moved as an Amendment on Clause 2, page 1, line 12, to leave out "From the school board of the district." The question involved in this Amendment was, he said, whether or not the managers of voluntary schools in Scotland would, in consequence of the passing of this Bill, be placed in a worse position than they were at present. The existing system, which had obtained for many years, was to grant labour certificates; it was a well-understood system, and had worked efficiently and well. It was regulated by Chapter 5 of the Scotch Education Code, Sections 113 to 117. Power was granted to inspectors to issue these labour certificates after examination, and the examination took place on the special application of a school board or the managers of a voluntary school. Throughout the whole of the clause in the Education Code the school board and the managers of the voluntary schools were placed in exactly the same position. That being so, up to the present time there had been no greater difficulty in obtaining labour certificates on behalf of children in voluntary schools than for children in board schools. It was a little difficult to estimate the number of labour certificates issued in the course of a year, and so far as he knew no return was made of them. According to the Report of the Scotch Education Department for this year, the total number of children in Scotland between twelve and thirteen and between thirteen and fourteen years of age aggregated 192,265, but only 140,588 of these were attending school, leaving 51,677 who were not at school. That showed the total number of scholars who might be affected by the new legislation of this Bill. The returns published by the Scottish Education Department last year showed that there were 81,749 scholars at voluntary schools, and 626,089 at public schools; that was to say, 15 per cent. of the total number of scholars were in attendance in voluntary schools. The question he wished to raise was whether the power of exemption should be given by the school board alone, or by the managers of voluntary schools as well. He had great confidence in the administration of echo I boards, but there were districts wherein the parents of children attending voluntary schools formed a very considerable proportion of the population. They were not of the wealthier classes, but of the class most likely to avail themselves of the exemption. If in those districts the school boards, for some reason or other, pursued a policy under which there would be no exemptions, there was nothing in the Bill to compel them to grant examination for exemption. The consequence would be that there would be a large number of children who would be denied the privilege which the Bill proposed should be placed within their reach. The object he had in view was a very simple one. It was desirable that the managers of voluntary schools should continue to have in this respect the power which they practically possessed at present, and therefore he moved the Amendment.

said that the Bill had been so entirely altered in Committee that a great change had been made in the administration of education in Scotland. The point raised by the Amendment was the relation of the school boards to the voluntary schools. It was quite plain that the board schools would compel children up to the age of twelve to attend school. Hitherto exemption had been granted to children between twelve and fourteen; but before granting exemption inquiry was made into the circumstances of each child. There were two points which had to be considered in regard to the circumstances of the children. First, the position of the parents, and whether it would be a hardship to them if the children were compelled to continue at school; and, second, the standard of proficiency which the children had reached. It was in regard to the standard of proficiency that there would be difficulty. How were the school boards to find out the standard of proficiency the children had reached? At present it was quite easy to do so, for all they required to do was to ascertain whether the children had obtained a labour certificate. But now under this Bill there was to be no labour certificate; and it would be for the school boards to obtain a report from the managers of the voluntary schools as to what standard the child had reached, so that in granting exemption they would be acting, not on their own knowledge, but on the report of the managers of the voluntary schools. Looking to the provisions of Clause 3, where power was given to reduce the time of compulsory attendance, it would be rather hard on the school board to compel them to grant a certificate on knowledge supplied by other people, and to suffer in the matter of grants in consequence. If power were given to the managers to grant exemption certificates, the school board should require the managers of voluntary schools to state why the exemption had been granted. That would place them in exactly in the same position as they were at present.

said that the Amendment was quite inconsistent with the whole idea of the Bill. There was to be a fixed and rigid standard, but a discretion to modify that standard was to be placed in the hands of an authority. That authority was one which everybody in Scotland believed was well capable of exercising the discretion; but he would not say that the same confidence would be felt in a casual body of voluntary school managers. At present labour certificates were granted to children in voluntary schools, not through the school boards, but as the result of an independent examination by the inspector, and that was the principle on which they were pretty well agreed in Committee upstairs. The question raised by the Amendment of his hon. friend was that a fixed and rigid standard of exemption should not be laid down, and that if exemption were to be granted it should be on the merits of each individual case. That discretion it might be perfectly safe to put in the hands of the school boards, but he did not think that they could have the same confidence in a casually appointed board of managers of voluntary schools—Roman Catholic or Episcopalian. He thought it would have a very, dangerous effect on occasion, and it would certainly have a very great effect on the standing of the children attending voluntary schools. Instead of sending their children to the board school some parents would send them to the voluntary schools, in the hope that they would get a certificate of exemption without examination. He objected entirely to the principle of leaving the discretion in the hands of the managers of voluntary schools.

said that it was, of course, no fault of his hon. friend that he had to move his Amendment on this clause, but it did not conduce to the clear understanding of the House. The Amendment dealt really with the third clause, and not with the second. It was only because there was a mention of the word "school-board" in the second clause that his hon. friend had put this Amendment on the Paper.

said he had to propose his Amendment in order to raise the question.

said he entirely agreed with his hon friend, and in fact was explaining the point. But it was as well to understand that what they were really discussing was not the second clause at all, but the body which was to give the exemption certificate which was dealt with in the third clause. He entirely agreed with the provisions in the Bill, and had full sympathy with them. He believed that the managers of the voluntary schools; were deserving of every confidence, quite as much as one would give too the school boards; but still this general dispensatory power should be given too one recognised authority, and, of course, the proper authority was the school, board. This was to take the place of the labour certificate, and in the past the labour certificate was managed, not by the school board, but through the school board. There had never been the slightest friction with any of voluntary school managers on that account, and there was no reason to anticipate friction in the future with the exercise of common sense on the part of both the school boards and the managers. As to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, that the Education Department might cut short the grants to the school boards, that, of course, could only be done in the event of the school boards going in for a general system of exemption, and would not apply to individual cases. Therefore, upon the whole, he

hoped the hon. Member for West Renfrewshire would not press his Amendment to a division, as it affected the first principle of the Bill. The relationship of the school boards in Scotland to the managers of the voluntary schools in Scotland had hitherto been very friendly, and there had been no friction, and therefore the less change there was made in the system the better.

said he wished to move an Amendment to lines 14 and 15. The purpose of the Bill seemed to be to raise the age of compulsory attendance at school from twelve or thirteen to fourteen years of age. There was no doubt that Scottish Members seemed to think that it was almost an impertinence for anyone born south of the Tweed to intervene in Scotch debates.

No, no!

said that, at any rate, English Members must recollect that it was frequently stated in Parliament, when proposals were made for legislation, that the principle had already been adopted by the House of Commons; therefore English Members must beware how precedents were established which would affect England, even if they did not take up the ground he himself did, namely, that all Members had an equal right to discuss every question that came before Parliament. The whole of this subject had been threshed out by the House of Commons only two years ago, when the hon. Member for South Shields succeeded in carrying a Bill to raise the age limit for compulsory attendance at school to thirteen years. In the present Bill they were asked to raise the age limit by another year, and to depart from the principle which was then fixed. He was sorry that the Leader of the House was not present, although he was not finding fault with him for the occasion of his absence. But the right hon. Gentleman had laid down only on the previous day a very sound principle when he said that, in his judgment, it would be distinctly wrong for the Government to seek to establish principles of a controversial character and carry them into legislation by means of a Wednesday Bill which they made, in its later stages, part of the Government programme. He would like to know who was responsible for the present Bill. There were certain names on the back of it, but he was rather surprised that a representative of the Government had risen to defend the clause, and had apparently already become the sponsor of the measure. His right hon. friend the Leader of the House, had he been present, would have seen, that this Bill was a very grave departure from the principle which he had laid down only the day before. He would ask the Lord Advocate whether His Majesty's Government were themselves prepared to take the responsibility of asking Parliament to depart from the principle laid down two years ago, when the age of thirteen was placed on the Statute-book as the extreme limit of this meddlesome interference with the responsibilities of parents. His right hon. friend the Leader of the House had strongly condemned the practice of a Government getting non-official Members to introduce Bills, and getting them through the preliminary stages, and then taking them up.

