To ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that, for the eleven years from 1879–80 to 1889–90 inclusive, there were sold by auction by the Indian Government in the Madras Presidency, in default of payment of land revenue, 1,963,364 acres of land held by 840,713 defaulters, as well as personal property amounting in value to 2,965,081 rupees (£197,672); and, in view of the fact that out of 1,963,364 acres of land put up for auction only 779,142 acres were sold, will he say how the remaining 1,184,222 acres which were bought in by the Government for want of bidders have been dealt with. (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) I am aware of the figures. The majority of the sales occurred in the first three years of the period, and were due to the exceptional circumstances created by the great drought of 1876–8. Since its effects have disappeared from the Presidency, the sales for arrears of revenue on a total acreage of about 22,000,000 acres have averaged less than 50,000 acres a year. The land bought in by Government for want of ladders is ordinarily re-allotted to cultivators on application. Much of it is of the poorest quality, and is in demand only in years exceptionally favourable to temporary extensions of cultivation.

To ask the Secretary of State for India, in view of the fact that of the 2,306,460 acres of land which were put up for auction by the Indian Government in the Madras Presidency in default of payment of Land Revenue during the twenty-one years ending 30th June, 1900, the average holding of each defaulter was about 2½ acres, can he state the average amount due from each defaulter, and the total amount of remissions during the same period. (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.)The returns do not enable me to give the information asked for in the first part of the Question for any years preceding 1887. For the period 1887–1900 the amount due by each defaulter whose land was put up for auction averaged Rs.15.89. In the twenty-one years ending 1900 the remissions of land revenue in the ryotwari districts in Madras amounted to 282 lacs of rupees.

To ask the Secretary of State for India whether he has yet received from the Government of India a Report on the proposals placed before him by the Famine Union, urging that a local inquiry should be made in typical villages relative to the condition of the ryots; and, if not, will he state when he expects to receive the Report. (Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) No Report on the subject has reached me yet, and I am unable to say when I shall receive one.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Departmental Committee on the Notification of Accidents have yet reported to him; and, if so, whether they have made any recommendation which will have the effect of distinguishing in the statistics of mining accidents between those occurring to male persons under sixteen years and under twenty or twenty-one years of age. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Ritchie.) The Committee has not yet reported. I understand that it will not conclude its inquiry until the Autumn.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to a circular, issued by the Scottish Operative Tailors' and Tailoresses' Association, relative to the effects to health arising from employment in pit or underground workshops in Scotland; and will he say what action he proposes to take in the matter. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Ritchie.) The hon. Member has kindly sent me a copy of the circular referred to in his Question. It is a paper which was apparently printed two years ago, but which was not communicated either to the Home Office or to the factory inspectors. Since that time the law with regard to insanitary workshops has been considerably strengthened by the Factory Act of last session, and I am informed that several underground workshops in Glasgow have been closed during the last two years. I am not prepared at the present time to propose any further amendment of the law; but if any cases of underground workshops which cause injury to health are brought to the notice of the inspectors of factories they will do their best to deal with them under their existing powers or to put the local authorities in motion.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Government intend to act upon the judicial opinion expressed in the case of Regina v. Humphries, 2nd April, 1898, as to the need for legislation, and upon the Report of the Lords' Select Committee on Betting, which recommends that amendments in the law be made to remedy the uncertainty as to what constitutes a place within the meaning of the Betting Acts. (Ansnered by Mr. Secretary Ritche.) I am not in a position to promise legislation on this subject.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if, before giving any further extension of time to the Merthyr Electric Tramway Company in which to complete their system between Cefn and Merthyr, he will consult the Councils of the Merthyr Tydvil Urban District and Vaynor and Penderyn Rural Districts. (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) It is the practice of the Board of Trade to consult the local authorities in these cases and this will no doubt be done before a further extension of time is given to this company.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that His Majesty's Consul at Prague, in his Report just issued on the trade of Bohemia for the year 1901, calls attention to an invention for protection against accidents on electric tramway systems where the overhead trolly system is in use; and will he consider the expediency of calling the attention of electric tramway authorities to this invention by circular or otherwise. (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The attention of the Board's electrical adviser has been called to the Report in question. He informs me that several inventions of the kind referred to have been brought to his notice, but that he has seen none which can be considered better than the system of guard wires, the provision of which is at present required in this country where the presence of telegraph or telephone wires: is likely to involve risk of accidents.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state in detail what are the subjects to be considered by the Fishery Conference to be held in Copenhagen. (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The Fishery Conference at Copenhagen has concluded its sittings. I have not yet received a Report of the proceedings from the British delegates.

To ask the Lord Advocate whether he is aware that crofter tenants who held their crofts on a yearly tenancy at the passing of the Crofters Act secured fixity of tenure, and have had their rents largely reduced and arrears cancelled, whilst those tenants who held under lease have secured none of these statutory advantages; and will he state what steps he proposes to take to deal with these crofter tenants in the crofting counties of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. (Answered by Mr. Graham Murray.) I have nothing to add to the various answers already given to the hon. Member on this subject.

To ask the Lord Advocate whether, with a view to facilitate the construction, improvement, and maintenance of marine works in Scotland, he will consider the expediency of introducing a Bill similar to the Marine Works (Ireland) Bill now before the House. (Answered by Mr. Graham Murray.) The Secretary for Scotland cannot at present make any engagement to introduce a Bill as the hon. Member suggests.

To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if it is customary to charge income tax on a source of income that has not been received within the year of assessment, and which, owing to the possibilities of commercial speculation, may never be paid; and will he say in what way income tax so paid could be recovered in the event of an undertaking failing to fulfil its obligations. (Answered by Sir Michael Hicks Beach.)Speaking generally, income tax is by law chargeable upon income which arises or accrues during the year of assessment, even though it be not actually received within that period. If it can afterwards be shown that the income has not been, and will not be received, the assessment would be discharged, and any tax paid in respect of it would be refunded.

To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the case of a Birmingham firm of manufacturers who have been refused the right of appeal against an assessment to income tax by the local commissioners, on the ground that these manufacturers had not made a formal return of profits; and, seeing that they had verbally communicated to the Inland Revenue officials the fact that they had made a loss instead of any profits for several years past, will he state why the customary appeal was not allowed in this case; and whether he proposes to take any steps in the matter. (Answered by Sir Michael Hicks Beach.) The attention of the Board of Inland Revenue has been called to this case, and they are in communication with the local commissioners in regard to it. Owing, however, to the local commissioners having dispersed for the summer, a conference on the subject that it is proposed to hold cannot take place until September.

To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, with the view of ascertaining if larger sums would be realised by the collection by the county authorities of the gun and game licences, he will consider the expediency of transferring to the County Councils the powers of collecting the duties specified in Schedule 1 of the Local Government Act, 1888, as provided in Section 20 (3) of that Act. (Answered by Sir Michael hicks Beach.) It is by no means certain that collection by the local authorities would increase the yield of the gun and game licence duties, and I doubt if the County Councils would care to try the experiment, especially as the cost of collection at present falls on the Exchequer. The change would raise various complicated questions which could only be decided in connection with a general resettlement of local taxation.

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether any appointment has yet been made to the postmastership of Banbridge, County Down, and, if not, whether he will undertake that the person appointed shall be a person professing the religious faith of the majority of the Irish people. (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) No appointment has yet been made. The Postmaster General does not intend to make any inquiry as to the religious beliefs of the several candidates.

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will state the result of the further search he promised to have made to recover a manuscript of Mr. Sheehan, Ballyhussa, County Waterford, forwarded by post to Messers Benziger Brothers, Publishers, New York; is the Postmaster General aware that the publishers had purchased the manuscript, and, if it is not found, will the postal authorities, considering the loss Mr. Sheehan has sustained, consider the question of compensating him. (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) After repeated search no trace of the manuscript can be found in the Post Office; but there is no proof that it was ever in the hands of, or lost by, the Postmaster General's officers; and he is unable to grant compensation in such circumstances.

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the number of appointments above £160 in the Central Telegraph Office bears the same relation to the number of appointments below that salary, as during the years when the circular was issued promising a prospect of £190; and whether he will give the number of staff above £160, and the number below £160, for each of the twenty years, 1882 to 1902, inclusive. (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The hon. Member was informed on the 2nd of June † of the present proportion of appointments above £160 per annum to those below £160 as compared with the proportion existing in 1892—or shortly after the time when the Circular referred to was discontinued. The corresponding figures for the year 1882 are one appointment above £160 to 5·3 appointments below. But the Postmaster General thinks that no useful purpose would be served by ascertaining the relative numbers during each of the last twenty years. The preparation of such a Return would entail considerable labour upon his officers at a time when there is exceptional pressure of business.

To ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether any further consideration than the reply of the Board to a correspondent, dated 25th May, 1901, has been given to the suggestion that dog licences should only be issued in respect of dogs wearing a collar with a metal disc attached bearing a registered number by which the identity and ownership of a dog could be traced. (Answered by Mr. Hanbury.) The suggestion made by the correspondent to

† See (4) Debates, cviii., 1096.

To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether it is intended that the wages of skilled labourers in his Majesty's Gun Wharf should be raised by one shilling as in the case of unskilled labourers. (Answered by Mr. Arnold-Forester.) No change in the rates of pay of skilled labourers at the Naval Ordnance Depôts is at present in contemplation.

To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether it is intended to give a rise of pay under certain conditions to hired writers in His Majesty's dockyards after the maximum age limit is reached for competition to first class writers. (Answered by Mr. Arnold-Forester.) The question of allowing an increase of pay to hired writers in the circumstances mentioned is under consideration.

