House Of Commons
Wednesday, 1st August, 1900.
Private Bill Business
Great Southern And Western And Waterford And Central Ireland Railway Companies Amalgamation Bill Lords (By Order)
Ordered, That, in the case of the Great Southern and Western and Waterford and Central Ireland Railway Companies Amalgamation Bill [Lords], Standing Order 235 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read a second time.—( Mr. Caldwell.)
Bill accordingly read a second time, and committed.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Standing Orders relative to the Committal and Report stages of Private Bills, and Standing Orders 223 and 243, be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the third time." —( The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
asked if the motion put from the Chair covered beth the Second and Third Readings—beth being "by Order." He never remembered seeing that before.
said the circumstances were somewhat peculiar, the Bill having been dealt with by a joint Committee. The Bill had been read a second time, and this was a motion which practically suspended the Report stage. At the close of the session it was not at all uncommon to suspend the Standing Orders in order to carry a Bill of this character through its different stages.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Great Southern And Western And Waterford, Limerick, And Western Railway Companies Amalgamation Rill Lords (By Order)
Ordered, That, in the case of the Great Southern and Western and Waterford, Limerick, and Western Railway Com-
panies Amalgamation Bill [Lords], Standing Order 235 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read a second time.—( Mr. Caldwell.)
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
, in moving that the Bill be read a second time upon that day three months, claimed the indulgence the House always extended to a Member addressing it for the first time. He did so only because of the importance of the Bill, which, however, he feared, at that late period of the session, might not receive the attention to which it was entitled. Not only was the measure before the House important in itself and in its direct effects, but if passed into law it would also have a serious effect, and, in his opinion, a most injurious effect upon the future of railways in Ireland. As the House was aware, there was in the south-east and west of Ireland a practical railway monopoly by the Great Southern and Western Railway Company, who were the promoters of this Bill. What little competition did exist was due to the existence of the Water-ford and Central Company, and the only hope that there might be of more effective competition in the future lay in the separate existence of the latter company, which it was proposed to extinguish. As he understood, it had been the policy of the House to refuse to sanction amalgamation of competing companies, or at least to insist, if there was amalgamation, upon substantial reductions of rates over all the systems amalgamated; and ho submitted that the House should not in this case depart from its settled policy and assent to the absorption of one competing line by the other. The Great Southern and Western Railway had 604 miles of railway, the Water-ford and Limerick had 342 miles, and the Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford Company 144 miles. The Great Southern and Western and the Waterford and Limerick would, in his opinion, form a combination so strong as completely to dwarf all other lines and destroy any chance there might be of useful competition in the south and west of Ireland. The Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford Railway was not at present a competing line, but an amalgamation between it and the Waterford and Limerick Railway, which was quite feasible, would provide an alternative route to Cork and the south of Ireland, and thus create keen and healthy competition. The measure before the House would destroy all hope of any such amalgamation, and intensify the present railway monopoly in the south of Ireland. Most undoubtedly such monopoly did exist, and the dangers resulting from it had often been recognised by the House. One of the greatest evils with which this monopoly was charged was the excessive rates beth for passengers and goods. The injury inflicted by these excessive rates on small farmers and traders in Ireland could not be exaggerated. They were seriously handicapped and crippled in their efforts to compote with their more fortunate rivals abroad. The iron collar of railway monopoly had too long strangled the efforts of traders and farmers in Ireland to meet foreign competition. The Allport Commission of 1888 stated that the rates and charges in Ireland for heavy goods, such as coal and building materials, were generally higher than in England, and that larger facilities were given for third-class passenger traffic in Great Britain than in Ireland. The rate from Limerick to London was 35s. per ton, while from Chicago to London it was only about 50s. to 55s., altheugh Chicago was nearly 1,000 miles from the port of shipment. [The hon. Member gave other instances of excessive rates.] Time after time various remedies had been suggested for the evils resulting from the railway monopoly in Ireland. That recommended by the Allport Commission was the setting up of a separate Railway Commission in Ireland, which should be administrative in its nature, and have full power to remedy grievances and protect in every way the interests of the public against the dangers arising from monopoly caused by partial or complete amalgamation of different companies. It also recommended that a general scale of rates and tolls applicable to all Ireland should be prescribed by Statute, to come into force as each amalgamation took place. He held that, until that Commission was set up, the House should not sanction an amalgamation which would make future control more difficult, and that no amalgamation stifling competition should be permitted. In 1898, when the Rosslare and Fishguard Railway Bill was before the House, the right hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Treasury gave the assurance that the Government were anxious that that route should be a competitive one and provide an alternative route to the Great Southern and Western line to Dublin; but if this Bill was passed it would prevent that alternative route being completed, and give the Great Southern and Western absolute command of both routes. Again, the House last year condemned the proposed absorption of the Waterford and Limerick and the Waterford and Central Ireland lines by the Great Southern and Western, and the Committee which considered the Bill were unanimous against the absorption. In the face of that announcement of the Secretary to the Treasury and the decision of a former Committee, he hoped the House would not sanction this amalgamation, which was moreover, opposed by the Irish people and a large number of Irish representatives. Again, this Bill did not provide, as it ought to do, for substantial reductions in the rates and charges as some compensation to the public for the injury which they would undoubtedly suffer through this monopoly. Such provision had been the policy of the House in cases of amalgamation by the London and North Western Railway, the Great Western Railway, and the Caledonian Railway. These companies, when they formed amalgamations, were compelled to lower their rates as much as one-half. It was said that there was an appeal to the Railway and Canal Commission if the rates were excessive. That, to his mind, was practically a useless remedy, because of the enormous, trouble and expense of approaching that body by people in Ireland. In fact, during the whole of the years that body had been in existence there was only one. Irish appeal to it, and that by Guinness and Company, the brewers. All that was fully recognised by the Allport Commission, which thought that the Railway and Canal Commission was not suited to the needs of Ireland, as the legal expenses involved made it of little practical utility in a country where the interests involved were comparatively small compared with the costs of procedure. Besides, the present Railway and. Canal Commission had only judicial, powers, whereas the Allport Commission strongly recommended, the creation, of an administrative Railway Beard for Ireland as a remedy for the large amount of railway monopoly in Ireland. If this Bill was passed it would be going in the teeth of the recommendations of the Allport Commission and of all public opinion in Ireland.
seconded the Amendment.
Amendment proposed—
"To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the question to add the words 'upon this day three months.'" —(Mr. Lonsdale.)
Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the question."
said he was bound to say a little as to why this Bill should proceed, seeing that he sat on the Joint Committee of Lords and Commons which considered the measure. That Committee sat no fewer than twenty-seven days, and he ventured to say gave the Bill the fullest possible consideration; and they were distinctly of opinion that its passing would be a benefit not only to the South, but to the whole of Ireland. The hon. Member had asserted that it would kill competition in the South of Ireland between the Great Southern and Western line and the Waterford and Limerick line. Ample evidence, however, had been brought before the Joint Committee that the competition between these two lines was almost nothing. The evidence was overwhelming that the Waterford and Limerick line had been practically unable to compote with such a strong line as the Great Southern and Western. The Committee thought that the weak line should be handed over to the strong line, rather than that an inefficient and totally ineffective competition should go on. The Committee thought very strongly that it would be for the benefit of Ireland that the new route from the South of England by the Great Western Railway and the Fishguard and Rosslare Railway should be made as strong as possible, in order that there should be keen competition between the London and North Western Railway and the Great Western Railway for passengers and goods between England and Ireland. The hon. Member in speaking of the competition that would be done away with had omitted to mention the very salient fact that the Committee had given the Dublin and Wexford Railway running powers over the Waterford and Limerick line, which would strengthen such competition as previously existed. He trusted the House would support the decision at which the Committee had arrived.
thought that whatever might be the advantages of Joint Committees they must all acknowledge that they had further complicated the already sufficently complicated system of procedure. It should not be forgotten, when the hon. Member who had just spoken asked the House to endorse the opinion of his Committee, that the Committee of last year had declined to recommend the proposals of the promoters. So far as he was personally concerned his views on the subject were absolutely unchanged. He was against the creation of a monopoly, even if that monopoly were more generous than the Great Southern and Western Company were known to be. He believed that very few Members conversant with Ireland would be prepared to support the Great Southern and Western Company in the policy which in the past had always actuated it. It was a fact that in his own constituency the county council were in favour of the Bill, and for that reason he would not vote against it, but at the same time he could not help, in stating his refusal to vote for it, saying that he believed the view favourable to the Bill would be found to be a mistake. When the idea that underlay this amalgamation scheme was first proposed, amongst the promises held out by the Great Western Railway was one that even if a measure of the kind was agreed to they would still continue their daily services of steamers between Milford Haven and Waterford. It was owing to that promise that the Member for Waterford had supported the Rosslare scheme; but the company had now made application before the Committee and obtained from it its consent that for the future all through bookages must be over the system of the Great Western and their steamers, thus shutting out the steamers that run from Waterford to various ports —there being at present some seven or eight sailings weekly. If that was carried out the Great Southern and Western Railway would have a monopoly of that traffic, and there could be no healthy competition. In the interests of Water-ford that should not be allowed. The effect of the Bill would be to establish a bad monopoly, and place the country in the hands of a railway company which hardly anyone in Ireland could be got to speak a word in favour of. Members for the west of Ireland, who desired to get increased competition, might be satisfied, but he himself was convinced that the Bill was opposed to the true interests of Munster and that part of Leinster affected by it.
said he was sorry that his hon friend the Member for Waterford's personal views were against this amalgamation, but he was pleased to hear that the county council of Waterford was in favour of it. He had not the smallest interest in either of the railways, and had taken no part whatever either for or against the amalgamation hitherto. But he had watched with keen interest the labeurs of the Joint Committee, which sat for twenty-seven clays, and he could say that they deserved the greatest praise for the pains they took, and for examining carefully into everything connected with the amalgamation. The constituency he represented was one of the most interested in the amalgamation. That constituency was possibly one of the poorest in the country, and he felt certain that the English Member who seconded the throwing out of the Bill did not desire to keep the west of Ireland in the state it was in at present. He was surprised that a Member for the north of Ireland, who had less to do with the west of Ireland than with India, should have been chosen to move that the Bill should be thrown out. And the hon. Member for Norwich probably knew as much of the west of Ireland as he did of Kamtschatka. The hon. Member for Mid Armagh stated that not sufficient time had been given to the consideration of the Bill. A more ridiculous statement never was made. The Committee sat for twenty-seven days, and it was trifling with the patience of hon. Members for the south and west of Ireland to make such statements. He would endeavour to point out why he was personally in favour, and why the county council of Clare and the majority of his constituents were absolutely in favour of the Bill. In the first place, when they were told that this amalgamation would make a monopoly, the fact was lost sight of that a far greater competition would spring out of the amalgamation. They would have the Great Western Railway of England at the back of one line in Ireland, and the London and North Western Railway at the back of another, and they were bound to compete for the Irish traffic, and so render a great public service. That alone should induce hon. Members not to hesitate in conferring a great boon on the south and west of Ireland. One of the counsel engaged to oppose the Bill in Committee said that nearly all the county councils wore absolutely in favour of the amalgamation, subject to certain concessions being given—which had been done, or he would have opposed the Bill; but, said this counsel, the county councils of Ireland did not represent the feelings of the people ! He would tell the House, however, that the county councils did represent the mind and feelings of the people of Ireland. The farmers in his district had presented a petition to have their produce carried at lower rates, but that counsel answered that the farmers knew nothing about railways. He thought the farmers knew what they wanted just as much as the hon. Member for Norwich or the hon. Member for Mid Armagh, and he believed they would have what they wanted. He had not heard a single reason against the Bill which would hold water. The House would do a gross injustice to the industries of Ireland and to the agricultural and fishing population of the west of Ireland if they refused to pass the Bill. They had not asked the House for much money, but they did ask that the railway might be allowed to give them a chance by sending cheaper the produce of the west. He hoped hon. Members of this House would do their best to pass the Second Reading.
said the Committee which sat to consider this question inquired very closely into the matter for some twenty-seven days. The hon. Member for Mid Armagh based his opposition to the Bill upon the ground that it created a monopoly. He did not go on to show that the railways in Ireland were dependent more upon cross-Channel traffic than local traffic, and while this Bill would tend to competition in this direction it would no doubt create a certain amount of monopoly in the local trattic. The Committee were forewarned as to the danger and difficulty which might come of an unregulated competition, and they had been careful as far as possible to regulate it. The county councils concerned wore practically unanimously in favour of the scheme. Although they might not represent the large trading concerns they represented the small traders and farmers in Ireland, and whether they were railway experts or not, they knew on which side their bread was buttered, and they knew that this scheme would develop their interests. One of the difficulties which affected the tourist traffic was the slowness of the trains. Evidence had been given of tourists who travelled from the west to the north of Ireland having sacrificed the tickets which they had taken on one line of railway and gone by another, because the trains on the one line were so slow. In some parts it was impossible to make a return journey of forty miles in one day. Throughout the whole of the evidence given before the Committee the opinion was expressed that the amalgamation if carried out would tend to the advantage of the community. The Committee was aware of the dangers of creating a monopoly, and a great number of witnesses expressed their hopes and fears in that respect. The evidence was not, in fact, strictly evidence, but rather expression of opinion as to what the result of the amalgamation would be and the fear that it would place the people in the power of a monopoly. That being so, great care had been taken to safeguard the community against an unregulated monopoly. Railway rates were not to be altered without the sanction of the Railway Commissioners; the present rates were to be considered the maximum, and the companies could not raise them unless they received the sanction of the Railway Commissioners. The fullest running powers were given to the Midland Great Western and the Dublin Wicklow and Wexford over the Water-ford Limerick line. In his opinion this Bill would greatly improve the condition of Ireland, and that being so, ho hoped it would receive the sanction of the House.
said he believed that he was right in saving that the Committee passed this Bill nemine dissentiente. Altheugh the local traffic was small compared with the amount of cross Channel traffic, still there was some, and it was very desirable that there should be effective competition between the railways of Ireland, which at present was not the case. Had there been effective competition he would have been the last man in the world to support this Bill. During the twenty-seven days upon which the Committee sat a very large number of witnesses were examined, and the only opposition to the measure came from these who expected to get something out of their opposition. Ho hoped, for the sake of the west of Ireland, that the House would allow the Second Reading of this Bill, and that time and money would not be wasted by its rejection.
said that, after sitting on the Committee for twenty-seven days, he formed an opinion which he had seen no reason since to alter. The question which the Committee had to decide was whether it would be better, in the interests of Ireland, to hand over to one company the absolute monopoly of the traffic of the south and south-west of Ireland, which undoubtedly would be the case if the Great Southern and Western and Waterford and Limerick Bill was passed. Although the Committee did not come to a unanimous conclusion, nothing had been said since, nor had any evidence been given, to cause him to differ from the decision which the Committee had arrived at. What was required was a Railway Commission to deal specially with Irish railways. The Railway and Canal Commission was not suitable to the needs of that country, and had there been such a Commission before this Amalgamation Bill was brought before the Committee, in all probability ho would have formed a different opinion to that which he now held.
desired to explain the reasons which led him to second the rejection of the Bill. The hon. Member for East Clare had said that he (Sir H. Bullard) knew no more about Ireland than he did about Kamtschatka. He had been to Ireland, and he had never been to Kamtschatka. He had studied the question in Ireland, and saw no reason to alter the opinion which he had formed.
supported the motion of the hon. Member for Mid Armagh for the rejection of this Bill, and expressed his entire concurrence in the statements of the right hon. Baronet who seconded it. The Committee which had inquired into this matter was composed entirely of English Members, who had not the opportunity of knowing the real feeling of Ireland upon the subject. All the Irish Members who sat upon the two Committees which sat in 1898 and 1899, and dealt with this question of amalgamation, declared that the amalgamation of these lines would result in a very dangerous monopoly for which there were no compensating advantages. That was the decision of gentlemen representing different parts of Ireland, who heard all the evidence brought before the Committee and all the assurances which were given by the railway companies— that if the people would open their mouths and shut their eyes they would see what they could do by-and-by. Everybody knew what a sham all these promises by railway companies to consider the interests of the public were. They never did and never would consider any interests but their own in regard to the running powers over other lines provided for by the Bill. It was well known that running powers between two companies were only useful in order that the companies could make a deal between themselves. Experience showed that the public always suffered. He did not suggest that the Committee was not actuated by the best motives and the desire to benefit Ireland, but he was surprised that the Government in such an important matter did not take care to have some Irish Members on the Committee. What would be said if in a similar matter with regard to English railways extending over three-fourths of the island, the whole of the Committee had been Irishmen? He complained that the procedure adopted on the occasion of this Bill had deprived the Irish Members of an opportunity of expressing their opinions upon it. It had the effect of muzzling
AYES.
