little more to say on this matter. What I desire to emphasise is that Mr. J. Morris, who is a solicitor, tampered with a Member of this House; that he induced a Member of this House to block a Bill which was being passed through this House for the general benefit of the community, in order to gain a particular object for a personal purpose, and for a private individual. I submit that there is evidence that the hon. Baronet the Member for Hythe instructed his solicitor so to act. Solicitors do not act without instructions, either general or special. If he did instruct Mr. Morris, then I submit that the hon. Baronet was guilty of a breach of the Privileges of this House, or, at any rate, of conduct of which this House will take cognisance. If the solicitor, Mr. Morris, had no instructions whatever, then he, I submit, is guilty of a gross breach of the Privileges of this House. I submit, further, that the House should know that the hon. Member for Louth, who is a solicitor, and the friend of another solicitor in the City practising in the next street, has acted for the hon. Baronet the Member for Hythe, although, in this instance, Mr. Morris only acted. I find in "Mems about Members" in The Pall Mall Gazette this entry. [ Cries of "Oh!"] Then I will not read it. I assert that I understand that the hon. Member for Louth is solicitor to the hon. Baronet the Member for Hythe in regard to the Metropolitan Railway, the Channel Tunnel, the Watkin Tower, and "other schemes and projects of that great man." I submit that an hon. Member has been tampered with, and I ask you, Sir, whether, under these circumstances, I should move that a Committee be appointed to consider this matter, because, having regard to the complicated nature of it, it would be better, perhaps, that a Committee should inquire into the subject rather than that the time of the House should be taken up?

^* : The hon. Member has not said what he wants the Select Committee to inquire into. Will the hon. Gentleman read the Reference to the Committee which he wishes the House to appoint?

I move, Sir—

"That a Select Committee be appointed to Inquire and Report to this House whether any, and, if so, what, persons have been guilty of a breach of the Privileges of this House in reference to the blocking of the Voluntary Conveyances Bill on 31st of May, 1893, and that any two or more Members of such Committee have power to examine any witnesses who are incapacitated by sickness from attending personally to be examined by such Committee."

seconded the Motion.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a Select Committee be appointed to Inquire and Report to this House whether any, and, if so, what, persons have been guilty of a breach of the Privileges of this House in reference to the blocking of the Voluntary Conveyances Bill on 31st of May, 1893, and that any two or more Members of such Committee have power to examine any witnesses who are incapacitated by sickness from attending personally to be examined by such Committee."—( Mr. Pritchard-Morgan. )

I think the opinion of this House is that we should not extend breaches of Privilege, and I am bound to say that the Motion which my hon. Friend has made has gone infinitely beyond any idea of questions of Privilege ever contemplated. I have listened to the statement of the hon. Member, and it appears to me to amount to this—that there has been some domestic difference in certain families in reference to a settlement. What have we got to do with that? As regards my hon. Friend the Member for Louth, nobody imputes to him that he knew anything of this. That was stated by all the parties. It appears, as I gather, that a solicitor acting for a gentleman who was unwell wanted time to consider a Bill; and he asked my hon. Friend to block it, in order that there might be some further time taken for its discussion. Well, Sir, the practice of blocking Bills is a common practice, and if we were to appoint a Committee to inquire into the reasons for blocking Bills we should have enough to do. I have observed that a Bill in which I take great interest has frequently been blocked, and if we were to inquire into the objects of the people who block it it would be a very inconvenient inquiry. Therefore, I do hope that the House, without further discussion, will decline to entertain this Motion.

^* : I would ask the House just for one moment to give me the opportunity of offering to it a personal explanation. In the first place, permit me to say that I am entirely ignorant of the personal controversies which have unfortunately arisen between the hon. Member for Boston and his relatives, and I have no interest in them directly or indirectly. So far as I am concerned, the facts are as follows: The Voluntary Conveyances Act was set down for Committee, not for Third Reading, as stated by the hon. Member, on Wednesday, the 31st of May. The Bill was a Public Bill in charge of a private Member, the hon. and learned Member for the Northern Division of Norfolk. On Monday, the 29th of May, I received a letter from Mr. John Morris (of the firm of Ashurst, Morris and Co.), a gentleman well-known to every legal Member of this House, asking me if I would on his behalf, and that of the hon. Member for Hythe, oppose the Voluntary Conveyances Bill. Mr. Morris did not tell me, nor was I aware, why he objected to the Bill; and I had no opportunity of seeing him before the Bill came into Committee on Wednesday. Not knowing what the objections to the Bill were, I obtained a copy of the Bill, and found that it made very important changes in the law relating to voluntary conveyances. I also ascertained that the Bill had been read a second time in this House on the 17th of May without any comment or explanation. When the Bill came on as an unopposed Bill on Wednesday, the 31st of May, and was moved without comment by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Norfolk, I objected, and the Bill consequently stood over. My hon. and learned Friend in charge of the Bill came to me and asked me why I objected to it; and I told him that Mr. John Morris had asked me to oppose the Bill; that I did not then know Mr. Morris's reasons as I had not seen him, but that I had read the Bill, which seemed to me too important a Bill to pass without consideration and explanation. My hon. and learned Friend asked me to go with him into the Library and read the Report of the Debate in the Lords upon the Bill. I did so, and I wrote to Mr. Morris, saying that the Bill seemed to me to be a reasonable one, and that I should be glad to know what his objections to it were, and I informed the hon. Member in charge of the Bill that I would not take further action. The Bill was set down for Committee on the following Wednesday, the 7th of June. I did not oppose it, nor did I take any further action in the matter. The Bill, having been amended in Committee, had to pass the Third Reading and to be sent back to the House of Lords, and it received the Royal Assent on the 29th of June, exactly a mouth after the day in which it is said I blocked it in the interest of the parties. I heard nothing more of the subject. I had no conversation either with Mr. Morris or the hon. Baronet the Member for Hythe on the matter. I had not the slightest idea why they objected to the Bill; I knew nothing of their family disputes, and the circumstance passed completely out of my mind until a month ago, when an hon. Member came to me in the Lobby and told me substantially what the hon. Member for Merthyr has just stated to the House. I wrote Mr. Morris, asking him for an explanation, and I received the reply which has been read to the House, which fully, and, to my mind, perfectly satisfactorily, dealt with all the circumstances. I have already stated to the House that when I opposed the Voluntary Conveyances Bill I had no knowledge whatever of any of the circumstances referred to by the hon. Member for Merthyr, nor did I know what Mr. Morris's objections were. I have only to add, while thanking the House for their indulgence in permitting me to make this statement, that I was not in May, 1893, nor am I now, nor have I at any time been directly or indirectly, professionally or otherwise, interested to the extent of one single farthing in any of these disputes, nor do I professionally represent any of the parties. It is true that in years gone by I had the honour of acting for many of the Railway Companies that were under the guidance of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hythe, but I am not his private professional adviser, nor have I, as I say, a farthing of interest in any of the matters which are the subject of this unhappy family controversy.

^* : I would not have spoken had I not received a communication from Mr. Morris, who is known to many as a member of the firm of Ashurst and Morris—a firm of the highest position in the City of London, in practice 40 or 50 years. I could not help being somewhat surprised, and I was at a loss for the reason that could have induced the hon. Member (Mr. Pritchard-Morgan) to bring forward this question until I saw that his Motion was seconded by the hon. Baronet (Sir W. Ingram), who seems to be personally connected with this matter. I cannot help thinking it unfortunate that such a statement should have been made in the absence of the hon. Baronet (Sir E. Watkin), who is too ill even to have the matter communicated to him. The suggestion is that the hon. Baronet (Sir E. Watkin) committed an improper act in securing the blocking of this Bill. It appears to me that if such an accusation was going to be made, it should have been made when the hon. Baronet could have been present, or when communication could have been made to him, in order that his views might have been presented to the House.

I communicated with the hon. Baronet (Sir E. Watkin) last week, when he was in London. He travelled from London to Manchester, and thence to Snowdon. I am not responsible for the fact of the letter not having reached him. His secretary now tells me that the hon. Baronet is too ill to receive letters. I did what I could to communicate with him.

I mentioned this merely to show the exact position in which the matter stands. With regard to Mr. Morris, the explanation that has been read is, I submit, a complete refutation of any suggestion that Mr. Morris had been guilty of any breach of Privilege. From Mr. Morris's statement it is clear that this matter had been in preparation for a considerable time, that the conveyance was actually executed on May 30, that the block on the Bill did not take place until the 31st, that that was only the Committee stage, and that the Bill did not receive the Royal Assent until a month afterwards. The House will see how absolutely groundless is the suggestion that Mr. Morris, whatever he may have done, was in any way guilty of a breach of Privilege. In communicating with the hon. Member (Mr. Perks) I venture to think, if I may concur with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that if the motives with which Bills have been and are blocked were to be examined into, the House would have an endless and a somewhat perplexing task. The explanation shows that there was no necessity for occupying the time of the House, or for bringing before Members the name of the solicitor, who. as far as I know, enjoys the respect of those with whom he is acquainted, who has done nothing of which he is ashamed, or of which he is not prepared to give the fullest explanation.

I wish, as far as possible, to eliminate from the few remarks I shall make all comments of a personal nature. With regard to the matter involved in the question, I feel sure that it is not one for the House to decide. That is of a private nature, and will be referred to the proper Court for decision. I do hope, however, that hon. Members will allow me to explain, and to assure them on my word, as a Member of this House, that I had nothing to do with the introduction of this Bill into the House of Lords. It was introduced by Lord Macnaghten, without my knowledge and without any communication from anybody connected with me. It was looked after in this House by the hon. Member (Mr. Cozens-Hardy) not in my interests and not at my instigation, as he can assure you. We ought, I think, to be gratified with the explanation of the hon. Member (Mr. Perks). I feel certain that he was not personally, directly or indirectly, interested in this matter. At the same time, I think it right to say that, taking the correspondence as it has been read, there is not the least doubt that the block on this Bill enabled the hon. Baronet (Sir E. Watkin) to obtain this property. It is as clear as possible that the property was purchased on May 31. This, however, does not concern Members of the House, and I shall be very glad if these personal matters can be removed from the notice of the House.

Question put, and negatived.

I beg to give notice that on an early day I will move to make valid the voluntary settlement.

Sir, the Government claim to be a Progressive Party, but the Unionists are the true Party of Progress: the Government represent retrogression; they wish to revive the boundaries and differences which separated us formerly. They are promoting, unintentionally of course, jealousies which weakened us so much in the past, which retarded the progress of this country, and led to so many civil wars, so much bloodshed and misery. As between England and Scotland, the boundary line is an old strategical line, but represents no difference of race, habits, or interests. The whole condition of the southern agricultural counties of Scot-laud resemble much more closely the agricultural districts of Northern England than the Urban or Highland districts of Scotland. Ethnologically, the line of separation between England and Scotland is quite imaginary. There is no real distinction between the population North and South of the line. The real distinction is between the Highlanders and the Lowlanders. The true boundary line is not from East to West, but from North to South, or, speaking more exactly, from North-East to South-West. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian strongly condemned the proposal now made by Her Majesty's Government. Speaking in 1882, in reply to Mr. Parnell in opposition to a proposal for geographical Grand Committees, he said—

"The hon. Member invited the Government to sanction the principle that certain Imperial powers—the powers of the Imperial Parliament —should be exercised by bodies of Members taken exclusively from one part of the United Kingdom. He greatly doubted whether the Parliament would ever sanction anything of the kind.… . For that House to divide itself in the manner proposed would be a most singular and extraordinary innovation, and an innovation which the House would not, he thought, under any circumstances, be prepared to entertain."

Devolution may or may not be necessary, but if necessary it should be determined by subjects, not by geographical boundaries. From the Amendment I had on the Paper—and which the Forms of the House prevent my moving—it has been said that I am prepared to go even further than Her Majesty's Government. That is not so; I am not in favour of geographical Grand Committees; but I maintain that if Scotch Bills are to be referred to a Scotch Committee, English Bills should be referred to an English Committee, and that if Irish Members wish it a similar course should be adopted in that case also. Grand Committees for the several sections of the United Kingdom are a mistake, but if there is to be one for Scotland I hold that it is obviously right and just that we should have a Grand Committee for England also, and the obligation of proof rests with those who oppose. It may be said that England has expressed no desire for such a course. I might reply, neither has Scotland. Some Scotch Members wisely wish to preserve the Union under which the country has nourished so greatly: others unwisely ask for a separate Legislature; but those who are in favour of a Scotch Grand Committee, unless as a mere stepping stone to separation, are a small minority. I will not, however, dwell upon this point, which is not material to my argument. But though England has shown no desire for separate Grand Committees, still, if Scotland is to have one, we ought to be placed in the same position. I may refer on this point to the Manifesto of the Scotch Home Rule Association, who say—

"The idea does not find favour in. Scotland, for the same reason as rendered the corresponding one for Ireland unacceptable to the Irish people, and because, in addition, the system of legislation in National Grand Committees could only have been entertained if applied to English and Irish as well as to Scottish Legislatures."

And they continue—

"This question affects the vital interests of each of the three parties to the present Union. If one of them is to be entrusted with the sole management of domestic affairs, the other two must receive the same privilege. No consideration for Ireland would justify your Memorialists in submitting to an arrangement under which her Representatives, being allowed the exclusive; management of their own domestic affairs, would be permitted also to control in the Imperial Parliament the domestic affairs of Scotland."

