said he regretted opposing the Second Reading of the Bill, because he was aware that the House was always anxious to get private Bill business out of the way as quickly as possible, and that the general practice was to send private Bills to a Select Committee. Had this been an ordinary case he thought that would have been the proper course to take, but he now proposed to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, because of exceptional circumstances. In most large towns it was obvious that the question of water supply was one of growing difficulty. He admitted that in some large towns the water supply must be considered to be a matter of public necessity, which should override private rights; but in this particular case there were circumstances which altered that presumption, which he would explain. The case of Wolverhampton differed from that of many other towns, because by reason of legislation which had been passed they bad had the opportunity of getting all the water they wanted, and there was no reason or necessity for them to come to Parliament at present for powers. The facts were very simple. In 1892 the House was engaged in considering a very large and magnificent scheme of water supply for Birmingham. As a Member of Parliament at that time, he remembered there was a great discussion upon that Hill, and that the proposal to go to South Wales for water for Birmingham met with a great deal of discussion, and much was said for and against the scheme. During the passage of that Bill through the House, at the instance of Wolverhampton, a clause was inserted, giving power to Wolverhampton under the Birmingham Act of 1892 to obtain water on demand from the Birmingham Corporation. That was the position of the law now, and Wolverhampton would be able, when the works were completed, to send in a requisition to Birmingham to get the water for its own population which it no doubt needed. They contended, therefore, that there was no need for Wolverhampton to come forward and ask for another independent supply when an enactment of the House had already given them the proper remedy. Before going into the case itself, which was really very simple, he would refer to Clause 62 of the Birmingham Bill, which gave power to Wolverhampton to demand water on giving one year s notice, and to demand a supply equal to 25 gallons per head of the population, and the cost of such supply was a charge regulated on a four per cent. basis, There was nothing in those provisions at all onerous or hard upon Wolverhampton, and the proper step for them to take would be to proceed with the powers under the Act, and apply to Birmingham as soon as possible. There was no need for them to come to Shropshire and put down works which would undoubtedly do great damage to the county and to the works in the Borough of Wenlock, and under the circumstances he thought the Bill ought not to be read a second time. Two reasons had been alleged why that Bill should be brought in as an alternative to the power that Wolverhampton already had to go to Birmingham. He had an extract from a speech by Mr. Alderman Marston, reported in the Midland Evening News of 5th January last, when the Chairman of the Water Company had been explaining his view of the matter, and had urged for consideration two facts which he said ought to bring him support for this Bill. The first was the time in which the supply was to be obtained, and the second the cost. Undoubtedly Wolverhampton wanted the water quickly, but he would point out that the Birmingham scheme could come into operation by 1902, and although there might be a delay, he thought that within two years, at any rate, the water would be in the neighbourhood of Wolverhampton. But this Bill provided five years for works, and ten years for compulsory powers. Therefore, if the element of time was to be considered it was obvious that by going to Birmingham they would get the water which Wolverhampton wanted quicker than by going for powers under this Bill. As to cost, he took Alderman Marston's figures. That gentleman estimated that the cost of going to Birmingham would be £80,000, and that that would be the capital charge laid upon Wolverhampton. But by this Bill the capital charge that was going to be laid upon them was £200,000. Therefore, it there was anything to be said on the element of cost, it was obviously in favour of the Birmingham scheme. Therefore he thought that upon those points there was evidence that the Second Beading of this Bill should not be agreed to, and if Wolverhampton wanted water it should hasten to give notice to Birmingham, and to get the water when Birmingham herself got it. His first contention was that if water was wanted Wolverhampton ought to put in force the powers of the Act of 1892, and that it was unfair to go to other quarters. As to the case of Shropshire against the Bill, that was a case which rested upon two grounds. There were large interests which it was alleged would seriously be damaged by putting down works in their neighbourhood. First there were the interests of the landowners, of the large proprietors, and the damage that would be done to their present water supply. Secondly, there wore those who got their supply from some public, authority. In explaining the Bill he would point out that certain works were to be put down, and certain wells were to be sunk in the red sandstone, or upper Bunter bed, which would inevitably affect all the wells in the neighbourhood. The Wolhampton Corporation had already a well there, which it was known had already had a very considerable effect upon the underground water in the district, and now they had been told that Wolverhampton was coming for further powers to put down new wells in the same locality. Therefore when pumping was going on they would find that all the water necessary for their supply would be taken from them, and they would have no remedy. In addition, there was the public supply for the borough of Wenlock, where at great cost a well had been put down, and it had been charged upon the rates. That well supplied a large number of parishes, and the effect of the new wells would be to empty and drain it, and consequently all the works that had been put down, for which £20,000 had been already borrowed, would become worthless. The House was now asked to sanction a new scheme which would ruin the Wenlock supply, and the ratepayers' money would be thrown away. The law on the subject might be explained as follows: If A were to dig a well to get water, and B wore to dig beside it, and B's well drained A's well, then A would have no remedy at law. The only remedy of A would be for him to dig deeper than B's well. But who was going to enter into competition with the Wolverhampton Corporation? The consequence was that in law there was no remedy whatever. The whole question was whether in allowing this Bill to go forward great damage should be done and no compensation received. He maintained that there was no remedy whatever, except to come to the House and ask them not to give a Second Reading to the Bill. The Wolverhampton Corporation were proposing to dig a well at Stapleford, which would drain the Wenlock well at Harrington, and if the Bill were passed all the money expended for the public supply of Wenlock would become useless, the taxpayers would be saddled with a heavy burden, and an injustice would be done. The two hon. Members for Wolverhampton, who were present, no doubt knew the locality, and he would point out to them that the cost of £20,000 arose from the fact that the water on one side had to be taken down the bed of the river up on the other side, and therefore the cost to a small and poor community like that would be considerable. For years the supply to the parishes mentioned had been deficient, and the difficulty so great that the Corporation of Wenlock now came forward to obtain the protection of the House for their works. To sum up his case, he would observe that Wolverhampton ought to go to Birmingham for their water supply. Having got their remedy and supply there was no reason for their doing an injury to Shropshire. Under this Bill, by Sections 13 and 15, they had very large roving powers, which, if exercised, would practically amount to a roving commission to go all over the place and take anything which might be chosen. In conclusion, he asked the House to throw out the Bill on the Second Beading, and he moved that it be read a second time that day six months.