| ||
| Allsopp, Hon. George | Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r | Burt, Thomas |
| Anstruther, H. T. | Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W(Leeds | Buxton, Sydney Charles |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Barnes, Frederic Gorell | Caldwell, James |
| Asher, Alexander | Beach, Rt. Hn Sir M. H. (Bristol) | Carson, Bt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Bethell, Commander | Causton, Bichard Knight |
| Austin, M. (Limerick, W.) | Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn) | Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbys.) |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Brodrick, Bt. Hon. St. John | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J (Birm. |
them and preventing their discussing it as it ought to have been discussed. He could not conceive anything more against the principle of Home Rule than the fact that the country was to be handed over to a monopoly of this description. The hon. Member for East Clare had attacked the hon. Member for Norwich for his want of knowledge of Ireland, but he ventured to say that after his month of labour on the Committee that dealt with and rejected this amalgamation scheme last year, the hon. Gentleman had a bettor knowledge of that country than the hon. Member for East Clare himself. With regard to the relief of railway rates, when this Bill was passed through Parliament if the companies reduce the rates in one district they would only increase them elsewhere. He hoped the House under all the circumstances would reject the Bill. If it was necessary that something of this kind should be done, the Government should come forward and purchase the railways, or as an alternative guarantee the dividends they are making and take the control into their own hands. The worst managed concern in the world was the Waterford and Limerick Railway. The manager lived in Limerick, the secretary at Waterford, the gentleman who presided over the company elsewhere, and the meetings were held in Dublin. They were carrying the mails for the post office at £10,000 a year less than the amount the other railway companies received for the same amount of work. The reason for that was that the company had been trying for years to fail in order that they might be bought up. The people for Ireland were now going to be placed under a monopoly of one company, and he hoped the House would prevent that by accepting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Mid Armagh.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes, 117; Noes, 38. (Division List No. 259.)
| Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r | Hutton, John (Yorks, N.R.) | Pierpoint, Robert |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Jameson, Major J. Eustace | Pilkington, R. (Lanes. Newton) |
| Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Joicey, Sir James | Purvis, Robert |
| Collings, lit. Hon. Jesse | Lafone, Alfred | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Cooke, C. W. Radcliffe (Heref'd) | Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool) | Richards, Henry Charles |
| Gorbett, A. Cameron(Glasgow) | Lea, Sir Thomas (Londonderry) | Russell, T. W. (Tyrone) |
| Cornwallis, Fiennes Stanley W. | Leese, Sir J. F. (Accrington) | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Courtney, Rt. Hn. Leonard H. | Llewellyn, Evan H. (Somerset) | Sidebottom, William (Derbysh. |
| Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton) | Llewelyn, Sir Dillwyn-(Sw'ns'a | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Curran, Thomas B. (Donegal) | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham | Spencer, Ernest |
| Curzon, Viscount | Lopes, Henry Yarde Buller | Stanley, Edward J. (Somerset) |
| Dewar, Arthur | Lowther, Ru Hn J W (Cumb'l'nd | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier |
| Doogan, P. C. | Macaleese, Daniel | Talbot, Rt. Hn J G (Oxf'd Univ. |
| Douglas, lit. Hon. A. Akers- | Macartney, W. G Ellison | Thomas, David A. (Merthyr) |
| Fellowes, Hn. Ailwyn Edward | Macdona, John Cumming | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith) | MacIver, David (Liverpool) | Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. M. |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | MacNeill, John Cordon Swift | Usborne, Thomas |
| Fisher, William Hayes | M'Hugh, Patrick A. (Leitrim) | Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter) |
| Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry | Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe | Walrond, Rt Hon Sir William H |
| Garfit, William | Maxwell, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert E | Welby, Lt.-Col. ACE (Taunton |
| Gedge, Sydney | Middlemore, John T. | Whiteley, H. (Ashton-under-L. |
| Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick | Monk, Charles James | Willough by de Eresby, Lord |
| Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon | More, Robert J. (Shropshire) | Wills, Sir William Henry |
| Green, Walford D(Weduesbury | Morton, Arthur H. A (Deptford) | Wodehouse Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath |
| Greene, H. D. (Shrewsbury) | Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G (Bute | Wrightson, Thomas |
| Grey, Sir Edward (Berwick) | Nicol, Donald Ninian | Wylie, Alexander |
| Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill | O'Dowd, John | Wyndham, George |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir W. | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens | Wyvil, Marmaduke D'Arcy |
| Hazell, Walter | Paulton, James Mellor | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Horniman, Frederick John | Peel, Hon. W. Robert Wellesley | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Howard, Joseph | Perks, Robert William | Mr. Maurice Healy and Mr. Malcolm. |
| Hudson, George Bickersteth | Phillpotts, Captain Arthur |
NOES.
| ||
| Baker, Sir John | Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Richardson, Sir Thos (Hartlep'l) |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Flower, Ernest | Runciman, Walter |
| Billson, Alfred | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Holland, William Henry | Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire) |
| Brigg, John | Jones, William (Carnarvonsh. | Strachey, Edward |
| Broadhurst, Henry | Labouchere, Henry | Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath) |
| Bullard, Sir Harry | Lloyd-George, David | Ure, Alexander |
| Cameron, Robert (Durham) | Lucas-Shadwell, William | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Channing, Francis Allston | MacDonnell, Dr. M. A. (Qn's. C. | Whiteley, George (Stockport) |
| Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | M'Kenna, Reginald | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) |
| Duck worth, James | Marks, Henry Hananel | |
| Emmott, Alfred | Molloy, Bernard Charles | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Fenwick, Charles | Piekersgill, Edward Hare | Mr. Lonsdale and Mr. Patrick O'Brien. |
| FitzGerald, Sir Rbt. Penrose- | Reid, Sir Robert Threshie | |
Main Question put, and agreed to. Bill read a second time, and committed.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Standing Orders relative to the Committal and Report stages of Private Bills, and Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the third time." —( The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
said he objected to the Third Reading being taken, upon the ground that it was irregular to do so, and there was no justification for the motion. He thought the Third Reading should lie postponed until Monday.
I think the motion is in order. Such motions at this period of the session are very frequent, and when a Bill is put down by order of the House it cannot be postponed by mere objection on the part of an hon. Member. In this case the motion is peculiarly appropriate, because, as there is no Committee stage, exactly the same questions must arise on the Third Reading as on the Second Reading.
I still contend that the procedure followed in the case of these Bills is contrary to practice. We were prevented from altering a comma in the Bill. We could not submit a new Clause or an Amendment. I do say that it is sharp practice to insist now on the Third Reading. I venture to suggest that the Third Heading should stand over till to-morrow. I do say that it is too much to rush such Bills as this through the House, and the House must protect itself against such practices. I have been thirteen years in this House, and I have no recollection of anything of the kind ever being done before.
I can give the hon. Member one example of two stages of a Bill being taken on the same day by two motions both set down "by Order." Since the hon. Member spoke I have made inquiries, and I find that on 9th July, 1896, there were motions down in the case of the New River Bill, (1) that that Bill should be taken into consideration and (2) "that the Bill be now read a third time," neither "by Order." On 10th July they both appeared on the Paper as "by Order," and they were taken.
I ask, Sir, whether in that case the House was deprived of all opportunity of discussing it in the same way as on this particular Bill?
That is another point altogether. The hon. Member has the right still to ask the House not to suspend the Standing Orders and not to read the Bill a third time. The only question is whether they should take the motion now or on a future day. I have pointed out that there are precedents for doing it now.
Are there no means of providing an opportunity for discussion before the Third Reading?
Of course hon. Members can defeat this motion, which would practically defeat the Bill, because it would necessitate the Bill going to Committee after the Second Reading. The motion is that the Committee and Report stage be dispensed with, and that the Bill be read a third time. If the hon. Member defeats that motion, of course the Bill will go to Committee.
May I appeal to the Chairman of Ways and Means not to press the motion? I can understand that the right hon. Gentleman may have taken it for granted that it would be for the general convenience of the House to proceed in the way proposed. He might at all events consider our views and allow the Bill to lie over till to-morrow. I would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to rush this Bill unnecessarily.
In justice to the right hon. Gentleman and the other officials of the House I think it is right to state that the procedure in this case, whether it be correct or not, is procedure that was adopted after consulting the Irish Members in the fullest and fairest manner. It is very important that these Bills should be disposed of. That was fully considered, and it was because of that that this special procedure was adopted. I do not think there was a single dissentient voice in the party to which I belong when that was proposed, and it cannot be said that any advantage has been taken of the Irish Members or that the officials of the House have acted unfairly towards them. On the other point, as to whether this Bill is to be taken to-day or to-morrow, I say that while the motion of the right hon. Gentleman may not be pleasing to some of the Irish Members, on the other hand I think he is consulting, so far as I have been able to ascertain the views of my colleagues, the general desire that this matter should be finally dealt with to-day, and that some Members who at considerable inconvenience waited over to have this Bill disposed of should not be further kept. The discussion on the Third Reading cannot be anything more than what has taken place on the Second Reading, and I cannot see that any advantage whatever would be gained by letting the matter stand over. It was somewhat as a matter of grace and favour that we got this debate to-day, because it is notorious that important public business is coming on, and it was the desire of these representing the Government that this debate should not take place at all. To put it over from to-day would be inconvenient to the Irish Members. The Government very fairly offered to sacrifice its own convenience, and that being so, I say that the matter should now be disposed of.
If I thought that the position of the hon. Member for Kilkenny would be in any way prejudiced by taking the Third Reading now, I should certainly be inclined to do what I could to postpone it, but I cannot see that the position of the hon. Member would be any better for that. The Bill to-morrow would be in
AYES.
| ||
| Anstruther, H. T. | Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury) | Paulton, James Mellor |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Grey, Sir Edward (Berwick) | Peel, Hn. William Robert W. |
| Asher, Alexander | Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill | Perks, Robert William |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Han bury, Rt. Hon. Robt. Wm. | Phillpotts, Captain Arthur |
| Austin, M. (Limerick, W.) | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir Wm. | Pierpoint, Robert |
| Balfour, lit. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r | Haslett, Sir James Horner | Pilkmgton, R. (Lancs Newton), |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds) | Hazell, Walter | Purvis, Robert |
| Barnes, Frederic Gorell | Horniman, Frederick John | Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Charles T. |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol | Howard, Joseph | Russell, T. W. (Tyrone) |
| Bethell, Commander | Hutton, John (Yorks, N.R.) | Seton-Karr, Henry |
| Bowles, T. G. (King's Lynn) | Jackson, Rt. Hn. Wm. Lawies | Sharpe, William Edw. T. |
| Buxton, Sydney Charles | Jameson, Major J. Eustace | Sidebottom, William(Derbysh. |
| Caldwell, James | Joicey, Sir James | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Lafone, Alfred | Spencer, Ernest |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool) | Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset) |
| Cavendish, V.C.W. (D'rbysh're | Lea, Sir Thos. (Londonderry) | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Leese, Sir Jos. F. (Accrington | Sturt, Hn. Humphry Napier |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J.(Birm. | Llewellyn, Evan H. (Somerset | Talbot, Rt Hn. J. G.(Oxf'd Univ. |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Llewelyn, Sir Dillwyn-(Sw'ns'a | Tanner, Charles Kearns |
| Cohen, Benjamin Louis | Long, Col, Charles W.(Evesbam | Thomas, David A. (Merthyr) |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Lopes, Henry Yarde Buller | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow | Lowther, Rt Hn J W(Cumb'l'nd | Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray |
| Cornwallis, Fiennes Stanley W. | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Usborne, Thomas |
| Courtney, Rt, Hon. L. H. | Lucas-Shad well, William | Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter) |
| Cross, H. Shepherd (Bolton) | Macaleese, Daniel | Walrond, Rt, Hon. Sir Wm.H. |
| Curzon, Viscount | Macartney, W. G. Ellison | Welby, Lt.-Col. ACE (Taunton |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Macdona, John Gumming | Whiteley, H.(Ashton-under-L. |
| Doogan, P. C. | MacIver, David (Liverpool) | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | M'Hugh, Patrick A. (Leitrim) | Wills, Sir William Henry |
| Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw. | Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith) | Maxwell Rt. Hn. Sir Herbert E. | Wylie, Alexander |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Middlemore, J. Throgmorton | Wyndham, George |
| Fisher, William Hayes | Monk, Charles James | Wyvill, Marmaduke D'Arcy |
| Flannery, Sir- Fortescue | More, Robt. Jasper(Shropshire) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry | Morton, A. H. A. (Deptford) | |
| Garfit, William | Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G. (Bute) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Godson, Sir August us Frederick | Nicol, Donald Ninian | Mr. Maurice Healy and Mr. Malcolm. |
| Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon | O'Dowd, John | |
| Green, W. D. (Wednesbury) | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens | |
NOES.
| ||
| Baker, Sir John | Flower, Ernest | Richardson, Sir Thos. (Hartlep'l |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Griffith, Ellis J. | Runciman, Walter |
| Bilson, Alfred | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale- | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Jones, William (Carnarvonsh. | Sinclair, Capt. John (Forfars. |
| Brigg, John | Lewis, John Herbert | Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath) |
| Broadhurst, Henry | MacDonnell, Dr. M A(Queen's C | Ure, Alexander |
| Cameron, Robert (Durham) | M'Kenna, Reginald | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Molloy, Bernard Charles | Whiteley, George (Stockport) |
| Dewar, Arthur | Pease, Herb. Pike (Darlington) | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.) |
| Douglas, Charles M (Lanark) | Piekersgill, Edward Hare | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Duckworth, James | Rasch, Major Frederic Carne | Mr. Patrick O'Brien and Mr. Power. |
| Fenwick, Charles | Reid, Sir Robert Threshie | |
Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Baker Street And Waterloo Railway Bill
exactly the same position as it is now, and therefore I do not see that any object would be gained by delaying the matter.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes, 112; Noes, 33. (Division List No. 260.)
Market Weighton Drainage And Navigation Bill
Lords Amendments considered, in pursuance of the Order of the House of 31st, July, and agreed to.
Caledonian Railway Bill Lords
As amended, considered.
Ordered, That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the third time.—( Mr. Caldwell.)
Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
South Eastern And London, Chatham, And Dover Railways Bill Lords
Ordered, That, in the case of the South Eastern and London, Chatham, and Dover Railways Bill [Lords], Standing Order 239 be suspended, and that the Bill be now taken into consideration.—( Mr. Caldwell.)
Bill, as amended, accordingly considered.
An Amendment made.
Ordered, That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the third time.—( Mr. Ca dwell.)
Queen's consent signified; Bill read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No 15) Bill
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Tramways Orders Confirmation (No 3) Bill Lords
As amended, considered; read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Petitions
Land Values Taxation (Scotland) Bill
Petition from Clydebank, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
Prevention Of Corruption Bill
Petition from St. Pancras, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
Returns, Reports, Etc
Natal Correspondence
Return [presented 24th July] to printed. [No. 310.]
Joint Stock Companies
Return [presented 31st July] to be printed. [No. 311.]
Contracts For Local Autherities (Wages) (Ireland)
Return [presented 31st July] to be printed. [No. 312.]
