I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether the opinion of the Law Officers had been yet obtained upon the question of the powers of Parish Councils to hire land compulsorily for allotments for the use of the village tradesmen or others not employed as labourers; and, if so, whether he would inform the House what the opinion of the Law Officers was?

The Local Government Board have submitted to the Law Officers of the Crown a case for their opinion as to the classes of persons for whom allotments can be provided by local authorities, and the Board are now awaiting their opinion on the subject.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether his attention has been called to a recent distressing case in the Weobley Union of the death of an inmate, subject to epileptic fits, by falling into the fire; and to another in the Atherstone Union of the death of an inmate by drowning, who had been suffering from softening of the brain; whether he is aware that in both these cases the provision for nursing was inadequate; and whether the Local Government Board will issue an Order, requiring a due supply of trained nurses for all workhouse infirmaries, and prohibiting the employment of pauper nurses?

I doubt, from the information furnished to me by the Guardians, whether in either of the cases referred to, when the whole of the facts are carefully considered, it can be fairly concluded that the death was due to an insufficient staff of nurses. As regards the general question, the Local Government Board are fully impressed with the importance of securing efficient nursing in workhouses by an adequate staff, and the Board have recently addressed a communication to all Boards of Guardians bringing this matter specially under their attention. They at the same time stated that whilst they were not prepared to lay down as a rule that in no case should pauper inmates act as attendants in sick wards, as clearly distinguished from nurses, they considered that their services should only be used with the approval of the medical officer, and under the closest supervision at all times of paid officers.

further asked whether it was not the fact that, in one of these cases, the Coroner's jury had in their verdict recommended the employment of a paid nurse in the Infirmary?

said, that on a review of all the facts of this case, he was unable to come to the conclusion that the death was the result of inadequate nursing.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether he will ask Her Majesty's Representative at Pretoria to send information as to the reported attack by a Boer commando upon Magato, who befriended the British in the War of 1881, and as to the reasons for this attack?

said, that he was not prepared to undertake that special inquiries should be made by telegraph or otherwise of our representatives at Pretoria. The position was simple. There was in the Transvaal a British representative, whose duty it was to send in reports. The Government had full confidence in the High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, who would send such information as might be necessary to enable the Government to make up their minds with regard to this or any other question.

asked, whether the Government refused to give any information to Parliament except in cases where Her Majesty's Representatives in foreign towns might choose to send their information.

said, that that was not stating the case correctly. It was the duty of the High Commissioner and of our Representative in the Transvaal to keep their Government informed of what was going on in matters affecting British interests or rights, and he was confident that they were fully competent to discharge that duty.

said, that in consequence of the unsatisfactory reply of the hon. Gentleman, he begged to give notice that he would call attention to this subject on the Vote on Account.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether the further inquiries which, on 9th April, he said were being made regarding the alleged existence of severe distress in the electoral divisions of Cranford and Loughkeel, in the Milford Union, County Donegal, have been completed; in what manner are such inquiries conducted; whether the inspector in the district above mentioned sought for information as to the condition of the people from the local clergymen; whether he has yet reported on the subject; and, if so, what is the nature of his report?

As a result of the inquiries which have been made with regard to this district, directions have been given to provide employment on Relief Works to the necessitous poor in the two divisions referred to. As regards the latter part of the question, the inspectors of the Local Government Board have instructions to visit all localities where distress is alleged to exist, and to obtain all the reliable information they can procure on the subject. With this object they consult the clergy of the different parishes.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether deductions from wages, which are made in the county of Durham and elsewhere for the purpose of supporting elementary schools, can be insisted upon; and whether charges for school books and materials can be made compulsory?

The Department have always held that deductions from wages, if made from the wages of all the workmen, are not technically school fees, but contributions, voluntary or otherwise, in accordance with the agreement in the particular case; but that if the deductions are made from the wages of those only who have children attending the school, the payments so made are school fees. In the latter case the power of the managers of a school to receive such payments would be limited by the Act of 1891. The managers of the school could not in any case insist upon fees being paid in the particular manner indicated as a condition of admission to the school. Parents who pay fees have a right to petition the Education Department for free education. The managers of all schools, whether they are free schools or not, are bound to provide a proper supply of books, slates, and other school apparatus, and cannot compel a parent to provide books either by periodical payment or by purchase, nor can they refuse admission to a child whose parent refuses to provide them. Parents can, of course, buy books from the managers if they choose to do so.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is aware that on Sunday last John Dwyer, of Caher, County Clare, while under the protection of a police guard, and without provocation, drew a revolver on the public road and presented it at a farmer's wife; and whether, in view of the adequate police protection afforded to him, Dwyer will be prosecuted, and prevented from displaying deadly weapons without necessity for the future?

The facts are substantially as stated. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, it has been decided not to prosecute Dwyer on this occasion, but he has been severely cautioned to be more careful in future, and informed that a repetition of the offence will lead to his being proceeded against.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture what are the duties performed by Major Tennant additional, if any, to those in connection with the prevention and suppression of disease amongst animals; what is the separate status now given under the recent re-organisation to the veterinary officers of the Board of Agriculture; and whether the portal veterinary inspectors are included in the Animals Division, or is their status the same as the veterinary officers of the Board?

The principal duties performed by Major Tennant in addition to those to which my hon. Friend refers, have relation to the transit of animals by sea and land, the supervision of market accommodation, and to the business devolving upon the Board under the Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Acts. The status assigned to the two veterinary surgeons who form part of the permanent staff of the Department, is that of chief veterinary officer and assistant veterinary officer respectively. In addition, the services of Professor Brown are available as consulting veterinary adviser. The portal veterinary inspectors are not comprised within the Animals Division, and no change has been made in their status.

On behalf of the hon. Member for the St. Patrick Division of Dublin (Mr. W. FIELD), I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether £9,920 was paid by the Admiralty for foreign pork between 1st April 1894 and 31st March 1895; whether it was on the plea of economy that preference was given to the foreign importer; whether tenders were invited from home producers; and whether the article supplied was of similar quality of native produce?

A contract was made in 1894–95 for Danish salt pork to the value of £9,920, at lower prices than those quoted by Irish firms. These, however, obtained contracts at higher prices to the value of £22,300, tenders having been invited by advertisement. The Danish pork is at least equal to that supplied from Ireland.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether the Fertilisers' Act has been put into operation by the grand juries and municipal authorities in Ireland; and whether any steps will be taken by the Government to compel them to do so and carry out the law?

Two Orders in Council making Regulations and Settling Forms of Certificate under the Fertilisers' and Feeding Stuffs Act of 1893 were passed in January 1894. These Orders were at once issued to Secretaries of Grand Juries and to Town Clerks, together with a full explanatory circular. The principal analyst at Somerset House has been appointed chief agricultural analyst for Ireland, and the district analysts are those already appointed for counties and boroughs in Ireland under the Food and Drugs Act, 1875. The machinery for carrying the Act into effect has, therefore, been provided, and it is open to the public to avail itself of the Act without further action on the part of Grand Juries or Town Councils.

On behalf of Mr. FIELD, I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, with reference to the reply recently made by him relative to the Royal College of Science in Ireland, whether the vote for providing suitable premises necessary for the development of the College in accordance with the urgent need of higher technical training in Ireland will be taken in the Estimates for the coming year?

I assume that the hon. Member wishes to know if any vote will be included in the Supplementary Estimates for 1895–96. I cannot give him any information on this point. The matter is under my careful consideration, as well as that of the Irish Office and the Treasury.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has observed the demonstration of London cabdrivers, which had taken place on Thursday last, with the object of inducing him to carry out the recommendations of the late Departmental Committee, especially with regard to the abolition of the privilege system at the railway stations; and whether he would request the Board of Trade to communicate with the railway companies having stations in London, and ask whether they would appoint a small sub-committee to confer with an equal number to be named by the Home Secretary, for the purpose of considering whether it would be possible to arrive at some adjustment of this question, which might be satisfactory to the companies, and yet concede what is reasonable in the demands of the drivers as well as in accordance with the recommendations of the late Committee?

I noticed an account in the papers of the demonstration referred to. I have asked my hon. Friend the Under Secretary, who was Chairman of the Departmental Committee, to send a copy of their Report to the Board of Trade, and if, on inquiry, it should be found that the representatives of the railway companies are willing to appoint, say, three of their number to enter into a conference with a view of arriving at some amicable settlement concerning "privileged" cabs, I should be willing to nominate three Members of the late Committee to meet them and discuss the matter.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the drainage works on the Shannon, near Battle-bridge, which it was promised would have been commenced early in April, have not yet been taken in hand; whether he can state the cause of the delay; and how soon the work will be begun, so as to afford employment to the people in the adjoining district of South Leitrim, which is in an impoverished condition?

The postponement of the works is mainly due to the difficulty of coming to terms with the owner of certain property interested, but I can assure my hon. Friend that there has not been, and will not be, any avoidable delay on the part of the Board of Works.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether, looking to the opinion of the Sheriff Substitute of Banffshire, on the proceedings of the Quarter Sessions in the Findochty Licence Appeal, he will bring the case to the notice of the Lord Chancellor, with a view to a revision of the list of Justices?

I have to-day laid the papers in connection with this case before the Lord Chancellor, within whose jurisdiction such matters fall, for his consideration.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that the derelict reported by the Lewis fishermen off the Butt of Lewis is not yet sunk, and is in a position of great danger to the German and Danish passenger traffic with America, and a thousand fishing boats averaging seven men each nightly on fishing grounds in the immediate vicinity of it; whether he is aware that great local dissatisfaction exists in Stornoway, arising from the Admiralty declining to allow the gunboat Renard, now in Stornoway, to go out in search of this derelict and destroy it, or bring it into harbour; and will the Admiralty under these circumstances give orders for Her Majesty's gunboat going out from Stornoway to search for this dangerous derelict?

A portion of a copper-sheathed vessel, apparently corresponding to the derelict seen some days ago, has been washed ashore near the Butt of Lewis—on Tolsta Sands. In reply to inquiries from the Admiralty, the commander of H.M.S. Renard has reported that the ship ashore is part of a large ship lately coppered at Hamburg, and is supposed to be part of the derelict reported off the Butt of Lewis. In answer to a further telegram, the Divisional Officer of Coast Guard at Stornoway, after making full inquiry, has telegraphed that no floating derelict has been reported as having been seen since this wreck came on shore. Under these circumstances, the Admiralty are confirmed in the view expressed in my answer to the hon. Member of Tuesday last.

I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works—(1) whether any painting and smith's work, or any other work required to be done at Her Majesty's Prison at Shrewsbury, has been let by contract; (2) whether the workmen, or any of them employed there during the last four months have been paid wages below the rate of wages usually paid for such work in the locality, or below the wages generally accepted as current in the trade for competent workmen; and (3) whether Her Majesty's Government will cause existing contracts to be modified, and provision inserted in future contracts so as to secure observance of the Resolu- tion of this House on the 13th February 1891.

The answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative, and to the second in the negative. Existing contracts contain the following clause:—

"No portion of this contract shall be transferred without the written permission of the Commissioners. Sub-letting other than that which may be customary in the trades concerned is prohibited. The wages paid in the execution of this contract shall be those generally accepted as current in each trade for competent workmen in the district where the work is carried out."

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether, in reference to the necessity of having dial cattle-weighing machines kept in proper working order, the powers of local authorities under the Weights and Measures Acts apply to the private premises of auctioneers as well as to public markets; and whether such auctioneers having inaccurate machines on their premises render themselves liable to prosecution in the same way as any ordinary merchant who uses false scales, weights, or measures?

The Board of Trade could offer no authoritative opinion as to the construction of the Weights and Measures Acts, but so far as they are advised, they are of opinion that these Acts apply to all premises where trade is carried on, and that auctioneers having inaccurate weighing machines on their premises for use in trade may render themselves liable to prosecution.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, whether it has been reported to the War Authorities that on the 15th April last a party of recruits of the 2nd Derby Volunteers were practising firing at their range at Staveley under the charge of an instructor, and that whilst practising a young married man, named Havenhand, aged 23 years, who was walking on the highway over 1,000 yards away from the said range and entirely out of the line of fire, was killed by a bullet from one of the rifles; whether the War Authorities have ascertained that Havenhand has left a widow and two young children, aged 13 months and 6 weeks respectively, totally unprovided for; whether the jury appended a rider to their verdict requesting the coroner to write to the War Office Authorities and express the hope that a solatium should be granted to the widow and children; whether the War Authorities are willing to accede to such request and give some solatium to the widow and children, in addition to the voluntary subscriptions which are being obtained from the public and volunteers; and, if not, why not; and whether any and what steps are being taken to protect the public lawfully using the highway from the dangers arising from the said range, when being used for rifle practice.

In this unfortunate case the man was passing along a road actually within the danger zone; though the corps were under the impression that a hill in the rear of the butts protected the road. Orders have been given that firing shall be stopped while passengers are traversing the exposed portion of this road. I am informed that the deceased left a widow and children as stated in the question; but I am not able to admit any liability on the part of the War Office, as the Volunteers were responsible for the use of their range, and there was no contributory negligence as regarded the War Department. Therefore no compassionate contribution can be made directly from public funds, although, perhaps, a contribution might be made out of the funds of the corps, which is supported by grants of public money.

asked whether the Government had not power to grant some solatium to a widow in a case of this kind. He understood there were some cases in which they had done so.

I do not know of any such cases. I am told it has never been admitted at all that there is any liability on the part of the War Office. It is the duty of volunteer corps to provide themselves with ranges, and to be responsible for the safe using of them.

I should like to ask whether this range, like other ranges, was not inspected by an officer of the regular army under the authority of the War Office; whether he or some one on his behalf did not issue a regulation order under which this range was used; and whether, under these circumstances, liability does not attach to the War Office.