To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he will state the original rates of the bounty for various ranks of officers and men of the Royal Navy who were engaged in the late operations in China; and will he state why further proposals have been made by which the amount originally suggested has been reduced by one-third. (Answered by Mr. Arnold-Forster.) An I announcement will be made at an early date as to the scale of the gratuity to be awarded to the Naval and Marine Forces who took part in the operations in China. I am not aware of any foundation for the statement that there has been a change of decision as regards the amount to be awarded.

To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state what further inducements for the encouragement of good gunnery are now given to the men of the Royal Navy; and whether, seeing that the only monetary inducements of this character now offered to gunnery ratings comprise special allowances, ranging from 2d. a day in the case of a seaman gunner to 1s. a day in the case of a captain of a turret, he will consider the advisability of offering greater inducements to the men of the Royal Navy to become skilled heavy gun shots by placing a yearly Return on the lower deck of every ship in His Majesty's Fleet, giving the names of the best heavy gun shots, as is done now in the case of the best rifle shots. (Answered by Mr. Arnold-Forester.) Full information as to the prizes given for prize firing, and the allowances and other inducements already in existence for the encouragement of good gunnery in the Royal Navy will be found in my replies to the hon. Member for Chester on the 2nd and 18th July respectively, to which I would refer the noble Lord. The suggestion made in the latter part of the Question does not differ materially from that contained in his Question of the 28th July and is open to the objections to which I then alluded. †

To ask the First Commissioner of Works what are the names of the newspapers which are provided for the use of Members in the tea room and smoke rooms of the House of

† See (4) Debates CX., 523 (2nd July); CXL., 668 (18th July); CXL., 1354 (28th July.)

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will grant a Return giving the various baronies in Ireland charged with railway and harbour guarantees, the total annual cost and tax per £ of the valuation of such guarantee for each barony, the valuation and population of each barony, the total annual rate for local purposes of each of those baronies; and total remissions under Local Taxation Account of each of those baronies. (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The Return will be granted if the hon. Member will move for it in the form which I have communicated to him.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the number of hours of duty per week of chief warders and warders in the local prisons of Sligo, Galway, and Castlebar, respectively. (Anwered by Mr. Wyndham.) This Question was answered on Friday last. †

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how much has been expended by the Congested Districts

† See page 395.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the augmentation of the number of medical officers on the list of Colonels Royal Army Medical Corps, notified in the War Office Gazettes of 13th June and 22nd July, 1902, is the augmentation which was provided for in the Estimates passed by the House of Commons in April and May, 1900; and, seeing that the delay in carrying out the augmentation unfavourably affects the position of some officers on the list of Colonels Royal Army Medical Corps, will he take steps to rectify the same. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The reply is in the negative. The increase of colonels in Estimates 1900–1901 was due to the necessity for providing for two supernumerary officers. The recent appointments were due to the augmentation in connection with the Army Corps scheme.

To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Committee on the employment of the Royal Engineers in the construction and maintenance of barracks has yet reported; and whether the Report and minutes of evidence will be presented to Parliament. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The Committee has reported, and the Report is at present under consideration. It has not been decided to publish it.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Commission appointed to go to Cape Colony to inquire into the sentences passed under martial law will be authorised to examine witnesses and to call before them witnesses for the prisoners whom the latter were unable to call before the courts martial by reason of such witnesses being away engaged in the war; and whether the Commissioners will make their Report to this House or to the Cape Parliament or both; and, if not, to whom they will report, and will such Report be laid on the Table. (Answered by Mr. Secretary Chamberlain.) The Commissioners will be authorised at their discretion in any special case in which they may deem it necessary to call before them such persons as they shall judge likely to be able to afford them any information upon the subject of the Commission. The Commissioners will report to His Majesty. I cannot say at present whether the Report will be laid upon the Table.

To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he I can hold out hope that before the adjournment he will be able to announce any new scheme for administering the Greenwich Hospital Funds, in view of the heavy demands to which they have recently been subjected. (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) This Question, as my hon. friend is aware, is one of difficulty, and although some progress has been made, it is still under consideration, and I fear it will be quite impossible to make any statement on the subject before the present adjournment.

To ask the First Lord of the Treasury, seeing that a number of voluntary schools in England and Wales are in debt, will he state whether it is intended that the deficits in the accounts of these schools shall be considered as liabilities to be transferred, under a provision in the Schedule in the Education Bill, to the local education authorities; if so, will such liabilities be chargeable to the local education authorities as from 30th June of this year, or as from the appointed day or later date to be fixed by the Board of Education under Clause 20 of the Education Bill. (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) It is not proposed by the Bill that voluntary schools should be transferred to local education authorities. Board schools, on the other hand, are so transferred, and accordingly those schools and not voluntary schools are dealt within the Schedule referred to. The local education authority will be responsible for the cost of the maintenance of voluntary schools after the appointed day, but they will have nothing to do with any deficit on the accounts of those schools existing on that day, or with any expenses incurred by the managers before that day.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will state why 5th June, 1900, the date of the occupation of Pretoria by the British forces, has been fixed as the period beyond which inquiry into the conduct of the war by the Commission to be appointed for that purpose is to be concluded, seeing that the loss of life and treasure was greater in the period of the war after that date than in the period before that date.

This limitation was suggested, as I think I have already frankly admitted to the House, for the purpose of limiting the enormous burden that would be thrown on the shoulders of this unfortunate Commission. Even thus limited the field of inquiry is a very large one and I fear to unduly extend it. The question, therefore, arises—Is the limitation an undue one, and will it cut out any subsequent inquiry into any matter which the House or any great body of public opinion wishes to sec investigated? Let it be remembered that the inquiry was promised in the early days of the war in consequence of the ill-success of our operations and the widespread feeling that there had been want of foresight and inadequate preparations by the War Office. All these circumstances come within the scope of the inquiry. It will be noticed, therefore, that this limitation of time deals with military operations, but not with the supply of troops, horses, or transport, or any other questions, all of which and everything connected with contracts are open for inquiry up to the end of the military operations. In these circumstances, I hope the House will feel that the Government are justified in preserving the limitations.

Before the matter is finally settled will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that inquiry was promised into the surrenders which took place after the occupation of Pretoria, such as that at Nooitdegacht. I will, if necessary, put down a Question.

Will the inquiry exclude an investigation of the statements of members of the Government as to the war being over in August two years ago?

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in September, 1900, the Secretary for War promised that there should be a full investigation into the whole question of the war? An investigation of the kind now promised is not—

Order, order! This is opening a debate on a question which is outside the Question on the Paper.

Will the terms of reference be given in more formal terms to the House?

I will endeavour to give the precise terms of the reference before the House rises.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Freeman's Journal, the Manchester Guardian, and the Daily News are now allowed to circulate in South Africa.

I have no positive information on this matter, but I have no reason to suppose that their circulation is prohibited.

Does that apply to the Cork Examiner?

I know nothing about that paper.

Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the Report of the High Commissioner dated March last on this subject?

No, Sir. I do not know that such a journal has ever been heard of in South Africa.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, seeing that the Army Order of 18th December, under which the third batch of Yeomanry were enlisted, states "that the period of training prior to embarkation will be two months, officers commanding being permitted to reduce or increase this period in individual cases only," he will reconsider the cases of these men.

I fear I can add nothing to the full reply which I gave my hon. and gallant friend on Monday the 28th ultimo.†

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Major F. J. Ryder. 3rd Dragoon Guards, the Inspector Officer of Remounts, Cape Colony, collected 1,500 horses at Stellenbosch Camp and put them into a kraal there; whether he is aware that Colonel Ryder decided that these horses should be fed on chaff alone, though it was pointed out to him that the feeding was insufficient, and that glanders, mange, and other diseases made such ravages among these horses that between August and November no fewer than 600 were shot or died; whether he has any, and, if so, what explanation to give of this occurrence.

I have no information in regard to the circumstances alluded to.

† See preceding volume, p. 1350.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any official information showing that slave raiding is still carried on in the British Protectorate of Northern Nigeria; and, if so, what steps have been or will be taken with a view to put a stop to this practice.

Slave raiding in Northern Nigeria, as the official Reports show, is disappearing pari passu with the establishment of British authority, but in the very large area with which the High Commissioner and his officials have to deal it would be impossible to say at the present time that it is entirely a thing of the past. All that can be said is that it is being steadily and progressively extinguished.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the attention of the Government has been directed to the communications between the Russian and the Austro - Hungarian Governments and the Government of the Porte with respect to the introduction of reforms into European Turkey; and, whether His Majesty's Government intend to co-operate with the two Powers above-mentioned in the action they are now taking.

His Majesty's Government are fully alive to the expediency of reform in the administration of the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and will take any favourable opportunity of supporting representations made by other Powers to the Sublime Porte on the subject. Their information with regard to any action of the Powers to which the hon. Gentleman refers is confidential.

But is it not the fact that Turkish troops are now running riot in Servia?

I must ask for notice of that Question.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the annoyance caused to passengers by demands to inspect tickets on omnibuses, he will, by legislation or otherwise, provide that inspectors appointed for this purpose shall be required to carry and show a badge issued by the police similar to that worn by omnibus conductors and cab drivers.

The examination of tickets seems to me to be quite reasonable, and I do not think any useful purpose would be served by ticket inspectors wearing a badge.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the inspection is entirely illegal, and will he take steps to prevent it?

No; and I do not propose to take any action in the matte.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state when the Return of hours worked by railwaymen, which is being prepared, will be presented to the House.

The preparation of this Return is well advanced, but there are still several railway companies from whom the required information has not yet been received. Further reminders, where necessary, will shortly be issued, and every effort will be made to expedite the issue of the Return, but I am unable to name a date for presentation to Parliament.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that a letter posted in the S.W. District of London at 10 p.m. on Sunday last was not delivered in the E.G. District until the afternoon of the following day; and will he explain why the letter took eleven hours and fifteen minutes to go from the S.W. to the E.G. Post Office, and state whether any compensation will be given to the sender of the letter for the loss thus incurred.