said that a Wolverhampton alderman had declared that the I works going on now represented "a robbery of people without any compensation." The Bill proposed to treble the works. It had also been said that the water supply was insufficient for the growing needs of Wolverhampton, but the fact was that Parliament had already supplied the town with an inexhaustible store from the Birmingham reservoirs. Yet, before they had found out whether that would fail (and it never could fail), they came to Parliament with a new Bill, not to supply Wolverhampton with water, but to put profits in the pockets of the Wolverhampton ratepayers betaking other people's water. The chairman of the Water Committee had said that for the last thirty years they had made a fairly good profit out of the waterworks in Shropshire—waterworks, which had caused ruin to all the surrounding neighbourhood, had dried up all the wells, turned the grass meadows into and fields with great fissures in them, compelled the unfortunate villagers to go two or three miles for a can of water, and put the farmers at their wits' end for water. In the meantime those waterworks, which had scattered ruin over all the neighbourhood, had been putting profit into the pockets of the Wolverhampton ratepayers—"a fairly good profit." Therefore, this was not a Bill to supply a large population which was starved of water, but was a Bill to enable the ratepayers of Wolverhampton to make a profit out of the water, the taking away of which meant ruin to the people of Shropshire. He believed the House had never, in any of the water Bills brought before it, allowed the taking of anything but surplus water from any district, and had always left to the people enough to satisfy their wants. The great waterworks of the north, the great waterworks in Wales, had always been required to leave a sufficiency for those who lived in the neighbourhood. But this Bill proposed not to take the surplus or the surface water, but to go down 900 feet into the sandstone and abstract all the water-storage which supplied the district, and upon which the very existence of the district depended. Through the Upper Bunden bed of sandstone, he explained, the rain percolated quickly, and formed at 900 or 1,000 feet below a great storage of water, which came up again in springs and supplied the whole neighbourhood. If a pump were to be put into that storage, after a time the whole supply could be taken away. That had been proved by the well, 900 feet deep, which Wolverhampton had already put down. The pumping well provided 4,500,000 gallons per day sixteen years ago; it only now provided two and a half millions. If this Bill were passed it would mean that acres and acres of land in Shropshire would be converted into a desert. The whole county came forward as one man and protested against the Bill, and surely the 230,000 who formed the population had as good a title to consideration as the 170,000 inhabitants of Wolverhampton. Shropshire was fighting a principle which was of importance to every county council throughout the country, and Shropshire appealed to the representatives of counties to maintain the principle which had always been upheld by that House—that one county should not be deprived of a necessity of life which it possessed, in order to give it to another county. The Bill proposed that the Wolverhampton Corporation should be a new sanitary authority placed in Shropshire, a sanitary authority without representation, and in which not a single inhabitant of Shropshire would have a voice. Under that Bill the Corporation would have at its own option to supply water or not, for Section 5 said—

"If at any time after the expiration of five years from the passing of this Act the Corporation are not furnishing or prepared on demand to furnish a sufficient supply of water in accordance with the provisions of this Act in any parish by this Act added to their limits for the supply of water, the local authority for the district comprising such parish may provide a supply in the whole or any part of such parish in accordance with the provisions of the Public Health Acts, or any company, body, or person may apply for an Act of Parliament or Provisional Order for the purpose of supplying water in any part of such parish not sufficiently supplied by the Corporation as if in either case this Act had not passed."

and the Corporation had ten years option. If at the end of five years they were not supplying sufficient water, then the local authorities might provide it for themselves. But then the Corporation would already have taken all the water, and the local authority would be compelled to go elsewhere to find some at unreasonable cost. In other words, with a kind of cynicism seldom found in Acts of Parliament they said: "Go elsewhere; you must find your water elsewhere; we have taken it from you, and we decline to give you compensation." The Bill introduced new principles which were contrary to public policy, and contrary to the principles already applied by Parliament in private and general Acts. He appealed to the House not to introduce new forms and principles of legislation under the guise of private Bills.

said he felt overwhelmed by the description of the magnitude of the crimes of Wolverhampton which they had just heard. He could only tell the House a plain and simple story, without attempting at all to reply to the rhetoric and, if he might so call it, the imagination of the hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the House. The object of the Bill was to increase the supply of water available for the large manufacturing population of Wolverhampton and its neighbourhood. The history of the supply of water to Wolverhampton he could put in a nutshell. All acquainted with Wolverhampton knew that it was a difficult place to supply with water, on account of the height above the sea level, and the water supply had always been a problem of considerable difficulty. The House, after the indignation which had been expressed from Shropshire at the invasion of Salopian territory, would be surprised to learn that about fifty years ago some enterprising public-spirited landowners of Shropshire proposed to construct works there to supply Wolverhampton with water. That was the inception of the present scheme, and they got their supply from a Shropshire brook. That supply, however, was insufficient and unsatisfactory, it being subjected to a great deal of turbid matter coming down, making it inferior in quality and deficient in quantity. After the Wolverhampton Corporation had bought the waterworks, some thirty-five years ago, and taken the matter into their own hands, they sunk a well into the red sandstone. That operation was a success, and had supplied Wolverhampton with a large quantity of water during the last quarter of a century. The fullest and amplest consideration had previously been paid to all the riparian proprietors down the whole course of the brook where it joined the Severn, so that no complaint was ever made against the Corporation of Wolverhampton on that score—against the diversion of the water. It was bought and paid for, and he thought no legal proceedings had ever been taken against them in regard to the taking of the water. The population of Wolverhampton now supplied was about 154,000. The water supply was already taken by 137,000 of that population; there were still 15,000 within the limits unsupplied, and there were also large manufactories; and whether through their own fault or through their misfortune, the Corporation were now bound to complete the supply. He would tell the House a few facts, and they would see where the pressure arose. The average supply of water during 1900 was 2,977,000 gallons per day, and on many occasions last year four million gallons were required, one day there being 4,138,000 consumed. The present quantity of water on which the town could depend was practically only the three million, gallons to which he referred. The demand was daily increasing, and the very competent advisers of the Corporation of Wolverhampton said that they must supply a demand equal to twenty-five gallons per head, or 4,000,000 gallons per day, subject to a considerable increase. The present scheme was intended to meet that want, and the House would be very surprised to hear what a very small scheme that was. It really interfered only with a rural district containing a population of about 13,000 people, and the Wolverhampton Corporation were quite willing to recognise their obligation to the people in the locality, whose water it might be said they took. He ventured to say that if the Bill were allowed to go upstairs it would be seen that the Corporation would be compulsorily obliged to supply the whole of the inhabitants of the district, extending the limits to something like ten additional parishes. So that if there were any claims in consequence of the interference with wells, the Corporation would be ready and in a position to supply them with water. He would not dispute that there were local cases of hardship, where certain other wells might be interfered with in consequence of the sinking of new wells to great depths, and compensation ought to be given; but the idea of trying this case in the House of Commons by speeches on the one side and on the other, with no particle of reliable evidence, would be a travesty of the judicial functions of the House. A Committee ought to have the case to deal with, and no objection would be raised to the lotus standi of anybody who considered himself aggrieved. The hon. Member for the Oswestry Division had said that there had been a great infliction of pains and penalties, which had done his con- stituency much injury, but he had been told that their scheme had not yet come into action at all; they had not pumped a drop of water, and it the people of Much Wenlock were prepared to sell what they had already spent, in reference to sinking that well, then Wolverhampton were prepared to buy it, and to supply Much Wenlock with water. Surely that, again, was a case for a Committee. He frankly admitted that the most serious part of the case was that which had been referred to by the hon. Member for the Wellington Division, Wolverhampton Corporation, no doubt, had the power to take the water from Birmingham, but it had to be taken upon terms, and they had been advised that a certain proportion of the original capital cost of the Birmingham scheme would have to be paid. Then again there was the difference of levels to be considered, they having been informed that there was no point on the Birmingham route where the water could be taken by gravitation, and that it would have to be pumped, and that meant a great expenditure.

said the cost of the pumping was included in the statement.

