rose to call attention to the present system of votes and grants for local purposes in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and to move—

"That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report upon the amount and proportion of moneys expended out of the Exchequer for local purposes in each division of the United Kingdom and how far the financial relations established by the sums so contributed are equitable to Scotland."

The hon. Member's Amendment should be amended by leaving out the words "the Exchequer," and substituting "moneys provided by Parliament," so as to make it clear that he does not refer to expenditure charged upon the Consolidated Fund by statute, which would be out of order on the present Motion.

said that he would so amend his Resolution. He therefore proposed to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add instead thereof the words

"a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report upon the amount and proportion of moneys expended out of the moneys provided by Parliament for local purposes in each division of the United Kingdom, and how far the financial relations established by the sums so contributed are equitable to Scotland."

He said that in all the local services in Scotland the officers were only paid about half the salaries of the same class of officers in England or Ireland, and yet no equivalent was given to Scotland. He would give examples. The cost of the Local Government Board in England was £181,000; in Ireland, £131,000, and in Scotland, £11,000. Scotland had always been in favour of economy, but while her expenditure was economical, that for England and Ireland was extravagant. [Nationalist cries of "Oh"] At the Scotch rates, the English Local Government Board would only coat £70,000. The first cause of the difference was the higher salaries paid to officials in England and Ireland. The Vice President of the Local Government Board in Ireland received £2,000 a year; the head of the Scotch Board only received £1,200 a year. In England the principal clerks began at £650 a year, and rose to £800. In Scotland they began at £400, and rose to £500 a year. Then a number of items in the English Local Government Board Vote were not included in the Scotch Local Government Board Vote, but were defrayed out of local resources. For instance, there was the audit, which it was clearly the intention of Parliament should be paid by the local bodies. This involved a cost of £10,000 a year, although the audit fees had twice been raised. Then there was poor law inspection, for which £3,000 a year was paid. When the change was made in 1886, it was intended that all these grants should cease. Every one of the Scotch grants had disappeared from the Estimates; most of the English grants had disappeared; but none of the Irish grants had disappeared. The payments in respect of Poor Law schools and metropolitan vagrant wards ought to go. He wished the English and Irish expenditure to be levelled down to the Scotch. There was the same disparity of salaries in regard to the Secretaries of the three count lies. The Home Secretary's establishment was £123,000; that of the Irish Secretary, £42,000; and that of the Scotch Secretary £11,000. Although he had brought this matter before the House for the last 10 years, Scotland had been given no redress. As to the Prison Services, the chaplain or surgeon in a Scotch prison was paid £200 a year; the same officials in an English prison were paid £400 a year. Even the assistant surgeons in the English prisons began at £250. The Irish chaplains and surgeons received from £350 to £400 a year. The theory was, that living in Scotland was cheaper, and that Scotland was a poorer country. Then why was the poor country mode to pay all the heavy taxes of the rich country? The police magistrates and the police in Dublin and London were paid out of the Estimates. If police magistrates were unfortunate enough to live in Edinburgh or in Glasgow not a single penny was paid by the Imperial Exchequer towards their maintenance. Parliament was paying over £300,000 a year for police in England and Wales, and the whole cost for Scotland was £1,000, which formed an item in the Vote of £11,000 for the Scotch Secretary's office. They were paying one and a-half millions for police in Ireland, about £300,000 for police in England and Wales, and only £1,000 for Scotland. He submitted that both London and Dublin ought to bear the cost of their own police. There were other services in England and Ireland for which Scotland got no equivalent. There was paid by the Exchequer for the Royal College of Science of London £18,400, a considerable portion of which went in scholarships, and for the Royal College of Science of Dublin, £7,000 for teachers and scholars, but not a single penny was paid to analogous bodies in Scotland. It was said, in reply to that, that Parliament voted money for the Scotch Universities. No doubt Parliament voted £42,000 for the Scotch Universities. Why? Because they were compelled to do so, as it was a burden taken over by the Treaty of Union. Scotland took over her share of the National Debt, and England took over the Scottish burdens, of which this was one, and placed it upon the National Exchequer. Scotland wanted an equivalent for these contributions to science in England and Ireland, so that Scotch boys might have the same chance as English and Irish boys had of being educated at the expense of the State. All Scotland got for science was simply the rent of the rooms of the society which belonged to the Government. Their complaint was not so great now, since the introduction of the new system of finance, by which these local grants were to cease, and in lieu thereof, each nation was to get a percentage, according to the sum paid into the Exchequer. If that was carried out, there would be a few hundred thousand pounds voted less, and money would be found from local sources, registration in Scotland was entirely defrayed from local sources, but in England and Ireland it was defrayed partly from local sources and partly from the Imperial grunt, £21,000 for England and £4,000 for Ireland. Why should that not be a local charge in both countries. Again, in connection with (he now arrangement, when the tax was placed upon liquor it was pointed out to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer that England would be paying 66 per cent, and getting 80 per cent., that Scotland would be paying 19·4 and only getting 11, and Ireland paying 14·1 and only getting 9 percent. The then Chancellor admitted that the burden he was placing on Scotland and Ireland was greater than the return they would obtain, and he agreed that a Select Committee should be appointed to consider the matter as between the three countries. He was sorry to say he had to accuse the late Chancellor of the Exchequer of want of good faith in connection with that Committee. He put down the Committee, night after night during the Session of 1890, and it was only on the last days of the Session, on the third stage of the Appropriation Bill, that the Committee was appointed. It sat for one day. Next year it never sat at all; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer so used the forms of the House that, although he was successful in the ballot, he was prevented bringing the question before Parliament. The Chancellor of the Exchequer got his money, hut he never gave Scotch Members their Committee, and the Committee never sat at all, except for the one day of a former Session, to which he had alluded. The late Government came into power then, and they were pressed to appoint the Committee. A year passed; nothing was done, because the time was taken up with the Home Rule Bill. The following year, in virtue of one clause of the Home Rule Bill. The question of the amount to be paid by Ireland towards Imperial expenses came up, and a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the financial relations between England and Ireland. Besides, the Treasury was busy getting up the Budget, and the Treasury officials were giving evidence before a Royal Commission. The result was that the Committee had not been appointed, and they did not know what the fair amounts were which had to be paid. There were, however, certain facts before them. Of the total revenue collected, 76 per cent, was collected in England, 12·7 per cent, in Scotland, and 9·8 percent, in Ireland. But Ireland only got 9 per cent., Scotland 11 per cent., and England got 80 per cent. There was a theory that the payment was different from the collection. That might be, but the question required to be threshed out by a Select Committee. The first Return given was different from the present; every financial Return hail been different from its predecessor. Last year they voted for Scotland one and a-half millions of these Estimates, England ten and a-half millions, Ireland £4,045,000. As things stood at present, the taxation per head in Scotland was higher than either in Ireland or England. It was because in Scotland they drank too much whisky, unfortunately. What they wanted for Scotland was an equivalent grant equal to the prodigality and extravagance shown in England and Ireland.

seconded the Amendment. He said he thought that the attendance that afternoon after they had been three days mostly in a crowded House discussing the financial relations of Ireland, was an illustration of the patient, forbearing, and uncomplaining character of the Scottish people. [Cheers.] Some hon. Members thought that in the recent discussion a strong case was made out showing that Ireland was over-taxed to the extent of between two and a-half and two and three-quarter millions sterling. He thought it was very easy to show that if there was a strong case for Ireland there was a very much stronger case for Scotland. He held in his hand a concise statement, prepared, he believed, by Mr. Chas. Waddie, of Edinburgh, and published some time ago, to which he had seen no answer, certainly no contradiction. The statement brought out that while the general expenses of Government in Scotland was less than two millions— the precise figure being £1,919,000—the strictly corresponding expenses in Ireland, the population of which was only 700,000 more than that of Scotland, were £1,580,370. So that, if the offset that was spoken of was taken into account, the offset of expenditure in Ireland was very much in excess of that in Scotland. The net amount of the Inland Revenue in Scotland was ten millions and a quarter, from which, if they deducted the expenses, there was a balance of £8,328,330 remitted to the Imperial Exchequer. On the other hand, the total of the Inland Revenue of Ireland was only £6,895,000, while the expenditure on its local government was £4,586,000, so that there was only transmitted from Ireland to the Imperial Exchequer, £2,309,000. These figures were, perhaps, sufficiently striking to go far to establish the case set up by his hon. Friend, but they by no means exhausted the case for Scotland. Taking the Inland Revenue of Scotland and comparing it with that for England and Wales and for Ireland, and then also taking the gross for the United Kingdom, these facts were brought out, that Scotland was, taking it per head of the population, by far the most highly taxed part, of the kingdom, and contributed by far the largest sum relatively to the Imperial Exchequer. The total of the Excise, Estate Duty, Stamps, Income and Property Tax, and House Duty and Land, for Scotland was £10,247,000; dividing that by the population, 4,033,103, it yielded £2 10s. 9½d. per head. There were no figures approaching that for the other parts of the kingdom. The corresponding figures for Ireland showed a revenue of £6,895,000, a population of 4,704,750, and the amount per head of £1 9s. 3½d., or £1 1s. 6d. less per head than in Scotland. They heard of England always being put forward as a rich and wealthy country. Did it contribute in proportion to its richness and its wealth as much as Scotland? Not all. Its population was 29,001,018, dividing its total Inland Revenue of £54,363,615 by that population the yield was only £1 17s. 5¾d. per head, as against £2 10s. 9½d. per head in Scotland. These facts were striking, the result was almost directly the converse of that brought out by the representatives for Ireland. Scotland paid no less than £2,604,712 per annum more than her share, and if they compared that with Ireland, the amount of the excess paid by Scotland was £4,335,585. He thought that these' figures, which hitherto had not been challenged, did, along with those brought forward by his hon. Friend, establish a very strong primâ facie case for the Motion. He did not appear as an advocate for extravagance, nor did he wish the1 salaries of the officials in Scotland to be largely increased. But at the same time he saw sitting by the side of the Chancellor of the Exchequer an official whom they all highly respected, and to whom they thought only justice was done two or three years ago when his official salary was brought more into correspondence with that of the Law Officers in Ireland and in England. They thought, in the case of the country which was paying more than its share to the Imperial revenues, that its officials ought not as a rule to be paid less than those in England, and certainly in Ireland. It was not the fact that the expense of living in Scotland was relatively so much less than either in England or in Ireland. In the large cities the expenditure, he should say, was quite equal to that in the large cities of either England or Ireland, and the minor officials of the Government, because they were a thrifty, frugal and saving people, who, however small their incomes might be, managed to save something, ought not to be punished and penalised for their good qualities. Why should prison warders and many other officials in Scotland be paid so much less than in England? There was no justification for it, and they were not advocating anything extravagant when they said with regard to such matters—with regard to police superannuation, for instance— that Parliament ought to be equitable, having regard to similar payments in England. He would listen with some curiosity to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's remarks. They only wanted what was fair and just as between the different parts of the country. They were not claiming for Scotland anything that was not her proper share, and they trusted that the right hon. Gentleman in dealing with the question would give full weight to the considerations that had been placed before him.

said the hon. Member who had just sat down had referred to the very small attendance on the present occasion as compared with that in the early part of the week as an evidence of the patient and uncomplaining nature of his countrymen. He should be very sorry to detract from any credit to which they might be entitled on that account, but his impression was that Scotchmen, like everybody else, were ready enough to complain when they had any real cause of complaint, and that, if there was a reason for the comparative lack of interest in the Motion, it was because there was not the cause of complaint in Scotland which the hon. Member for Dundee supposed. [Cries of "No, no!"] The hon. Member for Caithness had argued generally that Scotch officials were not paid at the same rate for services precisely similar to those which were required in the other two parts of the United Kingdom. His own impression was that there might have been something in the general lowness of income in Scotland as compared with England, which might have led to a lower scale of salaries throughout the public service. That, he apprehended, if it were so, would extend to the salaries paid by local authorities as well, and he did not see why, if persons in the service of the local authorities in Scotland were paid at a lower rate than persons in the service of the local authorities in England, those employed by the Government should enjoy an advantage denied to their brethren in the local service. But the hon. Member himself admitted that there had been of late years an improvement in this respect, and he personally did not object to a levelling-up of the payment of Government officials in Scotland, where it was perfectly clear that they were underpaid for their services as compared with English officials. The hon. Member went on to argue that certain payments were made in England and in Ireland from the Exchequer which were not made in Scotland, and he instanced, in the first place, the payments for the audit of the accounts of local authorities, which in England were made through the Local Government Board Vote. He fancied the reason why there was no similar payment for Scotland was that there had been no similar central audit hitherto of Scotch local accounts, and he apprehended that if such an audit were established there might be a fair claim on the part of Scotland for any payment of this kind that was made in England. Then the hon. Member went on to say that large payments were made for the police and for magistrates in London which were not made in Edinburgh, the metropolis of Scotland, but this was the first time he had heard that Edinburgh required any thing of the kind. As large a part of the payment of the Scotch county police was borne by the general taxpayers as was borne in the case of England.

