I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £100.

A few weeks ago a series of questions were put which expressed the feeling of a good number of Members that this House had not been treated with proper consideration in the arrangements for the funeral of the late King. I find, on referring to the past records, that this particular complaint is continually recurring from these benches, and it appears to me that the root of the difficulty lies in the fact that these great State ceremonials are still under the sole control of the Earl Marshal, and the Earl Marshal regards them from a point of view which is naturally quite different from that which is taken by Members of this House. To the Earl Marshal they are merely Court functions, with which Members of this House, and even those who sit upon the Treasury Bench, have very little reason to concern themselves, except, of course, on an occasion like this, when they have to pay for them. It seems to me that the time has now arrived when, at any rate, a share of these ceremonials should be given to an official who might be expected to regard them from a different point of view. The Earl Marshal's point of view was natural enough in the days when these ceremonials were merely a concern of the Royal Family, but now that they are paid for from public funds it seems reasonable that they should be regarded, not simply as Court functions, but as great national demonstrations. One of my Constituents told me that he came up to view the funeral procession, expecting that it would give him an opportunity of seeing all the foremost men of this time. He found, as a matter of fact, that most of those who appeared were Court functionaries, whose names he had never heard before, and who are mere lay figures in the national life. One cannot but think that not only these funeral processions, but all great State ceremonials are still conducted in a manner and on a plan which would be more fitting to a military despotism than to a free democracy. After all, the British nation does not wish to belittle the part that should be played by the military forces, but the British nation does not consist solely of the Army and Navy, the Court and the aristocracy. It appears to me that these national ceremonies ought to he fully representative of all the elements in the national life. I should like to see invitations to attend sent to representatives of science, the learned professions, our local government authorities, this House, the great churches, and all those varied factors which go to fashion the character of our people. I have said that the root of the difficulty appears to lie in the monopoly enjoyed by the Earl Marshal. Surely his position is distinctly unconstitutional. We have always understood that if there is one constitutional doctrine which is clearly established it is that the Minister who presents estimates to this House is held responsible for them and called upon to defend them. A few weeks ago, in answer to questions, the Minister who is supposed to be responsible told us quite distinctly that he was not responsible, that the control over this expenditure is in the hands of this hereditary Court official, over whom this House has no power, and whereas the Minister who is supposed to be responsible to us is merely one member of an advisory committee where he holds his seat by sufferance of the Earl Marshal. If you look through the whole range of the Constitution, you will find that there is only one man who can spend public funds, who can call upon this House to vote the money, and who is free from all the checks of this House, and that man is the Earl Marshal. Surely the time has come when that grossly anomalous and unconstitutional position should come to an end.

The position of the Earl Marshal does not arise on this Supplementary Estimate. The hon. Member is quite entitled to argue that if the House is to grant the money, it ought to have control over it in some way, but the position of the Earl Marshal as such is a question which cannot be discussed on this Vote.

I do not suggest any sort of revolution, but I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider this. At present the control of the expenditure of this money is not in his hands, and the sanction for that rests not upon law but upon custom and tradition. Let the custom and tradition be modified, and let the Minister who is responsible to this House have an equal, and I should say in cases of a divergence of opinion a decisive, share in the control of this expenditure. I believe the official who at present spends it is assisted by a committee which consists mainly of other Court officials. Why should the committee not consist of a larger number of persons in touch with this House and a smaller number of Court functionaries? I hope the First Commissioner of Works will allow time for a few speeches before he rises to deal with this complaint. I do not think this ought to be regarded as a mere trivial discussion. If we have a monarchy, let it be regarded seriously. In connection with the monarchy of this country, these public manifestations of loyalty leave a very distinct and a very profound impression upon the character of the people at large. For that reason I think that this question of great State ceremonials is really quite worthy of the full consideration of this Committee. I beg to move the reduction of the Vote by £100.

The hon. Member was good enough to invite a few speeches before the First Commissioner replies. I will make a short speech. I did not need to be reminded by the hon. Member that the monarchy of this country should be taken seriously. Nor can I concur in his recommendation that the office of Earl Marshal ought to be put into commission. He appears to regard the funeral ceremonial of the monarch of this realm as a kind of pageant in which representatives of all kinds should walk in procession in order that visitors from his own and other constituencies may see them. It is not my idea of that ceremonial, and I submit to the House with much respect that the funeral was carried out in an exceedingly reverent spirit. I believe that the manner in which it was carried out and that the predominance which was seen of the military element was far more agreeable to the people of the country who came to see it, and far more suitable to the occasion than a mere procession of gentlemen, however eminent, in black coats. When the hon. Member says that his friends came up to see the most eminent people, I would ask him whether Lord Roberts, Lord Fisher, and Lord Kitchener are not eminent men, because they have been concerned in the defence of their country rather than in criticising its institutions. I submit that the ceremonial was carried out in an admirable manner. One conspicuous feature of which I was myself a witness was the kindly care taken of the onlookers by the police and the military, who are regarded in some quarters with suspicion. They displayed the utmost kindness to persons who fainted and they showed great care and consideration in passing people through the crowds. I submit that the manner in which the ceremony was carried out symbolised the grief of a great empire at the loss of its head. I am not sure that the hon. Member is correct in describing the Earl Marshal as a Court official. I understand that he is the head of a Department and that he has a court in the city, though his court does not sit with the same regularity as those in which the judges preside. I believe that is really his position, and as one who has taken a very subordinate part under the Earl Marshall at the coronation. I submit that the way in which these functions are carried out give satisfaction to the community, that it is desirable that some officer of high rank and independent position, with a free hand to act as intermediary between the Court and the foreign royalties, should exist, that public feeling in regard to this matter has not been given expression to by the hon. Member, that criticism of this function is hardly called for, and that no reduction of the Vote is justified by the circumstances which he has brought before the House.

I think that the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has not represented the feelings of those who have taken an interest in this subject. I have no objection to the Army and Navy being represented in State ceremonials, such as the funeral of the late King, and the fact that certain foreign countries sent representatives of their armies and navies undoubtedly tended to give prominence to these particular elements in the ceremonial. What we object to is the omission of the civil and religious elements, and as it were the aggrandisement of the defence forces of the Crown; and we feel that the hon. Member who has raised the question has done a service to the House and to the country in once again bringing the matter forward for consideration. I am able to recall the fact that on the death of the late Queen Victoria my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) introduced this subject in a like fashion. Undoubtedly there is cause of complaint that this House as such took no part in the late King's funeral. Further than that, we have a grievance, because we regard the late King as having devoted a great deal of his time and his high qualities to the promotion of peace in different countries; and we feel that a place should have been given in this State ceremonial for the purpose of emphasising the great aim and work of the late King in this direction. If no other purpose is served in this respect except to draw attention to this matter, I feel that the time of Parliament has been well spent in having this discussion. Personally I offer no objection to the amount expended on the funeral. In fact, having regard to what one read in the Press—I happened to be abroad at the time, and was, therefore, unable to witness the ceremonial—I contemplated that a larger expenditure would have been involved. But nevertheless I feel that the House of Commons has a right to exercise full control over the expenditure incurred on such occasions as this; and if it be true that the Earl Marshal has full power over the expenditure of public money without in any way being responsible to the House of Commons I submit that here again we have a further grievance in the matter. I do respectfully hope that the right hon. Gentleman in his reply will manifest some sympathy with the point of view that is being expressed in this Debate, and that effect will be given to it on subsequent occasions, we hope long deferred, whenever there will be another Royal funeral, because undoubtedly the Throne is held in very high esteem by the country. It is quite truly said that the King reigns but does not govern. Nevertheless, we are aware of the fact that there is no strong resentment in any part of the land against the Throne or whoever may be the occupant of it for the time being. Therefore, those of us who interest ourselves in this matter do so out of no antagonism to the late King or the present occupant of the Throne, but because we do desire that the various elements comprising the State shall secure proper representation when these ceremonials are taking place; and furthermore that this House of Commons, which is responsible to the people, shall have full control over all expenditure of public money, and that steps shall ultimately be taken whereby individuals, however established they may be, shall have no power to expend public funds, but that the sole power shall remain in the House of Commons, and that these ceremonials in the future shall be so devised that the Army and Navy shall not secure predominance in these processions, but that all sections shall be fully represented, so that we can say then that the King's funeral is truly representative of all elements in the State, and that in all these ceremonials the State through the House of Commons shall have full control over whatever is expended thereon.

