in moving the Second Reading of the Public Trustee Bill, said its object was to secure the appointment of a public trustee who would be officially responsible for trust funds committed to his charge, and who would be supported by a guarantee from the Consolidated Fund by means of which all losses would be made good. In the present state of the law and its administration no such official existed. It was impossible in the present condition of affairs that trust funds should be left in hands other than those of private individuals who might be appointed for the purpose, and the inconveniences and mischiefs resulting from that system had been found to be twofold. In the first place it had been found exceedingly difficult to induce any private person to accept the onerous responsibilities attaching by law to the office of a trustee. It was sometimes difficult for a man anxious lo leave money to be administered by a trustee to find among his friends, either a person competent to accept such a position or a person willing to incur the obligations attaching to it. It also happened that a person anxious that funds should be administered properly shrank from inviting any of his private friends to accept such a postion. Then also they had to consider the evils attaching to the insecurity which was found to result from leaving large sums of money in the hands of a person who could give no guarantee that the funds should be honestly held and truly administered. There was no security at present available in such cases except that which was to be obtained by the costly processes of the law, and in recent years, under the present system, it had turned out that there had been enormous losses of trust property. He thought his predecessor had made a statement to the effect that during recent years in sixty cases a sum of not less than £152,000 of trust funds had been proved after investigation to have been wasted, and, when one considered the losses of trust funds in cases which had not been publicly investigated, it was obvious that the loss I of money was very serious. These losses pressed most heavily upon the poorer classes of the community. It often happened that a man who had accumulated a small patrimony for his children found himself in a position of anxiety as to how he should contrive to leave that patrimony in absolutely secure hands. It often happened that a slender pittance left for the widow and the children disappeared owing to the dishonesty of the persons in whose charge it was left. This question had for a good many years occupied the attention of Parliament. As early as 1889 a Bill was introduced into the House of Lords, very much on the lines of the present measure, with a view to constituting a public office which should give a guarantee in respect of funds which were lost in the course of the administration of a trust and which should obviate the necessity of choosing private persons in whose hands the funds were to be left. That Bill was supported by the most eminent authorities in the country who had great experience in the matter. Several Law Lords advocated the measure, it being supported by Lord Herschell, Lord Halsbury, Lord Watson, Lord Lindley and others. That Bill passed the House of Lords in 1889 and was again introduced and passed through all its stages in 1890. Unfortunately upon its transfer from the one Chamber to the other it entered into the region of measures which were in the state of "suspended animation" in which a number of measures seemed to have been left for a number of years. Until the year 1904 the matter, so far as Parliament was concerned, remained at rest, although public opinion was very active on the subject, and it became apparent that something should be done. In that year this House undertook the investigation of the question and a Select Committee was appointed under the Presidency of the present Lord Chancellor. That Commission included many eminent Members of this House; it sat for a number of days and examined, he thought, no less than eighty witnesses. Those witnesses included many eminent judges, some County Court judges, some eminent members of the Bar, and also prominent members of the solicitors branch of the profession, who all agreed in the views which had been expressed by the members of the Bench. The result of this investigation was a unanimous report in favour of the change in the law which was now proposed. There was a passage in the report of that Select Committee to which he should like to draw the attention of the House, dealing with the nature of the evils which had been shown to be active in consequence of the existence of the present system. That Committee said—

"Under present circumstances it is not surprising to learn that much difficulty is found in inducing competent persons to undertake the office of trustee. There can be little doubt that the difficulty is very real, and increasing, especially with poor people, whose circle of relatives does not contain many persons of education. The frequency of instances in which beneficiaries suffer loss from defalcations of dishonest trustees, or the negligence of careless and incompetent trustees, is a very serious matter. Probably few trustees contemplate dishonesty when they first enter upon their duties, or have the opportunity of being dishonest while they are associated with others in the trust. It is when all the trustees except one have died or retired, and no fresh appointments have been made, that the temptation and opportunity arise. The evidence pats it beyond question that large sums of money are annually misappropriated by private trustees. The highest authorities confirm the prevalent opinion of the public that much loss and consequent suffering is caused by this kind of malversation, and those who suffer are chiefly the poorer and more helpless."

The Report of the Committee was not surprising in view of the evidence produced before them, and it was also not surprising that the opinion of such competent authorities should have led to proposals for legislation being introduced into this House. Unfortunately it was left to the zeal and energy of private Members to promote that legislation, and his hon. and gallant friend the Member for Sheffield deserved warm commendation for his efforts to forward the question. It was owing to his zeal and assiduity that this question had been kept before the House and the country. His efforts to secure a place for the discussion of this measure by means of the ballot were unsuccessful until 1905, when the hon. Member obtained a position which enabled him to bring on the subject before Parliament. The success which attended his efforts was remarkable, because the Bill which he brought forward not only passed unanimously but not a single hostile voice was raised against it. The measure was sent to a Grand Committee and some Amendments were discussed, several of which were adopted. The Bill came back to this House upon Report, but unfortunately there was not quite enough time available to dispose of it; he believed that if another hour of time could have been afforded to the measure it would have been passed into law, and that was a remarkable tribute in regard to the history of this measure. The debate on the Report stage on that occasion disclosed some very remarkable evidence as to some of the evils which the measure sought to rectify. There were two tributes in regard to the Bill to which he should like to call attention. The present Lord Chancellor, who was the Chairman of the Select Committee and who heard all the evidence, expressed the opinion that the necessity for the Bill had arisen because of the lamentable frequency of complaints especially in regard to the poorer class of estates, which had led to a state of things which had become a public scandal. Under these circumstances the House of Commons passed the Second Reading of the Bill without a word of criticism, and his right hon. and learned friend the then Solicitor-General—the Member for the University of Dublin—lent his valuable services in support of the Bill. His right hon. and learned friend spoke strongly in favour of the measure and alluded to the many pathetic appeals he had received in regard to the misappropriation of trust funds during his tenure of office. Perhaps something ought to be said in regard to the financial responsibility which the administration of this proposal might cast upon the public Exchequer. The best anwer to such a criticism would perhaps be found in the fact that Lord Goschen and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, who had in the past been Chancellors of the Exchequer, and the present Chancellor of the Exchequer all agreed that no charge whatever need be put upon the public revenues in consequence of this change. This was a matter in regard to which they were not without experience. In 1891 a Bill in this direction passed the Legislature of New Zealand, and the system established under it had been in successful operation for fourteen years. Perhaps the House would permit him to read the prospectus of the Public Trust Office of New Zealand. It said —

"The great advantage offered by the office is an absolute security against loss. If an estate is left to be looked after by a private trustee it may be mismanaged or dishonestly administered, and if there is a loss the widow or children suffer. On the other hand, if the Public Trustee is appointed, trustee and the investment of the interest-bearing funds is left to his discretion, every penny of the capital and interest is safe, as the State guarantees this by statute. Trust-moneys are invested in securies fixed by law, and they bear interest from the time of coming into the office. There is thus no loss of interest through delays in investment, as often happens when private trustees are acting."

There were now in the hands of the Public Trustee of New Zealand, a comparatively small and not one of our most wealthy Colonies, a sum exceeding £3,000,000 sterling, and the charges were very small, varying from 1½ to 5 per cent. These charges were imposed for the cost of administration, and although they were small there was a surplus of revenue over expenditure of £7,000 a year. Therefore it was obvious that no public burden would be entailed if the House adopted the policy of the Bill, but that even a surplus over expenditure might be obtained. However, he did not rely upon the financial argument, but upon the principle of the Bill itself. He merely alluded to the financial question in order to show that the Bill would throw no additional burden upon the State. Without going into details he would proceed to explain the provisions of the measure and its general character. In the first place it was proposed to constitute the office of Public Trustee, and in the second place it would be provided that private persons should have power to nominate the Public Trustee as their trustee. In the third place, it provided—and this provision he strongly recommended to the notice of the House—for the administration by the public trustee of very small estates not exceeding £1,000 in value, enabling him to take charge of such estates, and in that way to save all the cost of administration and to distribute the money among those entitled to it with the minimum of expenditure. Then the Bill provided for financial burdens and responsibilities which might arise. There was a clause under which a guarantee from the Consolidated Fund was given in regard to losses which might be occasioned and which would fall on a private trustee. If under the existing law a private trustee was guilty of a breach of trust, a personal liability was incurred, but if similar circumstances arose in connection with the administration of a trust by the public trustee, a guarantee was given out of public funds which gave a security against all breaches of trust and maladministration. He thought he had indicated grounds which should induce the House to give a favourable reception to the measure and to attach the same appreciation to the methods proposed for putting an end to the evil of misappropriation of trust funds as was accorded to the Bill which passed a Second Reading in the last Parliament. He could not imagine that this new House of Commons would be less anxious to pass such a measure.