Not a penny is borne by Parliament. Ten years ago it was taken away, and we got our share of the probate duty. We are spending our own money.

said that was precisely the case in England. Both in Scotland and in England the payment of certain specific services from the Exchequer was abolished, and instead of that much larger grants were made out of the probate duty, and subsequently out of the beer and spirit duties. The one kingdom was treated in precisely the same way as the other in that respect. If the hon. Member thought it was not, that might be a fair matter for inquiry, and he would come very shortly to the best way of conducting that inquiry. With regard to grants for scientific purposes and matters of that kind, he hoped he did not regard the question solely from an English point of view in saying there should be larger payments comparatively for these services in the metropolis of the United Kingdom than in either the metropolis of Scotland or of Ireland. Coming to the speech of the Seconder, he admitted that, if the hon. Member really believed in the extraordinary figures he had quoted, he did not wonder that the hon. Member thought there was a very great grievance. He obtained those figures from a protest which had been issued by the Scottish Home Rule Association, and which he said had never been contradicted, and seemed to think, therefore, must be correct. This remarkable document stated that, whereas Scotland paid inland revenue to the amount of £10,247,000, only £1,919,000 was expended in the public service of Scotland, and that £8,328,000 was transmitted to England—going, as anyone might suppose from reading the protest, into the pockets of the English taxpayer. Then a comparison was made with Ireland, and it was shown that the net amount of inland revenue collected in Ireland was £6,895,000, that £4,586,000 was expended in Ireland, and that £2,300,000 was transmitted to England. In the first place he was bound to say he did not think he ever remembered seeing a document which purported to be a statement of finance more inaccurate and more misleading than this particular document. ["Hear, hear!"] It jumbled up in the most extraordinary way different charges obtained from different Blue-books, and omitted others entirely from the account. He would take the expenditure first. It included items for police, superannuation allowances, and for pauper lunatics taken from the Local Taxation Account, while they purported to be drawn from the Votes of the House. It did not include the items on the Consolidated Fund, such as the salaries of Judges and sheriffs, and it omitted certain Scotch services, such as the Universities and the Science and Art Department, and other expenses provided for from the local taxation revenue. As an account of expenditure it was entirely misleading. He would give his account of the expenditure taken from Parliamentary Paper 336 of the year 1896. From that Paper it would be found that the civil government charges met by the Exchequer revenue in Scotland were £2,749,000, to which they had to add the cost of collection, £355,000, and the Post Office services, £1,040,000, making a total of £4,144,000 as against the £1,919,000 given in the document from which the hon. Member for Dundee quoted. The Revenue Returns in that Paper were even more misleading than the expenditure. The whole item of Customs revenue was absolutely omitted. Everybody who had really studied this question knew that it did not depend upon the amount of revenue collected in Scotland, but upon the amount paid by the inhabitants of Scotland, after making the necessary allowance one way or the other in calculating what was really paid as compared with the amount collected. The Parliamentary Paper which he had quoted in this way reduced the amount of revenue paid by the people of Scotland by £2,400,000 below the amount named by the hon. Member for Dundee, and the net result was that whereas in England the people paid £2 11s. 9d. per head in taxation, in Scotland £2 9s. 3d. per head was paid.

asked if the calculations in the case of the English revenue were made in the same way as in the case of the Scotch revenue?

said the calculations were made in precisely the same way. The final result would appear to be from this paper that, with regard to the true revenue of Scotland, to the local expenditure of Scotland, and to the Imperial contribution of Scotland, under each of these three heads, the amount attributable to Scotland was about 10½ per cent. of the aggregate total for the United Kingdom. He did not think that was very unfair to Scotland. The hon. Member asked them to appoint a Committee to deal with this particular question, but he thought the hon. Member forgot the promise that had already been made by the Government. They had promised a Commission to deal with the case of Ireland, and they had advisedly added to the reference words which would include an inquiry into the position of Scotland with regard to the very matters which the hon. Member had brought, under their notice. ["Hear, hear!"] The second head of that inquiry had regard to the expenditure on Irish local services, and that had to be compared by the Commission which it was proposed to appoint with the corresponding expenditure in England and in Scotland, and all three heads of the reference related as completely to Scotland as they did to Ireland, or to England itself. He was quite sure it would be futile to endeavour to conduct two inquiries of the kind at the same time by two different bodies, and he therefore hoped that the House would feel that the inquiry which had been already promised was not only sufficient but better adapted for the purpose of the hon. Member than that which he desired. Whatever might be the position of Scotland in this matter, whether it were fair or unfair, at any rate the truth would be better ascertained, and he hoped it might be ascertained, by the inquiry which they proposed. [Cheers.]

did not think any Scotsman, however violent his patriotic feelings might be, could find fault with the tone in which the right hon. Gentleman had addressed them. ["Hear, hear!"] He had indeed traversed some of the statements brought forward by his hon. Friends, but had done so in a sympathetic way, and had admitted that a great many of those points might be the subject of further and close inquiry. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had misunderstood the object of his hon. Friend and those who thought with him. They might be of opinion that there were certain public services in Scotland which were somewhat underpaid, yet it was from no desire to obtain for their country larger or more expensive establishments that they brought this subject forward; but in order to show the House that Scotland was, in their opinion, unfairly dealt with, because of what they considered the somewhat expensive establishments maintained in other parts of the Empire, for which naturally they had to pay their share. It might very well be that the rates of payment in certain services in Scotland were fixed in consideration of the cheaper conditions of life which probably existed at the time, but he was by no means sure that nowadays the circumstances would justify the substantial difference in the rates of payment in the two countries. The right hon. Gentleman had distinctly stated that it was his intention to include the whole of this subject in the reference to the Royal Commission that was about to be appointed, which confirmed the assurance which had been given them by the Leader of the House some weeks ago. There was a good deal of force in what the right hon. Gentleman had said as to the inconvenience of having at the same time two inquiries almost on the same matter, and they knew now that this matter would be further dealt with, and that they would at least understand how the case stood in regard to the financial duties and obligations of the three countries. ["Hear, hear!"]

asked whether there would be a proportionate number of Scotsmen on the Commission.

said they certainly hoped to have Scotch representation on the Commission.

asked leave to withdraw the Amendment.

had given notice of the following Amendment, which he was precluded from moving:—

"That it is the duty of the Foreign Office to consult European Powers having possessions in Africa as to whether they will attend a conference at which the measures agreed to at the Berlin Conference of 1884–5 and the Brussels Conference of 1889–90, with questions appertaining thereto, shall be considered with a view to the adoption and enforcement of further measures for securing equitable treatment of the natives of Africa."

He said the Foreign Office in 1882 had a policy with regard to East Africa and West Africa—namely, to keep Portugal on the west and in the whole of the Congo Basin, with stringent treaty obligations for the defence of trade, mission interests, and good government, and to keep Zanzibar on the east, Zanzibar being under the influence of this country. As regarded Portugal, an international Commission had been strongly urged by the Foreign Office for the control of the great river, but had been refused by Portugal, and the result was that the Treaty of 1884, as signed, did not contain the international Commission, and that both the House of Commons and the Great Powers were opposed to it in the form in which it was concluded. It was never ratified, and the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 was the result, At that Conference the Foreign Office desired to promote what they called "the permanent advantage of Africa," by which "the blessings of Christianity and civilisation" were to be brought nearer to the people. It was on these grounds that they recognised the Congo State, and that they provided a large area in which "the trade of all nations would enjoy complete freedom," and in which they prohibited "monopoly or privilege," and declared their intention to be "the preservation of the native populations, improvement of their moral and material conditions, and suppression of slavery and the slave trade." The Powers provided for the free navigation of the Niger, and its affluents, as well as for the free navigation of the Congo and its affluents. The Congo State was recognised as an anti-slave and pronative power, and wishes were expressed by the Powers "for the fulfilment of the noble aspirations of its illustrious founder." The Foreign Office and the plenipotentiaries of the other Powers bound themselves, individually and collectively, to watch over the preservation of the natives; and nothing could be more emphatic than Foreign Office responsibility in that respect. In September 1888 Lord Salisbury pressed Belgium to call a further Conference. On the 26th March 1889 the late Under Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. S. Buxton) pressed for a Conference on two matters —the slave trade and the general "responsibilities which European nations have now assumed in respect to Africa." The Government's reply covered also the prohibition of the import of arms into Africa, and the Government promised that there should be a Conference. The result was the Brussels Conference of 1889–90, out of which grew the General Act of the Brussels Conference, dated January 1892. This Act dealt, among other matters, with regulations for restricting the supply of liquor and the supply of arms, and provided arrangements "for securing its execution." There were to be bureaux for the "collection and communication of information as to the working of the General Act," and one such bureau had been set up by our Foreign Office, and was partly paid for in our Estimates, although a little of the cost was got back from some of the other Powers. It was at Zanzibar, and was supposed to collect information, but did not give much, as to the "working of the General Act." His case was, that in spite of these provisions, and in violation of them, there was monopoly on the Niger, monopoly on the Congo, and practice with regard to fugitive slaves in many colonies and protectorates, including some of our own, directly opposed to the protocols of Berlin and to the General Act of Brussels, and that arms were being imported on an immense scale by all the Powers for their barbarous allies. As regarded the Niger, a good deal of secrecy was observed, but a French Government expedition, commanded by Commandant Toutée, had recently visited almost the whole course of the Niger, and had given a considerable amount of information in its report, which might be untrue, but which, if untrue, ought to be contradicted and not met by silence. The expedition was one paid for by the French Government, and carried out under its direct instructions. The Niger agents were bound for 10 years not to communicate any facts with regard to the country in which they had served, under a penalty of £1,000, to be sued for as liquidated damages for each breach of the rule. He had himself investigated a murder case which had been brought to his notice by two officers of the Niger Company, in whose credibility he believed. But the Foreign Office had been unable to investigate the facts, because the officers were afraid of the provision in question. As regarded the Congo, the State, presided over by the King of the Belgians, was violating every clause in the Brussels Act, of which our Foreign Office were bound, individually as well as collectively, with the other Powers, to watch the due execution. The edicts of the Congo State themselves proved the assertion which he had made. One of 1887 confiscated all "'lands in which private property has not been recognised," there being no private property in the greater part of this dominion. An edict of September 1891, which had been marked "secret," but which, had come into his possession, declared that "all products of domain lands" belonged to the State, domain lands apparently being all lands in which there was not that private property which was not known to the aborigines. The same decree declared a monopoly of all rubber and ivory, which was a gross violation of the Berlin protocol of 1885, and of the conditions on which the Congo State had been recognised by the Powers. An attempt had recently been made to whitewash the Congo State in a Report to the King of the Belgians, dated January 7 of the present year. It was a fraudulent Report, stating, for example, that the Congo State had

"given all flags free navigation of all waters and assured trade freedom … decreed punishment to all who use violence or threats to force natives to give up goods to particular persons, or at a fixed price."