I am not aware; but, as I read in the answer, the man was within what was known to be the danger zone, under the impression that a hill protected the road.

said, the range was certified, as all ranges are certified, as being safe, if the firing is properly conducted. In this case due precautions were not taken.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the provisions contained in the County Councils (Ireland) Bill, which is first Order for to-morrow; and whether he can say what course the Government propose to take with reference to that Bill?

My attention has been drawn to this Bill. It contains, no doubt, one remarkable provision. But I should like to hear the arguments for and against before I say what course the Government will adopt.

asked whether, having regard to the extraordinary provisions of the Bill—[Nationalist cries of"Oh!"and "Order!"]—the Government would sanction any suggestion to send the Bill to a Grand Committee? [Mr. MOHLEY shook his head.]

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, when he proposes to introduce his promised Bill to amend the law regarding the deportation of paupers from England to Ireland?

This matter stands in the same position as it stood when I replied to a similar question addressed to me on the 1st April last, to which I would draw the hon. Gentleman's attention.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Petty Sessions Clerk of Newcastle West and Dromcollogher, County Limerick, will be continued in those positions, serious complaints having been made from time to time for neglect of duty, and also his suspension in 1890 and 1891 for grave offences?

This question was only placed on the Paper to-day; and, as some little time must necessarily elapse before the completion of the inquiries which I have directed to be made relative to other matters affecting this official, I would suggest to the hon. Gentleman to defer the question until after the Recess.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury when the Select Committee on Government Printing Contracts will be appointed?

I hope that the names of the Select Committee on Government Printing Contracts will be laid on the Table to-day or to-morrow, to enable the Committee to be appointed on Thursday.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Her Majesty's Government have received a Petition from Her Majesty's Indian subjects in the Transvaal, praying for justice and protection; whether the Boer Government have claimed and exercised the right of forcibly ejecting British Indian residents in the Transvaal from their homes and businesses, to their serious loss; and what steps Her Majesty's Government propose to take to protect the rights of Her Majesty's Indian subjects?

I stated the other day that I was about to lay Papers on this subject, which will give in the best form the information required by the hon. Gentleman.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now state when the arbitrator's award in the matter of the Delagoa Railway, promised many months ago, will be promulgated; and whether Her Majesty's Government will endeavour to expedite the award?

The Order regulating the procedure to be followed in the Delagoa Bay Railway case was issued by the President of the Tribunal of Arbitration. As stated on March 1, the exchange of documents has taken place. A meeting of the Court will be held on the 3rd proximo to consider the further course of procedure. Her Majesty's Government cannot interfere with the proceedings of the Court.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to what purports to be a report of a meeting of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, contained in The Irish Daily Independent newspaper of the 24th instant; does that report contain an accurate copy of his letter to the Commissioners on the subject of the proposed new rules of the Board; whether the object of these rules was to admit to the benefits of National Education Grants denominational schools in certain districts in Ireland, and in particular the schools of the Christian Brothers; and if the Christian Brothers are prepared to accept a conscience clause as insisted on in his letter?

I have not care-fully collated the published reports of my letter, but I am told that, substantially, it was an accurate reprint of my letter. With regard to the other question on the Paper I have only to repeat what I have said before, that I deprecate placing the points on this subject piecemeal before the House, and I hope the hon. Member will not think it a slight and discourtesy if I defer satisfying his curiosity for a little while longer, until the whole subject is placed before the House.

asked whether, seeing that the proceedings of the Board of National Education were regularly published in The Daily Independent, Dublin, he could not see that the public had fair-play, and direct that the meetings should be held in public.

I am told that their proceedings are not published with exact accuracy. I have no power over the National Board, or authority to direct them. I understand that they passed a resolution that their proceedings should not be public but private, but in spite of this some one hands them over to an organ of the Press.

Is not that the usual thing with Irish confidential documents?

asked whether, as three years had elapsed and nothing had been done in the meetings of the Christian Brothers, arid in view of the public impatience, the Chief Secretary would avail himself of the earliest opportunity to take the public into his confidence and let them know what had been done.

The best and proper time for what the hon. Member calls taking the public into my confidence will be when we come to a decision. He must be aware that in discussions of this kind a great many points have to be settled and considered, and premature publicity would be prejudicial to the interests we all have at heart.

I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General whether, when allotments of common lands, to be held "in common," and the roads giving access thereto have been defined in the deposited public awards, and on the maps accompanying the same, by Commissioners under Inclosure Acts, either non-user of the rights conferred on such allotment holders, or adverse user by encroachment or otherwise, can legally destroy the effect of such award, or whether such awards are valid in all their terms and particulars for all time, unless subsequently altered under the powers of a statutory enactment having equal force with the original award?

said, he could not answer the question without some qualification, and his answer would have to take the form of a little speech If any points of public importance arose he should be glad, if he could, to supply an answer.

I beg to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been further called to the case of Richard Rigden, whose hands were cut off by a machine in Chatham Dockyard in August 1893; whether he has been informed that four days after the accident, an inspector of machinery inspected it, and that, at the same time, a board was put over the machine with an order upon it that the machine was not to be used until it had been repaired; and whether he adheres to his statement that the machine was in good working order at the time of the accident?

I have made further inquiries into this case since I answered a question on the subject on the 29th ultimo. The inspection referred to was made within a few days of the accident. No such board as is mentioned was put over the machine. I adhere to my statement that the machine was in good working order at the time the accident occurred.

asked whether the hon. Gentleman had made inquiry from anybody except those directly interested, as to the cause of fatality. He had confident testimony that what he had stated was true. He hoped the hon. Gentleman's inquiries would extend beyond the officials actually engaged?

said, he did not know in what other directions to make inquiries. If the noble Lord possessed further information he would be glad to receive it.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is possible to include a grant for the £50,000 (or any part of the same) which Her Majesty's Government has undertaken to pay to the British East Africa Company in consideration of the surrender of their charter, in the Vote on Account which he proposes to submit on Thursday next; and, if not, in what form will the said grant be proposed to the House of Commons?

Yes, Sir; the grant will be included in the Vote on Account on Thursday.

asked whether the rule of the House was not that no new Estimate could be taken in the Vote on Account, but that they could only take money from sums that had already been voted by the House, and whether this additional sum did not form an entirely new vote?

replied that no doubt it was the usual practice to take only the ordinary Votes that had already been passed, but there was no rule against the course proposed. He put down this Vote at the suggestion of hon. Members opposite, and for their convenience, but, if they did not assent to it, he would not press it.

reminded the right hon. Gentleman that the Vote for the British East Africa Company was the last Vote in the fifth class, and these Votes were taken in their order, and he asked whether the right hon. Gentleman could give an assurance that it would be discussed on Thursday.

said, he could not give an assurance as to any Vote on any night. He was asked to put this Vote down, not so much with reference to the £50,000 as to the larger sum which would be payable to the Company by the Sultan of Zanzibar, which could not be paid until the House had given some sort of authority to its being done. If the hon. Member desired that the Vote should stand over, and that the Company should not get their £200,000, that was no affair of his own.

asked whether, if the hon. Member for Peterborough enlarged on earlier matters in the Estimates, and this vote was only reached at Eleven or Eleven-thirty p.m., discussion would follow.

said, he really could not answer for the conduct of the hon. Members for Northampton or Peterborough. That remained to be seen. This Vote was put down because hon. Members opposite desired an opportunity of discussing it. If they objected he would not press it. The only people who would suffer would be the British East Africa Company.

said, he was anxious that the matter should be discussed. Would the right hon. Gentleman promise not to closure the Vote before this item was reached?

Will the hon. Member undertake to sit all next week? There is the hon. Member for King's Lynn; perhaps he would be willing to do so.

Does the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer think it wise——

Order, order!

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether any means have ever been taken to acquaint soldiers in the various garrison towns with the facilities now given for technical education; and whether he will make inquiries as to the feasibility of encouraging Warrant and Non-commissioned Officers and men in availing themselves of such facilities, when doing so would not interfere with their military duties?

said: Soldiers have the same facilities as other inhabitants of garrison towns for ascertaining what technical instruction is to be there obtained; and they are permitted to avail themselves of any such instruction when the hours of attendance do not interfere with their military duties.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—(1) whether he is aware that the cutting of the hill near Mount Charles, County Donegal, for which he stated a presentment had been passed, is a cutting for the purpose of facilitating carriage from the pier and not from the freestone quarries near Mount Charles; (2) whether he has received a memorial adopted at a meeting held in Mount Charles on the 21st January last, and signed by the Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, and Methodist Clergymen, Poor Law Guardians, and Magistrates of the district, informing him of the severe distress prevalent in the district, and asking means to relieve it; and (3) whether, having regard to the prevailing distress, and the benefit likely to accrue to the quarrying industry, he will consider whether public works can be instituted for cutting the hill between the quarries and the pier and the railway station?

As regards the first paragraph, the county surveyor informs me that the cutting of the hill for which a grant was made at Presentment Sessions, will facilitate carriage between the quarries and the pier, and that this hill is the steepest between the village and the pier. The memorial referred to in the second paragraph was received. I am informed that the Inspector is visiting the district to-day, and his report will be brought to my notice as soon as the Local Government Board receive it.

I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he proposes to make the promised statement with regard to Uganda at the beginning of Thursday's business, or whether he will reserve it until the Specific Vote for Uganda comes on. I fear that there are more difficulties in the way of the proposal of the Government than they contemplate?

I will consider whether or not it might be convenient to make the statement at the beginning of business. I have put this item into the Vote on Account merely to give the earliest opportunity of discussing the subject. I certainly have no wish to snatch a decision on the subject without discussion. Perhaps I may be allowed to say with reference to Friday that for the convenience of hon. Members who wish to leave town early, I shall move on Thursday that the Sitting shall be held under Wednesday's rules.

asked whether the difficulty with regard to Uganda might not be met by putting down the Vote of £50,000 as a first Supplementary Vote?

suggested that Uganda might be made the first item on the Vote on Account.

These questions only show the difficulty of trying to please everybody. If Uganda were put down as a Supplementary Vote I might risk the Vote on Account, which I must have.

on rising to move that the House at its rising do adjourn until Thursday, was received with cheers and ironical cheers. He said that, in making this Motion, he was most desirous of doing that which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had expressed his wish to do, namely, to please everybody. He believed that if his Motion were carried it would please everybody except the hon. Gentleman who had given notice of an Amendment to it. He did not believe that the Government wished to take away from hon. Members the opportunity of going to the Derby. All he could say was that many hon. Members intended to go, and that they hoped to see many Members of the Government there, because they knew that several of them were going. To deprive hon. Members of the opportunity of going would be to show great disrespect to the Government, seeing that at the head of the Administration was one of the most noble patrons of sport, a nobleman who had won the blue riband of the turf with as great honour as he had won the blue riband he wore over his breast. He did not wish to waste the time of the House, and he would therefore be extremely short. If they had one Member one vote he believed that only one man would vote against the Motion for the Adjournment over to-morrow. Why should they disestablish all our national undertakings? It was quite bad enough to disestablish the Welsh Church and to take away their plurality voting, but let them not take away the pleasure of going to the Derby, which was one of those national institutions which the whole House sympathised with. It was true there were objections made to it on account of betting, but there was as much betting on the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, or on the various cricket matches as on the Derby. He had never made a bet in his life, and he did not go down to the Derby to bet, but he did think they ought to maintain that national institution, identified as it was with one of the most honoured names this country ever knew, and connected, as it had been, with the present Prime Minister. He sincerely trusted the House would consider the very mild and short way in which he had proposed this Motion, and would agree to it.

said, the hon. Member was not adhering to the question before the House.

said, there was also a meeting to protest against the degradation caused by the vicious practice of horse-racing, and two or three Earls were announced to be present. He did not see how he could attend all these meetings, and so do his duty to his constituents, unless the Motion were carried. He concluded by seconding the Motion. [Cries of "Divide!"]

said, the hon. Member for the Stretford Division of Lancashire had tempted him to accompany him to the Derby by assuring him that he had got the correct card, and could give him a sure tip as to the winner. When he did not succumb to that temptation, the hon. Member had endeavoured to terrify him by blocking a Bill in which he was interested. What, he asked, were hon. Members sent to the House for—for business or pleasure; work or play? The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition recently said, "Let us play;" but he spoke of playing within the walls of the House, and he was quite sure the right hon. Gentleman would never move or support a Motion for the Adjournment of the, House in. order that he might take part in the game in which he delighted either at Tooting or St. Andrews. If they were to turn their work into play, and were now and again to shut up the House, he was very much afraid that their constituents would begin to think that they might as well shut up the House altogether. The hon. Member had expressed great apprehension that he would be prevented from going to the Derby, but why should not he and other Members go? Hon. Members on that side of the House did not wish to hinder them, and were quite tolerant of their pleasures and recreations. Some of them had been to the Derby, but they had no desire to go again. No one wished to prevent hon. Members from taking a day at Epsom, Newmarket, or Doncaster, but why should those who did so wish to hinder others from going on with the business of the House? He pointed out that the Whitsuntide holidays would begin on Friday. The right hon. Gentleman who formerly led the House had said that the time of Parliament was the treasure of the people, but he was very much afraid that many hon. Members thought the time of Parliament was merely the pastime of its Members. They attempted many, but he was afraid they accomplished too few tings there, and the waste of time and effort was most deplorable, but after some experience of it they all became reconciled to it as a part of the political game. The inevitable result, if this continued, however, would be that the House would seriously suffer in the estimation of the people. The first Order of the Day to-morrow was a Bill for extending County Councils to Ireland, which would give to Members of the great Unionist Party on both sides of the House, an opportunity of showing whether they were really willing to give to Ireland what had been given to England, Scotland, and Wales. He had given notice of an Amendment to the Motion to leave out all after "House," and insert—

"having been summoned for the despatch of important business, declines to surrender a sitting for the personal enjoyment of such of its Members as desire to attend the Derby."

