moved to reduce the vote relating to the Local Government Board by £100. He said he took an early opportunity on this Vote of drawing attention to a matter of some urgency in reference to the proposed sick children's asylum district which had been projected by the President of the Local Government Board, and which formed the subject of the Order which had been circulated among the Boards of Guardians of the Metropolis, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give some assurance that he would either greatly modify or not proceed with proposals which had been received with alarm by the local authorities in London, and which was especially repugnant to the ratepayers, who believed it would be a means of fastening upon them new and large burdens. He hoped the President of the Local Government Board would be able to make a statement which would assure the Metropolis on the subject. If that were the case there would be no disposition to press the matter hostilely or unduly. On the other hand, unless the statement were explicit, it would become necessary to divide the Committee. In the Report of the Poor Law Schools Committee a desire was expressed for the exclusion, as far as possible, of children from actual life in our workhouses, and for the gradual decrease of what were known as the barrack schools. To bring the children more in contact with home influences was an object which would commend itself to all. At the same time, judging from the Parliamentary Paper just published, even in the case of the experiment in Sheffield of isolated homes, which on the whole seemed to be successful, there were some defects. Before Parliament indorsed the findings of the Poor Law Schools Committee, there should be full and adequate opportunity given for discussing not only its Report, but also the evidence which had been given, because in some cases the Report exaggerated certain statements as to the condition of the schools, and in some respects it was very much in conflict with the evidence which was given. The defect of what was generally an admirable Report was that it proceeded to too great generalities from particular instances. He very much doubted whether one or two casual visits of this character to schools could result in a trustworthy estimate of their general work. With regard to the condemnation of the schools, and the retention of the services of the Guardians, even the Report of the Committee itself was not unanimous, and they had only to read the Minority Reports to feel that the Committee was materially divided even upon vital and essential points. There were two points both in the Report of the Committee and in the proposal of the President of the Local Government Board which he hoped would receive much more attention in Parliament before they were brought into force—namely, the creation of a central authority, and the dismissal, or, at any rate, the limitation of the responsibility of the Guardians, who had hitherto ably supervised the education of the children in these schools. ["Hear, hear!"] There was in the Report, he would not say condemnation of the services of the Guardians, because in some respects they were recognised, but the schools they had administered were declared in general terms not to have been satisfactory, and the standard of education was very strongly condemned. The Local Government Board must not forget that the present and past condition of affairs had been very largely due to its own inaction, and in saying this he did not mean to cast any reflection upon the Board, because he believed, in this and other matters, it had been very greatly overworked and understaffed. He pointed out that for years the Education Inspector had been endeavouring to get the Local Government Board to issue a new order defining the limit of hours, and so forth, but that that had never been accomplished. Other matters also which had not been attended to showed that the Local Government Board itself was very largely responsible for what had happened. He thought it was only just, when discussing the comparative action and inaction of the Local Government Board and the Guardians, that they should pay a tribute to the Guardians for the part which they had taken for many years past in the workhouses and schools, by means of which personal sympathy and help had been given to individuals both in schools and during after-life which could not have been given under a centralised system. The depreciatory remarks which had been made about industrial training were by no means universally applicable. There were many workhouse schools in connection with which the Guardians had done most admirable work. He hoped that under any new scheme the services of the Guardians might be retained. Whatever might be the view of the Royal Commission, he thought it was important to remember that four very able members of the Commission had signed a Minority Report. That Report showed that an able and conscientious minority of the Commission looked to the Guardians for a continuation of the excellent work they had done in the past. While the Commissioners recommended the creation of a central authority of a very wide and ample character, with many duties to perform, the proposal of the President of the Local Government Board was that there should be a Board simply for a few of the minor points recommended by the Commission as a whole. That proposal was of a so much reduced character that it could not be said to have been made in pursuance of the Report of the Commission at all. So far as he had heard the matter discussed, those who approved of the Report felt that the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman did not go far enough; on the other hand, those who opposed the Report felt that the proposal went a very great deal too far; and he had never come in contact with anyone who admired it as a safe middle line. He knew that those who would have to pay for it, the ratepayers, regarded the prospect with the very gravest misgiving. They saw that this proposal for taking care of the sick, feeble, and imbecile children would mean the creation of a new central Board, the building of new institutions, special hospitals, seaside convalescent homes, and the enlistment of an army of inspectors in addition to those which already existed, all of which must inevitably be costly; and when it was remembered how heavily burdened the ratepayers were at present, it was not to be wondered at that they should ask the House to ascertain unmistakably that this very expensive under taking was necessary. This was a matter in which they should not be guided altogether by sympathy, although there was no case that appealed more strongly to that feeling. He should like to ask what were the recommendations of the particular proposals of the President of the Local Government Board? In the first place the right hon. Gentleman proposed to intrust the election of the Board not to the, ratepayers, but, indirectly, to the Boards of Guardians, which he ventured to think an objectionable principle. In fact, the only argument which the supporters of the proposal advanced was that it created a central Board and effected that isolation of children suffering from contagious diseases, which was necessary, but which could be obtained just as well under existing circumstances by the Guardians. Those being the chief recommendations of the proposal, what were the objections to it? Everyone who had studied the subject of local government must acknowledge that one of the greatest evils of the past was the multiplication of authorities. There was already such an overlapping and an interlacing of authorities in London that the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman would make confusion worse confounded. Another objection to the proposal was that it embodied a thing alien to local self-government—a new central authority—not immediately responsible to the ratepayers. Again, there was no real need for this new authority. There were attached to each of the schools an infirmary which could be used for isolation without any increased expense. At Hanwell there was an ophthalmic hospital available for the children attending the schools. He should mention in this connection that the opinion of the Commission that ophthalmic was contagious was disputed by very high medical authorities, so that, in that respect, no need existed for carrying out the Report of the Commission. Then, in regard to feeble-minded patients he would point out that it was the opinion of some authorities this was a class which could not be benefited at all by isolation, that such children required the stimulus of companionship and that the worst thing for them would be the isolation that was suggested. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that there were already organisations in existence, such as the Metropolitan Asylums Board, which rendered the creation of a new authority unnecessary. He agreed that something was to be said in favour of using such existing organisations; but he was bound to add that the experience of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, partly indirectly elected and partly nominated by the Local Government Board, was not universally in its favour, especially in regard to cost. In 1877 the cost of the Asylum Board was £8,845. In ten years it had increased to £15,438; and in 1896 it was no less than £32,009. In the Report of the Commission there was a condemnation of the Asylum Board as a proper organisation for dealing with this class of cases; and in the Minority Report the same condemnation was more emphatically expressed. These were reasons for hesitating before accepting the conclusions of the Commission, or even the more modified proposal of the President of the Local Government Board. Why should not the work go on as at present, supervised by the Local Government Board? If the staff of the Local Government Board was overworked it could be easily increased. It seemed to him that that was the best way to deal with the question—on the old lines with the co-Operation of the Guardians and under the supervision of the Local Government Board. As to the question of education, no one would object to the restoration of inspection by the Education Department itself, which was removed by Mr. Lowe in 1859. He quite admitted that in the past there had been evils, but they could be remedied by less expensive means than these proposals of the right hon. Gentleman. What was wanted was reform, not revolution. If the President of the Local Government Board would take that line, he would have the fullest sympathy and support of the Guardians concerned in the matter. In this work of securing more isolation, better education, and better provision for the in-and-out children of the workhouses, and in raising the prospects which they might have in the future, the right hon. Gentleman was engaged in a difficult, though a hopeful and a useful task, and he hoped that, instead of making proposals which were repugnant in the highest degree, the right hon. Gentleman would at least see whether there were not existing organisations capable of doing the work. He hoped that by some statement the right hon. Gentleman would reassure public opinion and relieve the minds of the ratepayers.

called attention to the disputes which now arose between local authorities as to the settlement of paupers.

rose to order. He wished to know whether it was in order to run off the subject of the particular reduction which had been moved?

Any subject which is germane to the Local Government Board can be raised on this Motion.

said that he should afterwards pass to the subject of his hon. Friend's reduction. He had accounts of three or four recent cases of difference between local authorities as to which of them should bear the cost of paupers—cases which had been carried to the House of Lords and involved a great expense in litigation. He suggested that the Local Government Board should have power to appoint permanent officials to deal with these disputes, and that their decisions should be final. As to the question raised by his hon. Friend the Member for South Islington, he hoped that the President of the Local Government Board would modify considerably or entirely abandon the proposals contained in the draft order which had been issued with his authority. That order had been considered by various representative metropolitan bodies, and their reception of it had not been favourable. A conference of Guardians representing all London was held on the 26th February this year. The Camberwell Guardians thought the proposal undesirable, unless all classes of children were placed under such authority, and the members of the same popularly elected. St. George's, Hanover Square, thought the proposal undesirable; St. Giles's, Bloomsbury, and Paddington, suggested the Metropolitan Asylums Board and the School Board as the new authorities; Hackney suggested the Metropolitan Asylums Board; Holborn, Lambeth, and Shoreditch protested against the proposal; St. Saviour's suggested an inquiry; Islington viewed the proposal with alarm; and Wandsworth suggested a postponement. The matter had also been considered by the London County Council, who had unanimously passed a resolution stating that the establishment of a new and distinct metropolitan authority for a section of the poor-law children was undesirable, and calculated to lead to endless expense, and that the constitution of the authority suggested by the Local Government Board was opposed to the resolution of the Council of June 5, 1894. This objection to this draft scheme was that it complicated instead of simplifying the existing system. At present there were dealing with the 17,000 poor-law children in London four Government Departments, 32 directly elected bodies, 7 indirectly elected bodies, and 547 voluntary committees. The new Board proposed would only add further confusion to an already confused condition of things. Further, it would do nothing to carry out those reforms which were recognised as necessary by all the members of the late Departmental Committee. It would do nothing to prevent the aggregation of children which had been shown again and again to be attended with bad effects morally, mentally, and physically. This was recognised by the officials of the Local Government Board themselves. In the 19th Annual Report, Dr. Bridges, the Medical Inspector of the Local Government Board, drew a striking contrast between the appearance of the boys on the training-ship Exmouth and the inmates of the ordinary poor-law school, who were sluggish, dull, slouching, and disinclined to play. There were 1,600 of these children now suffering from ophthalmia, ringworm, and other skin diseases, and that in itself was a complete condemnation of the barrack system. The proposals of the President of the Local Government Board would not touch the root of the evil at all. Palliatives were of little use while the causes remained. The Board proposed was practically a useless body. His hon. Friend the Member for South Islington spoke slightingly of the efforts of the Departmental Committee to ascertain the actual state of affairs. But he would point out there was no other method of obtaining accurate information than the method adopted by the Departmental Committee, which spared neither time nor labour in mastering the details.

said that he fully acknowledged the services of the Committee, but he urged that no casual visit once or twice could give the knowledge and authority which was obtained by ten years' acquaintance with the schools.

accepted the correction. But he thought that even such a casual visit paid by experts must bring important facts to light. As to the slight conflict between the evidence and the Report, the Committee had a very difficult task in trying to extract information from officials who were, from their positions, more or less unwilling to impart it. With regard to buildings, the normal children did not need these institutions at all. The abnormal did need them, but the proposal of the President of the Local Government Board was to take the abnormal children, who did need them, and hand them over to a board which had not got the institutions, and leave the normal children, who did not need them in the hands of a body with the institutions. He agreed with the hon. Member for Islington that the scheme pleased nobody and disappointed many who had founded their hopes on the Report of the Committee. He earnestly appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to again consider whether it was not possible to carry out the great scheme of reform which was advocated by the Departmental Committee by arming himself with legislative powers to establish a central board for all the pauper children in London. What were the advantages which would accrue from such a proposal? In a sentence he would say that it simplified, and simplicity in Local Government meant economy. In the second place it would pool the children, pool the buildings, and pool the money. It would enable them to equalise the rates and bring about the sense of common interest and common union between the rich and poor unions of the Metropolis. And it would do one thing more, it would enable them to put an end to that system of working pauper children, regardless of their educational standard, of the half-timers. Their system of boarding-out had been tried with success in important provincial centres. Sheffield had led the way, and he was glad to think that in Bradford the system had worked most satisfactory results. If the right hon. Gentleman would carry out the recommendations of the Committee, he would do something to lessen the hardships of these little ones, who had inherited so much misery and trouble, and to secure for them a brighter prospect for the future.

was not enamoured with, the idea that in future the ordering of these children should devolve upon a separate body. He did not think that a body which was halfway between heaven and earth, with no direct responsibility to the ratepayers and only under the control of the Local Government Board in an imperfect manner, was an ideal body to have the care of these children. He would rather encourage the Guardians to go on improving as they had done of late years—["hear, hear!"]—and the way to encourage them was to press responsibility more closely home upon them. In order to do that, the Local Government Board ought itself to be re-organised, so that it could give more direct attention to these matters, and be in a position to exercise more authoritative control over Boards of Guardians in doing their duty. If they had a sub-department of the Local Government Board, charged with the care of children, sick as well as healthy, they should do a great deal to improve, not only the education of such children, but to stamp out those diseases which had been a scandal to poor law administration. He rose more especially, however, to call attention to a matter which was of considerable consequence to the country generally, and that was the order which the Local Government Board had recently issued in connection with Parish Council Elections. Unfortunately the Local Government Act did not allow the same simplicity to be carried into Parish Council Elections which exists in Municipal Elections. The Act was so drawn that a parish meeting had to receive the nominations for parish councillors, and to take a vote on their nominations, and consequently they had been reduced to what was really a barbarous system—a show of hands at parish meetings on the nomination of candidates for parish councillors. This show of hands was a very unpopular method, for this reason, that at these meetings, composed as they were largely of two classes of people, one the employers and the other the employed, the latter were placed in a very invidious position if they voted against their employers or employers' nominees, and the consequence was that the show of hands had over and over again been completely reversed when they had the opportunity of taking the ballot. They had constantly cases of this kind, not only on the first occasion of parish elections but on the second occasion as well. The right which should be given to the citizens to obtain a ballot almost automatically on the demand of one of the voters ought not to be lightly thrown aside. Upon what grounds had this alteration been made? He assured the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board that it caused his predecessors some trouble to get rid of the system of a show of hands, and there was some difficulty in devising another system. Elections went on for a couple of years under the new system, and the right hon. Gentleman was asked questions in the House as to whether he could alter the system and give one elector the power to demand a poll. It was said that it was undesirable that one voter should have this right to put the parish to the expense of having a poll. It was also said that factious persons or cranks, or even a local poacher, might put the parish to this expense; but he did not see why even a poacher should not be able to do so as long as he retained the rights enjoyed by any other citizen. Nor did he see why this should always be supposed to be the action of a crank. These polls had not been demanded in a vast number of instances by factious persons or by other persons without a reason for uttering their demand. In these cases they ought not to deprive citizens of their rights on the ground that in some few instances the rights might be abused. There were 7,000 of these elections taking place every year, and they ought to be careful, therefore, in interfering with the rights of a vast majority of the citizens because a few persons might have put a parish to the unnecessary expense of a poll. Expense was not necessarily involved because a ballot was demanded. There was always a considerable interval between the demanding of the ballot, the nomination, and the last day of withdrawal. There was also time if the ballot was improperly demanded to influence candidates to withdraw and save expense to the parish. This point, therefore, ought not to loom too largely in the consideration of hon. Gentlemen who thought that one elector should not have the right to put a parish to the trouble of an election. When these rules were first issued he had many representations made to him that in many villages they could not find more than one man who would take up the unpopular position of demanding a poll. Personally he had known many villages of that kind; but now, by a stroke of the pen, the Local Government Board altered all this and required practically five electors, or the consent of the chairman and one elector, in order to obtain a poll. That was too clean a sweep to make. He had a bundle of letters in his possession from various parts of the country since these parish elections had come on under the new system complaining of the difficulty of obtaining a poll. The difficulty was expressed very forcibly in some of these letters. One writer said:—

"This rule would mean a most serious interference with the right and freedom of parishes in the elections."