As explained in a letter addressed to the hon. Member on the 2nd instant, the delay which occurred in the delivery of the letter in question is attributable, not to the length of time occupied in its transmission from the South-Western to the East-Central Post Office, but to a mistake on the part of the postman to whom it was entrusted for delivery. The Postmaster General regrets that the sender suffered loss through the delay of the letter, but he is unable to entertain any claim for compensation.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that last year more than a thousand postmen were dismissed for carelessness, and will he—

Order, order !

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can now arrange for the management and control of Kew Gardens to be transferred from the Office of Works to the Board of Agriculture.

Perhaps I may be allowed to reply to this Question. Yes, Sir, this transfer will in all probability be carried out shortly. The Treasury has been in communication with all the Departments concerned and a small Committee will now be appointed to work out the details of the transfers.

I beg to ask the Lord Advocate, in view of inaccuracies alleged to exist in the last Deer Forest Return issued by the Crown Agent for Scotland, will he consider the expediency of issuing an amended Return brought up to date.

No, Sir. I refer to my right hon. friend's reply of the 6th May,†

† See (4) Debates, evii., 804.

But if the Return is compared with that of 1891 it will be found there are gross inaccuracies. Is not that the case?

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state the fees and allowances, additional to salary, of the Attorney General and Solicitor General respectively for the year 1901–2.

The fees are, approximately, £5,500 to the Attorney General and £4,350 to the Solicitor General, but the correctness of these figures has not yet been certified by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, as representing the Lord Chancellor, whether, seeing that the Bankruptcy General Orders, No. 255, lay down that no official assignee shall directly or indirectly carry on any trade or business or be engaged in any office or employment other than his office and employment as official assignee, he will state if the action of Mr. McEntire, in acting, as an expert witness in handwriting at Criminal Law and Procedure and other cases, was in accordance with this rule; and whether he will take steps to prevent official assignees being employed in this capacity in future.

This Question is substantially a repetition of that addressed to me by the hon. Member on the 23rd July. To the reply given by me on that occasion I have nothing to add. †

I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland (1) whether he can say how many jurors were ordered to stand by by the Crown official in the case of Bartholomew Crowley and James Eustace, charged at the present Cork Assizes on a charge of White-boyism; (2) how many of these jurors

† See preceding Volume, p. 1018.

The number of jurors ordered to stand aside in the case referred to was twenty - four. These jurors were so ordered to stand aside by the Crown solicitor in obedience to the circular letter of February, 1894, which expressly directs him to take that course—not because of the religions of the jurors, as to which he is prohibited from making any inquiry—but where he has reason to conclude the jurors, if sworn, would not find a true verdict upon the evidence. The Crown solicitor acted without any special directions from the Solicitor General. I am not aware of the religions of the jurors challenged.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that two of the challenged jurors were magistrates of the City of Cork?

I am not.

How long is this practice to continue?

Order, order!

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will have inquiries made at the Dublin Post Office as to whether the receiver on the Rae Estate, Killorglin, sent a telegram to Doyle with directions to give it to the court inspector while valuing the estate.

No, Sir. No such inquiries will, or could, be made. On Thursday last I stated that the receiver denied having sent a telegram of this character to Doyle. He has again assured me on the point.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the receiver on the Rae Estate, Killorglin, Kerry, entered the lands of Mr. Leane, and gave possession to Mr. Doyle; and seeing that, as a result of this action, twelve summonses came on for hearing at the local court on Friday, 25th instant, will he say what action will be taken to deal with the receiver for his conduct with regard to the sale of this estate.

The receiver did not give possession of any land to Doyle. All he did was to point out to the parties the position of the boundary between their lands, as settled by the court. The summonses issued have no connection with the land in dispute between Doyle and Leane.

Will the receiver substantiate this statement in a court of law, for I am perfectly well aware that he did the act with which I charge him 1

Order, order! The hon. Member cannot enter on a controversy.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the police pensioners at present serving as prison warders in Ireland will in due course be eligible as prison warders for a second pension from public funds.

The reply to this Question is in the affirmative.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state on what area will fall the cost of the extra police drafted into Warren-point, Rostrevor, and Newry on the occasion of the recent proposed Orange demonstration at Newry; and whether, in view of the fact that the demonstrators wore imported from the county Armagh and from remote parts of County Down, he will see that the cost is distributed over those two counties.

The area of charge may be either the Local Government Districts of the places mentioned, or the entire County Down, in which they are all situated. The matter is at present under consideration. There is no legal power to recover any portion of the cost from the County Armagh, none of the extra force having been employed there.

Seeing that this was an invasion of the County of Armagh, would it not be more equitable to place the cost of the extra police on the districts from which the excursionists came?

There is no legal power to do that.

But there is a discretionary power to place it on the Central Constabulary Fund and not on the County of Armagh.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state if any of the defendants in the recent Studdert Remount trial in Dublin held or have held the Commission of the Peace or any Commission in the Army or Militia.

One only of the defendants, Major C. W. Studdert, held the Commission of the Peace. He has been removed from the Commission. The other inquiry should be addressed to my right hon. friend the Secretary of State for War.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that an inquest was held in Waterford on 14th July at twelve o'clock (noon) on the body of Thomas Murphy, who died on the evening of the 13th from injuries received on the Great Southern and Western Railway on the 23rd of June last, without forty-eight hours' notice being given to the Board of Trade; and will he take steps to see that in future this notice is given to the Board of Trade.

Fatal accidents on railways are reported to the Board of Trade; such a report was made in the present instance. But it forms no part of the duty of the police to give to that Department forty-eight hours', or any specified notice of the intention to hold an inquest in such cases.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can now state when the promised sworn Inquiry into the charges against the police with reference to the seizure of illicit stills in County Mayo is to take place; and what is the method to be adopted on that occasion.

The inquiry will, I hope, be opened at Castlebar on Tuesday the 12th instant. Due notice of the inquiry will be given to the witnesses to be examined. The court will consist of Mr. Gambell, assistant inspector general, and Mr. Meldon, resident magistrate. The proceedings will be public, and it will be open to solicitors or counsel to be present to watch the interests of witnesses and to advise them.

Will this inquiry extend to other counties?

Not this one.

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Board of Works undertook to construct a pier at Clogher Head, in the County of Louth, at an estimated cost of £17,000, on condition that a sum of £4,250 was guaranteed locally; that the required local guarantee was given partly by the Grand Jury of Louth, partly by the Corporation of Drogheda, and partly by private benefactors; and that the construction of the pier was commenced and afterwards abandoned; and, seeing that the pier in its present state is useless, can he say why the work was suspended, and when it is likely to be recommenced.

The facts are correctly stated in the first part of the Question. The original design was for a pier 270 feet long, with a cant or elbow 80 feet long. It was, however, carried out straight to a distance exceeding 350 feet. The question of the construction of a cant was referred to an eminent engineer, Sir Alexander Rendel, and he was of opinion that it would not make the harbour substantially safer or more accessible, or would have any beneficial effect at all proportionate to its cost. The work was not, therefore, undertaken, nor is it proposed to do so.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will take steps to submit the amended scheme of technical education, prepared by the Cork County Council, to the public representative boards in the county who are concerned therewith before the scheme is confirmed.

The Department withheld sanction to the previous scheme in order that public bodies and others interested might have an opportunity of offering criticisms and suggestions on the subject. Many such representations have been received. The Department does not consider that any useful purpose would be served by awaiting further criticism.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he intends to introduce a Bill to amend the Labourers (Ireland) Acts this year; and, if so, will he state on what date.

I do not think I can, at the present moment, usefully supplement my reply to the hon. Member's similar Question of 18th June.†

Did not the right hon. Gentleman promise to introduce a Bill?

I said the Government were unable to go further than they had already expressed their willingness to go by putting down Amendments to

† See (4) Debates, cix., 973.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will issue a Local Government Board order to enable the Clare County Council to resolve themselves into a drainage board, that they may borrow money from the Treasury to deepen and widen rivers, piers and harbours, and tributaries, and thus reclaim tracts of country; the interest and principle of such loans being charged on the lands according to ascertained advantage.

Section 20 of the Local Government Act, 1898, authorises the transfer of the business of an existing drainage board to a County Council. On this point I would refer to my reply to the hon. Member's previous Question of the 7th July. † But there is no power to constitute the County Council a drainage board in respect to districts in which no drainage board already exists.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that at a recent petty sessions court at Ballinamuck, County Longford, a man was fined £24 for a shebeen offence: and, having regard to the circumstances of this man and the fact that his friends and neighbours had to subscribe the amount to enable him to pay the fine, will he request the Treasury to refund some portion of the amount.

I have nothing to add to my reply to the hon. Member's previous Question of 9th June on this subject.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the alternative in this case was twelve months imprisonment.

Order, order! The right hon. Gentleman has stated he has

† See (4) Debates, cx., 934.

I am at liberty, I presume, to put another Question?

Not now.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state for how many labourers' cottages contracts have been entered into by the Rural District Council of Kilmallock, County Limerick, under the present scheme; and, seeing that after the season for the digging of the potato crop has expired employment in that district is difficult to obtain, will he take steps to ensure the immediate erection of all the cottages.

The Local Government Board has addressed the District Council on the first part of the Question, and when the information has been received I will communicate it to the hon. Member. The Board has no power to take action as suggested in the second part of the Question. It rests with the Council to expedite the erection of the cottages.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the recent action against the trustees of the Mitchelstown Loan Fund in the Rolls Court, Dublin, and to the observations of the Master of the Rolls respecting the action of the Government Inspector, who annually investigated the accounts of the fund, in failing to report the state of affairs to the trustees; and if he intends to take any steps whereby the debenture holders may be indemnified for losses sustained, seeing that there was a Government audit of the accounts of the society.

