moved that it be read a Second time that day six months. He said the Bill had been introduced for the purpose of legalising certain deviations from the drainage scheme sanctioned in 1892, and also for the purpose of supplying additional money to continue the works then authorised by Parliament. He was aware that Bills of this kind were frequently passed, but that ought only to be done in connection with cases where ordinary care had been taken to carry out the scheme as originally authorised, and where there had been no reckless action on the part of the promoters. He was afraid that the conduct of those in charge of the works at Blackrock and Kingstown was open to a good deal of criticism, and the House ought to pause before sanctioning any further proceedings until a guarantee had been obtained that the works proposed, as well as the works that had already been executed, were really suitable for the purpose in view. He was aware of the inexpediency of opposing Bills of this kind, because, if it were defeated, the expenditure of £50,000 or £60,000 already incurred would be rendered useless, and if the question to be considered were only the legalisation of the deviations to which he had referred, he should hardly have felt justified in making this Motion. The Bill authorised the raising of additional capital to the extent of £12,000 for the work to be dealt with. If the original estimate had only been exceeded after careful consideration, he would have been willing to assent to the use of any additional capital required to complete the scheme. But from personal knowledge he could say that the works already executed had been done in such an imperfect manner that he thought the House ought not to pass the Bill legalising the deviations, and the raising of additional capital unless some guarantee were given that the works would be satisfactorily carried out. The object of the Bill of 1893 was to clear the foreshore between Blackrock and Kingstown of the pollution caused by sewage in that district. To effect this a large tank had been constructed near Kingstown, but, as anybody could see who had been there, as he had, at ebb-tide, the pollution immediately in front of the tank had been aggravated instead of removed, and nothing effectual had been done to remove the sewage at this particular part of the coast. A gentleman who had accompanied him on his visit to the place had taken some photographs on the spot, and he thought that if the right hon. Gentleman could see these he would be convinced that, if the works were finished, as he was informed they were, the object they were designed to secure had not been attained. If the House passed this Bill, therefore, its effect would simply be to perpetuate a nuisance at this particular part of the coast. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would satisfy himself on this point before he gave his sanction to the passing of the Bill. If the £20,000 to be raised was to be applied to remedy the existing state of things, his objection to the Bill would be to a large extent removed, but he understood that it was not to be expended in removing the pollution on the part of the foreshore of which he had been speaking. He was told on excellent authority, also, that other parts of the coast lower down were in a similarly bad state, for the effect of this Bill would be to leave them just as they were, unless some guarantee were obtained to secure the construction of the works proposed in the Act of 1893. He invited the Solicitor General for Ireland to repeat in that House the language he used when he was counsel in the action brought against the Joint Drainage Board in respect of deviations to which he had referred, for that language was a stronger condemnation of the state of things existing than any which he had himself used. He suggested to the right hon. Gentleman that, in order to secure what he had been arguing for, there should be inserted in the Bill a clause providing that it should not take effect until a certificate had been obtained from some competent authority, like the Chief Engineer of the Board of Works, and the works sanctioned by the Act of 1893 had been completed and were sufficient and suitable for their purpose. The inhabitants of Kingstown were of opinion that unless some course of this kind were taken, the state of things would be worse than they were before the Act, and they desired to obtain some guarantee on the point before the Bill was allowed to go further.

said he desired to address a few observations to the House as a resident and large taxpayer in the locality which was affected by this Bill. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Clancy) had alluded to various details, as to which he thought he must have been misinformed. He had spoken of the interest taken by the ratepayers of Kingstown in preserving the foreshore from pollution. The ratepayers of Kingstown had had it in their power for years to carry out their scheme, and they had neglected to do so. Not only had they done that, but they had refused to co-operate with the Blackrock Commissioners with regard to any scheme. So far from the works being completed, there was an interregnum in the operations, arising from the fact that a harbour was to be built for the use of the poor fishermen, by order of the Board of Works. Great improvement had taken place in the foreshore from the sea point to Blackrock. So far as he was individually and personally concerned he regretted exceedingly the enormous expenditure which the project had involved. He was in favour of the Bill because he thought it was the opinion of the majority of the inhabitants of the district that there should be no further delay in carrying out these works merely because a technical error had been committed.

said, that he should be glad to give any assistance he could to the House in this matter, but he hoped that he should be excused from entering into the mere technical part of the subject. The Bill was a very simple one. The Blackrock and Kingstown Drainage Board, soon after they commenced to carry out the works authorised by the Act, found that they had overstepped the limits of deviation authorised by the Measure, and a suit was consequently entered against them by the Attorney General for Ireland. An agreement was, however, entered into by which the suit was suspended until the Board should have an opportunity of applying to the House for additional powers of deviation. The question involved matters of considerable technical detail—first, as to whether the deviation in question was really illegal; and secondly, whether, if it was illegal, the conduct of the Board had been so ill-advised and reckless as to preclude Parliament from passing this ex post facto Measure for giving them relief and sanction for the deviation already made. It was quite impossible for the House to go into these technical details, in regard to which photographs of sewage tanks would have to be examined, which could be far better done by a Committee than by the House itself. The hon. Gentleman had thrown out one suggestion for his consideration—namely, that if this Bill were sent down to him as unopposed, a clause should be inserted requiring that a certificate should be obtained from a competent authority that the works as finally proposed to be carried out were proper and efficient. That suggestion of the hon. Gentleman would receive his careful attention in the case of no petition being presented against the Bill, and it coming down, to him as an unopposed Bill. He thought he should be acting rightly in these circumstances in asking the House to follow the ordinary course with regard to this Bill, and, after having read the Measure a second time, to send it before a Committee upstairs, which would have an opportunity of carefully considering its proposals.

said that the Main Drainage Board of Blackrock and Kingstown had had their powers conferred upon them by their Act of 1893, and this Bill had been introduced to protect them from the consequences of their illegal and reckless action. The Board had promoted their Bill in 1892, when, in consequence of their non-compliance with the Standing Orders of the House, the ratepayers had suffered a loss of £1,000 through their incompetency. The passing of the Bill in 1893 cost the ratepayers an additional sum of £10,000, and a further loss of £2,500 was sustained in consequence of the Board issuing a loan at 98 per cent. instead of at par. The Board now came to the House for power to raise £12,000 to make good that loss. He considered that a most atrocious and egregious act of illegality had been perpetrated. Why should the ratepayers of Blackrock be called upon to pay the expenses of promoting this further Bill? to enable their representatives to escape the consequence of illegal proceedings. He said that the House ought, in justice to the ratepayers, to see that the expenses of this Bill should be divided between the Main Drainage Board and the two Townships.

said after the undertaking given he should withdraw his opposition.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his attention has been drawn to the numerous complaints that have come from the clergy in all parts of the country as to the exceedingly heavy incidence of rates and taxes upon their incomes; and, whether he can see his way to affording them any relief in the Budget beyond the general reduction of the Land Tax in which they will participate?

My attention has been drawn to these cases; but it should be remembered that, in addition to the relief which the clergy will obtain in cases where the Land Tax is more than 1s. in the pound on the amount of a parish to Schedule A of the Income-Tax, the occupiers of glebes will also be considerably relieved under the provisions of the Agricultural Land Rating Bill. I observe that there is an Amendment on the Paper to give further relief in the matter of Land Tax to incumbents of small livings, and the suggestion is one which appears to be deserving of consideration.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether the attention of the Board of Works has been directed to the flooding of Lough Key whereby nearly 800 acres of land are rendered almost useless to the adjoining farmers; whether he is aware that these floods are caused by the raising of the lock at Knockvicar at the outlet of Lough Key into the Shannon, and the failure to provide a regulating sluice gate; and, whether he will direct the Board of Works to have steps taken to alter the nature of the lock at Knock-vicar so as to prevent the periodical flooding of the lands of the adjoining farmers?

The Board of Works inform me that there can be no flooding by the mere keeping up of the water to the navigation level. Since the 26th July 1894, when the hon. Member asked a similar Question, the water in Lough Key has never risen to a higher level than, six inches above that of the navigation level maintained for 40 years prior to that date, and no regulating sluice at Knock-vicar would obviate the liability to this or even a greater rise during winter floods. No improvement that could be effected there would justify the expense involved in the construction and maintenance of sluices and consequential works. The lock at Knockvicar has never been raised, and a regulating sluice is, for the reasons given above, not considered necessary. No alteration to the lock or weir at Knockvicar would insure the water in Lough Key being kept down to navigation level during winter floods

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can give the number of labourers' cottages erected in the Mountrath division of the Mountmellick Union, and what expenses were incurred; will he explain why the 15 cottages, finally adopted under a fifth scheme, are delayed; and whether the Government intend to introduce a Measure to cheapen, simplify, and expedite the erection of labourers' dwellings?

Four cottages have been erected in the electoral division named at a cost of £559. The delay in carrying out the 5th Improvement Scheme arises from the fact that the Guardians have not yet got possession of the plots for the cottages to be erected under it. The Guardians are using their best endeavours to expedite the matter. A Bill having for its object the Amendment of the Labourers' Acts is now ready.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will state the number of abstractors in the Civil Service who are at present in receipt of an annual salary of £100 and upwards, and the average number of years actually served by those officers as writers and abstractors before attaining that salary?

Practically, all abstractors of the old class who have served four years as such, draw salaries exceeding £100. Their annual increment is £2 10s., and in all seven hour offices they started at not less than £91 5s., plus the amount of any bonus which they received as copyists, such bonus being calculated at the rate of 30s. for each year of copyist service over eight. The longer the service as copyist, the greater the initial salary as abstractor. The new abstractor class, which is to be recruited from boy clerks and boy copyists, will not reach £100 till after 12 years of service as abstractors.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he is aware that in many instances the terms of the Treasury Minute (Order Book 189A, Reg. No. 171,074), dated 4th June 1894, relating to sick pay, have been abrogated in the cases of several officers within the London Postal District, who have been called upon to resign, or retire on pension, for a far less period of sick leave than is authorised in the Minute in question?

The terms of the Treasury Minute fix certain limits beyond which sick pay cannot be granted—namely, six months with full pay and six months with half pay; but the Minute says that no sick leave at all is to be given unless there is a reasonable hope of recovery. In the cases where men have been called upon to retire before they had been allowed the maximum amount of sick leave with pay, they had been certified to be unfit for further duty.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, whether it is a fact that the seamen of the Royal Naval Reserve are not kept in practice at sea in shooting with the big guns, owing to the want of a vessel in which they can be sent afloat in batches for this purpose during the suitable months of the year; and whether he will consider the question of forthwith affording facilities for this essential part of the training of Naval Reserves.

The first part of the hon. and gallant Member's question assumes that the difficulty of keeping seamen of the Royal Naval Reserve in practice at sea in shooting with big guns is simply due to the want of a vessel in which they can be sent afloat during certain months of the year. The hon. and gallant Gentleman should bear in mind that Naval Reserve men are allowed to select their own times of the year for drill, and avail themselves of this permission to come without prefixing the dates, while the fishermen, who form a large portion of the Reserve, come to drill mostly in the winter. Nor is shooting with big guns the only or chief duty which would fall upon the Reserve in time of war. As I have before stated, we are making progress in substituting modern guns for the more obsolete guns in the batteries, and are giving practice at sea to an increasing extent; and we hope to move forward as far as possible in that direction.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the lowest grade on the minor establishment in the Stationary Office, i.e., porters, enjoy an increment of 1s. per week, or £2 12s. per annum, with the further prospect of becoming warehousemen at salaries of £120, rising by £4 annually to £150 per annum, whereas the lowest grade on the major establishment of the Stationery Office, i.e., posting clerks of the abstractor class, receive an annual increment of £2 10s., a lower increment than that enjoyed by porters; whether posting clerks have any further promotion open to them in the Stationery Office; and whether he will take steps to remedy this state of things?

There are three classes of porters in the Stationery Office. Their initial pay is 20s. a week, and the two lowest classes rise by annual increments of 1s. to 23s. and 27s. respectively. The top class are paid at various rates not exceeding 36s. a week. The hon. Member will therefore see that the porters start at £52 a year, that their increments (being dependent on their promotion from class to class) are intermittent, not continuous, and that their highest pay is £93 a year, which is hardly as much as the initial pay at which the posting clerks started. The porters have no claim to promotion to the class of warehousemen, whose scale is £100 (not £120), by £4 to £150, though they are eligible for such promotion if specially qualified. The posting clerks belong to the general class of abstractors, who started as a rule at something over £90 a year, and rise steadily by £2 10s. to £150. The class was created a few years ago for the performance of work of a higher order than copying, but not of a sufficiently advanced or responsible character to be assigned to clerks of the Second Division, and I cannot admit that they are not paid well enough for the work they do. There is obviously no analogy either between their continuous increments and the intermittent increments of the porters or between their more or less rudimentary clerical work and the responsible duty of supervising labour in a warehouse.