Another pointed out that in a place under the control of a large colliery company it would be

"a difficult matter to find five working men with courage enough to demand a poll at the parish meeting in the presence of the mine-owner and his agents."

Another wrote that "he regards it as a serious curtailment of their liberties; "and he found that, in various Parish Council meetings held, the same difficulty had arisen even during the recent elections. Stress was laid on the difficulty of finding five men, that the show of hand system was so unsatisfactory that they would rather submit to the ballot, and

"the moment the master's hand goes up it was a signal for his servants and hangers-on to vote in the same direction."

Then it was said that "five men could not be found, for the simple reason that they were too afraid." If this feeling of fear existed, whether well or ill founded, the Committee ought to do its best to minimise and take it away. He thought, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman might have waited a little longer before interfering with the rules established by his predecessor. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman would say that he had substantial reasons for making the change. Had the right hon. Gentleman obtained intimations in favour of the alteration from five per cent. of the Parish Councils, or even from two per cent. or three per cent. of the Parish Councils? He might have received representations from individuals who might be important and influential, but as to the Parish councils themselves he did not think that the right hon. Gentleman had any large representations from the 7,000 Parish Councils that had to hold parish elections. He did not think, therefore, that a change of this kind which struck at the freedom of election ought to be undertaken by any Minister unless he was backed up by a strong amount of popular feeling. He ought to have direct evidence from the localities themselves that the people most affected were anxious for the change. It was too early to begin to meddle with an Act which had only been two years in force, and to meddle with rules which had not had time to be thoroughly tried and worked. As a matter of ordinary moral right there was power to demand a poll by a single elector in connection with many small subjects affecting the parish, but they were unimportant in comparison with the right affecting the governing body of the locality. That right had been taken away by this order of the Local Government Board before sufficient time had been afforded to test the working of the system. In the interests of local liberty in many rural parishes he protested against this order, and he asked the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the matter during the next few months with a view to altering it when he issued the order for the next parish council elections.

pointed out that the appeals in connection with this subject had come from both sides of the House. When the subject was brought forward on a previous occasion there was really no Debate on the question, and apparently the House at that time was unanimous in saying that the rule ought to be altered. The mover of the Amendment had given a most extraordinary account of parish life. He was astonished anyone should say that there was any great feeling in a parish that one man should be able to demand a poll, and thereby put the whole parish to the trouble and expense of an election. In the county in which he lived, and where he had the honour of being the chairman of one Parish Council and chairman of a parish meeting in another parish, they were unanimous in resenting the order which Mr. Shaw-Lefevre and the hon. Gentleman opposite had made, and under which one man, who might not be a ratepayer in the parish, could demand a poll and put the whole parish to the trouble and expense of a poll because the men he wanted to have elected were not chosen by show of hands at the parish meeting. He would like to remind the House of what the Act itself said. By Section 48 it was provided that the election of the Councils established by the Act should be according to the rules laid down by the Local Government Board. Then in the First Schedule he found that Rule 7 said that a poll might be demanded by one elector in a number of instances which the hon. Gentleman opposite had mentioned, but that rule did not mention the election of Parish Councillors as one of them. That was not mentioned in the schedule at all, and the only way that Mr. Shaw-Lefevre and the hon. Gentleman opposite could get in this order was under Sub-section K, which said "in other prescribed matters." Would it be believed that it was on account of this outlet which they got, that they made the order that any one man might claim a poll. That was not all, because at the end of this particular section of the schedule were these words:—

"But, save as aforesaid, a poll shall not be taken unless either the chairman assents or the poll is demanded by the parochial electors, not being less than five in number."

He would like to remind the House of what took place during the passage of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton—and they all recognised the fair and impartial manner in which he conducted the discussions on that Bill—said, when they were discussing whether there ought to be a ballot or not, that certainly he thought it ought not to be put in the hands of less than five people, because if five people did not, or would not, demand a poll in the parish it could not be worth having—the demand was not a real one. In the face of that, how could the hon. Gentleman opposite say it was intended by the Act that one man should be able to demand a poll? This order was almost outside the Act altogether, and yet it was contended that it was a very strong measure for his right hon. Friend suddenly to change that order. He was quite certain that his right hon. Friend was backed by the almost unanimous opinion of the country. He could not say absolutely unanimous, because the hon. Gentleman opposite had produced half-a-dozen letters against it.

I could have produced hundreds.

said he dared say his right hon. Friend had also letters by hundreds. He was sure that Mr. Shaw-Lefevre had many appeals addressed to him on the subject, and from his own experience he could tell the Committee of certainly dozens of parishes who were unanimous in wishing the rule to be altered. He would be astonished if any Gentleman in that House, who was a Member of a Parish Council, would get up and deny that it was the general feeling of the Parish Councils throughout the land that that order was a bad one, and that they hailed with general approval and delight the order of his right hon. Friend giving the power of this demand for a poll to five instead of one. While the order of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre and the hon. Gentleman opposite was almost outside the letter of the Act, the order of his right hon. Friend left the Act as it was passed.

said he had no doubt that when they came to amend the Local Government Act there would be a great deal to be said in favour of a middle course on this question. The result of the power being in the hands of one man in many cases was to put the parish to great expense. On the other hand, he could assure the hon. Member who had just spoken that his hon. Friend who raised this question was perfectly right in saying that there were great numbers of small parishes in which a poll demanded by one man had produced a result wholly different from that shown in the parish meeting. The hon. Member for Islington, in a speech with a great deal of which he agreed, protested against the creation of a new metropolitan authority, and, at the same time indicated his wish that the Department of the Local Government Board dealing with this question should be strengthened as an alternative. He believed that when certain abuses had been discovered in any system, people were always apt to jump to remedies, which themselves would produce even greater abuses in the long run. That, he believed, would be the case in the creation of a central authority of this kind. All of them would desire that there should be an improvement in the treatment of these poor children, and many of them thought that if Boards of Guardians were more and more induced by the example and teaching of the Local Government Board, either to board out or emigrate children, and to adopt the cottage home system, coupled under the direction of the Board, with seaside homes for children suffering from certain diseases, without the revolutionary remedy of the creation of a new central authority, everything would be done that the House really wished to be done in connection with this subject. No doubt the Local Government Board was weak in its staff on certain sides, and no doubt it was overworked, in consequence of which a great deal of irritation and friction and bad administration in localities had been fostered by the slowness of communication between headquarters and the localities. This was a pressing matter at this moment, inasmuch as an inquiry was taking place into the staff of the Local Government Board. He was a little afraid that any such inquiry must assume the wisdom of all that was being done in the office, and that where they found a particular branch of the office overworked, it must necessarily lead to an increase of that particular branch. It was, therefore, well to point out that there were those who believed that a large amount of work was being done by the office at the present moment, which it had better not do at all. He was one of those who were opposed to centralisation in any form, but he admitted it was not the fault of the Local Government Board. Parliament had undoubtedly been careless in its legislation, and had constantly thrown on the Local Government Board an immense amount of work, much of which might have been avoided altogether. When the Local Government Bill was under discussion, there was great difficulty in giving the power of Parish Councils in many matters to other parties than the Parish Councils. The first part of the Bill was concerned with rural parishes—in the first line of the Bill the words "rural parish" occurred. All the powers relating to rural parishes had to be applied to other places that were not rural at all, and that could not be done by any ordinary Motion. The course which was adopted led to an enormous amount of work being thrown on the Local Government Board. For example, it was wished by many districts, districts really undistinguishable from rural parishes, to have the powers of the Parish Councils in the matter of charities, allotments, appointment of overseers and the like. The Local Government Board took the view, which he did not think Parliament meant them to take, but which they were justified in taking by the letter of the law, that they ought to correspond with the locality in every case. There was often a very long correspondence, and in the end an order was made or refused. Often a correspondence was held with the Charity Commissioners, entailing enormous work and delay. He had always thought that the Board made too many inquiries, but whether that was so or not, the correspondence with local authorities had been enormously increased by the Local Government Act, and he hoped that if the deliberations of Sir John Hibbert's Committee led to an increase of staff, as he believed they would, the increase would take place, for example, in the department which dealt with pauper children rather than in that which dealt with purely formal matters, which only caused friction between the Board and local authorities.

said that he rose at the request of his right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board, because they thought it would be well to clear away one or two questions which had arisen, in order that the Committee might get back to the main point at issue, that of the Poor Law schools. His hon. Friend the Member for West Bradford raised a question as to the law of settlement. The hon. Member admitted that the law raised difficult issues, not only between parts of England, but between England and Ireland, and between Ireland and Scotland, and the suggestion he made was that the Local Government Board should appoint some special inspectors to deal With questions of dispute arising between Boards of Guardians.

said his suggestion was that the Local Government Board should take power to appoint an official who should act as referee.

drew the attention of the hon. Member to 14 and 15 Vic., chap. 105, which expressly dealt with the point. If two Boards of Guardians were at issue in regard to settlement, and they chose to unite in stating a case for the Local Government Board, the Board was directed to inquire and its decision was final.

said his desire was that the Board itself should have compulsory power.

said that the point would be considered, but legislation would be required if it were to be dealt with. In regard to the point raised by his hon. Friend the Member for the Ilkeston Division, he thought he ought to make it clear, not only what had been done, but why the Local Government Board had declined to insert in the order issued this year power which undoubtedly was conceded in the order issued by Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, and he believed in the first order issued by the present President of the Local Government Board. A single elector had not power to demand a poll under the Statute itself, and in order that he should have that power the Local Government Board had to intervene and confer the power upon him by regulation and order. When the attention of his right hon. Friend was first drawn to the matter he stated in the House that he would be quite willing to receive information from all parts of the House in regard to the opinion entertained by hon. Members on the point. The opinions of hon. Members were freely given, and they were all in one direction. Upon the Estimates a discussion was raised, and he said that in consequence of the information that had reached his right hon. Friend it was not intended to insert the provision in question in the next order. Not a word of protest was raised. The Local Government Board had received a great many communications—[Sir WALTER FOSTER: "From whom?"] They had had only six communications against the order of this year—four from Parish Councils, and two from Liberal Associations. That was the entire body of evidence against the present form of order.

asked whether the hon. Gentleman would say whether the Board had received information showing that even 1 per cent. of the Parish Councils were in favour of the order?

said that information had been received from four Parish Councils only, and they were against the order. The great body of Parish Councils had raised no protest whatever.

Do they ask for the change?

said that his right hon. Friend left the matter to the opinion of the House, and that opinion had been conveyed in the clearest terms. They had had 77 applications from different parts of the country to change the order to its present form, and they had had only four objections to it. So far as he was aware the great bulk of the Members of the House were in favour of the alteration being made. As to the question of the reorganisation of the Local Government Board, the Committee were aware that a Departmental Committee was now sitting. They had almost brought their labours to a close, and he was certain that valuable results would follow the Report of that Committee. The Local Govern-Board had been blamed continuously for the delay in doing its work, but he said that Parliament, and not the Board, was to blame for that. There was scarcely a thing that, instead of being done by Parliament, was not left to be done by rule and regulation. Session after Session this work had been heaped upon the Local Government Board, and Parliament had not seen that the Board was properly manned. The work had got seriously into arrear, and no one knew it better than the Board itself. In the House Members complained of the delay that took place in the carrying out of inquiries and in issuing orders, but he hoped that as a result of the Departmental Committee much of this would be cured. He did not know how far the principle of devolution would be carried, but that point had been committed to the Committee and it had been carefully considered. He would not advise any one to build too much on that—[ironical cheers]—and for this reason, not because the Local Government Board objected to it, but because of the difficulties that were in the way. Under the Act of 1888 Parliament contemplated that some of the work should be done by the local authorities, the County Councils, but not one year was allowed to pass before objections were raised against the section of the Act being put into operation. These difficulties did not arise with the Local Government Board or, as far as he knew, with any other Department. They were purely local, as between the non-county boroughs and the County Councils. Therefore he hoped that a good deal of the odium that had fallen on the Local Government Board because of these delays would be removed by the labours of the Committee.

said he was very sensible of his relations to the House in respect to the Measure which he had carried through Parliament. The House had treated him with such generous confidence that he should deeply regret that there should arise any misconception as to the view he took, or that he had in any degree departed from any undertaking which he had given. He had endeavoured to fulfil every premise that he then made. Members would recollect that there was a question as to the additional expense in connection with parish meetings. Questions arose as to the taking of polls and the cost. There was a strong feeling on both sides of the House against allowing one person to put the parish to the expense of a poll on the occasion of the election of parish councillors, and it was eventually agreed that two persons, in addition to the candidate and his mover and seconder, making five in all, should be necessary to obtain as poll. It was also agreed that the resolution on which one voter could demand a poll should be specified in a schedule to the Act. Some general words were added giving power to the Local Government Board to prescribe any other matter on which one voter could demand a poll. The right hon. Gentleman then explained the circumstances which led up to this decision, and, proceeding, said be had regretted that he had not had, like other parents, the education of his own children. [Laughter.] He should have liked to have had the superintending of his own Act. He should like to refer to a matter touched upon by the right hon. Baronet (Sir C. Dilke), and he felt bound to say that the administration of the Local Government Board was in direct antagonism to what the Government and the House understood when they assented to Clause 33. It was held that unless the Board saw some good reason to the contrary, it ought automatically to transfer the powers possessed by Parish Councils to District Councils. He did not think that there was great waste of public time and a great deal of irritation caused to the local authorities by the interposing of difficulties as to this transfer. He attached no blame to the right hon. Gentleman, for he may have construed the clause differently from the construction which he and those who took an active part in carrying the Act put upon it.

In personal explanation, I should like to say, after the speech of my right hon. Friend, that Mr. Shaw Lefevre and myself were quite ignorant of the circumstances mentioned by my right hen. Friend when the Order was under consideration. It was issued in perfect bonâfides—["hear, hear!"]—in the interests, as we believed, of the rights of the parish electors. ["Hear, hear!"]

referring to the criticisms which had been passed on the Government respecting the delay which had taken place in giving effect to the Report of the Departmental Committee published last year, said, that those who indulged in those criticisms failed to remember the difficulties under which the President of the Local Government Board and the Department had laboured last year. Further, the evils complained of had long been known to the Department. The Report of Mr. Doyle in 1878, and that of the House of Lords Committee in 1888, showed that the present abuses were nothing new, and the fact that such able administrators as the Member for the Forest of Dean, the Member for Wolverhampton, the present President of the Board of Trade, and the First Lord of the Treasury, had not been able to devise any reform, proved that the difficulty was no light one, and that neither party at the present time had; any capital to make out of the state of the Poor Law schools. ["Hear, hear!"] It was, however, high time that some steps were taken, and the question before the Committee was, what was the policy of the Government, and what was the policy proposed by their critics? On February 1st the President of the Local Government Beard had announced his policy. It was that a new authority should be constituted in the metropolis to take charge of the Poor Law children suffering from ophthalmia and skin disease, the children of defective intellect, and those remanded to workhouses, as well as the children now living in workhouses. Further, he intended to discourage the formation of new barrack schools and to get rid of the old barrack school. To this policy there were two obvious criticisms: In the first place, why should a new authority be created when the Metropolitan Asylums Board already managed, not only children's hospitals, but an asylum for imbecile children at Darenth. Further, the Board had been most successful in the management of the Exmouth training ship, and was able as well as willing to undertake the task. In the second place it might be urged that the extra cubic space the President hoped to gain by the arrangement, would be more than filled by the children now in the workhouse which he proposed to bring in; in other words, the evils inherent in barrack schools would continue and even be intensified in the metropolis, and he desired to remind the Committee that there were provincial schools in which these evils exist at the present day. He need not add what those evils were, the great cost (double that of the boarding-out system), the deficient education, the inadequate industrial training, the disease and consequent deterioration of character. ["Hear, hear!"] But the evils inherent in the barrack schools were not the only difficulties which the Local Government Board would in future have to combat. There was the case of the so-called "in-and outs." No power was to be given to any authority to prevent parents dragging their children in and out of the schools as often as they liked, bringing disease and demoralisation with them, and no provision was apparently to be made for new receiving homes like that at Hammersmith. ["Hear, hear!"] Reference had been made to the increase of staff at the Local Government Board. He hoped that the question of the inspection of the 1,700 boarded-out children by an inspector who had clerical work as well, would not be forgotten. Further assistance was wanted, and further powers for the after care and control of Poor Law children, as well as better provision for the enforcement of the law with regard to half-timers—["hear, hear!"]—at present so generally broken according to the Report. The abolition of barrack schools would be necessarily gradual, but it was at last to be definitely undertaken. The policy of the President of the Local Government Board included, he was glad to see, the inspection of Poor Law children in the colonies. He hoped it would also include the provision of training ships, by which, as in the case of the Exmouth, the ranks of our merchant navy might receive a supply of excellent recruits. But he need not remind the Committee that all the laws that could be enacted and administered by the Local Government Board would be of no avail unless there was cordial co-operation on the part of the guardians, and local charity and self-help. ["Hear, hear!"] He deplored the reflections contained in the Report of the Departmental Committee on the work of Boards of Guardians as a whole, and on the work of men and women who had given their lives without stint to carrying out the most necessary but thankless work in the interests of the country. ["Hear, hear!"] Valuable as the Report was, as the work of eminent experts who had heard the evidence and seen the schools, he could not help regretting the bias in favour of one system (when many systems had done good work) as well as the inaccuracies which had crept into the Report. It would be necessary to obtain the co-operation of the local authorities as well as of local and central charitable authorities if any permanent good work was to be done. In conclusion, he appealed to the House of Commons not only to insist on the necessary laws being passed, and the necessary administrative measures being undertaken, but he asked hon. Members whether they could not, each in their own district, do something to inculcate and practise sympathy and charity to these poor children, so as to give them the opportunity of climbing from the lowest to the highest position in the State. ["Hear, hear!"]