Of course the Congo State did not wish that private individuals should rob the natives, because it preferred to rob them itself, and the offences pointed at in the Report were precisely those which had been committed by the Congo State under its own secret edict of September 1891. As regarded the fraudulent character of the statement that trade freedom had been assured, it was not more fraudulent than that of the Niger Company to the same effect, as to which any Liverpool merchant or any Liverpool representative in that House could enlighten them. With regard to fugitive slaves the Brussels Act declared that "any fugitive slave claiming on the Continent the protection of a signatory Power shall obtain it." He would not in this matter detain the House by going into cases which concerned other Powers, but would mention only some which had arisen in territories for which we were ourselves responsible. At Lagos there existed a practice of following fugitive slaves in the Protectorate, and recovering them by means of the Houssa police. In East Africa, the British East Africa, Company, composed of philanthropists, were admitted by the Government to have been in the habit of surrendering fugitive slaves up to the very day of the expiring of the powers of the Company, upon the coast, and, in the Pemba case (within the Zanzibar Protectorate)— known as the "case of the atrocious torture of a slave"—although the slave-owner was ultimately punished for his abominable crimes, it came out in evidence that the slave in question had previously fled, and been restored to his master for torture and for further slavery. He relied, however, mainly upon the carelessness which had been shown in allowing the British East Africa Company's practice to continue unchecked until the extinction of the Company's rule upon the coast. As regarded the watching by our Foreign Office of the general provisions of the Berlin agreement as to the preservation of the native populations and improvement of their condition, and the terms on which the Congo State had been recognised, that State was habitually raiding with cannibal allies, and yet territory over which we claimed rights had been recently handed by the Foreign Office to Congo rule. A distinguished African explorer and public servant, the honour of whose acquaintance he possessed, had once told him that Baron Dhamis was by far the best of the Congo officers, and was a man of the highest character and reputation, but had added, "Yet even he has to ration his men on human flesh." He had himself thought this a ghastly African joke, but the recent appearance of the book of Captain Hinde had shown beyond all conceivable doubt that it was a statement of a literal fact. Baron Dhamis was now engaged in conquering territories which the Foreign Office had handed over to Congo rule by lease, with the statement that they knew that they were giving them to the cause of "civilisation." The last expedition of Baron Dhamis had been led by six white officers, of whom one was Captain Lothaire, and comprised 500 Houssas (mostly recruited by our permission in our territories), and 25,000 cannibal allies. Captain Hinde, who was its historian, was a devoted friend of Baron Dhamis who commanded it, and a friend and admirer (as he stated) of Captain Lothaire. The force was, as he showed, rationed for months upon smoked human flesh; and Captain Hinde went further and gave the reasons why cannibalism "proved a great element in our success." So far from civilisation being on the side of the Congo State, as the Foreign Office alleged, it had been on the side of the Arabs in these wars. The Arabs had had the chivalry to build tombs over the bodies of the only two Belgian officers whose bodies fell into their hands. On the other hand, Captain Hinde told the story of the treatment of the prisoners, and even showed why, to use his words, cannibalism had been on the increase throughout the Congo basin "since the entry of Europeans into the country." The Houssa, troops with whom by the leave of the Foreign Office and Colonial Office, Baron Dhamis was conducting his expedition, had in previous Congo expeditions been treated with shameful cruelty. This was admitted, but it was now said by the Colonial Office that their treatment had improved. That was so, no doubt, upon the coast, but they had not the smallest security as regarded the interior. The Foreign Office had given ii treaty right to the Congo State to recruit in our territories. On the 12th March 1896, the Colonial Office had explained that "British subjects had been employed without their consent as soldiers. … cruelly flogged, and in some cases shot." "Shot," as Captain Hinde explained, also meant eaten. The Colonial Office had in consequence prohibited the recruiting, and on the 17th April last the Foreign Office had confirmed the Colonial Office statement; but he confessed he was amazed that, after such conduct on the part of the Congo State, the Colonial Office should easily be satisfied by evidence from the coast that it was now safe to allow the Belgian officers to recruit Houssas in our colonies to serve in the present expedition, which, in the deepest secrecy the Congo Government was conducting in the name of "civilisation," under treaty with us, in the sphere which we had leased to it. Turning to the liquor question he had to point out that in the Brussels Conference the Belgian delegate had attached the highest importance to this point, in which, as the delegate of the Belgian Government stated, "the welfare of the native race is at stake," while the President of the Conference, also a Belgian, called it "the chief cause of the destruction of the negro race." Our Foreign Office had wisely protested against the low minimum duty fixed, and was, he believed, at the present moment negotiating without much success, for higher duties. But under the Brussels General Act of 1892 the minimum, was to be "submitted to revision at the end of the sixth year;" or else he feared all international obligation might lapse. They were now well in the sixth year, and it was necessary that whatever was to be done should be done at once. No one could doubt the earnestness of the Secretary of State for the Colonies upon this question. The minimum, duty had been raised in the colonies, and although the Foreign Office had not, he feared, made the Niger Company raise its duty, yet it had raised the duty in the Niger Coast Protectorate, as the Colonial Office had raised that in Lagos from 1s. to 2s. He had himself moved for a Return upon this question in 1895, which had been granted, but it had not yet been circulated to Members. As regarded the Congo, gin was the chief article of importation into the country. The new railway carried nothing up but gin, and the exposure of this fact had been the cause of heated debate in the Belgian Chamber, and of the extreme narrowness of the division on which the prolongation of the railway had been voted. Yet the New Year's Report to the King of the Belgians—fraudulent in this respect as in all others—stated that the Congo Government had prohibited the liquor trade in some parts of their territory, but

"where trade necessities make prohibition impossible, have put on the maximum duty of the Brussels Act, but think the time come to increase the maximum."

Advantage should be taken of this statement, fraudulent though it was, to insist on a fresh Conference; a fresh Conference for which he was certain that the Secretary of State must wish. His own suggestions were (and many more would occur to those in the Foreign Office who were skilled upon the question) that a new Conference might not only deal with the question which must immediately be dealt with, of the liquor trade, but might also adopt measures directed against sham treaties with the natives—measures of notification which might follow the analogy of the Berlin measures for the notification of annexations; that the Conference might also resolve that the Central. Bureau should not only receive, tabulate, and circulate information as to the working of the Brussels General Act, but should call attention to abuses with a view to secure its observation. There had been a proposal adopted at Berlin upon this question, and upon the 23rd April 1891, the Foreign Office had been asked why the International Commission had not been appointed. The Foreign Office had made the playful answer that the attention of the Powers had recently been turned to other parts of Africa; but this was no laughing matter, and if we meant that which we had said at Berlin, at Brussels, and in Lord Kimberley's recent treaty (signed under the Rosebery administration) with the Congo State, then it was high time that we should take action to remove from ourselves the disgrace which had fallen upon our declarations. There had, indeed, been a sad falling-off in the attitude of the country upon this question, not in words, but in facts, since the noble stand which had been made with regard to it, in 1837, under the inspiration of Mr. Gladstone.

said that the method of dividing up the continent of Africa was undoubtedly different from that which had been pursued elsewhere in former years, especially in connection with the continent of America. Attempts had been made to lessen the miseries and the misfortunes which had been brought on the aborigines by the modern methods, and at least the idea pursued had been a noble one. The Act of Berlin and the Brussels Conference embodied a noble idea, because their object was to avert the old plan of irresponsible persons settling here and there in smaller or larger numbers and making their sweet will the law. Something like a Government was proclaimed, and individuals were not at liberty to slaughter, rob, and steal at their own will. That in itself was a great advance; but so far the Brussels Conference and the Berlin Act had undoubtedly not been very successful. The operations of the Belgians in the Congo Free State had at any rate been unsuccessful, to some extent they had been unfortunate. That was, he thought, largely due to the fact that the Congo Free State was so enormous in size. It was impossible that the officials of that State could deal with it to the same degree as the Niger Company could deal with the territories under its command. Although the Congo Free State had failed to carry out the main objects of the Brussels Conference in preventing the importation of liquor, it had overthrown the power of the Arab which was chiefly used to carry the natives into slavery. So far as the Congo Free State was concerned he thought it was open to question whether a further conference would be able to strengthen the hands of that Government so as to make any material difference in their operations: and he did not think that any conference likely to be assembled, so far as this question was concerned, would be disposed to carve out, at present at any rate, the enormous territories of that State. As to the liquor traffic, he said that officials familiar with the West Coast of Africa and its natives declared that the evil effects of that traffic had been over-estimated. [Cries of "No!"] The money derived from the sale of liquor was used to aid in rooting out more frightful abuses connected with human sacrifice. There was, therefore, something to be said that something had been done to carry out the views of the Brussels Conference. He agreed that the introduction of gin among the natives was to be deprecated; still if there was a choice between the two things he would gladly see the revenue derived from its sale in order to put an end to these other terrible customs. There were great difficulties in the way of putting an end to the traffic in gin. It was a very old traffic on the West Coast of Africa. It was more than a hundred years old, and they could not put a stop to the traffic at once; they must have patience. A good beginning had been made especially in the territory under our sway. The right hon. Gentleman advocated a conference, and it was possible that some good might be done by such an assembly. He agreed that they might settle the imposition of duties on liquor by raising the minimum. He doubted whether they could do anything else beyond that which was of value. Officials of a company or of a Government having made treaties in regard to certain territory in a great hurry, went home with the agreements, and presently, when other officials of other Powers came back with their agreements, diplomatic difficulties arose. A great feature of the history of Africa in the last 15 years had been the wise attempts that had been made to avoid future conflict of interests by the parcelling out of that enormous continent among the Great Powers. At least two great wars had arisen in the past out of difficulties of the kind in other parts of the world. It was wise and statesmanlike to endeavour to avoid such causes for misunderstanding by this parcelling, and unwise to allow the agent of any Government or company to make agreements that might bring Governments into conflict and provoke the dangers of war. The House, he thought, would feel that the right hon. Baronet had done good service in bringing this matter forward, and although he did not anticipate any great result if such a Conference assembled, the discussion and expression of views would have a good effect.

There can be no doubt that the right hon. Baronet has raised a most important subject, and in the course of his speech has covered a very wide field, with a knowledge of his case and a lucid explanation of details such as we are accustomed to from him. I will endeavour to deal with the various points he has raised in the order in which he mentioned them. First he referred to the Congo State, with reference to which he said that all the stipulations of the Brussels Act have by edicts and Acts and monopolies been violated. The right hon. Baronet will, I think, acknowledge that it is no part of my duty to defend the Congo State, nor of the duty of Her Majesty's Government to act as guardians of the public trust imposed on the Congo State by the Acts of Brussels and Berlin, though his words seemed to imply that some special respousibilty rests upon the British Government.

As regards one part of the Congo State very special responsibility by treaty with and lease to the State of territory.

That is a smaller point to which I will come in a minute. Our general responsibility is only our share of the collective responsibility attaching to the signatories of the Acts, and to call upon me to enter into any general defence of the acts of the Congo State would be unreasonable. There can be no doubt that great mistakes have been made in the administration and work of the Congo State, and its agents may, from time to time, have taken steps and adopted methods which are repugnant to the feelings of all Christian men; and, indeed, it does seem that in the heart of Africa passions are roused and deeds are done such as are dissimilar from what we find in other parts of the world, and in those remote and wild territories, far away from any contact with civilisation or with the humanising influences of ordinary social life men are converted into other than the human beings we know. But, on the other hand, it is only fair to remember that the Congo State has done a great work, and that by their administration the cruel raids of Arab slave dealers have ceased to exist over many thousands of square miles. Then I come to the particular point raised when the right hon. Gentleman emphasised the special responsibility resting upon the British, Government from the fact that we have leased a certain portion of the Upper Nile basin to the Congo State, and that under that treaty an expedition has been made. What guarantee have we, the right hon. Baronet asked, that things similar to those complained of in the past will not be repeated there? Well, we have no positive guarantee except such as we may find in the character of the commanding officer, of which the right hon. Gentleman has himself spoken favourably; in the publicity that has attached to previous scandals, and in the authority of the King. And I think I may also add that whatever responsibility does arise for the particular agreement alluded to does not fall upon us, for it was by our predecessors that it was concluded. Passing from the Congo State, I come to a point where our own responsibility is more directly and immediately concerned. I speak of the Niger Company. Here the right hon. Gentleman reiterated a charge which I have continually heard and frequently seen in the newspapers, that the Niger Company are the possessors of an illegal monopoly which constitutes a violation more particularly of the Act of Berlin. I have heard that charge so often made that I have looked into the question, and have referred to the Act, and I am bound to say that I cannot find that the charge is sustained. The international position of the Niger Company is fixed by Articles 26 and 27 of the Berlin Act, under which it is declared that the navigation of the Niger river shall be free to the merchant ships of all nations, and that the subjects and flags of all nations shall be treated equally for boat-trade on the course of the river. So they are, subject to the regulations of the company, which are issued under the authority of the Government, and have been made known to foreign Powers, and not objected to by them. On this point, therefore, no charge of illegal monopoly can be sustained. Then I look at the charter of the company, and I find in the 14th clause the prohibition of all monopolies, and I find this explained as meaning that there shall be no differential treatment of the subjects of other Powers; and I find that there is not, but that they pay exactly the same duties as British merchants and traders. It may be said that the heavy licence duty imposed by the Niger Company constitutes a practical monopoly, and I do not deny that; my point is, there is no violation of the international law of Europe. It cannot be denied that the Niger Company, by virtue of its superior wealth and organisation, by its tactics in buying up its adversaries, and by the length of time it has been in the field, has acquired for itself a position almost impossible for any private agency to compete with, and has secured practically a trade monopoly of the Lower Niger. That I admit, and I am not here to criticise or defend it; but I say, so far as my judgment is worth anything, that it does not seem to me to be a violation, as the right hon. Baronet appeared to consider it, of the Act of Berlin.

asked as to the limit of duties.

I am not aware.

Has the right hon. Gentleman looked into the charge that they will not allow any ship to go up the river at all?

I have not seen that charge, but if the right hon. Baronet will give me any information he has I will look into it. Then I come to the next topic touched upon by the right hon. Baronet—the liquor question—and I thank him for the frank and well-deserved words of praise he has used towards the British Government—not this Government particularly, but British Governments generally. There is no doubt that, just as public opinion in this country is ahead of that in other countries, so the British Government has taken, and is prepare to take, the lead in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman points out that the time for the revision of the Brussels Act is drawing near, and he says, "What are you doing with a view to revision in the course of next year.?" Before I answer that question I will just refer him to the words of Article 92 of the Brussels Act: —

"At the end of the sixth year— that is, in 1898 —the duties shall be submitted to revision for the purpose of fixing, if possible, a minimum duty throughout the whole extent of the zone referred to."