But he should be content to vote directly against the Motion, as a protest against these continual efforts to fritter away the valuable time of the House.

said, he proposed, on this occasion, for the first time, to vote in favour of the Resolution, because he thought the House could quite as profitably plough the sands upon Epsom Downs as in the House itself.

said, he had voted against this Resolution hitherto, but as he thought the House might as well be closed as open to-morrow, he intended to vote for the Motion. If the Irish Bill which was to be considered to-morrow had been a practicable Bill, and one likely to be passed, he should have been willing to work there; but, because the House would not be profitably occupying its time, he supported the Motion.

said, he was not aware of any public or business body which had ever dreamed of adjourning its business for a horse-race. Near the town of Hull, at Beverley, a racecourse had unfortunately been provided in the last few years, and the officials connected with the company to which he had referred stated that it had proved utterly demoralising to the men and unsatisfactory in every way. Now the town of Hull, like every other large town, had been protesting against the practice of betting and gambling in consequence of horse-racing, and he could not help saying that he felt a certain amount of surprise—he might almost say of horror—at the fact that his hon. Friend opposite, who had always told him that he was a prominent member of the Church, should not have seen that this practice of horse-racing was seriously tending to the commercial injury of the nation. In presence of the keen competition with which we had to deal, the absence of men from their work, not for one day only, but for many days together, was bound to have a demoralising effect on them and to seriously interfere with business. In fact the practice of horse-racing was becoming a national calamity, and he certainly thought the time of the House ought not to be wasted year after year in discussing the question of these Adjournments. If they had no business to deal with to-morrow, they had better adjourn the House for the rest of the week. One argument which had been used with regard to the officials of the House, namely, that they required a holiday, was absurd. It was notorious that the officials of the House were not hard worked. The House adjourned for one half of the year, and comparing the work of the House with that of any other establishment there certainly was no reason for advancing this as an argument for the Adjournment. Personally, he thought the increase of horse-racing, promoted and encouraged as it was by half the newspapers being filled with sporting intelligence, was not tending to improve the nation from a moral and commercial point of view.

said, he should like to ask, whether, if the Motion were defeated on that occasion it would put an end to the custom of moving the Adjournment of the House over Derby Day? He trusted that the time would arrive when the House would do away with the custom altogether.

said, the question under discussion was the Adjournment of the House until Thursday, and not the practice of the House in permitting private Members to make the Motion.

said, surely if this Motion were negatived for the fourth time it should put an end to the custom. He hoped, at all events, that the House would have the good sense to again negative the Motion to-day. He did not agree with the reasons given for the Adjournment by his Friend the Member for South Tyrone. The hon. Member had said that he objected to the Bill put down for the first Order to-morrow, because it was impracticable; but that hon. Member, if he went to the Derby to-morrow instead of coming down to the House, might be jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. He thought the time had arrived when the House should fully determine that it was not the duty of hon. Members to come there to vote for Adjournments for the purpose of attending a horse-race, which after all was not a national event, and was hardly decent. [Laughter.] Hon. Members might laugh, but if they wanted to know what his own real opinion of the matter was, he would say it was not decent at all. The hon. Member who moved the Motion had told them that several Members of Her Majesty's Government were going to the race. He could hardly believe that, unless the names of those Members of the Government were given. The Government knew better. At any rate, he thought it was the duty of Members of the House not to allow such a temptation to be put in their way.

moved, in line 31, after "Disestablishment," to insert "or so soon thereafter as may be." The Home Secretary had on the first day of the Committee, promised to consider this matter when Clause 4 was reached. In effect, what he proposed was that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners should not be bound to make their order relating to the duties which they had to perform under this sub-clause before the date of Disestablishment—January 1st, 1897—but that following the precedent of the Irish Act, they should have a certain elasticity given them. This Committee had not the remotest idea whether the Commissioners could perform the duties imposed upon them within the stipulated time, and, therefore, in order to prevent complication, he thought it desirable that the words he had proposed should be inserted.

said, he would accept the Amendment, which he thought would improve the clause.

moved an Amendment describing the money held by the Commissioners as "their common fund" instead of as "any fund held by them." The change, he explained, was necessitated partly by the omission of Queen Anne's Bounty from the first sub-section and the provision made with reference to that body, and partly in order to specify more clearly what was the fund of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to which reference was made. As the Committee was aware, the payment made to holders of ecclesiastical offices in Wales were at present derived partly from Welsh ecclesiastical property, and partly from the common fund of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. On the other hand there were charges upon the Church of England, the payment of which was partly derived at present from ecclesiastical property situated in Wales. The object of the subsection was to provide that, after an order was made by the Commissioners, all charges of the Church in Wales, instead of being charges in part on the common fund of the Commissioners, would be placed exclusively on. Welsh ecclesiastical property in so far as it was able to bear them; and that charges now made on Welsh ecclesiastical property for English purposes should be shifted to the common fund of the Commissioners. The net result of that shifting of the charges and allocation between the two different forms of property would be that ultimately £44,000 a year, which now passed from the common fund to Wales, would cease to be a payment to Wales, and the Church of England would be a gainer to that extent.

said, that the last thing any Churchman would wish would be to benefit one part of the English Church at the expense of another part. What was desired was that some latitude should be allowed to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, so that they might do something to repair the wrong that would be done under this Bill.

moved, in line 38, at end, to insert—

"and that the fund shall, except so far as is required for the purpose of preserving existing interests, be exonerated from any charges for the purposes of the Church of Wales."

This Amendment, he explained, was necessary to make clear the meaning of the clause. The cesser of liability and the exoneration ought not to take place until the existing interests should have gradually disappeared. Great hardship would otherwise be inflicted.

explained that he had no objection to the substance of the Amendment; but that, in his opinion, it would be more convenient to insert it in the next clause. He had, himself, put upon the paper an Amendment with the same object.

said, that he should oppose the Motion. He wished to make one more protest against the treatment which Queen Anne's Bounty had received at the hands of the Government. The Debate, which was interrupted rather abruptly on the previous night revealed beyond dispute the real nature of these funds. As to the intention of those responsible for the formation of Queen Anne's Bounty no sane man could have any reasonable doubt. The funds were given by Queen Anne long after the Reformation. Therefore, it was unnecessary to engage in any controversy as to pre-Reformation and postReformation conditions. The funds originally belonged to the Church; they were taken from the Church by one of the Sovereigns of this country and subsequently restored to the church by another sovereign—as he believed, from the highest and purest motives. Now it was proposed to take these funds and to apply to them the Disendowment scheme. No argument worthy of the name had been adduced in support of the proposal. The Home Secretary was apparently unable to tell the Committee why he dealt with the property of Queen Anne's Bounty and the property of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners on different lines. All that the right hon. Gentleman could say in defence of this strange piece of Disendowment was that these funds were national property. Of course anybody could call anything by any name he pleased, but it was impossible to understand how Queen Anne's Bounty could be called national property. If ever any property was earmarked as destined to the uses of the Church this was. If the promoters of this Bill proposed that this property should be shared by other religious bodies he could understand—though he should not approve—their policy. That it should be shared in that way was he believed the view of the Bishop of Hereford. The policy of the Government, however, was a policy of pure secularisation. They were going to secularise funds used from time immemorial for religious purposes. There could be but one reason for this policy and hon. Members opposite hesitated to give it, for it was not a very noble one. That reason was that a certain number of people in Wales were jealous of what they considered to be the undue prominence of the Church. [Cries of "No!"] What other reason was there? If there were other reasons why did not hon. Members representing Wales explain them? He wished to record his earnest conviction that the Government, in the course which they were pursuing, were attempting to lower the position of religious endowments in this country. They would thus do, what in their more sober moments they would regret—namely, weaken the sources of religion.

said, that he did not want to revive the controversy of last night, but he must ask the Home Secretary for an explanation on the point then submitted to him by the Leader of the Opposition and himself. When the Bill was read a second time, sub-section 1 of Clause 4 put together the property of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and Queen Anne's Bounty, and they were to be treated in the same way. Negotiations took place, and the whole case of Queen Anne's Bounty was put before the right hon. Gentleman, and the result was to bring home to the right hon. Gentleman's mind that he must treat Queen Anne's Bounty in a different way to that in which he treated the Commissioners. The right hon. Gentleman was quite entitled to say: "That is what I intend to do;" but it was in no way disrespectful to the right hon. Gentleman to ask: "Why have you made this distinction between the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and Queen Anne's Bounty?" This was not a case in which the Opposition had striven to alter the proposals which were originally in the Bill because they thought they would work unfairly; but they found that, when Amendments appeared, a counter-scheme was put down on behalf of the Government. Although the right hon. Gentleman had conducted the whole of the discussion on this Bill with great ability and with great courtesy to his opponents, they could not feel that the discussion was terminated when he declined to give any reason or any motive for this change; and if they did not get some satisfactory reason for the distinction now made between the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and Queen Anne's Bounty they ought to divide against the clause. The House was entitled to some explanation as to why this change had been made.

acknowledged the courteous tone of the right hon. Gentleman and of his hon. and learned Friend who had just sat down. With reference to what had been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford, he would venture to suggest that the bulk of his arguments was really directed against Disendow-ment altogether. There were very few of the propositions which he laid down with reference to Queen Anne's Bounty which might not be laid down with equal truth with reference to all endowments which were to pass to the Welsh Commissioners under this Bill. As far as Queen Anne's Bounty was concerned, the view of the Government was that the fund now called Queen Anne's Bounty never, till its foundation, belonged to the Church. It was a tax levied on livings and Bishops when the Church of England was more or less subjected to the See of Rome. But it was never enjoyed by the Church until it was made over by Queen Anne to the purposes to which it had since been applied. In the judgment of the Government it was impossible to differentiate in principle that fund from the other endowments with which this Bill was concerned. He was extremely sorry if he had failed, as he appeared to have failed, in the speeches he made on this subject last might, to make clear the point of view of the Government in remodelling this clause, and he would endeavour with all possible brevity to restate what he had previously stated. He denied that they were dealing in this clause with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and Queen Anne's Bounty on different principles. The treatment of Queen Anne's Bounty had to be modified when the Government became aware of the nature of the property which was held by the fund. If it should be found, and for all he knew it might be so found, that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in the course of the last 60 years had expended more on the Church of Wales than they had received from Wales, the balance ought to be treated as a charge on Welsh ecclesiastical property due from Wales to England, and only the residue should pass to the Welsh Commissioners. If the right mode were followed with reference to Queen Anne's Bounty, it seemed to him that similar accounts would have to be taken in the matter of that fund. Why should an account be necessary in the one case and not in the other? He contended that the Government had gone upon the same principle in both cases. In the case of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners they had taken whatever property in their hands consisted of, or was derived from, property situated in Wales and Monmouthshire. In the case of Queen Anne's Bounty, he would be practically accurate in saying that they were not the owners of any property in Wales; but they had been in receipt of an annual sum derived from benefices situated in Wales, and funds derived from Wales under the name of firstfruits and tenths had been received by them. He agreed that it was impossible to say how much had been derived from one source and how much from another. The simple, rational plan was to ask the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty how much of their fund was now allotted to Welsh ecclesiastical purposes, and to take from them that part of their receipts which, according to their own reckoning, was appropriated to Welsh ecclesiastical purposes. Mutatis mutandis, that corresponded to the property of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and must be treated for the purposes of this Bill as Welsh ecclesiastical property. No doubt, in the case of Queen Anne's Bounty the results would be very different; and different in the interest of the Church—because, when that fund came to be analysed, he was satisfied that the greater portion of it would be found to consist of private benefactions. And if it were not dealt with in this way, those private benefactions would never pass to the Welsh Commissioners and would never be lost to the representative body, although they might have been declared by Queen Anne's Bounty to be that part of their property which was and ought to be appropriated to Wales. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said last night, after comparing the Government to highway robbers, Oriental pashas, and all manner of unscrupulous and extortionate people —he did not complain of the right hon. Gentleman's imagery, for it rather enlivened the Debate—the right hon. Gentleman said that the principle on which the Government had gone in this matter was a very simple one: namely, to take whatever they could from the Church of England in order to hand it over to the Commissioners and get as much as they could for secular purposes, and that when dealing with Queen Anne's Bounty they resorted to another method in order to get the maximum out of it. That statement was not founded on fact. In the case of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners they were leaving a sum of £40,000 a year in their hands which, upon a very fair construction, being a contribution which they made annually from their common fund, might be fairly called Welsh ecclesiastical property. Then, as to Queen Anne's Bounty, he believed, after such examination as he had been able to give to it, that the whole sum that would pass in that case to the County Councils and so forth would be simply those Welsh firstfruits and tenths as they now stood on the books of the Governors, the proceeds of the sale of Welsh glebe, and the sums received by the redemption of Welsh tithe rent-charge and such part of the Parliamentary grant now unspent as had been allocated to Wales. Whatever else was included in the scope of the clause would go to the representative body. He hoped he had made it clear what the position of the Government was, and that he had exonerated them from any intention to deal unfairly with any of these funds.

said, he was not satisfied with the explanation given by the Home Secretary. The objection to his policy was—that he was not only taking away the property of the Welsh Church, but he was taking away property which belonged to the English Church, or at all events to a corporation which held the property for the benefit of the English Church. The true test of whether a property belonged to a person was what he could do with it, whether he could, for example, maintain an action to recover it or he could eject a trespasser. The property of a rector in tithes could maintain legal proceedings against a person liable to pay them. Where there was such an ownership of property, there was no objection on this score to the principle of the Bill. But when they came to deal with Queen Anne's Bounty, the facts were altogether different. There was no Welsh Corporation to which the property belonged; but it belonged to the Corporation of Queen Anne's Bounty. Assuming, for the moment, that the Home Secretary was right when he said that the fund might be regarded as a national fund, what right had the Welsh County Councils to lay their hands upon national property which did not belong to Wales? Poor rectories and vicarages in Wales had the same right as poor rectories and vicarages in England to assistance from the Bounty; and the Governors considered their claims in the same way as claims were considered by the Committee who had the disposal of charity funds. The Governors, in making grants to Wales, had not in any sense parted with the property. It was still in the hands of the Governors; and grants were liable to be revoked at any moment. If in any district population and wealth increased the Governors would be justified in revoking a grant and applying it to the benefit of some impoverished parish in England. This showed that all the right Wales had was to go as a suppliant to Queen Anne's Bounty, and ask that the claims of any district might be considered. It was as a branch of the Church of England in Wales that the Church in Wales had its claims considered; and when the Church in Wales was disconnected from the Church in England the whole argument for the Bounty having any further interest in Wales disappeared, as much so as it would in the case of a charity. The contention of the Home Secretary was—that parties who, while they were resident in a locality, were entitled to share in a local charity were entitled on leaving it to say:—

"We are no longer living in the district, and we ask you to give us, not merely our share of the income, but capital capable of producing as much as we received while we were resident."

