I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what (1) explanation is given by the Clerk of the Peace for the County of Cork of his having omitted to lodge the moneys received by him for registers in 1892 until 17th August 1894; (2) when the Return on the subject was presented to Parliament; (3) why the Clerk of the Peace in Galway omitted to lodge the amounts until a question was put on the Notice Paper of the House of Commons this Session; (4) whether he will cause these Gentlemen to put in a Return showing the amounts received in each year for each constituency in their county, and whether any copies were supplied gratis in contravention of the Statute; and, if so, for what reason; (5) whether it can be ascertained if in the counties and boroughs of Cork and Galway any revenue has been derived from this source since the passing of the Statute 13 & 14 Vic. c. 69; and, if so, what is the amount; (6) what authority may be invoked to control the Clerks of the Peace in these matters; (7) and whether, in view of the many discrepancies shown in the Return, and the long delay which may take place before sums are placed to credit, he would direct a sworn inquiry into the whole subject?

(1) The Clerk of the Peace for the County Cork, E. Riding, states in explanation of the delay in lodging the sums received for sale of Parliamentary Voters Lists in 1892 until the 25th July, not 17th August, 1894, that the moneys were received by an assistant in his office, and that until he was informed of the hon. Gentleman's question he knew nothing of the matter. He promises to take care in future that all such receipts are duly accounted for to the County Treasurer. (2) The Return in question was presented to Parliament on the 14th August and ordered to be printed on the 17th August, 1894. (3) It would appear to be a fact that the Clerks of the Peace for the County Galway and Borough of Galway did not lodge the sums so received by them until the House had ordered the Return in question. (4) The Clerks of the Peace referred to state that the Returns furnished by them contain all sums received by them from this source, and that they have now duly accounted for same to the County Treasurers for each year for each constituency in their county. The Town Clerk of Cork alone admits that he supplied copies without charge according to the custom which has prevailed in his office. (5) The Clerk of the Peace for County Galway states that it does not appear that any sums were received under the Act 13 & 14 Vic. c. 69 prior to the year 1885. All the Clerks concerned now state that they have duly accounted for all receipts in connection with the sale of Voters' Lists. (6 and 7) I am advised that there is no precedent for the Government directing any such inquiry as suggested. Clerks of the Peace appointed before August, 1877, are not Government officers, and Clerks appointed since that date are removable only by the Lord Chancellor and for misconduct or incapacity, and they are not in any sense under the control of the Executive Government.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the pier at Kilronan, on Arran Island, is in its present condition practically useless for the protection of fishing vessels; whether he will have inquiry made as to its condition, and what the probable cost would be to put it in a serviceable state; and whether, in view of the distress now prevalent on the islands, he will try and have the works found necessary to be done undertaken either by the Board of Public Works in Ireland, or by the Congested Districts Board?

I am informed that the pier at Kilronan is in good repair, and largely used by fishing boats, but that the space protected is inadequate. No definite estimate of the expenditure that would be required to extend the pier has been obtained, but I believe about £5,000 would be necessary. The pier is vested, however, in the County under the 16 & 17 Vic. c. 136, and any extension of it must apparently be undertaken by the Grand Jury.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the resolution, of the Gort Board of Guardians at its meeting on the 2nd instant, in which it is shown, by the representations of the local clergy, the secretary of the private relief committee, and a deputation of about 300 seeking employment, that considerable destitution prevails amongst that class of people who cannot legally be relieved from the rates; and, whether he will cause an inspector of the Local Government Board to be sent to the union to inquire into the condition of the class of people indicated, with the view of causing such relief works to be started as would meet the distress?

I have received a copy of the resolution, in question. The Local Government Board's inspector has visited the district, and reports that the potato crop in the Gort Union compared favourably with the crop in many other districts in this part of the country. The relieving officers had no cases of able-bodied persons requiring relief in their books, and the Inspector was informed that with a continuance of fine weather it would be difficult to get sufficient labourers to meet the requirements of the district. No abnormal destitution prevails, so I am told, among the small landholders; the Local Government Board, however, will authorise the Guardians to relax the restrictions on outdoor relief for a time in the Union. In answer to a further question, Mr. J. MORLEY said: All that I am able to say is that the potato crop there compares favourably with that in other places in the country; and all the means that the authorities have of testing the matter show that in this case there is not that special requirement to lead us to take the steps which the hon. Member desires.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, of Ireland whether his attention has been, directed to the proceedings of a large meeting at. Inver, County Donegal, on Sunday 3rd March, presided over by the Rev. P. M'Cafferty, administrator of the parish, in which it was stated that public works in that district were required at once, or that starvation would be the result; whether since the 16th February last, on which date a public letter from the Member for South Donegal appeared in the Freeman's Journal, describing the destitution in this locality, of which he was an eyewitness, any Local Government Board Inspector has visited this district; what is the date of the last and second last visits of a Local Government Board Inspector to Inver, and may his reports, if any, be produced; and whether, having regard to the evidence of distress that has been placed before him in this locality, he will institute immediately relief works?

The Local Government Board's Inspector has visited the Donegal union on two occasions since the 16th January, and on the 28th February he made careful inquiries into the condition of the people of Inver. On the 2nd February he was present at the meeting of the Board of Guardians and inquired whether they considered it desirable to apply for authority to relax the restrictions on outdoor relief, but this the Guardians did not require. Inspectors' reports of this kind have always been regarded as confidential, and it would not be expedient or advisable to make them public. The result of the Inspector's inquiries show that although some families in this locality are in very straitened circumstances, there does not exist, at present, any general or widespread distress which would justify the opening of relief works. The Inspector will again visit the district shortly.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) whether he is aware that in the Glencolumbkill, Carrick and Kilcar districts of the County Donegal the persons to whom the superintendence of the relief works is entrusted, such as sergeants of police, returning officers, surveyors and engineers have no power to place the names of applicants on the list of persons to be employed on such works, but that the names of applicants for employment must be first sent to Dublin Castle for approval; and (2) whether, having regard to the great hardship, amounting in many instances to privation, that the delay thus necessarily entailed creates, he will give directions that the local superintendents of relief works be empowered to add to the list of employ—és on these works such persons as they think fit, and that these persons be admitted to employment immediately, pending the ultimate sanction or disapproval of the authorities in Dublin?

The regulations governing the mode of obtaining employment on relief works where opened were settled by Government after careful consideration, and have given satisfaction and entailed no unnecessary delay in their working. At all events, no complaints have so far been made in the matter. The onus of determining who shall be eligible for employment on the works devolves upon the officials of the Local Government Board, and the Executive Government in no way interfere with the selections made by these officials. The request contained in the concluding paragraph is not one with which the Government could comply consistently with the policy laid down by them in the matter of relief operations.

asked whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that under the present system men were kept out of employment for three or four days while Dublin was being communicated with. Might these men not have immediate relief pending the sanction of Dublin Castle?

said, the men were not kept out of work; but, even if they were, there was no risk, like dying of starvation. There was the ordinary Poor Law.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) whether he has received a copy of the resolutions passed on Wednesday 6th March at a meeting of the people of the parish of Killybegs, over which the Rev. M. Martin, parish priest of Killybegs, presided, urging on him the necessity of introducing public works such as the making of new roads and the repairing of old ones, and the construction of the long-promised pier; (2) whether he is aware that the chairman stated that nearly every day some of his parishioners came to him to ask for a few shillings for the purchase of Indian meal, and publicly called on the Chief Secretary to save his people from starvation by instituting works of a useful and permanent character; (3) when has a Local Government Board Inspector visited and reported on the state of this district, and what is the date of the last previous visit and report of such Inspector; and may his reports be produced; and (4) whether, having regard to the fact that persons with local knowledge absolutely contradict the official information that there is no abnormal distress in this locality, he will cause an independent inquiry to be made, having regard to the positive statement that the people of this district are threatened with death from starvation?

A newspaper report of the proceedings referred to in the first and second paragraphs has been, brought under my notice. The Inspector visited Killybegs on the 20th February, and will be there again to-morrow, when he will report fully on the condition of the people. It would be contrary to practice to make public the Inspector's reports in matters of this kind, which are regarded as confidential.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether his attention has been directed to a resolution recently passed by the Glenamaddy Poor Law Board, calling on the Government to open much needed relief works in the district, such as drainage, making new roads or repairing old ones, as much distress prevails, and, if some employment be not given to the people, the guardians are confident that they will severely suffer; whether the Government are prepared to have the whole of the union scheduled as distressed; and what steps will be taken to cope with the existing state of affairs.

I have seen the resolution referred to. The Inspector of the Local Government Board visited this Union on the 12th instant, and, as a result of his inquiries, reports that no abnormal destitution exists there at the present time. The failure of the potato crop has not been so severely felt in this union as in other districts, and the Guardians have not considered it necessary to apply for a seed loan. The inspector will again visit the union in a few days, but, upon the information at present before the Local Government Board, there is no such widespread distress in the union as would justify the opening of relief works.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he has received a report from the Local Government Board Inspector on the prevalence of distress in the parishes of Coolavin and Curry; whether there is any objection to stating the general purport of such report, and what are the prospects of relief being afforded to those distressed districts?

The Local Government Board's Inspector has recently visited the Coolavin district and inquired into the condition of the people, but was unable to find any signs of widespread distress such as to render necessary the opening of relief works. There are no doubt isolated cases of distress, and the Guardians will be authorised to relax the restrictions on outdoor relief to meet any such cases. As regards the district of Curry, the Inspector is inspecting that locality to-day, and will report without delay the result of his investigation.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the attention of the Local Government Board has been directed to the very serious distress existing in the Breandrum Division of the Mohill Union, one of the districts scheduled under the Congested Districts Board in South Leitrim; and whether, as the Congested Districts Board have absolutely refused to carry out any works in that district, although Leitrim is one of the counties specially entitled to the expenditure of the funds placed in their hands under the Irish Reproductive Loan Fund Act and Sea Coast Fisheries Fund Act, he will direct that an Inspector of the Local Government Board again visit the district to have inquiries made as to the extreme distress existing amongst the people, and as to the necessity of providing employment by sinking a number of tributaries to the Elsin river, as suggested by the Mohill Board of Guardians at their last meeting?

The Local Government Board's Inspector has been instructed to again visit the locality referred to in the question and report on its condition.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that in some of the Poor Law schools children are put to labour as half-timers at nine years of age, and in no school is the age of half-timers fixed higher than 11; and that in some schools the hours of labour of children is as much as 10 and even upwards; and whether, in accordance with the National obligations entered into at the Berlin Conference in 1890, he will issue an order to prohibit the putting to labour of any children under the control of local authorities until they have attained the age of 12 years, and to limit their hours of labour to those prescribed at that Conference?

My attention has not been called to the fact that any children in the Poor Law schools have been put to labour before the age of 11. There is, I believe, some evidence to that effect before the Committee on these schools, of which the right hon. Gentleman is a Member; but it appears that in such cases the industrial work to which the children are put is of a domestic character very similar to that which would often be done by a child at home before or after school hours, and very different from work in factories. I propose, however, to issue an Order prohibiting the employment of children as half-timers below the age of 11. With respect to employment of children as half-timers between the ages of 11 and 12, I shall await the decision of the House on the Motion which I understand the right hon. Gentleman proposes to make in connection with the Factories Bill, to raise the limit of prohibition to the age of 12.

I beg to ask the Secretary for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the Report on the state of crime in Liverpool recently issued by the Watch Committee, wherein the head constable states that, with regard to proceedings against owners and agents of disorderly houses, he has in no way modified the opinion he had formerly expressed, that the present law is utterly inadequate to meet the purpose for which it would appear to be intended; whether his attention has been further drawn to the statement therein, that while there were 677 convictions during the past year in Liverpool for keeping brothels, in 13 cases only did their appear to be even prima facie evidence against the owners or agents of these houses of an offence against the letter of the present law, which, when, tried, resulted in only two convictions, both being against the same woman; and whether he is now prepared, on behalf of the Government, to propose legislation to remedy the existing deficiencies in the law?

Under the existing law the liability of the owner is confined to cases where he knowingly lets the premises to be used as a brothel, or is wilfully a party to their continued use for that purpose. This appears to me to be as far as the law can reasonably go. The defect, as I understand, complained of is the difficulty of proving guilty knowledge or wilful connivance on the part of the owner. Various suggestions have been made for shifting the onus of proof, but none of them seem to me to be satisfactory. I am disposed to think that the conviction of a tenant should be deemed sufficient to put the landlord on inquiry, and that he should be held responsible if the premises continue to be used by the same tenant for the same purpose. But from the inquiries which I have made the difficulty which has arisen in Liverpool does not appear to have been experienced generally, and though the matter will continue to receive consideration the Government are not at present prepared to propose legislation. I shall, however, be very glad to receive any suggestions which my hon. Friend or any other Member of the House may desire to make on the subject.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he will consider the possibility of making some quarterly payment on account of the annual Parliamentary grant due to public elementary schools?

The difficulty in making any payments on account of the annual grants is that, it cannot be known till after the annual inspection has been held and the forms for the year filled up by the local managers whether the conditions requisite for the grant have been fulfilled. If an advance payment were made and it turned out at the end of the year that no grant had been due, the State would lose the amount of the advance. I should add that the annual grant is in this way on a different footing from the fee grant, which is earned by the mere fact of the school remaining recognised, and of which instalments can, therefore, be paid.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he has received a petition signed by many farmers and graziers in Stirlingshire and other parts of the United Kingdom, requesting the Board to issue a set of Rules for the guidance of market authorities and auctioneers, indicating the sort of weighing apparatus which will be considered sufficient and suitable under Section 2 of the Weighing of Cattle Act, 1891, and also making certain suggestions as to requirements which should be insisted on in such Rules regarding size and decription of apparatus and the necessity of its being stamped in accordance with the Board of Trade Regulations; and whether the Board of Agriculture is prepared to adopt any of the suggestions so made?

I have received the petition to which my hon. Friend refers, and it has received my careful consideration. I do not think it would be desirable or practicable to issue a set of hard and fast rules, which would be applicable to all the various circumstances under which weighing machines are erected; but I have prepared a general memorandum on the subject, for the guidance of those by whom weighing accommodation has to be provided, which will, I think, be of service. It will be ready in the course of a few days, and I shall be glad to supply a copy to my hon. Friend.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture—(1)whether he is aware that many auctioneers have erected at their markets cattle weighbridges fitted with automatic indicating dials, the smallest, division of which represents 28 lbs., or one quarter of a hundredweight; (2) whether he is aware that, in many cases, no one is in charge of these machines during the holding of the sale to adjust the balance when this is from time to time required, owing to the accumlation of droppings &c., which sometimes weigh as much as 70 lbs.; and (3) whether the Board of Agriculture consider that auctioneers in these circumstances properly comply with the provisions of the Weighing of Cattle Acts, 1887 and 1891?

It is, the case that in some instances weighbridges have been erected with dials such as those to which my hon. Friend refers. Opinion on the subject of such machines is very divided, and I cannot say generally that they fail to comply with the requirements of the Acts. I should, however, be very willing to make inquiry as to the machines provided in particular instances, and to ascertain, and as far as possible give effect to, the wishes of the farmers and others by whom they are used. With reference to the second paragraph of the question, I would say that both market authorities and auctioneers are required by law to appoint proper persons to have charge of the machines, and if they fail to do so, an offence is committed which might be made the subject of legal proceedings.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether, looking to the limited time likely to be available for Scotch Legislation this Session, he will delay the introduction of the Local Government (Scotland) Bill until after the Crofters Bill promised in the Queen's Speech, and the Bill dealing with the recommendations of the Select Committee on Feus and Leases, and also enabling local authorities in Scotland to acquire land | for the erection of workmen's dwellings, shall have been introduced; and whether he will give the two latter Bills precedence as regards the future stages over the Local Government (Scotland) Bill?

The Bills relating to Scotland which the Government have prepared will be brought in at the time most convenient. The Government will be careful to do nothing which can prejudice the prospects of the Crofter's Bill.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that trade unions, like the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, have branches in British Colonies and Possessions, and that by reason of inability to register in the Colonies they are under a disability as regards the investment of their funds, the banks refusing to accept the corporate name of the society or its trustees; and whether he will endeavour to arrange with the Colonial Office for such an Amendment of the law as will secure to these branches of a lawfully registered trade union similar rights and privileges enjoyed in this country?

Where trade unions have branches in the Colonies, such branches must, of course, conform to colonial law, whatever it may be; and in self-governing colonies the alteration of the laws rests entirely with the colonial Legislatures. I have consulted my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies with regard to the particular difficulty referred to in the question, and he points out that as regards the Australian colonies the difficulty would apparently be met if the union were to arrange for the funds of the colonial branches being invested in Court trustees.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is aware that the Post Office authorities at Dunedin, in New Zealand, refuse to accept money as investment in the Post Office Savings Banks belonging to the Trades Unions registered in this country, either in the corporate name of the Union or in the names of the trustees; aud whether he can arrange with the Colonial Office to afford to the branches of Trades Unions in the Colonies the same rights and privileges as regards the Post Office Savings Banks as they enjoy, and have long enjoyed, in this country?

The New- Zealand Post Office being quite independent of the British Post Office, I have no information as to the matter to which the hon. Member refers, but it appears to be one for the consideration of the Colonial Legislatures.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that the Amalgamated Society of Engineers have branches of that union in British India; whether he is aware that the society periodically equalises its funds, and, that, in so equalising the funds of the union, in the transmission from Bombay of the sum required, £153, to the Greenonk branch, there was a loss by exchange of £73 19s. 5½d., or within £5 0s. 1d. of one-half the total; and whether anything can be done so to adjust the currency of British India and the United Kingdom as to prevent such losses?

There is no information in the India Office as to the matter to which my hon. Friend's question refers; but it is unfortunately true that losses upon remittances from India have occurred and do occur, and no measures for preventing them have hitherto been found practicable.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether the Scotch Fishery Board have any means of ascertaining whether, since the introduction of beam trawling, the supply of fish to the Scotch markets has appreciably increased, and if the price to the consumer is, speaking generally any less, now than formerly?

The Fishery Board have no means of ascertaining the quantity of fish supplied to the Scottish markets; but from the statistics in their possession showing the quantity landed in Scottish Ports from 1884 to 1894, both inclusive, it is seen that the catch, while it has fluctuated considerably, has been very similar in 1884 and 1885, 1893 and 1894. The Fishery Board cannot supply information as to the price paid for fish by consumers, the only prices given in the Board's Returns being those obtained by the fishermen. But I may add that some general inquiries are being made by the. Fishery Board into the retail prices at different periods, including, of course, the present time.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, seeing that great inconvenience, and frequently the loss of a day's wage, is entailed upon the drivers and conductors of omnibuses and tramcars throughout the Metropolis owing to their ignorance of the fact that it is not necessary for them to attend at New Scotland Yard in order to obtain a renewed licence, but that this can be obtained at the police station nearest to the address of the licensee, he will take steps to have this information brought to their notice by means of circular or otherwise, in accordance with the promise he made last session in reply to a question similar to this?