I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works, if his attention has been called to the fact that the very limited space available to the Regular Garrison and the Volunteer Force of London for drilling in Hyde Park has this summer been further curtailed by the erection of a number of additional iron hurdles, and if he will be so good as to give directions that the utmost amount of space shall be left free of artificial obstruction on the Guards' Parade Ground, on the ground opposite Knight-bridge Barracks, on the ground near Stanhope Gate, and on the ground to the south-east of Victoria Gate during the drill season?

As the grass in the east end of Hyde Park was rapidly disappearing, a large number of additional hurdles have been placed at the sides of the footpaths. Any representations that are made from time to time by the general officer commanding the district for the temporary removal of hurdles for purposes of drill will receive attention.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether permission was withheld from the Mile End Guardians to begin their proposed school buildings until after the Poor Law Schools Committee had reported; whether he is aware that the village school at Hornchurch cost £54,900, with an annual cost for each child of £38 6s. 7d., and that Banstead village school cost £93,000, with an annual expense for each child of £28 4s.; and, whether he will prevent the Mile End Guardians from building the same kind of school when certified homes and the boarding out system recommended in that Report would entail an annual cost per child of only £15 12s. and £13 6s. 8d. respectively?

The Local Government Board in November 1895, informed the Mile End Guardians that they would be unable to assent to building operations being commenced on the site which had been acquired by the Guardians for school buildings, before the Report of the Poor Law Schools Committee had been received. I have no reason to doubt the approximate accuracy of the statements in the Question as to the cost of the schools on the cottage home system at Hornchurch and Banstead. The accommodation required by the Mile End Guardians is for over 400 children, a large proportion of whom clearly could not properly be boarded out. If for these children the only alternative was their admission to certified homes, as it is entirely at the option of the managers of each certified home what children shall be admitted, the Mile End Guardians might at any time find themselves without proper accommodation for large numbers of their children. If the Guardians are willing to avail themselves of the system of boarding out to a larger extent than at the present time, there would certainly be no objection on the part of the Board; but to force a Board of Guardians to adopt that system, assuming that I had the power to do so, is a policy which I am not prepared to accept.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, is he aware that very general complaint exists in the district served by the Midland Great Western Railway Company at the slowness of their trains and the very rude and primitive style of their third class accommodation; whether he is aware that the average speed of the ordinary train is 24 miles per hour for the whole length of their service, and 35 miles per hour for their limited mail; and, whether he will direct the attention of the Railway Commissioners to this state of things with a view to effecting some improvement?

I have communicated with the Railway Company with reference to the hon. Member's Question, and I shall be happy to show him the reply. They deny the accuracy of the statement as to the speed of the trains, and state that they are not aware of any complaints in regard to the third class accommodation. It is also alleged that the passenger service generally has been considerably improved. The Railway Commissioners occupy a judicial position, and I cannot communicate with them in the way suggested. Complainants must proceed in accordance with the Rules of the Court.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether a School Board, provided under Section 6 of the Education Bill, will be a Voluntary School or a school provided by a School Board; whether a Board School, when transferred under Section 8 (1) to the Education Authority, will still be regarded as a school provided by a School Board, or will, for any of the purposes of the Act, be a Voluntary School; and, whether a school transferred under Section 8 (2) to the Education Authority will be regarded as a school provided by a School Board, or will, for any of the purposes of the Act, be a Voluntary School?

All the schools referred to in the Question would be regarded as schools provided by a School Board.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether all public Elementary Schools maintained by the Education Authority will be subject to the obligations of Section 14 of the Education Act of 1870?

Yes, Sir.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether the special aid grant of 4s. under Section 4 will be paid to any school maintained by an Education Authority under the powers conferred on it to act as a School Board, or as the successor to a School Board?

No, Sir. [Laughter.]

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, what will be the effect of the Education Bill upon the position of the present inspectors of Schools and of the sub-inspectors of both classes as Civil Servants of the Crown.

The Education Bill would have no effect upon the position of the inspectors and sub-inspectors of schools as Civil Servants of the Crown.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, what is the number of School Boards entitled to the additional grant under Section 97 of the Act of 1870, and to the special aid grant under the Education Bill which have not claimed the additional grant under Section 97 of the Act of 1870 during the past two years.

There are 260 of such schools.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if he will grant the Return relating to the Salaries, &c., of Secretaries of Grand Juries in Ireland which stands on this day's Paper.

The Government have no record of the number of days upon which Secretaries of Grand Juries are engaged in the discharge of their duties, or of the number of hours so engaged each day, nor have the Government any means of obtaining such information. These officers are appointed by Grand Juries; they are not under the control of the Executive, and I cannot, therefore, agree to the Motion for the proposed Return. As regards their salaries, these are fixed by the Grand Jury Act 6th and 7th William IV., though they may also receive an increase of salary when the duties of County Treasurer are imposed on them and for applotting the County Cess.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether he will be able, before the consideration of the Light Railways Bill, as amended, to state the names of the Commissioners whom he proposes to appoint?

Without making any absolute promise, I hope to be in a position to give the information desired when the Bill is under consideration.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, (1) whether his attention has been drawn to the recent arrests of Timothy Higgins, junior, Ordkeel, Roscommon, and two others, for contempt of court, at the instance of Mr. Roper, Knock-croghery, who under old patent rights claims to prevent certain Saturday markets in Roscommon and arrest peasants and others who attend those markets in ignorance of his claims; (2) whether he will advise the Lord Lieutenant to have these men released from Tullamore Prison; and, (3) whether he will be prepared to promote legislation to amend the law of imprisonment for contempt of court?

I am informed that the persons referred to were committed to prison under a writ of attachment issued by the Court of Chancery for breach of an injunction restraining the holding of a fair at Roscommon, to the prejudice of the fair which Mr. Roper is entitled to hold at Knockcroghery, and for disobedience and contempt of the order of the Court. The arrests of these persons have no relation to the ordinary Saturday markets in Roscommon mentioned in the Question. The responsibility for the proceedings in this case rests with the Court of Chancery, and the Executive cannot interfere in any way. It is not the intention of the Government to promote legislation in the direction suggested in the last paragraph.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether it is a fact that the gold plate and other articles taken at Kumasi, said to be worth £2,000, have been placed in the hands of a London jeweller for sale; and, whether they could be retained for the country?

All the specimens of any particular value taken at Kumasi have been reserved, and will be added to the collection of gold ornaments, etc., belonging to the Gold Coast Government which is deposited in the Imperial Institute. The British Museum already has better specimens of the same work; and in these circumstances it has been decided to sell the remainder, as there would be no object in keeping them.

asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he did not think it would be in accordance with the practice of civilised nations to return these valuable articles to the countries from which they came?

The hon. Gentleman assumes that they are valuable, and I think I have already shown by my answers on previous occasions that they have no value other than the intrinsic value of the gold upon them and with which they are plated. I do not think it is the practice of civilised nations under such circumstances to return such articles to the countries from which they came.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he is aware that when a National Telephone subscriber at a distance is rung up over the Government trunk wires and found to be engaged speaking to someone else, it has become the practice to charge one-fourth the tariff rate for this information, no value having been received or conversation, had, and, as no fractions are accepted, the fourth of 3d. is held to be a 1d., or 6d. to be 2d., and of 9d. to be 3d.; whether he is aware that no such charge is made in foreign countries, and that no such charge was made when the trunk wires belonged to the National Telephone Company; and, if he can see his way to put an end to this charge?

I do not think that the hon. Member has been correctly informed. There are two distinct cases, one of a subscriber engaged on a trunk circuit and the other of a subscriber engaged on a local circuit, but rung up over the trunk wires in cither case. In the former case the call is held over until the subscriber is free, and it is only when the person with whom the call originates is unwilling himself to wait and desires that the call may be cancelled, that one-quarter of the fee is charged. In no case does the charge exceed 6d. I think this must commend itself as a reasonable rule, for in such a case a service is certainly performed by the Department and the person originating the call is treated with every consideration. In the other case, the practice is to momentarily interrupt the local conversation and inform the subscriber that a person in another town wishes to speak to him over a trunk wire. If he declines to to respond and prefers to go on with his local conversation, the whole fee is charged for the use to which the trunk wire has been put. The two cases are essentially different. In the one the subscriber may be in the midst of a conversation for which a substantial fee has been paid, and if the conversation were interrupted it might be extremely difficult for him or his correspondent to arrange for its being resumed. In the other he is in the midst of a conversation for which no fee has been paid, and which can probably be resumed easily and in a very short time. I am not aware that the Company had laid down any definite rules on the subject; but it is clear that, if the working of the trunk wires by the State is to be fair for all and is not to subject the taxpayers to loss, there must be rules to prevent waste of time on the extremely valuable system which is placed at the disposal of the public. I am not aware that no charge is made in foreign countries. On the contrary I am informed that in similar cases in Holland one half, and in Germany the whole of the full fee is charged.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, will he explain why the Post Office will not extend to newspapers the advantage of posting without stamps but by simple prepayment, such as may be done in the case of circulars or company prospectuses; what is the reason for this distinction; whether he endorses the official statement of the Postmaster and Surveyor at Glasgow in a letter to a newspaper proprietor, dated 6th May 1896, that the postage for newspapers cannot he prepaid in money; And whether any newspapers in England enjoy the privilege of postage on prepayment without adhesive stamps?

Prepayment of postage in money necessitates a very elaborate system of check. It is only possible even for circulars and prospectuses, when the packets are brought to the office of posting a considerable time in advance of the closing of the letter box. Each packet must represent a postage value of £1 at least, or 480 circulars or prospectuses. In London no such packets are accepted before 9 a.m. or after 4 p.m., that being the least busy period of the day. News papers are posted by the newsagents at the very last moment in the evening or very early in the morning, and it is on this account impracticable to extend to newspapers the advantage of posting without stamps. In no case does the privilege extend to single circulars. I have not seen the official statement of the Postmaster and Surveyor of Glasgow referred to in the Question, but it appears to be correct. A special arrangement has for many years existed under which copies of The Times receive the impression of a paid stamp at The Times offices. I may further state that newspaper publishers and newsagents are allowed to send their stamped wrappers to the General Post Office to be obliterated beforehand, and that newspapers subsequently posted in such wrappers for the night mails are accepted 30 minutes later than the advertised time.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether, in consequence of the alteration of the terms of study at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, the parents of some cadets have had to pay twice over for two months' tuition; and, whether the authorities at the War Office have declined either to refund the money or to give any explanation as to the reason for this extra charge being made?

The commencement of the terms was altered for the public convenience, with the result that the date of payment is thrown forward by nearly three months, but the total charge for the cadet's instruction remains the same as previously, while he has the advantage of obtaining his commission three months earlier. The payment must, therefore, remain as it is; but the usual messing allowance for the number of days by which the time is to be shortened will be allowed to each cadet on his leaving the Academy.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, with reference to an insured parcel posted by Mr. Samuel Henson from the Vigo Street Post Office on 25th January last, and addressed to Mr. H. S. Sanders Clark, 2 Villas Bell Rive, Mentone, whether he is aware that this parcel was lost in transit, that no trace of it has been found, and that the French Post Office have given no information as to any steps taken for its recovery; and, can he state how long a time, under the rule for the insurance of parcels, is allowed to elapse before a parcel is deemed to be lost; and when, in the present case, the amount for which this parcel was insured is likely to be paid?

The parcel referred to by the hon. Member was at first, on January 31st, reported to be lost, but Mr. Henson subsequently, on February 3rd, explained that the parcel was not lost, but that a gold pin which it should have contained was missing when it was opened after delivery in France. The time taken to settle a claim of this kind depends, of course, on the inquiries which have to be made both in this country and in the foreign country or countries concerned. The only stipulation in the Parcel Post Convention with France which bears on the length of time to be taken in inquiries is one which provides that—

"The payment of the indemnity ought to take place as soon as possible, and at the latest within a year of the date of the application."

In the present case Mr. Henson's first complaint was made on the 31st January, and on the same day the French Post Office, which had taken over the parcel without challenge, was written to, but it was not till the 11th instant that a reply was received stating that after due investigation the French authorities had decided not to accept liability on the ground that the addressee signed a receipt and accepted the parcel without remark, and the delivering facteur was not present when it was opened, as the well-known Regulations require.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether, as stated in a telegram from Rangoon published in The Times of 12th May, it is true that he has offered to sanction the creation of a Legislative Council for Burma; and, if so, whether he will favourably consider the grant of a Legislative Council to the Punjab, as prayed for during the last ten years?

It is true that the question as to the establishment of Legislative Councils in Burma and in the Punjab is now under the consideration of the Government of India, and that I am expecting to receive a report from them on the subject; but I am, of course, unable in the meantime to give any opinion as to the decision which may be arrived at.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether certain land at the Treaty Port of Chefoo, claimed by right of pre-emption, or possession, by British subjects, has been recently occupied by or on behalf of Russian subjects or the Russian Government; and, if so, whether he can give any further details in the matter?

