I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury when he proposes to take the Second Reading of the Irish Tithe Rent-charge Bill, and the Committee stage of the Charitable Loans Bill.

I am afraid I can do no more than tell the hon. Gentleman that these matters will not be taken in the course of the present week.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can say more definitely what will be taken on Thursday, and what Supply will be taken on Friday?

Will the right hon. Gentleman inform the House when the Second Reading of the Factories Bill will be taken?

Certainly not this week. I propose to take as the first Order on Thursday the Housing of the Working Classes Bill, and on Friday we shall begin with the continuation of the Revenue Votes.

Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any idea as to how far he proposes to proceed with the Bills on the Paper to-day?

I hope the first Order, the Uganda Railway Bill, will not take very long. I propose to take the Sea Fisheries, the Naval Reserve, and the Money-lending Bills; as I have already stated, the Housing of the Working Classes Bill will be the first Order on Thursday, and as to the Mid-wives Expenses I know nothing as to that. I shall not take the Companies Bill nor the Factories and Workshops and Charitable Loans (Ireland) Bill, but I should hope to be able to make progress with the Lunacy Bill.

I did not intend intervening so early in this debate, but in view of the answer given by the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs to the question I had on the Paper on the subject, I may at once raise the points I wish to lay before the House. It will be in the recollection of hon. Members that a few days ago, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer's resolution upon which this Bill is founded was under discussion, a promise was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs that before the Second Reading of this Bill we should have further information with regard to financial affairs in connection with the railway.^* This morning we have had put into our hands a Paper which, however, does not seem to carry much further the information we already possessed. It is not in the ordinary sense an official document, but it is a kind of memorandum of the action of the Government in bringing forward the Bill, and a sort of résumé of the speech which the right hon. Gentleman delivered the other night. A question was put the other evening as to the actual condition of the survey for the remainder of this line, and I do not think the paper issued this morning gives us a very clear answer as to that. I want to know this: Are we to understand that the Foreign Office have now a complete and full working survey of the whole line up to Lake Victoria? On this point the Paper is by no means clear, for while on page 2 it is indicated that they have, we find later on a paragraph to the effect that the authorities have it only up to a certain point, but expect shortly to be in possession of the remainder. I am not relying on my own opinion, for Sir Guilford Molesworth, an authority often quoted in this House, states in this report that there were no surveys in regard to the most important and difficult portion of the line until September, and that detailed estimates had not yet been completed. Again, later on he says—

"I feel strongly that the Uganda Railway cannot possibly be constructed at the estimated amount."

Now this is the opinion of the engineering adviser of the Foreign Office. He goes on to say—

"I expressed that opinion to Mr. O'Callaghan, the managing director of the board, and he evidently held similar views."

I think that is a remarkable statement.

^* For the debate in Committee on the Financial Resolution, see page 289 of this Volume.

Here you have your trusted engineer in 1896, at the very time you are presenting an estimate of £3,000,000 to the House of Commons for the construction of the Uganda Railway, entertaining and expressing doubts whether it can possibly be constructed for that amount! Later on he says that as to the ultimate cost and date of the completion of the railway it is premature to form any estimate, as the most difficult portions have not yet been passed. Again, on page 13, he says—

"It is absolutely impossible to forecast the exact estimate of the amount until we definitely know what route is to be taken "—

for the latter part of the line. In my opinion the whole work was undertaken with very little study or knowledge on the part of the Government. An attempt has been made by them to throw the onus of the bungle which has ensued on their predecessors. It is said that this railway was the project of Lord Rosebery's Government. It is perfectly true that a week before Lord Rosebery's Government was defeated the hon. Baronet the Member for Berwick, then Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, stated, on the 13th June, 1895, that the Government intended to construct a railway to Uganda. Within ten days they were defeated in this House, and in August, 1895, the present Government, with Lord Curzon, now Viceroy of India, as their mouthpiece, definitely made a proposal to the House and asked for a preliminary Vote of £20,000 for the construction of the railway. I have never been able to regard the railway as a desirable project, whether undertaken by Lord Rosebery's Government or any other Government, but I certainly do not think it fair for the Under Secretary and other supporters of the Government to seek to lay the blame for the great confusion, for the bad estimates and for the wasteful expenditure of money, on their predecessors. The first estimate of the cost of the railway was £1,800,000, and that was announced when it was stated that the Government were willing to undertake the project. That statement was made by Lord Curzon in the halcyon days of the present Government, when we were told that the advent of Lord Salisbury to the Foreign Office had ensured peace throughout the world, and had caused respect to be paid to the British Government. Things have changed a good deal since.

On the last occasion Lord Curzon spoke on the subject he said the estimates for the railway were necessarily, to a large extent, speculative.

I believe that statement was made in 1896. The one person who did safeguard himself, so far as my memory serves me, was the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The point I want to make is that in August, 1895, when £20,000 for a preliminary survey was asked for, the Government roughly estimated the cost of the line at £1,800,000. A year later they asked by Bill for £3,000,000, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pressed on the subject by several speakers—and especially by the hon. Member for Louth, who delivered a very trenchant financial criticism on that occasion, followed up by another the other night—admitted that it was impossible for the Government to say that the £3,000,000 would not be exceeded. I should like to point out that the hon. Member for Louth is chairman of one of the many Imperial councils started throughout the country, and therefore he cannot be suspected of any want of sympathy with those extravagant political views at the present time so prevalent under the auspices of the Government. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, as I said, was more cautious than some of the other speakers. He said the estimate had been framed on the recommendations of the Committee of 1892. What has been the course of things since then? The Government themselves, apparently, as years rolled on, began to think that the work was progressing somewhat too slowly, and that the money was going out somewhat too fast, for in the course of the year 1898 they sent Sir Guilford Molesworth out to Africa to inspect the progress of the works, to see whether they could be pushed forward more quickly, and whether it was necessary to spend any more than had been already voted. Hon. Members have had an opportunity of reading his report, and I think they will agree with me that while the staff out there have done their work, in spite of the great difficulties, with considerable zeal, efficiency and diligence, still no one can look upon the undertaking with satisfaction, for there appears to have been a total want of foresight and ordinary precautions in seeing that the means for construction were adequate. Even now the House is not in a position to know whether we are anything like at the end of this expenditure. We have got the line open to mile 362, and the construction has reached a point beyond which lies the most difficult and costly part of the work. There are two enormous escarpments, one nearly 8,000 and the other from 8,000 to 10,000 ft. high, which run across the line of railway at exceedingly steep gradients. We have got to the eastern stop of the first escarpment, but we have not constructed any permanent way down the western slope. Not only have we not constructed any part of the line, but we have not yet got full, complete, and detailed surveys of that which is certainly the most difficult and perhaps the most expensive part of the undertaking. Yet upon these imperfect surveys and this inadequate information we are asked in this Bill to consent to the increase of the Vote to five millions, on the understanding that this sum will be fully sufficient for the full construction of the railway up to Lake Victoria Nyanza. Indeed, I have rather under-stated the case. The original estimate of three millions was to construct a railway not 580, but 670 miles in length, and not merely to do this, but also to build jetties and steamers to run on the Lake for communication with Uganda proper. But in this estimate the cost of the steamers is not included, although that of the jetties is.

A steamer has been provided out of previous Votes.

That is the small steamer alluded to by Sir Guilford Moles-worth. It surely is not one of the kind intended for the service to Uganda proper.

The original Act did not give power to build steamers. One steamer has, however, already been sent there and others will be provided if necessary.

I at once accept that explanation. I referred to the original estimate, not to the Act. If we are to develop the trade of Uganda some provision must be made to have a fleet of some kind on the Lake. Before I sit down I should like to draw the attention of the House to the financial position in which, as far as I understand it, we are, thanks to the Uganda policy of the Government. When this scheme was first brought before the House in 1890 it was proposed that the Government should be asked to guarantee a certain amount of interest on a loan to be raised by the British East African Company. But that Company soon after ceased to exist. We bought it up and took possession of its territory. Then came the announcement by my hon. friend the Member for the Berwick Division, of the resolution of the Liberal Government in its dying days to embark on the construction of the railway. That proposal was taken up with alacrity by the present Government, who got a Vote first for a preliminary survey, and then of £1,800,000 for the construction of the line. In a few years that sum jumped up to three millions, and now we are asked to vote a further two millions, making five millions in all. We have now no guarantee that this will be sufficient for the purpose. I do not believe it will be. You are asking for a definite sum of money for the construction of a definite public work, and you have not yet got completed detailed estimates and surveys. In thus acting I do not think you are treating fairly either the House or the country. See what this involves in regard to the finances of the country. Early in the session, during a discussion of the affairs of Uganda it was pointed out how steadily the Vote for Uganda had increased in past years. We have no certainty in regard to it. The money voted for the extinction of terminable annuities in 1896 jumped suddenly from £37,000 to £137,000 in consequence of the extra expenditure, and venture to say that before the railway is completed the country will be saddled with a burden of a quarter of a million for a period of from twenty-five to thirty years, merely for this undertaking. Added to this there is the ever growing expenditure upon Uganda itself. This should be a warning to us, and I sincerely hope the lesson will be taken to heart by this and succeeding Governments.

I do not propose to go into the merits of the Uganda Railway, as to which I have before expressed the opinion that the mistake has been in constructing two ends without a middle. But having commenced, we are bound to proceed with it. I wish, however, to call serious attention to the question of accounts. The Bill is an obnoxious instance of referential and allusive legislation, and without reference to the Act of 1896 it is impossible to understand it. I doubt very much whether the payment of the 1 per cent. to the Crown agents is admissible under it. The Act authorises the expenditure of money for the construction of the railway, but I do not see in it any authorisation for the payment of a commission to public officers like Crown Agents. But my main point is this Clause 2, sub-section 3, of the Act of 1896—which, after all, is the Act we are really discussing to-day—authorises the expenditure of three millions, while the Act before us authorises a further expenditure of two millions for the construction of this railway. But there is a condition imposed, and that is that the accounts are to be audited by the Auditor and Comptroller-General. I have more than once contended that the action of the Treasury is such as to produce not economy but extravagance, and now I will go further and say it creates ignorance of the items of expenditure. There could not be a stronger instance of this than the form in which the Treasury prescribe that the account shall be kept. That form includes eight general heads— administration, survey, land compensation, construction, equipment, plant, un-allotted expenditure, loss by exchange— and another has since been added, depreciation of stores. It is impossible to get a satisfactory audit upon such details. You get lump sums running into millions for some of these items, and how can you expect the Auditor and Comptroller-General to do the audit satisfactorily? Take the first item, administration, put down by the Comptroller of Her Majesty's Exchequer, the Auditor of Public Accounts, at a total of £163,448 up to 31st March, 1899. Who would suspect in that in that £163,448 there was included j "consulting engineer's salary, £500," and "office expenses, £11,963"?

I must ask the hon. Member to remember that this cost of administration is for five years, which makes it only about £2,750 per annum.

Very well; but what office is it for which we are paying £2,750 a year? I always understood that this great work was to be conducted gratuitously by distinguished persons in the Foreign Office, and by one paid expert, the managing director. What on earth is this £11,963 paid for; and what sort of account is it which puts this sum down without telling us what it is for? It is clear that it cannot be the Crown Office, because it is stated that the 1 per cent. paid to them covers all the cost of their services, and of the engineers. I am engaged in showing the absolute inadequacy of the accounts as presented to the Comptroller and Auditor-General by direction of the Treasury, for we cannot conceive the nature of the accounts from the way they have been disclosed. But that is not all. This lump sum of £163,448 also contains a most mysterious item of 1 per cent. paid to the Crown agents. If the House looks at the recent and more generous Paper presented by the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, it will be seen that the remuneration of the Crown agents covers all expenses, including, I presume, office expenses. One per cent. to these great and distinguished officers of the Queen! The right hon. Gentleman tells us that this 1 per cent. is paid on all stores ordered by them. If the House will turn to page 9 of this Paper they will see that the total expenditure on stores and plant, including freight—do they get 1 per cent. also on freight? I may take it that they do— amounts to £2,102,000. Before I leave this question of 1 per cent. commission, I must say that this is the introduction of an entirely novel item into the public accounts of this kingdom. I go further: it is a most mischievous introduction. I go beyond that, and say it is a direct invitation to Her Majesty's servants to adopt an extraordinarily vicious system. It is a direct incitement to them to increase their purchases, and a direct incitement to adopt a system of getting a commission not from one side only, but from both. I do not suppose that the Crown agents have fallen into that temptation, but this system of paying commission to any public servant is a direct incitement to them to adopt the principles and the morals of those whom the commission system has ruined throughout the financial experience of the country. It is said that this commission of 1 per cent. is on all stores ordered by them; and we are told that there has been £2,102,000 expended; but about five minutes ago we were also told that the commission was to be on £3,132,000.

Pardon me. My hon. friend is wrong in his addition as well as in his logic. The commission is paid on the stores as ordered at the rate of 1 per cent., but the total amount passing through the Agent-General's book is £3,132,000, and the commission actually paid amounts to about ½ per cent. on that sum

But have they received all their commission? Am I not right in saying that there are a good many thousand pounds due to them for commission?

That is the sum received up to the present time.

Then, I am still more unable to comprehend the answer given a few minutes ago. I distinctly understood that the amount expended by the Crown agents was not the two millions on the paper, but £3,132,000.

My hon. friend does not understand my answer. The total expenditure passed through their accounts by the Crown agents was £3,132,000, and commission was eligible on that portion which represented the stores and trade orders, or about one-half.

I do understand my right hon. friend, but I think my right hon. friend misunderstands himself a little. He first of all says that the Crown agents are entitled to 1 per cent. commission on all stores ordered by them. These amount to £2,102,000. And now he says that only a million and a half was ordered by them, and that the total expenditure passed through their accounts was £3,132,000. Are they to have commission on the labour of the Indian coolies? The right hon. Gentleman says, "Not at all. They are only to have 1 per cent. on the locomotives, rolling stock, and rails; and the commission instead of being 1 per cent. on the total amount passed through their accounts, is only ½ per cent. on that amount." My impression is that this £15,801 commission is a most improper payment, and that it is not by any means the whole of the commission that the Crown agents will receive before the railway is ended. I am sure that, when the matter is investigated closely, it will be found that I was right, and the right hon. Gentleman wrong. Then there is the fourth item, "Construction of railway," a heading under which the whole undertaking might have been included. The amount under "construction" is £1,113,000 up to 31st March, 1899. What an item to give the Comptroller to audit! What security have we for seeing that the enormous sum of money voted by this House is properly applied and spent when you fling at the Auditor-General an item like this—"£1,113,000 for construction"? That is all; there are no details. Now, take another item— "Loss on exchange, £131,694." Well, that, of course, is a loss which is capable of being calculated; but what an item not to have been foreseen. Surely, the Government did know that if there was anything more certain than another it was the fall in value of the silver rupee; but so far as I can see they made no provision for any loss under that head. I myself have very serious doubts as to whether an Act which voted £3,000,000 for the purpose of the construction of a railway can be held to authorise the expenditure of £131,000, not for the construction of the railway, but to remedy a want of financial foresight on the part of Her Majesty's Government. The rupee was altered in value, and it is one of the arguments of the Foreign Office that the rupee has varied so much in value that the loss on exchange is larger than it should have been. I am calling attention to the enormous character of these items and their undetailed character. The last item I wish to refer to is one of £290,708 upto 31st March, 1899, for—what does the House think? For unallocated expenditure. The whole purpose of the audit is to allocate the expenditure, and to see that it is properly allocated and appropriated —and how can an amount like this be allocated? Here you have an expenditure which is as it were in the air, and which cannot be allocated. I think I have said enough to show that the form of the account adopted by the Treasury is an extremely unsatisfactory form for so large an account as this. It was for that purpose that I rose, and I rose to call attention to it in this instance, because it obtains in other cases. We had enormous lump sums submitted to us for the purchase of land on Salisbury Plain and elsewhere for rifle ranges, and so on. This is the system which obtains in the Treasury —a Department that is always interfering and restricting other Departments, as I think very often unnecessarily, and in a way that does not lend to economy. In cases like this there is power given to the Treasury and the Treasury alone, and I charge that Department with the constant habit of rendering their accounts in such a form as to secure no proper knowledge of the expenditure but ignorance of it, and I point to this as an instance of it. The auditor cannot audit it, the controller cannot control it, and this Committee through its ignorance is unable to deal with it. I say this Bill ought not to be passed in its present form. I say the words that I have quoted ought to be omitted, and that the proper form should be "in the form required by the Comptroller and Auditor-General. An auditor is useless if he cannot have some voice in the form of accounts. If the Treasury say, "Here are your accounts, this is the form which we choose, and you must do the best you can with them," it is out of the auditor's power. No doubt he can take the advice of the Treasury if he likes, but if it is to be a mere formal matter it should be on the authority of the Comptroller and Auditor-General. This is one of the many instances where I think the power should be taken from the Treasury and given to the Comptroller and Auditor-General, who is an officer of this House, without whom not a penny can be paid away, who draws all the one of and to whom the House looks for an explanation of the expenditure and its allocation.