, in moving the rejection of the Bill, said it was with great regret that he rose for the first time in this House for the purpose of moving the rejection of what purported to be an important measure of law reform. But when he came to consider the Bill in a benevolent spirit with a predilection in its favour, giving it his best attention, he came to the conclusion that the Bill was likely to be other inoperative or mischievous. In the first place, it was likely to be inoperative, but if inoperative it was necessarily mischievous, because it could not be carried on without great expense to the community. With regard to the objects of the Bill itself, he might say that all sections of the House were in entire sympathy with them. That trust funds should be protected was the wish of every Member of the House; that testators and others who had difficulty in finding trustees should have a trustee found for them, they would also be glad to see. But he thought the difficulty of finding-trustees had been too largely dwelt upon by the hon. and learned Attorney - General. The loss of trust funds by the negligence or the misconduct of trustees was a very serious-matter. But when the hon. and learned Gentleman stated on the authority of his predecessor in office that £162,000 had been lost in this way he did not hear the hon. and learned Gentleman say over what period the loss was spread or what proportion the money bore to the trust funds invested throughout the country. He thought it would probably be founds when it was compared with the many millions of trust funds in process of administration, that £162,000 was a trifling percentage and that this evil was not widespread. He did not, however, rely on the fact that the percentage of loss was small, because if there was only one trust estate wasted it would be a tragedy which should excite the sympathy of the House. When he looked into this Bill in detail he found it was open to what appeared to be very serious objections indeed. He congratulated the hon. and gallant Member for the Central Division of Sheffield on having his measure adopted by a Liberal Government. He was not only a great legislator himself, but was the cause that legislative activity was in others. He (Mr. Radford) objected to this Bill because it was in the highest degree ambiguous. Ambiguity was to be found throughout the Bill, every clause of which referred to Rules to be made by the Lord Chancellor. He defied anybody to say what the effect would be until these rules had been issued. They had already heard of the evils of legislation by reference, but a greater evil was legislation by delegation. No House of Commons ought to delegate legislation to a Lord Chancellor, however highly respected he might be. If hon. Members would look at the Bill they would see that every clause referred to Rules that wore to be made hereafter. He gathered from the hon. and learned Attorney-General that the Bill was to be optional in its character, but he could conceive Rules being made which would make it practically compulsory. If that was so it would be a serious matter for the House to consider. He ventured to think that the hon. and learned Gentleman had not grasped the extent of the power of the Lord Chancellor to make Rules. The House also ought to know whether the Bill was optional or compulsory. If it was optional it would be inoperative, if it was compulsory it would be mischievous. The hon. and learned Member, in moving the Second Heading of this Bill, had not referred to the Judicial Trustees Act of 1896. That was an experimental act of legislation for enabling any person who had difficulty in finding a trustee to appoint a judicial trustee who would be a fit and proper person and who would give security. The security was not so good as the security of the Consolidated Fund, but it was sufficiently good. But that Act was a dead letter. He knew of few cases in which a judicial trustee had been appointed and he knew solicitors in large practices who had never seen a judicial trustee. That showed that if legislation was not in accordance with the wishes and habits of the people effective legislation was not obtained. He would be sorry to see one more added to the long list of law reforms that had proved inoperative. It meant the creation of a high and important official without any work to do. But that was not all. This public trustee was to have an office in London, and offices elsewhere, and to appoint deputies throughout the country, if need be, and he would need all that machinery. He was the potential trustee under every will and every marriage settlement in the country, and therefore they could not offer him less than £5,000 a year. This might provide for some poor but deserving King's Counsel, but would not necessarily be an advantage to the country. Moreover, when they paid a high official £5,000 a year, they must appoint a proper number of men to do the work which that official was paid to do. He was therefore to have deputies throughout the country; existing public offices were to be used as far as possible, and the services of existing public servants were also to be utilised. That wouldseem to suggest that there were more public buildings on our hands than we needed, and he ventured to suggest that money should be realised on the useless and redundant public buildings that we possessed. Let the House consider how large and far-reaching this proposal was. There was a public trustee in London, and a testator in Cornwall or Cumberland. In that case a public trustee in London was no use. There must be some one in the county town, or at least much nearer than London, and the Bill would require machinery as far-reaching as that of the Court of Probate, and probably more expensive. The hon. and learned Gentleman had said there would be no charge on public funds, but unless the responses of the public to the invitation held out by this measure was much greater than that to the invitation held out by the Judicial Trustees Act of 1896 there would be a very large expenditure incurred that must come out of either the Consolidated Fund or the capital of the trust estates, which would be a serious inconvenience to those for whom this Bill was primarily promoted, and would interfere with the appointment of public trustees, so long as that appointment was optional. The House had been told this session that economy was the pivot of all reform, and therefore ho ventured to suggest to hon. Members that if they desired to effect reforms here they should resist the temptation to create a long line of public offices which might turn out to be sinecures. Clause 14 of the Bill related to investigation and audit of trust accounts. That was the best clause in the Bill, and if that clause alone was passed as a Bill he was not certain that they would not do all the good they were trying to do by this Bill. They were trying to put an end to the misappropriation of trust estates, and if a periodical audit was introduced, as was proposed to be done by Clause 14, the trustee who contemplated fraud and misappropriation would know his course would be a short one; that he would be certain to be detected when his accounts were investigated, and a man did not put trust funds into his own pocket when he know the time must speedily come when the whole facts would be brought out. He thought this would be a very proper measure as it proceeded on the line of the habits of the people. The best trustees did already audit their trust accounts and furnish particulars, and if the House proceeded in this manner they would be proceeding according to the habits of the people instead of running counter to their ideas by inviting them to appoint a public trustee, who was an utter stranger, to administer their affairs. There was, however, one blot in Clause 14, Sub-section 5, which would render the whole clause nugatory, and that was that the remuneration of the auditor and the expenses of the audit should be paid, unless the public trustee directed otherwise, by the applicant. A wiser course was suggested in the Trust Accounts (Audit) Bill introduced this session by the hon. Member for Clackmannan and Kinross, namely, that the expenses of the audit should be paid by the trust estate; that was only right, because the estate was preserved by the audit, and therefore it should bear the cost of it. If the Government chose to force this measure through by means of their majority, of course they could do so. He only wished they had chosen some more useful measure out of those which were now congesting Parliament. This Bill, if passed to-day, would want serious consideration in Committee, and the two points that would have to be particularly regarded wore, first, the functions of the trustee, which would have to be defined in the Bill and not left to be sketched out hereafter by the Lord Chancellor under his Rules, and, secondly, by the payment of the expense of the audit. The Lord Chancellor had such a wide discretion under Clause 6 that he could determine whether he would make Rules to enable the public trustee to apply for probate or not. The Lord Chancellor had been considering this question ever since 1894, and it was hardly respectful to the House to have such an important matter still undecided. He suggested that it should be made perfectly clear in the Bill what the functions of this gentleman were to be, and whether the Bill was to be optional or compulsory. He begged to move that the Bill be read a second time this day three months.