Order, order! I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is proposing to substitute thirteen for fourteen in the clause; but he is, not addressing himself to that point.

said he wished, to know to whom he could address his inquiry as who was responsible for this departure from the precedent set in England only two years ago as to the limit of compulsory attendance at school. He objected altogether to this meddlesome interference with the responsibility of parents. He knew that very likely it would be urged that that principle had been infringed upon in the compulsory attendance section of the Act of 1870; but he had always considered that that was an unwarranted interference with parental control, and was a substitution of the authority of the State for that of the father of the family. He had denounced it then as a very large interference with the liberty of the subject, and had divided the House against the compulsory attendance clause; he had never regretted having done so, and if the same set of circumstances again arose he would do precisely as he had done thirty-one years ago. He wanted to know why the principle laid down by Parliament only two years ago was to be departed from and the age of compulsory attendance at school be raised in Scotland to fourteen years.

said he would remind the right hon Gentleman that Scotland had always been ahead of England in the matter of education.

said that that practically confirmed his objection to piecemeal legislation. He knew that his hon. friend was in favour of Home Rude, but he objected to the Imperial Parliament, without any guidance or direction, being launched on this course of piece-meal legislation. They heard a great deal about technical education nowadays, but he ventured to say that a child between twelve and fourteen years of age, in a rural district, could learn a great deal of technical work which would strengthen him for his career in after life. His point was that a child at the age of between twelve and fourteen was practically learning in the rural districts the ordinary calling which he would pursue in after life, and if in these years he was kept away from that employment it would be a distinct disadvantage to him. The principle of inducing the children of agricultural labourers to drift away from rural occupations into the towns and obtain a footing in some other class of work ought not to be encouraged. He begged to move that in lines 11 and 15 to substitute 13 for 14.

said that the right hon. Gentleman had made his meaning only too clear to the House. He was evidently in opposition to the entire Bill. So far from his having been suborned by the Government to introduce this Bill, it was the outcome of a widespread agitation in all parts of the country, and it was the universal desire in Scotland that it should become law. He trusted that the House would not yield in any way to the factious opposition of the right hon. Gentleman, and that his Amendment would not be carried.

said that as an English Member he might be allowed to say a word on behalf of the southern kingdom. His right hon. friend, who took a very great interest in the Act of 1899, had not quite accurately stated the case. In that Act thirteen years was not the maximum, but the minimum, therefore the comments of his right hon. friend were not well grounded. But even since that time Parliament had been active, though his right hon. friend had not shared that activity, for in 1900 another Act was passed, which enabled the local authorities to make fourteen years the standard. He hoped he might be allowed to express his respectful and profound admiration as an educationist of the manner in which the Scottish Members had attended and taken part in the discussions in Committee. It was most cheering, and encouraging, and hopeful; and he thought that the example set by Scotland should be followed by England. He trusted that the House would not allow any modification of the Bill in any direction.

said that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Thanet, whose great ability in questions of procedure they all recognised, had referred to the principle which had been laid down by the First Lord of the Treasury on the previous day; but the First Lord of the Treasury only spoke of a Government putting up a private Member as a "bonnet" to introduce a Bill, in order to make it a Government Bill afterwards; but that certainly had not happened in this case. Under this Bill they were not making any great change in the law, for the right hon. Gentleman seemed to be unaware that exemption could be made to the age of fourteen. At this stage of the Bill they were only dealing with the standard exemption; and the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment would interfere with the principle of the Bill.

asked leave to withdraw his Amendment.

said he wished to move an Amendment dealing with a subject of much importance, and in regard to which the School Board of Glasgow had taken a great deal of interest. He meant the question of casual employment of children in the early hours of the morning. That subject was particularly pressing, not only in Glasgow, but in other parts of Scotland. He did not know that public opinion had ripened so far on the matter that it would be possible to introduce any provisions on the subject in this Bill, but he hoped by raising the question in the House now such an expression of opinion might be called forth that it would be helped on in the country very materially, and that some Bill such as that introduced by his hon. friend opposite would be brought in next year, and, after full discussion by the school boards of Scotland, would be passed, as he trusted the present Bill would be. Of course it was well understood by the House that the employment of children was divided into labour and casual employment. Labour they had already dealt with. Casual employment was defined as vending in the streets or other places any article whatsoever, and also employment of any other kind outside the child's own home. Now, miscellaneous employments, such as selling newspapers or milk, and a great deal of agricultural work in the country, had been subject to definite restriction since the Act of 1878, but the force of these restrictions was being increased by the present Bill. There was a limitation in regard to the hours at night. Under the Bill the casual employment of children attending school was not allowed after nine o'clock at night in summer, or after seven o'clock in winter. He wanted to put a limit at the other end also. Many of the children when they attended school in the morning were already tired out by the work they had done, and were therefore unfitted to benefit by the education they received. The school board desired to ensure that the attendance should not only last for a certain number of years, but that it should be continuous and effective while it took place. There were various points in which they wished to improve the existing law in order to get more effective benefit for the children during the years of their attendance, but as these were outside the scope of the Bill he must not enlarge upon them. On the question of truancy, and in regard to the desertion of children by their fathers, the school boards hoped to have stronger powers put into their hands of moving the sheriffs. The ambition of the school boards was to have more control of the children in different ways, in order to make their school attendance more regular and more effective, and one of the ways in which, in Glasgow in particular, they thought they ought to have more control over the children was in regard to this employment in the early morning. It was a difficult question, and he confessed that he did not think either his own proposal or the proposal in the name of the hon. Member for North Camberwell would be a satisfactory way of dealing with it. His own proposal was, he thought, too weak. But he was anxious not to go too far, and he put it down on the principle of making several bites at the cherry. The hon. Member for North Camberwell had gone a good deal further, and had put down a proposal that no child should be allowed to have any casual employment before the time of morning school. He was quite sure that was a proposal which would not carry public opinion in Scotland. There was a lot of Work, both in towns and in the country, that children could very well do with advantage to themselves, and it would be hardly possible to prevent altogether the casual employment of children before school hours. He thought it would be found that local circumstances differed so much that they could not lay down any hard and fast rule that would apply equally to all parts of Scotland, town and country. They would, it seemed to him, have to go rather on the lines of the principle of this Bill, and give school boards discretion to deal with cases as they arose. They were doing that in the case of attendance, and he thought the real solution of this question would be to give school boards power to forbid casual employment in the morning if it was such as to render a child incapable of properly benefiting by the teaching provided in the school. If it were desired to give further protection, they might allow an appeal to the sheriff, who would decide whether or not there had been an undue interference on the part of the school board. This Bill was a wide and strong measure, one which was getting through the House more easily, perhaps, than it would if it were fully understood in the country, and it might, if it were further widened, raise a good deal of feeling in the country. He therefore thought it would be wiser to reserve any further limitation of the employment of children for a further opportunity. But he felt very strongly that this was the line on which the school boards would desire to act, and on which Parliament ought, either now or presently, to give them full power. He begged to move his Amendment.

hoped the House would not accept the Amendment. If it were included in the Bill it would almost appear to be an invitation to employers of labour to employ young children between the hours of five and nine in the morning. He did not think that they needed to legislate in the sense that employers of labour would employ these infants before five in the morning, and he could not understand why the hon. Member should desire to insert such a provision in the Bill. His, own sympathy was wholly with the Amendment of the hon. Member for North Camberwell. He would be quite ready to assent to the principle that young children should be prevented from being casually employed between the hours of seven or eight and mine in the morning, and his reason was simply this: the casual employment of these young children after school work was over might be defended, but from an educational point of view he could look upon nothing more hazardous, and possibly dangerous, not only to the health of the children, but to their intellectual progress, than that they should be sent to work, more particularly in large towns, and should then go in an exhausted condition to school to have their intellectual instruction proceeded with. What they surely ought to desire was not an Amendment of the character now before the House, but such an Amendment as would strengthen the hands of the local authorities in excluding even from casual employment these young people. He did not say there might not be something in what the hon. Member for Partick had said as to certain districts being distinguishable from others, and that there might be here and there cases in which there might be legitimate casual employment for an hour or two in the morning; but the idea of inserting the hour of five o'clock in the Bill, as if it was the intention of school boards to sanction the employment of children from five to nine in the morning, was one to which he hoped the House would not assent. If the House would accept the suggestion that seven o'clock in the morning should be the hour fixed, he thought it would be a very good compromise.

said he would be exceedingly sorry to see any change made in the existing position as laid down in the Act of 1878. The hon. Member for Partick approached the question from the point of view of the great city of Glasgow. He was not so qualified to speak in that respect, but, as representing a rural district, he ventured to say that if this proposal to limit the hours, either in the direction suggested by the hon. Member for Partick—which really amounted to nothing, because no child was employed before five o'clock—or on the line suggested by the hon. Member for Camberwell, were adopted, it would be a fatal blunder. What was the child labour which was done in the rural districts of the country? His own district was a dairy district, and it was not an unusual thing for children to carry milk in the morning, but the Amendment would prevent a child from carrying a can of milk to a neighbour's cottage or to the village in which he was going to receive his education. He would exceedingly regret, in the interests of education, that they should take a step which, in his judgment, would be prejudicial to the interest of the children themselves and of no possible benefit to their education. What would be the alternative supposing these children had no little occupation of that kind? Very often it was the most mischievous children who were taken out to do this work; it was the only way to control them effectively; and to intrude upon the domestic life of the homes in Scotland by a proposal of this kind would be unwise and, in the interests of education, undesirable.

said he was very glad this question had been raised. He looked upon this as constituting one of the gravest national scandals that cried aloud for reform. He would endeavour to justify that statement, and he hoped the advocates of the eight-hours day for miners would be patient with them, because by this Bill they were endeavouring to regulate the hours of labour for children, and to secure that they should not work fourteen and twelve and ten hours, as in so many cases they did at the present time. There were no official figures for Scotland, but they had an official Return for England and Wales, which was presented in 1899, and that Return disclosed a measure of suffering which to him constituted a bitter and ironical comment upon our greatness as a nation. The Vice-President of the Council made it the theme of his speech in introducing the Estimates on 28th April, 1899—more than two years ago. Although the right hon. Gentleman then said that the Return cast a lurid light over the social condition of the artisan classes of the country, absolutely nothing had been done. He himself had had the privilege of being asked by the School Board for London to summarise and compile a Return of the state of the facts for London, and he never remembered the facts which came under his notice then without a feeling of shame and indignation that such things should be permitted to continue. In addition to twenty-seven and a half hours a week in school, little youngsters of the most tender age were subjected to the most exacting physical toil for fifty, sixty, and sixty-five hours. He found school-teachers stating that children fell asleep at their desks because of the rigour of this employment before school-hours. He found that children were taken out of their beds at two or three o'clock in the morning and subjected to all sorts of toil, sent to school at nine, leaving at twelve, and engaging in two hours toil at mid-day, going back to school at two, leaving at 4.30, and then continuing till midnight at newspaper selling or other work. The Glasgow School Board had prepared a Return dated 18th February, 1901, and he commended the figures to the hon. Member for Renfrewshire. That Return showed that there were 4,628 children engaged in certain labour after they had been twenty-seven and a half hours a week in school. As to the ages of the children, fourteen were between six and seven, fifty-eight between seven and eight, and 157 between eight and nine.