Unlike the hon. Member for King's Lynn, I do not think that the original project of this railway was an impolitic one. I entirely approve of the policy that is really involved in the development of these areas over which we have acquired influence and a controlling power. I remember that when in the last year of the recent Parliament the Government became aware of the necessity of developing Uganda and of making this railway from Mombassa to Victoria Nyanza, a change of Government took place, and my complaint is not against the general policy of the present Government in this matter, but of the mismanagement by the Foreign Office of this very important undertaking. I understand that the course that was taken by the present Government under the advice of responsible engineers amounted to a new departure. As I understand it, instead of inviting tenders from contractors or private persons for the making of the line, as one would have expected them to do, the Foreign Office determined to carry out this engineering undertaking themselves, and to appoint a Committee presided over by one of the clerks of the Foreign Office, to carry out this great work. I will not presume at this moment to express an opinion upon the general question involved as to the wisdom of that decision, but I am able to say that in this instance, at any rate, the system of carrying out a matter of this kind by a Committee of one of the public offices has been a complete failure. That is my proposition I am in favour of making this railway and in favour of giving the £2,000,000 for which the Government is asking, but I say the transaction has been carried on in an un business like way, and before the House gives the money which is required it ought to insist upon having a searching inquiry in regard to what has taken place and into the real plans that have been formed by those who are advising the Government in this matter. I am not going over the whole ground covered by the speech of my hon. friend behind me, nor shall I go into the details which have been commented upon by the hon. Member for King's Lynn, but I should like to make one or two general statements upon the whole subject. When I found the new demand made by the Government for this railway I asked myself what similar railway there was in the world with which I could compare it, and what it cost; and the railway I fixed upon was one now playing so conspicuous a part in the new plan of campaign in the present war—the railway from Beira to Umtali and on to Fort Salisbury. I asked the contractors who made that railway what it cost, and they kindly informed me that the actual cost per mile of the line from Beira to Umtali was £5,900. But there was an alteration of the gauge after many miles of the line had been laid, otherwise the cost would have been about £4,800 per mile. The cost of the line from Umtali to Salisbury was about £4,700 per mile. Now, what we are being asked to vote for this railway is £8,505 per mile. This railway, running up from the coast to Victoria Nyanza, passes through a country practically similar to that to which I have referred. I see the right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. As I have not been there I must rely on the opinion of those who have. Mombasa is four degrees south of the Equator, Beira fourteen degrees, and the general conditions of the road in Mombassa region are the same as those at Beira. We are now asked to vote about two and a half times as much as the original estimate. The original estimate was £3,409 per mile, and we are now asked to vote £8,505 per mile Now I should like the right hon. Gentleman to tell the House who. informed the Foreign Office that this railway could be made for £3,409 per mile. Whoever the engineer may have been, everyone must admit that he made a grave miscalculation, and ill the matter was not being discussed here, but was the subject of an ordinary arbitration, he would have to admit that himself to the examining counsel. The document I have here is really an elaborate excuse on the part of the Foreign Office Committee for their utter failure to carry out this undertaking to a satisfactory conclusion. Let us examine this a little further. The railway from Beira to Umtali was 220 miles in length, and from Beira to Salisbury 392 miles, the whole of which is what is called a fever country, that is to say, a country where it is difficult for a European to live, and which even greatly affects the conditions of native labour. That railway was commenced in 1892 and finished in 1896, but during that time eighteen months were wasted, the work being stopped owing to the financial difficulties of the promoters of the company, this undertaking being one of a private character. Therefore the 220 miles of railway were made in two and a half years. If that time is compared with the time taken by the Government for the first 220 miles of the Uganda, Railway, I say it compares unfavourably for the latter. Take the question of labour, which is necessarily a most important one. Here again I have to apologise to the House almost for going into details, but it seems to me necessary on these questions if we are to have useful discussions. We do not know what kind of Committee the Bill is going to. I understand that the Government has been employing 16,000 labourers on this Uganda Railway. It may be that that is quite justifiable, and that it has been economical, but I can only express my astonishment at the figures. I am told by the contractors who carried out the Beira and Salisbury Railway that the average number employed by them was 3,000 native labourers, and that the average number of white employees was one to ten of the natives. Why 16,000 labourers? What system has been adopted in carrying on this railway? The right hon. Gentleman told the House the other day, and it is repeated in this paper, with reference to the Indian imported labour, that it cost Is. 2d. per head per day. I am not complaining of the amount paid to these persons. I dare say that they were quits worth the money paid to them, because I find that on the Beira and Salisbury Railway the natives received £2 per head per month, plus board or necessary food. This comes to £42 a year, and, working it out, it comes approximately to Is. 11d. or 2s. per day. What is the difference? j The natives employed on one railway have done their work. The 3,000 have been compelled to work, but the 16,000 men employed by the Foreign Office have not been doing the work quickly and skilfully. That is really the logical consequence that follows from these figures. Reference has been made, too, in this paper to casualties. I quite agree that in considering the cost of work in a tropical country like this we must make great allowances for the difficulties arising not only from want of water and circumstances of that kind, but also for the casualties necessarily occurring. Here the figures supplied to us are somewhat extraordinary. On the railway to which I have referred the casualties—accidents on the line in the ordinary sense of our term—were practically nil. I am told that a few accidents, no doubt, did take place on this railway, the contractors having no proper equipment for maintaining order, clearing the country of wild game, or conducting military operations. There were a good many accidents of another kind—those from big game and snakes. I am told that 10 per cent. of the employees were injured by accidents of that character. In this case there was a medical establishment equipped for dealing with accidents. I have got a good many other interesting and important details which I could state if I were in some other place instead of this House speaking in a Second Heading debate. I am perfectly certain that the Foreign Office Committee have mismanaged the whole business. They have had every advantage on their side. I say the railway ought to have been made rather more cheaply than railways of this kind are made by other persons. That has not been the case. I will not delay the House further. I am willing to vote for this money if indeed it is really necessary, but I am inclined to think from inquiry that the transfer of this matter from the incompetent hands of the Foreign Office to really businesslike engineers and contractors might result in a great saving of money; and therefore I move that this bill be read a second time this day six months.

seconded the amendment.

I did not intend to intervene in this debate at so early a stage. I confess 1 look upon this question from a totally different point of view from that of the last speaker who has addressed the House, although I rise in support of his motion. The hon. Member who has just spoken declared that he was in favour of the policy of this railway, and the general policy which it represents of developing those vast new countries which have been taken over as Protectorates by the British Government, and that the only ground on which he is prepared to oppose this Bill, and the only ground on which he makes the motion he has just made, is that he finds fault with the system of building railways by the Foreign Office, or any public office. He says that in the present instance that has been a total failure, I have no doubt he is perfectly right in that view. That is an argument which 1 have no intention of following. I object, and have always objected, to the construction of this railway on totally different grounds. I object to it because it is one of the first steps in a policy which in my judgment has already brought enormous evil results to this country, and which if persevered in will produce far worse results, and I object to it because it has been defended by arguments which, if they are to have weight in this House, will absolutely and inevitably carry us into other undertakings of a similar character to an extent to which there is really no limit. I object to the argument that we should build this new railway to Uganda because we are bound to develop those regions taken up as Protectorates. If you accept that position, of course there is no conceivable argument which could be adduced against a proposal to extend this system of railway from Mombasa, by a network over the country to the Upper Valley of the Nile, through countries which are more remote and more fertile, and more likely to lead to trade, and which are more cut off from civilisation than even Uganda. I say that the policy of carrying on this railway would inevitably land this country into boundless expenditure, both in the making of railways and in the military outlay associated with the undertakings. I object to it on another ground. I object to it on the ground that it is part and parcel of that policy of Imperialism which has supporters on both sides of the House, and which is leading us very rapidly as regards the Government of the country, quite apart from questions of expense, to a condition of things which I think very few of us contemplated when it was started. What occurred the other day? We were informed of the latest development of Imperialism. We were told by the Prime Minister that the power of this country had passed into the hands of the military generals, and that the Ministers were to be free from criticism, because they really had no more to do with that. That may be treated as a joke, but to my mind it is mores than a joke, because it is the expression of a spirit which is growing steadily and rapidly in thin country, and which, if allowed to go much further, would reduce the proceedings of this House to an absolute farce, because we should be called upon to do nothing but vote increases to the rapidly growing expenditure of this country. When I am told that the construction of this railway was proposed by a Liberal Government, and that both sides of the House are responsible for the policy, that does not influence my vote in the slightest degree. When I came into this House first there was a strong party below the gangway, and, no matter whether their own party were in power or not, they felt it to be their highest duty to watch the interests of the taxpayers of this country. They examined every proposal with the view to retrenchment and the keeping down of the taxation of the country. That party appears to have absolutely disappeared from the House, and now the wildest schemes are proposed, by which two, three, four or five millions are added to the expenditure of the country, and no man thinks of standing up in the House and saying a word for the unfortunate taxpayer. It has come to this; that a man is looked upon as an unpatriotic individual if he dares to suggest a doubt even on these debatable subjects whether the expenditure of this country is not being outrageously affected in these wild schemes. I do not take that view. I cannot for a moment think otherwise than that it is a cause for great regret that the Radical party in this House, which stood up for moderate taxation, and resisted all schemes which promised to add enormously to the burdens of the country, have almost entirely disappeared. For my part, so strongly do I object to this scheme, and question the general policy, that I should rather support the proposal that the five million sovereigns should be thrown into Lake Victoria Nyanza than spent to complete this railway, holding as I do that this railway is only the pioneer of various other schemes of the same kind. Turning for a moment to one or two questions which have been raised in the course of this debate, I wish, in the first place, to direct the attention of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the question of labour. That is a point which was discussed to some extent in the previous debate, and with regard to which the right hon. Gentleman promised to give us further information. This is a very curious state of affairs. Those who made the original estimate admit that they have been deceived in every single circumstance on which they based that estimate, and in none more than in their calculation as to the supply of labour. They calculated—I do not know on what ground—that they could obtain a plentiful supply of native labour at 4d. a day, and that that supply could be supplemented by skilled Indian labour at Is. a day. But when it came to the trial the native labour almost totally failed, and they were obliged to import Indian labour, skilled and unskilled, which cost not Is., but Is. 2d. all round. I am not complaining of that, as it is a very moderate rate, but what I want to know is, on what grounds did the makers of the original estimate expect to get native labour at 4d. a day, when in South Africa it costs something like 2s. a day? It is stated that the natives had a great dislike to working at a distance from their homes, and that even the pressure of famine had not brought more than 2,000 natives at any time to the works, while their stay at all times was fitful and uncertain. I should like to know if any experiment was made as to what the effect would be of offering higher wages and food. I can hardly imagine that, with a terrible famine raging in this region, as there has been for more than a year, the offer of fairly good wages and food would have failed to bring labourers. It does not follow that because native labour could not be obtained at 4d. a day, it could not be obtained if a more reasonable offer— say, 6d., 8d., or l0d.— were made. Another point is this: I find in the Report that Sir Guilford.Moles worth states—as was pretty generally known— that the Victoria Nyanza Lake is practically unsurveyed, and that the only knowledge in existence comes from the accounts which have been given by various travellers. The proposal adopted by the Government is to bring the railway down to Ugowe Bay, but I do not find it stated in any of these Papers whether an accurate survey has been made of that bay, or whether that bay will be available for the use of fairly-sized mail-boats. I want to know whether, when this railway is made at an expense of,£6,000,000 at the very least, we, shall be told that a large sum of money is required to deepen and fit this bay for the boats, and to turn it into a port. As far as I can gather, there is no information as to the condition of the lake between this point and Port Florence, which is, I believe, intended to be the other termination of this line of steamers. Therefore, this railway, costly as it has been, is to have a blind termination. We have no information as to what will be the result of the railway, or whether when it reaches the lake there will be a real port there, or whether we shall be called upon to vote another enormous sum of money to dredge the bay, make a channel for the steamers, and construct proper docks and jetties. The original recommendation in regard to this railway was that it should be made on the cheapest possible plan at an estimated cost of £1,500,000, and that if, after three or four years, in the results justified a further expenditure the railway could be turned into a permanent line of the nature now being constructed. But there was another alternative, which was that the railway should be constructed as far as the point at which the country became less deadly for transport animals, and that then the railway should stop, a good road be constructed to the lake, and steamers put on, if the bay could be made fit at a reason- able cost. It was suggested that this system of transport should work for some years until we had ascertained whether; there was likely to be any proper paying traffic between Uganda and the coast, That appears to me to be a rational proposal, and one which is enormously sup- ported by the figures as to traffic given in this paper. What do those figures amount to? Frankly they show that, practically speaking, there is no traffic whatever coming down from Uganda. The whole traffic goes from the coast to the interior, and is composed of goods and stores connected with the railway of the British garrison. When we are told that there has been a great and enormous increase in the traffic returns, it is perfectly plain that that increase is due solely to the increase of the British garrison in Uganda. What I maintain is that if it were not for the wild and insane spirit of expenditure which has taken possession of the House of Commons and the Government, the natural, reasonable, and only rational course for any body of men who believed in this policy would be to stop the rail-way at the point now reached, construct the road to the lake, put steamers on the lake, and see whether the trade would develop. If it did develop in the next five years the Government would be perfectly certain of obtaining the money to continue the railway, while if there was no trade that gave any prospect of paying even working expenses, it would be proof positive that the scheme was a failure and ought not to be carried any further. For these reasons I most heartily support the Amendment which has been moved.

I have supported the Government in regard to this Bill, and I can scarcely conceive it possible that any hon. Member would suggest that at this late period the Government should abandon the construction of the railway. This railway has been authorised by a great majority of the House, and I believe by a great majority of both parties. No less than.£3,000,000 has been spent upon it, and two-thirds of the railway is under construction; and the suggestion that that money and labour should be thrown away by abandoning the railway is one which, I am sure, will not commend itself to any sensible person here. That being the position, and as we now feel compelled to carry out the construction of the railway and make it one of our national possessions, I cannot see the advantage of endeavouring as far as possible to depreciate the value of the railway at the present time. I admit at once that probably a very considerable amount of the money which has been spent upon the railway has been wasted, though I am not sufficient of an expert to express any positive opinion upon the subject. But I do not expect a Department which has no commercial experience, and has not, therefore, the economic knowledge necessary for the task it has undertaken, to carry out such an undertaking in the cheapest form possible. For myself, I say at once that I should have preferred that the construction of this railway at the beginning had been handed over to one of those public contractors who are so successfully executing public works in other countries and for ourselves. If this had been done I think the result would have probably been much more satisfactory. I do not, however, think that that is an important matter with which we should deal in connection with the Second Reading of this Bill. The question is whether or not we are pre- pared to vote the necessary money for the completion of the railway. I do not think that it can really be suggested that we ever entered upon the construction of this railway as a commercial speculation, and I do not think anyone ever suggested that we should, derive considerable profit commercially from it or that the taxation of this country was likely in any degree to be reduced by any interest we might have in it. As I understand it, this railway was intended for an entirely different purpose. This railway was originally constructed for the purpose of strengthening and consolidating our position in East Africa, and especially in the neighbourhood of the lakes. I understand also that it was constructed with the object of putting an end to the strife, disorder, and destruction that were prevailing amongst the tribes in that neighbourhood, in order to introduce civilisation into those very remote regions, and give them the benefit of a civilised and well ordered government. Above all, I believe the idea which inspired many of us in this House in connection with our support of this railway was that it would enable us more successfully than hitherto to combat the inhuman traffic in flesh and blood, and to put an end to the slavery which we have striven to put down by other means, and in which we have not been absolutely successful. I should have thought that there were other things to be considered in this matter quite apart from all questions of profit. It seems to me that there are some people who can never value anything unless it can be entered as an item in a balance-sheet, and who only consider everything from the point of view of pounds, shillings, and pence, whereas to many of us the attainment of the objects to which I have referred, should they result from the construction of this railway, would make us feel that we have been thoroughly rewarded for the support we have given to the Government in connection with this matter. I cannot say whether the full results we are hoping for will be attained or not, but I am quite sure that some beneficial results must come from the consolidation of British power in the neighbourhood, and from the tribes understanding that we have come there to permanently settle and not to eventually withdraw from the country. It is because I believe that such results will be attained that I so cordially thank the Government for pressing forward this matter.