The right hon. Gentleman spoke of equity; but what equity was there which could be enforced by the Church in Wales on Queen Anne's Bounty? If the Governors had chosen to say they would no longer give any portion of the income of the fund to the Church in Wales, what remedy at law would any member of the Church in Wales have had? Clearly none at all. Would they have A had any right in equity? No. He challenged the Home Secretary to show that the Governors would have been in any way bound to continue giving help in Wales. If so Churchmen in Wales were mere suppliants. Although the right hon. Gentleman might be justified in taking property which belonged to Church Corporations, he challenged and denied the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman that, because grants were being given at the time of Disestablishment, therefore they could be fairly considered in any sense whatever to be Welsh ecclesiastical property. On these grounds he entered his protest against the inclusion of Queen Anne's Bounty in this category. If the Home Secretary were anything, he was logical; he followed everything out to its logical consequences; but in this case he went beyond logic, for this property did not belong to the Church in Wales in any sense whatever. It belonged to an English Corporation, and if it had a national Church, it certainly was not Welsh. There were no grounds on which Wales was entitled to put its hands on property which was exclusively English.

proposed an Amendment applying the clause to any property which "has been given to the Church by any person or persons whatsoever." He said there was a great contrast between the words he proposed to leave out and those he proposed to insert. The words he proposed to omit seemed to be framed to give as little as possible to the Church, and the words he proposed to put in were framed to give as much as possible to the Church. The words he proposed to leave out narrowed down private benefactions to the lowest possible limit, and those he proposed to insert widened out the definition of private benefactions as much as possible. Whatever doubt might exist as to whether property given before 1703 was given to the Protestant Reformed Church as she existed now, there could be no doubt whatever that everything given to since 1703 was given to the Church as she was now, and should be treated as belonging to the Church, whether it came from individuals or was the result of public or private subscriptions. The corresponding clause of the Irish Church Act went further than this. Why should private subscriptions be omitted from the clause, and the Church in Wales be treated more meanly than the Irish Church was a quarter of a century ago, when friend and foe alike acknowledged that she was showing marvellous activity? The Home Secretary had apparently noticed the omission of private voluntary subscriptions from the clause, and he believed he was right in saying he would propose a resolution to include them. In moving this Amendment he desired to secure for the Church the proceeds of every subscription, public and private, given to any Endowment fund; the proceeds of every "grant in aid" of any Endowment Fund set up by any Church building, extension, or Endowment society, such as the Llandaff Diocesan Church Extension Society, which had contributed large sums to this purpose. He also desired to secure to the Church, as far as could be traced, all offertories at any time given in the House of God for the purpose of the Endowment of any Church in the the future. In that way they would save to the Church the offerings, not only of the rich, but the poor. He also desired by the Amendment to secure to the Church the proceeds of any sum given by any public companies to endow churches. He believed that in Wales many large manufacturing concerns had built and Endowed churches for the benefit of the employés who resided round their works. In short, he desired to secure for the Church every single gift since 1703, believing they were intended for the Church as she now was, and that Parliament ought to respect such gifts, and not interfere with them. He did this in no sectarian spirit whatever. He should be as ready to preserve the Endowments of any other religious bodies and prevent them from being handed over for uses for which they were never originally intended. They all admitted the courteous manner in which the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had conducted this Bill, and he gave the right hon. Gentleman the fullest credit for sincerity in what he had said of his desire that the measure should be marked by justice and equity. By moving this Amendment he was giving the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity of acting in the spirit he had indicated, and of proving the sincerity of his statement.

said, that it was with some diffidence that he rose in response to the appeal which the right hon. Gentleman, who had just sat down, had made to him, because he was most anxious to do nothing that would qualify or would remove the favourable impression which the right hon. Gentleman had formed with regard to his motives and intentions in connection with this measure. As far as he understood the right hon. Gentleman, there appeared to be really no difference of principle between them. The words in the clause for which the hon. Member proposed to substitute words of his own were those which were embodied in the language of the Irish Church Act of 1869, with the exception that the words which related to private subscriptions in that Act were omitted in the clause. Those words had been omitted as a matter of drafting, and not because there was any intention on the part of the Government to exclude money so subscribed from exemption from the operation of the Bill. However, in order that there should be no possibility of doubt on the subject, he had put down an Amendment, which it was his intention to propose later, to add words to the clause of a similar tenour to those used in the Irish Church Act. He was quite ready to admit, therefore, that the language of the clause had not been copied literally from the Irish Church Act. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the Act of 1703, but he had not given them a single case relating to private benefactions that were not amply covered by the language of the clause as it stood in the Bill. He wished to preserve to the Disestablished Church of Wales everything that could fairly be described as private benefactions, which had been given to it since 1703, and he believed that the words of the clause amply secured such property to the Church. It was, however, in his opinion, better that they should adhere to the words of the Irish Church Act which had stood the test of time. As far as he knew, those words had been found sufficient. But, at any rate, the words which the hon. Gentleman proposed to insert in the clause were too wide even for the hon. Gentleman's purpose, and would include more than the Government could consent to regard as private benefactions. The words which the hon. Gentleman proposed to insert were—

"has been given to the Church by any person or persons whatsover."

and they would include some things which the Government did not regard as private benefactions, although he did not mean to say that they would include Parliamentary grants. But, apart irom that it might be doubtful whether it was quite clear that they would include, or not, moneys contributed by ecclesiastical corporations, such as the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the Queen Anne's Bounty. Under the Interpretation Act of 1889, which governed the construction of Acts of Parliament, it was enacted that in every Act passed after the passing of that Act the word "person" should include any body of persons corporate or incorporate. Therefore the language of the hon. Member's Amendment would include the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, although the endowments were granted to the Church long before 1703. In these circumstances he could not accept the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman. He, however, fully sympathised with the hon. Member and his friends in their endeavour to secure to the Disestablished Church of Wales as much as they possibly could.

thought that the cases referred to by the hon. Gentleman who had moved the Amendment would not be covered by the words of the clause even as it was proposed to be amended by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. The hon. Gentleman proposed to insert words that should include all voluntary subscriptions to the Church; and he should like to know whether any legal meaning was attached to these words. They might mean contributions among a number of people for the purpose of giving money to the Church, and in that case it might be held that such subscriptions must be contributed by more than one, and that the words "or money raised by voluntary subscriptions" did not apply to the case where the benefaction was that of one person only. He also doubted whether they would meet the case of benefaction given by a corporation under the Limited Liability Act.

said, that he would deal with the point which had just been raised by the hon. Member at once. His intention was that the words of his Amendment should cover all private benefactions. Now that the word "person," by the interpretation of the Act, included Corporation, it appeared to him that this description would exactly apply to the class of persons to which the hon. Member had referred, but he would take advice on the matter.

asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he would in the meantime have any objection to add after "person" "or corporation."

said, he would rather not do so in the interests of the drafting.

said, the right hon. Gentleman in any event, as he understood, excluded the possibility of anything coming from a body like the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Supposing the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were the owners of land in a poor parish, would it be fair that contributions fairly made by them as landowners should be confiscated?

said, he wished to call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the class of companies alluded to by his hon. Friend in order to make it perfectly clear whether these words would include a Company. In 1827 the Tredegar Company built an endowed church, and another church was built by the Rhymney Company. Could the words "private person" be applied to a company like that? He felt sure that a case of that sort, the Home Secretary would admit, ought to be included as a private benefaction? Would these words include such societies as the Llandaff Diocesan Church Society, or the Bishop of Llandaff's Fund?

Are they incorporated?

said, he thought not, but they were instrumental in raising and distributing large sums, and a large amount went in building and endowing new churches. He did not think the words of his hon. Friend were too wide; they wanted to raise the whole question of what right they had to take away from the Church any money given to the Church since 1703. Whoever gave the money since then, whether the State, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, or Queen Anne's Bounty, knew perfectly well to whom they were giving aid. In the case of the Irish Church, the year 1660 was taken, and the right hon. Member for Midlothian justified that by a similar argument. He thought they ought certainly to take a Division on this point.

said this Amendment did not raise the question of date, it proposed that the Church should retain the endowments given by any persons to the Church without any reference to the date. The right hon. Gentleman, in replying to his hon. Friend, suggested that the matter had been settled by the words of the Irish Church Act, which were practically identical with the words as they stood in this Bill, but that was by no means a conclusive argument. The words of the Irish Church Act, were entirely governed by the fact that Parliament in that Act gave a lump sum of £500,000 to the Irish Church in satisfaction of all these private endowments, and therefore it never became necessary for the courts to construe what Parliament had intended when it indicated that a private endowment should be moneys or lands given by private persons out of their own resources. There were very long Debates in Parliament on that question, because not only could no one foretell how those words would be interpreted by the courts, but it was perfectly obvious that in the attempt to secure an interpretation very considerable trouble and expense might be incurred which would be most unfair on individuals or on the Church body, and for that reason all difficulties were avoided by Parliament inserting a lump sum into the Act in satisfaction of these private endowments. He should very much like to know what was the meaning of these words—"any private person." He saw, not very long ago, that Her Majesty the Queen gave a considerable sum in aid of the erection of a parish church at Balmoral, Scotland, and for all that he knew, Her Majesty might have given to the endowment of the living; would Her Majesty be considered a private person or not? Was a Bishop of the Church a private person? He was in receipt of money paid to him for the duties of his office, and out of that money he might give an endowment to the Church, and some Bishops had certainly done so. They might also take the case of a clergyman, or of the Home Secretary himself, who was in receipt of an official salary, and might make an endowment. These were questions which were at least open to doubt, and it was, therefore, essential, in order to guide the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the Welsh Commissioners, in the event of this Bill becoming law, that Parliament should put some definite interpretation upon these words. Last year a return was presented to Parliament distinguishing between the old endowments of benefices, and other ecclesiastical corporations in Wales, and those which were considered of the nature of private endowments. In the Debate on the Second Reading of this Bill he called attention to what was essentially a private endowment in a parish in Pembrokeshire by a private person out of his own resources. But this endowment was not included in the Return in the private endowment belonging to that living, which proved how essential it was there should be a distinct interpretation of the words of this clause. The words proposed by his hon. Friend in his Amendment might be too wide. But, even taking the narrow view of the right hon. Gentleman himself, something ought to be added to show clearly what he meant by the words "private persons"—whether he meant to include or exclude persons holding public offices; whether the official incomes those persons received were, or were not, their own resources; and, generally, that there should be a complete and thorough interpretation of what was proposed by the clause. He did not know whether his hon. Friend proposed to divide the Committee, but he was glad he had called attention to the matter at the earliest possible moment, because it was one which could not be left to stand as at present.

said, he admitted that this was a difficult question—that there was much difficulty in framing language which was quite certain to cover all the cases it was desired to include, and all those which it was desired to exclude, from the scope of the Bill. Now, with regard to what had been said by the hon. Member for the Tun-bridge Division, who gave a number of instances of trading corporations which had built and endowed Churches in Wales, he would repeat the opinion he had before expressed—that all those cases were sufficiently covered by the words "private persons." If it should afterwards be found that the words did not sufficiently cover such cases, words should be introduced into the clause to meet the difficulty, but his impression was that the clause as drawn already did so. As to the societies to which the hon. Member had referred, he understood they desired, or recruited, their funds from subscriptions, that they had no endowments; that they were not incorporated bodies, and that their money was invested in trustees. Whatever funds were derived from this source and expended on the Church would be sufficiently covered by the Amendment of which he had given notice relating to money raised by "voluntary subscriptions." It was true, as the right hon. Member for Bristol had stated, that in the Irish Act of 1869 there was a clause drawn in a form corresponding to the clause under discussion—in fact, he believed the words were identical; but the clause was transformed in Committee, and in order to avoid the difficulty felt in the present case a lump sum was given to the Church. In framing the present Bill the Government considered the expediency of following that precedent, and it would have been a much simplier course to take if they could have adopted it. But there were two difficulties in the way. In the first place, they had no possibility at present of ascertaining what would be the fair capitalised value of the private endowments of the Church in Wales. He agreed that the return presented to the House did not contain an exhausted account of those endowments; and, therefore, the Government had not in their possession, the full materials on which to name any definite sum. But, further than that, his own belief was that the supporters of the Established Church in Wales would rather that the Church should keep its endowments than have them capitalised in value. However, the Government, recognising the difficulty to which he had referred, had come to the conclusion that it was advisable to take the course they had decided upon. The right hon. Member for West Bristol had put several cases of a hypothetical character to him, and asked whether they would come within the terms of the clause or not. Now, in regard to the first case, that of the Queen personally contributing towards the endowment of a Church, he had no hesitation in saying that such a contribution, or endowment, would clearly come within the words of the clause—"private persons." It would be a contribution given by the Queen, not in her character of monarch of the country, but in her character of a private individual or private landowner. The money would be given, not out of that which was voted to her by Parliament for public purposes, but out of her own resources, though those resources might be derived from her public income. The right hon. Baronet then put the case of himself or of anyone holding a similar public office making such a contribution to the Church. Clearly if he, or anyone similarly situated, did so, it would be the Act of an individual as a private person; it would not be an act done by him in his character of a Minister of State. Here again, then, the act would be done by the person in his private capacity, although the resources out of which he made the grant might be swollen by the money he received as salary for his public services. He admitted that there was more difficulty in dealing with a similar transaction in the case of a Bishop, or the holder of some ecclesiastical office—that there was more difficulty in saying precisely whether a contribution made by him to the Church was, or was not, made as a "private person," out of his own resources. Therefore, as at present advised, and subject to any criticism that might thereafter be developed, he might say—though he would not be bound by the precise words—that he was disposed to look with favour on an Amendment which the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight had placed on the Paper (page 17), referring to the money raised by subscription, and when they came to it he should propose the insertion of certain words.