Arrangements are now nearly completed by which the Commissioner of Police will be able to bring the information to the notice of the drivers and conductors, that they can apply for a renewal of their licence at the nearest police station.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Treasury has yet received from the Admiralty the normal clerical establishments of all its various departments, fixed in accordance with the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, and called for by Treasury Minute of 10th August, 1889; and, if not, whether he will call upon the Admiralty to carry out the recommendation of the Commission without further delay?

As I stated in my reply to the hon. Member for West Limerick on the 7th inst., the normal clerical establishment of the Accountant General's Department has been fixed, and it is expected that a settlement of the other Admiralty Departments will shortly be effected.

I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he proposes to remove the Sligo Post Office to new promises; and, will he, before finally deciding as to the new site, communicate his intentions to the Sligo Municipal Council, and give that body an opportunity of laying their views before him?

Inquiries are being made for premises or a site for a new post office at Sligo, and the District Surveyor has been instructed to communicate with the Municipal Council when suitable promises or a site have been found.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—(1) is he aware that the Local Government Board for Ireland have issued a sealed Order, closing the Old Abbey Burial Ground, Sligo, against further interments; (2) by what authority has the Board taken this action; (3) is he aware that a strong feeling prevails amongst certain classes in Sligo against the Order; and (4) how does the Local Government Board propose to carry their Order into effect in the event of the Urban Sanitary Authority refusing to obey it.

The reply to the first paragraph is in the affirmative, and I have also received a protest to the effect mentioned in the third paragraph. The Order was issued in pursuance to the powers vested in the Local Government Board by Section 162 of the Public Health Act of 1878, after the Board had satisfied itself, by careful inquiry, that, owing to the overcrowded and unsanitary condition of the ground, further burials therein would be detrimental to the public health. In reply to the last paragraph, I am advised that under Section 167 of the Act referred to, persons burying in the closed ground in violation of the Order are liable to a penalty of £10. In the event of an infringement of the Order, the penalty would be sued for and inflicted.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether, as the Treasury contributions in aid of the London rates are 1¾d. in the £, and those of provincial boroughs are 4¾d., and those of counties are 3¾d. in the £, respectively, the Government will take any steps to further equalise these grants in aid.

I will answer this question. I have been quite unable to verify the facts stated by the hon. member. The share of London in the sums paid into the Local Taxation Account was, in 1893–94 £1,132,000, equal to 8d. in the £1 on the ratable value. The share of county boroughs was 9·8d. in the £, and that of administrative counties was 9½d. in the £. The distribution was in strict accordance with the arrangements made by the late Government.

asked, when it was expected that the Committee would be appointed, as promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Budget Debate last year, to consider the distribution of the probate duty and licences as between London and the rest of the country.

said, he should communicate with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this point.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether his attention has been called to the resolution of the Grand Jury of Sligo, urging the construction of a railway connection between Ballyodare and Ballina, Sligo and Bundoran, and Sligo and Arignagh; and, whether the Government will take the necessary steps to give effect to the resolution.

The resolution referred to has been received by me. I am informed, however, that the funds assigned to railway extension in Ireland are exhausted.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he has received a resolution of the Grand Jury of Sligo requesting that funds be provided for the carrying out of the Owenmore Drainage Scheme; and, whether it is intended to comply with the request.

I have received a copy of the resolution in question, and am informed by the Board of Works that works of this class cannot be undertaken unless the steps required by the Drainage Acts have been taken by the owners and occupiers directly interested.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state how many battalions of the Regular Army armed with the magazine rifle will be unable to go through their musketry course with that rifle owing to the scarcity of ranges; and, in the event of their not being able to fire with the weapon with which they are armed, what course will be adopt?

It is anticipated that all battalions of the Regular Army armed with the Lee-Metford rifle will this year be able to fire their course with that arm.

Will that include the Militia?

No, Sir; I said the Regular Army, which does not include the Militia.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state what are the terms of the appointments of the temporary inspectors under the Local Government Board on whose reports relief works are granted or withheld in the west of Ireland; how many of these gentlemen have had any previous connection with the Poor Law service; and what is the nature of their previous experience, if any, in the administration of relief in the distressed districts of Ireland?

The terms of appointment of the three temporary Local Government Board Inspectors are at the rate of £300 a year with travelling and subsistence allowances. One of these gentlemen has acted on a former occasion in a similar capacity, and another has had many years' experience in the Poor Law medical service. The districts in which the worst effects of the potato failure have been manifested are in charge, however, of five of the Board's permanent Inspectors, each of whom was engaged in the corresponding relief measures of 1890–1.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the resolution of the Fermanagh Grand Jury with regard to the report of the county surveyor as to the dislocation of the county business that will be created by the recent decision of the Court of Appeal affecting payments for road maintenance contractors; and, whether the Government will consider the advisability of bringing in or give facilities for the passing of a short non-contentious Bill, providing that where neither the grand juries nor the road contractors dissent the present road maintenance contracts, instead of running from assize to assize, shall run from 1st May or 1st November, so that contractors who had a half-year's work done in November shall be paid at the following Spring Assizes, and contractors who had half a year's work done in May shall be paid at the ensuing Summer Assizes?

The hon. Member does not appear to be aware that a Bill dealing with this subject has already passed through this House. I am advised that this Bill, if it becomes law, will obviate the inconvenience mentioned.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government has at any time received proposals to settle the question of the disputed frontier between Venezuela and the British Colony of British Guiana by arbitration; whether, since gold was discovered in the debatable territory, the dispute has grown more acute, and the position of affairs become such that serious difficulties are threatened; whether proposals of arbitration have been declined, and, if so, on what grounds; and, whether Her Majesty's Government would now entertain or initiate fresh proposals of arbitration?

Her Majesty's Government have received suggestions from various quarters with a view of settling the question of the disputed frontier. We have no information tending to confirm the suggestion of the second part of the question. Her Majesty's Government cannot agree to submit to arbitration the question of their right to territory long settled and governed as part of a British Colony, and must continue to decline any proposal based upon such a ground. They are, however, willing to submit to arbitration the question of certain territory beyond the Schomburgh line, and the Venezuelan Government have more than once been so informed.

Will any correspondence be laid on the Table?

I do not think so at the present moment; but I will consider the point.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the question of the legality of regimental canteens in Volunteer camps is still sub judice, or whether the War Office have acted on the opinion of the solicitor to the Department—that nothing will be gained by applying for a special case in the matter of the canteen of the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment; and whether, in view of the doubt cast upon the legality of Volunteer canteens worked strictly on the regimental system, he will reconsider the suggestion that a clause should be inserted in the Army Act of this Session, defining the conditions under which such canteens may be legally worked?

The case is no longer sub judice. It appeared on a re-hearing of the case that the canteen in question had sold liquor to the general public, a course inconsistent with the rules governing regimental canteens. There was, therefore, no necessity for a special case. There is no question of the power of Volunteer Corps to establish canteens on the regimental system; but it is understood that for temporary encampments the system is not suitable, and that, as a rule, licences would be taken out under Section 174 of the Army Act. No amendment of the Act seems to be required.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether it is the intention of the Cork postal authorities to send learners (unestablished officers) for special duty to Kin-sale or other offices in the south of Ireland during the approaching fishing season; and whether, in view of the fact that this class of duty has been satisfactorily performed by members of the Cork established staff, and that the established staff have regarded this change of duty as a privilege from a health point of view, he will state what are the reasons for departing from the established usage?

I am afraid that I cannot admit that the established staff at Cork have any ground for such a claim as the hon. Member puts forward on their behalf, but generally speaking, there is no intention of disturbing the arrangements which were made last year. In certain cases, however, it may be convenient to get the work done by means of unestablished skilled assistants who are in training for established places in the Department.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has observed the statement of the special correspondent of The Daily Telegraph (issue of 11th March) that the Commission at Moush is progressing slowly because of the European delegates' work being got through so tardily, they having no secretary and only one dragoman; and also the statement by the same authority, that the Commission has reached a point where it has to inquire into the deeds of Turkish Generals, and the dragoman is afraid to fulfil his duties; and, if these are facts, will Her Majesty's Government take steps to prevent any interference with the efficiency of the inquiry?

I have seen the statement. In consequence of a representation received on the 6th inst. from the European delegates, steps have been taken to provide them with a dragoman, and to obtain his official recognition by the Turkish Authorities. Her Majesty's Ambassador at the Porte will join with those of the other Powers represented in securing that the delegates shall have every assistance that is necessary for the proper performance of their duties, so that there may be no interference with the efficiency of the inquiry.

said, he had received a telegram from a trustworthy source to the effect that the Governor of Van was intimidating witnesses. [Cries of "Order."] If this was the case, would the Government take means to secure his immediate dismissal? [No answer was given.]

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) whether he is aware that the tenants on Lord Temple-more's property have offered to purchase their holdings at 18 years' purchase if the landlord will first allow them to go into Court and get a judicial rent fixed, but that Lord Templemore has refused his tenants the usual reduction of 25 per cent., and threatened to distrain if they do not either pay up the full rents or buy at 18 years' purchase of same; and (2) whether he will refuse the forces of the Crown to assist in collecting these claims?

I understand the landlord has refused the offer of the tenants to purchase at 18 years on the valuation. His demand is for 18 years' purchase on the present rental. With respect to the concluding inquiry I can only refer the hon. gentleman to my reply to his similar question regarding the Conlan Estate.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that writs have been served on the Tintern Estate for rents and old arrears although tenants have for years back been allowed an abatement of 5s. in the pound. And, whether, as the arrears are from 20 to 40 years due, as the tenants have offered to pay their rents at the usual reduction, and as agricultural depression is greater now than at any previous time, he will refuse the forces of the Crown to the receiver to collect these rents and arrears.

I am glad to learn from a telegram received this morning that a settlement was arrived at on this property yesterday.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) whether he is aware that the tenants on the Conlan estate bid,£965 17s. 8d. more than the Norwich Union Insurance Company, to whom the estate was knocked down; that the Company commenced bidding at 14 years' purchase, and bid over the tenants step by step until the tenants bid 17 years' purchase; that the tenants were then told that they could have their holdings for 19 years' purchase, although the Company had not bid 17 years' purchase; that when the Company became the owners of the estate they demanded the full rent and arrears due, including the hanging gale, which had never been called for by the landlord, and which was due for half a century; and that the tenants were not satisfied to pay their rents at 30 per cent, on non-judicial rents and 15 percent. on judicial rents; (2) whether he is aware that the landlord allowed 22½ and 30 per cent, reductions; and (3) whether, in the face of the present unequalled depression of prices, if the Company do not accept the tenants' offer, namely, the rents at the reduction asked for, or 17 years' purchase of the rental, he will imitate the right honourable gentleman the Member for Bristol, when Chief Secretary for Ireland, by refusing the forces of the Crown to collect the rents?

I have no reason to doubt the accuracy, of the statements in the first paragraph, though, as I stated in reply to the hon. Gentleman's previous question of Tuesday last, the Registrar of the Land Judge's Court had informed me no official record was kept of offers which, in such transactions, have not been accepted. As to the second paragraph, I am informed by the police that in former years there was no abatement on judical rents, but from 15 to 20 per cent. on non-judicial rents. As regards the concluding paragraph, I can only express the hope that an amicable arrangement will be brought about between the parties, and legal proceedings in ejectment or otherwise thus obviated. The question, of affording protection to the Sheriff or his officers has not yet arisen, but my hon. Friend is doubtless aware that the Executive Government has but one alternative open to it in such cases.

asked whether, in view of the extraordinary discontent existing in this district over this subject, and in view of the fact that there was likely to be disturbance and possibly a breach of the peace, the right hon. Gentleman would not feel justified in making some representation to the Norwich Insurance Company as to the advisability of allowing those tenants to become owners of their own farms.

It is a very delicate mailer for the Executive to interfere in bargains of this kind. At the same time there can be no harm in my representing to the Norwich Insurance Company how the matter really stands.

asked whether, now that the right hon. Gentleman had been informed that there was likely to be a breach of the peace, he would see that there were plenty of police in that part of the country.

I disclaim the interpretation put on my acts by the hon. Member when I was Chief Secretary.

asked the Chief Secretary whether it was not the fact that the right hon. Member for West Bristol, in circumstances somewhat similar to those now under discussion, declared it to be his intention to put on pressure within the law.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has made inquiries with regard to the number of men working in factories and employed in operations involving continuous work day and night seven days a week: and whether those inquiries are complete; and, if so, whether he will state the general results?

I have made the inquiry which I promised to make in May last, viz., as to the number of men employed for an average of 12 hours a day, where the work goes on Sundays as well as on week days. 1,569 are so employed in chemical works, 438 in breweries and distilleries, 5,705 in blast furnaces, iron and steel works, 570 in gas works, 496 in oil works, 1,055 in miscellaneous works, total 9,833; but that that the Chief Inspector states that these figures are defective, partly from the difficulty of ascertaining where men are so employed, and partly from the failure of some manufacturers to give the numbers they employ. In answer to a further question by MR. BRUNNER,

said the Home Office had no compulsory powers to compel manufacturers to give particulars.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, with reference to the proposed manœuvres in the New Forest, the authorities are aware of the prevalence of an insect called "Forest Fly,'' which is extremely irritating to horses; and whether he has observed that, the records of the Blandford Autumn Manœuvres of 1872 confirm the view that it is undesirable to picket out large numbers of horses in any district where the "Forest Fly" prevails.

The records of the Blandford Manœuvres of 1872 do not refer to the "Forest Fly." I have caused inquiries to be made on the subject, and it is reported that, subject to proper precautions being adopted, the prevalence of the fly is not a sufficient reason for manœuvres not taking place in the New Forest.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, with reference to the proposed mobilisation of a portion of the Home Army, he has considered the expediency of introducing a short Act giving the authorities the necessary powers for calling out the requisite number of men from the Army Reserve; whether, if these men are merely invited to come out, he has any reason to suppose that the best men will see any sufficient inducement to respond to the call; and what steps, if any, will be taken to ascertain the attitude likely to be taken by civilian employers of Army Reserve men with respect to the proposed experiment.

No Act is required for the purpose indicated, as under the Reserve Forces Act of 1882 the Government has already power to call out men of the Army Reserve for 12 days' training. It is probable that in case of an invitation to the men to come up voluntarily, those would most readily respond who are out of work; and these would not be the best class. The question of the steps which can most prudently be taken for this partial mobilisation is now being considered.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the conviction by the stipendiary magistrate at Merthyr Tydvil, on the 4th instant, of 21 hauliers, each of whom was fined £2 3s. for an alleged breach of contract, namely, refusing to work; whether he is aware that the evidence disclosed the fact that the alleged offence consisted solely of a refusal to take horses to their work on the ground that the employers had not supplied the hauliers with the necessary and usual corn for the feed of such horses; and that four other hauliers in the same employ, and on the same occasion, who were supplied with corn, took their horses to work as usual; is he aware that very many hauliers in similar employment in the same county have lately been convicted of cruelty to animals, they having driven their horses without having been previously provided with the necessary and usual corn; is he aware that the attention of the stipendiary magistrate was called by counsel for the defendants to the fact that, if the defendants had taken their horses to work without food, they would have been liable to conviction for cruelty to animals; and that the stipendiary magistrate refused to state a case for appeal to the High Court; and whether he will, under the circumstances, remit the fine?

The accuracy, or at least the fullness, of the statements in the question seems to be disputed. I am informed that the food for the horses had been sent, in the first instance, to the wrong stable, and arrived at the moment when the men had ascended the pit. The result of their failure to work was that 250 colliers were left idle for the day. The proceedings were, as I understand, for damages under the Employers and Workmen's Act, 1875, sec. 4 of which gives a court of summary jurisdiction the civil jurisdiction to assess damages for breach of contract. It is not, therefore, a case in which the Secretary of State has any power to interfere.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will lay upon the Table copy of Circular issued recently to coroners relative to verdicts of juries at coroners' inquests in cases of suicides; whether he will look into the verdict of felo de se, reported in papers of 27th February, returned at a coroner's inquest held at Hemel Hampstead on a police constable who died by his own hand, which verdict is alleged to have been given in consequence of the Circular in question; whether he is aware that in consequence of such verdict the widow with 10 children is deprived of the constable's payment of 17 years' contribution to the Superannuation Fund which she would have received if an ordinary verdict of temporary insanity had been given; and whether he will inquire and see if the payments in question can be given to the widow under the circumstances?

No such Circular as that referred to by the hon. Member has been issued by the Home Office to coroners. In the form under which the coroners make their returns for statistical purposes, there, are two columns under the head "Suicide"—one for cases of self-destruction due to insanity, and the other for cases of felo de se. Where there is no evidence as to the state of mind of the deceased, the death is directed to be entered in the first class. I am not aware that anything in the Police Act, 1890, prevents a Police Authority granting gratuities to the widow and children of a police constable guilty of felo de se, and I am informed by the Chief Constable of Herts that the Superintendent was in error in informing the coroner's jury that the constable's family were debarred from receiving any gratuity under the Police Act. The matter rests with the Standing Joint Committee, to whom it will be referred at their next meeting.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the production of a certificate; of baptism is required as a condition of admission to the Duke of York's School; and whether he is aware that the children of Baptists are thereby excluded; whether religious teaching in the school is provided only for the Church of England, Presbyterians and Roman Catholics, no other religious bodies being recognised by the War Office; and whether, in view of the fact that the Duke of York's Military School is maintained by a Parliamentary grant, and governed by a Board of Her Majesty's Commissioners, it is in the power of the Commissioners to frame regulations of a less restrictive character?

As boys in the Duke of York's School must be brought up in the religion in which they enter, the baptismal certificate is called for as evidence on the point, and not as a condition of admission; and I do not for a moment believe that the Commissioners would exclude a boy, otherwise qualified, because he was a Baptist. Religious instruction in the School is provided under four denominations, Wesleyan being additional to those named in the question. Probably, if there was a Baptist boy in the School, special arrangements could be made for his receiving instruction from a minister of his denomination; but there would be difficulty in further subdividing the regular religious training of the School.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of the North West Provinces and Oudh subscribes for 62 copies of the Punjab Patriot, a newspaper published outside these provinces; and, if so, why this expense is incurred out of provincial revenues; and whether the same government has established a monopoly of printing judicial forms in favour of the "Newal Kishore" Press; and, if so, for what reason?

Similar questions were asked in the Council of the Lieutenant Governor on the 21st January last, and the Secretary of State has nothing to add to the answers there given as reported in the North West Provinces and Oudh Gazette for 26th January, 1895.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether there is any intention of moving the garrisons now at Dora Ghazi Khan and other neighbouring frontier stations into the Waziri territory beyond the Suleiman Range?