That seems to me to be a very sensible and logical argument. Indeed, if only one such Grand Committee is to be constituted, I should claim the precedence for England. Well, Sir, what was the argument used by the Home Secretary (Mr. Asquith) the other day at Huddersfield. I always read with very great interest and attention everything that falls from him, because he speaks with great ability and moderation, and always makes out the best case he can from his own point of view, and also because he is one of the most influential of those whom I have the honour of representing in this House. The right hon. Gentleman told us that a Scotch Bill was "beyond the powers of an Englishman to comprehend." That was not very complimentary; and, if correct, it suggests that in the opinion of the Government it would be an improvement if English Bills also—not to say Irish— were referred to a Scotch Committee rather than subjected to the stupid criticism of English Members. Then, he continued—

"How disappointing when we have had a nice instructive, quiet, fruitful Debate, in which the whole matter has been gone into from a purely Scotch point of view to have these English strangers overrule our opinions! "

Things have come to a pretty pass when an English Home Secretary speaks of English Members in our own House of Commons as strangers! It shows how the Government are themselves affected by the Separatist and anti-national feelings which they are rousing all over the country. If, Sir, we turn to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland (Sir G. Trevelyan), what reason does he allege for this proposal? He gives three. He says—

"Have we been told the country is too small and unimportant—a country with a population as large as a second-class European Kingdom— a Kingdom with manners, customs, laws, and administration of its own? Have we been shown that the population to whom those powers are asked to be entrusted cannot be trusted with them? … Have we been shown that Scotchmen do not understand or are unfitted to manage their own education, their own Universities, their own municipal affairs, their own liquor traffic, and all the other matters which concern the morality, the welfare, and the prosperity of the country? Let our opponents show that, or let them admit that we have a good case."

Now, surely he cannot deny that these reasons apply with as much force, or even more force, to England. He says that

"Scotland has manners, customs, laws, and an administration of its own."

So has England. He says—

"Cannot the Scotch, to whom the powers are asked to be entrusted, be entrusted with them?"

So I ask, with all submission to the Home Secretary, whether we English are not equally fitted for such powers? He asks —

"Has it been shown that Scotchmen are unfitted to manage their own education, their own municipal affairs, and other matters which concern the welfare of the country?"

Well, does he deny that the English are competent also? Lastly, he says that "Scotland is not small and unimportant." Well, I will not ask him to admit that England is more important, but he will not deny that she is larger. And when he says, in conclusion—

"Let our opponents show that, or let them admit that we have a good case,"

Englishmen may say the same with even greater force. I will not do Scotch Members the injustice of supposing that they would refuse to us the advantage they claim for themselves. If Scotland is to have a special Grand Committee, why not England and Ireland also? Mr. Parnell was of the same opinion. In a Draft Report presented to a Committee of the House in 1868 he proposed—

"That whenever any Public Bill relating exclusively to the affairs of either England, Ireland, or Scotland has been read a second time it shall be referred, unless otherwise directed by the House, to a Committee consisting of the Members representing countries and places in England, or of the Members representing Ireland or Scotland respectively, if the Bill referred to Ireland or Scotland."

Who, then, is there who objects to this proposal? Lord Rosebery, in his celebrated speech in another place, which seemed quite clear till it was explained, spoke of England as the predominant partner. The Government are doing their best, however, to reduce us to a position of degrading inferiority. They would give Ireland Home Rule, and Scotland a Grand Committee for Scotch affairs, and then allow Scotch and Irish Members to come and vote on English affairs. In fact, we have as yet heard one reason, and one reason only, why a Grand Committee is to be given to Scotland and withheld from England—namely, that Government do not possess the confidence of the people of England, and could not carry their measures. But, Sir, why are the wishes of the Government to prevail against the wishes of the people of England? Why are we to be overridden by Scotch and Irish votes? As long as we are all treated alike we cannot complain. Of course, the Union has some drawbacks for all of us; more than compensated, however, by the advantages. But if a change is made, it is monstrous and unpatriotic that Scotch Members are not only to legislate for themselves, but to override the wishes of England on English affairs. The reason given by supporters of Government against the proposal is really the strongest reason for it. May I say one word with reference to the prospects of the Liberal Party if they have a Grand Committee composed of English Members? At present they had the support of the Irish Members, but nobody can expect that to continue. No one who has watched the course of the Roman Catholic Church can consider that in the future her weight is likely in all cases to be thrown into the Liberal scale, and, therefore, I think it will be a very short-sighted policy to exclude England from having a Grand Committee of its own by any consideration of that kind. Finally, I would ask Scotch and Irish Members to place themselves in our position. They would, I am sure, find no words strong enough to denounce a policy which proposed to give English Members the right to manage their own affairs without interference, and then to vote on Scotch and Irish affairs. I appeal, then, to them to look at this question in a spirit of justice and equity; and if English Members would also approach the question in a spirit not of Party but of patriotism, as statesmen and not as politicians, and with a sense of what we owe to our country, I should have no doubt as to the vote they would give.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had told the House that there was no more difference between Scotland and England than there was between Devonshire and the rest of England.

^* said, he had not said anything of the kind. What he had said was, that there was a greater difference between the South of Scotland and the Highlands than between the South of Scotland and the North of England.

said, the right hon. Gentleman did not seem to be aware of the fact that the whole legal system of Scotland was different from that of England; that Scotland had her own Courts and her own judicature, which were preserved to her by the Treaty of Union, of which the right hon. Gentleman did not seem to have heard, and that her ecclesiastical organisation was totally different from that of England. In England one ecclesiastic was paid £15,000 a year, while another got £50 or £100 a year, and there were grades and ranks, and dignities, amongst the ministers of religion. Of all these things they knew nothing in Scotland. The Scotch ecclesiastical system was based upon a principle of equality. Scotchmen had always exhibited in their institutions a passion for equality. Nobody who knew anything of the history of England would say the same of Englishmen. With regard to education, what could be more different than the ideas of Scotchmen and Englishman? An Englishman's idea of education seemed to be to make the religion of the teachers high and their salaries low. The Scotch Poor Law administration was totally different from that of England, and so was the municipal government. The smallest town in Scotland had its own supply of gas and water. Scotchmen did not object to Englishmen allowing themselves to be robbed by Gas Companies and Water Companies, because that was their own affair, but they could not allow it to be said that there was no difference between Scotland and England. There was a profound difference, not only in the institutions but in the education and the ideals and the intellect of the people. It had been said by a gentleman sitting opposite that the appointment of such a Committee as was proposed by the Government would be a grave Constitutional change. That was very high-sounding, sonorous, awe-inspiring language, but what did it mean as applied to the proposal of the Government? He never heard the word "Constitutional" but he was reminded of the observation of Hobbs, "That words were the counters of wise men and the money of fools." What was the Constitution? That was a question which was much more easy to ask than to answer. One of the most able critics of the British Constitution, De Tocqueville, who also entertained a prodigious admiration for Englishmen and English institutions, said, in answer to that question—

"There is no such thing as the British Constitution. It is a thing which has no existence."

He believed that if Professor Dicey were put into one room, and three or four equally competent men into other rooms, and they were all asked to write an account of the British Constitution without holding any communication with one another, no two of them would agree in all particulars, but not one of them would dream of suggesting that the Rules of Procedure of the House of Commons were part of the Constitution. In some countries a Constitution undoubtedly existed, as in the United States. What did the Constitution of the United States provide with regard to the question of procedure? The provision was contained in one short sentence, which ran as follows: "Each House may determine the Rules of its proceedings." If it were to be said that every act which was done in the exercise of that power was part of the Constitution the person who said it would be talking egregious nonsense. It might as well be said that every Act of Parliament was part of the British Constitution, and that therefore every amendment of an Act of Parliament, however trivial, was an amendment of the Constitution. Those who said that the slight change now proposed in the form of procedure of the House of Commons was a Constitutional change were stretching the word "Constitution" until it cracked and became wholly meaningless. To say that this was a great Constitutional change was balderdash and nonsense. He could not help thinking that most of the speeches which had been made against the proposal were made by hon. Members before they had seen it. They were speeches which were directed not against the proposal before the House, but a totally different proposal—a proposal which owed its origin to a very distinguished and respected man, the late Mr. John Bright. What Mr. Bright proposed in 1886 was exactly the opposite of the proposal now before the House. Of course, his reference was to Ireland, but every word that Mr. Bright said of Ireland was more true of Scotland, because he might have entertained this doubt with regard to the former, that the Irish Members were not loyal. Whatever might be said about the Scottish Members, the question of loyalty did not apply in their case, and therefore what Mr. Bright said of Ireland was, à fortiori, true of Scotland. His proposal was that there should be a Standing Order—this was not a Standing Order—of the House by which all Bills relating to Ireland or to Scotland, as the case might be, should, after the First Reading, which was to be a purely formal transaction, be referred to a Committee exclusively composed of Irish Members, or, as the case might be. of Scottish Members. There were three leading features in Mr. Bright's proposal —(1) that the Committee should be exclusively National; (2) that it should have the Second Reading stage of a Bill in its own hands; (3) that all Bills should be compulsorily referred to this Committee, if they referred exclusively to those two countries. This, therefore, was a most important and vital change, because, so long as the Standing Order was in force, it would be impossible for a Government to force upon Ireland or upon Scotland any measure of which the majority of the Scottish or Irish Members disapproved. From the negative point of view, it protected those nationalities from hostile legislation by majorities in the House of Commons; and from the positive point of view, it left only a vetoing power to the House on the Third Reading stage. In these circumstances he should have thought that a proposal of that kind, emanating from so great a man and so distinguished a statesman, not to say so pronounced a Unionist, would have been received with more respect by the followers of that Party. More than a year ago the Scottish Members asked the Government to adopt that proposal, but instead of doing so the Government had proposed something quite different. This Committee was not to be a National Committee, seeing that it was to consist of Scottish Members with 15 other Members; the Second Reading stage of a Bill was not to be committed to its charge; and, most important of all, no Bill was to be referred to the Committee except by Order of the House. He would have been glad if a year ago the Government had been able to see their way to adopt Mr. Bright's proposal, because what was the position in which they found themselves in Scotland? The late Solicitor General for Scotland, in a speech which he delivered in this Debate, drew attention to the fact that in the course of the Parish Councils Bill there was one occasion on which he discovered that a majority of 10 Members in England had been overruled on an English question by Scottish and Irish votes. He could occupy a long time in stating the experiences of the Scottish Members, but he would be content with one example. On the Local Government Bill, brought in by the Conservative Government in 1889, the Scottish Members moved that the County Councils in Scotland should have power to look after the public interests in regard to public rights of way. That question was of peculiar importance in Scotland, and the Scottish Members voted in favour of it in the following manner: 10 supporters of the Government voted with the Government in opposition to the proposal, 10 supporters of the Government voted against the Government, and 39 of the Liberal Parly voted also, so that there was a majority of 49 to 10. To represent that in English figures—supposing it had been a question of England, they would have had 337 English Members on one side, and 68 English Members on the other. If the majority of 337 to 68 were overruled by Scottish votes he would admit that England had a very great grievance. He would read one sentence only from a speech by Mr. Bright at Birmingham in 1886. He said, of his wider proposal—

"What can be the harm? I ask you, as reasonable men, as men of business, if it is not a reasonable thing to try a scheme like this?"

And he also said—

"It could be done in the simplest manner, and in one night of the House of Commons."

If Mr. Bright had lived now he would have known that the House of Commons did not move quite so fast. The next point of objection that was taken to the proposal was this: they were told that it was wholly subversive of immemorial precedent, for the Leader of the Opposition had said this—

"We are asked for the first time to introduce this principle of nationality into our Committees in a, manner wholly subversive of the immemorial precedent set by this House."

And his other point was this—

"That Committees are divided between the Parties in the same proportion as they are represented in the House."

The idea that a Committee ought to represent Parties in this House was totally inconsistent with the invariable practice. The invariable practice with respect to all Special and Select Committees to which all Public Bills were referred had been that the Government of the day were allowed a majority of only one, and never more. In fact, until 1883, when the Grand Committees were introduced, the idea was never suggested that a Committee of this House ought to be composed in the same manner as Parties in this House. In the case of Grand Committees, a different principle was naturally adopted. These Committees were nominated for Bills applicable to the whole United Kingdom, and of course they ought to represent the various sections of the House. But his second point was—and this was the great grievance of the Leader of the Opposition —that they were to be asked to introduce the principle of nationality for the first time. He thought he could give precedents. The House would remember that they were not creating a Scottish Committee. In 1882 an Irish Bill (the Union Officers' Superannuation Bill) was referred to a Committee of 15, composed of 13 Irish Members, one Irishman with an English seat, and a Treasury official. He wished to show the House that during the Government of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, whenever a Scottish Committee was made to deal with a Scottish Bill, the Government recognised the principle of nationality to a greater extent than was proposed by the present scheme before the House.