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether the report that Chefoo has been occupied by the Russians is true; and, if so, whether the Government propose to make any representation on the subject?

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he can communicate the facts regarding the alleged seizure by Russia of territory near Chefoo, which is in occupation of British concessionaires; whether such seizure has been made by or on behalf of the Russian Government; and, what action Her Majesty's Government propose to take?

No information of any occupation by Russia of Chefoo has reached Her Majesty's Government. What has happened is as follows:—According to information received from Her Majesty's Minister at Peking a concession has been granted to a Russian firm at Chefoo by which certain British riparian owners consider their vested rights to have been infringed. The Chinese Government have been warned that they cannot include in such a concession lands or houses belonging to British subjects unless the latter agree to be so included, or accept compensation for the surrender of their rights, and Her Majesty's Minister has informed the Tsungli Yamen that they will be held responsible for all injury to British vested interests.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether, as an outbreak of 15 cases of small-pox in and around High Wycombe has been traced to rags imported from Gloucester, any, and, if so, what action can be brought to bear upon the owners of paper mills to cause all rags to be disinfected before being cut up by the women employed; and, when the Report of the Royal Commission will be issued?

I am informed that the outbreak of small-pox in question has been traced by the local medical officer of health to rags imported from Gloucester. Under the Public Health Act, 1875, the transmission, without previous disinfection, of rags that have been exposed to infection is for bidden, under penalty, and the local authority have also power to direct the destruction of any articles that have been so exposed, and to pay compensation. The necessity of these provisions being carried out is being pressed on the Corporation of Gloucester. At the same time, I would call attention to the fact that rag sorters, to whom, among paper mill operatives, the danger is practically limited, have in vaccination and re-vaccination a remedy which is simple, effectual, and, when performed by the public vaccinator, absolutely without cost to them.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, what proceedings the Government are going to take against the Directors of the South Africa Chartered Company who are implicated in the late raid in the Transvaal?

My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to the Question. In view of the statement already made, that full inquiry will be made into all the circumstances connected with the Chartered Company, I must decline at present to answer any Question as to future proceedings, the propriety of which may depend upon the results of that inquiry.

When will the inquiry take place?

As the House has already been made aware, the inquiry will take place on the conclusion of the judicial proceedings.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether Mr. Beit is not a German subject, and whether, in view of his possible criminality, any steps will be taken to prevent his leaving the country?

Order, order! Any Question of that kind had better be put after notice.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether, for the purpose of the scale of pay of postmen, Cork is only a fifth class office, whereas Limerick, with a much smaller population, is a fourth class office; and, if so, why; whether the second class sorting clerks in Dublin, Belfast, Limerick, and Cork are in receipt of a uniform rate of pay, and why a different practice prevails as regards postmen; whether, within the past 15 years, the maximum pay of second class sorting clerks has increased from 24s. to 42s., i.e., by 18s. a week, whereas, in the same time, the maximum salary of postmen in Cork has only increased by 4s., i.e., from 20s. to 24s.; and, whether something will now be done to improve the position of the Cork postmen?

For the purpose of the scale of pay of postmen, Cork and Limerick are on an equality. The second class sorting clerks in Dublin, Belfast, Limerick, and Cork are in receipt of a uniform scale of pay, but the pay of the postmen varies somewhat on account of its being based upon the value of outdoor labour in those towns. Within the past 15 years, the maximum pay of second class sorting clerks at Cork and Limerick has increased from 25s. and 24s. respectively, to 40s., i.e., by 15s. and 16s. a week, whereas, in the same time, the maximum salary of postmen in Cork has only increased by 4s., i.e., from 20s. to 24s. The question of the Cork postmen will be considered in connection with the general questions now before the Tweedmouth Committee, and pending the Report of the Committee, it is not proposed to take any steps in the matter.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Irish Land Commission have, in a circular widely distributed by them describing the advantages of spraying potatoes with "Bordeaux mixture," drawn attention in particular to one variety of it manufactured by a Mr. Strawson; what their reason for this singling out one English manufacturer in this way is; whether he is aware that in the recent Report of the Land Commission as to the experiments in spraying potatoes made by them, they state that besides Mr. Strawson's preparation they also used two others—namely, Harrington's powder and Harrington' s paste, made by a Cork firm, and that no advantage could be traced to the use of any one of these preparations as compared with the other, and that the Cork preparations were cheaper; and, whether, under these circumstances, he will request the Land Commission either to withdraw the circular in question or to amend it by putting all manufacturers on an equal footing?

Perhaps the hon. Member will be good enough to repeat this Question to-morrow.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether any regulations have been made with regard to the retirement of the Professors of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland, in compliance with the recommendations of the Commission appointed for that purpose; and, if so, whether such regulations apply in any case to the existing occupiers of Professorial Chairs?

The regulations proposed by the Government with regard to the retirement of Professors of Queen's Colleges were notified to the College authorities some time about Easter, when it appears the colleges were out of session, and the college authorities have not favoured the Government with any expression of their views in the matter. These regulations have been framed so as to secure the preservation of the rights of existing Presidents and Professors who held office before October 10th, 1893.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the attention of the Postmaster General has been called to the evidence given before the Departmental Committee on the Post Office Establishment by Mr. Lewin Hill, head of the provincial postmen, with reference to the preliminary examination necessary for postmen, in which he is reported to have stated that in Ireland a candidate was more sure to get through the examination but was not worth so much when he had passed, that they would often much rather have an Englishman or Scotchman who could not pass than an Irishman who could, and that Irishmen had a large faculty for passing examinations but not for being useful; whether it has been Mr. Hill's practice to act on the views thus expressed in the appointment of postmen; and, whether the Postmaster General has been cognisant of the existence of such a practice?

The attention of the Postmaster General has not been called to the evidence given by Mr. Lewin Hill before Lord Tweedmouth's Committee on Post Office Establishments. No such statement as that mentioned by the hon. Member appears in the official Report of the evidence. Some remarks which Mr. Hill made before the Committee as to the faculty of Irishmen for passing examinations were made—as I am informed—in joke, and were not treated as part of the official evidence, from which I have already stated they have been omitted. Mr. Lewin Hill in the past has had nothing to do with the appointment of postmen. A candidate for the position of postman has to pass exactly the same examination whether he be English, Scotch, or Irish.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state whether he will this Session introduce the Employers' Liability Bill, promised in the Speech from the Throne at the opening of the Session; and, if not, will he afford facilities for the discussion and passing into law of the Bill on the subject introduced by the hon. Member for Battersea, the principle of which both Houses of Parliament have already affirmed, seeing that it deals with 90 per cent. of industrial accidents not affected by the Coal Mines Regulation Bill, which only deals with 10 per cent. of such accidents?

The Bill has been for a long time quite ready, but I do not think it would be desirable to introduce it unless there were a reasonable prospect of there being time for the House to discuss it. I am afraid there does not appear to be any such prospect. I have not seen the Bill of the hon. Member for Battersea.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, is he aware that, in a complaint at the suit of the Ballyshannon Loan Fund against a borrower, heard before Mr. J. M. Hamilton, R. M., and the local justices at the Ballyshannon Petty Sessions (county Donegal) on the 30th April, Mr. Mackey, an official of the fund, swore that the rate of interest charged by the fund was 9d. per pound on each pound borrowed for 20 weeks; what steps does he propose to take to compel the officials of this and other loan funds established under Act 6 and 7 Vic., c. 91, to comply with Section 27, which limits the rate of interest to 4d. in the pound on each pound borrowed; and whether, if on investigation he comes to the conclusion that an excessive rate of interest has been charged, he will take steps to secure that the sums thus exceeded be refunded?

Mr. Mackey states that, at the hearing of the case in question, he mentioned that a borrower of a sum of £2, actually received £1 18s. 5d. He was not asked to account for the disposal of the sum of 1s. 7d., representing the difference between these two sums, and had this been done he would have pointed out that the interest chargeable on the loan amounted to 1½d. for each pound repayable by five monthly instalments, or 1s. 3d. in all; and in addition, 2d. for the promissory note stamp, 1d. for the card, and 1d. for the application form. The rate of interest charged on the loan in this case was strictly in accordance with Section 28 of the Act 6 and 7 Vic., cap. 91, and is applicable to the repayment of loans by monthly instalments. The rate of 4d. in the pound mentioned in the Question is prescribed by Section 27 of the Act, and applies to loans repayable by twenty weekly instalments.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make any further statement with reference to British Treaty Rights in Madagascar?

A formal representation has been addressed to the French Government concerning British Treaty Rights in Madagascar, but no reply has as yet been received.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether he is aware that the mechanics and labourers of the permanent staff employed under the Science and Art Department are placed at a disadvantage as compared with the attendents and messengers of the same Department in the matter of sick pay and superannuation; and, whether he can see his way to carry out the proposals suggested in their memorial of 10th December 1893, which received the favourable recommendation of the responsible authorities under whom these men perform their duties.

The machines and labourers employed in the Science and Art Department are not part of the permanent staff. They do not, as the attendants and messengers do, receive certificates from the Civil Service Commission, and do not therefore obtain the benefit of the provisions of the Superaunuation Act relating to pension. The Committee of Council have no power to alter their status in this respect.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether his attention has been called to the correspondence between certain leading inhabitants of Balbriggan and the Great Northern Railway Company of Ireland relative to the desirability of re-converting the portion of the railway bridge at that station to the east of the lines of rail into a public footway; and whether he is aware that the proposed work would have the double effect of providing for the majority of the inhabitants of Balbriggan a passage to the sea other than the existing dangerous one over a level crossing of the company's line, and of also affording a protection to the Great Northern Railway Company's passengers, the want of which has recently led to a fatal accident at the bridge mentioned; and, if so, whether the Board of Trade will communicate with the Great Northern Railway Company of Ireland on this subject?

My attention had not been directed to this subject, but I have now communicated with the railway company, and learn that the matter has been under the consideration of the directors. I gather that, as a footpath already exists on the west side of the viaduct referred to, the directors are of opinion that there is no necessity for a second footpath alongside the same viaduct on the east side, which could only be supplied at very considerable expense. The company also inform me that the town is on the west side of the railway, and that a second footpath on the east side of the viaduct would not be of any advantage whatever to the townspeople in getting to the sea, which they can reach without going over the level crossing.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his attention has been called to the fact that on 12th May a man, charged at the West London Police Court with being found drunk, was discharged on taking the pledge, without further punishment; and, if so, whether this form of procedure is to be adopted in other police courts?

My attention had not previously been called to the case. The matter is one in the discretion of the magistrates, as to which I have no power of interference.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, if the War Office have considered the waste caused by not using the Wittington Barracks, Lichfield, for the training of the Staffordshire Militia Regiments; and if they are taking any steps to acquire ranges on Cannock Chase, so as to remove the difficulty as to ranges being too far off?

The barracks referred to are not available for the Militia, being occupied fully by a line battalion. The North Staffordshire Militia trains this year at Leominster, where there is a Lee-Metford rifle range; the South Staffordshire Militia battalions go to Aldershot. I am not in a position at present to make any statement as to a range on Cannock Chase.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, if he will give instructions, on the approaching visit of the Channel Fleet to the Bristol Channel, for a visit to be paid to the neighbourhood of Swansea and the Mumbles?

asked the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of the forthcoming royal visit to Cardiff, he would order the Fleet to visit Milford Haven, and to cruise round the coast?

The wish of the hon. Member will be noted with a view to one or more of Her Majesty's ships visiting the Mumbles anchorage in June should circumstances admit, but it is not the Channel Squadron which I have mentioned in connection with a visit to the Bristol Channel.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether native East Indian soldiers are informed on their enlistment that they are liable to be sent out of India for service abroad; and, will he state briefly the clauses in the East Indian Enlistment Act which deal with the territory or territories in which Indian recruits may be called upon to serve; and, if not, will he cause a copy of the East Indian Enlistment Act to be placed in the Library, within reach of Members; and, should there be no special East Indian Enlistment Act, then a copy of the old East India Company's Regulations on this subject?

Under Article 1 of the Indian Articles of War a native soldier is enlisted to go "wherever he is ordered by land or sea." The liability to be sent on foreign service is carefully explained to all recruits.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether the Government of India has given its consent to the revenues of India being charged with the expenses, either ordinary or extraordinary, of the troops to be sent to Suakim; and whether he will lay upon the Table, as was done in a similar case in 1882–3, the telegrams and correspondence with the Government of India on the subject; also whether, in view of his statement of March 2nd, he could now tell the House; whether India was to bear any part of the charge for the expenses of the Indian force recently sent to Mombasa?

I am in correspondence with the Government of India, and I will follow the precedent of 1882–3 in laying the correspondence and telegrams on the Table of the House. As regards the second Question, it would be convenient if the hon. Gentleman will allow me to defer this Question till to-morrow, when I hope to make a statement both with regard to Suakim and Mombasa.