said he appreciated that point, but the ground on which the proposed scheme was recommended to the people of Wolverhampton, apart from the consideration of time, was that it would be a much more economical scheme than the supply from Birmingham. That, again, was a question for a Committee. As to the question of time, the Birmingham scheme was to be finished within ten years. He did not know if any hon. Member would say that it could be done within the remaining two years, but he was informed that a considerable time must elapse; and when the scheme was completed twelve months notice would have to lie given, and a proper aqueduct would have to be constructed from the point of junction into the town of Wolverhampton. Those were difficulties which had beset the Water Committee of that Corporation. This was no scheme promoted for the benefit of sonic interested individual, but was an undertaking promoted by a public company in the discharge of their public duty to supply their town with water, and they, acting under the best engineering advice, had come to the conclusion that this was not only the cheapest but the most effective and most expeditious means by which they could discharge their duty. As to the five years to which his hon. friend had alluded, that simply related to the fact that somebody else must do the work if the Corporation did not; but from the moment they put down a supply of water from the two wells which they proposed to sink, they would be obliged to supply water to that particular locality. This was eminently a case for a judicial investigation by a Committee upstairs. He was one of those who very firmly believed in the impartiality of a House of Commons Committee, and he was quite sure the people of Wolverhampton would readily accept the decision of such a Committee after hearing evidence and cross-examination, and after having had the advantage of the learned representatives on all sides. No obstacle would be given to any man giving evidence; and they did not desire to shelter themselves behind any technicalities. They had a simple duty to discharge to the public, and in endeavouring to do so they asked the House as a matter of fairness not to judge the case against them without a hearing, but to send the Bill upstairs, where it would be fully and impartially considered and satisfactorily dealt with.

said he cordially acknowledged the tone and temper in which the right hon. Gentleman (Sir H. Fowler) had addressed himself to the question, and he only wished that that had been the temper which had characterised the negotiations and various dealings with the matter on the part of the Corporation of Wolverhampton. If it had been, then the state of things might have been very different; but there seemed to him to have been some evil influences which prevented the question being considered in the way in which such controversies ought to be approached. He felt bound to tell the right hon. Gentleman, and he appreciated his position in the House as much as anyone, and he had had the pleasure of often supporting him in his public acts; but on this occasion he really must challenge his consistency. He recollected when the right hon. Gentleman was introducing the Parish Councils Bill, in which he gave the right hon. Gentleman support, he used these words—

"The parish council will have the power of utilising any supply of water within the parish. There are a great many parishes which cannot bear the cost of waterworks, but which have an adequate supply of water if there were anybody to look after it, keep it pure, and see that it was distributed. There would, therefore, be great advantage in giving a parish council power to utilise a supply of water within the parish. I may say, in passing, that it is, of course, the absolute statutory duty of the district council, and we hope to make it more binding upon them, to see to the supply of water of every parish within their a rea."

Now, the right hon. Gentleman was in this position: every single parish council concerned in that particular area objected to the action which the right lion. Gentleman sought to force upon it. Every single district council objected most absolutely to the attempt of the right hon. Gentleman to take away from them the very power which he conferred by that Act, and on which he laid that stress. And not only that. Every single person exercising any public office whatever throughout the whole county united in most absolute objection to forcible means of taking away from them that which years ago the right hon. Gentleman took great credit for conferring upon them. Therefore he begged leave in the first instance to impugn the right lion. Gentleman's consistency and the consistency of any of those who, having once upheld the extension of powers to rural districts, now, at a moment which seemed to them advisable, took away those powers and placed the authorities in the maw of some great corporation merely because they happened to be connected with it.

asked to be allowed to explain. The Bill contained a clause which compelled the Corporation to sell the plant and works in any district to the local authority whenever they chose.