If the hon. Gentleman is devoting himself to me, as I gather that he is, I may say that he has entirely mistaken my argument. I never suggested that if Scotsmen happen to be interested in a Bill they should not be put on in that capacity. But they are not put on as Scotsmen; only as Members of this House.

said, that was one of those metaphysical subtleties for which Scotsmen were frequently blamed. But whether they were qua Scotsmen or Scotsmen in fact, he did not care. What were the facts? The Limited Owners Bill had nine Scotsmen, one Irishman, and one Englishman. The Private Bill Procedure Bill had 19 Scotsmen and seven Englishmen. Then came the Burgh Police Bill, which stuck in the House of Commons for 15 years, and was got through by appointing a Committee of 22 Scottish Members, two Scotsmen with English seats, and two English Members. So that they had a proportion of 22 to 4. In the year 1890 a very important measure, the Scottish Police Superannuation Bill, was referred to a Select Committee of 21. When that Committee was first struck every Member of the 21 were Scotch Members, and there was not a single Englishman amongst them. It so happened that the Solicitor General of the day was raised to the Bench and a vacancy was created, and in order to have something to swear by they appointed the Member for Ipswich, who was a Scotsman, to fill the vacancy. What was the result? When the Bill he last referred to went into Committee it was a measure which, in addition to a charge of £40,000 got from the Exchequer, would have imposed a burden of £60,000 on the Scottish ratepayers. When it emerged from the Committee not a penny of burden was thrown on the Scottish ratepayers. In the year 1892 not a single Scottish Member got a day for a Private Bill. In 1893 they were equally unlucky in the ballot, and this year not a single Scottish private Member had got a day for a Bill. Assuming that Scottish Members got all the time that could be reasonably hoped for after making allowance for the Imperial business and the Estimates, it was a very small portion of time which remained for the legislation of this country. Of that time Scotland was not entitled to more than one-tenth. The plan of the Government would relieve the House of one stage only. It did not deprive the House of the power of dealing with the details of a Bill. The Report stage was reserved for the House, and on that stage every line and every word of a Bill was under the jurisdiction of the House. Some hon. Members had suggested that they should refer Scottish Bills to an ordinary Grand Committee. In such a Committee they would have about 10 Scottish Members. A quorum was 20; and what would be their chances of getting a quorum if the whole of the Members, with the exception of the 10, belonged to England? All that was proposed by the Government was that Scottish Bills should be referred to those persons who knew the wants and wishes of the constituencies in Scotland, who were familiar with the wants of Scotland, and who were able to bring their knowledge to bear upon Scottish measures. Any hon. Members who voted against this Motion would assert this proposition, that under no circumstances might any Scottish Bill whatever be properly sent to a Committee of the kind. He did not suppose that anything like every Scottish Bill would be referred to the Committee. The reference of Bills to the Committee must be in the hands of the House. The proposal was a moderate one, and was intended to provide for what he thought would prove to be a limited class of cases. What was the advantage of this Committee to Scotland? It was very little. It did not emancipate them from the thraldom of an English majority. It did not remove the incubus of a foreign majority. But it did make it possible, consistently with a reasonable demand on the time of the House, that they should get some of the arrears of Scottish legislation removed; and when English Members came to deal with the Reports of these Committees on the Report stage, it would be an advantage to them to know what was the opinion of Scottish Members. If then, with their eyes open, English Members thought they ought to overrule Scottish Members, by all means let them do so. It was their right. But if they did overrule the Scottish Members, they would know what they were doing. Under the present system it was impossible for any English Member to know what Scottish opinion was until the question had been first decided in the House. He trusted a measure of this kind, so moderate, so reasonable, and so limited, and having only one object— namely, saving the time of the House— would commend itself to the House generally. There were some Members who did not desire to save the time of the House—who desired, on the contrary, to waste the time of the House; and from that quarter alone they had received, and would still receive, embittered and venomous opposition.

I will not begin by speaking of the "foreign incubus" which the hon. Member thought was the word to use with regard to the influence of "the predominant partner" in the general affairs of the country. What I should wish, in the first instance, to point out is the extraordinary course which this Debate has taken. We have heard the views of a certain number of Scotch Members, and we have heard one Cabinet Minister. But I notice with some degree of interest that no English supporter of the Government has so far expressed the slightest approval of their proposals. I do not know whether we shall be favoured this evening with the opinions of the hon. Member for Bedford, who on previous occasions has denounced the proposal which is now before the House. I do not see him in his place; but I hope that he will descend from the Olympian heights on which he generally dwells, and, having pondered the question, will give us his majestic advice on the subject. We should have liked also to hear hon. Members representing English constituencies replying to some of the arguments which have been put forward by the Leader of the Opposition and others. We should have been glad to hear the Home Secretary, even though he represents a Scotch constituency; but he prefers to address an audience at Huddersfield rather than the House of Commons. We have been promised the early intervention of a Cabinet Minister, but I see no signs yet of that intervention. I think we were entitled at an earlier portion of this Debate to know what is the answer of Her Majesty's Government to some of the questions which have been put. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has asked whether this general proposal should afterwards be applied to Wales and Ireland. It is a fair question. Is this Motion part of a general policy, or is it specially devised for Scotland? I do not say that it is a polemical disadvantage, but it is a disadvantage in looking at the merits of the case that such a long time has elapsed before we really know the views of Her Majesty's Government on this point. I do not think that this plan of hanging back so long promotes the despatch of business. Hon. Members cannot complain, when we are not favoured with the views of Her Majesty's Government with regard to a number of serious points, if we demand further time until we can induce the Government to enter the lists and cross swords with us. Therefore, do not let it be said that we have lengthened this Debate unduly. If there had been an earlier intervention on the part of the Government I believe it would rather have shortened debate. Is this proposal of the Government one which is likely to further the object of saving the time of the House? The Government have obstructed the business of the House by introducing this proposal. There are no Scotch Bills down for Second Heading yet; but there is one Bill which, I believe we may say, it is the intention of the Government to refer to this Scotch Grand Committee—the Parish Councils Bill for Scotland. We ought to have been told by hon. Members for Scotland what class of Bills they wished to send to this Grand Committee. At present we are putting up this large and important machinery without having any idea of the work which the machinery will have to do. Would it not have been more business-like if it had been proposed that the Scotch Parish Councils Bill should be referred to a Scotch Committee, instead of making this wide and general proposal? If that had been done it would have saved much of this Debate. But no doubt it would have been too preposterous, after the Prime Minister has boasted that the English Parish Councils Bill was passed by Irish votes, for hon. Members to claim that the Scotch Parish Councils Bill should be withdrawn from the consideration of English Members. I quite understand why that particular Bill was not selected for this experiment, and why they preferred, on the contrary, to have a general Motion. Well, we see with regard to the saving of time that the Bills are to be referred by Order to this Grand Committee. Is it not apparent that there will be a Debate on every occasion that is possible on these Bills which have not been read a second time? There will then be a Debate as to whether they are fit subjects to be referred to this Committee. I shall ask before I sit down, with regard to the three or four Scotch Bills in regard to which Scotch Members are anxious, whether they are Bills which it is proposed should be referred to this Grand Committee. If there is to be a Grand Committee to which general Scotch Bills are to be referred, it is a grave question whether English Members will not think on many occasions that it will be right to move when English Rills are considered that Scotch Members should be removed off these Grand Committees in order to put Englishmen in regard to the discussion of these Bills in the same position as that which Scotchmen are to hold? We have been told a great deal as to the ignorance on the part of English Members in regard to Scotch Bills. Are we to assume that we know nothing of Scotland, and that a Scotchman knows everything of England? We are incapable of discussing the question of the Disestablishment of the Scotch Church, but hon. Members opposite, from Scotland, will gaily take part in the discussion as to the Disestablishment of the Welsh Church. The hon. Members for Scotland, I suppose, after discussing Scotch Disestablishment—if ever they get in that position — would afterwards take part in the Committee stages of a Bill to disestablish the Welsh Church. If they did so they would be entirely throwing away the whole of the argument which they now urge—namely, that on the plea of justice they are entitled to a Grand Committee. I do not think, and I do not believe the Government can think, that they can save much time in any way by this proposal. Then why do they make it? I do not think that their Scotch supporters are very much enamoured of it. I think, in the Debate on Scotch Home Rule, one hon. Member used the phrase that this was a temporary makeshift, and another that it was a stop-gap. I think we may call it something more than merely a Committee which is to deal with the Parish Councils Bill. Possibly it is a Scotch Home Rule Suspensory Bill. It is to be a Bill which is to accustom the English public to legislate by nationalities. I will suggest another alternative which I believe to be the real fact why this measure is proposed. The Government before they proceeded to their Budget proposals and Registration Bill had got to square all the various sections of their supporters, so they proposed for the Metropolis an Equalisation of Rates Bill, for Wales they coquet with a Disestablishment Bill; they give something to the evicted tenants of Ireland, and they go to Scotland and choose this Grand Committee as a sop to their Scottish supporters. How far this will satisfy their Scotch supporters I do not know. I think, after all, the Scotch supporters of the Government need not be dissatisfied for they have got almost as much as the others, because all the measures which they propose are placed by the Government upon the same platform of hopelessness. I doubt if they will carry any of them, and so the Scotch Members need not be blamed very seriously if they only get a piece of machinery while the others are promised a piece of work which may not, after all, be accomplished. But is there not something more in this? Are we not to see in this proposal, to some extent, the hand of our Scotch Prime Minister? He declared very frankly that as regards Scotch Home Rule that if he was in a private capacity, as I understood him, he would join the storming party which was to take us in the rear with regard to Scotch Home Rule, while we were fighting Ireland on the flank. That was to be a storming party, but now it would appear he is proceeding by sap and mine, and preparing the ground for that evolution or devolution to which he looks forward with such satisfaction. I should like to have a reply to this point. Is this part of a general scheme, or is it to be limited in the mind of the Government to Scotland? What I am prepared to show, and what every Member feels, is that you cannot stop by simply granting Scotland this Grand Committee. If you give it to Scotland you must give it to Wales if she asks for it. Is there one single argument why Wales should not have it if Scotland is to have it? Might not the Welsh make precisely the same speeches as the Scotch Members? I am surprised they have not, because I saw a Notice on the Paper claiming the extension of this principle to Wales; and the Government and every Member must know that if this Grand Committee is granted to Scotland you must have a Welsh Grand Committee, and then why not an Irish Grand Committee? My right hon. Friend the Member for the University of London pointed out that in 1882 the Irish had demanded a separate Irish Grand Committee. I say distinctly that so far as this will be a new departure you will see that in this proposal there lies the separate legislation by nationalities of a certain class of business, whether that business is controversial or non-controversial. If you give a Grand Committee to Scotland you must give it to Wales and Ireland, and, therefore, I ask whether in our arrangement for this Grand Committee we are not bound to take into consideration whether we should constitute similar Committees precisely in the same manner and on the same lines in the case of Wales or Ireland? Perhaps it will be demanded, for instance, that the Crofters' Act should be referred to this Grand Committee? If so, will the Irish Evicted Tenants' Bill be referred to an Irish Grand Committee? That does not lie, I think, within the present purview of the mind of the Government, but I insist upon this: that if we give a Grand Committee to Scotland it ought to be hedged round with such precautions and so constructed that if the Government should be compelled and should insist upon its being conferred on other parts of the United Kingdom the same class of machinery should be applied. Suppose we pass the Grand Committee in its present form, and in another Session a Grand Committee is moved for in reference to Irish legislation, and we were then to insert certain precautions—for instance, with regard to laud or finance, or the rights of property—it would be immediately said, that that was an insult to Ireland, because we had granted a Scotch Committee to Scotland on different terms. Therefore, I say that whatever we do now we must not look at this question from the point of view of Scotland, or from the point of view of the hon. Member who last addressed the House, who treats it as a little businesslike proposal. But would it be a businesslike proposal to refer all Irish Bills to an Irish Grand Committee? I think you would find not, if you were to see the proceedings which would take place in Committee Room No. 15, which perhaps might be the site which would be chosen for an Irish Grand Committee. Hon. Members deceive themselves if they look upon this as a merely and simply businesslike proposal. This is a proposal in what the Secretary for Scotland called the most important process of Committee stages, to proceed by nationalities in the framing of legislation. That is the proposal, and if that is so I say you must take all precautions and so arrange your Grand Committees that you will be able to apply them to other nationalities as well as to Scotland. For my part, I am totally against this devolution or legislation by nationalities. I believe that every nationality gains by being associated with other nationalities, and your legislation is improved by the very contradiction of character and intellect in the different nationalities. That is my own conviction. You cannot view this simply as a Scotch proposal as it has been placed before us by the Government. That being my view upon the general case, and not knowing whether the Government look upon this as an isolated step or as part of a system which, after trial, would be extended, I am bound to treat the matter from this point of view, both as an isolated step and as part of a general system, and to inquire what would be the results. The Home Secretary told his friends at Huddersfield that this was a homoeopathic dose. But homoeopathic doses are occasionally dangerous, because the smallness of the dose encourages the repetition of the doses, and you may be poisoned by homoeopathic as well as by the more sustaining doses. I look at this little businesslike proposal, and I point out that the hon. Member for North Aberdeen gave us no hint as to the Bills which would be referred to this Committee.

I should say exactly the same character of Bills as were referred by a Conservative Government to a Select Committee.