said he had no wish to blame the Local Government Board for their tardiness, because he knew they had been very much overburdened with work; but the draft Order issued seemed to him very inadequate. He did not think the Report of the Commission had received proper attention from the House. It was a Commission of experts of the very first order, and he did not think seven men and one lady could have been found who more thoroughly understood the question with which they had to deal. He could assure the President of the Local Government Board that the state of things disclosed by their Report had sunk deep into the philanthropic mind of the country. ["Hear, hear!"] The state of affairs in Poor Law schools was made known over 20 years ago by Mrs. Nassau Senior. She was a Poor Law Guardian, and her report was that 50 per cent. of the girls trained in Poor Law schools turned out badly, and that only a small proportion could be said to turn out thoroughly well. Since those days some improvement had, no doubt, taken place, owing to the exertions of the Association for Befriending Young Servants. Nevertheless, the opinion of the ladies belonging to that association was that barrack schools were a great mistake; in those schools there was no development of individuality; the children were brought up like sheep, and treated like automatons. The child was described as "No. so-and-so" They were in some cases not even given names; there were too many of them for that! The result of the system was, that the affections of the children were starved, and everyone who had studied this question knew that to bring up together a vast number of girls in this artificial way meant to many of them moral ruin. Here was the testimony of a lady who had worked for 12 years among workhouse girls:—

"In district school girls I have found very strongly marked what I think is a great characteristic of the girls brought up in such large schools—intense obstinacy and sullenness.… I do feel most strongly that family life, even among the very poor, has an entirely different effect on the character of a child from life in a large school."

There was no doubt that barrack school life ruined the tempers of the children, and in some cases it ruined their morals. Dr. Barnardo, through whose hands some 30,000 children had passed with great success, said, in his evidence, that he had been compelled to give up taking girls coming from Poor Law schools on account of their vicious tendencies. Very little had been said in that discussion about the enormous spread of ophthalmia in these schools. In some of the large schools as many as 30 or 40 per cent. of the children were affected, and they entered the world handicapped by weak and defective vision. Why should the children be exposed unnecessarily to this terrible complaint, which was the result of their being herded together in these huge barrack schools? The complaint was not known among the children who were boarded out. The proposal of the Local Government Board was simply to remove the children who suffered from the complaint; the breeching grounds, the schools that produced the ophthalmia, were to be left untouched. No attempt was made to deal with the causes of the complaint. Then the education supplied in Poor Law schools was very defective, the standard being far short of the standard in elementary schools. He strongly supported the recommendation that the children should be mixed up with other children in elementary schools. They ought to be allowed to attend such schools in ordinary dress, so that they should not suffer under the pauper taint. Perhaps the most difficult problem of all was how to deal with the "ins-and-outs." He had talked over this subject with some of the principal philanthropists of America. In that country the custom was to put the class of children whom we called "ins-and-outs" under the care and control of State Boards, until they arrived at the age of 21. Parents in America were not allowed to do what they liked with their children as they do here. They were not allowed to take them on the tramp, and to send them into workhouse schools in the intervals of a wandering life. It was impossible to impart a high moral tone to children who came out of the lowest lodging houses, or to make them amenable to discipline. He suggested that they ought to proceed on the lines adopted in America, and strengthen the control of the guardians over these children. We were too respectful in this country to what were called parental rights. Parents who were tramps and living bad lives had no right to ruin their children. The positive recommendations which had been made were most important. There was, in the first place, the recommendation regarding boarding out. In Scotland for many years, practically all the pauper children had been boarded out. There were no pauper schools there, and hereditary pauperism had been nearly eradicated from the country. The children boarded out with respectable people; they attended the ordinary schools, were treated with affection, and were clothed as respectably as the children of honest working men. But in this country there were only some 1,800 children boarded out. Why was that? Was it because boarding out a child cost only 4s. a week, while a child cost 11s. in a pauper school? That was a strange reason; yet it was a fact that guardians preferred to pay 11s. a week per child to keep the children in pauper schools, than to pay 4s. a week to board them out in cottage homes. He knew there were difficulties in the way of the system of boarding out, but they could be surmounted, and with a sufficiently large staff and a sufficient number of female inspectors to follow the children, it would be possible to have 18,000 children boarded out instead of only 1,800. Miss Brodie Hall said in her evidence:—

"Home training involves a great many things which perhaps men know less of than women; it is the small details of everyday home life that bring out the character of a child, and that, as it grows up, enable it to develop, though unconsciously, self-dependence, resourcefulness, thriftiness; it learns by the example of its elders.… Then there is another thing: home life draws out the personal affections, and I think it is one of the most terrible things in workhouses or in very large schools that a child who can elsewhere be trained, up to a certain age, through its affections, has that particular item in its human character perfectly undeveloped, and I believe that is the reason that so many of them in after life fail."

Miss Hall also pointed out that boys and girls when boarded out lived together, whereas they were kept apart in pauper schools, with the result that they had no notion of how to behave towards one another. All sorts of evils arose in after life from the unnatural way in which boys and girls were prevented from meeting as children. In Scotland, where the boarding-out system prevailed, the vitality of the children was far higher, and their general health far better. But, in his opinion, incomparably the best method of dealing with poor children was emigration. He possessed 20 years' experience of this method, and between 3,000 and 4,000 emigrated children must have passed under his review. During a recent visit to Canada he found that the condition of the children sent to Canadian homes was all that anyone could desire. They were happy, well fed, well clothed, and lived the same life as the farmers' families did. He did not meet with a single complaint in any house that he visited, either from the farmer or from the children. There was no difficulty in placing as many children as the society with which he was connected could send out, and the society paid nothing for their maintenance. He was aware that there were difficulties in the way of what he advocated. The Canadians objected to pauper children because they knew how badly they turned out. They did not object to children who had been trained in a home. He proposed that destitute children should not go into pauper schools at all, but should go into one of the many excellent homes intended for them, certified, if necessary, by the Local Government Board, and should only after spending one or two years in these be emigrated. They would then have a happy and prosperous future. He wished to see pauper schools abolished. Their expense was enormous. One had cost £177,000. It was a shame and a scandal that such a place should ever have been built. The children should be restored to a healthy natural life in respectable homes. Institutions which entailed the maximum of cost often did a minimum of good. As far as he knew, most lady guardians were opposed to pauper schools and were in favour of restoring children to a wholesome family life. He trusted the Local Government Board would work in that direction, and this expression of opinion among those conversant with the subject would strengthen their hands.

said that nothing had been more striking in the course of the Debate than the wide diversity of opinion which appeared to prevail, not only on both sides of the House, but as shown in the speeches of the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment. The Local Government Board was condemned because it went too far, and, on the other hand, because it did not appear to go half far enough. The Board, therefore, might hope that in the middle course it had taken it had acted wisely. He would deal with two or three points raised by the Mover of the Amendment, and then with the general question. The hon. Member spoke of the failures of the Local Government Board. It was true that the Board for a long time past had been undermanned and greatly overworked. That might account for some of the failures people were justly inclined to condemn. A Committee of Inquiry into the organisation and work of the Department was sitting, and had for some time sat; and when its labours were completed, he had every hope and confidence that the Board, as regarded its work and arrears, would be able to snow a very different record in the future. The hon. Member spoke of the great contrast between the evidence given before the Committee on Poor Law Schools and their Report to the public. There was reason for that criticism. It had frequently been proposed from both sides of the House that inspection, as far as the education of Poor Law children was concerned, should be undertaken by the Education Department rather than by the Local Government Board. The latter would always be willing to agree to it, and, if practicable, to have it carried out, though there were difficulties in the way. It might clear the ground and tend to the convenience of the Committee if he stated, as briefly as he could, the circumstances under which the Order of the Local Government Board under discussion came to be issued. It was true that the Report of the Poor Law Schools Committee was published last year. At the close of last Session it was impossible for him to put before the House any definite policy on behalf of the Local Government Board; but he came to the conclusion, which must be shared by the majority of the members of the Committee, that the Report having been published, the question must be dealt with He did not agree with speakers in the Debate, who seemed to think the Report might have been ignored altogether; and, if dealt with, the choice of methods lay between the acceptance of the recommendations of the Committee on the one hand, and on the other some such proposals as those which had been issued under the Order of the Board. He elected to proceed by Order instead of by legislation, for the reason that he was afraid that, in the present condition of public business in the House of Commons, if he relied upon legislation, in all probability he would never have an opportunity this Session of dealing effectively with the question at all. He admitted that this method of procedure had its disadvantages. ["Hear, hear!"] In the absence of opportunities to receive Parliamentary criticism, he thought it right to issue this Order in a tentative form, and send it to all the boards of guardians and managers of districts chiefly concerned, to give them an opportunity of making any criticisms they pleased. That had been done with good results. The Order had been carefully considered by the local authorities at a conference attended by delegates from every board of guardians concerned, and he had received more than one deputation on the subject. He had now little doubt that, in the final form in which he proposed that the Order should be issued, it would command the support of the large majority of the local authorities concerned. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion before the House only told them of those who were opposed to the Order. But if the views of those who were in its favour were considered, it might be seen that the conclusion which might otherwise be drawn would be altogether erroneous. He would point out that the great distinction between the recommendations of the Report of the Committee and the order of the Local Government Board consisted in this, that the Committee recommended that a central body should be appointed to take over the charge and control of all the Poor Law children in all the Poor Law institutions in the metropolis, while the order contemplated the appointment of a central authority which was to take over the control of certain classes only of these children. The classes which they proposed should be handed over to the new authority were children suffering from ophthalmia and diseases of the eyes, from skin and scalp diseases, or from mental or physical infirmity, and children requiring the benefits of sea air, and in homes for convalescents. With regard to the recommendations of the Committee, it seemed to him to be a very serious proposal to take away from the guardians the entire control of all the children at present in their institutions, and to hand them over to some other body. ["Hear, hear!"]In spite of this Report, he was aware of no circumstances whatever which, in his opinion, justified him in transferring the children en bloc from the guardians to some new authority. ["Hear, hear!"] He agreed with what had been said with regard to the evils which arose from the aggregation of vast masses of children in what were called these barrack schools which, undoubtedly, were a great blot upon the present system. But this was a matter with which it was impossible for anybody to deal by a stroke of the pen. ["Hear, hear!"] The Local Government Board had always been ready to consider any suggestions that could be made in regard to this matter, but he owned that he failed altogether to see how great improvements were to be effected in this respect more readily by any new authority they could make than by the authorities which existed at present. It must also be remembered, in justice to the existing authorities, that whatever objections these barrack schools were open to, and he admitted they were open to very grave objections, when created, at a period long antecedent to the present, they were at that time an enormous improvement on anything that had gone before. ["Hear, hear!"] That, he acknowledged, was no reason for retaining them any longer than could possibly be helped. His sympathies were entirely with those who disliked them, and the policy of the Local Government Board had been for a long time to reduce them wherever possible. The transfer under the order of the classes of children he had named to the new authority was the first step towards facilitating changes in the size, and to some extent the very construction, of these great schools to which so much objection was taken. Very shortly after this Report was published the Local Government Board instituted an inquiry by a very able expert, Professor Shaw, into the cubic space and ventilation in these barrack schools. He understood that this gentleman's investigations had been most careful and elaborate, and if the report which he was preparing was to the effect that the cubic space and the ventilation were inadequate that would at once necessitate the reduction, and probably the very large reduction, of the number of inmates of these schools, and this would afford opportunities for possible alterations in their construction. The hon. Member for Flintshire had said that these poor, unhappy children brought up under the Poor Law never knew what home life was like. He was afraid that statement was not altogether accurate; the hon. Member must remember that there were other and very different institutions than barrack schools which were now established. There were the cottage homes, and such institutions as the girls' school at Sutton, and there were other schemes in contemplation. In all such cases, as far as he was aware, the work done by the guardians at present was the very reverse of unsatisfactory. The hon. Member's statement was absolutely contrary to his own experience. He had visited a great number of these schools, and, undoubtedly, in the cottage home system everything was done that could be done in this respect.

said he had criticised only the children in the barrack schools, and had not, of course, criticised those in the few cottage homes.

pointed out that cottage homes were not barrack schools.

said he was very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his information, but that was exactly what he had himself been pointing out to the Committee. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] It was quite a mistake to say that all the children in the metropolis brought up under the Poor Law never knew how home work was done. He was quite sure that if any Member of that House would take the trouble to visit the cottage homes, or the girls' school at Sutton, he would agree that a great deal of most admirable work was being done at this moment. The hon. Member for Flintshire had also said that no one would take these children into service. But in the course of his own investigations he had been most struck with the immense demand which existed for their services. He was informed that last year the girls' school at Sutton received more than a thousand applications front those who wished to take girls into service in the country. That was the very last thing which anybody could infer from reading this report. While he thought that under the more modern methods a great deal of admirable work had been done, he held the decided opinion that, with regard to certain classes of these children, better arrangements could be made, and arrangements much more economical and effective, by some central authority than by a great number of different bodies. Take the case of the ophthalmic children. Their proper treatment involved separation and exceptional treatment. Under the system he proposed, if they were separated and given this exceptional treatment, their education could go on the whole time without being interrupted, and that was a matter of very great importance. It used to be alleged that ophthalmia was the creation of those schools and inseparable from them. But shortly after the issue of this Report the Local Gov- ernment Board appointed Dr. Stevenson to examine the children attending the Poor Law schools and to make a Report in regard to them. Dr. Stevenson examined 17,000 of those children, and found that there was in the Poor Law schools of the Metropolis only one case of the severe type of ophthalmia, which was, therefore, practically extinct, while cases of a milder type had been reduced from 42 per cent. in 1874 to less than 5 per cent. in 1897. ["Hear, hear!"] There was one barrack school with 750 children in which there was not a single case of ophthalmia, and another barrack school where the cases of that disease were only four. ["Hear, hear!"] He thought all this showed that there were some advantages in the proposals he had made for separating the different classes of children. But the question what was the authority to be, remained. He had been blamed in the course of the Debate because his proposals were opposed to the recommendations of the Departmental Committee. But he could not find in the Report of the Committee the slightest guidance as to what form the authority was to take, and he was therefore thrown entirely upon his own resources in devising the authority. However, in deference to the views of the Committee, he had thought it the first instance to propose an entirely new authority instead of the present body, and so he issued an Order in that form; but it was evident, from the great number of objection the Order evoked, that there was a large preponderance of opinion in favour of the Metropolitan Asylums Board being made the authority as against the creation of a new authority. ["Hear, hear!"] He therefore willingly reconsidered the position. He thought the suggestion that the Metropolitan Asylums Board should be the authority was the best—first, because it avoided the difficulties and expense of creating a new authority, and, secondly, because the Metropolitan Asylums Board afforded in the Exmouth training ship, which was under its charge, the one conspicuous instance of success in the management of Poor Law children. [Hear, hear!"] That ship was originally provided by the Forest Gate school district—it being used also by children from other places—finally it was transferred to the charge of the Metropolitan Asylums Board. In fact the Exmouth training ship was practically the first step in the policy which he was now proposing, and it had met, as all the Reports showed, with the most complete success. ["Hear, hear!"] He owned that at first he had some doubts as to whether the Metropolitan Asylums Board, with its numerous duties, would be able to undertake additional responsibilities; but after a series of communications with that body and interviews with its chairman, it appeared to him that with some addition to its members it would be perfectly within its scope and capacity to undertake these new duties—["hear, hear!"]—and if it appeared to him that it was desired that that should be the final form the Order should take, he would not hesitate to adopt a recommendation which had been made to him from many quarters. ["Hear, hear!"] He could assure the Committee that this was a subject in which he took the deepest interest. ["Hear, hear!"] Everything that touched the welfare and the happiness of children appealed very strongly to him, as he was sure it did to all Members of the House. ["Hear, hear!] He had done his best, sparing neither time nor trouble, to make him self thoroughly acquainted with the subject. The problem was one that was not easily solved—["hear, hear!"]—and the wisest course for the Government and the wisest course for Parliament was to proceed in the matter with caution. ["Hear, hear!"] While he was ready to carefully consider all the various representations which had been made to him in the course of the Debate, the policy of the Local Government Board in the matter—subject to the reservation he had made in regard to the authority—must be upon the general lines which he had indicated; and he was quite confident that the experiment they were making was more likely to command success than any other with which he was acquainted. ["Hear, hear!"]