Therefore, it is a permissive, not a compulsory, revision; and, whatever the views of the Government may be, and whatever our interests, it may not be in our power to give effect to them. The House will gather from what I have said that, so far from having any objection to a conference, we should be only too glad to enter into it, and we are in communication with foreign Governments on the matter. It is due to that fact that the Blue-book promised long ago by the Secretary for the Colonies has not been presented. Then I come to what I may describe as the novel suggestions, but, if novel, also of great importance, which have fallen from the right hon. Baronet— namely, as to the enlargement of the functions and powers of the International Bureau: and the first of the suggestions which he makes is that the International Bureau should have the power of taking charge of the various treaties that are made in the interior of Africa. Under the Berlin Act the notification of occupation is limited to the coast. The right hon. Gentleman says, "Why can't you extend this to the interior?" I think a moment's observation will show the House that the circumstances are not at all analogous. Occupation on the coast is patent to the eyes of all men. There are, therefore, special reasons for enforcing just as there are easy means for executing that provision. But when you come to the interior, what is the case? The right hon. Baronet spoke about sham treaties. How is the International Bureau or any authority to distinguish between what is a, sham treaty and what is a real treaty? In those regions you have travellers, official and unofficial, some of them responsible, perhaps a majority of them irresponsible; some of them traders on their own account, but not objecting to do a little political business as well; others, the leaders of organised expeditions. All these people act, more or less, as treaty-makers and political agents on a small scale. Then take the nature of the documents themselves. Who is to determine and on what principles it is to be laid down that one document is to be accepted and that another is fallacious? The way the thing works in practice is as follows:—Foreign Powers make agreements with each other; agreements not necessarily binding on any but those who make them, and often not accepted by other Powers. They make these agreements as to spheres of influence, and within these spheres of influence they consider that their agents are at liberty to go about and make treaties. But if every sort of treaty that is made has to be reported to an International Bureau at Brussels or elsewhere there would arise not merely the difficulties I have mentioned, there would also come the question of the time within which the announcement has to be made and the consequences that would ensue if the Bureau declined to accept it or regarded it as faulty; and I think it is easy to imagine that any such process might produce an amount of bickering and international friction, incomparably greater than even the great drawbacks that ensue from the present system. That is the view we entertain, and I believe it will be shared in perhaps an aggravated degree by foreign Powers. The next suggestion, made by the right hon. Baronet was that the Central Bureau should have power to report to all the signatory Governments any infractions of the Act. Here, again, it is not the British Government that would stand in the way. If the right hon. Gentleman will refer to the conference at Brussels and will read the protocols he will see that it was the contention of our representatives at the conference that the powers and functions of the Bureau should be extended. But the other Powers were indisposed to agree to this. They preferred to draw their own conclusions from the facts circulated to them by the Bureau rather than to concede any initiative in the matter to the latter. Therefore, here again if we were to approach Foreign Powers I am afraid the hopes of the hon. Member would be doomed to disappointment. In conclusion I would like to say that I entirely endorse one remark that fell from my hon. and gallant Friend behind me, and that is that on the whole, not merely in the inception of these acts, but in their execution, the ideas for which all civilised nations are striving, of justice, civilisation, and freedom, have made, and are continuing to make, great progress, and that in the history of their application it can without undue self-satisfaction, be shown that this country has not been their least jealous or their least vigilant guardian. [Cheers.]

, referring to the position of the Congo State, admitted that it might be difficult at the present juncture to raise internationally the whole question of the position of the Congo State again. But nobody who had followed African politics could fail to think that the Congo State, which it was hoped was going to be a great moral agent for the improvement of Central Africa, had very largely failed in the mission for which it was founded. It was a matter to which the attention of the Government ought to be carefully directed, and if opportunity should occur that some steps might be taken to bring further international control over that part of Central Africa. With regard to the Niger Company, the real ground for complaint was not so much that the company had broken any particular provision of the Brussels or Berlin treaties. The real difficulty was to get any information with regard to them. The control of the Foreign Office over the Niger Company was confessed to be almost nil, whereas if it were placed under the Colonial Office we should then be able to bring to bear on its administration that public opinion and public control which at present were entirely lacking. The really important point in the discussion, however, was the question of having a fresh conference to consider the question of the liquor traffic on the West Coast of Africa. Since the Brussels Conference, seven years ago, greater strides had been made in the acquisition of Africa by France, Germany, and England than had been made probably in any other period of history; and these questions of dealing with the natives had taken a different complexion. The limit of six years fixed at Brussels would shortly expire; and then there would be no power of compulsion on the part of the Powers to compel any of the other Powers to agree to the minimum taxation. He did not, therefore, think it was premature to ask that an international congress should be summoned. The right hon. Gentleman said the matter was not of very great moment, because there was no power of fixing a minimum in regard to the taxation of liquor. But it was because they believed that public opinion in France, Germany, and England was in favour of this minimum that they urged that the present moment was opportune for calling these three Powers and the Congo Free State together to consider the question. He did not wish to exaggerate the nature of the evil, but anyone who would look into the figures would see that the consumption of liquor had enormously increased during the last five or six years in the British, French, and German West African colonies. And it must be remembered that this increase did not coincide with an increase in ordinary trade. Where the natives spent their money on liquor they did not spend it on cotton find other goods, and, practically, by allowing these spirits to be introduced, we were very largely diminishing our own trade. There had been two great difficulties in dealing with this matter. In the first place, in considering the question of raising the spirit duties, they had to look to the position of each individual colony. All their colonies on the West Coast were self-supporting colonies, and it would not be fair for the Home Government to come upon them suddenly and, by raising the duties unduly or too rapidly, sweep away their principal sources of revenue. But, admitting that, he thought they had moral obligations in regard to the matter. The Home Government, in conjunction with these colonies, had set a very good example to Germany and France, and the real reason— and this was the second difficulty—why successive Governments had not been able to do more in the matter, was that already their duties on their West African colonies were very considerably higher than they were in the neighbouring German and French colonies. If they were to unduly raise the duties they would find, he was afraid, that the spirits would come in all the same from the neighbouring colonies, and that they would lose the revenue on the imported spirits, and the trade which, in the ordinary way, would come to the English colony. To his mind the Niger Company had, in the matter of the import of spirits, set a very good example indeed, because in the very large proportion of their territories the sale of, and trade in, spirits was entirely and absolutely prohibited. ["Hear, hear!"] He was afraid that, unless they could come to some international agreement, all their professions and all their desires would necessarily be frustrated, and he hoped the negotiations to which the Under Secretary referred would bear proper fruit. He was quite sure that that Debate would do something to show that they in England anxiously desired to alleviate and improve the lot of the native tribes on the West African Coast.

said it was his firm conviction that not only was it high time, but that the time had almost passed, for having a further conference with the Powers interested in Africa. He wished in what he was going to say to stiffen the Government in the direction of doing what was necessary in Africa. He was sorry to hear the Under Secretary speak in such disparaging terms of the conduct of white men in the interior of Africa. He thought his remark was based upon, the single and signal instance in the Congo Stale. He was confident the right hon. Gentleman would agree with him that in the Niger, Uganda, the Shiré Bills, and wherever Englishmen had to do with establishing the security and peace of the natives, there had been nothing of the villainy which they knew had occurred in the Congo State. A point which he would press upon the House, for he did not think it had been sufficiently regarded in the country, was the enormous commercial importance to this country of a proper treatment of the natives of Africa. ["Hear, hear!"] In 1865 a Resolution was passed by the House to the effect that all further extension of territory or the assumption of government, or new Treaties conferring any protection on native tribes, would be inexpedient, and that the object of the policy of this country should be to encourage the natives with a view to the ultimate withdrawal from all parts of tropical Africa, except perhaps Sierra Leone. Since 1865 British trade with tropical Africa had risen from three millions to nine millions. In 1884 the European Powers held their first conference; in 1889 their second; and it was high time we should have another consultation with the Powers. There were questions pending which were seriously hampering and delaying the carrying out of that advantage to the natives which was really the only motive and the only reason for Britain being in Africa at all. A conference could settle the great questions which had been already mentioned, especially that dealing with the liquor question. Anybody who had followed what we had done and were endeavouring to do in Africa must feel that although under the previous conference spheres of influence were declared, the boundaries of these spheres and of our own possessions, and of those of other countries were in many instances in such a state of chaos as to be an extreme danger to the peace of Africa. If a conference did nothing else but to finally settle the boundaries of these spheres of influence and of the various States, it would have accomplished one great purpose. A conference might do something, too, in another respect. European Powers had not acted upon the principle that when they acquired a part of Africa upon which they put their national colour, they should recognise their responsibility to secure an effective administration for that area. They ought to be made responsible in that matter. He did not say that annexation was necessary, but certainly a further step ought to be taken in the direction he had indicated, and another conference might take that step. Another point which was of the utmost importance at present, in which they saw promise of trouble, most lately in Madagascar, was that the private rights acquired either before or after occupation by any foreign Power in any area, should be recognised in some definite form. They knew very well that in recent instances missionaries who had preceded the conqueror were being treated in a way which he did not think this country would approve of, and in such a matter he thought the conference might do great good by a further and more exact definition of private rights. There was also a great question to be dealt with and which was closely connected with the liquor traffic, namely, that of raising revenue. He thought the Powers in Africa might very easily come to an agreement now, considering the force of public opinion in all foreign countries on one question, that of Customs tariffs on spirits. He believed himself from what he had gathered, that they should have common agreement now, that at all events the duty on spirits should be on some definite and similar level. He knew himself from personal observations on the coast of Africa, that it was no use their trying to raise their import duty on spirits or to prohibit the introduction of arms and ammunition when other Powers occupying neighbouring strips of territory permitted the free importation of these articles. It was one of the most important points in the future administration of Africa that a common Customs tariff on these articles should be determined upon by the Powers. He did not despair of a conference of the kind proposed arranging some exchanges of territory so as to consolidate the various areas under certain flags. He had seen a great many troubles arise from these haphazard, small strips of coast line which had been pounced on by various Powers, and he was convinced that if the Powers saw their true interests, they would agree by peaceful methods of exchange to organise the coast line, at all events, under one administration and one flag, to extend without any break. This would greatly simplify that very difficult question, the control of the Hinterland. He believed that after all the expenditure of blood and money in the late Ashantee expedition there were already foreign Powers endeavouring to intervene and reap the harvest of our work in our Hinterland. He thought for that reason alone the conference might do great good in Africa. But he hoped this country would remember that we were responsible for the lives and liberties and for the peace and prosperity of an enormous number of natives. ["Hear, hear!"] He took the trouble some time ago to work out the number, and he did not scruple to say that they were roughly accurate. It might surprise hon. Members to know that in East, West and Central Africa we were responsible for no less than 50 millions of natives. If he might appeal to a somewhat low motive, to have as a market for our manufactures an area peopled by 50 millions was no inconsiderable consideration. He hoped, what he had said would convince the Government that it was high time for us to approach any foreign Powers who had any concern in African affairs.

thought that a more remarkable speech than that of the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean had not been delivered in the British House of Commons for many a long day, and he confessed he was astonished at the answer the right hon. Gentleman received from the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. It had been assumed by various speakers that the chief object of European Powers in interfering in African affairs was to carry to those remote regions the blessings of Christianity and civilisation, and yet the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean had stated in the House to-night, and no one had challenged his statement, that the representative of one of the greatest of those Powers—one of the greatest in so far as its extent of territory in Africa was concerned—marched to the conquest of a great territory in command of 25,000 savage auxiliaries who were fed on human flesh, that every prisoner taken on that expedition was speedily eaten by the soldiers of the civilised Power, that the dead were taken up from their graves, without restraint from the representative of this Christian Power, and eaten; and that one of the main causes of the success of the expedition was that in consequence of these practices there was no necessity to provide an ordinary commissariat for the troops. He believed the country would be astonished when they read this Debate to-morrow. Was it not twaddle to say that such interference had a civilising effect? He was surprised to hear the hon. and gallant Member for Holderness, whom he knew to have a, most humane disposition, to say that the balance between evil and good was in favour of good since European influences were introduced into Africa. They rejoiced when European influences in that country had been influences for good, but his reading led him to believe that, except in certain favoured spots, European Powers went to Africa, not for civilising purposes, but for trading and selfish purposes, because they regarded the millions of Africa as a good raw material for trade. He believed firmly that the Mahomedans had been more successful in civilising those parts of Africa where they had gone than the Christians. Why? Because the Mahomedans, who, although they had a lower form of morality and religion than the Christians, practised their religion and acted up to their morality, which, he was sorry to say, most Christians who went to Africa did not. If European Christian Powers encouraged cannibalism and slavery, traded in gin, and put arms of precision in the hands of savages so that they could slaughter the neighbouring tribes, they destroyed all the attempts of missionaries and others to preach the Christian religion. He rose particularly, however, to say a few words about the Matabele and the Mashonas, because the hon. Member for Liverpool and the hon. and gallant Member for Holderness looked forward with some gratification to a European conference. He would like a European conference, but at the same time he would like to see this country go into that conference with clean hands; if we were going to claim from other Powers good Christian treatment for the natives of Africa we must commence by setting our house in order. When the East Africa Company were deprived of their Charter they admitted that they were doing their work by slave labour. That was at the time that the building of a railroad into the interior was advocated. What were the arguments in favour of the construction of that railroad? That it would enable the directors to dispense with slave labour. He did not know whether slave labour was still employed, but it was undoubtedly employed by the British Chartered Company. It was not so much what was being done in the Congo region as in other parts of Africa—in Mashonaland and Matabeleland. No doubt hon. Members had read a very remarkable article in The Contemporary Review by the Rev. John Mackenzie. No one could read that article without the blush of shame rising to his cheek. He was a man, he understood, of the highest authority in these matters, and he said that the system of forced labour under the Chartered Company was worse than the old system of domestic slavery. Apparently this system was going to be a permanent institution. The natives complained that their country was gone, their cattle were gone, their people were scattered, their women had deserted them, and the white men did what they liked with them. This was the state of affairs in Matabeleland which they had attacked, ruined, and robbed. Every woman was taken away from them by the white man! They had brought neither peace, civilisation, nor Christainity to this unhappy people. Except in a few favoured spots they had taken horrors into the land worse than had been experienced under their own tribal wars. In his judgment it was impossible to say that they were there for the purpose of civilising these people. They had heard reference to human sacrifice, and the efforts made to put it down; but would the attempt to put it down ever have been made if the tyrant of Benin had not interfered with trade. Everyone knew that the object of that expedition was not to put a stop to these cruelties but to open up trade.