said he rose to second this Motion with considerable diffidence. It was a difficult matter for one who usually followed the lead of the Government to stand up against the great array of authorities which had been adduced by the hon. and learned Attorney-General in support of this Bill. The attention of the public had been drawn to this matter by the dishonesty and fraud that had taken place. But the remedy for that evil which they must all admit existed was not the appointment of a public trustee. If they appointed a public trustee because trustees were dishonest they might as well appoint some one to carry on the business of a grocer, because grocers sometimes gave short weight or sold adulterated goods, and in like manner to take care of all the trades in the country. Although he sympathised with those who had lost their money by reason of their trustees being fraudulent, he submitted that we must deal with the criminals as we had been accustomed to deal with them in the past, by means of the criminal courts, and trust to the deterrent effect of the criminal law. But that was not the real evil that existed in this matter; the real evil was the difficulty of getting good trustees to act, the supineness of those appointed, and the love of a little power and authority which influenced them in their decisions and made them difficult to deal with in the execution of their duty. What was wanted in relation to trustees was not a seines of public officers, because that would only add another trustee; the public trustee under this Bill was a hydra-headed monster with various powers, which seemed to him to be likely to swallow up the small estates which would come under his administration. The position of trustees and their beneficiaries was well known to the House. It was a position similar to that in which the Attorney-General might be a trustee for him (Mr. Pearce) to manage his private affairs, and perhaps in some other capacities he might be trustee for the Attorney-General and manage his private affairs, and they would, of course, be obliged to consult each other, and hence delays and difficulties. Perhaps he might be allowed to point out that there had been a tendency of late for the Court of Chancery to give the life tenant the management of the estate. In spite of all wills and settlements, under the Settled Lands Act the tenant for life could actually sell the property of the trust without the concurrence of the trustees. He would suggest that the multiplication of public offices was not the way in which this matter ought to be dealt with. It would be much better to have the management of the estates in the hands of the beneficiaries, which in other words, meant the person selected by the well known rules of the Court of Chancery, or the Court of Probate, which selected, where there were several persons equally entitled, the person best qualified to be entrusted with the management of the estate. If they gave a selected beneficiary in that way the right to administer the estate, they would at once get rid of all the trouble of private trustees. Let the beneficiary do everything under the sanction of an order issued by some proper Court. If the estate was a largo one, and they did not mind the expense, then Chancery was the best court for the purpose. But there were plenty of officials who could undertake this work now on the application of the beneficiary. Let him apply to the registrar of the county courts, or the district registrar of the probate court, and there ask for an order. If the application was a proper one the registrar would, as a matter of course, give the order, and there would be no further trouble. All those persons who were interested in the payment of dividends and interest would only have to see that they had this order, and then they could pay their dividends in accordance with that order and be free from any further liability. He would not go through all the advantages which would be secured by the scheme he had suggested, but he thought it was his duty to suggest what he thought was a better remedy to obtain the laudable object which the Government had in view. Then they would have a proper record kept of the trusts from the initiation to the close, they would have a record showing all that had happened to the trust, all the property in it, and all the changes that had taken place. That would secure the due administration of the whole funds. The registrars of county courts and district probate courts had their offices all ready; the beneficiary could manage the whole estate perfectly well, and he was the person who was now giving service's which were of such incalculable value in all these trusts. They spoke of sympathy with the widow or orphan who might suffer, but that was nothing compared with the unpaid care bestowed by the beneficiary interested in the family, They would not be doing right by creating a paid official to destroy the affection and care which unpaid trustees and beneficiaries already used in the administration of trusts. How could a public trustee deal with the family feelings and the conduct of affairs under wills and settlements like the beneficiary who was interested and who knew how the income was to be administered? He was the proper person marked out by the habits and customs of the people to do this, and under the plan he (Mr. Pearce) was now suggesting the expense would be extremely small. If the Attorney-General would agree to postpone the Bill for three months, he would be prepared to bring forward a proper Bill on the lines he had advocated. There were in this Bill throe or four underlined clauses which gave them pause. The Treasury was to be made answerable for the whole cost. It was a most inopportune thing that they should have such a demand made upon the public purse in relation to this matter. He did not know anything that was more insisted upon during the last election than the cutting down of expenditure, and now one of the first things they saw was this proposal to follow the example of the late Government in their extravagant policy. Why did the Lord Chancellor want to create a host of officers on the chance of getting back the money from the estates? This was not the time to make a charge upon the public revenue, and at any rate he thought it might be put off for the next three months, so that they could see exactly where they stood in matters of expenditure. He appealed to the Irish Members present. How could they expect the Irish language to be revived if money was to be frittered away in the appointment of public trustees. He also appealed to the Labour Members to support him in opposing this Bill. It was perfectly well known that labour had to pay in the end for everything. He protested against his working class friends being called upon to work in order to raise money for the payment of a public trustee out of public funds, for the administration of private trusts, which could very easily be paid for out of those private trusts themselves. Why should they undertake to manage the private trusts of this country at the expense of the public when it could be perfectly well done by the unpaid and affectionate care of the beneficiary sanctioned by orders such as he had described, lie trusted that if the Second Reading of this Bill was carried, the Government would give some assurance that in Committee provision would be made that no expense of any kind should be put upon the public.

said he thought credit was due to the Government for having brought this Bill forward. He was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin was not able to be present, but he knew that he was heartily in sympathy with the objects of this Bill, for he had shown it in the clearest possible way when this same measure was brought forward by the late Government. It would have passed in the last Parliament had there been sufficient time to deal with it thoroughly, and it was only prevented from passing through the opposition which came from only one or two hon. Members. This measure dealt with an entirely non-political matter, and its principal object was to diminish the enormous losses which the community had sustained in recent years by the defalcations of trustees, and the robbery of trust estates. Within the last six months there had been numerous cases of defalcations which had inflicted untold suffering upon widows and orphans, which would have been largely obviated if the Bill of last year had passed. He was glad the Attorney General had not found it necessary to say anything in depreciation of the most honourable profession to which the two hon. Gentlemen belonged. He was sorry that the hon. Member for East Islington had not followed the lines of his predecessor in the representation of that constituency. He would like to read a passage from a speech made by Sir Albert Rollitt upon this measure. He said that a good deal of plundering of the poor by the misuse of trust funds took place, and it was the desire of the learned profession that everything possible should be done to prevent this. He thought that in this Bill which had been framed by the Lord Chancellor everything that was possible had been done to meet the legitimate wishes of the legal profession. Nobody had the slightest desire to depreciate that profession, and, because there were some black sheep amongst them, they ought not to tar the whole profession, with the same brush. Clause 11 dealt fully with this matter not only as regarded solicitors, but also as regarded the banking profession. Some fear was shown by Sheffield bankers in regard to this clause at first, but they had since expressed themselves as being, satisfied with it. He thought the provisions contained in Clause 1 would be found to be thoroughly satisfactory, not only to the legal profession, but also to those bankers and accountants who had entertained some opposition to the former Bill. Ample security was given in Clause 15, which provided that every rule was to be laid before each House of Parliament. He thought that that provided ample security that the Rules would be such as would conduce to the efficient working of the Act, and he did not think that they would operate in any sense whatever to the detriment of any person taking advantage of the Bill. An appeal had been made to Irish Members to support the rejection of the Bill, but he would remind them that the Bill did not apply to Ireland, and it should not be forgotten that breaches of trust in Ireland were much fewer than in this country. Hon. Members representing Scotland knew that judicial trustees had always been the universal rule in Scotland. It was upon the excellent example set by Scotland that the Select Committee upon Trust Administration recommended the appointment of judicial trustees. An appeal had also been made to working men and to the Labour Members to oppose this measure, but he would like to mention that Mr. Broad-hurst spoke strongly upon this subject, and was so much convinced of the absolute necessity of such a Bill that he went to the late Government and represented that the enactment of the measure would be a Messing to the poor. He might also state that the President of the Local Government Board took a most active part in obtaining support for this Bill. The hon. Member for Woolwich also was a teller with him in several divisions upon the Bill, in which five or six to one voted in its favour. In face of these facts, he hoped the hon. Gentleman opposite would withdraw the Motion for the rejection of the Bill, and allow the Second Reading to pass unanimously in order that the Bill might be referred to a Committee. They would then be able to assist the promoters of the Bill by all the moans in their power to enact the measure with such Amendments as might be considered necessary. The Attorney-General had expressed the willingness of the Government to consider any reasonable Amendments in Committee. The measure had been introduced entirely in the interests of the community at large, and it would be a thousand pities if, after all these pains had been taken, the Opposition from a very limited source should succeed in wrecking it once more. He earnestly trusted that the House would agree to the Second Reading.

said that he very much regretted that in addressing the House for the first time he found himself in opposition to a Liberal Government, having been a staunch Liberal all his life. But this Bill was not their child. It was an adopted child. He did not wish in the least to minimise the evil that existed in regard to the maladministration of trusts. For a quarter of a century he had had most intimate connection with the administration of trusts, and he believed that about 20 per cent, of the trusts of this country were maladministered from one cause or another. There was first of all the benevolent trustee who was anxious to get as much money as he could for the life renter; he agreed against his better judgment to invest in securities bringing a higher interest than he ought to do, having regard to the nature of the securities. Then there was the widow executrix with two daughters and one son, the son being the apple of her eye, but turned out to be a bad apple. By the time the girls came of age to get their money they found that" the "apple" had had it all, or most of it. There was the trustee who borrowed securities and put them in pledge, in order to help him over a difficult moment. If things went right the securities came out of pledge, but if they went wrong the securities were lost; and so on through various gradations until they came down to the brigand trustee who simply annexed the money and bolted. How was this Bill going to remedy that evil? They were told that in New Zealand the system proposed by this Bill had been adopted. He would take it for granted that that was so: New Zealand was a new country and had been accustomed to a benevolent officialdom ever since it had existed. Its inhabitants did not number many more than the population of Glasgow, and a public trustee might be a success there, while in a highly civilised country like Great Britain, with the traditions of centuries, where the habits of the people had grown up in the course of time, such an official might be a failure. He was absolutely certain that in not 10 per cent, of the wills would a public trustee be appointed. The people of this country disliked officialism m private affairs the hon. and gallant Member for Central Sheffield who introduced the Bill last-year and again this year had founded his case on an absolute misstatement of fact. He had said that in Ireland there was very little defalcation, while in Scotland there was a very excellent law called the Judicial Trustee Act which effectually prevented such a thing happening. He had hoped to see the Lord Advocate laugh at that statement, because he knew that it was ridiculous. He was glad to hear that there was no defalcation in Ireland, and he wanted the Irish Members to tell the House how that came about, because it was certainly not by the existence of a public trustee. He had known cases of great defalcation in Scotland, and they occasionally occurred now. But, speaking generally, there was immunity from defalcations in Scotland, owing simply to the business faculty of the people. It arose from the almost universal practice in Scotland of having the trust accounts audited every year. The remedy for the state of things complained of lay at their door if they cared to pick it up. It was found that there was a flaw in the Bankruptcy Act of 1869, and in 1883 an Act was passed to put a stop to defalcations. What in the 1883 Act had stopped defalcations? The audit. What had made the judicial factor in Scotland a success? The audit. What was the principal protection under the Judicial Trustee Act? Simply the audit. What had made the defalcations under trust deeds possible?