The item to which exception is taken is the last item on page 5, £2,500, including the expenses of the Earl Marshal's staff. I mention this fact so that there may be no misunderstanding. As has been said by my hon. Friend below me, I base this question——

On a point of Order. Is not it the case that the reduction has been moved in respect of the whole item and not in respect of that one item of £2,500?

The reduction was moved on the whole Vote, but that does not affect the point of Order. The hon. Member is equally in order in bringing in that item.

The point I want to make is the difference that may be made in this Division if it is taken on the whole Vote. It is only in respect of this particular item that objection is being raised. I hope that when a reply comes to be made it will not be on the lines of the reply that was made nine years ago when a similar question was raised in connection with the funeral of her late Majesty Queen Victoria. Sir Michael Hicks Beach, in replying on that occasion, used these words:— If there was a military element, it was largely necessitated by the fact that it was impossible to keep the streets without the aid of military. Speaking for myself, I am not raising any objection to the streets having been lined with military. That has nothing whatever to do with the objection that has been taken. Neither do I altogether agree that an occasion of this sort should be taken as a sort of glorified animated Madame Tussaud's exhibition, in which prominent people would be on view. I say now, as I said then, I should much prefer, both on this and other similar sad occasions, that there should be much greater simplicity and more reverence. But the point is that the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two Houses of Parliament as such, were entirely excluded from recognition in connection with the ceremonials. There was, I know, the service in Westminster Hall; but I am now speaking of the funeral procession itself.

The position I take is this, that the Army is not the head of the State. The Army is the defensive power employed by the State to maintain itself, but the Houses of Parliament control the Army, and are above, beyond, and superior to the Army in the matter of controlling power. Therefore, the leading position on such occasions should not be given to the armed forces of the Crown, which is only one portion of the State, but to the real head of the State, the Houses of Parliament. That is the reason why I take exception to the arrangements. I did so nine years ago. I then pointed out that in my opinion the funeral of her late Majesty Queen Victoria was used as a kind of recruiting service to popularise the Army and military forces generally. On this occasion the King, who was being buried, and who was lauded and glorified, with some reason, as "Edward the Peacemaker," had not a single representative of peace at his funeral. Surely such an anomaly should have been avoided. It would not be in order, nor shall I attempt to discuss the position of the Earl Marshal. What I wish especially to impress upon Members of the Government, and particularly upon the First Commissioner of Works, who, from what he recently said in reply to a question in the House, himself felt the absurdity of the position in which he was placed, is the desirability of consulting Parliament as to the procedure on such occasions, so as to give the House of Commons practical and proper control not only over the provision of the money necessary for those functions, but in the making of the arrangements. The House of Commons represents the nation, and, as such, should occupy the place of honour at every such function. To assent to anything else without protest is to assume that we are still living in the feudal ages, and the Earl Marshal's position practically comes down from those times. My general position is that I object on principle to solemn and serious State functions of this kind being used as a means of still further familiarising the public mind with militarism and all that pertains to it. I hope, therefore, that if a Division requires to he taken on this subject the House will come to an understanding. It is not the amount that was spent which is objected to; it is solely and exclusively the one fact that the Houses of Parliament had not their rightful recognition and their rightful place in connection with the ceremony.

I certainly do not intend, as my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton seems to fear, to treat this as a trivial discussion. I can only express my deep regret that our memories of one of the most beautiful State ceremonials that I think has ever been witnessed in this country should have been temporarily marred by any dissatisfaction with the arrangements made on that occasion. I should like first of all to explain a misunderstanding which seems to have arisen as to the answer which I gave to a question on this matter. It seems to have been assumed from the wording of my answer that I was anxious to avoid personal responsibility and to shift an undue amount of it on to the Earl Marshal, who is, of course, nominally and properly responsible. That certainly never was my wish or intention. I think it right to explain to the House that I had no pretension to sole authority in the management of these affairs, which have been by long custom, in most cases, controlled by the Court officials. But in reference to this Vote which is before us to-day the amount which is applicable to the staff of the Earl Marshal is so small as to be a negligible quantity. The other expenses are accounted for under the different heads of Departments responsible for them; that is to say, my Department is responsible for an extremely small share of that expenditure, considering the very large amount of work which it had to do. But on the general suggestion that in some way or other the Houses of Parliament have been neglected as to consideration in relation to the funeral on this occasion, special steps were taken to give a recognition to both Houses of Parliament such as never has taken place at the funeral of any Monarch before. I am not, of course, referring actually to the procession on the day of the funeral. Processions frequently are extremely difficult to organise. They are not always successful if you introduce a large civilian element. I mean in the actual moving and marshalling of the procession.

But there was no attempt on that day to exclude the representatives of the State. The hon. Member is probably aware that the representatives of almost every interest in this country were included within the small space available in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, yet, by the arrangements of the obsequies of the late King, positions of great distinction were given to the two Houses of Parliament. For the lying-in-state at Westminster Hall arrangements were made by which both Houses were able to take part in the stately and memorable ceremony in that Hall. During the days of the lying-in-state an enormous number of the late King's subjects with reverence passed his coffin lying in a hall instinct with the memory of so many rites. I do not believe, within the time at our disposal, that it would have been possible to make arrangements by which greater consideration could have been shown to the governing powers of the two Houses of Parliament. Hon. Members, who have never been through this work of a royal funeral in detail, will have little idea of what it was, within three or four days, to carry out a great State procession to and from a palace in which the lying-in-state of the Monarch had never been held before. I am quite sure hon. Gentlemen will admit that there was no want of personal and individual consideration shown to Members of this House and Members of the other House. If there has been any feeling that the Houses were not sufficiently considered on the day of the actual funeral I should deeply regret it if I thought there was any real justification for it. With the difficulty of including not only this House, as apparently hon. Members suggest, but the representatives of other bodies all over the country in a moving procession over a limited line of route, I do not think anybody would contemplate or attempt the organisation of that which it was absolutely impossible to carry out.

What part had the Speaker of the House of Commons?

The Speaker of the House of Commons attended the ceremony at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, with, of course, the representatives of a number of other classes in the country. I do not think that I could usefully add anything to what I have already said, and I hope that the House will accept my assurance, first of all as to my own responsibility in the matter for a large part of the arrangements, I hope they will also accept from me the statement that the Earl Marshal is the mildest autocrat that I have ever met officially, and I can assure them that throughout my work with him I have experienced the greatest anxiety on his part to consult the convenience of all classes of His Majesty's subjects.