I venture to congratulate the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down on having recalled to the House some of the broader issues which are involved, and were originally discussed, in the construction of the Uganda Railway. Although the House is fully aware that the Government entered upon that construction with the view not of any purely commercial interests, but also with political objects, I will not follow the hon. Gentleman's remarks upon that aspect of the subject at any length, because I have no desire to attempt to shirk the charges or criticisms which have been levelied against the Government by diverting opinion from that channel into the more important and broader channel to which the hon. Member for Perth so admirably referred. I should like to say one word or two in reply to what has fallen from the hon. Member for East Mayo, who, of course, is an out-and-out opponent of. the Uganda Railway from various standpoints. He suggested that, even if the railway was to be built, we might have placed it in the hands of a large contractor, and saved ourselves from a great deal of labour, and the Foreign Office from undertaking a task for which they were wholly unfitted, and in which they had completely failed. I think both those criticisms should be met. It is very easy to make a proposal—to hand over a railway going through 500 or 600 miles of country, which was not under any civilised government at the time of starting, and was to pass through a variety of tribes who were to a large extent hostile, to be carried on in a climate particularly unfavourable to Europeans, causing great difficulty in guarding the railway, which could hardly be undertaken by any temporary police the con- tractor might be able to establish. But you must add to these considerations the fact, which was too much forgotten, but which was perfectly well known to Members of the House when they discussed the question four or five years ago, that no adequate survey had been or could be made of the country through which the railway was to pass—and in view of all this I ask the House to consider what was the possibility of getting any contractor, who would be without any political interest to push him forward, to undertake a task which was at once so doubtful, and possibly, even probably, so unremunerative. The only occasion on which such an attempt has been made was in connection with the Suakin Railway in 1884 or 1885, which a firm of contractors undertook, on very exceptional terms, to construct. I am speaking from memory, but I think the only terms on which they would undertake it were a percentage on any money which they found themselves obliged to spend, and had any firm of contractors undertaken this railway on similar terms the House would not have been able to have any control over it whatever. But in the case of the Suakin Railway the matter had to be abandoned. Admitting, then, that it was necessary for the Government to undertake the business, what is the foundation of the contention of the hon. Member for East Aberdeen shire and others that the attempt to carry it out by the Government has been—I think he described it as—a muddle and hopeless failure? I perfectly admit that the additional sums we are asking for are large j ones, but the real essence of the increase of cost is to compare it with the cost of other railways. The hon. Member for Swansea attempted such a comparison, and he made out a case which he thought justified him in moving the rejection of the Bill. The House listened to the hon. Member's speech with interest. But I would point out that there is nothing more easy than to prove your case up to the hilt by means of a comparison between two things which are, in their essence, unlike. He instanced the case of the Beira Railway. But the country which had to be traversed was unlike the country to be traversed by the Uganda Railway; the condition as regards the tribes was different, the condition as regards the soil was different, and, as I well know, the equipment of that railway is wholly different to that given by the Government to the Uganda Railway. And when all those questions come to be compared, with a number of others which I cannot enter into here, of course it is possible to discover that, in that particular case, all the other things being unlike, the cost of the railway has been less than that of the Uganda Railway. But if the hon. Member had extended his researches a little further and made a comparison between the cost of the Congo Railway and the Uganda Railway — a comparison which would have been more apposite and which could have been followed out with much greater completeness—he would have found that the Congo Railway cost, though I am speaking from memory, over £10,000 a mile, although it was to be done under infinitely more favourable circumstances, both as to the comparative quietude of the country and to the means of obtaining labour, than those under which the Uganda Railway has been carried on. Therefore, when you are considering whether the Foreign Office has done well or badly in this matter, it is necessary to deal with a comparison of things which are like. My hon. friend the Member for King's Lynn has gone much more into detail, and has endeavoured to grapple with certain points in which he thinks there has been some considerable leakage of money. It is to be observed that in the course of this discussion not one single point has been mentioned, or even suggested, in which the Government have lost money or paid more money than they ought to have paid for work which has been carried out. Although the accounts have been gone through, item by item, by the Comptroller and Auditor-General and examined, I believe, by the Public Accounts Committee, we have not had put before us a single case which it has been necessary for cither the Auditor-General or the Public Accounts Committee to bring before Parliament.

May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that those items are so immense and that there is no detail? If he will say that full details will be furnished to the Comptroller and Auditor-General and to the Public Accounts Committee, then all that I have said, or most of it, falls to the ground.

My hon. friend astonishes me. His knowledge of these matters is intimate, and he is perfectly aware that the Comptroller and Auditor-General sees all the vouchers and audits every account. He has got officers out there examining the vouchers in detail as they come in, and he makes his report on those and not on the eight or nine items which are presented in the mass to Parliament. He sees every single voucher, and the hon. Member has the opportunity of examining them before the Public Accounts Committee.

The right hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken. The Report of the Auditor-General is before us, and it is made on the eight or nine items before us.

My hon. friend has also complained that there are not sufficient items in the account. But does he really suppose that in a matter of railway construction in Africa we ought to be able to lay before Parliament from year to year the vouchers of everything purchased and for every sum paid for labour? My hon. friend also referred to one or two other matters, from which I think he has drawn quite false conclusions. He complains of the expenses attached to the office of the consulting engineer of the railway. I was astonished that my hon. friend should have spent so much time over that point, and? apologise to the House for entering into such a comparatively small matter. Does my hon. friend think that in the case of a work involving the expenditure of three millions sterling the consulting engineer here in London, with the enormous responsibilities which rest upon him in a matter of such magnitude, is over paid by a payment of,£500 a year to himself and,£3,000 a year for actually vouched office expenses and the employment of clerks and other persons? My hon. friend knows perfectly well that if an engineer were employed entirely on one work his remuneration would be £4,000 or £5,000 or more. My hon. friend also made a point with respect to the Crown agents which seemed to attract some attention from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton, who has great experience of Treasury control. The Crown agents are not paid by salary or vote of this House. They are officials under the authority of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who perform certain services in this country for the Crown colonies, and are paid a definite amount out of sums realised by commission, in accordance with the work they perform.

Are they paid salaries?

They are paid remuneration based on the work they perform.

They have fixed salaries as Crown agents.

Perhaps I may be allowed to explain. The whole expenditure of the Crown agents' office is provided for by commission on the work they do for the colonies, as my light hon. friend has just stated. That forms a lump sum each year. Out of that sum salaries are paid to the Crown agents for themselves and their clerks on a scale fixed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

I think we should explore this matter a little. Although we are all familiar with the work of the Crown agents, we never come to close quarters with them. According to the Colonial Office List, which I suppose is authentic, Crown agents for the colonies act as commercial and financial agents in this country for such of the colonies whose Governments do not possess agents in this country. It says, "They are remunerated with fixed salaries and are appointed by the Secretary of State for Colonies, who exorcises a general supervision and control over their work."

That is exactly what I said. Their salaries are fixed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

; I understood the Under Secretary to have said they are paid by commission.

The suggestion of the hon. Member for King's Lynn was that the Crown agents were charging for the work a high rate of commission which they put into their pockets. That is not so. They are paid by salaries fixed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and those salaries are provided by commission charged under the authority of the Secretary of State for the Colonies for the work they do.

I never suggested that the commission went directly into their pockets. What I said was that they got commissions.

Illegitimate commissions.

Pardon me: I did not say that. I said that a system which involved the payment of public functionaries by commission on the purchases they made was calculated to tempt them into the pursuance of a course under which commercial agents are often tempted—that is, to receive commissions also from the other side.

My hon. friend might be right if the commission went direct to the pocket of the Crown agents. The salaries are fixed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies. But the really important point to consider is whether the charge made to the public for their services is excessive. This commission is paid for transacting the whole financial business of the committee, and keeping the accounts of the railway; for the acceptance and payment of all bills drawn by the chief engineer; for the making of all contracts and for the supervision of all contracts; for the chartering of steamers and the conveyance of stores. All that involves an immense mass of business, and to have the whole of it covered by £3,000 a year is by no means an excessive charge. My hon. friend also spoke about the loss on the rate of exchange. I can assure him this is a mere book entry, and not one single penny is lost to the Treasury by that charge. But the question of real importance raised to-day is are the working expenses of the railway greatly in excess of the traffic the railway has to carry? Remember we are working under the greatest possible difficulties. The traffic, until the railway arrives at the point it is intended to reach, must be mainly one way; and again, you cannot work the traffic economically when you are at the same time constructing the line. But bearing all this in mind, whether you look to the receipts of the railway or whether you look to the working expenses, you will find that they are satisfactory. The receipts of the railway, without taking into consideration construction, amount already to over £60,000 a year, and we expect when the railway is finished they will amount to over £120,000. And taking the working expenses, which were originally estimated for with the idea of one train per week—taking them at one train per day, each way, it is estimated they will be more than covered by the traffic receipts at the present rate, and we have every reason to believe that the present traffic receipts will be considerably in creased. It it perfectly true that we nave to meet the interest on something like £5,000,000. That is about £150,000 a year and the cost of the working of the railway will be the loss of that £150,000, less any extra sum we may receive from traffic. I do not think that sum need intimidate us from pursuing this project. Let me also say that we have no reason whatever to believe that the sum now asked for will be insufficient to complete the railway. On the contrary, we have spent 60 per cent. of the money, but we have done much more than 60 per cent. of the work. In the matter of locomotives we have got the whole number we require. In regard to sleepers, we have got them for 155 out of the remaining 221 miles. Therefore, so far as we know, having the surveys, which are for the whole distance of the same character as those which would be laid before a Parliamentary Committee, and which for 50 miles ahead of the main escarpment are of a character suitable to be placed in the hands of the contractor, we may reasonably believe that we know the extent of our liabilities. If anything, we have erred on the side of taking a margin, as will be seen by the sum set apart for contingencies. Let me say in conclusion that, although we have started in a most difficult business, in which the Estimates, as was stated to the House by Lord Curzon, were bound to be more or less of a doubtful character, and although we have to carry on the work in Africa under great difficulties, there has been no confusion in the accounts, there has been no expenditure on work which had to be done over again, and there has been no lack of foresight, except that it was impossible to estimate what the ultimate and final cost would be. For these reasons I ask the House to pass the Second Reading of this Bill, and I am confident that we shall see the railway carried through satisfactorily.

A phrase occasionally has been used in this debate as to "the policy of the railway"; and the larger question arose at the beginning of the debate as to how far the Government had endeavoured to hold their predecessors responsible for making the railway. Well, I admit, of course, entirely that the last Liberal Government was absolutely responsible for committing itself and committing the House of Commons and the country to the making of a railway. Of course, there may be all the difference in the world between "a railway" and any particular railway which is under discussion. Therefore let it be carefully understood that we hold ourselves in regard to Uganda as responsible for "a railway," but with regard to the method by which that railway was to be made, and with regard to the cost of the management in the making of it, we have no responsibility at all. I think, however, "the policy of the railway" is an ambiguous phrase, and is really not the proper phrase. There is really no policy of a railway. The question of policy is a much larger one than the making of a railway. The question of policy is a question of staying in Uganda or not. If Uganda is to be held it could not be held permanently without a railway, and the question of policy would take us far beyond the railway. Therefore let us start this debate from the point that the railway is an absolute necessity—unless we are to discuss the whole question of Uganda over again, which I do not think is desired by the House. But if we start from the point that the railway is a necessity, we then have to consider whether this railway which the Government have chosen to make is the proper kind of railway, and whether it-has been economically made. In so far as the Government have decided from time to time to make changes in the character of the railway, and have proposed to give it more ballast, to make more substantial bridges, and to make it a more substantial affair, I have no criticism whatever to offer. Everybody must realise that sooner or later it had to be made a permanent railway, and I do not think the House will find fault with the fact that the Government have decided that from the beginning it should be a permanent and not a temporary affair. But the estimates have greatly exceeded —even allowing for these changes in the nature of the railway—that which the Government laid publicly before the House. I regret very much that that has been so, and on broad grounds. The hon. Member for Northampton has always in all these African affairs been a pessimist, although, I admit, a very cheerful pessimist. Well—I make him a present of the admission—some of the things which he urged in the days when the question of Uganda was under discussion will enable him to point a moral in the course of the present debate. I would go further, and say that I very much regret that the Government, by their original estimates of the railway as compared with their present estimate, which we have now before us, have provided so much opportunity for pointing morals of that kind. The House undoubtedly has been pained not by the actual amount so much as by the surprise that it has been called upon to vote such a large amount. If this had been the actual amount originally put before the House I do not think it would have been felt to be half so alarming as it is at the present time. I have a little moral I should like to point if the House will allow me. It extends not only to Her Majesty's Government, but to many other governments as well. The amount of money which we are now called upon unexpectedly to vote comes in part from having had to proceed much too fast in the occupation of Africa in past years. The various European countries by their rivalry pressed each other forward. They occupied in haste, and now they find they have to repent at leisure. That is a moral that we have had brought home to us to-day; but it is a moral which is also being brought home to other countries, and I trust that where rivalry exists, in East Africa or elsewhere, we may be able in the future to agree together a little better than in the past. They will bear in mind the moral we have before us, and they and we should regulate the pace more steadily in the future. 1 do not complain that we have taken part in a scramble—I think we could not stand aside—but the result is undoubtedly this, that we now find ourselves in a very expensive stage. The initial expense of occupation, if it is done hurriedly, is much less than the expense of consolidation afterwards; and it is just at the stage of consolidation that we have arrived, and that is the most expensive stage. Therefore, lot us bear in mind that, if the money seems to us very large, it is the most expensive stage—that of making the capital expenditure before it is possible to make a careful estimate of what the return is likely to be. But, admitting that there was bound to be a great deal of expense incurred in the pace at which affairs had proceeded in Africa, that made it all the more necessary that, the Government should have put before us most careful estimates, so as to make the surprise as little as possible. I think in the case of this railway that the vote of money in the past years was taken in the dark. Not only that, but the Government has been in the dark, too. The question we have to ask is whether we are sure we are really in the light now. We know that in personal affairs when an individual has become involved in unexpected financial liabilities it is generally | exceedingly difficult to get him to disclose the whole of his liabilities. Well, this railway has boon in financial difficulties, and if we could be quite sure that we had the whole amount of these financial liabilities disclosed, I think we should feel much less apprehension about supporting the Government in the Bill which is now before the House. I welcome, therefore, what the right hon. Gentleman opposite has told us with regard to the complete-ness of the surveys which have been made respecting the work which has still to be done. But there is still the Mau escarpment to be got over, which is, I believe, the most difficult part of the work. We should have liked to be sure that these increased difficulties with regard to some of the parts of the line which remain have been amply allowed for. But I do think we may console ourselves a little if we consider that to the Government themselves it seems to have been a matter of painful surprise that they had to bring this largely-increased estimate before the House, and that they have not done so without making very careful inquiry into the expenses which still remain to be incurred. We may take that comfort, at any rate. I must say, as to the estimate of what still remains to be done, that we cannot feel confidence that it is a perfect estimate, but it is being made with considerably more care and knowledge than the original estimates which were put before us. The original estimates have turned out to be entirely misleading, and that, I think, is the real grievance we have against the Government. I am glad to think that the charge of having wasted the money which has already been spent is not one which on the evidence before us can be pressed home. Sir Guilford Molesworth's Report, which is very explicit as to the original estimates having been misleading, brings no charge of mismanagement or waste in the actual doing of the work. He says —

"Taking the system as a whole (comprising commissariat, accounts, transport, traffic, landing stores, repairing and erecting shops, medical and hospital arrangements, and the numerous other details which go to make up the complex organisation of this railway), it is characterised by the utmost method and careful consideration of detail."