said that he was glad the right hon. Gentleman had retraced his steps in regard to the Order he had issued. ["Hear, hear!"] To call into existence a new central authority to deal with something like a thousand children suffering from various diseases would be a most unreasonable and extravagant action. ["Hear, hear!"] No one desired that such a step should be taken. It was altogether outside the recommendations of the Departmental Committee that such a body should be called into existence for such a purpose. The right hon. Gentleman was therefore to be congratulated on his second thoughts, and on having assigned those children to the Metropolitan Asylums Board. But the right hon. Gentleman had not done what was recommended by the Departmental Committee, and had in fact thrown that body over altogether. The Members composing the Departmental Committee—putting himself out of the question—were eminently qualified to deal with the matter for the consideration of which they had been appointed, and they had most valuable expert evidence before them. What did Dr Stevenson say on the subject of ophthalmia. He told the Committee that

"long ago the majority of young adults coming under treatment for ophthalmia at the London hospitals had formerly been inmates of metropolitan pauper schools."

From his own experience he was in a position to justify the accuracy of that statement, and he possessed returns from a number of ophthalmic surgeons which showed that a large proportion of such cases had come from the schools in question. The hon. Member for Islington had stated that the Committee Were not altogether agreed upon their Report. He desired to deal at once with that statement. The Committee were perfectly agreed upon all points of their Report except the one departure which the Vice President and Mrs. Barnett favoured—that, instead of being transferred to a central body, the children should be transferred to the Education Department. With that suggestion he did not agree then, nor did he now. He believed the children ought to be dealt with by one central authority; and, so far from saying there should be no guardians upon that central authority, six out of eight Members of the Committee were agreed that guardians should form part of the body. ["Hear, hear!"] Unless they had a central authority they could not deal with the metropolis as a whole, but with such an authority set up they could adopt the principle of gradual depletion with regard to the barrack schools, and ultimately get rid of the barrack school system altogether. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman had said the matter could not be dealt with by a stroke of the pen. He agreed; the Report of the Committee admitted so much, and gave time for dealing with it. They could not possibly get rid of the question by simply dealing with these few diseased children, and the whole subject would have to be faced. He felt the inconvenience of dealing with a matter of this importance on an occasion like that, and on a Vote on account. This Report deserved some rather better treatment than such a casual and incidental discussion. ["Hear!"] What he wished to say was that they were at present dealing with these children in London in a manner that was most inimical to both their present and future lives. The children knew nothing, for instance, under the present system of natural life. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman must know that the existing state of things was such that if it was continued they would have to enlarge their schools, as the number of children increased, and spend more money. Not only was the barrack school a vicious, but it was a most wasteful, system. In some of the schools the cost was £29 per head. Thus a widow who had her five or six children in one of these institutions would cost it for their maintenance £140 or £150 a year, whereas they could be boarded out for less than half that sum. If the boarding-out system were adopted, then in many cases the children could be boarded, as in Scotland, with the mothers or other relatives, and thus derive the advantages of home life. ["Hear, hear!"] If it were possible for them, by a stroke of the pen, to sweep away the barrack schools to-morrow, they would render invaluable service to the Poor Law children of the metropolis. ["Hear, hear!"] A central authority in which the barrack schools were vested should be created; it should have power to deal with such schools as opportunity served, and thus, by a course of gradual depletion, they would be able to get them off their hands. At present there was no means of getting rid of them, and they were an enormous burden to the various districts. He believed the cost to Paddington was £80 per child, and yet, though they were anxious to be freed from such a costly system, they were unable to effect this object. He thought it was high time that something was done to meet the undoubted mischiefs which arose from these buildings. He was sorry to say that the Local Government Board were not very receptive of improvements. They did not encourage them. He hoped some hon. Members interested in the question would bring it before the House when it could be properly thrashed out. Meanwhile, he could assure the President of the Local Government Board that he would be held responsible for not carrying out this Report. It was important to the children of the whole country that the boarding-out system should be adopted, and it would reduce the pauperism of the country and the expenditure as well. He hoped that when next the question was discussed, the right hon. Gentleman would make another step in advance.

said that the right hon. Gentleman had referred to these schools as though they were all barrack schools.

All the children, except 1,100, are in barrack schools

said that there were five district schools with 6,300 children which might be called barrack schools. There were 10 other schools with 4,600 children. [Mr. MUNDELLA: "Those are barrack schools."] He would not contest that for the moment. Then there were 15 Roman Catholic schools with 2,400 children. It was impossible to call those barrack schools, for the largest had only about 300 children. As to other schools, there was one with 209 children. Was that a barrack school? [Mr. MUNDELLA: "Yes."] Another with 148 children, a third with 112 children; one at Broadstairs with 25, one at St. George's-in-the-East with 235; another with 158, and the Marylebone school with 306. Those were not barrack schools in the sense represented by the right hon. Gentleman. As to the Report of Dr. Stevenson, in which he stated that he had frequently found cases of ophthalmia in the hospitals which had been brought from these schools, he thought that very likely, considering the prevalence of the disease in the schools. But Dr. Stevenson's Report had this remarkable statement;—

"Apart from internal conditions, however, there can be no doubt that one great cause of the prevalence of ophthalmia in Poor Law schools comes from outside. The disease creeps into these institutions from the slums and courts of London, carried thither by the children who claim admission."

said that the quotation was not complete.

"It way pointed out long ago by Mr. Nettleship that the majority of the young adults coming under treatment for ophthalmia at the London hospitals had been formerly inmates of the Poor Law schools. From my own experience, I can testify to the accuracy of that statement."

pointed out in conclusion that the three cottage homes included 1,600 and not 1,100 children.

said that the statement of the President of the Local Government Board would be received with unqualified satisfaction by all the local governing bodies in London. They were glad to he rid or the new central authority; and he was glad to know that the children would be confided to a body which had the confidence of the public, and which had the organisation more or less at hand, and requiring only to be expanded. His only criticism of the right hon. Gentleman's statement was in regard to the proposal that all the children ordered by the magistrates to be taken to the workhouses or asylums should be confided to the Metropolitan Asylums Board. That body properly enjoyed the confidence of the inhabitants, but their experience was mostly with the diseased; and it was neither wise non necessary to send to them children who were ex hypothesis healthy. He never wished to add to the duties of the London County Council; but by law the Council had charge of the industrial schools in the County of London, and to the Council might with advantage be confided these healthy children. There was, moreover, a great difference in the children suffering from defective intellect. Some were incurably affected, and some were only a little dull, and the latter would be better associated with healthy children, instead of being permanently banished to society which was more likely to aggravate than to cure their defect in mind. He was glad that time right hon. Gentleman was going to consult the Guardians of London.

said that he took a great interest in this question. He had listened with a feeling of absolute disappointment to the speeches of the President of the Local Government Board and his colleague. It was certainly a matter of grave concern that there were at present no less than nine educational authorities dealing with the education of children in London. Partly departmental, partly elective, partly co-optative, these authorities overlapped each other, and very often ran counter, not only to the interests of the children, but to the good performance of the duties carried out among them. There were 17,000 pauper children in London, and these were under the almost absolute control of the Local Government Board. The rest of the children of London were under the control of the Education Department and the School Board. What he ventured to urge on the right hon. Gentleman was, that he should not deal with the question in the optimist spirit he had displayed in his speech, but should endeavour to find a solution by transferring the control of the education of these pauper children from the demoralising influences of the pauper training they received, to the hands of the Education Department. He believed there was no other solution of the question except under the supervision of the Education authorities as the body responsible for the education of these children. Without meaning any offence, he could not but say that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman would be a source of great dissatisfaction to those interested in the education of these poor children. The right hon. Gentleman had expressed the optimist view that all things were being managed in the best possible manner, and any step must he in the direction of gradual evolution. The right hon. Gentleman agreed that the barrack school system was bad, and that he would be glad to see an alteration in that system; but he had indicated no solitary instance of the direction in which he was prepared to make a change. The right hon. Gentleman had told the Committee, and he ventured, with all respect, to doubt the accuracy of the statement, that some of the evils associated with pauper schools were diminishing, but he gave no figures, no statistics on the point. The only available material open for the Committee was that afforded by the Report of the Committee appointed ad hoc. He would take the condition of these children under three heads, and first educationally. Pauper children stood at a lower standard than the children under any other educational system. In the Report of that Committee it was shown that the education in Poor Law schools was infinitely inferior to that which obtained in ordinary elementary schools. There was no system of inspection for educational purposes in these schools by an educational authority; the inspection of the schools was an inspection by the Poor Law bodies alone, that is to say, the Local Government Board. The qualifications of the teachers were much below those of teachers in elementary schools; many of the head teachers were not certificated, and hardly any of the assistant teachers held a certificate or any proper diploma entitling them to teach in elementary schools. It had been asserted, though not a word was said about it by the right hon. Gentleman, that certain boards of guardians let their children go out to work as half-timers before they reached the necessary educational standard fixed for the purpose. Next, he took the question of health. The right hon. Gentleman said that Dr. Stevenson said that ophthalmia was not due to the children being herded together in barrack schools; but Dr. Stevenson, in his Report published in relation to the year 1894, stated that at Sutton and some other schools he named the percentage of children suffering from ophthalmia was no less than 20 per cent. in one instance, and in others of 14 per cent., 9 per cent., and so on. Dr. Stevenson, in his Report for 1894, said this was to be attributed to the crowding of these children in barrack schools, and the whole volume of Reports given by medical authorities in relation to these schools concurred in attributing the prevalence of ophthalmia in barrack schools to the children being herded together, and to no other cause. Having dealt with the educational standard and the health standard, he turned to the conditions under which these children lived. There could be no doubt their lives were most unhappy. He did not deny that, under the able permanent officials of the Local Government Board, something had been done to mitigate the hardships of their lot, and Boards of Guardians had been impressed with the necessity of making the lives of these children less miserable; but in the Report of the Committee which had been so copiously quoted it would be found that in these schools children were not allowed to enjoy the ordinary advantages of recreation which were offered to the children in elementary schools in the country, and except at Christmas and Easter they had no holidays. They were not allowed to indulge in the ordinary pastimes and pleasures which fell to the lot of children, and doubtless were a great solace to them in the onerous work in elementary schools. An official of the Local Government Board suggested that the children should be allowed to play at hare and hounds or paper chase, but the answer of the Poor Law Guardians was—

"You forget the rule that some official must be in constant supervision, and we have no official competent to take part in a paper chase."

That was the point of view from which Board of Guardians and officials approached the treatment of pauper children, and he would say this to the right hon. Gentleman, that, whatever satisfaction was expressed in the House, and however much the right hon. Gentleman expressed a solicitude for these children, which nobody questioned, there was a strong feeling in the country that looked for something more than expressions of empty sympathy, while it was in the power of the Government to stretch forth a hand and make the life of these children more tolerable and render them more fit for the ditties of citizenship and manhood. Something had been done, but mainly in a microscopic way. Out of 17,000 pauper children only 968 had been boarded out, and he had a right to ask that the Government should stretch forth a hand and do that which had been done in Scotland, Canada, and in various other countries of the civilised world. Do away with the abominable system of herding these children together in numbers ranging from 100 and 200 to 1,541 children, as in the school at Sutton. It was because he felt very strongly on this matter he had ventured to take part in the Debate. He expressed his recognition of the service rendered by the hon. Member for Islington in bringing this matter forward, but anything more unsatisfactory, anything more delusive than the speech of the right hon. Gentleman it was impossible to conceive. ["Hear, hear!"] He urged the right hon. Gentleman, and every Member of the Government, to recognise the necessity of rescuing these unhappy children from the condition which, since 1846, they had been condemned to live under. ["Hear, hear!"]

said he was satisfied with the discussion and the statement of the right Gentleman, and would, with the leave of the Committee, withdraw his Amendment.

said he had no wish to interpose to delay any other Motion, but there was a question he desired to raise in reference to the Home Office and subordinate offices, and he now proposed to do so by the reduction of the Vote.

rose to order, and asked was it not possible to continue the discussion on the Local Government Board Vote?

also asked if discussion in relation to the Local Government Board could be renewed?

said the hon. Member for North Cork was in possession, and had expressed his intention of moving a reduction on the Home Office Vote. If that hon. Member gave way it would be open to any hon. Member to resume the discussion in reference to the Local Government Board.

moved, "That the item of £40,000 for the Home Office be reduced by £1,000."

desired to call attention on this Vote to the alleged dynamite plots in September last, and also to the conduct of the Home Office with reference to the trial of Ivory or Bell, which came to such a sensational ending in January last. The atrocious character of those plots, or, rather the statements in the public Press with reference to them, were calculated to do a great injury to Ireland and to the character of the Irish national movement. He alleged that those plots had no real existence, but were, in fact, the creation of disreputable agents of the secret service; that that was the reason why the prosecution of Ivory, or Bell, came to its sensational termination; and, further, he alleged that the Home Office did not make any sincere effort to extradite from Antwerp the alleged prime movers in the plots. The trial came to its fruitless termination because the prosecution were afraid to put into the witness-box the man Jones, the agent of the secret service of the Home Office. If the trial had gone on witnesses would have been produced from Dublin of respectable standing and character, who would have proved to the hilt that between the period of the first examination of the prisoner before the magistrate at Bow Street and the trial, Jones approached two young men of the name of Holland, compositors in the office of the Evening Telegraph in Dublin, and actually proposed to them a plan for the commission of outrage. He offered to one of these young men similar detonators to those alleged to have been discovered in the house in Antwerp. In addition, there were three men of respectable standing in the city of New York to prove that Jones had attended meetings of Irishmen in that city and proposed to carry out a series of outrages. One of his plots was to blow up the British Embassy in Washington with dynamite, and another of his suggestions to men whom he met in this society in New York was to assassinate the late Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for East Fife. The witnesses from New York who attended at the Old Bailey were prepared to swear that Jones made those proposals, and for the making of them had been expelled from this particular society in New York. [Nationalist cheers.] The Solicitor General said:—

"I find that the prosecution yesterday" (January 19, 1897) "ascertained that the delivery of these explosives at the house in Antwerp took place after Bell had left Antwerp."