Can the hon. Member tell me what the occupations are?

I propose to give them. With regard to the education qualification of the children, 42 were in the infants' department, 186 were in Standard I., and 371 were in Standard II. As to the occupations, 2,164 spent their time in distributing milk, 899 in carrying round and selling newspapers, in many cases, of course, right up to midnight, 530 were engaged in grocers' shops, 144 in butchers', 108 in barbers', 214 in bakers', and 569 in miscellaneous occupations. As to the hours of employment, in addition to the twenty-seven and a half spent in school, 719 worked from twenty to twenty-five hours a week, 461 from twenty-five to thirty 313 from thirty to thirty-five, 167 from thirty-five to forty, eighty from forty to forty-five, twenty from forty-five to fifty, and in one or two cases they went up to sixty. The number working from two to three hours in the morning was 467, from three to four hours 338, and twelve worked from four to five hours With regard to the question of poverty and the contention that it was the people in straitened circumstances who made use of casual employment, a statement was made by the clerk to the Glasgow School Board, at a conference held in Edinburgh during Whit-week, to the effect that their experience in Glasgow was that the children engaged in selling on the streets were not by any means to be regarded as the children of parents in desperate poverty, and that it was rather the careless, thriftless, self-indulgent, often criminal parent who subjected his child to this toil, and such parents existed, he fancied, even in Scotland. As to the proposal before the House, what would it mean? In summer time that a child might work four hours in the morning, then go for five and a half hours to school, and then work for four and a half hours in the evening, or fourteen hours a day; and in the winter time it would mean three hours work in the morning, five and a half hours in school, and two and a half hours work in the evening, or eleven hours a day. Now, if this question was to be tackled—and it must be at a very early date—it would not be on the lines of the Amendment now before the House. If they were going to regulate this thing let them regulate it generously. If the Amendment were carried it would be said by parents that that was the level of their moral obligation, that the Statute-book said so, and they would start their children at five o'clock in the morning accordingly. He had an Amendment upon the Paper saying that no child should work before school hours, and he was prepared to back it through thick and thin. He heard flamboyant references to the greatness of this country, but these children were the heritors of the greatness of this country. Surely it became us to equip them in such a way as would enable them to carry their responsibilities properly. Yet because he suggested that little youngsters of tender years should not engage in physical toil it was said that he was a visionary, and not at all practical. He would rather have the matter left where it was now, with the small proposal with regard to evening work which the Bill contained, and for which he was very grateful, than see the entirely reactionary Amendment of the hon. Member carried.

said everyone had listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for North Camberwell, who was a very great authority on all educational questions, but, like most experts on educational questions, he allowed his enthusiasm to carry him rather far. He forgot, in the first instance, that this Bill did not deal with London but affected Scotland, where the conditions were totally different in every respect from those existing in the metropolis. The hon. Member said this was one of the gravest national scandals, and then quoted figures from Glasgow affecting children of the ages of six or seven. He had no doubt the hon. Member had every cause to have his feelings stirred by the experience he had gained in London and elsewhere; there were the very gravest scandals affecting small children, but the law in Scotland already dealt with the point raised by the hon. Member. The hon. Member spoke of children of six or seven doing fifty or sixty hours work a week, but that ought to be impossible in Scotland under the existing law. He would refer the hon. Member to the Act of 1878. Under Clause 6 of that Act no child under the age of ten could be employed in any casual employment. What more could Parliament do? If the law was not properly enforced in Glasgow, surely the school board was responsible. But when they were dealing with such matters they could not go in advance of public opinion if they wished to benefit the children themselves. This Bill would raise the age from ten to twelve. Did the hon. Member mean to say that a boy of twelve in a country district was not to be allowed to deliver a pint of milk or a basket of potatoes on his way to school? He did not know what would be the result of education in this country if educational experts were allowed a free hand. There would be a revolt against education altogether. Do let hon. Members be sensible. He had been a supporter of the Bill and had done his best to get it through, and he did not want to see raised against it a hostile feeling on the part of a large portion of the population of Scotland. He hoped the Amendment would not be agreed to.

I agree entirely with my hon. and learned friend the Member for the Border Burghs that it would be very undesirable for the House to accept this Amendment. As my hon. and learned friend said, it would almost amount to an invitation to a kind of employment which is rare and, I am glad to say, becoming increasingly rare. But I rise for the purpose of making one observation. I entirely sympathise with the spirit that animated the speech of my hon. friend the Member for North Camberwell; but the difficulty in a case of this kind is not so much to frame a law as to enforce it. A great many of the shocking cases referred to by my hon. friend of children, six, seven, and eight years of age, being employed for three and four hours in the morning are absolutely illegal at the present moment. But how are you to enforce the law? That is the real difficulty. In a factory or workshop, or any place where labour is habitually and systematically carried on, the process of inspection which is necessary to the due enforcement of the law is comparatively easy, but when you are dealing with casual employment in the streets or in the fields, unless you have a very much larger army of inspectors and police than the local authorities at present possess, it is extremely difficult to find out the offence, and still more difficult to bring it home to the offender. I have taken a great interest in this question for a great many years, and have constantly pressed it upon the attention of the Government, and my object in rising is not so much to enlarge upon the difficulties as to ask a specific question, because I see a representative of the Home Office on the Treasury bench. The Vice-President of the Board of Education told us a year ago in connection with another Bill which we were considering in the Grand Committee upstairs that a Departmental Committee had been appointed by the Education Department and the Home Office to consider the whole question of child labour in its relation to education and in its relation to what I may call labour legislation also. I desire to ask what progress that Committee has made, whether it has reached the stage now of presenting a Report, whether the Government can give us any kind of indication as to the lines on which that Report proceeds, and whether they are prepared to take any steps to deal legislatively or otherwise with this, which is undoubtedly a most urgent social reform?

I will inquire.

could not help feeling that a case had been made out, not only to-day but on former occasions, in favour of legislation respecting casual labour. It seemed almost an absurdity that we should have laws affecting factories and workshops, but that casual labour should be pursued almost altogether without interference by the Legislature. He hoped that when the Report to which reference had been made was published, and the Government had had time to consider it, legislation would be submitted to the House. In dealing with this difficult subject they must bear in mind that they could not have the same law applicable to every district of the country. The circumstances of the towns differed from those of the rural districts, and even as between towns themselves the conditions differed. Now, Parliament had dealt with casual employment in local Acts. Some of these Acts came before him when he was a member of the Police and Sanitary Committee. That Committee considered the wants of each case, and the condition of each town, and they passed Acts to meet those conditions. The latest decision of Parliament, so far as he knew, on this subject related to the great city of Liverpool. In that case the law was not made rigid. But a clause was inserted in their Bill of 1899 which he believed worked admirably, and had done a great deal to relieve Liverpool from the scandal and disgrace of child labour in casual employments. This clause authorised the Corporation of Liverpool to make regulations as to the hours during which, the places where and the conditions under which, such labour should be pursued. He thought that if they clothed the different authorities with powers of that kind, and defined certain limits of age within which labour should under no conditions be pursued, that would really meet the case in the most effective manner. The House might remember that the restriction under this Bill extended to fourteen years of age. Now, they knew the great difficulty there often was in exercising control, authority, and discipline over young persons between the ages of twelve and fourteen. He believed it was better that they should have some employment, and be under some discipline, and be taught habits of responsibility. He believed employment within moderate limits, properly conducted under healthy circumstances, was a benefit rather than a mischief, and he felt certain that Parliament would not act wisely if by one drastic and rigid law affecting the whole country they interfered with the conditions of labour, which varied so much in different parts of the country.