"How oft the sight of means to do ill ededs Makes ill deeds done !"

The trustee knew that if he had a trust for children ten or twelve years of age he had ten years to run and nobody to bring him to book when the accounts were not subject to audit. Defalcations were not so likely to occur where trust accounts were audited every year as they were largely in England now, and as they had been almost universally in Scotland for years. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Sheffield must know of the case of the Corporation of Sheffield v. Barclay. In that case a trustee forged a transfer in 1896, and the forgery was not discovered until he died in 1903, but if there had been an audit every year could it be supposed that that trustee would have touched the money? He would have known that he had facing him an audit in a few months time when he would have to produce the stock, and that he would be unable to do so. That and similar cases had brought about the cry for some public functionary whose business it would be at the public expense to protect trust funds. He admitted that there were eases of the poor where some protection was required. But why use enormous machinery like that proposed to save poor people's money when it could be done through the County Court, and through half-a-dozen ways without this machinery? They were told that it was to protect the poor. It was nothing of the kind. It was a great measure for public trustees, in all estates throughout the country. If it was to be successful they must have a whole host of officials. They were told that it would cost the State nothing. They were told that when the Act of 1883 came into force, but according to the Report for 1904 it was costing the country over £20,000 now. If that was the cost where trade money was concerned, what would be the cost of this measure if only 10 or 20 percent, of the people took advantage of its provisions? He asked the House to consider how this Act would work. Let them imagine a widow in her trouble at the death of her husband: instead of a friend, of the family coming with his sympathy and assisting her for a time, there would be a man from Somerset House who would take an inventory of and seal up everything. Would anyone wish that to be done? If any man had a difficulty in getting a trustee for his estate he could obtain the help he required under the Judicial Trustees Act. Reference had been made to the Judicial Factors Act. A judicial factor might be anybody the Court appointed; he was not a functionary with an established office and all the paraphernalia proposed by this Bill. If only 20 per cent, of the people took the benefit of this measure the mischief complained of would still go on in the case of the remaining 80 per cent, and the cost of administration must cause heavy loss to the Exchequer. The only good thing in the Bill came in at the tail, and that was very imperfect. It provided the protection of an audit to anyone who applied. The true remedy for defalcations might be found by passing a short Act ordering that every trust account should be audited and filed along with the will at Somerset. House where any beneficiary might go and see the account from time to time. The difficulty a beneficiary had with a trustee at present was this. He might think that things were not going right, but he did not like to ask the trustee, probably a member of his own family, for information in regard to the accounts; he wished to avoid anything which might give offence to the trustee. If there was a place where he could go without the intervention of the trustee and by paying a shilling see what was doing in the trust, the whole difficulty would be got over. The whole thing could be done for a very small sum. He might tell the House that he had seen a trust estate of £100,000 capital, income £3,000 with an audit fee of seven guineas per annum; another trust estate of £250,000 capital with an income of £6,000, audit fee twenty guineas. By adopting the system ho recommended, the whole thing could be done by excellent men for a very small sum on the poorest estates—there was no difficulty at all in the matter—without creating at great expense an enormous establishment of officials, all of whom would have to be pensioned. He spoke from large experience, and he was perfectly certain that, no matter what the learned Attorney-General might say, with the means he suggested not 20 per cent, but the whole 100 per cent, of testator's money would be protected, and the robbery of trust monies would be effectually stopped. He appealed to the House to adopt this purer, securer, and more economic way. This was not the time to risk £20,000 or even £5,000 a year of State monies. Only yesterday the Scottish Members cried out for £20,000 to help them in Scotland out of their educational difficulties. If this Bill passed there would be an official in every town and village in England and he was certain the cost would be £30,000 a year to the country. He held a brief for no class or party—not even the chartered accountants, of whom he was one. In Scotland the trustee had to keep a capital account, an income account, and a list of securities. These securities had to be produced every year, inspected by the auditor and certified accordingly. But if they started the machinery under this Bill they would be establishing an enormous bureaucracy. He appealed to the Government to drop this child, and let its putative father have it back again. It was not a Bill for a Liberal Government to adopt at all.

said that the reason why he rose to say a few words on this Bill was that, as a banker, he took an insignificant part in opposition to the Bill of last year when it was in Committee. It was therefore due to the House that he should explain the sentiments he now held toward the measure, introduced by his hon. and learned friend the Attorney-General. Let him say at once that as a banker, speaking in his own behalf, and in behalf of a number of country bankers, he viewed this Bill with a much more benevolent eye than the Bill of last year. Indeed, he might go further and say that not only was this Bill, as introduced in another place, in a more palatable form to bankers than the Bill of last year, but that when it went into Committee in another place, the Lord Chancellor accepted suggestions made by bankers with such cordial and kindly consideration, that certain of the bankers objections were largely removed, more especially in regard to Clause 11. What the country bankers feared in regard, to the Bill as originally introduced was that there was going to be a large central establishment set up in this metropolis controlled by Government officials and that the inevitable result would be to sweep money away from different parts of the provinces, where it was most wanted to promote commerce and industry, to London. That, they contended, would be most inimical to the provinces and to the banking community in the provinces. Clause 11, although it did not go the whole way, went a certain way to meet the views of the country bankers. It said that—

"The public trustee may employ for the purposes of the trust such…bankers… as lie may consider necessary, and in determining the persons to be so employed in relation to-any trust the public trustee shall have regard to the wishes of the creator of the trust and of the other trustees (if any), and of the beneficiaries, either expressed or as implied by the practice of the creator of the trust, or in the previous management of the trust."

That was a distinct direction in the Bill. If A. B. in Sheffield, Leeds, or Manchester acted as banker to a testator, the public trustee should have regard to that fact and should continue to employ him. Therefore, that clause had gone far to mitigate the inimical opinion of the country bankers regarding the Bill. He could not say on behalf of himself or of bankers generally that they approached the Bill with open arms; but if the Bill had to be passed, he confessed that a kindly endeavour had been made to meet their opinions on the matter. He hoped the House would not consider that bankers were without bowels of compassion. He might say that he had been largely impressed by what the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General said in his opening speech. They all know that there had been serious defalcations in the matter of trusts by trustees and others. Nobody could read the newspapers without knowing that. But what he wanted to impress on the House was that they must be careful, in running away from one evil, that they did not run into another; that in seeking to avoid the dangers of Scylla they did not run on the rocks of Charybdis. He saw difficulties in working the Bill. He assumed that the Bill was to be voluntary; that there was to be no compulsion at all. As regarded poor estates he would point out that in the early part of the Bill the public trustee was given an option as to whether he would take up such estates or not. In Clause 2 it was stated that—

"Subject to and in accordance with the provisions of this Act and the rules made there under, the public trustee may, if he thinks fit, for the purpose of saving expense to persons of small means, act in the administration of estates of small value."

The hon. Member should refer to Sub-section 3 of Clause 2.

(reading)—

"The public trustee shall not decline to accept any trust on the ground solely on the small value of the trust."