I hope that will be borne out to the end, but that does not relieve the Government of some responsibility in having failed to impress on the House originally how very speculative the estimates were. What wore we told about the first survey? We were told in 1896 that the hon. Member for Northampton had described this railway as if it were a happy-go-lucky affair which the Government had taken in hand with no idea of where it was going to, what route was going to be adopted, and what estimates and surveys ought to have been made. What is the fact? In 1892 Major Macdonald executed a survey, of which a Report was laid before this House. It was a reconnaissance survey, executed with unusual care, and it confirmed the independent observations made by engineers of the highest character beforehand, and it has been confirmed by the observations of those who have been there since. But it was not, in the nature of the case, a detailed survey, and Lord Curzon said that therefore a margin had to be taken with regard to Major Macdonald's figures. The other day the right hon. Gentleman who succeeded Lord Curzon at the Foreign Office, said that over 580 miles of the distance to be traversed practically no survey had been made.

The hon. Gentleman misunderstood me, or I have been misreported. I said it was very difficult to estimate for a railway going through a country for more than 580 miles, for a considerable portion of which no survey had been made. I certainly did not suggest that the whole railway had not been surveyed.

I accept the interpretation of the right hon. Gentleman. Really the point I was making is this. We now know what the survey did amount to, and it is not that the hon. Gentleman opposite is putting any construction on the value of the original survey that I dispute at all, What I complain of is that when we were first asked to vote these two millions the matter ought not to have been put before as in quite such rosy colours. There are one or two points which strike one in regard to carrying out the work. We have had the position of the Crown Agents cleared up, but I am not quite sure I understand it altogether yet. I understand that they have fixed salaries, but varying incomes. The salary is fixed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, but is it a permanent salary fixed for year after year irrespective of the work done?

I believe the salary is just as much fixed as the salary of any official paid by this House.

Who pays it?

It is paid out of the fund derived from payments made by the colonies for work done. The scale of payment made by the Crown colonies for their work is rather more than the Crown Agents charge for this railway work.

Anyhow, one thing has been brought clearly out in this discussion, and that is, that the 1 per cent. does not go straight into the packets of the Crown agents. I assume that the salary, which is fixed by the Secretary of State, can be varied from time to time in proportion to the amount of the work these gentleman are called upon to do. That being so, I propose to leave their position, because I think that the position of the Crown agents is one that only comes incidentally into the question of the railway. But what does come directly into the question of the railway is whether, apart from the question of survey in the original estimates originally presented to the House, more could not have been foreseen of the expenditure at first. Take the question of labour. It was estimated that half the labour was to be obtained on the spot. I should have thought that the general experience of entirely undeveloped countries would have gone to throw very great doubt upon that estimate from the beginning. In the uncivilised parts of Africa all free labour is an acquired habit. Slave labour of every kind exists, but then we have agreed to put an end to the slave trade and to slave labour. Free labour is an acquired habit, and that habit obviously has not been acquired in the remote districts through which this railway has to pass. I think, therefore, that the insufficiency of the estimates with respect to labour might have been foreseen. Then with regard to the rise in the price of iron, I admit that rise might not have been foreseen, but then I think that the rule in estimating the cost of a railway is that contracts should be entered into for the amount of iron required. That would have been done if the usual practice which any contractor would have followed had been adopted, and if it had been done some of this extra expense would have been saved. Then with regard to water, it is very unfortunate that some of the water on the route should have turned out unfit for use in locomotives, but I should have thought that those concerned in making the survey would have analysed the water before they made a report that it was available for the purposes of locomotive service. On these grounds, I think that some disappointment might have been saved to the House if greater care had been taken in making these calculations. We have been asked to take a, lesson from this Department. What is the lesson? I always speak with great affection of the Foreign Office, and I would point out that Colonial Office control is not much better than Foreign Office control. I think that, as far as the Foreign Office is concerned, the charge ought not to be brought against the Foreign Office, but the complaint which may be brought forward is a general one. It may well be asked how far it is advisable to make railways under Government control. Let the charge be made a general one. In this case I admit it would be extremely difficult to transfer to a contractor the rest of the work to be done. We are dependent on coolie labour, and the Indian Government never permits Indian labour to be employed outside India except on certain guaranteed conditions, and I doubt whether it would be possible for any contractor to satisfy the Indian Government as to the conditions in which Indian labour would be employed. It would be much easier for the British Government to satisfy the Indian Government on that point. I think the lesson to be drawn is this. That we must be careful, in the work of developing all these parts of Africa, not to discourage people by making too small estimates beforehand. If public opinion once feels that Governments may not be disclosing the whole liabilities for work undertaken by them, you will have great apprehension created in the public mind, and you will have a return to that state of things which led a Committee to report in 1865 as regards large districts of Africa that we had better renounce all views upon them in the future. I should regret very much if that view gained on the public mind; but we have to remember that a good deal of expenditure has to be faced in the future in connection with the development of spheres of influence in Africa, for which we have become responsible. I believe the country is anxious at the present moment that as fast as possible the development and real occupation of these spheres of influence should be proceeded with, and the lesson to be borne in mind is this, that the expense which may have to be incurred from time to time before much return can be expected always appears doubly bad if it has been under-estimated in the first instance.

My hon. friend said that he regretted that I had been invariably right in everything in regard to this question. I regret it too, for it is no pleasure to me to see an extra two millions expended on this railway. My hon. friend said he did not regret the two millions, but he regretted the surprise that had come upon him because he was not told at the commencement that this extra two millions would be required. At any rate, I am free from that. I would suggest to my hon. friend that whenever he occupies a responsible position in this House, which I am sure he must do on some future occasion, and I have the honour of being a Member of the House, he will be good enough to listen to the criticisms—not my criticisms, but those of the Gentlemen on that bench opposite. These Gentlemen are always too sanguine in these matters. They come down with cut and dry estimates, and then the House invariably finds that they have to spend a great deal more. We poor pariahs down here do not pretend to be equal with the Brahmins on the front bench opposite, but we know that whenever the Gentlemen on that bench add two and two together they invariably make three of it for the benefit of the House. My hon. friend disclaimed, to a certain extent, all responsibility for the making of this railway. He might have gone a great deal further than that. He might have disdained entire responsibility. The Vote for this railway was obtained on utterly false pretences. We were asked to vote for a light railway. This is not a light railway to Uganda; it is a heavy railway, and it is not going to Uganda. If when we wore asked to agree to a Vote of £20,000 in order to recognise the principle of a light railway to Uganda, we had been told that it was to be a permanent railroad, and that it was not going to Uganda, we should not have granted that Vote. I do think we have a right to protest that, without the approval of this House, this railway has by degrees been changed in its ultimate destination, and also changed from a light railway costing £3,400 per mile to a heavy railway costing £8,700 per mile. We all know in this country what is the difference between a light and a heavy railway. I never yet heard that after a Bill for a light railway had been agreed to in this House any Government should take upon itself the responsibility of altering the character and destination of such railway. Then, when the right hon. the Under Secretary was making the best defence he could, he did not tell the House that this railway, although it has increased so enormously in cost, is to be 105 miles shorter than that we were asked originally to vote for. The railway we voted for was to go to Uganda; this railway goes to Florence Bay, 100 miles from Uganda, and very close to the German frontier. We shall have to pay for that railway, and the Germans will profit very much more by it than we do ourselves. Has the right hon. Gentleman forgotten the fact of the great additional expenditure required after the railway is taken to Florence Bay? There must be piers, and these will form part and parcel of the cost of connecting Uganda with the sea-coast. There is another great difficuly in the way. I understand that all round the lake, for a distance of three or four miles, the country is so pestiferous that people cannot live there; and therefore you will have great loss of life not only amongst the people compelled to work and reside at the lakeside, but also amongst the people passing through. The right hon. Gentleman boasted that there was one steamer already on the lake. He also said that there was to be one train a week. Possibly the traffic of the one train a week will he sufficient for the one steamer; hut if you are going to have a large traffic you must have large piers and large harbours. Really I was much amused when I read on Saturday the pleas which the poor Foreign Office has put forward for the mistakes made. I asked whether any such preposterous follies have ever before been urged as an excuse for the errors of a reconnaissance survey. I take one, that is in regard to the bridges. We were told that the bridges were too short and not strong enough, because the survey was made in summer, and that— what any child in a charity school knows —a great deal more water comes down in winter than in summer. I have not been in Uganda, and I have not been connected with railways, but I would have thought that in Africa, as in most other places in this world, there is more water in the rivers in winter than in summer. The right hon. Gentleman boasts that no money has been wasted or squandered. Nobody has said that anybody has put money in his pocket, but I say that money has been wasted by almost criminal folly. For instance, a large part of this railway and the bridges were swept away by floods after they were built. Now, railways and bridges are not built to be swept away, and if with our public money some intelligent officials at the Foreign Office build railways and bridges to be swept away shortly afterwards, that is a waste of public money. I cannot gather whether we had a proper survey or not. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had a survey upon which he could get a contract to-morrow, but he will pardon me if I say I do not think that that is so. The committee of the Foreign Office are dogmatising as to what this railroad is to cost, and they profess to be certain that it will not cost more; and the moral my right hon. friend the Member for the Berwick Division drew was that the Foreign Office knew exactly what it would cost, and were so exceedingly afraid of exceeding that amount that they would be careful that it would not cost more.

I did not say that.

I thought that was one of the morals drawn by my hon. friend; but, however that may be, when the Under Secretary of State comes down and says that the railroad will cost five millions, how can he possibly say it will cost only that amount? I made prophecy on prophecy when we were asked for three millions. I said this undertaking would cost more. The right hon. Gentlemen the Under Secretary jeered at me and called me a false prophet year after year, and now I prophesy again, having shown that I was a true and reliable prophet in the past, and I say the railroad will cost a very great deal more than five millions. I hope, after it has been shown that my prophecy was true, nobody will express surprise, though they may express regret, at the amount they will be asked to provide. In going into Committee the other night, the right hon. Gentleman said that the health of the coolies employed was very good, but we find from the report now issued that out of the 16,700 coolies employed 450 had died, and l,583 are in hospital. That cannot be called very good health when 2,000 out of 16,000 are either dead or invalids. Where is the good of this railway? Where is the custom to come from? I do not know whether you are going to make the Cape to Cairo Railway. It may be that you are, and that this is to be a feeder to that railway; but if that is so can anybody imagine anything more foolish than to build the Cape to Cairo railroad at one gauge and this railway at another. Anybody would tell you that it is only reasonable to make in our possessions in South Africa railroads of the same gauge. I do not know what this railroad is to be. We are told it is to be a heavy road, yet I find that the locomotives they propose to use only cost £1,900 each. The price of locomotives in this country is nearly £5,000.

May I remind the hon. Gentleman that the loco motives to be used on this line are tank locomotives having no tender, and the line is only a 3-feet gauge, consequently the engines are light, and the cost is low.

Can anyone tell me whether this railroad is a light or a heavy railroad?

Light.

We have been told it is to be a heavy or a permanent railroad, and now we are told by a celebrated engineer that it is to be a light railroad. We are in the clouds as regards this railroad. Now, I do not know much about Crown agents except that they exist; hut we have ascertained from the Chancellor of the Exchequer the fact that the Crown agent is paid by a commission of 1 per cent. on what he does, and it depends upon himself what he earns. He is not paid by the British taxpayer, hut by the colony which he represents. What colony does this Crown agent represent? Uganda is not a colony. Why in this case did not the Government go to the director of contracts? He has a staff to look after and make every contract for the Government. What was the reason for going to this Crown agent; to spend £1,500 more than was necessary? There is another question—were these contracts put out to public tender?

Largely.

Some of them were and some of them were not, but they all ought to have been. Nor is it proved that when this railway is completed there will be any material traffic for it, and if we are not going to profit by it it is useless to spend more money on it. Having reached the mountains, instead of continuing the railway, a metal road should be laid down. We could then see what traffic there was likely to he, and if it was found that the speculation was a sound one we could continue the railway. It is absurd to suppose that the Foreign Office know much about railways. We might as well send traffic managers as diplomatists to foreign countries. I am opposed to all this railroad making in South Africa. Talk of spheres of interest! I would rather see the money spent on spheres of population in England. If we make this railroad, let us do it on sound business principles, which it is abundantly clear we are not doing at present.

I would like to say a few words again on this Bill, and I think I shall be able to give the House some idea of this undertaking as it stands at present. The first survey of the line made by Major Macdonald was a recon-naissance survey. The result of such a survey was a very incomplete report. Sir Harry John stone was sent out to report, and when he gave us his report in 1893 there was an estimate made upon an utterly unworthy survey. In 1895 the matter came before the Committee, and it then became evident that the survey of Major Macdonald was an absolute farce. The result of that has been the confusion in which the Foreign Office now finds itself to-day. No one could make an estimate, because the survey was not made and the country was not explored. Then it was that we were told that the cost of the railway would, instead of £3,000 a mile, be nearer £8,000 a mile; and, looking at the maps and measuring escarpments, I have come to the conclusion that the total cost of the railroad will be a great deal more than the amount we are asked for to-night. After the survey was made and the accounts reached England in the November, the Committee say they were for the first time in possession of the necessary data for a complete estimate; but we find a contradiction there, because the plans were not prepared, and it was impossible to make an estimate without plans. I have come to the conclusion, therefore, that this mode of engineering means nothing but expense. They find they cannot got water for their engines, except of a very dangerous character, and they have got to erect condensing apparatus, and this item alone, unless they can sink artesian wells en route, will be an enormous expense. Then in the figures given for completing the line there is no account whatever for steamers to ply the lake. We know well enough that if we have a railroad up to the lake we must have jetties, piers, and steamers, and I want to know how many steamers the light hon. Gentleman proposes to put upon the lake. Does this estimate provide for the steamers on the lake or not? [A pause. Does this estimate provide for those steamers? [A pause.] Well, I think the House ought to be put in possession of this information before they are asked to vote this money. I can say nothing about the stupid policy of making a 3 ft. gauge line, but I think the House ought to be put in possession of all the information, and therefore I come back to the hard fact of business. Does this estimate cover the steamers? Does it cover the expense of erecting plant for the condensation of water? The plans have not been properly prepared. How can there possibly be an estimate? All these facts ought to he before the House, because there will be more money asked for for this railroad. I approved of the policy, and always supported the making of the railroad, but I think it is the duty of the Government to come down and give us the facts, and not to come for a million now and a million then. Such a course only shows that the work is not properly done, and is not carried out with the skill and enterprise generally credited to British engineers.

The hon. Member has moved an Amendment which is equivalent to the rejection of the Bill. I cannot vote for that Amendment. The mover of the Amendment, in a telling and forcible speech, showed up the mismanagement in the construction of the railway, and the unfortunate results that followed. Other hon. Members have pointed out the excess of expenditure there has been in the case, and what a mistake it was to entrust the construction of the railway to the sort of authority in charge of it. The right hon. Gentleman who speaks for the Foreign Office has not been able to meet the criticisms made, and has committed the mistake of proving too much on his own side. To listen to him one might have believed that if ever there was a cheaply and carefully constructed railway it was this. Hut the speeches made have abundantly shown the errors that have been committed. It was said that there had been a great rise in the price of materials during the construction of the railway. But I have been informed that no contractor for the construction of a railway thinks of doing anything less than immediately providing himself, at the price he had used for the basis of his contract, with all the material required, and then he could snap his fingers at changes in the market. If the price went down he was covered by his contract: if the price went up it did not matter. The question is, can anything be done now to change the method of constructing the line? It has not a very hopeful look. I do not think the contractor can with advantage be brought in at this stage. If there were no other reason there is this— which seems fatal to any such course— that the Government have employed 10,000 or 12,000 natives of India whom the contractor would not be allowed to use under the authority of the Indian Government, and whom he would not wish to use if allowed. For many reasons it is obvious that we must go on with the work we have been proceeding with hitherto. One matter which has come up in the course of this debate, subsidiary, perhaps, to the general question, but yet one of great interest, and one which I venture to commend to the investigating talent of the hon. Member for King's Lynn, is the position and authority of the Crown agents. We still do not understand their position. Money is paid out in commissions. They receive commissions on stores. Do the salaries exhaust the whole amount of these commissions? If the amount of the commissions is not equal to the salary then I suppose the Crown agent could go on purchasing materials in order to make up commission enough. At all events, there are mysteries about this particular branch of the public service which I think disserve a little investigation on the part of the House. I would at once say that, to my mind, nothing could be more likely to lead to maladministration, or careless administration, than that there should be a matter of such great public interest entrusted to an amphibious department of this sort, over which Parliament has no control, and the Government of this country has no control; and, indeed, it is hard to say, out of the multifarious clients or masters who have to deal with it, whether anyone has much control over it or not. That is a side issue which goes a good deal to throw light upon the present position of affairs. In these circumstances I cannot support the motion, which, if carried, would mean the rejection of the Bill. I have voted for the previous motion in Committee, and although my hon. friend beside me has proved that the late Government had no direct responsibility for this railway, or even for fixing the kind of railway, or any particulars of the railway, still, putting aside the responsibilities of Governments altogether, and treating it from the point of view of the responsibility of the House of Commons, this is not the time when we can go back, in my judgment, from what we have already committed ourselves to. We cannot change our system of construction with any advantage even if we could possibly do so, and therefore I will not support the motion of my hon. friend, which was moved by him, as he explained at the time, rather as a moans of empha- sizing his strong opinion on the mismanagement, than from any hostility to the railway or the policy of the railway, of both of which he expressed his entire approval.