Nobody is in favour of the Amendment now before the House. The hon. Member for Partick himself admits that it is too weak; the hon. Member for West Renfrew thinks it goes too far, and the hon. Member for Camberwell thinks it does not go far enough. Those who are very anxious in this matter should, I think, accept the considerable step given by this Bill. The right hon. Member for East Fife said the difficulty was not to make laws but to enforce them, and surely the corollary of that is that, if you have a class of laws which it is very difficult to enforce, it would never be very wise to make your laws very much in advance of ordinary public opinion. We have got a sufficient guarantee, I think, that public opinion is with us to the extent to which we have gone, because hon. Members will remember that this clause was passed through the House of Lords more than a year ago, and I am not aware that in any public discussion of the subject, in the press or elsewhere, any serious objection has been offered by the people of Scotland. However admirable may be in theory the changes suggested by the hon. Member for North Camberwell, we should get ahead of public opinion if we adopted them, and then, as the right hon. Member for East Fife truly pointed out, although we should have an excellent law upon the Statute Book we could not possibly enforce it.

said the question of casual labour was a very serious one from the manufacturer's point of view. In factories children learned a particular trade, but casual labour did them no good whatever, and it was a considerable grievance that the position of children in factories should not be the same as that of children in casual employment. Three-fourths of the agitation two years ago on the half-time question arose because children were kept from school by all sorts of casual employment, and yet, instead of finding a remedy by dealing with that casual employment, Parliament raised the age in connection with those employments where the system of inspection was now perfect. He very much agreed with the sentiments of the hon. Member for North Camberwell. In theory he was right, and he hoped, if it could be done, that the rules and regulations that applied to factories and other places where inspection was perfect would be applied to casual work, which really did children no good. He certainly would vote against the Amendment.

said that in view of the satisfactory discussion that had arisen he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.

moved, in Clause 2, page 1, line 18, to leave out 9 and insert 8. The proposal of the clause, he said, was that children should be allowed to work till nine o'clock at night during the summer months. That meant, assuming a child worked three hours in the morning, a thirteen hours day. He proposed that the hour at night should be eight o'clock instead of nine. It was a very small concession, and he hoped it would meet with the approval of hon. Members opposite. Even if it were made, the hours of work would still be quite long enough.

It is always rather ungracious to have to refuse an hon. Member who appears in such a reasonable mood as the hon. Member who has just addressed the House, and who has, I think, very frankly acquiesced in the general feeling of the House, and not proceeded with his larger Amendment; and it is really, therefore, with sorrow that I must stick to the Bill as it is. I would remind the hon. Member that as regards the question between eight and nine, it is not altogether a question of an extra hour's labour for a child; it is the question also of the time at which it may be convenient to do a particular thing. The difference in the Bill between seven o'clock in winter and nine in summer does not mean that you think a child ought to work two hours more in the summer than in the winter. It simply goes by daylight; and it might be convenient to do a certain thing at these hours. Therefore, my advice would be that the House should stick to the Bill as it stands.

asked leave to withdraw his Amendment.

rose to move, in Clause 2, page 1, line 18, after the word "might," to leave out the words to end of line 20. The right hon. Member for Thanet had, he said, thought it necessary, as an English Member, to make some apology for intervening in the discussion of a Scotch Bill. He did not feel that in his case any apology was necessary, because he had an Amendment later which would extend the Bill to England. The 11 made a distinction between employment in summer and in spring, autumn, and winter. But he submitted that in many kinds of employment it was equally reasonable that boys should be allowed to engage in work after seven o'clock at night in October or in March. The hon. and learned Member for the Border Burghs said a difference should be made between country districts and; towns. But this Bill applied to all districts and to all towns. The hon. Member for North Camberwell, in his eloquent speech, said that it was for the most part the thriftless and the criminal parent who sent his child to work at a tender age. But this Bill would apply equally to the case of the poor widow, to whom the shilling a week earned by her boy might mean a very important addition to her income. We all agree that education is a most excellent thing for children, but we must also agree that food is a most excellent thing, and even more necessary than education, and there might be plenty of cases where the few shillings the children earn make all the difference between a sufficient and insufficient supply of food. Employment itself was also education, for the boy was taught to earn something. It was not desirable with legislation of this character to go in advance of popular opinion; it would be a very difficult matter to enforce a rule that a child should not be allowed to go out after seven o'clock at night after the 31st of September, he having been allowed to do so up to that date. He therefore hoped the Committee would accept his proposal.

I not only think I am bound to resist this amendment as a question of even justice to the hon. Member for North Camberwell, but I think the hon. Gentleman has temporarily forgotten that this rule is already part of the law at present, and that by accepting the Amendment we should be going back on the existing law.

said the question he desired to raise had been raised by the memorandum issued by the Govan School Board, which pointed out that there would be a diversity of opinion under this Bill unless there was some test examination. The effect of leaving the proposal as it stood in the Bill would be that it would create differences in various parts of Scotland. His Amendment proposed that the power of granting exemptions should still be left with the school board, but that their power should only extend to granting exemptions to those children who were able to satisfy the inspectors that they had attained a certain stage of efficiency.

said he hoped the Amendment would not be persisted in, because it would, if carried, produce a great amount of hardship in most schools. It was surely for the school board to determine what standard to adopt. If there was a stupid boy who failed in the examination, it did not follow that he would be stupid in all things, but only in education, and if that boy were the only son of a widow it would be hard to prevent him from earning his livelihood. In the ordinary way he would be learning nothing, and to keep him at school labouring to master the elements of education, which he had shown up to the age of fourteen he could not do, was most unfair.

said with regard to the school board for Govan, which he partly represented in this House, he might say that he was not convinced by the representation which they had sent round, and therefore he should oppose the Amendment. He did not see the cogency of the argument of the school board for Govan that it did not do to have variety, and that it was necessary to have a uniform standard; the circumstances in various parts of the country were so entirely different that it would be much safer to allow school boards to take their own standards, and not to enforce a uniform standard, which must necessarily be a low one. He hoped that in Govan they might go a great deal further. He would like them to demand a merit certificate as the condition upon which children should be allowed to go away from the school, but that would be impossible in all districts. He, however, thought that it would be found that all school hoards would act in harmony and pull together. The school board for Govan did not like the responsibility of deciding in particular cases which was given by the Bill, but that was, in his opinion, the right principle, because a great deal more had to be considered than the requirements of the child. He hoped the school boards, in deciding the question of examination, would be able to look into the character of the child and also into the circumstances of its family and be able to ascertain whether it was imperative that the child should go away and commence work or whether it might be properly kept at school for the benefit of longer education. Those were the considerations which would come forward, and very soon rules and practice would come into being and school boards would lay down certain principles. There was nothing to prevent school boards making different rules, and if they said a labour certificate should be the condition for allowing a child to go to work they could do so. There was, of course, a power of control at the Education Department, and if the Education Department thought the rules were too lax they could reduce the grant, but he was certain the Department would not use that kind of control, He thought the school boards were perfectly capable of using their discretion, and therefore he opposed the Amendment.

said the question he desired to raise by the Amendment he proposed to move was a question of some importance. Under the Bill very great responsibility would be laid upon school boards in granting exemptions, and it would be desirable, therefore, for the Department to keep closely in touch with the school boards to learn how they were acting under the Bill when passed into law. It would be desirable that a return should be made by the school boards to the Department, so that the Department might know how they were acting in this matter. He begged to move.

submitted that such a proposal would put a long and elaborate duty upon school boards which they would find extremely onerous. He thought that the Department, through their inspectors and their general powers of inquiry into everything done by the school boards, would have abundant means of ascertaining whether a school board had been unduly lax, and that it would be better to let the provision stand as it was at present.

This clause was framed by the Department, and they evidently thought it sufficient for their protection. The truth of the matter is that there cannot be much exemption going on without their being alive to it.

called the hon. Baronet's attention to the fact that there was a regulation in the Bill applying to young children.

said it was an unconscious stroke of humour on the part of the draftsman to describe the title as "short title." He suggested it should be called the "Education (Scotland) Bill."

thought that such a "short title" would be most inapplicable and inadequate.

said the Amendment which stood in his name was to postpone Clause 1. The reason for postponing Clause 1 was because it was the usual procedure in very many Acts to make it the last clause of the Bill instead of the first. It was difficult to say what this Bill might be when it emerged from the stage of a Bill into an Act of Parliament, but if this Bill were to pass in its present form it would be the first Act of Parliament containing a restriction on the hours of labour of men over twenty-one years of age.

No, no.

Order, order! The hon. and gallant Member is now discussing the Bill as a whole. He cannot do that on a motion to postpone the first clause. He must confine himself to reasons for postponing the first clause.

said his reason for moving an Amendment to postpone the clause was that until the character of the Bill was made evident, and until it was seen what it would be, they could not give it any name. They could not say that the Bill when it was finished in Committee would be an Eight Hours Bill, for it might not be an Eight Hours Bill at all. Then there was the question of precedent. The description of a Bill was generally given much later in the Bill than was done in the present measure. The precedents that he would bring to the notice of the Committee were, first of all, the Employers' Liability Act of 1880, 43 & 44 Vict. In that Bill the concluding section (Section 1) was as follows—

"This Act may be cited as the Employers' Liability Act of 1880, and shall continue in force until the 31st day of December, 1887,' and the end of the next session of Parliament and no longer, unless Parliament shall otherwise determine, and all actions commenced under this Act before that period shall be continued as if the Act had not expired."