I do not agree with the hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. G. Roberts) in his statement that in a great, wealthy, magnificent country like this any great State ceremonial, whether it be Coronation or funeral, should be marked by simplicity. I think, on the contrary, that it should be marked by the magnificence that attaches to a country like this. On that point I am not inclined to call in question any single item of expenditure that may be necessary to ensure the becoming magnificence of ceremonials of this sort. But the hon. Member has raised a question of very great importance, and that is the kind of character that should attach to ceremonials of this sort. Should they be merely naval and military, as though this was a purely fighting country? Should they not, at any rate, include representatives of both Houses of Parliament, as representatives, and thereby indicate to the world at large what is the truth, that this is in fact a civil country, governed by civil governors, who only use the Army and Navy for the maintenance of the civil authority? From that point of view both as regards the Coronation of the late King and with regard to the funeral, my sense of the constitutional proprieties has been somewhat tried by the fact that upon neither occasion—and I will confine myself to this House—was the House of Commons as a House of Commons, or the Speaker of the House as Speaker, with his Mace and with his House, so much as recognised, much less represented.

Was he not at the Coronation?

Certainly not as Speaker.

I was there. I saw them there.

Let me say that the presence of the hon. Member, encouraging and honouring as it was to that ceremonial, does not amount to the presence of the House of Commons as such, or of the Speaker of the House as such.

What I said was that I saw the House of Commons at the Coronation, having been there in a humble capacity myself.

The hon. Member does not apprehend my point. No doubt there were individual Members of the House present. I believe it is a fact that the Speaker was present, but he was not present as Speaker, with all the insignia of office, as were others on that occasion, with the Mace and the Serjeant-at-Arms in full ceremonial and robes. That is what I say—there was no real official recognition of this House either at the late Coronation or at the late funeral, and I do submit that thereby both those ceremonials lost much of their true significance; that that resulted in the presentation of this country to the world upon very solemn occasions as being a military country and a country identified with arms either ashore or afloat, and entirely disregarding the representatives of the people, who, after all, are much more important than the representatives of the Army or the Navy, I think is deplorable. I do trust in any further ceremonial of this kind, such as the next Coronation, that there will be recognition of this House, and that this House as a House, and Mr. Speaker as Mr. Speaker, will attend, and will have due place in the ceremonial. I would not go so far as the hon. Member and require the attendance of trade unions and friendly societies, which are very respectable representative bodies, but which are represented in this House. If you take this House you really admit the whole of the population of the country. That would suffice, but I humbly suggest that in no State ceremonial does anything less suffice.

I have risen very considerably to ask the right hon. Gentleman the First Commissioner of Works a question. We have got down here the expenses of the funeral of his late Majesty King Edward VII. as £40,500, which we are asked to Vote. Is that the whole expenditure on that ceremonial, and the reason I ask the question is to be found in the Report of the Public Accounts Committee of 1904? In 1902 this House voted the expenses of the Coronation of his late Majesty, a sum of £125,000, not at all too much, nor, were it much more, in my opinion, would it be too much. Being then a Member of the Public Accounts Committee, and knowing by bitter experience that almost all the accounts presented to this House relating to public affairs are—well, I will not use the word false, I will say inaccurate, inadequate, and incomplete, knowing that as I did I called upon the Treasury to say whether that was the total that had been expended. The result was that I had presented to me a paper, which is now before me, showing that the cost of the Coronation was not £125,000, but £359,000, and that the excess of over £250,000, let the Committee observe, over the sum voted had been drawn from the Army, Navy, Foreign Office, Dublin Metropolitan Police, and other Votes in this House the result being that the total was concealed from the House and concealed from the public. Let there be no mistake about it. I do not at all complain that the total was too much, but I think it was not, for the honour of the King or to the credit of the Treasury that the true sum should have been concealed. I would have agreed to twice the sum, but I do not like being deceived in my accounts. This is an old question that I have raised in this House, but let me point out the importance of it. In this case the Army, for instance, was charged £130,000, as though it were for Army services, whereas it was for ceremonial services; and the fact was that the Army service was starved to the extent of £130,000, which was taken and applied to a ceremonial, a very proper and very necessary ceremonial. You took the Vote for a certain sum for the ceremonial. and charged the quarter of a million extra upon other Votes, with the result that you starved your Army to that extent in money for manœuvres and training, and that is the result of deceptive accounts. The evil does not stop with the deception, but it extends to the impoverishing of the actual Service for which the sum has been voted. This is a very important matter. Can the right hon. Gentleman lay his hand upon his heart with that grace which always becomes him when he does that particular thing, and assure me that this sum we are asked to Vote for the funeral expenses is the whole of the sum, and will he undertake that there shall not be, as there was in the case of the Coronation of his late lamented Majesty, further sums charged upon other Votes, which are not imparted to us on this occasion? I trust he will be able to give that assurance, because it will be a new departure, and a departure in dealing, I hope, for the future with candour and completeness with all the accounts presented to this House, and with all the facts submitted to it.

I trust he will not think me painfully tiresome in pressing this point, which has been borne upon me day after day and year after year as one of the great evils from which this country suffers. One of the reasons why our expenditure is as great as it is is that the country is deceived in all its accounts. There is not a single account, presented as it is, that is not incomplete. Again I avoid the use of the word "false," although that would be the proper term to apply. The accounts of the debt, the accounts of expenditure, the Votes for specific objects—they are all incomplete and deceiving; and everything connected with our finances is consequently presented in a way that brings deception to the public. I therefore hope that upon this occasion my right hon. Friend, who I am sure is honest, and who I am equally sure does not intend to deceive the House of Commons, will be able to assure us that this Vote does represent the total, that it is not to be added to, as in the case of the Coronation, by sums drawn from other Votes, and that we do really know the total cost of this most important ceremonial.

With the fear of the hon. Member as a financial purist in my heart, I can lay my hand upon my pocket and assure him that this amount represents the whole of the cost of the late King's funeral, and that if there is any variation it will be in the direction of ultimate saving when all the accounts are dealt with, and the surrendering of a part of the sum now asked for. On one point I think there is a very real lapse of memory on the part of the hon. Member. Both at the lying-in-state in Westminster Hall and at the late King's Coronation the whole of both Houses of Parliament attended, and in each case they were accompanied by the Speaker as Speaker, with the Mace.

May I say that my information came from Mr. Speaker Gully himself, who told me that he was not to attend with the Mace nor in his robes, but that he was to attend only as a Privy Councillor. It was upon that information I made my statement, and I believe I shall be found to be correct.

I have made inquiry on the subject, and I am assured that he did attend with the Mace.

I should like to refer, first, to the provision made for Members' wives. In many cases they were unable to find their places. In view of the approaching Coronation, I think greater provision should be made for the ordinary civil display. At the last Coronation I think it was far too much of a military display, to the exclusion of the various civil elements, and I hope an effort will be made to avoid that at the coming ceremony. May I ask upon what grounds representatives only of the Established Church of England take part in these ceremonies? We have in Scotland an established church, Presbyterian in form, but neither at the funeral service nor at the Coronation were any representatives from that particular branch of the Church established by law present. In view of the fact that the King is not only King of England, but also King of Scotland, I think that as long as we have an established church in Scotland representatives of that church should find a place in these ceremonies.

1.0 P.M.

May I remind the hon. Member that at the late funeral Lord Rosebery was present as Captain of the Royal Company of Archers, and that, I think, was quite sufficient representation of Scotland on that occasion. Of course, it is quite another matter to talk about representation at the service. That could easily be arranged.