Some redistribution of garrisons on the North Western Frontier will no doubt be necessary, but the Secretary of State has reason to think that the Government of India have not yet finally decided on the course which they will recommend.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware that it is much more difficult under present regulations to export cattle and sheep from Scotland to Ireland than from Ireland to Scotland; that in the former case an agent has to be employed in Dublin to apply at the Castle for permission; that a declaration has to be signed, a veterinary surgeon's certificate obtained, and other forms gone through, involving delay and expense, notwithstanding that Scotland has a clean bill of health; whereas in the latter case the sole form gone through consists of a hurried inspection by the Government veterinary surgeon while the animals are being shipped; and whether any sufficient reasons exist for the great difference of procedure in the two cases; and, if not, whether the Government will take steps to place the Scottish and Irish exporters on an equal footing?

I understand that the regulations with regard to the importation of cattle and sheep from Great Britain into Ireland are substantially those stated by my hon. Friend. Having regard to the different circumstances which exist, I cannot say that they seem to me in excess of the requirements of the case, but I should be happy to communicate with the Irish Authorities and to endeavour to obtain for Scottish exporters as full facilities as possible consistent with the maintenance of the present satisfactory position of Ireland with regard to the health of cattle and sheep.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government are now represented at Caracas with the Republic of Venezuela; and, if so, what steps, if any, are being taken to bring about a modus vivendi for the settlement of disputes now pending?

Her Majesty's Government have no diplomatic representative in Venezuela, but British interests in that country are in charge of the German Representative at Caracas. Her Majesty's Government are, and always have been, ready to come to an amicable arrangement with the Venezuelan Government for the settlement of pending disputes, and their views on the subject were communicated to that Government in 1890 and again in 1893, to the latter of which communications no answer has been returned. Her Majesty's Government must therefore maintain, the provisional boundary proclaimed in October, 1886. This boundary does not embrace their whole claim, and the Venezuelan Government have more than once been informed that Her Majesty's Government are willing to submit the right to certain territory outside this boundary to arbitration.

Can the hon. Baronet say whether, as the German Representative has left Caracas, British interests in Venezuela are receiving protection at the hands of any other representative man?

I am informed that the German Charge d'Affaires is still there.

asked whether it was a fact that the British flag had been pulled down by Venezuelan troops in British Honduras.

asked for notice of the question.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department—(1) whether the words in the Twelfth Clause of the Established Church (Wales) Bill, providing for appeals against any decision of the Welsh Commissioners on certain points, are intended to give a right of appeal in all the cases in which it was given by the Forty-second Section of the Irish Church Act; and, if not, whether he will explain the difference, and the reason for it: and (2) whether, by Clause 28 of the Bill it is intended that the Representative Body of the Church in Wales shall be charged with the payment of stamp duty on the conveyance to them by the Welsh Commissioners of the churches, parsonages, or private benefactions which are now, and according to the Bill would still remain, the property of the Church?

The answer to the first question is in the affirmative. Clause 12 of the Bill has a somewhat wider scope than the Arbitration Section (Section 42) of the Irish Church Act, and therefore is drawn in more general terms. It would give a right of appeal not only on questions of compensation arising under Clauses 17, 18, and 19, but also on questions as to what constitutes a private benefaction within the meaning of Clause 5, and what amount is payable in satisfaction of any existing interest in tithe rent-charge under Clause 16. The answer to the second question is that Clause 28 of the Bill corresponds to Section 35 of the Irish Church Act; and I am informed that the Commissioners of Irish Temporalities conveyed 1,628 churches, with school-houses, lands, and burial grounds, to the representative body in Ireland by a single vesting order, on which one stamp duty of the nominal amount of 10s. was paid. It is not intended that ad valorem duty should be paid on any part of the property which is to be transferred by the Commissioners to the Representative Body in Wales, and I will consider the question of amending the language of Clause 28 so as to make this clear.

I beg to ask the under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether the police Inspector sent out to Argentine in pursuit of Mr. Jabez Balfour (now and for more than a year past at Salta, some 2,000 miles from Buenos Ayres) has ever been at or near Salta, or whether he has remained at Buenos Ayres; and, if so, for what purpose he has remained there; whether he will explain why Her Majesty's Consul at Buenos Ayres has been absent from his post at Buenos Ayres for a whole year, leaving his work to be done by a Vice Consul, and has been during that time at Salta, and for what purpose he has been there; and whether any extra remuneration has been given (and, if so, how much in each case) to the Consul or the Vice Consul respectively for the additional work done by them?

It is usual in Extradition cases to send out a police officer to convey the prisoner to England. As was stated the other day, this was the duty intrusted to the Police Inspector who was sent to the Argentine Republic. The first Inspector who was sent remained at Buenos Ayres to be ready to perform this duty, and the one who has taken his place is there now for the same purpose. The Consul was sent to Salta lo watch the Extradition proceedings, which took place in the Salta Court, from which Court there was an appeal to the Supreme Court at Buenos Ayres. No additional remuneration has been given to either the Consul or Vice Consul, but the expenses of the former were paid.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, if he is aware, that, the parish of Kilninan and Kilmore is for Parish Council purposes divided into two wards, the burgh of Tobermory, forming one, and that only one polling place has been allotted in Tobermory, distant 26 miles from the furthest point of the other ward, and 22 miles from the majority of the voters; and whether, to prevent practical disfranchisement of the bulk of the voters, he will order a separate polling place in a more central situation?

I have written to ask how the matter stands, and whether it is possible to make arrangements.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether the whole of the orders for seed potatoes for Ireland have been given to Scotland, and why some share has not been given to the Trentside district of Lincolnshire, in which part of the county large quantities of the best seed can be obtained?

Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that question, I should like to ask whether, as in respect of other things, the Scottish soil does not produce better potatoes than English soil; and whether Lincolnshire should not be content with the excellent celery of which it has a practical monopoly?

The purchase of seed potatoes, and the selection of the varieties most suitable for each district, are matters which rest with the several Boards of Guardians who have applied for loans. Before approving the tenders, the Local Government Board satisfy themselves that the seed has not come from a district affected by disease, or from the neighbourhood of the union about to purchase it. Contracts are entered into by the Guardians after advertisements for tenders have been duly published, and these contracts so far, in the majority of cases, have been for Scotch-grown seed. In a good many instances, north of Ireland potatoes have been taken, and, in one or two cases, English seed has been preferred. No Seed appears to have been ordered from Lincolnshire.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether another outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia has occurred in a cowshed in Spitalfields; whether, under the London Cowsheds Pleuro-pneumonia Order of 1895, No.5,289, Section 15, it would be the duty of the inspector in the Metropolitan Cattle Market, Islington, to stop all cattle being removed from the market should an animal affected with pleuro-pneumonia be discovered there, and whether such being the case, the Board of Agriculture will again set into operation the London Cowsheds Pleuro-pneumonia Order of 1893, No. 5,140, which rendered it necessary to obtain a licence from an inspector, before a cow could be removed from any shed in the Metropolis.

It is, I am sorry to say, the case, that pleuro-pneumonia was discovered a few days ago in the carcass of a cow brought from a cowshed in Spitalfields. The usual inquiries have been made, and the contact animals slaughtered, but no further cases of disease have been found. In the event of the discovery of pleuro-pneumonia in the Metropolitan Cattle Market, it would be the duty of the inspector of the local authority to proceed in the manner indicated in the question. I am well aware of the inconvenience which would result, and I trust that the Corporation may be willing to adopt certain suggestions I have recently caused to be made to them with regard to the veterinary inspection of animals at the entrance of the market. Such an arrangement would, in my opinion, be more likely to prevent the necessity of interference with the business of the market than the re-imposition of the Cowsheds Order of 1893.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether the Royal Engineers possess accurate plans of the drains in the Tower of London, Chelsea Barracks, Wellington Barracks, St. George's Barracks, and Kensington Palace Barracks?

The plans of the drains in the Tower are perfectly accurate; those of the other barracks named are of older date, but are sufficient for all practical purposes.

On behalf of the hon. Member for the Wycombe Division of Bucks (Viscount Curzon), I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state when the sanitary condition of the Cavalry Barracks at Windsor was last inspected and reported upon; whether he will lay this Report upon the Table of the House; and, whether it is considered that those barracks are now in a proper sanitary condition, and fit for the occupation of Her Majesty's troops?

A full report is made half-yearly, the last being dated November 12, but reports upon particular items of sanitation are constantly being made. The drainage of the barracks is not satisfactory, but a complete new system is in hand. Such of the work as can be done while the troops are in occupation is being pushed forward, and the remainder will be executed later in the season, when the barracks will be vacated for the purpose pose. The reports are confidential documents, and I am not prepared to lay them on the Table.

asked whether the scheme would be carried out by the Royal Engineers.

Yes, to the best of my belief. Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman, mean that it will be carried out by them without proper sanitary advice?

No, Sir; I did not suggest that.

That is often alleged.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, when he asserted that the capitation allowances to the Volunteers were a payment in advance based upon a Return of the previous year, he was aware that in two War Office letters, V. General, No. 7,205, dated the 3rd and 13th February, 1890, the contrary had been definitely stated; and whether, in view of this fact, and its great importance to the Volunteer Service, he will reconsider his decision?

My reply of February 25 was strictly accurate, and there can be no doubt that when, the first Capitation Grant was issued in 1863 it was issued as an advance for that year, though the amount was based, as recommended by the Royal Commission, on the experience of 1862, a year in which no such Government grant existed. The expressions in the War Office letters referred to merely meant that the grants to be issued were based upon the Returns of the previous year. We are not prepared for the very large double charge in one year which a change in the existing system would involve.

Will the hon. Gentleman kindly say whether his answer means that a newly-raised Volunteer corps is not entitled to a Capitation Grant in respect of its first year's service?

No, Sir; but the newly-raised Volunteer corps would be expected to meet all its own expenses out of its own funds for the first year.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the statement, made in the official Report of Sir Evelyn Wood's interview with the Swazi King and Council on September 5th, 1881 (Blue Book, C. 7611, p. 53), that those British subjects who entered the Transvaal after the annexation have certain privileges as regards military services; and whether he can state what those privileges were, and whether they now exist; and, if not, when, and under what circumstances, they were abrogated?

I have seen the statement made by Sit E. Wood. The hon. Gentleman will find if he will refer to Article 28 of the Convention of 1881, and to Article 15 of that of 1884, that those British subjects who established their domicile in the Transvaal between April, 1877, and August 1881, are specially exempt from compulsory military service. This article has never been abrogated, and remains in force.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade when the evidence of the Departmental Committee on Light Railways will be issued?

The Committee to which my hon. Friend refers was not a Departmental Committee, but was appointed by the conference convened to consider the subject of Light Railways. After consultation, with my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury, the Chairman of the Committee, I have come to the conclusion that I should hardly be justified in putting the country to the expense of printing and circulating the evidence, which is voluminous.

May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will consider the advisability of publishing the important documents with respect to light railways in other countries as separate documents?

Yes, Sir; I will consider that.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the Board of Inland Revenue, in cases where owners are occupying their own trade premises, are requiring the amount of reduction allowed from the assessment of Income Tax under Schedule A, by virtue of Section 35 of the Finance Act 1894, to be added to the assessment made upon such persons under Schedule D, thus, as to a section of the taxpayers who are taxed upon their earnings, denying them all benefit of the relief supposed to be granted by the Act, and which relief is in fact allowed to the other owners of property; and, if so, whether it is done upon the instructions of Her Majesty's Government; and whether such was the intention of the Government in framing the Act?

If the hon. Member will give me the particulars of any case in which he thinks a grievance exists, I shall be happy to examine them. Speaking generally, the course pursued by the Inland Revenue appears to be just. Traders are entitled to an allowance of any sum expended for repairs of trade premises under Schedule D. Since the Act of last year they are charged, not on the full value of their premises, but only on five-sixths of that value under Schedule A. If, after having paid on only five-sixths under Schedule A, an owner-occupier were to deduct, not five-sixths, but the whole annual value from his assessment under Schedule D, he would in fact get the allowance for repairs twice over, and would be paying income-tax on something less than his net profits.

asked whether these requirements could be legally enforced.

Not only legally, but with right.

asked whether this reduction was not made specially to meet cases of repairs; and how, in that event, it could be charged with income-tax at all?

The great, difference is that under Schedule A formerly there, was not any allowance for repairs. By the regulation of the last Session an allowance of one-sixth was made. Previously the owners of those premises, under Schedule D, had an allowance for repairs; and it could not be argued that they should receive an allowance under both schedules.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, when making the financial arrangements for the year, Her Majesty's Government will consider the advisability of introducing a provision reviving the tax of 4s. in the pound on the true yearly value of the land?

There have been many attempts to induce me to state in advance my proposals for the financial arrangements for next year. They have always been unsuccessful, as this must be.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the attention of inspectors has yet been called to the desirability of leniency in examining schools, owing to the recent severe weather; and, if so, what was the date of the National Hoards Circular; and whether he will say what are the objections to including among the rules of the National Board a rule similar to Rule 101 in the English Code, giving to schools where the average attendance has been greatly reduced by the prevalence of an epidemic, or other exceptional cause of the like nature, a special grant making up the loss in the ordinary grant?

No circular of the nature indicated in the first paragraph has been issued to Inspectors of Schools. The difficulty in adopting a Rule for Ireland similar to that in the English Code is that the modes of payment of teachers in the two countries are widely different. In England the payments mainly depend on the average daily attendance of scholars, and are therefore liable to fluctuation. In Ire land, on the other hand, about one-half of the teachers' incomes are in fixed salaries which, under the discretion allowed to the Commissioners, remain unaffected for whatever period the attendance may be injuriously affected by severe weather epidemics, &c.

thereafter called upon—

who said, he fully realised the responsibility of the course he was taking in moving the Adjournment, but he knew this was a question of great interest to Members on both sides of the House, and it was a question, distinctly urgent, because there was at the moment, on the borders of Swazi-land, an army assembled with the purpose of invading that country, and forcing the Swazi nation to accept the terms of a Convention, taking away their independence which had been recognised and guaranteed by this country He asked a question of the Under Secretary for the Colonial Office the other day in reference to the assembling of these troops, and the answer given by the hon. Gentleman was, that he thought there were troops assembled on the borders of Swazi-land under General Joubert. But this was a matter the Colonial Office should do more than think about, and there should be full and accurate information. The public Press stated, as a fact, the assembling of this Force, and the position was one of great gravity, demanding the attention of the House. On the one side of the border line was a half-disciplined Army collected from all parts of the Transvaal, and on the other side was a warlike race of native inhabitants who had been our allies for years and had bravely distinguished themselves fighting by the side of British troops. The position was one of momentous importance, for, at any time, this half-disciplined Army of the South African Republic might cross the Border, and at once a war would wage of a character that would be deplored by every member of the House. The brave Swazi people would be fighting for what we recognise as the most important right a nation can cherish—their independence; and, on the other hand, the troops of the Republic would be endeavouring to thrust on these people by the point of the bayonet a foreign constitution in the form of a Convention, against which the Swazis had taken every possible means to protest. The hon. Gentleman thought the troops were there; but the House had a right to learn from the Colonial Office if the forces of the Republic were assembled on the frontier, and for what purpose. It could not be for review purposes or to attract and interest the Natives; no, their business was to force the Convention on the Swazi nation. Had Her Majesty's Government given consent to these proceedings? The Under Secretary for the Colonies, in the Debate upon the Address, said the parties to the Conventions of 1881 and 1884 recognised the Swaziland question as one of mutual concern, and that neither party could interfere forcibly in Swaziland without the consent of the other. Had Her Majesty's Government given consent to this invasion of Swaziland? If so he did not know what word he could use to adequately describe the breach of faith thereby committed towards the tribe to whom Her Majesty's Government had given a pledge to maintain their independence. If they had not given consent, then what steps did Her Majesty's Government propose to take to prevent the South African Republic troops from invading Swaziland? That invasion would be a breach of the Convention under which the Republic possessed self-government. To make the position clear it would be necessary to go back to 1881. In that year a settlement of Transvaal territory took place, and in that settlement Her Majesty's Commissioner guaranteed on and after August 8th, 1881, on behalf of Her Majesty, complete self-government, subject to the suzerainty of Her Majesty, her heirs, and successors, to the inhabitants of the Transvaal territory. Then followed terms and conditions, reservations and limitations. This agreement, which gave self-government to the South African Republic, at the same time in Article XXIV., recognised the independence of Swaziland and the boundary of Swazi territory. That was perfectly clear. But from somewhere an argument had been hunted up that the Swazis were not parties to this Convention of 1881; but that was but a poor horse to ride off upon. There was no doubt that, as would be found in the Blue Books upon which he founded his remarks, this Convention was explained to the Swazis. On September 5th, 1881, an interview took place between Sir Evelyn Wood and the Swazi King. Mr. Rudolf acted as interpreter, and notes were taken by Major Fraser. Sir Evelyn Wood read and explained the Convention, explained the suzerainty of the Queen, and pointed out that the Convention guaranteed the independence of the Swazi nation and maintained the boundary line. He informed the King that the British Government desired only the good of the Swazi nation, and that their friendship should continue; that the Government trusted the King would rule with justice, and his people prosper. When this statement had been interpreted to the King the latter replied—

I thank you for leaving me independent to rule my people, and I will always consider myself your child."

said: "We wish you to remain independent and prosperous." Surely that established with absolute clearness the fact that the Convention of 1881 declared the independence of Swaziland. To ride off on any such pretext as that the Swazis were not a party to the Convention might be a stroke of diplomacy of which he had no experience, but he asserted it was not common honesty. The Convention of 1884 contained the same article which he had quoted from the Convention of 1881, and again the independence of the Swazis was fully recognised. In the next Convention—the Convention of 1890—the independence of the Swazis was still more strongly mentioned, for it declared that—

"no inroad on that independence shall be allowed even with the consent of the Swazi Government"

—he called special attention to these words—

"and without the consent both of Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the Smith African Republic."

That Convention was still further strengthened by a letter, dated December 1st, 1892, from Lord Ripon (who had just come into Office) to Sir Henry Loch, in which the Secretary for the Colonies stated that any Treaty or Proclamation with the Swazi nation should, before it came into operation, be submitted for the Queen's approval.

"The Government will further require to be Satisfied,"

continued Lord Ripon,

"That the consent of the Swazi nation has been effectively and intelligently given."