thought the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had certainly shown the Committee why the Government had not adopted the course which was taken in the case of the Irish Church Act. But the general upshot of this part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was to show that there was great ambiguity hanging over the, attempt of the Government to define what was the property to be secularised by this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had himself admitted that the words in the clause were imperfect. He had said that the Queen was to be described for the purposes of the clause as a private person, and he could not help thinking that a clause which required, for its interpretation, that Her Majesty should be so described, required emendation. He recognised the difficulties of the case, and his object in rising was to suggest a possible solution. The object of the Government clause was to define accurately the money which was not to be taken. Would it not be simpler and easier to define the money which had to be taken. Practically speaking there were only five discriptions of property to be taken for the purposes of Disendowment, and he thought all difficulty might be removed if the Government would reverse their course of action and define the money or property which they would take rather than that which they desired not to take.

suggested that the difficulty would be met by substituting for the words "by any private person out of his own resources," the words "by any person out of his private resources." These words would include gifts by the Queen or by Bishops.

asked whether the words of the clause would include gifts which might have been given by Christ Church, Oxford, which, as was well known, was a large owner of tithes in Wales.

asked whether they would also extend to gifts by Deans and Chapters, by the London Corporation, or by Municipal Corporations?

made a similar inquiry with reference to the case of Trustees.

said, he did not think the suggestion of the Leader of the Opposition would meet the difficulty of the case. Definition by exclusion was just as difficult as definition by inclusion. Take the case of a glebe: there were many cases in which a glebe was ancient; there were others in which it was bought since 1703; and there were others in which part was bought before and part since that date. If they were to say that glebes were to go to the Commissioners, they would obviously be including something which ought not to go—and which, under the clause, would not go—to them. An exactly similar difficulty would arise in reference to the tithe rent—charge. He did not, therefore, think the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman would remove the difficulty. A catalogue of difficulties had been put to him by hon. Members. He must say he deprecated the re-summoning of Queen Anne from the grave into which she was interred in Clause 4, at any rate for the purposes of the present discussion. He would be glad to assume that, for the purposes of this argument, Queen Anne was dead. With regard to the cases that had been mentioned, they would be met by the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight. He quite agreed that if an Oxford college, in the performance of one of its ordinary duties as a landowner in Wales, contributed towards the building or endowment of a church, that ought to be treated on the same footing as benefactions by trading companies or private persons. It ought to be protected and preserved to the Church. The hon. and learned Member's Amendment, however, met that case, because it would be money voluntarily given out of funds not liable to be so applied by that corporation.

Would that meet the case of Christ Church, because the funds of Christ Church are liable?

said, Christ Church was not liable for funds which it contributed in the character of a landowner. He believed all the cases that had been put would fall within the scope of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Amendment, but if they did not he was quite prepared to enlarge it to such an extent as to include them.

wished to assure the right hon. Gentleman that Queen Anne was not dead, as the Amendments to the clause would show. He thought the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Denbighshire might afford some means of arriving at a reasonable solution of the difficulty. His own Amendment, to which reference had been made, would only meet particular cases, and he therefore hoped the Home Secretary would not exclude an Amendment on the lines suggested by the Leader of the Opposition.

said, the intention of his hon. Friend who moved the Amendment was, to include all private endowments; but that point had been very much narrowed down in the academic discussion in which the lawyers had been engaged. It was quite true that most of the words appeared in the Irish Act, but the clause in the Irish Act finished up by providing for the payment of £500,000, whereas the clause now before the Committee would leave the matter to lawyers to deal with. He hoped that the Committee would divide, unless they had a more definite undertaking from the Home Secretary. In regard to Ireland, all the matters were determined by the Irish Church body, but he wanted to know who were those people in Wales who gave property out of other people's resources? It was because this matter was so involved and they did not know the moaning of the clause, and because the originator of this Amendment intended it to be on a broader basis, that he hoped the Committee would divide on the question of the principle involved.

desired to explain his position, seeing that they had left the original ground which the Mover of the Amendment had in view. If it were made clear as to what was meant by private endowments, he thought that the assurances of the Home Secretary would be considered sufficient. The right hon. Gentleman had said that he intended to accept the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight, and that any other ambiguity would be put right after consulting with the Law Officers. So far, therefore, as a mere question of draughting was concerned, the matter might be left. But his hon. Friend had now raised a question of principle and had asked the Committee to affirm that all property left to the Church since 1703 should be kept for Church uses, and upon that question of principle the Committee might well be asked to express an opinion.

inquired whether the benefactions of the corporations of the City of London were included in the clause or in the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight.

Yes; I have already said so.

asked whether the Home Secretary attached any importance to the words "out of his own resources."

That is coming back rather to the question of draughting, which I understood from the Leader of the Opposition to be settled.

thought that if a date were fixed, it ought to hold good for all purposes, and that if the Church had to abandon all gifts made before a certain date, whatever their origin, it would be fair that all subsequent gifts should be retained.

confessed that he could not attach any meaning to the proposed words, nor did he believe they had any meaning at all. So far as ho was aware, there was no legal presumption applicable to such a case. The question whether a particular endowment in Wales was given since 1703—or whatever the date might be—would depend upon the ordinary canons of evidence; and it would not require any stricter proof of origin than in the case of any other title. The fact that an endowment was not enjoyed before 1703, and had been enjoyed since, would in itself constitute very strong presumption, But there was no legal presumption, applicable to the case, and the Amendment would simply give trouble to the courts, and do nothing to secure the object which the hon. Member had in view.

said, that though the words of the Amendment might not be very felicitous, yet surely there was a sense of grievance underlying the Amendment, to which the Home Secretary ought seriously to address himself. It was quite obvious that when one found that in 1703 certain parishes had no Endowment at all, and now had considerable Endowments, the probability was that they had been furnished from private sources, because they knew perfectly well what were the public sources applying to the case. There should be a proviso providing that the onus of proof should lie on the other side—that was to say, unless it could be shown that an Endowment had come from public funds it should be treated as a private benefaction.

remarked that, whilst he agreed with what the right hon. Gentleman had said as to the words of the Amendment from a legal point of view, there was, he ventured to say, a little more in it than the Home Secretary seemed to imagine. The first judgment would not be given by a Court of Law, but by the Welsh Commissioners, and this was a direction to the Welsh Commissioners. He considered there ought to be some directions given to the Commissioners, and this might be effected by means of words which would carry out the intention, but which would require to be different to those used by the hon. Member for Preston. This might be done by means of a proviso.

pointed out that in a measure of this complexity he could only deal with the Amendments as they appeared on the Paper, and with the language in which they were expressed. He had stated that the words of this particular Amendment, as they stood, were meaningless, and he thought that was quite sufficient to dispose of it. However he would consider whether the object aimed at could be carried out by the addition of some proviso.

intimated that he was not wedded to the particular words of his Amendment, and urged that a grievous hardship had been pointed out and one which ought to be remedied. He would not press these words unduly, and if other suitable words could be suggested he should be quite willing to adopt them.

, whilst entirely agreeing with the Home Secretary that, in accordance with the principle of this clause, the onus probandi must be thrown on the persons desiring to prove that these endowments were private, said that this requirement might prove a hardship in cases where the obtaining of such proof was difficult and expensive. He believed that in introducing the Irish Church Bill the right hon. Member for Midlothian undertook that there should be some proviso inserted to the effect that legitimate expenses incurred in the attempt to prove title should be imposed upon the Church fund. He was not sure whether any such proviso was inserted in the Irish Church Act; but, if not, it was doubtless because a lump sum was settled in satisfaction of all claims for private endowments; and he suggested that in the present Bill, where the Welsh or the Ecclesiastical Commissioners decided that such expenses had been legitimately and justly incurred, they should not be thrown upon the persons who were called upon to prove title.

said, it was quite true that at some stage of the Irish Church Bill there was such a provision in one of the clauses as the right hon. Gentleman had indicated. He thought that would also be a better way of dealing with the matter here, and, without binding himself to the exact form, he would endeavour to see if some proviso could not be inserted to the effect that, where, in the opinion of the body who had to decide the question, there had been reasonable ground for raising the point, they should empower payments to be made out of the funds to the persons so raising it.

I think the hon. Gentleman is now going beyond the Amendment.

with all respect to the ruling of the Chair, thought he was entitled to take this line of argument. He was proposing they should exempt from the scope of the Bill those grants which were made to the Church of England at the same time as those which were made to the Nonconformist body, and he was wishing to compare the treatment of the two classes of grant. This seemed to him to be very pertinent considering the fact that the Home Secretary had stated that the main object of the Bill was to see that the Church of England and all other bodies were to be placed in exactly the same position.

Order, order! The hon. Gentleman's remarks are not relevant to his Amendment.

said, he would not press that matter further. The Amendment he proposed was a simple one. It was that the money voted by Parliament and the country to the Church since the date fixed in the Bill, should be left to the Church, as the grants voted to other religious dominations were left to those denominations. Parliament had no moral right—he could not, of course, question its legal right, as Parliament made the laws—to touch those funds again. He could not conceive why the Government or the Welsh Members could object to the Amendment. There could be no doubt that Parliament intended this money for the Church; and it seemed a strange thing that because a number of Welsh Members had changed their nationality and wished to disestablish the Welsh Church, that the Church should be deprived of the property granted to it by Parliament. He was sure that the public at large would support the Government if they treated this question differently. If the Church was to be disestablished, he was sure that people would wish that it should be done in a spirit of liberality towards the Church, and that, if anything, Parliament should err on the side of generosity towards the Church. But he claimed this not as an act of generosity, but as a moral right, and felt sure that the Government, though they might not now concede it, must in their calmer moments feel that it was right and just. He begged to move his Amendment.

said, he had already on more than one occasion expressed his own opinion and the opinion of the Government in regard to this particular question. There were two ways of dealing with a measure of this kind. One way—which was the simplest way, and which had been adopted in the course of the Debate last night by the Leader of the Opposition—was to treat it as an act of highway robbery. If that were a true analogy, there were no ethical degrees of spoliation. It might make a difference to the person robbed, but from a moral point of view it made no difference whether they took a man's purse or his watch, whether they took his coat or his shirt, and it did not matter from the same point of view whether they took an old coat or a new coat. All those considerations were irrelevant if the argument was to proceed on the basis that the act was an act of robbery. Hon. Gentlemen opposite contended that all the endowments, public and private, were the property of the Church, and that it was equal robbery or spoliation for the Government to touch either the one or the other. But surely that argument absolved, to some extent at least, the Government from arguing seriously or in a laboured way the particular merits of particular ingredients of this large measure of spoliation. He would therefore deal with the argument of the hon. Gentleman in a few words. The House on the Second Reading had approved the principle of the Bill. What was that principle? It was that the property of the Church, in so far as it could be regarded as national or public property, and in so far as it was not the produce of private endowments, in the sense in which they had used the term throughout the Debates, was property which the State, for a just cause and on proper terms, in regard to existing rights, could deal with as its own property. Hon. Gentlemen opposite said that was a wrong principle, that it struck at the very roots of property and at the very foundations of the social structure. But it was the principle that was embodied in this Bill which the House had read a second time, and, therefore, when he came to an Amendment like the one now before the Committee he had to ask himself the question—Could he accept it consistently with such principle? He could not say that the money now under consideration, which was admittedly derived from the taxation of the country, which had been given by Parliament to the Church, was in any greater degree private property and entitled to greater respect than other properties which the Committee had already dealt with. The hon. Gentleman said that the property might have been spent, and he mentioned, not for the first time, the case of the Protestant dissenters to whom, early in the century, money was voted by Parliament. The amount voted to the Church was, roughly, £3,000,000, and to the Protestant dissenters £140,000. [HON. MEMBERS: "More than that."] He took the figures from a Parliamentary Return made in 1842, and was not now dealing with Ireland or with Scotland. At least half of the £3,000,000 went to Church buildings. If any of those buildings were situated in Wales they would, of course, go to the representative body. A certain amount now remained in the hands of the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty. That was capital held by the Governors in trust for the Church, and of which a certain amount had been appropriated to the Church in Wales. As to the practice of the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty, he took it that if a private person made a benefaction, say, of £100 for a particular church, the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty put another £100 on the table, and the £200 was handed over to, or more commonly invested for the benefit of the particular church or benefice. There was a certain sum—what sum he did not say—of unspent accumulations, and, therefore, given the principle of the Bill, he could not assent to the Amendment.

said, that if he gave the right hon. Gentleman the principle of the Bill he would still say the application was inequitable. For the first time Parliament was called upon to revoke a grant already given. Parliament had given a grant on a definite principle for the support of the Church; and now the right hon. Gentleman said, "You are wrong in giving those grants, and we call upon you to refund what you have given." There was no precedent to be found for such a proceeding.

believed that a considerable part of the revenue of the Irish Church had a similar origin.