Yes, Sir, my attention has been directed to the judgment of the Master of the Rolls in this case, from which, I am informed by the Loan Fund Board, an appeal is about to be lodged by the plaintiffs. In reply to the second part of the Question, I must point out that neither the officers of the Board nor those of the local societies working in connection with it, are civil servants of the Crown, and that Government exercises no control over the proceedings of the Board or of the local bodies. The Government accepts no responsibility in the matter and cannot indemnify debenture holders against losses sustained by them under circumstances such as are referred to.

Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been directed to the fact that for the fortieth time the Board have appealed to the Government to legislate in accordance with the Report of the Committee of 1855? Do they propose to do that?

I have nothing to do with that.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that the latest hour for posting letters in Rathmines, County Dublin, for the night mail is one hour earlier on week days than on Sundays; and, will he, to obviate the inconvenience thus caused to the traders of the locality, have the time of posting on week days extended to the same hour as on Sundays.

The Postmaster General will cause inquiry to be made on the subject, and will communicate the result to the hon. Member.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he has been made aware of the dissatisfaction in scientific circles at the impending closure of the observatories at Ben Nevis and Fort William owing to the lack of support of Government of these institutions; and whether he will order an inquiry to be made into the distribution by the Meteorological Council of the annual grant of £15,300, so as to secure that an adequate allowance be made to these stations of scientific observation; and whether in the meantime arrangements could be made for an interim maintenance grant pending the results of such an inquiry, so as to avert the interruption of the continuity of the meteorological records of the country.

said he was aware of the interest which this question excited and ho had looked into the history of it. He confessed that he started with considerable prejudice against having an, inquiry into the action of those scientific gentlemen who had been good enough to assist the Government in the expenditure of this money; but he found there was such an inquiry held about twenty years ago, in which an hon. friend of his, who now took great interest in the subject, took a leading part. The Committee recommended in their Report that the inquiry should be repeated from time to-time, a recommendation that had not been followed. In the circumstances it would be right to have an investigation, and to repeat it from time to time. This would involve no slur or slight on the Scientific Committee who allocate the funds. He observed that this was assuming an almost international question, but he did not think that the risk of Ben Nevis being deprived of the observatory implied any insult to Ben Nevis, or through Ben Nevis to Scotland; it was a purely scientific matter, and ought so to be treated.

Can the right hon. Gentleman state the order of business for Wednesday next?

It is still my hope that, in addition to taking the Appropriation Bill on Wednesday afternoon, the House will further proceed in the evening with the Education Bill.

With reference to the Motion on the Paper standing in the name of the right hon. Gentleman, seeing that it is a very unusual one, will the First Lord state whether it is really necessary under the Standing Orders?

I will not say that it is absolutely necessary under the Standing Orders, but seeing that we are now working under new Standing Orders it is conceivable that Supply may be finished before midnight, and if the House will look at paragraph 5 of the Standing Order, I think it will see that this is a desirable Motion to be made.

With reference to the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill, has it not been customary to allow a whole day for it? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are a great many important questions to be raised?

said that hon. Members near him had some very important matters to bring forward. Was there any precedent for closuring the Bill?

There is no question of precedent, as we have never before had to discuss the Bill under the existing Order on a divided day. I confess I should have thought five hours discussion adequate.

What arrangements have been made for resuming the discussion on the Irish Bills which were before the House the other night?

I trust they may be taken tonight after we have concluded our strictly financial business.

There is an understanding that we shall have adequate time for discussing a new Clause on Report of the Local Government Bill, and also for the Committee stage of the Marine Works Bill. The right hon. Gentleman must be very sanguine to

Can this Motion be discussed?

No, it has to be put without Amendment or debate.

Is that in order? Such a Motion has never been proposed before.

The Supply Rule did not exist before in its present form.

said he desired to point out certain points of improvement in the remount system which he thought would facilitate the supply of horses. This year the House was asked to vote £3,729,000 for remounts, while last year the amount was £5,200,000, and the year before £5,729,000. When the figures were so vast it was the duty of the Committee to try to put the Remount Department on a better footing. The first point he wished to draw attention to was the disproportion that existed between the number of men and the number of horses in our cavalry regiments. In the strongest regiments at present there were 609 men, but only 465 horses; that was to say the horses were 144 short. In the case of the small regiments there were 404 men and 279 horses, or 125 short. Colonel Birkbeck, the Director of Remounts, in his Report, referred to the necessity of a much larger supply of trained cavalry and artillery horses being kept up in time of peace. That officer said that a regiment of cavalry should always be ready to go on service with the ranks filled with trained horses and with a sufficient percentage to cover loss at sea, and that the men should go out in charge of the horses they were going to ride. He hoped the authorities at home would give their attention to this matter, and would in future keep a much higher proportion of horses than they now did. The next point was there should be officers specially trained for remount duty. The Remount Department ought to be regarded as a Department in itself. It would be remembered that when the Remount Department had to obtain horses from Hungary the military attaché at Vienna was not consulted as to the supply in that country. The reason appeared to be that he was the servant of the Foreign Office, and could only report to that Office. He thought that military attaches ought to be required to report direct to the War Office with regard to the supply of horses. The supply of the horses should have as much special study as the supply of foodstuffs. That was the opinion of Colonel Birkbeck, and very sensible advice it was. It was said that in Cape Colony and Canada some suitable places might be got for breeding establishments. He thought that the noble Lord rather discouraged the idea of going to Australia for remounts, because the supply of horses for the Indian Army was obtained from that country. The hon. Member for the Westbury Division of Wiltshire suggested that the War Office should send out officers to the Irish fairs and to the West of England, where they could buy the horses direct from the farmers themselves. He agreed with that, and also earnestly hoped that the payment of the 10s. registration fee would be kept up. He believed that no more serviceable horses were found for artillery and draught purposes than the omnibus horses that went out from this country. They were in hard training, and it was these horses that had carried the guns out of action at Stromberg. He hoped, too, that in order to reduce the weight carried by cavalry horses the suggestion should be considered that to every squadron there should be a cavalry cart. There was an absolute necessity of insisting that all officers sent abroad to buy horses and mules should produce properly registered vouchers. There was the notorious case of a mule buyer in Spain getting a commission from the vendors as well as from the War Office; and the same thing had happened in Hungary. Summarising the recommendations which he thought should be carried out, he repeated that (1) all officers sent out to purchase horses should receive strict instructions that they were to obtain the best possible vouchers for what they were buying, and were to be held strictly responsible for the money they spent; (2) that the number of horses in the cavalry regiments should be increased; (3) that the officers should be trained to remount duties; (4) that the sources of supply of remounts should be tabulated at the War Office, and the services of military attaches utilised; (5) that depots for breeding horses should be established; and (6) that officers should deal directly with farmers and breeders instead of going to dealers.

said there were great difficulties, as had been pointed out by the hon. Baronet, in equalising the men and horses in our cavalry regiments. There was no commanding officer who would not be glad if the theory of one man and one horse were carried out, but it could not be done unless the whole cavalry system of our Army was changed. Among the dismounted men there were officers' servants, officers' mess waiters, sergeants' mess waiters, canteen waiters, store men, clerks, men to look after supplies; and then there were the recruits. Under such circumstances, if there were one horse to each man, it would be impossible to get the horses cleaned and turned out. It must be remembered also that when a man was sick or when he was on furlough his horse had to be cleaned by some one else. Some people might say that all this implied mere pipe-clay and polish, but it should not be forgotten that ours was a voluntary Army, and unless it was kept smart he did not believe we should get the men. What was wanted was that men should be induced to take a pride in themselves and in their regiments. As to the weight which ought to be carried by cavalry horses, there was no question which had been more studied in every possible way. It had been proved over and over again that the heavy saddle was necessary to sustain the accoutrements of the soldiers, and that a light hunting saddle, or something like a racing saddle, caused sore backs. The hon. Baronet's idea as to the squadron carts with four horses would no doubt go some small way towards minimising the difficulty, although to a certain extent squadron carts were allowed and went with the regiments now. He thought that the Remount Department had suffered very unfairly at the hands of the House in the debate which took place on the subject some time ago. The Report of the Committee was only put in the hands of Members just before the discussion arose, and he did not think that anyone in the House, not even the Secretary for War himself, then understood its real bearings. The result was that the whole blame was instantly thrown upon the regular Remount Department, and the head of that Department, General Truman, was virtually made the scapegoat. But when hon. Members came to look more closely into the Report they found that it referred to what had been done by those who bought horses for the Yeomanry, and they were not the regular Remount Department. The Remount Department was a small one, and had been enormously overworked, and the general result of the debate had been that an enormous amount of opprobrium had attached to the regular Remount Department. He thought that the cloud of opprobrium which had hung over the Remount Department should be dispersed, or that at least they should know its proper limits; and it was only fair and just that they should press most urgently on the Secretary of State to make public the Report from the Commission which had been inquiring into the matter in America and Australia.