Evictions (Ireland)
Copy presented, of Return of Evictions in Ireland for the quarter ended 30th June, 1900 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
Local Government Board
Copy presented, of Supplement of the Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Local Government Beard 1899–1900, containing the Report of the Medical Officer for 1899–1900 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
Treaty Series (No 16, 1900)
Copy presented, of Agreement between the United Kingdom and Siam relative to the Registration of British Subjects in Siam. Signed at Bangkok, 29th November, 1899 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
Trade Reports (Annual Series)
Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 2489 and 2493 to 2426 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
War Office Contracts
Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence, brought up, and read.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 313.]
Supplemental War Loan Bill
[SECOND READING.]
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the second time."
We have now come to what is certainly the last Supplementary Estimate of this session, although anybody would be extremely rash to say that we have come to the last Supplementary Estimate of the present financial year. But, as this session will be remembered —for good or for evil—as one of the most memorable financial chapters in the history of the Parliament, I think that this is the proper opportunity for taking some note of what have been the incidents of its financial existence. But before I advert to earlier matters I have some explanations to ask of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We have had what are practically three financial statements, three fragmentary Budgets—one before the financial year was completed, one when the financial year was completed, and another after the financial year was completed. I have endeavoured to make what I believe the theologians call a harmony between the right hon. Gentleman's doctrines, with, I am sorry to say, very imperfect success. I have over and over again, with as much care as I have been able to devote to the subject, endeavoured to understand what the actual cost of this war was, what the estimated cost of this war was, and what is the financial provision that has been made for it. Upon not one of these heads have I been able to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. I observe that originally the right hon. Gentleman, in his first Budget speech in March, put the estimated cost of the war at £60,000,000. That was repeated, I think, afterwards, in April; the Under Secretary for War gave the same figure some weeks ago in stating the Estimates to which this Bill is a corollary; and last night, I see by the papers, the light hon. Gentleman said that the present cost had been £42,000,000. I want to have an explanation upon these points. The provision that has been made for the war, according to the right hon. Gentleman, up to the time of this Bill is defective by £8,500,000.
was understood to dissent.
I will read to the right hon. Gentleman what his words were. He said in his speech, when he was introducing this matter, that
Therefore, whatever provision has been made before this Bill was, according to this statement, insufficient to the amount of £8,500,000? Whether correct or not, these are the words."he required, out of the £13,000,000 he asked for, £8,500,000 for what he might call South African purposes connected directly or indirectly with the unhappy prolongation of the war."
Would the right hon. Gentleman like me to explain?
I think I can make plain what I desire to know in a moment. What I want to know is, is that to be added to the £60,000,000 which upon repeated occasions has been stated to be the estimate of the cost of the war? My hon. friend the Member for Carnarvon asked a question, to which he got an inadequate reply, and I have tried as hard as I could to understand from these triple statements what is the view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself upon this subject. But then, in the same statement, the right hon. Gentleman said, "We have got £6,000,000 in hand." Then, if you have £6,000,000 in hand, as he stated, for this particular purpose, you do not want £8,500,000 in addition; one would suppose that what you really want is £2,500,000 in addition to what you have got in hand. I want to know whether the right hon. Gentleman really does want, in addition to the £6,000,000 he says he has got in hand, £8,500,000, or whether he wants the balance between the £6,000,000 he has in hand and the £8,500,000. I defy anybody reading these statements to say which it is. If he wants £8,500,000 besides £6,000,000 then the cost of the war as now estimated is £68,000,000. Now what I want to ascertain is this—not so much what has been spent up to this time, for that is not material, but what out of taxes and loans has, independent of this Bill, been assiged to the expenses of the war. That is the first fact I want to get at. I will try to state what the position is so far as I can ascertain it from the figures which have been laid before us. In his first Budget speech the right hon. Gentleman said there was an estimate of £23,270,000 for the South African War, and of this he said £5,500,000 would be met from what he then estimated would be the surplus from last year. This surplus then, according to his Budget statement, was to form part of the provision for the cost of the war. Then, later on, he found he had a much larger surplus and consequently less deficit to meet in the coming year. He said at first, "I have got £5,500,000 and have £23,000,000 to meet, therefore the deficiency is £17,500,000." But then, finding himself possessed of a larger surplus by about £4,000,000, the deficit became £13,000,000, and not £17,000,000 as ho had first estimated. What I want to make clear is that he treated the probable surplus of last year as part of the cost of the war. Then in March the right hon. Gentleman, dealing with the finances of this year, said he expected to have a deficiency of £20,000,000, but in consequence of the anticipation of payments to the revenue he found afterwards that though the; deficit was £4,000,000 less in the preceding year it was £2,000,000 more in the present year, and the consequence was that altogether on the two years there was a deficit of £2,000,000 less than ho had anticipated. Finally, in his statement in April on what may be taken as the corrected Estimates, the right hon. Gentleman said his position at the present time was that he had a margin of £1,127,000 and borrowing powers, not then employed, of £5,000,000. That was what he had in hand to deal with in April last. I want to know what has become of that £6,000,000? The right hon. Gentleman stated at that time, in April, that he had taken the odd million —not on any definite estimate, for it was difficult to make an estimate—he took the odd million as a margin, with the borrowing powers for £5,000,000, to moot contingencies that might arise after April; the return of troops, I suppose, among other contingencies, but specifically he included reserve of ammunition necessary in consequence of the war. Then up to this point we have got the right hon. Gentleman with his estimates, so far as he could make them, necessary to bring the war to its conclusion. He still adheres, I believe, to the belief that the whole thing will be wound up in September, therefore there is nothing in that which should alter his calculations. He having made his estimates for the war to end in September, and having possessed himself of the £6,000,000 balance, comes now and says he wants £13.000,000 more, of which £8,500,000 are for purposes of the war. Then, I say, we want explanations of that. I daresay my analysis of his statements may be in correct, but that is what I make out to be the provision expended or not expended for the war. In the first place, there was a surplus of £10,000,000 in round figures, which would have been expended in reduction of debt, but was devoted to purposes of the war. Then there was £4,600,000 which would have gone to the Sinking Fund, but was suspended for the purposes of the war. Then there was the margin this year, upwards of £1,000,000; I think £1,125,000. Then there is taxation—"a small quantity of bread to a great deal of sack" —amounting in the financial yield to £14,000,000 including the arrears of the Income Tax to accrue next year. Then there were the Treasury Bills raised last year to the amount of £8,000,000 and renewed. Then there was the war loan of £30,000,000. Then there are the extra borrowing powers which he said he hoped he would not I want to use, but he has these in I hand. Now what does all this amount to? If you add these items together they come to not £60,000,000, but £71,000,000 as the provision in hand or employed for the war. On the top of that the right hon. Gentleman comes this week and asks in terms for £8,500,000 more in respect of the war. Now without some explanation there is confusion in the figures. From one sentence in the right hon. Gentleman's speech the other night I gather that he has got £6,000,000 to set against £13,000,000, and what we want to know is, why does he want £13,000,000 if he has £6,000,000 in hand? Why does he ask for the additional amount specifically for the war? Of course, what I have said is subject to any explanation the Chancellor of the Exchequer may give us; but I do submit that, when we have three financial statements difficult to reconcile, the House of Commons before giving; a Third Reading to this Bill, if it is to have any control over the taxation, expenditure, and debt of the country, should have a clear statement laid before it showing exactly the estimated cost, the actual cost, and the provision made for the war. This ought not to be left to loose statements that my intellect, at all events, finds difficulty in reconciling one with the other, and I think this is not an unreasonable demand which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider. It is quite plain that somehow or other he wants more money. That is a position which in a state of war in several parts of the world is with a Chancellor of the Exchequer not an unusual one, and so with a little coy reluctance the right hon. Gentleman tells us he is going to borrow. It is said borrowing is as easy as lying. It is the easiest transaction in the world. The latter is said to be an abomination, but it is a very present help in time of trouble. What is true of the one is true of the other, and though borrowing may be an abomination, it is also a very present help to an Administration in time of trouble. The courage of our soldiers is as of yore, but the courage of our financiers is not of the same character. The cost of fighting against the Beers is as near as possible the same as when we fought against the Empire of Russia. Fifty years ago our politicians and statesmen were, of course, far inferior to these of the present day, but at all events they had some financial conscience and some financial courage, and out of that £70,000,000 they provided £35,000,000 from taxation. We, who are so much wiser and braver, provide only £14,000,000 from taxation; they provided half, we provide less than a quarter. Different times have brought different manners. Well, this is the situation. The people of this country are willing to give their lives and their happiness in this cause; but there is one thing Her Majesty's Government think they would not bear to give, and that is their money. There is one thing which will not bear the test of a dissolution, and that is, taxation. Then we come to the question of borrowing. The right hon. Gentleman wants to borrow £13,000,000, but he has £6,000,000 in hand, and the amount, one would suppose, should lie £7,000,000, not £13,000,000. Assuming the borrowing, I approve his declaration that he will not make it a permanent borrowing, that ho will "earmark it as a temporary borrowing." That shows that as far as circumstances admit the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a sound financial conscience. He tells us that he has done it for this purpose—"he desires to point out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer of that day that at the earliest moment he is to make a provision for the redemption of the loan." An excellent principle ! I only hope he may be the Chancellor of the Exchequer of that day to act upon it. Then he says that "the provision for the redemption of the loan is to form a part of the first financial statement after the war in South Africa is happily over." That will be next April. The war will be over in September, and we shall have the financial statement as to the liquidation of the debt next April. How is it going to lie provided according to his view? He says that he is sanguine of recovering the cost from the Transvaal. But the Transvaal contains two populations. Whom is he going to recover it from in the Transvaal? Does he expect to recover £40,000,000 from the Beers? I dare say the right hon. Gentleman would like to do it, but, no doubt, he is familiar with the old proverb that you cannot got more out of a cat than its skin; and if he thinks that in the present condition of the Beers in the Transvaal he is going to recover from them the money he borrows I think he will be disappointed, and I do not think it is a hopeful prospect to extend to the taxpayers of this country. Does he expect to get it from his friends the Uitlanders? No, the Uitlanders in these circumstances would be more satisfied with their late administration than with that which is to take its place. Then he thinks that because the mines are uninjured this money will be paid by the mine-owners. If he thinks that he is going to get out of them the money that has been spent on this war I must be excused for veiling my opinion on the subject in the learned language—Credat Judceus Apella. I have my own doubts as to the Judœus of to-day. The right hon. Gentleman next says that he wants to have liberty in borrowing. With his present majority he is a chartered libertine, and they will give him, I have no doubt, what he desires. I agree that in the present state of the money market ho ought to be able to pay his money and take his choice. How much money he will have to pay when he makes his choice I do not think even the hon. Member for East Islington will be able to tell him. He will not touch Consols. He is quite right there. A year or two ago everyone was in a panic about the high price of Consols. It was said that there never was such a disaster as in having Consols at 114 and 115. There were alarmists who said that they would rise to 150, and then where should we be? As long as I was at all responsible for the finances of the country I could never see that the high value of the national credit was a public evil. We had all kinds of alarms about the Savings Banks, and it was said that if you get Consols up to this high price we must have a revolution in the Savings Banks legislation. This panic even affected my friends at the Treasury, and when it was necessary to justify the cutting down of the Sinking Fund, the excuse was the terrible price of the Consols in which you had to invest. Nothing more childish or more ridiculous was ever put forward in a solemn Government Memorandum. But I consoled my alarmist friends by saying, "Do not be too timid; you enjoy an Administration which will soon bring the value of Consols down." But speaking of Consols at 115, I suppose there are persons who believe that the thermometer is always to be at 93 degrees in the shade. I have great confidence myself in the vicissitudes of the seasons, and the right hon. Gentleman has been equal to the occasion. He has got Consols down to 97, and I have no doubt that in time he will rival the First Lord of the Admiralty, who succeeded in getting them down to 95. Then I think we shall hear no more of the Savings Banks Bill, which came to an untimely birth, and that there will be no difficulty in investing the savings of the country at a depreciated price in Consols. The right hon. Gentleman is quite right not to touch Consols. I do not think there is any man who can tell him what the price would be if he issued £13,000,000 in that stock to-morrow. Then he shies a little at the war loan. The right hon. Gentleman is a most generous antagonist, and he has testified to the value of the services that I rendered him with respect to the war loan. It is true that it was a confidential communication, but in these days of the new diplomacy the natural place which a Cabinet Minister chooses for a confidential communication is at the Mansion House in a speech addressed to the bankers. There he was good enough to recognise that by my contribution of £100 I had greatly supported the loan of £30,000,000, and that I had done it out of personal regard for the light hon. Gentleman and in my interest for the well-being of the country. Like a generous man he is grateful for small mercies, and I am glad that I should have rendered him that material assistance; and if I did good by stealth I do not blush to find it fame. I must confess, however, to the right hon. Gentleman that my object was not exclusively patriotic. I had another object. I wished to have my own personal barometer by which I could test the exact value of his financial arrangements. During the high tide of enthusiasm of this war I told him that I thought he had put the price too low, and that he might easily have got half a million more than he did. That was some weeks ago; but things have a good deal changed in the last few weeks. People do not seem to be so keen about the war loan as they were; and the loan which was at a high premium then is at a considerable discount now. I watch its fortunes with much interest, and the result of that investment; and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that he had much better not try his war loan because it is impossible to say that if he was to issue £13,000,000 of a war loan he would be quite certain of issuing it at even 2½ premium. Again, I think he is right in the decision at which he has arrived. It is plain to anyone who understands these things that he knows very well that what he will have to do is to issue this money on floating debt of some kind or other, either Treasury bills or Exchequer bends, or some short security of that kind. I know that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with mo as to the evil of floating debt, because he and I together reduced the floating debt almost to a minimum. It stood in the time of the former Administration at £36,000,000. That is a great evil. When you come into a tight money market you have to pay a high price; and if he raises this money by £13,000,000 his floating debt will exceed £30,000,000. What price does he expect to get them at? There are gentlemen in the House who can tell him. His last price was 4 per cent. Does anyone say that that is the extreme price to which they are likely to rise? I do not profess to be an expert in these matters, but no one looking at the money business of the world can predict what the price of the floating debt will be at any particular time. I do not know what estimate he has made for the interest which in future he is bound to raise on a floating debt upwards of £30,000,000. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of Exchequer bends. I am all for short currency of debt, but I cannot help recollecting that in the time of the Crimean War Exchequer bends were raised with a view to liquidation, and as soon as the time came for liquidation they were renewed. I rest with confidence on the hope that if the right lion. Gentleman is responsible for the financial affairs of the country next April he will lay before the House a scheme for the liquidation of the debt which during the present year we have incurred. That is a matter, in my opinion, quite apart from any party interests, of the highest consequence to the welfare and the credit of this country. Passing from this, I should like to make a few remarks upon the finance of which this is the concluding chapter this session. It is very remarkable how the financial aspect of the war began. When the Government entered upon the war in October their estimate for its conduct and conclusion was ten millions of money—I forget the number of men, but I do not think it was more than 10,000. That was their idea of its requirements. I am taking the figures as given by the Under Secretary for War. In February it was an additional twelve millions; in March thirty-one and a half millions; and now to that we have the figure of seven and a half millions of the Under Secretary for War and the figure of eight and a half millions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. However, I am not at a question of half a million— I am looking at the figures as a test of the foresight of this Government as to the character of this war. They entered upon the war with a light heart and a lighter purse. In October they were satisfied they would have a military parade and a walk-over in the Republics for ten millions. It was not till February they discovered they must have twelve millions more. In the Budget in March the right hon. Gentleman put the gross cost of the war at twenty-three millions, towards which he had a surplus of five millions and a deficit of about seventeen millions.
That estimate was till the end of the financial year.