Who is actually paying for the ships which are chartered for the removal of the troops from Bombay?

There is an account periodically adjusted between the Indian and Imperial Government, by which advances are made for convenience, and it is the practice to advance sums from the Indian Treasury in connection with the transport of troops from India. These advances are not held to be charges.

I beg to ask what is the estimated cost per month for ordinary expenses of the Indian military force that is being dispatched to Suakim?

The approximate monthly cost in India of the native troops under orders for Suakim is Rx.9.000, or £5,000.

Does this include superannuation charges?

No; I think not. It is their ordinary pay and allowances.

I assume, after what fell from the noble Lord just now, that to-morrow is the day to be devoted to the discussion of this subject?

All that my noble Friend said was that to-morrow he would make a statement, both with regard to the Indian troops to be sent to Suakim and those sent to Mombasa. I propose to give the first Parliamentary day after the conclusion of the Committee stage of the Bill now under discussion to Debate of the Question. [Opposition cries of "Oh, oh!" and Ministerial cheers.]

I beg to ask the First Lord of Treasury, if, in view of the inconvenience caused by this House having to decide on the merits of opposed Charity Commission Schemes after a short discussion taken after midnight, and often without any guidance from the Government as a whole, he will arrange that in future such schemes, if opposed, shall be referred to a Select Committee of this House, or to a Joint Committee of both Houses, as recommended by the Royal Commission on Secondary Education?

The matter will receive the attention of the Government.

I wish to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give any information as to the release of a number of Armenian prisoners who have for some time past been in prison at Aleppo, and concerning whom repeated representations have been made to the Ottoman Government by the Foreign Office?

Yes, Sir; we heard yesterday by telegraph that a number of Armenian prisoners—30, I think, in all—have been, largely, as we hope, owing to the representations of Her Majesty's Government through the Consul at Aleppo, released from the Aleppo gaol.

May I ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can give the House any information as to the date when the Committee stage of the Education Bill will be taken?

I cannot give my right hon. Friend any definite information on that subject, but I have already indicated to the House on more than one occasion the general course of public business as far as I have been able to foresee it. I propose that we should go on de die, in diem, with the exception of Fridays, of course, with the discussion of the Rating Bill. After the Rating Bill has been dealt with we shall have, as I have just now stated to the House, to give an opportunity for discussing the question connected with the Indian troops. Then the Second Reading of the Irish Land Bill will probably come on, and after that the Education Bill. Of course that general sketch must not be taken to preclude me from bringing forward non-controversial and minor measures immediately after the Whitsuntide holidays, for example, at a time when the House would not desire to be expected to attend to the more important questions to which I have referred.

asked when the Finance Bill would be taken in Committee?

I should like to put that down, if I could, before the Whitsuntide holidays. [Opposition laughter.]

asked if the Finance Bill would be taken as the First Order when it was taken?

Will it be taken before 12 o'clock?

No. I cannot give an absolute pledge with regard to the Finance Bill being the First Order, but I can give a pledge that it shall come on at a convenient time.

Will it be proceeded with after 12 o'clock?

Oh, yes. Under the Standing Orders the Bill can be proceeded with after 12 o'clock.

But what I wish to ask is whether, in the case of an important question being raised, it is the intention of the Government to take it after 12 o'clock?

Yes, if there is no objection.

I shall object most strongly. [Opposition cheers.]

asked whether next Wednesday would be occupied by Government business.

The House is well aware from my previous statement on the subject that, unless we make much more rapid progress with public business than I have the least ground for anticipating, next Wednesday must be taken.

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is able to tell us, so as to facilitate our comprehension of all these plans, when he is likely to move the adjournment for the Whitsuntide holidays.

It must in part depend upon the progress of businss. I have no hope whatever of being able to move the adjournment for the holidays before tomorrow week.

I beg to ask the Colonial Secretary whether he has any information as to definite sentences having been passed on the Pretoria prisoners.?

No, Sir.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury when the Return with regard to the Railway Commission which had been promised would be laid on the Table?

said that he would see that it was laid on the Table as soon as possible.

hoped the President of the Board of Trade would not proceed with the Light Railways Bill until the Return was presented.

said he would not do so.

said, the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Flint Boroughs was out of order. It was too vague, and it offered no alternative to the plan the House had already agreed to.

on the point of order, asked whether, if he added the words "or whichever first happens," to the end of the Amendment, it would make it sufficiently definite to bring it in order. He would like to draw attention to this fact, that the reason for the five years' limit was stated to be that the Government desired to have sufficient time to make an inquiry into the incidence of rating. His intention was that, if the Inquiry was concluded, say, in three years, it would not be necessary to keep the Bill alive for a longer period than four years.

The hon. Member refers to "the" Inquiry in the Amendment, an Inquiry of which the House has no cognisance. It does not refer to what Inquiry it is—whether it is an Inquiry by a Select Committee or by a Royal Commission, or what kind of Inquiry. Nor does he say who is to judge as to which alternative is to be accepted. The Amendment, even with the addition which the hon. Member proposes, would be no true alternative to what the House has accepted, and it is altogether too vague. The Amendment of the hon. Member for Shoreditch is disposed of by the decision of the House last night, and the Amendments of the hon. Members for North Monmouth and Hoxton are put down in the wrong place. The first Amendment in order was that standing in the name of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil.

said, that in the absence of his hon. Friend (Mr. David Thomas) he would move the Amendment standing in his name. He thought the Amendment ought to commend itself to the President of the Local Government Board. The first thing that would have to be done after the passing of the Act would be a separate valuation of the whole agricultural land in this country. It was perfectly obvious that that must necessarily take time. The number of gentlemen qualified to assess land was limited in the rural districts. There would be a great demand upon the services of the most competent valuers, and if the Bill came into operation on the date which was fixed by the right hon. Gentleman there would probably be half the land in the kingdom in respect of which there would be no separate valuation. The right hon. Gentleman would have to come to the House, under the direction of the Local Government Board, for the purpose of setting that right. The Bill would not be put to a fair test unless ample time was given for the re-valuation of the whole land of the country. He begged to propose to leave out "thirty-first day of March next after the passing of this Act," and to insert "thirtieth day of September one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven."

said, the hon. Member assumed that the necessary work of preparation for the operation of the Act could not be carried out within the date named in the Bill. He was advised by those whose assistance he received, and he was satisfied that the work could be performed within the time, and that being so he saw no reason whatever for accepting the Amendment, the only effect of which would be to postpone, unnecessarily, the operation of the Bill for six months.

thought they had grave reason to complain of the very cavalier treatment which the right hon. Gentleman had given to an exceedingly important Amendment. [Cheers.] So much preliminary work had to be done that the date in the Bill was absolutely impracticable. Before that payment could be made the Local Government Board had, by an express provision of the Bill, to certify the amount of the annual grant. But before the Local Government Board could certify the amount of the annual grant what had to be done? In the first place, as a preliminary, the Board had to ascertain the sum raised by every spending authority during the twelve months previous to the Act by any rate to which the Act applied, and they had to receive a return made in accordance with prescribed regulations. That, however, was only the beginning of a much more prolonged and elaborate process. The annual grant was, according to the Bill, a sum equal to the total amount of the deficiencies created by all the spending authorities by the partial exemption of agricultural land for which the Bill provided. Before the Local Government Board could obtain the information upon which this total amount could be estimated, they had to ascertain the ratable value of every hereditament of agricultural land in the country. Every agricultural holding would have to be reassessed and separately entered in the valuation list. At present, land and buildings which constituted one holding were entered in the valuation list as one hereditament, and it was somewhat difficult to see how the value of the buildings was to be ascertained apart from the land. Up to the present the rent had been the great guide to the assessment, but rent would be no guide hereafter. Buildings had no value except as part of one indivisible holding. The problem would shape itself perhaps in this form. Assuming that a person was in occupation of land, how much would the ocoupier be prepared to give, taking one year with another, for the use of the buildings in association with the holding? If the problem was stated in that way it was obvious that they must have regard to the suitability of the buildings to the holding, to their size and character, and the particular state of the repair in which the buildings were. How were they to ascertain this except by going on to the property and making an inspection of it? Overseers would be bound to go over agricultural holdings, either themselves or by valuers, in order to ascertain as best they could the separate value of the buildings before the returns which this Bill required could be made to the Local Government Board, and before the Board could certify what the annual grant was, a separate assessment of agricultural land and the buildings had to be made first by overseers of the parish, then corrected by the Assessment Committee, then sent to the Surveyor of Taxes, then subjected to appeal, first to the Assessment Committee and then before Quarter Sessions. It was obvious, therefore, that the hon. Member did not in any way exaggerate the time that would be necessary. He was aware that the right hon. Gentleman, if he had condescended to argue this question, might have told the House that the Bill stated that a provisional certificate might be given pending the acquisition of full information which would be necessary to the final settlement. It was true that there was a saving clause in the Bill, though it was obviously intended to meet the case of small differences. It would be most unconstitutional for the Local Government Board to authorise the payment of the taxpayers' money into the Local Taxation Account on mere guess work, before time was given to obtain the necessary information upon which alone even an approximate estimate could be formed.

strongly supported the Amendment. He agreed that it was impossible to get the new lists ready in the time at present indicated in the Bill. The Measure could not possibly come into operation until September of next year. He questioned very much whether they could properly separate the buildings from the value of agricultural land. As an Irish Member, he spoke with some experience of this matter. In Ireland the land was valued separately from the value of the buildings; and nearly every member of the Committee on the Land Acts which sat a year ago was convinced that the present system in Ireland was a vicious one. The proper way to value a farm was to value it as a going concern. The value of the buildings depended to a large extent on the suitability of the farm, and it was not possible to put an accurate value on buildings if the farm was excluded. If it was proposed to separate the buildings from the land, it would take at least a year's hard work on the lowest computation to arrive at a decision. He protested against the Bill being rushed through the House to the exclusion of more useful and necessary Measures.

thought that the hon. Gentleman opposite had greatly exaggerated the difficulty of this task. This system of valuation was already in force in England, and everyone acquainted with our system of rating knew that the overseers in districts where an urban rate was levied,—and there were many such of a very rural character,—were now in the habit of doing this work. All that had to be done was to take the value of the buildngs and deduct it from the total value of the land.

said, he had an Amendment on the Paper to substitute 1898 for 1897, so as to postpone the operation of the Bill until Her Majesty's Government had received the Report from the Committee to be appointed to inquire into the subject. It must be obvious to hon. Members that the Committee would not be able to Report on the whole subject by the date when the Bill would come into operation, and as it was very important not to legislate in a hurry on a matter of this kind, and when it might be said it was sub judice, he supported the Amendment. If the operation of the Bill was not postponed, he believed that it would materially aggravate and complicate the various anomalies which at present existed. There was no reference, for example, to the difference in the quality of the land, and the incidence altogether was very unsatisfactory. It was absurd to say that in 99 cases out of 100 rents had been reduced. Of his personal knowledge, he knew many cases where rents had been increased recently, and the price of wheat tended upwards. The hon. Member for Hampshire, in his speech on the Second Reading, said it was not pretended on the Ministerial side that any readjustment of rates would make farmers prosperous. That being so, there was no real necessity to pass this Bill in a hurry, if they were not going to do more than show sympathy in such an intangible way. If there was injustice let it be remedied after full inquiry, but this Bill would only aggravate present anomalies.

quoted, in support of the argument for the Amendment, the Report of the Town Holdings Committee, made on 23rd May 1892, to the Government of which the President of the Local Government Board was a Member. That Committee reported that "the proposition made to the Committee for a separate assessment of ground values and building values is impracticable." That is to say, that it was impracticable to do the work which they proposed to do in so short a time. The appeals would require to be most carefully considered, and this would take much time. And when the appeals were decided, and it was settled what was to be paid, the burden was to be thrown on somebody else. As a matter of fact it was to be thrown on the people who dwell in the towns, and they, therefore, were deeply interested in seeing that all these matters were fairly decided. This splendid gift to the holders of land was to insure for five years in any event. Why then such hurry to bring the Act into operation?

submitted that the Committee was entitled to some better answer from the Government than was furnished by the President of the Local Government Board. The answer amounted to this, that the right hon. Gentleman consulted the officials of the Local Government Board; they told him there was nothing in the Amendment; presumably they gave him reasons, but the right hon. Gentleman would not condescend to communicate those reasons to the Committee, or he had forgotten them. That was no sufficient answer to any Amendment proposed in the House of Commons. The only attempt at a reply which had been made was that of the hon. Baronet opposite (the Member for Tewkesbury), who said that this was done already, and that the only difference this Bill made was that it substituted one-half the value for one-fourth. But that was not the case in rural districts. In urban districts, he agreed, there was a division, but in a purely rural district there was no division at all of farm buildings and lands.

said the parish to which he referred was technically an urban district. No such division was made in the purely rural parts.

pointed out that the only argument against the Amendment had thus practically been withdrawn by the hon. Baronet. In order to show that it was physically impossible to do the thing in the short time the right hon. Gentlemen proposed, what was the first thing that would have to be done? There must be, first, according to Sub-section 2 of Section 6, a separate assessment of every building on agricultural land in every parish throughout England. It would take months to prepare such a re-valuation. He knew a case which had taken years in order to revalue a single union; but to revalue every union in the country—why, they could not get sufficient competent valuers for the work! What was the next thing? They must deposit the list for a certain number of days, and give the usual notices. Then so many days must be allowed for appeal, and how long would it take the assessment committee to dispose of all appeals? Every farmer in the whole parish might appeal. There was a further appeal to Quarter Sessions. This was a new Act, on which there had been no legal decisions; and on any legal point there was an appeal from quarter sessions to the High Court and even the House of Lords. If there was an appeal in any single parish in England these returns could not be completed.

said, that he did not intend to give a cavalier reply to any hon. Gentleman, but, as responsible for the Bill, he must be allowed to have an opinion of his own on the matter. He had considered over and over again all the different points raised by hon. Members, and he was supported in the view he took by one of the most practical authorities on the subject—the hon. Baronet the Member for Tewkesbury. There might be delays, as the hon. Member suggested, but there was a period of nearly 12 months before the Bill came into operation. Provision had been made in the Budget for the six months which would be thrown away if the Amendment were carried.

said he was anxious to see the Bill brought into operation as soon as possible; but the Committee had heard strong authorities quoted in opposition to the view of the hon. Baronet the Member for Tewkesbury, and the Committee was entitled to know something about the experts on whose opinions the President of the Local Government Board relied.

said, that the effect of the argument of the hon. Member for Tewkesbury was weakened now, and he no longer strictly adhered to it.