It was said by the Government that in all their actions in this matter they were but following in the footsteps of their predecessors in Office. He challenged them to produce from the Blue Book, issued on the question, a single passage in support of that statement. He maintained that the predecessors of the Government in Office would not for one moment have allowed the Convention of 1894 to be carried out. Up to 1893 the Government had shown every desire to deal in perfect fairness with the Swazis. But in 1893 a great change took place, and the Government which professed to be so strongly in favour of self-government all round was willing to take away Home Rule from the Swazi nation. There was a long correspondence between the Home Government and the Ministers of the Transvaal Republic; and Sir Henry Loch was sent out in the June of that year to endeavour to obtain the consent of the Swazis to give away their independence. But that consent could not be got from the Swazis; and nothing showed so strongly their antipathy to Boer rule than the fact that those savages had sent a deputation to England so many miles across the seas to lay their case before Her Majesty. The cruel way in which the natives were treated by many of the Boers was a matter of notoriety to every newspaper reader. The Boer system of apprenticeship was nearly akin to slavery, and was alone sufficient to make the Swazis resist any attempt to place them under Boer domination. There were two courses open to the Government. They could have assumed the responsibility of the government of the country. The Swazis had offered their allegiance to the British Crown; out of 750 Europeans in the country 450 were British; the country was rich in minerals, and the trade was almost entirely in British hands. There was, therefore, every inducement to the Government to take over the administration of the country. But if the Government did not adopt that course, they should have continued in the joint administration. That would at least have given them the power to protect the natives from injustice, but in the course the Government had taken it was impossible that any adequate protection could be given to the natives. He thought there was little doubt that the Swazis would bitterly resent this attempt to force upon them a Government which they had strong reasons to object to; and if there should be a war between the South African Republic and the Swazis, the result would be such as the House would abundantly deplore. He therefore felt justified in bringing this very important matter under the notice of the House.

said, he did not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman at any great length, especially as the hon. Gentleman had not the courtesy to give him any more notice of his intention to raise the question than by a letter which was only delivered to him during question time. At any rate, he felt that, having regard to the present position of affairs, it would not be consistent with the public interest to go at any length or in any detail into matters. The hon. Gentleman asked for information in reference to the position of the Transvaal Republic to Swaziland at the present moment. The information which the Government had from Sir Henry Loch was to the effect that he believed the carrying out of the Convention of 1894 was taking place on peaceful lines, and was likely to continue to take place on peaceful lines, and that the only thing calculated to disturb that peaceful condition of affairs was the raising at the present time of some of the questions to which the hon. Gentleman had referred in the course of his speech. It was, therefore, simply on the ground of public interest that he declined to discuss the part of the hon. Gentleman's speech which dealt with the action the Government might take in regard to the attitude of the Transvaal and the attitude of Swaziland. Perhaps, however, it would be courteous to the hon. Gentleman to say a few words in regard to the other portion of his speech. During the Debate on the Address he, speaking at considerable length, endeavoured to explain to the House the position, as the Government understood it, in reference to the so-called independence of the Swazis, which the hon. Gentleman also raised on that occasion. He then pointed out to the House that the independence of the Swazis—that was to say, their absolute independence as a nation and their absolute freedom from interference by the British Government or by the Transvaal Republic—had never been recognised by the British Government and had never been conceded by any Convention. The independence that was recognised and the independence that was guaranteed was in this sense—that the two contracting parties, both of which were deeply interested in the future of the country, agreed that they would mutually arrange from interference in that country without the consent of the other. That was the independence that was intended in 1881; that was the independence which was continued in 1884, and that was the independence that was further agreed to in 1890. He would like to know from the hon. Gentleman himself what he meant exactly by the independence of the Swazis which the Government had in any way encroached upon. This should be remembered that—assuming the independence of the Swazis had been guaranteed, as the hon. Member said, but which the Government did not at all believe to be the case—the position had gradually and absolutely altered since that time. During the last 10 years the two Powers had encroached on this independence, and the right of interference of the two Powers in the affairs of Swaziland had become so great that, even if the independence of the Swazis had been guaranteed in 1881, at all events it had not been we who had interfered with or broken that independence; that independence had disappeared by the proper joint action of the Transvaal and England. He must point out that if independence had been guaranted, and even if those encroachments had not been made by Great Britain and the Transvaal, the Swazis themselves had practically, by the concessions and agreements made by their late King, given away all that was valuable in their own independence; and, therefore, it was not the fact that you could say that at, the present time or years ago the Swazis had any real independence as a nation, so that they retained any powers or administrative rights which they could exercise over their own country.

Who has had it in Swaziland since 1889, besides the Swazis?

Had what?

Who, but the Swazis themselves, have had the administration of Swaziland?

said, he had endeavoured to point out to the hon. Gentleman behind him that the Transvaal and the British Government, in different conventions, and especially under the Convention of 1890, which was entered into by the late Government, had practically taken away almost entirely the administration of Swaziland, and to that extent independence had practically disappeared. Therefore, in the first place, he denied that the independence of Swaziland was ever guaranteed to the Swazis; secondly, he said that, even if it had been guaranteed, successive British Governments had so far encroached on that independence that it had practically disappeared; and, thirdly, even if that had not taken place their independence had been given away by the Swazis themselves. The hon. Member asked why the Government carried out the Conventions of 1893 and 1894, and in reply he had endeavoured to explain the historic aspect of the matter. When the present Government came into Office they did not wantonly raise this question. They found the position such that they were bound to come to terms with the Transvaal in consequence of promises made by previous successive Governments. Taking the matter as it then stood, the Government did what they believed to be the best for the Swazis themselves. The only British interests in that part of the country, taking into account the interests the Transvaal Government had acquired, were the interests of the Natives. Those interests the Government had greatly at heart; those interests they had endeavoured to protect; and he believed the only alternative they had before them was the alternative they had accepted and had carried through. The hon. Gentleman behind him said there was no guarantee that the Convention would be properly carried out.

No sufficient guarantee.

said, he believed they had reserved to the Swazis all those powers, all that independence which they themselves had not given away; and the Government believed that under this Convention they would be undoubtedly secure in that independence and in the exercise of those powers. They had taken means, by the appointment of a British Consul in Swaziland, to observe the action of the Transvaal Government, to see that the Convention was properly carried out. Under that Convention they had retained to the Swazis their native rights and tribal independence, and had secured to them the land and agricultural rights in their possession. They had appointed a Consul to see that this Convention was properly carried out, although he was bound to say that Her Majesty's Government had no reason to believe that the South African Republic did not intend to carry out the Convention in the spirit and in the letter. [Sir E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: "Oh!"] The Government believed, taking the position as they found it, taking into account the action of the, British Government and of the, Transvaal Government, and taking into account what the Swazis themselves had done, that they had done their best to preserve those rights of the Swazis which still remained; they are not ashamed of the Convention, and they believed it, on the whole, to be the best they could have done for the Swazis.

said, the hon. Gentleman had made it exceedingly difficult for anyone to take part in the Debate, because he had remarked that discussion might interfere with the peaceable settlement of the affairs of Swaziland. Therefore, In he would address himself to the question with that warning in his mind, and he would say nothing that would increase the, difficulty of the Government or of the High Commissioner in South Africa in their endeavours to maintain the peace in Swaziland. It did not appear that either this or a former discussion had enabled the Government to realise the expectations which the Swazis entertained of the protection to which they were entitled from the British Government. It must be remembered that in 1881, when, the Transvaal State was revived after the Transvaal War, the resuscitation of that power caused great alarm to the native tribes round the Transvaal territory. We took every precaution we could to prevent the interference of the Transvaal State with the surrounding native tribes. By the first article of the Convention, the Government of the Transvaal State undertook strictly to adhere to denned boundaries and to prevent any of its inhabitants from encroaching on the land beyond the frontier. That was what was called a guarantee, and it had proved to be wholly inoperative. The moment after that Convention was signed the inhabitants of the Transvaal began to encroach upon the natives all round the Transvaal. This House would remember that it often interfered on behalf of the natives to the west of the Transvaal; but there was no State near the Transvaal which had more reason to fear the new Boer Government than the Swazis had, because they had assembled in arms to assist Great Britain in the Transvaal war. Sir E. Wood thought it necessary to go down and see these Swazis, and in a dispatch which he sent home he said his object was to reassure the King as to his position in relation to the Government of the Transvaal State, to point out to him that in the frontier agreed upon as the boundary of that State his independence had been fully recognised, to satisfy him that interests had been carefully guarded by the Convention, and to indicate to him the line of conduct he was to adopt. Sir E. Wood went down with this object, which he stated to be his main object; he held with the Swazi King the conversation which had been quoted; and the Under Secretary did not, appear to attach to it anything like the importance he ought to do. It must be admitted that the Swazis had a strong claim to our protection on their independence, and that we were under obligations to that people, of which it was quite impossible to divest ourselves. We ought not to try to do it, because the influence of the British Government depended very largely upon the impression prevailing in all parts of the world that Great Britain would keep her promises, and that the British Government was a Government to be trusted. Nothing was more calculated to shake our dominion in South Africa and in other parts of the world than that the idea should get abroad that we were anxious to avail ourselves of technicalities and of legal quibbles for the purpose of divesting ourselves of any responsibilities we had undertaken. It did not facilitate the solution of difficulties that the representative of the Government had endeavoured to minimise the responsibilities which undoubtedly we had incurred towards these people. It was true that some precaution was taken in 1884, when the Transvaal State was turned into the South African Republic, and stipulations were made that it should not interfere beyond its own borders; and what the hon. Gentleman had said about the continued interference of the South African Republic in the affairs of Swaziland had been a dereliction of that solemn Convention. The hon. Gentleman shook his head; but, he must remind him that by the Convention of 1884, the Government of the South African Republic pledged itself, while strictly adhering to the boundaries defined in the first article of the Convention, to do its utmost to prevent any of its inhabitants from encroaching upon the land beyond the boundaries. That was an engagement, as far as one could be given, that the South African Republic would not interfere in Swaziland and the surrounding countries. It was absurd for the Government to throw the whole blame for the present state of things on the unfortunate Swazis. The contention of the Government was that the Swazis' own acts had rendered it impossible to protect them. He would like to call the attention of the House to the way in which the concessions had been obtained. His point was that we were so far responsible for those concessions that it did not lie in our mouth, to make them an excuse for saying that we could not help the Swazis. In a Report on Swaziland made by Sir Francis de Winton in 1890, it was stated—

"The late King and Council have parted, not only with all their territory, but with rights which could only belong to the Government of the country, to a lot of adventurers whose sole object is to make money. It is quite true that the Swazi king and his countrymen did not understand the nature of these concessions, but it is equally true that they signed the documents and received the money for them. It is said that some of these concessions have been purchased by the Government of the Transvaal."

If any were purchased by the Government of the Transvaal, whether that Government were within their legal rights or not, they were breaking the stipulations and guarantees of the convention they had previously entered into; and if the English Government allowed these concessions to come into the hands of the Transvaal Government they could not afterwards turn round and say to the Swazis that it was their own act that had rendered their protection impossible. Another point was that these concessions were made prior to the Convention of 1890; but in 1890, after these concessions had been made, and after, according to the present attitude of the Secretary for the Colonies, it had become impossible to protect the Swazis any longer, we entered into a Convention by which the independence of Swaziland was guaranteed. The Under Secretary had referred several times to the conduct of the late Government, and to their promise to reconsider the Convention of 1890. What was that promise?

"Her Majesty's Government are prepared to consider such questions as the Government of the South African Republic may bring before them, with the desire to meet the wishes of the South African Republic as far as possible with due regard to European and native rights."

All, therefore, that the Government when they came into office were pledged to do was to reconsider the Convention of 1890 "with due regard to native rights." There was no pledge to give up native rights. He had not a word to say against the original design of Lord Ripon. Lord Ripon found that the existing state of things in Swaziland was most inconvenient, and that it was most desirable to put an end to it; but he protested in, the most solemn manner when he first addressed the Prime Minister of the Cape, at the time the negotiations with the South African Republic were begun that nothing should be done, not only unless the Swazi people consented, but also unless Her Majesty's Government were convinced that they gave an intelligent and reasonable consent. Thus he acted in exactly the same manner as Lord Knutsford, reserving specifically clearly, and positively native rights, and making the consent of the Swazis a condition precedent to the washes of the South African Republic being carried out. The Convention of 1893 was made on those lines, and in that Convention the right of the Swazis to consent or not to consent was most specifically reserved The utmost possible pressure had been put upon the Swazis by Her Majesty's Government to induce them to accept the organic proclamations. Sir Henri Loch, in a message, after pointing out all the advantages of the Organic Proclamation and using every argument he could to induce them to accept it, said—

"It is therefore the duty of the Swazi Queen Regent to sign the Proclamation, which I direct her to do at once, or, say, within six weeks of the return of the deputation."

Yet, in spite of all that had been done and could be done by Her Majesty's Government, that which Lord Ripon declared in 1892 to be a condition precedent to the gratification of the wishes of the South African Republic had no been fulfilled. But there was another circumstance in this matter to which he thought the attention of the House ought to be directed, and that was the extraordinary ratification of the abortive Convention of 1893, which was executed by the Government of the South African Republic. That Convention had to be ratified by the Volksraad before it came into operation. This was the ratification, and he asked the attention of the House to it because the Government had notice of it:—

"The First Volksraad having taken note o the Convention agreed to on November 8, 1893, between the South African Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; having in view Article 12 of the said Convention, wherein it is provided that tin ratification must take place on or before June 30, 1894; seeing with regret that Her Majesty's Government has up to the present been unwilling to agree to conditions by which the just claims and rights of this Republic will be acknowledged; considering that it is desirable once more to make public that the approving of the Convention cannot be considered as a relinquishment of the claims and rights which the Republic possess to territory situated to the east of that belonging to the Republic, and expressly reserving to itself those claims and rights as was done by the ratification of, the Convention of 1890; abiding by everything that was said in that ratification; being convinced that no other solution of this long-delayed Swazi question can be arrived at than the total incorporation of Swaziland into the Republic; considering that the intention to arrive at this is evident from Clauses 6 and 7 of the Convention; considering also that incorporation must logically follow from the granting of the franchise to certain persons in Swaziland; regarding the present Convention as a further transitory measure, and still trusting in the promises of Her Majesty's Government, resolves to ratify the said Convention, and to instruct the Government to negotiate further with Her Majesty's Government in the spirit of this Resolution."

So Her Majesty's Government had notice in that ratification that the Volksraad only intended the agreement to be a transitory measure, which was finally to lead to the total incorporation of Swazi-land into the South African Republic. Had that notice ever been withdrawn? [Mr. BUXTON remarked, that a protest had been made against, it.] The protest was this:—

"In discussing these affairs with President Kruger, you (Sir Henry Loch) should state plainly that the conditional ratification given by the Volksraad to the Convention of 1893 has made an unfavourable impression on the minds of Her Majesty's Government; unless those conditions are withdrawn it will be necessary to make a formal declaration on the part of Her Majesty's Government that they in no respect accept them."

Had that formal declaration been made? He supposed not, because the ratification I had never been withdrawn. Then had the Convention of 1894 been ratified by the Volksraad? If so, had it been ratified simply, or only in the same way as the Convention of 1893? Had it the same rider appended to it? The Government could not divest themselves of their responsibilities in this matter. Whether technically bound or not, they were undoubtedly morally bound to do their utmost to protect the unfortunate Swazis. [Mr BUXTON: Hear, hear.] The Swazis could not be said to have made it impossible by their concessions for Her Majesty's Government to protect them, because those concessions were made when we were to a certain extent responsible for the administration of the country and for the advice given to the King, and because these concessions were made before the Convention of 1890, in which the Government still upheld the independence of Swaziland. He trusted, therefore, that the Government would do all in their power to preserve the Swazis from the horrors of an armed invasion by the South African Republic. The forbearance which had always been shown to the Government and the inhabitants of the Transvaal, notwithstanding the successive inroads which they had made upon the territories of the neighbouring tribes, in violation of the stipulations of the Conventions of 1891 and 1894, gave us a very strong claim upon that Government, and we might well ask them to abstain from any course which would be incompatible with the honour of this country and which would disappoint the expectations which we had raised in the minds of the natives. The House of Commons ought to urge the Government to take steps to induce the Government of the South African Republic to abstain from violence, and not to brusquer the situation.

thought the Under Secretary for the Colonies might, without injuring the interests of the Swazis or of this nation, reply to two questions which he wished to put. Having witnessed attacks upon natives, and knowing that the accompanying incidents were the burning of villages and the slaughter of women and children, he could not but feel great sympathy for a native race when he heard that an armed force was collecting on their frontier for the purpose of invasion. He wished to know whether the present Government had endeavoured in any way to obtain practical, material safeguards for the protection of the Swazis. The safeguards on which we were supposed to rely in the past had one by one disappeared. The suzerainty over the Transvaal had gone, and the independence of the Swazis had gone, and he did not see what was to prevent an incorporation of Swaziland in the Transvaal after a Boer invasion. Then the Government of this country had made no attempt to assert our rights in connection with the administration of the affairs of Swaziland. Why had we transferred all our rights to the other partner concerned in the question? In the correspondence a reason was given, and it was said that we were debarred from annexing Swaziland by our Treaty obligations. But how was it that the South African Republic was not debarred by its obligations from annexing the country? There was a great deal more that required explanation, but the subject could not be dealt with adequately in a hurried, sudden, and partial debate. While deprecating, therefore, the method which had been employed to bring this most important matter before their attention, he hoped that the Government would consent to throw some additional light on the points to which he had referred.

I join the hon. Member in deprecating the continuance of this discussion. What the Under Secretary has said is perfectly true, namely, that what is said in this House may tend to prevent a peaceful solution of this question. The object of the Government is, that this question should be peacefully settled, and that we should not be involved in a conflict in this matter at all, for that would be a most serious evil, perhaps one of the most serious evils that could befall South Africa. My opinion, therefore, is, that everyone ought to endeavour to contribute to a solution of that character. To encourage either party to take any action which would prevent a peaceful solution and cause a conflict would be to incur grave responsibility. The hon. Member very properly asks what the object of the Government is. Their desire, as is shown in the convention, is to preserve the native rights. As a guarantee of that, the Government have appointed an English Consul to be present to carry out the safeguards which have been introduced into the Convention. That shows what is the object of the Government in the matter; and I, with a great sense of responsibility, would say to the House that if it is their desire, as I am sure it must be their desire, to prevent armed conflict in Africa in this matter, the more reserve is exercised at this moment and upon this occasion the better. In that sense I appeal to the House not to continue this discussion.