That was not the real explanation of the withdrawal of the charges against Bell. There were other grounds. When the prisoner was before Mr. Vaughan at Bow Street, Mr. Gill, who represented the Crown, said,

"In consequence of information he (Bell) received on September 3rd he went to Brussels, where he met Tynan, and they went to Antwerp, where Kearney had taken a house, and Haines had procured the necessary chemicals,"

showing that in September the prosecution were prepared to prove that Bell was actually in this house in Antwerp at a time when the chemicals for the manufacture of these bombs had been procured by those persons. More than that, there was produced at Bow Street a man named Goll, a brother-in-law of Kearney, resident in Antwerp, and an agent of the secret service of the Home Office, who stated that on September 5 two men came to the house and that Bell was one of them. The men went upstairs with Kearney, who said, "Come in, I will show you something." This he contended proved the allegation of the Solicitor General at the Old Bailey that they were at that time wanting evidence to show that Bell was in this house in Antwerp at the time these explosives were on the premises. But fancy the Crown with the omnipresent and all but omnipotent Scotland Yard, with all the resources at its disposal, waiting from September until January for proof that these chemicals were not in this particular house at the time Bell was there? He asserted that no really honest effort was made by the Home Office to extradite these alleged dynamite plotters from Antwerp. He did not for a single moment cast the slightest reflection upon the Home Secretary. He felt certain that the right hon. Gentleman would not, directly or indirectly, do anything that would interfere with the course of justice, but he did say that in the evidence that was procurable in Antwerp of a design of some kind upon life, and the finding of these detonators and chemicals and bombs in this particular house, there was every ground upon which the Home Office could have demanded the extradition of these men—[Nationalist cheers]—if the officials of the secret service really believed that this was a genuine and not a bogus dynamite plot. The Home Secretary, in reply to a statement of his shortly after the opening of Parliament said, speaking about the allegation that no serious effort was made to bring these men out of Antwerp to justice:—

"There was no means of getting these men extradited under the law. They made the attempt, but finding, on closer examination, that the offence was not within the Treaty they (the Government) admitted that they had no right to press the demand."

The Home Office was dealing with men under arrest by a friendly Government. If these were genuine plotters of outrage, would the Government of Holland have refused the demand of the English Government to hand these men over to justice? The idea was absurd. They knew what the feeling on the Continent had been as to Anarchists, and to imagine that the Dutch Government would refuse to hand over men caught red-handed in plotting against life and property in this country, was not to be accepted for a moment. He asserted that these alleged plotters were not brought to this country, that the demand was not made on a friendly Government to hand them over because the Secret Service of the Home Office did not want these characters to be brought here, and to be put on trial in London. He would support these allegations by a quotation from the official organ of the Dutch Government on this very point. On the 26th November, Reuter's Agency supplied the following piece of news to the press of these three countries. The item of intelligence was headed, "Release of Kearney and Haynes," and it went on to say—

"According to the Amsterdam Handelsblad the Minister of Justice states that the liberation of the alleged dynamitards Haynes and Kearney, who were arrested at Rotterdam, took place after the British Minister had declared that his Government renounced the idea of demanding extradition, and that therefore the fact of their not being extradited was not due to any defect in the Extradition Treaty between England and Holland, nor in the Netherlands Penal Code."

Now it would be for whoever replies to this allegation to say whether there was foundation or not for this very serious statement by the organ of the Dutch Government. What was in reality the offence that these men were alleged to be contemplating? What was the plot in which it was stated they were engaged? He had here an extract from the Evening News, of London, an official organ which supported Her Majesty's Government, which described these men and their alleged offence as follows; and also the house in which they were arrested; the information being supplied by Reuter's Agency:—

"In the room which they occupied several infernal machines were found, together with a quantity of correspondence, partially torn up. The prisoners at once admitted that they were the individuals wanted by the police, and, although not without considerable difficulty, the Superintendent of Police at length succeeded in obtaining the cypher key to the letters found in the prisoners' possession. It was in consequence of the contents of these letters that Tynan was arrested at Boulogne. They were described as two Anarchists having relations with Anarchists in Glasgow, and it is said that their plans included an attempt upon the life of Queen Victoria."

Paragraphs appeared in the English papers that a plot was contemplated to assassinate the Czar of Russia, who was at that particular time the guest of Her Majesty. Some of them might hold what the majority of Members considered to be peculiar opinions upon the forms of Monarchical Government, but he did not think any of them, no matter what his Republican sentiments might be, could contemplate such a crime as that which was alleged to be maturing at the time without feeling that the men who plotted it should not find shelter in any civilised country. He asked this question of the Committee: Was there any foundation for these alleged plots? Did they really exist? If they did, why was no serious nor determined, no persevering effort made by the Government of this country to hunt down and to bring to justice the authors of these contemplated crimes? His contention was again that it was no real, no bonâ fide dynamite plot. He asserted that it began with the agents of the Secret Service and it ended in the Old Bailey, with the ludicrous prosecution against the man Bell. [Cheers.] But where did Irishmen come in in this connection? They all knew what a sensation was created last September, when these statements were sent on the wings of the Press throughout the world. He happened to be in Rome at the time, and he found in a newspaper in the stalls of that city, pictures representing the Irishman in Antwerp and Rotterdam manufacturing bombs for the contemplated assassination of the Czar of Russia and the Queen of this country, and the family of the Prince and Princess of Wales. These statements had gone through the world for months, and he wanted to know what was to be done in atonement for the injury done to the character of the Irish race and the Irish cause. [Cheers.] Let him give an instance of how widespread these calumnies had been circulated. He had here the headings from a Coolgardie paper in Western Australia—"The Dynamiters," "Attempt to blow up the Queen," "Dismay of the Nationalists," "A widespread plot," "Tynan expects he will be hanged"—and then followed details of a scheme to destroy the residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales. He said again, that some atonement was due to the race which he humbly spoke for. That race and that people had been to a certain extent morally assassinated through these plots, and he alleged again that these plots began and ended with the agents of the Secret Service of the Home Office. Now, although the trial of Bell came to nothing in January, was no one to be brought to justice in connection with these alleged plots, for the carrying out of these diabolical deeds? Had efforts been made by the Home Office or the Crown since January to get at the real culprits, if they existed, in connection with these infamous plots. They had a right to demand that if there was any information in the possession of the Home Office that would lead to the bringing to justice of any man who contemplated deeds of this kind, they should make every effort to extradite them from any country in which they found asylum. He knew a great deal of America, and he asserted that there was no country in the world where deeds of this character were held in greater abhorrence than in the United States, and if these plots were hatched by anyone who was at present in the United States, he was certain that if a demand was made for the extradition of these men, it would need no new treaty between England and the United States to have them handed over to justice. [Cheers.] Men, if they existed, who carried on in cold blood plots and conspiracies of this diabolical character were not entitled to an asylum in any country in the world. If there was any reality in this dynamite plot he held the Home Office was culpable in not having succeeded in bringing someone to justice for it. This was a plot of spies, and the object was one which was not new in the history of the relations between Ireland and this country. It was part of the old infamous practice of carrying on the work of morally assassinating the character of the Irish people. He would suggest to the Home Secretary how he could get all the information in connection with the plot. He would give him the names of no less than seven or eight men who, he ventured to say, knew all about it—Major Jocelin, the head of the Secret Service Department; Captain Stewart Stephens, at one time an employee of the Secret Service; the man Houston, who was identified with the Parnell Commission; James McDermott, the author of the Cork and Liverpool and London so-called dynamite conspiracies; Matthew E. O'Brien, once a distinguished student of Trinity College, and afterwards an employee of the Secret Service; Goll, of Antwerp; J. P. Hines, who also took service under The Times on the Parnell Commission, and had been in the pay of the Secret Service for most of his life; and, finally, spy Jones, whom the prosecution did not think it wise to put in the witness-box at the Old Bailey. He submitted he had made out a pretty strong case against the Secret Service Department of the Home Office. These so-called plots and conspiracies in Antwerp and Glasgow were the work entirely of disreputable men in the employment of the Secret Service, and discredit would attach to the Home Office and to the Government until some atonement was made to Ireland and the Irish, people in connection with this system of moral assassination. He said candidly that he was not an unprejudiced witness with reference to the Secret Service. He admitted that a Government like that of England, which had to rule so many subject nationalities in different parts of the world, must find it difficult, if not impossible to do without some kind of a secret service. But there ought to be no difficulty on the part of the Government in getting in their employ for this work reputable men—men sufficiently paid for their labour to be above the suspicion of getting up diabolical plots of this kind in order to get grants from the Secret Service. Let something like that be done; let the Home Office take care and precautions that such men as those whose names had been mentioned in connection with this case were not employed in this work; and then, if some such change as that were brought about he thought some good would follow from this discussion. [Irish cheers.]

said that, before the Home Secretary and the Attorney General dealt with the charges which the hon. Gentleman had thought fit to bring against the conduct of the Secret Service Fund and other matters connected therewith, he would ask permission to say a few words with reference to the observations made by way of preface to those charges, inasmuch as those observations related to the conduct of a case which, as one of the Law Officers of the Crown, he was engaged in at the Old Bailey. The hon. Gentleman had thought fit to assert that the real cause why that prosecution was not prosecuted to the end was that the Crown were afraid to put the witness Jones into the box. That statement was absolutely unfounded. [Cheers.] The hon. Gentleman went on to say that Jones had been engaged, between the proceedings in the police court and the proceedings at the Old Bailey, in endeavouring to obtain evidence in Dublin, and that there were persons in court prepared to make statements to that effect.

said he did not say he was sent to Dublin to obtain evidence. What he said was that he was sent to Dublin to try and induce respectable young men to go into plots of a similar description.

said he was not in the House at the moment the hon. Gentleman made that statement, and he had misunderstood what he said. All that he could say was that he had never heard before the statement now made by the hon. Gentleman. It was absolutely new to him, and the idea that anything of the kind had any effect on his mind in regard to the withdrawal of the prosecution was absolutely preposterous, and he gave it the most unqualified contradiction. [Cheers.] He was not aware that the suggestion had ever been made, and he had not the slightest ground to suppose that anything of the kind was ever said. The hon. Gentleman went on to say that the reason given for the prosecution not being proceeded with could not be the true one. He ventured to think that the suggestions made by the hon. Gentleman were about the weakest that were ever put forward in support of such a charge. The reason why the prosecution was not proceeded with was that, in his judgment, as responsible for the conduct of the prosecution, they were bound to bring home to the knowledge of Bell the existence of these explosives in the house at Antwerp. The hon. Gentleman said that that could not be the reason, and the ground he put forward for that assertion was that Mr. Gill, at the police court, said that there would be evidence available to show that Bell was at Antwerp when the explosives were there. He had not got before him in any report the exact language used by Mr. Gill, but all he could say was that, if that statement was made, they found they had no such evidence, and that it was the want of such evidence, bringing to the knowledge of Bell that these explosives were in that house at Antwerp, that led to the prosecution being dropped.

said the witness Goll who appeared before the magistrates in September swore on that occasion that the chemicals were in the house when Bell was there.

said the hon. Gentleman was really mistaken. His memory had entirely played him false as regarded that matter. The witness Goll gave evidence at the police court. He did not appear at the trial, and his recollection was that it was proved by a medical man of excellent standing and capacity that it was perfectly impossible for him to do so, owing to the state of his health. [Nationalist laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen laughed, but it was proved at the trial that owing to his state of health it would have been dangerous for him to come over. Hon. Gentlemen were quite entitled to disbelieve the evidence of a professional man if they thought fit, but he should recommend them, before they derided the evidence given by a medical man of high standing in his profession, to have some other grounds than mere wild suspicion. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Gentleman was, he thought, entirely mistaken as to the nature of the evidence which Goll gave in the deposition which, in his absence, was read at the trial. Goll's evidence did not relate to the explosives in the house at Antwerp. He was perfectly certain that Goll said nothing whatever about the explosives in the house at Antwerp. What the hon. Gentleman was referring to, he thought, was the passage in which Goll said that, when these men were at his hotel, one of them said to the other, "Come upstairs and I will show you something." [An IRISH MEMBER: "What was the something?"] That did not relate to the house where the dynamite was at all. It related to his being invited to come upstairs at the hotel. What the something was there was no further evidence to show, but he was perfectly certain that that passage had no possible bearing upon the dynamite in the other house at Antwerp, which was in a different part of the town altogether. He had thought it right to intervene at once, and to say that the course taken at the trial was taken by him upon his own responsibility, acting to the best of his judgment, and doing what he thought was fair and right as a Law Officer of the Crown. [Cheers.]

contended that the reduction he moved had been amply justified by the speech of the hon. Member for Mayo. He need not say that there was no charge whatever of complicity direct or indirect on the part of the Home Secretary or the Attorney or Solicitor General, but the fact remained that there was a process of incubation of conspiracy carried on in connection with the Secret Service Fund which was a discredit to the Home Office. The country never knew what value was given for this secret service money or how the money was expended; and it was intolerable that in a country like this where free institutions were supposed to exist, underground conspiracies of this sort could be conducted. He had been connected in a public capacity with an organisation in the county of Cork which was in conflict with the Government of the day, though they feared no reproach from honest men who believed in open and honourable warfare. The very man whose name had been before the Committee came to the city of Cork supplied with money from the Secret Service Fund and with letters of introduction from America. Who was the first man he went to? The chief of the detective department in Dublin Castle. His letters were opened, and the whole thing it was perfectly well known, was inspired from the Home Office. Was it not intolerable that year after year and decade after decade this abominable practice should be carried on? ["Hear, hear!"]

Will the hon. Gentleman say whether five members of the Board of Guardians of Cork were sent to gaol last week for taking money corruptly? [Laughter.]

, continuing, said, let these funds be employed honestly in the detection of crime, but surely the Home Secretary ought to shrink from the idea that a single penny should be used in the manner which had been exposed by his hon. Friend. He begged to move the reduction of the Vote. ["Hear, hear!"]

I am, of course, responsible, in connection with my office, for the use of a certain amount of secret service money, and I have to make a declaration to the Public Accounts Committee that, to the best of my belief, the money used has been administered in a proper way. That, of course, is the pith of my answer to the hon. Gentleman. I entirely dispute his allegations that there was any real existence in this conspiracy. ["Hear, hear!"] I have information which neither the hon. Gentleman nor any of his Friends can have. I do not for a moment suppose that any hon. Gentlemen opposite are identified with this kind of plot, which was hatched in America. The hon. Gentleman quotes a great number of names of men who, he thinks, have been at the disposal of the Home Office and Secret Service of their country, and whose evidence he said he could produce. I know nothing of them. Of course the hon. Gentleman is quite right. If I did know anything of them, I should not admit it. [Laughter.] What is the use of the Secret Service if I did? I am responsible for the administration of this Vote. It is a very disagreeable duty as hon. Members know. ["Hear, hear!"] You have to deal with men who are not those you would desire to meet every day in private life; but what I do say is this, that what anybody in my position has to do, in using this money for the purpose of detecting crime of this sort, is to employ a confidential agent whom you can trust and then to hope and believe and do the best you can, according to the means you have at your disposal, to see that the money is not used in an improper way. Of course, I can only meet with an absolute and emphatic denial the assertion of the hon. Gentleman that there was any reality in this conspiracy. It is my belief, according to information which I have, and which I had at the time, that the police by means of information supplied to them by the agency of the Secret Service, were able to prevent a great crime being committed in the United Kingdom—["hear, hear!"]—and I say that I do not believe that the action of the police, as police, has been challenged. They could have done nothing else, having information of the presence of one of these men in Glasgow, but arrest him, in order to prevent a crime being committed. ["Hear, hear!"] It is as important to prevent the committal of a crime of this sort, which we believed was ripe for execution, as it is to arrest the criminals after its commission—and I believed on my responsibility as a Minister of the Crown, that from information we had, which was, of course, derived from agencies placed at my command through the Secret Service, there was a conspiracy to commit a crime which would have caused the greatest consternation in the United Kingdom, although I gave no credit to the allusions in the newspapers to any particular attempt on the Czar of Russia or Her Majesty. I cannot be too emphatic in asserting, in reply to the hon. Member who says that there was no reality in this conspiracy, that we had evidence of the most decisive character that the men who were arrested were—as we believed, and as I believe—engaged, one or more of them, in a conspiracy of a real and very substantial character which, if carried into effect, would have aroused the indignation of the hon. Member himself and of every hon. Member in this House. [Mr. DAVITT: "Why did you not extradite him?"] I am inclined to believe that in answer to a question put by the hon. Member across the floor of the House I may have made a mistake in saying that from the beginning we demanded the extradition of these men. Possibly I was wrong there. What I should have said is that I had to consult the Law Officers—I had to do everything I could to try to get these men over to England in order to have them tried—and that in examination we found that we had no power under the extradition treaties to proceed. I think if I had tried to obtain the extradition of criminals who were not extraditable, the hon. Member and his Friends would have been the first to charge me with attempting to secure from a friendly nation the delivery to justice—false justice as they would have said—of a person who was not really amenable to the laws of this country.