cordially concurred with the hon. and gallant Gentleman in asking for the publication of the Report of this Commission, and of the evidence taken by it as well. He was sorry, however, that the hon. and gallant Gentleman should have raised the subject of the debate upon General Truman, as a Committee was at present inquiring into that officer's case at his own request, and it would have been better to have waited until that Committee had reported. But as the question had been raised, he must say that his attack upon the Remount Department in the debate which had been referred to was based solely on the evidence taken at the inquiry and General Truman's own statements, which appeared to him to admit the breakdown of his Department. In regard to the question of weight upon cavalry horses, he was one of those who thought that there had been some little exaggeration of the importance of the matter, as compared with the overwhelming importance of training the men to take due care of their horses. Some of the most successful cavalry in the history of war had been heavily-weighted cavalry. The cavalry of the Grand Army which Napoleon took to Moscow was a most heavily-weighted cavalry, and the German cavalry in the Franco - German War was more heavily weighted than the French. The other question—that of the proportion of horses to men in a regiment—was of first-class importance, and he understood his right hon. friend to contend on the lines of the Report of Colonel Birkbeck, not that there should be necessarily the same number of horses as men, which was the counsel of perfection. His hon. and gallant friend the Member for Taunton had shown the difficulty of having as many horses as men, and pointed out the many duties which had to be performed by dismounted cavalry men, but he (Sir Charles Dilke) understood his right hon. friend the Member for Walsall to follow Colonel Birkbeck in the argument that a larger proportion of horses should be kept in training in-time of peace than was now the custom. That argument had been pressed on the Government for years past. Year after year the Government had been told they had not sufficient horses for their Army, and their reply had always been that they had a great reserve on which to draw. Omnibus horses had done very well, there was no doubt, as artillery horses, but not as cavalry horses, and the arguments advanced in the past as to the need of cavalry horses remained. If they were to have any cavalry at all, a larger proportion of horses must be kept up. The argument of Colonel Birkbeck was that there should be a larger supply of trained cavalry horses in time of peace, and that cavalry should, be able to go on service with its complement of fully trained horses and still leave a large reserve of trained horses on which to draw. The evidence of every officer who had served in South Africa testified to the soundness of the argument, and pointed out why the cavalry failed to do what was hoped of them. Some of the highest military authorities of the present day did not believe in cavalry: there was a strong desire to substitute mounted infantry for cavalry without taking the necessary steps to keep up a large force in time of peace; to put them through a mounted infantry school without having an establishment of horses for them, but he contended that the cavalry would find a new field of activity in the future. He hoped the Government would be able to tell the Committee that they were considering this question of remounts, and that they were not overlooking that branch of it which related to the maintenance in this country of a proper supply of cavalry horses in time of peace.

said he wished to draw attention to Ireland as a recruiting ground for horses. It was the best country in the world for the breeding of horses. He urged that cavalry horses should be bought at three years old direct from the farmer in Ireland; that they should be turned out for two years on the limestone pastures of Ireland, and then be brought into service. That would ensure the Government having horses at a fit age. By that policy, also, a large amount of money would be spent in Ireland, which both directly and indirectly would do a vast amount of good. With regard to the weight to be placed on cavalry horses, he entirely agreed with what had been said by his hon. friends the Members for Taunton and the Forest of Dean. They must not run any risk of sore backs in reducing weight.

agreed with the hon. and gallant Member who had just spoken as to the advisability of purchasing horses at the age of three years. His hon. and gallant friend was quite right in saying that Ireland was the best horse-breeding country in the world, though the Remount Department had done all it could to destroy the system of horse-breeding. The Government paid £40 a horse, but the Irish farmer only got £26 or.£28. A cavalry officer, no doubt, knew something about horses, but was afraid that he might sometimes make a mistake in the horse he bought, and was more afraid of the remarks of other cavalry officers if he did so. He, therefore, appointed a man to buy horses for him; the dealer was the great protection of the cavalry colonel. He did not think that at present Irish horses were heavy enough for artillery, but for mounted infantry and cavalry they were superb. He condemned the system of buying horses through dealers, and said that if the money went straight into the farmers' pockets they would undoubtedly try to produce a good class of animals.

agreed as to the desirability of establishing means of securing horses suitable for Army work direct from the farmers, but there were considerable difficulties in the matter. Occasionally advertisements were inserted that the Government agent would be at a certain place on a given day to buy horses. Every farmer believed he had horses suitable for the purpose, but on inspection probably 90 per cent, were rejected as unsuitable, with the result that much friction, disappointment, and irritation were caused. He suggested that the Secretary of State for War should select a thoroughly reliable veterinary surgeon in each poor law district, who, from the nature of his position, would know where there were horses suitable, and on a given day could apprise the owners, so that the horses might be brought to a certain place for the Government agent to see. It would mean a small fee to the veterinary surgeon, but he was more likely than an Army officer to be a good judge of horses. He would know a horse in the rough, and that was what the War Office wanted. The formation of foreign depots had been suggested, but why not have such depots at home? Why not have some of the unoccupied land in Essex utilised for horse-breeding? If breeding establishments were set up, horses eminently suited for army purposes might be produced. It was also desirable that arrangements should be made by which horses could be purchased at a lower age, as many men bred good colts, but were unable to afford to keep them until they were old enough for Army purposes. He further thought it was high time that something should be done to secure the production of sounder horses. If every horse used for fee or hire was required to have a certificate of soundness, a class of horse would be built up well fitted for the Army, but which now had to be purchased abroad.

contended that until horses were bought more directly from the owner or breeder the state of things of which complaint was made would continue. When the question was discussed last year the Financial Secretary to the War Office met a similar suggestion in a sympathetic and conciliatory spirit, and promised to make inquiries. It would be interesting for the Committee to know what steps the War Office had taken, and what had been the result of the inquiries. There was an admirable organisation already in existence of which use might be made in this matter. There was hardly a horse-breeding district in England in which there was not a Yeomanry regime it, officered almost entirely by gentlemen who lived in and had knowledge of the county, and were good judges of horseflesh, and use might be made of the adjutants of those regiments, at any rate for the purpose of keeping a register for their respective counties of horses fitted for military purposes. In that way the country would always have at its disposal a list of the remounts upon which it could lay its hands. If such a scheme was not possible, the Chambers of Agriculture in the different counties might be made use of. In any case, nothing but good could accrue from a system under which the purchases were made more directly from the owners or breeders.

I suggested that the War Office might do worse than study the Austro-Hungarian system for mounting cavalry. The Emperor Francis Joseph started the system by forming a number of stud farms at which the farmers were allowed to get their mares covered at a nominal price on one condition, viz., that the produce should be the property of the Government at £26 for gun horses and £28 for cavalry horses. No horses were taken until they were four years old, and none were kept after reaching the age of ten years. That was very different from the practice in this country, where he had often seen cavalry regiments going out with 200 horses, leaving the rest in the riding school because they were too young. In Austria-Hungary the system produced the horses for the cavalry, and even the Honved, a militia, which were perhaps the best horsed in the world. He was bound to say that from his experience Ireland was a better horse-breeding country than Essex, but the reason why a better class of horses did not come from Ireland was that the Irish breeder and farmer could not afford to give a sufficient price for sires. He urged that breeding depots should be established in Ireland.

said the lesson of the war had been that mounted infantry were essential. The statements which had been made as to the paucity of horses, even for the cavalry regiments, were bound to cause a certain amount of anxiety as to the efficiency of our cavalry force. When they took that fact into consideration, together with the enormous amount of public money they had spent during the last few years on this particular subject, he thought this was a question which deserved the very careful consideration, not only of every military Member of the House, but of every business man connected with the Government of the country. It did not require any argument to support the suggestion of increasing the number of cavalry horses available for each cavalry regiment. It might necessitate a certain amount of increased expenditure, but it was obvious that a cavalry regiment should have a larger proportion of horses —if it was to be used effectively—than the number available at the present moment. It had also been suggested —and he thought the suggestion was not only practical but of great value—that we should have specially trained officers for the purchase of horses. Those hon. Members who had been connected with the Remount Department had had evidence that the men employed for that purpose had not always been trustworthy, or had known how to purchase horses for the Army of the best kind, or at the lowest price. Why it should be necessary to have middlemen in the transactions passed his comprehension. The suggestion that horses should be purchased direct from the farmer commended itself to him as a business suggestion. There ought to be no difficulty in this country, with the organisation we possessed, not only in connection with the Board of Agriculture, but also the Local Government Board and other Departments, in having a register of horses in every county in the country. Such a register might be under the control of the Yeomanry officers, or kept under the auspices of the Agricultural Department, or of the County Councils. Persons living in the country ought to be encouraged to breed horses, and where a register was kept the War Office would be in a position to know, through the local authority, where a supply could always be found. A scheme like that might be carried out without any great expenditure of public money, and in that way the authorities might make our supply of horses in the future much more secure than it has been under the happy-go-lucky system which had hitherto prevailed.