Very well; he would leave that point, and venture to put the matter a little more broadly. Did hon. Members believe that the people of this country would be largely inclined to take up the machinery provided by the Bill? He should doubt it. He tried to put himself in the position of the public, and not of a a banker. The people of this country generally did not like officialism; and over and above that ho asked himself, would the machinery of the Bill conduce to efficiency in winding up estates? That was an important question. He doubted it. To begin with, the public trustee would not necessarily be a business man. He was to be chosen from a public Department. Having been in official life in a large office for nine years, he might be allowed to say, with some degree of knowledge, that public servants were not always business men. And that was one of the dangers of the measure, if care was not taken, that they were going to run estates into great risks. A man might be a good public official, but a bad business man. This Bill would hold out to the whole community the idea of making use of this Department. There would be many people who would assume that a man appointed to be public trustee would know all about business; but the reverse might be the case. Some years ago he was appointed trustee to a very complicated and difficult estate which required a great deal of care and attention to handle to the best advantage. It was not the case of a business but of an estate which included all sorts of securities and mortgages which had to be dealt with. In order to fully realise that estate it was necessary that it should be wound up gradually, and time was wanted for that purpose. The securities had to be realised at the proper moment and the mortgages called in gradually. It was eleven years ago since he was appointed trustee, and that estate was not wound up to-day, although he believed he had conducted the business to the best advantage, both of those who owed money to the estate and of the estate itself. If the House passed this Bill, and a public trustee was a pointed, they all knew that red tape covered all official proceedings, and that trustee might not think it his duty to give the time and trouble that he himself had given in dealing with this particular estate. The public trustee would want to wind up the estate at once, and this in many cases would mean immense loss and disadvantage, not-only to the estate itself, but to those who were indebted to it. There was nothing within the four corners of the Bill to provide that the public trustee should be a business man, and even if he were he would probably become saturated with officialism. He would not, in all probability, take a broad view, but he would put all estates upon the same footing and wind them up in the same way. To take another point, it was not likely that the public trustee was going to run any risks. How was he going to invest trust money? He knew what he should do if he were in the position of the public trustee. He should put everything into Consols. Of course, the beneficiaries would suffer, because a much less income would be obtained, but risk would be avoided. Ono could not help being driven to the conclusion that on the whole the change proposed by the Bill was not going to redound to the benefit or the advantage of the public. Was there not a remedy for the evils of which complaint was made without resort to legislation of this character? They all knew that there were large companies and corporations whose financial position was beyond doubt and who acted in the capacity in which the public trustee would act under this Bill. Those companies were above suspicion, and they now carried on this class of business. He was inclined to believe that the safety valve was to be found there, and if that was so, was there any sufficient reason for loading the Statute-book with a Bill of this kind? The working of the Bill would, he thought, be very costly. It was said that it was not going to cost anything, and the hon. and learned Attorney-General had said that former Chancellors of the Exchequer and the present Chancellor of the Exchequer agreed that no charge upon the public revenue was likely to arise. He could not help feeling, however, that unless some form of mutual insurance was provided in regard to every estate that came within the purview of the public trustee, there must be some loss to the public Revenue. In that case the beneficiaries would provide their own insurance, while the public trustee administered the trusts. It was in his judgment doubtful whether the system would work out to the advantage of the beneficiaries or would result in economic administration. It appeared that everybody who put their estate in the hands of the public trustee would have to contribute to a mutual insurance system, and if a loss supervened the State would reimburse themselves out of the insurance fund. He disagreed with the hon. Member who suggested that they should pay £5,000 a year to the public trustee. He should think that £1,500 a year would be quite sufficient the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury received only £1,500 a year, and surely that sum would also be sufficient for the public trustee. But whatever the salary was, he should like to know whether the Exchequer was going to pay it, or whether it was to come out of the pool provided by the sums obtained from the estates themselves. He was not treating this as a Party question, but, as a member of the community he was discussing whether the remedy hold out was really going to fulfil the aspirations of those who believed in it and remove the evils of which complaint was now made. Upon the Second Reading he would not vote against the Bill, although he reserved his rights to discuss in Committee the points he had put forward.

said he wished to make an appeal to the supporters of the Bill not to continue the discussion at any length. There was a large number of uncontentious measures following it upon the Paper, and when he was pressed to put this Bill down first it was understood that the discussion would go through very quickly. Of course, he could not appeal to those hon. Members who wore opposed to the Bill to forward it, but he thought he was justified in appealing to those who supported it to help the Government in passing the measure.

said that after the speech of the Patronage Secretary he only desired to make a few observations to the House. He was a member of a profession which was largely interested in this question, and after a careful study of the Bill before the House he was entirely favourable to it. His speech would resolve itself into an appeal to the hon. Member for East Islington to withdraw his opposition the hon. Member, who belonged to the same profession as himself, had put his arguments with great force, but he hoped that he would; not persist in his resistance to the Bill. The opposition was conducted on two main grounds. First of all, it was said that the creation of a public trustee and of a new Government department would entail additional expenditure by the taxpayers of this country, and secondly, it was said that people would not be anxious to avail themselves of the advantages offered by the Bill. In his judgment beneficiaries, and particularly poor beneficiaries, would be most anxious to avail themselves of the provisions of the Bill and to take advantage of a system which would not only preserve the trust funds but enable them to let in the light of day upon trust accounts. That was the chief purpose of the Bill, and it was because the Bill provided the machinery to enable poor people, who had few friends or advisors, to obtain proper administration of their affairs, that he supported it. Ho was not concerned for rich people, because they could safeguard their interests by appointing eminent solicitors or bankers as trustees. It was, however, desirable that a Bill should pass which provided machinery to enable poor people to secure a trustee upon whom they could depend, and he was sure that if the poor people of the country came to understand the Bill it would be largely operative. If it became so the other ground of opposition to the Bill failed, because the department of the public trustee would under such circumstances pay for itself. He could not help thinking, however, that the success of the experiment must depend upon the care which was exercised by the Government in starting the machinery, and by the agents who were responsible for the management of the department. It was necessary that their methods should be cheap and economical. If that policy was pursued, he thought there was every reason to expect that we should, if not at once, in a short time see an end of dishonesty on the part of bankers and solicitors who became trustees, and of those pitiable and sordid crimes which inflicted great hardship upon and destroyed the homes of poor people. As he had said, his sympathy was not with those who could afford to employ bankers and solicitors and obtain expert opinion. Rich people could always obtain an expert to conduct their affairs and pay him a considerable salary in addition to pickings out of the estate. This was not possible in the case of a poor man, and he desired to support this Bill because he considered it would be of great benefit to the people of the country whose small savings were constantly in danger of being misappropriated by dishonest trustees.

said that, speaking as a solicitor, he should support the Bill. He did not intend to deal with the measure itself, because it had already been sufficiently dealt with. What wore the grounds of opposition to it? The first was that it was not required. In his opinion it needed a great deal of courage to come down and tell the House that this Bill, for which there had been a growing demand for many years past, was not required. He might say that members of the profession to which he belonged were especially in favour of the measure. He himself had always been a supporter of its principle, and his support had grown stronger as time went on. The Attorney-General had, he thought, minimised very con- siderably the amount of the defalcations by trustees. He had put the sum at £162,000, extending over a period of years. That estimate was much too small. In his own personal experience of fifteen years he had himself known cases in which the total loss was far larger than that.

said the sum he had mentioned was only the amount of the defalcations which had come to the official knowledge of his predecessor. It did not include very large sums which had undoubtedly been lost, but of which there was no official knowledge.

said he was sorry he had misunderstood the hon. and learned Gentleman. The losses had undoubtedly been very large. As to expense, the experience of New Zealand, a poor country, was conclusive on that point. He was quite of opinion that the procedure provided would be very largely used, and if it were largely used it would easily pay its way. Next, as to the complaint of officialdom. He thought the hon. Member for York, who was very severe on officials, was a standing example to the contrary. He had explained to the House with what great care and skill he had managed a large and complicated estate, and at the same time he had told them that for many years he was a Government official. Surely he could not separate himself into two parts like that, and, he for one was quite confident that the hon. Member would show in an official capacity the same care and skill that he had shown in his private capacity. All the points which be (Mr. Hills) had dealt with were purely negative. Two schemes had been proposed to take the place of this Bill, and the first of those schemes was a compulsory audit. In the first place the present Bill gave a very good machinery for audit, and in the next be did not think an audit alone was sufficient. Certain classes of fraud could nut be discovered by the auditor, and he thought we must have some moans by which people who were poor and had few friends of business training could be quite certain of obtaining a competent adviser and director on their business affairs. The most plausible alternative to the Bill was that there should be an assimilation of the law of personal property to the law of settled estates. The Settled Land Act had worked extremely well, and for the very simple reason that the man who was life tenant and was trustee for himself, could not by any means steal the land. But it was quite different when they came to the case of personal property. If it was invested in stocks, they stood in his name, or, at all events, the cash would pass through his hands, and, anyhow, it could not be contended that that was on the same basis as settled land. Even though the man was honest, he had a great temptation to mix the trust fund with his own property, and hopeless confusion would certainly arise. He appealed to the Government to make this Bill as simple and cheap as possible. For small estates it would at present be too expensive, for the public trustee could charge a fee and employ solicitors. He suggested that no fee should be charged in small estates; but that was a question which could be considered in Committee.

in moving the Second Heading of this Bill, said the best testimony in its favour was that the Lords in their legislative capacity supported it in order to correct the effect of their decisions in their judicial capacity. A measure similar to this had with this purpose been introduced by an ex-Lord Chancellor into the House of Lords and passed through that House three times. The effect of the decision which it was desired to correct was that if a crossed cheque was credited by a banker to his customer before he recieved payment, and if it turned out that the customer was not entitled to the cheque, the banker would be liable for the amount, although he had credited his customer with it in good faith and for that customer's convenience. The amendment of the law was not so much a banker's as a commercial question; for if the banker was not to be considered as merely acting as agent for his customer, and if he could not immediately treat the cheque paid into a customer's account as one against which that customer could draw, there would be an impediment to commerce. In ninety-nine cases out of 100 a crossed cheque paid into a customer's account was as good as cash, and if the banker was not allowed to regard it as safe to give the usual accommodation to the customer great inconvenience and delay in commercial transactions must result.

