House of Commons
Friday, July 26, 1901
Royal Assent
Commission
Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
The House went; and, being returned,
MR. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to a number of Bills (see page 181).
Private Bill Business
CHRIST'S HOSPITAL (LONDON) BILL [Lords]. (BY ORDER.)
As amended, considered.
(Kent, Tunbridge) said he had to apologise to the House in the first place for again bringing this Bill under its notice, seeing that it had already been twice discussed. He regretted that he had to ask the House to reject the clause which had been put in by the Committee upstairs, because, as a rule, he held that the House ought to support the, decisions of its Committee, which had heard the evidence and gone fully into the question. But he would state briefly the reasons which induced him to act as he was now doing. What had occurred in reference to the Bill? It was discussed on the motion for Second Reading, and again on an Instruction, before it was sent to a Committee, and the result was that the House agreed it should go to the Committee without any Instruction at all. It came, in fact, to the decision that, unless the Committee found otherwise, Christ's Hospital should have the right to sell its site free of all restrictions. The Committee practically endorsed the contention of the Governors, and passed the preamble of the Bill. They went further, and practically found the contention of the promoters to be true. But after this the Committee adopted a most extraordinary course. They inserted a clause giving the London County Council a right of pre-emption. Compulsory powers were granted to the Council to acquire a site in the City of London without any motion being given to the City Corporation. No machinery was put into the clause for raising the money, and they thus had an extraordinary roving commission given to the London County Council to buy or not, as they thought fit. Why should the County Council go outside its own jurisdiction to acquire a freehold in the City of London? He could only suppose they had in view some ulterior object which was not expressed in the Bill. At any rate, if the County Council exercised their option and acquired this site as an open space, the City of London would lose a large amount of rates over this area. That, however, was not a point which concerned the Charity Commissioners. He protested against the clause on behalf of that body, because the Commissioners thought it would do a great deal of damage to the charity. It gave the London County Council the right to buy the whole or part of the site within four months. If they decided to buy, there would be the delay of four months, and the charity would be kept out of its interest on the capital which it would otherwise immediately receive. In the second place, in that time the value of the site might fall tremendously, and, thirdly, at the end of the four months the London County Council might decide not to buy, and again the charity would be a great loser by the delay. If the County Council bought the site, the charity would be placed at the mercy of an arbitrator and the Lands Clauses Act. Though the arbitrator was bound to give a fair value for the site, yet the charity would not obtain so high a price as it otherwise would if it could sell in the open market. Part of this land by another Act was to be bought under the Lands Clauses Act by St. Bartholomew's Hospital. If the County Council bought the whole of the site, or prevented the Governors from dealing with it, and if they ran a street along the border portion bought by St. Bartholomew's Hospital, the arbitrator would be compelled to treat the land as back land. The result, therefore, of treating such land as back land instead of front land would be to penalise the charity to the extent of about £100,000. Was there any precedent for a compulsory clause being granted to a public body in connection with property without its having been stated that the land was needed for a public improvement? He submitted that there was none. Most grievous injustice would be done to the charity if at the end of the four months the County Council said they could not raise the money and would not therefore buy. He contended that this was a most monstrously unfair proposal, and, therefore, as a Charity Commissioner, he asked the House to reject the clause. They ought to consider this matter in connection with the whole history of the removal of the foundation into the country. The Governors of Christ's Hospital, as was perfectly well known, had no wish to remove into the country, but they were forced to do so in consequence of the action of a strong Royal Commission, which drew up a scheme and reported that—
"if Christ's Hospital is to be retained as a great boarding school, there seemed to he no reason why it should he placed in London, and we are given to understand that the sum which might be released by the sale of the present site would more than provide the cost of the removal."
Thus even the Royal Commission looked to the sale of the site without restriction. At the last moment, after rejecting the Instruction proposed by the hon. And learned Member for East Finsbury, the Committee had inserted this ridiculous clause. The school had not been well treated by the House. It had been forced to undertake this expensive move into the country at the express wish of Parliament. Was it the time, when everybody said we were paying insufficient attention to education, to penalise this great educational institution, as it would be penalised if this clause was retained? He begged to move the omission of Clause 6.
* (London), in seconding the Amendment, said the Bill had recently been so fully discussed that he need only say that its object was to enable the Almoners and Governors of Christ's Hospital to acquire the reversionary interests of the Corporation of London, the landowners, and, by the sanction of Parliament, to possess a free title, so as to enable them to sell or deal with the property to the best advantage in carrying into effect the great educational scheme of the Charity Commissioners passed by Parliament ten years back. The Bill passed the House of Lords unopposed, but when it appeared in the House of Commons the hon. and learned Member for East Finsbury raised on behalf of the London County Council all sorts of quibbles and objections. No tittle of evidence had been adduced to prove the assertion that a certain portion of the ground had been consecrated and set apart, within the meaning of the Act, as a burial ground, although undoubtedly burials had taken place there. As to the idea that an open space was required in New gate Street, it was really too absurd to be entertained by anyone. acquainted with the site, seeing that the Postmen's Park was on one side and St. Paul's Cathedral gardens within a few yards on the other, while only yesterday the Corporation of London added to their many open spaces for the benefit of the community and citizens of London by opening Finsbury Circus to the public. In regard to its antiquarian interest, with the exception of a few arches of great antiquity, which, with anything else of interest that might be found in excavating, were to be carefully preserved, nothing of antiquarian value existed. On the previous occasion the House took, as it invariably did, a broad and practical view of the case, and by a majority of two to one really said that, while there might be questions of a technical character surrounding a site with such ancient associations, it was yet prepared to waive those technicalities and give to the Governors a title which any purchaser could safely take without fear of having his position assailed and being led into costly and lengthened litigation. The Committee, however, unasked, had inserted a new clause, whereby the London County Council got far more than they had ever dreamt of asking for. They obtained by it the right of pre-emption to acquire any or all of the site. They were to have four months to consider the matter and six months to complete, during which period they were to pay no interest. That alone at 4 per cent., and on the assumption that they paid only the price offered outside—namely, £720,000—meant a loss to the charity of no less than £14,400. But it meant more than that. The County Council could not carry the option into effect without coming to Parliament with two Bills, one for money and one for power to use the ground for some specific purpose. Both of those Bills might be strenuously opposed, and, if either was lost the whole object of the clause would be wrecked. In the meantime any probable purchasers would long ago have thrown up all idea of dealing with the property. If the clause was allowed to remain, not only would the Governors be affected by practically having the eyes picked out of their property, but the local authority would be seriously affected by the fact that, whereas the scheme of the Governors contemplated a fine street being cut through from the top of Holborn Viaduct to St. Martin's-le-Grand, the County Council would be enabled to ignore entirely this much-needed adjunct to the traffic from east to west. But that would not be the whole extent of the loss to the locality. The City already paid one-eighth of the whole rates of the metropolis, and, if this dissipation of the ratepayers' money was permitted, it of course followed that one-eighth of the amount would fall on the City. Moreover, if the property remained an open space, or any such wildcat scheme was allowed, the City as the rating authority would receive little or nothing in rates from a property worth between £40,000 and £50,000 a year. He, therefore, with confidence asked the House to eliminate the clause, which, if passed, would make it impossible for the Governors to deal with any outside purchaser, and also inflict an injustice on the landowners, who had had no opportunity of stating their case, and who, as the local authority, felt bound to protest, not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the ratepayers.
Amendment proposed to be made to the Bill—
"In page 5, by leaving out Clause 6."—( Mr. Griffith-Boscawen. )
Question proposed, "That Clause 6 stand part of the Bill."
said that as chairman of the Committee about which so much had been said, he wished to put a few facts before the House. With regard to the question of Standing Orders, the City of London had full right to oppose before the Committee had they so pleased. There had been communications with them at the beginning of the year foreshadowing what afterwards took place in Committee, but at the same time there was no technical notice to the Corporation as to what was proposed to be done. They had the power of appearing before the House of Lords, and when they came before the Committee they were perfectly aware that the County Council were going to appear, and knew pretty well what the County Council were going to get.
* : On behalf of the Corporation of London I beg to say they had no notice whatever to appear.
said that when the Bill came before the Committee no objection was taken upon the question of Standing Orders. When it came before the Committee it was said that there was no evidence whatever of this being a disused burial ground, and therefore there was nothing upon which the London County Council could hang their hat. Having been for some time accustomed to deal with evidence, he did not agree with that, but at the same time the Committee had very grave doubts and difficulties with this matter. They endeavoured to do the very best they could for the charity. They inquired into all the matters connected with it, and came to a unanimous conclusion, which was written down and handed to the counsel on both sides. He could not say when that written suggestion was handed to counsel, but it was accepted by them and formed the ground of Clause 6. From that moment all discussion was based on that suggestion. The hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells was not quite accurate in what he had stated with regard to the final issues, because although he had found fault with what the Committee did, the written suggestion was in the hands of counsel for both sides before the Committee found the preamble proved. When they reserved the right to introduce this clause, it was then for the charity to reject or accept the offer of the Committee. Their counsel very cleverly accepted the preamble, but afterwards raised objections to the scheme. He could not now go into the general question of what was to be done with the land, though he did not agree with a great deal of what had been said, but both he and the Committee would gladly welcome any decision which the House came to on this subject.
said he hoped the House would excuse him for having risen for the first time to address it, but, having been a member of the Committee which was responsible for this clause, he desired to add a few observations words to those made by the chairman of the Committee. It seemed to him there was a considerable amount of misconception as to the motives which had prompted the Committee to insert the clause, and also as to the results it was likely to produce. If he might give his own experience, it was this. He was very much impressed when the Bill was brought before the Committee by the fact that the whole question had been prejudiced by the scheme of the Charity Commissioners in 1890. It was clear they had forced Christ's Hospital to sell and migrate to the country, and it was really a question as to how. that exchange from London to the country was to be effected. The Christ's Hospital Almoners came to this House with a Bill. There was a certain plot of land for which they did not think they could get a clear title. If they had a clear title they would have had no reason to come to this House. There was a certain plot in their property which was supposed to come under the Disused Burial Grounds Act. That was their belief, or they would never have come to Parliament.
The promoters never thought any part of the ground was subject to the Disused Burial Grounds Act. It was only to allay the doubts and give a clear title to an intending purchaser.
said it amounted to exactly the same thing. They wanted to give a valid title to an intending purchaser, and they came to Parliament to remove any doubt there might be with regard to it. The Committee had eminent counsel before them, and the Committee saw there were good reasons to suppose that this cloister did come under the Disused Burial Grounds Act. The Committee were much impressed with the importance of making the title of the Christ's Hospital clear, so that they might be able to sell their land in order to migrate to the country. The Committee gave the clear title, and the House confirmed it on the Second Reading. The position of the London County Council in the matter was, in the first place, that they had certain rights over burial grounds. He admitted it was extremely doubtful whether they had rights over burial grounds in the City, but it was clear that, by the Act of 1892, they were empowered to exercise a sort of general interest over all historic memorials in the County of London and adjoining counties, and that gave them a certain locus standi in the county. No one would deny the great historic interest attached to the site of Christ's Hospital, which dated from the time of the Grey Friars, and was endowed by Edward VI. All that the I Committee had done by inserting the clause was to enable the County Council, if they could persuade the people of London to do so, to purchase this site for London. It had been suggested by the hon. Member who had moved the rejection that as a consequence this site might go to the speculative builder, but whatever might be said of the London. County Council it could not be said that they ever treated a subject like this in that way. The only point before the House was how Clause 6 affected the interests of Christ's Hospital. He could not see that it affected it in any way. The Committee had valued this as a building site in the interests of the Charity. The London County Council desired to acquire it at the value of a disused burial ground, which was nil, but the Committee were of opinion that if they were to acquire it at all they must acquire it at its building value. Therefore he failed to see how Christ's Hospital could materially suffer thereby. The only way in which he could see Christ's Hospital could lose anything was the interest on their money for four months, but that did not seem much to ask of a charity like this, in order that the County Council might have an opportunity of acquiring for London one of the most historic spots which remained untouched by the vandalism of commercial life in our city.
regretted that the Chairman of the Committee was not well enough to be in the House, because if he had been he would have told the House that this Bill originally was a Bill to clear the title of the Governors of Christ's Hospital to this site, in order to enable them to sell to any purchaser; but the effect of this clause had been to transform the Bill into an Enabling Bill, to enable the County Council to take this property compulsorily after giving certain notice. He had considerable doubt as to whether it was any part of the duty of the Committee to do that. It was distinctly decided that this scheme was to be a scheme which would enable the Governors, of Christ's Hospital to sell to the whole world, and this clause had changed the whole tenor of the Bill. This was a much more serious matter than it looked at first sight. One very important axiom laid down by the general practice of the House was that if any persons' rights were going to be affected by any Bill the promoters were bound to give those persons notice; that was an elementary proposition affecting the whole procedure of private Bill legislation. What was the case of the City of London to-day might be the case of anybody else to-morrow, and in his opinion the House ought to be a zealous guardian of these rules. If they were going to take compulsorily the land of any individual charity or body of persons, and so shut out every other possible purchaser, they ought to give them notice. That was a fundamental rule which had not been followed in this case. They ought not to interfere with the rights of another person without giving them notice, and in this particular Bill the effect of what the Committee had done was that they had seriously affected the rights of the City of London without giving them notice. They had not been given proper formal notice, and it was useless to contend that the City of London knew all about it. That was not the point. He hoped the House would reject this clause, because the rights of the City of London were very seriously affected by it.
said the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had raised certain technical objections, but he had not been able to obtain the advice or support of the legal advisers who usually advised the House upon these questions. They had regarded those objections with a certain amount of doubt, and the legal advisers of the House were not prepared to recommend in the sense his right hon. friend had advocated. The mover and seconder of this motion, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sowerby, were wrong in asserting that the City of London had received no notice. He had been informed by the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee of the County Council that the Clerk of the Council, acting on instructions, had written to the City Remembrancer informing him of the intentions of the County Council in this matter in the month of February last. That letter was written because it was thought that the City Corporation might be interested, and might desire to appear before the Committee. It had been said that they would be injuring the governors of Christ's Hospital by robbing them of the interest on their property. Hon. Members did not appear to be aware that just about one hour ago the Royal Assent had been given to a Bill giving St. Bartholomew's Hospital three months in which to decide whether they would buy up the whole or any portion of this site. Therefore, it was against the law that the governors should sell immediately. Four months was to be allowed to the County Council to decide after the passage of this Act. The Parliamentary Committee of the London County Council had set all their machinery at work to gain all the information they could in order to make up their minds as soon as possible. Their intention was to decide the matter in less than three months. It was said that the London County Council ought not to have any jurisdiction in these matters in the City of London, but an Act had been passed which gave powers to the London County Council to take charge of all buildings of historic interest within the whole administrative county of London, including the City itself. This very Act entitled the County Council to spend money for this purpose. The hon. Member for Plymouth had stated that they had so few sites of historic interest of old London left that it would be a grievous pity if they could not, by some means or other, save this one of the very few historical sites. He submitted that the House ought to support the Committee in this case with even greater emphasis than they usually support Committees.
* : I should be very sorry to find fault with the Committee upon this matter, for they no doubt exercised what they considered to be a wise discretion in arriving at this decision. I think, however, that anyone who has listened to the speeches of the three hon. Members of the Committee who have already spoken must be struck with the fact that they have not announced one single tangible reason for the action of the Committee. Perhaps I ought to make an exception in the case of the hon. Member for Plymouth. The reason he gave was that it was desirable that that portion of the site of historic value should be preserved. I think the real question for the House to consider is whether the proposal in this clause is likely seriously to damage the value of the property of the charity, and if it does, whether there is any justification for it. The question before the House is whether this proposal is likely to damage the value of this property. Most of the hon. Gentlemen who have spoken assume that all the London County Council has to do is, within a certain time to say whether they will buy this site or not. That is not by any means the case. The County Council can, in accordance with the clause, exercise their right of pre-emption, not merely over the whole, but over any part of the site.
said the arbitrator had to decide how much they were to buy.
* : The clause says that they can exercise their right with regard to the whole or any portion of this site. What position does that place the charity in? It is not only a question of the charity lying out of the interest on their money for a certain period, but they cannot treat with a desirable purchaser, for they do not know what they may have to sell. They may have the whole to sell or only a portion, and it is possible that a particular portion may be taken which would enormously impair the value of the whole. If they had a purchaser in view for the whole, and the County Council decided to take a portion, then it would be a great blow to the charity to lose that customer. Thus the charity may be deprived of a very desirable purchaser, and may, in the long run, not be able to obtain anything like the value of their property.
(Staffordshire, Lichfield) pointed out that compensation for severance would cover that.
* : I maintain that any compensation for severance which is likely to be given would not in any way represent what would be the loss to this charity.
said the right hon. Gentleman had entirely missed the point that the governors were forbidden to sell under the Act passed an hour ago.
* : The case of the option given to St. Bartholomew's Hospital is not a parallel case, because that body has only the right to purchase a definite portion of the site, an acre or an acre and a half.
No, the whole.
* : I am informed that the only right which St. Bartholomew's Hospital have is the option of purchasing an acre and a half. If that is so the House will see that that is a totally different position from that which would arise if the London County Council were given the power to take any part which they chose of this site and so damage the whole. If that be so, what justification is there for this proposal? Certainly an open space is not wanted in New gate Street, and there is no public demand for it. I believe that if the Bill is passed in its present form it will seriously affect the value of the property belonging to the charity, the money for which is required for the purpose of building schools elsewhere—a task imposed upon the charity by Parliament. Parliament, I maintain, ought to be extremely careful to see that it does not cripple this charity in the manner in which I am afraid this proposal will undoubtedly cripple it. I shall certainly vote for the excision of this clause.
said he had great respect for the Home Secretary but he did not recognise him as a great authority upon London questions, and the right hon. Gentleman did not know as much about the law of arbitration as he knew himself. It was absurd to say that the charity would suffer by this clause. The amount of blocking that had taken place in regard to this measure was surprising, and it was an extraordinary thing that when an attempt was made to upset this measure by a few hon. Members of this House a Member of the Government should be found ready to support them.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes, 129; Noes, 185. (Division List, No. 367.)
AYES Abraham, William (Rhondda) Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N. Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N.E.) Fuller, J. M. F. O'Connor, J. (Wicklow, W.) Allen, Chas. P. (Glouc., Stroud) Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert J. O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) Ambrose, Robert Grey, Sir Edward (Berwick) O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W. Bailey, James (Walworth) Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill O'Dowd, John Barry, E. (Cork, S. Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.), Beaumont, Went worth C. B. Hammond, John O'Malley, William Bell, Richard Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil O'Shaughnessy, P. J. Boland, John Harrington, Timothy Partington, Oswald Boyle, James Hayden, John Patrick Paulton, James Mellor Brigg, John Hayne, Rt. Hn. Charles Seale- Pirie, Duncan V. Bryce, Rt. Hon. James Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. Power, Patrick Joseph Burt, Thomas Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. Priestley, Arthur Caldwell, James Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) Reddy, M. Cameron, Robert Horniman, Frederick John Redmond, John E. (Waterford) Campbell, J. (Armagh, S.) Jacoby, James Alfred Richards, Henry Charles Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. Jones, William (Carnarvonsh. Rickett, J. Compton Carew, James Lawrence Joyce, Michael Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion) Cayzer, Sir Charles William Kay-Shuttleworth, RtHn. Sir U Robertson, Edmund (Dundee) Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) Kearley, Hudson E. Roche, John Channing, Francis Allston Kinloch, Sir John G. Smvth Schwann, Charles E. Condon, Thomas Joseph Labouchere, Henry Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew) Craig, Robert Hunter Lambert, George Sheehan, Daniel Daniel Crombie, John William Leamy, Edmund Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire) Cullinan, J. Leese, Sir J. F. (Accrington) Spencer, Rt. Hn C R (Northants Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) Leigh, Sir Joseph Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. Delany, William Lewis, John Herbert Strachey, Edward Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh. Lloyd-George, David Sullivan, Donal Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Lough, Thomas Tennant, Harold John Doogan, P. C. Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale) Thomas, David A. (Merthyr) Duffy, William J. Lundon, W. Tully, Jasper Duncan, J. Hastings MacNeill, John Gordon Swift Wallace, Robert Dunn, Sir William M'Dermott, Patrick Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) Edwards, Frank M'Govern, T. Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. Elibank, Master of Malcolm, Ian Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan) Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas Mansfield, Horace Rendall Weir James Galloway Emmott, Alfred Middlemore, J. Throgmorton White, Luke (York, E. R.) Farrell, James Patrick Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) Fenwick, Charles Murphy, John Woodhouse, Sir J T (Huddersf'd) Ferguson, R. C. Munrc (Leith) Nannetti, Joseph P. Yoxall, James Henry Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmund Nolan, Col. J. P. (Galway, N.) Flavin, Michael Joseph Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Augustus Godson and Mr. Edward Morton. Flower, Ernest O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork) Flynn, James Christopher O'Brien, K. (Tipperary Mid) Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) NOES. Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F. Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John Digby, John K. D. Wingfield- Agg-Gardner, James Tynte Bullard, Sir Harry Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon Aird, Sir John Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. Dorington, Sir John Edward Anstruther, H. T. Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- Arkwright, John Stanhope Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire Doxford, Sir William Theodore Arnold-Forster, Hugh O. Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin. Arrol, Sir William Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm. Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir William Hart Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r Fardell, Sir T. George Bagot, Capt. Josceline Fitz Roy Chapman, Edward Fellowes, Hn. Ailwyn Edward Bain, Col. James Robert Charrington, Spencer Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manc'r) Coddington, Sir William Fisher, William Hayes Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds) Coghill, Douglas Harry Fison, Frederick William Balfour, Maj KR. (Christchurch Cohen, Benjamin Louis Flannery, Sir Fortescue Banbury, Frederick George Cellings, Rt. Hon. Jesse Fletcher, Sir Henry Bartley, George C. T. Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) Garfit, William Beach, Rt. Hn. W.W. B. (Hants. Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) Gibbs, Hn. A.G. H. (City of Lond Beckett, Ernest William Dalkeith, Earl of Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin&Nairn Bignold, Arthur Davenport, William Bromley- Gordon, Maj Evans- (T'r H'mlets- Blundell, Colonel Henry Davies, Sir Horatio D. (Chatham Gore, Hn G. R. C. Ormsby- (Salop Bond, Edward Denny, Colonel Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby- (Linc.) Bowles, T. Gibson (King'sLynn) Dewar, T. R. (T'rH'mlets, S. Geo. Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon. Brassey, Albert Dickson, Charles Scott Goulding, Edward Alfred Gray, Ernest (West Ham) Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) Green, W. D. (Wednesbury) Macdona, John Cumming Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury) M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) Ropner, Colonel Robert Greene. W. Raymond-(Cambs. M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire) Rutherford, John Greville, Hon. Ronald Majendie, James A. H. Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- Hamilton, Rt. Hn Lord G. (Mid'x Manners, Lord Cecil Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander Harris, Frederick Leverton Mapel, Sir John Blundell Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse) Haslett, Sir James Horner Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.) Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert Hay, Hon. Claude George Mellor, Rt. Hn. John William Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. Edw. J Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley Mitchell, William Sharpe, William Edward T. Heath, James (Staffords., N. W.) Moon, Edward Robert Pacy Simeon, Sir Barrington Higginbottom, S. W. More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire) Sinclair, Louis (Romford Hoare, E. Brodie (Hampstead) Morgan, David j (Walthamstow Skewes-Cox, Thomas Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside Morrell, George Herbert Smith, H. C. (North' mb Tynside Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry Morris, Hon. Martin Henry F. Smith, James Parker (Lanarks Hoult, Joseph Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford Spear, John Ward Hozier, Hn. James Henry C. Mount, William Arthur Stanley, Hon. A. (Ormskirk) Hudson, George Bickersteth Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. Stanley, Edward J. (Somerset) Jackson, Rt. Hn. Wm. Lawies Muntz, Philip A. Stanley, Lord (Lanes.) Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick Myers, William Henry Stroyan, John Jessel, Capt. Herbert Merton Nicholson, William Graham Thorburn, Sir Walter Johnston, William (Belfast) Nichol, Donald Ninian Thornton, Percy M. Johnstone, Hey wood (Sussex) Palmer, Sir Charles M. (Durham Tollemache, Henry James King, Sir Henry Seymour Parker, Gilbert Tomlinson, William Edw. M. Knowles, Lees Pease. Alfred E. (Cleveland) Tritton, Charles Ernest Law, Andrew Bonar Platt-Higgins, Frederick Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir W. H. Lawrence, Joseph (Monmouth) Plummer, Walter R. Wanklyn, James Leslie Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool) Powell, Sir Francis Sharp Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney Lawson, John Grant Pretyman-Ernest George Webb, Col. William George Lecky, Rt. Hn. William Edw. H. Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C. E. (Taunton Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareh'm Purvis, Robert Wills, Sir Frederick Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage Randles, John S. Wilson, John (Falkirk) Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S. Rankin, Sir James Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks) Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) Rasch, Major Frederic Carne Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath) Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S. Ratcliff, R. F. Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm Lonsdale, John Brownlee Reid, James (Greenock) Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- Lowe, Francis William Renshaw, Charles Bine Wrightson, Sir Thomas Lowther, Rt. Hon. James (Kent) Rentoul, James Alexander Loyd, Archie Kirkman Renwick, George TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Griffith-Boscawen and Sir Joseph Dimsdale. Lucas, Col. Francis(Lowestoft) Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green) Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson
said he wished to move a small Amendment which had been accepted by the promoters in order to make it clear that the site known as the Postman's Park was not included.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 9, line 27, after the word 'thereof,' to insert the words 'but not such part there of as is situated on the eastern side of the street now known as King Edward Street.' "—( Mr. Austen Chamberlain. )
Amendment agreed to.