Yes; but that is to compare a Committee in which no step in legislation is taken with a Committee which legislates. We have no objection whatever to inquiry such as is made by a Select Committee. The hon. Member compared two things that are totally dissimilar, a Select Committee and a Grand Committee, but he did not inform the House that a Grand Committee is a miniature of the House, and a Select Committee is not. It appears to me that if the only object of hon. Members opposite is to get inquiry and bring Scotch opinion to bear on Bills, let us follow the course we have hitherto pursued, and give Scotch Members every opportunity to ventilate Scotch opinion, but do not withdraw the Bills from any of their stages in this House. Two arguments are mainly used by the Scotch Members. The first is, that the Scotch Members do not get enough business done; the other is, that they are overridden by English opinion; and it is this which hurts them more than anything else. Before an English audience a right hon. Gentleman opposite has spoken in a tone of indignation of the way in which, as he said, Scotch opinion was overridden by English opinion. Why, we are overridden every day by Scotch, Irish, and Welsh opinion! And the right hon. Gentleman is a Member of a Government which is coercing an English majority every day by Scotch, Irish, and Welsh votes. In every Bill which is passed this Session it is highly probable the English majority will be overridden by the other nationalities. We shall seek to remedy the difficulty by changing the majorities in the other countries. I do not complain; but I say the Scotch have no special grievance in this matter at all. An hon. Member said that no private Members passed a Scotch Bill during a particular Session. They are not so clever in combining to get their Bills passed as are the Irish Members. The Irish outnumber them to an extent; but, even taking that into consideration, it is extraordinary the luck or skill with which the Irish Members find days for their Bills. But how many English private Members have carried Bills in the same period? If Scotch Members are to have a Grand Committee for the purpose of passing private Members' Bills, will not the other nationalities ask to be placed on the same footing? The silent Government has not told us whether they intend to refer the Bills of private Members to this Committee, and they must take their chance then as to a Second Reading. I think an hon. Member said they had got no Second Readings. If it be not private Members' Bills, what Bills are to be referred to the Scotch Committee? We know that one is to be the Scotch Local Government Bill. But is it not monstrous that after Scotch and other nationalities have assisted us in passing the English County Councils Act, and have modified many proposals in Committee, they should claim to have this important stage of their own Bill to themselves? Of course, if they have, other stages of the Bill will have to be debated in this House at greater length than they otherwise would be. What other Bills are to be referred to this Committee? On this point we have no light. It has been said the Grocers' Licensing Bill ought to be dealt with by Scotch Members according to their own views. I will lay down this proposition—that no Bill, even if it refers exclusively to Scotland, which affects Imperial Revenue, can be looked upon as a purely Scotch Bill. It is said that only Scotch Members can understand the mysteries of Scotch education. However that may be, education is mixed up with finance. We gave free education to Scotland at the cost of the Imperial Exchequer. Would it be fair to leave Scotch Members to decide upon Bills involving drafts upon the Imperial Exchequer? There was an interesting meeting of Scotch Members last November, and they discussed a list of Bills to be referred to the Scotch Committee. I understand that registration for Scotland is to be dealt with in the same Bill as English registration. The Bills named at the meeting were the Local Veto Bill, the Bill for the Disestablishment of the Church, the Parish Councils Bill, and a Bill for extending the Crofters' Act. I believe the Parish Councils Bill was put low down, and there was a close run between Disestablishment and Local Option; I am not sure whether Local Option was not in advance of Disestablishment. Is it asked that the Scotch Local Veto Bill shall be referred to the Scotch Committee before the Chancellor of the Exchequer gives England an opportunity of passing this measure? Would it be business? If the Government propose to refer this Bill to the Scotch Committee there will be a serious Debate whether the principle shall be settled for Scotland exclusively. [An hon. MEMBER: What about Sunday closing?] Well, it is not on the list. [An hon. MEMBER: It was passed 50 years ago.] I am discussing not Bills that are passed, but Bills it is proposed to refer to the Scotch Committee. When it was passed we had something to say, and Scotch Members would have something to say if Sunday Closing for England were proposed. Would a Disestablishment Bill be considered a fit subject to be referred to the Committee? I scarcely think the Government would say so. If it be a subject to be referred to the Grand Committee, where is the point of uncontroversial Bills? Where are those uncontroversial subjects we were told about? Nearly every one of the measures put before us is eminently controversial. Local Veto in Scotland is controversial, Church Disestablishment is controversial, Parish Councils—judging from our experience on the English Bill—we shall probably find controversial. Therefore, you have not got that group of measures ready which is to occupy this Committee when it meets. I should now wish, for a few moments, to examine the constitution of the Committee, as to which a good deal fell from the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen. I was astonished at the argument of the Secretary for Scotland, that this Grand Committee was going to be formed on the lines of the present Grand Committee. He said that was his great argument in favour of this proposal. I said at the time, "Good Heavens! if that is so, what are his other arguments?" because a worse argument was never submitted to the House. My right hon. Friend near me, in pointing to this, made a very good point which has not yet been replied to. In the Grand Committees you first get a miniature of the House and then add 15 specialists. In the present case you first take 70 specialists, and then you add to them 15 ignoramuses from England. That is an entire departure from our system of forming Grand Committees, and yet it is called a parallel case. I suppose because the number 15 is made use of in both cases the right hon. Gentleman thinks it makes the same case of them. But if it is not for the sake of precedent, why have you fixed on this figure of 15? Again, absolutely no explanation. There are obvious inconveniences and drawbacks to this system, which has been denounced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian and by the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread). Select Committees have been referred to, but we are not dealing with Select Committees. We are dealing with Grand Committees; and what hon. Members opposite have to show is that it is not a grave change, whether they call it Constitutional or not, to depart from constituting Grand Committees so that each will be a miniature or microcosm of the House, as required by Standing Order 48. Under what Standing Order is this Scottish Com- mittee to be placed? The Committee of Selection have, with regard to the other Grand Committees, principles laid down for their guidance, which make their work comparatively easy. But in this case they have no guide how they are to choose the 15 additional Members, and they will have an extremely difficult task in the absence of any guidance from the Government. Are they to choose the 15 partly from the majority and partly from the minority of the House? They are not told. All that you do tell them is that the 15 are not to be Scotchmen. Beyond this, the Government offers the Committee of Selection no guide whatever in this matter. The hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Sir C. Cameron) was extremely candid on this point. He said you can only work it if the majority on the Grand Committee is in harmony with the Government, and, therefore, while you give Scotland her Grand Committee, you would not be able to give England a Grand Committee now, because Her Majesty's Government are in a minority in England. There is a good deal of force in that argument. You have laid down the rule that, where you have legislation, there the composition is always to be what the composition of the House is. It is impossible that this proposal of the Government can be applied to the other portions of the United Kingdom; and therefore, as I maintain that it is essential that any proposal should be applicable to all alike, the House ought to reject the present proposal for Scot-laud upon the ground that it is not applicable to the rest of the United Kingdom. On the question of overriding the majority, we in England are not to have a Grand Committee because the British majority would have its way. There has not been an attempt to give a reply to this, and I invite any Minister who is going to speak on this question to give us an answer to it. You cannot limit this proposal to Scotland. If we are to legislate by nationalities, then the scheme must be suitable also for England. Then comes the point put by the Leader of the Opposition, and not yet replied to. If a Bill passes through a Grand Committee not representing the general majority of the House, the whole of what is done in Committee will be upset on Report. I will illustrate the point by referring to the Local Veto Bill. If the Scottish Members are to settle their Local Veto Bill, the English ought to settle the English Local Veto Bill, without the assistance of Scotsmen, Welshmen, or Irishmen. They cannot claim to come and vote us down. What will the Government do? Will the Government accept the Bill as it has passed through the English Committee, or will it reverse the whole of that which in Committee has been ascertained to be the wish of the English majority? Supposing we had had the Parish Councils Bill in a Committee of English Members only, it would have been a very different Bill. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite will accept that. ["No!"] I will not repeat the Prime Minister's observation that the Bill was passed by Irish votes, because that is not absolutely correct. The Second Reading was not passed by Irish votes. But Irish votes did determine the form which the administration of charities and bequests left by Englishmen should take, and the Irish and Scotch votes helped to determine the limit of population of purely English parishes beyond which there must be Parish Councils. I wonder what would have been the course the Government would have taken had that Bill been left to the English majority and altered according to their wishes. Would they have thrown it out; or would they have brought in their allies and deliberately, in the face of England, have changed all the points they desired to alter by Irish and Scottish votes? There is no answer to that. The same remark would apply if a Conservative Government were in power, in the case of a Scottish Grand Committee with a majority of Scottish and Radical Members, who could introduce a number of provisions in the Bill to which the Government would object. It has not even been hinted at how the difficulty could be met, and truly it is a most serious difficulty. I see one point which hon. Members opposite may consider an advantage; but let us see if it is really so. It will be said that we shall, at all events, know what is the pure voice of Scotland on any matter, and the Irish view will be the same. But then comes the English view, and English opinion will also be known to have been overridden by the votes of Irish and Scottish Members. What would be the result of overriding the wishes of such a Grand Committee? Increased ease in the working of the Parliamentary machine? On the contrary, there would be increased friction in every direction. It may be the wish of some, looking to their proclivities in the direction of Home Rule, to bring out all the difficulties in a glaring form in order to force legislation by nationalities. But we on this side do not wish to intensify any difficulties there may be with regard to the processes or the product of legislation. The hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen (Mr. Hunter) spoke of the views of Mr. Bright. But Mr. Bright proposed his scheme not as an amendment of the Business of the House, but as an alternative to Home Rule. Can the right hon. Gentleman opposite hold out any hope that by giving the Irish a Grand Committee they would solve the question of Home Rule? If so, then we may appeal to the precedent of Mr. Bright, and say that his views should determine us in reference to this proposal. I would ask the House very seriously this question: Do they really desire legislation by nationalities? On some questions on which English Members are uninformed, such as hypothec, with regard to which I doubt whether even Scotch Members themselves know all its mysteries, I can quite see that hon. Members may desire it, and may think it would facilitate business if such Bills were referred to a Grand Committee. But you cannot draw a distinction between these and the great controversial Bills which cannot be sent to Grand Committee; and if you set up a nationality to legislate at one stage, and the whole four nationalities to legislate at another stage, I say you are exposing this House of Commons to such friction that you will be driven, further on, even to four separate Parliaments. I ask English Liberals, not one of whom has addressed the House upon this subject, not one of whom has condescended to say they are prepared to tell their constituents they are willing to see English interests placed in an inferior position, which it is clear unless you have. Home Rule all round they will be placed in— Do they wish to separate the domestic legislation of the various parts of the United Kingdom? What would the Liberal Party have been in the past, where would be the roll of all the Statutes they have passed, if they had not had the Scotch Members to assist them in English legislation? I would pause, if I were hon. Members, before I would part with the influence of Scotch Liberalism on English legislation; and, whatever views I may hold, I distinctly prefer that all parts of the United Kingdom should legislate together, whatever the political, I would almost say whatever the social, result may be. Each of our nationalities has its separate characteristics, its separate force of character, its separate intellect. Is it not best that in the future, as in the past, we should go on together upon legislation which is common to the United Kingdom, common in principle, common even in details, rather than that we should legislate in these weighty affairs in separate Committee rooms? Our legislation in the past has been an amalgam of English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh politics. For my part, I think that amalgam is the truest metal from which you can forge the girders on which the destinies of this country may securely rest.

^* : I am sure that neither the Government nor those who support them in their present proposal have any reason to complain of the tone of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. There was a great deal of good humoured banter in it; there was a long tissue of those hypothetical conundrums in which the right hon. Gentleman delights. But there was none of that more acrid spirit which, I am sorry to say, was displayed towards some of us at least in the earlier nights of this Debate. He began by making some complaint against the Government because we were hanging back in the Debate. He made a great complaint that only one Cabinet Minister had spoken. Well, I am not one who stands very much on the dignity of a Cabinet Minister, who, after all, is a mortal like other Members of this House. But, as a matter of fact, there had been only one ex-Cabinet Minister who had spoken, and my right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate spoke on the first night, and no one could speak with greater personal authority than my right hon. Friend. But I was certainly somewhat alarmed—knowing that I should have to follow the right hon. Gentleman—when he said that he had had no answer to some of the questions that had been put to us. I was careful to take note of what these questions were, and find that, after all, they were two. The first terrible poser which the right hon. Gentleman addressed to us was as to our intentions of extending this proposal to other parts of the Three Kingdoms, as to which I shall have something to say before I sit down; and the second was, that he asked us triumphantly, "Will this save time? "

If the right hon. Gentleman is giving the catalogue of my questions—

I have done with them.

I would remind him I also asked what were the Bills it is proposed to refer to the Committee; why the figure 15 had been taken; and if the right hon. Gentleman taxes his memory, he will remember that I put other questions.

^* : There are a good many subsidiary questions which I shall be happy to answer, but the two questions which the right hon. Gentleman was breathless to deliver were those which I have mentioned. Well, Sir, our object—I will not say our whole object, but the great part of our object—was to save the time of the House for Scottish business; and if it is saved for Scottish business, it will be saved for other business, because it will remove, so far as it operates, that business from the way of other business of the House. We look upon this as a modest proposal; and if the right hon. Gentleman complains, as he appears to do, that many arguments have not been answered, it is not so much because they are unanswerable, but because, however great force there is in them, they apply to something which is not in the least contemplated by the Government in bringing forward this proposal. Therefore it happens, as sometimes occurs, that arguments do not answer each other, for the simple reason that they are moving on parallel lines, and never meet. But what is it that we ground the proposal now before the House upon? We make two allegations. We say, in the first place, that Scottish business has been hindered and scantily attended to of recent years, and in increasing degree. And the second allegation, which for my part I regard as quite as important, is this—that Scottish opinion upon Scottish subjects has not received its due weight. Are we right in the first allegation? It is a serious complaint to make from our point of view, because the Liberal Party, at all events, are those who think that there is too much delay, too much hesitation in legislation, and that, whatever may have been the case in former years, now the mind of the country is so active and so well-informed that matters come to this House for legislation in a state of preparation for action which the House of Commons was not accustomed to in years now long gone by. Therefore, there is no longer any necessity for dangling and dawdling and playing with a question when the subject comes before this House. In the great majority of instances it is ripe for being dealt with, if only the House could find the time to do it. That is the spirit which actuates us, and I can honestly say that any delay to which we are party is forced upon us by circumstances and is not of our creation. I am well aware of the tremendous forces in this House, and out of it, that make for delay in legislation. Those who contribute to the creation of those forces do not all proceed from the same motive or intention. There are many Members who may have an objection to a particular piece of legislation, to an individual measure which is introduced, and they oppose it by all the means in their power. That is an honourable and legitimate opposition, deserving of all respect, even from those who do not join in it. Then there is a certain section in the House, and not a very small section, who go a little further, and think we have too much legislation, and that they do the State and the public good service in hindering legislation as much as they can. That is also a perfectly intelligible and perfectly honourable opinion and motive, which again I would treat with every possible respect. But I regret to say, Sir, that within a short time there has come into play another set of motives altogether, and there appear to be some Members of the House whose antipathy is not directed so much to individual measures, or to the reform of our laws, as to the Government of the day, and whose object almost avowedly is, by their action, to prevent the Government of the day obtaining such credit as they might get by the passing of measures, whether they consider such measures good or not.