asked how could those small local authorities by any accident be able to deal with questions of purchase and sale? The right hon. Gentleman might just as well toll him that he could go and buy out one of the great concerns of Wolverhampton to-morrow. The thing was an absurdity and a farce, and was well known to be such. He now knew that it was his duty to try and convince the House that it should in justice and equity take a course which was allowed to be rather unusual. In order that that might be done he wanted to indulge, like his hon. friend, in a short historical retrospect. His interests were to some extent personal. At all events his experience enabled him to lay before the House information which he could assure hon. Members was firsthand, and to the accuracy of every detail of which he publicly pledged himself. Firstly, people were apt to talk as if this was a Bill affecting landowners. In this case he asked them to remember that the landowners represented all the rural population living on the land. It was not a selfish vested interest on the part of the landowners, because, although they happened to be in the forefront of the battle by virtue of their interest in the land, it was a matter in which the landowners really represented everybody living on the land. There were several points to which he desired to ask the attention of the House. In the first place he could not help being rather amused at the right hon. Gentleman's description of the public-spirited landowners of Shropshire who came forward with a desire to supply Wolverhampton with water. The light hon. Gentleman, whose recollection was as good as his, smiled. In its inception this was a mere job for the purpose of enabling a certain landowner to sell his land at a high price, as he thought. It never was carried out, and as far as that went the public-spirited landowner was utterly sold. Passing to another question, the right hon. Gentleman had taken credit to himself and his fair-dealing Corporation for having given great consideration to the riparian owners. If consideration were given to the riparian owners, he assumed that it was long before the Corporation came into possession of those works, and that it was given by the company which preceded the Corporation, from whom the Corporation took the property. He was a riparian owner himself for some considerable distance; and he had never been able to trace the passage of a single sixpence on that account. It did not appear on any estate account with which he was acquainted—certainly not in his own; neither were there any records such as were usually kept in estate offices of anything of the sort having passed. The only case he knew of was where a sum of £700 was paid when the site at Cosford was compulsorily purchased by the company which preceded the Corporation. As he had promised, he must go more carefully into an historical retrospect. This was a consideration which the House would bear in mind in coming to a fair conclusion. The position of the Corporation was a position of having succeeded a company. That company in 1855 secured a Bill in Parliament, and on the strength of the power given to it by Parliament it proceeded to buy the site at Cosford. It was a matter of fact, which would not be disputed, that there was not a single reference made in that Act to any powers to sink any wells whatever. That Act conferred, and was meant to confer, solely power to deal with overground water. There was no allusion whatever to well sinking in that Act of 1855; neither was there, he believed, at that time the slightest intention to sink wells; nor was there, according to the geological knowledge of that time, any encouragement for people to make the Attempt. Anyhow, there was no such power there. The consequence was that Parliament, when they granted the present powers, did not safeguard the district in the matter of sinking wells. Had there been any mention of the possibility of wells being sunk, it was obvious that Parliament would have safeguarded the interests of the surrounding districts; but inasmuch as there was no reference made to any such thing, there were no safeguarding clauses, and the result was that they had been handed over, tied and bound, to the tender mercies of the Corporation, which had shown no mercy whatever, and had never made any attempt to show mercy to those whom it had victimised. He would ask the House to consider, not of course as affecting the Corporation, but the position, whether it did not almost amount to a fraud on Parliament that powers which Parliament gave for certain purposes should be used for other purposes, and that thereby Parliament should be deprived of the right to give that protection which otherwise it certainly would have given. In consequence of that action of 1855 great losses immediately began to be incurred in the neighbourhood. The water sank in the brook; the supply for cattle was affected; water for motive power was done away with, and it could not be used for the purpose of safeguarding mansions or farms from tire. In 1867 the Corporation bought out the company, and then became, under the same title and with the same limitations as their predecessors, the possessors of Cosford Works. The result was that as they pumped more water more damage accrued. Those immediately before them suffered, and more severely and heavily. Time after time they were asked whether they would consider the question of any reasonable compensation, and all consideration of that question was refused. In 1880, he thought, the Corporation sank this deep well of 918 feet. The right hon. Gentleman must recollect that no public notice was given of that. None of them had any reason to know that this operation was being carried on, and they had not a chance, therefore, of opposing it, even if they had had the power. Of course, the House would appreciate that the sinking of a well did not lead to any immediate change in the neighbourhood. The results were gradual, and gradually and surely the results of the well sinking became apparent. He owned a property of some 3,000 acres immediately above the works at Cosford, in which the effects became very gradually but certainly apparent. His wells began to sink and he spent considerable sums in deepening them. They held for a short time and then gave out. They constantly failed. In 1889 he took the advice of an expert civil engineer, who compared the position with what had been in 1884, and he found that the water level between those years had been lowered by the action of the Cosford pumping by twenty-eight inches; that was to say, over five and a half inches in the year. Con- sequently this was the position—that for a mansion, several farms, many cottages, and for all the ordinary transactions of agricultural life, he had not one spoonful of water left, and he had no access to any other source whatever. Water had to be carried from one place to another in order to get on at all, and he had sometimes to rely on the rainfall. In 1889, when this desperate state of things had to be faced, he went to the Wolverhampton Corporation and saw the chairman of committee and the chief engineer of works. He laid before them the position in which he was placed, and they replied: "We have taken all your water; if you find any more water, Colonel Slaney, we will take that too, and we will not give you any compensation." The House could imagine, therefore, how bitterly he contrasted that reply with the language of the right hon. Gentleman when lie talked of the readiness and willingness of the Corporation, and admitted that compensation ought to be given. All these were incontrovertible and incontestable facts. The two gentlemen he saw conversed with him, and suggested it would be possible under certain circumstances to supply him with water. He asked what the conditions would be, and was informed that for a limited time, and only at a slightly preferential price, they would give him water on condition that he paid the whole cost price of laying down every main and pipe required in the system. The first calculation put before him was £800 for doing a little portion only of what was required. What was he to do? Well, it turned out that he became, within a year, possessed of another little property abutting on his former property some two miles from the works already erected, where he put up pumping works for resupplying his farms, his people, and himself. The cost of doing that had been over £3,000 in absolute cash, and would be practically over £5,000 in direct and indirect value. He need hardly say that he did not raise his rent in order to meet any part of that cost. It was an elementary right that every tenant should receive water from his landlord, at any rate he thought every tenant should receive water from his landlord; at all events, in his case every tenant had received it, and now he was enjoying that supply. But what position, he asked, would he and his people have been in if he had not had the means and good fortune to get that supply? The countryside would have been derelict. Agricultural operations could not be carried on without water, and it was idle to contend that this was a small case, and that he was asking for anything excessive. This was a serious example, and the House ought to take warning and apply the only remedy which was in its power. He had not calculated the probable future expenditure on renewals, etc., and no doubt a great part of the outlay would have to be renewed. As to what was now happening, he would say that some of the most valuable land was that along the edges of the brook referred to, and was formerly celebrated as hay-growing land. Now acres of it were absolutely broken into fissures and cracks, so large that it was not safe to turn stock upon it, and the value of the fields had almost entirely gone for agricultural purposes; in fact, in those districts where there was thirsty, light, dry soil the damage was spreading year by year, and the land becoming valueless. He thought the House would appreciate his putting a personal case before them, showing the results likely to follow the passing of this Bill. One of the first results of developing the existing well would in all geological probability be to deprive him of his source of water, provided at a cost of £5,000, on which all his district now absolutely depended, and as far as the Bill went there was not one atom of an idea of any compensation being provided for that. Let the House consider what it meant. Wolverhampton already had deprived him to the extent that he had put before the House, and they now came and said: "Give us further powers, of which one of the first results will be to take away from you that which you have provided for your people, and to replace you in the condition in which you were before you spent that money." He had intended to make a very strong appeal to the House on the subject of locus standi. Up to that afternoon no indication whatever had been given by Wolverhampton that they would not oppose, and oppose bitterly, his locus standi, and that of others in the same position as himself in this matter. He believed that now a concession on that point had been made, and he would not labour the point at large; but the House would appreciate that it would at all events have been handsomer fighting if the Corporation in the first instance had let them know they would give them that locus standi, so that they would have the elementary right of making their case known to the Committee to which the Bill might be referred. But there was nothing of that sort, and only that afternoon had he been informed that the opposition to his locus standi was to cease. As to some interesting facts in connection with this matter, he might say that not longer ago than 1900 the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Mr. Mansergh, delivered an address in which he made it clear enough for the understanding of laymen, or lawyers, that the law as it stood was absolutely a gross iniquity and injustice; and one of the objects he had in dealing with this ease sofully, and in laying it so thoroughly before the House, was that he hoped the case might go some step towards sweeping away a law which was absolutely obsolete and untenable. He might say that he was not the only person concerned in the Bill, and was not going to be the only sufferer. He had only used his own case as an illustration of what had happened, and therefore of what might presumably happen again. But, besides himself, there were all his neighbours who stood to suffer in the same way, fearing the same results from the same treatment, and he appealed to the House as heartily on their behalf as he did on his own. There was not one single local body the whole way throughout this area who did not join heart and soul in this opposition to what they considered would be a crushing misfortune brought upon them. Every public body—county councils, district councils, parish and urban district councils, and sanitary authorities—were all united in universal complaint that this measure would be ruin and destruction to them. With regard to the position of Much Wenlock, which had been laid before the House by his hon. friend, it had raised £20,000 of public money with the sanction of the Local Government Board for the purpose of a water supply; and when the right hon. Gentleman said, "Oh, we will supply you with water," on his own showing he would not have water enough from those sources to supply Wolverhampton, or one half of it; he was bound to look after his own borough first; his own ratepayers would want all the water available from those wells, and he (the hon. Gentleman) and his people would have to take second place. Underground reservoirs were not continuously maintained at a certain level. When one was tapped no doubt they could draw a sufficient supply for a long time, but afterwards it would be found that one would be living on the capital of his water supply and not on the income. Therefore, in the case of Cosford, the well 918 feet deep had already diminished its supply by one half, at any rate by many thousands, or even by millions, of gallons, and that in only a comparatively short time. Therefore it was clear and evident that such a kind of supply was the most precarious and unsatisfactory source to reckon upon. Indeed, if he recollected rightly the evidence given in the case of the Birmingham Water Bill, many of the experts laid great stress on the fact that it ought to be the upland sources of water which the large towns should place reliance upon, rather than the underground well systems. Then he would pass to another instance, which he thought the House would appreciate. In Shifnal, where he resided, and which he therefore represented, there was this curious consideration in regard to the Bill. Shifnal had already, by the sanction of the Local Government Board, spent £10,000 in carrying out a sewerage system, which discharged into a brook. This Bill took the power to the Wolverhampton Corporation to inspect, interfere with, pull down, and to deal in any way with any works which affected the purity of the supply within the area over which they wished to be made free masters. If, therefore, this Bill passed, and those powers were exercised, they must spend another £10,000 in order to pump up to a high level that which they were now able to get rid of practically by gravitation. Again, Shifnal had an arrangement under which it would get its supply at a considerably less price than Wolverhampton would give it them, for if Wolverhampton got the powers; but Wolverhampton would want every drop it proposed to take from them, and the chance of the rural parish getting anything at all was nebulous and hazy. Their taking those powers would result in the piling of this additional agony upon a small rural population. Now, what did the Local Government Board say to that? Surely it was an absolute stultification of the trust and confidence that they should have, in them if they were to allow a Bill of this kind to pass, by which the whole of the money borrowed and spent was to be squandered. What confidence could there be, and how could small local bodies be encouraged to do work, and how could advantage be taken of these borrowing powers in order to supply the necessities of the localities if this were to be the position in which they were to find themselves? He had tried to put before the House sound arguments, and when the right hon. Gentleman talked of a sparse population of 13,000 the House must be asked to consider what the position of the respective policies was. At present there was a supply which it was not possible to get from any other source, and if it were taken away he did not know where the people would turn for that which, after many years seeking, they thought they had at last found. It being the fashion to take the strongest interest in the counties and localities, why should not he, as one of the Members, ask why a large Staffordshire town, ten or twelve miles over the borders of Shropshire, on another watershed, come in and take from the county of Salop that which that county wanted for itself? There was not in that any elementary justice or elementary right. The soil there was thirsty, and they themselves wanted all the water they could get; in fact, the two great needs at present were pure water and pure beer. He desired to warn the House against the possible use, that might be made of another power that lurked mysteriously in the clauses of the. Bill. There lurked there a power to take up to fifty acres of land anywhere where the Corporation of Wolverhampton could arrange to take it. Somebody had sunk a well producing sufficient water for their purposes. The Corporation became aware of it; under the operation of the clause, if they could only get, by paying a high price, some portion of the land, they would dump down one of those wells, and away would go the whole of that source of supply. In fact, they would dot the surface, of the country over with those dumped-down works, every one of them stripping and denuding some rural locality of the water they required. No one acknowledged more, than he that in the face, of the needs of a large population the rights of the minority must give way. He, accepted that, and was prepared to act up to that acceptance, but he maintained that the case was not established. He would say to the promoters of the, Bill, "You have not established your needs; you have not established the fact that you cannot supply your needs better and more equitably, and for a longer time, from other sources." He would like to reply to the argument that the whole, of the matter could be thrashed out before a Committee upstairs. This suggestion, seriously put, would be appreciated: "Go and spend more of your money upstairs in costs." There, was no reasoning in that. Here was a large Corporation commanding the rates, and they were told that they were to go and fight them before a Committee. To some members of Corporations like that it was an amusement, to some an interest—aye, and a matter of professional advancement—to be considered in fighting such matters. But what was the position of poor localities or of private individuals? The burden was so heavy as almost to deprive them of the ability to contest the cases at all. If they were now forced to go to a Committee they would fight, but ho could not hide the fact that in addition to the enormous impost which had already been placed upon him by the Wolverhampton Corporation, he should be mulcted in further sums in order to obtain justice upstairs. He hoped he, had shown that a principle was involved in this Bill, something to induce the, House to recognise that there was a case of common justice and equity against the Bill, and to induce the House to throw out the Bill on the Second Reading; and further, he hoped he had shown some good cause why the law officers of the Crown should no longer delay in bringing in an Act which would amend the monstrous, intolerable laws which now governed the subject of water supply.