Bill to be read the third time.
Private Bills [Lords] (Standing Orders not Previously Inquired Into Complied With)
laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.:—
Llanelly Harbour Bill [Lords].
Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.
Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley, and Dukinfield Tramways and Electricity Board Bill
Wells Corporation Water Bill
Lords' Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Long Eaton Gas Bill. (by Order.)
Lords' Amendments considered, and agreed to.
ALBION STEAM COAL COMPANY BILL [Lords]
Read the third time, and passed, with an Amendment.
STOCKPORT CORPORATION WATEK BILL [Lords]
King's consent signified; read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
DONCASTER TITHE TRUST BILL [Lords]
EASTON AND CHURCH HOPE RAILWAY BILL [Lords]
NEWPORT (ISLE OF WIGHT) GAS BILL [Lords]
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
HARROGATE WATER BILL [Lords]. (BY ORDER.)
As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
Message from the Lords
That they have agreed to—Blackburn Corporation Bill, Dublin (Equalisation of Rates) Bill, with Amendments.
That they have agreed to Consequential Amendments to, Shannon Water and Electric Power Bill.c
That they have agreed to Amendments to—Bolton Corporation Bill [Lords], without amendment.
Kilmarnock Corporation Order Confirmation Bill
[UNDER THE PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.]
Read the third time, and passed.
KIRKCALDY AND DYSART WATER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL [Lords]
[UNDER THE PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.]
Read the third time, and passed, without amendment.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL [Lords]
Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL [Lords]
Reported, without amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 8) BILL [Lords]
Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 9) BILL [Lords]
Reported, without amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 11) BILL [Lords]
Reported with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as Amended, to be considered, upon Monday next.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 12) BILL [Lords]
Reported, without amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.
EDUCATION BOARD PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (BARNES, ETC.) BILL [Lords]
Reported, without amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.
TRAMWAYS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 2) BILL [Lords]
Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Bill, as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.
CORK, BLACKROCK, AND PASSAGE RAILWAY BILL [Lords]
WESTON-SUPER-MARE GAS BILL [Lords]
Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
CARDIFF RAILWAY BILL [Lords]
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
SOUTHPORT WATER (TRANSFER) BILL [Lords]
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
MANCHESTER AND LIVERPOOL ELECTRIC EXPRESS RAILWAY BILL [Lords]
reported from the Committee on the Manchester and Liverpool Electric Express Railway Bill [Lords]: That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned until Tuesday next, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.
STRATTON AND BUDE IMPROVEMENT BILL [Lords]
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Petitions
Agricultural Rates Act (1896), Etc., Continuance Bill
Petitions in favour, from Cambuslang; Kilmarnock; Barvas; Biggar; and Inverness-shire; to lie upon the Table.
Burgh Sewerage, Drainage, and Water Supply (Scotland) Bill
Petition from Dunfermline, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
Sale of Intoxicating Liquors to Children Bill
Petitions in favour, from Clitheroe (eight); Barnstaple; Alloa; New Brompton; and Carlisle; to lie upon the Table.
Sovereign's Oath on Accession Bill
Two Petitions from South London, against; to lie upon the Table.
Returns, Reports, Etc
East India (Public Works Department)
Return presented, relative thereto [Address 23rd July; Sir Seymour King ]; to lie upon the Table.
Explosives
Copy presented, of Twenty-fifth Annual Report of His Majesty's Inspectors of Explosives, being for the year 1900 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
Horse Breeding (Royal Commission)
Copy presented, of Eighth Report of the Royal Commission on Horse Breeding, with Appendices [by command]; to lie upon the Table.
Superannuation Act, 1887
Copy presented, of Return for the year ended 31st March, 1901, of the Army and Navy Officers permitted,, under Rule 2 of the Regulations drawn up under Section 6 of the Act, to hold Civil Employment of profit under Public Departments [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 285].
Land Registry
Account presented, of Receipts and Payments in respect of the Land Registry for the year ended 31st March, 1901 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed [No. 286.]
High Court of Justice and Court of Appeal, Etc
Copy presented, of Account showing the Receipts and Expenditure in respect of the High Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal during the year ended 31st March, 1901 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 287.]
Colonial Reports (Annual)
Copy presented, of Report, No. 327 (Bahamas, Annual Report for 1900) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
Army (Volunteer Corps)
Copy presented, of Annual Return of the Volunteer Corps of Great Britain for the year 1900 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbours Company (Cork and Fermoy Railway Abandonment)
Copy ordered, "of Correspondence between the Treasury and the Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbours Company in reference to the suggested abandonment of the direct Cork and Fermoy line."—( Mr. Austen Chamberlain. )
Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 284.]
Questions
Questions
South African War—Army-Deaths from Disease
I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can now state the number of cases of typhoid fever and the number of deaths from that disease among the troops in South Africa for the complete month of April last, and also the number of cases and the number of deaths for the first four weeks or, if possible, for the whole month of May.
The figures are forwarded in weekly Returns, and cannot therefore be calculated for any one exact month. From Returns received since the 25th June the deaths for the four weeks ending the 26th April are now given as 194. For the five weeks ending the 31st May the admissions were 2,300 and the deaths 326.
Concentration and Refugee Camps
I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will request the committee of ladies who are about to visit and report upon the Boer concentration camps in South Africa to also visit and report upon the loyalist refugee camps.
It is not thought necessary to extend the scope of the inquiry of the committee; but, in view of the fact that the Mansion House Fund for the relief of the Uitlander refugees will shortly be exhausted, Lord Milner proposes to advise the Government immediately on his return as to what further help is necessary, and he will have before him reports of the various responsible committees who have taken part in the distribution of relief as to the state of affairs.
Will Miss Hobhouse be invited to join this committee of ladies?
I have already answered that question.
No; she knows too much about it.
Execution of Rebels—Compulsory Attendance of Burghers
I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will obtain information by telegraph from South Africa and communicate to the House what were the exceptional circumstances connected with the compulsion of British colonists to witness the execution of their countryman at Dordrecht; who gave the order for such compulsion, if it had the sanction of the Commander-in-Chief in South Africa, and if it has now the sanction of His Majesty's Government, and, if not, whether the officer responsible for it has been punished; were these, colonists convicted criminals or prisoners, under what penalty did they attend, and what object was gained by such compulsion.
I think it would be preferable to await a detailed report on the matter, for which I have asked.
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether in such a matter as this, which excites keen attention in the public mind, and in regard to which the Government has been arraigned at the bar of civilised nations—
* : Order, order!
Has the right hon. Gentleman asked for this report by telegram?
[No answer was given.]
repeated his question.
* : Order, order!The question on the Paper has been answered: the right hon. Gentleman said he was not in a position to make any answer.
Imperial Yeomanry—Pay
I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether all soldiers of the Imperial Yeomanry lately discharged after service in South Africa have been granted one month's furlough on full pay or its equivalent previous to discharge; and, if this is not the case, whether he will take steps to grant them this pay; and will he make arrangements that all members of the Imperial Yeomanry lately returned from. South Africa who have not yet received their pay in full, some of whom have in consequence suffered hardship, may receive a large proportion of the amount they claim on presentation of their case before the proper authority.
No furlough of thirty days is given to the Imperial Yeomanry, who are soldiers paid at 5 s. a day, and not at ordinary Army rates; but their discharges are post-dated seven days for administrative purposes, in order to give time for their discharges to be completed. The instructions given in regard to payment of arrears of pay have been already explained to the House.
Beaufort West Reverse
I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether General Scheepers obtained any, and if so, what supplies of rifles and ammunition in the train captured by him at Beaufort West on the 21st instant, and whether any British soldiers were then taken prisoners by the Boers; and if so, can he say what has become of them.
No information beyond that published has been telegraphed from South Africa. I am therefore unable to reply to the hon. Member's question.
Will you telegraph to South Africa for information?
[No answer was returned.]
Forfeitures of Pensions
I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state under which clause or article of the Royal Warrant Thomas Mackie was deprived of his pension, and whether, in view of the punishment that Mackie has now undergone for a technical breach of the regulations, he will consider whether the time has come to restore this man's pension in full.
Mackie was deprived of his pension under Article 1212 (b) of the Pay Warrant, which renders a pension liable to forfeiture for gross misconduct. The Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital, who have recently considered the case, regarded the pensioner as unworthy of a fuller restoration.
What was there against this man? Has he ever been convicted of any criminal offence, or has he lost his pension for a mere technical breach of the law?
I can say no more than I have already done.
What was the offence?
* : It is not in order to discuss the answer now.
Remission of Sentences on Soldiers
I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is aware that Private Michael M'Mahon, No. 6,449, 1st Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers, whose age was sixteen years on the 13th of May last, has been in prison since November, 1900, for breach of military discipline in South Africa; and whether, taking his youth into account, the Commander-in-Chief will consider the advisability of remitting the rest of this soldier's sentence.
The hon. Member has been already told that this soldier's sentence had been partly remitted by the Commander-in-Chief. He will be released on the 16th August.
King's Liverpool Regiment
I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether an order has been issued or is about being issued for the disbanding of the 3rd and 4th Battalions of the King's Liverpool Regiment, now stationed in Ireland; can he state the reason for such an order and whether the Commander of the Forces in Ireland, or any other general there, or any officer connected with the battalions were communicated with before the step was determined on; is he aware that the breaking up of these battalions, raised in February, 1900, has caused dissatisfaction to the officers and men, and will he say how it is proposed to compensate the officers and noncommissioned officers for the loss of rank immediate and in the future and prospect of promotion, also those on the staff of the battalions in question; and will the men forming the battalions b e drafted against their will into other regiments or be given the option of leaving the service.
I must ask the hon. Member to refer to my reply to a question put yesterday by my hon. friend the Member for the Devizes Division of Wiltshire. † The men will be absorbed in due course in the other battalions. The mode of absorption of the officers is under consideration.
Will justice be done to the officers in the matter of promotion?
Every consideration will be shown them.
Dockyard Joiners' Wages
I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, having regard to the fact that joiners employed in His Majesty's dockyards at Portsmouth, and elsewhere are paid, if hired, 31s. and if established 29s. 6d., per week, and that joiners employed doing the same class of work for private employers in. Portsmouth receive 35s. 6d. a week,, whether he can state what the Government propose to do to bring the dockyard joiners up to the same wage level, as those employed by private firms.
According to the information at the disposal of the Admiralty, the rate for outside joiners at Portsmouth is 33s. 9d., and not 35s 6d. as stated in the question. Outside joiners work for fifty-four hours a week; hired joiners in the dockyard work forty-eight hours a week, for which they receive 31s. It appears, therefore, that the rate per hour paid to the hired joiners in the dockyard is in excess of that paid to joiners outside, and is only five-hundredths of a penny less than the higher rate which the hon. Member alleges is paid. Under these circumstances the Admiralty are not prepared to make any change in the wages of the joiners in the dockyard.
Will the hon. Gentleman cause inquiries to be made as to the rates paid outside?
The answer I have just given is the result of inquiries which have been made. If the hon. Gentleman will put a further question, I will inquire into it.
Trials of Navy Boilers
I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can now give particulars of the sea trials of the "Minerva" and "Hyacinth."
The President of the Boiler Committee is now preparing a statement of the facts respecting these trials, and if the hon. Member will move for it I will present it as soon as possible.
Gibraltar Defence Works
I beg to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether His Majesty's Government intend to include in the sum to be asked for in the Naval Works Bill any, and, if so, what sum to be expended in respect of the harbour on the eastern side of the Rock of Gibraltar, the construction of which the Gibraltar Committee reported to be imperatively necessary.
* : No sum will be taken in the Bill for the construction of an eastern harbour at Gibraltar, but a survey will be made of the site recommended by the Committee.
Will the cost of this survey be charged in the Naval Works Bill?
* : The cost of this survey will probably he charged to the heading "Superintendence" in the Naval Works Bill.
Fiji—Government of Natives
I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if the attention of the Government has been called to the Order in Council perpetrated by His Majesty's representative in Fiji, by which His Majesty's subjects can be summarily condemned to six months imprisonment with hard labour for expression of political opinion; and whether, in the event of the said Order being authentic, he will give immediate instructions for its withdrawal and for the recall of the Governor.
My attention has been drawn to telegrams in the press reporting that the Governor of Fiji has passed an ordinance making it a penal offence to attempt to cause any native of Fiji to be disaffected towards the Government, but I am not aware whether such an ordinance has actually been passed or brought into operation. I have telegraphed to the Governor making inquiry on the subject, and instructing him in the event of such an ordinance having been passed to suspend operations tinder it pending my instructions.
Uganda Railway—Allegations Against Officials
I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been called to the judgment given last June by Mr. Justice R. B. P. Cator in His Majesty's Court at Mombasa in a civil action on a claim against the Uganda Railway of Rs. 60,000 for goods supplied, where the judge stated that he had come to the conclusion from the evidence that there was a conspiracy of the railway officials to defraud, though he was not in a position to suggest the names of the guilty individuals; and whether, on the strength of Judge Cator's verdict in this case, the Government will instruct their officials to hold an inquiry on the spot and report to the Foreign Office.
* : Yes; the judgment is in the possession of His Majesty's Government. Judge Cator, who is in this country and has been consulted, is strongly of opinion that it would be useless to hold an inquiry, but His Majesty's Commissioner will be instructed to confer with the chief engineer and to report on the subject.
China—Russian Concessions at Tientsin
* : I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state what reply has been received from the Russian Government with regard to the assertion of rights of ownership within the alleged Tientsin concession since the date of the temporary settlement of the matter in the spring; and what state of things has followed the withdrawal of the troops from the railway sidings.
* : The Russian Government, as I have already stated, have admitted that the question of the validity of the claims of ownership on either side is reserved for examination and decision by the two Governments, and cannot be prejudiced in any way by the action of local authorities. His Majesty's Ambassador at St. Petersburg has recently informed the Russian Government that pending this decision the status quo previous to the concession made by Li Hung Chang should remain in force so far as to enable the railway administration and British owners of land within the area in dispute to do, without obstruction from the Russian authorities, anything which could have been done while that area was under Chinese jurisdiction.
European Governesses for Turkey
I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to the Irade recently issued by the Sultan of Turkey forbidding the employment of European governesses in Mohammedan houses; whether he will state whether the Irade is in accordance with the Capitulations; and what steps he proposes to take.
* : We have no knowledge of the Irade referred to, but inquiry will be made on the subject.
Coal Exports
I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if his attention has been called to the reduction in the export of coal from the United Kingdom in June, 1901, compared with the corresponding month of last year, being for June, 1900, 4,169,724 tons, and for June, 1901, 3,714,134 tons, equal to a reduction of about 10 per cent. on the total export; and if he will state approximately the number of tons exported under contract in June, 1900, and therefore free from the coal duty, and in June, 1901, respectively.
My attention has been called to these figures. But the trade in June, 1900, was exceptionally inflated, and the exports in the whole quarter ending with June this year were considerably more than in the corresponding quarter of 1899, and not much below that of 1900. I cannot make the comparison asked for in the last paragraph, because I do not yet know how much of the exports under contract in June, 1901, will prove to be entitled to exemption.
Millwall Electric Storage Company
I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can now state what action has been taken to prosecute the parties responsible for the violation of the special rules at the works of the Electric Storage Company, West Ferry, Mill wall, and to secure better conditions for the workpeople.
* : Legal proceedings were taken against this company in May last which resulted in a conviction. Fines and costs amounting to £10 were imposed. I have received a report from the Medical Inspector of Factories to the effect that the special rules are now being observed at the works, and that a complete system of ventilation in the mixing process is being introduced.
Borstal Prison Rules
I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can state what are the special privileges to be given to prisoners in the third grade under the Borstal Prison Rules now on the Table of the House.
* : The Standing Orders which will regulate these matters have not yet been prepared, but it is proposed that the special privileges shall be (l) right to recommendation for special remission; (2) extra gratuity; (3) extra facilities for letters and visits.
Prevention of Railway Accidents
I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, having regard to the fact that during the year 1900 as many as 1,325 persons were killed and 19,572 injured on the railways in the United Kingdom, irrespective of the number of railway servants whose injuries have not prevented them engaging in their ordinary employment for five hours on any of the three working days next after the accident is reported, will he state what steps the Board of Trade propose to take with a view to secure the general application of a satisfactory automatic coupling and other safety appliances.
I must point out that the figures given by the hon. Member represent the gross total of fatal and non-fatal accidents that occurred on or about railways during the year. They therefore include such accidents as those that occurred on platforms or platform approaches, etc. suicides and attempted suicides, and all accidents that occurred to passengers and trespassers, as well as to railway servants. From the conclusion of the question I gather that the accident; to which the hon. Member intended to refer are those that occurred to railway servants in the working of traffic. Of these there were in 1900 583 fatal and 4,585 non-fatal. These numbers are still deplorably large, and I trust they may in future years show some diminution through the operation of the Act passed last year. The Board have drafted and are taking the necessary steps to bring into force rules under Section 1, Sub-section 1, of that Act. With regard to automatic couplings, I can only refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave to a similar question by the hon. Member for Derby on the 28th June.†
Lights Off the Western Highlands
I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, having regard to the fact that the lighting of the inner channels off the coasts of the Western Highlands is such as to render navigation dangerous, will he ascertain from the Lighthouse Commissioners if they will take steps to provide additional lights and fog signals.
I am informed by the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses that the lighting of the inner channels off the coasts of the Western Highlands is receiving their attention. Certain lights are being proceeded with at the present time, and others are under consideration.
North British Railway—Red Cap Boys
I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, seeing that the work of the Red Cap boys in the employ of the North British Railway Company at South Leith is so heavy that in the opinion of His Majesty's Inspector of Railways these boys are not physically able to perform their work, in accordance with the instructions laid down, for so long a period as they work at present, will he state whether the North British Railway Company have taken any steps since the fatal accident at South Leith Docks to Robert A. Mackay, age fifteen, to reduce the hours of labour, and, if so, will he state how many hours per day the boys now work.
The sub-Inspector of Railways appointed to inquire into the fatal accident referred to recommended that the railway company should be asked to consider the advisability of reducing the hours of these boys. The Board of Trade accordingly urged this matter upon the attention of the railway company concerned. In reply returns were furnished of the actual hours worked by these boys for a
† See Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. xcvi., page 268.
week. The total periods of duty shown therein extended in several cases to eleven and three-quarters or twelve hours, but these periods included numerous intervals of rest, amounting in the aggregate to some four or five hours. The company did not admit that the boys were overworked, and pointed out that the speed of the trains which it is their duty to attend (for warning purposes) is limited to three miles an hour. I understand, however, that the company will again consider the matter.
Railway Bye Laws—Model Code
I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the railway companies have yet agreed upon a model code of railway bye-laws; and, if not, will he ascertain the cause of the delay.
I am afraid I can add nothing to the reply which I gave the hon. Member on March 15th.†
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this matter has been under consideration for some years? Is it not time some announcement was made?
[No answer was returned.]
Motor Cars—Speed Regulations
I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the fact that motor-cars are driven on the Continent at a higher rate of speed than allowed by law in this country; and will he consider the expediency of introducing legislation such as will admit of motor cars being driven in rural districts at a higher speed than at present allowed.
I am aware of the fact referred to in the first paragraph of the question. As I have recently stated, on more than one occasion, I am carefully considering the various
† See Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. xci., page 77.
representations made to me by local authorities and others as to motor-cars, but I am not at present prepared to make any announcement as to the course which should be adopted in the matter.
Alien Immigration—Statistics
I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the recent census now admits of a return being prepared showing how the numbers of aliens in each parish in the Metropolis compare with the figures for former years; and can he now state whether there has been an increase in the number of aliens in the Metropolis; and, if so, to what extent.
I am not at present in a position to give any information on the subject referred to. I understand from the Registrar General that the tabulation of the returns is being actively proceeded with, but that the figures are not likely to be ready for publication until late in the autumn.
Customs Watchers' Grievances
On behalf of the hon. and gallant Member for We Newington, I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, seeing that the customs watchers are the only class in His Majesty's customs whose hours of attendance are fixed at fifty-four hours per week, he will consider the advisability of reducing these hours to forty-eight per week.
The greater number of watchers are liable to attend for fifty-four hours a week, or an average of nine hours a day, for six days a week. These hours are inclusive of meal times. As a rule their actual work as distinct from attendance to do work averages seven hours a day, and the work, though monotonous, is not arduous. The irregular demands of trade, and the uncertainty of the hours of arrival and departure of ships, make it necessary to keep the men at hand for long spells, such as twelve hours or more at a time, but these are compensated for by equal spells of rest. The reduction of hours Suggested in the question would involve a considerable increase in the number and cost of watchers, and the Board of Customs do not consider that it is either necessary or desirable.
On behalf of the hon. Member for West Newington, I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the importance of the duties performed by customs watchers, he will consider the advisability of increasing the overtime rate from 6d. to 8d. per hour, seeing that these charges are almost invariably paid by the merchant.
No, Sir; the overtime rate is based on the ordinary pay of the watchers, and I do not think that there are sufficient reasons for increasing it. The suggested rate of 8d. an hour is that given to boatmen, whose ordinary pay and duties are higher than those of watchers.
On behalf of the hon. Member for West Newington, I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, seeing that Customs' watchers are brought into contact with the general public more frequently than hitherto, he will consider the advisability of supplying them with a full suit of uniform once a year and an overcoat once in three years, instead of with a jacket and cap only.
No, Sir; the adoption of this proposal would involve an increased charge of about £1,500 a year, without, it is considered, any advantage to the public.
On behalf of the hon. Member for West Newington, I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he could see his way to extend to the customs' watchers similar privileges with respect to annual leave to those enjoyed by almost all those in receipt of the same rate of wages in the Customs Department—namely, twelve or fourteen days in addition to the seven compulsory public holidays.
No, Sir, I regret that I cannot see my way to accept this proposal. The present leave of seven days allowed to watchers is thought to be a fair amount for men in their position, and there are no other persons in the outdoor department in receipt of the same rate of wages who have longer leave. I should like to remind the hon. and gallant Member that several concessions were made only last year to this class, and I am not prepared to go beyond them now.
Scottish Postal and Telegraph Service
I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, having regard to the fact that a Return recently published shows that for the year 1900-1901 the sum of £1,677,000 was collected in Scotland in respect of the postal and telegraph services, will he explain why only £1,352,000 was expended on Scottish post office services during the year.
The Postmaster General is not prepared to admit that the ratio of the expenditure to the revenue of the Post Office in Scotland should be higher than it is. The sum of £325,000, being the difference between the figures mentioned in the question, represents the amount contributed by Scotland through the Post Office to the Exchequer during the past financial year. The corresponding amount contributed by England was £4,120,000. In England the working expenses of the post offices were 72 per cent. of the revenue, whilst in Scotland they were 81 per cent, of the revenue. In other words, the working expenses were 9 per cent. greater in Scotland than in England. It is also to be noted that while the postage on letters from Scotland to places abroad is reckoned as revenue of the Scotch Post Office, no part of the cost of conveyance of such letters beyond this country is debited to that office.
London Telephone Service
I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, in view of the fact that the Government metropolitan telephone service is expected to be available for the public in the autumn, will he state in what districts the service will be commenced, and when it is proposed to extend the service to the east end of London; and is he yet in a position to announce the scale of telephone tariff.
It is hoped to begin the connection of subscribers in October with the central exchange, which will serve the City and a considerable district to the west, and in the course of the autumn or early next year exchanges at Westminster, Kensington, Chiswick, Putney, Wimbledon, Kingston, and Richmond will become available for use. The Postmaster General is not in a position to name definite dates for the extension of the system to the various districts of East London. The rates of subscription will be announced as soon as subscribers can be invited to join the system.
Port Glasgow Fishermen's Rights
I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether any attempts were made to secure the co-operation of the fishermen of Port Glasgow in carrying out the recommendations made in the Report of the Committee of 1889 before depriving them of rights which had been theirs from time immemorial and which had been confirmed by the law courts.