I am very far from denying the importance of the discussion raised by the right hon. Baronet, but I am not equally sure that the remarks made by the hon. Member who has just spoken have very much advanced the Committee in the solution of the difficulties in the matter. I am afraid I shall have to show that his suggestions, though they sounded very plausible, have either been taken advantage of already, or if put into force would not have the effect which he anticipates. Many points have been raised, but the main point in connection with this matter—which, I think, has been entirely ignored—is the failure of the supply of horses at the beginning of the late war. That was due to the practical impossibility of organising a Department, which, in one normal year has to do business to the extent of 2,500 horses, on such a basis as to enable it to cope with a sudden demand for 150,000 horses. All this talk about organising, knowing where horses are to be found, and so forth, is very good, but if you put it to any business house in the City, that they should so organise their business that at some unknown time in the far distant future they should be able suddenly to do a business sixty times as great as their ordinary business, they would tell you that it was impossible for them to undertake such an operation, but they would do the best they could when the occasion arose. The hon. Member spoke of registering every horse in the United Kingdom. I do not know whether he is aware that before the war broke out 17,000 horses were registered, and many more would have been, but the owners were not willing to register them. It would be all very well for us to keep officers going about making out how many horses there are which it would be desirable for the country to bid for in case of war, but the trouble would be lost, because it does not necessarily follow that the owners would sell when war broke out. Our only possibility is to register those horses whose owners say they would be willing to sell. Now let me follow on briefly to one or two cases which have been mentioned, in which, during the war, there has been a lack of proper purchasing power. A great deal has been said about Hungary. I have always pointed out that a good many of the operations most complained of in Hungary were undertaken by the Yeomanry Committee on their own initiative, and were not under the control of the Remount Department. I have never made, and never shall make, any apology for the action taken by my predecessor when he entrusted the work of that particular force to the Yeomanry Committee. The War Office was suddenly asked to put 200,000 men in the field in South Africa, a very large number of them mounted. This House and successive Governments never having contemplated sending abroad more than 70,000 men in any emergency, it is perfectly obvious that such a demand could not be met without straining our resources in every direction. I believe a better policy could not have been adopted than that of trusting a body of expert gentlemen, particularly expert in the knowledge of horseflesh, and cognisant of the particular duties entrusted to them. To some extent they failed. They did not fail in the provision of men; they got us most excellent men; they did not fail in the equipment of those men, but in some respects they failed in the matter of the provision of horses. Then with regard to the Hungarian purchases. That business was denounced by the hon. Member for Dulwich, who was instrumental in bringing to light what had been called the scandals with regard to the purchase of horses in Hungary. I will tell the Committee what has occurred during the present year. I went to the hon. Member for Dulwich and asked him whether, as we had ceased buying Hungarian and were buying Russian horses, he would favour me by putting me in a position to buy the class of horse in Hungary which he said could be bought, but which we—as it was alleged—by the conduct of the War Office and the entire neglect of public interest, had failed to obtain. The hon. Member met me in the most friendly spirit. He undertook to send out his trainer, Mr. Waugh, who speaks the language, and to put us into communication with certain Hungarian magnates who were only anxious to retrieve the character of their country as a horse-market for the world. I was glad to accept his offer, but told him that we could not undertake to buy any number of Hungarian horses until we had proved that he was able to produce those of better class than we had been able to get through other channels. Mr. Waugh went out and conducted the negotiations. I did not limit him as to price, and he suggested a figure £6 or £8 —I think it was £6, but I am not certain— higher than the price we had been giving in Hungary, and we were to get the best horses of the cavalry class. At the wish of those concerned, we sent out a special Commission to inspect the horses, so that there might be no question of the existing Commission being in any way prejudiced in the matter. I am not in possession of the whole of the facts but I may say that, according to the reports I have received, after paying a higher price, sending out a special Commission, and going to a particular class who we were assured were most anxious to serve us well, we have been disappointed at the class of horses brought before our inspectors. They have had to reject so many, that at one time the contractors said they would not produce any more, because it did not pay them to have them rejected. The inspectors telegraphed to me, and I told them to reject as many as they thought necessary. Ultimately we got the number made up, but when the contingent arrived in South Africa it was not favourably reported on. I am assured, but have not been able actually to verify the statement, that that contract, like others, was sub-sold without our knowledge, and that a considerable number of horses were bought from our old contractor, who has been denounced in this House. In the case of these contracts the hon. member for Dulwich interested himself in every way he could in the most patriotic manner, and actually sent out a man at his own expense in order that we might obtain the right article. The only conclusion that I draw from these circumstances, strange though it is, is that the horse, which is by no means an immoral animal itself, is the cause of much immorality in others. Wherever the War Office bought horses, whether in this country or elsewhere, we met with the same difficulties. The Studdert case showed a gentleman well reputed in his own country and of an excellent character, a man who stood high in all the relations of life, who when he came to trade in horses committed a flagrant breach of honourable conduct, and indeed, I may say, without using language of too strong a character, was guilty of dishonesty. A number of persons were concerned in the transactions, as was shown by the trial, and the whole proceeding was of the most discreditable character. I have been criticised on account of the action of the Solicitor General, who represented the Government in the legal proceedings, in compromising the action. I am not a lawyer, but I do not see anything to censure in the matter. The Solicitor General called his witnesses; the defendants declined to go on; judgment was given against them, and the only question was the question of damages, when they agreed to pay £2,000 and the costs, which amounted to about the same sum. But nothing was done to bar future proceedings. I cannot enter now into the question of how far future criminal proceedings are likely to take place, but that depends entirely upon the possibility of success or failure. I ordered the action to be entered against the defendants within three weeks of my taking office in November, 1900. They took us from Court to Court, and finally to the House of Lords. I can only say that no fear of exposing any one will prevent me, if I can get a legal case, from going on with the matter. As to the purchase of horses in the future, my noble friend the Financial Secretary to the War Office is giving the subject his attention, and I hope to be able to announce next year the course to be adopted, which I hope will largely provide against the recurrence of the difficulties we have had to contend against in the past. My hon. and gallant friend the Member for Taunton truly said that the Remount Department has been too much blackened in the course of the discussion on the affairs of the Department six months ago. The inspectors whom I sent to report on the purchase of horses in America, Canada, Hungary, South Africa, and Australia have nearly all sent in their Reports. The publication of these Reports has been asked for. I do not think there will be any difficulty in making them public, and I am perfectly willing to give all the information it is in my power to give; but I should like to say at once, on behalf of some of the officers of the Remount Department, that I think they have been hardly dealt with by public opinion. Colonel de Burgh, the officer in the Department in New Orleans, despite climatic and all sorts of difficulties, has done excellent service, and deserves the highest praise for the work he has done. Good work has also been done in Canada. The operations in Russia also were a credit to all concerned. I do not think that Lord Kitchener himself would join in the outcry which has been raised against the Remount Department. I must remind the House that you must look to some extent to what you find in South Africa itself, for the blame of what occurred, in the want of care shown in sending the horses up country before they were fit, or in mixing them with those that were unfit; and you must not bestow all your censure upon those who selected the horses. I speak the more freely on the subject because, from the moment I took office, I urged Lord Kitchener to commandeer all the horses he could obtain in the parts of Cape Colony which were under martial law, so that we might be put a few weeks ahead of the supplies we had at that time. I think it only just to make these remarks in the interest of the officers of the Remount Department, who have worked so hard for the last two years. With regard to the case of General Truman, the Court of Inquiry is still sitting, and I am sorry I have not yet received its Report. I would remind the Committee that the Court of Inquiry was appointed by the Commander-in-Chief, and I am no more entitled to interfere with its proceedings than I am to interfere with those of a Court of Law. With regard to the remarks made as to the number of horses in each cavalry regiment, that is a matter which must be left to the military authorities. I remember some years ago meeting several of the best cavalry colonels and urging upon them the necessity of obtaining a larger number of horses for their regiments: but they did not see the necessity of so doing, as experience had shown that, given a certain number of trained horses in a regiment, other horses brought in to meet an emergency, when it arose, became fit in a few days for the work they had to perform. A much larger question was raised by the hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean when he declared that mounted infantry will be the need of the future. I am not going to hastily adopt the opinion that, because of the experiences of the South African War, cavalry will not be required as before; but that cavalry ought to be taught to shoot well and to be able to act as mounted infantry, no one will deny. The suggestion that large farms should be obtained for the rearing of young horses seems, at first sight, excellent in every respect. But these schemes must ultimately be tried by the question of cost; and while, with the experience of South Africa fresh in the public recollection, cost is accounted of little consequence, a time will come when pressure will be applied to the Secretary of State for War to reduce expenditure at all hazards; and if it were found that the system of buying young horses and rearing them on a farm increased the expenditure by £10 per horse, depend upon it you will have an immediate outcry raised against it, and the whole system would have to be recast. That we should get more closely into touch with the farmers there is no doubt; and that is part of my noble friend's plan. I can assure the Committee that all the questions which have been raised in connection with the purchase of horses for the Army are engaging the most careful attention of the War Office. Our great difficulty is to develop out of the sources of supply sufficient to meet the comparatively small annual demand for horses in time of peace, a service needed at the moment of emergency, arising at a time which we cannot foresee, and under circumstances which we cannot forecast.