thanked the Attorney-General for bringing in this Bill, and agreed with him that it dealt with a commercial rather than a banker's question. With the banker this was merely a question of bookkeeping. It was only because bankers had taken a risk which they were not obliged to take, and had trusted to Parliament to amend the law, that commercial proceedings had not been thrown out of gear. On Stock Exchange Settlement days an enormous number of cheques were paid into the banks, and put one against another in the bankers' books so that stocks could at once be delivered. If the bankers chose to say that in consequence of legal decisions based on the wording of the Act of Parliament they would not credit the cheques to the accounts of customers until they had been cleared, Stock Exchange business would be delayed. The Bill was absolutely necessary because customers could not ask their bankers to take that risk, and it was necessary to put the bankers in the position which they were supposed, before these legal decisions were given, to occupy.

said he also thanked the Government for bringing in this little measure which was simply a measure of justice to give effect to what was really the intention of the legislature to give protection to the banker. The difficulty had arisen from the words in Section 82 of the Act "for a customer." The House of Lords in its judicial capacity took the line that under certain circumstances the bankers collected cheques, not for their customers, but for themselves. It would be, as the hon. and learned Attorney-General pointed out, most inconvenient if all crossed cheques had to be placed to a suspense account until they had been cleared. Suppose an ordinary commercial cheque was sent to a tradesman, and his clerk misappropriated it, endorsed his employer's signature, and paid it into his own account, and drew the money and absconded, the banker had no protection as he had before the decisions of the House of Lords had been given. He thanked the Government for bringing in this Bill.

said he agreed entirely with what his hon. friend had said in support of the Bill. It would be of ultimate advantage to every one who possessed a banking account, and passed crossed cheques through it. The decision of the House of Lords practically said that bankers, by not taking the course of hanging up crossed cheques in a suspense account until they were cleared, had taken upon themselves the risk of their not being paid. Bankers had so acted for the sake of the community in order not to throw out of gear the cheque system of this country. Now that the community had seen the risk which bankers took for them, it was quite time that the bankers should be done an act of justice in this matter, otherwise it might become necessary for bankers to hang up cheques until they wore cleared.

said he was sure that the Attorney-General was well acquainted with the present Clearing House system which solely depended upon the various banks who wont to the Clearing House treating crossed cheques paid in by customers as cash. As an illustration: if a man's banking account was in credit, say £100, and he received various cheques amounting to £400,000 or £500,000 and paid the same in to his banking account at one minute to four, having drawn cheques for a like amount himself, he could attend at the Clearing House an hour afterwards and then ascertain that all the cheques he had both received and paid had been honoured. This was accomplished by what was known as the system of reading. But beyond the ordinary crossed cheque was the crossed cheque with the words "not negotiable" written between the lines, the virtue of the words "not negotiable" being, under an Act passed by the late Lord Cairns, that the holder of the cheque—no matter through how many hands it might pass— had a no better title to the money it represented, than had the party from whom he (the holder) had received it. This gave protection to the drawer in case of those cheques which had been lost or stolen, which protection the ordinary crossed cheque did not possess. He hoped that the learned Attorney-General would be in a position to assure the House that the Act now proposed would in no way interfere with or over-ride the Act of Lord Cairns.

said that he was under the impression that a Motion was to have been moved that the Bill should be read that day throe months, but since that opposition had evidently been withdrawn it would be unnecessary for him to submit the arguments which he believed would have in any case persuaded the whole House to permit the Bill to pass through uncontested. Those Members who were thoroughly acquainted with the hardships of the large number of investors in the Debentures of loan societies in Ireland, especially in the counties of Fermanagh, Tyrone, and Donegal, would agree with him that through a fault in the law, and owing to a decision under that law, a great hardship had undoubtedly been imposed on debenture holders which this Bill was now brought forward to correct. There were something like 1,000 cases where the maximum investment was under £10; he supposed the average would be.£4. The amount of money outstanding under the Bill which it was hoped to recover was about £45,000. Although it could not be presumed that the whole of that amount would be eventually recovered, still oven if half were recovered from the defaulting societies it would certainly be a great advantage, particularly in Fermanagh, where he was personally acquainted with the facts of the case. On the face of it this might not appear to be a very important Bill. It might seem to be a Bill designed simply to correct a legal error or to assist whore another Bill had failed. The root of the Bill dealt with a much-felt want, which was to recover money for those who in their innocence had subscribed to the debentures of these various societies. Clause 4, which had been introduced by the Attorney-General, showed great wisdom. He was glad it met with the approval of every section of the House, because very often, when monies were recovered whore debts were long outstanding, a little hardship might be inflicted. In this clause great tolerance was shown by providing that the total amount recoverable in respect of any loan made under the principal Act should in no case exceed the amount lent, together with simple interest thereon at the rate of £5 per cent, per annum. As to the extension of time for taking-proceedings under 14 & 15 Victoria, chapter 93, the Bill simply proposed to extend the period from six months to twelve months. He appealed to hon. Members on both sides of the House to allow the Bill to pass, especially in the interests of the counties of Fermanagh, Tyrone, and Donegal.

said he desired very heartily to associate himself with what had fallen from his hon. friend the Member for Ayr Burghs. He had a very strong objection in principle to the Bill, and he expressed surprise that the Lord-Advocate had not given some further explanation of it, for the benefit of Members of the House who might not be conversant with the law and practice in Scotland. The Bill professed to alter a certain section of the Act of 1895, and proposed to extend the system of inquiry in the case of fatal accidents whore the Lord-Advocate thought such extension was desirable. Sub-section 7 of Section 4 of the Fatal Accidents Inquiry (Scotland) Act of 1895 was by this Bill repealed, and in lieu thereof the second clause of this Bill said that the jury, after hearing the evidence, should return a verdict setting forth—

"When and where the accident and the death or deaths to which the inquiry relates took place, the cause or causes of such accident or death, or deaths, the person or persons, if any, to whose fault or negligence the accident is attributable, the precaution, if any, by which it might have been avoided, any defects in the system, or mode of working which contributed to the accident, and any other facts disclosed by the evidence which, in the opinion of the jury, are relevant to the inquiry."

That might or might not be the estimable object of the inquiry, but he objected altogether to the means by which the right hon. Gentleman was seeking to arrive at it. In the first place, he deplored very deeply that in the present Bill there was no provision whatever that notice should be given to the persons who might be most intimately concerned in the matter. Under the Act of 1895 it was provided that intimation of the inquiry must be given to the wife, husband, family, the nearest known relative, and the employer. As his right hon. friend knew, there were many cases—he had almost said the majority of cases—where it was not the wife, or family, or even the employer who was most interested, but the man with whom the fault was to be found; it might be a man in the same employment, and it was a great blot upon the present Bill that it did not provide that notice should be given to the man against whom fault or negligence might be found. Even worse than that, a man might go to an inquiry, offer himself as a witness, give his evidence, and then suddenly find that he was the man against whom the inquiry was directed, and against whom a verdict of negligence or fault was found; and that by his evidence he had incriminated himself. That was contrary to the whole spirit of the constitution, and so long as there was the possibility of such a thing happening, he had the strongest objection to any system which allowed it. He did not say that such a thing was probable, but it was possible. It was intolerable that such a contravention of the whole practice and spirit of the constitution should be put down in black and white as in the Bill now before the House. It might be said that this was a Bill to extend to Scotland a system of coroner's inquests; but it was not. If it had been, his chief objection might possibly have been removed. When a verdict of fault or negligence was found at a coroner's inquest, that verdict, as recorded by the coroner, operated as a warrant for the apprehension and trial of a man; but one of the greatest defects of this Bill was that the inquiry effected or warranted nothing. It must be remembered that every sudden death in Scotland was already the object of private inquiry by the procurator-fiscal, who reported the evidence to Crown Counsel. Then the Crown Counsel made up his mind as to whether it was desirable to have further inquiry made, or whether anyone should be prosecuted in relation to the death. The inquiry provided for in this Bill was in no way a substitute for the inquiry made by the procurator fiscal. The Bill sought to institute a complete change in the relation of the procurator fiscal to the judicial procedure in Scotland. The Bill would place a most intolerable burden on the procurators fiscal. Its machinery would be cumbersome, extremely expensive, and mean the doubling of the staffs in the Sheriff Courts of Scotland. The right hon. the Lord Advocate knew that representations had been made by the sheriffs as to the crowded state of business in their courts, and he must be aware that that business would be much further extended if this Bill passed. He would like to know, if a procurator-fiscal made up his mind to take proceedings against an individual for fault or negligence, and those proceedings failed, who was to be responsible for the expense? Supposing a fellow workman of the deceased thought it possible that in the inquiry he might be accused of neglect or fault, and that a verdict might be found against him. He would have to appear at the inquiry, and to instruct counsel to represent him. He might have further to incur heavy expense in travelling a long distance; but, if fault was not found against him on whom was he to fall back to recover all these expenses? Although the right hon. Gentleman might have imagined that he had framed this Bill in the interests of all classes, he contended that it would inflict an intolerable hardship upon poor men up and down Scotland. Unless on these points the Bill was amended he should very strongly object to it. Indeed, he thought the right hon. Gentleman would be well advised to withdraw it altogether, and perhaps at some future time he would be able to re-cast it, and re-introduce it in a better form. He seconded the Amendment.