said that, although he was entirely at one with the sentiments of the hon. Member, he could not agree with him in many of his observations. He listened with unusual pleasure to the able and conciliatory remarks which the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs had made. The real fact was that the only hope for reform in Africa was through publicity. The first step which should be taken was to restore some sense of humanity to those who were sent out. There was no public tribunal before which they could be arraigned. He could not approve of the introduction of the treatment of the Matabeles into this discussion; that would be the subject of inquiry by the Committee now sitting. The evils complained of could only be remedied by a public inquiry.

said there were only four or five men who had been bold enough to go to Africa to find out for themselves the facts on, this matter, and the hon. Baronet the Member for the Kirkdale Division was one of them. He regretted that the, Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs had not traversed the regions which the hon. Baronet had traversed. He thought that, if he had the knowledge which some of them had, he would not take so optimistic a, view as he had taken, and unjustifiably taken, in face of the damaging and serious speech of the right hon. Baronet. [Sir C. DILKE: "What did the Under Secretary do?"] He refused co-operation to bring about an International Conference, by means of which England's position would not be damaged. Honesty and kindness was the best policy in Africa, as elsewhere. He believed that if there were a Conference, they could maintain their worthy position in Africa, and act up to the best level that England had taken as the pioneer for the abolition of slavery.

I think the hon. Member cannot have heard what I said. So far from opposing it, I said we were in communication with other Governments on the point.

said he would have liked the Under Secretary to say more than that. There was the question of the competition between the Niger Company and Lagos, which was a Crown colony. From his knowledge of the Gold Cost and West Africa generally, he believed that a consolidation of the spheres of influence, giving a continuity of coast line and consolidating tracts of territory now owned by different nations, might be brought about by a friendly interchange of negotiations between the various Powers. He trusted that, whatever might be the result of the Conference, the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs would see whether it was not possible to give the naval officers in charge of the vessels along the coast a freer hand than they had at present, to teach the officials and agents of chartered companies better behaviour. He did not agree in the criticism the Under Secretary passed on the right hon. Baronet's suggestion, that an international bureau should deal with the supervision of treaties. He had had the misfortune of conveying treaty makers up from the mouth of the Niger, and he knew how these treaties were made, and he ventured to say that they were secured in circumstances that were not creditable to the chiefs who made them, or to the company which asked for them. If a Conference were held it was sure to exercise the right spirit in controlling the irresponsible action of minor officials and agents. It was a curious fact that in old days, when the missionary or Scotch factor or agent went to the West Coast of Africa, their isolation made them behave themselves, and the missionaries, agents, and officials of 50 and 100 years ago were more kindly in their behaviour than they had been within the last 10 or 15 years. As an old servant of the old Niger Company, he believed that the Government ought to insist on less secrecy on the part of the chartered companies. He disagreed entirely with the hon. Member for the Holderness Division in his view of the effect of liquor on the native. The hon. Gentleman's view was that, bad though it was, it was not so, bad as it had been depicted. He gathered that the hon. Gentleman would rather see 100 natives killed by drink than five or ten killed in battle or eaten by cannibal neighbours; but he would point out that the connection between drink and cannibalism was closer than many people thought. He had ventured to support the right hon. Baronet in his demand for a Conference, and in so doing he endorsed the view expressed on one point by the hon. Member for Mayo, and that was, that, speaking broadly and generally, the natives of Africa, from North to South and from East to West, had not gained the balance of advantage by the introduction of European customs, habits, and methods, or by the introduction of Christianity and civilisation so called. It was because the black record of modern European encroachment in Africa had one bright spot—and that this country possessed—that he wanted England to be the first and foremost nation in the councils of the world, and to stand by her past traditions, and do everything in her power to save the natives from the baneful influence of drink. ["Hear, hear!"]

said that the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs expressed the opinion not only of the House of Commons, but of the country, when he said that all were united in their ideas with regard to the natives of South Africa. The first idea was to do away with human sacrifice in Africa, and it was clearly in the interests of Africa that the small wars which had lately taken place were undertaken. What were the means by which the end aimed at was to be accomplished? We must have the right men to do the right kind of work, and the control of the House of Commons must be efficient and thorough over everything going on in Africa. The hon. Member for Mayo had read a passage from a document written by a Dr. Mackenzie, a gentleman who was very well thought of in South Africa. That gentleman made serious charges, not only against the Chartered Company but also against the House of Commons, for allowing these proceedings. Dr. Mackenzie said that the Chartered Company had conquered Matabeleland and now stood in the place of Lobengula. Every man was now at the disposal of the Company. A charge like that made by Dr. Mackenzie against the Government of the day was one which they ought to investigate, to see if it were correct or not. One of the first clauses of the charter of the British South Africa Company stated that it was given on the terms and conditions that equal rights and privileges should be given to the natives. It was a very serious question whether, by taking the cattle which, was the private property of the Matabele, the Charter had not been broken from beginning to end. If so, that was a serious thing for the honour and good name of this country. But a more serious charge than that had been made, and that was that the company had provided the natives with arms, which might be used against a European State with which we were in friendly relations at the present time. That charge ought to he thoroughly investigated by the Colonial Office, and if true the practice ought to be stopped at once. By joining in any conference at Brussels or Berlin this country would not be relieved of any personal responsibility in regard to any part of its territory in South Africa. What they wanted in regard to things that were going on in South Africa was the light of public opinion. There were things going on in the name of this country, and to its dishonour and discredit, which, if known to the people of this country, would be put a stop to at once. The feeling aganst slavery and what was going on in South Africa was not dead in this country, but many people would not believe that the statements made by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean (Sir C. DILKE) that night could be true, and, therefore, the only safety we would have in South Africa was the safety of public opinion as expressed in the House of Commons. ["Hear, hear!"]

rose to call attention to the congestion of work at the Local Government Board Department. He said that he raised this question last year, when the President of the Local Government Board gave a pledge. In complaining that it was difficult to get questions, small in themselves, but of great local interest, speedily attended to, he wished to exonerate the officials of the Local Government Board, for there was no more competent body of public servants in the country. His complaint was rather on their behalf, for they were much overworked. An enormous task had been imposed on them by legislation; and scarcely a year went by without some Bill being passed which made the task heavier. It was very important, therefore, that where the duties performed by the Board could be better discharged by local bodies with local knowledge, they should be transferred. Under the Act of 1888 the Board had power to delegate some of its duties to the County Councils; and he had already pointed out how much better questions of boundaries, for instance, could be dealt with by such bodies. There were also questions of the sale of drugs, and of audits and loans, where the powers of the Act of 1888 might be usefully put in operation. He should like to know how far the Inquiry of the Departmental Committee on this question had proceeded. He desired also some information with regard to the question of the grouping of counties. He knew the difficulties which Local Government Board inspectors had in getting guardians, especially in rural districts, to realise their duties in regard to such questions as district nursing, outdoor relief, allotments, and the supply of pure water, and he would suggest that some of the powers already conferred on the Local Government Board of delegating their functions, not to County Councils, hue to groups of County Councils, should be brought into operation.

said the pressure on the Local Government arose in two ways. In the first place, the Acts of 1888 and 1894 placed something like 16,000 local authorities under the Board for the first time. The delay that had arisen in public business in that Department had been due, first, to an inadequate engineering staff; secondly, to an inadequate staff in the architects' department; and, thirdly, to a deficiency of auditors, especially with regard to County Council audits. As was well known, before rates could be mortgaged an inquiry must be held, and in nine cases out of ten that inquiry required expert knowledge, and, therefore, if the staff was short the work must be delayed. The same thing was true in regard to the architects' department, and undoubtedly great delay had taken place because of the pressure there. There had also been loud complaints because it had been found impossible with the audit staff to close some of the accounts within the financial year. All that was bad enough, but it was capped by the inadequacy of the clerical staff to deal with the reports from the various departments named. Things came to a head last year. There were strong complaints from public bodies, town councils, county councils, and poor law boards, and a Departmental Committee was appointed to inquire into the whole working and organisation of the Department, and also into the question of possible devolution of work. He was happy to say that the Committee had agreed to a provisional report which, so far as he was concerned as representing the Department on that Committee, was entirely satisfactory, and which he believed would do a great deal to lessen the delay that had unfortunately occurred in the past. What they did was to supply immediate and effective relief to the departments most pressed. With regard to the devolution of work, it was clear, according to Section 10 of the Act of 1888, that Parliament intended that something of this nature should be done in the future. Accordingly, in 1889, the Local Government Board, the Home Office, and the Board of Trade introduced a Provisional Order Bill, which, having passed Second Reading, was sent to a strong Committee of which Sir J. Stansfeld was Chairman. The Committee proposed to devolve a great number of duties now discharged by State Departments on the County Councils, but the non-county boroughs intervened, and the Committee was forced to drop the Bill. It failed solely because of the opposition of the non-county boroughs, who objected very strongly to being placed under the new jurisdiction. He did not think there was any feeling on the part of County Councils, but non-county boroughs preferred to be under the Local Government Board rather than under the County Councils. He thought, however, that, without coercing the non-county boroughs in any way whatever, a system of devolution might still be carried out. It would be premature to go into the matter, in view of the forthcoming Report, but, at any rate, his view was that the opposition of the non-county boroughs ought not to stay action in regard to the question. He agreed with the hon. Member that the Local Government Board might leave to the Boards of Guardians the appointment of certain officers, but if the control of Poor Law work were in the hands of different counties, there would be different systems, and he doubted whether the House of Commons would consent to that. The County Councils now held inquiries as to the rearrangement of parish boundaries and the boundaries of rural and urban districts, and there was an appeal from their decision to the Local Government Board. The only inquiry the Local Government Board held was when a County Council proposed the alteration of a county boundary. As he had said a departmental Committee had been appointed to inquire into the organisation and work of the Local Government Board. It would meet after Easter to consider its report. Sir John Hibbert, the Chairman of the Lancashire County Council, was the Chairman of the Committee, and they could scarcely have anyone better. ["Hear, hear!"] Evidence had been taken as to devolving certain of the work of the Board on local authorities. The question was receiving, not only careful, but sympathetic, consideration by the Committee, and more than that he would not be expected at present to say. ["Hear, hear!"]

had given notice of his intention to move the following Amendment: —

"That, in the opinion of this House, provision should be made for the payment of the travelling expenses of county councillors in Scotland to and from their residences to attend the meetings of the council."

ruled the Question out of order, as it did not refer to anything arising out of the Estimates, but to a matter which could only be dealt with by legislation.

called attention to the circumstances under which a convict was killed by warders at Dartmoor Prison on Christmas Eve, and to the Standing Order of the Directors of Convict Prisons under which they purport to have acted. He had put several questions on the subject to the Home Secretary, and he complained of a want of courtesy on the part of the right hon. Gentleman in not being present, the subject being one in which he was concerned, and which he himself regarded as a matter of great importance. If the circumstances to which the Resolution referred had been the subject of any proper inquiry he would certainly not have troubled the House with it. But it had only been inquired into by a coroner's jury, and that at Princetown. He did not know whether hon. Members knew Princetown. But he had been there, and the place was almost entirely dependent on the prison. He was well aware that the Prisons Act of 1877 prescribed that no person having any trade relations with a prison should be on the jury of a coroner's inquest concerning the death of a convict, and he had no reason to suppose that the letter of the enactment was violated in this instance, but he thought the verdict of a coroner's jury at Princetown on a question in which the prison authorities were concerned could be of very little value. To have put the warders on their trial at the Devon Assizes would not only have been far more satisfactory to the public, but fairer to the men themselves, and then there would have been an opportunity for obtaining the opinion of the Court for Crown Cases Reserved on the application by the Home Office of an antiquated rule of the common law—a Court which, especially when the present Lord Chief Justice presided, had a robust way of disposing of such obsolete rules. Was the Standing Order itself complied with in this case? It prescribed:—

"The first shot at least shall be wide of the mark, and if it is necessary again to fire the aim should be low."