I notice in the item "Sundry Expenses, £2,500," that the Irish Constabulary come in for £150. Possibly that amount is so satisfactory to the Irish Members as to account for none of them being present to-day. The Dublin Metropolitan Police also come in for £105. But where are the Scottish police, and especially where are the Metropolitan Police? In connection with the funeral of his late Majesty a very great additional amount of work and strain must have been put upon the Metropolitan Police, and I am somewhat surprised that no item for them is included in this Vote. There is a general feeling, at any rate in London, that the Metropolitan Police carried out their duties on that occasion with great tact, patience, and satisfaction to all concerned, and personally I should have liked to have seen £1,000 or so added to the Vote in order that their virtue and services on that occasion might in some small way have been recognised. I should like to support the view, which I believe is shared by the House generally, that on these great State occasions the nation, not only in its naval and military aspects, but in its civil aspects and especially in the aspect of its civil government, should be represented. This country is more and more devoted to the Crown—as personally I confess I am as I grow older and wiser—because it is felt that the Crown is broad based on the people's will, and because the august occupants of the Throne have from time to time in ever-increasing measure shown their sympathy with all great movements of the people, not only with those connected with the Army and the Navy, but with those educational, religious, and other movements which make up the national life. I therefore very strongly hope that on future occasions the right hon. Gentleman, whose heart is always in the right place, will do what he can to ensure that due representation is given, not only to the Army and the Navy, but to the civil and Parliamentary representatives of the nation.

The First Commissioner of Works, in his reply to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie), said that our complaint possibly might be considered rather a trifling view to put forward in criticising the ceremony of the late King. I think it is a very deep-seated feeling amongst the general body of our people——

I never said that. What I said was that this was no trifling matter.

I am glad to hear that, and I immediately make the correction. I was under the impression that it was thought to be quite a trifling matter, whereas, as a matter of fact, I should think that the feelings of the people have been more outraged than possibly on any other occasion. Here was a King who was noted for his work on behalf of peace. He, more than anyone, probably took more time and paid more attention to the civic life of our people, and to the propagation of peace principles, not only amongst his own people, but amongst the Powers of Europe and the world. Then comes this peculiar circumstance that he should be buried and that this State ceremony should be solely composed of the military element. It is practically an outrage upon his memory that it should have been so. Many people thought so. It is not the position that Members of the House of Commons occupied. I was quite prepared to get a glimpse of the procession from any point. I do not mind mixing with the crowd. But when one remembers what was the record of King Edward, and what he wished to be known as, the thing is inappropriate. I remember well being on a committee connected with the peace and arbitration when a certain method was presented, and certain suggestions were made for medals.

I need not say more except that the clear view indicated was that King Edward wished to be known as a great worker on behalf of the principles of peace throughout the world. That his funeral procession should be entirely composed of the military element was really most grotesque. I hope that such a thing will not occur again. But it is not merely that: the thing ought to go a little deeper. It shows that after all that amongst the official governors of the country the military element is the chief element, and practically the only element that they consider worth taking into account on occasions of this description. That is a fatal frame of mind. It is in complete opposition to the general wish and the general feelings of the country. I rise to support my Friends, not because of any part we wanted to play in the procession. That would be trifling with the whole subject—the exclusion of the civil authority, the exclusion of the civil idea.

We are, after all, a great industrial nation. Our power is almost entirely a civil power. Ours is a commercial nation, and that we should glorify the soldier at the expense of the citizen in the way we did on that occasion I do not think, if he could have been consulted upon the subject, would have been at all satisfactory to the object of our reverence.

It is not part of my duty to hold a brief for the First Commissioner of Works, but I cannot but think that the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has not treated the right hon. Gentleman with that generosity and fairness that might have been expected. The hon. Member makes a confusion between the procession and the ceremony connected with the funeral of His late Majesty. There were three sections of the obsequies. The first was the lying-in-state in Westminster Hall, to which, as the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, for the first time in our history, the two Houses of Parliament, as such, were exclusively summoned. That in itself answers much of the criticism that has been made that Parliament, as such, was ignored. In the second place, there was the procession from Westminster Hall to the station. The right hon. Gentleman has pointed out that it was a very long procession, requiring a good deal of marshalling, which was far from a simple affair, and was not one in which the civilian element of the population could be so well represented as at the final ceremony in St. George's Chapel, Windsor. In that chapel, in the final and culminating event of these great ceremonies, I venture to say that for every British soldier present there was at least ten civilians. It is not wise or right to suggest, as some hon. Members apparently did, that the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor, or Mr. Speaker should have walked in the procession. They were present in person at St. George's Chapel, where the civil aspect of our British Empire was most properly and most reverently represented.

As to the official position of Parliament in the matter, the hon. Gentleman the Member for King's Lynn seemed to indicate that Parliament—Mr. Speaker leading the procession, and preceded by the Mace—was the embodiment of our civic status, and should have been represented at the ceremony. According to the precedent Parliament has taken as such in its collective capacity to be present at great State ceremonials, that was so in the year 1872 at the thanksgiving service on behalf of his late Majesty. In 1887, however, this House, qua House, did not attend, but delegated its representation to Mr. Speaker. If the House of Commons, as such, preceded by Mr. Speaker and the Mace, is represented on one of these occasions, it becomes impossible for Members of the House of Commons to accompany their relatives to the ceremony. Therefore, at the last Coronation, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for King's Lynn has pointed out, the Members of both Houses attended the ceremony personally, and not as Members collectively of the Houses of Parliament. That was a great source of personal convenience. But I think, if we are to be represented on such occa- sions as this, it would be well to consider if we should not follow the precedent of 1887, and pass a Resolution, as on that occasion, asking the Speaker to represent us, and that we should not go collectively, as has been suggested by hon. Members.

May I say that since the question of fact came into dispute between me and the First Commissioner I have referred to the Journal on the occasion of the late Coronation, and I find that on that day the House was adjourned. It had been adjourned on the previous day until 16th October, and there was in fact no House. I also communicated with those best qualified to know the circumstances, and they have informed me that, as I said, Mr. Speaker Gully did not attend the Coronation in his robes or with the Mace or as Speaker of this House, but attended in his individual capacity as a Privy Councillor. I think the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that, upon this occasion as upon some others, although my opinions may be wrong, my facts cannot be challenged.

I had an uneasy feeling all along that the hon. Member was probably right on this occasion, as he nearly always is, and I made some inquiries while he was speaking of those who knew the facts. I find ho was right, and I now make him the usual amende. I shall never venture to doubt any statement of his in reference to such matters in future. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerset mistook the item in reference to the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin police. These sums were merely for the expenses of bringing over delegations from these forces to attend the funeral. As to what he said about the Metropolitan Police, nobody can fail to agree as to the admirable services they rendered to the public throughout those days of extremely heavy strain. Their services have been, I am glad to say, properly recognised and recompensed by a grant of additional pay made by the Home Secretary.

Does that additional pay come out of the rates?

I would prefer that question was addressed to the Home Secretary. I am not acquainted with the finances of the Metropolitan Police. I am obliged to the Noble Lord the Member for Chorley for having reminded the House that, after all, the actual procession for the conveyance of the remains from one part of London to the railway station was not the real ceremonial, and I agree with him that when it came to the real ceremonial the military element was quite negative. That to my mind was an entirely civilian ceremonial.

I protest against the speech of the Noble Lord the Member for Chorley because I think it is not merely the personal feelings of Members of this House that should be considered on occasions such as we are now discussing. I hope the First Commissioner will convey to the Prime Minister what I am sure is the wish of the House that upon the occasion of these State ceremonials this House should be represented—I do not say whether by Mr. Speaker and the Mace and the officials of the House—but at any rate that this House should be represented. I do not think it is enough to say we are represented by the mere fact of both Houses having met in Westminster Hall, because when the remains of the late King were brought there it was inevitable that both Houses should have been there to receive them. I think I am voicing the sense of the House when I say this House, with Mr. Speaker and the Mace, or such other arrangements as may be thought desirable, should be represented at these great State ceremonials.