I do. Under the Public Health Act of 1875 districts can be constituted urban districts; and many purely rural districts have, for reasons satisfactory to the inhabitants, been constituted technically urban districts. Wherever that action has occurred, a general district rate is raised, and is levied upon the whole value of the houses and buildings, and only upon one-fourth of the value of the land. Therefore, in any parish which is technically an urban district, and which comprises agricultural land—and there are many hundreds of such parishes in the Kingdom—this very valuation which is now proposed is already made.

continuing, said that the arguments on the other side were strong enough to justify some delay in bringing this Bill into force. Personally, he should prefer a delay to 1898, as was suggested in an Amendment later in the Paper.

regretted that the Government did not accept the demand for postponement. It was evident that the Bill would do a number of grave injustices to the community if it were to be rushed through, and no sufficient time were to be allowed for making the revaluations. There were many cases where it was difficult to say where the urban district began and the rural district ended; and there was great jealousy between them as to the amount of the valuations. This Bill, in any circumstances, would increase, and not decrease, that jealousy; and that was an additional argument for more time. The right hon. Gentleman could not suppose that he would get the Bill through without making some concessions when concession was proved to be absolutely necessary; and, surely, there could be no more reasonable concession than that now asked for. The Bill was taking two millions mostly out of the pockets of the borough population; and it was the least they could ask that the money should be justly apportioned among the fortunate persons who were to receive it. The President of the Local Government Board behaved as though he feared the present Government would be out of office in 12 months' time.

said, that the rating of agricultural land was quite separate from the rating of those urban districts which came under the Lighting Act of 1835, and the Public Health Act of 1875. Under the Lighting Act there must be a separate assessment to this extent—that the owners of houses paid one third of the net annual value. So, under the Public Health Act, lands and railways paid one-fourth in respect of such rates as were levied on the annual value, and there was not a separate valuation for buildings. But, in regard to purely agricultural parishes, there was no object in separating buildings from land; and there were very few parishes where such a practice prevailed. There- fore, a new agricultural assessment was required. It was not likely that those who would have to pay the balance of the deficiency under the Act would accept without extreme jealousy the assessments made under the Act. Equality of assessment would be their ideal. If the lands were assessed at too low a figure under the new valuation they would be made the subject of appeal, and they all knew what it was to have assessments on a large parish with appeals to Quarter Sessions. The matter could not be physically carried out within the period of a year; and, therefore, he supported the Amendment.

said, that if there was anything agriculturists wanted more than another it was immediate relief. Therefore, when the hon. Member for Lichfield praised the Bill and wanted to get it through, and in the same breath put off the relief by supporting the Amendment—

I did not say I was in favour of the Amendment. What I said was that I thought some answer should be given to it, as a strong case had been made for it.

said, he was glad to hear the hon. Gentleman was not in favour of the Amendment. What would do away with the difficulty of the assessment altogether was that the agricultural buildings should not be separated from the land. Therefore, he hoped the Amendment he had on the Paper to amend the Bill in that respect would receive general support. In many Assessment Committees to which he had belonged the lands and agricultural buildings were not separated, though the farmhouses were commonly separated.

It would be out of order for the hon. Member to discuss his Amendment now.

said, he would appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite, if they really desired to see the Bill through as quickly as possible, to withdraw their Amendment.

said, he did not see his way to support the Amendment of his hon. Friend. The President of the Local Government Board had made every inquiry in the matter, with the result that he was convinced that by the 31st March plenty of time would be given to the local authorities to have the valuation carried out. But his principal reason for not supporting the Amendment was that he was anxious for the Bill to come into operation as soon as possible. If the agricultural depression was to be met at all it must be met without delay. He was far from thinking that this Bill was an adequate solution of the agricultural difficulty; but if it was to do any good at all—and he believed it would do a little good to some farmers—its operation ought not to be postponed for six months.

thought that the Amendment had been sufficiently discussed to enable the Committee to come to a decision upon it. Some hon. Gentlemen opposite had expressed a fear that the Bill would be rushed through Committee. For his part he could not see any symptoms of a rush. [Laughter.] He was desirous of making every concession that was just and reasonable, but he could not accept the Amendment, as there was ample time in the next nine months to do all that was required by the Bill.

said, that on referring to the section he found that there would have to be a separate valuation in the case of land covered by water. That was an illustration of the way in which the Bill had been thought out. If a farmer had on his land a lake of 10 acres, which was not an uncommon thing, and which added materially to the valuation of the farm, he would have to get a separate valuation of the land under water before the Act could come into operation.

said, an Amendment of the hon. Member for Tyneside (Mr. J. A. Pease), to insert the year 1898 fell to the ground; the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Somerset (Mr. Strachey), to insert "the occupier of any land, buildings, or other hereditaments," was outside the scope of the Bill; and two Amendments by the hon. Members for North Monmouth and Hoxton embodied the same principle, but proposed to apply it in different ways. He should therefore, put the first words of the Amendment of the hon. Member for North Monmouth, and if they were adopted, the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hoxton could be moved.

moved, after the words "passing of this Act," to insert the words:—

"where, on a comparison of the assessment in operation on the 31st day of March 1896, with respect to any agricultural land with the assessment in operation with respect to the same land on the 31st day of March 1876, there has been a decline of not less than one-fifth of the amount of the last-named assessment, then in every case."

He said, he had endeavoured as far as he could to obtain figures which would indicate the exact amount of agricultural distress during the last 20 years. As far as he was able to judge, he found that 20 per cent. represented the average decline in the value of agricultural land. He therefore proposed that the Act should come into operation only where the agricultural interest had suffered more than the average—that was more than 20 per cent. An examination of a return issued last year showed that, in 142 unions in England and Wales which were wholly rural there had been a decline in the value of land between 1870 and 1894 of 18 per cent. Since 1894 the decline had continued, and therefore he had taken the average for the country at 20 per cent. He hoped that no objection would be taken to his Amendment on the ground that land had been subdivided since 1876. If that was a serious objection it could be met by altering the Amendment and making it apply to parishes or to unions. He wished to treat this Bill as a Measure for the relief of agricultural distress. If the Bill was intended as a Measure for the readjustment of burdens on land, it was bad, because it did not proceed on right principles. In respect of old rates, to reduce the burden by half was acting with too great consideration towards the landlord, and in respect of new rates, it was unfair on the farmer, who ought not to be asked to pay even one-half of the rates. The President of the Local Government Board first introduced this Bill as a Measure for the relief of agricultural distress, and then as based on the idea of the readjustment of the burdens on land. His Amendment made an honest attempt to relieve the distress. Money devoted to the purpose would be used under the Amendment to giving relief to those districts only when there had been a considerable decline. He did not deny that there had been a serious decline in the value of the assessment of agricultural land, but it was by no means universal; and the figures he wished to quote would, he thought, convince the President of the Local Government Board that he made an extraordinary statement when he spoke of the decline as extending to 99 per cent. of the land of the country. He made a comparison from a Return issued last year of the assessment of land in England and Wales in 1870 and 1894. The Committee would be astonished to hear that in comparing 1870 with 1894, there had not only been no decline in very many cases in the value of the assessment of agricultural land, but an actual increase. In no less than 70 unions in England (he excluded Wales), the assessment of land in 1894, as compared with 1870, showed an increase. The assessment in these 70 unions amounted to £4,240,278, or 11½ per cent. of the whole land of the country. This meant that, under the Bill, the President of the Local Government Board proposed to give £160,000 a year for a period of five years, amounting to £800,000, in relief of agricultural distress in districts which were more prosperous than they had ever heretofore been. He wished to illustrate by a few instances how this Measure would operate. He had selected six typical unions. In Amesbury, Wiltshire, the assessment in 1870 was £56,000; in 1894, £28,200; a decline of £27,800, or, approximately, 50 per cent. The rates levied in 1893 were 2s. 0·7d., realising £2,902 5s., and the relief proposed to be given under the Bill was £1,481. In the Union of Garstang, Lancashire, on the other hand, the assessment in 1870 amounted to £68,700; in 1894, £83,100; an increase of £14,200. The rates levied in 1893 were 1s. l·2d., producing £4,750, and the relief to be given to the Union of Garstang would be £2,285, that was to say, that amount of relief would be given where there was an increase in the assessment of £14,200. Again, in the Union of Lenden, Essex, the assessment in 1870 was £97,100; in 1894, £51,400; a decline of £45,700. The rates levied in 1893 were 3s. 0·6d., producing £7,838, and the relief proposed to be given was £3,919. In the Union of Hatfield, Herts, however, the assessment in 1870 was £22,900; in 1894, £23,000; an increase of £100. The rates levied in 1893 were 1s. 11·5d, producing £2,252, and the relief proposed to be given under the Bill was £1,126. At Northleach, Gloucestershire, the assessment in 1870 was £67,400; in 1894, £37,800; a decline of £29,600. The rates levied in 1893, 2s. 4·6d., producing £4,508; the relief to be given under the Bill was £2,254. In West Ward, Westmorland, in 1870 the assessment was £53,300; in 1894, £55,300; an increase of £2,000. The rates levied in 1893 were 1s. 3d., realising £3,456, and the relief to be given under this Bill would be £1,728. These were not isolated cases, and, seeing how the Bill would operate, he asked the President of the Local Government Board to accept his Amendment. He could have made his argument infinitely stronger if he had included unions in Wales. Throughout Wales the decline in the value of the assessment of agricultural land had not been considerable, and if he had included Wales he could have claimed that more than 11½ per cent. of the land had increased in value since 1870. The President of the Local Government Board proposed to do something for the relief of agriculture. He proposed to place in the right hon. Gentleman's hands the money to do it with. Let the money be given more freely where it was wanted, and saved where it was not wanted—in prosperous districts where the relief given under the Act was not required.

observed that the hon. Member had charged him with not treating the Committee fairly because he did not make a general statement with regard to the assessment of land all over the country. The whole case of the hon. Member, so far as he was able to judge, was based upon what he believed to be an entire fallacy, and that was that the present assessment of land accurately represented its full value. The hon. Gentleman spoke of land being more prosperous than ever it was before, because the assessment was greater. A great deal of evidence was given on this subject before the Royal Commission on Agriculture. He would take even the minority report of the Commission, and what was there stated was quite destructive of the case of the hon. Member:—

"We have also to point out that, so far as the facts are before us, they show that the cases of high rates are chiefly in the eastern and southern counties, which have suffered most from depression, and that in many unions in these districts it has been found necessary to raise the rate in the £ on all property in consequence of the great fall in the value of land."