But the evidence of the prison surgeon was that the liver and one lung of this unfortunate man were torn to pieces by no fewer than 13 slugs, and the convict witnesses swore that the warders were within 6ft. of the man when they fired, and they could have knocked him down with the butt end of their muskets. The Standing Order further prescribed: —

"In cases of absolute necessity it is lawful to shoot at a felon convict if his escape cannot be otherwise prevented."

When the Home Secretary was challenged for his authority for this statement of the law, he fell back on the ancient rule of the common law that a felon in cases of necessity might be shot if his escape could not otherwise be prevented. But the Home Office had applied the rule to a condition of things which could not possibly have been contemplated in the remote time when the rule of the common law sprang up. It did not apply to a person who had been convicted, but only to a person trying to escape from justice and to avoid trial altogether. When the rule originated, punishment for every felony was substantially death; and in those days there was a strict relation between the risk a man ran who tried to avoid justice and the risk he ran if he submitted. Now felony might be punished with a few days' imprisonment; yet if a man attempted to escape from those few days his custodian was justified in shooting him dead. This showed how absurd it was to base the modern law on the ancient theory of the common law. There was another consideration which was well worth attention. There was some reason in the rule in ancient times, because if a man once got away, communication between one part of the country and another being difficult, the chances were that he would not be recaptured, But experience showed now that if a convict got away for a time he was absolutely certain in the end to be recaptured. Therefore this rule, even literally understood, did not apply in the circumstances of the present day. It had been said in the Press that this rule acted for the benefit of convicts, inasmuch as it enabled them to have more liberty than they would otherwise be able to enjoy. If the Standing Order were to be regarded as a favour, surely it ought to be extended to the misdemeanant as well as to the felon.

did not think the accusation of the hon. Member of want of courtesy against the Home Secretary was warranted. ["Hear, hear!"] The Home Secretary did not expect the Motion to come on so soon, and he assured the hon. Gentleman that the Home Secretary was the last person in or out of the House to treat anyone with a lack of courtesy. The hon. Member had suggested that the warders in this ease should have been sent as criminals to stand their trial at the Devon Assizes. He knew Dartmoor better than the hon. Member. He knew the life of a warder in that forsaken place, in addition to the difficulties and the dangers of his office, and he could not refrain from thinking that the hon. Member had been rather hard on the warders. The post of warder in convict prisons was, in any circumstances, a very difficult and disagreeable one. Taken as a rule, their duties were discharged humanely, and in a manner unsurpassed by the prison officials of any other country. There had been a full inquiry into this question by means of a coroner's inquest. Speaking from recollection, he said that the inquiry was a full and complete one; and he thought his hon. Friend vas wrong in supposing that Princetown was a place dependent on the prison. There were other industries there. It was, to some extent, an agricultural town, and there was a population independent of the prison. If there were no evidence to contradict the statement that the warder fired at the convict from a distance of six feet, he maintained that it was absolutely incredible to believe that a powerful warder, with a man within six feet of him, should not lay hold of the runaway instead of choosing to shoot him. But there was absolute evidence to contradict any statement of the kind, and it was given before the coroner's jury. Public opinion, which was likely to be alarmed by acts of violence, was apt to look with disfavour on an official who acted in a manner to inflict injury; but in this case the public opinion of all classes in the surrounding districts confirmed the finding of the jury, and it was proved that the escape could not otherwise be prevented. If a convict were to escape on Dartmoor he would soon escape from sight, owing to the nature of the ground; therefore the warder was obliged to act quickly or not at all. The House should remember also that all round Dartmoor there were isolated dwellings and defenceless people living unguarded, in the secure belief that the guardians of the peace would do their duty. It would be an alarming thing if a man of the dangerous character this convict was proved to be were allowed to be at large even for a short time. He did not quite remember the career of the convict during the short period of his escape, but he knew he did, in that brief time, break into and enter residences, and if he had been resisted, perhaps violence or even murder might have ensued. It was as necessary now as in the olden times that convicts should not be at large or escape for even a period of 24 hours: therefore, in the interest of public safety, and in the interests of the defenceless dwellers in the neighbouring places, the action of the warder should be vindicated. Even if there had been an error of judgment on the part of the warder, he thought, considering the difficult circumstances in which the officer was placed, that error was entitled to their kindest consideration rather than adverse criticism. He maintained that, according to all the evidence, there had been no departure from what might be regarded as the duty of the warder, in his criticism upon whom the hon. Member had been a little hard. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would now consider he had received adequate information on the subject. As to his request that there should be a Departmental Committee to inquire into the whole circumstances, he was not in a position to answer for his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, but he did not think there was the least chance of his granting such a Committee.

rather regretted, now that they had Committees and Commissions to inquire into every possible subject, that the hon. Gentleman had been unable to hold out hope that there should be a Committee on a question in which human life was concerned. When they put arms into everybody's hands, there was always a great difficulty in knowing how the weapons would be used —whether they would shoot people satisfactorily or not, in the right place, or at the right distance. He himself did not think they could really do much for the protection of prisoners who attempted to escape, whatever steps they adopted. Sir Edmund Henderson told him that some years ago a number of convicts were shot while trying to escape, and the authorities issued orders to the warders that when prisoners attempted to run away they should fire "wide." A few weeks after a warder wrote to his superiors:—

"I beg to report that last Tuesday No. 27 tried to escape, on which, according to orders, I tired wide and hit him in the back."

[Laughter.]

rose to call attention to the unsatisfactory and imperfect condition of the telephone service in the metropolis. He asserted that, as compared with other places London was badly served, the cost of telephonic connection was great, the delays in the transmission of messages serious, and the whole system not very creditable to the greatest commercial city in the world. The answer to the statement of the Post Office that they did not receive such complaints was that the people of London hardly knew that the Post Office was the place to complain to. The complaints were sent to the National Telephone Company, and if they could only produce these documents the House would be very much surprised both at the number of complaints and the correspondence which took place on the subject. However satisfied the Telephone Company might be with their service, that satisfaction was not generally shared, and complaints were sent in from time to time of the wretched service that was accorded the subscribers. The hon. Member proceeded to quote from letters sent by numerous merchants and others in different parts of London, supporting this statement. He was aware the National Telephone Company would say that the real difficulty was to get way-leaves for the wires. There was no doubt a difficulty there, but he was not concerned with the Telephone Company, his contention being that by some means or other there should be an efficient, rapid, and economical telephone service in London. Whilst saying nothing against the present company, he did not see why the whole of London should be subservient to one company, believing there was ample room for two. Whether that was so or not, he submitted that the Post Office, as responsible in these matters ought at once to insure a more efficient and more economical service, and not wait until 1911 when this contract expired. He believed the only real solution of the problem would be found to be in providing that the wires should practically pass underground rather than overhead. He felt, however, that every delay only made the matter more difficult of settlement. Every year the telephone was coming more and more into general use, and they saw overhead perfect masses of wires in all directions. He himself thought many of these were extremely dangerous, that they would some day come down in a storm and lead to serious results. It was not his place to suggest how the better service was to be effected, but he asserted that even in some of the provincial towns the telephonic communication was carried out much better than in London. It did not seem to him at all creditable to the Post Office, who were really responsible, that the present unsatisfactory system should be allowed to continue indefinitely. He believed the Secretary to the Treasury was fully alive to the importance of this matter, and, for his own part, he was certain that the mere drawing attention to the subject in the House would tend to bring about some change which all commercial men desired. There was no doubt whatever that the system of ringing up communications was very complicated and tedious, many men found the telephone was not nearly of the use to them that it ought to be, and there was a growing opinion that something should speedily be done to make the communication both more efficient and cheaper. What was far more important than cheapness was that telephone communication should be obtained at once when required, that when a person wanted a telephone on his premises he should be able to get it in a short time, in a few days or weeks, and should not have as now to wait for months. This was not a convenient time to enter upon a long discussion of the subject, but he had taken advantage of this us the only opportunity he was likely to find to mention the matter shortly, and he hoped some statement would be made by the Secretary to the Treasury to show that the Post Office was alive to the importance of the subject, and would not allow this company to grow into a huge monopoly, so that in a few years it would be impossible to touch it, but by competition of other companies or of the Post Office itself the commercial part of London and, if possible, the residential part of London also might have an efficient system of telephone communication, such as small town in America enjoy. ["Hear, hear!"]

said it was always an invidious thing for a Member to address the House on a question in which he was personally interested, and he desired in the first place to say he was a director of the National Telephone Company, and, as such, desired to offer some explanation to the House upon the case put forward by his hon. Friend. He was himself largely responsible for the difficulties, and they were many, which prevented the Company making the service what it ought to be, and what they desired it should be, for it was his business when Postmaster General to devise a system by which the telegraph revenue of the country should not be injured by the competition of the telephone, while at the same time better facilities should be given to the several companies, licensees of the Post Office, to develop the telephone system. At that time virtually there was only one company to deal with, and negotiations extended pretty well over the whole time of his term of office. Arrangements were made for safeguarding the telegraphs, and, on the other hand, concessions were made to the company for providing an efficient telephone service. The whole of the proceedings were made known to the House, the arrangements were embodied in a Treasury Minute, and referred to a Select Committee. While on the one hand the trunk wires were by agreement, to be purchased by the Government, on the other hand, obstacles in the way of the company securing sufficient wayleaves were partly removed. But to safeguard the interests of the public he refused to sanction the creation of anything like a monopoly, and the Post Office had the right to issue new licences for the establishment of telephonic exchanges if the service were not satisfactory. It was also thought absolutely necessary that the company should not have the power to take its wires wherever it thought proper without the consent of local authorities or individuals in respect to private property. This latter condition had been found the chief difficulty in the way of the National Telephone Company giving the best service possible, because in many cases local authorities had been slow to give the necessary facilities for laying the wires underground, which was the only efficient system, and individual owners had often been very exacting in the terms upon which they would allow wires to cross their premises. Such was the cause of much of the delay intending subscribers had found in getting telephonic communication with their premises to which his hon. Friend had referred. In one particular case, where subscribers in a set of mansions desired and had not yet obtained connection, he knew the circumstances. It was a set of mansions in Victoria Street, and the difficulty was that wayleaves could not be secured to bring the wires into the mansions, and successive difficulties occurred in this respect. Moreover, the owner of the mansions was very exacting, and required as a condition a telephone free of charge. With the number of places through which wires had to be brought, to undertake to allow the free use of an instrument was a method upon which not even the Post Office could afford to do business. There was a great difference in the position of the Post Office as compared with that of a private company, for under the Act which he introduced the Post Office could exercise power over local authorities who declined to give due facilities by an appeal to the Railway Commission, thus overruling the local authority, bur a company had no such power. This led to delay in providing intending subscribers with connections. But he was glad to say this difficulty would be in time removed, for, after long negotiation, the County Council had entered into an agreement with the company, by which the wires would be laid underground everywhere, and there would ultimately be a disappearance of that network of wires crossing the streets which his hon. Friend regarded with apprehension, with much greater facilities for giving subscribers the wires they desired. When his hon. Friend talked of the inefficiency of the London service it was only right to mention that there were a very large number of subscribers in London, and especially in the City, where they numbered nearly 4,000, and he was informed that upon an average each subscriber used the telephone twelve times a day, which seemed to indicate that the service was found to be very convenient. The fact was that in every town except London arrangements had been made for placing wires underground, and thus a more efficient service could be given. He hoped that before long London would be as well off. The company was not very popular just now because of the impression that it held a monopoly, but it was really not a monopoly and the company could only hold its position on condition that the service was well done, and it could only be justified by there being a ready means of redress if the service were not efficient. He was careful when he was responsible for the public interest to see that no monopoly was established that could not immediately be interfered with either by the Post Office granting new licences or setting up their own exchanges where the service supplied by the company was inefficient. The company was not at all dissatisfied with that arrangement, and was doing its very best to give a liberal service. His hon. Friend talked about the parsimony of the company—

said he was quoting a letter from one of the persons complaining.

said it was only fair to say that within the last three years the company had expended in London £300,000 in converting the original single wire system into a duplicate wire system, and within the same period complaints had been reduced by 80 per cent. The many complaints formerly were due to the want of facilities on the part of the company, and to the faulty system established in early days. There was now every probability of a proper and efficient system, but if the company failed in this the Post Office had reserved the power of providing a remedy.