After what has right hon. Gentleman we will have no choice, I think, but to take the advice which, on his responsibility as a Minister and Leader of the House, he has given to us upon this question. I confess I abstain from criticising the course which the Government have taken with great reluctance. I should especially like to press the Government a little more upon the safeguards which they say they have provided for the Swazis. I should like to ask whether, and how far, they think the sending of a Consul, whose only method of action is to send despatches to the Home Government, is likely to be effective. But as the House is told that any rash word from us may precipitate conflict where conflict may otherwise be avoided, we have no choice but to leave the responsibility where, after all, it must finally rest—namely, with Her Majesty's Government; and to reserve any criticism, and it may be censure, until a period when, I fear, it will be too late, or may be too late, for the protection of those whose interests we have at heart. Should that unhappy contingency arise, we shall be able to say that we, at all events, are not to blame for any evil consequences that may ensue from the policy which Her Majesty's Government have on their responsibility undertaken.

in view of the statement of the responsible Minister of the Crown—although, he said, the object of the Motion was to avoid danger—asked leave to withdraw his Motion.

nominated the Select Committee on Telephone Service:—That Captain Bagot, Mr. Baird, Mr. Benn, Sir Charles Cameron, Mr. John Ellis, Sir James Fergusson, Sir Julian Goldsmid, Sir John Gorst, Mr. Grant Lawson, Mr. Solicitor General, Mr. Arnold Morley, Mr. Moulton, Mr. Snape, Lord Stanley, and Mr. Tully be Members of the Committee. That the Committee have power to send for per sons, papers, and records. That five be the quorum.

in rising to second the Motion, complimented the Member for Preston upon his interesting argument. About two years ago he had himself drawn the attention of the right hon. Minister to the injustice of placing upon India the Army purchase charges and the retirement charges. He first remembered it when sitting at Calcutta on a Military and Finance Commission in conjunction with Sir George Balfour. Ever since that time the subject had been urged by almost every European and Native authority throughout India; and, although something had been done, there still remained a very heavy residue of charge against India. He thought that his hon. Friend the Member for Preston deserved well of the people of India for bringing the subject forward in this authoritative way. As his hon. Friend had never served in the East, no suggestion of prejudice could be made in regard to his action. The real gist of the matter lay in the effective charge. It was a question of recruits. The English argument, as he understood it in former days in India, was this:—

"We are sending yon out a made soldier; we have spent a good deal of money upon his training, of which you in India get the advantage. Therefore, we in England are entitled to some compensation from India."

That was the English Army view, to which the Indian reply was as follows:

"No doubt we get a made soldier who has been trained at some cost to you; but, while he has been training, he has been borne on the regiment and has served as an effective portion of the garrison in England, and, if war had broken out, would have formed an effective portion of the forces for England's national defence. During that time he has been of use and value to England, and England has received the value of her outlay upon him."

That had always been, and always would be, India's argument until this matter was redressed. The grievance was increased by the absurd way in which the charge was disguised in the Estimates. Nobody, who could not read between the lines or see behind the scenes, could understand the manner in which the charge was made. Instead of stating the charge as £40 or £50 a head on the men sent out, it was put down as a capitation grant on the whole 70,000 or 80,000 men in India, and in this form it did not look so much. In regard to the transport charges for the reliefs, no complaint could, perhaps, be made on account of the cost of taking the men out being charged to India, but that country was also saddled with the entire cost of bringing the men home. India had always contended that the men coming back were valuable to the English Army—coming back, as they did in many cases, to service in their own country, and that the cost of bringing them back, ought, therefore, to be borne by England. Another growing grievance, which was becoming most seriously noticed in India, was in relation to the new cantonment Regulations, the result of which had been an enormous increase in disease. These men, who were our own flesh and blood, were being decimated by disease. The new Regulations were entirely owing to the action of the House, and he would not be doing his duty as a Member of that House if he did not call attention to the fact, though he was thankful that he and some other hon. Members had purged themselves from responsibility for this awful result. The return of Sir George White mentioned one-third, but he was afraid that one-half of the men were suffering from disease, which might easily have been made preventable, and which was effectually prevented until the House interfered from a false sense of morality. If war broke out in India it might be necessary to send out a whole fresh army corps to repair the ravages caused by the disease. Morality had benefited not at all. India was placed under heavy additional charges in deference to Lord Roberts and other authorities, and yet all that was entirely nullified by having 30,000 or 40,000 man diseased, owing to the new Regulations. Every military officer in India was dead against these Regulations, which had also received the protests of the Council and others. They should not be doing their duty to their fellow-subjects in India if they hesitated to speak out. Their speaking out might possibly give offence to some, but they had acted under a grievous misapprehension. They had been the means of inflicting great evils on their fellow-countrymen—evils which would last not for a year or two, but probably for a lifetime. Now, if the House chose to interfere they ought to pay the bill, and not cast on others the cost of these moral vagaries, He hoped he might be excused for having spoken so earnestly on this question. He had spoken from the bottom of his heart, because he knew exactly how this evil had come about. The House should look favourably upon these financial questions, because he could assure them that the feelings of the natives of India were very keen on this subject. He urged hon. Members opposite, who had shown so much generous consideration towards the feelings and sentiments and the wishes of the natives of India, to try and get a reduction of these charges. It would be a most gracious thing if the Government saw their way to take these charges in hand, and thus extend a helping hand to India in the hour of her financial difficulties.

said, he had a very strong sympathy with the two speeches to which they had just listened. He thoroughly agreed that every consideration ought to be shown to the interests of India, and, above all, that that House should be most careful that, sometimes without intending it, it did not infringe upon those interests. They all knew how apt the House was sometimes to be carried away by most praiseworthy, philanthropic, and excellent motives, but he agreed with his hon. Friend that there had been occasions when the House, acting under the influence of these motives, had placed burdens of one sort or another on India which that country ought not to bear. Having listened to the very strong repudiation of his hon. Friend who had just sat down of any desire to interfere with the wishes and feelings of the people of India in an unnecessary way, he might assume, though his memory did not enable him to be confident, that he was one of those who voted for the retention of the Cotton Duties. He was so fastidious that he was sure his hon. Friend would never have countenanced for a moment any action on the part of the Government which would have even the appearance of injuring Indian interests. He presumed his hon. Friend voted for the retention of the Cotton Duties in accordance with the desire of the people of India.

Alas—! I voted on the other side.

admitted his mistake. They had listened to a very strong speech from the Member for Preston, but his speech was stronger than the foundation on which it was built. He did not think that his hon. Friend, who had just awoke somewhat tardily to the circumstances, could have informed himself very well of the facts. One of his strong points—and here he was joined by the Member for Richmond—was that it was a monstrous thing they should make the people of India pay for the abolition of purchase in the Army. They were told that, from the British point of view, the abolition of purchase might have been a good thing, but the Indian people cared nothing about it. How monstrous to make them pay? Would the House believe that from first to last India did not pay a single penny in respect of the abolition of purchase?

referred to Vote 14:—

"Retired pay and gratuities, including compensation awarded by the Army Purchase Commissioners;" "sum to be received in aid of Army Estimates to meet the non-effective charges for the Regular Forces serving in India.''

said, that was very true, and he admitted that was a misleading heading and ought not to be there; but the House might take it from him, with regard to the abolition of purchase, none of the charge had ever been placed on the revenue of India. Then his hon. Friend quoted from the speech of Lord Northbrook in the other House. Ho was not going to attack or defend Lord Northbrook. He was an old friend of his; but of all people entitled to complain of delay Lord Northbrook was the last, because he was at the head of the Committee which had investigated these home charges. Then his hon. Friend said that Lord Northbrook threw the post up in disgust. Ft was the first he had heard of it, and it was the first those who sat on the Committee had heard of it. His hon. Friend also found a great grievance in the arrangement with regard to the non-effective charges. The Committee had nothing to do with the non-effective charges; and let him tell the House that the Government of India never raised any objection to the manner in which the non-effective charges had been settled. His hon. Friend said as to pensions he could not understand how the figure was arrived at; all he knew was it was going up by leaps and by bounds. Why, the method was a very simple and, in his view, a very just one. When a soldier went to pension his services were examined, and India paid its share of that pension for the proportion of his service spent in India. This country paid for the portion of time which the soldier spent at home, which included the earliest days of his infancy. That could not be considered an injurious arrangement. Some time ago his prospective pension was capitalised, and that sum was divided between the two Governments on the terms he had stated. But now a still more exact method was adopted. When a soldier was to be pensioned, there was taken what might be called his "horoscope"—that was to say, they estimated how long he ought to live, and, having found the time he ought to live, they charged his pension. The proportion for the years spent in India was charged to the Indian Government. If the man died too soon India lost; if he lived too long this country lost; but, on the whole, the "horoscope," being calculated on undoubted tables, there was a perfectly equitable distribution of this charge. This was an instance of one of those terrible evils which the hon. Member for Preston was so apt to discover—where some person in one of the offices was endeavouring to mislead him and everyone else who looked into the Estimates; and he could not understand where this mystery arose. The hon. Member said that pensions had increased. They had increased because the whole system of pensions had increased. One of the principal reasons for the introduction 25 years ago of the Short Service system was the intolerable amount of pensions which Long Service had in prospect for this country. The pension list had gone up in the same way as the other, because the Government could not break faith with those who served under the old Long Service system, and so long as these men retired on pension the Government must fulfil their engagements to them; this was the sole reason why there was this great increase in pensions. He had seen it stated, as one of the grievances of India, that she had suffered so much by the introduction of Short Service. According to an actuarial calculation, it was shown that under Short Service the decrease on the home charges to India was no less than £390,000 a year. The main point, however, was, what was called home charges for training and preparing. Not only as a Member of Parliament, but as Head of the War Office, he said that this country ought to behave generously to India. His contention was, that we did behave generously to India, and it would be an evil day for India if her short-sighted advocates were to come forward and to urge her to claim her pound of flesh: because, if India did so, then this country would be obliged to claim its pound of flesh; and he thought our pound of flesh would be considerably heavier than that of India. He had some familiarity with these subjects, because more than 20 years ago he sat for two or three years on a Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Ayrton—Mr. Fawcett being one of the members. The same thing was discussed then, and the point they differed upon was—what were to be the relations between the two countries? If they once settled that point, then the whole matter became comparatively easy. In those days they were always told how cheaply the Indian Government had managed its military affairs in the old days before the Mutiny. They were also told that India in those days got its recruits with great ease, that they cost India very little, that there was an admirable supply, and that India maintained its own troops in a state of great efficiency. But those were the Presidency troops, which were very few in number; and the system pursued then was to send out from the depôt 800 or 1,000 men yearly. There was not, however, much consideration shown to a recruit in those days. A recruit was captured, perhaps, within two or three months of embarkation, and he was packed off with others to take a voyage round the Cape—untrained men for the most part, though learning a little of the goose step in the course of their long voyage. The Government had been advised many years ago by the Sanitary Commission that it ought not, in justice to the soldiers, to send a young man out to India until he was at least 20 years of age and trained. What happened to the men who were sent out in this manner? The best medical authorities agreed in saying that after eight years the soldier deteriorated in health in India. Therefore the Government had fixed eight years as the extreme time that a soldier was to be kept in India. But the poor men who went out from the depôt at home to the little Presidency armies were kept there until they either died or were sent home in an exhausted state to die in this country. The Government preferred to send or their health, and to bring them back in a sound condition of health, and that was why the expense of the recruits for Indian purposes was so much greater that it was in those earlier days. Then there were the Queen's troops. Every battalion in India had a depôt company for each battalion at home. It was on the Indian establishment; it was paid by India; it was at one time not even voted in the numbers of the Estimates in this House. If hon. Members could conceive that system being applied to the 70,000 men that India now had, was it likely that there would be very much gain in the cost that India would incur? The hon. Member quoted the fact that £10 was allowed about 30 years ago for all arms per man. In order to show the concession that involved in India—a concession far beyond what was equitable to this country—he drew the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that the Committee of Investigation presided over by Sir Alexander Tulloch recommended a capitation rate to keep up the forces in India at the rate. For an infantry soldier £11 1s. 6d; cavalry soldier, £15 16s.; artillery soldier, £23 13s. Yet the Government, out of consideration for the circumstances of India, accepted £10. He thought that this fact showed that there had not been on the part of this country any desire to deal in the unfair way sometimes represented with India. But that was not quite a scientific basis on which to base the arrangement, and their efforts had been since directed to attain that. There was, first, an inquiry held under the auspices of the late Mr. Sclater-Booth, and then Lord Northbrook; and finally a provisional settlement was made of £7 10s. on the strength of the forces in India. This sum had been taken, and it had been continued from year to year. It was built up on a certain calculation of the expenses, and the point which the House would have to consider and to ask was, whether this £7 10s. for a man in India was necessary. He would state the War Office view of what ought to be paid equitably by this country. India should pay the extra cost of the numbers on the establishment, which would not be maintained if the Indian Army had not to be kept up. It might be said on the one hand—

"Oh! morally to set off against that you should look at the advantage you get from the experience in India of the officers and men—the reservoir of force you have in that country."

On the other hand, he put this question, which he thought would involve a much larger sum—

"Supposing we had not to maintain the forces in India, what would be the effect on our arms at home?"

If England had not this great duty of maintaining the garrison of India, it would be possible to adopt an organisation for our Army which would be adequate for all purposes of home defence and yet effect an enormous saving on the present establishment. He set that fact off as at least equal to the supposed benefit derived by this country from the existence of a portion of the Army under excellent conditions for training and experience in India. The War Office had to obtain its recruits young, and the recruit, who was only drafted in the autumn of the year, could not be sent out under 21 years of age. Therefore, the home establishment had to keep the recruit for 18 months or two years before he could be sent to India, and during that time he was not of much service for Army purposes. In case of war he would not be used; the War Office would make use of the Reserve; and the hon. Member had not mentioned that India did not pay one penny of the existing Reserve. In respect of these infantry recruits, whom the War Office kept for 18 months, India was charged only for six months' pay and maintenance at the depôt and with the regiment. Then India was charged with only one-fifth of the staff of the depôt. The depôts were maintained for Militia, Volunteer, home Army, and training purposes, and the expense of the staff was divided into five parts, with one of which India was charged. That was certainly not too much, and in the old days India would have had to pay, instead of one fifth, the whole of one company. India was charged nothing for the staff of the regiment, although, if it were conceivable that any other system should be adopted, India would have to maintain a separate staff of her own. Something was charged for educational establishments; but why not? India received the benefit of the educated officer, and she ought to pay a share, not too great, but in proportion to the services of the officers. Some of these educational establishments were very costly. India, again, paid a share of the hospitals and discharge depôts, some of which were maintained almost entirely for herself, and there were some other smaller charges. If the total cost, which equitably enough, could be charged in respect of these recruits were assessed, it would not be the £600,000 asked for now, but over a million. The Home, Government gladly and cheerfully remitted nearly one-half of that million. But as partners in this great undertaking surely India and the Home Government should each bear their own share. Neither the present Government nor any Minister at the War Office or the Treasury ever wanted India to pay one sou more then it was right to ask of her. But, on the other hand, it was not right that the Home Government should calmly endure the imposition upon the taxpayers of this country of a greatly increased payment in those matters where the cost could be actually earmarked and charged to Indian purposes alone. Lord Northbrook was a consenting party to this payment. He was the chairman of the Committee who recommended it. This £7 10s. rate was not the choice of the Home Government. The Indian Government themselves stated that they preferred it. The War Office would, for many purposes, have rather had a fixed sum independent of the strength of India. It was necessary to explain that this was not a plot and scheme to defraud India by imposing on her expenditure what she ought not to pay. Some of the charges which he had mentioned might be too extravagant, while others might be inadequate. He should have thought that, this matter having dragged along for some years under the Northbrook Committee, the proposal which the Secretary of State for India made was a reasonable one—namely, that there should be an inquiry into these charges in order to have some sort of a settlement and understanding as to the proper sum to be charged. He believed such an inquiry would be most useful; but he was satisfied that it would not be very favourable, at all events, to Indian finance. The whole position was governed by this consideration—that while the Government were anxious to save India from any expense of which she could with any justice complain, they were not prepared to make what would be practically a contribution in aid of Indian revenues, on the ground of these charges, which they believed, and which had been proved to be, just and equitable.

said, that on both sides the canon had been laid down that in dealing with India in this matter—in which we were the final arbiter—our stand should be taken on the ground of generosity. It was admitted that it was very hard to define and fix an absolute rule on which these charges should be based, and it was urged that, wherever there was a doubt, generosity should be exercised to the benefit of India. [Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: "Hear, hear"] He would mention one case in illustration of the application of this principle of generosity. It had been accurately stated, that when troops were sent to India every possible charge which could be made out in respect of those troops was debited to India.

My hon. and gallant Friend misrepresents me. I distinctly implied that it was not every possible charge which could be made out. I mentioned the charges which were included, but there are many others which could be made.

said that he would take the responsibility for the statement himself. He believed that every possible charge which could in propriety be made was made in India. From the day the soldier left England his pay was borne by the Indian Government.