I would like to know their names.

^* : I think the noble Lord knows some of them, although it is not a motive which I for one moment would impute to him. That, I say, is a new element, a new spirit in dealing with legislation in this House, and it has, no doubt, served to increase the delay and the hindrance that has existed in past years. So far as these causes affect Scottish business, they have undoubtedly increased in intensity. Some hon. Members who have taken part in these Debates have referred to the last Parliament, and have said it is the fault of the Government that you cannot pass Scottish Bills, because they point to last Parliament and say, "Remember the very important legislation on Scottish subjects which the late Government was able to carry through the House." Yes, Sir, but shall I say frankly what the reason for that was? The reason was that the Opposition was as anxious or even more anxious to pass the legislation than the Government themselves; that the Opposition gave every assistance in their power, and only exerted themselves to carry the legislation further than the somewhat reluctant Government was willing to go. Therefore, for my part, I am prepared to face some objections and some anomalies in order to find a remedy for this delay. But there is not only the delay in Scottish business; there is, as I have said, the suppression, and in some cases obliteration, of Scottish feeling in our legislation. I naturally approach this subject from the point of view of a Scotsman. I have some difficulty in realising it, but I am the father of Scottish Members, and in that capacity my memory goes back to very early times —times spoken of as if they were halcyon times—when the Scottish Members met in the Lord Advocate's room, and discussed the business of the year quietly, and never troubled the English and Irish Members on their matters at all, and at the end of the Session there was a certain amount of legislation to be put to their credit. These were the old dilettante days, before the extension of household suffrage. With the extension of household suffrage there came the introduction of an earnest spirit into the House, and the previous hole-and-corner arrangements became impracticable, and there was a right and necessary demand that the business of Scotland should be transacted in the face of the House, and in Committees of the House, where public responsibility exists. Since then there has been nothing but constant complaint. This complaint culminated in the case of the Local Government Bill for Scotland, which was passed during the last Parliament. During the progress in Committee of that Bill we saw again and again Scottish Members discussing points of the greatest interest and importance to their country, and expressing considerable unanimity on these points; but when the Division bell was rung, other Members came in from all quarters and overrode the opinion of the Scottish Members. The question involved was not a Party question, and it is not on that ground that I complain, but the fact remains that we were overridden; and when the House ascertained the feeling and opinion of the Scottish Members, it was too late to give effect to it. Since then there has been in all quarters in Scotland an earnest desire, if possible, to find some remedy for that state of matters. We feel that if we are to be overruled it should be done, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen (Mr. Hunter) in his most able defence of this Resolution made clear, with the full knowledge on the part of the House of what the opinion of Scotland, as represented by the Scottish Members, is. Therefore it is that we propose this Grand Committee. We have heard it spoken of in very strong terms by the Leader of the Opposition, who talked of it as revolutionising the practice of this House, and upsetting our immemorial traditions, and so forth. These are the exaggerated phrases that he has been obliged to use in order to make his somewhat puffed-up case against the Resolution. We know it is an innovation; we admit that it is an innovation. When the right hon. Gentleman asks whether it is in accordance with the ordinary Rule as to Grand Committees that it should be an exact reflex, as near as may be, of the political opinions of the House, we know that it is not so. It is because we know that what we seek to obtain in the representation of Scottish opinion cannot be obtained by an ordinary Grand Committee that we bring forward the Resolution and submit it to the House. We are told that this proposal is a recognition of nationality, but I imagine that that objection is somewhat departed from, because hon. Members in the course of the Debate have adduced instance after instance where Select Committees at least have been appointed with a direct reference to nationality. But we are told that the Resolution is improper, because it includes all the Scottish Members. The Leader of the Opposition laid down the extraordinary proposition that on Scottish subjects Scottish Members did not represent Scottish opinion. The right hon. Gentleman had the courage to assert that the apparent majority represented by the Members on one side and the other of this House does not represent a similar division of opinion in Scotland, for he said the votes cast upon either side at the last General Election were about equal. That may be so by the somewhat magnificent arithmetic of the right hon. Gentleman, but there is a trifling difference of 40,000 votes in favour of those whom he would call, perhaps, the Gladstonian Members which, I think, ought to have been taken into reckoning by the right hon. Gentleman. I have looked into this matter, and find that these 40.000 votes represent 8 per cent. of the number of electors who voted. That may not seem a very large proportion, but the right hon. Gentleman was a principal Member of a Government not many years ago which overrode the opinion of Scotland, and coerced Ireland, and controlled the affairs of England, by virtue of a majority which only represented 3 per cent. of those who went to the poll at the General Election. I have also found, singularly enough, that that is the precise proportionate majority which he himself enjoys in the constituency he now represents, and I think he would be very glad to exchange it for the 8 per cent. which is represented in Scotland by the 40,000 votes I have referred to.

The right hon. Gentleman said the votes cast were about equal; but it is of the capacity of Scottish Members that he is almost contemptuous. He was disposed to belittle them because there were so many Englishmen amongst the Scottish Members on this side.

No. no.

In the Debate which interposed itself in the middle of this discussion he referred to my hon. Friend the Member for West Fife (Mr. Birrell) as the Englishman who sits for West Fife, which struck me as a somewhat strange quip to come from the lips of the Scotsman who sits for East Manchester.

I do not want Home Rule for England.

^* : There is no question of Home Rule for England or Home Rule for Scotland. The question is whether an Englishman sitting for a Scottish constituency is entitled to speak in the name of his constituents with authority upon a Scottish subject. Let me remind the right hon. Gentleman there are two classes of those migrated Members—there are those who have crossed the Border northwards or southwards because they have been invited by constituencies out of their own country to do so, and there are those who have crossed the Border because they could not find constituencies in their own country. I will make this offer to the right hon. Gentleman. I will take the Englishmen who sit for Scottish constituencies and transfer them to England in the next General Election within the next two or three years, and I will let him take to Scotland the Scotsmen who sit for English constituencies, and we will see which of us will return the larger number of our men. What have we to do with the birthplace of a Member any more than we have to do with the colour of his hair? What we have to do with is the fact that he is the choice of the electors. To say that any Member is not entitled to represent the opinion of Scotland because he was not born in Scotland—

I never said so.

^* : The right hon. Gentleman did not go so far as to say that he was not entitled to represent it, but, as I said, he belittled the weight and authority of such a Member upon any purely Scottish subject. But whether Englishmen or Scotsmen, he denies their competence on another most extraordinary ground. He says their opinion is worth little on a Scotch local question, because they are elected on great Party issues. The argument seems to come to this—that no elector and no Representative is entitled to have an opinion upon two subjects at once. We are constantly told, for instance, that if a Member is in favour of Home Rule and also of Disestablishment, his election furnishes no proof that the constituency is in favour of the one policy or the other. Every opinion that can be professed, I suppose, is thus to be taken by itself. But the most preposterous of all these ideas is that a Member is not a proper person in this country to speak the opinion on local questions of his constituency, and that we are rather to go, as we have been told, to other Members, representing other constituencies, who from their personal experience are supposed to be better able to speak. I submit that when the Scottish Members give their vote upon purely Scottish questions by a large majority, we are entitled to take that to be the legitimate, honest, and genuine expression of the opinion of the Scottish people, and there is no other way by which we can obtain that opinion. What is this proposal that we make? We propose that such Bills as are determined by the House should be remitted to a substantially Scottish Committee. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Goschen) has asked me as to the constitution of the Committee. He has said, "Why do you take all the Scottish Members?" For the very reason that we wish to know the opinion of the Scottish people; and we can only get at that opinion through the votes and the voice of the Representatives of the Scottish people. We add to the Scottish Members 15 Members to be selected by the Committee of Selection. They may choose for that purpose Scotsmen sitting for English constituencies if they think they are particularly qualified to assist the Committee in its deliberations; and if they do so in present circumstances, the probability would be that the large number of the 15 would add to the strength of the Opposition on the Committee, and would go very far, at all events, to approach the disposition of Parties in this House. It would be no punishment to an English Member to be added to this Grand Committee. In 1884 the Scottish Burgh Police Bill was referred to a Select Committee composed of 21 Scottish Members and six English Conservative Members, three of whom were Scotsmen; and I find that at the meetings of that Committee there was a good attendance of the Scottish Members. But there was one of the Scotsmen—an English Member—specially put on to give the Committee his assistance who never attended any meeting of the Committee throughout its whole proceedings. That Member was the Scotsman who then sat for the Borough of Hertford and now sits for East Manchester (Mr. A. J. Balfour). It does not appear, therefore, that the duty would be, at all events, oppressive. The right hon. Gentlemen asks me what Bills are to be sent to this Committee; and when he inquired how it was hoped to save time, he made a suggestion in which there was a good deal of force. He said—"Why do you not take the Second Reading of the Scottish Local Government Bill, and then move that it be referred to the Committee?" That was a course that might have been adopted. But I imagine we have first to set up a Grand Committee before we send a Bill to it, which was at least a difficulty in the way. We introduce this proposal as an experiment undoubtedly, and the very first Bill that we should propose to send to the Committee is the Local Government Bill for Scotland. That Bill has no less than 70 clauses, and when we consider the length of time that was spent over the English Local Government Bill last winter, hon. Members can form some conception of the number of days that would be required for the discussion of the Scottish Bill if it was dealt with in Committee of the whole House. If we succeed in inducing the House to send the Bill to this Grand Committee, there will be almost adequate work for the Committee in the provisions of that measure alone. It contains nothing that is not—I will not say of a controversial nature, because that is a word of a doubtful meaning; but it contains nothing of a Party or politically controversial nature. It introduces no high Constitutional principles, and it disturbs no high Constitutional principles; and it is precisely the sort of Bill that could be dealt with with the greatest effect before a Standing Committee of this kind. Allusion has been made to the fundamental difference which exists between England and Scotland in respect of jurisprudence, of religious forms and Churches, and particularly in respect of the administration of local affairs, and of the Poor Law. Therefore, here is a matter entirely affecting Scotland alone embodied in a Bill extending to 70 clauses, which, we think, could with great advantage to Scotland and to the House be referred to the Grand Committee. The right hon. Gentleman has asked whether an Education Bill would be sent to the Committee. I should say so, certainly. Education is a subject in which Scotland has always been immensely ahead of England, and we wish our educational arrangements—although I remember during the last Parliament the right hon. Gentleman did not give us much assistance in that direction—we wish our educational arrangements to be conducted upon Scottish lines, and not upon English lines. And what is the difference? If an Education Bill was treated in Committee of the whole House, all the Members who would take part in the discussion of it would be Scottish Members. The right hon. Gentleman is very properly scrupulous as to drafts on the Exchequer. That would be for the House to determine at the time. But if I were to lay down any rule I should say that any Bill which was mainly and principally a financial Bill would, of course, not go to the Scottish Grand Committee. But we might have a Bill in which incidentally there was some small reference to the Exchequer, and to the relations between the Exchequer and Scotland. Then I am asked as to local veto. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is not aware that, for a great many years back—I should think for 20 years back—there has been a majority of the Scottish Members in favour not of local veto, but in favour of the old principle which was embodied in the Permissive Bill—the principle of local control. There has been a majority, including Conservative Members and Members of all shades of opinion, in favour of that change, and I should have thought it would be perfectly proper and legitimate to send such a Bill to a Scottish Grand Committee. But that is a matter to be determined by the House on the occasion of the Second Reading of the Bill. When a Bill which is purely and exclusively Scottish was dealt with in this Committee, it would have one great advantage, in that there would not be so much of that reference to Party ties and Party feelings as we necessarily have in the House at large. There would be no Whip to direct Members how to vote on one question and another. In a Grand Committee a Bill is dealt with in a much more conversational and less stiff way than in the House, and with less regard to the obligations of Party allegiance. The further advantage would accrue that the House would see what the Scottish Members wanted, and in the further stages of the Bill the House would have the most absolute power to review, modify, alter, or upset any of the provisions of the Bill. I have treated this question hitherto from the point of view of Scotchmen and Scotland. Where is the danger of appointing such a Committee from that point of view? Where is the danger from the point of view of Scottish interests, Scottish opinion, Scottish wants, assuming, of course, that we all desire that Scottish legislation should proceed on Scottish lines? But what is to be said from the point of view of England and Ireland? The right hon. Gentleman asked if we meant to extend this proposal to England and Ireland. Well, no, Sir. And I will give some reasons why it should not be extended to England. In principle I should have no objection to see it myself, but practically the cases are not the same. What we complain of is that Scotland being in the minority is at a disadvantage. But England is never in the minority—is, in fact, in a majority upon every Grand Committee that can be constituted in an ordinary manner. England's interests always predominate if she chooses to assert them. Scotland's never can unless by some such arrangement as this—on a Grand Committee. That is the answer to the right hon. Gentleman, so far as the necessities of the case are concerned. Another point which seems to me to stand in the way of constituting immediately a Committee of this sort for England is the immense inconvenience of it, because the English Members are so numerous that it would be practically the House itself, and not a Grand Committee of the kind we are seeking to set up. I have spoken of Scotland being in a minority, and let me bring home to hon. Members the fact brought out by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen referred to the case of the Local Government Bill which we passed in the last Parliament. On the occasions when the Scottish Members voted two, three, four, and even five to one in favour of certain provisions which they desired to see accepted, the English and Irish Members came in and outvoted them. My hon. Friend pointed to a case where the Members from Scotland were 49 for and 10 against. If we applied the same proportion to the English Members, we find the equivalent event on an English Bill would be this—337 to 68. And then supposing there were sufficient Members from Ireland and Scotland, and they came in and outvoted that English majority, that will give English Members some idea of what it is of which we complain. There was an extraordinary view taken of a sort of Utopian House of Commons by the Member for the University of London. The right hon. Gentleman complained that the proposed Committee would have the effect of preventing English Members having any voice in Scottish affairs, and he exclaimed in indignation, "Why are we not to have the privilege of outvoting them when they outvote us?" That looked as if the proper arrangement would be the constitution of the House into sections, each of which would find its highest pleasure in outvoting the other. We do not wish to be outvoted by them. But it is asserted that we do outvote them, and the Parish Councils Bill is referred to as an example. Well, I have looked into a good many Divisions, and I can only find about nine occasions upon which the majority of the Government was not English as well as Imperial, and only two occasions when the English majority against was over 10. Suppose a similar occurrence was to appear on the proposed Grand Committee. In the case of a very small majority there would be no difficulty in the majority of the House upsetting the decision of the Grand Committee. Hon. Gentlemen, it seems to me, do not attach sufficient importance to the power of the House.