The hon. Member has said it is the desire of the House that such-and-such things should occur. I do not know for whom he speaks. For my part I am perfectly satisfied with the arrangements that were made. I do not want any better, and I take this opportunity of congratulating the right hon. Gentleman upon them.

Everybody is anxious to do the right thing in connection with the memory of the late King, and therefore we are all agreed about that. But it does appear to have been very expensive, and there was, no doubt, a great deal of money wasted. No one thinks of economy nowadays. It is a race and a rush to get rid of the money as fast as possible. Some day, perhaps, there will be no money to get rid of. Were the police paid out of this money or out of the rates? If the right hon. Gentleman cannot answer that and if the Home Secretary could, the Home Secretary should be here. I admit the police did their work well and are entitled to the extra pay, and perhaps they did not get quite enough. We in the City lent 522 police, and we made no charge for them, though we paid the police for their extra services.

There has been a strong complaint that Members of this House were not properly provided for in order to see the procession. They were given tickets to the Horse Guards Parade, or somewhere about there. I did not go there myself, but I understand that the accommodation was very bad, and that officials were placed in front of Members of Parliament and their relations. Along the route in Whitehall there are a number of office windows. Why were these windows not offered to Members of this House to see the procession? I understand that these office windows were given to officials. Why paid officials should be put in front of Members of Parliament I cannot understand; and I think we are entitled to have an explanation as to why these windows were not offered to Members of Parliament who desired to pay their respects to the memory of the late King. We are all most anxious, and I personally am most anxious to do justice to the memory of the late King. We raise this question now simply because we think there has been extravagance, and because we think Members of this House were not properly treated.

I have already, before the hon. Member came into the House, answered most of the question he put.

About the windows?

No, not on that point. The windows in the offices in Whitehall were at the disposal that day of those who usually occupy those offices.

The hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Markham) and other speakers who have addressed the House seem to forget that the procession to the railway station was merely in the nature of an escort, and could not suitably be composed of other elements than those which were present upon that occasion. I think if hon. Members could realise that they would see that the arrangements made by the right hon. Gentleman and the Earl Marshal were the only really suitable ones. I am sure most of them will agree with us that the arrangements were admirably carried out.

I should like to say, in reply to the right hon. Gentleman, that hi[...] answer is eminently unsatisfactory, and to repeat my complaint that amidst all this expenditure no provision was made at all for the Members of this House.

The hon. Member, first of all, complains of the expenditure of public money, and then he complains that more money was not spent to provide accommodation for the Members of this House. What right have the Members of this House to ask that money shall be spent to provide them with special facilities?

I did not ask for any special expenditure.

Members of this House are sent here to perform certain duties and we have no call upon public money except such as will enable us to discharge those duties. We often see proposals made for the accommodation of Members of this House to go down to see the docks or the Fleet, or something of that kind, and I protest against it very strongly. We have no right to any privileges whatever beyond those enjoyed by the members of the public, and we certainly have no right to expect that public money shall be spent or public buildings or offices set apart for the accommodation of Members of this House.

The Noble Lord opposite (Lord Balcarres) said my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. Ward) was confusing certain things, but I think it was the Noble Lord himself who was confused, and not my hon. Friend. The Noble Lord said the Members of this House and of the House of Lords had facilities for viewing the body and for taking part in the ceremony when the body of the late King was brought to Westminster Hall, and he expressed the opinion that that was all that could be expected in the way of facilities. He also said the fact that we were represented in some capacity—I did not gather exactly what—at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, was another evidence of the way in which the views and position of this House were considered. He fails, apparently, to understand the ground of our complaint. It is not that we as individuals had no opportunity of being present. For my part, except in representative capacity, I would never go to any ceremonial service; I have a constitutional dislike to them. We are not complaining that we personally had any slight offered to us, that the facilities were not sufficient, or that we did not get any aggrandisment from the ceremony. We object to the inflated importance given to the Army and the Navy, to the display of military pomp, and to the total inability to recognise that this country is not dependent mainly upon its Army and Navy, but upon its commercial and industrial activities. Whether or not we push our arguments so far as to ask for the inclusion of representatives of commerce, science and art, we hold that this House, the governing body of the people, should have been represented on such occasions. Of course, I would gladly see the House of Lords abolished, but as long as that House is in existence, I think it also ought to be represented at such times.

The Noble Lord suggested that because we were in some sense represented in Westminster Hall and St. George's Chapel that that was all that was required. But the procession afforded the best opportunity of the common people seeing something of the funeral obsequies, because it was there that the funeral arrangements came into closest touch with the ordinary people; and that is the place—and, so far as I am concerned, I should not bother at all had it been the only place—where the Civil Power ought to have had representation. After all, these processions have an object. I say frankly, and with a due regard to what I am saying, that I believe these ceremonials have been deliberately conceived in order to foster a love for pomp and ceremonial, and to inflate the importance of the Army and Navy to the disadvantage of the Civil element in our Government. I would like in all future ceremonials—and I believe the feeling is shared very largely in this House—to see the Civil powers represented so as to give to the people a moving picture really representative of national activities, and not merely a one-sided military affair. I think right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite will agree that this nation has been made great not only by our Army and Navy—though we may admit they have played their part—but by our industrial and commercial activities, by our science and inventions, and so on, and in my opinion all these things ought to have representation at such ceremonials. The Noble Lord says you put everything into a profession. Very well, chop down the Army and Navy, and let their places be taken by others representing peaceful arts and inventions. In spite of what the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London has said, I hope this Debate will represent the desire of the House that the civil power, as representing the people in reality, shall on such occasions be given due weight and prominence.

It has been suggested that I want to spend more money. That is absolutely incorrect; it would not cost anything to look out of a window.

Amendment put, and negatived.

Original Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported.

Whereupon the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Resolution to be reported upon Monday next; Committee to sit again upon Monday next (18th July).

I do not think that the Third Reading of this Bill should be allowed to pass sub silentio. I have no wish to minimise the importance of the concession made the other day as regards the sittings of judges on Saturdays, but I would remind the House that that concession would probably not have been made had it not been for the opposition which we on these benches have offered to this measure at its various stages, and the fact that it has been made justifies the action which we have taken. This Bill is recommended to the House as the remedy put forward by the Select Committee. But this is not the only remedy suggested by the Committee, and I wish to press the Government to give us some indication of the view which it takes with regard to those other remedies which are not incorporated in the provisions of this Bill. I would draw the special attention of the learned Solicitor-General to Clause 4 of the Report.

The Prime Minister gave an undertaking that the Government would give full attention to all the recommendations of the Committee.

I quite agree that the Prime Minister gave that rather vague adumbration the other day, but I want, on this occasion, to get some indication, if possible, of the views of the Government in regard to particular remedies. In Clause 4 of their Report, in which the Committee recommend the appointment of two additional judges, they say they earnestly recommend in the meantime and without delay—"in the meantime" must mean before and not after the two extra judges are appointed—that certain reforms which have been suggested for the better organisation of business in London and on circuit should be considered with a view to such alterations as are found to be practicable or desirable being carried into effect. Will the Solicitor-General tell us what reforms are in contemplation regarding the better organisation of business on circuit, because it is largely due to the gross waste of time which takes place under our present system, whereby judges are withdrawn from London, where the lists are full, and are sent down into small country towns where there is no business to try—where they know beforehand there is no cause list—it is owing to this waste of judicial time which occurs under our present circuit system that the congestion in the King's Bench Division has accumulated. Let me give the House an illustration of how the system operates. We send judges down to certain towns to try civil causes, presumably with the view of getting litigants in the provincial centres to have their cases tried in those centres. But often the system operates in precisely the opposite way. A judge goes down to, say, Newcastle, and he is due in another assize town before he can dispose of the substantial cause list awaiting him in Newcastle. The unfortunate litigants know that if they put down their causes for trial they will probably not get an adequate hearing owing to the judge being in a hurry to go on and open the Commission in the next town. The result is that very many commercial cases which one would naturally expect to be put down for trial in the provinces are brought up to London by the litigants, and add to the congestion of the lists in London, which is attributable to the fact that judges are sent down from London to the provinces to try these very cases. Will the Government tell us what remedy they have in contemplation for it?