Yes, the 31st of March. Singularly enough, in that very March, they wanted thirty-one and a half millions more, and now they want seven and a half millions more. All I can say is that these figures do not spell prescience as to the character of the war on which they had entered. I am not going to-day—under no circumstances do I think it at all necessary or expedient— to discuss the origin of the war. I doubt very much whether at this time, or even; in this generation, a just judgment will be formed upon the war. It will be judged by these who live to see its results. Oh, you think you are going to be judged by a snatch dissolution. That is not the final judgment of a nation that has a, future. I have lived to see another great war. I remember the time when, in the streets and in the music-halls, the Crimean War was as popular as this war. No man could be heard to aver against, it, but half a century has elapsed, and the Prime Minister of England has avowed that at that time we put an equal sum of money upon the wrong horse. I say that, in the end, this war will be judged by its results, and the results of this war will depend upon the policy which attends its conclusion. That is all we can say to-day. All we can do is to contribute, as far as we can, to make that policy a wise policy. We are told—and that is all I will say upon the origin of the war, and it is unnecessary to discuss it under these circumstances—that the war was inevitable. That is a discovery which, oddly enough, was made after the event, and an inevitable Government has been the sport of inevitable circumstances. I am not myself a disciple of the inevitable in statesmanship. I am old-fashioned enough still to believe in the theory of causation, and I am not satisfied, with a defence which rests upon a purblind fatalism. If a great enterprise is undertaken with means ludicrously inadequate, if there is a lamentable breakdown in your hospital system, or if military disasters are repeated in the presence of an inferior foe, I. am not satisfied to be told, "We could not help it; it was inevitable." For my part, it hold with the great Roman satirist that "prudence and not fortune is the deity that guides the destinies of mankind." However, I admit it is of no use to attempt to argue with a bench of Predestinarians. They thought of disposing of this war for ten millions when they began. You would have thought from this estimate that they did not know anything about the resources of their antagonists; but they told us they knew all about their armaments, their Mausers, and. their Krupp guns, and, in fact, they told, us they knew they were armed to the teeth; yet ton millions was all they asked for for some six months after the commencement of the war. And in that war, for which ten millions were asked, I think the losses from all causes—killed, wounded, missing, and deaths from disease—have been as near as possible, as far as we can calculate, equal to the whole number of their foes. We are told sometimes—it is a favourite dilemma of the Colonial Secretary—that we must either approve the origin of the war and its prosecution, or oppose it altogether and refuse the means of carrying it on. Now that, with great respect to him, I will venture to say, is absolutely and wholly irrational. When your house is on fire it is not at all immaterial who set it on fire, but what you have got to do is to put it out. To say that you must approve the conduct of the person who set it on fire, or not put it out at all, or object to its being put out, does not seem to me to be a sensible proposition. In the same way, if the interests of the State are imperilled the first duty, in my opinion, of every man is to employ the means and to support the moans that shall put an end to that danger. That is my view on this subject, and it is a view which since the war began, I have consistently advocated. The question of ultimate responsibility remains, but the duty of dealing with the present danger, of quenching the flames, and removing the peril to the country, is imperative. That is a policy which is just, reasonable, and perfectly consistent. The House of Commons have voted, and they will always vote, in my opinion, the money, whether by taxation or by borrowing, which is necessary to bring this war to the earliest finish. I know that the right hon. Gentleman the Colonial Secretary has charged these upon this bench with having been willing to sacrifice the interests of the country when they were responsible for the government of the country. He brought a charge against the Leader of the Opposition—a charge he found it necessary to retract, but for which he has not thought fit to apologise. That is the right hon. Gentleman's way. But I must observe that my right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition was not the chief offender. He had the misfortune to have an "imperious colleague" under whose evil influence he was guilty of a crime that was never committed. That imperious colleague does not ask or ex- pect any amends for that charge from the Colonial Secretary. He was good enough to say that the right hon. Gentleman had diminished the artillery of this country under the "compulsion of an imperious colleague who was seeking after popular Budgets." I am perfectly contented with the somewhat belated acknowledgment on the part of the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues that the Budgets of the late Administration were popular—Budgets that the right hon. Gentleman and his friends neglected no means, but employed every, artifice, to defeat. What did the late Administration find? They found a deficient revenue, they found a neglected Navy, and a demand for an increase in the Navy, as soon as they took office. They met these demands not by the cheap expedient of borrowing, hut by calling upon the people for great sacrifices in respect of taxation, and that was the popular Budget of an imperious colleague, who coerced my right hon. friend into a crime which it is admitted he never committed. These are the sort of reckless charges which are manufactured upon the eve of a dissolution. If you want an example of the sacrifice of public interests to popular Budgets you must go to Governments who in times of great surplus cut down the Sinking Fund, which should have gone to diminish the Debt, and who appropriated that which might have gone to the national defence to favourite classes whom they are willing to subsidise. That was not the conduct of our short Administration, with its feeble majority. We met the difficulties in which we found ourselves, we called upon the nation for great sacrifices; we carried in this House— yes, and they could not reject it in the House of Lords—a popular Budget upon the surplus of which the right hon. Gentleman and his friends have been living for five years. Therefore, for my part, I am quite willing to accept as amends for the unfounded imputation he cast upon me his recognition that it was a popular Budget. I have no desire in this matter to introduce party recriminations. In the interests of the credit of the public life of this country I do enter, and I will enter, a stern remonstrance against this habit for electioneering purposes of inventing false charges and then declining to apologise for them. I am afraid that is a practice which is becoming more common than it used to be when I first entered political life. It is part of the new diplomacy. I am not an admirer of the new diplomacy, especially that particular feature of it. Now I turn to a matter which is more satisfactory and in which we can nil agree, and that is the courage, the devotion, the self-sacrifice which every class of the subjects of the Queen in this country, and in her dominions beyond the seas, have shown in the trials to which they have been subjected in this war. These people who believe that a long period of prosperity and peace depraves the fibre of a nation have seen that theory belied by the events of the past year. I have heard it said, and I am not sure it was not said by a member of Her Majesty's Government, that it was worth while to have the war in order to enjoy this spectacle. I do not go so far as that, I should not even be willing to set my own house on fire in order to see how my household would behave. I should be quite satisfied to trust to them without it. I think that is a poor consolation for all the suffering, the loss of life, and the sorrow which have been caused. I cannot, looking at this the final estimate of this session, fail to look back to where we were this time twelve months ago. If the estimates and, still more, the sad records of this war could have been before this House in August of last year I for one shall never part with the belief that there would have been a different temper and tone in dealing with the difficulties of that period, and that the result might have been very different from what it was. I am not one of the disciples of predestinarianism. What was the condition of this country in last August? A condition in which every man could rejoice. You had an unexampled trade, you had public credit high, you had the condition of the people in the matter of wages good, you had the necessaries and the comforts of life cheap, you had a revenue overflowing beyond the dreams of the avarice even of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. You had a surplus of ten millions, from which with its prospects you had the expectation of great relief to the people of this country. You might have granted them many a boon; you might have granted them relief from taxation; you might have granted old-age pensions. Such was the progress of the people of this nation as the result of fifty years practically unbroken peace. I know there are people who advocate war and annexation. Sometimes it is in the cause of Christianity, sometimes in the cause of civilisation; and when these hypocrisies do not take, then it is for the good of trade. I have had some experience in this matter, and watched it very closely, and my conclusion has been that war has never been the foster-mother of trade. We have heard from the President of the Beard of Trade that lie anticipates a decline in the trade of this country. I believe that that is borne out by the state of things at present in Lancashire. I have spoken of public credit. Nothing strengthens public credit so much as the knowledge that you are making constant provision for the reduction of the debt. In the last six months you have cut off provision for the reduction of the debt. In fact, you have cut off fourteen millions with old and new Sinking Funds of money which would naturally have gone towards the reduction of the debt. That has to lie added to the achievements of two Tory Governments—I beg pardon, Unionist Governments; it is the same thing—who had already depicted the Sinking Fund to the extent of four millions— we know in whose interest. You have borrowed forty-three millions of money, and by this Bill you add thirteen millions more. That is the change which has come over the situation and the nation within twelve months, and now we are told that these are what are called the final estimates—the winding-up estimates. The right hon. Gentleman says he has taken more than he wants; and therefore it is to be assumed that this is all we are to be asked for. Is there any man who believes that these are the final estimates? He must be very little versed in the precedents of the past or in the probabilities of the future. He says that he is going to leave in South Africa 45,000 men, of which 30,000 is for a permanent garrison. The first observation I make upon that is that if you are going to shut up for a long time 30,000 men in South Africa, you must raise 30,000 more men in England; but there is no estimate for that. And there is not merely the question of the estimate of the money, but the question of the enlistment of the men, and of that we hear nothing. As to the garrison in South Africa, I do not offer any opinion on that subject. I know that that territory is nearly twice as big as the United Kingdom, and 30,000 men in the midst of a discontented population will not be a very large proportion. If you are going to add to disfranchisement confiscation, then, in my opinion, it will be very inadequate; and if you are going to put on the top of that an attempt to levy thirty millions or forty millions of money upon that community, then the tax-collectors will want more than 30,000 men. It is not merely the money you have borrowed and the money you have spent, but we are told that there are going to be great claims for compensation. Who is going to pay the claims for compensation? We have heard nothing of that from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He talks about recovering the compensation to be paid to all these loyalists who have suffered in the war. Who is going to pay it? We ought to hear something of that. But then there are the other odd 15,000 men who are not to be brought home. Who are they? Are they the persons who are to become settlers there out of the military forces? What is your authority for believing that there are 15,000 men who have had experience of South Africa, and who desire to remain there? We should like to have some explanation on that subject. I have talked to many, and I have read the letters of many, and the one chorus is, "Thank God we have done our duty to our country, and we hope we shall never see South Africa again." That is my experience on that point. But are these 15,000 men to have any support given to them? What are they to have for remaining if they choose to remain there? Are you going to give them confiscated land, or are you going to give them money, and, if so, how much money? Why in this estimate now put before us are we not told what is to be the cost of settling these 15,000 men? There again it depends upon the policy of your settlement. Do you believe that there is any English Yeoman who will allow himself to be placed down in South Africa in the midst of a hostile population alone? There are better places for him to go to than that. Of course, if you have a policy of confiscation, then there will be some inducement to the men to remain; but, in any case, you ought to give us some account of who these 15,000 men are, what they are to receive, and what is to be the inducement for them to settle. There is another thing which is not provided for in this final estimate. We are told that as the result of this war there is to be a great military consultation and a great military reorganisation. Will that cost nothing? The principle, so far as I have seen it, of this future military organisation is that each military man has his own plan which he considers the most perfect plan, and insists upon its adoption. The one thing they are all agreed upon is to denounce any check upon it, especially on the part of the Treasury. It is like the man who had got a watch and insisted upon it having no balance, with the result that it ran down at once. When you talk of final estimates of this kind it is perfectly obvious what is contemplated. I have already indicated that you must raise 30,000 more men to take the place of the garrison that is to remain in South Africa, and the demands which are made for military organisation may be of an indefinite character. Therefore I cannot myself accept for a moment the estimates and the Bill we have now before us as closing the capital account of the war in South Africa. Well, Sir, unfortunately, we are upon a review of our financial situation, and there is another matter—I can hardly call it a small cloud rising in the East—for which, a provision of £3,000,000 is made in this Bill.
There is a large margin.
Well, I should like to ask, what is your margin? We have not been told what that margin is. You had £3,000,000, and you ask for £8,500,000 for the war in South Africa; that is £11,500,000, and. then you have got £1,000,000 additional for the reserve of stores, and so on. If that is a proper calculation it fills up your £13,000,000. However, the right hon. Gentleman will explain that, because it is perfectly unintelligible as it stands. At all events, we have done a very formidable thing. We have opened a new war account in China. Into what that trouble may or will develop no man can say. I do not blame the Government for not declaring their policy in this case, because the facts are not known on which any policy can be founded. That, the besieged Ministers and their de- pendents must be rescued if they be alive, as we all hope they are, everybody will of course agree, and that these by whom they have been attacked and some of them murdered, must be punished if they can be discovered. Beyond that, the future is dark and gloomy. We have interests in China equal to, if not greater, than these we have in South Africa, and never was there a time when it was more desirable or necessary for the good of this Empire that we should have our hands free, and be able to make the influence of England felt in these regions as it ought to be felt. Never were we in a position more difficult to make that influence felt. We are in the position of a man with his arms tied behind his back. Our resources are greatly restricted. We have had recourse already to troops from India in Africa, and we have been obliged to have recourse to Indian troops in China. That is, in my opinion, a most mischievous practice for the interests of our Indian Empire. By adopting it you place before the Indian people this dilemma: either you are keeping an unnecessary number of troops in India at the expense of the people of India, who cannot afford it—and that is an injustice—or you are not keeping an unnecessary force; and then by removing a necessary force from India you are exposing her to perils to which she ought not to be exposed. Therefore, not now only, but in former days, I have always protested against the use of Indian troops for purposes that are not Indian. Well, you have this question of China to be solved by the concert of Europe. We know something of the concert of Europe. Up to this time the representatives of the concert of Europe at Peking have been occupied in nothing but competitive rivalry to see which could possess themselves of the largest fragment of the Chinese Empire, and then you are surprised that this is resented by the Chinese people. The Great Powers — I am speaking of them all — assumed that China was a corpse, and around that car-case the eagles were gathered together but that corpse has proved to be most dangerously alive. It is idle to speculate where we know so little, but it is clear enough that the ultimate questions which may arise in China may be more formidable than any we have had to meet in South Africa. But I will not hazard an opinion upon it. It may be the £3,000,000 provided for dealing with China will be about as adequate as the £10,000,000 you have provided for South Africa, and this may be followed by demands equally great. But behind and beyond all these things there is a matter of greater gravity than any to which I have yet referred. Statesmen of the highest authority and character have been impressing upon our minds over and over again this fact—that we are the best hated people in the world. Not by the Governments, but by the nations, which is a much more serious thing. In a speech of the Prime Minister to the Primrose League he represented to them that so great and so combined was this hatred that we might at any time be exposed to an ugly rush upon our shores from the nations of Europe. Such a statement as that has never in the history of this country been made by the Prime Minister of England. I do not say whether it is true or not; but that statement, whatever it is, is rather an unpleasant consequence of the régime of Imperialism which we have enjoyed for five years. We were told by the gentleman who is now Viceroy of India on this Government acceding to office that the mere fact of Lord Salisbury taking charge of the Foreign Office would produce a great calm in Europe; that everybody would be satisfied and everybody would be happy; that there would be a millennium, in which the lion would lie down with the lamb. But at the end of five years the Prime Minister comes forward and says we are the object of the combined hatred of Europe. And what is his remedy for that state of affairs? It is to be brought about by the Primrose League, who are to arm with rifles the peasantry of this country. That does not entirely reassure me against this syndicate of European hatred.
That is all the remedy for this colossal danger which is offered by the Prime Minister. Nothing could be more childish or more puerile. Why, Sir, if it is true that this danger exists, you must quadruple your Army and you must quadruple your Navy. What does it mean? It means that if each of four of the Powers builds an iron- clad, you must build four, or if each adds a corps d'armée to its land forces, you must add four. The remarkable thing is that when the Prime Minister made this declaration he said lie really could not understand the reason for that hatred. He ought to understand it. It has grown up under his auspices. "It was inevitable." That, I suppose, is the explanation given by the Government. There is another authority, greatly versed in foreign affairs, who holds the same opinion of the danger and of the universality of the hatred. Lord Rosebery, however, knows the cause of that hatred, and he has stated it in a celebrated speech. This is what he said, and it is deserving of the attention of the House and of the country—"Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis Tempus eget."
—observe these words—"The British Empire needs peace. For the last twenty years, and still more for the last twelve, you have been laying your hands"
That is the reason of the hatred given by Lord Rosebery. He then goes into a careful calculation as to what has been the addition of territory in the last twelve years by the process which he described as a process of "frantic eagerness to lay hands on every tract of country adjacent to your own," and he says it has resulted in "undigested Empire." That is a capital phrase. Nothing affects the body corporal more than undigested food, and the body politic with an enormous mass of undigested Empire knows no repose and enjoys no health. It is "undigested Empire" which he calculates has amounted "in the last twelve years to twenty-two areas as large as that of the United Kingdom itself"; and this is the very sound conclusion at which he arrived—"with almost frantic eagerness on every tract of territory adjacent to your own or which from any point of view you thought it desirable to take. That has had two results—I dare say it is quite right; but it has had two results. The first result is that you have excited to an almost intolerable degree the envy of other colonising nations, and in the cases of many empires, or many countries, or several countries rather, which were formerly friendly to yon you can reckon, in consequence of your colonial policy, right or wrong—and I am supposed to be rather a sinner in that respect— not on their active benevolence but on their active malevolence."