What about Ireland and Wales?

If in a future year Ireland and Wales demand, in the same way as Scotland does, the appointment of Grand Committees for their purposes, I see no reason why they should not be granted.

No Englishman need apply.

^* : The noble Lord says, "No Englishman need apply." No Englishman need apply, because Englishmen have it all their own way as it is. I have no hostility to English influence. I am very glad we should have a certain amount of English influence. But what I claim is that we should be heard before we are struck, and that it should be ascertained on a Committee such as this what the opinion and wishes of Scotland would make a measure, before the House of Commons proceeds to deal with it in any other fashion. It is an experiment for Scottish purposes. It is avowedly not put forward as a uniform settlement for the general business of the House of Commons. The idea that there is any wrong done to England in the matter is sheer nonsense, because England is and will always be dominant in numbers, and can have no grievance if such a Committee be established. It seems to me that out of our controversies on this subject one thing emerges, and that is that Parliament with its present procedure cannot legislate efficiently for all three portions of the United Kingdom. The best and most complete solution may be, as some think, or it may not be, as others think, the establishment of subordinate Legislatures. But in the meantime let us, in a common-sense, business-like way, adopt for Scotland a moderate arrangement of our work such as this, which does not interfere in any degree with the interests of the other countries, which will surely, as everyone must admit, materially aid and advance the fulfilment of Scottish legislative work.

said, the right hon. Gentleman had begun his speech by saying that this was a modest proposal. In the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman's own supporters the proposal was far too modest, for some of them had put down Amendments which showed that they did not consider it sufficient to meet the necessities of the case. The right hon. Gentleman had depended on a good deal of false analogy for his argument. He had said, for instance, that the Parish Councils Bill for Scotland could not pass through Committee in the usual way because of the amount of time which had been consumed by the English Parish Councils Bill. But there were over 500 English Members and only 70 Scotch Members; and if 72 Scotch Members could talk as long as 500 English Members there would be very little progress made with the Bill even on the proposed Scotch Committee. The fact was, that if the Bill went through Committee in the House, it would be left almost entirely to Scotch Members, and would not take up much time unless the Scotch Members themselves insisted on spending the time. The arguments brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman might be very good in support of Home Rule, but they were not applicable to the Motion before the House, for when a Bill came back to the House from this proposed Grand Committee English opinion and votes might still have a preponderating influence upon it. He objected to the appointment of the Committee because it involved partial treatment between the two countries. Scotland was to have the proposed advantage, and England was not. The proposal was the more unnecessary because the Committee of Selection were always very wisely careful to place on Committees a full proportion of the Representatives of those parts of the United Kingdom to which particular Bills applied. On many occasions the majority of English and Welsh Members had been outvoted by the majority of the House, and on no more important question than on that of the retention of Churchwardens as trustees of charities when the Parish Councils Bill was under consideration. That Amendment had been rejected by a majority of 47, the numbers being 163 against the Amendment and 116 for it. There were 53 Scotch and Irish Members in the majority, and only 10 Scotch and Irish Members in the minority; so that if the Bill had been before an English Committee that Amendment would have been carried. Another important Amendment, which proposed that the Church- wardens should not be turned out of their trusteeship in charities founded after the passing of the Act, and which was supported by the Opposition, was rejected by 36 votes. In the minority of 207 Members there were 68 Scotchmen and Irishmen, but in the minority of 171 there were only 13. If the Scotch and Irish votes were deducted from each side there remained a majority for the Amendment of 19. In that case also the wishes of England were simply overridden. He wished to quote for the House a very high opinion on the absolute necessity of maintaining equality amongst the Members of the House, and of depriving no section of the House of rights possessed by other sections. The late Prime Minister, in introducing the Home Rule Bill on February 13, 1893, said—

"The next argument is this, and I own it touches me nearly and cuts deeply into the mind and heart of anyone who has had a long experience of Parliament. It is that unless the Irish Members vote upon all questions you break a great Parliamentary tradition—that of the absolute equality of Members of the House. I cannot say, Sir, what value I, for one, attach to the principle of Parliamentary equality. Be the man young or old, be he rich or poor, be he from the ranks of the highest nobility, or be he a representative of the working classes, be his powers what they may, be his standing here what it may, I hold in defiance, if it so must be, of all merely conventional considerations, that the essential equality of the Members of this House is a principle of the deepest consequence, and forms a part—a fundamental part—of the environment in which we live, and which, to a large extent, enters into and makes us what we are."

The hon. Member for North Aberdeen had laid two propositions before the House—one, that Englishmen knew nothing about Scotland, and the other that Scotchmen knew nothing about England. From the first proposition the hon. Member deduced the argument that when Scotch business was on in the House English Members did not understand it, and took no part in its consideration. But Englishmen, and men of every nationality in the House, were responsible for the good government of Scotland and of every other portion of the United Kingdom; and if English Members knew nothing about the laws and institutions of a country they were supposed to govern, more shame to them! They were bound to learn something about those laws and institutions; and how could they learn it if all Scotch Debates were to take place upstairs? The hon. Member for North Aberdeen also said that Scotch Members did not care whether Londoners were robbed by their Water Companies. If that were so, how did it happen that Scotch Members voted in such large numbers on all Bills affecting London? The hon. Member for North Aberdeen also contended that this proposed Grand Committee would not be a Scotch Committee because there would be 15 Members of other nationalities also on it. But as the Grand Committee would be composed of 72 Scotch Members and only 15 of other nationalities, it might be very fairly said that it would be a Scotch National Committee. He did not believe that the proposed Committee would save time. There would be a desperate discussion on every proposal to commit a Bill to the Committee for consideration, and then if the Bill got to the Committee there would be a minority of Scotch Unionist Members on the Committee suffering under a grievance who would do their best to make their voices heard. The experience of the Church Discipline Act of a few years ago showed how a small body of men with a grievance could render the proceedings of a Committee almost impossible. Then when the Scotch Bill got back from the Committee to the House English Members who felt they had a grievance in being excluded from the Committee when they desired to be instructed on Scotch matters would air their grievance, probably at considerable length, and the progress of the measure through the House would, consequently, be very slow. One of the arguments now being used in favour of an alteration in the other branch of the Legislature was that the veto of the Lords was used only when one political Party was in power. The same argument could be used against this Motion. The Motion could only be put into operation when one political Party was in power. No work could be sent to the proposed Committee except by the consent of the majority of the House, and as the Unionist Party, if in Office, would not send any work to the Committee, the Motion, therefore, could only come into operation when the Liberal Party were in power. Their object should be to draw closer together all the nationalities which made up the United Kingdom, to remove all inequalities, and to unite their institutions as the nationalities themselves were united in the United Kingdom.

^* said, it had been observed that no English Member had spoken in favour of the Government proposal, and it was for that reason that he had risen to offer a few observations on the matter. It might appear rash in a young Member to interfere in a Debate which concerned the procedure of the House, but, on the other hand, it was possible that some of the ways of the House of Commons were seen more clearly by a new Member than by some of the older Members, who had got used to the habits of the House. Last Session he felt, as many other Members must have felt, over and over again, that it was useless for any Member who came to the House to work, to try to get a measure in which he was interested carried through the House. On one or two great Bills last Session there were limitless speeches and Amendments intended to waste the time of the House. That was not the true function of an Opposition. The Opposition ought rather to amend and improve legislation, than to set up a wall to prevent the country obtaining what it had voted for and determined upon. That seemed to him to be the course which the Opposition should pursue, whether it were Liberal or Conservative. Men of long experience in the House seemed to take the obstruction as a matter of course, and even to acknowledge that they had done it in their time. The Motion before the House was intended and calculated to save the time of the House, and that was his first reason for supporting it. Another argument for the proposal, and a very true argument, was that the business to be relegated to the Scotch Committee was business which a vast number of Members of the House did not understand, and which they were in great measure incompetent to legislate upon. He had observed that whenever a Scotch question was being discussed the House was left almost exclusively to Scotch Members. Whenever Scotch business came up it simply defied the comprehension of Englishmen, and if Scotch business did not concern the constituents of English- men, they would do best to leave it to the Scotch Members. In fact, that was practically done now, and the only question was whether Scotch business should be considered upstairs instead of occupying that Chamber to the exclusion of English and Irish business. Practically they had got a Scotch Committee doing Scotch business already, and power to outvote Scotch Members when they touched on Imperial questions, and they had used that power over and over again. Practically, therefore, the only proposal before the House was whether this Scotch Committee should meet in a Committee Room upstairs and allow English and Irish business to be transacted in that Chamber at, the same time. He remembered the present Prime Minister some months ago, when he did not hold the exalted office he now filled, saying that the English democracy must not be afraid of experiments in legislation. For that, among other reasons, he was glad that Lord Rosebery became Prime Minister, because it was to be hoped that whilst he directed the Government he would encourage experiments in legislation. Surely, if any experiment might be tried, this very moderate one now under consideration might be. They must get on with the business of the country. A large measure of devolution was proposed last year, and it met with a most extraordinary opposition from a large minority of the Members of the House. Now a very small measure of devolution was before them, and that also appeared to meet with strong opposition. He did not, however, believe it would have met with anything like so strong an opposition if it had not been for the relationship which some hon. Members opposite imagined it bore to the larger measure. Some hon. Members thought that this proposal would be a dangerous Constitutional innovation—he was not sure that it was not a proposal which was going to disintegrate the Empire. The affairs of the town in which he (Mr. Byles) lived were managed by a Municipal Corporation, and all the real business of the town was done in large committees such as was now proposed, and to which reporters were not admitted; only once a month the whole Council met together, and considered what the committees had been thrashing out in detail. That seemed to him an example which they might with advantage follow.

Do you have a separate committee in separate wards?

No. But that was not the argument he was pursuing at the moment. He felt perfectly certain that if the House would take its work in a partially-prepared condition from a Committee it would get through its business a great deal faster than it now did. So far from such an experiment weakening the Empire, it would rather strengthen it. It would develop the national spirit and local patriotism of a nation like Scotland, and for all these reasons, though an English Member, he declared himself a supporter of this Motion.