remarked that that showed how dangerous the system of spoliation was. He did not wish to see any money taken away from any religious body, but if it was to be done at all it should be done in some sort of way which implied equity and equality.

wished to add a few observations respecting this Amendment. It seemed to him that there had been some confusion in the minds of the Government between a "loan" and a "grant." He would illustrate his meaning. Two partners gave £10,000 each to a son and a nephew respectively. The son received his money as a gift outright; the nephew received his money as a loan. The son would surely regard it as an injustice that his gift should be converted into a loan. His contention was that when a grant was given by the State that was a permanent gift, and was not revocable upon any notice whatever. Take, as another illustration, the training colleges, founded partly by public grants and partly by private benefactions, and supported year by year partly from fees and subscriptions, and partly by grants. It would be unworthy to claim back those buildings which had been granted for the cause of education. In the case of the Yorkshire College at Leeds, there was a large grant from Parliament. Some part of that was expended in buildings. It would be very hard if the Government were to claim any part of those buildings which had been erected by the aid of the Government grant. If the grant was worth anything at all, it was an absolute and permanent grant which could not be revoked at any moment when it suited the purposes of the grantor. In all these transactions they must have confidence. The policy of the Government was to make grants to any applicant or society when that applicant or society happened to be strong, and to take it away whenever the applicant or society happened to be weak. That action was absolutely fatal, for it was always in the power of the State to take away grants at any moment. He felt very strongly that great injury would be done to public confidence if the policy of the Government were supported by Parliament. Passing from the immediate discussion before the Committee to affairs of a wider range, he reminded the Committee that the great danger of the State at this moment was want of confidence, the absence of all knowledge of what was coming next, and the absolutely blank ignorance which existed as to the future. The difference between the Irish Church Act of 1869 and the present Bill was—that the former was a measure of confiscation tempered by compensation, while this was a Bill of confiscation without any such adulteration. He was somewhat surprised to hear it stated last night that the Nonconformist bodies had refused to receive any endowments; for their temper of resistance had altogether gone, and they were now glad to receive large contributions from the State in aid of their schools. Maynooth College not only received compensation, but also remission of debt under Section 41 of the Act of 1869. He thought the grounds stated sufficient to justify his hon. Friend in proposing his Amendment, and he should have much pleasure in supporting him in the Lobby.

said, he could assure the Government that of all political questions now before the country, there was not one in which his constituents took a greater interest than in this one. The Home Secretary had said that if the Opposition were to use the term "highway robbery" in connection with the proposals of the Government, it did not matter whether the term included only one matter or more than one. He, however, submitted that there were different degrees of guilt, and that this transactiom had a deeper dye than the main portion of the Bill. He did not at all agree with the Home Secretary that no distinction could be drawn. This money had been given to the Church of England as distinguished from all other Protestant communities. To take from the Church that which was specifically her property, by a title granted by the House of Commons, would be down-right robbery. Tithe, it might be contended, was in some sense national; but this property was not national in any sense. Tithe was ancient, while the grant of this money was modern, and he maintained that it was indefeasibly the money of the Church. The hon. Member for the University of Oxford had asked whether a precedent could be quoted for the resumption of a Parliamentary grant, whereupon the Home Secretary had said that the thing was done under the Irish Church Act. But under that Act was not a large lump sum assigned by Parliament in consideration of the resumption of benefactions? If so, the same right which the supporters of the Amendment claimed for the Church in Wales was recognised in the case of Ireland. The precedent was, therefore, on the side of the supporters of the Amendment. It had been said that the money had been invested by the Queen Anne's Bounty Commissioners, and it seemed to be implied that it had been lumped together with Queen Anne's Bounty, and that it should, therefore, be treated in the same way. But this fund stood upon quite a different footing. It was a distinct benefaction, and the fact that it was administered by the same Commissioners who administered Queen Anne's Bounty did not justify spoliation. The money was given together with grants made to other religious bodies, which were, therefore, partners in this Parliamentary bounty. These other bodies, however, were to be allowed to keep their grants. Why should the Church be despoiled of hers? The justice meted out to them should be meted out also to the Church. Was the Church to be stripped and spoliated merely because she was the Church, and was supposed to be comparatively weak? Whether she was weak or not would be seen at the General Election. Most of the money which it was purposed to take back might have been spent over and over again, had the Church so willed. According to the Government, the House of Commons was apparently the only body that could not make an irrevocable gift. The doctrine of the Government was, that because the money was granted by Parliament out of the taxes, it was not an irrevocable gift. They seemed to think that that which the meanest person in the country could do, that House could not do. That was not his view; he said that what Parliament gave to the Church, or to any other community or person, was irrevocable and sacred. He should offer the strongest resistance in his power to this portion of the Ministerial scheme.

remarked that his hon. Friend the Member for the Kingston Division had spoken very strongly in favour of equal treatment for the Church and other Christian bodies. He wished to cite a powerful witness on the same side. That morning, in The Times, the following letter had appeared from the late Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Midlothian:—

"In the Irish Church Bill of 1869 we adhered carefully to the aim of preserving for the Disestablished Church all property analogous to that possessed by Nonconformists. To depart from that rule would be unjust; but I imagine the present Government would say that, in framing their Bill for Wales (with or without some Amendment, of which I have heard) they do adhere to it."

That was the letter of the late Leader of the Party who were now opposing this Amendment. Perhaps the right hon. Member for Midlothian was referring to the Amendment now before them, because it was obvious that without that Amendment the members of the Church would not be placed in the same position as the members of the Nonconformist bodies. If they were to take back Parliamentary grants and apply them to new purposes, where was the line to be drawn? Could Parliament take, back Blenheim, Strathfieldsaye, and the grants and pensions awarded to various distinguished statesmen and soldiers? He was surprised a proposal was not made to convert the Blenheim property into allotments and market gardens for the benefit of the people of Woodstock. It was quite true that this property was granted in recognition of great victories; but a gift to God, who permitted such victories to be gained, was surely not less sacred. It had hitherto always been supposed that a certain amount of solemnity attached to gifts by Parliament. But this Bill, while it declared that private persons' gifts were to be respected, proposed to revoke Parliamentary grants. They would be taken back and might be diverted to other objects. But the Government had not been consistent in carrying out that nefarious principle, because lower down it was said that this property was not to be taken back if it came within the description of a church or ecclesiastical residence for which provision was otherwise made in the Bill. If the Government were prepared to leave to the Church the part of the Parliamentary grant expended on ecclesiastical residences, on what principle could they reclaim the other part? He was sure the Solicitor General would not be prepared to advise that there was any flaw in the title to Blenheim of its present possessors, and he should be glad to hear him state what was the legal flaw in the title of the Church to the property in question.

asked why should the fact that this money was given by a public authority make it less sacred than if it had been given by a private individual? It was quite clear that Parliament, which voted the money, knew exactly to what it was to be devoted; Parliament knew that there existed alongside the Church certain Nonconformist bodies, and it distinguished between the Nonconformists and the Church of England. Parliament voted certain sums to both, and it was now proposed to take away the money voted to the Church and to leave the other in the hands of the Nonconformists. That was an injustice so palpable and so gross that he could not understand how hon. Gentlemen opposite could defend it. How far was repudiation of the pledge of Parliament to be carried? The Government might, on the same principle, swoop down on the money granted by Parliament for elementary education in England, or for light railways in Ireland. He would invite the ingenuity of the Solicitor General to try to find some defence for the proposal of the Government. He knew it was the hon. and learned Gentleman's habit sometimes to defend very successfully people for whom there was very little to be said. [The SOLICITOR GENERAL: "And sometimes to prosecute."] He wished to hear some plausible excuse for the extraordinary unequal treatment of the Church as against Nonconformists, and the absolute disregard of what had hitherto been deemed to be the most sacred of all titles, namely a Parliamentary title. He trusted the Solicitor General, who listened with the greatest care to the Debates, but who yet had not intervened as much as they should like, would favour them with some fuller light.

said, that of course it was impossible for him to resist such an invitation so courteously conveyed by the noble Lord. He could assure him that the only reason which prevented his intervening more frequently in the Debates had been the consciousness that after the able statement of his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary there was nothing really useful to be added, and, therefore, if he got up he would be only occupying time which he was sure would be better occupied by right hon. Gentlemen opposite. An appeal had been made to him as to what the title to Blenheim was. That really was a question of which he ought to have some notice, and, as at present he was entirely debarred from private practice, he feared it was hardly open to him to answer it. As to the question of the noble Lord, this House had already declared that the Church in Wales was to be disestablished, and consequently they had to deal with the national grants that were made to that which was in future to be the Disestablished Church. They were told last night that £208,000 had been granted to Dissenting bodies in the years between 1801 and 1840. [An HON. MEMBER: "1845."] The difference of date might explain a difference between the figures and those of a return dated 1842, which gave a total of £141,000. These grants had been dealt with by hon. Members opposite as if they had been made to Dissenting bodies in this country. The larger part of the grants to Nonconformists in this country were grants from the Civil list to Protestant Dissenting Ministers in England; and they amounted altogether to £60,000. All the other grants were grants not to English, Scotch, or Welsh Nonconformist bodies, but they were grants made to Protestant Dissenting Ministers in Ireland, to the clergy of French Protestant refugees, to the French Church at Wapping, and to Lutheran Ministers and churches, so that they were grants to the members of other nationalities who happened to be settled in this country. The analysis of grants amounting to £141,000 the Committee were not quite prepared for. It had been assumed or suggested that the grants had been made to Nonconformists in this country as the term was ordinarily understood.

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman had illustrated the mathematical principle that if you add nothing to nothing the result is nothing. He had told them that these grants were made not to Nonconformists, ordinarily so called, but to various denominations representing foreign Churches; but that did not make any difference in the argument. It was not proposed to withdraw these sums from these bodies, whereas it was proposed to withdraw sums from the Church of England in Wales. The Government gave no adequate reason for making the difference. The discovery as to the character of these grants did not alter the facts or the arguments. Even if the grants had been made to the Dissenting bodies of this country, the Government would still have been prepared to maintain their attitude, for the discovery that they were not so granted had apparently only just been made, and was as much a surprise to the Solicitor General as he supposed it to be to the Committee. It was clear that grants made to Dissenters since 1703 were not to be taken away, and grants made to the National Church were to be taken away. The Church of England in Wales, when it ceased to be established, was to be treated differently from other Churches. If Parliament had given grants to it as a National Church, the Solicitor General said it was natural the grants should be taken away when it ceased to be a National Church. The question remained, Why should it be treated worse than the other Churches when it was put on the same footing as those Churches? There were three questions which had been asked and to which no satisfactory answer had been received. The first was: Why, seeing other denominations existed in and since 1703, Parliamentary grants to the Church should be treated differently from private benefactions? The second was: Why the Church should be treated worse than the Nonconformists to which Parliament had made grants? The third was: Why the Church was to be exceptionally treated because its grants had been spent in residences? The only logical course for the Government to adopt was to leave to the Welsh Church all that had been granted to it since 1703, or else to take from other bodies the corresponding grants which they had received in the same period.

said, the hon. Member opposite had not done justice to himself in putting questions which had been answered over and over again. Whatever answer was given was said to be unsatisfactory. The answer to the hon. Member's questions was that the Church in Wales was not a denomination yet, and would only become one when it was disestablished. As soon as it became a sect among sects, then it would be treated the same as others. When a grant was made to private individuals in societies it passed away beyond recall; but it was quite different when grants were made to a national institution, as such, in terms and conditions which Parliament could impose. The contribution to the Debate made by the Solicitor General had been very valuable indeed, for it brought out clearly the distinction between grants to private individuals and to a public body controlled by Parliament.

said, he had never heard a more extraordinary speech than that of the hon. Member who had just spoken. It appeared that the Church was to be disestablished because she was a sect, and disendowed because she was a national Church. He had never heard anything more absurd or inconsistent. Its inequality and injustice were evident upon the face of it. The Solicitor General, he admitted, had attempted to deal fairly with the matter. But he said the Leader of the Opposition was absolutely wrong in his figures, because he said £208,000 represented the amount granted by Parliament to Nonconformist bodies. The Solicitor General seemed to forget that these endowments began in 1722, and a large amount of money was given before 1801. They were originated by Sir Robert Walpole, of whom the Liberation Society, in a paper called "The Case for Disestablishment," said that his maxim was well known, "Every man has his price." If the Church in Wales was to be disendowed because of her national character, that principle of Disendowment should be applied to all religious bodies. Where there were grants of an absolutely similar character for whatever purpose in favour of other religious bodies than the Church, either they must not take away what had been given to the Church or they must take away what had been given to the Nonconformists. None of the supporters of the Church in Wales desired the Government to take a single penny away from Nonconformists. They respected their opinions and were thankful that they enjoyed endowments. But in the name of justice, Churchmen asked for equal treatment all round. The Government pretended that religious equality was its first principle. They wanted to take away the endowments of the Church when the endowments of Nonconformist bodies were ruled outside the scope of the Bill. Nothing more unjust or unequal than the proposals of the Government had ever been submitted to the House of Commons.

complained of the unwillingness of the Government to meet the arguments of the Opposition with regard to the clauses of this Bill. They proposed to disestablish the Church in Wales because it was a sect and did not represent the whole nation, and to disendow it because it was an Established Church. If the Solicitor General had said there were different reasons for giving endowments to Nonconformist bodies he could have understood it. Grants made by Parliament to the various religious bodies should be treated equally. The Opposition, he contended, were entitled to protest against a proposal which deprived the Church of money received by exactly the same title as that given to Nonconformist bodies who had either spent it or were left in possession of it at the present day.