That was spoken four years ago. That was before unconsidered trifles like the Soudan and the two Republics were added to the "undigested Empire." In these sentiments I entirely agree. Is it not a strange thing that these great Empires should be possessed with such a lust of extended dominion, and that the greater they are the more hungry they seem to be for more? What Lord Rosebery calls "frantic eagerness" for acquisition of territory, and what Lord Salisbury rebuked as "the desire to fight everybody and take everything "—a desire which, he said, was the ruin of great Empires—seems to be growing upon the nations of Europe. What is the consequence? Their resources are strained to the uttermost, they leave no margin for dealing with the duties which belong to their dominion, the great possessions they already have are starved and mortgaged for these further acquisitions. Every nation seems to regard that which its neighbour acquires as wrong to itself, and the consequence is that state of active malevolence which is referred to in the passage which I have read. The interests of what, after all, is but a small and distant fraction of our vast Empire have absorbed all our resources in men; they have increased our taxation; they have accumulated our debt. What have they done for us? They have left us but a very narrow margin for dealing with the great possibilities of danger in China; they have compelled us to refuse, what in my opinion we desired and ought to have given, assistance to our Indian subjects. These are the results—I am not speaking of the present war, I am speaking of this land hunger, this craving for acquisition when you have not settled, developed, or done justice to the territories you already possess, and you are not able to do justice to the people to whom you are responsible at home. Is it not well to-day that in reviewing the situation in which we find ourselves these who are responsible for the fortunes of this nation, instead of inflaming popular passions and stimulating a spirit of wild and grasping ambition, should impress upon the public mind the great truth, that of all the interests of this vast and glorious Empire, the greatest interest is peace?"That marks out for many years a policy from which you cannot depart if you would. Yon may be compelled to draw the sword—I hope you may not be, lint the foreign policy of threat Britain until this territory is consolidated; filled up, settled, and civilised must inevitably be a policy of peace."
Sir, we have listened to a very remarkable address, which reminds us of the old days when the right hon. Gentleman, in his best fighting form, used to delight us, although we might disagree with him, with his frequent interposition in our debates. Achilles has emerged from his tent, perhaps not entirely satisfied with the conduct of affairs by Agamemnon in his absence, and for the first time in my recollection for seven years the right hon. Gentleman has expressed his cordial approval of, and agreement with, a speech of Lord Rosobery's. The right hon. Gentleman, in the exercise of his right, has made this debate the occasion for a general review of the history of the country during, I think, almost the whole of our term of office. I had imagined that he might take exception to some such minor point as the mode by which I propose to raise the loan which I ask the House to sanction, but on that he had nothing more to say than that—which I heard with regret—in his little effort to aid Her Majesty's Government in their policy in South Africa he had, unfortunately, missed his market. But the right hon. Gentleman naturally and properly devoted a very large portion of the earlier part of his speech to inquiring as to the expenditure upon the South African War, and the means by which we propose to provide for it. On that point I hope presently to satisfy the House. But I think the main object of his speech was not financial. The right hon. Gentleman told us, to my great astonishment, that he had no desire to introduce party recriminations into this debate, and yet, within five minutes after that agreeable announcement, he made the Loan Bill a vehicle for a personal attack upon my right hon. friend the Secretary for the Colonies, who is always, perhaps not unnaturally, the object which all the sections of the party opposite unite in attacking.
I defended, myself, an attack on the right hon Gentleman by an imperious colleague.
It struck me that there was something in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman of that very invention for party purposes of which he accused my right hon. friend. He told us that he would not discuss the origin of the South African War. And what did he at once proceed to do? In a manner to which we are very well accustomed he begged the whole question of the origin of the South African War. He took it for granted that we began it.
I did not say that.
What the right hon. Gentleman said was that the war was undertaken by us with means ludicrously inadequate, that we in October entered upon the war with an estimate quite insufficient. But we did not begin the war at all. It was begun by the invasion of Her Majesty's territories by the Transvaal and Free State Governments, and I demur entirely to the mode in which the right hon. Gentleman, while professing to decline to discuss the origin of the war, begged the whole question as to the responsibility for it. He ridiculed the idea that the war was inevitable. Let him ask the hon. Baronet the Member for the Berwick Division of Northumberland, or the right hon. Member for East Wolverhampton, who sit on each side of him, what their views are on that subject. There are some very near him who believe it was inevitable. He charged us with undertaking the war with inadequate means. We did not undertake it at all. If our means were inadequate at the commencement it was because we desired and believed in peace. Ths right hon. Gentleman said the war would be judged by its results. Yes, it will be. But he will not be the historian on whose history the country will judge it. Sir, the right hon. Gentleman has taken this opportunity, while disclaiming party advantage, of making a pure electioneering speech from the "Little England" point of view. What was his argument? It amounted to this:—"You have thrown away millions on an unnecessary war." Let the country judge of the necessity. "By doing this you have tied your hands so that you cannot defend the interests of the country in China, where we have greater interests, perhaps, than even in South Africa." The right hon. Gentleman forgot—perhaps he does not know—that although we have 200,000 men engaged in South Africa, our Navy is free, and there are more troops at the present time in this country than there have been for many years cast. What is the policy the right hon. Gentleman would recommend to the country? It is the policy of scuttling out of all our difficulties whenever and wherever they arise. What is the bribe he holds out to the people? This, that "if you do scuttle out of these difficulties and do not; provide for a war which is a necessary war if we are to maintain our Empire, then we will reduce your taxation, we will reduce your debt, we will give you old-age pensions, we will subscribe five; millions to the sufferers by famine in India—we will do all these things." That is the speech of a right hon. Gentleman who disclaims any party purpose ! I will not attempt to go into that part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman beyond the observations which I have already made. But when the right hon. Gentleman asks me what provision I have made for the war in China, and says I have provided no more than three millions, I venture to refer him to what I said a few days ago on that very subject. I then said the estimate of my right hon. friend the Under Secretary for War of the expenditure which might be entailed upon us by the present condition of affairs in China was three millions. I told the Committee, in introducing this Bill, that I was asking for a considerable margin of borrowing power beyond what was required by the Estimate before the House —to the extent, indeed, of six millions. Out of that six millions I intimated at the time, and repeat now, that I consider a large portion is asked for for possibilities—I will not put them higher—in China, in the promotion of the policy which I indicated to the House.
You appropriate throe millions for China, and now you say you have a margin of seven millions. You say you have £8,500,000 for what I may call South African purposes, added to the £3,000,000 in China. That is £11,500,000. Then you have besides £500,000 additional stores. What is your margin?
I am afraid I have not made myself clear to the right hon. Gentleman. He asked me to place before the House a full statement as to the estimated cost of the war in South Africa and the ways and means which we had provided to meet it. I will endeavour to reply to that question, and I hope that if I do not make myself clear he will let me know as I go on. I may remind the House that last autumn we voted, in Supply, a grant for the war in South Africa of £10,000,000, and last February £13,000,000—£23,000,000 in all. Besides that there was expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund for interest on the Treasury bills for £8,000,000— namely, £217,000—making a total expenditure on the South African War last year of £23,217,000. I am speaking all through of estimated expenditure because, as the right hon. Gentleman will understand, it is too soon to talk of actual expenditure. At the commencement of this year Supply was granted by the House for the purpose of the war of £37,797,000. Besides that there was charged on the Consolidated Fund interest on Treasury war bills £250,000 and £619,000 interest on the war loan—total £869,000—making in all, in the current year, exclusive of the present Supplementary Estimate, £38,666,000. These two sums added together make £61,883,000. Then, in addition to that, we have to add the Supplementary Estimate recently voted of £7,440,000, making £69,323,000. I must ask the House to bear in mind that these are estimates and not actual expenditure. Now, Sir, I will take the other side of the account and show how that has been and is to be raised. In the first place, the surplus of last year was £9,335,000. Then the difference between the total revenue and ordinary expenditure of the present year, taking into consideration the suspension of the Sinking Fund, amounts to £16,125,000, making the total sum raised by taxation for the purposes of the war in the two years of £25,460,000. By Treasury bills last winter we provided eight millions, and out of the proceeds of the war loan £28,423,000,altogether £36,423,000; by Treasury Bills recently issued, under the powers given us by the War Loan Act, we have provided £2,000,000 more; and out of the supplementary war loan which I am now asking for we shall provide the balance of £5,440,000, or a total provided by taxation towards the war, so far, of £25,460,000, and by loan £43,863,000, making a total amount of £69,323,000, balancing the other side of the account far as the estimates for the South African War are concerned. Then I have left £1,127,000, the unused balance of the war loan; £3,000,000, unused borrowing power's under the War Loan Act; and £7,560,000, borrowing powers under the present Bill, out of which to provide for three millions estimated for China, for a considerable margin which I will put at four millions for the same purpose, for a million and a quarter for Naval Supplementary Estimates—for £200,000 for the Ashanti Expedition and £1,090,000 Supplementary War Estimates not directly connected with the war; besides other minor Supplementary Estimates. I think I did not sufficiently discriminate between these two parts of the estimate of the Under Secretary for War which related to the expenditure on the South African War and expenditure for purposes not directly connected with the war. That £1,090,000 was for permanent huts for soldiers in this country, for barracks at Khartoum, additional payments to Volunteers for camping in England this summer, and some payments for barracks in Mauritius. Then I went on to explain to the House that I had a second need for asking for a large margin of borrowing powers in this Bill. Borrowing powers of £7,000,000, plus the £5,000,000 of borrowing powers which I took in March and did not utilise in March, and the £1,000,000 of surplus on the war loan proceeds, would have made up the £13,000,000 to which the Supplementary Estimates of this month amounted. I am sorry I cannot explain this more clearly.
But £3,000,000 for China, £7,000,000 of borrowing powers for South Africa now, and £6,000,000 of old borrowing powers, make more than £13,000,000. Will the right hon. Gentleman lay on the Table an I official Paper giving the total amount of the moneys which have been raised out of taxation, or surpluses, or loans, or from any source, and the purposes to which they have been attributed? Such a Paper we ought to have, and if he will give it to us it will be much more satisfactory.
I am perfectly willing to do that. It shall be done at once. But I would explain that, in addition to the extra borrowing powers for £5,000,000 given last March, and to the £1,000,000 unexpended out of the proceeds of the war loan, I have deliberately asked in this Bill for £6,000,000 borrowing powers beyond the amount of the total Estimates of the year and the Supplementary Estimates which have been presented, including, of course, in that sum all those other charges besides the South African War. With regard to that war, the figures I gave as to the total cost and the means by which it has been met afford a clear statement. I have asked for the extra borrowing powers not merely on account of affairs in China, but also because it is necessary for me to have at my command some temporary means of borrowing while the revenue is accruing and the proceeds of the war loan are accruing.
That you will only want for six months.
Yes, it is to finance the Exchequer during that time. The right hon. Gentleman has blamed me very much on the ground that the proportion of expenditure on the war borne by taxation is very small when compared with what was raised by our ancestors by taxation at the time of the Crimean War. The right hon. Gentleman says we have only raised £14,000,000 I of the cost by taxation, while for a war costing about as much our ancestors raised one-half by taxation. I entirely demur to the contention that we have provided only £14,000,000 out of taxation.
Additional taxation.
If you devote a surplus out of existing taxation to the war, it is as much raised by taxation as if it were additional taxation. The financial doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman is one which I am surprised should he suggested to the House. During the Crimean War, in the year 1855, at just about the same period of the year as this, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, was obliged to bring in Supplementary Estimates for more than £6,000,000 in addition to the original Estimates of the cost of the war for that year. How did he provide for them? Exactly as I do—by borrowing on Exchequer bills. Therefore I do not think that the right lion. Gentleman is quite fair in the comparison which he has attempted to draw between our financial cowardice and the financial courage of our predecessors at the time of the Crimea. The right hon. Gentleman then referred to the prospect of recovering from the Transvaal any part of the cost of the war, and he rather suggested to the House that I had held out hopes that the whole cost of the war would be so provided for. I have never said anything of the kind. What I have said is that when the war is over, we should obtain from the taxation of the Transvaal a substantial contribution to the cost. The right hon. Gentleman seems to think that that will be impossible. I do not think so, and he did not think so last March.
I hoped it would be possible.
The right hon. Gentleman not only expressed a hope; he concurred most strongly in my idea that it should be done. I entirely admit that there will be other charges on the Transvaal besides this. There will be the charge for compensation for the injury done to the property of loyalists in Natal and the Cape, and that is a charge which should undoubtedly come before any contribution to this country for the cost of the war. But in my belief there will be means for a substantial contribution for both purposes; and beyond that it is impossible to go now. Then the right hon. Gentleman asks why we do not provide in the present Estimates for the cost of settling some of the troops now in South Africa, and for the military reorganisation which he anticipates when the war concludes.
I asked for an estimate.
Obviously these are matters which do not relate to the present time. They are under the consideration of the Government now, and I dare say, whoever may have the duty of making proposals with regard to the Estimates next year, will have to call the attention of the House to both these subjects. But that they should be included in a Supplementary Estimate for the present year is impossible.
I did not ask for that.
Then I do not understand his object in asking for an estimate.
I was looking to the future.
The right hon. Gentleman looked to the future and to the past, and to both from a purely electioneering point of view. I am perfectly ready to lay on the Table the statement which the right hon. Gentleman desires, because the matter is extremely complicated by the fact that it was necessary for mo to bring in my Budget one month and a half earlier than usual in order to anticipate as far as possible anticipatory payments of taxation, and to make the provision required at the moment for the expenditure of the war. The right hon. Gentleman would have been the first to blame me if I had asked for that provision without making a full financial statement. That was the reason of a Budget which could not include an accurate statement of the revenue and expenditure of the previous year. But now the right hon. Gentleman blames me for bringing in fragmentary budgets. The circumstances made it impossible for me to do anything else. As soon as the financial year had concluded I made a full statement of the actual revenue and expenditure, and now I have placed before the House Supplementary Estimates, which are necessary in time of war, for the expenditure as far as we can foresee it; and I have explained the measures by which we intend to provide for that expenditure. I hope that the principle of the Bill will commend itself to the House, and that it may now be read a second time.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.
Expiring Laws Continuance Bill
Considered in Committee.
(In the committee.)
[Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
Schedule:—
MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland) moved the omission of the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act. He said that he protested on the previous night against this proposal, and ho was probably out of order in raising the general question as to whether this was the kind of Bill which should be introduced in an expiring laws measure. As he understood the object of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, it was to prolong and continue Acts which, when passed, were intended to be of a temporary character. Accordingly they assumed that only Acts of a non-contentious character were mainly concerned. But supposing there was a very contentious Land Act passed for Ireland of a temporary character, would the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary be within his rights, or would the House tolerate for a moment the right hon. Gentleman including such an Act in the Expiring Laws Bill? His contention was that the right hon. Gentleman was departing in this case from the whole scope, object, and purpose of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, and that he was passing by a side wind into law an Act which ought to be brought in as a separate measure. That observation applied with particular force to an Act of this kind. On every single occasion until within the last two or three years when an Act of this character had been introduced the Government of the day had made an essential feature of their measure that it was to be of a temporary character. The reason was very obvious. To this Act he objected not only on principle, but because it abrogated the fundamental rights and liberties of the nation. Under this Act in Ireland the right of bearing arms, which was the fundamental right of the citizens of any free nation, was practically, if not entirely destroyed, or surrounded with conditions which, amounted practically to a destruction. Whenever an Act of this kind had been introduced into the House on previous, occasions it had generally been described as a Coercion Act. He remembered when this Act was introduced in 1880, at least some three months were occupied in passing it, and now an Act which took three months in 1881 was to be stuck at the end of this Act just as if it was an unimportant measure instead of being an Act of first class magnitude. In England every man could practically bear arms, which was a right given to every citizen by the Constitution. So much was this the case that, at a time when a large number of accidents and crimes were attributed to the indiscriminate bearing of arms and the purchase of revolvers, a Bill which was brought into this House to interfere with the sale of revolvers was scouted out as an infringement of the rights of British subjects. Could it lie said with any pretence to decency or common sense that an Act which abrogated this constitutional light was a non-contentious Act which ought to be placed at the end of this Expiring Laws Continuance Bill? Under this measure the police in Ireland had the right to enter the house of any citizen from sunrise to sunset. The House of Commons had so far mitigated the severity of this Act as to give the right to a man in Ireland to bear arms, provided he could satisfy the magistrates that he was fit to exercise that right. There were only two justices of the peace who had that right to give this certificate of immunity and good citizenship, and they wore both the employees and dependents of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary and the Irish Government. It was rather too late for him to renew the old controversy about resident magistrates, but they were officials depending for their appointment, dismissal, and pension on the goodwill of the Government which they served. Outside Ireland there was no civilised country which had such a mixture of judicial functions and official dependents as Ireland. In 1881 the reason given for the passing of this Act was that there I was a considerable state of disturbance in Ireland. No doubt that was so at the time, although ho felt that those disturbances were largely augmented and aggravated by the coercion measures which had been previously passed by Parliament. But that state of disturbance had disappeared, for Ireland was now one of the most peaceable, tranquil, and law-abiding countries in the world. When the Coercion Act was renewed in 1881, there wore a number of meetings taking place in the north of Ireland, where the speakers were of the same political conduction as the Attorney General and the Chief Secretary. People appeared at those meetings armed with revolvers, and he read in the newspapers that the Orangemen and loyalists at those meetings had a favourite method of signifying their assent and approval by firing a regular shower of revolver shots.