* : Before the sub-lease of the beds was drawn up the Fishery Board received a joint deputation from the Port Glasgow and Greenock Town Councils, and at the conference its proposed terms were discussed and amended in various directions to meet objections made in the interests of local fishermen, after which the councils expressed their approval of and satisfact on with the course which was subsequently followed by the Board in the matter. The legal rights of the local fishermen as against the Crown are now sub Judice.
May I ask if the terms of the Fishery Act were complied with before this sub-contract was agreed to?
* : I must ask for notice of that question.
Clyde Mussel Beds
I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he is aware that the Port Glasgow mussel beds cover 4,000 acres, and are let for £1 a year to Dr. Fullarton, a former official of the Fishery Board; that the Board pays £100 a year to Colonel MacDonald for the lease of the Rossie mussel beds, which only extend to 45 acres; and whether he can explain this seeming; disparity in value.
* : The part of the Clyde mussel bed let to Dr. Fullarton does not extend to more than half the area stated in the question. The remainder is perfectly free to everybody. The rent charged by the Fishery Board to the lessee is the rent charged to themselves by the Board of Trade. The lessee is also bound by the terms of his lease to conditions which entail a large initial expenditure in resuscitating the depleted bed, and to spend any surplus profit beyond a reasonable return on capital so expended in the further improvement of the bed to the satisfaction of the Fishery Board, the sole object being the cultivation and improvement of the bed in the interests and at the urgent request of the line fishermen of Scotland. The statement contained in the second paragraph is not accurate. The Board have nothing to do with the Rossie mussel bed.
Can the hon. Gentleman say what steps Dr. Fullarton has taken to improve the cultivation of, these mussel beds?
* : I am not able to say at this moment.
Higher Elementary Schools
I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether he can state how many applications for the recognition of schools as: higher elementary schools have been received by the Board of Education, how many such applications have been granted, and how many such schools are now upon the annual grant list.
Applications have been received for the recognition of forty-seven schools as higher elementary schools. Eighteen of these schools have been placed on the Annual Grant List; about eight more will shortly be approved; seven have been refused (London—four, Burnley, Grimsby, York), and the remainder are under consideration. In addition to the forty-seven above named, applications have been received for permission to build thirteen new schools as higher elementary schools; six of these have been approved (Carlisle, Swindon Colwyn Bay, Reading, London—two), the remainder being still under consideration.
EDUCATION (No. 2) BILL—LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND SCHOOL BOARDS
I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he will state in what form the consent of the local authority to the carrying on of classes and schools in accordance with the Education (No. 2) Bill will be given to school boards, so that they may satisfy the Government auditor that such classes and schools are legally maintained, and will he suggest a form for such consent; if a local authority on its own initiative passes a general permission for the continuance of schools and classes, will the entry of a resolution to that effect on the minutes of the authority be sufficient warrant for all payments connected therewith.
Any evidence that would satisfy the auditor that consent had been given would be sufficient. No particular form is necessary. The answer to the last paragraph is in the affirmative.
Leeds School Board and Higher Education
I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether any arrangement has yet been come to by the City Council and the school board of Leeds as to the continuance of schools affected by the Cockerton judgment.
I have been informed by the chairman of the Finance Committee of the Leeds City Council that the following resolution has been passed—
"That the application of the School Board for the authority and indemnity of the Leeds City Council to enable them to continue their schools declared by the Cockerton judgment to be illegal be granted subject to their under taking to comply with any suggestion for the avoidance of the overlapping."
I am also informed that there never was any friction foreshadowed, and none will arise unless deliberately promoted by the school board.
Education Sub-Inspectors
I beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education whether any men sub-inspectors have been promoted to the junior inspectorate; and, if not, is it the intention of the Board of Education to withhold such promotion from them, even from those who entered the service by examination and are graduates of a British university.
The promotion of sub-inspectors would be to inspectorships, not to junior inspectorships.
Limerick and Kerry Train Service
I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a resolution was unanimously adopted by the town commissioners of Newcastle West, in the county of Limerick, calling attention to the public inconvenience caused by the Great Southern and Western Railway Company neglecting to provide a more improved service between Limerick and Kerry, and stating that it was on the faith and guarantee of said company that a better train service and facilities to the public would be given that the representative bodies in the south of Ireland along the system favoured this amalgamation; and. whether, in view of these facts, he will see that the Great Southern and Western Company provide a better service.
There has been no material alteration, and therefore, I conclude, no improvement on the section of line referred to. It is however, only right to add that extensive improvements have been effected in other parts of the system since the amalgamation. I am not aware that any undertaking was given by this company to the specific effect mentioned prior to the amalgamation, but the general manager has always shown the fullest desire to consult the convenience of the travelling public, and will, I have no doubt, exhibit it in that case.
May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman is aware that it was owing to a certain specific promise that the people of this place withdrew their objection to the amalgamation, and that that promise has never been fulfilled
I have said that I am not aware of it.
; Well, I am; the promise was made, and they will have to keep it.
Congested Districts Board Expenditure in West Kerry
I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state the annual amount expended by the Congested Districts Board in the parliamentary division of West Kerry during the past six years, how many applications for grants have been made, how many refused, and the reasons for such refusal.
This information is being collected, and I hope to communicate it to the hon. Member in a day or two.
Carriage of Butter on Irish Railways
I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is yet in a position to state what is the result of the inquiry by the Department of Agriculture into the statement of Mr. Herbert Sullivan, of Curramore, Broadford, Charleville, a butter exporter, to the effect that before the amalgamation of the Great Southern and Western and the Waterford and Limerick Railways his consignments of butter were taken from Newcastle West, county Limerick, to London within eighteen hours, and that, between the dates 18th April and 26th June of this year, twelve similar consignments of his from Newcastle West to London on twelve different dates were not delivered until four or five days after shipment; and, if found to be correct, whether he will take any and, if so, what action to induce or compel the Great Southern and Western Company to give a better service to the public, so that Irish farm and other products may be expedited to English markets.
I am not yet in a position to answer this question.
You have had ten days notice.
Cork Court Valuer
I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a Mr. Martin is court valuer for Judge Bird in the west riding of the county of Cork, who was valuing for the landlords in the county Cork since 1881, and whether steps will be taken to replace him by a court valuer less prominently identified with the landlord interest in the past.
I am informed that prior to Mr. Martin's nomination to act as county court valuer in the year 1900 he acted as valuer for landlords in the county Cork, but that since his appointment he has not valued for either landlords or tenants. The Land Commissioners have the fullest confidence in him as an impartial valuer. The Land Commissioners, do not nominate valuers to serve under particular county court judges. The latter make their own selection from the list.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is not a single land valuer in Ireland who has not been recommended by the landlords?
[No answer was returned.]
Irish Language—Census Returns
I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he could present to the House as soon as possible the recent census Returns dealing with the Irish language.
Information on this subject will be furnished in the Census-books, which will be published separately for each county as the work of tabulation progresses. The first of these county books will, it is expected, be issued in September. It would not be possible, for the purpose suggested, to extract from the Returns information Tinder a particular head without incurring very considerable additional expenditure and delaying the issue of the general Reports.
Tipperary Water Charge Areas
I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, prior to the passing of the Local Government Act, 1898, the Tipperary Board of Guardians unanimously agreed, by resolution, to provide a water supply at Killeenagaline, in the Rodus electoral division of the Tipperary union, to meet the requirements of the children from the electoral divisions of Rodus and Templebraden attending the schools close by; whether he is aware that the guardians fixed the area of charge on the electoral divisions of Rodus (county Tipperary) and Templebraden (county Limerick), which were then portions of the Tipperary union, but which, since the passing of the Act, have been divided between No. 1 and No. 2 Rural District Councils; and that the work has been abandoned, though the well has been sunk to a depth of 50 feet, in consequence of the Sanitary Order of May, 1899, fixing the entire liability on No. 1 (county Tipperary) District Council, though the school for the use of which the water supply was intended is within the area of No. 2 (county Limerick) District Council; and whether the original resolution, then sanctioned by the Local Government Board, fixing the area of charge on the two electoral divisions, will stand, so as to enable the work to be completed.
The facts are as stated in the first and second paragraphs, except that there was no obligation on the district council to abandon the work in consequence of the Order of May, 1899, and that the water was not supplied exclusively for the use of the school referred to. The Board did not sanction the area originally suggested, nor would it have power to require the Tipperary No. 2 Rural District Council to contribute to the cost of a work situated in an adjoining rural district. The question of the particular area of charge will, however, be reconsidered when the Board is in possession of the views of the local authorities generally, which were invited by a circular issued yesterday.
Summary Powers of Irish Magistrates
I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that two men named Kerins and McManus were arrested in Ballymote, Sligo, on the evening of the 17th instant, and tried before Mr. Crean, R.M., at a special court held at 11.30 p.m. in the police barrack the same night; that Kerins, on being lodged in the station, was told by Constable Reilly that had he known who he was he would not have been arrested, and that both men were sentenced to three months imprisonment, McManus being hurriedly conveyed to Sligo Gaol without having had time to procure bail; and whether the circumstances surrounding these arrests will be inquired into by the authorities.
The language attributed to Constable Reilly could not have been, and as a matter of fact was not used by him, inasmuch as the man Kerins was well known to the constable. McManus was unable to procure bail until the second day after his arrest. With regard to the remainder of the question, I have nothing to add to the replies already given by me and my right hon. friend the Attorney General. The circumstances surrounding the arrests have been fully inquired into by the Government.
Was this court held at midnight? Is it not the fact that these unfortunate men had no opportunity of calling evidence for the defence?
That was gone into fully the other day.
My memory is defective.
The men were taken before a magistrate immediately they were arrested.
And one was sent to prison for three months.
* : Order, order! The question has been fully answered.
* : Is the Lord Lieutenant satisfied with the legal knowledge of this military magistrate?
Order, order! Any further question must be given notice of.
But we want to know whether the public were admitted to this court.
I endeavoured to explain the other day that it was not a court in the ordinary sense of the term.
Labourers' Cottages at Clonakilty
I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a scheme embracing fifty-nine cottages was recently approved of by the Rural District Council of Clonakilty, and that thirteen out of fifty-nine were subsequently rejected by the Local Government Board; can he state the grounds of the rejection of these thirteen cottages, and will steps be taken to ascertain whether the rejected number may yet be included in the proposed scheme.
The reason for the rejection of the proposed cottages referred to was that a number of existing cottages had been illegally let to blacksmiths, masons, carpenters, traders, and others who were not agricultural labourers. These existing cottages should be made available for agricultural labourers, and the Local Government Board cannot under the circumstances add to the number of cottages already approved.
asked if it were not the case that in a great many cases these persons worked on the land, during a portion of the year?
* : Order, order! The hon. Member if he wants further details must put a fresh question down.
Irish Congested Districts Board's Work
I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the number of acres of land purchased by the Congested Districts Board from February, 1900, to the present date, dividing them into the number of acres which have been striped, and sold to tenants, the number of acres unstriped and in the hands of the Congested Districts Board, and the number of acres striped but still in the hands of the Congested Districts Board.
The information desired by the hon. Member will take some little time to prepare. Perhaps he will repeat the question on Friday next.
Colonel Finch's Coonagh Estate
I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland is he aware that some time ago preparations were made to sell to the tenants, under the fortieth section of the Land Act of 1896, the property of Colonel Finch, situate at Coonagh, in the north liberties of Limerick city; can he say how far arrangements were carried on, and would he recommend that sale to the tenants be carried out on a price to be fixed by the valuers of the Land Purchase Commissioners.
I am informed that a request has been issued by the land judge for an inspection in this case under the fortieth section of the Act of 1896. I am inquiring when it is expected the inspection will be carried out. Perhaps the hon. Member will repeat his question on Monday.
Apjohn's Estate, Limerick
I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what progress has been made since the 1st day of January last to bring to a sale under the fortieth section of the Act of 1896 the property of the late Michael Marshall Lloyd Apjohn, on the townlands of Garrison, Nicker, Drominbuoy, Ballyvoneen, and Garrane, all in the parish of Grean, county Limerick; and is he aware that within the last ten days an eviction has taken place whilst the tenants are in negotiation, or at least preparing for a purchase of their holdings, and is he prepared to expedite the purchase proceedings so as to prevent further evictions.
The solicitors having carriage of the sale of this estate have been communicated with, but so far their reply has not been received. I would ask that the question be repeated on Monday.
Waterford, Limerick and Western Railway Friendly Society
I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the cause of the delay in the winding up of the affairs of the Waterford, Limerick, and Western Railway Friendly Society, and will each member of it be paid the amount due to him according to the registered rules.
Notice of the intention to dissolve the society was published in the Dublin Gazette of 14th June, and the dissolution will take effect after the expiration of three months from that date, unless proceedings are taken in the meantime to set aside the dissolution. I understand the reply to the second inquiry is in the affirmative.
Dalkey Revision Court
I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether the Lord Lieutenant is guided solely by revising barristers as to the places where revision courts are to be held; whether he is aware that, in regard to Dalkey, the opinion of the revising barristers is opposed to that expressed through the elected representatives of the localities interested; and whether, under these circumstance the application to hold a revision court in Dalkey will be reconsidered.
The reply to the first question is in the negative. The opinion of the Dalkey Urban Council, which does not represent the entire polling district, was no doubt in favour of the establishment of such a court. The Lord Lieutenant will, of course, be quite ready to consider any further representations that may be made to him on the subject.
Cahirciveen Mails
I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that the train which is timed to arrive at Cahirciveen, county Kerry, at 2.20 p.m. every day during the summer months, runs in direct communication with the train which conveys the mails to Killarney and Tralee, and whether arrangements will be made whereby the mails will be conveyed to Cahirciveen by this train and distributed there instead of being delayed for nearly four hours; and whether he is aware that if such an arrangement is carried out, correspondents in that town will be enabled thereby to send replies by the evening mail.
As stated by the hon. Member, the train due at Cahirciveen at 2.20 p.m. during the summer months runs in direct connection with the train conveying the mails to Killarney and Tralee. Instructions have now been given, as desired, for a mail to Cahirciveen to be sent by the train in question from the 1st of August. Correspondents in the town receiving the letters by the new mail will be able to send replies by the evening mail.
War Office Contracts in Ireland
I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Michael Dalton was declared contractor for artificers' work for Boyle, Carrick, and Sligo barracks from 7th April, 1900, to 31st March, 1903; and that he was made the object of attacks and reports to the War Office by interested parties; and whether he can state on what grounds notice has been served to terminate Dalton's contract.
Mr. Dalton was given three months notice to terminate his contract on the recommendation of the general officer commanding the forces in Ireland because he was dilatory in carrying out orders, thereby causing much inconvenience to the troops.
Brighton Vale (Ireland) Martello Tower
I. beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can explain why the martello tower situated at Brighton Vale, within the Blackrock Urban Council district, was put up for sale; and, seeing that no other in Ireland was sold, whether he will consider the advisability of returning the amount so realised to the local authorities who purchased in the public interest.
The hon. Member has been given a full answer on this subject by letter, which he is at liberty to publish. I have nothing to add to it.
Method of Taking Divisions
I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the amount of time now spent in the Division Lobbies under our present system of dividing, he will cause inquiry to be made into the various methods of taking divisions which obtain in the different Parliaments of the world, and will otherwise procure such information as will enable him to take into consideration the question whether some process of recording votes, more expeditious, but equally accurate, might with advantage be adopted.
I am perfectly aware that the time now taken in divisions is very often time not well spent, and that a quicker method of taking the sense of the House would be very convenient. I am quite ready to make inquiries, or, at least, to ask the Foreign Office if they can carry out such inquiries as my hon. Friend desires in foreign countries; but I may remind him that in the House an experiment was made, at the instance, I believe, of my right hon. friend the Home Secretary, some years ago by which undoubtedly the speed of divisions was hastened, but at that time the experiment was not found to be a success. I am not sure, however, that it might not be attempted again.
Is it not the fact that the only objection came from the Whips?
asked whether, on leaving the division lobbies, hon. Members might not be allowed to pass through one of the doors which it was the custom not to lock, so that if they wished to leave the building they might not have to take a circuitous route.
I should not like to answer that question off-hand. In this matter there are wheels within wheels.
Grant to Lord Roberts
I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can say on what day the Vote of a grant to Lord Roberts will be moved, and whether on the day selected it will be the business of the day.
I have reason to believe that I shall be commanded to bring a Royal Message to the House on Monday in connection with this-matter; if that be so, I shall propose that the matter should be taken into consideration in Committee of Supply on Wednesday next, when it will be the first Order.
Teachers (Security of Tenure) Bill
I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can say when the Teachers (Security of Tenure) Bill will be introduced.
I hope it will be introduced in the course of next week.
Naval Works Bill
I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury can he now say definitely when the Committee on the Naval Works Bill will be taken, and will he undertake that, when taken, it shal1 be placed in such a position among the Orders of the Day as will ensure that the discussion thereon shall be taken at a reasonably early hour of the evening.
I think my hon. friend has a perfect right to have a discussion on this Bill on a desirable day; but I am not quite sure upon what stage it would be most desirable to have it. For my own part, I shall propose the Second Reading or the Committee stage as an appropriate time, and I hope the House will not ask for a prolonged discussion, except on one of the stages of the Bill. I shall be glad to find out what stage will suit hon. Gentlemen best.
Agricultural Labourers' Cottages—Conditions of Tenure
I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware of the condition of tenure of agricultural labourers in their cottages; and will he consider the advisability of introducing legislation on the subject.
I do not propose any legislation on the subject.
Agricultural Rates Act, 1896, Etc., Continuance Bill
I wish to ask a question as to business. It is understood that the first business on Monday will be the Agricultural Rating Bill, which the right hon. Gentleman knows excites very strong feeling, at least on this side of the House. I would venture to say that, while a general desire would be felt to have a discussion on the Second Reading on the large question involved, I do not think that discussion need extend beyond one night, if the Government could make a little alteration in the Bill itself. One element in the Bill which greatly intensifies opposition to it is its indeterminate character. If the right hon. Gentleman will say that a reasonable limit shall be placed on the operation of the Bill, I think it may greatly facilitate progress.
In answer to the right hon. Gentleman I have to say this. If I rightly understand him, he thinks there might be an amicable arrangement about this Bill, provided only that some modification were made in that part of the Bill which he adequately describes as giving its duration an indeterminate character. Of course, I cannot now discuss the merits of the Rating Bill, but I may say that the view of the Government in regard to it is that the amount of relief given to the two classes dealt with ought to be permanent in its character; and, so far as we are concerned, we shall take care—if I may venture to put it in that way—that it is so. But we have always said that the actual machinery by which the injustice now suffered, or that was originally suffered, has been remedied is essentially imperfect machinery. But there are injustices under the present Rating Act, and imperfections in the rating system have been further exposed by the Report of the Commission just laid on the Table of the House, while that Report points the way to a method for remedying them. In the circumstances we could never contemplate that this Bill as drafted could be a permanent settlement of the question, and there are actual phrases in the Bill which indicate that view of the Government. Even if the Bill were passed in its present form we should feel ourselves bound to take steps to legislate further at no very distant date. In the circumstances, if, as I understand, it really would conduce to a general agreement on this question that a time limit should be put in the Bill, we shall be quite prepared to consider the matter. It would be perfect madness to make that time limit too short; it would defeat the object of those who desire the limit, because, if the pressure of other important legislative work should prevent us from carrying through such legislation within a brief period, we should have to pass another measure, which would be postponing, instead of accelerating, the final settlement of this vexed and difficult question. But at a later date— within, say, the next four or five years—the Government would be prepared to deal with the subject. We shall take care to introduce into the Bill a limitation of that kind, provided it is understood that we spend not more than a night in discussing the general principle and the Report of the Commission; the subsequent stages being regarded as practically non-contentious.
The right hon. Gentleman is rather vague when he speaks of four or five years. I should have thought myself three years would be enough. Admitting that next year may be already mortgaged to a great extent, you might still allow two years for the purpose.
Shall we, in order to meet the right hon. Gentleman, split the difference, and say four years?
Business of the House
I have another question to put to the right hon. Gentleman, which I hope may have the same satisfactory and amicable result. It is with regard to the Education Minute, which is exciting a great deal of feeling. The time for the Minute to lay on the Table will expire at the end of next week, and I would suggest that 'its consideration should be taken as the first business on Thursday with the Education Estimates. Considering the special circumstances of the case and that the sword of Damocles is hanging over the heads of those who object, I think this would be a generous and charming concession.
I think I have already expressed to the House my view that it is desirable that some opportunity should be taken to dissipate the misconceptions which have collected around the Minute; but if I do not at once accede to the request it is because I am very anxious to bring the session to a close without undue strain upon the attendance of Members. I do not think it practicable to have a long discusion on the Third Reading of the Education Bill and another long debate on the Minute. Could not part of the time which would otherwise be given to the Education Bill be devoted to the Minute?
suggested that Tuesday might be convenient.
I will not pledge myself at the moment, but I hope that an arrangement may be arrived at by which debate may be shortened and repetitions of discussions on the Education Bill avoided.
What business will be taken on Tuesday in view of this happy arrangement between the two right hon. Gentlemen?
I think it would be convenient to take two or three absolutely non-contentious and formal Bills as the first business, following these by the Light Railways Bill, which is not likely to lead to long debate; and the remainder of the sitting might be given to the Third Reading of the Education Bill, but if the Education Minute is substituted for that Bill perhaps everybody will be satisfied.
Seeing that there are twenty five Irish Votes, involving a sum of nearly six millions, still undisussed, might not Tuesday be given for Irish Votes in Committee of Supply?
If the number of days for Supply were increased the gain in Parliamentary time would be extremely small.
When will the discusion on the Naval Works Bill be taken?
I hope it will be next week, but it is undesirable yet to stereotype the business.
Is the Colonial Vote to be taken next Friday?
Yes, Sir.
Will the right hon. Gentleman kindly take into consideration a suggestion that some slight modification in the Education Minute, reducing what we consider its hardship, would greatly tend to shorten the discussion?
I am not aware of any proposed alteration, but I will consult my right hon. friend.
Rulings in Committee
I desire to put a question to you, Mr. Speaker, as bearing upon the protection of the rights and privileges of members. I am aware that you are unable to take cognisance of what takes place in Committee of Supply, but will you say if there is any method of challenging a ruling of the Deputy - Chairman given last night, and which appears to have been contrary to practice and calculated to unduly shield Ministers from criticism 1 Could such a ruling be challenged in any other way than by motion?
* : I am not aware of any other method.
Then I beg to give notice of a motion in the following terms:—"That this House disagrees with the ruling of Mr. Stuart Wortley as Deputy-Chairman on Thursday that criticism of the manner and method of response by the Secretary of State for War to questions addressed to him in reference to matters in his department are out of order in discussion in Committee of Supply on a motion for the reduction of the Secretary of State's salary, inasmuch as it is subversive of free discussion, contrary to practice, and a grave infringement of the rights of members."
Message from the Lords
That they have agreed to Finance Bill, without Amendment.
That they have passed a Bill intituled, "An Act to enable Day Industrial Schools to be established in Ireland." Day Industrial Schools (Ireland) Bill (Lords].
Beer Bill
Ordered, That the Order of the 26th June that the Beer Bill be committed to the Standing Committee on Law, etc., be read and discharged, and that the Bill be withdrawn.
Sale of Intoxicating Liquors to Children Bill
Reported from the Standing Committee on Law, etc., with Amendments.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 288.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.[No. 288.]
Bill, as amended (by the Standing Committee), to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 276.]
Widows and Orphans of Soldiers and Sailors
Report, with Minutes of Evidence and an Appendix from the Joint Committee, brought up, and read.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 289.]
Selection (Standing Committees)
reported from the Committee of Selection, That they had discharged the following Members from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure:—Mr. Craig, Mr. Flower, Mr. Galloway, Mr. Murnaghan, Mr. Nannetti, Mr. Richards, Mr. Compton Rickett, Mr. Herbert Roberts, and Mr. Samuel Young; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Clancy, Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Graham, Mr. James Heath, Mr. Jordan, Mr. Lloyd Morgan, Sir Benjamin Stone, Mr. Ure, and Captain Norton.
Report to lie upon the Table.
Education (Scotland) Bill
Lords' Amendments to be considered forthwith; considered, and agreed to.
Day Industrial Schools (Ireland) Bill [Lords]
Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 275.]
London Water Bill
Ordered, That the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills do examine the London Water Bill, with respect to compliance with the Standing Orders relative to Private Bills.—( Sir John Blundell Maple. )
Supply [19th Allotted Day]
Considered in Committee—
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. JEFFREYS (Hampshire, N.) in the Chair.]
Civil Service Estimates, 1901–2
Class II
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £47,076, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1902, for the salaries and expenses of the Department of His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs."