said, he was sure no one could find fault with the spirit of the speech of his hon. Friend, but he hoped he would not complain if he reminded the Committee of the nature of this Bill, and their duty with regard to it. This Bill was an exceptional proposal to borrow money for the construction of certain naval works, which was made by the Government of the day on the advice of the Department which was responsible for the selection of the works that were deemed to be so urgent as to deserve exceptional treatment. Notwithstanding the natural anxiety that his hon. Friend and his constituents must feel in the state of Pembroke Dockyard, those feelings, he submitted, ought not to have an abiding place in the minds of the Committee. The Committee had to consider the matter from a national and not a sectional or local point of view, and the Government having shown themselves ready to discharge their national responsibility, they hoped that they ought to be able to rely upon the sense of the House in that regard. He would remind the Committee that the Bill was an exceptional one—to borrow money for the construction of certain naval works which, in the opinion of the responsible department were so urgent as to require this exceptional proceeding. But the Bill, exceptional as it was, did not profess to be a complete programme even of the works, it was necessary to provide for by the loan, far less as a complete programme of works of all kinds. The Admiralty had never said that it might not be necessary at a future time to apply the same method in regard to other works not mentioned in the Bill, but, having considered the whole situation, what they now asked the Committee to sanction by this Bill, was the loan for carrying out those specific works which were mentioned in the First Lord's statement, and which had been accepted by the House as a whole. Whether the amendment of the hon. Member was in order or not, it was contrary to the practice of the House that the Government of the day should be forced by a Resolution to undertake expenditure which they had not demanded. The Motion or Amendment consisted of several parts, and only one fragment of the hon. Member's proposal was then before the Committee. His speech was devoted mainly to Pembroke Dockyard for the present. But the Government were bound to resist the Amendment because the hon. Member not only asked the Admiralty to carry out works at Pembroke which the Government did not undertake in the Bill, but asked them to omit certain expenditure which they had declared to be necessary in order to carry out the works under the Bill. He did not think the Committee would approve of such a course as that at the instigation of the hon. Member, and contrary to the course recommended by the Board. Now the Board of Admiralty had recently considered on the spot the requirements of Pembroke Dockyard. Only a fortnight ago they visited Pembroke, heard all the recommendations made to them locally, inspected the site proposed for a coaling jetty, and, indeed, considered all the circumstances of the case. He hoped the hon. Member and all those locally interested would deem it a satisfactory declaration when he said the Admiralty would not dispute in essence the statement the hon. Member had made to the Committee as to the desirability of the works he suggested. Indeed, he might say on behalf of the Admiralty that they were prepared to admit the necessity of creating sheer legs and a jetty at the point proposed at Pembroke; but the work could not be included in this Bill, which was for other specific works. The work referred to at Pembroke was work which applied properly to, and should be included in, the ordinary estimates of the year, and he was instructed to say that the Admiralty would be prepared to make provision in the next year's estimates for them. That was the way in which similar works had been dealt with in the House. In the ordinary estimates of last year provision would be found for precisely similar work at Portsmouth. He had admitted the desirability of the demands made by the hon. Member in regard to Pembroke, but he was bound to resist his proposal to deal in an arbitrary way with certain items of this Loan Bill which the Admiralty on their responsibility had submitted to Parliament, and his demand that the expenditure for the works he mentioned should be met by the exceptional method of the Bill. After what he had said he hoped the Amendment would be withdrawn, and that the Committee would be allowed to proceed with the consideration of the Schedule. He appealed to the Committee to say whether the Admiralty, by this Bill, had not shown that they deserved their confidence, and whether they were not entitled to resist any attempt to force their hand in respect to expenditure which they had not recommended to the House.

said, there was a very strong local feeling at Pembroke because no concession had been made in the Bill in regard to Pembroke dockyard. The Civil Lord had taunted his hon. Friend with a desire to cut down the expenditure at other dockyards, but his hon. Friend had adopted the only form by which he could raise the question. He did not desire to deprive other dockyards of their fair share, but his complaint was that the money had not been, fairly allocated as between the various dockyards. He hoped his hon. Friend would believe that he had obtained a concession of a full and ample character from the Civil Lord, and that under these circumstances he would be prepared to hold the Government to their promise that in next year's Estimates the demands now made would receive full consideration. He observed that the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) smiled. He did not know whether it might be the fate of the noble Lord next year to sit upon the Treasury Bench, but the noble Lord himself had placed an Amendment on the Paper in favour of making a concession to Pembroke dockyard, and they therefore could scarcely suppose that he would, when in office, go back upon the proposal which he was now prepared to make. He was glad to find that Lord Spencer, when he visited Pembroke ten days ago in company with the Civil Lord recognised the weakness of Pembroke and promised that the demands which were made should receive full consideration. The statement now made by the Civil Lord he took as an indication that that promise was to be fulfilled. The Admiralty must recognise the claims of Pembroke. It was one of the finest harbours in the world He believed that at no distant date the Haven would be a great Trans-Atlantic port. There were signs of it already. They only wanted a little stimulus; they only wanted Pembroke to have the same advantages which other dockyards enjoyed, and they believed it would rapidly become a great trading port as well as a great dockyard.

said, ho agreed with the Civil Lord that sectional or local interests ought not to override national or naval considerations in a matter of this kind. The expression, however, was rather an unhappy one. The Government had assented to the claim of Wales to be treated as a separate nation so far as religion was concerned. But the moment they came to deal with dockyards, Wales shrank into the small dimensions of a section or locality. This was a loan Bill, and the present generation benefited at the expense of posterity. Therefore, it behoved them to see that the proposals made would meet the wants of the future. Nobody could deny that Pembroke was in a very inferior position compared with other dockyards. By this Bill Devonport, Portsmouth, and Chatham, would be in a better position than before, while Pembroke remained where it was, so that the difference would become greater than ever. That was a very important consideration. In recent years they had found that the more rapidly the ships were built, the cheaper was the cost of construction. If Pembroke was in such a position that every ship laid down took two years longer to build, it would be so handicapped that the Naval lords would be forced to give less and less work to Pembroke, because the return was less than from the other yards. If Pembroke was to be excluded from the Bill, he could not help thinking that, notwithstanding the promise which the Civil Lord had held out, the Admiralty would have to consider whether Pembroke was to be maintained as a dockyard at all. The Civil Lord had pledged the Government to include the necessary expenditure in next year's Estimates. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer had for years contended that no Ministry had a right to pledge the expenditure of any future year. That was the one principle which the right hon. Gentleman had laid down, and it was audacious in the extreme for any Government whose majority was not larger than that of the present Government, quietly to inform the House that next year they proposed to put money in the Estimates for this work. The Naval Works Vote next year would be very heavy, and therefore, if Pembroke were excluded from this Bill its prospects of getting what it wanted would be very bad. The Civil Lord said that the Admiralty were acting on the advice of the Naval Lords in this matter, and had come to the conclusion that the construction of a jetty was not a fit subject for a Loan Bill. He had always admired the boldness of the Government, but when they proposed to spend too large a sum of money on such an ephemeral object as dredging, it was absurd to say that a permanent jetty could not be the subject of a loan. He would put before the Committee from a naval and national point of view why he thought these works at Pembroke should be included in the Bill. There were only four great naval dockyards in this country—Chatham, Portsmouth, Devon-port and Pembroke. Only three of them could build ships of the largest dimensions, and of them Pembroke was one. It was the most modern of the dockyards, and, he thought, the best laid out; and most of the work done there in recent years had been in connection with big ships, and therefore it was particularly fitted for building the class of ships which would be most required. But at Pembroke only one part of the work required in connection with the construction of a ship could be performed, namely, the commencement, which included all work up to the launching. There wore two other stages, the advancement and the final completion. The work could be done at Pembroke up to the launch, but as soon as the vessel was launched it could not be brought alongside there. It had to be towed to a point at a considerable distance from the dockyard, and the men who were at work upon her lost twenty minutes in going to their work and twenty minutes in coming back; in fact, every man who worked on the ship in the stage of advancement at Pembroke, lost nearly an hour a day. When the vessel got beyond the advancement stage, no more work could be done at Pembroke, and the vessel had to be towed round to Devonport. To give a practical illustration of what it cost the country under the present system, he would turn to the Estimates for the present year. On page 190 it would be seen that there were two vessels now building, the Majestic at Portsmouth, and the Renown at Pembroke. The Majestic was much larger than the Renown, being 14,900 tons, while the Renown was only 12,350 tons. The Renown was laid down at Pembroke in February 1893, and the Majestic at Portsmouth in February 1894. The bigger ship was laid down a year after the smaller, but at the conclusion of this year the larger ship would be practically complete, while £100,000 would remain to be spent on the smaller. If rapidity of construction was economy, the Renown would have cost some thousands of pounds by being erected at Pembroke than if it had been erected at Portsmouth. Therefore, on broad national grounds he believed the construction of a jetty at Pembroke, if inserted in this Bill, would be remunerative to the nation. Some ten years ago he went personally into this matter, and he was advised that there happened to be a ledge of rock running out from Pembroke Dockyard, and that a jetty could be constructed on those rocks at a cost of less than £100,000, which would carry all the work necessary for the completion of ships. This scheme made a considerable impression on him and his colleagues, and they came to the conclusion that a primâ facie case had been made out, and they directed that a sum should be provisionally inserted in the Estimates for that purpose. A change of Government took place, and the new Government came to the conclusion that considering the very large amount of unfinished work in hand, they could not embark on these new works, but he always considered that Pembroke had a primary claim for this additional expenditure. He wished to push the point a little, further. We kept our dockyards for the purposes of war as well as building purposes, and nobody could deny that if we were ever engaged in a serious war, the work at all the dockyards would be seriously heavy. Naval mobilisation was exactly the reverse of military mobilisation. The ships had to be brought to where the men and the guns were. If that concentration were to take place only at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Devonport their dockyard system would be strained. But Pembroke, not being absorbed or distracted by these duties, would be able to concentrate attention on building, and if the proposal the hon. Member made in this Amendment were accepted Pembroke would be able to complete every vessel it commenced. Supposing, however, the Amendment was not accepted, and Pembroke remained as it now was—in time of war, when a vessel had been advanced to a certain stage, it would then have to be towed or escorted round to Devonport. It seemed to him essential, therefore, that Pembroke should be included in the Bill. It had the finest harbour, he supposed, in the United Kingdom, and that being so, surely it was advisable that the naval dockyard there should be so constituted that in time of war it would be in a position to undertake the repair of every vessel that had to come into the harbour. He argued this question, not from any sectional or local point of view, but from broad naval and national grounds, and he said the case the hon. Member had made out was one which was not satisfied by the declaration of the Civil Lord, and if the hon. Member pressed the Amendment to a Division he should certainly support him.

supported the Amendment. The Bill, he said, sanctioned proposals for the expenditure of £8,000,000 for the purpose of certain naval works, and out of that sum it was not proposed to spend a farthing on Pembroke Dock. He should not like himself to express any personal opinion after what had fallen from the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, who, he had no doubt, had had the advice of the highest naval experts. But he must take into account the fact that the noble Lord opposite who had been in charge of the Admiralty for some years, and who had as great or greater, an experience in these matters as the Civil Lord, and who had also been in contact with naval experts, was strongly of opinion that the Government were acting unwisely in refusing to accept the suggestion of his hon. Friend. Besides that, the Civil Lord in his speech admitted the case which the hon. Member for Pembroke had made for this Amendment. He said it was true there was need for a jetty and one or two other things in this harbour, and said he would meet the necessity by placing a sum upon the Estimates for next year. There being, therefore, a perfect agreement upon the merits of the case made out, why did the hon. Member in charge of the Bill not meet the Amendment by proposing to expend £70,000 or £80,000 this year? He knew very well he could not possibly pledge the next Government. The noble Lord opposite did not accept the undertaking the hon. Member had given; and, under these circumstances, the promise the Civil Lord had made would not bind any succeeding Government, and might be absolutely worthless so far as Pembroke Dock was concerned. Why not include £70,000 or £100,000 for this purpose in the present year? The Civil Lord said he could not dock off the allowances which had been made in respect of Gibraltar and some other ports, but it would be perfectly possible for him to add a proposal to expend a further £100,000. [Mr. ROBERTSON: "No, no!"] He would ask, as a point of order, whether it would not be competent for the Government, by means of a proposal, to recommit the Bill in order to add the sum of £70,000 or £100,000 to the amount taken?

The procedure is governed and limited by the Resolution which has already passed the House.

would it not be possible for the Government to do this by proposing a fresh Resolution?

I have nothing to add to what I have already stated.