Did the Government make a direct demand upon the Dutch Government for the extradition of these men?

We informed the Dutch Government that we intended to make that demand. [Laughter.] Ought a Government to make a formal demand of that kind without having made a thorough examination into the circumstances? When, as we believed, a crime of this sort is about to be committed, and when you can arrest the men who are going to commit it, you have no time to go into technicalities such as the question whether a man is a citizen of America or not. I went into the whole question with my hon. and learned Friend in order to ascertain what possible power we had under the extradition treaties to secure the delivery of these men who we believed were guilty, and upon being advised emphatically that the extradition treaties did not cover the surrender of these men, of course we did what we ought to do in such cases, and what my hon. and learned Friend did at the Central Criminal Court when he found he could not substantiate the charge against the prisoner—of course, we withdrew. [Mr. DAVITT: "Was the demand made?"] If I said across the floor of the House that the demand was made, I dare say that notice was given that we intended to make it; but in order to establish a case for extradition you must prove that you have a right to it.

Is it not a fact that chemicals were found in the house with these men, and was no demand made for their extradition?

If the hon. Member will consult his legal adviser he will find that under the extradition treaties we have there was no means of demanding the surrender of these men.

Is it true, as suggested in the extract read by me from an official organ, that the Dutch Government were prepared to hand these men over, but that no demand was made to them?

This is the first time I have heard any such suggestion made, and I should be extremely surprised if there were any truth in it. I assert most emphatically that we were prepared to do our best to get the surrender of these men for trial in this country if we could have got it, because we believed one and all whose extradition we were prepared to demand to be guilty of conspiracy to commit this crime in the United Kingdom. [Mr. DAVITT: "And yet you did not ask for their extradition."] I think the hon. Member ought to accept my explanation. I have said that we had every intention to demand extradition. The Foreign Minister, who would have had to demand the extradition, would have acted, if justified, within the limits of the Treaty. I do not like dealing with Secret Service agents—[Nationalist cheers]—but if in this case the Secret Service agents were successful—as I believe they were—in preventing a crime, there is some gain to civilisation, as the hon. Member will admit. If I have been wrong there is an end of the matter, and I am in fault. At all events, my belief is that in this particular instance we had convincing proof—proof that would have satisfied any person of fair mind—that a plot was being hatched, which, if not prevented, would have done serious damage to life and property in the United Kingdom. ["Hear, hear!"] I do not know, and it is no business of mine, whether the men who have been charged with participation in this crime—one of whom only was brought to trial—were Irishmen or not. That is not my affair. For any idle gossip in a Coolgardie paper the Government cannot be responsible. The hon. Member tells us that he has seen certain caricatures in an Italian newspaper in Rome casting aspersions on the Irish race. I think the hon. Member ought to bring his charge against the editor of that newspaper, and not against the Government, who have never expressed the belief that Irishmen had anything to do with these men, and who have shown the utmost fairness to every one implicated in this business. I repeat that the Solicitor General, having ascertained that there was not adequate evidence to connect Bell with a particular house on a particular date, did right in not pressing the case unfairly against the prisoner. Surely it is not a matter of complaint against the Government that they showed fairness in dealing with a charge of this character. The hon. Member says that he has a right to demand that the Government shall exercise all the powers they possess to detect criminals who have been engaged in crimes of this description. I hope we shall do so. By all the means in our power we shall try to track to their sources all crimes of this character and to bring to punishment all those whose guilt we can legitimately prove. If it happens from time to time, as in this case, that at the moment of trial we fail through want of a connecting link to bring home guilt to the prisoner, or if we fail because offenders are not extraditable, that is not the fault of the Government or of the police. We believed from the beginning that this was a case which it behoved us to watch most seriously. We did out best to get hold of the men and to bring them to justice, and if we failed at the last moment in connection with the trial of one of them, it was because an English Law Officer in an English Court was scrupulously fair in not pressing the case against the prisoner in the circumstances that arose. ["Hear, hear!"]

said that the Home Secretary need not have taken so much trouble to assure the Committee that he had no acquaintance whatever with the persons Connected with this dynamite conspiracy. No one on the Opposition side of the House supposed for a moment that any Home Secretary ever had a personal acquaintance with the agents who had, as his hon. Friends and himself maintained, been employed by certain permanent officials in the Home Office or Scotland Yard. The right hon. Gentleman had asserted most emphatically that there was a reality in the conspiracy of September last. He admitted that there was a reality in that conspiracy, but with whom did that reality originate? With whom did it begin? The Nationalist Members maintained that it originated with the employees of the Home Office and Scotland Yard. How was it that Mrs. Tyler had never been arrested for the conspiracy which she went to Dublin to found in 1884. The Nationalist Members had in their possession telegrams sent from the Home Office to this woman at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin, and there were in the possession of Members of the House letters written and signed "Robert Anderson, Home Office," in reference to payments for informer's service.

What happened in 1884 is hardly in order on this Vote.

I was speaking of the policy of the Home Office in regard to these conspiracies, and I say that the conspiracy of last September was only one of a series of conspiracies which have been set on foot in Ireland during the last 15 years. The first was started in 1882 by Mr. James Macdermott, who came over from New York to Dublin, and was in direct communication with Mr. Jenkins of the Castle, and Mr. Dunsterville, his private secretary. Macdermott got up the conspiracy which resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of Dr. Gallagher and others, who had been in prison, and of Flanagan, who was in prison now.

The hon. Member must confine himself to something to do with the administration of the Home Office as constituted in the present year.

But the conspiracy we are discussing did not occur in the present year, it happened last year. Mrs. Tyler offered £500 to any man who would throw a dynamite bomb into that House from the Thames. Sir G. Trevelyan, then Irish Secretary denied all knowledge of Mrs. Tyler. The Nationalist Members did not suggest that the Home Secretary had any knowledge whatever of the agents employed by officials at Scotland Yard or the Home Office. But the conspiracy of last September was got up by agents of the Government, and beyond all doubt with the knowledge of men employed is Government spies in New York. The Government could not deny that Mrs. Tyler was in the pay of the Home Office. Could the Home Secretary deny that Jones was not in the same pay? With the knowledge of Major Gosselin Jones was sent to Dublin last year to get up dynamite conspiracies there. The officials of the Government, without the knowledge of the Home Secretary, had been getting up dynamite conspiracies since, 1882, and the last of the series was that of September 1896. It was intended to frighten the Emperor of Russia, probably—a magnificent piece of Imperial policy. But after the exposure in this case they would hardly hear of many more dynamite conspiracies. This little game was exploded at last, and it was time.[Nationalist cheers.]

said there was one omission in the statement of the Home Secretary which made a sinister impression upon hon. Members sitting on that side of the House. The gravamen of the charge made by the hon. Member for South Mayo was, that it had been for years the established policy of the Home Office to keep in their employment, and in their pay, men who did not scruple, for the detection of crime, to employ methods well-known and recognised in some Continental countries, but which were repugnant to the public opinion of this country. That was, to plan and promote and stimulate and assist in the organisation of crimes for the pretended purpose of preventing them. ["Hear, hear!"] That was the substance of their charge, and the reason why they made so strong a protest against this system was because they believed that if they had recourse to these men, and if they once placed themselves under the influence of men who, under the pretext of preventing or detecting crime, took part in promoting conspiracies for this purpose they could not check the action of these agents, who, for the purpose of showing their usefulness and maintaining the usefulness of their profession, would have to continue to keep up crime in the country where, but for their operations, crime would come to an end. ["Hear, hear!"] What he desired to direct the attention of the Committee to was, that the Home Secretary did display a dislike for the association which was forced upon him by his officers with these people, but he did not deny that it was, and had been, the policy of the Home Office to wink, at least, at these proceedings. [Cheers.]

I did deny it. I said that I tried to convince myself that the agents whom I trusted are responsible and honest persons. I do not know anything about the subordinates.

said that was their point. The officials of the Home Office were supposed by the right hon. Gentleman to be honest and responsible men, but they believed them to be the very reverse. [Nationalist cheers.] Some of them they believed to be thorough scoundrels, and they considered that the hon. Member for South Mayo had made out a very strong primâ facie case that it was the practice of men in Major Gosselin's employment, entirely without the knowledge of any other Department of Police in this country, particularly where political crime was concerned, to adopt methods which used to be condemned and reprobated as the methods of Napoleon the Third in France—the method of prompting conspiracies for the commission of crime to detect those who committed them. This had gone on from the days of Talbot the informer downwards. It was the established policy of the Government, and there were agents in the employ of the British Government advocating the assassination of the late Home Secretary and other prominent men in this country. The excuse that Major Gosselin would probably give would be, that it was the best way to defeat the intentions of evilly-disposed men. He himself considered it infamous, and although it might sometimes effect its purposes, the price paid for its success was too great. A Government which resorted to such methods put itself on a level with the criminals. The Government had a right to spend Secret Service money to defeat crime, but not to entrap innocent men into the commission of crime or for the promotion of crime. He did not accuse the Home Secretary personally of casting a slur and a stain upon the Irish nation last September. But for the last 15 years every outrage and crime in Ireland had been used as a means of defaming the good name of the Irish people before the civilised world. The men engaged in the Parnell Commission used all the influence of the agents and of the bottomless purse of this country to destroy and blast the character of every man who held Nationalist views in Ireland. It was a mockery to pretend that these conspiracies were not used to turn the public opinion of the world against the Nationalists and their cause in Ireland. They were got up to placard the Irish people as a gang of cowardly murderers and dynamitards before the world. It came well from the secret police of a city like London, where every dynamite outrage or assassination plotted against the Crowned Heads of Europe had been arranged. Despite the cowardly campaign against the good name of Ireland, however, that country could hold its head higher as regarded crime and assassination than any other country in Europe. Year after year they would continue to demand that the Home Secretary of this country should repudiate the abominable policy of using agents provocateurs, which they believed was still the policy of Major Gosselin and the secret police.

said he came from that part of Ireland to which Talbot was sent down by the Secret Service Fund. This man attended the chapel where his father and his sisters attended, and although the man was a Protestant, he passed himself off as a Catholic, and swore in the young Catholics of his part of the country and made them sign their oaths with their blood. He suddenly left the neighbourhood, and the next they saw of him was when he was in the witness chair, and a large body of the young men of the neighbourhood were in the dock. He contended that any administration which descended to fraud of that description was unworthy of confidence.

said that the principal points involved in the Eastern Question had of late been very much overlooked. The attention of the House and of the country had been directed to such minor matters as the bombardment which had taken place the other day at Crete, attacks upon the British Admiral, and as to whether the Cretan insurgents had received a certain message or not—all of which were of the most trifling importance in comparison with the great issues at stake. The one great factor of the Eastern Question which had been lost sight of of late was the danger of arousing religious and race fanaticism in the East. For a long period of time reckless and unfounded attacks were made upon the Turkish Government, and every species of insult was addressed to the Sovereign of Turkey. Mussulman fanaticism was thereby aroused, and the result was seen in the terrible deeds which took place in Asia Minor at the close of 1895. In Crete they would see what Christian fanaticism was able to accomplish. Deeds had been done there by fanatical Christians as atrocious as the deeds committed by fanatical Mussulmans in Asia Minor. The whole Moslem population of Crete, with the exception of the few that lived in the towns on the sea coast, had been driven from their homes. Their lands had been taken from them, their houses had been destroyed, and at that moment there were 30,000 Mussulmans in a state almost of starvation in the three seaport towns of Crete to which they had to fly for protection from the Christians. This persecution and enforced exile of the Moslem population of Crete had been accompanied by many horrible scenes of massacre and outrage. Hundreds had been killed, women and children had been outraged, and the whole Moslem population of some of the villages had been burned alive. [Opposition cries of "No, no!"] The hon. and learned Member for Dumfries seemed to regard it as a joke that Mussulmans should be burned alive.

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I was smiling at a remark my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton made to me.

apologised to the hon. and learned Member. He had heard no word of sympathy or regret expressed from any Gentleman on the other side with regard to outrages on and massacres of these Cretan Mussulmans. The correspondent of The Standard, who had probably supplied the most interesting information they had received from Crete, writing the other day from Canea, spoke in this way of the Cretan people:

"There is no race existing within the borders of civilisation so reckless of human life and so dominated by the passion for blood.…It may be opportune to point out to misguided philanthropists that the prostitution of the title of Christian in Crete need not delude anybody with the idea that those who claim it are governed by any of the precepts of Christianity. Any sympathy with these Christians as co-religionists is quite misplaced. They have no religion to speak of and are quite as barbarous as their brethren of the same breed professing Islamism."

There were two great factors which were apt to be overlooked by most hon. Members who had dealt with the Eastern Question during the last three years. The first, which was the humanitarian factor, was the horrible danger of letting loose religious and race fanaticism in the East. The second, which was the political factor, was the tremendous danger to British interests of allowing Russia to get possession of Constantinople. There was not the slightest doubt that if that great Power got possession of Constantinople and the Straits our naval supremacy in the Mediterranean would come to an end, and we should lose the power of holding Egypt and the Suez Canal. There would thus, also, be placed in the hands of Russia the whole fighting material of the Ottoman Empire, and our hold upon India would be gravely menaced. There had been, within the last few days, a very deplorable loss of life at Tokat. [An HON. MEMBER: "A series of assassinations," and another HON. MEMBER: "A series of massacres."] He waited to hear what had actually happened before he described the occurrence as a massacre, but if it were proved to have been a massacre, he would so describe and denounce it. Immediately that loss of life occurred the Turkish Government acted. [Cries of "Oh, oh!] He believed that, without the loss of 24 hours, the persons responsible for the Government of this place were dismissed and put under arrest, and a Commission, composed of officials against whom nothing could be said, had been appointed to make a thorough investigation into the whole matter. Instead of hon. Members jeering at the Turkish authorities for having acted as they had, they ought rather to encourage them in that action. Hon. Members, by refusing to credit the Turkish Government with the slightest good motive, were inevitably driving Turkey, either to an absolute alliance and dependence upon Russia, or to such a state of desperation that no one could predict what mischief might happen to those Christians in whom they were interested. For that reason he had always endeavoured in this House and in the country to urge moderation in dealing with and speaking of Turkey. Let the Ambassador at Constantinople be as firm as he pleased in demanding real reforms, but let him be moderate and wise in his representations, and let hon. Gentlemen opposite be wise and moderate in their attacks on the Turkish Government. With regard to the Cretan question, there had probably never been an instance in this country in which a large portion of the public mind had been so completely misled and deluded as in regard to this question. The idea of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and an idea which he believed had a considerable number of followers in the country, but not so many as possibly hon. Gentlemen opposite thought, was that the Cretan Christians were at this time a poor suffering people, and that the Greeks had gone to Crete to defend Cretan liberties. That was the exact opposite of the truth. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] The Cretan Christians were not oppressed at the present time, and had not been for some years. They were themselves at present the oppressors and the persecutors. In every insurrection which had taken place in Crete in the last thirty years the Mussulman inhabitants had suffered most, and in the last insurrection three times as many Mussulmans were killed as Christians. The Greeks went to Crete to prevent autonomy, which was secure. [Mr. DILLON: "No, no!"] It had been conceded by the Sultan and guaranteed by the Powers. Hon. Members might not trust the promises of the Turkish Government with regard to a wild district in Asia Minor, where the Powers could not intervene; but with regard to an island like Crete, it was impossible for promises guaranteed by the Powers to be broken.