I wish to say a word with regard to the speech my right hon. friend delivered in support of the Bill.† There was one curious omission in his speech, and that was that he made no attempt to explain how the measure would remedy the evils complained of. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will tell us how this Bill will effect the purposes desired. The Bill is one of that class which the House in

†For the first portion of this Debate see pages 351–386, of this volume.

recent years has shown great disinclination to sanction unless an overwhelming case can be shown in support of them. The Bill is one in restraint of trade. It is a Bill for the purpose of introducing restrictions on one of the great industries of the country. It is a Bill for the purpose of creating a new penalty- -a penalty which must be frequently incurred by perfectly innocent people as anyone knowing how the trade is carried on in this country will admit. The right hon. Gentleman said the Bill was one to increase the food supply of the people. My complaint is that it is going to compulsorily destroy part of the food of the people. It is going to compel fishermen who have undersized fish in their vessels to throw these fish overboard. Without doing any possible good to the supply of fish in the sea, that will have the effect of cutting off a certain amount of the food supply of the people. It is a Bill of the class that the House is reluctant, and rightly reluctant, to pass unless there is an overwhelming case shown for it, and the enforcement of its provisions must be accompanied by great irritation to the trade. The Bill makes it an offence for any person to import, export, buy, sell, or expose for sale, any sole not exceeding eight inches in length, or any turbot or brill not exceeding ten inches in length. How is the owner of a smack going to be held liable for the import, export, buying, selling, or exposing for sale of certain flat fish, unless they exceed a certain size? A man having a sole in his possession of seven-seven-eighths inches in length, being one-eighth inch below the regulation size, is liable to be haled before a magistrate. He may have had nothing to do with the catching of the fish. Everytime fish are handled they are injured, every hour they are delayed affects their marketable value. If he has the fish in his possession he is liable to he haled before a magistrate and fined with all the odium and disgrace attaching to police-court proceedings. Not only so, but if an officer has reason to believe— here we have a suspect clause if an officer has reason to believe that any one fish is below the regulation size he is to have power, without appeal, to detain that consignment of fish. He may have been quite wrong in his surmise, but the Bill, recognising what delay means to a perishable commodity, provides that if the officer has acted wrongfully, and if, by reason of its detention, the fish has become unfit for food, the consignment is to be destroyed without any compensation to the unfortunate victim of this suspecting officer. These being the provisions of the Bills, I am not surprised that my right hon. friend did not dwell too much on the details. He said that other countries had passed laws of a similar character. He mentioned Germany, and in doing so he repeated an error of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberdeen had previously been guilty. The right hon. Gentleman said Germany had passed restrictive legislation. I ventured to tell him then, and I tell him now, that that statement is inaccurate. Germany has not passed a restrictive measure on fish of any particular size, such as is suggested by this Bill. Further, there is no prospect of their doing so, and that is one of the reasons why an international agreement is out of the question at the present moment. If Germany had already passed a measure in the direction of this Bill obviously there would be no difficulty in getting an international agreement. On the one hand, we are told these nations have passed measures in favour of restriction, and in the next breath we are told that it is necessary to have an international agreement. Obviously the one statement disposes of the other. Germany has not passed such a measure, and I think it is a great pity a statement of that kind should have been given currency to by such responsible Members of the House as the President and ex-President of the Board of Trade. The House has already been told that this Bill is founded on a recommendation of a Select Committee of the House, That being so, it is necessary that the House should go back to the authority on which we are asked to legislate, and see what ground there is for the statement that this Bill carries out either the recommendations of that Committee or the evidence given before the Committee. I wish to call attention to the Report of the Committee itself, and especially to the opening paragraph, which says—

"They desire, however, to place it on record that a Committee of the House of Commons is not an altogether satisfactory tribunal to take evidence with regard to the grievances and wants of fishermen, so far as the evidence of the fisherman themselves is concerned. This is partly on account of the fact that the time at which Parliamentary Committees sit is exactly that at which fishery operations are carried on most conveniently and with the greatest amount of success; and partly because a Parliamentary Committee necessarily requires all witnesses to attend at Westminster —a source both of expense in the conduct of the inquiry, and of inconvenience to the fishermen themselves. Your Committee would therefore suggest that, if further information should appear to be desirable, it might be well that this inquiry should be supplemented by the appointment of small Departmental Committees, which, by visiting various fishing centres around the coast, would give full scope to fishermen to bring forward any suggestions or grievances which they may have."

I was a member of the Committee myself. That is in the very forefront of their Report, and that is a distinct intimation to this House that before any serious legislation affecting the interests of fishermen should be attempted, the fishermen should have full and proper opportunity of being heard in the only way they can be heard—at their own ports by a Departmental Committee or by a Royal Commission. The Committee went on to deal with the various matters referred to them, and again I call attention to the fact that the scope of the inquiry was by no means confined to the prohibition of the sale of undersized fish. They were also to report on the questions whether it was desirable to regulate certain methods of fishing, whether it was desirable to protect certain defined areas, whether it was desirable to have arrangements, international or otherwise, and then, amongst other things, whether they could recommend any measures for preserving and improving sea fisheries, including the prohibition of the capture, landing, and sale of undersized fish. Thai being so, 1 venture to think that it would be instructive to the House to follow the methods adopted in getting evidence before that Committee. One of the arguments adduced in favour of the Bill is that it is supported by those who are the greatest sinners in the matter of the destruction of undersized fish—namely, the fishermen of Hull and Grimsby. We are told that the very fact that the Hull and Grimsby interests are chiefly affected by the passing of this measure is very much in favour of the Bill. I venture to think that ought rather to excite suspicion. I venture to say—we are dealing with the question of fish now—that rather suggests the drawing of a red herring across the path. It suggested to me, and it became materialised into a conviction when I began to sit on that Committee, that Hull and Grimsby being admittedly the principal offenders, almost the entire offenders, were anxious that this Parliamentary Committee—one of whose duties was to inquire into certain methods of fishing—should not inquire too closely into those methods, and, above all, should not make a recommendation to Parliament with respect to the methods of catching fish. The result was that at the first two or three meetings a distinct lead was given to the Committee by witnesses who were called and examined on proofs, as they would have been in a court of law. These witnesses came to the Committee for the purpose of making out a case for this Bill, and the hon. Member for Islington took them through their evidence in chief, and they were then subjected to what was practically a cross-examination at the hands of other Members of the Committee. If the House will bear with me, I will call attention very shortly to what these witnesses themselves said. The first witness was Mr. Towse, the very respected clerk of the Fishmongers' Company and hon. secretary of the National Sea Fisheries Protection Association. I am myself a member of that body, and, by way of heaping coals of fire on my head for my opposition to this Bill, the members a fortnight ago elected me to serve on the Executive Committee. I do not wish to undervalue the useful work the association does; but at the same time, when its opinion is quoted —and it is known that it is the body responsible for the introduction of this Bill—that association has no right to speak as representative of the whole fishing industry of the country. It is a body which is largely controlled from Hull and Grimsby, and yet their first witness admits the necessity for international legislation. Mr. Towse allows this to slip out in his evidence—

"Our fishermen, I think, should have equal rights with foreign fishermen."

And he then pronounces an opinion in favour of international legislation—

"Can you say whether the feeling is that legislation should he on national or international lines?"

He answers promptly—

"International lines."

Therefore, the very first witness called in support of this Bill emphatically states that what he has gathered as the general opinion in the fishing trade is that legislation should be on international lines.

"Can you give any reason for that preference?—Because if it were national it would only a fleet our fishermen, and they could only land certain sized fish; whereas, if it were international, it would prevent foreigners landing undersized fish for sale.

Even in their own countries?—Yes, even in their own countries.

"Does it appear to you disadvantageous that foreigners should be at liberty to fish and land fish in their own countries without any obstacle, and that Englishmen should he prevented from doing the like, or the contrary? What is the feeling of fishermen?—Our fishermen, I think, should have equal rights with foreign fisherman."

Then, a little later on, he is asked to what he attributes the alleged diminution in the supply of fish, and he says it is due to the introduction of steam trawling, giving some remarkable figures as to the growth of steam trawling in this country, and the corresponding decrease in the sailing trawling, that decrease during the previous six or eight years being no less than 8,000 or 9,000 tons. He proceeds to give figures showing that hundreds of tons of undersized fish were annually landed in this country, which were practically valueless and were sold for manure, thereby proving that it was not the object of the fishermen to catch these fish. Then he is asked for his remedy, and, as I say, he was called for the purpose of supporting the prohibition of the landing and sale of undersized fish. He is asked how it would be possible to prevent the destruction of these fish simply by prohibiting their being landed and sold, and why the fishermen go to these areas where the small fish are caught, if, when they have caught the fish it docs not pay them to bring them to shore. His answer is: "I cannot answer that satisfactorily." That is just the question we want answered satisfactorily. To my mind that is the crux of this Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman could adduce any reliable evidence to show that by the passing of this Bill that which we all deplore—the destruction of immature fish—could be prevented, then, though it might be harassing and lead in certain cases to loss, I for one should say at once to my constituents that in spite of the loss they ought in the general interest to submit to the measure. But if, as I suggest, the only effect will be not the prevention of the destruction of immature fish, but the submission of the fishing trade to a harassing and unjust restriction, I say, in Heaven's name, reject the Bill. The second witness was a Mr. Alward, a member of the executive of the National Sea Fisheries Association. His evidence in chief had been given supporting the proposal to prohibit the, landing and sale of undersized fish, and again, some members of the Committee wanted to know what his views were with regard to a national or an international agreement. He says that we (that is, Great Britain) are not the principal market for the sale of these undersized fish—

"I could not, say that we are the principal market for them, because I think that in Holland, in my early period, they used an immense quantity of these small fish."

And he said they also had a large sale for them in Ostend. Then he is asked by the hon. Member for South Islington—

"First of all, would you have that done by national legislation or by international legislation?—I should prefer legislation of an international character. I do not say it would not be effectual or beneficial to our fisheries, even if it was done nationally.

"But both your fishermen and foreign fishermen could still take the small fish, if it were not international, into foreign ports and get rid of it, could they not?—That would be the difficulty."

There you have the second witness admitting in reply to questions by the Committee, that a restriction of this kind would be ineffective, and that it would be unjust to our men unless it was of an international character. He is then asked a very material question—whether the prohibition of the landing and sale of undersized fish would have any effect in compelling the fisherman when he draws up his trawl to throw those fish back again into the sea, and whether by being restored to their native element the fish could grow to maturity.

"Can you give us any idea of the proportion which would survive of what, was thrown overboard?— It would depend largely upon the particular nature of the bottom just at that particular point, because, if the trawling happened to be over that very oozy ground, as it is off Heligoland, an immense amount of sand would be mixed with the fish, and the fish would be choked. Now, with the same length of haul and the same rate of speed maintained, a little further up, where the ground is harder, it would be clean, and a number of the fish would survive after being thrown overboard, if the haul was not too long.

"In 1884, Sir Edward Birkbeck, when asked a question on this very subject, said that he would consider that about one-tenth of the immature fish would, on the average, be found alive when the trawl was pulled up; would yon agree with that estimate?—Not with a long haul.

"It would not be one-tenth part, do you think?—No. That requires qualifying. If there was an instruction that a man must make a one-hour haul I would be disposed to agree with Sir Edward, but if he was allowed to make a six-hour haul I should say that few would be alive."

The House will observe the importance of that statement—a statement supported by witness after witness subsequently called—that by merely enacting that a fish below a certain size should not be landed and sold, you cannot—by an Act of Parliament—restore the life of that fish, and that inasmuch as the average duration of the trawl is now about six hours, practically every undersized fish, when the trawl is hauled up, is already destroyed. What good are you going to do by an Act which says that, although a fish is dead, you should not bring it ashore, but should throw it into the sea again? The evidence is that the fish are practically all destroyed when the trawl is brought up. The witness then gives this very curious fact, showing how unnecessary legislation of this kind is, and how little good it will do, if passed, in preventing the destruction of the fish—

"Is it the fact that there are many thousands of tons in the course of a season thrown overboard because they would he perfectly useless for the market, being too small? —Yes. I think I can speak to a fact which came under my notice not more than fourteen days ago, where a man had, I think it was, between 300 and 400 boxes of those fish just above the size, and when asked how many small ones he bad thrown overboard, he said a great many more than he had brought in in bulk, so that if he had done it in bulk we may multiply it in figures by many hundreds."

In other words, at this moment, where under-sized fish are landed on to the deck of the trawler many of them are so small that it would be useless to bring them ashore, and therefore they are thrown overboard. Obviously no Act of Parliament is going to affect that, and obviously also, the men do not go to these places for the purpose of catching these small fish. That is the great blot on this Bill. The only result will be that the fish which he brings to shore now and gets something for, although it may be very little, and which in the end can be sold for cheap food, he is not to be allowed to land and sell, on the theory that by preventing the landing of the fish you are going to increase the supply in the deep sea. The remedy which this witness was called to support, and did support in his evidence in chief, was that proposed in this Bill; but, again, in cross-examination he says that the real remedy is protected areas. The argument for the Bill is that there are certain areas well known to fishermen where these small fish are pleased to classify themselves like children, and from which the big fish religiously keep away, and if you make it illegal to land and sell these fish yon will keep the fishermen away from these areas. The first observation which would be made by anyone who heard that statement would be, Is it not a clumsy way of protecting those areas to say the men are not to land the fish caught in their net instead of keeping the men off those areas? And so this witness, with a good deal of wisdom, suggested that, in his opinion, the remedy was protected areas for a certain season, and by a system of international policing. Obviously it could not be done by mere legislation in this House, as the areas are outside the territorial limits. The next witness was a Hull man, an alderman and an ex-mayor of that place. At the very commencement of his evidence he is asked—

"Would you propose merely to make that a national law or an international law?"

And his answer is —

"It would be no use making it only national. If it were not international it would not be workable, because the people up and down the German coasts have lots of steam trawlers, and they would catch the fish and bring them and land them."

Then he is asked a question about the fish being found dead in the trawl, and he says that quite 95 per cent., of the fish brought up in the trawl are dead. He admits rather than volunteers the statement that the diminution in the supply of fish is due to what he calls the action of the steam trawlers in sweeping the North Sea. He explains, as other witnesses explained to the Committee, that the very fact of steam being the motive power makes steam trawlers independent of wind and tide, and therefore they can cross and re-cross the same area, scraping the bottom of the sea until they have caught practically every living thing to be found in that area. They are not subject to the restrictions nature imposes on the sailing trawlers, and so he points out that it is the steam trawlers, by what he calls over-fishing, who have brought about the diminution so far as there is a diminution. Then comes another witness from Grimsby. I venture to repeat that these are the men on whose evidence almost entirely that part of the Committee's report is founded, which recommends something in the nature of this Bill. This witness is director of several trawling companies and of ice companies in Grimsby, and he is asked what remedy he suggests for the state of affairs. [An HON. MEMBER: What is his name?] His name is Mr. Charles Jeffs, and he is asked—

"What remedies do you suggest for this state of affairs?—I think we should close certain areas which are well defined and. mapped out on this chart."

He suggests the areas should be closed for, say, March, April, May, and June. He confirms the view of other witnesses that 90 per cent. of the fish would be dead when brought up in the trawl. He is then asked whether it would be possible to compel them only to have the trawl down for a shorter period, to which he answers—

"If we could make one hour hauls it would make all the difference, and you would get a very large percentage of them alive, but you would want a policeman for every vessel, to see that they hauled the trawl to time, so that that is not a practicable thing to do."

Then came another gentleman from Hull. The House will see that practically all the evidence in favour of this remedy is from Hull and Grimsby. This witness is Mr. Richard Simpson, a member of the Hull Town Council.