No, no.
said the lion. Gentleman negatived that statement, but he did not think the hon. Member was present at the meeting to which he referred. If he was present, evidently certain features were kept from his knowledge. At several meetings revolvers were fired off just as if the people were dealing with property owned by the Boers.
What I wish to correct is that I do not admit that it was an Orange meeting. I admit that revolvers were fired at some meetings.
said that what he had in his mind was a meeting at which Lord Rossmore was present. Whether that could be called an Orange meeting or not he did not know. But whether they were Conservative or Orange meetings, the fact remained that at those meetings a large number of revolver shots were fired.
Both at those meetings and at Nationalist meetings the same system of revolver firing was practised.
replied that he was glad his hon. friend had made that correction. As a matter of fact, the reason given in the debate which took place when this measure was renewed was that there had been a large amount of revolver firing, and it was the loyalists' meetings which were mainly mentioned. He denied the proposition that revolver firing took place at Nationalist meetings. What were the facts with regard to the north of Ireland? The judicial bench was practically in the hands of one political party, which had the power, to a large extent, of dealing with this question of bearing arms. Therefore, a bench packed by Orange magistrates took good care that only good, sound loyalists and Orangemen had the right of bearing arms. The north of Ireland appeared to an ordinary southern Irishman something like a foreign country, because no Orangeman attended political meetings without his revolver in his pocket to use as an argument against such a small matter as a discussion upon the franchise. He had been at meetings in the north of Ireland to discuss a reduction of the franchise, and the question was considered so horrible that the market square was cleared by armed Orangemen, with the countenance of the authorities. These were the arguments used in former years, but they did not apply now, for even Orangemen were getting civilised and educated. The revolver was no longer considered—except in the city of Belfast—as a necessary, useful, and effective political argument. Was this Bill intended to disarm the Orangemen of Ireland? The right hon. Gentleman would not have the courage to declare that this Act was impartially administered to all sections of the population of Ireland.
I have no evidence to the contrary.
said that the right hon. Gentleman had learned that a judicious fit of blindness and a judicious attack of deafness were most valuable occasionally. This Act had always been unfairly and partially administered between the two sections of the people in Ireland. He had seen in the papers that among many of the proposals for the settlement of the South African question one was that there should be a general disarmament. Even in the most jingo quarters the proposal that the Boers, after the war, should be disarmed was received with doubt and hesitation. But there was no doubt in the matter in Ireland. Lord Salisbury had recently drawn a terrible picture of Europe united in hatred and anger against this country, and had declared that the country's salvation lay in the establishment of rifle I clubs. Was it not ridiculous and absurd to talk about the establishment of rifle clubs when the people of Ireland were denied the right of carrying arms? Even in South Africa after a bloody and costly and terrible war the policy of disarmament against the men who had been in arms against this country was regarded with doubt and dislike. At a time when they were talking about establishing trifle clubs in England, Scotland, and Wales, they were asking the House to pass a Bill to deprive every citizen of Ireland of the right of bearing arms at all. What answer could the right hon. Gentleman give? If rifle clubs were the salvation of England, why should they be the destruction of Ireland? The Under Secretary for War was asked by the hon. Member for Kilkenny whether the additional facilities for the arming, drilling, and enrolment of Volunteers were to be extended to Ireland as well as to other parts of the country, and, not having had a Dublin Castle training, the Under Secretary answered with damaging frankness that there were certain formal and technical difficulties in the way of extending to the people of Ireland those blessed rifle clubs and those sanctified Volunteer facilities which were to be given to England, Scotland, and Wales. The real answer was that they were afraid of extending to the people of Ireland any of those personal liberties which they so freely bestowed and which they never dared to take away from the people of this country. If it was necessary now for them to carry out the disarming of the Irish people by this Bill, it must mean that the right hon. Gentleman had failed in his policy, and that they believed that the hatred and contempt for the present administration of Ireland was just as strong now as at any other former period. He wished the Chief Secretary God-speed on his approaching election campaign, coupled with the expression of a hope that the right hon. Gentleman would inform his constituents at Leeds that he was still afraid to give Ireland, after five years of his rule, the right of bearing arms.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 4, to leave out lines 25 and 26."—(Mr. T. P. O'Connor.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
said the hon. Member for' the Scotland Division of Liverpool commenced his speech by laying down the broad principle that the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill only contained Acts which were not of a contentious character. What were the facts of the case? The hon. Member spoke as if this Act had been continued in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill for the first time during the present year.
I distinctly said the opposite.
replied that he did not catch that expression. The hon. Member had argued that he was departing from a well-recognised and established custom in placing this measure in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill.
But I alluded to the fact that it had been before the House several times.
said he would tell the House how many times this House had set up as a precedent the inclusion of this particular Act in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, and that precedent had not been set by a Unionist Government, for it was set up in 1894 by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose Burghs. It was included in the year 1894 arid 1895. He had had to defend this Bill ever since. He had defended it in 1896, 1897, 1898, and 1899, and he had to do it again this year. How under those circumstances could it reasonably be maintained that by including an Act which had been included for the last six or seven years they were doing an outrageous thing? The hon. Gentleman went on to use very strong language, and he said that this Act was an abrogation of the fundamental rights of a nation. He thought the hon. Member himself was hardly aware how very easy it was in Ireland to obtain a licence for the carrying of arms. He would give the number of licences which had been applied for and the number which had been refused during the last year—1899. The licences granted amounted to 5,033, the licences refused to 230, and licences revoked ten. The searches only amounted to seven. It was perfectly easy for any person to get arms for a legitimate purpose. When the hon. Gentleman objected to the Act being administered by resident magistrates, he must have forgotten the circumstances under which that provision was introduced, otherwise ho would have felt that his argument was destroyed. In 1886, when the right hon. Gentleman who at present represented Montrose introduced a Bill to continue the Police Preservation Act of 1881, an Amendment was introduced to provide that the court of summary jurisdiction under the fifth section should consist of two or more resident magistrates. That Amendment, which was moved by an Irish Member, the hon. Member for the City of Cork, was agreed to by the whole House. The hon. Gentleman, in support of that motion, urged that local justices could not be depended upon to act impartially, and the hon. Member for East Mayo pointed out that it would be bettor to have the Act administered by skilled officials, whose action could be reviewed by the House of Commons. The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool would see, therefore, that his contention was not correct. Had it been so the Amendment would not have been moved by the hon. Member for Cork, nor would it have been supported by the hon. Member for East Mayo.
admitted that he was not aware of the facts which the right hon. Gentleman had referred to, but at the same time he asked to be allowed to point out that the Bill of 1886 was brought in at a time when there were disturbances in the north of Ireland. He quite agreed with the hon. Members for Cork and East Mayo that it was safer to have these powers vested in the resident magistrates than the local justices.
said the hon. Member had gone on to deal with the reasons given for the passing of this Act, and reasons for it appearing upon the Statute-book. In 1881 the Bill was introduced because of the disturbed condition of Ireland. It was introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire, who was at that time the Home Secretary. It was perfectly true that Ireland to-day was not in so disturbed a condition as it was then, but only a year ago the hon. Member for East Mayo gave the same advice to the people of Mayo as ho did on that occasion in the speech which had just been referred to. Only recently Mr. Michael Davitt had said that there were hundreds of thousands of rebels in Ireland who only wanted rifles to assert their rights to self-government. He did not think there was any serious danger of insurrection in Ireland at the present time, but he had merely quoted those speeches to show that there was a difference between the conditions of England and Ireland which justified the restriction placed upon carrying arms in Ireland. Although the danger of an armed insurrection in Ireland was not one which need be considered at the present time, he thought police protection was necessary to be continued. Anyone who had studied events in Ireland must know of the dangers arising out of a collision I between hostile crowds in the north of Ireland. These dangers were almost all due to collisions between the crowd and the police, and if they were armed with firearms the results might be most grave. It was eminently desirable that the Government should prevent anything of that kind, and he believed that, if it were not for the fact of this Act, a great many people in Ireland who were not qualified to carry arms would possess thorn. He had nothing further to add in defence of the policy of continuing this Act upon the Statute-book. It was the fourth or fifth time he had had to defend it, and all his predecessors in office since 1881 had found it necessary to retain it. He did not see in the present condition of things in Ireland any circumstance which should lead to a change in the policy, and he hoped that the House would consent to renew the Act.
said such a speech as the House had just listened to from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary made Irishmen despair of obtaining any remedy from the present Parliament. The Act of 1881 was passed in the face of most serious party opposition, and with many all night sittings and scenes of violence between the Nationalist Members and the Government. But there was one feature in that debate upon which much reliance was placed. The House was told that the Act was a temporary measure brought in owing to the supreme exigencies of the time. It was passed in the same way as a temporary suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. It was passed in a most insidious way by what might be called a party confidence trick. The right hon. Gentleman had been able to make considerable capital out of the fact that when the Act expired in 1886 it was renewed by the hon. Member for Montrose, lint under what circumstances was that done? Under circumstances in which every Irish Member would be bound to vote for its continuance; at a time when Belfast had been made by the supporters of the Union a bath of blood, when armed mobs marched through the streets and terrorised the city. Then came the time when it was said that Belfast magistrates should not administer the Act, and the Amendment was introduced and carried providing that it should be administered by two resident magistrates. The circumstances of its renewal by the Liberal Government in 1894 had no analogy. The Irish Members were then supporting the Government, and they passed it as a mere measure of policy. There was not the slightest desire upon their part for a renewal of the Act, but they wore not governing the country, and would not do so until it was put plainly into their hands. The present Government were not acting the part of a conductor of the Irish party to Home Rule; according to themselves they were killing Home Rule with kindness. They affected, with expressions which would be insulting if they wore not amusing, to know better what was good for Ireland than the representatives of the Irish people. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman was, in some respects, a happy one, but in others quite the reverse, and he regretted ho had not the means and the power of getting it printed and posted up in every town of the Transvaal and bringing it to the knowledge of the Boers who were so soon to come under the beneficent rule of England, The Irish soldiers were great fighters and wore always put in the front. They were the "soldiers of the Queen," and were allowed by her gracious permission to wear the shamrock. Why were they allowed to carry arms in South Africa and not in their own native land? They were very good when they were put in the front rank of the battle to preserve English lives from Boer Mausers, but in Ireland it was quite another thing. The government of Ireland by England was an infamous pretence, and was only affected by force and fraud. The loyalists who were armed were only loyal to the extent of the cheque which they hoped to get shortly from the Castle. The right hon. Gentleman said, and said justly, that the disability to bear arms could lie removed by an application to the resident magistrates, and that anyone could apply who liked; but the Irish people had a great dislike to have anything to say to the loathsome tools of a foul and corrupt Government. They did not wish to acknowledge a system which it had always been their wish to repudiate in every possible way. It was a very great outrage that every person who desired to carry a gun, to shoot birds, or for his own purposes, should have to apply to an official at Dublin Castle. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the statistics of Dublin Castle wore always made for the occasion, and could no more be relied on than a Spion Kop despatch after it had passed through the War Office.
assumed that it was admitted that this was a Coercion Act, and in the very nature of things a Coercion Act was a temporary measure brought in to meet a particular state of things. The Chief Secretary for Ireland argued in support of its renewal that it had been renewed year after year, and that it was perfectly monstrous that Irishmen should now object to a further renewal. If the argument was sound it would be strengthened for another renewal when the right hon. Gentleman brought it in next year.
said that he only referred to the fact that the Act had been introduced for seven or eight years in succession to show that his action on this occasion had not been furtive. He had stated that in reply to an hon. Member who had described his action in the matter as furtive.
contended that the action of the right hon. Gentleman was furtive in one respect. If the right hon. Gentleman believed that a Coercion Act was necessary for Ireland, he ought to have come boldly forward and admitted it; but, as he understood the matter, the right hon. Gentleman slipped it in quietly, and if the Irish Members were not very sharp they had no opportunity of exposing the matter. But the right hon. Gentleman did not pretend that it was necessary at the present moment—his argument was that Ireland was quiet at the present moment—but if this Act was not continued the people would begin to drill. For the last year England had been asked to drill, and suggestions had been made that school children—infants of six years of age—should be drilled at the public expense. If the Government went to Ireland for soldiers, obviously it would be an advantage to have the youth of Ireland acquainted with rudimentary drill. Another argument in support of its continuation was that if this Act was abrogated, there would be great fear that the peace would be broken. He did not believe that that was the case, because if a man were determined to fire into the windows of a house he could always supply himself with the means whether the Act were abrogated or not. The fundamental right of men in England and the Empire was to bear arms, and it was an attack upon the fundamental right of British subjects to say that in one part of the British dominions men should not be allowed to bear arms. It had been argued that this was not so, because Irish Members could go to the magistrates and obtain a licence; but what would be the result in England if that were the practice? What was wanted was that there should be an equality under the law between England and Ireland. The great argument of the Unionist party was that they did not wish anything to be clone in Ireland that was not done in England, yet the Irish people in Ireland in this respect were put upon the same level of equality as some of the African subjects of the Empire. He entirely agreed with the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, and should support him if he went to a division.
said that the Act drew an invidious distinction between men who had to live under one law and placed a badge of inferiority upon the Irish people. He failed to see why Irishmen in their own country should be restricted in this matter when in England, Scotland, and other parts of the British Empire they had the right to bear arms in common with every other man. When this right was denied to British subjects in the Transvaal at the time when the Boers ruled in Johannesburg, it was considered a very great grievance and injustice, and it was one of the incidents that led to the war. The refusal on the part of England to allow the Irish to bear arms was a tribute to the militarism of the nation. He did not suppose if the Act were repealed there would be one in a hundred of the people in Ireland who would desire to carry arms, and at the same time, those who wished to commit outrages could always obtain arms for then-purpose, in spite of the Act. He did not believe if the Act were repealed there would be the general rush for firearms that was feared. In England, even when invasion was apprehended, the people could not be got to possess themselves of firearms, although there was every opportunity given, and grants for rifle ranges, and other matters. It was absurd, because men held a different political opinion to those of the Government, to say that they must humiliate themselves I before the magistrates in Ireland, in order that they might be allowed to bear arms for legitimate purposes. He again renewed his protest against the continuance of this measure, and he sincerely hoped that the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool would go to a division, so that the Irish party might once more record their disapproval of an Act which placed a mark of inferiority upon the Irish race.