That was one precedent. It had to do with labour, it had to do with workmen, and so it seemed to him that that of itself ought to induce the House to vote for his Amendment. But if it was the fact that one precedent was not good enough, he would quote the Canal Boats Act of 1877, 40 and 41, Vict. c. 60. The concluding section of that Act was as follows—

"This Act may be cited as the Canal Boats Act, 1877."

The next Act that he would draw attention to was the Customs Act of 1876, 39 and 40 Vict., the concluding section of which was as follows—

"This Act shall come into operation on the day of the passing of this Act, and when cited in any other Act of Parliament shall be called the Customs Consolidation Act of 1876."

But what might be considered on this occasion a more important and more convenient precedent was the Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1876, 59 and 60 Vict., c. 43, the concluding section of which was as follows—

"This Act may be cited as the Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1877 to 1896."

It would seem that all the precedents he had so far given had connection with miners and mines. The next precedent that he came to was the Truck Act of 1896, 59 and 60 Vict., c. 44. [An HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear.] An hon. Member said "Hear, hear." He must have had something to do with the passing of the Truck Act of 1896, and probably he would remember that what he was stating was the fact and was a precedent to follow in this case. The concluding section to which he referred—[Ironical laughter.] Of course, some hon. Members ought to know all these things. They were well up in these legal matters, but he believed there were many new Members of Parliament who, though probably well-informed long before they came to this House, had found it impossible to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with all these intricate subjects. He would suggest with regard to Acts of Parliament which did not attract general attention that they might still be most important, and that it was well on occasions such as this that as much information as possible should be communicated. The last Act of Parliament that he would put before the House as a precedent was the Conciliation Act of 1896, 59 and 60 Vict., the concluding section of which was as follows—

"This Act may be cited as the Conciliation Act of 1896."

Almost all Acts of Parliament that he had cited had reference to mines and mining regulations, or had something to do with mines, and he therefore thought that it would be far better for the House to insert the clause much later, and postpone it now, so that when the Bill had been thoroughly discussed and amended, and made into a thoroughly good measure, which he thought it was not at the present time, then they could give it a good name.

supported the Amendment, and said that it seemed to be the general feeling of the Committee that Clause 1 should be postponed. Supposing some alteration was made later on with regard to the limiting of the hours of labour, what would happen? If they passed the first clause, after discussing the other clauses and various Amendments, and taking all sorts of divisions, they would finally have to amend the Bill, and amend the first clause by altering the title. The altering of titles by side notes was no use whatever. The title must appear in one of the clauses, and it seemed a most reasonable proposal that the clause giving the title to the Act should be postponed until the other clauses had been considered. The Bill was an absolutely unworkable measure, and even if they passed it verbatim as it stood at present, the supporters of the measure would find it absolutely unworkable. It must be admitted all round that Amendments were necessary, and if Amendments were carried there was every probability that the title would require alteration. At the present moment it was a very one-sided Bill, and was not worth passing into law in its present form.

said that this measure was purely an Eight Hours Bill.

Hear, hear.

said he could quote even the right hon. Baronet the Member for Forest of Dean as an authority in favour of this clause being postponed.

You cannot.

said that upon one occasion the right hon. Baronet came down to speak in the North of England, his mission being to convert the people there to his way of thinking. In his speech he spoke of the difficulty of applying an eight hours day to the various trades of this country, and he instanced the railways, the shipping, and agriculture, and he said that there were obvious difficulties in applying a rigid Eight Hours Bill to those trades. The right hon. Baronet in the same speech went on to say that there was no occupation in which the conditions of work varied so greatly as in the mining industry. He thought that now the right hon. Baronet would be inclined to agree with his contention.

No.

If the right hon. Baronet will belie his own thoughts, then I must pass him by. There was an Amendment on the Paper providing for forty-eight hours a week, and there were many reasons why the making of a rigid eight hours day would affect the miners very unfairly. He thought he could quote even the Secretary for the Colonies in favour of this contention. There were deep and shallow mines, and the miners had to travel a very long way in some mines to their work, whilst in others they had not to travel so far. Then, again, there were different degrees of hardness and easiness in the working of the mines, and a Committee of experts considering the question of shortening the hours of labour should take into consideration those different degrees. If the first clause was carried, then this measure would be an Eight Hours Bill for everybody. Having regard to the complications and the various conditions of work, it was necessary that some men should work longer than the others.

Order, order! The question before the Committee is the postponement of this clause.

said what he wished to point out was that if the first clause was adopted as it stood at present, many of the Amendments on the Paper could not be introduced. What harm could it do to the Bill to postpone the first clause? He supported the motion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite, and he hoped the House would agree to the postponement of the clause.

The reluctance of the opponents of this Bill to accept this very reasonable proposal seems to rest on some occult reason with which we are not fully acquainted. This proposal is undoubtedly a reasonable one, which I think the Committee might accept. I cannot see under ordinary circumstances that it will make the smallest difference whether the title appears in the first clause or not. This induces me to ask a question upon a point of order. I wish to know if this clause is affirmed now will it be competent for any hon. Member of the House to move any Amendment which would have the effect of altering the eight hours principle, whether up or down? It seems clear that if my supposition that this clause carries the whole principle of the Bill is correct it would be out of order to move any such Amendment, for then the whole question would have been debated upon this clause. Therefore I wish to ask you, Mr. Lowther, whether, if this clause is affirmed by the Committee, it will be in the power of any hon. Member to move an alteration of the eight hours, either up or down?

In reply to the right hon. Gentleman, I do not think that any Amendment controverting the main principle would be admissible if the Committee assents to the title "Mines (Eight Hours) Bill." Such an assent would naturally be taken as an assent to the principle that the hours of labour are to be limited to "eight hours." Any Amendment in direct opposition to that could not be put.

The right hon. Gentleman opposite has asked whether there is any occult reason for objecting to this clause being postponed. I think it is only right that we should be perfectly frank with the Committee upon this point. Those who were in the House on the last occasion when this Bill got into Committee after being read a second time will remember that the promoters dropped the Bill altogether upon a certain Amendment being carried. It is the case that we regard eight hours as the fixed principle of this Bill, and if any other figure is carried we should abandon the Bill altogether rather than accept anything else.

asked if it would be in order if Clause 1 were adopted to afterwards move that the Bill should not apply to certain mines.

That possibly would be in order, because it does not controvert the general principle of the Bill.

Under your ruling, I presume that the whole question of the principle of this Bill is now open for discussion. [Cries of "No, no."] I think I am right in saying that the whole question of the eight hours principle is before the Committee.

I think that would arise on the next Amendment, which proposes to leave out "eight" and insert "ten."

asked whether it was not the usual practice of the House to consider the title of a Bill last. He wished to know whether the bringing on of this clause first would not defeat this practice.

There is no Standing Order with regard to that. The Standing Order provides that in any Bill which is of a temporary nature the duration of the Bill should appear last. There is no Standing Order to the effect that the short title must come last.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman opposite what objection he sees to taking the opinion of the House upon the question of eight hours, because, after all, that is really the important thing. That is the real question, and the sooner it is determined the better, for it would save them a great amount of time. It would, in my opinion, be a clear advantage if the opinion of the House was taken upon the question of eight hours.

I do not see any objection to taking the opinion of the House upon the question of eight hours, but when I rose I did so, not to make any objection, but to get to know exactly how we stood in the matter.

asked whether they would be able when they came to the next Amendment to discuss the question whether the hours should be ten instead of eight. He understood from the Chairman's ruling that it would be impossible to discuss the question of the limiting of hours at all if Clause 1 was agreed to.

If the words "eight hours" are struck out of the first clause, then Clause 1 would read, "This Act may be cited as the Mines Act, 1901." Therefore, when we reached the second clause any Amendment limiting or extending the hours might be in order. But if the words "eight hours" remain in the first clause, I think I shall be bound to accept the decision of the House upon it, and exclude all Amendments which would alter that decision.

said it was all very well for hon. Members to ask them to postpone this clause, because they all knew what postponement really meant. The object of postponing the clause was simply to endeavour to defeat the Bill. It was not at all likely that hon. Members opposite would vote for ten hours instead of eight, and they were not afraid of this Bill on account of any danger of increasing the number of hours. If the question of the principle of the Bill was to be fought, it might as well be fought at once, because people would be able to see the real reason for this motion if they took the division at once. They did not need to enter into the question as to whether this, that, or the other could be done afterwards. His object in rising was to endeavour to clear what was supposed to be a great difficulty out of the way.

pointed out that the limitation of eight hours was the very essence of this Bill, which principle was affirmed on the Second Reading. Although there were points of detail in connection with the Bill which might be fairly considered during the Committee stage, he did not think that the promoters would assent to any alteration which would defeat the object of the Bill, and which would defeat the intention of the Second Reading. He appealed to the Committee to take a division at once.