They were broken.

They were not broken.

They were broken.

said that there was nothing to show that but the statement of the hon. Member, who, on this subject, was capable of stating almost anything. The Cretan Christians were delighted with the pledges given to them, and accepted them cheerfully, but autonomy was the one thing dreaded by Greece, who wanted annexation. Greece was a needy, bankrupt country, and Crete was to be a sort of milch cow. The prospect of autonomy precipitated Greek intervention. Greece sent over agitators and writers, who were common in Greece. Those Greeks who were averse to a severe form of work took either to newspaper writing or to the legal profession, and when those professions failed they went on buccaneering expeditions to Crete. The Austrian Government at this point made a wise proposal to the Powers—that a naval cordon should be placed round the island to keep out the agitators and the arms. That proposal was accepted by all the Powers but Great Britain. [Mr. COURTNEY: "Hear, hear!"] Did that cheer mean that the right hon. Gentleman disapproved of the Austrian Government's suggestion? [Mr. COURTNEY: "Oh, yes."] The right hon. Gentleman must know that now, when all the mischief had been done, a blockade had been established after all. Six months ago that step might have averted all the dangers and bloodshed; but it was prevented by a little splutter of agitation in this country. The conduct of the Turkish Government in regard to Crete had been admirable since last year. [Cries of "No!"] Did anyone deny that? [Cries of "Yes!" and "Certainly."] Matters were promising to settle themselves, when the Greek Government sent soldiers to Crete, and then the trouble and terrible massacres of Mussulman Cretans began. Greece had simply been trying to blackmail Europe, and to extort the concession of annexation from the fear of European war. Crete itself would be more happy under autonomy than under annexation to Greece. But Greece had mustered a large army on the Thessalian frontier and had compelled Turkey to do the same. At any moment some rash act might precipitate a tremendous struggle on the frontier, which might end in European war. Such ambition and greed on the part of Greece was unjustifiable. Most Members would be very glad to know that the Concert of Europe, or the federation of Europe, was still maintained. It was not an ideal arrangement for dealing with burning political questions. Personally he had always much favoured an alliance between England and the Powers with whom our interests coincided, which would enable Great Britain to pursue her just policy with effect, but that policy was practically impossible after the mistakes of the late Radical Government in the East. The attempt of that Government to coerce Turkey in conjunction with Russia and France, two Powers that would not and could not genuinely support our policy in the East, had unfortunately alienated our natural allies in Europe, so that for the moment the restoration of the old understanding, which had so long preserved the equilibrium or power in Europe, was impossible; therefore, in view of the fact that there was great danger of a European war, and above all, in view of the awful miseries which would threaten the populations of south-eastern Europe if once war broke out, probably the Concert was the only means of dealing with the difficult questions that arose. He hoped that hon. Gentlemen who were so ready to encourage Greece in her rash and dangerous attitude had not forgotten what war meant in the south-east of Europe to the helpless populations there. The great war between Germany and France was, so far as non-combatants were concerned, conducted with remarkable humanity, but very different would a war be in the south-east of Europe. Take the case of Macedonia alone, which, in the event of war, would become the cockpit of south-eastern Europe. In Macedonia there were now four Christian races ready and almost longing to fly at each other's throats, and only kept from fighting by the dominating power of the Turks, and Heaven only knew what would happen if the forces of disorder were once let loose. He read the other day in The Daily News a remarkable letter from Athens. It was not a paper he placed reliance on generally, but in reference to recent events in the East its information had been good. The letter contained a most touching and pathetic statement—a terrible statement as to what the spring might bring in that country, in Macedonia, where, on a signal given, five armies would begin to march, and what would be the fate of the helpless population, non-combatants, women and children, was terrible to think of. Therefore, though the Concert of Europe might be a slow and heavy method of dealing with the question, and though its action was beset with difficulties and dangers, yet, as a security against a terrible war, it well deserved support, and he congratulated Her Majesty's Government upon having so far kept the Concert of Europe together. He hoped no menaces front the other side of the House, no threats of agitation, no false, no sham sentiment, would lead Her Majesty's Government to do anything to break up that European accord which, so far as could be seen, was the only means of preventing an outbreak a war in the East.

I do not rise for the purpose of defending the late Radical Government against the criticisms of the hon. Gentleman, who has exercised, as usual, his gift of making foreign affairs attractive and fascinating to those who listen to him. He warns the Government not to listen to what he is pleased to call a little splutter of agitation, and he also wants them, not confining his remarks to the late Government, he warns the Government to listen to himself and on no account to pay attention to the feelings of the rest of the country. Now, I propose to come to a little closer quarters, if I may, with the Government, than the hon. Gentleman has. The hon. Gentleman has said, speaking of the autonomy of Crete, that it was secured, guaranteed, and accepted some considerable time ago.

In August.

Very well; that is a proposition I entirely traverse, and on that particular matter—namely, the autonomy of Crete—I desire to make a few observations. I do not think the Government will be surprised, or can complain, if on an occasion like this, one of the not too numerous occasions the forms and practice of the House allow us for bringing these important matters before the attention of the House, if we take this occasion for inviting the Government to give us some elucidation on some points of their Cretan and Eastern policy which I confess at present I find extremely obscure and difficult to comprehend. I am not going to-night to attempt any rhetoric. I wish to subject the situation to what I hope will be a perfectly cool analysis. I hope we shall not be misled by what the hon. Member has said about the Concert of Europe. I do not wish to embark on that subject to-night, beyond observing that the phrase which the Prime Minister launched the other day about the federation of Europe is, to my mind, a sonorous, but a hollow, misleading phrase. I should not have referred to that but that the hon. Member laid stress upon it. Now let us see how far we are agreed as to the facts and as to the propositions affecting the present situation in Crete. First of all, there will be no difference among us as to this, that it is the intention of the Government, that it is the resolution of Her Majesty's Government, that Crete is to be freed absolutely in its future government from any effective intervention by Turkey. Then there arises, in the next place, the alternatives of annexation to Greece, on the one hand, and what Her Majesty's Government and the Powers call autonomy on the other hand; and Her Majesty's Government have said that, owing to their position and in view of the decision of the Powers, autonomy is the only policy they can consider practicable. But they do not consider in the present state of circumstances that union of the Greeks of the Hellenic Kingdom to the Cretans of Greece is a practicable policy. Lord Salisbury has recommended Greece to remember that the ulterior result of the present circumstances may well be that annexation of Crete to Greece may take place, if desired by the Cretan population. We are assured by the Government that autonomy is the keyword of their present policy. I am afraid that, as far as we have any means of yet knowing, autonomy is nothing more than a word and a phrase. I will call the attention of the Committee to a reply of the Porte, dated March 14, upon this subject. In that dispatch the Sublime Porte say that—

"the principle of the granting of autonomy to Crete has been admitted, the Imperial Government only reserving to itself to discuss its form and details with the Ambassadors."

["Hear, hear!"] Of course every single Member of the House, not excepting the hon. Member, will recognise that the principle of autonomy is perfectly meaningless, is void of all practical political significance, until we know what is the form and what are the details with which that general principle is to be worked out. Now, where are we? We are at a date not a fortnight from the date of that dispatch, and at that date it is perfectly certain from the language there used that there had not been an effective discussion between the Porte and the six Ambassadors. If the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary or the First Lord is able to assure us that an effective discussion has been going on since the 14th March, has gone on to such a point that they can tell us to-night that there is a scheme of autonomy in existence to which the Porte has consented, and as to which the Powers are agreed, I will admit they have made a substantial advance. It is quite true that one of the French Ministers, I think M. Meéline, the other day said "the reégime of autonomy for Crete is in working order." Well, I have not seen the original French, and I do not know therefore what the language of M. Meéline may have been, but if "the reégime of autonomy for Crete is in working order" we shall be very much interested to hear from the representatives of Her Majesty's Government to-night what sort of shape that working order has assumed. The language of the dispatch I have quoted shows that the whole of the form and details of autonomy is left an open question, and that what is going on, if anything is going on, is that performance with which we are only too familiar—six Ambassadors at Constantinople meeting one another day after day and week after week and trying to hit upon some scheme which perhaps the Porte may agree to. So far as we know, I can only repeat that autonomy is a mere word and a mere phrase, and has been clothed with none of the attributes of a real effective constitution. Now let us advance a further step. It is undeniable that the vast majority of the insurgent Cretans have repeatedly declared—they may be right or may be wrong, but we are now dealing with the actual state of things—that they repudiate autonomy as the solution of the present situation. This means that the Cretan insurgents reject the proposals of the Powers, or are prepared to reject the proposals when laid before them.

What is the proof of that?

The hon. Gentleman is the last person who should demand proofs, but the fact is perfectly obvious from the whole attitude of the insurgents towards the Admirals. They are at this moment so little predisposed to accept your proposals that they are at this moment in effective military antagonism to the Powers. [Cheers.]

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to explain? The only evidence of the statement he has just made is that some five or six Cretan chiefs, under the influence of Colonel Vassos and his brigade, who are close to Canea, are said to have stated that they were opposed to autonomy. There is no other evidence whatever.

If that be so, it will be a very simple matter indeed—I dare-say the hon. Member would not shrink from undertaking it—to reduce Crete to perfect order. ["Hear, hear!"] It will be no wonder if the Government do not disclose to us the form and details of the scheme, because it is evidently a scheme to be imposed upon the Cretans against their wishes. A more astonishing paradox, I think, has never been seen in modern European politics than the paradox of the present situation. You admit, by every word that any Member of Her Majesty's Government has used, that Crete has got a claim to autonomy—that is to say, to a government which will represent the wishes of her own people, and which the Cretan people will consent to work. The paradox is this—that you are imposing your autonomy upon the Cretans—how? By starving, by blockading, and occasionally by bombarding them. [Laughter.] You are to compel a population who have faith in their own freedom and autonomy to accept a form of government which they tell you they reject. I call that a monstrous paradox. It used to be said in the French Revolution by the lovers of Fraternity, "Soyez mon frère ou je te tue;" and here you are saying to the Cretans, "Unless you agree to govern yourselves as we wish, we will starve, blockade, and bombard you." [Cheers.] I call that a paradox which ingenious Gentlemen who sit opposite will, I dare say, be able to throw some light upon. I want to know from the Government whether this policy of paradox is one for which the fleet of Great Britain is to be employed to carry out? Is it a policy that a British Ministry can be expected to pursue? Lord Salisbury has admitted that the ulterior solution may possibly, and very probably, be annexation; and, therefore, the Government are now, unless they enlighten us, so far as we can judge from appearances, engaged in carrying out a policy which they believe not to be a policy that will ultimately bring peace to Crete, but a policy against their own real conviction, as it is most assuredly a policy against the sympathies and the convictions of the majority of the people of this country. [Cheers and "No, no!"] I do not think that many hon. Members on either side of the House—I do not see why this should be a matter of Party division—[Ministerial cheers]—would like to face their constituents and to say that, while we declare that the Cretans ought to have autonomy and to choose their Government, and because they do not at once accept the form of government the Powers think best for them, we are right in using the British fleet to starve, blockade, and bombard them. Let us go a little further. Let us admit the principle of your policy, which I submit is an extremely difficult thing to do. Will the Under Secretary or the First Lord of the Treasury explain to us how this policy is to be practically carried out? In practice as in principle I declare that I cannot make out how autonomy, which means self-government, can be worked without the co-operation of the people who are to be made antõnomous. You must have the good will and the sympathy and the co-operation of the people. And at the end of your starving, blockading, and bombarding, what is to happen? How far will you have travelled along the road? Let us examine what it means. You must, I suppose, under an autonomous system have institutions—legislative, administrative, representative. But how are, those institutions going to be worked by a people who do not want those institutions, but who want something quite different? That is a plain and practical question which perhaps the Under Secretary will be able to answer. The Cretans will certainly be unlike anyone else whom I have read of if they do not at once set to work, even supposing you had at once reared this system, to overthrow a scheme which they bitterly distrust, and which they will be the first to declare to be wholly repugnant to their deepest sentiments. There is a point, moreover, on which I invite the Government to throw some light in the practical working out of this extraordinary policy of autonomy against the will of the autonomous—the governor. Who is he to be? Is he to be a Turk? I presume not. That would be too great a scandal. Is he to be a Greek? If the governor is to be a Greek you may as well not make two bites of a cherry, but let them have annexation and union at once. Is the governor to be taken from one of the six Powers? Suppose you get a governor from one of the extraneous Powers, who is to keep him in his seat? I presume some foreign military force. A pretty kind of autonomy—[cheers]—to set over them a foreigner by whom they do not want to be governed, and to prop him up by some foreign force! Reference has been made to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and there we have been told what Lord Beaconsfield called the "consolidation of the Turkish Empire" went on—in plain English, a large tract of territory was happily withdrawn from Turkish dominion and was governed with great success and efficiency by Austria. I will take the liberty of pointing out that there is a great difference in the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the situation in Crete to-day. In Bosnia and Herzegovina 19 or 20 years ago there was no outside centre towards which the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina was gravitating. But that is not the case here. Here the Cretan population has got a centre to which it is gravitating—namely, Greece. When the Austrians went into Bosnia and Herzegovina they were welcomed as deliverers. [Ministerial cries of "No."] When you point to the success of the Austrian annexation—I will call it for short—of Bosnia and Herzegovina, you must remember that the people had no strong outside affinities which they were bent on regarding and preserving at all cost. But in Crete there is a kingdom outside to which they have a strong affinity of race, of sentiment, and now of gratitude. The situation is perfectly different. The Austrians were welcomed in Bosnia and Herzegovina because they were deliverers. What you are now doing is to make a kind of war upon the deliverers, and yet you say there is a parallel between this and the Bosnian and Herzegovinian situation. This phrase autonomy deserves, I believe, at this stage in the public discussion to be analysed in a way in which it can only be effectively done in this House. I have spoken of the Governor, and of the fallacy of the parallel with Bosnia and Herzegovina. There was another point which comes to all States and to all individuals—the point of money. ["Hear, hear!"] The British Government are alleged to have made a proposal—I do not think we are officially informed of it—to the Powers to subscribe £10,000 apiece. A sort of subscription list has been opened under the auspices of Her Majesty's Government, and you are to see this extraordinary spectacle. Autonomy is going to be established in the country, but, as a condition antecedent or concurrent with autonomy, a sort of opening up of a subscription list—you are to have a condominium of the six Powers and a condominium subscription to work the autonomy. I do not think a more absurd idea has ever been launched, and I, for one, shall be glad if the Government will be able to say that they never identified themselves with any such proposal. The upshot of it all is this—that you are prolonging an intolerable situation in order to obtain an utterly unworkable and impracticable end. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Member spoke of the dangers of conflagration in Macedonia and elsewhere. It is too true that these dangers appear to be coming very near; but, if there is danger of this grand conflagration in Eastern Europe, will it not occur to those who watch things very closely from day to day that it is by the determination of the Powers, the obstinate and, as I think, the unreasonable determination of the Powers, not to allow that union between the Greeks in the kingdom and the Greeks in the island of Crete which the Greeks in the kingdom and the Greeks in the island desire? I invite the Government, if they will be so kind, to answer this question—What are the grounds, stated in plain words, of reason and of policy for the determination about so secondary a matter which can evidently only be persisted in at the risk of jeopardising interests that are not secondary at all, but are essentially of first European magnitude? Every day since this stubborn and unreasonable determination has been arrived at, and has been endeavoured to be carried out, it has been more and more clear that this determination it is which is leading, apparently somewhat rapidly, to what may prove a great danger to European peace. If the Powers had wished to bring about the very crisis which they and all of us have been deploring and dreading the prospect of, this perverse quarrel with Greece is the very means to kindle the flames. As for Crete, we are told that the object of this bombarding and starving was to preserve order in Crete. Read all the accounts of what is going on in Crete! A more desperate and tenacious struggle one has never seen. It is a ludicrous position—it would be ludicrous if it was not so grave—into which the policy of the Powers has brought the Powers. Some people talk of making a golden bridge for the retreat of the Greeks. It looks to me as if a much more desirable thing would be the construction of a golden bridge for the Powers themselves. The difficulties are all due to the fundamental absurdity of imposing upon Crete, in the name of autonomy, some scheme or another which the people of the island refuse to accept. I confess I cannot see that one single step has been taken which is calculated to bring about either of the two things which the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury so tersely described—the freedom of Crete and the peace of Europe. It seems to me that the present situation is as unpromising for freedom in Crete and the peace of Europe as any situation which could possibly be brought about. [Cheers.]