"Would you propose to make any regulations of laws to prohibit the landing and sale | of undersized fish?"—"International, not otherwise, or else foreign fishermen would have a large preference over the Englishmen I think."

So here is another man stating emphatically that in his view unless this legislation is international it is going to be of no use whatever. If the House were asked to legislate on international lines many of the objections I am urging would not apply, and I am trying to show the House that the very men who were called to make out a case for this Bill almost unanimously assert that it should be on international lines or not at all. This witness is asked:—

"You are clear about that, are you?—I think so; that is my opinion. In fact I was talking to some of our captains, and then ideas were that it should be one rule, or else the foreigners would have a preference over them."

I for one am not prepared to vote for a measure which is going to give a preference to foreigners over British fishermen in connection with the rights of fishing in the North Sea. I will be no party to a Bill which while imposing restrictions on our own fishermen in the North Sea will not impose the same restrictions on foreign fishermen fishing in the same waters. The only result of such a measure would be that if our men abstained from going to those grounds, as it is suggested they would if this Bill was passed, they would leave the ground freer, and therefore there would be a greater inducement for foreigners to go there. There was another Grimsby witness called, Mr. William Crossley Normington, and he gives the same evidence as the others. He comes fairly up to his proof until he is subjected to cross examination, and the Member for West Aberdeen puts a question to him with regard to the international law. "Yes," says the witness, "it would be better if it was international." He is then asked whether the destruction on these fishing grounds had increased very largely since the development of steam trawling, and he said it had. A little later on he is asked to explain how the prohibition of the landing and sale of undersized fish would prevent their being caught in the trawl, and he says that not a man would go to catch fish that he could not sell. That shows an arcadian simplicity which I should hardly have expected from anyone engaged in the Grimsby fishing trade.

"But would not they still go to catch larger fish?—There are no larger among the small plaice at the present time.

"Would it stop fishing altogether then?— Yes, on that coast with English vessels.

"But not with foreign vessels?—No."

The House will see that there again the witness is compelled to admit that if we had something which prevented our fishermen resorting to certain catching grounds in the North Sea, while foreign countries who have interests in the North. Sea, and whose Meets fish there, were not under the same restrictions, the only possible result would be to leave the ground more free for the foreigners, or else to leave our fishermen to take that portion of their catch to foreign markets instead of landing it in Great Britain. Therefore the case for the Bill goes. Then Mr. Little, of Plymouth, another member of the Sea Fisheries Association, is called, something like Balaam of old, except that the process is reversed; he is called to bless the Bill, and he curses it straight off. He says—

"We say that on our grounds there is no falling off in the supply of flat fish, and as we are not sinners in the same manner as the Hull find Grimsby men are, we disagree with any legislation which will do us an injury without doing any good."

Here I ought to say that I very much sympathise with the position of Members representing fishing ports in Devon-shire and Cornwall. The Report of this Committee not only does not suggest there was any falling off in the English Channel, but it distinctly states there was not. The Report says—

"When, however, we come to the large class of flat fish, the circumstances differ. Off the south coast of England, the evidence seems to show with regard to these fish also that there has been little or no falling off in their size or in their abundance."

Although the Report of this Committee states that so far as the south coast is concerned there is no case for this Bill, yet this measure is to apply to the whole of the United Kingdom, to put restrictions on those who have not done anything to deplete the areas over which they fish, and to apply to grounds in respect of which no legislation is necessary. The witness goes on to say—

"It would be simply making us throw away saleable fish, and it would not improve the supply of Mat fish at all."

But he goes further, and says that to throw this dead fish into the fishing areas would not only do no good, but would inflict injury upon the fishing grounds. He says—

"I believe vessels would go into exactly the same places, would capture the same amount of small fish, and the fish would be thrown overboard and do more injury to the fishing ground than if they were brought to the market and sold."

He went on to give evidence in support of that statement, and said that by throwing a lot of dead fish into a fishing area and nursing ground the result is that you make a fish cemetery and drive the fish away from that particular area. Those were the statements made to us. This witness—John Little—claims to be a great authority, but he does not stand alone in this view, for other witnesses also gave evidence to the effect that throwing over dead fish into the fishing area causes absolute injury to that area as a reproductive centre. Mr. Little made many other statements in support of the views I have been urging, and he fortunately emphasised the question of international agreement. He was asked—

"Would you have a close time by international agreement?"

And he replied—

"I would outside territorial waters, but 1 think it would be well if it could be managed to extend territorial waters for fishing purpurposes."

He recommends as the best remedy which occurs to him that we should have protected areas, and he says that the best remedy for protecting these young fish is by international police under international agreement to prevent fishing during certain closed seasons. As to the effect of throwing overboard large quantities of dead fish, this witness stated that the fish avoid these cemeteries, as they are called, and he mentions the case of herrings and other fish. It is unnecessary for me to tell the House that with regard to fish — and more particularly with regard to deep-sea fish—a great deal rests upon theory and very little upon actual knowledge. One of the facts which was established in the minds of the members of the Committee was how little we really do know about the habits of these deep-sea fish. Every one of the technical witnesses, who gave evidence as to experiments and trials which had been made, admitted that, practically, there were very few authorities on the subject, and very little was really known. The opinion of the Sea Fisheries Committees has been cited by the President of the Board of Trade as being in favour of this Bill. I happen to know how the favourable opinion of some of these Committees is obtained—I was almost going to say manufactured. They are told that this is a measure for the purpose of preventing the destruction of undersized fish. They are then told what a lamentable thing it is to destroy these undersized fish, which, if they were only allowed to grow to maturity, would furnish a large food supply for the people. They are told that this is a Bill to prevent that destruction. I contend that if the question is put to any man in that way he will answer in the affirmative. Then they are asked to urge, by all the pressure they can, their Members of Parliament to support the Bill. I have met Members of Parliament on both sides of the House who have said, "I don't know anything of the Bill, or what it is going to do. I know it is a bad thing to destroy these undersized fish, and I am told this Bill is going to stop it." Naturally, many hon. Members will follow such a lead, and naturally the promoters of the Bill desire to create the impression that there is a large body of public opinion outside this House who have thoroughly studied the question, and who are in favour of this particular measure. But nothing of the kind is the case, and this Bill will not bear examination. I am glad that my right hon. friend has consented to the appointment of a Select Committee, because if that is fairly chosen I am perfectly sure the effect must be to secure the rejection of this measure. We had the advantage of having before us the chair- man of the Lancashire sea Fisheries District Committee, and he came up to bless the Bill. He was asked—

"Do you yourself share the opinion of most of the witnesses we have had before us that if regulations could be made prohibiting the landing and sale of the small sized fish that the fishermen would not capture them?"

And he replied—

"I think, at the same time, if such a regulation were made it would be absolutely necessary that the instruments of capture should be regulated as nearly as possible to the capture of the size of fish which would be offered for sale. Without that mere prohibition of sale would be of little value."

There, again, the whole of the evidence in favour of the measure is neutralised. The statement that in his opinion mere prohibition of sale would be of little value unless you regulate the size of the instruments of catch to be employed is of great importance. It is the same with almost every witness called to support those recommendations, for when their evidence came to be tested and sifted, and questions put to them, in almost every case they suggested some other measure or said that this measure by itself would be no good. Having heard that evidence the Committee made its Report in 1893, and again I would will the attention of the House to the way in which the Committee reported upon these particular questions. Here is one paragraph out of several recommendations which they made. They say—

"Your Committee are unable to recommend either of these limits; they think that, while it might be desirable to forbid the sale of flat fish, the adoption of the sizes suggested would involve great hardship to many of the poorer fishermen who fish near the shore in the smaller class of boats."

Observe the qualification "it might be desirable." In the next paragraph they recommend what the sizes should be for soles, plaice, turbot, and brill, and the Report says—

"They also consider that a. strong effort should be made to secure the adoption of uniform regulations for limits of size and other matter by all the nations interested in the North Sea Fisheries."

The Chairman of the Committee, Lord Tweedmouth, who drafted the Report, has himself in the House of Lords stated that the distinct understanding of the Committee was that it should be earned by international agreement, and if the House will look at the Report of that Committee, they will sec that the Report was only carried by seven votes to three, and of those seven two have since declared against it, and tints they neutralise absolutely the recommendations of the other five. Two or three members of the Committee who were not present when the vote was taken were opposed to the Report, so that a majority of the Committee, as constituted in 1893, after having had twenty sittings, and after going exhaustively into the evidence, are opposed to the proposals of this Bill. That being so, I think the House will agree that it is not unreasonable—representing, as I have the honour of doing, one of the most important fishing ports of this Kingdom, which employs between 4,000 and 5,000 men actually upon vessels engaged in fishing, which is their staple industry—that I should have stated, even at some length, why my constituents view with alarm and suspicion a Bill of this nature, which will impose penalties and restrictions upon them without effecting any useful object in the interests of the community. I thank the House for the indulgence with which they have allowed me to put my views before them. I will conclude by summarising the objections of the Lowestoft fishing industry to the proposals of this Bill, as set out in a Petition which they presented to this House in 1895 —

(a) That the restrictions proposed to he applied cannot prevent the catching and destruction of undersized fish.

(b) That it will deprive the fishermen of the proceeds of a portion of their catch, by compelling them to throw overboard what are defined as undersized Mat fish, ninety per cent. of which are dead when brought up in the trawl.

(c) That to throw overboard dead fish in the fishing grounds will be injurious to the same.

(d) That there is an increasing market abroad for small-sized flat fish, and that the effect of the present Bill would be to deprive the British fishermen of the right of sale, while it would leave the ground free to the foreigner.

(e) That it would inflict serious injury upon longshoremen and the fishermen around our coast who do no harm to unmarketable fish, but on the contrary it would compel them to throw away many marketable fish.

(f) That, as stated in the Report of the said Committee, no opportunity has been offered to practical fishermen to be heard before the Committee, and that no restrictive legislation should be introduced until they have had an opportunity of giving evidence at their own ports and at a season of the year when they can be heard.

(g) That in the event of such a, Bill being passed it would introduce vexatious and harassing regulations as well as great delay in a trade, for the successful carrying on of which quickness of despatch and unhampered action are essentially necessary, and that it would be practically impossible to enforce it.

(h) That if any such restrictive legislation is to be enforced it should be by an International Convention on the part of all the Powers interested in the North Sea Fisheries, as expressly stated by the majority of the witnesses before the Select Committee and by the Committee in their Report.

• 4. That an inevitable result of the Bill becoming law would be to deprive the longshore fishermen of their living and compel them to seek employment elsewhere, so that in consequencet hereof it would become impossible to obtain efficient crews to man the lifeboats on our coasts, and that such a result would necessitate the nationalisation of the lifeboat service at a great expense to the country and to the detriment of the service.

Upon those grounds I shall certainly support my hon. friend's motion for the rejection of the Bill. Knowing as I do that the Government can command probably a large majority for the Second Heading, I am thankful that we are to have the opportunity before a Select Committee of stating our case. I am also thankful that the President of the, Board of Trade has given the assurance that the motion for the Second Heading is not to be deemed to prejudge the question as to whether the prohibiting of the sale of undersized fish will prevent their destruction.

I make no apology for addressing the House on a question of this character, because it is a question which intimately concerns Scotland. I am very glad to have an opportunity of saying a few words with regard to this Bill, because the fishing industry, however important to England, is of much greater importance proportionately to Scotland, and more than once during the present Parliament I have culled attention to the want of interest, and I might almost say the neglect, with which the fishing industry has been treated at the hands of the present Government. There is a growing feeling that while it is of great importance to carefully protect and cultivate the interests which we have abroad, there is also a duty which we may, at the same time, very wisely fulfill, and that is to cultivate the resources which we have at home, and although this particular measure is not of any great importance or magnitude, yet I believe it deserves the very careful consideration of the House. In my opinion this Bill will not effect any reform at all, and even according to its supporters it is not likely to effect great things for the fishing industry, and it may therefore be somewhat surprising that a measure of such small scope and effect should raise such divergencies and differences of opinion. We are all agreed as to the evils complained of. We all know that times have changed for fishermen, not only for fishermen as a whole but also for inshore fishermen. The day has gone by when they could go out a small distance from the coast and get a catch. They have to go further a field now and be content with a smaller catch, and very often with a smaller price in the market. Those are things common to all parts of the coast, and I am not at all disposed to differ from the supporters of this Bill as regards the existence of the evils with which it intends to deal. I agree as to the existence of these evils, I lament and deplore them, but what I con-tend is that this particular method is not the wisest method to deal with them. On its merits it is not a wise remedy, and I do not myself believe that the support extended to it in the House is extended to it on its merits as a wise and benevolent piece of legislation. I believe that the real support given to this measure comes from those who rather fear some alternative method of reform which will strike more closely at the interests which they represent, and in that connection it is very significant that the strongest support of it comes from those who most strongly oppose what I may call the alternative method of procedure, namely, the protection of areas, and, if you like to go further, the protection of seasons also. One argument has been brought forward during the discussion of this Bill which I did not hear before when similar Bills were previously discussed, and that is that the passing of this measure will facilitate that international co-operation which a great many of us desire. It is stated that other nations are waiting for us, and that they are ready to move on parallel lines with us in order to secure further measures of reform in which every country having a coast on the North Sea is deeply interested. We have had the experiment in Scotland of the closing of Moray Firth, which was practically on the lines on which it is suggested we should proceed, namely, by unclosing areas rather than by limiting the size of the fish. The trawlers have always brought forward as a reason against the continued closing of the Moray Firth that foreign trawlers could always go into it and take from it fish protected by our domestic legislation to the great loss of British trawlers. Exactly the same objection applies to the provisions of the present Bill. Yon may prevent the fishermen of this country taking small fish, but you cannot prevent foreign fishermen doing so, and this Bill is therefore open to the same objection — I do not say it is a fatal objection —as the closing of the Moray Firth. The main argument against the Bill is that it does not place foreign fishermen on the same footing as British fishermen. It has been stated that foreign fishermen cannot sell undersized fish in their own country, but we had it from the hon. Member for Lowestoft—and he was not contradicted —that my right hon. friend the Member for South Aberdeen was entirely wrong in that statement, and that there was no such legislation in Germany. [An HoN. MEMBER: Prussia.] Prussia proper has no coast on the North Sea, though it has a shore on the Baltic. The gravest objection to this Bill is, as I have stated, that it discriminates, I think, unfairly, between foreign and British fishermen. Every hon. Member who has spoken tonight admits that we all want a cure; but how can the right hon. Gentleman say that this is a cure? First of all, we have the argument that it is to bring food to the poorer classes. As a matter of fact it does exactly the reverse. The poorer classes buy the small fish which you are not going to allow to be sold. Who is to bring this food? Is it to be the inshore fishermen, who fish either with a line or the small seine net? These bring the class of larger fish in far greater measure, or, at any rate, in far better condition than the trawlers. If this measure were to be passed to-morrow a greater hardship would be imposed on the poorer classes than on the well-to-do classes. The real fact is that although by this Bill you are going to prevent the big trawler from selling and importing the small fish, you are not going to prevent him exporting the small fish, or capturing them. The incontrovertible evidence given before the Committee is that 90 per cent. of the fish so caught do not survive the catching. Therefore you are going to prevent these fish, which are perfectly good and cheap food, and which when caught are killed beyond recall, being landed and sold in the markets of this country to the people who appreciate them when they can get them. You are going to hit the small men without doubt. Now, these small men are a very valuable industrial element in the community. It is from them that yon look to recruit your naval reserve and the mercantile marine. It was only the other day that the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to grant a Return concerning the education of fishermen and their in-eligibility to enter the mercantile marine because of the lack of educational requirements. One of the reasons for this is that the fishing industry is getting into the hands of trawling companies with large boats, and there is less necessity for any large number of the crew having a real knowledge of navigation and seamanship. And there are now symptoms that there is not so much desire on the part of these men to acquire a knowledge of seamanship, so that they may rise a step higher in their craft. We cannot, after all, legislate purely on theory. We must balance the advantages and disadvantages in any particular measure, and we must bear in mind that there are other contributions to the welfare of the country by the fishing population, than merely by bringing fish to the market. If you then hit the small men, do you get any compensatory advantage? My contention is that this measure would not be effective on account of foreign competition. It would not be of use, because 90 per cent. of the catch by the trawlers must be returned to the sea dead or alive. No alteration of the mesh of the net would make any difference to the small sole struggling to get out of the pocket of the trawl net. I do not believe we are going on the right lines. If you follow the proceedings of the Hydrographic Conference last year, and the Report of the Committee of 1893, you will find that the real line of advance is in enclosing areas and experimenting in these areas. I quite agree with the hon. Member for King's Lynn, that a right scientific knowledge does not warrant us in advancing on the lines adopted in this Bill. It is better to do nothing than to do what is mischievous. I know that there are difficulties in the way, but the Government are greatly to blame in not having pushed on the question of international agreement. Scotch Members, ever since this Parliament began, have pressed this matter on the attention of the Government, and there is ample proof that they have been supine in regard to it. I believe the Secretary for Scotland has pressed it on the Government, who are greatly to blame for not giving more money to carry on experiments like those prosecuted in the United States of America, in Canada, and even at the Cape of Good Hope. It is only by scientific research that we can get authentic information on this matter. The right lines to pursue, therefore, are scientific inquiry, which can only be pursued in protected areas and in protected seasons. One word as to the application of the Bill to Scotland. No one can deny that the Scottish Fishery Board has done much to protect the Scottish Fisheries. I have heard English members regret that they have not a Central Fishery Board like what we have in Scotland. Does this Bill apply to Scotland, or does it not? The Lord Advocates name is no longer on it.