In the course of the discussion on the various stages of this Bill attention has been called to other glaring anomalies in our judicial system—such, for instance, as that so strongly raised by the hon. Member for the Mansfield Division of Nottingham (Mr. Markham) as to the absence of any retiring age limit for judges. I think the time has come when the Government may tell the House what is their view with regard to this important question. I notice that the legal papers, such as the "Law Journal," proclaim the fact that this question is ripe for consideration. We cannot go on avoiding it. There is no adequate reason why judges alone, of all our Civil servants, should have no age limit imposed on them at which they must retire. It is for the purpose of inviting the Government to give a little more indication of their intentions regarding these reforms that I have risen on this occasion.

I will not detain the House long on a Friday afternoon, but inasmuch as I have a somewhat considerable practice in the courts, in the course of which I have had many opportunities of watching their practical working, I want to throw out some suggestions to the House, and especially to the Solicitor-General, which I think would obviate the necessity for this Bill altogether, and not only render it unnecessary to consider the appointment of new judges, but when the time comes in the course of nature for various occupants of the Bench to retire, not necessarily of their own free will, make it possible even to reduce the present numerical strength of the Bench. The system which at present prevails in our courts, with the exception of two courts, under which His Majesty's judges are compelled to go through the primitive and stupid form of taking in longhand a note of the evidence is the cause of nearly the whole of the delay which occurs in the administration of justice. In the Criminal Courts and the Probate Court there is an official shorthand writer, and nothing has struck me more forcibly in my experience in the courts than the monstrous waste of time caused by the fact that the witness is compelled to give evidence at the rate of about a word a minute in order that the counsel may say that he must watch his lordship's pen and see that the learned judge is taking down the more or less relevant evidence which the witness is giving. If the Government would consider the question of appointing an official shorthand writer to each of our courts at an expenditure involving only a few thousands a year, they could reduce the number of judges by one half. The notes could be taken and they could then be transcribed, but the learned judge is still free to take whatever casual notes he likes of the case for the purpose of his summing up, but the present system is absolutely ridiculous, antiquated and wasteful. Many of our judges, through physical infirmity, are not very good penmen. I have been recently engaged in a case against an hon. and learned Gentleman whom I see opposite, the Solicitor-General in the late Government—and I was successful on that occasion in defeating him—in which the learned judge, in the course of his summing up, could not read his own notes, but actually had to appeal to counsel in the case as to what the paragraph was that he was endeavouring to decipher, which was in his own handwriting. I have again and again seen learned judges trying to read their notes and pondering and pausing to make out their own caligraphy. But quite apart from that, is it not a business proposition that there should be attached to the courts an official shorthand writer? There is no difficulty about finding him, because there is an official Institute of Shorthand Writers connected with the High Court, and the expense is infinitesimal in a relative sense.

Let the judges take whatever notes they want for the purpose of refreshing their own memories, and they can also always call upon the shorthand writer, as is done now, for the same purpose, and you will not need to have a great many more judges, but a great many less. I put that as a business proposition, and I think it is a sound one. It will save the time of judges, and prevent an enormous waste of time. I speak with great respect of the judges as a body, although, of course, there are discriminations, but [...]t is physically impossible for a judge to take a full note of the evidence, and the notes that they take involve a waste of time. If you go to the Court of Appeal—and I am sure the learned Solicitor—General has seen this hundreds of times in the same way as I have—the Judges of Appeal often throw down the book and complain of the scandalous writing of the judges of first instance, and say that their notes are not of the slightest use to the court, while only a few years ago a Judge of Appeal made a protest in court against the shameful way in which notes were sent out. I hope we shall not be told that all is right as it is, and that we must find rewards for political services on the Bench. Let us look at this matter from the point of view of the public service and public benefit. Half a dozen judges of the King's Bench Division could do all the work if official shorthand writers were appointed, and it is for the purpose of making that suggestion that I rose. I have only one other word to say, and I am afraid that you, Sir, may call me to order, and therefore I will say it briefly. It is that before the Bill passes I hope the learned Solicitor-General will take the House into his confidence and tell us under what new rules the new judges will work.

I should like to Urge upon the Government the acceptance of the proposal which has just been made by the hon. Gentleman as regards the appointment of an official shorthand writer to the court, although I do not quite endorse all the comments which he has made. I do, however, support his two suggestions, first, that it would save a great waste of time which goes on at the present time, and that it would undoubtedly facilitate business. From that point of view I think it would be useful, but there is another even more important reason why it should be adopted, and that is this: It is most essential to the litigants to have a proper record of the evidence when they go to the Court of Appeal. Of course, in the case of the wealthier the difficulty does not arise, because they are able to have a shorthand writer of their own, and by arrangement between the parties a shorthand note is taken and copies of the transcript are provided for the use of counsel and everyone concerned. The poor man, however, cannot afford to have a shorthand writer, and it is essential that when he goes to the Court of Appeal he should be furnished with an account of what took place in the court below. I do not suppose the speeches of the learned counsel should be reported in full.

I should think they could be ignored.

I do not think they should be ignored, but they need not ho given fully. As regards the evidence, however, I think the Solicitor-General would agree that in the case of those who cannot afford a shorthand writer it is essential that they should be furnished with a copy of the evidence.

I placed a notice on the Paper in order that I might raise once more and seek to obtain some assurance from the Government on the question of an age-limit. The hon. and learned Member on a former occasion put forward some objection to instituting an age limit in this Bill mainly on the ground that it would be impossible to apply such a limit to those who are at present appointed. Of course, one must realise the fairness of that objection that we cannot make this retrospective, but unless we make a beginning I do not see how we shall ever get the principle established, and seeing that in the Army, Navy, and Civil Service—in all appointments of this character—an age limit is imposed, it seems to me that the present is a favourable opportunity for establishing such a rule in the case of judges. I fail to see any reason why judges should be less subject to the infirmities of age than members of the Civil Service. In Civil Service appointments the retiring age is, of course, earlier than seventy, but it is possible for a man to be transferred to less difficult and arduous work than that he is engaged upon at the time. That is not possible in the case of judges. As a matter of fact, the longer the experience of the judge upon the Bench the more arduous and responsible are his duties. The other objection of the learned Solicitor-General to adopting an age limit is that we might miss the services of men of ripe experience. It is true that in a certain number of cases that might be so, but still we have to take the facts of life as they are, and remember that owing to the non-existence of an age limit many younger men, admirably fitted to undertake the duties, are prevented from doing so. It is, however, with a friendly purpose that I put this Resolution on the Paper. It is simply in order to enter a protest against this opportunity not having been taken advantage of for the establishment of an age limit and to seek from the Government some assurance that they will give this matter their consideration and endeavour to apply it at the earliest possible moment.