* said he and hon. Members who agreed with him that the combination of the two offices of Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary was a disadvantage to the country regarded the appointment of Lord Lansdowne as Foreign Secretary as a gain to the opinion they expressed and as an advantage to the country. But his tenure of office had fallen upon unfortunate days. The shadow of the war in South Africa was over our relations with other Powers. Count von Büllow had made two speeches in the German Reichstag with regard to the relations between ourselves and foreign Powers. Referring to our position in the world, he had stated that we had made unsuccessful and, as he evidently intended people to think, somewhat clumsy attempts to obtain an alliance with Germany. He had also said that at the time of the telegram from the German Emperor to Kruger Germany was prepared to act with France and Russia. That ominous statement, pointing to a source of great danger to this country, was made in connection with the proposals he was recommending for a large increase of the German fleet, which he declared was intended to strengthen the power of Germany against this country in such circumstances in the future. These statements, coming from a very powerful quarter, were ominous with regard to our position in the world, and unpleasant as regarded our relations with other Powers. They pointed, he thought, not to fatuity on the part of the Foreign Office, but to that depression of our influence throughout the world which had been probably the necessary consequence of our entanglement in South Africa. Last year, when the Foreign Office Vote was discussed, he and several other Members joined in bringing to the attention of the Committee two matters in connection with our relations with foreign Powers. On the present occasion he proposed in the same way to take two subjects as typical, of our foreign affairs during the year. In passing, however, he might mention one of the two subjects discussed last, year, and one which had now passed from a position in which it could be usefully discussed—namely, our disgraceful failure, as he considered it, to obtain compensation for the killing of British officers and men at Waima in 1893. It was curious to note that for two years in succession, just before the Foreign Office Vote came up for discussion, a step was taken in the matter, which, in the meantime, had slumbered. That had again happened, probably accidentally, on the present occasion, because it was only on Thursday of last week that definite steps were taken towards the arbitration that was to take place between France and ourselves, so that the arbitration which was promised last year, and foreshadowed the year before, had become an accomplished fact just previous to the Foreign Office Vote coming on.
The first of the two matters upon which he intended to speak was one which stood in a most unsatisfactory position as regarded the information given by the Government and possessed by the House of Commons. He had frequently joined with others in bringing before the Committee the absolutely discreditable nature of the government of the Congo State. It was not a matter of a foreign government in the ordinary sense of the word. We were doubly responsible for that government—in the first place, as one of the Powers that, in the name of civilisation, brought it into existence; and, in the second place, because we had already leased to that State territory over which we had control. It was hardly necessary to remind the Committee of the horrible nature of that government. It was the opinion of the Foreign Office that, horrible as it is, it had become better than was formerly the case. That was undoubtedly true as regarded the coast district: and the parts commonly visited by travellers, and the government of the piece we had leased to the Congo State had never been bad. That enclave was full of troops, kept there in connection with schemes of interference on the Abyssinian side of the Nile. The Committee would remember that, under the arrangement of 1894, this country leased to the Congo State two territories under different terms of lease, and the Congo State leased one territory to us. But France and Germany interfered, and we had not received the consideration for our grants, the twenty-five kilométre strip between the Lakes Tanganyika and Albert Edward. He asked the Government to tell the Committee something more definite as to their present negotiations with the Congo State. The official position of that State was that both the leases remained, and that not only were they in possession of the Lado enclave , but were entitled to the territory which we leased to them in 1894—namely, the whole of the Bahrel-Ghazal country. On 24th May he asked the Under Secretary of State whether the Government would undertake not to conclude any arrangement with the Congo State by which a privileged position would be conferred on that State in any further British or Egyptian territory without the previous knowledge of Parliament. He was not one of those who were disposed to say or to think that the Foreign Office purposely tried to mislead Parliament, but on that particular occasion the answer of the noble Lord was certainly not only ambiguous, but—and he thought the Committee would agree when he read it—purposely so. That answer was— the statement, but the Belgian Government would not read the context, and the words as they stood alone were certainly unhappily chosen. Lord Salisbury, in that despatch, said— whose good faith there could be no doubt, but proved by the legal documents of the State, and by the secret laws, as they were at the time, but which had now been published to the world. The State actively assisted the Marchand Expedition, which was not a particularly friendly act towards this country. Two years before the state of things in the neigh bourhood of Fashoda was admitted by the Government he and several other Members were able to tell the House of Commons that all the revelations of travellers showed that the Belgians were actively concerned in the French rush to the Bahr-el-Ghazal, with a view of obtaining the ultimate occupation of it for themselves. As long ago as 1897 he put a question on the subject to Lord Curzon, who then expressly reserved the rights of Egypt, his reply being—
The second question to which he desired to refer was that of China, which, like the poor, was always with us. The Chinese question at large could not usefully be discussed, and he proposed to call attention only to a specific point, and to the facts which illustrated that point. In the speech of Count von Bülow, to which he had previously alluded, the German Foreign Minister spoke of the triumph his diplomacy had secured in the matter of the Anglo-German Agreement. He boasted of the success of the German policy in that agreement, and certainly appeared to be somewhat reckless as to the result on the fabric of the Chinese Empire of the steps taken by Germany in the Kiao-Chau affair. He stated that he had obtained from us this Anglo-German Agreement, which secured Germany against any special rights of England in the Yang-tsze Valley—which the Committee would remember was an alternative policy of our Government—and he also distinctly declared that that Agreement confirmed Russia in her position in Manchuria. Count von Bülow said that it was no part of the duty of Germany to interfere with Russia in her position in Manchuria, and they had made it perfectly clear to this country in the course of the negotiations that they did not intend to do anything except confirm that position. The Agreement confirmed not merely the position of Germany in Shantung, but that which we had always denied—namely, the right, to preferential treatment in Shantung for German goods against ours—the right for example, to insist that only German rails and German rolling stock should be used in the construction of the railway. When th t Agreement was first concluded it was represented to the country as being an Agreement in favour of what was called "the open door." It was hardly necessary now to say that it was an Agreement of the exactly opposite kind—at any rate, as regarded its interpretation by Germany, and that was the main point. It was an Agreement, at all events, which, so far as the open door in the rest of China was concerned, was infinitely inferior to the Agreement we had already obtained through the action of the United States. There was no reason to interfere with that Agreement, but we had gone out of our way to make this other Agreement with Germany, and Germany had immediately stated, in a manner the most disagreeable possible to us, that it was a triumph of German diplomacy against ours, that it had given Russia a preference in Manchuria and Germany a preference in Shantung, while it had excluded us from a preference in the valley of the Yang-tsze. The Agreement was directed against British predominance in the Yang-tsze Valley, and it was followed by a step which might be explained away here, but which throughout the East was accepted as being connected with it—namely, the placing of a German garrison at Shanghai. Then was the time chosen for the revelation from moment to moment of various drafts of the Manchurian Agreement between Russia and China. The House had never seen that Agreement; it had never had from the Government a distinct statement that it existed, although language used in another place showed that they believed, if they did not know, that it existed. The Foreign Office had learnt a little wisdom with regard to these agreements since the time of the Cassini Convention. At that time also there were three or four revelations of the various drafts of the Convention, all practically agreeing in the main principles, just as all the drafts of the Manchurian Agreement practically agreed, but always denied by the Foreign Office, who not only knew nothing about it, but threw the greatest doubt on the existence of any document of the kind. It was now known that the policy of the Cassini Convention was in every point the policy upon which Russia was engaged, and there was no doubt the same thing was at present occurring with regard to the Manchuria Convention.
He did not wish to make any attack on the Foreign Office in general, but he doubted whether our policy in China throughout the last four or five years had been as well informed as it ought to have been. The House saw at the time of the occupation of Wei-hai-wei how little information the Government possessed before they took that very decisive and important step, and he believed that their naval information obtained beforehand regarding Wei-hai-wei was almost as unsatisfactory as the total absence of naval information with regard to Heligoland, which we now knew was given up without the Admiralty being consulted. The Manchuria Agreement and the Anglo-German Agreement bore on our present position in the matter of the Niu-chwang Railway, which was of considerable importance to the trading classes of this country. Lord Salisbury had represented his Niu-chwang arrangement as a triumph of his diplomacy on behalf of trade. There had been a railway arrangement between the German and British syndicates before the Anglo-German Governmental arrangement. That arrangement was in the first instance between private parties, but it was recognised and adopted by the Governments. The arrangement had given Germany the construction of a number of railways not only in Shantung, but also outside the province. On the other hand, it gave us apparently a preference in the construction of railways in the Yang-tsze Valley. But the Anglo-German Agreement nullified that arrangement, and the whole of the triumph of our trade policy was reduced to a nullity by the Agreement, which abolished our preference and gave it to the Germans. On the conclusion of the Anglo-German Agreement the German Foreign Office sent round to the German press, as is usual in the case of any Agreement of that kind, a semi-official paragraph representing their view of it. It stated that it secured Germany against the British claim of predominance in the Yang-tsze, and in the Reichstag Count von Bülow stated, "It is our intention to stick to the treaty of 6th March, 1898." That treaty the House had never seen; it was a secret treaty between Germany and China; but it was understood that it gave to Germany an absolute preference in Shantung.
What was the effect of all these arrangements on the position of affairs in Manchuria? In a sense Manchuria might be regarded as past praying for by members of that House; but we had been acting to a large extent with Japan in these matters, and we ought not to have misled Japan in connection with Manchuria. The Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, when asked by his Opposition why he had signed the Anglo-German Agreement so readily, said that he signed it in the belief that it meant what its "plain and unmistakable terms" declared, and if the Germans and British had agreed, as Count von Bülow had said, that Manchuria was excluded from its terms, then the Japanese Minister asked why the Powers were not so informed before they were asked to sign. That was a very disagreeable speech, but he thought the Japanese Minister had some right to make it. It was all very fine for our Government to assert that the agreement meant a certain thing, but they had been finessing between the two main articles of the treaty; they distinguished between those two articles, saying that the one was general, and the other, as regarded the German claim, did not apply to Manchuria; but for the world at large, and for the Japanese Foreign Office, that finessing had been thrown away, and plain words had been used about the document. Japan practically said that the agreement seemed to be one which they must sign as co-operating in the policy of maintaining the integrity of China, but it was now found that Manchuria was excluded from the agreement. This Niu-chwang interest of ours was one which was still existent, however much we might have washed our hands of Manchuria. The Government had distinctly recognised two facts —first, that we had a great trade interest in the treaty port of Niu-chwang, and, second, our peculiar interest in the Niu-chwang railway. In October and December, 1898, Lord Salisbury communicated to the Powers that the Chinese had given a written undertaking not to alienate the Niu-chwang railway to any other Power. In 1899 there was an Anglo-Russian agreement which gave Russia the exclusive right of railway construction north of the Great Wall, but there was a special reservation of our rights in the Niu-chwang railway. It might be mentioned that the agreement was also connected with an apparent concession by Russia to us of a preference as regarded railway construction in the Yang-tsze Valley, which had been thrown away by the Anglo-German agreement. The Chinese assurance was embodied in the notes which were exchanged between us and Russia, and which constituted the Anglo-Russian Agreement. Lord Salisbury represented this as a triumph for British commercial interests, which had been saved in this way. The Niu-chwang railway was mortgaged to the British, and not only was the mortgage still in existence as regarded the part of the country south of the Great Wall, but the profits of the railway north of the Great Wall were still expressly recognised as belonging to us. On 18th February of this year the noble Lord gave the House a very full and frank statement in regard to the then position of the Niu-chwang railway. He said—
* said he did not know of any Agreement.
would have thought from the words he had quoted that the noble Lord did think an Agreement existed, and he rather gathered the same idea from Lord Lansdowne's speech in another place. The impression conveyed to him, and he thought to the Committee, was that on 18th February the Foreign Office strongly suspected there was an Agreement in existence with regard to Manchuria. At all events, the present state of things hardly bore out the statement that it was merely a temporary occupation by the Russian and Chinese forces jointly. The noble Lord further said—
"We have received assurances that any agreement will not take the form of an acquisition of territory or of a virtual or actual protectorate in Manchuria. … In respect to Niu-chwang, we have received assurances at least equal to those which have been given us in respect to the province of South Manchuria."
* : Hear, hear.
observed that the noble Lord still adhered to that statement. They were highly diplomatic words, but the House of Commons was a more simple body than the chancellories of foreign Powers, and they would feel that the words described almost too tenderly the existing situation in Manchuria. If, however, that was its view, the Foreign Office was living in a fool's paradise. Even those who thought our rights in Manchuria as a whole were past praying for would admit that we were specially bound in regard to the Niu-chwang railway, even north of the Great Wall. On 28th March Lord Lansdowne, when specifically asked with regard to the occupation of this line, said—
"The Russian occupation [of the Niu-chwang line] is temporary, and without prejudice to the proprietary and financial interests involved."
Hear, hear.
* had no doubt the noble Lord would assent to that. The importance of the matter, of course, was that Russia, France, Germany, and Belgium all stipulated that the rails and rolling stock for railways in China should be obtained from Continental countries, to the exclusion of England. In the case of the Niu-chwang railway we were in a more favourable position than with regard to our rights generally in Manchuria. The railway ran along the coast, and the Russians were not people who were inclined suddenly to cause armed conflicts with this country. But in the case of Tientsin they came very near; they occupied the line, but an actual armed conflict was avoided. In view of our clear rights in Niu-chwang, repeatedly enforced by Lord Salisbury and the present Secretary and Under Secretary of State, he should have thought circumstances did arise which might have made it well for us to have occupied from the Fleet certain stations on the Niu-chwang line. On 28th March, the Under Secretary of State said— The Times correspondent and Li Hung Chang, when the latter freely expressed his views on the Manchurian question, and said that Russia "is the only Power we need fear," that the Manchurian Agreement "concerned only China and Russia," and that "China dare not give information and defy Russia, who forbids it." While the Government had not taken any practical or efficacious steps to maintain our rights in the Niu-chwang railway, the Russians, on the other hand, had acted very differently towards us in a district far to the south, where they had never even claimed to have a privileged position. In October of last year he heard from Tientsin merchants that Russia had obtained a concession of a large tract of territory south of the river at Tientsin. He particularly emphasised that it was in October, because it was a curious fact that the Foreign Office afterwards stated that that concession was signed on 31st December. There was a curious confirmation of the fact that something was going on at a much earlier date in a despatch with regard to a Belgian concession. There might, of course, have been confusion between the two. He could not help believing that this enormous concession, in territory where Russia had no trade or subjects and was never going to have any trade, because her railway was being constructed to carry it elsewhere, was obtained merely for the purpose of being disagreeable to us. He could see no other reason for it except that of damaging our prestige. The area at Tientsin was one which included the principal railway station and the railway line that was mortgaged to British holders as security for the Chinese Imperial railway loan. The answer of the Under Secretary of State in regard to it on 31st December was that Li Hung Chang had granted this tract to the Russians which they had already claimed by right of conquest. He (the right hon. Baronet) did not know what credentials Li Hung Chang had to give away the land, but he imagined he had about as much right to do so as he himself, or the hon. Member for King's Lynn, or any other Member of the House had. In some way or other, however, this concession had been obtained, and, although several Members heard about it in October, it was dated 31st December. In this connection he might mention a very curious dispatch, which appeared on page 93 of the China Blue-book, No. 5, stating that the Belgian Minister had instructed his Consul to recall a circular issued by him "concerning the Belgian occupation of the land on the left bank of the river." He did not know whether that pointed to a Belgian concession having been made previous to the Russian concession, but it was a curious point standing by itself, and was unexplained. During the operations at Tientsin the whole of the papers of the railway, which were of great moment to the British traders interested in the line, were carried off from the station, and had never been returned. The whole form of the occupation seemed to show that a deliberate insult was intended. It was accompanied by the most painful incidents in connection with our native Indian troops. The Sikhs were ordered to hold the railway sidings which were most essential to the working of the line. While holding them they were subjected to every kind of insult, and it spoke wonders for the discipline and self-restraint of the troops that no dangerous collision occurred in consequence. That territory was, as he understood, still occupied by Russia. On the 21st of May Lord Lansdowne had been asked a question on this matter, and had given some information upon it. He had attempted to-night to obtain further information from the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State, but had been unsuccessful, and consequently had to fall back on the statement of Lord Lansdowne of the 21st of May. On that date Lord Lansdowne said— All that came to was the fact that the Russians withdrew a short distance from the side of a railway where they had such little right to be as he had described to the House.
What he wanted to know, and what he had entirely failed to gather from the noble Lord the Under Secretary, was what was the position there now, because they read in the newspapers that this territory was again in the possession of Russia. Was that true, or was it false? The noble Lord the Under Secretary of State might have given that information, but he had not. On the 21st of May Lord Lansdowne, in the course of his speech, said—
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A (Salaries) be reduced by £100, in respect of the Salary of the Secretary of State."—( Sir Charles Dilke. )
* said he desired briefly to draw the attention of the Committee to the statement made by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in another place with regard to our treaty rights in China. The Chinese Government complained that the import duties which they were entitled to levy on produce imported from abroad had fallen from 5 per cent, to something like 3½ per cent, ad valorem . Nobody would object if the original scale of duties were to be made again effective; but he thought if such a concession was made to the Chinese Government His Majesty's Government ought to insist upon our full rights being restored to us in a like manner. He alluded particularly to the way in which transport duties were imposed. On payment of 2½ per cent, extra we were entitled to transport passes, enabling British goods to be transported all over China, but in a number of cases year after year it transpired that when a transport pass was obtained, on one pretext or another further dues were imposed. He therefore expressed the hope that if any concession was made to the Chinese Government on this point, and that the import duties were raised again to provide the Chinese Government with a greater amount of revenue, His Majesty's Government should not lose sight of the opportunity of obtaining further corresponding advantages. If the duty were raised from 5 per cent, to 10 per cent., as suggested, it would be necessary to insist on further advantages than we had at present, such as the greater facility for inland residence and the total abolition of likin in its present form. There were one or two points on which he thought the Government had shown great neglect. He thought they had shown neglect in not recognising merit, and not requiring swift retribution on the heads of those who had murdered foreigners. It was little more than a year ago when a number of missionaries were cruelly murdered. At one village, the name of which he could not pronounce, a missionary and his wife and child were brutally murdered, and although our Consul General had had in his possession for months the photographs of the murderers—of whose guilt there was no doubt, and who had been ordered for execution—month after month had passed without their being punished. The Government, although it had shown sympathy with the reform movement in China, had neglected to recognise merit. Reports received from the European residents in the Yang-tsze showed that the Europeans might have all lost their lives had it not been for the energy of Mr. Archibald Little, who had risked his life and means in attempts, happily now successful, to navigate the dangerous upper reaches of that river. The steamer which he had built and equipped for this purpose happened to be at Chung-king, her most remote trading point on the upper river at the time the rising became acute, and had it not been for the fact that that steamer was there, and that he took the foreigners on board, there was every reason to suppose that not one life would have been saved. He certainly was one Englishman whose merit had not been adequately recognised. When on the 17th of January last year the Empress Dowager issued her edict for the extermination of foreigners, many lives would have been lost but for the act of those two brave and patriot Chinese officials having altered the edict so as to protect the foreigners, and he thought their action was a thing to be recognised. He hoped that the Government would, reward and recognise merit, and make the punishment for the murder of foreigners swifter and more sure.
agreed with his rihgt hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean that it was the war in South Africa which rendered the Government so impotent in China. The Government had abandoned the policy and many of the rights which existed when they came into office. In March, 1898, Lord Curzon declared that the integrity and the independence of China was the cardinal point of the Government's policy. Now Russia was in effective occupation of Manchuria, and the difficulty of getting them out would be very great ind ed. They were also in possession of the Niuchwang Railway, in which £3,000,000 of British capital was invested, and that was not very encouraging for British enterprise in China, although that enterprise was undertaken with the full understanding that His Majesty's Government would take note of the action of the Chinese Government in that re pect. The Government, which had entered office on the cry that they were going to protect and encourage British trade all over the world, seemed strangely incompetent to secure the rights of British traders in China. There was the railway siding dispute some time ago. The siding admittedly belonged to the North Chinese Railway, and it was mortgaged to the British bondholders as a security for their money; but the Russians took possession of it, or attempted to do so, and we were now told that the validity of this concession, and also whether that piece of land belonged to the Russians or to the North Chinese Railway, was reserved for further discussion. This was precisely the argument the noble Lord used on the 25th of March last. How long would it be before this important point was settled?
With regard to the question of Shantung and Germany, it seemed to him that the policy of the "open door" was being completely abrogated, Germany having acquired a special position in that province, which, consequently, was not unreservedly open to British enterprise. Nobody could deny that we had been greatly ousted out of the North of China. The last consolation we had was that the British sphere of influence was in the Yang-tsze Valley. There was the Russian Agreement that the Russian, should seek railway concessions north of the Great Wall, and that they would not oppose the British in the Yang-tsze Valley. There was also the Anglo-Chinese Agreement; but when the news that there were a large number of foreign troops at Shanghai was confirmed by the noble Lord it fell on the country almost like a thunderbolt. The noble Lord had been pressed over and over again to say whether it was a temporary occupation or not, and he had always said it was, but this did not agree with the answer which he had given in the House. Shanghai was in the heart of the Yang-tsze region, and was a place to which we in this country thought we had some special right. Answering a question on June 11th, the noble Lord said he understood that Germany would maintain a garrison at Shanghai, at any rate for the present. Had the noble Lord any assurance from Germany that these troops would be withdrawn? The noble Lord gave another answer. On June 22nd the noble Lord was asked as to the presence of French troops, and he replied that the French were building quarters for troops at Shanghai. That did not look like a temporary occupation. He thought that the noble Lord would only be doing his duty in giving some more definite information on this subject. If the French intended to vacate Shanghai in a short time, they surely would not trouble to build barracks. British prestige had undoubtedly gone down in the East. What had been the policy of the Government in China? It was best described by a statement made to The Times' correspondent by a Japanese statesman to the effect that England never gave a lead and never gave the slightest indication of a policy. The policy of the open door and equality of opportunity had gone long ago. The Committee had a right to complain that the Agreements drawn up between this and other countries were not clear and specific in their meanings. In this particular matter the Anglo-German Treaty dealt with the whole Chinese territory. Now the Committee was told that it did not apply to Manchuria. He submitted that they were entitled to know what the Government had in their mind when they made that Agreement. If it was to apply to the whole of China, then it must of necessity apply to Manchuria.
With regard to Wei-hai-wei, the acquisition of which was supposed to be a great stroke of policy on the part of the Government, he understood that all fortifications had been stopped. Wei-hai-wei, they had been told, was to be a secondary naval base, and if that was so, then why were all the fortifications stopped? They wanted some intelligible explanation of the Government's policy as to Wei-hai-wei, but his principal object in rising was to draw attention to the unsatisfactory assurances that had been given with regard to the occupation of Shanghai by foreign troops, and he hoped that when he replied the noble Lord would be able to tell the House that he had received some definite assurance from the various Governments that that occupation was only temporary.
* : The right hon. Baronet who initiated this discussion this afternoon said that he did not intend to confine himself to China. I confess that it was with a feeling of despair that I heard that announcement, for I was not sure over how many parts of the habitable globe it would be my duty to follow him. But he was merciful, and, although I believe he knows the whole domain of foreign politics, he practically confined himself to two parts of the world. He did not receive with any enthusiasm the Waima statement, which I had hoped would satisfy him.
* : I said it was 1893 when the incident occurred.
* : I quite agree with the right hon. Baronet that the length of time was disgraceful, but I do not think it was the fault of our Foreign Office. I am glad, however, to think that at last the necessary measure has passed the French Chambers, and that ratifications have been exchanged. The right hon. Baronet dealt with the question of the Congo to a slight extent, and then he passed to the all-important subject of China. As regards the Congo, I do not think I have any quarrel at all with the right hon. Baronet as to the spirit of his remarks, and least of all in the historical account he gave of the situation as it presents itself to-day. He said perfectly truly that an arrangement was made between ourselves and the Congo State under which certain concessions of territory—a narrow roadway, as it were, between the lakes—were conceded to us, and we on our side, beside a certain rectification of frontier, conceded at that time to the Sovereign of the Congo State and the Congo State certain territories held by what is called a lease. That Agreement had a very short existence in its original form. The roadway between the lakes was abandoned in deference to the wishes of another Power. The French Government insisted upon the Sovereign of the Congo abandoning practically the largest part of the territory he was entitled to occupy under the Agreement, and therefore it appears that the Agreement in its original form no longer exists. It is quite clear that the first of these changes, the change with regard to the roadway between the lakes, equitably altered the state of things most considerably. It also is clear that, as the King was willing or compelled to give up a large part of what he had acquired under the Agreement, that, too, made a profound modification in the situation as it presented itself to ourselves. But that is not all, because there was a provision in the agreement which reserved in their integrity all the rights of Egypt when Egypt should be in a position to assert them; and I believe that to have been in the minds of the negotiators of the treaty a very important element. The time has arrived when Egypt is once more in a position to assert her rights, and we are, therefore, presented with an entirely different state of things. There is, perhaps, a certain equitable position which it is necessary for us to recognise in the case of the Sovereign of the Congo State; but when the right hon. Baronet speaks of determining to what he is entitled, let me explain that it is ourselves who have got to determine that, and no one else. We are of opinion that when we come to consider that point, what has passed since the agreement was made has entirely altered the situation. I need hardly say there is no reason to fear any action on the part of His Majesty's Government, such as the right hon. Baronet alluded to: that we were engaged in giving away a large part of the territory which belongs to us, and conceding to the Congo State the control over a large population over which at present they have no control. I assure the right hon. Baronet such a thing only exists in his imagination. We are fully aware how important our rights in that district are, and that both from the point of view of the British Empire and the natives of these districts the British Government is the best Government that they can have, and is essential to the security and prosperity of that district. I think I have said enough on that topic.