said the public in Ireland had the gravest suspicion with regard to the Studdert case. He did not understand the right hou. Gentleman to contend for a moment that the £2,000 and costs awarded recently by the Court in Dublin swept away the profit made by Studdert and his confederates. They had walked off with an enormous sum — it was estimated at £10,000. He was not sure that that was a correct figure. He was only speaking from public report. The matter had been before the House for nearly two years, and until the present occasion they had always been met with the statement that it was sub judice, and that it could not be fairly discussed here. Every resource known to the law had been exhausted in order to procrastinate the trial of the case. That should have aroused the suspicions of the War Office, and, although the right hon. Gentleman did everything to force them to come to trial, it was public talk in Ireland—he gave it for what it was worth—that the law officers in Ireland had not been very active in seconding his efforts, and that procrastination was allowed to go on onger than was necessary. He did not make that charge—he mentioned it. But, at all events, what was the actual situation now? That a man who had, by the admission of the right hon. Gentleman, benefitted in that way to the extent of many thousands, who had made a laughing stock of the Government, was not to be made responsible. He had made a laughing stock of the Government because, according to the evidence, every absolutely valueless old horse was sold. Horses that the farmers got £7, £8 or £9 for were sold to the Government for £30 or £35. Men said that the age of some of them was so great that it was beyond human memory, and enormous numbers of mares in foal and every kind of rubbish all over the country was swept up. These facts must have been known to the Government and the Government lawyers for nearly two years, and it was not denied at the trial that in carrying out this extraordinary scheme his own son had made a fortune, and that the name of another man, who was alleged to be the secretary of a company or syndicate, had been used. Therefore, there was admitted in the court a case of fraud of the most extraordinary character, resulting in an enormous profit far beyond what was recovered in the way of damages. Yet now they were told by the right hon. Gentleman that if it was possible there would be a prosecution. Forgery had been sworn to in court and had not been denied, fraud was admitted, and yet they were told that if it was possible there would be a prosecution. Well, the right hon. Gentleman would pardon him for saying that the conviction existed in Ireland that the possibility of a conviction varied according to the person to be prosecuted, and he supposed that when Parliament assembled next session they would be informed that this was a matter of past history and that it was impossible to get evidence. He did not want to go into other cases in Ireland which had been heard of, in which there was the power but not the, will to prosecute. Major Studdert was a person of great influence in Ireland, and the hon. Gentleman had no doubt the Castle in Dublin was besieged at this moment by powerful influences begging that this gentleman should not be prosecuted. [MR. BRODRICK shook his head.] The right hon. Gentleman shook his head. But what did he know about what was going on? One sentence was noticeable in what had been said about this matter— that Major Studdert was well known and respectably connected. Certainly he belonged to the gentry of County Clare and was a specimen—the hon. Member did not say a fair one—of the class of receivers under the Land Act in Ireland who had ruined the unfortunate people. He did undoubtedly belong to an influential family of the County Clare, as the right hon. Gentleman said, widely connected and therefore in a position to bring influence upon the authorities in Dublin. In fact, if the matter was allowed to go on without some more definite and satistactory statement it would be found that these influences, in the recess, would cause the Studdert case to disappear. Having regard to the public way in which this business went on it must have been absolutely well known to the police. Ireland was a peculiar country. It was said that a cock could hardly crow without the fact being recorded in the Castle. The place was pervaded with police spies. There was hardly a transaction at a fair which was not reported. At every fair there were numbers of police mixing with the people, talking to them, and giving them drink for political purposes. And having regard to the way in which these purchases of Studdert's were talked about everywhere it would be impossible for the Government not to have had in their possession, not now, but long ago, evidence upon which to prosecute. And yet they were told, after all this had come out, that if it was possible there would be a prosecution. He urged that a prosecution should have been undertaken long ago. It should be remembered that while it was a legitimate excuse or reason for not discussing the case in the House that it was sub judice, that was no reason for not instituting a criminal prosecution. As soon as the Government knew that there was fraud they should have instituted such a prosecution. The Irish law officers had never made an adequate statement with reference to this case. They should have explained to the House what was the meaning of the expression "if a prosecution is possible." He asserted that it was believed by public opinion in Ireland that a prosecution was possible, and the Government would act unwisely and give rise to universal suspicion if steps were not taken. The other day a compromise took place. The right hon. Gentleman said there was no compromise, but that was not the opinion in Dublin; the case suddenly collapsed and there was a settlement arrived at between counsel on each side, and the Dublin Press, without distinction politically, commented most unfavourably upon the conduct of Crown counsel in the case. The Dublin correspondent of the London Times had a paragraph next morning saying so, and observing that it was not to be wondered at. So that the suspicion and discontent at the extraordinary termination of this case was not confined to Nationalists, but was shared in by the whole Press of Ireland. In the speech which the House had just heard there was no definite promise that an investigation would be held into this case. Were they to be told after all that had taken place that it was possible Mr. Studdert and the others would be allowed to walk off with their plunder? He trusted this Vote would not be allowed to pass until they received some more definite assurance than had yet been given. They had pressed again and again for a separate inquiry into the contracts connected with the war, and now they were told that the whole question of contracts was to be referred to the general inquiry. Before the general inquiry, which was an inquiry of a philosophic character, had concluded its labours, all interest in the war and everything connected with it would have ceased to exist. In view of the policy adopted by the Government with regard to these inquiries, it was all the more important that some special action should be taken with regard to this transaction in Ireland. If the Government desired so buy their horses through dealers, there were dealers in Ireland of good reputation; men known to many hon. Members of this House, who had a great name and reputation, and who would not desire to swindle the Government. He claimed that before this debate closed some assurance should be given by the right hon. Gentleman that this matter should be probed to the bottom, and that the Committee should not be put off with a vague statement of the Secretary of State, from which it was quite clear that the Government intended to abandon all serious efforts to deal with this question.

said that he thought the Government had been more hardly treated in this Amendment than they deserved. He explained that the selection of Major Studdert had been left chiefly to the Yeomanry Committee. This gentleman was chosen because he was believed to be a first-rate judge of horses and a man of high standing. It was thought that by employing a gentleman of this character, in touch with the horse dealers, the best remounts would be secured. When Major Studdert had made some purchases it was brought to the notice of the Committee that the horses were not up to the required standing. An inspector was sent to see the horses and to take photographs of them, and a most remarkable collection of photographs they were. The animals were about as rotten a lot of screws as could possibly be found. A certain proportion of the animals, however, were good, but there could be no doubt that Major Studdert intended to swindle the Government, and when he was ordered to attend before the Committee, and was asked what position he thought he occupied, he took the line that he was appointed an agent of the Committee at a salary of two guineas a day, and in buying the horses he had done the best he could. The Yeomanry Committee was dissolved; Colonel Lucas was sent to South Africa, and he (Mr. Beckett) was left in charge. Later on further facts came out about the horses, and he entrusted a firm in Ireland to make investigations. The result was that Major Studdert had purchased these horses under false names and had put the money into his pocket. These facts were sent by him to the War Office, and the War Office, without hesitation, consented to an action being brought. The case was put before Lord Lansdowne just before the general election, but he was unable to come to a decision at that particular moment. But the moment that the War Office gave the matter consideration his right hon. friend ordered action to be taken. The kind of action which should be taken was submitted to counsel's opinion, and on their advice civil and not criminal proceedings were taken. No blame, in his opinion, attached to the War Office in this matter. The War Office did not know what Studdert was doing at the time. The War Office left the Yeomanry Committee to do the work as it thought fit, and knew nothing about the matter until he reported it to them. The action of the Department was fair and straight, and he rejoiced to hear that further proceedings would probably be taken.

assured the Committee that, whatever might have been the common talk in Ireland, there was no disposition shown on the part of the Irish law officers except to pursue the case to the utmost. It was said that the terms on which the action was decided were insufficient. But the Committee must remember that, legally, when they were dealing with a question involving 200 or 300 horses, which was the point in this particular suit, they had to proportion the amount so as to reach the sum of £2,000. He was far from saying that this was the whole amount of profit made; but in order to recover legally they must prove the profit made in each case. It would be a very long business to arrive at the precise amount. The point now was whether further proceedings were possible, and whether there was a disposition on the part of the Government to take them. No one in his position could make apologies for a transaction in which he had not been concerned, and in respect of which an undoubted fraud had been perpetrated against the Government. He could assure the Committee that the Department was willing to take further action. He was disposed to go to extreme lengths in the matter; but in such a question dependence must be placed on the legal advisers of the Department as to the value of the evidence. The arm of the Government was strong, and it should not be employed against individuals unless there was a valid reason for it. Before taking action there must be careful consideration, but the War Office needed no stimulus from the Committee, and he hoped it would not be said that in consequence of this debate the War Office took action which they would not otherwise have taken. There was no extreme to which the Government would not go, if it were justifiable, to punish the offenders.

said that he believed the right hon. Gentleman desired to take action, but he feared that, if the legal advisers of the right hon. Gentleman said that they could not be sure of a conviction, that would be considered a bar to prosecution.

That will not be sufficient to prevent an action being brought.

Then I have nothing more to say.

said the Committee were entitled to have a more definite statement from the right hon. Gentleman before they passed the Vote. The right hon. Gentleman said that unless he could get a good prima facie case he could not undertake a prosecution. Surely the Government had sufficient evidence already to justify a criminal prosecution. To his mind this was a very serious question indeed. There was a case recently brought to light in Ireland where the Government officials manufactured both crime and evidence; then, there was no difficulty whatever about evidence—in fact, they could there get whatever evidence they desired. They had here a case where direct fraud had been carried on and large sums of money swindled out of the taxpayers. It was perfectly clear there were at least two men who ought to be prosecuted—one was Major Studdert and the other was his son. No one could reasonably suggest there was not a prima facie case against these two men. The right hon. Gentleman said Studdert was selected because he was a good judge of horses, and for that reason he was preferred to a horse dealer. That fact intensified the position and made matters very much worse. These men not only defrauded the Government by sending out wretched crocks to South Africa, but the use of such horses probably resulted in the loss of many precious lives. These men could well afford to say to themselves, "If no further action is taken against us the Government will merely take from us only a portion of the proceeds of our frauds." The Government should make an example of these men, and then they would probably have more honest men to deal with in the future. He hoped that unless the Government gave more satisfactory information the Committee would go to a division on the Vote.

said that his hon. friend could hardly have heard what the Secretary of State had said. The right hon. Gentleman had given a pledge that if possible a conviction should be obtained in this case. He recognised the great difficulty of proving damage in cases of this kind; but when. Major Studdert admitted that he had swindled the Government, and when Major Studdert's son admitted that he had; committed forgery, the difficulty was removed.

said that what they complained of in Ireland was that all this time Dublin Castle was in correspondence with the English Government, and that they must have known what was going on. Dublin Castle, by means of the police, knew everything that went on in Ireland, and they ought to have taken means to stop this scandal.

expressed his confidence in the Secretary of State to prosecute this matter as far as possible. He desired to put a question with regard to transport. The carts supplied by the War Office for this purpose were very heavy, and in answer to a Question he had put some time previously he was assured that a lighter cart would be supplied. These carts were perfectly useless on account of their great weight, and a year ago it was stated that a lighter cart was being tried. He asked for an assurance-that that was so.

said that that I was now being done. Lighter carts were now being tried, and there was also a scheme of motor cars being inquired I into, and no doubt something would be done with them.

said the only unsatisfactory thing in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was that part in which he stated that some names had to be considered before action was taken. Those words, he thought, would convey an entirely different meaning to that; which the right hon. Gentleman intended to convey.