By an accident.

Then it does apply to Scotland?

That is quite a new doctrine.

It is quite a new doctrine; but I will tell the Lord Advocate that it introduces quite a new practice also. The officers of the Fishery Board in Scotland are the people who carry out the administration of the fishery laws, but under this Bill any officer of Customs or of the Hoard of Trade is to carry out this measure, so that you will have two or three concurrent and conflicting authorities. ft would be much more useful and natural, and much more likely to be successful, to allow the Fishery Board officers to carry out the measure, and not allow other authorities who are perfectly unacquainted with fishery matters to have to do with it. It seems obvious to me that the Government ought either to say that the Bill does not apply to Scotland, or to leave its administration to the Scottish Fishery Board.

My principal object in rising as a representative of a very important fishing centre on the East Coast is to endorse the view which has been taken by all the opponents of this Bill. I see no justification for putting restrictions or limitations on our own fishermen under the idea that you are going to preserve the fish, while those foreign nations who are not in accord with us are ready to buy and consume those fish. I think the whole tendency of the Report of the Select Committee of 1893 shows in the most striking manner that no effective good can come from the simple restriction of the sale of fish in this country. And I think when my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade, in order to meet the hostility of Members like myself, who are interested in a very large number of a poor and deserving class of fishermen, to the restrictions and limitations in the Bill, offers a, Select Committee, he quite forgets what has been already noticed, that the Committee of 1893 itself reported that a Select Committee of this House, from the nature of the case, is not a body that can thoroughly investigate the matter from a practical point of view.

I withdraw the otter.

I do not believe that my right hon. friend can really mean to withdraw the offer.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman was opposing the Select Committee, and therefore I. withdraw it.

I was not opposing it; I said that the right hon. Gentleman proposed this Select Committee as a means of modifying the opposition to this Bill. I am not ungrateful to the right hon. Gentleman for offering a Select Committee. I am only pointing out that a Select Committee is not the best machinery for investigating this vexed question, and I think I am justified on that point by the Report of the Committee of 1893. The whole tendency of the Report of that Committee was that the effect most beneficial to all could only be obtained by international agreement. There is another objection to this Bill which has not been touched upon very fully. My right hon. friend himself in defending the Bill told us that nine tenths of the coast of England was efficiently protected. Now, the Report of the Committee of 1893 points out that all the evidence goes to show that there is no diminution in the mature fish, and that no legislation is required for any part of the waters of the United Kingdom except the waters of the North Sea. Therefore you are bringing in a Bill to have a general effect over the whole United Kingdom, whereas on the admission of the Committee itself there is no necessity for legislation except in the North Sea. Because in the North Sea there is alleged to be a diminution of mature fish, you are going to bring in an entirely new system. It is because the North Sea is more or less an enclosed sea that it is thrashed and fished so thoroughly as it is. I am perfectly certain that the Bill will not produce the results expected, while it will put restrictions on and worry and annoy a deserving, a poor and hard-working class, for which there is no justification. No legislation of this sort should be proceeded with, that is, not on an international basis, and by which arrangements can be made for true experiments and scientific inquiry. I do not blame my right hon. friend that this has not been done before. 1 know that an international agreement is a difficult matter, but I believe that if my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade had been able to deal with the representatives of foreign nations direct, it might have been done long ago. The difficulty is that the Board of Trade can only negotiate with these countries through the overworked Foreign Office, which has refused to move in the matter during the last few years. But because the Foreign Office has not had the time or opportunity to deal with this matter, do not let the right hon. Gentleman's anxiety induce us to do something wrong. That is my position. I believe my fight hon. friend is sincerely anxious to do something, and naturally he takes the easiest course. But my point is that in taking the easiest course he is not accomplishing the object we all have in view. This Bill says that people must not expose for sale, or have in their possession for sale, small fish. But you cannot check an arrangement by which Germans, or French, or Dutch, might make a regular business of taking the small fish from our fishing fleets, and carrying them over, and selling them on the seaboard of the North Sea. All you are doing is to prevent our fishermen who incidently catch and kill small fish (of course they would rather catch big fish) from bringing them home and selling them to the poor of our population. Take this case. Our fishing fleet comes, say, into Yarmouth with a large number of small and immature fish. Are they to be allowed to land the fish? There is nothing in the Bill to prevent that. Would these fish be imports? The boats had gone out from Yarmouth they had been on the water all the time; they had never been to another place; and I cannot conceive how the fish could be called imports, because they come from nowhere except the bottom of the sea, and there are no Board of Trade returns from the bottom of the sea. Well, the small trawlers can pick up these fish, and can land them, because they are not imports; but they cannot sell them, but they can give them away as manure for gardens to people who will give them vegetables in return. How does that improve the fishing? Are they to throw them in the harbour to float out and pollute the estuary? When you come to look at this Bill you find the Government are being influenced to legislation by the large man to kill the little man. It is not to preserve the fish, but to worry and harass and kill the smaller man. The Bill is indefinite, and not at all calculated to fulfil the purpose it is intended to accomplish.

I confess it is difficult for me to arrive at the opinion of the hon. Member who previously spoke, because he said it was an admitted evil for which remedy had to besought, and the only alternative he gives is limitation of area. The tenor of the speeches made to-night appears to be that because the foreigner does something we must shape our course to suit him.

No, no. We should not put a bar on our people we could not put upon him,

I was leading up to that. I say the best method would be the example of some good legislation on which to proceed. It is all very well to come down and say that this Bill is no good and nobody wants it, but those of us who know something about trawling look with some favour on the Bill. 1 live in a large town which is closely connected with fishing—Hull.

Big men

Yes, I admit it—big men and little men, too; but I speak of the little man now and the linesman, who are about to be handicapped because they cannot see small fish. Look at the facts. There is "Long Sand," which is one of the best breeding places for plaice in the United Kingdom, and the plaice go there in swarms during the months of August and September. The Ramsgate and Margate men desert their own grounds at Margate Knock, where they fish in twenty fathoms, and they go to the Long Sand, where they catch several large fish and hundreds of thousands of small immature fish. I know cases in which, the trawl having been down six hours, where there ought to have been sixty boxes of fish there were not six. What you want to do is not to prevent them taking, as they must, small and large together, but to stop them going to these spawning grounds and robbing them of these immature fish.

Which you do not do by this Bill.

Yes yon do, because they would not go there if there was no market for these fish. With regard to the alternative of limiting the area, I have come to the conclusion, after looking into it, that it is somewhat foolish. It is not only trawlers who catch these small soles, but also the shrimpers, who catch them in large numbers and cannot help it. I regret to see that this Bill is limited to these fish. I should like to see oysters included. There is as much harm in selling the immature oyster as these other immature fish. At the present time the dredger fetches up the oyster spet, as it is called, not bigger than one's thumb, and there is no saving what damage is not done. If you limit the areas you stop shrimping. I hope the Government will pass this Bill.

This matter is of great interest not only to the country at large, but to my constituents and to myself as a student of nature. A good many hon. Members who have spoken do not seem to be quite aware of the phases through which fish pass before they attain a marketable size, or of the injury done by trawling to immature fish, and especially flat fish. It is, I think, not generally known that the ova of flat fish are not deposited like those of salmon on the bottom of the sea, but float on the water. Where the damage comes in is at a considerably later stage in the life of the flat fish, when after living for three or four weeks in the water as a round fish it gradually became flattened out and sinks to the bottom. It is then in too weak a state to go into deep water, and so occupies the sand bank close in shore in quite a different place from that in which the parent fish lives and deposits the ova, for the parent fish does not come into shallow water. The mischief does not consist so much in killing the small fish as in disturbing the grounds where they find their livelihood, and it is well known to the big trawler that if he goes on those grounds he will only catch small fish. I am not so fanatical as to think that a trawler would only go on forbidden ground, nor do I think that he knows exactly every foot of ground over which he goes; but I do say that the trawler who has been out in the deeper sea and has only got a small load of fish, knowing that he has a ready sale for small fish, will deliberately go over grounds where he knows he can make up his load with small immature fish. It is in order to prevent these deliberate outrages that this Bill has been introduced, and that is why I heartily support it. Although there may be many faults in the Bill, as there are in all protective legislation, and although it will undoubtedly injure the present generation of smaller fishermen, I think that by the increased supply of fish in the future, which will be the result of the Bill, they will eventually benefit. The argument that legislation of this kind would not be effective unless it was international, because otherwise there was nothing to prevent foreign fishermen from buying the small fish and selling it elsewhere, was used in the United States for many years. The result was that the coasts of the United States were depleted of fish, and it is only after twenty years of drastic legislation that they are now be ginning in some slight degree to recover their former position. I most heartily support the Bill.

As representing one of the largest fishing centres in the South of England, I do not like to give a silent vote on this Bill. If I thought it would promote the object it purports to effect, I should have some hesitation in going into the lobby against it, but I not only doubt the effect of the Bill, but I also doubt if it, will be fairly administered. I recently had an opportunity of attending a meeting of the National Deep Sea, Fishing Association, at which resolutions were passed unanimously in favour of this bill, but if my right hon. friend had been present and heard the speeches in support of those resolutions, I think he would have hesitated in bringing the measure before us. We are told the large numbers of immature fish are brought up by trawlers on the coast of Holland, but that when they come to England they fetch very little. That is not the fact which sends the fishermen to Holland, it is because they get a proportion of large fish. It does not pay them to go there to catch only small fish. Let me refer to part of the constituency I represent—Brixham. There we have no steam trawlers, but all sailing vessels, from fifteen tons to sixty, manned by crews of various sizes, who are not paid by wages, but by a share in the catch. It is to their interest to get a profitable catch as much as of the owner. The small fish which they catch are separated from the large before the marketable part is taken ashore, and the small fish are sold locally to the people. In olden days those fish were considered the perquisites of the apprentices, but that is no longer the case. This Bill, if passed, would have the evil effect of stopping a source of food for the poor, without advantage to the fishing industry. No doubt a great quantity of small fish are taken by means of long-haul seines, but the local Fisheries Committee have the power to stop this destruction of immature fish if they choose to exercise it, and as they do not I do not think it can be a very serious matter. Reading between the lines, I very much doubt if there can be a fair administration of this Bill. I notice it is supported by wealthy capitalists of Grimsby and Hull. I attribute no sinister motives to the President of the Board of Trade, but I do not think this Bill was originally promoted in the interests of the fish themselves so much as the salesmen of the big markets, who make such efforts to keep up the prices. Vast quantities of fish are destroyed in London week by week for that purpose. It is assumed by some that the interests of those who catch the fish and those who sell it are identical, but they are as much opposed as they can possibly be. I am sorry to see when the question of trawling is before this House there is a very strong desire manifested to be down on the trawler. The hon. Member for Caithness complained that the penalties under this Bill were too low. It is a case of "hit him; he has no friends!'' or, what is just the same, he has no vote, because these men must either abstain from voting or lose a weeks work. The right hon. Gentleman quoted figures as to the catch of fish and the falling off of the takes. As regards the English Channel, the evidence before the Committee which reported in 1893 shows that in that case there was no falling off, but as plentiful supply as in any previous year, but the fishermen in the main had been able to obtain better prices. As to the Bill itself I must say 1 think the provisions of the penalties clause are unusually heavy. To impose a penalty of £2 on a man for selling a fish that he has caught accidentally, is very hard. Who is to carry out the law? Not the Customs officers, they have not sufficient leisure if they properly perform their other work. The right hon. Gentleman said something about an inquiry. I suggest an inquiry into this Bill before it goes further, but I presume the Government, with the vast resources at their command, will carry the Second Reading; and I can only hope when the inquiry is held it will be a searching one. Something should be done in the way of inquiry into the possibility of dividing the authority controlling the river fisheries and the sea fisheries, so that the sea fishery industry of this country should no longer be placed under the control of a Committee that knows nothing what ever about the matter and cares a great deal less. It is time that we should reconsider our position in that matter, which to my mind is a most undesirable thing in connection with fishery legislation. I wish to say a word on the report of the Committee, where Professor Huxley says—

"The allegation that trawling in the open sea has exhausted any trawling ground, and that trawlers have been obliged permanently to leave any trawling ground on account of such exhaustion, is. therefore, in my mind, devoid of foundation."

I think that one paragraph disposes of the contention urged by some speakers that trawling in itself is destructive of fish. I believe if this matter is inquired into by an impartial Committee, with power to see expert and scientific witnesses, we shall find that the evils complained of by the Fisheries Protection Association, and by those who have urged the passing of this measure, have been greatly exaggerated. On these grounds I have to record my vote against the Second Reading of the Bill.

I think that whatever may be our differences of opinion on the question before the House nearly every hon. Member has expressed himself dissatisfied with the present condition of affairs in the fisheries. I think I can speak with some experience and with some knowledge of the general views of the fishing industry throughout the United Kingdom on this question, and they unquestionably do feel that Parliament has neglected their industry very much indeed. It is more than ten years since this small measure was first advocated by them, and it is now seven years since the Select Committee of this House sat on the question, when it was reported that some legislation of the nature embodied in this Bill should become law. I think this Bill good as far as it goes, but it is a very small measure indeed, and will do very little to meet the needs of this great industry. For my part I should earnestly request the Government and the President of the Board of Trade when he has given effect to this measure to follow up its legislation by inquiring into the whole condition of the fisheries, either by a Royal Commission or by a Departmental Committee if you like, or whatever course is wisest and best to adopt in this matter, and to take some steps so that the House as well as the country may know the actual facts as they exist to-day in respect of the fishing industry. Although I feel there ought to be a more exhaustive inquiry, I do think it would be a pity if the House did not adopt this measure as a small instalment in the direction that the fisheries require. We heard in the early part of the evening a very able speech from the Member for Lowestoft on this question. He spoke for a considerable period of time, and placed before the House his view of it, I think, in a very fair way, but it seemed to me that in the first place a great deal of his speech was made up of quotations from the Report of the Select Committee, and that these quotations were such portions as bore on his particular argument. I do not think it necessary to pursue very far his argument on that question, because the Select Committee after hearing all this evidence came to the conclusion that it was necessary to recommend to the House the principle embodied in this Bill, and therefore it seems to me that having the results of the Select Committee embodied in the recommendation it does no good to bring forward various quotations from a Committee of that kind. But my hon. friend says that what we require is international legislation, and that this Bill should not pass into law because there are other countries that have not yet adopted its principle. I am in favour of an international measure. I do not think the fishery legislation will be perfect in any way until some move is taken internationally to deal with the question; but 1 would like to point out that since 1893, when the Report was issued, several of these countries bordering on the North Sea have already adopted the very Bill which you are asked to adopt to-night by the President of the Board of Trade, and, therefore, we are already moving very largely in the direction of a consensus of opinion and of equality of legislation on the whole question.

To what countries does the hon. Gentleman allude?