said, he did not propose to trouble the House with any close reference to the speech of the hon. Member for the Shipley Division. That was a remarkable and fantastic and an illogical attempt to defend the proposal of the Government, and so far as he could follow the remarks of the hon. Gentleman his argument was mainly based on two points. The first point was that the Bradford Corporation conducted some of its business by means of committees, and by those committees the business of the Corporation was expedited, but when he asked the hon. Gentleman across the floor of the House whether those committees were divided according to districts or wards, he was obliged, of course, to answer in the negative, so that, as a matter of fact, the argument of the hon. Gentleman, so far from telling in favour of the proposal of the Government, told in favour of the present practice of the House, which was that the Grand Committees, upon which some of the business of the House was usefully devolved, were really microcosms or miniatures of the whole House. The hon. Gentleman apparently thought that the whole prospect of legislation by Grand Committees in the future depended upon the absence of the Press. That was a very remarkable argument to fall from a gentleman who was believed to be largely connected with the Press, but if the argument did not do great credit to his ingenuity it certainly did credit to his disinterestedness. In the speech of the Secretary for War they might find the very strongest possible reason against this proposal. The right hon. Gentleman was in favour of the proposal, first because of the delay in Scotch business, and secondly because of the want of proper weight given to the opinion of Scotch Members. Whose fault was it that Scotch business had been delayed? Who was it that forced the House to occupy the whole of the legitimate Session of 1893 and the whole of the subsequent Autumn Session with a Bill for Irish Home Rule and the Parish Councils Bill? It was the Government, and no one else. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to realise constantly in the course of his speech that a very awkward comparison might be made between the progress of Scotch business under the late Conservative Government and its snail-like progress under the present Government, and the right hon. Gentleman then tried to show that there was obstruction against the present Government which had not existed in the case of the preceding Government. He thought it was a delightful piece of unconscious humour on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to talk about obstruction on the part of the present Opposition, and to be utterly oblivious to what happened when the present holders of Office were in opposition. Why, the obstruction against the present Government—if it existed at all —was but a drop in the bucket compared with the resistance which the late Government had to endure. Had the Secretary for War forgotten the way in which the Irish Local Government Bill was received by his own friends, and the way in which the Scotch Fisheries Bill was obstructed out of the House? Had the right hon. Gentleman forgotten the obstruction in which the whole Liberal Party freely indulged in against the Irish Crimes Bill; and had he forgotten that long night's sitting, in which the late Government tried to force through the Light Railways Bill, in the interest of the people of Ireland, against the opposition of some of the Irish Nationalist Members, backed by Scotch and English Radicals? The charge of obstruction was idle, and the argument of the right hon. Gentleman recoiled absolutely upon himself. If Scotch business had been delayed it had been entirely delayed by the action of the Government in preferring other business to Scotch. The second argument of the right hon. Gentleman, that insufficient weight was given to the opinion of Scotch Members, simply meant absolute separation and provincial legislation all round. If Scotland was to have a separate Grand Committee, and if the weight of localities was to prevail against the general sense and intelligence of the whole House, why should Grand Committees be denied to Lancashire and Yorkshire, or to the City of London? The theory contained in this proposal was illogical and absurd, and would be absolutely fatal to the idea of an Imperial Parliament. Scotland was represented in the House by 72 Members, one-ninth of the whole representation in Parliament, and Scotland happened to possess about 4,300,000 of a population out of the total population of 38,000,000 of these islands. On the principle, therefore, of "One Man One Vote" Scotland had her full share of voting power in the House of Commons. The truth of the matter was that this proposal was an attempt to get in by a sort of side wind the thin end of the wedge of Home Rule. That was the reason that English Members had a perfect right to intervene in this Debate. This was not a Scotch question, but it was essentially an Imperial question. The Secretary for War argued that it would be no injustice to England to give Scotland this Committee, because England always prevailed, but the fact was that in the present Parliament England had never prevailed. Irish Home Rule was carried by a majority of 34 in this House. It was entirely an Irish, or, at all events, an anti-English majority; while the English majority against Home Rule in the Division was 71. The Parish Councils Bill afforded a still more important illustration of this point. Many of the most important provisions of the Parish Councils Bill were carried against English feeling by Scotch and Irish votes, and, therefore, the statement— the grossly inaccurate statement—of the Secretary for War fell to the ground. The Home Secretary had been giving graphic descriptions of Members trooping from the Smoking Room to out-vote the Scotch and Welsh Members. He ventured to say that was a childish and illogical argument. They could not have a national or Imperial Parliament without this sort of intervention on the part of Members who had not so much interest in the question as some other Members had. A thing of the kind happened every day—Members came in from the Smoking Room and Lobby and Dining Rooms to vote in accordance with the directions of their Party, and in accordance with their own feelings. It happened upon every question that came before the House. Therefore, for the Secretary of State for War to appeal to Scotch national feeling on a ground like this was simply to talk clap-trap. It was perfectly well understood that local or provincial self-interest was not the best judge of important questions which came before the House, and that it was better for the general interest that the whole body of Members of the Imperial Parliament should come in to settle these questions. He would give one or two instances to the House. Take the case of the duties on corn. Everyone must admit that the repeal of the duties on corn had proved to be a desperate blow to the agriculturists of this country. Now, if they were going to allow separate and local interests to decide large questions for themselves, why should a question of this first-class importance have been settled by the town Members, against the desires and wishes of agriculturists? Or to take another case—that of the Rating of Machinery Bill. That was a matter which interested the great towns of this country, and if the towns decided it for themselves, there was not the slightest doubt that the Rating of Machinery Bill would have been carried in this House by an enormous majority. But no one could complain of the action of the agricultural Members, who saw that if the measure were passed further and heavier obligations would be put upon them. The fact was that the proposal of the Government was absolutely illogical and indefensible, and the more it was looked at the more monstrous and paradoxical and ruinous did it appear. This principle of autonomy, or separate legislation, or Home Rule, the thin end of the wedge of which appeared in the proposal before the House, was fatal to every country and nation that had tried it. [ Cries of "Name!"] Very well, he would name the only two peoples of Europe who had tried the experiment—namely, Austria and Turkey [ A cry of "America!"] Yes, he would take the case of America, and he would ask hon. Gentlemen opposite whether 30 years ago America did not carry on the greatest Civil War of modern times in order to destroy this principle of separation? The strength of the United States at the present moment was due to the fact that they had determined to destroy this principle of separation which the proposal now before the House involved. He knew what the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway was thinking of, but there was no comparison between the States Legislature and a Home Rule Parliament. The States Legislatures would be more properly compared to the English County Councils. But to revert to Austria, the reason why that country was the weakest of the Powers of Europe was that she allowed this separate principle to come in; and hon. Members knew that in regard to Turkey the principle was entirely dead. The only powers in the world which had made great progress in modern times were those who had adopted and adhered to the principle of Union—Germany, Italy, and the United States. [ Cries of "Oh!"] That was a perfectly fair argument as addressed to the general principle of Home Rule. He was sorry, however, to have left the direct issue before the House. He contended that there had been no arguments addressed to the House upon the great Constitutional issue involved in this question. The main Constitutional principle laid down in the formation of Grand Committees was that they should be a miniature of the whole House, and, according to the basis of the Committees, the Government should in the Scotch Committee have a majority of 5 per cent. or 6 per cent.; but according to this proposal they would have a majority of from 100 per cent. to 120 per cent. The most obvious answer to this demand was, why should not the same advantages be given to England? In the second place, the proposal of the Government, as it was offered to the House, involved a gross injustice to the English electors, because it would give predominance in Scotch affairs to the Scotch Radical majority, in Irish affairs to the Irish Home Rule majority, and in Wales to the Welsh Radical majority, while it denied predominance in English affairs to the Conservative and Unionist majority.

said, it was quite obvious that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had argued this question, not upon its merits or the question of its necessity, but on the question of Home Rule, which had absolutely nothing to do with the proposal. If it was undesirable to grant Home Rule for Scotland, which he did not admit, the best course to adopt would be to agree to the Resolution before the House. He was quite certain that if the House had acceded to the very mild and moderate request of Scotch Members for this same Committee a few years ago the demand which was growing so rapidly for Home Rule would not have been so much heard of at this moment. He desired to express his gratitude to the Secretary for Scotland for this present proposal. He thanked him individually, and he might venture to thank him in the name of his constituents and in the name of the people of Scotland. They had had great difficulties for many years, and they now at least had a faint glimmering light of relief. He should have thought the proposal would have been one of relief to the House itself. Scotch Members were often twitted with their dull oratory, and were told that the nature of their subjects had driven hon. Members out of the House. He would have thought that the best relief in those circumstances would be the proposal now before them. What was the proposal? It was to take away from the House the dullest, dryest, and most dreary part of Scotch business— [Sir H. MAXWELL: No, no!"]—to leave all stages except that of Committee unchanged, and to preserve all opportunities to English Members of taking part in Scotch Debates that they now had. Considering the mildness of the proposal, he was bound to say he was surprised at the character of the opposition to it. Hon. Gentlemen were endeavouring to strangle it with ingeniously-constructed imaginative difficulties of the bogey kind they had so often raised during this Parliament. They were passing through the bogey stage of difficulties which depended upon the imaginative power of their originators. It was very difficult to argue with objections of this kind. There was an old saying that they could not argue with a prophet; they could only disagree with him. As the same kind of argument had been used against almost every proposal which the Government had brought forward, it was beginning to pall upon them. How often had they heard that the British Constitution was fatally imperilled; how often had they heard of the terrible results of legislation which falsified the prediction? He would not be standing there to advocate this proposal if he were not quite certain that a good case had been made out in its favour. What he might call the Grand Jury of public opinion had brought in a true bill in favour of something being done to remove the block of obstruction from public business. That part of the country which he represented had long since got impatient at the delay which was taking place in regard to measures which were urgently required. It was entirely on account of the long neglect of Scotch business that the demand for Home Rule was now growing so rapidly North of the Tweed. The Scotch Members were unanimous in holding the necessity for something being done. They had held a meeting upstairs, at which strong and emphatic speeches were made. Perhaps, if those speeches had been reported, the House would not be at all doubtful as to the determination of the Scotch Members. Some of them formed a small Committee to wait upon the Member for Midlothian, who was then Prime Minister. Again, strong and strenuous speeches were made, and they obtained a promise of some proposal of this kind. The Scotch Members were rowing in the same boat up to this point. They were all agreed that something was to be done. But when a definite proposal was brought forward they parted company. Members on the other side opposed this plan, and they had proposed nothing in the way of an alternative plan. One of the great arguments against this proposal was that it was novel. It might be so, but they had already adopted the principle of devolution, and from his own experience he could say that the work of the Grand Committee was done expeditiously and practically. There were no reporters present at the Committees, and, therefore, Members had no temptation to speak to the gallery. Very great inroads had been made upon the old traditions of the House of Commons. The procedure of the House had been entirely revolutionised, and he believed that a great many of the arguments which were used against the present proposal had been used against the establishment of Grand Committees, which in themselves constituted a vital change in the arrangements of the House. Of course, it was quite possible for the elaborate ingenuity of the gentlemen who sat opposite to stifle any proposals with a network of imaginary difficulties, but if hon. Members did not go with the times they would simply become fossilised, and business would be even more hampered in the future than it had been in the past. It was said that England wanted a Grand Committee. It was very suspicious that nothing was ever heard of the English desire for devolution until Scotland happened to ask for it. Why should not England have it if she wanted it? The physical difficulties might be great, and it might be necessary to hold the meetings of the Grand Committee in Westminster Hall, the St. James's Hall, or even the Agricultural Hall. But England's Grand Committee was the House itself. England had for years had in large measure the command of the time of the House. She was there on the spot, whilst the Scotch Members were foreigners and aliens. The Scotch Members came up to Westminster with a mode of procedure, with laws and customs which were entirely different from those which ruled in England, and they were told that they spoke in a language which no Englishman could understand. Surely it would be a good thing to let them go upstairs to a quiet Committee Room, where they could talk over their affairs in perfect comfort and domestic happiness, and thresh out their measures in their own special and local way, so as to return them to the House in a form which could be assimilated and digested by English Members. He could not see how any Party advantage was to be derived from the proposal, inasmuch as there would be ample opportunity for the House to amend what was done by the Grand Committee. The proposal had been received with interest, and he believed that when it was better understood it would be received with enthusiasm, by the people of Scotland.

^* thought there were some points on which hon. Members required some further light in reference to the Motion. Was it to be understood that it was put forward as a Sessional Order only? If so, this fact was scarcely consistent with the manner in which it was proposed by the Secretary for Scotland (Sir G. Trevelyan), who had said that a Scotch Grand Committee would not be worth "a single Session's purchase" if its Members used it to meddle with the affairs of other parts of the country. Again, the House had not received any definite information upon the point whether the proposal was intended to be put into operation only when a Liberal Government was in power, as was suggested by the hon. Baronet the Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Sir C. Cameron). Another point on which they needed information was, whether the Government would stand firm by the Resolution as it was now proposed. Some of their supporters were opposed to an "order of the House" being required before a Bill was sent to the Committee, and others objected to the Bill being sent only after the Second Reading. It would also be desirable that the House should have some definite information as to what was to be done about the other nationalities. The hon. Member for Dumfries Burghs (Mr. R. T. Reid) had said it would be grossly unfair to refuse a similar concession to English and Irish Members if they wanted it. In view of the influence which the hon. Member had with the Government, it would be desirable to know how far the Government concurred in the opinion thus expressed. Another point on which some enlightenment was needed was as to the relation of the proposal to what was known as Home Rule. The hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Sir C. Cameron) was emphatic in stating that it had nothing to do with Home Rule, but had to admit that he himself had presented a Memorial asking for a measure of the kind, the first words of which were— "Pending the concession of Home Rule to Scotland." The proposal was a very important innovation in the practice of the House. The hon. and learned Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Hunter) had said that the proposal was opposed as being a Constitutional change, and had propounded to the House as a conundrum the question, "What is the British Constitution?" The question was not, however, as to the British Constitution, but as to the constitution of Parliament, and, therefore, all the hon. and learned Member's grand theory of the difficulty of defining the British Constitution had nothing whatever to do with the subject before the House.