I turn to China. The right hon. Baronet has travelled very far back into ancient history. Not that I complain of that, except that it becomes necessary to repeat over again many of the things which I have had the honour of stating to the House on previous occasions. Among other things which the right hon. Baronet has discussed is the Anglo-German Agreement. I have explained, and I will explain again to-night, our view of the Anglo-German Agreement. He spoke of the Japanese—
* : That, at least, is new.
* : I do not think so. They adhere to the Anglo-German Agreement, and we are assured that they entered into all the rights of the signatories. There is no question that they have all the rights which ourselves and Germany have under the agreement. I do not think that the Japanese are in any doubt as to the views we take of the Anglo-German Agreement. The right hon. Gentleman says that they interpreted it according to its plain meaning. That is so, and so do we. These are the very words which I addressed to the House on the first occasion when I had the honour to address it as the representative of the Foreign Office. The right hon. Baronet said in his speech that I made in my speech a wide distinction between the two clauses of the Agreement. That is perfectly true. The plain meaning of the Agreement is that there is a distinction. If we attach, as we ought to attach, consideration to the words as they are set out anyone will see that what I have called the "open-door" clause is distinct from the territorial clause. I have said before, and I say it again to-night, that there is no limit to the territorial clause. It applies to the whole of the Chinese Empire; but the open-door clause is obviously limited—limited, in the first place, to the ports, the littoral, and rivers of China, and, in the second place, limited to those ports in which the contracting Powers have influence. I have said that the territorial clause includes the whole of the Chinese Empire. Is that sufficient for the right hon. Member?
Does that include Manchuria?
* : Yes, it does; but I call special attention to the limitations which exist in the open-door clause, because they are very important. In the first place, the contracting Powers are not compelled to use their influence or to interfere in any way in any part of the Chinese Empire where they can exercise no influence. If the German authorities consider that they have no influence in Manchuria, which is, I believe, their view, no doubt that takes Manchuria out of the agreement, but as regards other limitations it is very important as bearing on the greater part of the right hon. Baronet's argument. It has reference only to the ports, littoral, and rivers of China. It has no reference to the railways, and it was never put forward as having reference to the railways. There is no reference to the interior of China at all. The whole of the argument of the right hon. Baronet, which went to show that we have lost something with regard to railways which we had obtained by previous agreement, was beside the mark. The Anglo-German Agreement could not, and did not, pretend to apply to railways. It applied only to the coast and the banks of the rivers. As to whatever rights we or Germany had with respect to the interior before the Anglo-German Agreement, they and we continue to have now. No change whatever has been made. It was a step in the direction of the open door—a short step, no doubt; I never pretended that it was more. I remember stating to the House months ago that it was a small step in the direction of maintaining the principle of the open door. The right hon. Baronet criticised the account which my noble friend the Secretary of State and I, in a more humble way, gave of the Manchurian Agreement. We stated that which we knew about the Manchurian Agreement. We had seen certain alleged drafts of that Agreement, which were not signed, as the right hon. Baronet seems to think, but were being, negotiated between Russia and China. No words ever dropped from my noble friend or myself which would lead the right hon. Baronet or anyone else to suppose that we thought that the Agreement was signed; indeed, we had every reason to believe that the Agreement had not been signed. It had not been signed then, and it has not been signed now, and when I interrupted the right lion. Baronet and said that "I knew of no Agreement" that was quite accurate, and consistent with what I have always said. We knew that an Agreement was in negotiation between Russia and China, but we knew that it had not been signed. We knew more—that Russia had put forward a different draft, which has been withdrawn. What, then, becomes of the charge of the inefficiency and laches on the part of the Foreign Office because of the existence of the Manchurian Agreement? So far as negotiations were concerned, by friendly representations and by supporting the patriotic action of Chinamen themselves, we have been enabled to avoid the signature of that Agreement, strictly acting up to our obligations under the Anglo-German Agreement. The right hon. Baronet criticises even the phrases I have used. They were phrases, of course, that were furnished to us by the Russian Government, and I attributed, as I was bound to attribute to the words of friendly power with whom we were in negotiation, that full faith to which they were entitled.
The Russian Government, although we had not been able to agree with them in all respects, has time after time yielded to our representations. Take the Northern Railway, for instance. The right hon. Baronet criticised what we have done with regard to that railway. He gave us no credit—I suppose no member of the Opposition ever does give the Government any credit—["No," and laughter]—but I claim a little cheer from the hon. Members opposite because we have induced the Russian Government by friendly representation to withdraw from the whole of that part of the railway inside the Great Wall. That is a matter of very great moment to the bondholders who have invested their money in the railway within the Wall. That has been done; if we continue our efforts, there is no reason to say or to think that the Russian Government at the proper time will not give up the northern section of the railway—that which is outside the Wall—in the same way as it has done that which is inside. Recently we have been engaged in pressing on them that the time has arrived when some of the station buildings should be handed back to the control of the British military authorities, who represent the interests of the British shareholders in China; and, though I am not able to say that these buildings have been handed over, we believe that in a few days they are to be in our hands. These are all progressive improvements, for which I think I ought to be cheered by the hon. Member opposite. [Mr. LAMBERT: Hear, hear.] The question of personal damage conies within the far wider question of the indemnity, as to which negotiations have not yet been completed, and therefore at present I am not able to make a full statement.
Then I pass to Tientsin. The right hon. Baronet has criticised ourselves, and the Russian Government too, very severely with respect to Tientsin. The Russians say that they have secured concessions on the banks of the Pei-ho; but so have we, and so has Germany, and so has Belgium, and so has France. We all have concessions on the banks of the Pei-ho. It does not follow that the Russian concessions are legal and in order, as all that is matter for negotiation. The difficulty which arose between us and Russia was not principally in regard to the concessions, though we are not in a position to admit that Li Hung Chang had legal authority for granting such a concession as that in question. The difficulty did not arise in respect of the concession itself, but as to certain parts of it claimed by the railway or by private British subjects. With regard to the railway land which led to the acute phase of the controversy, as the Committee are aware, we asserted emphatically the right of the railway administration to this land as being part of the security upon which the money of the shareholders had been advanced. The right hon. Baronet says that we were exposed to every kind of insult from the Russian authorities. I am not aware of that. Undoubtedly the armed forces of the two countries came very close to each other, and they were not divided by so much as the width of this table; but I have no reason to suppose that anything occurred between the Russians and ourselves of the insulting character which the right hon. Baronet has described. We appealed, time after time, to the good sense and moderation of the Russian Government to exercise their authority over their representatives in China, and they did so. The result was that an agreement was arrived at that, in respect of all disputed ground, the rights should be reserved for future negotiations and for determination by some peaceful authority, and not by the armed forces of either side, and that in the meantime nothing should be done which would prejudice those rights. Although I am bound to say that on more than one occasion since, the Russian military authorities have not shown as careful a deference to that agreement as we had a right to expect, still, whenever we have made representations to the Russian Government, they have been received in a very different spirit. They have sometimes said, when we declared that the status quo had been violated, that it had not been violated, and they have sometimes made concessions in regard to the line their military authorities had taken up such as should give satisfaction to us. We are therefore in the same position as we were in three months ago. The hon. Gentleman the Member for South Molton is horrified because we have not progressed very far in three months. I wish I could persuade him not to be in such a hurry. Does he think that delicate negotiations of this kind are to be settled in a few weeks? The processes of diplomacy are far slower than that. The practice of diplomacy as it exists, and has existed for many years, is naturally a process which takes time, and when the matter under discussion concerns the property of a third Power an extra complication is introduced, which naturally leads to great delay.
* : Can the noble Lord say whether the effect of the existing state of things is to prevent the continuance of the construction of the railway sidings, which were held to be absolutely essential to the working of the line?
* : If I remember rightly, the importance of the railway sidings had reference to the evacuation of the army of occupation, in China, and no complaint had reached, us of any serious difficulty having been found by our military authorities in that respect.
Who is in possession of the disputed ground in the meantime?
* : We are in possession of some of it, and the Russians are in possession of some of it. The matter is under discussion, and will be settled, I hope, in due course.
Are we to understand that the Russians have agreed to the maintenance of the status quo ?
* : Yes, Sir, in regard to the disputed territory. We have agreed that the matter is to be reserved entirely for future discussion. Although it is very possible, I may frankly say to the Committee, that the authorities on the spot have not rigidly carried out in every respect the orders of the central authorities, that is a matter of very small importance, and the important thing for us to fix our minds upon is the engagement which the Russian Government have made to reserve this question for future determination, and that nothing shall be done in the meantime to prejudice the rights of either Government.
Then I may say a word about Shanghai. The hon. Member for South Molton was evidently surprised to find that there were foreign troops in Shanghai. I am afraid the hon. Member has not read the Blue-books, because if he had he would have found that accounts of the presence of foreign troops in Shanghai have been elaborately set forth in a great many despatches, and that we understood at the time the reason why they arrived there. It was, of course, in connection with the disturbances in China. A good deal was said at the time of the possibility of a rising in the northern part, in the neighbourhood of the Yang-tsze Valley; and a discussion took place between ourselves, and the foreign Powers and the Yang-tsze Viceroys as to whether it would or would not be a good thing to land European troops in Shanghai. I need not go into this, because the negotiations have passed, but the upshot of it all was that a large number of troops landed, partly English, partly French, partly Germans, and partly Japanese; but the English troops are more than the equivalent of all the others put together. The hon. Gentleman said that that, apparently, was a violation of the principles which we have determined to uphold. We are not in a position to dictate to foreign Powers—we have never aspired to dictate to foreign Powers in regard to Chinese territory, as if it belonged to ourselves. No such claim has been put forward. When I hear hon. Gentlemen talk about our position on the Yang-tsze and about the "open door" in the same breath, I wonder they do not see they are inconsistent. Our object, of course is to keep the Yang-tsze Valley open, not only to our trade, but to the trade of everyone else as well. That is what we have always put forward as one of the principles of our policy. Though we are not in a position to dictate to foreign Powers in respect to that matter, we are in a position to know what their intentions probably are. That knowledge is founded on information that we receive, and we understand that they intend their forces there to be only temporary occupation. I hope that will satisfy the hon. Member.
Why are the French building quarters there?
* : That is a question the hon. Member should address to the French Government. I should like to say one word in regard to what we have done. We have been engaged in securing the assent of the Chinese Plenipotentiaries to the various provisions in the Joint Note. The Joint Note is a very long and important document, consisting of about twelve clauses which puts forward the demands of the Powers upon China, and in which they declare the concessions which are considered an essential retribution for the outrages which have been committed in violation of our national treaties with China. We have made great progress. I cannot say that in every respect the negotiations are finished, but we have done a great deal. There was a question of punishment. The Committee is aware that a large number of the greatest offenders have been condemned, and we are informed that they have been punished. Then there are the provincial offenders. A very large number have been put on a list which has been submitted by the Powers to the Chinese plenipotentiaries, and we have insisted that they must also be punished. I cannot say that punishment has actually been carried out, but it is one of the matters which are still pending. Then there is the question of the Legation quarter in Peking. The Powers have determined what the Legation quarter in Peking shall consist of. They have, I think, come to the conclusion as to the garrison which is to hold it. Then as to the razing of the Ta-ku and other forts, an agreement has been arrived at. The military occupation of certain points has been determined upon, and I think the forces which are to occupy them have been selected.
There remain two very important articles—the article which has to do with the indemnities and the article which has to do with commercial facilities. In regard to the indemnities, I hoped that I should have been able to announce to the Committee this afternoon that the question had been finally settled, but there is one particular which has not been settled. Nearly everything else has been. We have settled the total of the indemnities—450,000,000 taels; we have settled the method of payment—4 per cent, and a sinking fund; we have settled in the main the revenues which are to be ear-marked for the payment of interest on the bonds to be issued. They are, as the Committee probably knows, the native customs, the salt tax, the surplus remaining of the already hypothecated maritime customs, and, besides that, we have agreed to the raising of the maritime customs to an effective 5 per cent. ad valorem . As the Committee is aware, owing to the fall in the value of silver and other reasons, a large number of the customs duties in China which were supposed to be 5 per cent. are very much below that value. We have agreed that that shall be raised to the full 5 per cent., but not unconditionally. I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that we do not think that in the interests of British trade it would be reasonable even to agree to that amount, or to the raising of the duty at all, except in return for certain concessions. That proposition was not originally made by us. It was the original proposition of the United States. We have won this point, and the form which these concessions are to take is the facilitating the river approaches of the Pei-ho and the Yang-tsze, which I think the hon. Member opposite has more than once referred to in this House. I am quite sure that the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean, and the hon. Baronet who formerly occupied the office I hold, will both agree that the matters which I have enumerated represent the fruits of very long and elaborate negotiations, and if in any other respects, and in other departments of the Chinese question, greater progress has not been made, I would ask the Committee to remember that you must do one thing at a time, and evidently the most important and pressing matter was to agree upon the Joint Note, and then to settle how the provisions of it were to be carried out. That is what we have been engaged on all these months, and I have told the Committee that we have been engaged upon it successfully. There is yet a point to be determined. There was the suggestion of certain Powers that we should agree not only to raising the customs duties to an effective 5 per cent., but to 10 per cent. That, as the Committee are aware, His Majesty's Government find themselves completely and absolutely unable to agree to. We cannot agree to raising the amount of the duty any further unless there be important commercial facilities from China. In regard to these commercial facilities it will be very soon our duty to enter upon serious negotiations. The matter is very elaborate, and I am afraid the patience of the hon. Member will be very seriously tried, as it cannot possibly be arranged except after very prolonged negotiations. It has to deal with an enormous variety of subjects on which I do not think I ought to trouble the Committee. I might mention one or two of them. The improvement of the waterways has been dealt with to some extent in the concessions I have already spoken of. There is the question of inland navigation and of likin in general; and an interesting department of that into which inquiry may have to be made is whether a system which, I believe, Li Hung Chang himself started in his own government when he was a Viceroy is not likely to prove a good expedient for avoiding the difficulties of likin—namely, a fixed payment by the guild of merchants. There is the question of foreign salt to be imported, the transport of grain from one part of China to another, the liability of Chinese shareholders in foreign companies, the protection of foreign trade marks and inventions, and the right of residence within the walled cities and the open ports. All these matters are already under consideration. No doubt the thing, either in whole or in part, may be the subject of very elaborate negotiation. I hope the Committee appreciate that we are not in any way inclined to neglect what we believe, and have always said, is really the important matter for us in China, and that is the protection of our merchants and the furtherance of our commercial interests. It is with that object we shall continue our work. As far as our treaty rights are concerned, whether as against China or any other Powers, we shall not forget those rights, though we do not believe in an aggressive policy in China. We do not believe that a country whose prosperity depends upon commerce and tranquillity would be well advised in adopting a hectoring manner in approaching foreign Powers in regard to the difficult situation in China—a manner which might lead to a breach of the peace, which would be destructive both of our own commerce and of peace.
A considerable number of points have been raised in the course of the debate on which I should like to make a few comments. And first I would ask the Committee to go back for a moment to the question of the Congo leases, which was raised early in the debate, and in the speech of the noble Lord opposite. It was the fashion last autumn for some members of the Government to say that all their difficulties in foreign affairs were inherited from their predecessors. In a sense this is true, not only of this, but of every Government. Their predecessors, when they came into power, found that they had inherited some very difficult obligations from their predecessors, who were mainly the right hon. Gentlemen who now occupy the front bench opposite. One of those obligations, which was most difficult, was the unsettled situation in Uganda and that part of our sphere of influence which subsequently became the subject of the Congo leases. The situation of which the leases were the outcome was one which the last Government inherited from their predecessors. I always regretted that the roadway, which was part of the leases, had to be given up, but the Government of that day had no choice in the matter, because when fully investigated it was found that certain negotiations had taken place between Lord Salisbury's Government and the German Government in previous years which gave the German Government the absolute right to demand that nothing of that kind should have been done without their consent, so that we had really no choice in the matter when the full circumstances were disclosed. That being given up, it undoubtedly had a considerable effect on the validity of the rights of the agreement with the Congo State, and still more when the Congo State made an agreement with the French Government, which prevented them implementing a great part of their lease. The fact remained that, the leases having been made by the Congo Government, a good many years had passed, and a great part of the leases had not been implemented by them. I consider these are small matters in the Congo leases. The thing, however, I was anxious about at that time was as to the position we were placing ourselves in, when making the Agreement, with regard to Egypt. We were the trustees at the time of the rights of Egypt. Egypt had rights in those regions which she abandoned by force, but unwillingly, and when abandoned she expressly declared that she did not abandon them for good. That being so, though the rights of Egypt were not being revived at that time, it was absolutely necessary in making that Agreement with the Congo State that the rights of Egypt should be most strictly reserved. I think that substantially what I have said is in agreement with what the noble Lord opposite has said. I was a subordinate member of the Government that made the Agreement, and I may express my own view that the present position and the validity of the Agreement coincides very much with that which the noble Lord has put before us.
I pass from that to what the noble Lord called the eternal subject of China. The subject of China is always interesting, because it is so important, but it is a most difficult and unwieldy subject to handle in debate. I always feel when we come to debate it that the whole question is like a great morass, in which one has to step from one firm piece of ground to another, and it does not get less of a morass when it comes up in this House. Everything has made the morass worse, and the firm ground more and more scanty, and to-day, when we should like to know about the future and what the relation of China is going to be to the rest of the civilised world, that becomes more obscure and more mysterious. The difficulty of preserving and protecting the independence and integrity of China are not less, but greater, than before—the difficulty of seeing China make the progress which Japan has made in the comity of civilisation is greater than ever, and the whole subject is more obscure than it has ever been.
The subject falls into two main parts—our relation to China and to the other Powers who also have interests there. Our interests have not been separately conducted. They have been conducted by the British Government as part of the Concert of European Powers together with the United States of America. The Concert has had a somewhat melancholy history. The military side of it has not been a pleasant one. We have had accounts circulated in the world at large of excesses and barbarities which, if true,, would be a disgrace to civilisation. But I am reluctant to comment upon these because accounts which we know to be untrue have been circulated with respect to excesses and barbarities by our own troops in another part of the world. We should resent that intelligent men in foreign countries should believe some of the things that have been stated in foreign newspapers about our own troops in the field. That being so, I would fain extend to other Powers whose troops have been charged with barbarities in China the same restraint and generosity in abstaining from giving credence to all that has been said which we should expect from them with regard to ourselves. But, be that as it may, the main question for us in this Committee is the conduct of our own troops, and I am glad that, in all that has passed, we have received from the Government—and, indeed, no serious charge has been brought against our troops—assurances that no charges have been brought with good foundation. That may be enough, so far as that part of the subject is concerned. I have heard something of friction between the foreign troops who were engaged, and especially of the bearing of some of those troops towards our own Sikhs. The noble Lord gave us to understand that, in his opinion, there was no foundation for the statements that our own Sikhs had been insulted by the troops of any other Power. I welcome that, and I hope it is true.
* : What I said was that I knew of no such altercation between the Russian troops and ourselves. Undoubtedly, there were certain altercations between certain foreign troops and ours. I do not think it is right that the Committee should attribute very much importance to them. They were isolated cases, so far as we are aware. We cannot expect everybody to be wise at such a time.
I would only say that if any cases of that kind did occur to our own troops, and if they were absolutely unprovoked and amounted to insult, the reparation ought to have been public and exemplary, and I am sure any foreign Government would make that reparation. Then there is the political and diplomatic action of the Concert and the effect its action may have politically on the future of China. I am afraid that effect will be bad. The Concert has, I suppose, put a certain amount of fear into the minds of the Chinese by its operations, but I am afraid fear and resentment are likely to be the main effect of the operations. Even the fear is somewhat imperfect, because some of the greatest criminals, for whose wrongs we went to exact reparation, have escaped. Some of the highest certainly have not incurred the penalty which it was proposed to exact with regard to them, and I am afraid that now the Concert is leaving China as badly disposed towards the other Powers with which it has to deal as ever. Our great object was, before these troubles, to see a reformed and stronger central Government in China. Has the Concert done anything to bring that about? It has weakened the central Government without making it any better. The action of the Powers jointly has been not only to bring reform no nearer, but I think it has postponed reform. It has not made the Government stronger, but has weakened it. I am afraid that even in the matter of the indemnities the Concert have sown seed which may lead to a further crop of troubles. They arranged the question apparently with the idea that they should set the maximum amount which China could be expected to pay and impose that upon the Chinese Government. What is to happen in the future, when there are other matters to deal with? If we have already reached the maximum it will be impossible to exact reparation, by way of indemnity, for what may occur in the future. Then, if you load China with these indemnities, how is it possible that she should improve in the future? I think His Majesty's Government have done their best to keep the indemnities down. They have certainly kept our own indemnity down. I think their line has been that we ought to be moderate in indemnities and seek compensation in the future prosperity of China, and that this would be better than to prejudice the prospects of improvement by a load of debt. I agree entirely with that view. But then some other Powers have fixed their indemnities so high that the chance of our finding compensation in the improved prospects of China is really destroyed.
I heard the noble Lord claim the other day that the British Government had been the guiding spirit in the Concert. I must say that I think it would be better if that claim were withdrawn. I think the action of the Concert has been comparatively ineffective in the past, and is likely to lead to a great deal of trouble in the future. I thought until that claim was put forward that the British Government had been overborne by the Concert rather than that it had dictated the policy of the Concert. I have always felt that considerable allowance should be made for the difficulties of the British Government in their desire not to do anything which would make it difficult for the Concert to keep together. But that excuse is entirely destroyed if the noble Lord puts forward the claim that the British Government have been the guiding spirit of the Concert. It is difficult to see, without being possessed of full knowledge, how much more the Government might have done. But I think they might have had more say in choosing who were to be the Chinese through whom negotiations were to be conducted with the central Government. I do not think the mediums who were chosen by the Concert to conduct these negotiations were altogether happy ones. I wish it had been possible for His Majesty's Government to choose men of proved capacity and proved goodwill, such as one or both of the Yang-tsze Viceroys, as the medium through which negotiations should take place with the central Government. The amount of the indemnity is fixed, and comparatively little hitch remains as to how the indemnity is to be raised. I have no wish to criticise what has already been done. I shall not criticise jealously the increase of maritime Customs if we have greater facilities for internal trade. I believe the abolition of the likin would far more than compensate for the increase of the maritime Customs dues. But the abolition of the likin is a very difficult matter. It means putting an end to corruption in the internal government of China, and the adoption of European methods. It means so much that I should almost despair of improving the likin system if it were not for the comparison with what has already been done in the Chinese maritime Customs. They, I suppose, were at one time as bad as the likin system is. We know what they have become under European guidance. It is not so easy to deal with internal duties as with maritime Customs. It is one thing to have European influence on the littoral and in the ports, and another thing to make it felt inland. I should think, however, it may be possible in some districts, especially those under good Viceroys, gradually to extend a partial application of the maritime Customs system to the likin duties. If that could be done some progress would be made. With regard to other concessions, the noble Lord expressed some surprise at the impatience of my hon. friend the Member for South Molton at the slow progress made in getting other facilities for British trade. The expectations of my hon. friend had been very much raised by a speech made by a predecessor of the noble Lord about three years ago. I have always felt that the difficulty of dealing with this question of China is that it does not lend itself to firm and confident language. A speech which Lord Curzon made in 1898 is, I think, the best example of how dangerous it is to use firm and confident language about the future of affairs in China.
* : Not confident.