His pay outward is borne by us.

said that, on the other hand, the soldier's pay was borne by the Indian Government on his return; and if he went into hospital on reaching England, he, was charged on the Indian Government till he recovered. But when India lent troops to England a very different system of accounts was adopted. Frequently of late years India had been called upon to assist, by her forces and establishment, the Imperial forces in expeditions to various parts of the world—such as Abyssinia, he Straits Malta, and Cyprus. Was the pay of the troops employed on these expeditions charged to the Home Government? Not at all. It was argued with a certain degree of plausibility that the Indian troops were only temporarily employed by the Home Government, and that they would have to be maintained by India in any case; and, therefore, while England paid the extra expenses of transport and clothing, the allowances and pay of the officers and men was still borne by India. There might be some reason for this, but he failed to see where the generosity came in. As we were the final authority, and as the system had been frequently protested against by the Indian Government, it would be seen that the high canon of practice laid down by the right, hon. Gentleman was not always very carefully observed. It was, perhaps, a small matter in the long run; but undoubtedly it rankled in the minds of the Indian people as a piece of high-handed injustice.

said that he must accept the reproach of the Secretary for War for having been but tardily awakened to the importance of this subject. The hon. Member for Preston, the right hon. Baronet who sat by his side, and himself, were Members of a Committee which sat regularly upon those accounts, and they had failed unfortunately to discover the points which the right hon. Gentleman said they ought to have discovered. These Estimates were extremely difficult to understand. One of the very headings in the Estimates, which dealt with the compensation for purchase in India, the right hon. Gentleman himself admitted to be a misleading heading, and therefore it was extremely difficult for an unfortunate private Member like himself to arrive at the real facts.

pointed out that if it was misleading, it was against themselves, and not in the other direction.

said, they had been told the other day by the Secretary of State for India that they were, one and all of them, Members for India, and he would add that they were anxious to do justice to the people of India. They had had occasion the other day to give a vote by which they wished to do justice to the people of India. Successive Viceroys of India had called attention to what they thought were the extremely inequitable charges thrown upon the people of India by these votes; and, although it was impossible for anyone not in possession of War Office secrets to follow all the details of the non-effective charges, when they came to the effective home charges he thought they must admit that the right hon. Gentleman entirely failed to establish his case on behalf of the Government. It had been stated, and it could not be denied, that we dealt out different measures to India and to the great colonies. When the responsible Government of a colony was able to make the desires of the people of that colony felt, then they did not find the War Office entering into small questions of pounds, shillings, and pence; they were glad to take what they could get; but when it came to India, then they began to consider every farthing of expenditure, and to see how much could be thrown on India and how little could be paid by the ratepayers of Great Britain. Evidently, in order to square the Army Estimates, it had been the successive practice of our Secretaries of State to endeavour to apportion to the Indian taxpayer as large a proportion as possible of these effective and non-effective charges. They were told that a Commission was about to be appointed to inquire into these matters, but his hon. Friend told him in the same breath he did not think it would, on the whole, result in much advantage to the Indian people. What, then, was the good of appointing it? He hoped the result of the Debate would be to awaken the War Office to the importance of this question. If they had not, before these questions of expenditure were discussed again, taken every possible opportunity of examining into them, they would be deserving of reproach.

as one who had for many years taken a great interest in the affairs of India, thanked the hon. Member for Preston for raising this question. He did not think the House sufficiently realised how strong was the feeling in India that in the adjustment of the home charges justice had not been done to that country. It was not altogether a disadvantage, he thought, that the people of Lancashire, and through them the people of England, where beginning to feel the effects of the financial unsoundness of India. The amount India paid for pensions and retiring allowances to officers actually came to as much as the entire pay to the native army in India. One of the strongest points raised by his hon. Friend was the very heavy charge for non-effective services placed upon the Indian Exchequer. The Statistical Abstract of India for last year showed that the amount charged for these services was no less than 4,700,000 tens of rupees, almost all of which, he believed, was spent in England. He did not think this included allowances for furlough. The total sum charged for civil and military pensions and furloughs was 8 millions of tens of rupees, the military part, including furlough, coming to more than 5 millions. This was a monstrous charge, and no army in the world bore so heavy a non-effective charge. It had arisen, he believed, from the conditions consequent on the abolition of purchase. The Indian military expenditure had been growing by leaps and bounds, and in ten years it had increased, in round numbers, from 18 million tens of rupees to 24 millions, and, no doubt, this enormous increase was not a little caused by the unfair apportionment of expenses between England and India. As India was an excessively poor country, the average income of the people being not more than £2 per head per annum, as against £36 per head in this country, he would rather, in case of doubt, turn the scale in favour of India than in favour of this country. He felt bound to say, after the evidence of the futility of previous inquiry, he had not very much hope from the promised inquiry. If a Committee, presided over by such a distinguished expert as Lord Northbrook, ended in nothing, what could be expected from another inquiry? It seemed hopeless, unless a totally different principle were adopted. He did not believe that any good at all would come from the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into Indian matters, unless, placed on that Commission, were Indian representatives, who would be advocates of Indian interests just as other members of the Commission would represent British interests. Two or three capable men, his hon. Friend (Mr. Naoroji) and others, would deal with the subject from an Indian point of view, and then there would be some hope of the conclusions of the Commission being satisfactory. One very painful subject had been alluded to by the hon. Members who moved and seconded the Motion, upon which he could not be altogether silent. He took quite an opposite view as to the policy of the Indian Cantonments Acts, but no humane man could be otherwise than distressed at the outbreaks of disease among our troops in India. Upon this subject we could not stand still, and certainly some great change was called for. He would only throw out a suggestion which occurred to him, and that was that we should change our whole system of recruiting for India, and go back to long service, allowing men to marry and settle in the country giving them inducement to make homes for themselves. In old days, the long term Army did admirable service, and we might go back to a system of 20 years' service, allow men to marry, keeping them as much as possible at the hill stations, and giving them handsome retiring allowances. The native troops were allowed to marry and were mostly married men, and among them there were not those lamentable outbreaks of disease to which Europeans were exposed. Permission to marry should be given, and those who availed themselves of it would lead wholesome natural lives. He hoped the result of the Debate would lead to the constitution of a Committee or Commission, on lines that would secure an honest handling of difficult Indian questions. If the India office brought down on the heads of the Commission endless accounts and a confusing mass of figures, the result would be nugatory, and the inquiry had better not be entered upon. Let another plan be adopted—let a small Commission equally represent England and India, and he hoped some good would result.

said, the idea was conveyed by several speakers in support of the Amendment that India, was called upon to pay for soldiers serving in this country. That was liable to great misapprehension. The arrangement made between the India Office and the War Department was that the expenses of the first six months' training of infantry soldiers and the first nine months' training of artillery and cavalry soldiers in this country were charged to India. That was always considered a fair charge, because those recruits were not doing regular and effective duty in this country, but were being trained for regular and effective duty in India. India paid a proportion of the charges for training Artillery officers at Shoeburyness, and Engineer officers at Chatham. She paid some of the charge of the Military Hospital at Netley, for the Discharge Depôt at Gosport, and she repaid the money advanced to pay to soldiers proceeding to India. But the principal charge was for young soldiers training in this country. He thought these were fair charges. However, he congratulated his hon. friend, the Member for Preston, on the fact that he had induced the authorities of the War Office to appoint a Committee to go into the matter. But he warned his hon. friend that it was extremely probable that the result of the Committee's investigation would be against him unless the principle on which the contribution was made by India was altered. He had taken the opportunity of consulting one of the best authorities on this point, namely, the Accountant General of the Army, who was examined upon it by the Committee on Public Accounts in March 1893. The following was part of the Examination:—

"Is the War Office satisfied with this Capitation rate, as adequate to cover the expenses they are put to?" "We have accepted something about that sum now for some years past; but speaking my personal opinion, I do not think it represents the expense to us of the Indian Depôts." "You think the arrangement leaves the Army Vote a loser?" "I do certainly."

Later on the examination was continued by the Secretary to the Treasury (Sir J. Hibbert):—

"The Treasury apparently is not satisfied with the existing arrangement by which the amount is settled from year to year?" "The Treasury is disposed, I think, to agree with the War Department, the £7 10s. apart from deferred pay does not quite cover the cost."

By arrangement with the Treasury, the sum had been accepted up to March 1894; and he did not know what had been done in the year that had since elapsed. But if there was any belief in the minds of the natives of India that too much was charged to India, then the whole basis of the charge ought to be gone into, item by item, until a Committee was satisfied what the proper charge would be.

said, no one could fail to understand why these charges were regarded with serious dissatisfaction. He had always understood that the reason why these charges were made was, that the British Army was considered to be to a certain extent kept up for the sake of the Indian Empire; that it was considered as a reserve of the Indian Army, and that in these circumstances the natives of India had no ground of complaint. But a few facts would disprove that hypothesis. The military history of the last 90 years would show that, so far from the English Army being a reserve for the Anglo-Indian forces, the reverse was practically the truth. In the campaigns in the Sutlej and the Punjab, and in the Mutiny, the English Army was held as a reserve for the Indian Army; but the Indian Army was a reserve for the British Army in pretty nearly every war of this century, as in Sir James Beard's Expedition in Egypt in 1801, in the Java Expedition in 1810, in Persia in 1842, in China in I860, in Abyssinia in 1867, and in the Soudan in 1882. This list successfully disposed of the theory on which these Estimates were framed, that the English Army was kept up as a reserve for the Indian forces. He should like to add how glad he was that the whole charge for the Opium Commission had been placed upon England, and he should have been better pleased if the cost could have been thrown upon the faddists and philosophers, who induced the Government to appoint the Commission.

wished to offer his most hearty thanks to the Mover and Seconder of the Motion, and to all who had spoken. The Secretary for War ought to be glad that he had had the opportunity of explaining what he thought the majority of the House did not know. This Debate had given him very great gratification; it would do a great deal of good, not only in India, but in England itself; and it made him glad that Lancashire was waking up. He had been disposed at times, by the proceeedings of the House, to give way to feelings of despair; but this Debate had given him new hope, that this House would be true to its better instincts, to its love of fair play, and would do justice to India. In the account with India, England must remember the immense glory she derived from India. After all, it was a question of large policy; it was whether the natives of India were to be treated as helpless subjects, or whether they were to be regarded as part and parcel of the British Empire, with the rights of British citizenship.

believed that this occasion was one on which remarks might be made on Military policy, and he wished to crave the indulgence of the House while he made a few remarks on War Office reform. It appeared to him that it was quite as important to consider in what direction we should not advance as in what direction we should advance. The Secretary of State for War declared last year that he considered that consolidating and confirming reforms that had already taken place was the true direction in which military reform should proceed. With that view he most thoroughly agreed, and it was in order to express his concurrence with the right hon. Gentleman's attitude that he had risen. He did not think that many hon. Members of the House agreed with that view. He had looked through the speeches made on the Army Estimates during the past few years, and he found that hon. Members generally began by abusing the War Office and by a general vague declaration that the amount of the expenditure on the Army was excessive when compared with the good to be got out of it. No Minister could give a satisfactory reply to statements so vague. The next stage was to give certain definite instances of inefficiency. One hon. Member alluded to the fact that the reserve was inefficient, another to the fact that the cavalry was under-horsed; but, in order to put these details right, great expenditure was invariably necessary. These hon. Gentlemen declared that they were not prepared to spend sixpence more on the Army, and, in order to get themselves out of the difficulty, spoke loudly of War Office administration and War Office responsibility. Was there any use in this kind of oratory? In every single one of these stages failures were to be found, and he would like briefly to point out where, as it seemed to him, the chief errors of this kind of declamation were to be found. Hon. Members, when they spoke like this, always had in their minds some reference to foreign armies; but to compare foreign armies, under a system of conscription and with no Colonial service, to our Army, in which more than half the men were abroad, and in which the voluntary system held, was perfectly useless. If an hon. Member would bring forward a resolution in favour of conscription he ought to have a fair hearing; but until that was done all comparisons with foreign armies were useless. What other proof was there in favour of these sweeping declarations as to the inefficiency of the Army. He confessed he knew of none whatever. If one looked carefully through the Army Estimates, he would come to the conclusion that the only possible way in which we could get a greater number of men would be by reducing the pay either of officers or men. The pay of the man was little more than 22s. a week, including his housing, his military education, his clothes, and transport all over the world. Therefore, it was impossible to make any economy in the pay of the soldier. Neither could any reduction be made in the pay of the officers, inasmuch as the greater number of officers were of junior rank, and their pay was very small. Of course, under the Estimates they might, here and there, get a few thousand pounds saved, but that would not be enough to remove the charge of excessive expenditure; and the only logical conclusion those hon. Members who called out for a reduction in expenditure could come to was, that the number of men should be reduced. They failed, however, to recognise that England was little more than a huge depot for foreign service. The only way in which to reduce the Army was by adopting some great change in foreign policy. We might, for instance, abandon Malta. That was a policy he should object to; but it was the only kind of proposal that could be made if an economy in military expenditure was to be effected. Another common thing was to compare the expenditure on the Army with that on the Navy. The expenditure on the Army was some 30 millions, and on the Navy about 19 millions, and it was said that, inasmuch as the Navy was the far more important of the two, these figures must be wrong. The value of a service, however, could not be compared to its cost. He supposed that a good many hon. Members would declare that Education was far more important than the Army and Navy together; but no one would propose to reduce the Military and Naval Votes on that account. Relative importance could not be compared with relative expenditure. Again, the Army and the Navy, although parts of our defensive system, were separate parts, arid an increase in Naval expenditure would not bring about a decrease in Military expenditure. The Army was absolutely necessary for the defence of the British Empire, however powerful the Navy was made. He, for one, believed that if there was any increased expenditure it should be for the Navy rather than for the Army; but that must not be pushed too far. Although we were content to remain a Military nonentity in Europe, we still remained the greatest Military Power in Asia. It might be true that there were not enough manœuvres, that the cavalry was under-forced, that our recruits were too young. But in considering these matters, they must weigh against the advantages to be gained by an increased military expenditure, the disadvantages of increased civil taxation. Then if they were to spend 10 millions more upon the Army the same complaints that were heard now would before very long be heard again, and the Army would demand more and more, expenditure. He was not convinced that a much greater military expenditure would be justifiable; but, on the other hand, he did not think that they ought to reduce the existing force in the least. Could they find a panacea for their existing troubles in some form of War Office reorganization? He had come to the conclusion that they could not. That was not the means by which to make, an advance. He had served, himself, in a military capacity in the War Office, and at first he shared the belief that that institution was a mass of stupidity. But the longer he remained there the more he became convinced that it was the inherent difficulties of the problems that presented themselves that prevented their solution. The blunders that occurred did not occur in consequence of exceptional stupidity, but in consequence of the exceptional difficulties of the problems that had to be faced. There had been a number of eminent soldiers and civilians at the War Office, and it was absurd to suppose that they could have left it in the state in which it was often represented to be. The system at the War Office was fairly good. They would probably find it impossible to devise a system of War Office administration which should be much superior to that perfected by the late Mr. Stanhope, who hardly received the credit that was due for the work which he did in the Department. Several gentlemen who had served at the War Office considered that many of the main proposals of the Hartington Commission pointed in the wrong direction. The Commission was wrong, for example, in proposing to group the different military departments in the Office under a civil head, for the departments were kept together better under a military head. He did not think that much would be gained by adopting the recommendations of the Commission, and he congratulated the Secretary of State for War on his fearless determination not to effect any of these changes in the system of administration at the War Office. He should like, however, to indicate two or three directions in which reform could be pushed. They ought to peg away at minor reforms in the army, and, in order that they might be effected, public attention ought to be fixed on military affairs. The suggestion of the leader of the Opposition that there should be a Committee of the Cabinet associated with military officers, and having permanent records, was an excellent suggestion, which would, he hoped, be adopted. Then there ought to be more publicity in connection with military affairs. When he was at the Intelligence Department certain maps were kept secret in the most absurd way, and they would have been useful to the civil population. The love of secrecy was a little weakness of the Authorities. He also urged that the Secretary of State for War would do well to publish the signed Reports of the heads of the Military Departments, in order that the public might know what was their real opinion as to the efficiency of the Army. It would also be advantageous if the right hon. Gentleman could proceed with his policy of decentralisation. If they were ever to reduce the non-effective vote so as to increase the effective vote, it must be done by diminishing pensions. The only way to diminish pensions was by reducing the proportion of junior officers in the Army, and the only way to do that was by introducing the 4 company system in our battalions. He had always thought that we ought to maintain one battalion permanently abroad and one permanently at home, with a draft going out every year, the home battalion being kept at one uniform strength. He mentioned these possible reforms to show that in many directions they ought to advance, and could do so. He wished in conclusion to point out that by discussing the question of War Office reform, they were merely drawing a red herring across the trail of military reforms.

called attention to the bad drainage of the Tower barracks and Wellington barracks. In consequence of the present defective drainage system at these places, the health and lives of the men with whom he served were endangered. Before 1891 the drainage at the Tower was found to be about as bad as it could be. A very good scheme was then prepared by a Mr. Tyndall, and it was ordered to be undertaken by the engineers. The work was done and it was passed by the engineer officers as perfect. But some 18 months ago some slight defects were discovered near the Quartermaster's house, and the drains were taken up and found to be in nearly as bad a state as the old drains were a year previously. They were ordered to be repaired, and the Secretary for War had told him the other day in answer to a question, that the defects discovered had been remedied.

Were being remedied.

At the rate they were going on, at the end of the century they would still be being remedied ("Yes."). He did not want to abuse any officer in particular, but some notice ought to be taken of the conduct of the engineer officer who in 1891 and 1892 supervised the laying down of the drains and afterwards reported them to be in a perfect condition, and who, by his carelessness or inability, had endangered the health of those living in those barracks. In Wellington barracks the sanitary condition of the officers' quarters was infinitely worse than the men's, for the reason that in the former the drains were close to the building, whereas in the men's barracks the drains coming from the latrines were some distance away. In answer to a question put in the House, the Secretary of State informed him that the plans of the drains at Wellington barracks, and the others, were sufficiently good for the purpose. He should be inclined to say the plans were absolutely useless. He knew, himself, there was in Wellington barracks, in the officers' quarters, a drain found the other day of which the engineers had no knowledge whatever, and no tracing of it on their plans. The Financial Secretary, in answer to a question, informed him that the usual quarterly inspection of drains was made, and that no further examination was thought to be necessary. Probably the hon. Gentleman did not know what the usual inspection of the engineer officer was. He tapped the pipe, said that it was perfectly sound, asked if there was any smell about, and walked out of the barracks. On the last occasion, however, the usual quarterly inspection was a little more careful than usual. The smoke-test was applied, with a signally successful result, for it prevented at least three officers from going into their rooms for several hours afterwards. [Laughter.] The smoke poured in. This was no laughing matter for the officers who had to live in them. Two officers within the last year had had typhoid fever, one of them in his own regiment. [Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN dissented). Oh yes! he would give the name—Second- Lieutenant Cochrane, of the First Battalion Grenadier Guards. Of course the medical officers would say he did not contract it there. They always did. He had had typhoid fever in one of the barracks in Dublin, Undoubtedly he contracted it there, but the Medical Gfficers thought differently. And they always did. The fact was they put to supervise the drainage system of our barracks men who could not—and it was not to be expected of them—have the sanitary knowledge which they ought to have for such a special and arduous duty. They should allow the sanitary inspectors of the district to have equal power inside the barracks to what they had outside. He observed the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State make rather a face at that. He knew perfectly well he would be told they ought not to have civilian interference with the military authorities, but why should they not enable the sanitary inspector of the district to come in and see the state of the barracks? He had known cases where the officers had themselves reported things were bad, but the answer to every demand was, "There is no money. The Treasury won't let us have any." If the sanitary inspector came into his house and said, "Your house is in a bad sanitary condition," and he replied, "I have no money," that would not absolve him. He was still serving in the regiment whose case he had brought forward. They felt very much indeed the neglect with which their case had been met, though not by the right hon. Gentleman, but he would beg him to ask some of the lower authorities to give their reports, and he would see that the state of the barracks was not what he was given to understand it was.

agreed that they ought not to be too hard on the engineer officers, who, after all, were their fellow-creatures. He congratulated the right hon. Gentleman on his re-appearance, and also on the more or less satisfactory character of the report of the Inspector-General of Recruiting. It was germane to that report to allude to the subject of the employment of discharged and reserve soldiers. There were 35,000 men required annually for the Army, but the Inspector-General had only been able to obtain 27,000 of the regulation height or chest measurement. The inspector-General also reported that 25 per cent. of the total number of recruits for the past year were specials, and not men who came up to the regulation standard The Government wanted to get an article, but they did not desire to pay the proper price for it. In obtaining recruits it was unnecessary to give them an extra quarter-pound of meat, or a full shilling per day, but what was necessary was that young men should have some guarantee that on leaving the ranks they would be able to obtain employment. That was precisely what they did not got in the British Army, but what they did get in the Continental armies and also in America. But when a man was discharged from the British Army he was sent from his business to starve on sixpence a day, he drifted into the ranks of the unemployed, and he became a standing terror to recruiting all over the country. There were several methods by which this state of things might be improved. He had, on previous occasions, suggested that there should be a bureau at the War Office charged with finding employment for discharged and Reserve soldiers, in addition to the two associations—one civilian and the other connected with the Army—which already existed for this purpose. These two associations were supported by voluntary contributions; last year they found employment for 1,400 men, but considering the fact that something like 30,000 were discharged from the Army in one year, there seemed ample scope for such a bureau as he had indicated. Then there was the Post Office. The Member for Manchester, who was Postmaster-General in the late Government, very wisely suggested that the Post Office should, wherever possible, give employment, in preference, to discharged and Reserve soldiers. He very much regretted that the present Postmaster-General seemed to have allowed that very good practice to lapse Again, many soldiers were employed as clerks, military police, officers' servants, and cooks. Why could not the right hon. Gentleman adopt a plan by which all work of this character might be performed by men belonging to the Reserves, so that efficient soldiers should not be deducted from the strength of the Army? He congratulated the right hon. Gentleman on the suggestion he had made in his statement about the increase in the Royal Artillery. He thought the most foolish and effete step the late Unionist Government ever took was that of reducing the Royal Artillery, and taking their horses to form a military train. He was glad to see that the Royal Artillery were to be increased. He also congratulated the right hon. Gentleman upon putting his foot down on the absurd frequent movement of troops from one and of the country to the other, which seemed to him a stupid practice that was only carried out to justify the existence of clerks in the Quartermaster-General's department. The Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day, in the Debate upon, agricultural matters said he thanked God that prices were so low. In that case why could not the Secretary for War take advantage of the cheapness of food to increase the soldier's rations to the extent of ¼ lb. per meat and ½ lb. of bread additional each day? By so doing he would greatly add to his popularity with the Army. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give his best attention to the points he had ventured to place before him.