I think I ought to point out to the Committee that at the present moment this discussion should be limited to the question of postponement. We really have not yet reached Clause 1. When it is reached I shall then be called upon to decide the principle. Until the Committee has settled whether it will postpone the clause or not, hon. Members are not entitled to discuss this question.

wished to know whether, under the Chairman's ruling, the promoters of this Bill would be able to fight the principle of the measure all over again on the first clause, which professed only to deal with the title. If so, it was a grave departure from their usual Parliamentary practice, and if upheld, would undoubtedly land them on future occasions in very great difficulties. He thought as a businesslike assembly they ought to consider the actual proposals to be made in this Bill, in order to see how many of them could be amended, rather than have a Second Reading discussion on the principle of this clause. It was not in the interest of the Bill itself that this clause should be taken first, and in the interests of Parliamentary procedure they ought to assent to the motion to postpone this clause.

The hon. Member who has just sat down has stated that it is the usual practice to settle the principle of a Bill last. My experience is that the draughtsman always puts the principle in the Bill as early as possible, in order that it may be disposed of. That is the principle which I think we have always pursued. As a rule, the whole object of the draughtsman is to put the most controversial part in the first clause, so that we may know what the opinion of the House is upon it. This Bill is either an eight hours Bill or it is not; therefore the opinion of the House may just as well be taken, in order to decide that principle at once, instead of going on fighting a number of small details without determining the principle.

The right hon. Gentleman has appealed to me upon this point, and I can confirm what he says in regard to drafting. We always endeavour to put the vital clause at the beginning. That, however, is different to what has been done in this particular case. I do not remember in all my experience that there has ever been a case in which the title has appeared first as a title embodying the whole principle of the Bill, and shutting out all Amendments and alterations. I do not believe that a single case of this kind can be quoted. I know there are many cases in which the title has appeared in the first part of the Bill, although in a great majority of the Bills the title appears at the end. I do not believe that any Member of this house can give an instance in which the title has been placed first when that title embodies the whole principle of the Bill, thus shutting out all Amendments afterwards. I do not believe that there is another case of this kind.

The title in this case is the Bill, just as Egypt is the Nile.

said he had never known a case before where the whole principle of the Bill was embodied in the name of the measure. He presumed that the reason for this was that the House recognised that if the whole principle was fixed in the name it would prevent many hon. Members from discussing important details, which were absolutely necessary if the measure was to be made a useful one. He could not understand why the promoters refused to pursue the course which was usually followed in connection with matters of this kind. The promoters of the Bill pretended to be frank in this matter, but he was not satisfied with the character of their frankness, and he was inclined to believe that they had not shown all their mind upon this question. He had an Amendment on the Paper to provide that instead of eight hours being the limit per day it should be fifty hours per week. He looked upon this Bill as a measure to reduce or regulate the hours men worked in coal mines, and he maintained that if it had been known upon the occasion of the Second Reading that the details of the Bill would have been controlled in such a way as the promoters now proposed to control them, many of those who supported the Second Reading would not have done so. He thought this was an attempt to take an unfair advantage of the House, and evidently what they wanted to do by this course was to prevent hon. Members who opposed the Bill from stating their case. And why? Because they believed that the opponents of the measure had such a strong case that they would be able to influence the House, and that they would be able to introduce such Amendments as were demanded by many parts of the country. If the House allowed this Bill practically to be settled by the principle contained in the first clause, he was satisfied that, instead of draughtsmen preparing Bills in the usual form, they would try and put the most important matter of the Bill first, so as to prohibit the discussion of details. He hoped the House would not agree to their hands being tied in this matter, because he was satisfied that there were many questions which would be shut out from discussion if they agreed to this motion for postponing Clause 1.

said the promoters of this Bill were asking the Committee to sanction an innovation of the most objectionable kind, and they were taking up an attitude in regard to this question for which the miners would not be grateful.

May I be allowed to point out that when this Bill was defeated in Committee upon the last occasion the objection now raised was not taken, and this clause was discussed without the slightest difficulty.

said he thought it was advisable that they should thoroughly understand what effect the postponement of this clause would have. He understood that the Chairman ruled that, if this clause were passed, it would not be competent to discuss the number of hours which should be worked in all mines. He wished to ask whether it would be out of order to move to exclude any part of the country upon that ground.

I do not think that a motion for "local option" in the adoption of an eight hours day for miners would be out of order.

This clause contains the words "eight hours." I presume that it would be competent for anybody to substitute anything for "eight hours" by an Amendment. My hon. friend behind me might have put fifty hours a week, or else might propose nine hours or eight and a half hours as an Amendment to the word "eight." I imagine, Mr. Lowther, that this is so, and that this proposal will not shut out any Amendment that may be proposed.

What I said was that if the clause passed in its present form, then I could not admit any Amendment varying it. Until the House has assented to the day being eight hours it is possible to amend the title.

asked if it would be competent for him or any other Member upon Clause 2 to move instead of "one day of twenty-four hours," say a week or a month.

asked, when Clause 1 was put from the Chair, would it be competent to discuss the principle of eight hours, or would that clause be put from the Chair and accepted without any further discussion?

The hon. Member asks me what would happen if the motion now before the Committee were to be withdrawn or rejected. In that case I should have to call upon those hon. Members who have given notice to move their Amendments on Clause 1. Then the clause as amended would be put in the ordinary way. When that clause was disposed of it would not be competent to admit, on Clause 2, any Amendment which controverts the principle laid down in Clause 1. The whole principle of the Bill could be discussed on that clause.

Supposing there is no Amendment carried to Clause 1 and the question is put "that this clause stand part of the Bill," would it be open to discuss the general principle embodied in that clause or not?

That is rather a difficult question to answer. If the discussion has really ranged round the question of eight hours and then I put Clause 1, I think I should have to rule that the whole question was open. There might be some details with regard to it to be filled in on Clause 2, and that really is one of the difficulties in dealing with the principle of the Bill on the short title.

said he had very little to say on this point. He took it for granted that those who were trying to postpone Clause 1 would oppose everything else throughout the Bill. He believed that their main object was to continue talking so that they would not get beyond a certain point. He had worked in the pits himself for twenty years, and he considered eight hours was long enough for any man to work in a coal mine. He could not see the utility of talking any further upon this question, which they would carry to a division. They claimed the support of the Government in carrying this Bill into law. The supporters of the measure believed that this was a fair and a just Bill, and eight hours was the principle of it. He wished that principle to be maintained so that it could be carried into law, and then the Tory Government would have the honour of having passed the Eight Hours Bill.

thought the suggestion made by the Chairman was an admirable one. The words "eight hours" might be omitted altogether from the clause, and the Bill would then be called "the Mines Act, 1901." He thought the Chairman's suggestion might be very well adopted by the promoters of the Bill.

I did not make that as a suggestion. What I said was that it would be competent for the House to strike out the words "eight hours," and that would have left the discussion open.

thought that almost amounted to a suggestion, and it was a very valuable one. The Bill was described as one to restrict the hours in mines to eight hours per day from bank to bank. He wished to know if those words "from bank to bank" would be imported into the clause if it was carried as it stood at present. This was a most important point, for he had always felt that eight hours a day was enough to work in a mine, but when they adopted the bank to bank principle it was a very different thing.

I think the words per day must be understood to mean an eight hours day. As to when those hours begin or cease, that is a matter for future decision.

said he hoped the House would go to a division on this point. He thought that every Member of the House who was returned pledged to vote for an eight hours day in mines had no option but to vote for Clause 1 of the Bill.

was understood to say that he had been returned by a mining constituency pledged to vote against the Eight Hours Bill, although he knew that at that time many mining organisations were in favour of it, but the older miners individually felt, he believed, that if the Bill passed they might be forced to work six days instead of five per week.

wished to know exactly where they stood. Were they by this motion going to tie up the whole Bill? This was the first time he had known a case where the title of a Bill had shut out the debate upon any other part of the measure. Had they known their hands would have been so tied they would have raised the question before. This was a matter of vast importance.

, suggested as a compromise that Clause 1 should be postponed until after Clause 2.

said as one who had had a lifelong experience of the practical working of coal mines, and who had voted for the Second Reading of the Bill, he was bound to say that the title of the Bill had placed him in a considerable difficulty, If the promoters intended to beg the question in this way, and thus exclude what he considered reasonable amendments, then, although he was one of their supporters, he must at this stage vote against them.

said the question was whether they should or should not discuss the principle upon Clause 1.

said that he apprehended that the title of a Bill was always postponed so that it could be amended in accordance with any Amendments made to the clauses. He thought the hon. Member for Falkirk was under a misapprehension upon this point.

said he could not possibly conceive why any person should object to the title being postponed. It seemed to him that the only reason why the promoters opposed this course was that they were determined to pass this Bill without any amendment of any kind. If that was so, as soon as the Committee understood it the better. He was certain that a Bill of this kind was not going to get through without any amendment. If the promoters desired that no time should be wasted they ought to agree to postpone Clause 1. This was a very serious question, because they were really considering whether they should have a fair discussion of the Bill or not. The question of what the measure was to be called really did not arise at all, and he sincerely hoped that they would go to a division, and that this clause would be postponed.

asked, if Clause 1 was passed, would eight hours be the maximum and not the minimum? Would it be possible for a mine owner to move an Amendment of which the effect would be that anyone going down to work in his mine would have to stay for the full eight hours?