I propose certainly to go to a division on this matter. When the right hon. Gentleman made the quotation he read to the House from the speech of Mr. Davitt, he must have had in his mind the feeling that if Mr. Davitt said these things they were true. What did that mean? It meant that after five years administration in Ireland the right hon. Gentleman had to go down to the constituencies of this country and declare that the hatred of his rule and the principles he represented was just as keen, strong, and widespread in Ireland as at the commencement of that period—in other
AYES.
| ||
| Allsopp, Hon. George | Cooke, C. W. R. (Hereford) | Hoare, Edw. Brodie (Hampste'd |
| Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. | Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Hoare, Sir Samuel (Norwich) |
| Arrol, Sir William | Cotton-Jodrell, Col. Edw. T. D. | Hornby, Sir William Henry |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, Sir Ellis | Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton) | Howard, Joseph |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Curzon, Viscount | Hudson, George Bickersteth |
| Balcarres, Lord | Davies, Sir Horatio D (Chatham | Hutchinson, Capt. G.W. Grice- |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r | Donkin, Richard Sim | Hutton, John (Yorks., N.R.) |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn Gerald W (Leeds | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Jessel, Captain Herbert M. |
| Barnes, Frederic Gorell | Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Kenyon, James |
| Bartley, George C. T. | Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward | Kimber, Henry |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol | Fergusson, Rt Hn Sir J (Manch'r | Laurie, Lieut.-General |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Field, Admiral (Eastbourne) | Lawrence, W. F. (Liverpool), |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie |
| Bond, Edward | Fisher, William Hayes | Llewellyn Evan H. (Somerset) |
| Bowles, T. Gibson (King'sLynn) | FitzGerald, Sir R. Penrose- | Llewelyn, Sir Dillwyn-(S'wns'a |
| Brassey, Albert | Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham.) |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Flower, Ernest | Lonsdale, John Brownlee |
| Brown, Alexander H. | Fry, Lewis | Lopes, Henry Yarde Buller |
| Bullard, Sir Harry | Garfit, William | Lowe, Francis William |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Gibbons, J. Lloyd | Loyd, Archie Kirkman |
| Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbysh.) | Godson, Sir Augustus Fred. | Lucas-Shadwell, William |
| Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir John Eldon | Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Hertford, East) | Goschen, Rt Hn G J (St George's | Macartney, W. G. Ellison |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Goschen, George J. (Sussex) | Macdona, John Cumming |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.) | Gray, Ernest (West Ham) | MacIver, David (Liverpool) |
| Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r | Green, Walford D (Wednesbury | M'Killop, James |
| Charrington, Spencer | Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill | Mellor, (Colonel (Lancashire) |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Halsey, Thomas Frederick | Melville, Beresford Valentine |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord George | Middlemore, John Thr'gmorton |
| Colomb, Sir John Chas. Ready | Hanbury, Rt. Hon. R. Wm. | Monckton, Edward Philip |
| Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole | Haslett, Sir James Horner | Monk, Charles James |
words, that the right hon. Gentleman had; to mark in very large letters over his own administration the word "failure." The right hon. Gentleman now had declared that the policy of disarming was the policy by which he stood in Ireland. He has, given no indication that it was a policy he; ever intended to abandon. It had become a necessary and enduring part of British government in Ireland. If that were so, he wanted to know how the right hon. Gentleman was able to sit there without a blush as a member of a Government that had spent £60,000,000 of the money of this country on a war which had involved the loss of many most, precious lives—one of the pretences and, declarations put forward to justify the-war being that the Uitlanders, or Englishmen in the Transvaal, were subjected to that very disarming he advocated for the people of Ireland. He did not think it would be possible even for the dialectical skill of the right hon. Gentleman to justify on the one hand a war against disarming in the Transvaal, and on the other hand a policy of disarming for the people of Ireland.
The Committee divided:—Ayes, 136; Noes, 68. (Division List No, 261.)
| Moore, William (Antrim, N.) | Richardson, Sir T. (Hartlep'l) | Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray |
| More, B. Jasper (Shropshire) | Ridley, Rt. Hon. Sir M. W. | Tritton, Charles Ernest |
| Morton, Arthur H. A (Deptford) | Russell, T. W. (Tyrone) | Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C. E. (Ta'nt'n |
| Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G. (Bute | Savory, Sir Joseph | Wharton, Rt. Hn. John Lloyd |
| Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) | Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew) | Whiteley, H (Ashton-under-L. |
| Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) | Sidebottom, Wm. (Derbyshire) | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Nicol, Donald Ninian | Simeon, Sir Barrington | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Pease, Herbert P. (Darlington | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath |
| Penn, John | Skewes-Cox, Thomas | Wrightson, Sir Thomas |
| Phillpotts, Captain Arthur | Stanley, Hon Arthur (Ormskirk | Wylie, Alexander |
| Pierpoint, Robert | Stanley, Ed. Jas. (Somerset) | Wyndham, George |
| Pollock, Harry Frederick | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. | |
| Purvis, Robert | Stone, Sir Benjamin | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| Rasch, Major Frederic Carne | Strauss, Arthur | Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther. |
| Remnant, James Farquharson | Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier | |
| Richards, Henry Charles | Thornton, Percy M. |
NOES.
| ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E. | Emmott, Alfred | O'Connor, Arthur (Donegal) |
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Fenwick, Charles | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W. |
| Asher, Alexander | Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith) | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) |
| Austin, M. (Limerick, W.) | Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert J. | O'Malley, William |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) | Gourley, Sir E. Temperley | Palmer, Sir Charles M. (Durham |
| Billson, Alfred | Griffith, Ellis J. | Paulton, James Mellor |
| Blake, Edward | Harwood, George | Priestley, Briggs |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale- | Reid, Sir Robert Threshie |
| Brigg, John | Hazell, Walter | Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion) |
| Broadhurst, Henry | Healy, Maurice (Cork) | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Bryce, Rt. Hn. James | Joicey, Sir James | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Burns, John | Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.) | Spicer, Albert |
| Burt, Thomas | Labouchere, Henry | Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath) |
| Buxton, Sydney Charles | Lewis, John Herbert | Tanner, Charles Kearns |
| Caldwell, James | Macaleese, Daniel | Tennant, Harold John |
| Cameron, Robert (Durham) | MacDonnell, Dr. M. A. (Qu'ns C. | Tully, Jasper |
| Channing, Francis Allston | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Colville, John | M'Ewan, William | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.) |
| Crilly, Daniel | M'Kenna, Reginald | Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) |
| Curran, Thomas B. (Donegal) | Mendl, Sigismund Ferdinand | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Dewar, Arthur | Molloy, Bernard Charles | |
| Doogan, P. C. | Morgan, W Pritchard (Merthyr | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— |
| Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | Moss, Samuel | Captain Donelan and Mr. Patrick O'Brien. |
| Duckworth, James | Moulton, John Fletcher | |
Bill reported without amendment; read the third time, and passed.
Local Government (Ireland) Bill
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:—
wished to bring under the notice of the Chief Secretary a considerable grievance which existed in the fact that under the orders of the Local Government Board county councils were compelled to make two sets of rate-books, one of which had to be sent to the office of the clerk of the union. As this duplicate set was never used except in very exceptional cases, all the extra expense was incurred for practically no object. To make the grievance even more acute, the Local Government Board had allowed one of its officials, in conjunction with a firm of printers, to copyright the form of the rate-book, and as a result the price of the books was four or five times greater than otherwise would be the case. He hoped when fresh regulations were made these matters would be remedied so as to protect the ratepayers from the unnecessary expenditure caused by this practice.
Clause agreed to.
Clause 3:—
was understood to contend that to do justice under this clause it was necessary to continue the rights at present possessed by the middleman, and he moved the Amendment standing in his name.
Amendment moved—
"In page 2, line 3, after 'reduced,' to insert the following sub-section:—'(3) Sub-section (4) of the said Section 54, as amended and extended by this section, shall continue to have effect until the tenancy of the person therein referred to is determined, notwithstanding that the existing tenancy of the occupier may have previously determined.'"—(Mr. Maurice Healy.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
thought the Amendment would not carry out the intention of the hon. Member, nor was it based on a right principle. It was impossible to carry a provision on the land referred to beyond the termination of the tenancy.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 3 and 4, agreed to.
Clause 5:—
had some difficulty in seeing the exact effect of the clause. He feared it would re-enact the special salaries of certain officials in the cities of Belfast and Deny.
said the hon. Member need be under no apprehension on that point. The position of the present clerk of the peace and clerk to the Crown was safeguarded and continued by Section 67 of the Act of 1898. The present Bill dealt only with matters after the present officials ceased to hold their offices.
Clause agreed to.
Clause 7:—
asked for an explanation of how the clause would operate. Very serious charges had been put upon the ratepayers in order to pay compensation to existing officials who really had no bona fide claim thereto. A number of officials had claimed compensation under the Local Government Act in respect of certain offices of which they had been deprived, notwithstanding the fact that their total emoluments were now higher than before the Act was passed.
interposed, and said the clause had been put in at the express wish of several county and district councils, but if the hon. Member objected to it the Government had no great desire to retain it.
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 8, 9, and 10 agreed to.
Clause 11:—
MR. TULLY (Leitrim, S.) moved to alter the quorum from seven to five. At present, he said, there was a great difficulty in getting a quorum, and if they made the number seven the grievance would be nearly as great as it was under the present state of things. He hoped the Chief Secretary would give way on this point. Three was considered sufficient for a quorum at a board of guardians meeting. The district councils had to deal with sanitary matters, and in cases where fever had broken out in the past they had been unable to get a quorum together for several weeks. As a rule the members lived a long way from each other, and it was difficult to get a large number like seven together. He therefore hoped the right hon. Gentleman would make a concession on this point.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 4, line 3, to leave out the word 'seven' and insert the word 'five.'"—(Mr. Tully.)
said he thought five would be too small a number, and he did not think it would be in the public interest to make the reduction suggested.
Amendment negatived.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 4, line 4, after the word 'any' to insert the words 'county council and.'"—(Mr. Tully.)
replied that he had received no representations whatever as to this change from the councils concerned, and they were perfectly well satisfied with the present proposal. Unless the councils made representations that the number should be smaller he did not think they would be justified in making this change.
Amendment negatived.
Clauses 11 and 12 agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment; read the third time, and passed.
Local Government (Ireland) (No 2) Bill
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[MR. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]
Clause 1:—
urged the Government to adapt the working of this Bill to the system which obtained in the kindred Bill. He had, he said, three Amendments down to Clause 1, but the point he particularly wished to raise was the propriety of empowering councils to employ direct labour.
Order, order ! We had better dispose of one Amendment at a time. I may inform the hon. Member that his third Amendment, dealing with the employment of direct labour, is outside the scope of the Bill.
I will move my first Amendment, but I do wish to impress on the Government the justice of placing Ireland on the same footing as England, Wales, and Scotland in these local government matters.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 1, line 5, to leave out 'if they think fit'" (Dr.Tanner.)
said he thought the hon. Member was under a misconception. This was purely an enabling clause in regard to the issue of Provisional Orderd.
said there was a good deal of dissatisfaction in Ireland in regard to the procedure under Orders in Council. Take the case of an Order under which large contracts had to be made in regard to roads. What was to be done in the case of defaulting contractors? Would this Bill give power to the Local Government Board, when the county council had a grievance, to deal with these matters by way of Provisional Order? What was wanted was more elasticity in these matters.
The object of the clause is to enable the Local Government Board to alter the provisions of the Procedure Order as to the employment of direct labour by county councils. When this Bill has been passed it will be possible for the Local Government Board to introduce a Procedure Order altering the present system if it be thought expedient.
Whereas in England road contracts may be put out to tender, in Ireland the present system is compulsory.
Are we to understand that this Bill will give facilities to councils in Ireland to employ direct labour?
The Bill will not give such facilities, but it will enable the alteration of any Order possible by means of a Procedure Order.
Otherwise it would require an Act of Parliament to do this.
I hope the right hon. Gentleman realises that there is a strong feeling in the Irish counties as to the necessity for altering the present system as soon as possible. We trust he will see that we got the facilities we desire.
I can make no pledge.
Amendment negatived.
Clause agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
Bill reported, without amendment; read the third time, and passed.
Prohibition Of Exportation Of Arms Rill Lords
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]
Clause 1:—
said he had on the Paper an Amendment, the object of which was to widen the scope of the Bill, and especially, if necessary, to prohibit the exportation of Welsh coal, without necessarily prohibiting the exportation of all coal.
Amendment proposed —
"In page 1, line 6, after 'exportation of' to insert 'all or any of the following articles— namely.'"—(Mr. Gibson Bowles.)
Amendment agreed to.
Further Amendment proposed—
"In page 1, line 6, to leave out 'and.'"—(Mr. Gibson Bowles.)
Amendment agreed to.
The next Amendment will enlarge the power of Her Majesty by proclamation.
Amendment proposed —
"In page 1, line 7, after 'naval stores' to insert 'and any article which Her Majesty shall judge capable of being converted into, or made useful in increasing the quantity of arms, ammunition, or military or naval stores.'"—(Mr. Gibson Bowles.)
Is it intended to discriminate between Welsh coal and any other kind of coal?
said this was a very important question, whether the power to prohibit the exportation of Welsh coal should be excluded without the sanction of Parliament. It ought not to be hurried through without the Committee thoroughly understanding the full bearing of the proposal against which he entered his solemn protest.
It is perfectly true that the effect of this Amendment will be to prevent the exportation of anything which might be used as a munition of war, but there is nothing in it which is in any way inconsistent with the Bill or which would affect the coal question in a manner to which the hon. Gentleman can object. Under these circumstances I think the hon. Member will see that there is nothing in the Amendment which will affect coal in the way he fears.
agreed that in any case of national danger nobody would object to prohibit the exportation of any article that might lie used against this country, but in the event of the prohibition of the export of coal as a munition of war it would clearly be necessary to go a step further and provide for the maintenance or sustenance of those engaged in the production of coal. Eight-tenths of the coal produced in Northumberland was exported.
I think the hon. Member is under a misapprehension. This Bill does not give power to stop the general exportation of coal. That power is already given under another Act. The only exportation affected by this Bill is that limited exportation to persons who are likely to use that very coal against Her Majesty's forces. It therefore cannot affect the general trade in which the hon. Gentleman takes such deep interest.
agreed it would not affect the general trade, but it might affect a particular district producing only a steam coal, as was the case in Northumberland. Supposing there was a likelihood of war with Germany, and the exportation of coal was prohibited, that prohibition might easily be extended to France, as it might reasonably be urged that the coal, although not going to a, country actually at war with us, was going to a country from which it might easily be reshipped to Germany. His point was that in the event of the Government being compelled to take such a course, there ought to be some provision made for the vast numbers of men who had previously been employed in producing the prohibited article, and who by that prohibi- tion would be driven out of employment, and forced to fall back upon public subscription for their support and maintenance.
said he should be sorry if the hon. Gentleman went away with the erroneous impression that this Bill would injure the industry in which he was interested. Under the existing law, in the case of war there might be an absolute prohibition; but this Bill proposed a prohibition of a very limited kind to a particular place, and perhaps to a particular part of a country, before war broke out. Under such circumstances, too, there was always a special demand for steam coal by the Admiralty, in consequence of the great activity of the Navy and the use of transports. The industry, therefore, would not be injured in that way, and the power sought was really necessary for the safety of the lives of our own countrymen.
quite understood the anxiety of the hon. Member for the Wansbeck Division, and ho believed that when the Bill was first introduced anxiety was caused in the coal-producing localities. He agreed that the Act of 1899 already gave complete power to Her Majesty's Government, either by proclamation or by Order in Council, to prohibit the exportation of coal, and that this Bill gave only a limited power. Ho did not, however, agree that guns and coal wore on all fours. Guns might be manufactured whether there was any demand or not; they could be kept in stock for years, but that was not the case with coal. If the exportation of coal was prohibited the people engaged in the production of coal would be thrown out of employment. He had very little fear of any Government attempting to stop the exportation of coal generally, because with such powerful allies as the coal interest had in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Scotland, and Wales no Government would be so foolish or mad as to stop that industry. While he should like to sec some amendment of the clause, he thought the power was one which ought to be given.
quite appreciated the hon. Member's anxiety, but the clause empowered the prohibition of exportation of coal only if it was capable of becoming naval stores. Moreover, by the existing law, which had been in existence for twenty years, the Sovereign might by proclamation prohibit the exportation of such coal to any place in the world, and therefore what this Bill proposed was to give a much smaller power.
said the more the clause was explained the more dangerous did it appear. In the opinion of the First Lord of the Treasury this power could be used if it was believed the coal would lie used for warlike purposes. There would be no fear if the country was actually at war, because then all the coal would be required at home. But if the power was to be used in the case of mere contemplation of war, thousands of men might possibly be thrown out of work. Nobody desired to produce coal for the enemies of the country—everybody would rather fight than do that; but what was to become of these thousands of men if the exportation were prohibited without any provision being made for their maintenance?
made a suggestion which, if practicable, he thought might meet the difficulty. It was conceivable that under this Bill a coal-owner might be unable to carry out his contracts. If ho could show that by the operation of this Act a particular contract had had to be given up or broken, would it not be possible to make some arrangement by which the Government would undertake to accept that contract themselves, and take the coal which otherwise would have gone out of the country?
said that with regard to China, which was probably the instance present to most minds, it was not very likely that it would be necessary to prohibit the exportation of steam coal at all; arms and ammunition were more likely to be of use; there. He would remind the Committee that even if exportation were prohibited under this Bill to any particular place, the whole of the rest of the world would be open to the coal industry. As to the suggestion of the last speaker, if through such pro- hibition any existing contracts could not be fulfilled in accordance with law, there would be a complete answer to any proceedings which might be taken.