I have listened with extreme surprise to the speech which has just been delivered—surprise partly founded on the matter of the speech, and partly on the occasion on which the right hon. Gentleman has thought fit to deliver it. [Cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman complains of us because, in dealing with an island in a state of disorder which we have not produced, we are not prepared to give to him and his Friends a detailed account of the autonomous constitution under which I hope that island will for many years have a prosperous and flourishing existence.

I never asked for details; but will the right hon. Gentleman tell us that the constitution is ready, and, if so, what it is?

The right hon. Gentleman asks whether we have got a grand new constitution in our pigeon-hole for an island which he knows is in a state of disorder—a state of disorder which we have not produced—an island in which there is a minority of the very existence of which, you would suppose, the right hon. Gentleman has never heard—[cheers]—who are certainly not Cretans by religion or sympathy, but, after all, are human beings—[Cheers]—and the safety of whom and their property, one would think, might have some claim even upon the right hon. Gentleman. Of course, it is obvious to everybody that the folly of coming forward at this moment, with Crete in the condition in which it is, with an elaborately prepared constitution, or even to go through the form of preparing an elaborate constitution till order is restored, is more the policy of speculative theorists than of practical statesmen. The right hon. Gentleman has talked about certain conditions laid down by the Porte with regard to autonomy in Crete. Of this I can assure him, that the Powers who have taken in hand the task of providing for the freedom of Crete will not be bound by the views of anybody but themselves. [Cheers.] That task they have taken in hand, and mean to carry through. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that the Cretans are so strenuously determined against any form of Home Rule that they are prepared to resist to the utmost, by arms and permanently, any attempt to impose upon them that form of government which under other circumstances finds so much favour with the right hon. Gentleman. [Cheers.] He apparently looks forward to a series of years during which, for no other object whatever than to spite the Great Powers, the Cretans are going to misgovern themselves. The right hon. Gentleman speaks of paradoxes, but of all paradoxes ever uttered in this House that is surely the most extraordinary and the most unreasonable. ["Hear, hear!"] The question of Crete is but a fragment of the general policy of the Great Powers of Europe as regards the East of Europe. It cannot be considered in isolation, but it must be considered, and it can only be judged, as part of the greater and more important whole. The right hon. Gentleman says that that policy is one which does not command the approval of the people of this country. The course of an Opposition who believe that the policy of the Government does not command the approval of the country is a plain and obvious one, imposed upon them by all the traditions of English Parliamentary life. [Cheers.] We have had three discussions on this Cretan and European question on Motions for the Adjournment of the House—front the very nature of the case inconclusive discussions. Do not let us add to them a fourth discusion as inconclusive as either of the three predecessors. Let us have this question out. [Cheers.] Let us have done with this niggling criticism—[cheers]—and these paltry questions. The broad outlines of our policy are before the House and the country. The right hon. Gentleman says that the country has already judged. Let him give the House also an opportunity of judging. [Cheers.] I have already told the Leader of the Opposition, whose absence we all regret—["hear, hear!"]—that he had only to ask for a day for a vote of censure, and that day will be given without any delay whatever. [Cheers.] Until that request is made, and until that day is given, I must certainly, so far as I can at all events exercise such authority as I possess, prevent the Opposition hampering the Government in the policy which it is endeavouring to pursue in the East of Europe, without putting before the country in plain and intelligible terms an alternative to that policy. [Cheers.] Let the country choose between the two, and, whichever policy it supports, let that policy be carried out from beginning to end courageously, clearly, and consistently. [Cheers.] One thing I desire, not in the interest of Party or even in the interests of this country itself, but in the interests of Europe and of mankind. It is that whatever policy we support in this country shall have, at all events as far as we can secure it, the approval of the people of this country behind it by the declared vote of their representatives. [Cheers.] I hope the right hon. Gentleman will either screw up his courage to the point of asking for a day for a vote of censure—[cheers]—or that he will abandon this practice of night after night criticising small fragments of the Government policy, without bringing forward an indictment of that policy—an indictment which I can most truly assure him we are only too desirous to see him make, and to which we are prepared at a moment's notice to give what we at all events conceive to be a full and conclusive answer. [Loud cheers.]

felt it his duty to defend the Leaders of the Opposition from the charge that, after so excellent a speech, such a militant speech, as had been made by the right hon. Member for Montrose, he would not propose a vote of censure. He knew perfectly well he would. [Laughter and a voice, "When?"] An hon. Gentleman said "When?" He did not seem to understand that great bodies moved slowly, particularly bodies made up of machinery and a vast number of wheels that had to be brought into harmonious action. [Laughter.] He hoped his right hon. Friend would speedily move a vote of censure from that Bench. They would all be delighted to vote for it on that side. The Leader of the House had invited the Front Bench to move a vote of censure, and he was only sorry that he did not invite him. [Laughter.] If the right hon. Gentleman had thrown that challenge down to him his answer would have been, "Tomorrow." They desired to protest by their voice and votes against what was at present going on. If he could not get a day, he would seize the present opportunity, and he intended to conclude with an Amendment which stood in his name to reduce the salary of Lord Salisbury. [Loud laughter.] It was not at all personal. [Renewed laughter.] It was the only vote left to them. There had been contradictions upon the part of the Leader of that House and the Leader of the House of Lords. One evening a statement was made in the House of Lords, and almost immediately the reverse was stated by the Leader of the House of Commons. ["Hear, hear!"] They were told by the Leader of the other House that if the country wanted to know what was going on, they would do well to refer to the excellent speech of M. Hanotaux in the French Chamber. It appeared that, according to the views a Her Majesty's Government, they had not only no right to discuss these matters in the House of Commons, but also no right to discuss them outside. His right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made a very excellent speech the other day at Norwich, a speech that was certainly approved of by every Liberal in the country, but what did the President of the Local Government Board say of it? The right hon. Gentleman said:—

"He owned when he read the speech of Sir William Harcourt at Norwich, he thought it almost an outrage on public decency. [Laughter.] A speech more unworthy of a man in his position or of the occasion, or more calculated to mislead or deceive the English public or more thoroughly intended to embarrass the English Government at a great crisis in its political affairs, was surely never made.

[Ministerial cheers.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite cheered those sentiments. Naturally they objected to a speech which embarrassed Her Majesty's Government, but he delighted in that speech because it did embarrass the Government. [Laughter.] It was made with that aim and object. [Cheers.] The Opposition believed that the action of Her Majesty's Government in Crete was to the dishonour of the country, and surely they were simply doing their duty in embarrassing and hindering the Government in that action. ["Hear, hear!"] When Mr. Gladstone denounced the action of the Government in regard to the Bulgarian outrages, and their subsequent action in respect to the Treaty of San Stefano, Conservative newspapers and orators said the thing was indecent. But what did the public say? When there came an election out went the Government bag and baggage—[Laughter]—and Mr. Gladstone was put in their place; and he had no doubt the next General Election would have a similar result. ["Hear, hear!"] It really had came to a pretty pass if those who objected to the English arms being used to defend the integrity of the Turkish Empire against the Cretans and Greece, were to be looked upon as dolts and idiots and indecent persons. [Laughter.] Surely they had a right to their opinions. They knew perfectly well that Armenia had been harried for two years, and its inhabitants massacred by the Sultan, that the Concert of Europe did nothing to prevent it, and at the present moment no scheme of reforms for Armenia had been settled. The Cretans applied to the Powers, and the Powers submitted a scheme of reform for Crete, and yet things in the island were worse than before, because the Sultan seemed to think that the Cretans had offended his dignity by applying to the Powers, and he misgoverned them worse than ever. The Cretans rose and the Greeks, to their honour be it said, sent troops to their aid. The country was in the possession of the Cretans and Greeks, and if the Great Powers had not interfered, at this very moment all connection between Turkey and Crete would probably have ceased. Then and then alone the Powers interfere.

We were there before.

Yes, but they only looked on and did nothing. The first practical action they took was when the Greeks arrived in the island. Then the Powers bombarded the Cretans. [Cheers.] Then came all these Notes to Turkey and Greece. Probably they would not have been told the contents of those Notes by Her Majesty's Government, but other Governments were more, communicative, and the Notes were published in foreign journals. First there was an agreement between Turkey and the Great Powers. The Powers pledged themselves to maintain the integrity of the Turkish Empire in regard to Crete, and in return for that Turkey pledged herself to give autonomy. Then the Governments sent a Note to Greece, saying that unless the Greeks withdrew their ships from Cretan waters, and their men from the island, they would hesitate at no effort of coercion in order to force compliance with their requirements. How did the Government begin their coercion? By the blockade last Sunday. One Greek vessel had already been sunk by the blockading forces. We had landed troops in Crete, and by the blockade the aim and object of the Government was to starve the unhappy people into surrender, the importation of food being prevented. This they were told was a police measure, but it was a police measure unquestionably undertaken in the name of Turkey, because the Great Powers had no right to engage in police measures in Turkish waters. Then there had been another bombardment. It appeared also that our troops aided the Turkish troops in the garrison towns, and allowed them to go out and pillage and ravage the neighbouring villages. They were told in the newspapers that possibly the Government would not blockade the Piræus, but would leave that to other Powers. He did not see that such abstention amounted to much, for if we blockaded the Cretan ports, although we left it to other Powers to blockade the Piræus, our forces would still practically be employed against Crete and Greece. All these things filled with indignation those who had still some regard for the honour of England, and their indignation was intensified by the grounds given by the Government for their action. Two pleas were put forward by the Government in mitigation. One was based on the proposal for autonomy. They were told that the Great Powers were prepared to give autonomy to Crete, but no one had ever yet explained definitely what that autonomy was to be At present it was a case of Quot hominess, tot sententiœ. Upon this subject he doubted whether the Powers were in unison. He could very well imagine that the Russian Government and the German Government entertained very different views in regard to liberty from those which the British Government entertained, or, rather, ought to entertain. The Cretans had already had dire experience of the interference of the Great Powers. They were told that all their troubles were to disappear under the scheme of reforms of last year, but, having found that under that scheme they were worse off than before, they naturally wished to put an end to their connection with the Turkish power once and for all. He had been under the impression during the last two years that any subject of the Sultan who rebelled deserved the sympathy of Englishmen. At any rate, both political parties had said so, and that we should now be engaged in supporting the Turkish Government against the Cretans showed the irony of fate. He would like to know what benefit resulted from the maintenance of the Concert of Europe? The theory of the Concert of Europe was that the Great Powers who signed the Treaty of Paris had in some way made the integrity of the Turkish Power the common law of Europe. But was a treaty of that kind worth anything after it had lasted 40 years? According to Her Majesty's Government, if hostile action were taken by the Concert of Europe to defend the integrity of the Turkish Empire, everyone connected with the Concert was bound to take part. The leading spirits of the Concert of Europe were the three Emperors, and he was not surprised that the three Emperors and the Sultan should be in favour of the divine right of the Sultan and the Emperors. Why should we become the jackals of the three Emperors and the Sultan to take arms against men whom we believed to be absolutely in the right? He believed the policy of the Liberal Party was that, if we could only remain in the Concert of Europe by attacking Crete and Greece and maintaining the integrity of the Turkish Empire, it was our business to retire from the Concert without troubling ourselves in the least as to the consequences. [Opposition cheers and Ministerial laughter.] They were told there would be war all over Europe. But who was going to fight against us if we did not fight against them? ["Hear, hear!" and cheers.] According to the President of the Local Government Board, we were not to retire from the Concert of Europe because it would cause "great and natural resentment" among the Powers of Europe. This was an English Minister! He could understand a Russian or German Minister or a Grand Vizier—[laughter]—uttering such sentiments. Hon. Members opposite who talked so grandly about the power of England called him and his Friends "Little Englanders." But they were the smallest and—if they would forgive him—the most contemptible Little Englanders themselves, because they were so absolutely afraid of the resentment of the Great Powers of Europe that, rather than risk that resentment, they were prepared to do the dirtiest work they could be put to. [Cheers and Ministerial cries of "Oh!"] Yes; it was dirty work. Hon. Members opposite apparently did not approve of it, but Liberals went further, and said it was dirty and disgraceful work for England to do. He had put on the Paper an Amendment to reduce the salary of Lord Salisbury. [Laughter.] This was a Vote on account, therefore they might put the salary to the Suspense Account. It could be restored if Lord Salisbury mended ways and recognised the voice of England which was speaking in many ways. If Lord Salisbury accepted the view of the great majority of his fellow-countrymen, they did not ask him at the present moment to make war for Greece. "Sufficient unto the day was the policy thereof." They only asked him to stay his hand, and refuse to make war any longer against either Cretans struggling to be free or against Greece, which was rightly aiding them. [Cheers.] The hon. Member concluded by moving his Amendment.

said hon. Members opposite were unduly exercised over the word "autonomy." They seemed to think the Cretans would not understand what autonomy meant. "Autonomy" was a Greek word—["hear, hear!"]—and if hon. Members opposite could not realise what it meant, it was extremely improbable that the Greeks themselves would fail to do so. Hon. Gentlemen opposite not so long ago advocated autonomy for an island nearer home, and at that time they never succeeded in getting details from them. Then they were told that even if autonomy were granted the Sultan might spoil it by his interference. That was not a probable event, as the Sultan would not retain any power over the island. He hoped his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Treasury would continue to refuse to give any details as to the scheme of autonomy, as this did not appear to be necessary. He wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why, in view of the action which this country, in common with the rest of Europe, found itself obliged to take, the Greeks were permitted to land these troops in the first instance? ["Hear, hear!"] When he made this inquiry the other day his right hon. Friend replied that the Greeks were able to land them because they were not opposed, and this answer was regarded as clever and humorous. He confessed he failed to see the humour of it, and he thought he was entitled to ask for an answer.

thought that those of them who held the strongest opinion that the course on which this country was at present engaged was contrary to national honour and national interests had some right to complain of the manner in which this discussion had been left by those responsible for the arrangements of the House. Their own Party were as much to blame as were the Government. He supposed the Government would refuse them any further opportunity of discussing this question if their own Front Bench did not move a Vote of Censure. ["Hear, hear!"] He ventured to say, however, that the vast majority of the Party which sat on that side of the House were not responsible if their Front Bench did refuse to move a Vote of Censure. He supposed the Government intended to closure this Vote. Some of them had been taunted for the convictions which they held, while they had been denied an opportunity of defending themselves. The Under Secretary of State had told the House that for 100 years the Cretans had been asking for autonomy. He denied that statement root and branch. He had watched the affairs of Crete most carefully since 1867, and all through Crete had asked for annexation to Greece, and that was what Crete asked for now. Those of them who held the strongest convictions on this subject, by the action of the leaders on both sides had been denied an opportunity of defending those convictions.

asked whether it was quite necessary that the Government should get this Vote? Surely some further opportunity should be given of discussing the matter.

said that they on that side of the House were quite determined that this matter should be further considered at the earliest possible date. [Ministerial cheers.] In order that there should be an opportunity for further discussion, he begged to move that Progress be reported.

claimed to move "That the Question be now put."

claimed, "That the original Question be now put."