I will rule upon that point when I see the Amendment.

said his desire was to get a full and thorough discussion of the measure, and he wanted to get rid of this stifling clause.

said he was one of those who liked to see an Act of Parliament brought before the House in such a manner that, when it had to be enforced by His Majesty's judges, there would be some reasonable chance of them understanding it without leading to innumerable lawsuits. He was astonished that there should be any discussion as to the postponement of this clause. If the Bill was an Eight Hours Bill, everybody would know from its title what it proposed to do. Therefore he could not understand why hon. Members on either side of the House should propose to postpone the clause, unless it were for the purposes of obstruction. Many of them were quite prepared to fight this question upon its merits, and the tactics of those who desired to postpone the clause were very unwise. He held his own opinion as to the advisability of controlling the hours of labour in regard to persons of adult age, and he certainly thought this clause ought to be fought out upon its merits, and they should vote upon it before they proceeded further. [Cries of "Divide, divide."] He should divide in time no doubt, If this Bill was going through at all, then he thought that Clause 1 ought to be a part of it.

said the Amendment which he now begged to move was to leave out "eight" and insert "ten" in Clause 1. The object of the Amendment was to make this a thoroughly satisfactory workable Bill. It must be remembered that at the present time there was no limit. Supposing, for instance, the men were to work ten and a half hours, they would be outside the limit he proposed, and they or their employers would be subject to be penalised according to the clauses which would be found in this Bill, if ever it became an Act of Parliament. The reason why he proposed ten hours was because at the present time the operations in the mines were practically comprised in ten hours, or within possibly some thing a little less, so that in making it ten hours they would provide a very moderate time, and it would be more elastic than eight hours. In fixing eight hours they would be pressing the work of the mines into a time within which it would be difficult to do it. It would be very much like taking an Englishwoman into a London shop and making her put her feet into Chinese shoes. The fact was that eight hours from bank to bank did not afford sufficient time for the operations of the miners. It would be far better, having regard to the customs of the trade, that some time should be fixed within which the miners would be able to do their work without great discomfort and great confusion. If anything less than ten hours were fixed they would create immense loss and great disturbance in the working of the mines. An eight hours limit would really result in only six hours, or even perhaps less, actual work in getting coal. By allowing a reasonable time for doing the work they would have it done more easily and satisfactorily, and they would prevent the continual hurry and skurry of the men, and the continual tendency on the part of the employers, officials, and workmen to evade the provisions of the Bill. The Committee had listened to a discussion already, and he contended that very few people know the effect which an eight hours arrangement from bank to bank would have, and that was the reason why he proposed that it should be ten. He held that what had to be gone through in these eight hours could not be done. What were the operations of miners now? In the first place the miners assembled at a certain time in the morning at the pit, near the cage or lift apparatus. Possibly there might be from 400 to 600 men there. The lift would hold from six to twelve people at a time. In other words, only a very few indeed would be able to go down at once. Some of these shafts were not very deep, while others were just the contrary. They varied in depth from 200 to 1,000 yards. The men descended in relays, and he should think it would take at least half an hour for all the men to get down. When they got to the bottom of the shaft they had in many cases a long way to travel in order to get to their work, and that took time. Of course, it was not like walking down Regent-street or Oxford-street, or even down a country road. They had to go along an underground passage and walk circumspectly. Very well; the miners set about their work, after finding whether the place was safe. The Government had passed enactment after enactment that the place should be properly timbered and the roof all right before the men began to work. The Committee did not suppose that a man came to his place and found everything ready for work. It sometimes happened that there had been a fall during the night, and that had to be put right. He thought most reasonable men would agree that it took an hour for all this to be done. Then the man went on with his work. But in the course of his work he had to take meals. It was said that in 1873 the miners had lobster salad, but that, he thought, was not true. But a miner required to have good sustenance, and he was told two meals while at work. It was most likely that he would take half or three-quarters of an hour, and he thought three-quarters of an hour should be allowed to any man who wanted a reasonable meal. Gentlemen on this side of the House knew perfectly well that when they went out shooting in Scotland they allowed an hour after the work of the forenoon. Therefore the miner must have a proper time for his meals. What about the end of the day's work? The miner had to go back to the mouth of the pit. He had to collect his tools and see that his place was ready for to-morrow, so that it required a certain time to prepare for the return journey. He travelled back again along the underground passage to the lift which took him to the top of the pit. They had to ascend in relays, taking perhaps half an hour again. Under these circumstances an eight hour day from bank to bank would be absolutely impossible. He complimented his hon. friends who represented the miners on the way they attended to the interests of miners. At this time, however, they had made a most extraordinary mistake. If they would adopt these Amendments in the interest of the workmen and in the interest of all concerned they would have a Bill such as might be worked. He thought there was another question which ought not to be quite forgotten, and that was the different kinds of coal. There were hard coal and soft coal. It took longer to get the hard coal. There were mines where the seams were thick and others where they were thinner, and there again they had a question which affected the time required for working. In connection with this measure they had also to look to the fact that collieries in different districts paid different rates of dividend or no dividend. He thought the right hon. Baronet the Member for Forest of Dean had not considered all these conditions. The question was, Is this Bill going to do good or ill for the miners of the country? Those who believed that it was going to hamper them greatly and do them great harm were obliged, in fairness to their constituencies, to take the opportunity of stating the case against the proposals, in the Bill. They would see at once, from the arguments he had used and from his statement of the case, that probably the hours of labour would be restricted by at least two hours. That was to say, instead of having something like seven and a half or eight hours at the face, they would have five and a, half or six hours. They would see, therefore, that if this Bill was going to knock two hours off the eight it was going to decrease the output of coal by 25 per cent. The result would be that the price of coal would rise, and manufacturers would find that they had to pay 25 per cent. more for their coal, and thus they would be hampered in carrying on their arrangements. The householders would also be pinched, for they also would find that they had to pay 25 per cent increase. Another matter of great importance was that the Navy would have to pay 25 per cent. more for its coal. This increase was going to be put on the great product on which the industry, strength, and power of this nation rested. How Members of this House could join together and put their names on the back of this Bill passed his comprehension. Why should they put this restriction on the body of men who worked their coal? It was not done in America or Germany, which were our two great competitors. Were we to confine our market for coal to the United Kingdom? If twenty-five per cent. was put on the price of coal, what was to become of our steamships? His Amendment did not say that the men must work ten hours. He must explain that, because he had been twitted and taunted on the subject. They said that he intended to ask the people in the mines to work ten hours. He did not want anything of the kind. He wanted ten hours to cover everything, whether seven, eight, nine, or ten, from bank to bank. He only wanted that the miners should not be crushed into a time limit in which they could not possibly do the work. He thought Members of Parliament had lost sight of the fact that the miners did not work much more than four and a half days per week. That was a subject that wanted careful consideration. If they put eight hours instead of ten in the Bill, and if the men worked only four and a half days per week, they made a thirty-six hour week. Looking to the fact that the miner was perfectly comfortable, that he worked pretty much as he pleased, that he made good wages as things were, and that the price of coal was coming down, he asked the House on all scores to fix the limit at ten hours, which would cover everything and leave everything as it was now.

said he objected to the word "eight," but he could not stand the word "ten" as a substitute. The word "eight" was not palatable to many of his constituents, because they thought that if it stood in the Bill they would be expected to be eight hours in the pit, which was contrary to the Northumberland and Durham practice. Therefore he objected to these figures altogether. Everybody who knew anything of the conditions of mining knew that there must be variety in the hours of working and in the employment. The question of the limitation of the hours should be carefully gone into by the Committee with the view of placing the men in the position which would best enable them to discharge their duties to themselves, their families, and their employers. He was quite certain that a rigid line would be a fatal mistake in the interests of the coalowners, and also in the interests of the shilling which the Chancellor of the Exchequer hoped to get from them. The matter was comparatively simple. There was a variety of employment, and there should be a variety of hours for working. Instead of inserting eight or ten or any other number of hours, let the Bill be a Bill for the "limitation of hours," and in that way the matter would be settled very speedily. If the word "eight" were taken out of the Bill it would be open to him to move an Amendment in the direction he indicated, which he was prepared to do.

said he agreed to a great extent with the remarks of the hon. Baronet. He considered that eight was objectionable, but thought that ten was objectionable also. He took it that his hon. and gallant friend intended the eight hours to apply to men at the face of the coal, and that ten hours was to mean from bank to bank, but there was no explanation as to why the one was substituted for the other. He thought the suggestion of the hon. Baronet a good one. To a great extent it followed the suggestion which he himself had made in a previous debate, when he proposed that the words "eight hours" should be omitted, and that the title should read, "The Mines Act, 1901." There was a third suggestion, which he thought would be applicable to all collieries, whether new or old, shallow or deep. It was suggested to him by a deputation of miners who waited on him some years ago. He had always a friendly feeling towards his mining friends and neigh tours, and supported the idea of an Eight Hours Bill, though not a Bill for a hard and fast eight hours from bank to bank. The leader of the deputation suggested that, if objection were taken to fixing the hours from bank to bank or at the face of the coal, eight hours should be fixed from station to station. That would put all pits on the same level, and the men would have no difficulty in getting from bank to station and back again.