This is the end of a most interesting and important campaign. I would congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield and his associates upon the very proper and admirable compromise that has been arrived at. There are three conditions upon which my hon. Friends, with whom I associate myself as a humble follower, have consented to the passing of this Bill. The first is that the administrative changes promised by' His Majesty's Government should be immediately taken into consideration and forthwith carried through. I do not presume to say what these changes should be. They are well known to the Solicitor-General. The second condition is that the judges should sit on Saturdays. That is a matter of good understanding with them—an understanding arrived at after an expression of desire on the part of this House. The third concession is that it must be understood that, as the Bill provides, the appointment of these two judges is a temporary appointment, when another two judges retire or die, they are not to be replaced. In fact, that the number will recur to what it was before. I was told by some cynical Members of this House—members of the legal profession, who, perhaps, are more cynical than other Members—that we were, to use a vulgar expression, "done"; that His Majesty's judges would pay no attention whatever to the desires of this House and to the desires of the Prime Minister, and that they would no more sit on Saturdays now than they did before. I did not and do not believe that, and I have justification for that disbelief in the fact that more than one of them has already announced his intention of sitting on Saturdays.

But an element has been introduced into this Debate with which I should like to deal. It has been suggested that there should be an age limit for judges. I really think that would not be advisable. The first necessity is to maintain the complete independence of the judges. That is provided for by making them irremovable except on addresses from both Houses of Parliament, by charging their salaries on the Consolidated Fund, and partly by allowing them to go on in their profession until they themselves feel they should retire. My belief is that a right-minded judge—and in my mind all judges are right-minded—will himself feel and recognise the moment his powers have failed him or rendered him incompetent any longer to fulfil his office. Therefore I should regret to see an age limit which is not necessary and which, in many cases, would deprive the country of the services of some of its ablest judges. Some of the ablest judges this country has ever known have given some of their most important and epoch-making decisions after they reached the age of sixty-five or even seventy.

Does that occur in the Civil Service?

But that is an entirely different thing. A Civil servant is constantly removable. There is no sort of analogy between even the highest Civil servant and one of the judges of the court. I only throw out these remarks as some answer to my hon. Friend (Dr. Addison). I have been extremely glad that what might have been irritating and possibly offensive Debates have been avoided and that a compromise has been arrived at. I am the more glad because I see the time approaching, nay at hand, when the King's Courts will be the only thing which stands between the inhabitants of this country and the oppression of a proud and unscrupulous bureaucracy—Commissioners of this and Commissioners of that, tax collectors and tax surveyors, all assuming to make the law and break the law, to construe the law and to disregard the law altogether. In my opinion a very serious moment is approaching for this country and for the taxpayers of this country. There is not sufficient control by the Executive over the proud bureaucrats, who go about with enormous rapacity, no scruple, and an entire absence of any bowels of compassion, collecting taxes which exist and even when they do not. They are domineering, and yet constantly wrong in their construction of the law, and it is for that reason that I rejoice the King's Courts are still open to bring these oppressors to justice for their works. As in the old days, so in the future, it is not to Ministers, Commissioners, or Civil servants that we look for our rights to be preserved and for common justice; it is to the King's Court that we shall owe it.

Already a beginning has been made of protection. Mr. Justice Bray last Friday condemned the Commissioners of Inland Revenue in costs because they were unreasonable. If at any time the Government should endeavour to relieve these Commissioners from personal costs and endeavour to bring a Vote into this House in order to make the country pay instead of the Commissioners, I shall have a word to say upon the subject, and not only I, but, I trust, others, and if they do succeed in carrying their Vote there still remains the one other security that this country has besides the King's judges, and that is the Public Accounts Committee, which I earnestly trust will disallow any such item and cause those who pay it to be personally responsible for the payment. I very seriously and very gravely tell this House that things have arrived at such a pass there is such a disregard of law and propriety and reason and fair play among the bureaucrats who have been recently increased, and who, as they are increased, daily increase in pride and in disregard for the law—that the only thing which stands between us and them is the King's Courts, and I end, as I began. by saying, "Thank God, the King's Courts are open!"

I beg to move to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."

It is unfortunate in connection with this Bill that we never had an opportunity of having a Second Reading Debate. It was got through late one night. I do not blame the Government for that entirely, but they ought to have given us a fair opportunity of considering a Bill of this great magnitude. We are told this is a temporary measure for appointing two judges, and that other matters can be considered afterwards; and we are told outside what this temporary measure means and what the object really is, and that is to shelve the subject for another thirty years and allow them to go on in the old way. I should like the Long Vacation question to be settled, and I do not think the Bill ought to be allowed to pass until we get it settled. Everyone outside and the judges themselves know very well that the real difficulty with our law courts is not a want of judges, but the fact that they do not sit there; and, as far as I understand from the Lord Chancellor's evidence, business is not increasing, and you do not want more judges. But we cannot apparently get the Government to properly consider the question of getting some settlement of particular questions. The Lord Chancellor himself is in favour of their being dealt with, and so, I believe, is the Prime Minister, and so, in fact, is everyone outside lunatic asylums in favour of settling this Long Vacation question. At present the judges only sit, apparently, about two-thirds of the year. Have more judges if you like, but surely the law courts ought to be kept open while there is business to be done, and if, instead of closing up for four months out of the twelve, they were to take a month's holiday, like other people, it would be quite sufficient for all purposes, and it would allow business to be done in an ordinary businesslike way.

But apparently the real point is this, that eminent barristers want to keep it all in their own hands, and at the same time they want to take a long holiday. The great majority of the barristers would be only too glad if the courts were open so that they could go on with their work in the ordinary way. I think before this Bill is passed the Government should do something to settle this Long Vacation question. I hope hon. Members have read the Lord Chancellor's evidence. He states distinctly that these judges are not wanted, and therefore, if I and others have been led astray, it is by the Lord Chancellor himself. Most of us are aware that the Lord Chancellor does not run away from that evidence in any way whatever. Out of courtesy and goodwill to his colleagues on the Committee he was willing to give way to the majority, but he does not alter his opinion as to that evidence even as regards a comma. We had another suggestion the other day that a Committee or Commission should be appointed to consider the whole question of the Long Vacation before anything is done. We have heard no more of that, but when the matter came before the House a week ago, the Prime Minister made some promise with regard to sittings on Saturdays. It must have astonished most ordinary business people to find that these judges practically do not sit on Saturdays at all. In fact, it seems that eminent counsel only take these offices after they have made fortunes at the Bar, and do not wish to work so hard in the future, and the office is adopted as a sort of recreation. We want it made a business of, and if you cannot find barristers of sufficient importance and knowledge to take the offices for business purposes and carry them on in a businesslike way, we ought, like some other countries, to discard these barristers altogether, and educate men up for judges only, and not let the office be made use of simply as a recreation for their old age.