I should like, with the permission of the House, to say a few words upon this question. I do not propose to follow my lion, friend, who has just made a most eloquent and powerful speech. I am quite sure that he will have the sympathy of the whole House in the personal grievances he has put forward with so much clearness and moderation, and the thanks of the House for having indicated to them the general danger which is involved in Bills of this kind, against which the House undoubtedly has to guard. I have a distinct interest in this measure, inasmuch as I represent the Corporation of Birmingham, and the taxpayers of Birmingham, who are responsible for the great works which that Corporation are carrying out. It is rather with a view of laying before the House one or two general considerations than with any expectations that I shall be able to follow my hon. friend in all the details which he has brought before the House that I now rise. Sir, I suppose the material interests of the Corporation of Birmingham are against this Bill. When we undertook our great scheme to bring water from Wales, at an enormous expenditure, we most readily accepted the responsibility of supplying all the places on the route who desired to take a supply, and I will say we did so most readily, in the first place, because it was a matter of justice to all those localities; in t he second place, we thought that to some extent they would share with us in the responsibility of the undertaking. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton was mistaken in reference to the terms of the arrangement ultimately made. I do not think the Corporation of Wolverhampton, had they decided to take their water from the supply of the Corporation of Birmingham, would have had to find any part of the original cost. The capital cost was provided by the Corporation of Birmingham. No doubt, if the cost is greatly increased, the cost of the water would be increased, and the price of the supply to any corporation on the route would be its cost price. But the Corporation of Birmingham was to make no profit in the matter; we were to supply at cost price any locality on the route. Therefore, I say that I think that the Corporation of Birmingham would be somewhat disappointed if the Corporation of Wolverhampton does not take advantage of this opportunity. But with regard to that point, I lay down my first general principle—when you give local authority to a district you ought practically to cease to interfere with its administration. The line which I am now laying clown is that so far as the affairs of the locality to which you have given local government are concerned, they should be employed as loyally as possible—that, in fact, you have no right to interfere unless some other interest is concerned. The moment an outside interest is concerned it may be this House is called upon to protect that outside interest. But so far as the policy of Wolverhampton is concerned in refusing to take its water from Birmingham, and in desiring to enter into a large and possibly speculative scheme of its own, we in Birmingham offer no observations. That is the business of the Corporation of Wolverhampton, and if it is their desire as a great corporation to enter upon the scheme, whatever we may think of it, we do not oppose. On the contrary, on the general principle we are prepared to support them. But, of course, there comes into the case the element of the position of outside authorities, and it is in regard to these authorities my hon. friend has just made his powerful appeal to the Mouse. There again I ask the House to take into account certain general considerations. My hon. friend behind me says truly, I have no doubt, that every small local authority on the route of this water supply is opposed to the Bill.

Every corporation and every county council.

But I hope my hon. friend will agree with me when I say that that ought not to be conclusive against them, because if you once admit that these local authorities are to have this power, and that their veto is to be accepted, you will find yourselves in the most serious difficulty with regard to other great towns whose supply of water depends absolutely upon power being given them to go to a distance. Where there is a vast population, where a great deal of the energy and wealth of the country is concentrated, and upon which the prosperity of the country depends, you must give them the means of living and having the water which is absolutely necessary to them. If they cannot get their water within their own limited space they must go outside, and therefore I conclude with the principle to which I hope I shall have the uanimous assent of the House, that the opposition of these local authorities is not in itself conclusive. But, Sir, on the other hand, nothing pan be more unjust than such, action as my hon. friend attributes to the Corporation of Wolverhampton in his own case, and I say that anyone in such a position would say that he had been subjected to an intolerable injustice. The action of the Corporation cannot be defended, and it is the duty of this House to prevent such action. What is the principle which I lay down in regard to water supply which must come from a distance? It is that the localities which are affected should not be injured, that all that the central bodies should be allowed to take is the surplus and nothing more, and that it shall be bound to supply to the localities first all the water in which they stand in need, to which they have a legitimate claim, and at a reasonable price—

:Fist.