I allude to Holland and Denmark, and I think also Sweden. Anyhow, I think I am right in the statement I have made, but whether it be so or not the fact remains that some—nearly all the countries have adopted some legislation of this kind. It seems to be a crime, according to the argument of one or two hon. Gentlemen below me, for large industries to make any demand on this House for legislation. The only people who are considered are those connected with the smaller industries, even though the larger ones may suffer seriously. I should like to bring before the House what is the bulk of opinion in regard to this particular Bill. I can assure the House that 90 per cent. of the fishing industry have supported this particular measure, and are desirous that it should become law. [AN HON. MEMBER: "No."] I hoar someone say "No." The National Sea Fisheries Association represents the whole of the fishing industry of this country of every kind—at least if it does not represent certain sections of the trade it is because those sections are unwilling to come into the association. The association is presided over by Sir Edward Birkbeck, who, as everybody knows, has taken an interest in the welfare of the fishermen for many years, and who, I am sure, would not recommend to the House or the country anything he did not believe to be for the host interests of those whom he represents. A great deal has been said against the Sea Fisheries Committees of the County Councils. I really cannot understand why this House should complain that the Sea Fisheries Board should express an opinion on this question. This House has given the County Councils power to appoint these Committees, and having been appointed, they should be listened to on a question of this kind. They practically unanimously have expressed their assent, and are in favour of this particular Bill. It is not a mere expression of opinion. Many of these Boards, and particularly the Lancashire and North Eastern Boards, which have many practical men on them, have discussed the question at their meetings again and again, and have come to the conclusion that this is the only measure that will be satisfactory to them. I know that the Fishery Boards have already by their acts accomplished a very great deal in the direction of protecting immature fish, and in many parts where a great deal of injury was done the Fishery Boards by strict supervision have produced a different state of things from what used to obtain. I hope the House will take a great deal of notice of the opinion of the Fishery Boards in of this country, particularly as that opinion is practically unanimous. I happen to represent a constituency which last year supplied this country with fish food to the extent of 2,000,000 cwts., having a value of £1,720,000. That constituency is made up very largely of fishermen and those interested in the industry. When it is said that they are all large men I assure you that is not the case. There are a very large number of small men as well, and that constituency is practically unanimous in support of this important measure and is very desirous that it should become law. The next important town is Hull. It last year supplied 1,2500,000 cwts., having a value of £941,000. The fishermen of that place, through their associations, have expressed themselves strongly in favour of this measure, and I should like to point my hon. friend opposite to the fact that Aberdeen, which is very fast becoming one of the great fishing centres of the United Kingdom, supplied 640,000 cwts., having a value of £322,000. Aberdeen is very largely in favour of this measure. I think that with the exception of the two or three instances referred to by the hon. Member for Yarmouth there are very few, if any, important fishing constituencies in this country which are not desirous that this measure should become law. I listened with very great interest to the excellent speech of the hon. Member for the Aylesbury Division. I think that speech had in it a very considerable amount of information, not merely to the House, but to all persons who take an interest in this very important question of the fishing industry. I can say this from experience, whatever may be said to the contrary by some of my hon. friends here, that without question there is a very distinct diminution of the fish in the sea surrounding this country. There is no doubt whatever that, so far as fiat fish is concerned, there is a very great diminution. I notice that an inspector in a Report this year says that Lowestoft last year was below the average of previous years. During the past ten years I believe the decrease in the amount of flat fish from the North Sea is 60 or 70 percent, indeed, I believe very much more than that. Ten years ago it was not unusual for a trawler to got his ten boxes of plaice in a night. I venture to say there are no trawlers now get four boxes of plaice during the night. That is a matter that can be proved from the returns. If you kill all the little fish it is only a question of time till you have no big ones. I think that is a common-sense argument. However many fish there may be in the sea, if you continue this state of things, sooner or later it will affect you, and you will have very little fish left. There have been a variety of arguments advanced that this Bill will not prevent the destruction of fish. I have no hesitation in saying that this Bill will prevent the destruction of fish. There are hundreds of square miles of flats on which the small fish go to live until they become sufficiently big to go to the deeper waters and take care of themselves. In these areas there are practically no big fish at all. I differ entirely from my hon. friend who spoke a minute ago, and other hon. Gentlemen, who said that fishermen do not go there for these fish. I say unquestionably that the fishermen, many of whom I know very well, are going there now, and for no other purpose than to catch these fish. [An HON.MEMBER: "Why don't they stop away?"] Why don't they stop away? my hon. friend says. Self is a powerful factor in human nature, and as long as you allow an Englishman to make £150 for a voyage he is not going where he can only make £80. That is the principle of the whole thing. I can give yon information of what has transpired during the past two months. They are catching a very considerable quantity of small fish which are sold in the provincial markets at 6s. and 7s. If you pass this Bill these people will not go there to catch these fish because they will not be able to sell them. I point this out to hon. Gentleman; if you go to Billingsgate early in the morning I undertake that you will see some of these boxes which contain as many as 800 small fish and they will be sold at the enormous sum of 6s. to 7s. I ask the House whether that is not a shocking waste of young life and a shocking waste of probable wealth in the future. It has been stated that the quantity of fish which is being brought forward proves that there is no diminution. I think the hon. Member for King's Lynn produced some figures to the House and tried to prove that there was no diminution in the quantity of fish supplied in this country. He did not give the other side of the question. He did not say how much extra catching power there was. I will try to give my construction of the case. He said that in 1899 there were 12,857,000 cwts. with a value of £5,633,769, while in 1899 there were 14,786,000 with a value of £8,864,900, showing an increase in ten years of 18 per cent. in the amount of fish brought into the country, and an increase of 60 per cent. in the value. Hon. Members will therefore see at once that the catcher has not seriously suffered by this diminution. He is getting a better price than ever before, and the price is increasing year by year. The consumer is paying a very much higher price than he should have to pay if the fisheries were properly protected, and if there was a proper amount of fish in the sea for the catcher to get. The hon. Member for King's Lynn did not point out what a great change had taken place in the catching power during the past ten years. Ten years ago there were 100 steam trawlers. There are now 1,300 steam trawlers, and each steam trawler, I suppose, is calculated to catch as much fish as ten of the ordinary boats off the coast of Scotland, and five of the larger sailing boats fishing off the coast of England. Therefore the House will see at once the enormous increase in the amount of catching power put into the sea during the past ten years. Does it follow, because there is a slight increase in the quantity of fish landed, that therefore they come from the same places? If the quantity of fish had to come from the North Sea which used to come ten years ago it would be practically impossible to get the normal supply needed in this country. Owing to the scarcity of fish in the North Sea British fishermen are now in the habit of going over the sea 1,500 miles away from our coasts, where there is known to be fish. It is only five years since our trawlers began to go to the Icelandic sea, to find there, if possible, places from which they might supply this country with fish food. This year and last year thousands of tons of flat fish have been brought from Iceland and the waters near the coast of Iceland. One of the places visited involves on the part of our fishermen a voyage, port to port, of 3,000 miles. That proves conclusively that the fish is not coming from the sources it used to come from, but from other sources in other parts of the world, which I hope will be very fertile so far as this country is concerned. I wish to say a word in commendation of the Government for the assistance they have rendered to the British fishermen in Icelandic waters. The Foreign Office have been of great service to them in getting protection for British fishermen in Icelandic waters, and by sending out boats to protect their industry. On behalf of the trade I have to thank them. I have tried to prove to the House that there is a considerable diminution of fish in the North Sea and other parts around the coast of the United Kingdom. I have also tried to prove to the House that the price of fish at the present time and the sources of supply around the coast are such that some legislation must be passed in the direction of protecting the fish food, and helping in the future to find the supplies which are so necessary.

I do not rise for the purpose of taking part in the discussion on the merits of the Bill. I rise for the purpose of asking the Lord Advocate if this Bill is to apply to Scotland. If it is to apply to Scotland, why is the Lord Advocate's name not on the back of it? As a rule, when any Bills are to apply to Scotland the Lord Advocate's name is on the back. If the Bill does not apply to Scotland, I think we are entitled to ask that that should appear on the face of it. If it applies to Scotland officers of customs or officers appointed by the Board of Trade are to be the parties to execute the Act. As the Lord Advocate knows, we have a Fishery Board of which the Secretary for Scotland is chairman, or at any rate it is under his jurisdiction. Obviously that would be inconvenient, the Fishery Board having officials of their own. I do not wish to intervene further, but I think the point is one the Lord Advocate ought to give us a little information upon.

The hon. Member for Great Grimsby, in the course of his speech, referred to what he alleged to be a fact, that this Bill was supported by almost the entire fishing representatives in the House. I venture to take exception to that statement. Hull and Grimsby are in favour of the Bill, and the association of these towns with the word trawler very naturally occurs. With the exception of Hull and Grimsby, all the fishing centres represented in this House deprecate the Bill. They may be right or they may be wrong, but the great mass of those con- nected with the fishing industry represented in this House are not in favour of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman who has charge of the Bill, jumped up and seized on the observation made by the hon. and gallant Member for Yarmouth. The hon. Gentleman quoted a self-denying ordinance passed by the Select Committee. That Select Committee stated that a Select Committee of this House was not by any means the best tribunal to judge a question of this kind. The Select Committee of 1893 did not say that no inquiry was requisite. On the contrary, they stated the reason why they were not the best tribunal that might be selected was that because of the nature of the circumstances an inquiry conducted by a Committee of this House must necessarily be during the summer months, when they wore deprived of the principal witnesses they would like to have had called before them, because they were engaged in their business on the sea. The obvious inference to be drawn from that was that a Royal Commission was the better tribunal, and we have had not only Select Committees but Royal Commissions. I do not wish to weary the House with extracts at this time of night, but the Royal Commission of 1863, of which Sir James Caird and Professor Huxley were members, declared that legislation of this kind was mischievous and inexpedient. If my right hon. friend has doubts as to that, I will read the Report.

No, I have no doubts.

Very well. I will simply re-assert that a representative Royal Commission in 1863, which, unlike a Select Committee of this House, was able to call before it the greatest authorities in the country, declared emphatically against legislation of this kind.

Would the right hon. Gentleman state what was the number of steam trawlers in 1863?

I am by no means aware that that information would much assist in guiding the House, but we have it on the authority of the hon. Member for Grimsby that where 100 steam trawlers existed at the time of which he spoke, which would be subsequent to 1863, there were 1,300 now. That Royal Commission stated in clear and distinct terms that the available supply of fish had not appreciably diminished, and that any curtailment of the facilities for bringing fish to the market would be an injury and would do no good. A good deal has been said about the Sea Fishery Committees. I have heard them spoken of as representative bodies. They are nothing of the kind so far as the fishing industry is concerned. They are elected by the county councils or they are nominated by the Board of Trade. I am not saying anything against the Board of Trade or the county councils, but I do say that the fishing industry, where it is represented at all, is in a hopeless minority, and that these fishery committees carry no weight whatever as representatives of the fishing industry of the country. Some hon. Gentlemen have spoken as if persons went out on purpose to catch these small fish. A small fish is not what any smacksman goes out to catch; it is what comes incidentally into his net. Nobody has denied that the great mass of the small fish that are brought up from the sea come up dead, although there has been some difference of opinion as to the relative proportions of alive and dead. The hon. Member for Central Hull contradicted one of the preceding speakers who thought that almost the whole—80 or 90 per cent.—were dead, stating that not more than 50 per cent. of the small fish would be in that condition. Even then 50 per cent. would be thrown as carrion into the sea, and I would like to know whether that is for the general welfare of anyone concerned. We know very well that the throwing of these dead fish into the sea would be productive of no practical good. The hon. Member for Yarmouth has pointed out a much more practical use to which such fish could be put. Other countries go in for something more in the direction of free trade than some hon. Gentlemen appear to be recommending tonight, and into those countries these fish will be taken, no doubt by arrangement, from the North Sea fleet. It is well known that the sailing smacks club together to send their fish by steam power to the markets they desire to serve. No doubt the destruction would still take place, and the fish would be sent to the markets still open to them, and practically no difference would be made in the method of conducting the trade, but at the same time it would be a serious handicap to one of our chief national industries. Why is it that the representatives of practically the whole of the fishing industry are against this Bill?

They are not.

Can the hon. Gentleman tell us of the representative of any single fishing district, save the Members for Hull and Grimsby, who have spoken in favour of this Bill? Whether it be Scotland or Devonshire, Norfolk or Kent, we find the representatives of the fishing industry solidly and unanimously against this Bill.

There is the Kent and Essex Sea Fishery Committee.

We know all about the Sea Fisheries Committees. My hon. friend cannot point out a single representative of the fishing industry who has supported this Bill. I am quite aware that the inland representatives who are elected to serve on these Sea Fisheries Committees have been largely captured by the representatives of the steam trawlers, against whom, of course, I say nothing. But the Sea Fishery Committees do not represent the fishing industry. I said that this Bill would hamper the fishing industry. We are told that boxes of fish have been found with small fish at the bottom and large ones at the top, and we have a hope thrown out to us of the seizure and detention of consignments of fish where it is suspected there are very small ones, pending inspection by the Board of Trade. That would be rather an improvement! That is an interference with an important industry, against which the representatives of that industry are bound to protest. I hope, at any rate, it will not go forth that those who bona fide represent the great bulk of the fishing industry are parties to this Bill. No doubt the division will give a very poor indication of what is the real feeling of the country on tin's subject. Both front Benches are united in support of the Bill. An hon. Gentleman opposite spoke the other day of this Bill as a particular exemplification of the policy of those sitting on this side of the House. That is by no means the case. Almost the last act of the late Government was to move the Second Reading of a Bill similar to this, but not the same Bill. An almost protean characteristic attaches to this measure—it has appeared under so many different titles. Even a War Office contractor could scarcely assume the same number of aliases. Whether it is "Underwood" or "under size" we find the greatest difficulty in detecting what we have before us. This Bill has been successively introduced on both front Benches, and I suppose they both will support it now. A vast number of hon. Gentlemen representing various industries in this country, but who are not specially connected with the fishing industry, will no doubt follow their party leaders, and therefore, as I say, the division will give but a poor indication of what is really felt in regard to this Bill.

The general case for the Bill was fully stated by my right hon. friend on the last occasion when the measure was under discussion, and it has again been most admirably stated, if I may be allowed to say so, by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby; but I have listened to the whole of the speeches since the debate began, and they have all boon so tinctured with an entire misconception of the provisions of the Bill, and especially with regard to the question of an international agreement, that I shall have to say a few words on the subject. The debate to-day was opened by a speech of very great length by the hon. Member for Lowestoft, who read to the House a great deal of the evidence given before the Select Committee, dwelling lingeringly and even lovingly on the passages of his own cross-examination. He seemed to put to the witness a question in this form: "Would you be satisfied with a remedy which was purely national, or must such a remedy be international?" No doubt many of the witnesses immediately said, "Oh, we think, to be efficacious, it must be international." But there are two senses of the word "international." This Bill, though in one sense not international, in another sense is international. Hon. Members, I suppose, are aware that in the Herring Fishery (Scotland) Act of 1889 there is a clause which very much resembles the operative clause of this Bill, and that clause has been asserted not only against British subjects, but against the foreigner, and with perfect success. [An HON. MEMBER: Not in British waters.] Not in British waters, if by "British waters" the hon. Member means waters within the territorial limit. In Moray Firth, which the hon. Member knows is not within the territorial limit, the clause has been assorted against the foreigner. Hon. Member after hon. Member has followed the argument of the hon. Member for Lowestoft, and have said this sort of thing: "I am not going to vote for a Bill which simply hampers the British fishermen, while at the same time leaving foreigners free." How is the foreigner free? Free to come to the British market? Certainly not, if this Bill passes. This measure will be just as effective against the foreigner in the British market as against the British fisherman. If you do not mean in the British market, how is he free in the foreign market? You cannot ignore the state of the law as it exists at the present moment in foreign countries. The hon. Member for Lowestoft made a point that he had contradicted the Member for South Aberdeen rightly for telling the House there were prohibitory laws of this kind in Germany. That is true, but at the same time that only refers to Germany proper. The whole state of the case is this: It does not matter whether the prohibition is exactly the same to the eighth of an inch; the point is whether they have got legislation of this character. There is a prohibition against undersized fish in Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, and Prussia. Hon Members will remember that if you subtract Prussia from Germany you do not have left a very extensive sea board; while if you take the countries I have mentioned, you get at least what may be called a very general consensus of prohibition on the part of the States fringing the fishing grounds of the North Sea. Therefore, where would be the market? The hon. Member for Yarmouth said we should be having the Dutch going and taking the catch from the ships on the sea, that if you could prevent the fishermen coming into your own market you could not prevent them selling on the high seas, and that you would have the Dutch taking the fish. But it is a fact that during this very last summer the Dutch alone were sending into Billingsgate fifty tons a week of these undersized fish.