said he was surprised at the kind of opposition to this Bill, and described most of the objections brought against it as mere Committee points of detail. So far back as 1897 the idea became prevalent that much was being done in Scotland under the system of private inquiry, which had two defects. In the first place, it was absolutely secret; and in the second place, the consequence of absolute secrecy was that sometimes there arose such anxiety and uneasiness in the public mind, and a desire for publicity, that it was necessary to go through the hateful process of putting a man upon his trial as a criminal, not because he was believed to be a criminal, but because it was the only way to satisfy the minds of the community. That was altogether inconsistent with the ideas of justice. The hon. Member who moved this Amendment had struck exactly the line of cleavage in regard to this" matter, which was whether the Act of 1895 should be gone back upon in the sense of making these people assist in a secret inquiry, or, on the other hand, whether the Act of 1895—which had never been gone back upon during the term of office of the Unionist Government—should be transmuted now, and made into a real active and helpful mode of inquiry. He would not be a party to reverting to the system of absolute secret inquiry in Scotland. On the other hand, he wished the House to realise that substantially the first part of this Bill was an Amendment of Sub-section 7 of Section 4 of the Act of 1895. That Act gave juries the power to return a verdict stating when and where the accident and death or deaths took place, and the cause or causes of such death or deaths. Nevertheless, it had been held by the sheriffs presiding over these trials that the jury were precluded from giving anything except a "formal verdict." A formal verdict was not what Scotland wanted. It was proposed to change the formal verdict into a verdict setting forth, in addition to the cause or causes of death—

"The person or persons, if any, to whose fault or negligence the accident is attributable, the precautions, if any, by which it might have been avoided, any defects in the system or mode of working which contributed to the accident, and any other facts disclosed by the evidence which, in the opinion of the jury, are relevant to the inquiry."

Whatever judicial system existed, he could hardly conceive that it would be possible for a jury to be deprived of the right to return a full, real, and helpful verdict. Was not that hotter than reverting to the dark, secret system of inquiry? the other part of the Bill had reference to the occurrence of sudden and suspicious deaths not in industrial occupations. Such deaths could occur in Scotland without any inquiry following which the public knew anything about. He esteemed far more highly than he could describe the value of the system of inquiry by Crown counsel which had prevailed in Scotland for many years, and been a great advantage in the administration of the criminal law. There was a case in Glasgow where a number of persons in a lodging house were burnt to death, and the whole place was agitated and concerned as to how it could have happened. But, notwithstanding this, no public inquiry was made by any public authority, and the City of Glasgow, in order to satisfy the public mind upon the matter, instituted a public inquiry for itself. Could any testimony be more eloquent as showing the need for a general system under which all matters of that kind might be brought under the cognisance of the Crown by the machinery of this Bill? The whole of the facts relating to fatal accidents ought to be brought before the public in some way, and consequently he had introduced Section 3 of the Bill, which, he was glad to say, had the approval of the mover of the rejection of this Bill.

The qualified approval.

said he had introduced this clause in order to give power to the Lord-Advocate in case of suspicions deaths to order a public inquiry to satisfy the public mind. the rest of the points which had boon raised during the discussion appeared to him to be purely matters for the Committee stage.

said that what he objected to was that the Bill did not provide for giving notice to the man who might be found guilty.

said he considered that was a point for the Committee stage. In the Act of 1895 it was provided that amongst the list of persons who could assist were not only the employer but the persons engaged along with the deceased and any other person whom the sheriff might consider had a legitimate interest in the inquiry. The Lord-Advocate was empowered to order public inquiries in order to satisfy the public mind. In conclusion, he said the whole question was whether they should revert to secrecy or make the existing system helpful and a reality.

said the Bill was necessary to carry out the intention of the Act of 1895, which had been frustrated by the decision of the sheriffs that they would not allow a jury to state the cause or the causes of death in fatal accidents. The result had been that that Act had become a dead letter. He had had the good or bad fortune to be a juryman upon some of these inquiries. He did not like to act as a juryman at any time, but they were obliged to take their turn. The present law was futile. If a man was called upon a jury and hanged a man there was a certain satisfaction in it; there was much greater satisfaction if he could pronounce an acquittal; but if a juror was summoned and only allowed to say that a man had died through death, then he felt that his time had been absolutely wasted, and that was a position in which he had been more than once. It was because he was aware- of the futility of the present law that he supported the Second Heading of this Bill. There would be some satisfaction about the matter if juries were able to say that the accident was caused and the man lost his life because there was want of supervision. Then they would feel that they had been giving their time for a useful purpose and that it might have the effect of saving the lives of other men in the future. He appreciated very much Clause 3, which allowed the Lord-Advocate to institute a public inquiry if he thought that one should be held in the public interest. They did not want a coroner's inquest in every case, and he regretted what had occurred in connection with coroner's inquests in England, but they required this power to hold an inquiry. They were quite willing to trust their law officers with this additional power, knowing that they would only use it in the public interest.

said that all these questions were carefully considered when the Act now in force was discussed, and that Act was referred to a Scottish Committee, and he thought it was about the only Bill that over came before a Scottish Committee. The then law officers of the Crown, including the late Lord Kinross, were not very desirous of making any change in the law of Scotland in regard to public inquiries, as it was felt that the secret inquiries worked bettor. On the other hand, there were a good many objections to secret inquiries, because there were a large number of cases where irregularities had occurred. He thought the second section of the Bill now before the House might be amended in some respects, but the third clause he believed to be absolutely necessary. He would not go into some of the notorious cases which had occurred, but there was one case where a man coming out of a house, was knocked on the head and died a; week afterwards. He (the hon. Member) saw the widow of this man at the funeral and he ascertained that the death of that man was certified as having occurred through influenza, when as a matter of fact he died from a fracture of the skull. Lord Kinross subsequently held an inquiry, and in that case at any rate there was a miscarriage of justice. Had it not been for the fact that he went to see the widow, nothing would have been heard of the circumstances under which the man met his death. None of them were very desirous of changing the law on this subject, but he conceived it would be a great injury to the interests of justice in Scotland if the effects of legislation already passed were lost, and he most heartily supported the Bill now before the House.

said that he rose to confirm the Lord-Advocate's reference to the sad fatality which had recently occurred in his constituency. The profoundest uneasiness was felt as to the secrecy of the inquiry which followed, and he had been asked to impress on the law officers of the Grown the necessity for the legislation now proposed. The townfolk of Grangemouth were indgnant at the hole-and-corner way in which the case had been dealt with. During a juvenile theatrical performance a young man by accident shot a little girl on the stage, in consequence of ball ammunition having been substituted for blank ammunition. It was a very extraordinary affair, and at the time it was attended with a certain amount of suspicion, although it was afterwards proved to be an accident. Nevertheless, there was a feeling amongst the public, who were only acquainted with half the facts, that there ought to have been a public inquiry to establish clearly how it was that there had been a change from blank to ball ammunition. Cases of this kind showed the need of a reform in procedure. He heartily supported the Second Reading of the Bill.

said the Act of 1895 was brought in by the then Government after he had moved the reduction of somebody's salary. He was induced to ask the Government to bring in that Act by the miners of Midlothian, who wanted a full and public inquiry with a verdict as given by coroners' juries in England. The moment he got back to the House he saw the Lord-Advocate and wrote to the Secretary for Scotland, and they immediately said they would proceed with this Bill to make the Act of 1895 effective. What working-men wanted after a fatal accident was an honest and immediate inquiry as to why the accident had occurred and who was to blame for it, in order that if there was any blame proceedings might be taken against the right party. Another object of such inquiries was to prevent similar accidents in the future. Since the passing of the Act of 1895 he had heard no complaints of accidents in Midlothian mines. The question of notice was a matter to be dealt with in Committee, and he quite agreed that proper notice should be given to all the parties concerned. He hoped that as this was not a Party matter the House would pass the Second Reading of the Bill, and that in Scotland they would before long have an effective Act which the sheriffs could not make a sham. He desired cordially to thank the Secretary for Scotland and the Lord-Advocate for so readily agreeing to amend the Act of 1895.