I think if he reads the speech he will find it very confident. The internal waterways of China were referred to, and the speech read as if in a few months British vessels would be able to convey British merchandise to every riverside town arid port in China. At that time, when we were critical of Chinese affairs, when our attention had been arrested by the fact that Russia and Germany had been making vast strides in China, partly at the expense of British interests, and when we were anxious to know how British interests were being upheld, our mouths used to be stopped by firm language of that kind. If anyone reads those hopes held out three years ago, what remains of them? We are exactly at the same point—those internal waterways have not yet been made available to British trade—but the noble Lord does riot speak in nearly the same terms of confidence as Lord Curzon did three years ago with regard to them., and these waterways have not yet been made available for British trade. What we have left from the negotiations of three years ago is the possession of Wei-hai-wei—a place which lies, unfortunately, remote from such regions as the Yang-tsze, where British trade interests are more especially concerned. The fact of having taken Wei-hai-wei undoubtedly makes it more difficult for us to obtain another port which might be better situated for British interests. If we are going to choose a place in China, I wish we had chosen one nearer to the Yang-tsze region than Wei-hai-wei. In these matters of trade a great deal depends, and always will depend, in China, on prestige. Prestige is a word used to signify so many things. There is the kind which goes up like a rocket and comes down like a stick. I mean that slow, gradual, and well-maintained prestige which comes from having a good personnel upon the spot in the consular service. What I would suggest in the matter of trade—though I have no reflections to make on the present consular service in China—is that it ought to be one of the main objects of the Foreign Office to maintain that consular service at a high level, to have men of force, ability, and tact in all the right places in China, and to keep them there so that they can acquire that knowledge that can only be gained by long residence. One of the difficulties of foreign affairs is that the diplomatic service and the consular service need different trainings. The consular service has to deal with trade, and for that purpose it is best that a man should remain in the same country piling up his knowledge of its trade. For diplomacy I think that is apt to be dangerous. You want a man who goes from post to post, so that his perspective may be a wide one in whatever post he may be placed. I think that you should have the consular service in China maintained at the highest possible level, because it so much depends on the Consul on the spot whether British trade gets those facilities from native authorities which it ought to have. Behind the consular service there ought to be—there was when I knew it, I hope it is the same now—a first-rate energetic Chinese department at the Foreign Office, not only to back up the consuls, but to focus the eye of the Secretary of State for the time being on Chinese affairs.
I agree with the criticisms that have been made on the Agreement with Germany. It seems to me a most one-sided Agreement. The noble Lord referred us to the plain meaning of the words, and then he entered on an explanation of the Agreement, by which we were told that we must carefully keep certain parts separate. Then the Agreement comes to very little: the only part of it that is unlimited is the part relating to territorial advantages between the two contracting Powers to it. What are the two contracting Powers to do? The third clause says that in case of another Power making use of the complications in China in order to obtain under any form whatever such territorial advantages, the two contracting parties reserve to themselves to come to a preliminary understanding as to the eventual steps to be taken for the protection of their interests in China. It needed no Agreement to reserve that right to the two Powers. The more I look at this Agreement, and the more I consider the interpretation put upon it by the German Government themselves, the more one-sided it appears to me to be. From the point of view of Germany it seems that under the Agreement they have undertaken no obligation in Manchuria, and abated no privilege in Shantung, but have secured equal terms for them-selves in the Yang-tsze Valley. We cannot impose terms on the German Government in regard to Manchuria which they do not wish to have, we do not propose to take any steps in regard to Shantung, and we have always said that we do not wish to exclude them, or anybody, from full competition in any part of China, so that we are not losing anything under the Agreement; but, for all that, it is a very one-sided affair. The-plain meaning of the Agreement seems to me to be this. We have promised that we will not do in any part of China what Germany has already done in Shantung, and Germany has promised that she will not do it anywhere else-except in Shantung. She has certain, privileges in Shantung which we certainly cannot have for ourselves in the Yang-tsze Valley; this Agreement has; precluded us from having them.
* : I told the Committee just now that the Agreement has nothing to do with the interior of China at all; it has no reference whatever except to the coast—the open-door clause, I mean.
Yes, but it has to do with all the ports of the Yang-tsze, and the Yang-tsze river goes very far into the interior of China—in fact, the region to which we have specially devoted our attention in China is named after the river because the river goes right through the region. I have criticised the Agreement; I do not mean to say I wish it had not been made, but it seems to me worth very little. I do not wish that it had not been made, because I am anxious that we should work with Germany as far as China is concerned. When you look at the foreign interests in China, it seems to me you find, to begin with, that there are certain Powers who have no further territorial ambitions whatever, and whose interests are likely to be confined to trade. We are one of those Powers. I understand that the Government hold the view that we not only do not desire further territory in China, but that we wish to avoid undertaking further territorial responsibilities. I think there is reason to believe that Germany is now in the same position; she has got some territorial advantages, but does not wish to extend them, and has an interest in trade. The United States have a great interest in trade, and, I believe, desire to avoid territorial responsibility. There you have three Powers with a solidarity of interests, apart from what has been done in the past, and those three Powers ought to act together in Chinese matters; because selfish interests ought to hold them together. When you come to the other Powers, we find that Japan has political interests as well as trade interests. Well, it used to be the case, and as far as I know it is the case now, that Japanese interests not only arouse no conflict with us, but have excited our sympathy. We were the first to welcome Japan to the comity of civilised nations; we have watched her progress with an eye not only not jealous but very sympathetic, and as far as I know, and I certainly hope it is true, the Government observe this attitude towards her. But another Power besides Japan has political interests with regard to China—namely, Russia. It appears to me that circumstances and inclination have led Russia lately to expand, particularly in Asia. I endorse what I think was Lord Salisbury's phrase with regard to the Russian Government, that there was room in Asia for both of us, and I believe it to be absolutely true, but the application of the phrase needs a little more care. It is equally true to say that there is room in the Atlantic for the ocean-going steamers, but it is desirable that they should agree among themselves upon certain routes which they should observe, in order to avoid the danger of collision. So with us and Russia in Asia. An understanding between the two countries is really vital to any satisfactory condition of affairs. While I am told it is difficult to have an understanding with the Russian Government, I do not care a fig for the accusations of duplicity sometimes brought against the Russian Government, but I say the Russian Government carries to excess the precept of not letting her left hand know what her right hand is doing. But we must remember that the whole of our policy for a generation or two past must have had for its result to lead Russia to believe that we are likely to oppose whatever she does, and what I regret is that the opportunities that have arisen in the Far East have not been taken of impressing on the Russian Government that it is not only possible but to her interest to be frank and open with us about her own ambitions. Take the question of Port Arthur; she wished not only for a commercial port, but a military port. We never gave her to understand that we were prepared to concede more than a commercial port. We expressed surprise when we were asked to withdraw our ships from the port, and we took dudgeon when we found she was in possession of what we are now all agreed she will remain in possession of, and which we believe is not incompatible with British interests. If we had only impressed on her before how much concession we were prepared to make as to her expansion in that part of the world, then all this would have come about as the result of her agreement with us, and not in the unpleasant way in which it has come about, and in the future the Russian Government would certainly have felt that it is not only possible but hopeful to be frank with us about her aims. If I had thought that Russian expansion in Asia was necessarily in consistent with British interests which we must maintain, and that they could not be so guided and directed as to be compatible with our own interests, I would not press this. It is precisely because I believe that by frank dealing with the Russian Government her legitimate ambitions may be satisfied in Asia without our legitimate claims being endangered that I do not press the point, and because I see more and more that unless we can, as we have the opportunity, convince the Russian Government that her expansion can be taken in consultation with us, and not at the expense of British interests, there is great danger in the future. The noble Lord claimed great credit for the Government for the restoration of this northern railway to the British owners. I am not prepared to cheer the noble Lord on what the Government have done. What they have done is to get our property restored to us—
Part of it.
Yes, part of it, not even the whole of it. We are told that statements appear to the effect that when the Russians occupied that railway they carried away a good deal of the plant. Has that been restored as well as the railway? It is said that the Chinese did not do this. If the Russian Government has actually carried away what the Chinese Government left intact, we ought certainly to have an explanation.
* : I suppose the right hon. Baronet is referring to the workshop in Shan-hai-kwan. A certain amount has been restored, and the Russian Government has promised to restore the rest, but that has not been done.
Then, as I said before, we must withhold our cheering, and, even when the reparation is conceded, after all it is not as if we obtained anything new, or got a fresh concession or advantage. It is merely that we get back, after a considerable interruption, a possession which we held some time ago. I will not dwell on the Tientsin affair, for I think these are small matters. To return to my old point. The more the Russian Government can be convinced that it is possible to have satisfactory dealings with us about large matters, the more we shall find that these small matters tend to disappear. But in all these things we must be careful to avoid the old habit of trying to deal with the Russian Government through the Chinese Government. We did so in the Port Hamilton case—we withdrew from there when the Russian Government had given a promise, not to ourselves, but to the Chinese Government. We used the Chinese Government as an intermediary. We must not do that. Russia, I am sure, is becoming to China the great shadow which all Chinese Ministers see creeping across Asia, and already falling on their own territory; it fascinates their attention, not unnaturally. We shall never be able to deal with the Russian Government on equal terms through the central Government at Peking; we must deal with the Russian Government direct. There only remains the question of France. The main interests of France are in the South of China, and there, again, I think we must be frank with the French Government. She is anxious now to push railways into districts of South China which she believes to be commercially rich. Those railways will connect her own territory of Tonking with certain commercial districts of China. By all means let her have access by her railways to those southern districts, but in return she must bear in mind that our access is through the waterways. What I think the Government ought to arrange, as only fair between ourselves and the French Government, is that if we do not oppose her access by railways she must not oppose our having ports open on such places as the west coast. We were told that Nan-ning was to be open, yet obstacles were raised. The Government ought to see to it that side by side with the access of the French, which we do not wish to impede, progress should be made in the waterways, our natural means of access in the same parts, and when you have railways and waterways, while waterways will be our best access, we ought to bear in mind that the most-favoured-nation clause must not be evaded by very favourable treaties as to goods carried on the railways as against restrictions on goods carried by the waterways. We have to see that the most-favoured-nation treatment, which we really contend for, is not withheld from the waterways in China. A whole network of railways is pushing into China; the Russians have pushed in from the east and north; the Peking and Han-kau Railway comes down right into the Yang-tsze Valley; and the French are pushing railways from the south. I do not object to those railways being made by companies not our own, by companies with clauses binding them not to get their material in our country but in the countries to which the concessions were originally given. But we have to see to it that in the working of those railways our own means of access on the waterways is not prejudiced.
In this matter, after all, we can only judge of the success of the Government by results; it would be cruel to judge them by the standard Lord Curzon set up in his speech of a few years ago. If we did, they would plead that they had been the victims of circumstances. This Government have had to plead that excuse an unusual number of times of late. They ask, How could anyone in their places have done better than they have done? It is not for us to tell the Government or to press upon the Government any definite steps; it is not for us on this side of the Table to say what definite steps should be taken, for we have not the opportunity of consulting experts, we do not know the inner situation, and ca not have the knowledge while in opposition. It is not for us to prove, not for us to advise; we can only judge by results. As I have already said, His Majesty's Government represent only one in a group of Powers, and we cannot hold them responsible for everything that has happened; at the same time we do discern a tendency in the last few years, a general influence of squeeze upon British trade in China. That pressure we wish to see relaxed, and success in that direction does not depend upon definitions of our foreign policy. With little experience any Secretary of State can lay down such definitions and rapidly acquire powers of definition, but success does not depend on this. We have never disputed the good intentions of the Government in China or their definitions. To maintain the independence and integrity of China, we thought, implied a large responsibility, but we are in favour of it, and would be glad if it could be done. We also wish to see British trade maintained and progress made with it, and the door kept open; but, after all, these definitions are but as opiates when debates on foreign affairs in this House become exciting, and success does not depend upon them. On what, then, does it depend? There will be some who will readily reply, on the power of the British Navy, and in a sense I agree with them, for without that your interests will be thrust aside inside and outside a concert of Powers. But the Navy is not a motive power in foreign policy; it is a power in reserve. I do not know a Government during the last twenty years which has achieved more results in its foreign policy than that of Germany. That Government relies on its military power, yet it has peacefully maintained a successful policy. Admitting, then, that you must have physical force in reserve, on what does success really depend? It depends, and always will depend, not upon definitions of policy but upon the personality of the Foreign Minister and Prime Minister. Any man who occupies either of these positions must be a man of wisdom, a man of caution, and a man of peace, or he is not fit to be entrusted with the power of such an office. The noble Lord said that we on the Opposition side never give any credit to the Government. On the contrary, I give Lord Salisbury all credit for the possession of these qualities, which he has exercised for the benefit of his country. He has impressed upon the world at large that only in the last resort, and only under great provocation do we resort to force, and that his earnest desire is to attain the object he has in view by peaceful means. That credit I freely give to Lord Salisbury. But we also want energy, firmness, promptness in taking advantage of every opportunity, small or great, as it may arise, and which, if we do not take advantage of it, rapidly passes away. It is a true policy, as in driving, not to go at a great pace, not to hustle and jostle your neighbours, but to be quick in observing and taking advantage of small openings, and to use a subtle influence in getting drivers of other vehicles to adjust themselves to your action. My criticism of the Government policy, so far as China is concerned, is that it has not been like skilful driving, it has not been quick in taking advantage of opportunities as they have arisen. What we want in future is more promptness, more agility, more readiness to seize opportunities for pushing our interests. In the whole question of China there has been too much vague talk and too little concentration. The concrete points on which we wish to see progress made are proper reform of the likin, the opening of waterways, the removal of restrictions upon trade, and special encouragement to the progress of British trade in special regions, such as the Yang-tsze Valley, and the maintenance of a first-rate, well-supported consular staff.
said the speech of the hon. Baronet was no doubt of the greatest importance. There was one thing we might congratulate ourselves upon, and that was that in spite of the difficulties Chinese trade had been well maintained. He found that the trade of China for 1900 was very well up to the average, and in the early portion of this year there had been a very large revival of trade, and it worked out very much the same as in 1898. With one thing that the hon. Baronet had said he could not agree, and that was, as he understood the hon. Gentleman, that the result of what was happening in China was to make the difficulties in regard to China greater in the future. For his part he did not think so, because it appeared to him that the crisis through which China had passed had proved conclusively that there existed in that Empire a large body of educated opinion which was strongly in favour of reform. Until the crisis took place they did not know that. They did not know that behind the Emperor there was a large body of public opinion. According to Sir Robert Hart, the movement against the foreigners was confined to the northern provinces; and there was not the same sympathy with it in the southern provinces. It was quiescent there, because the Viceroys of the Yang-tsze, in spite of all the pressure to which they were subjected by the central authority, lent their powerful interest to the side of law and order and the reform party. The main leaders of the anti-foreign party were the Manchus. There was another point on which he did not agree with the hon. Baronet. At the very beginning of this struggle one of the Viceroys in the Yang-tsze region, who was responsible for the control of the ports, offered Great Britain the occupation of the ports by British troops. It appeared to him that if we had proclaimed that we had superior interests to any other country in the Yang-tsze region, and had practically undertaken certain responsibilities for our own people in that country and for other purposes, and if we had accepted the offer of the Viceroys, the power of these Viceroys would have been enormously increased in dealing with the antireform party. These Viceroys had risked much on behalf of European civilisation, and it ought to have been part of the terms of settlement that they should be secured in office against any attempts upon their lives by the Empress and the Manchus.
With regard to the indemnity, he understood that 5 per cent, had been agreed upon, subject to certain concessions. But the same treaties that gave China the right to a 5 per cent. tariff gave our traders certain rights, one being the free passage of our trade through China. If we agreed to the 5 per cent, he hoped that the various agreements that China had entered into would be carried out. What he knew to be the opinion of persons interested in Chinese trade was that, while they were prepared for a certain increase in the tariff, China ought to undertake to carry out her obligations. He feared that the interest of traders on that point had not been sufficiently considered. He was told that if the native customs were put under the Imperial Maritime Customs they would give an ample surplus for the payment of the indemnity. At present there was an enormous amount of speculation, and if that were stopped and the customs were placed under proper control they would yield ample funds for the payment of the indemnity. That would answer the question asked by the hon. Member for the Berwick Division that, If further demands were made on China, how were they to be met? In the land tax alone he was assured by Mr. Jameson, who was a well-known authority, that there was an immense leakage. With reference to the larger question of a 10 per cent, tariff, he was sure that every trader who was interested in China would desire that when that was entertained various large questions which vitally affected trade should also be taken into consideration. His noble friend mentioned inland navigation, but did that mean the right of residence in the interior, which was important? Then there was the further point of the Commercial Code. That was very important, and he thought the time had arrived when it should be administered fey courts of higher status than at present. It was perfectly obvious that it was to the interest of the commercial community that the status of these courts should be raised. With respect to the general positions of the Powers, he considered the Anglo-German Agreement of no value whatever. He did not think it helped them forward in any degree, and he could not see it did them either good or harm. He looked upon it as a perfectly useless and valueless instrument. He said very strongly that what the Government had to do was to endeavour to arrive, if they possibly could at some understanding with Russia as to railways in Manchuria, where British trade interests were of great importance. He dealt with that particular point two years ago when the Government undertook to back the Bills of certain financiers who were building the railway to Niu-chwang. He then expressed the opinion that the action of the Government was a great mistake. His reason was that, when they allowed Russia to take Port Arthur, they admitted she had certain rights in that part of China—preferential rights, if they liked to call them so—and they knew that Germany had always regarded that part of China as Russia's sphere of influence. It therefore appeared to him unwise 'in the extreme, if they had to make up their minds that that was Russia's sphere of influence with which they did not wish to interfere, to lend the influence of the Government to support a British railway enterprise into that region. When the Government made an Agreement with Russia, under which they undertook not to compete in railway enterprise with Russia in Manchuria, Russia undertaking not to compete in the British sphere of influence, they missed a great opportunity in not saying frankly to Russia, "We are now prepared to recognise your position in Manchuria." Our interests in Manchuria were not confined to a particular railway, financed by a few wealthy persons. Our interests were trading interests. Two years before the disturbances the trade of Niu-chwang amounted to three millions per annum. Of that we had a very large proportion, but it was shared by America and Japan. The question of the railway was a difficulty between Russia and England alone, and England would have to face Russia alone in that matter, but if it were a question of Russia attempting to put on preferential rates against British commerce, the Government would not only have the sense of the country with them in resisting that, but also the sense of the United States and Japan. Therefore, he trusted that the Government would consider the advisability of coming to some understanding with Russia with regard to the railway. In connection with that there was a very vital point to remember. A foreign syndicate in which France and Russia were supposed to be interested had got control of railways running through the British sphere of influence. That bore materially on the advisability of arriving at the understanding with Russia to which he had referred. Further, in the event of disturbances there was the possibility of the countries interested sending troops to protect the railways, and there was always the danger of annexation following protection. That was a real danger, and one which they could not afford to overlook. He would ask the Committee to bear in mind, also, that when they spoke of British trade with China they did not mean the trade of England alone, but the trade of the whole of the British Empire. There were India, Singapore, Canada, and Australia, and though the trade of England was large, it was small compared with what went under the name of British trade. What had to be remembered was that the Houses of Parliament in all questions affecting trade in China were acting, not for these small islands alone, but as trustees for the British Empire.
* said that the present situation in China claimed as great attention from the Committee to-day as it had done at any previous time of the history of what was known as the Chinese crisis. That crisis was, in his opinion, created by the unjustifiable aggression of foreign Powers in Chinese territory, notably on the part of Russia and Germany. So far as His Majesty's Government were concerned, the only blame which could be attached to them was that they acquiesced perhaps too readily in those aggressions, and thereby created in the mind of the Chinese nation the impression that we whom they had always considered their friends, really became in their eyes also desirous of seizing their territory and partitioning their Empire. The uprising of the Chinese to expel the foreign intruders created the crisis. What had been the sum total of the action of the allied Powers in China during the last eighteen months He was afraid the Chinese idea of western civilisation and Christianity had not been enhanced or increased by what had taken place recently in the north of China, having regard to the massacres, outrages, and looting which had been perpetrated by the representatives of western civilisation; although he was glad to know that, so far as the British soldiers were concerned, and more especially so far as the Indian native troops were concerned, that there was very little charge, if any, made against them. The effect at the end of hostilities in all probability was that there was a more deeply rooted anti-foreign feeling in China than there was before the outbreak took place. The situation seemed to be that certain reactionary ministers under the reactionary Dowager Empress of China successfully created in the minds of the Chinese people the impression that foreign nations were invading and seizing Chinese territory. He believed that the Boxer movement was in a large measure, what we should have described as patriotism if it took place in our own country in an attempt of our own people to expel a foreign invader. The feelings of the Chinese were acted upon by these reactionary Manchus and the Dowager Empress, and the result was what took place eighteen months ago. The action of the concert of the Powers had placed upon the shoulders of the Chinese people a huge indemnity of over £60,000,000 sterling. He was glad to know that His Majesty's Government had fixed the British share of that indemnity at a most moderate figure, but he was afraid that by their neglect to protest sufficiently strongly against the excessive and unjust demands of other Powers they would be regarded by the Chinese as being parties to this excessive and unjust demand. The burden of this excessive indemnity would fall, not upon those who had been guilty of the uprising in China, but, in the main, on the provinces which had remained absolutely peaceful, and in which no outrages upon foreigners, had occurred during the recent uprising. There was a great danger that the final imposition of this great demand by the concert of the Powers would be to create in the minds of the principal well-regulated Chinese people, in the provinces of the Yang-tsze region and the South of China, where law and order had been perfectly maintained through the intelligence and humanity? of the two great viceroys, when they had to bear the burden of taxation.
Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present; House counted, and, forty Members being found, present——
* said the noble Lord the Under Secretary had said that evening that certain sources of revenue had been ear-marked for the payment of this indemnity, and that the interest had been fixed at 4 per cent., and that a period of years had been agreed upon; he had hoped that the noble Lord would have been able to inform the Committee that a final settlement had been arrived at, and that the levelling up of the Imperial Customs import duty to 5 per cent, had been finally agreed upon. The Committee recognised that the Government had taken a right line in the interests of British commerce on this question, but in connection with the raising of the Imperial import duty he thought His Majesty's Government ought to have endeavoured to induce the Chinese Government to faithfully carry out the arrangement by which, by a payment of an extra 2½ per cent, likin, a free transit pass was to be granted to British goods no matter to what part of the country they went. He was glad to feel that when the commercial treaties were to be dealt with—and he hoped that would be at an early date—that in the view of the noble Lord there must be a total abolition of likin; but having regard to the fact that it was from the likin that the provincial governments of China derived their principal revenue, it would be absolutely necessary that out of the increased revenue drawn from the increased import duties some grant would have to be made to the provincial governments in substitution of the likin, and there would have to be allocated a sum out of which the officials throughout China could be adequately paid, so that it would not be necessary for them to take money passing through their hands for revenue purposes. With regard to the rearrangement of commercial treaties, the noble Lord would agree that the Government ought to seek to attain the high ideals which his predecessor in office said had already been attained as to the opening up of the great waterways throughout China. He remembered Lord Curzon coming down to the House and stating that an Agreement had been arrived at with the Chinese Government by which English ships would take English goods to every riverside town in China, yet to-day that Agreement remained a dead letter. If the noble Lord during his tenure of office could carry out completely the arrangement for the opening of the great waterways of China, he would distinguish himself above his predecessor. There was another point which would have to be carefully guarded against. Russia and France both had an arrangement under which goods were passed across the Chinese frontier at two-thirds less than the ordinary import duty.
* : Seven-tenths as a matter of fact.
* accepted the correction, but hoped if there was to be an increase in the maritime import duties, there would also be a similar increase in the land duties, otherwise British trade would be more or less handicapped. He much regretted at the end of the crisis to find no evidence of any genuine and earnest attempt to set up a better Government and administration in China. The recent uprising, as we knew, had been engineered by the corrupt Manchu officials who formed the Court of China, and it was very discouraging to find that at the end of the crisis, when the Allied forces were leaving the country, that they were, leaving in China practically the same reactionary Court which was in existence there before the uprising began, and. which would probably lead to further trouble in the future. He could not understand why His Majesty's Government, in view of all that had happened, had not given distinct and definite pledges to many enlightened statesmen, like the Yang-tsze viceroys, that they had not given those men to understand that in return for their having prevented the uprising in their districts they would protect them in their lives, possessions, and positions as a reward for having protected foreigners effectively throughout the districts over which they ruled. With regard to the fortifications which were being erected in Peking, he understood that there was to be created in Peking practically an international fortress. He did not suggest for a moment that an adequate Legation guard should not be left there, but he deprecated that there should be erected in the centre of the city an international fortress, which was to be inhabited by foreign troops, with a hostile city surrounding it. Anybody who knew anything of Chinese matters would know that the Chinese attached a peculiar sacredness to the forbidden city of Peking, which would be dominated by this fort, and he feared that the Chinese people throughout the Empire, in districts far from Peking, where there would be no protection after the Allied forces had been withdrawn, in retaliation for the position taken up by the Powers in Peking might renew the outrages against foreigners. He would certainly have wished that the fortification of the I egations at Peking should be limited as much as possible, having regard to the safety of the foreign representatives in that capital. He hoped the Government would not. support the stipulation of the Joint Note prohibiting the Chinese Government from either manufacturing or importing arms or creating a military force. If ever we were to have a regenerated China and a reformed administration it was absolutely necessary that the Chinese should not be debarred from either making or importing arms or from creating such military forces as might be necessary to prevent them being at the mercy of a foreign aggressor. There was Russia in the north with 200,000 men, and if China remained without military forces at any opportune moment a foreign aggressor might make further seizure of her territory. He hoped, therefore, the Government, so far as their influence could be exercised, would exercise their influence to allow the Chinese to place themselves in a position to maintain the integrity of their empire so far as they could do so by their own right arm.