My suggestion was founded on what was said by my hon. friend behind me, that some provision should be made if possible to enable a coal-owner to carry on a contract and find work for his men—that the work should be done for the Government instead of for the foreigner with whom this country might be at war.
said he had some hesitation in giving such full powers to the Government as were proposed. Hitherto Section 8 of the Customs Act had not been put into operation, and we had had no ill effects from it. What he was afraid of was that in times of scare like the present, Governments, like individuals, might get into panic. Supposing that any difference should arise between this country and France or Germany, the very fact that the Government had these powers would affect purchasers from these countries. They would say, "What is the use of buying coal from Great Britain? We had better get it from America or some other country which is a producer." There was great danger of these powers being used for the disadvantage of this country. He was anxious that Her Majesty's Government should not issue a proclamation without giving sufficient time at all events for the coal industries to prepare themselves.
said the Members of the House representing mining districts were particularly interested in this matter, because the industry in which their constituents were engaged was vastly different from trades manufacturing the ordinary munitions of war. Such firms as Armstrongs' could go on making guns and shells, and the articles would not deteriorate. It was different in the case of coal, which deteriorated when exposed to climatic influences. Coal-owners would not undertake to bring coal to the surface when a proclamation had been issued. They would prefer to close down their mines, and the men would remain idle while the proclamation was running. The miners' representatives did not object to a proclamation such as was contemplated by the Bill being issued in the case of actual hostilities, but the danger they feared would arise when there was a prospect of hostilities, when there was imminent danger of hostilities breaking out between this and another country, and when the Government might be tempted by pressure from without to issue such a proclamation prohibiting the exportation of coal to that country. The rupture might never come, but considerable suffering might be imposed by the prohibition of the export of coal, because of the prospect of hostilities between this country and, say, France or Germany. If they had some assurance from the Government on that point they would be set at rest at once.
expressed the hope that similar Bills would be introduced in the colonial Parliaments. There was a large amount of steam coal produced in the colonies.
said no explicit information had been given to them with regard to this proposal. What they wanted to know was how this proclamation would affect the coal trade. They should like to know whether the Government would do anything for the colliery proprietors when they stopped the exportation of coal. Would they be prepared to pay for all the coal that was stopped on that account? If this country believed that war was imminent, they would have no objection to a proclamation being issued. If they believed that France was storing coal for warlike purposes, all he could say was that it would be rather awkward if they were going to prevent South Wales from sending coal to France. He thought that would mean a declaration of war against France. That was the general impression. He could only hope that the Government would not intervene to prevent France from getting coal in this country. The landowners would get their royalty rents, but the men would be idle. Would they stop cotton goods from going to China and France? Would they prevent wine coming to this country from France? Would they prevent the shipbuilders on the Tyne from building their ships? This proposal meant a great deal more than they conceived if they prevented coal from going out of this country in the way contemplated by this Bill. If the Govern- ment would say, "When we know for a certainty that there is to be war a proclamation shall be issued," he did not think there was any man in the House so unpatriotic as to wish to send war material to any country.
said there was no cause for the apprehension felt by his hon. friends in regard to the effect of this Bill. The powers conferred by the Bill would not be exercised by the Government until the relations between this and a foreign country had come to a point which rendered that course necessary. There would then be a boom in the coal trade by demands from our own ports and shipping abroad.
thought it was extremely dangerous to allow this power of proclamation to be exercised by the Government alone.
It can be so exercised already.
Not in respect of coal. The danger he conceived was that they might have a Government who would lie carried away by newspapers. He thought it was possible that they might have some speculators in coal who would imitate the practices of the South African financiers, and who would hire two or three editors and send them over to France or Germany or America. The gentlemen who engineered such a panic would then cause them to turn round and remove the danger after they had caused the people of this country to buy enormous quantities of coal. They would remove the cause of alarm by dismissing their editors. So long as the power applied to exports it would be impossible for a clique of financial speculators to form a ring in one commodity and influence the country. He did not think that even the present Government could be influenced by the financial press to stop all the exports of this country, though it was extremely probable they might be influenced to stop the export of coal. This was legislation in panic, which was always dangerous, because people shut their eyes to everything except to the danger immediately likely to occur.
pointed out that the law had existed over since the Act of 1879, and the only power which this Bill gave was a power to enable the Government to prohibit the export of particular warlike stores to particular places.
agreed, but at the same time pointed out that the powers under the Act of 1879 had never been put into operation by the Government. This Bill showed that it was the intention of the, Government to put these powers into operation, and it was that fact that made people so anxious. The Government seemed to be under the impression that if the exportation of English coal were prohibited, the supply of coal to foreign Powers would be stopped. This country had long ceased to be the only coal-supplying country. We now supplied a very small proportion of that which was used, and the only result of this legislation would be that other countries would secure the trade. He asked for an assurance that the proclamation should not be issued so far as coal was concerned, excepting in the case of breaking off of diplomatic relations or the commencement of hostilities. There was a great difference between coal and other goods; guns and ammunition might be exported years before, but no country would ever think of importing coal more than three months before it was required.
Amendment agreed to.
Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.
Navy And Army Expenditure, 1898–9
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
That it appears by the Navy Appropriation Account for the year ended the 31st day of March, 1899, and the statement appended thereto, as follows, viz.:—
| SCHEDULE. | |||||||||||||||
| Number of Vote. | Navy Services 1898–99. Votes. | Gross Expenditure. | Appropriations in Aid. | ||||||||||||
| Excesses of Actual over Estimated Cross Expenditure. | Surpluses of Estimated over Actual Gross Expenditure. | Deficiencies of Actual as compared with Estimated Receipts. | Surpluses of Actual as compared with Estimated Receipts. | ||||||||||||
| 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | ||||||||||||
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | ||||
| 1 | … | Wages, etc., of Officers, Seamen, and Boys, Coast Guard, and Royal Marines | … | 52,038 | 12 | 0 | 2,039 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| 2 | … | Victualling and Clothing for the Navy | 95,269 | 14 | 4 | … | … | 3,698 | 12 | 11 | |||||
| 3 | … | Medical Establishments and Services | … | 551 | 11 | 11 | … | 636 | 9 | 6 | |||||
| 4 | … | Martial Law | 719 | 3 | 2 | … | … | 40 | 8 | 4 | |||||
| 5 | … | Educational Services | … | 1,422 | 8 | 6 | … | 161 | 11 | 9 | |||||
| 6 | … | Scientific Services | 2,897 | 18 | 0 | … | … | 5,423 | 0 | 7 | |||||
| 7 | … | Royal Naval Reserves | … | 13,683 | 11 | 1 | … | 188 | 13 | 1 | |||||
| 8 | … | Shipbuilding, Repairs, Maintenance, etc.: | |||||||||||||
| Sec. 1 | … | Personnel | 191,318 | 6 | 8 | … | 12 | 7 | |||||||
| Sec. 2 | … | Materiel | 192,715 | 5 | 7 | … | … | 43,268 | 14 | 0 | |||||
| Sec. 3 | … | Contract Work | … | 749,758 | 9 | 6 | 2,053 | 13 | 10 | ||||||
| 9 | … | Naval Armaments | … | 8,525 | 13 | 6 | 73 | 15 | 11 | ||||||
| 10 | … | Works, Buildings, and Repairs at Home and Abroad | 91,241 | 9 | 9 | … | … | 10,752 | 7 | 3 | |||||
( c.) That the resulting differences between the Exchequer Grants for Navy Services and the net expenditure are as follows, viz.:—
| £ | s. | d. | ||
| Total Surpluses | … | 825,325 | 12 | 7 |
| Total Deficits | … | 577,801 | 4 | 6 |
| Net Surplus | … | £247,524 | 8 | 1 |
That the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury have temporarily authorised the application, in reduction of the net charge on Exchequer Grants for certain Navy Services, of the whole of the sums received in excess of the estimated Appropriations in Aid, in respect of the same Services; and have also temporarily authorised the application of so much of the said total surpluses on certain Grants for Naval Services as is necessary to cover the said total deficits on other Grants for Navy Services.
1. Resolved, That the application of such sums be sanctioned.
| Number of Vote. | Navy Services, 1898-99. Votes. | Gross Expenditure. | Appropriations in Aid. | |||||||||||
| Excesses of Actual over Estimated Gross Expenditure. | Surpluses of Estimated over Actual Gross Expenditure. | Deficiencies of Actual as compared with Estimated Receipts. | Surpluses of Actual as compared with Estimated Receipts. | |||||||||||
| 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | |||||||||||
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | |||
| 11 | … | Miscellaneous Effective Services | 32,862 | 19 | 2 | … | … | 1,553 | 16 | 2 | ||||
| 12 | … | Admiralty Office | 500 | 5 | 8 | … | … | 1 | 17 | 9 | ||||
| 13 | … | Half-pay, Reserved and Retired Pay | 18,169 | 4 | 5 | … | 954 | 1 | 6 | |||||
| 14 | … | Naval and Marine Pensions, Gratuities, and Compassionate Allowances | 4,491 | 9 | 11 | … | 1,246 | 8 | 6 | |||||
| 15 | … | Civil Pensions and Gratuities | 4,633 | 1 | 5 | … | … | 188 | 11 | 11 | ||||
| 16 | … | Additional Naval Force for Service in Australasian Waters | 42 | 16 | 0 | … | 486 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| Amount written off as irrecoverable | 2,654 | 14 | 2 | |||||||||||
| 637,516 | 8 | 3 | 825,980 | 6 | 6 | 6,853 | 13 | 5 | 65,914 | 3 | 3 | |||
| Net Surplus, | £188,463 | 18 | 3 | Net Surplus, | £59,060 | 9 | 10 | |||||||
| Surplus surrendered to the Exchequer | £247,524 | 8 | 1 | |||||||||||
That it appears by the Army Appropriation Account for the year ended the 31st day of March, 1899 (as corrected by the Second Report of the Committee of Public Accounts of the present Session), and the statement appended thereto, as follows, viz.:—
| £ | s. | d. | ||
| Total Surpluses | … | 278,806 | 12 | 5 |
| Total Deficits | … | 269,487 | 13 | 9 |
| Net Surplus | … | £9,318 | 18 | 8 |
That by a Vote of Parliament during the present Session (House of Commons Paper, No. 90, of 1900) a further sum of £100 has been granted for the expenditure of the year 1898–9, and the appro- priation of additional receipts in aid ofsuch expenditure has been sanctioned to the amount of £168,070 2s. 6d.
That the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury have temporarily authorised the application of so much of
| SCHEDULE. | |||||||||||||
| No. of vote. | Army Services, 1898–99. Votes. | Gross Expenditure. | Appropriations in Aid. | ||||||||||
| Excesses of Actual over Estimated Cross Expenditure. | Surpluses of Estimated over Actual Gross Expenditure. | Deficiencies of Actual as compared with Estimated Receipts. | Surpluses of Actual as compared with Estimated Receipts. | ||||||||||
| 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | ||||||||||
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | ||
| 1 | Pay, etc., of Army (General Staff, Regiments, Reserve, and Departments) | 29,358 | 10 | 11 | … | … | 100,529 | 17 | 8 | ||||
| 2 | Medical Establishments: Pay, etc | 35,054 | 5 | 1 | … | 55 | 13 | 11 | |||||
| 3 | Militia: Pay, Extra Pay, Bounty, etc. | … | 6,354 | 14 | 6 | 319 | 5 | 8 | |||||
| 4 | Yeomanry Cavalry: Pay and Allowances | 1,489 | 17 | 9 | … | … | 1 | 8 | 10 | ||||
| 5 | Volunteer Corps: Pay and Allowances | … | 1,840 | 2 | 1 | … | 743 | 18 | 2 | ||||
| 6 | Transport and Remounts | 119,933 | 3 | 0 | … | … | 9,950 | 19 | 8 | ||||
| 7 | Provisions, Forage, and other Supplies | … | 45,524 | 2 | 1 | … | 22,810 | 6 | 0 | ||||
| 8 | Clothing Establishments and Services | 74,108 | 15 | 0 | … | … | 8,251 | 0 | 11 | ||||
| 9 | Warlike and other Stores: Supply and Repair | … | 17,716 | 17 | 6 | … | 58,131 | 3 | 11 | ||||
| 10 | Works, Buildings, and Repairs: Cost, including Staff for Engineer Services | 1,872 | 14 | 3 | … | 48,384 | 14 | 2 | |||||
| 11 | Establishments for Military Education | … | 2,332 | 10 | 4 | … | 2,063 | 8 | 1 | ||||
| 12 | Miscellaneous Effective Services | 404 | 5 | 5 | … | … | 53 | 16 | 6 | ||||
| 13 | War Office: Salaries and Miscellaneous Charges | … | 1,815 | 12 | 7 | … | 347 | 4 | 11 | ||||
| 14 | Non-effective Charges for Officers, etc | … | 20,619 | 8 | 5 | … | 19,327 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| 15 | Non-effective Charges for Men, etc. | … | 4,412 | 6 | 8 | … | 3,915 | 16 | 1 | ||||
| 16 | Superannuation, Compensation, and Compassionate Allowances | 6,132 | 0 | 7 | … | 69 | 0 | 9 | |||||
| Balances irrecoverable | 240 | 9 | 9 | ||||||||||
| 268,594 | 1 | 9 | 100,615 | 14 | 2 | 48,828 | 14 | 6 | 226,126 | 0 | 9 | ||
Add Excess Vote | … | 100 | 0 | 0 | |||||||||
| 100,715 | 14 | 2 | |||||||||||
| Net Deficit, £167,878 | 7 | 7 | Net Surplus, | £177,297 | 6 | 3 | |||||||
| Net Surplus £9,418 18 8 | |||||||||||||
| —(Mr. Hanbury) | |||||||||||||
the said total surpluses on certain Grants for Army Services as is necessary to cover the said total deficits on other Grants for Army Services.
2. Resolved, That the application of sums be sanctioned.
Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.
Oil In Tobacco Bill
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Elementary School Teachers' Superannuation (Isle Oe Man) Bill
Considered in Committee, and reported, without amendment; read the third time, and passed.
Elementary School Teachers' Superannuation (Jersey) Bill
Considered in Committee, and reported, without amendment; read the third time, and passed.
Imitation Of County Court Process Bill Lords
Order for Committee read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
Ancient Monuments Protection Bill
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Tramways (Ireland) Acts Amendment Bill
Considered in Committee, and reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.
Medical Acts Amendment Bill
Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
Members Of Local Authorities Relief Bill Lords
Read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.
Copyright Bill Lords
Order for Second Reading road, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
Larceny Act (1861) Amendment Bill
Order for Second Reading read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.
In pursuance of the Order of the House of the 16th day of July last, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.
Adjourned at five minutes before Eight of the clock.