said the Post Office would not be justified at the present time in undertaking any very large expenditure in the direction indicated, because there was or would be soon before the public a new system of telegraphy quite different from the contact system, and without any connecting wires whatever. This new, or RÖntgeu ray, form of telegraph, he believed, was quite practicable, and he understood application had been made for permission to place two instruments within the precincts of the House, so that Members might have an opportunity of testing the invention for themselves. Without connecting wires it had been found possible to convey messages through London. The inventor was quite young, under 25 years of age, and invented the system six months ago, since which he had brought it into such it form as to convince nearly every man of intelligence who had examined it of the practicability of the system by which a message could be conveyed for a distance of ten or twenty miles. Should it ultimately prove successful this would entirely revolutionise the whole system of telegraphy and telephony, and, meanwhile, it would not be wise for the Post Office to undertake large expenditure on the existing system.

was not surprised at the demand for n telephone service for London equal to the services to be found in much smaller towns on the Continent and in America. The London area dealt with by the National Telephone Company was, he thought, something like 600 square miles, and, of course, the service of the company within that area was at present practically a monopoly—for the present at any rate. A good telephone service, as his hon. Friend had said, was one of the necessities of business at the present day, and he was afraid it was a fact that at present England, in regard to telephone service, was not up to the level of some foreign countries. ["Hear, hear!"] He could assure his hon. Friend that the Government were fully alive to the considerations he had mentioned, and fully determined that the country should have an adequate telephonic service. One of the earliest steps, one of the most useful steps to be taken, was that he mentioned the other day in answer to a question when he stated that whenever there was a strong primâ facie. case of a grievance, the Government were perfectly prepared to institute an independent inquiry by a barrister or expert wholly unconnected with the Government or the Post Office, the inquiry to be conducted in public, and if in the result it should be shown that the existing service was too costly or was inefficient, then they would feel called upon to exercise their right to institute a rival service; whether that should be under the Corporation or a local body, or of the Post Office, would of course depend on the circumstances of the case. There would be inconvenience in having two systems in the same town, although there was something of the kind at Newcastle and at Cardiff, and it must necessarily be convenient for all subscribers to have one communication. One conclusion, at any rate, the Government had arrived at, and that was that they would not buy out the existing National Telephone Company. They had such a lesson with regard to the purchase of the telegraphs that they were certainly not likely to repeat the error. ["Hear, hear!"] But that in itself was not a sufficient way of meeting the case, for undoubtedly the National Telephone Company would go on extending their system in many directions, and unless the Post Office, either through exchanges of its own or through those of corporations, put itself in a position to take over and work the telephonic communication of the country when the concession to the National Telephone Company ceased in 1911, they would be in a very considerable dilemma, and might have to buy the company out at their own price. But that, again, was a danger which they certainly did not intend to incur. At any rate, in regard to London, the complaints with regard to the telephone service that had reached the Post Office had been very few, but it must be remembered that the Post Office had no means of ascertaining officially what the company was doing, and he did not think the public yet realised that in the last resort the appeal was to the Post Office. He was bound to say that the decrease in the number of complaints was a considerable tribute to the way in which the company was doing its work. Up to 1893 there were numerous complaints of the cost of the service and the difficulty of communication, but in that year the company began to extend the twin-wire system, which, except in a few outlying districts, was now in use throughout the metropolis!. At the same time, the cost to private houses was reduced from £20 to £10, and, although the charge to places of business was maintained, facilities were given for contracting for five years, and in that case the charge was reduced from £20 to £17. No considerable complaint had been made of these charges, and he did not think they could be said to be excessive. In 1895, when the Select Committee was sitting, complaints were made by the Corporation of London and the London County Council, chiefly as to the difficulty of hearing the messages and of getting into communication. These difficulties had been so far got over that he understood the London County Council was now anxious to co-operate with the company. If the County Council gave the company facilities for carrying its wires underground a great advance would have been made. He did not think his right hon. Friend was right in saying that the County Council had the absolute right to give permission to take up the streets. It rested, in the first instance, with the vestries, and in the City with the Commissioners of Sewers: but, if they refused, the County Conned could fake them before a magistrate, and then before the Railway Commissioners, and the onus of proof lay upon them to show that their conduct in refusing was reasonable. At present any complaints of the telephone service arose from the difficulty the company had in procuring wayleaves. So far as the overhead wires were concerned, they were entirely dependent upon the written permission of private owners. This difficulty had very largely impeded their work, and he hoped, with the co-operation of the County Conned, it might he removed by the adoption of a system of underground wires, which, after all, was a much better system than any system of overhead wires. As to the question how far the company had endeavoured to meet the requirements of London, he found that it had about 16,000 subscribers, of whom 7,000 were in the City. It was a fair proof of the satisfaction the company was giving in the City that of 29,000 occupiers 25 per cent, were subscribers. There were in London 150 call offices, where persons who were not subscribers could use the wires for a small charge. The number of these offices, he thought, was rather small. The company had not yet carried out the conditions imposed upon them two or three years ago, but he was informed that they were taking long strides towards getting over that part of the ground. It was the determination of the Government that they should have effective telephonic communication, not only in London, but throughout the length and breadth of the land. ["Hear, hear!"] They could not afford, as a great business nation, to fall behind other nations. He could go further, and say it was not the intention of the Post Office to sacrifice the telephones to the telegraphs—["hear, hear!"]—and wherever, on complaint, it was found that there was a primâ facie case that (he service of the National Telephone Company was inefficient or too costly, they would institute a public and independent inquiry, and, if the case was proved, they would set up another service in its place. ["Hear, hear!"]

said he had put down a Motion asking the House to express the disapproval which was felt outside the House of the action of Her Majesty's Government in tiring on the Cretans and the Greeks, and in blockading Crete. By the Rules of the House, however, he was precluded from bringing the matter to a vote, and as the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs had already spoken and could not speak again, he should not go at all exhaustively into the subject. There were, however, two or three things he wished to point out. They had really great difficulty in finding out what was going on and what was the policy of Her Majesty's Government. [Cheers.] He would not say there was absolute evasion, but practically the outcome of the answers they addressed to the Government was that they knew as little when they had received the answers as they did before. When they pointed to facts that had taken place, according to the accounts of journalists—and he was not taking journalists who were opposed to the Government, but the correspondents of The Times and of The Standard—they were told by the Under Secretary that the Admirals had not seen the matter in the same way, and that they must attach no credibility to the correspondents. He was far from saying that there might not be sometimes exaggeration in the correspondents' messages, but when they had three or four correspondents not opposed to the Government giving the same statement of what occurred and of what they had seen with their own eyes there must be a considerable measure of truth in what they said. Under these circumstances they found a difficulty in dealing with the matter on the data of admitted facts. There was a certain amount of point in the suggestion of the First Lord of the Treasury that they should at once proceed to a Vote of Censure, but the answer to that was that they did not know what was the policy of Her Majesty's Government. It seemed to him that, according to all Parliamentary precedents, when important actions like these were taking place, and where the Government were urging the matter to be met by a Vote of Censure, they ought to put the House in as full and as complete possession of what was going on and what they contemplated as was possible. That, he complained, the Government had not done. ["Hear, hear!"] What had happened in the last two or three days? At Malaxa it was admitted there was a conflict. The allied fleets and the Turkish fleet there fired indiscriminately both on the Turks and the Christians. Surely that was the most reckless act that could possibly have been done. ["Hear, hear!"] to the best of their knowledge the Cretans were not notified that there was any intention to fire upon them, and certainly the Turks were not. Again, what took place at Retimo was really a disgrace to war itself. There the Russian Consul invited a conference with certain chiefs of the insurgents. The chiefs came to this conference with a flag of truce, and at once they were fired upon by the Bashi-Bazouks! What happened then? When the Admirals had complaint to make of the Greeks they fired into them, but, as far as he could find out, nothing was done against the Bashi-Bazouks when they did a thing which was not recognised even by barbarous tribes as legitimate, except that a protest was made at Constantinople! [Laughter] Take what occurred at Candano, when Sir A. Biliotti managed to release the Turks there, and bring them to Canea. They found from the newspapers that these men had been armed by the Turks, and were engaged with our troops in defending Canea against the insurgents. In a speech at Norwich the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said that we were on the side of the Turks, and that the Greeks were on the side of the insurgents. Was that not textually true? It had been stated officially that, if the present Measures were not successful, the Allied Powers would proceed to other action. What other action? It seemed to him that the Powers could not make up their minds what it was. One day it was said that some mountain batteries were to be sent; another day it was said the Piræus was to be blockaded; another day it was stated that the Gulf of Volo was to be blockaded; another day it was announced that the Turkish troops were going to retire from Crete. This evening the Under Secretary said that we were urging at Constantinople that the Turkish troops should retire from Crete, but he did not say that this was to be preliminary to any threat or determination to blockade any port in Greece, nor did he state whether the six Powers were united on the subject. He could not find that the Powers were united on anything except on some act of oppression or war against the Greeks. ["Hear, hear!"] The fact was that they were so jealous of each other that they could not be brought into line to act in a reasonable and practical manner. It was stated in the newspapers to-day that Colonel Vassos, whom he took to be a truthful and honourable man, had sent a protest to the Admirals. Was that protest to be answered? They were told that all this was occurring in order to give the Cretans the benefit of self-government—autonomy it was called. It seemed to him that to kill people was a curious way of giving them an opportunity of governing themselves. What the Cretans wanted was to be separated entirely from the Turks, and the reply they received was, "We will give you autonomy." Again and again he and others had asked what was the nature of the autonomy. The newspapers slated that the Ambassadors had declared that they were unable to elaborate any scheme of autonomy. The Cretans, therefore, were to give up their arms and all hope of being connected with Greece, on the understanding that they were to receive some vague and indefinite autonomy. The Government would no doubt say that if they left the Cretans in fight matters out for themselves they would conic worse off. But how did they know that? He and his Friends believed that the time had come when England should withdraw from the Concert of Europe. They did not believe that the Government were representing fairly the opinion of the country—["hear, hear!"]—in fighting for the integrity of the Turkish Empire, and in turning English guns upon the Cretans, who were fighting to escape from a connection with that empire. It was perfectly true the Government had a majority in that House, but did they obtain that majority at the general election by advocating the policy of defending the integrity of the Turkish Empire? The Government were now blockading Crete with the deliberate intention of starving it into submission. He regretted he was unable to take the opinion of the House. He had always thought that on his own side of the House they entertained a strong opinion with regard to what the Government was doing, and that they ought to accept the challenge of the Government and move a Vote of Censure. [Ministerial laughter] He could perfectly understand that the wise and eminent Gentlemen who sat upon the Front Opposition Bench—[Ministerial laughter, the Front Opposition Bench Being empty] —desired to choose their own time. After the belligerent speeches they had had from the Member for Montrose and the Leader of the Opposition, he was firmly convinced they would find the wishes of the Leader of the House gratified, and that before the Easter vacation they should have those Gentlemen moving a Vote of Censure. [The FIRST LORD of the TREASURY: "Hear, hear!"] He had no doubt that the reason why they were not there that night was that they were preparing that Vote of Censure. [Laughter.] As an humble follower he did not think they would fulfil their duties to the Liberals in and out of that House unless they moved a Vote of Censure. Of course they knew that they would be beaten. He thought, however, that it would have a great effect outside this country if it was known that the entire Liberal Party— [lord laughter]—well, they would admit that the Liberal Party constituted a large section of the people of this country, and if it was made clear that the Liberal Party as a whole was prepared and did challenge the action of the Government, it would have a great effect abroad. It would be seen that this country was split into two parties, and Lord Salisbury, who was a man of considerable intelligence—[ironical Ministerial laughter] —when he did not allow himself to be led by those who had not his intelligence — [Opposition laughter] — would say, "I am the Minister of England, not the Minister of Russia or of France or of Germany, and I will act as the Minister of England, and in accordance with the views of the English people." [Cheers.]

, who was received with Ministerial cheers: It is not for me to say what is the duty or what is not the duty of right hon. Gentlemen opposite in dealing with the question, but if it be their duty to make perpetual protests against the foreign policy of the Government, nobody has acted up to that profession more laudably than the hon. Gentleman himself. It has been said of a great preacher, Whitefield, that he had delivered the same sermon 40 times and that the 40th delivery was the best. I do not say that the hon. Member has made the same speech 40 times on the subject of Crete, nor do I say that his last utterance was the best. [Laughter.] At all events, he has shown perseverance in well doing, which ought to earn the gratitude of the small fragment of his own Party who have thought it worth while to come down to the House. [Laughter.] I do not mean to detain the House at any great length on the foreign policy of the Government, more especially as we have received a half pledge from the hon. Gentleman on behalf of his absent leaders—

Yes, "hope springs eternal in the human breast." I only hope they will do it. [Loud laughter.]