observed that the right hon. Gentleman, in answering any possible criticism, upon the present organisation of the Army, occupied an unusually strong position. It could not be said against him, for instance, that when he was in opposition he ever advocated any decentralisation, or indeed any reform of the present military system, and afterwards, when in Office, adopted a different policy. The right hon. Gentleman had always been a champion of two perfectly consistent views—that no great change was desirable in their present military system, and that the home Army was not meant for fighting purposes, but only to supply Indian drafts and to furnish occasional expeditionary forces in times of warfare. With regard to the question of War-Office administration it was generally admitted that in most matters of administration, decentralisation, as far as possible, was a desirable aid. He thought it was expedient to leave people and things to take care of themselves so far as it was prudent and safe to do so, and not to harass the central authority with a number of petty, irritating details. At the present moment the War Office was conspicuous amongst all other Departments of the State as being the most congested, over-centralised institution that they had, while there were special reasons why decentralisation was more desirable there than in any other Department of the State. They had in the War Office, the Parliamentary, the Financial and the Military Executive all crowded together under one roof. Personal experience with regard to the War Office showed that if a small matter had to be decided it was invariably submitted to a great person, and if a great matter had to be decided it was apt to be submitted to a very little person. In other words, they had such a confused assemblage of very great and very small administrators there, that the duties were transacted in a very confusing and irritating manner. The Military Department was undoubtedly that which was the most over-centralised, and he wondered, year after year, what justification the right hon. Gentleman found not only for ignoring the recommendations of the Hartington Commission but what must also have been conveyed to him by his advisers on military subjects as to the great need of effective reform at headquarters. One reform most needed at the War Office should take place at the top, and constitutional and loyal, but effectual, means should be found to put in force the system of old age retirement as regarded the highest, as well as the lowest ranks in the Army. It was rather curious that it should have been left to an humble private Member on his side of the House to advocate this reform. One would have thought it would naturally have occurred to the mind of the right hon. Gentleman many years ago. But he remembered that in 1890 the right hon. Gentleman, in a Memorandum he appended to the Report of the Hartington Commission, took up an attitude of dogged resistance to any effective reform of the kind to which he referred.

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon, I took up no attitude of resistance, dogged or otherwise, to anything of the kind. The one thing I objected to was the particular proposal as to the creation of a Chief of the Staff.

said, he would withdraw the word "dogged," but he was under the impression that, at all events, the right hon. Gentleman dissented in the Memorandum to the view he was endeavouring now to indicate. He remembered that the right hon. Gentleman first said that the kernel of the Report was the recommendation as to Counsel and expert advisers, but when it came to the point of appointing a Chief of the Staff—in other words, of making a great change in the office of the Commander-in-chief, he did take up an attitude of absolute resistance—a Tory attitude, and he could pay the right hon. Gentleman no higher compliment than that. Well, five years had passed since then; men sometimes in that period grew wiser as well as older, and he should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he adhered to the opinions he expressed in 1890—opinions which were in opposition to those of the leading military authorities of the present day. There was a minor point intimately connected with the other, in that same Memorandum, in regard to which the right hon. Gentleman seemed to show a more open mind. It was as to the desirability of appointing a general officer to command the English Army at home, in the same way as a general officer commanded the two Armies in India and Ireland respectively—that was to say, free from the perpetual intervention of the War Office. He was not aware that the Indian Army or the Army in Ireland, was less efficient than the one administered from Pall Mall, which was the constant subject of criticism. He would suggest that a very large devolution of duties might take place, by which this general officer might be made independent, so far as any officer might be said to be independent, of the War Office especially, in minor details of executive duty. Furthermore, he thought that a great deal of devolution of duties might take place to the general officers commanding the different military districts, and he believed that the result of such a step in efficiency would be very considerable. In the Memorandum to which he had already referred, the right hon. Gentleman said, although we had no military policy, that it was our duty to consider some of those minor problems of Army administration, which could alone constitute our military policy. It was his desire that those minor problems should be considered. The right hon. Gentleman had been congratulated on having reduced the number of moves. But that policy should be carried out in its entirety, and if the right hon. Gentleman would agree to make the Army a great deal more stationary than at present, it would not only affect a very great saving to the taxpayer, but it would conduce very much to the general efficiency of our Military system. He suggested that the home battalions should be confined a great deal more to the territorial centres to which they belonged, and that the large sums voted for transport should, in some cases, at least, as an experiment, he spent in adapting the existing barracks at the different depôt centres to the accommodation of the whole battalion belonging to the district. One very strong reason in favour of this somewhat novel proposal, was that it would be very popular with the rank and file of the Army. The Royal Marines was probably the most popular corps with that class from which recruits were drawn; and he believed the reason was, because the men knew that, at the end of their term of foreign service, they would return to what had become their home, where they would find their friends and relations, and where their chances of obtaining civil employment would be proportionately increased. Again, in connection with the territorial system, he would express his astonishment that no definite steps were taken for connecting the officers of the different regiments with the localities to which they belonged by birth and sentiment. The officers of the Militia were still invariably thus connected with the men whom they have to command. With regard to the Secretary of State's Memorandum, he expressed his sincere regret that, in a document which purported being only a compendium for handy reference, the right hon. Gentleman should have gone out of his way to refer to the possible withdrawal of troops from Egypt. He thought the moment chosen for this reference was particularly inopportune, and, taken side by side with another extraordinary utterance of a Member of the Government on the subject of Cyprus, the statement would create an erroneous impression abroad. It would encourage the French and the Khedive in a policy which he did not think this country would tolerate, and would raise hopes which, he believed, the country would take care were never fulfilled. Turning to a more pleasant matter, he congratulated the right hon. Gentleman very sincerely on the enormous increase that had taken place in the Army Reserve, and upon our having a force of 85,000 men on whom to depend. He would ask hon. Members who conscientiously disliked the Short Service system, and who were most severe on "attenuated home battalions," to lay to heart this result of the Short Service system, and realise that each of these poor battalions had some 700 or 800 old soldiers on whom to depend. His only difficulty was as to what the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Lichfield would make of this large force—this respectable nucleus for even a European army. The existence of this large reserve itself furnished the best answer to any suggestion as to our never having the will or the pr to take part in any European dispute. However decided the right hon. Gentleman and his friends might be upon making the Home Army only a nursery for the supply of the Indian Army, it could not be disputed that circumstances might arise at any time which would necessitate our resuming the rôle that we had always filled in the past. He had desired to go into some other questions of military policy, especially relating to the Militia and Volunteers; but, remembering the circumstances under which the Secretary for War appeared in the House that evening after a considerable interval, he would only say that he would defer those observations until another opportunity. He had made these remarks in the interest of the Army and of the country, which would look to that Army in the time of need.

thought there was a great deal of truth in the remarks of the last speaker on the subject of sanitation. He took a great interest in the subject of sanitation of barracks. He thought they heard very little of the sufferings of men afflicted with blood-poisoning diseases, through having to inhabit insanitary barracks. The Royal Engineers had, he thought, a very difficult office to perform, and he thought that the permanent works in connection with barracks at home should be placed under some Board competent to deal with questions relating to them. It would, in his opinion, be as absurd to expect the officers of the Royal Engineers to control contractors and contractors' foremen in questions of sanitation, as to expect Army medical officers to be specialists in eyesight or some special branch of the medical profession. He thought that it would be in the interest of the Army at large if the particular branch of the War-Office to which he had alluded were to have the advice of some special Board to inspect the barracks throughout the country in order to make certain that the drainage was up to that in well-regulated private houses in this country.

in supporting the Motion, said he was in favour of Army decentralisation, and wished to press it upon Her Majesty's Government. He thought the time was not inappropriate to press the question of Army organisation, although it had been said that the British people were not able to think of more than one subject at a time, and he quite admitted that the Navy was much the more important question at the present. At any rate, the country was spending about an equally immense sum on the Army as on the Navy. But there was remarkable difference between the two cases. A warship—whether in peace or war time—was always what it was called—a man-of-war. Wherever it went, it-was complete in every respect. It was a complete unit in itself, and was ready at all times, whether by it-self, or in company with other warships, to go into battle at a few hours' notice. So far as it went they had in the Navy a complete and perfect war machine, but in regard to the Army, the facts were quite different, and the first impression gained from the perusal of the interesting statements accompanying the Army Estimates was that the Army was designed for purposes of peace. They were told, with pardonable gratification, that it might be found possible to withdraw one battalion of Infantry from Egypt, and that in consequence they would be able to reinforce certain small stations on the West Coast of Africa. What would they think of a Memorandum in the German Army, pointing out, as an important operation, that it was found possible to transfer a battalion of Infantry from the Baltic to the Rhine? The Estimates, as a whole, were redolent of peace, and he thought the country had a right to ask, what did they get for the —18,000,000? The backbone of the Army was the Infantry. If they left out the Army in India, which was not included in the Estimates, they had an Establishment of 89,000. But of that number a very considerable portion was stationed abroad, at various ports, which would require to be reinforced on the outbreak of war. These posts, therefore were not a source of strength, but of weakness. It was also stated that, of the Infantry at home, most of the battalions had between 300 and 400 men in them over 20 years of age. This meant in fact that the effective strength of men who could take the field, was about 25,000. That, then, was the element for offensive purposes of the British Army, irrespective of the Cavalry and Artillery. He was speaking quite within the mark when he said that they could not collect, in the event of war, and put into the field, more than 25,000 men. Then, what had they for defensive purposes? They had the Militia, the Yeomanry, and the Volunteers. Therefore, if this country desired to embark in offensive operations, they might assume that they would have to create an Army de, novo wherewith to do it. That, he thought, was a very accurate statement. Some one had asked: "What about the Reserves?" Yes, they had 80,000 men there, and he heartily congratulated the War Minister on this force having reached such a large number. The total, he believed, was 85,000; but do not let it be supposed that these 85,000 men were available in the mass to strengthen these attenuated Home battalions. Nothing of the kind. In the first place, on the outbreak of war, they would have to strengthen their garrisons in different parts of the world, to avoid their being captured by the enemy. It might be said that it was the duty of the Fleet to guard these outlying stations. ["Hear, hear! "] Not withstanding that cheer, he ventured to say that if the business of the Fleet was diverted from its proper purpose— namely, to find out the enemy and defeat it—and frittered away in guarding the Colonies, the colonies the whole object of the Navy, and all chance of vigorous action, would be lost. A great many men would, therefore, have to be sent at once abroad. Then they had to consider the case India. They had a fine Army in India, perfectly equipped and ready for service, but it was an Army entirely on a peace footing, It had no Reserves on the spot, neither native, nor British. Nor could they strengthen the native portion materially unless the British Army was strengthened simultaneously. The present establishment of the Indian Army was so small that, whenever they had in send a moderate force on a frontier expedition, they had to set in motion the whole Indian Army. If they had opposed to them, not Afghans or Burmese, but a European foe on the frontier, they would have to largely reinforce the Indian Army, so that any portion of the Reserves not required for Home service would, unquestionably, be required for India. Therefore, he came back to this, that, on the outbreak of war, they would have available an Army of about 25,000 men. This was the outcome of an annual expenditure of 18 millions sterling. Was the country going to be satisfied, in the case of invasion, or of threatened invasion, with its defence by Volunteers and Militia? It was said that we possessed in the fleet the means of defending our shores; but if the fleet was occupied on the outbreak of war defending our shores against invasion it would not be fulfilling the proper duty for which it was designed—namely, to search for the enemy, to pursue it, and to defeat it wherever found. It was monstrous that this country should even tolerate the idea of the possibility of invasion, but he was afraid that they would have to familiarise themselves with the idea owing to the defective character of our present military establishment. It was the knowlege of the weakness of England as a military Power, both for offence and defence, that in his belief was the one disquieting element in the military situation of the world. This country was so rich; it had so many weak points in its armour that attack would inflict upon it an enormous amount of damage. No doubt they all felt gratitude to and pride in our Volunteer force, but he had heard this point raised, which was worthy of consideration. He had heard it said—how unfair, how unjust to the Volunteers during peace time that those men, who are undertaking at their own cost and time the business of volunteering, should be called upon to take upon themselves also in war time the defence of the country. Why should the Volunteers be called upon to undertake this duty more than other persons? When that question was asked there was only one answer. It was a discredit to the country that our defence should depend on the voluntary services of those who were patriotic enough to come forward, while all those who were too selfish to do so should escape a share in the burden of defence. With our Army in its present condition the first necessary step was that every able-bodied citizen should be required to take his share in the defence of the country, either by joining the Militia or the Volunteers. If this step was taken then there would be an end to the discreditable scares which arose at intervals. The additional cost would be small, and the Government might largely reduce the expenditure on the regular Army. Until some such policy as this was adopted the country would not be in a position either of safety or of credit. Some persons spoke is if war was never likely to come, that by some happy chance we were always to be free from the risks and Complications of European war. But we were living in perhaps the most warlike period that the world had ever seen. He remembered being in Paris just before the outbreak of the war of 1870; and if anyone had listened at that time not only to "the man in the street,'' but to the most qualified persons occupying the highest military positions, the idea of invasion or of disaster was completely scouted. The French looked upon their army as a perfect machine, capable of meeting and of overcoming any enemy Everyone now knew what was tin result of that confident feeling. Because the event had not yet happened, there fore, were we to be more justified than the unfortunate French people in our belief? France recovered from that great catastrophe which overtook her by reason of her homogeneous people and her rich soil to fall back upon. On the other hand, our wealth depended on much more complicated, delicate, and varied circumstances. If a blow such as France reeled under was inflicted upon us, the greatness of England and its prosperity might pass away for ever. Therefore, it was surely incumbent on the House and on the Government seriously to consider those possibilities, and not to pass them as the mere outpourings of agitation. He did not advocate the spending of one penny more on the Army; he would much rather prefer to cut down the unnecessary, wasteful expenditure at present going on. He maintained that the Army at present was conducted on most extravagant lines. All over the world they found costly establishments of Generals and Staffs without any troops, while at Head-quarters there was an enormously overgrown. Establishment, which was the creation of a monstrously over-centralised system. If they could get rid of this, there would be more money than at present to develop the Volunteer and the Militia forces. When proposals of this kind were made they would, no doubt, be resisted, and plausible reasons advanced why no action should be taken; but, as a practical way of dealing with the question, he advocated as the first step, the giving of greater publicity to the business of the War Department. If the Estimates were referred, for example, to a select and well-chosen Committee, who could consult the principal officers concerned, and ascertain their way of doing business, they would find, among other things, that no one was really responsible at present for economy in military expenditure. The evidence given before the Commission of 1888, of which Lord R. Churchill was chairman, showed that there was only one person at the War Office who was deemed to be responsible for keeping down expenditure, and that was the Accountant General, who admitted that he had no particular knowledge of the military organisation of the Continental Armies, and that he acted on the principle of objecting to expenditure generally, rather than by pressing for administrative reform. The. military officers consulted seemed to think that all they could get was so much to the good, and that it was not their business to suggest economy. If the Estimates were carefully examined by those competent to deal with them, and able to call for the opinions of those concerned in framing the Estimates, the House would find that large economies would result, and that a much more efficient system might be adopted. He did not blame present or past Ministers for the state of affairs. The truth was, that, overworked as Ministers were, and elaborate as was the business of a great Department, it would require almost a superhuman effort to undertake a great administrative reform. But if the Ministers were supported by public opinion, and the publicity which would attend such an inquiry as he had suggested, then he would be encouraged to re-organise, the War Office on principles of efficiency and economy.

called attention to the question of the employment of Reserve men. He referred to a passage in the Report of the Inspector General of Recruiting, which stated that the best way of opening out State employment to ex-soldiers was to give the assurance that a certain percentage of vacancies in each Department should be reserved for Army men. This plan, he thought, was wholly insufficient to deal with the case. It would not be too much to say that in every public Department all the offices which could be filled by Army or Navy men ought to be open to them. Why should these places be filled by the coachmen and butlers of Ministers and politicians? Unfortunately at the present time the Post Office seemed not to be doing as much in making provision for old Army and Navy men as might be. More thorough dealing with the question was necessary. He gathered from the summary which the Secretary of State for War had issued that it was intended during the present year to serve out the Lee-Metford rifle to the Militia. What provision in that event was to be made for ranges on which the Militia could receive proper instructions in firing the rifle? Next, as to the regulations of canteens in temporary Volunteer camps. There were three modes of providing this requisite. Originally the general method was to arrange for a week with some licensed victualler to lend his licence; but that plan had its objections, because it generally happened that the Volunteers went into camp at the time of some public holiday, when the best licensed victuallers had enough to do without going into camp. The second method was to take out a temporary licence; but many Volunteer Corps thought it was better to establish a canteen on what was called the "club" system. The corps to which he belonged went into camp last year, and established a canteen, on that footing, and a summons for infringement, of the Licensing Laws followed, in which doubt was thrown upon the legality of a club canteen. What happened on these occasions was that the astute excise officer did not scruple to act as an agent provocateur. He disguised himself as a bona-fide traveller, and tried to get a drink on the strength of that assurance. If he failed, he hung about the camp, and having got hold of some recruit, described himself as tired and thirsty, and perhaps succeeded in inducing the recruit to get him a glass of beer. He thought some distinct regulation should be laid down, and he believed the best plan would be to have a clause put into the Army Annual Act. If that could not be done he would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether the law on the subject was perfectly clear. He had read a statement made by the Solicitor to the War Office, which did not favour the view that it was perfectly clear. He thought they had a right to ask the War Office to issue some directions to enable officers to know in what way they could safely and satisfactorily establish a canteen.