After such a speech as that which has been delivered by the hon. Member for Sheffield (Sir E. Ashmead-Bartlett), I am anxious that the House should have its attention directed to the very simple and practical character of the issues that are before it. May I, however, in the first place, be permitted to give a very brief answer to one or two questions which have been very properly put by the hon. Member for Glasgow University (Mr. J. A. Campbell)? His principal questions, as I understood them, were three in number. The first was whether this proposal, if approved of by the House, is to be considered as a Sessional Order only. If there is one thing more than any other that has been made plain from the beginning, it appears to me that that has been made plain. This is a Sessional Order, and nothing but a Sessional Order. That is one of the grounds on which Her Majesty's Government put the proposal before the House as a moderate and reasonable proposal, apart altogether from large Constitutional questions or issues. The second question which my hon. Friend asked was, "How is this proposal to be carried out when a Tory Government is in power?" I am glad in a sense that he put that question, because from a National point of view it shows mo that he does not think that even though a Tory Government should be in power there would be a Tory majority of Scotch Members. What should be done in such a case? It is a very simple answer to give to say that if this be a Sessional Order the Government for the time being should consider whether, upon the whole, it would be for the benefit of Party Government in this House to remit the measures for that Session to a Scotch Parliamentary Committee. I entirely concur in the view that if a Tory Government were in power, confronted as Tory Governments always have been by a large majority of Liberals in the representation of Scotland, that Tory Government would take very good care indeed not to set up during its régime this Sessional Order so as to cover the proceedings of a Scotch Grand Committee. I think, therefore, on that ground alone we are entitled to say that this Sessional Order is not an Order which is confusing in its operation. The third question my hon. Friend put was this: do we or do we not mean to stand by the present shape of this Motion? My right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland (Sir G. Trevelyan) made that plain beyond dispute. We mean to stand by it in its present shape. Having thus ventured to reply to the questions put by my hon. Friend, I should desire to say that, in our view, there is hardly in this question a pretext for all the vague alarms of Constitutional change which have been referred to in this Debate. The object, and the sole object, of this Motion is the facilitation of business in this House. We wish to see Scottish business transacted and not neglected, and that, and nothing more than that, is the meaning of this Motion. When we consider that there is hardly a Board or a Council in this country which would not appoint such a Committee under similar conditions, in the form of a ward or district committee, the membership of which would be based upon local knowledge which was not available to the general body of members, and whose proceedings would be constantly subject to review by the general body, it appears to me to be entirely out of place for Members of this House, on such a proposal, to make general references to the question of "Home Rule all round," or Home Rule for Scotland. The House will not readily forget that on a simple, modest, and practical proposal of this kind we have been treated by one hon. Member to a review of the political state of Europe, with a disquisition on the American War. Is Parliament so constituted as to be prevented from taking up this very practical attitude by means of this Sessional Order? If so, why is it so? I will tell the House frankly why I think it is so. It is because there is something that haunts the minds of gentlemen like the hon. Mem- ber for Sheffield; something that haunts their thoughts by day and their dreams by night; something in the shape of Home Rule. That picture harasses and terrorises them constantly, and in the most modest and moderate proposals they will have it that Home Rule is constantly appearing. It was said by no less an authority than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) that this was an intensely unconstitutional proposal. I rather think that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition holds the same view. Why is it so? It is not unconstitutional in its form, and the reason they think it unconstitutional is, that they are so gifted with second-sight that they will see in between the lines of this simple proposal something which it is not given to ordinary and plain and simple minds to see. It is because they are gifted with this faculty of second-sight that they are thus alarmed. I have hitherto thought that this second-sight was a gift that was only possessed by the humblest and most superstitious of my countrymen. Apparently, however, that is not the case; it is a gift which is possessed by the most distinguished of my countrymen, notably the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. A. J. Balfour). He reads into this Motion that which it does not bear on the face of it; he understands from this Motion what is not expressed in it or contained in it, and then he makes this complaint to the House—"I see all this; if you have not this gift of second-sight, so much the worse for you; I have given you a comprehensive survey of the incomprehensible, and I desire to have your view of my view of what will be represented to be absolutely non-existent." Now, out of this book of fancy it were somewhat difficult to form an ordinary statement of fact, and the task was committed to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bute (Mr. Graham Murray). He translated this book of fancy into a statement of fact. The objection apparently is not that this is to be a National Committee, but that there is to be a preponderance upon it of the national element. The hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Sir E. Clarke) spoke of the composition of Grand Committees according to the ordinary rule. He said they had been founded upon the principle of having upon them men of special experience, special knowledge, and special skill. Why is the composition of a Committee on national lines to be a composition antagonistic to that principle? Says the hon. and learned Member for Bute, "There may be a Grand Committee on an English legal question; why should I be excluded from it?" Well, we do not propose to exclude everyone. If there are English Members who are extremely anxious to do in Committee what in the history of this House they have never done in the open House, we shall be very glad to welcome them to the Scotch Committee, and to have their assistance. That is the reason why we propose these additional 15 Members. There are Scotchmen representing English constituencies, notably the Leader of the Opposition, but I am bound to say that his record in regard to attendance upon Grand Committees is not a very good one, as narrated by my right hon. Friend the Secretary for War (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman). I would ask the House again to consider whether this doctrine of nationality is antagonistic to the ordinary doctrine that special experience, skill, and knowledge should go to the composition of the personnel of a Grand Committee. Why, is not the whole presumption upon the side of local knowledge in the case of local Representatives? Take the average position in which a Grand Committee should find itself as representing the interests of Scotland. I do not find it better expressed anywhere than it was expressed by the hon. Member for Wigtownshire (Sir H. Maxwell) in this Debate. He said—

"In Scotland their law was different, the Church was different, the agriculture was in many respects different."

And he added—

"They were perfectly capable of acting as reasonable men, and settling their own affairs among themselves."

When I have read that I ask myself the question, Why does that hon. Member oppose this Motion?

That was a historical parallel.

^* : I hope it was none the less accurate for all that. Mr. Speaker, nationality, on the whole, is a safeguard in regard to knowledge of and experience in local affairs. I think it was the Leader of the Opposition who said that feeling in Scotland was so split up that it was impossible to secure the solid verdict of national Scotch opinion, and who asked what burgh Members and county Members, Highland Member? and Lowland Members, had in common. I represent a burgh constituency in the Lowlands, and I can only say that the right hon. Gentleman's argument does not square with any of my experience. There are no subjects put before my constituents in which they take greater interest than those affecting county constituencies in the Highlands, especially the vast Land Question, which is predominant in the Highlands. There is a solidarity of Scotch opinion which would be well represented on this Committee, and it is vain to split it up in the mode attempted by the right hon. Gentleman. Our mode of life in Scotland, our system of local government, our ecclesiastical arrangements, our laws and our jurisprudence, even our tenure of laud—all these, I say, without hesitation, are less familiar to the English mind than are the same topics as applied to Ireland. Will English Members bear with me in asking them this? Have English Members any knowledge or intimate acquaintance with this—that every Episcopalian among them who goes North of the Tweed finds ipso facto that he is a Dissenter? More than that, if he asks for a Presbyterian he may find that two out of every three Presbyterians are Dissenters also. Then on the question of the tenure of land. Will English Members tell me what the feuing of land is? Are they familiar with such a tenure? Have they gone into the details of it? I tell the House that it is impossible to familiarise the English mind except by one process, and that is the process of making an Englishman stand for a Scotch constituency. If he has not the knowledge when he starts the campaign I will guarantee that before he issues from it he will have had to acquire it. I was astonished to find that there was an argument even drawn from history in this Debate, and there was a reference, far more halting than one is accustomed to from such a quarter, made by the Leader of the Opposition to the Union of 1707. Think of this proposal, think of its simplicity and practical character, and then think that there should have been a reference to that Union. How misguided we should be if such a reference should upset our arrangements as a business Assembly. What was the meaning and intention of the Union of 1707? I do not speak of the dynastic influence at the back of it, or of the commercial arrangements which induced it, but I say of that Union the meaning surely was nothing less than this: that the business of the two Parliaments should be conducted in a Joint Assembly, and that whatever happened the business which had been done in each Assembly should be continued to be done in the Joint Assembly. That is the secret of our position. It is this: that you have got a Joint Assembly, but that you have not got the transaction of business. If the Union results in this, that you have a United Parliament, but that the transaction of English business is constantly retarded by the congestion of business as a whole, and the transaction of Scottish business is a fading or an absent quantity, I venture to say that it is we who are most loyal to the Act of 1707 when we say that surely it is in the power of the Joint Assembly to make such arrangements as will enable business to be done for both Kingdoms. And now I will deal in a word only with the practical arguments which were used. The Leader of the Opposition gave a forecast of the practical difficulty. He said that in every case in which the House overrules the decision of the Scottish Grand Committee you will embitter Scottish feeling. Well, the question I have to ask is, looking at the history of the last Parliament, is it not the fact that you had a Scottish Committee, for the reason, of all reasons the best, that Englishmen and Irishmen fled from the scene, and that you had Scottish feeling expressed in the representation of three, four, and five to one upon Scottish questions, and then we were outvoted by an English majority. That is the exact parallel to the case that has been put by the Leader of the Opposition. He thinks that Scottish feeling will be embittered if that result should occur, but that has occurred already. In Scotland we think that there is no escape from the difficulty unless you give larger scope to the national feeling and larger power to the National sentiment. The greatest interest, says the right hon. Gentleman, of Scotland, is the greatness of the House of Commons. That is an admirable sentiment, and young Member of this House as I am, I should be the last to deny its weight. Possibly the greatest interest of Scotland is the greatness of the House of Commons, but wherein does the greatness of the House of Commons consist? Does it consist in the House of Commons holding up its hands in horror at the suggestion that the work of legislation may be faciliated? Is it afraid of its dignity being hurt when work is to be accomplished and legislative results achieved? I say that that Party has the most right to appeal to the greatness of the House of Commons which assists in any plan by which the House of Commons may accomplish legislative results. It is not in the proposal here made that we come near Home Rule, but it is in the opposition to the proposal that we come near to the idea of Home Rule. You may either have no legislation, as practically you have at present, or if you prefer it—and we surely all must prefer it —some legislation as proposed under this simple scheme; but depend upon it if the Party opposite resist the principle as against no legislation of some legislation under this scheme, they are bringing the day nearer when it will not be no legislation or some legislation but Home legislation. This is a moderate scheme— in the view of some far too moderate— under which we attempt to remove the reproach of the neglect of legislative duties. At every stage Parliamentary control remains. There are no Constitutional difficulties here because no question of supremacy emerges. In a word, Her Majesty's Government simply demand that Parliament shall become a more effective Legislative Assembly.

^* said, he understood that according to the Rules of this House he was precluded from moving the Amendment which was on the Paper in his name, and, with the indulgence of the House, he would explain the reasons that prompted him in placing it on the Paper. What were the circumstances? The Scottish people pressed the Government for greater attention to Scottish affairs in this House, and the Government offered this Grand Committee. He was exceedingly sorry that he was unable to concur in the remedy proposed by the Government. He had not put down his Amendment in any hostile spirit, but because he was convinced that the proposed Committee was a great mistake. He felt sure that it would not save time, but waste time. He did not consider it a half-way house to Home Rule; it was for that reason, in fact, that he objected to the Committee. He thought it had no relation to Home Rule, and therefore he objected to such a proposal intervening between Scottish Home Rulers and the realisation of their hopes. The Home Rulers asked for bread and received a stone. However long a Scottish subject might be discussed in the Committee Room upstairs, there would always be a hostile minority to demand its re-discussion in the House. Why should Scotland's business be relegated to a hole-and-corner Committee in a garret upstairs? Either the House was capable of managing Scottish; business or it was not. If it was, let the House pass some Scottish legislation; and if it was not, let Scotchmen manage their own affairs in their own way, in their own capital. He had taken every opportunity of keeping the subject before this House and the country, and public opinion had ripened so fast that the country was now quite ready for Scottish Home Rule. Therefore, he called upon the Government to give effect to the verdict of this House, and proceed, if not this Session, at the earliest opportunity, with a measure of Home Rule all round. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh University said that he did not mind English votes overriding Scottish opinion.

^* : No; I said I did not object to English votes overruling Scottish votes, if that was the price Scotchmen paid for sitting in the Imperial Parliament.

said, he thought that was a very unpatriotic view; and he was not surprised that that afternoon an hon. Member had introduced a Bill to disfranchise all the Universities. Only the other day the Prime Minister told the Welsh University Commission that a Welsh University was being founded upon democratic principles after the manner of the Scottish Universities. It was a remarkable thing that the Scottish Universities, like the English Universities, all returned Conservative Members. That in itself was a strong reason for their disfranchisement. The unpatriotic opinions of the right hon. Gentleman were only equalled by those of the hon. Baronet the Member for Wigtonshire, who said he had no faith in results that followed from Bannockburn. He seemed not to have realised that on the field of Bannockburn was sealed the great charter of the liberty and independence of Scotsmen.

I never used those words.

said, that he did not pretend to quote the exact words, but that was the gist of them. Bannockburn founded the charter of Scottish liberty. If English gold had not bribed the impecunious Scotchmen of the day—he was proud to say, only a very few impecunious Scotchmen—Scot-laud might have joined England in a federal union, and not in a corporate capacity. As it was, Scotchmen had to press now for some form of local self-government. Some hon. Members seemed to sink their Scottish nationality in favour of English interests. The hon. Member for Peebleshire said that, though he was proud of being a Scotchman, he was prouder of being a citizen of the British Empire. He was sorry to hear that. He himself (Dr. Macgregor) was a Scotchman first, and content to be a citizen of the British Empire second. The hon. Member who said that came from the banks of the Tweed, that classic stream on whose banks dwelt that great Scotsman, who, appealing to the sentiment of humanity generally, asked—

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land "?

His hon. Friends the Members for Dumfries and Caithness used to be considered consistent Home Rulers, but they were now showing the white feather, and he regretted that they who had been for so many years fighting for Home Rule should now turn aside and give way on this question. If he were inclined to become poetic, he might feel constrained to quote another countryman of his, a man who, though he did not dwell on the classic banks of the Tweed, dwelt on the banks and braes of bonny Doon. What did he say?

"Wha would be a traitor knave,

Wha sae base as be a slave,

Let him turn and flee.

By oppression's woes and pains,

By your sons in servile chains,

We will drain our dearest veins,

But they shall be free."

He objected to the appointment of this Committee, because he wanted the Government to give effect to the distinctly-expressed verdict of the House a fortnight ago. He sympathised with their difficulties owing to the pressure of business, and he would not for a moment urge them to press on a Bill this Session. But he asked the Government to consider as a practical measure whether concurrent Home Rule or Home Rule all round was not now within the pale of practical politics. He saw no difficulty in carrying it out, and he believed it to be the only and inevitable solution of the problem which was now vexing the House and the country.