I gather at all events from the hon. Member, who is naturally deeper in the confidence of those who are sometimes on the Front Opposition Bench— [laughter]—than myself, that the general intention is that a Vote of Censure shall be moved in the course of next week. [Ministerial cheers.] If this he so, we shall welcome such an opportunity of defending our policy and taking a vote of the representatives of the people upon that policy. It is sufficient to say, in the meanwhile, that he has entirely failed to comprehend the importance of the events which are going on before our eyes in Crete at this moment. He appears to think that there is a series of acts of wanton aggression on the part of the Turks, backed up by the Powers of Europe, against the peaceable and unoffending citizens of Crete and their Grecian allies. ["Hear, hear!"] That, I gather, is a true rendering of what he means. The facts, however, are somewhat different. The facts are, that the Powers of Europe are occupied in defending a portion of the Greek population of Crete, who are Mahomedans in religion, from the attacks of those who belong to the same race but not the same religion —["hear, hear!"]—and that the whole action of the Powers during the recent weeks has been to defend against the insurgents and their allies certain positions which, if taken by the insurgents, would imperil not merely the maritime ports, but the honour and the lives of the Cretan population, of Mahomedan religion. That is described by the hon. Gentleman as England fighting on behalf of the Turks. [Opposition cheers.] Surely it requires an Irishman to cheer that. [Laughter.]

Why are Irishmen to be insulted?

The hon. Gentleman knows very well that I am the last person in the House to underrate his capacity for expressing himself clearly and forcibly on anything he may desire to discuss: but I do say that to describe these operations as fighting on behalf of the Turks is the most inaccurate and inappropriate use of the English language. [Cheers.] My right hon. Friend near me the Under Secretary has already told the House that we desire the withdrawal of the Turkish troops, and we have no doubt that that withdrawal will take place. He has also told the House, and I and other Members of the Government have told the House, that the policy of the Government, is to withdraw Crete altogether, not from the suzerainty, but from the power, of the Sultan, and to give to Crete complete power of controlling her own affairs as far as the Porte is concerned. It is tolerable that such a policy as that should be described as fighting for the Turks? [Cheers.] Our policy may be right or it may be wrong, but let the language applied to it be accurate, and describe the true facts of the case. [Cheers.] The hon. Gentleman asks what is autonomy? And he appears to think that we have no right to talk of autonomy for Crete unless we are prepared to lay on the Table of the House a brand new constitution of local government, complete in all its details from the smallest to the largest. Sir, autonomy means self-government. ["Hear, hear!"] The autonomy the Powers of Europe mean to give to Crete is the power of self-government free from interference on the part of the Porte. It is true that the Powers of Europe are resolved that there shall not be at this moment a scramble for fragments of the Turkish Empire, and, in forming that resolution and carrying it out, we consider that we are not merely not fighting against the cause of civilisation, and freedom, but that we are fighting for civilisation and freedom and for the peace of Europe. [Cheers.] But let not that policy—a policy which Mr. Gladstone has in his time supported by Measures not less forcible against Greece than those we are employing—let not that policy be described as fighting for the Turkish rule or the Turkish Empire in Europe. [Cheers.] We have no such views or desires. I have before endeavoured to describe the policy of the Government as freedom for Crete and peace for Europe. That the first of these objects will be attained I have not the slightest doubt. I wish I could speak with equal confidence with regard to the second; but if I cannot speak with equal confidence of the prospects of peace, this I say with full assurance, that no better course for maintaining that peace can be conceived than the course we are pursuing of maintaining the Concert of Europe, and preventing that general fight for the provinces of Turkey in Europe which must end in a flow of blood and an amount of human misery which it is difficult to estimate and impossible to describe, and which will not, we believe, curtail for one moment or prevent for one instant the gradual spread of free institutions and of settled government over all the provinces occupied by Christians in the Eastern part of Europe. [Cheers.]

said that during the long mouths that had passed by, while they had been pursuing their present policy, the Government had not thought it worth while to take the House into their confidence and to justify their policy. The right hon. Gentleman said that in this matter the British Government was not allied to the Turks. Would the right hon. Gentleman deny the allegation of his hon. Friend that while reinforcements were being denied to the insurgents, under the protection of Her Majesty's ships, the Turks were daily receiving munitions and reinforcements? ["Hear, hear!"] In the face of such a position it was idle to tell the House that the Government were not acting as protectors of the Turks in this matter. The insurgents were fighting their own battles against the Turks, and when they were successful Her Majesty's ship Comperdown fired shells into their midst. ["Hear, hear!"] No Member of the Government had yet denied that, and again he said, it was idle and absurd to say we were not acting as the protectors of the Turks. The right hon. Gentleman asked what was autonomy? It meant that a people should be allowed to govern themselves in the way they thought best for themselves; but that was exactly the opposite to what the Government of the right hon. Gentleman was carrying out in Crete. The Cretans had expressed a desire to be united with Greece, and if any respect were to be paid to the principle of self-government, that desire ought to be recognised. The principal point on which complaint was made against the Government was that they had not the courage or the power to insist on the Turkish troops being withdrawn. He believed that if the Turkish troops had been withdrawn and the troops of the Powers placed in the island there would have been no danger of war. It was quite clear that Lord Salisbury and the Government recognised the importance of the withdrawal of the Turkish troops, but we were so impotent in this Concert of Europe that the Government had nut been allowed to carry out that policy. The Government challenged a Vote of Censure, the Party advantage of which they all foresaw—[Ministerial cheers]—but hon. Gentlemen opposite were not returned at the last election to support the integrity of the Turkish Empire, neither were they sent there to support the firing of shells into the midst of the poor people of Crete. Their Party majority was secured for other reasons, and this question had not been before the country. They could not therefore be considered to represent the opinion of the people of this country in this matter, and the feeling outside was strong enough to considerably reduce their majority. He regretted that the Government had not been able to succeed in carrying out the policy of withdrawing the Turkish troops, which he believed was their desire.

said the speeches to which they had listened had not been attacks on the Government, but attacks on the Leaders of the Liberal Party and the Concert of Europe. No public man had more strongly protested that it was necessary in these matters to act with the Concert of Europe than had Lord Rosebery. No Government had more strongly held that opinion than the Government which in 1886 blockaded the Piræus and thereby protected Turkey from the attacks of Greece and caused Greece to withdraw the forces she had sent forth to make war on the Turkish Empire. There was an example if the Government needed one, but the present Government had not gone nearly so far as had the Government of 1886. As soon as they blockaded the Piræus Greece would come to her senses, and not till then; and then, as in 1886, she would obey the mandate of the Concert of Europe. In the meantime they were in Crete endeavouring to keep the peace between the two sets of combatants. It was constantly said that the Cretans were mad to be united to Greece, but when he was in Athens in November he had been told by several Cretans that they did not want to be united to Greece, because they knew perfectly well that if they once came under the Greek flag their taxes would be five times higher than they were now. The fact was, the great desire of the Cretans was to fight out their grievances among themselves. He read an extract from a letter of a young naval officer now employed on the coast of Greece, which showed that the desire of the Cretans was simply to light it out amongst themselves. There was an old English proverb that he who parted the fray went away with the blows. This country was rather in that position now. The hon. Member for Northampton had made some very severe strictures on his absent chief. [Mr. LABOUCHERE: "No."] He thought those attacks should be made when the right hon. Gentleman was there to defend himself. There was only the late Solicitor General for Scotland on the Front Opposition Bench. He quoted a speech delivered by the junior hon. Member for Devonport at Lynn, in the unavoidable absence of himself—[laughter]—in which the hon. Member said that Sir William Harcourt was willing to declare, if he was not hampered by those traitors who sat around—[laughter]— that he and the Liberal Party were anxious to destroy the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, even as a figment of international law, and to smash the Concert of Europe. However difficult the task to which it had set itself, the Concert of Europe was the only thing that at present stood between Europe and a general war. He admitted that the Cretan phase of the task to which the Concert of Europe had set itself was being attempted under circumstances of great risk and danger. He thought, himself, that although the Concert of Europe had the right to keep the peace, there was great risk run in landing in Crete detachments of different nations, speaking different languages, having different military systems, and congregating them together under one single commander. So long as they were not attacked by the insurgents, well and good. But if they were exposed to attacks by the insurgents, they would run great risk of disaster indeed. But he put it to the Liberal Party that it would be better for their own dignity to stop this constant snapping and snarling at the Concert of Europe, and the policy of Her Majesty's Government—which was honest, however imprudent some of them may deem it to be—and to raise the question m a proper manner so that the House might once and for all give its decision upon it.

had given notice to move: —

"That as the provisions of the ordinary Poor Law have proved altogether inadequate to meet the exceptional distress which prevails in the Unions of Belmullet and Killala, in the northern division of Mayo, and as it is shown by the resolutions of the local representative bodies, and by the rapid and dangerous weekly increase in the extent and cost of outdoor relief in the Belmullet Union, that this distress is assuming alarming proportions, it is the duty of the Government to come to the immediate assistance of the people by providing special relief,"

He said there had been absolute and considerable failure on the part of the officials of the Local Government Board of Ireland in giving the Chief Secretary full and accurate representations on the true state of affairs in certain portions of the west of Ireland. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman, did he know what was going on at the present time in the wrest of Ireland? The right hon. Gentleman had consistently denied the existence of distress in the west of Ireland, though that distress was acute and dangerous; and, if the Local Government Board did not take the necessary steps to meet it, the consequences might be terrible. The potato crop had failed, and the people were not simply on the verge of starvation, they were already starving. As the potato crop failed, the supply of Indian meal must increase. On the 22nd February, in answer to a question, the right hon. Gentleman said:—

"We have no reason to anticipate general distress of a nature requiring the exceptional expedient of relief works, and it is expected that any eases of distress which may arise can be dealt with under the Poor Law system."

On the 9th February, the right hon. Gentleman said:—

"The Report of the Commissioner of the Loral Government Board has been received, and I have also had the advantage of a personal interview with him on the subject. The result is to confirm the conclusion already arrived at, that there is no reason at present to anticipate that opening of relief works will become necessary in any part of the Union."

Both the present Chief Secretary and the Leader of the House had become familiar with the parish priest of Belmullet, Father Hewson, and they know that he would not lend himself to extravagant statement. He said:—

"The traders of Belmullet would be in a position to prove that the distress exists, inasmuch as from the end of November up In the present, time the consumption of Indian meal in the districts which they supply has increased eighteen-fold beyond the normal consumption in other years."

He had received replies from a number of the chief merchants of Belmullet whom the right hon. Gentleman had also met. Mr. John Murphy stated that while from 1st November 1895 to March 25th 1896, he only sold 30 bags of Indian meal, in the corresponding period of 1890–97 he sold 1,150 bags. Mr. James O'Donoghue, last year only sold four tons of Indian meal, while this year he sold 40 tons. Mr. John Lennahan declared that the quantity of Indian meal he had sold during three months was fifteen times greater than in the corresponding period of the previous year. When the right hon. Gentleman went over there he met with a splendid reception from the people there, simply because they expected something from him which they never received. [Laughter.] It was all very well for right hon. Gentlemen to come down to their poor western districts, and in the light of great receptions to make promises, and when they came back to this House, basking in the full sunshine of their past popularity, to forget the promises they made. They could think of Crete or Armenia; they forgot those things conveniently when they left Ireland. But there was one awkward fact in the situation, that while they forgot their promises Irishmen did not. Mr. James Mills, Chairman of the Belmullet Board of Guardians, in the three months from November 1895, sold 40 bags, and these last three months 300 bags. He passed away from these proofs of the failure of the potato crop to point to another fact which they would not escape from. He answered him on 25th January:

"I may point out that there are at the present time fewer inmates in the Belmullet workhouse than was the ease last month, and considerably fewer than at the corresponding period of the previous year."

The right hon. Gentleman knew very well in making that statement the reason why; he knew that the west of Ireland peasant would starve and die on his little plot before he would enter the workhouse. But the right hon. Gentle was cautiously careful he would not say ingeniously careful to avoid giving to the House the statistics of outdoor relief. He would give the official figures relating to outdoor relief for seven weeks in the Belmullet Union. On January 30th last, 71 persons received outdoor relief at a cost of £4. 6s. 10d. against 37 at a cost of £2. 5s. 6d in the corresponding period of last year. On February 27th, 275 persons were relieved at a cost of £11. 18s. 9d. against 58 at a cost of £3. 11s. 6d. in the same week of last year. On March 6th, 372 were relieved at a cost, of £14. 11s. 7d. On March 13th, 530 were relieved at a cost of £18. 2s. 9d. against only 55 relieved in the same week last year. On March 20th, 662 were relieved at a cost of £23. 18s. 10d. against only 51 at a cost of £3. 8s. 1d. in the same week last year. The figures showed that last year the two unions were in a normal condition. But this year the potato crop had failed, and unless the Government came to the rescue of these poor people they must starve and die.