If it had been necessary to raise the assessment of land—

No, no; to raise the rate in the £, not the assessment.

said the evidence given before the Commission by several witnesses was to the effect that the figure of rateable value did not, for various reasons, represent, fairly or accurately, the value of agricultural land, for as was stated by one of the witnesses, the assessments on farms had not been reduced as they should have been of late years. The hon. Member was entirely mistaken in thinking that because the assessment had not fallen that was a test of the prosperity of the various parts of the country. It seemed to him that it was impossible, with justice, to draw a hard and fast line between different classes of land in different parts of the country which would have the effect of including some and excluding others. The hon. gentleman said he relied entirely upon the assessment to show where there had been a fall in the value of land, and he further said that he (Mr. Chaplin) had abandoned the defence he had put forward on the introduction of this Bill, namely, that it was intended to remove an injustice by which land was rated out of all fairness in proportion to its value. That was an argument he had not receded from one iota. If that were so, and if he was right in saying that the assessment afforded no genuine test of the real value or position of prosperity of land at present, he ventured to think that the hon. Member's case fell to the ground, and he could not under these circumstances accept the Amendment.

thought the right hon. Gentleman had not quite accurately represented the position of the mover of the Amendment. The President of the Local Government Board laid the whole stress on the argument of the possibility that there might not have been that amount of reduction in the assessment that there ought to have been, having regard to the reduced value of land. But that was part of the machinery, and was not the point raised by the Amendment. The point raised by the Amendment was, were they going to give land which was not suffering from depression, and where the rents had not fallen, the same relief, and calculated on the same basis, which they proposed to give to land in Essex and other parts of the kingdom where there had been great agricultural depression? They really must understand what line the Government intended to take on the Bill. They had changed their attitude since they introduced the Bill, for they had a change in that attitude yesterday and another today. The Bill was brought in in consequence of a Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture, stating that there was great agricultural depression in certain agricultural districts, which needed immediate relief in order to avert a national calamity. The question which the right hon. Gentleman had raised as to land being unfairly rated was not a point raised in this Bill, otherwise the Bill would be one of the grossest acts of injustice ever committed by the House, because a large portion of the land—namely, that in the towns—was to have no relief at all. It was admitted that it was entitled to that relief. The House having accepted the principle, he was, for his part, prepared to make this as fair and as good a Bill as was possible. But he said it was a monstrous thing to give to land in Lancashire, let at £2 per acre, and increasing in value year by year, the same relief as it was proposed to give to land in Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk. He said that such, a Bill was unjust on the face of it. The House had decided, under existing circumstances, that relief was to be given to agricultural land by relieving the payers of agricultural rates from a certain amount of taxation. That decision having been come to, it was the duty of the Committee to make that relief as broad and as just as possible. The right hon. Gentleman had quoted from the Minority Report of the Royal Commission, and he would himself read two or three passages which had not yet been read, and hon. Members who were familiar with agricultural matters would know whether there was any foundation for the statements:—

"We think it is important and necessary to point out at this stage of our proceedings, and with a view specially to the consideration of the burdens on agricultural land, that the depression has been, and still is, far more serious in the eastern and southern counties of England, over an area of rather more than one-third of England and Wales, including such centres as Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, or the greater parts of them, than in the other parts of Great Britain."

Was that true or was it not? Would anyone say that the depression which existed in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, existed all over England?

"The eastern and southern districts of England have had the unfortunate experience of a succession of unfavourable seasons, beginning in 1892, and including two years of very exceptional drought, 1893 and 1895, of which the former was quite unprecedented in its serious effect upon agriculture in these districts. The north and west of Great Britain were to a large extent free from these bad seasons, and enjoyed far more favourable conditions. The west of England and Wales, however, suffered from the fall in the price of stock caused by the drought in the eastern and southern counties. The east and south of England had also suffered in a greater proportion, because they had been the chief wheat-growing districts, and their system of cultivation has been mainly dependent on wheat, and the price of wheat has fallen in a greater proportion than agricultural products; while the land, for climatic reasons, is not easily laid down in grass."

The President of the Board of Agriculture had interjected the observation that he did not admit the accuracy of this statement. He gathered that the right hon. Gentleman did not mean to admit all the details of the statements involved, but that he did not deny there had been a difference in the area, extent and severity of this agricultural depression. For his part he was not prepared to commit himself exactly to the machinery for giving this relief which his hon. Friend proposed, but he would point out that there was another plan proposed in an Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Shoreditch. What the right hon. Gentleman wanted them now to negative was that there was to be any variety in treatment. The rich and poor were to be treated alike; those who had and those who had not, those whose incomes were increasing and those whose incomes were absolutely taken from them were to be dealt with on the same footing, and that was to be a specimen of the justice to land! The only argument which the President of the Local Government Board gave them was that the Government considered the principle upon which land was rated to be unjust. So did the Opposition, and when the Government brought in their rates scheme by which they would relieve land devoted to the manufacture of cotton and iron as well as that devoted to the production of wheat and grain, they on that (the Opposition) side of the House would be prepared to support it. It was as absurd to carry out the scheme in the manner which the right hon. Gentleman wished as it would have been in the time of the cotton famine to say, "Because we are going to give relief to Lancashire" (which, by the way, was not done), "therefore, we will give it to Cornwall, where they do not make an ounce of cotton at all." This Bill was for the relief of agricultural distress. He was willing that every sixpence of the £1,500,000 should be devoted to this purpose, but it should be given to those who deserved and needed it, and on that ground he should support the first words of this Amendment.

said that no one would deny that certain portions of England were much more depressed as regarded the agricultural industry than others. But what was really the illogical statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton? He began by saying that he would like relief of this kind to be distributed generally, not only in the rural but also in the urban districts, because, he said, the incidence of taxation generally was unfair. He had understood the right hon. Gentleman to admit at the stage of Second Reading that the general incidence of local taxation in England at the present moment was not fair, and he believed that everybody agreed with that. Having to deal with an admitted injustice the Government proposed to deal with a certain portion of it first, namely the portion of injustice which affected agricultural land. The Government proposed to deal now with the injustice as affecting agricultural land, because in certain parts of the country the depression of the interests connected with that land was imminent and urgent. It being generally admitted that there was an injustice affecting all agricultural land, it would be illogical to treat different portions of the land in different ways. He admitted that the proposed remedy was wanted in some places more than in others, but that was a different question. Injustice affecting all agricultural land being recognised, the remedy must be applied generally. The Amendment, in his opinion, could not be considered just, and no practical method of carrying it out had yet been explained.

said that the question of giving relief to agricultural land, as distinguished from other property, had been decided by the Second Reading of the Bill. The point before the Committee now was whether the relief given to agricultural property was to be distributed properly and justly. He did not understand what the hon. and learned Member who had just spoken meant by saying that it was impracticable to take into consideration the difference of conditions between land in some counties and land in others. The difference was obvious to anyone. He admitted that in dealing with a matter of rating or with taxation generally, one was obliged to adopt a rather procrustean method, and that one could not be minutely just; but it was nevertheless possible to preserve some semblance of fairness. The President of the Local Government Board had gone very near to using an argument which in his more thoughtful moments he would himself repudiate. That argument came to this, that it was not worth while considering the difference between the assessment of properties now and their assessment a certain number of years ago, because assessment was a very fallible guide to the condition of agricultural land. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman that time after time on both sides of the House reference was made in the Debate on the Second Reading to the fall in the assessment of land between 1870 and 1894, and in other years in order to prove that this Bill was necessary. The fall in assessments varied tremendously in different parts of the country. Considering the distress county by county, they found at one extremity the county of Essex, where the assessment in agricultural land fell 30 per cent. between 1870 and 1894, and at the other extremity counties like Westmorland and Cumberland, where the assessment had slightly risen. If it was intended by this Bill to relieve agricultural distress, why should the Government refuse to apportion the relief in accordance with the need for it? He had put Amendments on the Paper the collective effect of which would be that wherever agricultural land had fallen between 1870 and 1894 less than 10 per cent. in rateable value there would be a remission of only one-fourth of the rates; that where the fall had amounted to more than 25 per cent. there would be a remission of three-fourths of the rates; and that where the fall had been between 10 and 25 per cent. there would be a remission of one-half, as proposed in the Bill. What he wanted was some arrangement whereby the relief conferred should have some rough proportion to the existing distress. Not only did the condition of some counties differ greatly from that of others, but there were also considerable differences of condition between districts in the same county. He found that in Norfolk, taken as a whole, the amount of the decrease in the rateable value of agricultural land between 1870 and 1894 was 25 per cent., but the decrease in different unions of the county varied from 3½ per cent. to 36 per cent. Without giving the names he would give the decrease in some of the Unions. In one the decrease was 22 per cent., in another 8 per cent., both purely agricultural Unions; in another 23, another 25, another 35, 28, 3½, 32, 18, 32, 8, 14, 36, 27, 21, and so forth. It would be seen that the variations were extremely wide, and that he believed was the case all over England. In Buckinghamshire, the average diminution was 15 per cent. In Amersham there was a small rise, while in Winslow and Buckingham there was a decrease of 20 per cent. He proposed, therefore, that some method should be devised by which the rating would be more uniform. He would only mention that in Wales there were six counties in which the ratable value had risen, while in England it had risen in only two counties during the period from 1870 to 1894. But there had been in many only a very slight fall, such as 5½ per cent. in Cheshire, and 2½per cent. in Cornwall. He would take one case with which he was acquainted, and compare it with Westmoreland. In the Chesterton Division of Cambridgeshire the ratable value generally had remained about the same, because there had been an immense increase in the ratable value of railway property; but agricultural property in the division, though fairly near the town of Cambridge, had been very hard hit, and its ratable value had fallen between 1870 and 1894 by no less than 34 per cent. In the county of Westmorland, in the same time, the ratable value of agricultural land had risen 8 per cent. The Bill proposed to give equal relief to these two districts, and he would call attention to the extraordinary conditions under which it was to be given. At the present moment, the relief given to the Union of Chesterton in regard to local burdens was only 18 per cent. of the whole local expenditure; but in Westmorland it was 32½ per cent.; that was to say, in Westmorland, one-third of the local expenditure was borne by money contributed by the House of Commons, while in Chesterton only 18 per cent. was borne in the same way. He thought that case knocked the bottom out of the Bill. Again, under present conditions, the rate borne in Westmorland was 6¾ per cent. of the ratable value, whereas on the ratepayers in the Chesterton Division a rate equal to 19 per cent. of the ratable value fell. This case was typical of hundreds of others. It was not in every sense impracticable to separate such cases with mathematical accuracy by means of the statistics to be found in the Parliamentary Returns. He wished, therefore, to appeal to the Government to take what had been said on his side of the House in good part. He believed hon. Gentlemen of the agricultural persuasion would say that he was making an honest attempt to improve the Bill, and he hoped the Government would not negative this proposal, but would make some declaration on this important point with a view to the improvement of their own Bill.

wished, as a gentleman of the agricultural persuasion, to make a few remarks on the figures the hon. Gentleman had adduced. Those figures proved too much for the hon. Gentleman. They proved that there was variation not only between county and county, but between union and union, parish and parish, and farm and farm; and if all those variations were to be met, it would require a very serious amount of mathematical calculation. The hon. Gentleman contended that the exact variations in ratable value could be got at with mathematical accuracy by means of the different assessments, but that was not quite the case. It would be necessary to take into consideration the date at which the last assessment was made. Re-assessment was an expensive operation, and had not been carried out in some places, for some time, and the fall in the value of the land was not always represented by the assessment, and in passive, peaceable places, where the assessment had not been closely looked into for some time, the unfortunate people might lose under this Amendment all the relief the Bill proposed to give to them. In his opinion the bad landlords would get all the relief under this Amendment, while the good landlords would get nothing. He should therefore oppose the Amendment. ["Hear, hear!"]

said, that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had said that, in his opinion, under the Amendment the bad landlords would get relief, but the good landlords would get nothing. That, however, was not the case. The landlords who would get relief under the Bill as it stood, but who would be prevented from obtaining that relief under the Amendment, were those who had not adopted the right course of action during the last 10 or 15 years, but had kept up the old rent to its full amount while making temporary remissions which they were compelled to grant owing to agricultural depression. It was only right that that class of men should suffer who had acted upon the bad principle, which had been so often condemned in the case of Ireland, of keeping up the old rents while allowing arrears to accumulate, and thus placing their tenants under an obligation to them in order that they might take advantage of the first moment of returning prosperity for their own profit. ["Hear, hear!"] They had hitherto dealt with broad considerations, but he would now take the case of counties, and especially that of Cheshire. For many years the Royal Agricultural Society had adopted the good practice of giving prizes to large and small agricultural farms, an account of which was published on the authority of men who understood agriculture and who obtained the detailed information which they gave from the best sources. The Reports of the Society formed a book of most valuable and readable knowledge on the details of farming for those who took an interest in the subject of agriculture. During the last two years the Society, doubtless for good reasons, had given up the plan of giving prizes to farms all over the country, and had confined themselves to giving those of typical farms in different counties. In the Royal Agricultural Journal for 1893 he found the statistics relating to North Wales and Cheshire. Taking the typical farms of Cheshire, he found that in the case of a small farm, which the tenant had occupied for 44 years at a rent of £42 10s., there had during the tenancy been no change in the rental. In the case of a small farm of 25 acres, which had been held for 10 years at a rental of £40 16s. per annum, there had been no reduction in the rental. Then he came to the case of a very large and exceedingly well-managed farm, which the tenants had greatly improved, and which had been held by one family for 200 years and by the present tenant for 20 years; there had been no permanent reduction in the rental, but an abatement of 10 per cent. had been made during the last three years. In the case of a farm in Anglesey, there had been no permanent reduction of rental, but there had been a temporary reduction of rent during the last two years of 10 per cent., and during the last half-year of 25 per cent. In the case of another farm in Cheshire, which the farmer had held for 11 years, the rental was not altered, but 10 per cent, abatement had been allowed on the last half-year's payment. He himself was acquainted with cases in which, while temporary abatements of from 26 to 30 per cent. had been allowed, the old rent had not been permanently reduced. There had appeared in The Times of that morning a letter stated to have been dictated by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board. The right hon. Gentleman said:—

"To say, as Mr. Barlow says, that the Bill will 'plunder the people for the benefit of the capitalists,' is simply the clap-trap of a speaker who knows nothing of the subject or who wishes to mislead his hearers. The Government and an unprecedented majority of the House of Commons believe that the benefit of the Bill will go directly to the tenant, for reasons which were given in the Debate, and which no one has been able to controvert. They are as follows:—In these days of depression, in 99 cases out of every 100, every change of tenancy is accompanied by a fall in rent."