First; and only the surplus should be the property of the authority seeking this power. That I believe to be a perfectly fair principle to lay down. My hon. friend says this is a matter for scientific experts and not for this House. He says that if that principle is adopted there will be no surplus water. That is one of those questions which ought to go to a Committee. My feeling is that having regard to the principles, if I may venture so to call them, which I have laid down, this Bill should be sent, as all such Bills are, to a Committee, with, however, the expression of the opinion of the House that in no case should these districts he damnified by subsequent proceedings; that full protection should be put in the Bill for the future supply of water to the various localities concerned. I agree with my hon. friend that, in the Bill as it stands, there is no sufficient protection. I cannot doubt that such protection will be inserted by the Committee on the representation of tin? authorities concerned, and though I regret that they should be put to any expense, yet, as their interests are identical, I think they might combine in their opposition before the Committee, so that the cost to each individual or each authority may he very small.

Will the right hon. Member accept an Instruction to that effect?

I am not in charge of the Bill, but if my hon. friend asked me if I would support an Instruction to that effect, most certainly I would, because it seems to me to be absolutely fair that outsiders should have a right to that protection.

I suppose the right hon. Gentleman would include all public bodies as well as private bodies in that?

Clearly,it fortiori. If I say that a single individual, because he is a landowner, should not he unjustly treated, à fortiori I am prepared to do justice to those who represent the community or the district in which they reside. Subject to that understanding, I hope the Bill will be sent to a Committee. I hope the Committee will examine into the question, and if there be this surplus water, as is contended, I think we ought not to allow the prejudice or the suspicion, or even the irritation caused by past conduct on the part of the local authorities to interfere in what, after all, is an absolute necessity to the prosperity of a very large and important town.

said that what this Bill really proposed to do was to provide an absolute necessity for 154,000 people. The Wolverhampton Corporation proposed to sink wells at a very great depth; in that way they got rid of the possibility of the interference with existing rights upon which such stress had been laid. As to the necessity for an improved water supply there could not be any doubt. The present supply from wells amounted to 3,000,000 gallons a day, but on many occasions the consumption had amounted to as much as 4,000,000 gallons a day. The Cosford brook ran through, a very cultivated district, and cattle were pastured on its banks; also, many cottages drained into the brook. In time of drought there was very little water, and in time of flood the water was very much too muddy to be used, so that the, water was insufficient at the present time even with the brook, and what it was proposed to do in the future was not to take any water at all from the brook. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had said that under the proposals of this Bill Wolverhampton would not have enough water, but the opinion of the most eminent experts was that the quantity which would be obtained would allow for about 6½ million gallons per day; that was fifty per cent. more than the present requirements. That would be sufficient not only for the town of Wolverhampton, but for the whole of the area which was supposed to be affected. It was said that water was a necessity of life and that it was a great grievance to take away their water from these small districts. That was true; but what Wolverhampton proposed was not to take away, but to give them water. He himself was in the position of a landowner on a small scale in the very area that had been mentioned. He had an ample supply of beautiful water, but he found it better and cheaper to take the Wolverhampton water and pay the Corporation for it rather than go to the expense and trouble of pumping his own water. Nobody would be in a worse position under this Bill; all the persons affected would have an ample supply of water at such a rate as should be considered by the Committee to be a fair rate. It was said that there was no need for this Bill, because Wolverhampton had powers to take the supply from Birmingham. That was quite true, but the Birmingham works would not be finished for something like three years. Then the terms were that when they were finished Wolverhampton must give twelve months notice before they would be entitled to take the water; further, there would have to be an arbitration at the expiration of the notice to decide what the terms should be. What was to become of Wolverhampton in the meantime? Were 154,000 people to be on a short supply of water for three or four years? Surely that was a question at any rate for the Committee to consider. He quite sympathised with the hon. and gallant Gentleman in regard to the mischief he had suffered by his fishing, and so on, being interfered with, but surely these were all questions which could be threshed out in the Committee, and the House would not reject altogether a Bill which was of such enormous importance to a large number of people. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that this was not so much a question of supplying people who were short of water, but that it was a commercial undertaking and intended to profit the Corporation of Wolverhampton. The hon. and gallant Gentleman could not have been acquainted with the facts, or he would never have made that statement. The truth was that last year the whole net available profit of the undertaking to the Corporation only amounted to about 2s. per house supplied. That was not a very extravagant profit. With regard to the opposition of the county councils and the rural district councils, he submitted that the expense of appearing before the Committee and giving evidence, on the subject would not be very formidable when divided between the riparian owners and these numerous local bodies. With regard to the matter of compensation, that again was a detail which would be settled by the Committee. The Corporation would not offer any objection to paying fair compensation. He reminded the House that the Wolverhampton Corporation had given a distinct pledge not only to give a full and ample supply of water to every person whose supply was interfered with, but that they would give that supply on such terms as the Committee might consider reasonable and fair. In conclusion, he submitted that the House ought not to throw out the Bill on the Second Reading, but should, following the ordinary practice, allow it to go before a Committee upstairs.

I understand that the promoters are willing to introduce certain desirable Amendments, and under the circumstances I withdraw my objection to the Second Reading.

I would point out to the hon. Member that this Bill is an omnibus Bill, and that only this one clause (27) has reference to the provident society to which the hon. Member objects. If he has no substantial objection to the Bill as a whole, I would suggest to him that his better course would be to reserve his observations until the House comes to the proposal on the Paper, That it be an Instruction to the Committee to strike out Clause 27." I do not say the hon. Member is out of order in moving the rejection of the Bill; but if his objection is only to that clause, that, I would suggest, would be the proper and usual place to move it.

said he had another reason for opposing. There was in connection with the Great Eastern Railway Company a provident society, which has been in existence since 1851. It was a compulsory society, and men employed in certain grades in the company's service were required, as a condition of employment, to become members of that society. Up to 1888 there were in the society three scales of payment, and the men had to contribute 8d. per week. It was found in the year 1884 that the society was insolvent, and arrangements were made whereby the members paid an additional 1d. per week. So it went on until 1898, when, on an actuarial valuation being made, it was shown that up to the end of 1894 the society had been insolvent to the extent of over £34,000. An effort had been made by those having the management of the society—namely, certain employees who paid the money into the funds—to make certain alterations, but, as a matter of fact, the employees could not under any circumstances alter or amend the rules, or make new ones, without the sanction and approval of the directors, Not- withstanding that, in 1899 and 1900 it was decided that the contribution should again be raised 1d. per week, the subscription having been raised in 1888 to 9d. The men who paid that amount received in return no more benefit than was, in many instances, received by men belonging to other societies outside the company's for a much smaller payment. One of the chief grievances in connection with this society was that the chairman and directors of the railway company were aggrieved because members of their society, who were compelled by the conditions of their employment to contract out of the Workmen's Compensation Act by joining an insurance society, should receive when they were sick from accident a certain amount from the insurance society as well as a certain amount from the benefit society. The Chairman of the Great Eastern Company felt so much aggrieved that he had endeavoured to obtain a clause forbidding employees who had met with injuries from receiving benefit from the provident society as well as from the insurance society. That was clearly a gross injustice to the men. It is tyrannous and unjust to dictate to men belonging to a society when and under what circumstances they should draw benefits. That formed a serious objection to the proposal of the clause. On the 15th June, 1900, the chairman of the company, Lord Claud J. Hamilton, sent a circular to the committee of the railway fund, in which he said—

"The strongest proof of this is the fact that only since January last it has been necessary to withdraw £2,000 from the reserve funds, and further withdrawals will have to be made if the present benefits are to be continued."