I do not see how that arises on this Amendment. It may arise at a later stage, but at present the only Amendment is to substitute ten hours for eight hours.

said he was trying to show that his hon. and gallant friend, in moving to substitute ten for eight, had two ideas in his mind—one, eight hours at the face of the coal, and the other, ten hours from bank to bank. He was perfectly willing to adopt the suggestion proposed by the hon. Baronet, that the Bill should be described as "The Mines Limitation of Hours Act, 1901."

said he did not agree with his hon. and gallant friend in thinking that the alteration of eight to ten was the best Amendment that could be moved. His hon. and gallant friend had given very excellent reasons for making an alteration in the number eight, but his reasons for substituting ten were not as strong. There were, of course, seams of hard coal and seams of soft coal, and some pits were more easily worked than others. If the hours in all were limited to eight, then the owner of a pit having soft seams would be in a better position than the owner of a pit having hard seams. He should like to mention that they were now, on the title, practically discussing the whole merits of the Bill. It was quite a new thing in his Parliamentary experience that the whole of a Bill should be in the title, and it was extremely inconvenient. Reverting to hard and soft seams, in the majority of cases the collier was paid by the amount of coal he cut, and the consequence would be that a collier working on a hard seam, if the hours were limited to eight, would not be able to earn as much as a more fortunate brother who was working on a soft seam. Therefore, not only the proprietor but the collier would be injured. That emphasised very strongly the difficulty of attempting to limit the hours of adult labour. Again, it seemed to him very important, in connection with the Bill, how long it took a man to get from the surface to his work.

submitted that the remarks of the hon. Member were not relevant to the question before the Committee.

I do not think the hon. Gentleman has yet said anything irrelevant.

said his point was that if a hard-and-fast rule were fixed it would inflict an injury, and he was endeavouring to show how that injury would be brought about. He would say that he had never yet been called to order, and should be extremely sorry if that were to be his first occasion. He could assure hon. Members that it would be his endeavour not to break what he hoped he might consider an honourable record. He was discussing the question of the time occupied by a man in travelling from the bank to his work. In some places he believed that the distance was as much mile. [An HON. MEMBER: Three miles.] He also presumed that there were collieries where the distance was only half a mile, and therefore the provision in the Bill would be putting a great burden on the men who had to travel long distances. He thought he had shown that eight was perhaps not as good a figure as could be put in the Bill, but he was not at all sure that ten was the best figure that could be inserted. Ten hours would no doubt recompense the owner and the collier in a pit which it was difficult to work, because a longer time was necessary; but he thought it would be possible to put even something better in the Bill. The hon. Baronet opposite, who had very great experience in colliery matters, was very much against the word "ten," but he did not tell the Committee what he proposed to substitute for it.

said he suggested the withdrawal of the Amendment, in order that he might move to insert the words "limitation of hours."

said that the hon. Baronet did not tell the Committee whether he approved of any particular number of hours other than ten.

said he did not name any number of hours, owing to the variety of the work.

said that that was a very excellent sentiment. He would wish to know if it were allowable in discussing the omission to discuss whether any number should be inserted at all.

assented.

said he was glad of that, because it would give the Committee an opportunity of considering again whether it was desirable to insert any number of hours at all. They had heard only a few weeks ago of the fate that was shortly to overtake the coal industry. They were told that the industry was going to be ruined, and in view of that he asked whether it was advisable to put in any hours at all. By limiting the number of hours the output would unquestionably be limited also. The Hon. Member for the Wansbeck Division, in a very eloquent speech on the Second Reading, said that the real reason for the figure "eight" was because it was desired to limit the output.

said that he stated that the agitation for the limitation of hours began with that object.

said that was what he thought. When, however, it was found that that was unpopular in the country, a cover was thrown over it. He thought the position was very serious. Only a few hours ago he had read a long article in The Times, written by an hon. Gentleman in reply to the Secretary of State for India, showing that the limitation of working hours in England was tending to destroy industries and manufactures. The main thing required to make a successful industry or manufacture was cheap coal, but the Bill before the Committee would not cheapen coal, and if coal were not cheapened how was the country to resist the great competition from other parts of the world? That was a consideration which should induce every hon. Member to pause before he voted for the question which would be put from the Chair—" That 'eight' stand part of the clause." The question of cheap coal applied not only to manufactures, but also to individuals, and especially to the working classes of the country, and he doubted very much whether if eight were retained they would be doing a service to the miners themselves. There seemed to be an idea that work was a hard things: and ought to be avoided. He maintained that that was false in itself. No man was so happy as when he was really working hard.

The hon. Member is now approaching the point when I shall have to call him to order.

said he would continue his observations as to whether it was advisable to insert any particular number of hours at all in the Bill. He had endeavoured to show that competition by foreign countries where the hours of work were longer was very serious. The question now arose whether it would not be more advisable to leave out the number altogether. That would not prevent hon. Members from inserting in Clause 2 any number they liked; but, it would give the Committee an opportunity of considering whether any number of hours should be inserted at all. If his hon. and gallant friend would withdraw his Amendment another Amendment could then be moved to insert the words "hours of labour."

If the Committee? strike out from the clause the words; "eight hours" there will be a vacancy which can be filled up.

said if the word "eight" remained he understood it would not be in order to move another number, but that it would be in order to move the addition of a half.

said he was afraid that if they went to a division on the question "That 'eight' stand part of the clause" they would probably be defeated. The matter ought to be further discussed before stereotyping that number. If he could induce his hon. and gallant friend to withdraw his Amendment, then there would be no question before the Committee, and it would be possible for him to move to omit the words "eight hours."

If the Committee agrees to allow the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his Amendment, then another Amendment can be moved to leave out the words "eight hours" and insert some other words.

said he would appeal to his hon. and gallant friend to withdraw his Amendment. He did not suppose there would be any objection to inserting the words "hours of labour." He hoped his hon. and gallant friend would consider his appeal, but if there were reasons against it perhaps his hon. and gallant friend would state them.

said he would suggest that the better way would be to leave out the word "eight" and insert "limitation of."

said he strongly objected to the insertion of the words "ten hours," because no man was now in a pit ten hours, and he should be very sorry if he were. He thought the suggestion of the hon. Baronet was a very good one. His hon. friend who had just spoken objected to eight hours from bank to bank because of the difference it would make between various classes of labour. He should like to give the Committee a concrete case. He had a pit employing 600 men, and they had to be taken down in cages, twelve in a cage, a depth of 400 yards, which, with fifty cages, occupied half an hour. He had another pit employing 100 men, but they went down in five: minutes. The same applied when the men returned, and therefore the men in one pit were able to work fifty minutes longer than the men in the other. How could two collieries compete fairly when the men in one worked fifty minutes longer daily than the men in the other? At present men worked something less than seven hours, so that fifty minutes was a very large percentage indeed. But that was not all. When the men got down they had to get to the face of the coal. In one case the distance was one mile and three quarters, in the other only 100 yards. Although there was every possible mechanical contrivance to convey the men, the longer journey occupied forty minutes, whereas the 100 yards could be traversed under five minutes. That again meant a difference of seventy minutes per day. That was a very considerable time to be taken from the men's working hours. Would it be contended that a man who had worked for about five hours and was anxious to work longer should not be allowed to do so? That seemed to him to be preposterous. In the United States men worked eleven hours in the pits, and the price of coal was never more than half of the price of England. How was the manufacturing supremacy of England to be kept up if the article which enabled every manufacturer to carry on work was to be twice the price of the same article to his competitors? For his own part, he strongly deprecated long hours in the pits. He thought seven hours was quite sufficient, but he would not make a hard and fast rule. One of the first effects of the Act, if passed, would be that famine prices would rule, and that large sums would be paid into the pockets of the colliery proprietors, but ultimately the manufacturing supremacy of the country would be destroyed.

said he desired to say a few words with reference to the effect of the limitation of hours in the county of Northumberland. In Northumberland they had the oldest coalfield not only in the kingdom, but perhaps in the world, and the conditions under which it was worked would be entirely upset if the hours were limited to eight from bank to bank. It would be impossible for the men to cut the amount of coal which would justify them in receiving the wages they ought to receive if their hours were limited to that number. The great argument which had been used with reference to Northumberland and Durham was that boys, of which there was one shift to work with two shifts of hewers, were, some of them, obliged to work more than eight hours. As a matter of fact, although the boys were ten hours in the mine, those were not all working hours. They took half to three-quarters of an hour to get to their work, and during that time they were taking healthy gentle exercise in an atmosphere which was far more healthy than the atmosphere of the House of Commons. It did them no harm, and he would draw the attention of the House to the fact that for twenty generations the collieries of Northumberland had been worked on conditions similar to the conditions which now prevailed. If any hon. Member went down to Northumberland he would find a finer, healthier, and hardier set of men than in any other mining district in the world.

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."