said he did not think anyone would have-greater pleasure in welcoming this Bill than the railway men of Scotland. He did not profess to understand Scotch law, but during his experience as president of one of the large national organisations of workmen, and for a number of years he had had reports through his hands from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and the inconsistencies in them were even to the mind of a layman most apparent. He hailed this Bill with the greatest possible pleasure, and especially that portion of it which gave an extended power to the sheriff to call parties to the inquiry and to examine witnesses. If the Lord Advocate could extend that provision a little he would greatly benefit railway men. Their difficulty was to get into the inquiry, and the Bill left that entirely discretionary. With the best and most experienced coroners they had no difficulty whatever. Their difficulty occurred with the coroners in country districts with their fossilised ideas. They should have the right of sending to the Court workmen's representatives who had technical knowledge of the industry and of the conditions under which the man worked who had suffered the fatal accident. What they desired more than anything else was prevention. They wanted to have administered Acts which were already on the statute book either with regard to the hours worked or the Prevention of Accidents Act of 1900. By bringing out those matters at the

said he desired to know the effect of the words in line 12 upon the various provisions in the schedule. He was afraid that whilst certain advantages which were enjoyed under the law as it now stood might be taken away, the liabilities would remain, and it was obvious that it would be very unfair to take away an advantage and leave the liability.

said that the language adopted in the Bill was not his own, nor by any means that of his recent predecessors. It was the language of previous generations. The necessity for a Statute Revision Bill had been the subject of inquiry by the late Lord Westbury and by the late Lord Cairns, and the present Bill, as drawn, was necessary if they were not to defeat the whole object of statute law revision.

said he thought it would please the humour of the House if he read the statute. The Scottish Parliament was a first-rate Parliament, and brought within the compass of two or three lines all that they wanted to do. This was an instance, of which there were not a few in the list, of a great suspicion of people who came from the south of the Tweed. These people came to the north with far more attendants than was healthy, and that was a suspicious circumstance. Therefore, these words occurred in the preamble of the Act—

"Na man suld travell with maa men, nor he may susteine."

"Item. It is statute that na man of what estate, degree or condition he be of, rydand or gangand in the Countrie, lead nor have maa persons with him, nor may suffice him, nor till his estaite, and for quhom he will make readie payment; and gif onie complaint be of sik ryders or gangers, the King commandis his officiares of the land, that quhair they happen to be, till arriest them, and put them under sicker burrowes, quhill the King be certified thereof, and send his will what sal be done of sic trespassourers."

On a point of order, may I ask for a translation?

said it meant that no gentleman rider visiting Scotland should have more servants than could be accounted for on peaceable principles. What happened if the hon. Gentleman or his noble ancestors came north in those suspicious circumstances was that the King commanded his officers of the land where they happened to be to arrest them, and to put them in absolute security while the King sent his will what should be done with such trespassers. Would the hon. Gentleman not be easier in his mind if that were repealed?

begged leave to withdraw the Amendment.

moved to leave out the words "of sornaris." As he was entirely ignorant of the meaning of the word "sornaris" he would ask the right hon. Gentleman for information. He was delighted to hear during the discussion of the Soldiers' and Sailors' False Characters Bill that knowledge was necessary to constitute an offence. He thought in this case he should not very easily be guilty of an offence, because he had absolutely no knowledge of it. He did not even know how the word was pronounced. The Secretary of State for War with charming candour had already let them into some of the secrets of the present Government. In the event of one Bill not being satisfactory to the House the right hon. Gentleman produced another from his pocket and said that the first was not the one he meant to read. He wanted to know whether the Government had taken a tip from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War.

asked if the hon. Gentleman would be good enough to return to the subject of his Amendment.

said he was going to say that in this case two Bills were necessary, one in Scottish and the other in English. He would like to ask whether "sornaris" was a crime, a disease, or a vegetable. If it were a crime or a disease it was very desirable that it should cease. But was it something good to eat, because, if so, had the right hon. Gentleman taken proper steps to bring it up-to-date and have the seeds distributed? Until ho had a satisfactory answer from the right hon. Gentleman he must persist in his Amendment.

said the word was an old Scottish word. His hon. friend need not be alarmed; it was not exactly a crime or a disease. The modern equivalent was English slang, although it sounded Scotch. The slang English equivalent would be "sponger," and the statute in question dealt with spongers. He was sorry to say they nearly always proceeded from the south of the Tweed. When they came into Scotland they had what was popularly known as a high time. Speaking seriously, the sooner the like of that was abolished from the statute the better. The matter was raised in 1868 by Mr. George Howell, who pleaded that the laws of the county should be reduced to something like reasonable bulk by all obsolete matter being deleted. Since the Act of Union the laws of England up to the time of the Union had boon revised under statutes similar to the present and the whole of the laws of the United Kingdom up to a few years ago had also been revised, but all the Scottish statutes prior to the Act of Union had been left out. They were extremely involved and were written in the most archaic language, and though they formed a picturesque record of the history of Scotland, as business men they ought not to deprive Scotland of the opportunity of having her laws put into one single small volume instead of ten large folios as as present. He was sure the House would sympathise with the desire of the Lord Chancellor in this as in other matters to have Scotland brought absolutely up-to-date. The Bill was the result of very anxious inquiry made by skilled men led by his respected friend Sheriff Æneas Mackay. Everything had been done in every item of the Bill to make it absolutely straight and clear. But if between now and the passage of the Bill through the other House any communication was made to him concerning it he would convey it to the Lord Chancellor and it would receive full investigation.

fully agreed with everything the Lord Advocate had said. It was very desirable that this Bill should become law so that the statutes should be in a form which the people of Scotland could understand. The laws of Ireland were now in one small volume, and it would be a great boon to Scotland to be placed in a similar position.

said, as one who had at any rate a nodding acquaintance with the laws of Scotland, he entirely agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that this schedule represented the careful labour of a large number of skilled investigators continued during a long period. He could quite understand the natural and perhaps pardonable curiosity of his hon. friend as to the archaic language in which the old laws were written, but he hoped he would agree to the Bill proceeding.

desired to withdraw the Amendment.

said he had made certain inquiries in respect of this matter, and found that the statutes affecting salmon fisheries had been handled with extreme care by the skilled advisers of this Bill. But he would undertake to convey the views of the right hon. Gentleman to the Lord Chancellor, because it was quite possible that renewed investigation might suggest one or two further improvements. He could assure the hon. Gentleman, however, that to the best of his knowledge what had been done was best.

said, in view of the explanation, he begged to withdraw his Amendment.

said that through all the pre-Union period there was a large mass of legislation of a fiercely protective character.

You will not repeal that?

said he gathered that Scotland in those times was determined to be protected against England. When Scotland had to give a race of kings and rebuild the English throne with the Scottish dynasty, and when in other ways Scotland was finding it to be of some advantage to have close relations with England, there was a union of Parliaments in 1707. It was another illustration of how carefully the whole matter had been gone into. Might he make an appeal to hon. Gentlemen? He could assure them that in no sense of the word was there the slightest Party political character in this Bill. He was doing his official duty to the best of his power as successor to those holding his high office, and also carrying out the behests of the most skilled lawyers of this and the last generation. He thought he had shown no unwillingness to give such explanations as would satisfy the House, and he trusted hon. Members would now pass the Bill.

asked to be allowed to withdraw the Amendment.

moved the Amendment standing in the name of Viscount Helmsley to leave out "of strangeris that sellis merchandise in the realme and takis mone tharfor."

said this was another illustration of what he had been saying in answer to previous speakers. It was a case of the repeal of laws with regard to the selling of goods, the taking of money, and the custom of money. The whole repeal arose out of the great historical fact of the Union of the two Kingdoms. That was the whole explanation.

said they all accepted the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that there was no Party motive behind this Bill. At the same time he thought there were a large number of points which might be more clearly expressed.

appealed to the hon. Gentleman to allow the Bill to pass. So far as he could see the Bill was most carefully drawn.

said he would not pursue the subject after the assurances of his hon. and learned friend and the Lord Advocate.

asked the Lord Advocate if he would give an undertaking that the remaining stages of the Bill in this House would not be taken for at least a week, so that hon. Members might have time to examine the Bill.

said he would give the assurance.

asked leave to withdraw the Amendment.

appealed to the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his objection. The Secretary of State for the Home Department and, in fact, the whole House were willing that the Bill should be considered. He would undertake to meet his hon. friend in every possible way.

said, whilst he did not in the least object to his hon. friend's aim, and had the greatest possible sympathy with it, he distinctly objected to the method by which it was sought to be carried out. This was the fourth Bill dealing with the subject, and it was the most drastic of any proposed in this House, and he resisted it on that ground.