That £2,000 was what the company pretended to pay. By some arrangement, in 1888, when they found that the society was insolvent, they came to terms with the committee of management and agreed that the company should contribute a subsidy of £2,500 a year towards the funds of the society. But that contribution had been in name only. They had not subscribed the sum annually, but it was there as a reserve fund, guaranteed by the company, to be drawn upon if necessary. From 1886 to 1900 something like £3,700 was all that been drawn from the reserve fund, and so long as the society had a penny in hand received from its members nothing came from the company. Lord Claud Hamilton went on to say in his circular—

"Almost the whole of the staff are members of the Company's Accident Fund, and any member of the Provident Society incapacitated by injury arising in the course of his duties in the company's service receives allowances from the Provident Society as well as from the Accident Fund. This does not appear to me to be reasonable, and in other respects it is open to objection. I suggest, therefore, that the members of the Provident Society should agree to renounce any allowances from the society whilst they are receiving an allowance from the Accident fund, except in cases where the Accident Fund allowance by effluxion of time has been reduced to half-pay, in which case the Provident Society should grant its half-pay allowance."

He concluded this circular by saying—

"As regards the future, it is proposed to start a new society on a different basis, on the establishment of which the existing society will discontinue to accept new members."

Apparently the directors and chairman of the Great Eastern Company considered it unreasonable that men who might have been injured by accident in the company's employ should receive payment from the provident society as well as from the accident fund, the full amount of which would not be more than £1 a week. The directors were not successful in getting the men to accept this alteration in the provident society, so now they were trying to start a new fund, letting the old one die a natural death. The company said that they had already subscribed £35,499 towards superanuation, pensions, and to supplementary accident and other benefit funds of the company. Much of that money which they said they had subscribed was simply entered on paper and not actually subscribed to the funds of the society. A large proportion of that money went to pay for accidents for which otherwise the men would have been entitled to compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act. The report of the Accident Fund established in July, 1898, in substitution for the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1896, stated that—

"During the year the total number of claims was 3,635, including twenty-seven in regard to accidents that terminated fatally, six that resulted in the loss of an eye, four in the loss of a leg, one in the loss of an arm, and one in the loss of sight."

He maintained that a very large proportion of the £35,499 which the chairman had referred to would have gone under the Compensation Act to pay the workmen in these 3,635 cases. These matters had been discussed from time to time by the men, and eventually they wrote to the chairman of the company on 3rd December a long letter, which contained the following words—

"The committee, delegates, and members generally regret that it was decided to start a new society rather than enrol future servants of the company in this society on an equitable footing, but such a step having been taken they have no option but to accommodate themselves to the altered circumstances, and seek to enable the Provident Society to fulfil its mission to each and every one of its members."

That proved that it was not at the request of the men that these powers were now being sought by the company. The matter was discussed at the last meeting of the directors, and the chairman said—

"In drawing attention to the Provident Fund the directors asked leave to subscribe to that fund another £500 a year. The fund was established in 1851, and was contributed to and managed by the men themselves, and the membership was now about 9,000."

So far as the men were concerned they could make no alteration or amendment in the rules of their society without the sanction of the directors. The company s subsidy was not paid into the fund, and there was at the present time £40,000 to the credit of the reserve—money which was not paid over by the company, but was a guarantee to meet contingencies should the men's contributions not be sufficient to meet the liabilities of the fund. Rather than that the subsidy of the company should be drawn on, the members had paid an extra penny a week. He wished, further, to draw attention to the effect of the clause referring to superannuation or pensions. The original rule was as follows—

"31. That any free member, of not less than two years standing, who may by accident, infirmity, old age, loss of sight, or other cause be rendered incapable of earning his livelihood, shall be placed upon the pension list and entitled to receive a weekly pension as defined in the following table," etc.

It seemed to be another sore point with the chairman of the Great Eastern Company and the directors that men should be thus entitled to a pension, the maximum of which, on the higher scale, was 6s. 10d. per week, and the chairman had insisted upon the rule being so amended that it should be left wholly to the discretion of the directors to say whether or not a man who should become entitled to superannuation or pension should receive it. The clause as amended was as follows—

"Rule 31. That any free resident member of not less than two years standing who has, on account of physical or mental incapacity, been discharged by the directors of the Great Eastern Company, or who has, on the like account, retired from the service of the company, with the approval of the said directors, shall be placed upon the pension list, and he entitled to receive a weekly pension, as defined in the following table," etc.

The objection to that was clear. The rule contained the words "with the approval of the directors." That meant that a man who might be in receipt of 25s. or 30s. a week, and who might have been in the service of the company for thirty-five or forty years, when he attained the ago of sixty-five years and thought to himself. "I have done enough railway work and I will take my 6s. 10d. a week pension and retire." could not put his desire into execution without the consent of the directors. It would be in their power to say, "You shall not retire; if your present occupation is too hard for you, we will find you another office at less wages, but you have five or six years work in you yet." The men knew this, and it was at the desire of men on all parts of the Great Eastern system that he was opposing the Second Reading of the Bill unless this clause was withdrawn. Some members might think it generous on the part of the railway company to subscribe to a fund for the benefit of their employees, but it was really a condition of service, that the men should join this, that, or the other fund. Nearly all the companies had two or three of these funds attached to them. One was voluntary and another was made compulsory, and in the compulsory one there was sometimes a clause which made it necessary to join the society which had not such a clause. This rule was evidently designed to assist in compelling men to contract out of the Workmen s Compensation Act by joining the Insurance Society.

The hon. Member appears to me to be discussing generally what should be the nature of funds of this kind, and to be citing from the regulations of other societies. That is clearly not in order on this Bill.

I am quoting to show the objections to these compulsory societies. I think I have given sufficient facts to prove that these societies are objectionable to the men employed in the railway service. At the outest of my remarks I said that many people would consider at first sight that the railway companies were actuated by a spirit of philanthropy. But I find that no such spirit prompts them. If it were otherwise—if they were really philanthropic and kindly disposed towards their servants—I ask why should they forbid their employees to take part in political or civic duties? This company forbids its members taking part in civic duties.

Is there a clause to that effect in this Bill?

No, Sir.

Then it is a rule of the. House that a matter affecting railway companies generally cannot be dealt with in debate on a private Railway Bill unless there is a clause in the Bill dealing with that matter.

I am sorry that I am debarred from entering upon that question, but at any rate the subject to which I was going to refer is familiar to the whole of the Members of the House, and it is one that has caused a vast deal of indignation amongst railway men.

The hon. Member is not in order in continuing on the subject.

said he was not going to discuss it. He asked the House to register their disapproval of the attempts of employers, where it was not desired by the men, in any way to attach them to societies, and make it a condition of their employment that they should become members thereof.

seconded the Amendment. As it had been ruled that any discussion on the proceedings of the Great Eastern Railway Company would be out of order, he would not be able to raise the question he wished to raise. He would ask the Speaker's special ruling on this question. The Great Eastern Railway Company was the only company in this country that had refused—

The hon. Member is not entitled to make a speech and then ask if it is in older.