The policy of the Government with regard to China was one with which both sides practically agreed. Again and again the House had been told that that policy was to maintain the "open door" and equal facilities of trade for all nations, but the Government did not appear to have been successful in carrying out that policy. The Anglo-Russian Agreement conceded to Russia certain preferential rights in regard to railway construction north of the Great Wall, and in return we had conceded to us similar rights in the Yang-tsze region. Then came the Anglo-German understanding by which we conceded to Germany preferential rights in Shantung and the valley of the Hoang-ho, and she conceded to us preferential rights in the Yang-tsze region. The much-talked-of Anglo-German Agreement followed, the object of which was set forth as being to preserve and maintain the existing treaty rights of the various Powers in China. The noble Lord had stated that that Agreement consisted of two parts—the one the maintenance of the territorial integrity of China, and the other the "open door." But with regard to the "open door" he explained that it applied only to the riverside towns and stations and the ports on the sea coast of China, and had nothing whatever to do with the interior. How absolutely useless that would be for the purposes of trade! Not one-tenth of the goods we exported to China were consumed at the seaports or the riverside towns and stations. The goods merely went to those points for transmission into the interior. But the particular clause stated the agreeing parties agreed "to uphold the same for all Chinese territory so far as they can exercise influence." That surely went beyond the sea coast and the riverside towns and stations.
* : The phrase "for all Chinese territory" means for the shore in all parts of China and for the banks of the rivers in all parts of China. That is to say, it is not confined to one province, but it embraces the ports on the shore or the littoral of all parts of China. That is further limited by the phrase "so far as the contracting Powers have influence."
said the noble Lord had omitted to notice certain important words; therefore it would be as well to read the clause—
"It is a matter of joint and permanent international interest that the ports on the rivers and littoral of China should remain free and open to trade, and to every other legitimate form of economic activity for the nationals of all countries without distinction; and the two Governments agree on their part to uphold the same for all Chinese territory."
That surely went beyond the seaports and the riverside towns and stations.
* : It means the ports on the river and littoral of all Chinese territory. That is the interpretation which has always been put upon it by the Powers.
said that the Treaty of Tientsin gave us the right to trade on equal terms with other nations throughout the whole of the Chinese Empire. Did the Government now come forward and declare that they had limited that right to merely being able to trade at the ports on the seaboard of China and at the riverside towns and stations? That would be an abrogation of our treaty rights which could not for a moment be tolerated. In Clause 2 His Majesty's Government certainly did agree with the German Government to do all in their power to maintain undiminished the territorial condition of the Chinese Empire; but, unfortunately, the two parties appeared to be in direct conflict as to the actual object, intention, and meaning of the agreement. Count von Bülow had said in the Reichstag—
"The Anglo-German Agreement has no reference to Manchuria. This is shown by the very wording of the Agreement. I stated before that this Agreement contained no secret arrangement of clauses, and that we had published the whole of it. I can now add that during the negotiations which led to the conclusion of this Agreement we left no room for any doubt that we did not take it as applying to Manchuria."
The House had never had a straightforward answer as to whether that statement of Count von Bülow was true or not. The German Foreign Minister said that he left the British Government no room whatever for doubt on that important point, and yet we went to the Japanese and other governments and induced them to sign the Agreement. The Japanese Government had distinctly stated that when they appended their signature they understood it to mean what it said, and apparently they were left in ignorance of the private communications which Count von Billow alleged had passed between the British and German Governments. He had raised this point again because it was of great importance that the good name of this country for straightforward dealing in the conclusion of Agreements of this nature should be made clear and maintained before the world. He did not know what further reply the noble Lord——
* : If the hon. Member will put his question I will answer it.
* : My question is whether the noble Lord accepts as correct the statement of Count von Bulow in the German Reichstag.
* : I can only answer that question as I have answered it already, and that is that as regards the open-door clause it is quite true that there is a limitation, upon which I have no doubt the German Government rely, and under which Manchuria, from their point of view, would be excluded. I think I may add that it is not at all incorrect to say that an intimation to that effect was given at the time of the drawing of the agreement. But when we come to the territorial clause, then I say there is no limitation at all. In express terms it applies to the whole of the Chinese Empire. That is how we understand it, and that is how Japan understands it.
* said that all he had to say on the point was that it was an absolute contravention of the declared policy of His Majesty's Government—namely, to maintain the open door throughout the Chinese Empire in accordance with the Treaty of Tientsin. Returning to the question of the Northern Chinese Railway, he reminded the Committee that a contract was first made with the Chinese Government that the railway should be built with British capital, and that we should have a mortgage over the whole line. The Russian Government interfered, and, in consequence of their pressure on the Chinese Government, the mortgage was ultimately limited to that portion of the line within the Great Wall, but we were to have the net receipts of the portion of the line from Shan-hai-Kwan to Niu-chwang. Under the Anglo-Russian Agreement we conceded to Russia exclusive rights of railway construction north of the Great Wall, but an exception was expressly made in regard to this, particular railway. The railway was a coast railway. When the outbreak occurred in China we had, or were presumed to have, the most powerful fleet in Chinese waters. Surely it would have been an easy matter to land some bluejackets and station them at various points of this coast railway for the protection of British property. He thought it ought to have been the first duty of His Majesty's Government, but it was not done. Russia seized the railway, pushing to one side the English manager and English officials, and until she restored to Germany the portion from Shan-hai-Kwan to Tientsin we were kept out of possession or control of even the portion of the line mortgaged to British bondholders. The noble Lord claimed much credit for having succeeded in getting this portion of British property restored to British subjects, but he (the speaker) did not regard it as a great achievement, especially as it came through, and was practically arranged by, Germany. The noble Lord had stated that the northern portion of the line, which he said had been appropriated or seized by Russia on the ground of military exigencies. would, when those military exigencies had ceased to exist, be restored to its rightful owners, and again be placed under the control of the English manager. Surely the time had come when that understanding or assurance might reasonably be expected to be carried out. The allied troops were withdrawing from China, and simultaneously with the withdrawal of those troops from the province of Chi-li, he thought His Majesty's Government ought to expect the Russian Government to withdraw from the control of the northern portion of this railway. Otherwise, what was the position? That the Government were unable to protect the property of British subjects in China. If that were acknowledged, it would deal a death-blow to British railway enterprise in that country. He did not wish for any un-duly aggressive action, but as the fighting was over, and the military exigencies had disappeared, we had a right to express our opinion, which should be represented by the Government in a firm, friendly, and dignified manner, that the time had arrived for this other portion of the Northern Chinese Railway to be restored to British control.
There was also the question of the land at Tientsin, which was much more important than might at first sight appear. It was not a small patch of land of little consequence. It was a stretch of land on the bank of the River Pei-ho, two miles in length, and directly opposite the British settlement, which was British Crown land. It would be information, to some members of the Committee that the British settlement af Tientsin was British Crown land, leased by the Crown to those who held the various portions of it, and at the end of the leases it would become British Crown property. The River Pei-ho was extremely narrow, and the shipping to and from the wharves of the British settlement occupied the whole width of the river. If this Russian concession was confirmed, and the Russians eventually erected wharves on their side of the river, there would be an absolute block of the shipping and of the trade facilities connected with the British settlement. In that respect, therefore, it was an important question. The Russian forces went to Tientsin with the other allied forces; and they, took part in the military operations against the Chinese who had risen, to drive them out. They had no more title to seize this portion of land at Tientsin than had any other Power which took part in those operations. The idea of their having obtained from Li Hung Chang in December last a free title to this concession would not for a moment bear examination.
What had the Government done in regard to this matter? The House were told that they came to an arrangement with Russia at the time of the railway siding incident that it should be "hands off" by both parties—that the Russians should cease to make their roads across this concession, that the British should cease to construct the railway siding and that the matter should be the subject of friendly negotiation between the respective Governments. If the status quo had been maintained there would be no ground for complaint, but it was known beyond a shadow of doubt that, whereas the British had observed their part of the bargain, the Russians had not only gone on with the construction of roads, but within the last ten days had had, attended with great ceremony, a formal opening of the whole concession, including the land claimed by the Nor them Chinese Railway Company. The noble Lord had stated that the Government had reserved the rights of this country in regard to this particular land. But what were those rights worth under such circumstances? Was not possession nine-tenths of the law? As he had before said, they on that side of the House would not have the Government unduly aggressive, as some hon. Members on the other side appeared to imagine, but they would have them maintain the honour and dignity of this country, and pursue a firm and definite policy of upholding just British rights. That they had not done in regard either to the land at Tientsin or to the portion of the Northern Chinese Railway which remained in the hands of the Russians. So far as the latter matter was concerned, personally he would not object if the Government, in connection with the negotiations with Russia, expressed their willingness to sanction the purchase by Russia of the line from the Chinese Government on payment to the British bondholders of the amount of money they had put into it. But in return there should be a general settlement with Russia. There should be an international agreement securing that on the whole of the railways laid down in China, whether by France, Germany, Russia, England, or any other Power, equal rates should be charged for the goods of all nationals. When the Anglo-Russian Agreement was being negotiated Lord Salisbury declared that this was an absolutely essential condition, but, unfortunately, as too often had happened, as the negotiations proceeded he did not adhere to that 'position. The Russians said, "Oh, it is not the time to discuss the question of the rates of railway carriage; we will discuss that when the line is constructed and we have goods to carry." It was, however, of the greatest possible importance to British commerce that such an arrangement should be made.
Speaking on 18th February, the noble Lord stated to the House that with regard to Niu-chwang—
In connection with any settlement of this question with Russia—a question which had been referred to by several hon. Members that evening—he urged the importance of lessening any friction between England and Russia and the bringing about of a settlement between the two great nations. Owing to our war troubles, Russia had made greater advances in three years than she would have been able to make under ordinary circumstances in a quarter of a century. She had advanced within measurable distance of having a port in the Persian Gulf; and, unless the Government woke up to the realisation of the actual situation, they would find Russia dominating, not only northern, but southern Persia also. He learned from the American Minister that the change in policy taken up by Russia within the last three years in this part of the world had been simply astounding. When the Anglo-German Agreement was negotiated, surely His Majesty's Government ought to have secured for England similar preferential rights over Thibet to those enjoyed by other countries. But what was the case at the present time? While our hands were full in South Africa we heard of special missions to Thibet from Russia, and it would probably be found that, arising out of our war troubles, Russia had gained a dominant influence in Thibet. It had been stated that there was room for Russia as well as England in Central Asia, but he ventured to say that the neglect of His Majesty's Government in not arriving at a friendly understanding with Russia, and leaving Russia to take advantage of England's difficulties in South Africa and elsewhere to push her trade in a great region like Thibet, did not show that the policy of the Government in conducting the foreign affairs of this country had been marked by foresight, energy, or wisdom. In the matter of railway construction in China they had been told, not by the noble Lord opposite but by his predecessor, that with regard to railway construction England was a long way ahead of other nations, and that British subjects had received railway concessions for over 2,800 miles of railways in China. What were the real facts of the case? Not one single railway concession supposed to have been given to British subjects had been ratified, and not one single yard of railway had been laid down. On the other hand, foreign Powers had been very active in this respect. The Belgian syndicate had begun the construction of a line from Peking to Hankow, and now the hon. Member for Chester had informed them that this syndicate had also acquired a concession for the construction of a railway from Hankow to Canton right through the heart of China, and right through the supposed sphere of British influence in the Yang-tsze region. We were originally accorded absolutely preferential rights of railway construction in that region, but we gave them away under the Anglo-German Agreement. He admired the marvellous enterprise which Russia was displaying in regard to foreign railways. Russia was comparatively a poor nation, but, while England remained with folded arms doing nothing in the matter of railway enterprise to tap the trade of the Far East, Russia had built her Trans-Siberian railway across Asia, and she had also built her Trans-Caspian railway, about which little or nothing had been heard in this country. Steadily, step by step, Russia advanced with the construction of her Trans-Caspian railway, and she had completed it right to the frontier of Mongolia. And yet this gigantic undertaking was scarcely ever spoken of in this country. Russia had built for the advancement of her political and commercial interests these two great lines of railway costing about £200,000,000 sterling. Those were undertakings which were worthy of a great nation, and would ensure to Russia commercial and political predominance. While all this was being done by Russia, what had the British Government done? When it was a mere question of making a survey for a great railway to connect British Burma with China the Government would not even find a penny for that purpose, and Lord Salisbury spoke of it as a chimerical undertaking. Nevertheless, British subjects found the money, and sent out experienced engineers who surveyed the country and returned stating that there were practically no insurmountable engineering difficulties.
What he wanted to put before the Committee was that if the British nation was to maintain its commerce and its prosperity it would have to show the same spirit of enterprise as competing nations were now exhibiting. If a comparatively poor nation like Russia was able to construct two great Trans-Asiatic lines, surely the wealthy British nation and the Government ought to have done the best they could to promote the building of this short line of 1,200 miles to connect British Burma with the Upper Yang-tsze. The French in Southern China were actively prosecuting and improving their political and commercial position. Events had recently centred their interest in the North of China. While England had been asleep in regard to Southern China the French had been wide awake, and they had been vigilantly pushing their interests. They were constructing a railway from Tonquin to Yunnan. But that was not their objective, for their intention was to continue it right through the Szechuen province. Whilst the French were doing all this on their own account, and while we were doing nothing to tap the trade of South West China by railway construction, His Majesty's: Government were also apparently ignoring the importance of having British trade by way of the West River facilitated with Yunnan and Szechuen. The efforts, of the French to acquire predominant influence in Yunnan and Szechuen were inconsistent with the Agreement of January, 1896, entered into between France and England. He would trouble the Committee with a short quotation from this Agreement, because those two provinces of Yunnan and Szechuen contained a population of nearly 80,000,000, and therefore the question of upholding their trade rights in those great, populous provinces was not a small question, and it was a matter of the greatest importance to a commercial country like England. This Agreement of January, 1896, with France provided that— What he complained of was that the French Government had ignored this Agreement altogether. When England sought to connect the Upper Yang-tsze by a railway with British Burmah, France opposed it, but they took good care to get a concession of their own. They were told that Nanning-fu was to be opened two years ago as a treaty port, but up to the present time it had not been opened. Now that the crisis in North China was largely over, he hoped His Majesty's Government would turn their attention to the unfulfilled Agreements with the Chinese Government, such as the Agreement concerning Nanning-fu. If they could not have a railway from Burma to the Yang-tsze, the next best thing was to get the West River freely opened to British trade, so that British goods might reach the western provinces of China. The French were taking vigorous steps to increase their prestige in Southern China, especially in the province of Kwang-si and Kwang-tung, although the latter was the hinterland of Hong Kong. They were supposed to have a fleet which commanded the sea, yet in Cantonese waters and on the West River, where England did sixty per cent. of the whole trade of China, at the present moment, although the French had practically no commercial interests whatever In that region, France had no less than six gunboats patrolling those waters, whilst England had only three. When he was on the West River piracy was rife, and the unfortunate British subjects were left exposed to the attacks of pirates. Perhaps it would not have been much loss to the noble Lord if the pirates had taken him, but he thought that British interests demanded that a force of British gunboats should be stationed in that part of the China station adequate to maintain British prestige, to suppress piracy, and to give confidence to British traders to send their steamers up the river.
In conclusion, he wished to say that this question of the Far East was not one of light importance to a commercial nation like England. England opened up China to trade, and they fought at least two wars to maintain their commerce. He ventured to say that during the last two years of commercial inflation in this country, their attention had not been sufficiently directed to the absolute importance in the interests of the future prosperity of British trade of maintaining intact their treaty rights and their trade interests in that great neutral market of China with its 400,000,000 population. England possessed a worldwide Empire, which she had gained by the expenditure of vast sums of money and the shedding of blood. With the solitary exception of Canada they had thrown open that worldwide Empire equally to the trade of all nations, and he maintained that it was not an aggressive policy, and it certainly was not a jingo policy, when they called upon His Majesty's Government to maintain intact equally for England and other nations in the great neutral market of China those trade rights and privileges which the British nation had always endeavoured to maintain.
* said it was with great satisfaction that he had just learned that the West River pirates had failed to catch his hon. friend, because if they had achieved this nefarious project he would have lost the opportunity of listening to the most interesting and eloquent speeches which the hon. Member was in the habit of making. He did not believe in the construction of railways in the far East at the expense of the State. A railway from Burma to the Yang-tsze would involve the expenditure of something like £10,000,000. The hon. Member opposite had gone at length into the history of the glorious achievements of Russia in regard to the construction of railways; but these railways were only single lines, were very badly laid and imperfectly built, and were incapable of carrying a large amount of traffic. No railway that was ever built could compare in capacity with the ships we could send out from this country, which would carry ten times as much as the Russian railways in one-tenth of the time.
He thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean had called attention to a very serious matter in regard to the Anglo German Agreement. He confessed that he did not quite understand their position in regard to that Agreement. As the noble Lord had told them, it consisted of two parts. The first part asserted that the ports on the coast and rivers of the whole of the Chinese territory should be open, and that the two Powers would undertake that they should be kept open in all parts of China where they had influence. That meant the whole of China. For what were the parts of China in which Germany had no influence, or the parts of China in which Great Britain had no influence? There were none. When they turned to the second clause dealing with the territorial independence of China, they were told that it extended to the whole of China. So did the British and the German influence. They had therefore made an undertaking that the ports and rivers and littoral of China should be free and open to trade, and the two Governments had agreed to uphold the same for all Chinese territory as far as they could exercise influence. It was surprising to be told by one of the parties to the Agreement that the words "as far as they can exercise influence" did not extend to the whole of China, and that it excluded Manchuria. If the Agreement only referred, as it seemed to be the present intention to say, to those parts of China in which Germany, on its part, and Great Britain, on her part, had a special footing and special influence, what was the use of any Agreement at all? The Agreement, if it meant anything at all, was intended to refer to other parts of China, and most especially to the Manchurian part of China; and he was amazed either that the German Government should have contended or that the British Government should have admitted the contention that they meant to exclude Manchuria from the first article of the treaty. He did not know when this announcement was made by the German Government. If it was made before the treaty was signed then His Majesty's Government were very foolish to sign the treaty at all.
* : It was made before.
* said if that was so he really failed to see what object His Majesty's Government could have in view of signing the treaty. Was there then any reservation, mental or expressed, with regard to the second article of the treaty, or was it agreed that it applied, in fact, to the whole Chinese Empire, including Manchuria?
* : That is so
* : And that is not disputed by the German Government?
* : I did not say that.
* said this Agreement was entered into by two nations, and the German Government never repudiated that Agreement. The noble Lord now said that he did not know that the German Government agreed with him in his reading of the clause that it applied to the whole of the Chinese Empire including Manchuria. He wished to know if this Agreement was a fraud or not. It was a fraud as regarded the first part, and perfectly useless, and it seemed extremely likely that it might be a fraud as regarded the second part. His belief was that it was never intended to have any serious effect at all. In all the changes and chances of diplomacy Germany and Russia had always stood together. In the last resort they were always found to be one, and he believed that that always must be the case because their geographical situation dictated it, and there would always be a close and fervent amity between the two. Was that not the explanation of that Agreement? This agreement was a document intended to amuse the British public and the noble Lord. He was afraid that that was all the Agreement amounted to, and it was, like many other of the assurances given to England by foreign countries, not worth the paper it was written upon.
This was the only opportunity they would have to make any review this session, however small or cursory, of the general affairs of the Empire. He wished therefore to offer one or two remarks, more general than those which had been made in the debate. He had long wondered at the want of interest taken in foreign affairs. He had also wondered at the want of interest felt in colonial affairs. Colonial affairs had, however, been greatly improved, but foreign affairs seemed to excite less interest than ever they did. He did not know whether the explanation of this was to be found in the character of the different Ministers who had controlled colonial and foreign affairs. With regard to the Minister who was now at the head of foreign affairs he was bound to say that he received the news of his appointment with very great satisfaction. He believed him to be a very capable man, and to be endowed with precisely those qualities which were especially necessary for dealing with foreign affairs—urbanity, good temper, discretion, and those good manners which had not always been present in the despatches and utterances of all the Foreign Secretaries they had had.
His only objection to the present Secretary for Foreign Affairs was that he did not sit in the House of Commons. He had no complaint whatever to make against the manner in which the noble Lord discharged his duties. But he was always hampered when he answered questions, and he had to refer to his chief in another place, which was a great disadvantage to the House of Commons. He wished to impress upon the House the extreme importance of foreign affairs, which, after all, were only the affairs of Great Britain in foreign countries. They ought not to forget the enormous responsibilities which rested upon them. Let them remember this country had guaranteed to Belgium, Luxembourg, Prussian Saxony, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Persia, and the Chusan Islands in China. Those were all very serious responsibilities, which at any moment an accident might cause them to have to fulfil. The central governing fact of our foreign politics was our responsibility for the defence of India. In spite of Lord Salisbury's very great ability and experience, his opinion was that with regard to the defence of India Lord Salisbury had left this country worse off than he found it. Through some unfortunate accident during his tenure of office we had got at cross purposes with both Persia and Turkey. Persia, as the hon. Gentleman opposite truly said, had fallen quite unnecessarily under the domination of Russia. Russia had built and possessed almost the one carriage road in the country. For years she has dealt with as her own the province of Ghilan, in the north of Persia, and was actually at this moment making a railway right through the whole length of Persia to Bunder Abbas, on the eastern side of the Persian Gulf. What had happened as regards Turkey? There also, not in consequence of our policy, but in consequence of indiscreet utterances and the want of what he might call diplomatic good manners, we had managed to raise a quarrel. As a result Turkey had portioned out Asia Minor between Russia and Germany as spheres of influence, the northern portion to Russia, the southern portion to Germany. Germany had received a concession for a railway which was to run through Asia Minor right through Bagdad to Bussorah, on the western side of the Persian Gulf. When these two railways were made German and Russian influence would extend to both sides of; the Persian Gulf, and we should see in their hands all the land lines to India. Lord Curzou, when Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, had told the House that, as Russia had got her troops on the waters of the Oxus, we must put our troops there too. We had not done that, but Russia had taken advantage of the outbreak of the South African War to march 6,000 men to Kushk, within 45 miles of Herat. That alone showed the extraordinary complexity of the foreign affairs of this country and the way in which remote events acted on the safety of India, one of the principal of all our anxieties. He thought that was a very serious matter, and demanded the attention of His Majesty's Government. He was afraid that part was almost past praying for, but he could not help expressing his regret at the entirely unnecessary action and manners whereby countries which were necessary to England for the defence of India had been almost entirely alienated from us. Another country which had been unnecessarily alienated was Spain. He could assure the Committee that to this day Spaniards spoke with bitterness of a certain speech which was made here by Lord Salisbury some three years ago. He thought that speech was misunderstood. He believed that Spain was not actually referred to, but Spaniards believed that their country was pointed at most distinctly in that speech, on the very day after her fleet had been destroyed by America at Manilla. Feeling was strong in Spain on the matter, and he asked His Majesty's Government to endeavour to remove it, and to give some expression of amity and sympathy towards tha country. Spaniards were extremely courteous and polite, and he was quite certain that if our Government would go a little out of their way to give an expression of amity towards the Spanish Government and nation it would be highly appreciated and would do something toward removing the evil recollections which were still held, it was the same with France. Resentment was aroused in that country at the time of the Fashoda affair, riot so much on account of what we did, as, in the words of the song, on account of the ''nasty way" we did it. He hoped the Government would endeavour to remove this bad impression. It was important not only to England and France, but to Europe itself, that the two countries should be well allied. He was more than amazed at the unnecessary amount of subservience which our Government had consistently shown towards Germany. In the case of the German vessels that carried contraband of war for the Transvaal we had muddled all our proceedings, and, instead of getting compensation from us, the Germans should have paid us compensation. In that matter we had received most supercilious treatment from Germany, He was not going to rake up the old grievance about the Transvaal. He hoped that the rumours which were now current that peace was being patched up at Amsterdam or elsewhere were true. He was convinced that if any sort of peace could be arranged South Africa would settle down as if by magic, and we would once more live in peace and amity. He was perfectly sure that the Boers of the Orange Free State—
That does not come under this Vote.