said, the Short Service System and the deferred pay might be an excellent thing for the Army, but it was inflicting a very serious evil on the civil population of the country. At present they turned a man out of the Army at 25 years of age and did not teach him any trade. The discipline and the barrack life, which were good enough as long as he remained under the colours, very much unfitted a man for civil employment, and, worst of all, when he was turned out thus, without a trade, he was given about £20, which he had an opportunity of immediately spending. The effect, there was no doubt whatever, was that a very undue proportion of the inmates of the casual wards were discharged soldiers. There was some remarkable testimony to that effect in a report made on the Whitechapel casual ward, which would be very shortly made public. The effect of the evidence which was taken by an individual examination of all those who frequented the casual ward for two months was that no less than 22 per cent, of all the men who frequented it this winter admitted themselves to be discharged soldiers. A longer period than two months was not taken, because, it was found that at the end of that time the same men came over again. In the opinion of the experienced officers and those who were qualified experts the proportion was really much greater than even 22 per cent. He had heard exactly the same testimony given before the Labour Commission by the officer who had charge of the Chelsea labour registry, who stated that a very undue proportion of the persons out of work in Chelsea, and who were seeking work, were discharged soldiers; and he said it was extremely difficult to get men of that class anything to do, because they had learnt no trade in the Army. These men were not like discharged sailors—handy men—and it was almost impossible for them to get employment. This was really a very grave and growing evil, and he thought the Secretary of State for War was very much indebted to the hon. and gallant Member for South-East Essex for pressing this matter on his attention, because it was one with which the War Office in some way or other ought to deal. Many of the men, he dared say, were very respectable, am used the sum of money given them to settle themselves in life, but a very considerable proportion, there was no doubt, squandered the money in a very short time, and were then utterly disqualified for taking their place in civil life. Could not the Secretary of State for War invent some other mode of giving this deferred pay? It might be given in instalments, or it might be applied to the purchase of an old-age pension, or given in such a manner as would not pauperise the recipient.

said the right hon. Gentleman did no often take part in these Debates, or he would know that this question had been often discussed, though he did not think it had frequently been mentioned with more clearness, sympathy, and good sense. So far as concerned the number of old soldiers and others out of employment, he was rather under the impression that the great majority were not Reserve men, but men who had completed their 12 years' service with the Colours and in the Reserve, because, so far as investigation went by paying officers and others who had knowledge of Reservists, information, did not confirm the fact that the actual number of men who were in workhouses, or in demoralising and degrading circumstances, was such as was sometimes asserted. Of course as soon as a man completed his 12 years' service trace of him was lost, and there was no knowledge of what became of him. But one answer to all that had been said by the hon. and gallant Member for South-east Essex (Major Rasch), the right hon. Gentleman (Sir John Gorst), and others, was that a Committee of the House was sitting to consider this subject, a Committee to inquire into the question of Employment for Reserve and Discharged Soldiers, which sat for a short time last Session, and had been re-appointed. So really discussion had been very much in the nature of a waste of time, because, from the labours of that Committee, might be expected much fuller information. Fie might add that, being himself, and to his own discomfort to some extent, ' Chairman of a Committee in relation to Distress arising from Non-employment, he had been told there would be evidence forthcoming before the Committee on this subject, and he hoped the House and the Department would soon be better qualified to come to some conclusion on the matter. A good deal of misapprehension had been expressed by hon. Gentlemen who had complained of a practice of appointing butlers and foot men as messengers in Government Departments. He could assure hon. Members no such appointments were made at the War Office or the Admiralty now. There was no particular objection to butlers, but they were generally men who had, at all events, opportunity for providing for themselves in an honest way, and it seemed unnecessary to pass over in their favour men who, in one way or other, had served their country. Then it had been said that less was being done by the Post Office for Reserve men than formerly, but that was an entire mistake. His right hon. Friend (Mr. Arnold Morley) assured him that rather more was being done, and his desire was to do all that could be done in that direction. Before this question was raised, there was a long speech by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Oxford. He, coming back to his country, looked around him, and everything was the "abomination of desolation;'' everything was wrong. Not to undervalue his hon. and gallant Friend's great experience, and, least of all, his great acuteness, was he not really a little too summary in his condemnation? The present system had not, been put together in a hap-hazard manner by stupid or ill-informed people, but the best minds, civil and military, had, during the last 20 years, been brought to bear upon it. The hon. and gallant Gentleman, for instance, alluded to Mr. Knox, the Accountant General for the War Office, and put him aside, as of little consequence, an advocate of economy perhaps; but he knew nothing of the matter, and he thought the hon. and gallant Gentleman said, Mr. Knox was not a reformer.

said, the right hon. Gentleman rather misrepresented him. He spoke, not from his own knowledge of Mr. Knox, but quoted from Mr. Knox's own evidence, in which he said he had not studied the systems of foreign armies.

Mr. Knox was a modest man, and he had to be careful what he said when he came before a Committee, because he was not altogether his own master. He was responsible to others and must not make observations reflecting on them. But to know him, as many Members could say, was to know one of the most intelligent, one of the best informed men, one of the most reforming spirits in the Service. He (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) had known very distinguished gallant officers of high position when asked some question, of some detail of military organisation or discipline, and being a little at a loss say, "Wait a minute, ring the bell, we'll get it from Knox." This gentleman must not suffer in estimation because with characteristic modesty he spoke of himself in a deprecatory manner. The hon. and gallant Member said we had no home Army and no foreign Army, that the Army in India was good enough, but that it had no reserves for India or Home. He did not know whether the hon. and gallant Gentleman would locate a large reserve force for the British Army in India; there would be some difficulty about it. But really the hon. and gallant Gentleman seemed to wish to renew the old, old story of Army reform, but he must at his time of life decline to follow his hon. and gallant Friend into that maze. These things were settled. His hon. and gallant Friend fell back on their old friend Conscription. But he would have to wait a little before such a proposal was introduced or accepted. Nothing was more easy than to find fault with or pick holes in a system like ours. Decentralisation, said his hon. and gallant Friend, would put an end to wasteful expenditure; let them "combine efficiency with economy"—as if anybody had ever thought of doing any-thing else. His hon. and gallant Friend behind him had spoken of this as being like "that blessed word, Mesopotamia"—so grateful to the feelings of those who used it. When an hon. Member talked about sound common-sense and business like arrangements and a statesmanlike policy, these were mere words and meant nothing. What they wanted was that they should point to anything necessary to be done, and the War Department would see whether it could be done. Take decentralisation. He frankly and boldly stated that he was as much in favour of it as anyone, but everything could not be decentralised; there must be a limit somewhere. A pretty strict control could be exercised even with greater centralisation than now existed. The hon. and gallant Member for Essex had referred to his postscript to the report of the Hartington Commission. He could not accept his description of that postscript, or the inferences he drew from that erroneous description. His views were plain. He entirely agreed with his colleagues on the Commission in all the main points of their recommendations. The main thing he disagreed with them about was the appointment of an officer apart from the ordinary military executive, to be shut up in a room by himself in order that he might think, and there he was to manufacture a military policy for the country; and he said they did not want a military policy if it meant aggression or opposition to our neighbours. We were a peaceful country, and our military policy was on a humble scale. The hon. and gallant Member spoke of "leading military authorities" condemning something or other. The great difficulty was to get a body of opinion in favour of one thing more than another. So phrases like that, though they might sound very awful, had no terrors for him. The hon. Member for Preston alluded to the subject of canteens. He himself had nothing to add to what he said earlier in the day. But he would give it his best consideration. Then the hon. Member deplored the fact that there was a great deficiency of officers in the Volunteers. All sorts of suggestions were made to overcome this—that they should cover them with medals, give them commissions in the Army, raise their pay, and give them equipment. Coming to the noble Lord opposite, he was a remarkable instance of heredity. While he was speaking he closed his eyes, and almost thought his father, who was so well known and popular in the House, was addressing them. He complained of the state of the drains at the Tower and the Wellington Barracks. If there was anything he himself had served an apprenticeship in, it was drains. He served that apprenticeship when he had the honour of being Chief Secretary for Ireland, and the locality of his service and knowledge was the Ph—oelig;nix Park, Dublin. He was certain that whatever the drains and cesspools in the Tower or the Wellington Barracks might be, they were a mere trifle compared with what existed, in his time, in the Chief Secretary's lodge. But the noble Lord's complaint about the Tower was reasonable. The drains there were of the oldest type of construction. The drains of the Tower, as might be expected, were of the very oldest description, but they were reconstructed two years ago. It was believed that the main drains were well laid, but the communications were imperfectly laid, which, as every one knew from private experience, was often the case, and accordingly some mischief arose from them. A thorough inspection of them was made, and they were now in process of being restored. He would answer for it that those drains would not be passed as right until they were proved to be right to the satisfaction of a sanitary engineer. A good deal had been said about the Royal Engineers; but, apart from the skill, the knowledge, the capacity, and the training of the Royal Engineers themselves, there was at the headquarters of the Service Mr. Tyndall, one of the best sanitary experts he had ever come across. They could have a sanitary expert who would lead them into every sort of expense, and that for a public department like the War Office would be a very awkward thing. On the, other hand, a sanitary expert, if he were a sensible and reasonable man, would be invaluable in such a department; and he could say that Mr. Tyndall had been given a somewhat improved position in the department, and was in charge of the question of barrack sanitation. All that he had said on a former occasion about plans was that in certain barracks the plans were believed to be good, and that, in the older barracks they were sufficient for practical purposes. ''Sufficient" was his own word. The word presented to him was "reliable," but he thought it well to use "sufficient" instead. What was meant was that in the case of old barracks, as in the case of old country or old town houses, they were never sure that they knew all about the drains, because, they would be occasionally finding disused cesspools in the most unlikely places. But, subject to that qualification, the War Office had no reason to believe that their knowledge of the drains of Wellington Barracks was not good for the purpose. There had been one case, and not two cases, of typhoid amongst officers; but they had to be guided to a certain extent by this medical report, which declared that the health of the men and officers had been excellent. The noble Lord was aware that if evil smells were discovered, or if drains were found to be faulty, the matter ought to be reported by the Commanding Officer to the General Officer commanding in the district. and if it were reported there was no question of insufficiency of funds, for the orders of the War Office were that sanitary matters should take precedence of all other matters.

said, he thought the right hon. Gentleman would find that the condition of Wellington Barracks was reported, and that no notice was taken of it.

said, he was surprised to hear that, for it was not according to his idea of what should be done. However, he would look into the matter. As to the suggestions for the formation of a Central Board, the Army Sanitary Committee was, perhaps, sufficient for the purpose. He could assure the noble Lord that for his part no pedantic question would be allowed to stand in the way of anything of the sort that might be found possible. He had listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Lichfield with very much pleasure, for his hon. Friend had actually spoken in defence of the War Office. And why? Because his hon. Friend knew something about the War Office, having been himself in the War Office, not as a member of the Executive Staff, but as an officer of the Intelligence Department; and he, therefore, took a more favourable view of that department than was sometimes taken of it in the House. He should be glad to consider many points that had been suggested by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. As to his ideas about double companies, it was a question about which there was strong opinions on both sides; and if the War Department had not adopted an organisation of that kind it was not for want of full consideration. He had now answered all the points that had been raised, and he ventured to hope the House might be allowed to go into Committee.

who had on the Paper the following notice:—

"To call attention to the incompleteness of the Territorial system between Regulars, Militia and volunteers, and to move a Resolution,"

said he wanted to call attention to the operation of the territorial system in the Home District, although he could not move a Resolution. Every one had been pleased to read in the Memorandum the paragraph as to the numerical strength and efficiency of the Volunteers; and both sides of the House would congratulate the Secretary for War on his having authorised experimental mobilisation in the Home District. The scheme had been on paper many years; but it had never been tried in any thorough form in this country. It was proposed to invite the Reserve men to come out for a week. If that meant that they were to be invited to do so voluntarily, he feared that only inferior men would come out. If the thing was done at all, it ought to be done properly, and it was highly desirable that the Reserve men, under arrangements that they should not lose their situations, should come out with the battalions to which they are attached, He was a strong believer in the territorial system; it had done a great deal to popularise the Army by connecting particular regiments with particular districts. In illustration, he might point to the experiment of last year, the march through Wales of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, which was attended with great success. In the Army List the names of different Volunteer regiments were placed alongside those of territorial regiments to which they were supposed to be attached. But the 28 corps of Volunteers in the Home district did not appear to be affiliated to any territorial regiment, while the 3rd London, the 10th Middlesex, were affiliated to the King's Royal Rifles, and others were affiliated to the Rifle Brigade. It is hardly fair to give to the Rifle Brigade depôt at Winchester 19 adjutancies and over 60 sergeant instructorships. The Volunteers in the Home district are brigaded under colonels in in command of the Guards. The Volunteer forces of the Metropolis were greatly indebted for the interest taken in their instruction and welfare, by the officers of the Guards, and also by the non-commissioned staff. Therefore it seemed to be a pity, when appointments were to be made to permanent posts connected with the Volunteers of the Home District, such as adjutancies and sergeant instructor-ships, that they should be given to regiments other than the regiments with which they were, in a military sense, intimately connected. He believed the King's Royal Rifles and the Rifle Brigade were not, strictly speaking, territorial regiments, although the Volunteer forces in the Metropolis had been made over to them. If the Secretary for War would look into the matter, he would see that it was not quite fair that the different regiments of Guards should have no opportunity of obtaining posts in connection with the Volunteer forces of the Metropolis. Perhaps the officers had no desire to obtain them, but, however able might be the officers of the Rifle Brigade, it would still be an advantage to the Volunteers that they should be able, occasionally, to have Adjutants from the Brigade of Guards. And it was rather hard upon the noncommissioned officers of the Guards, who had a great deal to do with the organisation of Volunteers in the Metropolis, that when the time came for them to retire from active regimental life, they should not have the opportunity of obtaining sergeant-instructorships in the Volunteer Force, posts for which they were so admirably fitted. Another point was that the line regiments had three or four battalions of Militia affiliated to them. The Grenadier Guards, the Cold-stream Guards, and the Scots Guards were the only Infantry regiments which had no Militia battalions and no Volunteer battalions affiliated to them. Both the Militia and the Volunteers would look upon it as a distinction to be affiliated to them in a territorial sense; and when one saw the Volunteer force serving, as it was in London, intimately connected with the different regiments in the Brigade of Guards, it was only fair his right hon. Friend should endeavour to give the Brigade of Guards, as of right, some of those permanent posts he had specified in connection with the Volunteer force of the Metropolis.

reminded the House that last year, on the Army Estimates, attention was called to the sanitary state of Wellington Barracks, and on that occasion the Secretary of State promised it should be immediately attended to. Now that they had the assurance of his right hon. Friend, he hoped the matter would be placed on a more satisfactory footing. He agreed that it was satisfactory to find that the country now had from 84,000 to 85,000 men in the Reserve; but he could not help saying, as one who had taken part in military Debates in the House during the last 15 years, that our Army had been, to a great extent, sacrificed for the sake of the Reserves. He recalled to the House that some 14 years ago there was a mobilisation of the Reserves on Portsdown Hill. On that, occasion he accompanied the Duke of Cambridge and the Headquarters Staff when those Reserves were inspected, and at the time ho could not congratulate the Military Authorities on the place to which they were invited to come forward. A more bare, bleak, uncomfortable spot was not to be found in the South of England than Portsdown Hill. The men, too, were not treated in a satisfactory way in respect of accommodation, and the Commissariat provided for them. He heard many civilians who took part in the mobilisation say that they would never do so again unless proper barrack accommodation was provided, and the commissariat was improved. Another matter to which he would call attention was the importance of providing suitable ranges for Militia regiments armed with the Lee-Metford rifle. It was highly desirable that such regiments should have facilities for firing their musketry course with the weapon with which they were armed. Last year many militia battalions armed with the Lee-Metford rifle were unable to go through their musketry course with that weapon. The Sussex Regiment, for example, found that their range accommodation was such as to make it unsafe to use the Lee-Metford rifle, and the old Martini-Henry had to be re-issued to them for their musketry practice. A state of things like that was eminently unsatisfactory. It was a curious fact that, the first battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment, stationed in Ireland, was still armed with the Martini-Henry, although the Militia battalion of the regiment was armed with the Lee-Metford. The Militia recruits were drilled at Chichester with the Lee-Metford, but when they enlisted into the Regular battalion in Ireland they had to be sent back to drill for some weeks in order to learn tin Martini-Henry drill. He hoped that Lee-Metford rifles would be served out to the battalion in Ireland without undue delay. The time, he thought, had now arrived when the House and the country should be informed whether in the opinion of the Military Authorities the territorial system was satisfactory or not. He had been studying the Report of the Inspector General of Recruiting, and he did not, understand from that Report that the system had answered in all counties as well as was expected. In some counties scarcely any men enlisted in their territorial regiments. The system appeared to be most successful in respect of recruiting in Suffolk, in Sussex, and parts of Lancashire; but in the North of England generally men seemed to be disinclined to enlist in their territorial battalions. This disinclination was specially apparent in Cumberland and Yorkshire. If the territorial system was to be carried out successfully something must be done to weld together the different branches of the Service. Old soldiers like himself looked back to the days when regiments were numbered, and to the old associations connected with those regiments; but still, if the territorial system was proved to be a success—and they ought to be told if it was so or not—he, for one, would do all he could in his humble way to assist the arrangement. In conclusion, he desired to say a word with regard to rifle ranges. Last year he obtained a Return from the Secretary of State for War, in which it was stated that there were only 48 rifle ranges in the United Kingdom. He understood, however, that certain arrangements were now being made to add to that list, and he saw, from the right hon. Gentleman's memorandum, that, there was a large tract, of country in a certain part of England—he would not mention the name—which it was proposed to utilise; but he would like to ask whether it was that locality situated in the Midland counties to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded last year? No doubt a large sum had been spent upon ranges, and as the memorandum stated, £20,000 was asked for annually; but he hoped that if more money were wanted, the right hon. Gentleman would not scruple to ask for it.

thought the time had probably come when the House would like to get into Committee with a view of hearing the right hon. Gentleman's statement the first thing to-morrow. He did not wish in any way to delay Mr. Speaker's leaving the Chair, and therefore he would only ask for information on one particular point, and that, was as to the advantages offered to reserve soldiers in the way of employment in the Post Office. There was an impression that the facilities offered by the late Postmaster General had been modified. He did not know how that matter stood, and he would like some information upon it.

The evidence is being given to the Committee upstairs.

would like to know the nature of it, but if the House now desired to get into Committee, he thought they might do so on the understanding that the right hon. Gentleman should make his statement to-morrow, when he would probably be able to give him the information he desired.

pointed out that his right hon. Friend the Secretary for War had already stated that this matter was before a Committee. He could give an assurance that the present advantages offered to reserve soldiers were as great as they had ever been in the past. Evidence had been taken by the Committee from the Post Office, and that evidence would be presented to the House. The House then went Into Committee, and Progress was immediately reported. The House having resumed,