I beg to second the Amendment.

said that Clause 2 was put in the Bill by the directors as a purely permissive clause, in order to enable the railway companies, if they thought fit, to subscribe towards the funds raised by their employees. He must say as a director of the company that he failed to agree with the hon. Member for Derby when he said that the company wished to make membership of the society a condition of employment. That would be a most arbitrary proceeding, and one with which he could not possibly associate himself. But in asking that they might have power to subscribe to the fund, they only took permissive power in the event of the society being started. The society, if started by the men, would be managed by the men, and the company desired to have power to help them. He could not agree with the hon. Member that there were a large number of open sores in connection with the matter, as had been suggested by the hon. Member for Derby. The directors were anxious to help the men in every possible way to practise habits of thrift.

said he did not think the hon. Member who had spoken as representing the Great Eastern Railway Company had met two material points raised by the hon. Member for Derby. Though the hon. Gentleman said it would be a voluntary fund, as a matter of fact the men had experience of other funds, and they knew that every man in the service would be practically forced to join.

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. There are 30,000 members of the staff who are eligible under the existing fund, and only 9,000 are in the fund.

asked the hon. Member if he would pledge himself on behalf of the railway company that they would put some words in the Bill which would make it perfectly clear that the question of joining or not would be left absolutely voluntary to every servant of the company? Unless the hon. Member gave that pledge he certainly would vote against the Bill as it stood. The hon. Member said that the society would be managed by the men, but that would be useless unless a pledge to this effect were given. The other question raised by the hon. Member for Derby was that the men would not be able to make any alteration whatever in the rules. It seemed to him that while the fund might be nominally managed by the men it would be entirely under the control of the directors of the company. On that point the hon. Member for Lewisham had given no satisfaction.

said the hon. Member for Lewisham, who spoke for the directors of the railway company, said the employees of the company would be free to join as many like societies as they pleased, even if the Bill became law, but he overlooked the very important factor in the situation that of the employees of the company there were thousands earning less than 20s. a week, and thus they were not in a position to contribute to more than one society. Those who had experience of the industrial world were aware that the man who did not join the society promoted by a company would stand very small chance of being promoted in his occupation. He respectfully submitted that the fact that the fund was to be invested as a part of the Great Eastern Railway Stock removed it outwith the control of the members of the society. It was therefore a purely nominal control which the members would exercise over the fund. The Bill provided that the railway company "may contribute half-yearly out of the revenue of the company such sum as they may from time to time determine towards the funds of the society." This was an attempt to pauperise the working class which should be deprecated most strongly. Let the Great Eastern Railway Company pay their workmen sufficient wages to enable them to pay their contributions to their trade society, and then they would be under no obligation to the company for yearly or half-yearly grants. His strongest objection to this form of society was that it tended to undermine the self-respect of the employees of the company. If this proposal became law and the society was formed it would result in making every employee of the Great Eastern Railway Company who joined it subservient to the will and the wishes of the company. There was no provision in the clause that members of the society on leaving their employment or being dismissed were entitled to be recouped for the payments they had made to the funds of the society. That was a very serious consideration. Unless men were obedient and submissive in every respect, not only to the directors themselves but to the officials under the directors, who were often a thousand times worse than the directors, they were liable to be dismissed, and to lose not only the benefits of the society but also the money they had paid into it. Ho trusted, therefore, as a matter of fair play that the House would not endorse Clause 27.

said it seemed to him exceedingly strange that two Members representing the working classes should object to the scheme proposed. Here was a large company coming forward asking power to subscribe to the funds of a benevolent institution, and it was met by objection. Large corporations had been told that they ought to do more for their employees, and it did seem strange in this case that a gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench should get up to object to such a scheme. It ought to be the duty of every large corporation, and of small companies also, to subscribe to these funds.

said they did not object at all to employers of labour encouraging their workpeople to be thrifty and prudent and to lay by for a rainy day, but they objected to such a scheme as was foreshadowed in this Bill, which might be made a condition of employment between workmen and their employers. Frequently such provisions as this were converted into machinery for coercing workmen to do things which of their free will they were not disposed to do. It was because of the coercive powers that such a provision gave to large employers that they objected to its being inserted in the Bill.

hoped that the Bill would be allowed to pass the Second Beading, as the question could be so much more thoroughly discussed in Committee upstairs.

said that working men wanted to do their own business, without the intervention of railway directors. There was an element of compulsion running right through the whole of this Bill, which was distasteful to working men who sought independence. They were entitled to form their own opinion, without being led by Committees upstairs.

said this matter bad been discussed upon a totally new principle. A clause like the one suggested had been inserted in a number of Bills last session, and a Departmental Committee had distinctly laid it down that Parliament might properly interfere by providing against a rule of this kind. If the hon. Member in charge of the Bill maintained silence upon this point they would be bound to vote against the measure.

said he rose to support the hon. Member for Derby in his opposition to the Bill. Men would be forced to enter the service of this company, and they would be compelled to become contributors to this fund. They claimed the right of a workman to contribute to any fund which he thought was best calculated to advance his own interest. They asked for a free hand for the men, so that in sickness or death, or in leaving one district for employment in another, they could go to their particular society for assistance from the funds. If they carried this objectionable clause to its logical conclusion, this advantage would be denied to the workmen. He entered his strong protest against the clause, which he believed was the thin edge of the wedge for the purpose of intimidating and coercing the workmen.

I think the hon. Member for Lewisham would shorten this discussion, and save the time of the House, if he would undertake that this clause should make it clear that no compulsion or pressure should be put upon the men to join these societies.

replied that there was no compulsion, simply because the rule was not in existence.

contended that in a matter of this kind everything should be done fairly and aboveboard. Workmen should be allowed to choose their own societies. These great companies should not be given the power to coerce their employees to join those societies, which were a source of terror to their employees, who were often tyrannised over by every little official. It was a monstrous thing to try and force such a clause through this House, and he hoped it would be eliminated.

said he was surprised that the Covernment had not given the House the benefit of their advice on this question. The hon. Member for Lewisham had replied to the appeal made to him by saying that the rules were not yet made. What they wanted to know was whether the company would engage, if the Bill passed and they were empowered to make rules, that it should be part of those rules that no sort of compulsion should be applied, and that this should be embodied in the Bill when it went into Committee. If an undertaking of this kind was not given, it was clear that they would be obliged to proceed to a division. If the Bill was lost it would be entirely the fault of those who were promoting it for not giving the undertaking which was asked for on this particular point.

said his hon. friend the Member for Lewisham was in a very awkward position, because he was not personally responsible for the Bill, but was merely acting as a mouthpiece of the directors, I with whom it was impossible for him to consult. But there was an Instruction on the Paper with regard to the Bill, which would come before the House on Thursday, when a definite reply could be given. There were many other valuable clauses in this Bill, relating to level crossings and the building of bridges, which ought not to be delayed on account of this dispute. He sympathised with the view that this fund should be a voluntary one, but he thought it was a question which could be settled in the Committee upstairs.

I understand that the promoters of this Bill, or those representing them, do not feel that they have any authority to give the undertaking which is asked for. Therefore I suggest that in the general interest we should give them an opportunity of obtaining the undertaking we ask for, and for that purpose I now move the adjournment of the debate.