said that in a question of conspiracy it was necessary to consider whether the evidence justified the inclusion of a particular person in the charge. The decision would be reached in a day or two.

said he thought he would be in order in drawing attention to the question of the ships used for transport, which in some cases had been kept four months without being unloaded, with the result that £276,000 had had to be paid by the War Office in respect of demurrage. That showed the unsatisfactory manner in which these matters were conducted by the War Office. He would like to know what had been done to those responsible for that state of things. Their salaries ought to be reduced, and they should be given work of a totally different character since they had shown such utter incompetence.

said there had been no scandal such as the hon. Member had tried to make out. There were two great difficulties to contend with in landing stores in South Africa. In the first place there was the difficulty, from want of sufficient dock and quay accommodadation, in getting vessels alongside at Port Elizabeth and East London, and there was the further difficulty of storage on the quays. Ships came in rapidly from all parts of the world, and it was impossible to know exactly the day on which a particular vessel would arrive. It often happened that stores sent off as urgent were less urgent when they reached South Africa, and others had become more urgent and had to be taken first. The consequence was that demurrage claims arose and could not be avoided, from the fact that the officers at the port unloaded those stores that were being particularly asked for.

asked what proportion of foreign as compared with Irish meat was supplied to the troops in Ireland. The £230,000,000 which had been expended on the war was not all lost as far as England was concerned, because a large portion of it was merely a transfer from one class of men to another; but in Ireland the whole of it was lost, because practically nothing was spent in that country. It was certainly unfair that, in a country which produced so much beef, foreign I meat should be introduced to so large an extent.

referred to the South African meat contracts and the connection of Sir F. Forestier - Walker with the Cold Storage Company. That officer was for some time General of Communications, and when last spring it was publicly announced that he had become a director of the company a Question was asked in the House, to which the reply was that Sir F. Forestier-Walker was on half-pay, and therefore the War Office had no control over him; and when the subject was mentioned in debate the noble Lord said Sir F. Forestier-Walker had nothing to do with the making of the meat contract, and that it was made by Lord Kitchener. But shortly afterwards, in the Committee on Public Accounts, when the Question was asked, the War Office representative said Sir F. Forestier-Walker was responsible for the contract. If that was so, and seeing that within a few months that officer appeared as director of the company, it had the appearance of a scandal not to he tolerated. Further, the hon. Member took the opportunity of once more protesting against the refusal of the Government to institute a separate inquiry into these war contracts. To mix up the inquiry with the great matter of military operations would render it ineffective, coming as it would so long after the events. Unless the inquiry was hot-foot on the scandal it would not meet the evil; it would simply cloak the matter up. Such inquiry should follow immediately upon the scandal being known, or the lesson would be lost, it was not denied that the Cold Storage Company received 11d per lb. for meat which at the time could have been bought on the quays at 3¼d. per lb. He had it from Mr. Bergl that he could have supplied the meat at 5½d. and have made a fair profit. In the interest of the Treasury, of the great spending Departments, arid of the public, inquiry should be instant and searching. The laxity and indifference in the Departments were almost incredible, and the House of Commons inquiry should be used to control contractors, for the Treasury was but a broken reed for the purpose. His faith in the power of the Treasury to safeguard public economy on a large scale had been rudely shaken by the phenomenon recently witnessed. Estimates were submitted, based on the expected continuance of the war for a further six months. The war suddenly ended, and the whole estimates were recast. No doubt it was expensive to bring a war to an end, but would any man believe that if estimates were recast on a peace footing they would come out at the same amount even to sixpence? The thing was preposterous, and simply showed that the estimates were not prepared in the manner the Committee were led to believe they were.

called attention to the treatment of horses at Stollenbosch. According to a letter he had received, a gentleman, high in favour with the Government, Major F. J. Ryder, of the 3rd Dragoon Guards, the Inspector of Remounts in Cape Colony, collected 1,500 horses after the war was technically over. These horses were commandeered from all the neighbouring farms at the lowest possible price. They were then placed in kraals and fed with chaff, with the result that between August and November 600 of them either died from glanders or other diseases, or had to be shot. One of the most abominable features of the war had been the vile cruelty to dumb animals. Although some millions of money was voted for fodder, these horses were fed on chaff. There was, however, no saving to the public purse from the starvation of these animals, because money was simply ladled into the hands of the Hausers and the Studderts.

could not add much to the reply given to the hon. Member at Question time, hut he could say that, as a general rule, glanders was not a disease that a horse caught through eating chaff. If 600 horses were shot for glanders it was the cheapest way the officer responsible could have disposed of them, for anything more infectious and anything more difficult to detect could not trouble any one in charge of horses. He assured the hon. Member for East Mayo that Sir Frederick Forestier-Walker had nothing to do with the making of the contract with the Cold Meat Storage Company. He joined its board after he had ceased to be on full pay. When he went on half pay the War Office would not he justified in interfering with any directorship he might think fit to take.

asked whether the noble Lord declared on his own knowledge that Sir. F. Forestier-Walker had nothing to do with making the contract.

said he could not on his own knowledge, but he was certain that Sir Frederick Forestier-Walker would do nothing that would justify any suspicion being thrown on his good faith. The meat contracts would he gone into by the Commission. [" When?"] He hoped as soon as possible. No people were more anxious than the War Office people that those contracts should be investigated, and then they would find |out how false were the suspicions always showered on the civilians of the War Office when this subject was mentioned.

endorsed what had been said of Sir Frederick Forestier-Walker by the noble Lord, and said the Public Accounts Committee, after examining into this subject, were left with the impression that Colonel Richardson was the effective officer who made the contract. The Public Accounts Committee were quite of opinion that a mistake had been made in allowing 11d. a lb. to be charged when part of the meat was frozen, but there was a repayment made by the Cold Storage Company, and it was shown that the great expense then was due to the difficulty of distributing when it had to follow the troops on the march, the whole expense of transport having to be paid by the Cold Storage Company.

pointed out that the contract, which started about March, was to extend over a year, a certain quantity of meat being delivered each week. He desired to know whether the contract contained any Clause by which it could be terminated in the event of the conclusion of the war, and what steps the Government had taken in the matter. He asked whether there was any clause in the meat contract which would have enabled the Government to terminate the contract before the end of the war.

said the point raised by the hon. Member had already been answered. It was, of course, obvious that no direct censure could be made on the Government with reference to the matter which had just been discussed across the floor of the House, but in justice to his hon. friend who opened the matter he did not think they should all sit quiet and accept the answer which had been given upon it. Certainly there were many Members in this House who felt that the gentleman referred to ought not to have accepted the position he did immediately on his return. With regard to what the hon. Member for East Mayo said as to contracts in general, no doubt the Treasury was not very useful in time of war. The Treasury was silent in time of war. That made it all the more necessary that there should be an adequate investigation into the circumstances of these contracts. He hoped the investigation by the Royal Commission would be carried out on the plan which the words of the First Lord a few nights ago suggested, namely, that the Commission would divide itself into Sub-Commissions, and that one small Sub-Commission would specially investigate the question of contracts.

said he did not believe the question of contracts could be properly inquired into except by a Committee of the House of Commons. The great superiority of a Committee of this House, consisting of say twenty members, as compared with a Royal Commission, was that they were so accessible to every shade of public opinion. There was, no doubt, a desire on the part of the War Office to cloak over what had happened in connection with the war. There never was a war in which there were not irregularities in the matter of contracts. They know what happened in the Peninsular war and the Crimean war. It was probable that in the South African war there had been gross mismanagement, and in some cases peculation and swindling,.

thought that a Committee of the House of Commons would be the best body to inquire into the question of contracts. There was an uneasy feeling in the country that there had been a great deal of corruption going on in the matter of contracts. It was not altogether a question of punishing the people who had been guilty of dishonesty and corruption but it was a question of preventing similar occurrence in future. If these contracts were not closely looked into people would say, when the next war took place, that there was a lot of money to be made in this way, and that they would take the risk. He did not think the country would be satisfied until a Committee of this House had investigated the whole matter.

said the noble Lord the Financial Secretary of the War Office had given an extremely unsympathetic reply in regard to the way the horses were fed. The horses were fed on chaff, and the noble Lord said that was a satisfactory method of feeding.

I said nothing of the kind.

said he gathered from the noble Lord's silence that he approved of feeding the horses on chaff. He admitted that 600 horses suffered from glanders and were destroyed. Did the noble Lord say that chaff was a proper thing to feed horses on?

I never said chaff was a proper thing to feed horses on. We do not know that these horses were fed only on chaff. We only know that they had glanders.

said he had reason to believe that the horses were fed on chaff, although £4,000,000 was provided for the purpose of purchasing proper and suitable food. He hoped the inquiry which was to take place would be pushed through and not allowed to drag on during the next two or three years. Mr. Bergl, towards the close of the war, contracted to supply meat at 5½d. per lb. The contract with the Cold Storage Company was to supply meat at lid. per Ib. They agreed to a reduction of 2d. per lb., but if they had allowed 4d. or 5d. it would have been nearer the mark. The fact that General Forestier-Walker became a director of the Cold Storage Company was not satisfactory, look at it whatever way they liked. The hon. Member called attention to a charge of £1,859 for coal which was sent to Capetown, where, being condemned as useless, it was sold for £370. That was attributable to a mistake on the part of an officer who ordered the wrong description of coal. Was no notice to be taken of that matter by the Treasury or the War Office? Was the officer promoted or pensioned off? Unless he got a satisfactory reply in regard to this sum of about £1,500, he would divide the Committee. He moved the reduction of the Vote by £100.

said that with regard to the question asked by the hon. Member for South Donegal it was not possible to give any further answer to that which had already been given. With regard to the loss on a consignation of coal the hon. Member did not give the reason for it.