His experience, and that of very eminent agents indeed, was to the absolute contrary. ["Hear, hear!"] In the north of England rents were rising rather than falling. ["Hear, hear!"] He knew of a case in Northumberland in which, when a farm of a rental of £240 a year became vacant, there were 12 or 13 applicants for it, who were said to be solid and practical farmers, and out of that number three were willing to give £270 a year rental for it, and the agent had assured him that that was by no means an exceptional case. ["Hear, hear!"] He had no hesitation in saying that in a large number of cases the landlords would make, better terms with new tenants if the present tenants were to surrender their farms, however sorry they might be to lose them for personal reasons. Since the Party opposite had picked out one class of ratepayers for relief, they ought to go further and pick out those ratepayers who occupied farms in counties in which the greatest agricultural depression existed. ["Hear, hear!"]

said, that in his district rent was practically non-existent, and instead of 20 tenants running after one farm, 20 farms were running after one tenant. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton had not shown his usual keen grasp of matters when he talked about the rating distress in urban as well as in rural districts. He had no wish to vote again, as he did on Tuesday, with hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House, but under the circumstances he failed to see how he could get out of doing so. He was in that House the epitome and incarnation of agricultural distress—[laughter]—and he thought it would be easy enough to give extra relief to land which was assessed under 10s. an acre. ["Hear, hear!"]

said, the speech of the hon. Member who had just sat down ought to appeal most keenly to the sympathies of hon. Gentlemen opposite. In the Debates in the last Parliament those hon. Gentlemen had spoken frequently and eloquently about relieving agricultural distress, but the present experiment would result in a most illogical and unfair division. He thought a better system would be one by which the money was distributed so as to relieve those who needed relief most. The Report of the Royal Commission, and the evidence and maps, showed that the country might be divided roughly into three great districts, the Eastern and Southern, which was the most depressed, the Midland and North Eastern which was less depressed, and the North Western, including Cheshire and Wales, which was still less depressed as regarded the fall in rateable value. It was a cruelty to the farmer in Essex to give him only the same relief as that which was given to the comparatively prosperous farmer in Lancashire. He had recently been over a farm in. Warwickshire which was actually within the limits of the borough of Birmingham; it was well cultivated, close to a great market, and able, in spite of agricultural distress, to go on with its cultivation to the benefit of the occupier, and to pay a good rent to the owner. That farm would be relieved to the extent of more than double the amount per acre that the farm in Essex would be, where the land was going out of cultivation. That was a manifest injustice. Such land as that in Essex ought to be relieved to a greater extent than land which was profitably cultivated, because there the agricultural industry was in danger of being stamped out. The Government was making an experiment, which was purely temporary, to do something to relieve the tiller of the soil, and by accepting the Amendment they would make their experiment a little more scientific. It would be easy to take the different unions within counties, or counties as a whole, and where the rateable value of land or the rent had gone down 25 to 30 per cent. to give a relief of three-quarters of the rates, where it had gone down 15 to 25 per cent. to give a relief of one-half, and where the diminution of the value of the land was less a relief of one-quarter. This, he urged, would be a more logical and a more beneficent course.

said, that although hon. Gentlemen opposite were very eloquent in denouncing the system which the Government had adopted, they were cautious in suggesting any alternative of their own. He was bound to say that it was a matter of profound astonishment to him to find the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, who did understand this intricate question of rating and assessment, associating himself with a proposal so fantastic as that now under the consideration of the Committee. The proposal of hon. Gentlemen opposite, however just it might seem looked at from a theoretic point of view, was from a practical standpoint absolutely impossible. In saying that the policy which underlay the Bill was that of giving relief to agricultural depression hon. Members had fallen into an error; unquestionably, the policy which underlay the various agricultural proposals of the Government was that of assisting a depressed and suffering industry, but this particular Measure proposed to relieve the pressure of the rates. That was a policy which had been advocated by their Party for many years before agricultural depression assumed its present proportions, and was based on the contention that the system which had been adopted for the assessment of agricultural land was an unfair one, and had thrown upon land a very unfair share of the burden of local taxation as compared with other ratable property.

Why limit the Bill to five years, then?

said, his right hon. Friend had made it perfectly clear that that limitation had been made in order that at a later stage the whole question of the incidence of local taxation might be dealt with. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton had adopted some sentences from the minority Report of the Royal Commission, and when he expressed his dissent the right hon. Gentleman appeared to think that he held the view that agricultural depression was the same all over the country. He need hardly say that that was not his view; he had dissented from the suggestion that they could divide the country into geographical areas of agricultural depression. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman had quoted several counties, including that which he himself represented; but they would find that in those counties, and in the unions and parishes which had been quoted, as well as within the holdings of the same individuals, the greatest possible variation in the degree of agricultural depression existed. But in each case, whether the depression was great or small, there was precisely the same injustice with regard to the system by which the land was rated, and the course which, by this Amendment, the Government was asked to take departed from the underlying principle on which the Measure was based—namely, that some tardy justice should be done in regard to the pressure of taxation upon agricultural land. He did not believe hon. Members opposite had realised the actual meaning of this proposal, and yet they had themselves accepted the principle that agricultural land was to be rated at a lower rate for certain purposes. In the present case they were dealing with existing parishes, and they proposed this subvention so that the burden taken off agriculture should not be thrown upon other property in the same area. What was suggested now was that they should differentiate between different classes of land, not only in different counties, but in each union and even each holding. ["No!"] That was practically the logical conclusion of varying relief according to the pressure of agricultural depression. The same man would be found occupying land which had maintained its value, and land which had greatly decreased in value. Were they going to relieve him in one case and not in the other, or were they going to average the whole holding? He did not believe, if they could put their suggestion into practical and definite form, they would find it possible to carry it out. He commended the proposal especially to the Welsh Members, for, as far as he could see, if the suggestion were adopted, the proportion going to Wales would be materially decreased. ["Hear, hear!"] Whether the Welsh people would thank them for that it was not for him to say. He admitted that in some districts the depression was not so great as in others, but he believed the system adopted in the Bill was the best they could find. No doubt it had been said by some hon. Members on the Second Reading that there was no agricultural depression. ["No, no!"] Oh, yes. ["Hear, hear!"] They had heard repeatedly that there were parts where agricultural depression was hardly felt. [Opposition cheers, and A VOICE: "Parts."] If he had omitted "parts" he apologised. He did not believe they would find a single agriculturist in those parts who would endorse their opinions. He did not believe the proposal was a practical one, and they could not adopt it, as it would destroy the foundation on which the Bill rested. ["Hear, hear!"]

asked, what was the motive of the Government in introducing the Bill? The Government had spoken with two voices. They were told first that it was a Measure for the relief of agricultural depression, and it was on that ground that they justified giving precedence to the Bill. But they were told now that that was not the object at all; they were told that it was to remove an injustice. On which leg was the Government going to stand? [An HON. MEMBER: "Both."] Was this Bill a Bill for the relief of agricultural depression, or was it a Bill to remove an injustice? For his part he was totally opposed to the principle of the Bill. The only proper way to remove the injustice of local rates was to adopt the American system. He had lived in a county in the United States for many years, and the method there was to compel every man to contribute in proportion to his resources. That would remove the injustice.

thought the hon. Member was going rather wide of the matter under discussion.

said, he had rarely heard a more damaging attack on the Bill than that made by the Member for Shoreditch, but he would be under the painful necessity of opposing him, as a precedent would be set up which would be quoted against Ireland.

said, the great fact on which public attention would be centred was the total change of front on the part of the Government on this question. The proposal now made was that the apportionment should be according to the amount of distress. Surely, if they adopted this principle, the injustice would be much less than by throwing this money indiscriminately all over the country, without regard to the amount of depression which might prevail in any portion of the country. What was the answer of the Government? It was a total abandonment of the original profession with which this Bill was introduced. ["Hear, hear!"] There had been a total change of front on the part of the Government. In the Speech from the Throne, Her Majesty said: "I regret to say that the condition of agriculture is disastrous beyond any recent experience. Measures will be laid before you"—was this one of them?—["Yes!"]—"the object"—not one of the objects—"the object of which will be to mitigate the distress under which the classes who are engaged in that industry labour." There was nothing in the Speech from the Throne about remedying inequalities of local taxation. If the object of this Bill be to mitigate agricultural distress, the claim of his hon. Friend to have the relief apportioned to the distress was unanswerable.

thought they were wandering from the Amendment before the Committee, and he appealed to them whether it was not now time to come to a decision. Surely, after a little quiet reflection, the hon. Member for Dundee would see there was no great paradox in the Government introducing a Measure which, by removing an injustice under which agriculture had long suffered, might do something to relieve agricultural distress. It was the desire of the Government to relieve agricultural distress, and they thought that one of the ways in which that might best be attained was to remove an injustice which, even before that distress occurred, was generally admitted to be one under which the agricultural interest suffered. ["Hear, hear!"]

said, that if the object of the Bill was to remove an injustice affecting agricultural land, why should they restrict the operation of the Measure to five years?

Order, order! That question has been disposed of.

said, he was only replying to the remarks of the Leader of the House; but if the right hon. Gentleman was out of order he would not attempt to continue the discussion of the point. He had considerable difficulty in respect to his Amendment, because, if the Amendment were carried, the whole of Devonshire would practically be excluded from the provisions of the Bill. It was putting a great strain upon one's political principles to vote that Grants should be devoted to parts of the country in which his own constituency was not included. By the Bill his constituency would be saved about £13,358 a year in rates—a very considerable sum; but if the Amendment were carried that amount would be given to other parts of the country. He felt that if this were a Measure to relieve agricultural distress, relief ought to go to the districts which were most depressed. If it was a Measure to remove an admitted injustice, its effect ought to be general. In his part of the world assessments had not gone down, because rents had not been decreased sufficiently. The President of the Local Government Board had said in a letter yesterday that in 99 cases out of 100, upon a change of tenancy, there was a decrease of rent. What did that mean? Why, that the present tenants had been charged too high rents, from which it followed that they paid too high rates. There was a great competition for farms in his neighbourhood, and that kept up the rents and rates. The landlords had made small remissions of rent, but the Assessment Committees took the agreed rental as the basis of assessment, and paid no heed whatever to the remissions. If, in Devonshire, there was to be an adequate reduction of rates, the landlords must first of all give an adequate reduction of rent.

did not think the Government need trouble themselves very much to supply a logical reason for the Bill. When he found that under the Bill a considerable sum of money was to be given to his constituency by other people's constituents, he made up his mind to vote for the Bill. At the same time it was a relief to him to find the time limit proposed, because he felt that there was a certain amount of logic on which he could depend when it became necessary to defend himself. There was a suspicion—the facts were not very accurately ascertained—that the burdens on agricultural land were too great. It was necessary to have an Inquiry as to whether that was really the case or not. During the progress of that Inquiry, what was the position? The President of the Local Government Board, in introducing the Measure, said that land was deteriorating, and that the country districts were becoming depopulated. Pending the Inquiry then, and to avert those evils, a dole was to be given to keep land in cultivation. That was a reasonable position, but of course the position would be unreasonable if the greater portion of the dole were to be given to the land which did not require money to keep it in cultivation. The object of the Amendment was to give the most relief to those agricultural districts which were mostly in need of it, and therefore he had no hesitation in voting for the proposition.