* said this was only an incidental reference. He, therefore, attached great importance to the negotiations which, he believed, were going on on the Continent of Europe in regard to this matter. He observed that the American Ambassador had gone to Holland. He believed that there had been, certainly for the last six months, negotiations passing between various countries with regard to this matter, and that was why he was anxious that the war should come to an end, for if it did not come to an end we should in the spring of next year run a risk of foreign complications arising with regard to it. We were not loved on the Continent. He could tell hon. Members that wherever he went on the Continent he found not only hatred, but dread and fear of England. There was a general belief that we were strong enough to conquer the world, that we meant to do it. That might be complimentary, but fear begot hatred, and hatred hostile or unfriendly action.
I hope 1 shall not be considered to be out of order if I venture to express my entire concurrence with the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down in the concluding observations he made, and in the aspirations for peace which he expressed, and in the grounds on which he put them, namely, that peace would bring great advantage, and that it would save us from possible foreign complications which may not be very far distant. It is to Chinese affairs that I shall confine the very few observations I intend to make. It must be apparent to anyone who has listened to the greater part of this debate that one thing demands further explanation at the hands of the noble Lord, and that is the meaning of the Anglo-German Agreement. I have given some study to it in the course of the evening, and I am bound to say that I think it does need further explanation. I have compared it with the German version, and the conclusion I have drawn from the comparison is that it was originally drawn, not in English, but in German, and translated into English very possibly with the aid of a dictionary. It is not an Anglo-German Agreement so much as a German Agreement, and we are entitled to know from the noble Lord what in his judgment is the meaning which the Foreign Office attaches to the document. The hon. Member for the Barnsley Division made a long and interesting speech, and pressed the noble Lord very hard on one point, but he did not get a conclusive answer. We understand that the German Minister has placed one interpretation on certain portions of the agreement, and we did not get from the noble Lord, as I think we are entitled to have from him, whether the Foreign Office accepts that interpretation. He has not told us that in the answer he gave across the Table. He failed to say whether the interpretation assigned to the agreement by Count von Bülow is one which His Majesty's Government accepts. I would venture to ask the noble Lord what meaning he attaches to Clause III. in the Anglo-German Agreement with respect to China. What I want to know is, Does that clause import an obligation? Is it an obligation between the two countries? Do they undertake, in the event specified, to pursue a course in common in the protection of the common interests in China? Does it mean that they reserve to themselves the right to come to a preliminary understanding as to the mutual steps to be taken? You reserve to yourselves, the mere option of coming to a preliminary understanding as to the eventual steps which may be taken in certain contingencies. It that is the meaning intended by the high contracting parties, then Clause III. will have to be defined.
I wish very shortly and emphatically to press the noble Lord for some declaration on the part of the Government with reference to the matter alluded to by my right hon. friend the late Under Foreign Secretary, and also by the hon. Member for the Barnsley Division. The noble Lord referred to the outrages committed on the forces of the allied Powers by the Chinese Government, and he recounted the steps which are to be taken, or have been taken, by way of retribution for these outrages. Justice has two sides. Outrages were not confined to one side in China. The outrages, if evidence is to be believed, were as gross on the side of the allied Powers as they were on the side of the Chinese Government. [An HON. MEMBER: Not so bad.] Well, they were bad enough. I am going to press the noble Lord for such information as he can, with due regard to all the interests concerned, give us as to the facts relating to these outrages. The evidence we have already had before us is considerable. I am not talking of anonymous newspaper statements—1 pay no attention to them—but to statements of the gravest character which have been made by responsible persons. I hold in my hand an article written by Dr. E. J. Dillon in the Contemporary Review this year. It is a long article, arid professes to be founded on the evidence of his own eyes and ears shortly after the embassies were relieved. This article is one ghastly record of atrocities. It is unreadable almost. I am not going to worry or weary the House by retailing all the incidents. There is the case of the unprovoked massacre by European troops of 300 Chinese labourers who were without arms. They were unprotected and undefended labourers engaged in European industry—men who earned their humble living by serving our trade. They were found by our troops, and every one was massacred in cold blood. That is one story, and there are many others in this article. I could have wished for more specification and detail, but I will not dwell on his statements. But there is a more important witness than Dr. Dillon. There is the evidence of Sir Robert Hart, and no one will venture to treat his evidence lightly. The evidence, so far as I have seen it, brings home, not merely to the European troops, but to persons connected with the allied Powers in China, murders on the scale I have mentioned, and offences against women. The more venial offence of looting was indulged in by private persons, male and female, belonging to the allied Powers. and representing Christian civilisation in China. [After reading a passage from a statement by Sir Robert Hart the hon. Member proceeded]—That is written by Sir Robert Hart, who went through all the agony of the siege of the Embassy. He writes in a spirit which must command the admiration of every humane member of the community. I certainly say that, so far as the evidence goes, of all the persons concerned the most guiltless have been the troops serving under our own flag. Sir Robert Hart does not absolutely acquit them of all complicity in the more venial of these offences. He asserts generally what Europeans did, and he excepts English soldiers from certain charges. We know perfectly well that looting must have been on a large scale. I do riot know whether the noble Lord is prepared to deal with it now. When a question was asked about it before we were told that there was a report upon it from General Gasalee, and that the report seriously reflected, not on our own troops, but upon the troops of the allied Powers. He hesitated at that time to lay the report before the House. The noble Lord may be able to say to-night how much of that report or of other reports can be laid before us. I want him, first of all, to tell us what he can of the real truth as regards those charges which have been brought against persons connected with the Allies in China—murder by some, other horrible outrages by others, and plunder which was apparently directed against unoffending and unarmed Chinese. I do not think it is enough to say that the crimes have been committed by our Allies. We and our Allies have been engaged in China in enforcing justice for ourselves, arid we are there as there presentatives of Christian civilisation. One of the Allies cannot altogether disown responsibility for the acts of the others. Why is the justice of the British Empire to be contaminated by deeds such as these? We cannot free ourselves from our connection with it. I hope the noble Lord will give us information on this point, and that he will go a step further. If all these stories be true, those employed by the Allies are unworthy of the nations they represent. I would appeal to the noble Lord to support the proposition which I am now going to make—that in the interest of our own Imperial honour all the Powers who are engaged in coercing China, and in enforcing retribution, should be called together to deal with the atrocities that have been committed, if not in their name, at least by those whom they have employed. I want to see a condemnation, not only from Europe, but from the United States, of the deed which have been committed by those who were expected to administer their justice. I hope I have not put the case immoderately. I have felt very strongly about it. I felt that the name of Great Britain was disgraced, not by what our own people have done, but by the acts of the Allies with whom they have been associated. It is discreditable to steal the property of private persons in the way that has been done, and we want to know all about it.
* : I cannot refrain from saying a word in answer to the hon. Member who has just sat down, but in dealing with this subject I cannot but feel a wish that he had imitated the same kind of reserve which was displayed so strongly by his colleague the hon. Baronet the Member for the Berwick Division. I have no right to say that outrages have been proved against our Allies in China. It may be so. I cannot give an answer for any nation except our own. It is sufficient for me that our own troops have behaved well. It is an utterly false position which the hon. Member tries to prove—that our country is a sort of public justiciary of the world. It is that kind of egotism with regard to our own country which is probably the principal cause of that unpopularity to which my hon. friend has referred. I should be sorry if a word of mine led any one to suppose that I condone, or that the Government condone, for a moment any of the outrages that have been committed in China. No; whether these outrages are numerous or not I do not say, but that there have been some is undoubtedly the case. These we look upon with the same execration and repudiation as the hon. Member himself. When he asks me to give him a full account or lay Papers on the Table I tell him that I cannot do any such thing.
I asked the noble Lord to give such an account as he could.
I have given what account I can. The inference which he drew—that because we went on a joint expedition to relieve our Legations, who were hard pressed and making a most gallant defence, which included women and children of our own flesh and blood, therefore we are responsible in any degree for the outrages which may have been committed by others in China—that charge I absolutely repudiate. Whatever outrages there were we were not responsible.
This is an international question.
* : We are not responsible.
Yes; you are responsible.
* : I cannot accept the inference of the hon. and iearned Gentleman, that because we went into the joint expedition to relieve the Legations, the members of which made the most gallant defence, and included women and children of our own flesh and blood, we were responsible in any degree for outrages committed by others. That is a charge which I absolutely repudiate. We had a right to go to China, and we are not responsible for anybody except ourselves. In reply to the hon. Member for Barnsley I may say that the question of likin is one of the matters which is engaging close attention, and can only be solved after long negotiation. The hon. Member for Barnsley said we should insist on the abolition of the reactionary Government in China.
* : I did not say abolition, but that I was sorry that, so far as I could gather, the influence of our Government has not been used in the direction of improving the Government of China by bringing into it the enlightened Yang-tsze Viceroys.
* : But how does the hon. Member propose that we should abolish the Manchus? Does he suggest that we should do it ourselves or simply make it a matter of agreement? No responsible politician would suggest that that was a practicable course. As regards the Northern railway and the port of Niu-chwang it is part of the policy of the Government to continue to press our views upon the Russian Government, and there is no reason to suppose that they would not carry out what they have promised both as to the restoration of the railway and the port.
, said he was very glad that the hon. and learned Member for Dundee had raised this question. The noble Lord the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs had said that they only showed their ignorance in making complaints about the conduct of the representatives of other countries, because we were entirely separated from them. But it must be remembered that this was a joint expedition to China of the Christian countries of Europe and America, and was sent not only to relieve the Legations, unitedly and collectively, but to punish the Chinese and prove that our civilisation was far higher than theirs, and that we would not tolerate their conduct to their own subjects The noble Lord had admitted that outrages had been committed by the joint troops; and he was glad that his Lordship had spoken so strongly against these outrages, because when we took part in these joint enterprises we were jointly responsible for what had occurred. Again, he would say that he was glad that the noble Lord had had the courage to get up and admit the outrages, and refuse to have anything to do with them on the part of this country. Having now got to the end of the Chinese question, he would, for the sake of variety, interpolate another. The noble Lord at the commencement of the debate had been asked two questions, first in regard to the Congo State, and second as to the position of Russia in Tientsin, but they had not got any explanation from his Lordship in regard thereto. They knew as little about these matters now as before the debate commenced. Of course it was the ambition of the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs to speak as vaguely as he could, and therefore he could congratulate the noble Lord on the efficiency with which he had carried on his duties. He wished to allude to a question which he had more than once brought before the House—namely, that of Uganda.
There is a separate Vote for Uganda, and it cannot be discussed under this Vote.
said he wished to complain of the conduct of the Foreign Office as to what was going on in Uganda and he was ready to move an Amendment for the decrease of the noble Lord's salary. He ventured to ask the Deputy Chairman whether he would not be in order in doing so? They had had a report from the Foreign Office on the affairs in Uganda in 1890, and he wished to protest against the action of His Majesty's Government, and he took it that he would be in order in so doing.
To discuss the action of His Majesty's Government in other respects would be in order, but not in regard to Uganda, for which there is a separate Vote.
The Foreign Office has got a committee of clerks to make a railway from the coast at Mombasa to Uganda. Surely I can discuss the report in regard to the cost of that railroad.
The hon. Member will not be in order in discussing the cost of that railway.
I say that any sensible person could have built that railway for half what it has cost.
* : I protest that that matter does not come under the present Vote.
said the noble Lord the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs had denied that there had been looting in China by British troops. But on the 3rd May last he had asked this question of the Secretary of State for India—
"Whether his attention has been called to the fact that General Gaselee, the Commander of the British Forces in China, has given permission to the troops under his command to loot houses in Peking; whether this permission was given with the sanction of the Government; and what, if any, explanation is to be given for this action of a British commander."
That showed what good people we were. Then Mr. Bryn Roberts asked whether before the property was sold any effort had been made to trace the owners; whereupon Lord G. Hamilton, looking very wise, replied that it was all unclaimed property. Of course the poor people fled, but they left their goods to the protection of Christian troops.
I must remind the hon. Member that we are discussing the Foreign Office Vote, and the line he is taking is not in order.
said that the question was that a charge of looting had been brought against the British troops in the Chinese expedition. Amongst these British troops was the Indian contingent, which was paid under the Foreign Office Vote.
It is rather remote to bring in an answer read by the Secretary for India to the question put by the hon. Gentleman.
said that a little experience had shown him that many members of the Government answered questions which did not come under their own control at all. He had asked more than once whether these troops had been paid out of the revenues of India, and the answer came like a popgun—"No, they are paid under the Foreign Office Vote." The right hon. the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs was therefore responsible for all that the Indian contingent had done in this looting expedition. He had really made his point, and he might observe that the hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Foreign Affairs—perhaps it was the fruit of heredity—had caught the tone and spirit of the Foreign Office, which they well knew used the money of the British taxpayers for good and pious purposes. Possibly the Government would send out some bishops to China, whose appointment would be in the hands of Lord Salisbury, and then the millennium would come! He never flatly contradicted the noble Lord or anyone else. But the noble Lord had said that there had been no looting. Now he gave it on the authority of the Secretary for India that there had been looting, that it was legitimatised looting, and carried on on a selfish system. Their pretensions in China were simply a fraud and a policy of grab, and he was glad that Britain and America in that respect were making themselves the laughing stock of the world.
said that in May last he had put a question with reference to a report which had appeared in the newspapers to the effect that a boat at Tientsin, with a British crew on board, had been fired upon by the German troops. In answer, the noble Lord said that he had not had his attention called to the incident, and that if it had occurred His Majesty's representative at Tientsin, would have reported by telegram. Later on he had put a similar question, when the noble Lord informed him that it was true that this boat, flying the British flag, had been fired upon by German troops, and that the crew, who were Chinamen, had been seized by the Germans. He had asked the noble Lord whether the German authorities had taken these Chinese sailors to prison, and flogged them there. The noble Lord then said that he had no information on the point of flogging, but that inquiries would be made. He rose for the purpose of asking from the noble Lord a definite statement as to whether this crew of a British ship had been cast into prison and been flogged, and, if that were true, whether His Majesty's Government had taken steps to obtain reparation and compensation for this outrage. As to the question of looting, he had already' felt bound to protest against it in the discharge of his conscientious duty. [Ministerial laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite might not trouble their consciences much in discharging their duty; but that was not the case with those on the Nationalist benches, because they were in a position of independence. They were not in the least degree afraid or ashamed to say what they thought was right; and that was not what hon. Gentlemen opposite could say who were bound by the shackles of the Government. What he desired to say was that throughout the whole of the crisis in China the British Government and the governments of the other continental countries were at fault. He thoroughly agreed, and every thoughtful man would agree, with the views of Sir Robert Hart, who was a British subject and a high official for many years in China. Sir Robert Hart had declared that interference with the Chinese people had led to a great deal of the bloodshed and disorder which had, unfortunately, taken place. He was not prepared to make any charge whatever against the missionaries of the various denominations who had gone to China. Missionaries of the Church to which he belonged, as well as Protestant missionaries, had gone out to that country, but he would say that he believed that a great deal of the turmoil and disorder which had taken place in that country were the result of the ill-advised efforts of certain missionaries, who knew that their presence and interference must lead to exasperation on the part of the Chinese. He believed it would be a great deal better in the interests of Christianity of every form if missionaries of all denominations were more careful not to penetrate into districts where they knew they could only preach the Gospel at the expense of loss of life, the shedding of blood, and the bringing about of turmoil and tumult among the population. He knew that that was a view which would not be popular with some hon. Members who held that it was in the interests of civilisation to spread Christianity at all costs in every direction. Wherever there was a fair field for missionaries, wherever they could preach the Gospel without causing tumult and disorder, there was no hon. Member who held as strongly as he did that the Gospel should be preached; but he did say that what had taken place in China would not be altogether in vain if it had the effect of imposing a certain amount of caution on those engaged in missionary work, and in teaching them that it was possible to carry out that work in a manner more calculated to bring about misery and disorder and the shedding of blood than anything else.
On the question of the conditions imposed on the Chinese Government, he thought that the Chinese people all through had been treated most unfairly. He regretted as much as anyone the outrages committed by the Boxers, and he condemned and deplored the attacks on the Legations in Peking, but he did say that the wholesale charges which had been made against the Chinese people, because of the outrages committed by a strictly limited number of people calling themselves Boxers, were altogether unfair and were calculated to maintain disorder in China. The Boxers were a great patriotic association. Hon. Members might, of course, in the heat of the moment and in the horror caused by the attacks on the Legations, be inclined to condemn the Boxers, but he said, without fear of contradiction from those who know the question best, that the Boxer movement was a great patriotic uprisal for the purpose of protecting their coun- try, their civilisation, and their religion from the inroads of various European Powers. No doubt a certain number of excesses were committed by the Boxers, and, as in every other great movement, a certain amount of outrage and crime did take place, but in the main the Boxers were a patriotic association. It was, therefore, unfair and unjust to condemn them wholesale as outragemongers and murderers, and to impose very hard conditions on the Chinese people. He really believed that there were persons who thought that the only people who were civilised were the inhabitants of England and other European countries. It all depended on one's idea of civilisation, but in point of refinement and attainments the Chinese, in many respects, were infinitely more civilised than the English or any other European people. If the average Chinese workman were placed side by side with the average man to be found in Whitechapel or any of the great industrial centres in the country, it would be found that in his ideas and mode of life the Chinese workman was quite as civilised.
I must remind the hon. Member that we are discussing the Foreign Office Vote.
said, with all due respect, he was aware of that, and had not the slightest intention of wandering from what he considered to be a quite appropriate discussion of the Vote. He was endeavouring to show that the conditions imposed on the Chinese were unfair, and was pointing out that the view taken in England with reference to the uprisal in China was not correct, that the Chinese people were innocent of the outrages, and that they were a civilised and an ancient nation.
I must remind the hon. Member that he may discuss the action of the Foreign Office with reference to China, but he would not be in order in discussing the civilisation of the Chinese.
said he would of course bow to the ruling of the Chair. The point to which he desired to direct the attention of the Committee was that the conditions imposed on the Chinese by the Government through the Foreign Office were altogether unfair. He would leave the money indemnity out of the question, and deal with the conditions imposed on the Chinese with reference to the execution of a number of their high officials. The orders given in that respect were most unfair. Let the Committee suppose that Chinese missionaries came to England, that the population became exasperated by their action, that unfortunately the Chinese Legation was besieged, and that a Chinese army came and rescued the Chinese Ambassador, and insisted on similar conditions being carried out by the British Government would that be tolerated for a moment? He was not going to make any specific charge against the British troops in China. He was not aware that they had committed any outrages whatever; but it was a monstrous proposition for the noble Lord to advance that he had no responsibility whatever for the outrages committed by troops who were the allies of British troops. Either outrages were committed or they were not. If they were committed, as was alleged by good authorities, then the Government ought at once to have most emphatically condemned them. He wished to protest against the eternal policy, which was not a policy of civilisation, but of endless misery and bloodshed, of endeavouring to force people to adopt a creed in which they did not conscientiously believe. In conclusion he would ask the noble Lord if he would give the Committee all the information in his possession with reference to the outrages committed on the unfortunate Chinese forming the crew of a British ship, who were flogged and imprisoned by Gorman troops.
said that the noble Lord had resorted to the common expedient of not being able to answer when asked a question. He stated in reply to the hon. Member for Dundee that England was not the public justiciary of the world; but outrages were committed by troops who were engaged in China as the allies of British troops for a common object. If the outrages were committee in Manchuria, he could understand the answer of the noble Lord, for the Government were not responsible for the operations in Manchuria; but they were responsible for the action of their Allies. He did not see any difference between nations banding together for a common purpose and individuals banding together for a common object. In the latter case, if one of the individuals resorted to illegality, his partners would be responsible in the eyes of the law. If the Government did not regard themselves as responsible, they ought, at any rate, to have impressed on the Allies by remonstrances not to resort to such practices again. He rather suspected that the noble Lord had a very good reason for not making those remonstrances. He expected that the Government anticipated that the Allies would have pointed out that the hands of the military authorities in the Transvaal were equally stained. It was now sought to be established that no question should be asked with reference to any outrage that had not been proved by official testimony. That had never been the practice of Parliament. The proof supplied by Sir Robert Hart and Dr. Dillon of gross and unspeakable outrages having been committed on the Chinese people was as strong as the proof that the Bulgarian outrages and the Armenian atrocities had been committed. Then the country was roused, there were frequent debates in Parliament, and remonstrances were constantly addressed to the Sultan. Parliament had never failed to note the statements of Englishmen who were eye-witnesses of outrages of that description. It was only when charges were made which reflected unfavourably on England that evidence, which would be deemed sufficient as against other countries, was discounted.
said it had been indignantly denied that the British troops had committed any atrocities in China, but he would recommend the noble Lord to visit an exhibition of loot from China now being held at the Aquarium. Loot, of course, could not be taken from houses in China without atrocities having been committed. In fact, looting was in itself an atrocity which deserved the strongest condemnation, and it was useless to deny that atrocities had been committed when hon. Members had only to cross the road to see an exhibition of loot.
asked if the hon. Member could point to a single atrocity committed by British troops.
said it was common knowledge that auctions of loot were held in London.
said it was absolutely untrue that atrocities had been committed by British troops.
asked if the remark of the hon. and gallant Member was in order.
The hon. Gentleman is in order.
said that, passing from the question of loot to the general foreign policy of the Government, its main feature was that the hands of the Government were tied by the war in South Africa. They could not lock up the British Army in South Africa, and deplete their means of offence and defence without weakening the effect of their representatives to foreign Governments. That was apparent in every part of the world. The hon. Member for King's Lynn stated the other day that when the war broke out Russia marched 35,000 troops within thirty-five miles of Herat. That was a very serious matter, and if public attention had not been monopolised by the war that important movement on the part of Russia towards India, which sooner or later she was certain to get hold of, would not pass unnoticed. Russia was also building a railway through Persia, and, in view of those two threatening movements, the days of the Indian Empire were practically numbered. There was no doubt whatever that Russia was now in a position to throw immense bodies of troops into India, and all the ships in the world could not carry troops out in time to defend that country. Then, again, Russia had refused to give up the northern part of the railway in China, although it practically belonged to British subjects. With reference to the indemnity, the noble Lord admitted that the British claim had been placed at the lowest possible figure, in order, according to the noble Lord, not to overburden the Chinese, but he added that the other Powers did not exhibit similar self-restraint, and that the total amount of the indemnity would practically cripple the Chinese Government and prevent them from ever getting back to the position in which they were before the crisis arose. It had been said that the policy of the British Government was to have a strong and reformed China, but the noble Lord admitted that all chance of reform had now been put back for a very long period indeed. That could not be regarded as a triumph for British policy in China. The result of European intervention had been to arouse general discontent, and what the missionaries had done to advance Christianity had all been undone. England did not appear to have derived any advantage, after all the money that had been spent in China for the past two years, but had left that advantage to be gained by another Power. As to the Agreement concluded between this country and Germany, the noble Lord had falsified any hope that any good could be obtained from it. The noble Lord had made no attempt to answer his hon. friend in regard to the seizure of Chinese sailors under the British flag, throwing them into prison, and flogging them there. This was a very serious matter, and they wanted to know whether any inquiry had been made into it by the German Government, and what compensation had been paid.
* : This matter is a very trifling affair. What occurred was that some German soldiers who were holding a bridge saw a boat, manned by a certain number of Chinese sailors, approaching the bridge. The boat was fired on by the German troops, who got no response when they challenged, and a certain amount of violence was used by them towards the crew, but no one was killed. Of course a remonstrance was made by the British officer to the German officer, and a promise was given that the thing would not occur again.
said that, with great respect, he altogether declined to accept as satisfactory the explanation given by the noble Lord. Was it true that those sailors under the British flag were imprisoned and flogged?
We have no information to that effect, and we have no reason to believe that it is so.
said that he had asked a question on the subject on 21st May, and had been promised that inquiry would be made. It was now 26th July, and surely the noble Lord had had time to make investigation as to whether these men had been imprisoned and flogged, and whether they had been compensated. Had it come to this, that the German authorities in China, or elsewhere, could take persons from under the British flag, imprison them, and flog them on the bare back?
* : I do not desire in the least to evade the question of the lion. Member, but the subjects which have engaged the attention of the Foreign Office are manifold and of the greatest importance, while this is relatively a small matter. It has been relegated to the Minister in China, and I have no doubt that in the course of time we shall have a report of the inquiry which is being made into the matter.
Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress; and ask leave to sit again"—( Mr. Caldwell ) put, and agreed to.
Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.
In pursuance of the Order of the House of the 22nd day of this instant July, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put
Adjourned at twenty-five minutes after Twelve of the clock till Monday next.