If it is not possible to do it by means of a Resolution, then the only possible course is for my hon. Friend to proceed with his Amendment, and press it to a Division.

was not surprised that no Member of the Government had risen to reply to the speech of his noble Friend, seeing that whilst the point they were discussing was the important one of national policy, not one of the three Members of the Government then present was in the Cabinet. The question they had to consider as to Pembroke was not one of mere local interest, but was a question of high importance in their policy of national Naval defence. He thought this matter ought to be regarded entirely from the point of view of National Naval policy; and he, therefore wished that there was some one on the Treasury Bench who could speak on it from that point of view. The only defence of the Opposition to this Amendment which had been given by the Civil Lord, was a confession of ignorance. The hon. Gentleman had said that a long time after the schedule of the Bill had been prepared, the Board of Admiralty had visited Pembroke, and had come to the conclusion that the Amendment would have been desirable had it been introduced in time. The hon. Gentleman then proceeded to point out that the Government could not introduce into the Bill any charge for those works, which he admitted were desirable, but he endeavoured to bind a future Ministry, of which he might not be a Member, by saying that it would be in a similar Bill to be introduced next year. He wished to point out that the House had been told that the scope of the Bill could be discussed on the schedule; and he certainly would not have allowed the Second Reading to be taken so expeditiously if he had known that he would not be allowed on the schedule to discuss other Naval works, not in the schedule, which ho thought were urgently needed. With regard to Pembroke, all naval authorities agreed that for the purposes of construction, finishing and repairing of vessels, the dockyard was of the highest importance. But on looking thorough the amounts expended on dockyards, he found that the policy of the Government seemed to be to concentrate all their efforts on Portsmouth, Devonport, and Chatham, on which £48,000, £40,000, and £54,000 had been spent respectively, while Pembroke got only £14,000 and Haulbowline£5,000. It, therefore, looked as if the Government, having disestablished and disendowed the dockyard of Ireland, were now about to disestablish and disendow the dockyard of Wales. He should regret that policy immensely. Those who had studied naval strategy knew that in our war with France our great advantage over France was, that she had only one great naval port, at Brest, the successful blockade of which enabled us to triumph in the war. The more naval ports we had the greater would be the difficulty of our enemies to blockade us. Our navy had increased enormously in numbers, and was going on increasing, and yet it seemed to be the policy of the Government to decrease the dockyards. He thought that if naval authorities wore right in that contention, we ought to increase and not decrease our dockyards. Speaking on behalf of the protection of our commerce on the Mersey and Clyde, he desired to point out that that commerce could be more effectively defended if we had a repairing and constructing dockyard at Pembroke. Pembroke was a most important strategical point; and he thought that regarding the matter from the point of view of our national naval policy ought to provide for the expenditure asked for in this Bill.

said, he did not sympathise with the theory that the State should spend money in order that people might get work. But regarding the matter from a national point of view, he thought that the noble Lord had made out a strong case in support of the Amendment. In Milford Haven they had admittedly the finest harbour in the world, in which ships of the heaviest tonnage could ride; and Pembroke Dockyard possessed that most essential condition for a dockyard, and from its position it was incapable of being attacked from land. The three dockyards we have at this moment were facing the Continent. The danger of that position was by no means imaginary. We were erecting enormous and costly works at Portsmouth, Devonport, and Dover to protect them from torpedo attack. The essence of a torpedo attack was that it must be delivered at a short distance from the base of operations. Such an attack was possible in the Channel, and not possible in Milford Haven. Although he did not sympathise with the local view of the question, he desired to support the Motion of the noble Lord.

said, he had less hesitation in intervening now, because on all subsequent parts of the Bill they were all agreed. They were all agreed upon the proposal as to Gibraltar, and all the other proposals of the Civil Lord, and he made bold to say the naval service would be grateful that the hon. Member for the Pembroke Boroughs had had the courage to press the Government to recognise their responsibility. The hon. Member was in a difficult position, and he sympathised with him. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would have the courage of his convictions, and would not run away. The Civil Lord appealed to them in a pathetic way. He thought the Government deserved the confidence of the Committee. He most cordially reciprocated that feeling. The Civil Lord asked them to approve the expenditure of nine or 10 millions of money in carrying out permanent works which had long been desired by naval men. The hon. Gentleman had the confidence of naval men in that matter, but that was not the point. The point was whether the Government had not omitted something from their programme. He trusted the hon. Member for Pembroke Boroughs and for Pembrokeshire would pluck up their courage and stick by the proposal of the former. Where was the hon. Member for Pembrokeshire? He ran away from his guns, for he did not stay to listen to what Members had to say. He hoped someone would send for the hon. Gentleman. Hon. Members did not care twopence for the hon. Members for Pembroke Boroughs and Pembrokeshire and their grievances, and they did not care whether they were going to give a stimulus to the Pembroke Boroughs. This was a national question, and it ought not to be looked at from any local point of view. It was from the national standpoint that Members would support the Member for Pembroke Boroughs. He would like the Civil Lord to tell them what was the opinion of the Captain Superintendents on the question. He had no hesitation in saying that it was the duty of hon. Members on both sides to support the Amendment. It was not a Party question, and he hoped that it never would be; and if the Government were defeated they need not resign. He saw that £300,000 was put down for deepening harbours. That was not a permanent, but an annual work.

It is for permanent dredging work.

said, that was not stated, and he thought that the work was the ordinary dredging of the bars at the mouths of the harbours.

This work is the permanent deepening of harbours in order that they may receive battleships of great draft at all states of the tide. The ordinary dredging work continues to be provided for in the Estimates.

asked whether the sum did not include the mud-dredging at Portsmouth.

said, that the permanent part of that work was included; but the ordinary dredging was provided for in the Estimates.

said, that the jetty advocated by the hon. Member for Pembroke would be a permament work. Every sailor who had ever been in Pembroke Dock knew that the work was necessary, and why should it not be included in the Loan Bill? The noble Lord, the late First Lord of the Admiralty, was perfectly right in pressing this point; but the Government might make a smart reply to him. Was not the noble Lord himself at the head of the Admiralty for six years? He had told the Committee that his Administration considered the question, and saw that a primâ-facie case had been made out. He smiled at the statement of the noble Lord, for he himself was not a Party man on this question. Let the Government retort on the noble Lord as he richly deserved; but if the late Government neglected their duty, it was no reason why the present Government should not do their duty. Private Members could not move to increase the Estimate, but the Government could decrease the Estimate in one particular item, and set apart £20,000 for this jetty. Even if it cost £70,000 it ought to be built. He spoke without regard to any Government in this matter, for all Governments were bad. But the present Government had done their duty in proposing this loan of £9,000,000, and they ought to continue in well-doing, not for the sake of Pembroke Boroughs, but for the sake of the Navy's efficiency. All Naval men were aware of the strategic importance of Pembroke Dock. A vessel leaving Pembroke found itself at once in the open sea, where there was no fear of torpedo-boat attack. This was not the case in leaving Portsmouth. It was the duty of all future Governments to pay more attention to Pembroke. Naval opinion was agreed on this, but unfortunately it had very little weight. The power was with the Government of the day, who ought not to shrink from what they knew to be right. The hon. Member for Pembroke was perfectly right in his argument, whether he was moved by a desire to benefit his constituents or not. He cared nothing about the hon. Member's constituents in this connection. He would urge upon the Government and on hon. Members on both sides of the House, looking at this question from a national and naval point of view, and not from a party point of view, to continue in the policy which had been begun. Hon. Members would find that the Government would bear squeezing, and would yield to pressure; and if the Government were defeated they need not resign.

said, he was obliged for the speech of the hon. Member, though he had said that all Governments were alike bad. But the late First Lord of the Admiralty had delivered a remarkable speech. First of all, the case against the present arrangements was stated exceedingly well, and he had no fault to find with a large portion of the noble Lord's statement. The hon. Member for Pembroke had truly said that the present Government had succeded to a legacy of great arrears in connection with works. This was the last Government, which ought to be reproached with not having undertaken necessary works. The present Government had undertaken an immense quantity of work, had largely increased the Works Vote, and now approached the House with this Bill, asking that it should be passed in order to carry out certain great and costly works. The noble Lord, however, went on to call attention to the difference of speed in the building of the Majestic and the building of the Renown. The noble Lord was aware of the special reasons why the Majestic had been pushed on at Portsmouth, but as to the Renown he should like to ask why the late Government did not undertake the necessary works at Pembroke? Whose fault was it that the present Government had found those defective arrangements in existence? The former Board of Admiralty made the arrangements for the Renown, which was being laid down when he visited Pembroke very soon after the present Government took office; and the fact that the Renown was not able to be built with the same rapidity as the Majestic at Portsmouth was partly due to arrangements left to them by the late Government. The noble Lord had been First Lord of the Admiralty practically since 1885. He was in Office in that year; and he now informed the House that at that time he felt that a primâ facie case for the Pembroke jetty had been made out; then he was out of Office for a few months, but he returned to the Admiralty in 1886, and in the succeeding years 1887, 1888, 1889, and the rest nothing was done by the noble Lord in connection with the work at Pembroke. Now, however, he told the Committee that all this difficulty was due to the present Government, and that the work had long been a primary necessity. The Government were as convinced as their predecessors that this work ought to be done, but it had been jostled out of the way by more pressing works. Having investigated the question on the spot, the Board of Admiralty had announced that they intended to build this jetty at Pembroke, and to do away with the present inconvenient and expensive arrangements at Hobbs' Point. He rejoiced in that decision. He thought that there would be a great saving at Pembroke, but the Admiralty had been justified in deferring the proposal in view of the much more important proposals which had been before them, and which they had been obliged to deal with first. They were all agreed that this important harbour at Pembroke would be greatly improved by the provision of this jetty with efficient and powerful shears placed upon it. They were satisfied that this jetty and these shears were much wanted, and they had determined on the work. It was, however, a small work which they could perfectly well do out of the Estimates, and they did not think that this was a matter which they ought to place on the Loan Bill. One of his hon. Friends had suggested that the Government should spend £70,000 this year on these matters, but that was a sheer impossibility. The work could not be done in a year. His hon. Friend, moreover, did not know how heavily the Works Department at the Admiralty was weighted with the vast amount of the works which they were now carrying out. He asked the Committee to accept the pledge which he gave on the part of the Government and of the Admiralty that, if they held office when the Estimates were framed next year they would place a sum on the Estimates for that purpose. The question as to whether it should appear on the Estimates or be included in the Loan Bill was simply a question of form. If it were placed in the Bill, would his hon. Friends effect their object? They would not tie the hands of any future Government. All that it would do would be to give them power to carry out the work. Another strong point was that they could include it in the Bill without first striking, as his hon. Friend proposed to do, at three other very important items in the Bill. In the Bill had been put down against each item the amount of money which the Government believed and hoped that they would be able to spend on the item during the current year, and it was only by interfering with the items of Keyham Dockyard extension, Portsmouth Docks, and Gibraltar Dock that his hon. Friends could effect their object. He therefore asked them not to press this matter, but to accept the assurance which he had given.

said the right hon. Gentleman's desire to proceed with all speed in passing this Bill would not be furthered by the attack which he had thought fit to make on Members of the late Government. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the responsibility for non-construction at Pembroke devolved on the late Government; but one of the earliest things which the present Government did was to reduce this Vote by £80,000. There was all the difference between placing these works in the Loan Bill and a promise to place them on the Estimates for next year. It was easy to escape from liability to do work by trying to put it off to another year. An undertaking to execute the work at Pembroke need have no effect whatever upon the progress of any of the other works to which the right hon. Baronet had alluded. It would take a considerable time to prepare the necessary plans and to make the contract. The right hon. Baronet said that this Bill could only give the Government power to carry out the work, and that excuses might be made by a future Government for not proceeding with it. The Opposition had from the first contended that this was only a make-believe Bill, and that there would be no obligation to complete the works named therein. That view was now confirmed by the right hon. Baronet, for had he not said that although the Committee might vote the money for executing these works, excuses might be made in future years for not carrying them out.

said, that he should support the Amendment, and he hoped that hon. Members from Wales would vote for it. He should not, however, be surprised if they turned their backs upon it at the last moment, as they did upon another of their own Amendments the other day. He maintained that the Secretary to the Admiralty, who had addressed the Committee in his best pedagogic manner, had given away the whole case for the Government. The right hon. Baronet had said that the Government had excluded Pembroke deliberately. [Sir U. KAY-SHUTTLE-WORTH: "I did not say that; I said Portsmouth Jetty."] At any rate, Pembroke was excluded, and yet the Government admitted the necessity of doing something for that dockyard. They even reproached the noble Lord (Lord G. Hamilton) because he had not done the work, forgetting that the noble Lord did not borrow £9,000,000 for naval works. He had come down to the House prepared to vote with the Government, for at first it did appear to him that this proposal regarding Pembroke was the outcome of a local scramble for public money, and he was also affected by the consideration that if money were appropriated for Pembroke some of it might have to be taken from Gibraltar. But the Government had given away that case, because they now said they were convinced that £70,000 ought to be spent upon Pembroke Dockyard. How did the Government propose to provide this sum? The Chancellor of the Exchequer he saw had just returned to the House. The right hon. Gentleman ought to be informed at once that his inferior colleagues during his absence had undertaken next year to put £70,000 on the Estimates for expenditure on Pembroke dockyard. The right hon. Gentleman, he saw, was horrified at the idea. But it might be that next year a different Government would be in Office, and in that case the responsibility which should be borne by the present Secretary to the Admiralty and the Civil Lord of the Admiralty would be shifted on to other shoulders. If that were to be so, the Opposition would prefer to have the money down. Let it, therefore, be voted now in connection with this Bill. Pembroke was the best point in the United Kingdom, and having regard to its strategic position, a good dockyard ought to be maintained there. Whatever the Members from Wales might do, the Opposition would certainly vote for the Amendment.

supported the Amendment, observing that he had not the slightest personal interest in any dockyard whatever. It had been shown that large vessels could be constructed more economically at Pembroke than in any other dockyard. It had been shown by his hon. Friend and the noble Lord opposite that a saving of £10,000 could be made in a single large vessel. It had been shown that there was a considerable loss of time and money incurred in taking men to and from their work at Pembroke, that a considerable saving of transport could be effected, and that the jetty proposed could be used in future for coaling ships of war. He ventured to think that the Government would be acting wisely and well in laying down a precedent in this matter; and he would ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he could not insert in the present Bill, he would not say the full amount asked for by his hon. Friend, but at all events, an instalment of that amount, so as to give some earnest that the work would be carried on during the course of the present year. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the difference between them was practically only a difference in form, and he trusted that would not divide them on this occasion. All they wanted was an earnest that their work would be proceeded with, and if the right hon. Gentleman would say that a small amount should be inserted in the Bill, then, he thought, they would be satisfied. He hoped the Government would be able to satisfy the request of their supporters in that way. At any rate he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to give an undertaking that in the course of the current year the plans would be prepared and the contract let, so that the House might have a substantial earnest that this work was to be undertaken.

said, he had already stated the reasons why the Government did not think that this work should be included in the Bill; but as regarded the preparation of plans and all the preparatory work, he could assure his hon. Friend that that should be proceeded with immediately. It was, however, quite impossible to begin a new work or to incur an expenditure upon it until Parliamentary sanction had been given to it; but it was the intention of the Board of Admiralty to ask for the sanction next year?