asked whether the time had not arrived when they ought to come to a decision upon the Amendment? They had now debated the Amendment for several hours, and it must be admitted the discussion had occasionally travelled somewhat wide of the proposal before the Committee. He endeavoured to give, at the commencement of the Debate, his reasons for thinking that the Amendment would act unfairly. The hon. Member for the South Molton Division had stated that in Devonshire rents still remained too high. He reminded the Committee of a very important statement bearing on this point which was made by the Chairman of the Royal Commission himself, who said he had visited distressed parts of the country, and he came across many cases where the assessments were 50, and even 100 per cent. more than the rent. ["Hear, hear!"] If that were so it might easily be conceived that great injustice would be done by the Amendment of the hon. Member, for the effect of that Amendment was that no relief should be given in cases where the assessment had not fallen 20 per cent. compared with 20 years ago. ["Hear, hear!"] In those circumstances, and in presence of the statement made by the Chairman of the Commission, hon. Gentlemen opposite could hardly fail to see that the Amendment would operate very unfairly in the case of large numbers of tenancies, and that, therefore, it was one which it was impossible for the Government to accept. Many of the points raised by hon. Gentlemen opposite had been wide of the Amendment, and therefore he could not discuss them, but he wished to say emphatically that the Government had not departed one iota from the policy they laid down at the first. His own statement on the introduction of the Bill was on record, and it would be found to be perfectly in accord with the statements that had been made on behalf of the Government that night. [Cheers.] He would again appeal to the Committee to consider whether the time had not arrived for them to come to a decision on the Amendment. [Cheers and Opposition cries of "No!"]

said, he was always ready to respond to the appeals of right hon. Gentlemen opposite when it was possible to do so, but in the present case he would point out to the President of the Local Government Board that neither he nor any right hon. Member on the Treasury Bench had addressed any answer to the statements which had been put forward by hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition side of the House. [Cheers.] The question raised by the Amendment had not been met in any way by the Government, and it was necessary that there should be a plain understanding with regard to it. [Cheers.] That question rested not so much upon any particular reduction of the assessments in a given time, or upon any other matter of detail, but on the broad ground whether the money granted was to be distributed, so to speak, per head all over the kingdom, or whether some principle of justice and fairness was to be observed in its distribution. [Cheers.] For his own part he should be content if the right hon. Gentleman would say that he and his colleagues wished to carry out the principle of distribution fairly and justly, and that they would give the matter further consideration with a view to framing a plan to do so—a plan that would be, to some extent at least, in accordance with the views that had been expressed by those who supported the Amendment. Did the Government, or not, hold to the principle that the distribution was to be uniform—that it should be distributed to all alike regardless of conditions and circumstances? The point the Committee were then asked to decide was whether that course was fair and just. ["Hear, hear!"] If he thought the question involved had been fairly debated he would accede to the appeal of the right hon. Gentleman, but he repeated that the statements and arguments put forward by hon. Members who had supported the Amendment had not even been noticed, much less answered. ["Hear, hear!"] Even the Leader of the House, when he entered the Chamber a short time ago and made a few casual remarks, which had little bearing on the Debate—

said, that whether the remarks he made were casual or not, they were directed to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who preceded him. [Cheers.]

said, he did not think the right hon. Gentleman touched the case under discussion. At any rate, this was perhaps one of the most important Amendments that would be proposed, and the case involved was one which could not be raised on the Second Reading of the Bill. The Opposition did not wish to impose on the Government any scheme of their own, but they wished for a declaration from the Government as to the justice or otherwise, in their opinion, of the case the Opposition had brought forward. [Cheers.]

thought the Amendment very cleverly and ingeniously constructed, and it would be impossible to frame one that would be more likely to create irritation and friction throughout the country. ["Hear, hear!"] It appeared, however, to have created some confusion in the minds of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. As he understood the position of the Government, it was this—they wished to remove what had been an abuse and an injustice in relation to agricultural land, and they proposed to remove it throughout the country, in some districts to one extent, and in other districts to another extent. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton had thought the relief should not be distributed by way of holdings or unions, or parishes, but he suggested that it might be distributed by counties. Well, even then there might be inequalities according to their contention. His own county had been referred to, and it might be taken as an illustration. One part of that county had not suffered from agricultural distress to nearly the same extent as another part, and therefore if the money was distributed even by counties there must be inequality. The fact was that such irregularities could not be avoided, and he maintained that the course taken by the Government was perfectly logical and reasonable. Neither the Government nor their supporters had made any change of front; their one object was to relieve agriculture, and, under all circumstances, they believed they had taken the best and most practical way of carrying it out. [Cheers.]

said, that the remarks of the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had fully borne out the statement of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton that the principle of the Bill was unjust, and that the Amendment was based on solid ground. For the hon. Gentleman had shown that the operation of the Bill would be fraught with injustice even in his own county. ["Hear, hear!"] What he and others complained of was that this money was to be distributed without any regard whatever to necessity or the merits of the case, and the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton had shown what injustice such a general distribution would inflict on different parts of the country. A strong case had been shown for a re-consideration of the Measure, for the whole Debate had shown that the Government had brought it forward without having fully gone into the question. The fact was that rash promises were made by them at the recent elections; their friends were now pressing them to redeem the pledges, and here was a result of it—a Measure prepared without consideration, with no inquiry as to what the result of it would be, and drawn without any regard to principles of justice. ["Hear, hear!" and cries of "Divide!"] The Minister in charge of the Bill seemed to be unable to meet the arguments that had been raised on the Amendment, and he thought it would be well if the Government agreed to report progress in order that they might have an opportunity of making up their minds definitely as to the policy they intended to pursue in regard to the points raised in relation to the distribution of the money.

claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but the Chairman withheld his assent, and declined then to put the Question.

resuming, said he was amazed at the right hon. Gentleman seeking to put the gag upon the Debate when both he and his friends apparently were unable to meet the arguments of their opponents. [Cheers.] If he could not answer their arguments he would close their mouths. [Cheers and laughter.] More unfortunate action on the part of the Government could not be conceived—

said, the hon. Member must confine his remarks to the Amendment.

said, the suffering workpeople in their great centres of industry, who were to be taxed to make up this enormous fund which was to be placed at the disposal of the right hon. Gentleman, must be excused if they felt strongly on this matter, and they who had charge of the interests of these poor people did ask the Goverment, if they were going to distribute this money, to distribute it upon some reasonable system which would have regard to the merits and necessities of the case.

rose, when,

rose in his place, and was about to address the House, but

called upon

who said, that if this Bill had for its primary object the dealing with one portion of the general problem of the incidence of rating, a very serious question was raised in the minds of those who represented the general taxpayers. Was this to be the precedent by which other portions of the problem of the rectification of the incidence of rating were to be met? When they came to other portions of the problem and it was found that there was an amount of injustice, were they to go back on the general pocket of the taxpayer again? Was the House to be asked, by this Bill, to establish a precedent.

The hon. Member is now discussing the general principle of the Bill. He must confine himself to the particular Amendment before the House.

said, it was quite possible that a Member of the House might support the Bill cordially if it was what they understood it to be originally—a Bill for the relief of distressed agriculture. He believed the country might be prepared to grant this relief if it was administered in a fair and proper proportion, but the country would not be prepared to grant it if it was no relief at all, but only a portion of the general problem of rating, and thereby aimed at a proposition which the taxpayers would resist to the uttermost because of setting the precedent of dipping into their pockets?

said, he would not have intervened had it not been that direct reference was made to the Welsh Members. The right hon. Gentleman had said that if the Amendment were carried it would prejudicially affect the position of Wales. That was perfectly true; it would at first, at any rate, hit Wales rather hard, but he thought that eventually it would bring considerable benefit, and it would help agriculture in general. The reason why it would hit Wales hard was that there had been no reduction in rent in Wales up to the present. That was not because there had been no depression, but simply because the landlords had not realised the depression in the same way that the landlords in Norfolk and Essex had done, and reduced their rents in proportion to the sufferings of the farmers. But, if the Amendment were carried, he thought the Welsh landlords would be quick to realise that no relief would be granted except in cases where there was a reduction of 25 per cent. in the assessment. The right hon. Gentleman had said that that assessment was no criterion of the real value of the land. But the assessment of land was based upon its estimated rental. The first thing that was done was to arrive at the estimated gross rental, which, according to the legal definition, was the rent which land could reasonably be expected to produce. If it was proved that there was such a depression in agriculture that farms could not be let at the rent they brought some years ago, then, according to the legal definition, the assessment ought to fall in proportion.

said, he had quoted the Chairman of the Royal Commission, who said he had found cases in which the assessment was 100 per cent. above the rent.

observed that that interruption only showed that the Law was not carried out; and instead of seeing that it was carried out the right hon. Gentlemen proposed another law which had nothing whatever to do with the first. All that was necessary in these cases was to see that the law was carried out. He desired to contrast the case of Norfolk with that of Wales in reference to this particular Amendment. There had been a reduction in the assessment in Norfolk of something like 26 per cent., and that reduction was, practically, the same as the reduction in rent. But in Wales there had been no reduction in rent, and, consequently, there could be no reduction in the assessment. Under the Amendment, Wales would not benefit to the extent it ought to do; but the landlords would, no doubt, eventually realise that, and would reduce their rents, especially as they would themselves benefit under the Bill to the extent of half their reductions. The President of the Local Government Board had quoted a passage from the minority Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture as an argument in support of the Bill, but so far from that being so it was a strong argument in favour of the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman had, in fact, stumbled across the best argument he could get in favour of the Amendment. The Bill was supported by hon. Members opposite on two grounds—first, because it was to relieve distressed agriculture; and, secondly, because it was to readjust the burden of taxation; but, the moment they tackled these arguments separately, both were repudiated in turn. He would support the Amendment even though it might not benefit Wales, because the scheme of the Bill was unjust to the country generally, and exposed the hollowness of the pretence that the Measure had been introduced to relieve distressed agriculture.

desired to explain, in reference to the reply made by the Minister of Agriculture, that he did not tie himself to the latter words of his Amendment. The Amendment now before the Committee was simply on the single question of whether or not a comparison should be taken for the purpose of coming to a conclusion whether, in any particular place, there had or had not been a depression in agriculture. It was within the memory of hon. Members that not a word was said on the Second Reading of the Bill to justify this Measure as one for the relief of the incidence of taxation. If the Government were going to follow the Report of the Royal Commission, why did they not divide the Rates into four parts, and put only one quarter on the farmers? As a readjustment of the burdens of taxation, the Bill was monstrously unfair to the farmer and unfair in favour of the landlord.

moved, to leave out the words "the occupier," and to insert the words "every owner." He said the Bill proposed to relieve the occupier of agricultural land to the extent of one-half his rates. The object of his Amendment was that the occupier should not pay the rates directly at all, but that the landlord should pay them. Such a system would be easier to work and less expensive. It would be more easy, after an assessment was made, to get the money directly from one landowner than from a large number of occupiers. There were precedents for collecting the rates from the landowner direct in Scotland, Ireland, and England. In Ireland, in the case of holdings under £4 valuation, the landlord paid the whole of the rates, and in all cases he paid the Grand Jury Cess. In Scotland the landlord also paid the whole of the rates under £4 valuation, and he also made himself responsible for the whole of the rates in the lettings of large properties for sporting purposes. In England, too, the landowner had been made to pay the whole of the rates upon certain classes of property. That was provided by the Small Tenements Act. Under the Poor Law Assessment Collection Act the occupier was relieved from the local rates, which were placed entirely upon the landowner, in the case of land valued under £20 in London, under £13 in Liverpool, under £10 in Manchester and Birmingham, and under £8 elsewhere. If the landowner arranged to pay the rates for a year in those cases he was allowed a reduction of 25 per cent. Again, if the landowner was compelled to pay the rates, as he might be by the Vestries, or now by the Parish Councils, he got 30 per cent. off. Those instances clearly showed that it was an economical course that the landlord should be rated directly. And what were the objections to such a proposal? One reason would have been sufficient to condemn it in years gone by—in the days when the exercise of the franchise depended upon the payment of the rates—namely, that it would have the effect of depriving a large number of people of their votes. But, fortunately, to-day the franchise did not depend upon the payment of money, either in rates or taxes. A man voted now because he was an occupier or a householder. Therefore, that objection would not hold good to-day. But it might be objected that under such an arrangement those who would have the administering of the money would not be those who had directly paid the money. Again, that was an objection that did not hold good to-day because, in the case of Boards of Guardians, landowners who did not pay directly took part in the administering of the money; and even in the case of the House of Commons, Members who had to deal with vast sums of money were not of necessity direct payers to taxation. If a man neither smoked nor drank, he paid little or nothing directly to taxation. Practically speaking, a man might be able to deal with large sums of money and yet not be a direct taxpayer. If the landowner were made to pay these local rates, the objection that the occupier was not paying directly would not be a valid objection. But if another illustration were necessary he would point to this very Bill. The Measure was one to relieve the occupiers to the extent of one half the rates; but it was not proposed that in consequence he should be able to vote as only half an individual. The Bill itself admitted that it was not necessary that a man should pay in full directly in order that he might vote as to the administration of the funds. It would be more fair to labourers and farmers that the landowners should be called upon to pay the whole of these reduced rates. He would prefer a division of rates between occupier and owner, and he had an Amendment to that effect, but, if one was to pay all the rates, it ought to be the landowner rather than the tenant farmer. Therefore, he moved the Amendment.