I am told the Prime Minister has promised something about sittings on Saturdays, but we get most of our knowledge from the man in the street. We have got some from the Lord Chancellor, who is not the man in the street, and on this occasion I am sticking to the Lord Chancellor's evidence, which is so clear that even a Solicitor-General could make no mistake about it. What we are told by the man in the street is that, although the Prime Minister, of course, meant what he said, he has no power to carry it out. I do not know how they manage things as to when the courts will sit, because that is all done secretly, and we are apparently not allowed to have anything to say in the matter, but I should like to know if that is all we are going to get. I am sorry the Government seem determined to shove this Bill through at all costs. We might have waited a decent time, and had a proper inquiry as to the settlement of the question, which everyone admits ought to be settled, namely, that of the sittings of the court. But I am told there are two barristers already selected who think they ought to have had this office some months ago, and I should like the Solicitor-General to give us the names of the barristers he intends to put in these offices. We can get them from the newspapers outside, but I should like to have them from the Solicitor-General; then they would no doubt be authentic. If the selection has been made, I think we are entitled to know who they are to be because in future we want this work done. We should therefore interest ourselves in the gentlemen chosen to fill the appointments in order that we may pick out young men who are willing to work and not give them to men who wish to play. I wish to blow how the Prime Minister is going to carry out his promise, or whether he will undertake to place the judges under some authority which can compel them to sit on Saturdays. I do not deny that it would be something to have sittings on Saturdays. It would show a way out of the difficulty, and it would show also the utter want of necessity for any new judges at all. We altogether forget economy in dealing with public money in connection with these offices as well as others. It is so easy to spend other people's money. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] There are a few hon. Gentlemen opposite who say, "Hear, hear," but I do not find that they vote for economy. The hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) who does his best to represent me in the City, talks about economy but never votes for it. I want to put a little courage in him and ask him not only to talk about economy but to vote for it. Until Members of this House do that the Front Bench will only laugh at them. What do they care about the hon. Baronet who represents me as well as he can? What do they care about his speeches when they know that he will vote for them. I hope the hon. Baronet and others who cheer me will have a little courage to-day and vote for economy. The proposal in this Bill is that we should deliberately waste £10,000 per annum of the people's money. There is not the slightest occasion for it, and the Government have never given us any reason why they are throwing over their own Lord Chancellor. The only explanation which the Lord Chancellor gives is that he has agreed to the proposal out of deference to his colleagues. That being so, it is surely wrong and improper that the Government should attempt to carry the Third Reading of the Bill. I hope those gentlemen who are interested in economy will support me.

I desire to second the Amendment which has been so ably moved by my hon. Friend. I do so from the fact that, in regard to the appointment of these judges, there has been no limitation of age put in the Bill. Everyone admits that the Bench of this country is, so far as age is concerned, in an unsatisfactory condition. The age of many of the judges is such that, to put it mildly, they are past their best, and it is a well-known fact—known to the man in the street at any rate—that in the administration of justice the somnolency of the Bench interferes on many occasions with the administration of that justice, and unless something is done in the way of enforcing a retiring age on these servants of the Crown, as on all other Civil servants, a great evil will be brought about, and the man in the street will no longer have confidence in the administration of justice. What are the circumstances which this Bill is brought in to remedy? The King's Bench Division of His Majesty's Courts has allowed the business of that Division to get into extra-ordinary arrears. I believe that cases put on the roll five months ago are daily being adjudicated upon by the King's Bench Division. The judges, who have to deal with these arrears, sit only for about eight months in the year. They have three months holiday beginning shortly, and I believe they have about a month at Christmas and a month at Easter, so that while you have serious arrears of cases you have the judges, whose duty it is to adjudicate upon the cases, and who are highly paid for that duty, enjoying these extraordinary long holidays. I should like to call the attention of the House to the ages of these particular judges of the King's Bench Division. There are four of them over seventy years of age, one being seventy-seven, and one seventy-five. The one who is seventy-five is Justice Grantham, a man very well known to the last House of Commons. There are seven judges over sixty-five years of age. We have, therefore, eleven of the sixteen judges over sixty-five years of age. It is a great age in view of the work that is set before them, and combined with that great age you have the fact that they take inordinate holidays. Their view, and the view which they have forced upon the Government, is that instead of sixteen being the number two more should be appointed at an expense of £10,000 a year to the country. They represented their case to the Lord Chancellor again and again, and on each occasion the Lord Chancellor absolutely refused to accept their method of clearing off the arrears of the King's Bench Division. He was of my opinion, and I believe he is still of my opinion, that these gentlemen should be called upon to work a little harder and take less holidays in order to clear off the arrears, and in that way avoid the necessity for the appointment of other two judges. The Lord Chancellor, in, I think, an erring moment, consented to have a Commission. The Commission sat and recommended that two more judges should be appointed, but that a condition should be attached to the appointments that several other reforms which have been suggested should be instituted without delay. Unfortunately the Government have accepted only part of the recommendation of the Commission, namely, that two other judges should be appointed, but they have not accepted the other part that other reforms should be carried out. We are now at the last stage of this Bill. I venture to think that the reforms which were recommended by this Commission should also have been carried out. We should have taken the whole of the recommendations instead of taking them partially, and simply bringing in a Bill to authorise the appointment of two additional judges. My particular desideratum in connection with the appointment of these two judges was that they should be limited in point of age, and that they should be asked to retire at seventy. When we had an interview with the Prime Minister on the subject we had something in the form of a promise that, although he would not accept the seventy years' limitation for retirement, he might think of accepting fifty-five years as regards the appointment age, so that those men appointed under fifty-five years of age might be certain of at least fifteen years' occupation of the office and would be in a position to retire at the age of seventy. Unfortunately that partial promise of the Prime Minister has in no way been carried out, but instead of that great things are promised by the fact that they are going to sit on Saturday. For my part I think that these Saturday sittings will develop into a farce. The judges will probably sit for two or three Saturdays. Certainly they will sit on Saturdays while this Bill is hanging in this House. After it has passed my prophecy is that they will no longer sit on Saturdays but will de[...]y the House of Commons. That being so, I think that the House of Commons would act wisely in not passing this Bill at the present juncture, but in putting it off for three months, and with that view I have pleasure in seconding the Motion of my hon. Friend.

I am always very slow in taking any part in discussions of this kind relating to my profession, because I know perfectly well that there are a number of Members in this House who always imagine that if a lawyer takes part in these discussions he has some personal interest in them. I can assure the House that I have none either as a practitioner or as a litigant, and any observations I have to offer the House are wholly and solely in the interests of the public, whom alone I represent when I come to speak in this House. The House ought to bring their minds back to the condition of business in the King's Bench Division. It is a scandal. It is a scandal in the interests of the public and of the litigant. I am glad to say that the business of the Court of Appeal is very well up to the mark, certainly in comparison with what it was some time ago. The business in the Courts of Chancery is also well up to the mark; but the business in the King's Bench Division is in a scandalous state of arrears. When we adjourn at the end of the month there will be hundreds of cases which are ready for trial, and which have been commenced, a great many of them, more than a year ago——

Why adjourn?

And these will not be heard. The first thing you have to consider is, what is the effect of that upon the litigants? I can assure hon. Members of this House that I have many times to advise litigants, where it is necessary to have a speedy justification of action they have taken, or of action which brought their conduct into criticism in relation to their particular business, and I have had to advise them that it was absolutely useless to try to seek a remedy in the courts owing to the delay which would necessarily occur and which would make their remedy absolutely futile. I had a letter some time ago from a solicitor, who told me of a case where a man was turned out of his business, the employment which he had, because certain charges were made against him. They told him that until he vindicated himself in the law courts he must remain out of employment. I believe that he had a perfectly good case. Be asked how soon could he vindicate himself. I said, perhaps, in eight months at the earliest, or in a year, at all events. This man in the meantime has to remain out of employment, and to be there starving with his wife and children, as the solicitor told me, because of the state of arrears of business in the King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice. That is not justice. That is the denial of justice; and I care very little with regard to any question arising in the discussion on this Bill as compared with putting an end in some way to that state of affairs. Some Members seem to think that the existing judges have some great interest in having this Bill passed. They have none. They are there for the term of their natural lives, and they have no interest in this Bill whatsoever. Of course, it is the habit of some people to talk contemptuously of the judges, and this habit I join with the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Gibson Bowles) in entirely deprecating. I do not think it is in the interest of any citizens or of the whole Kingdom, from any point of view, ever to belittle the judges. I agree with what has been said that, after all, the judges occupy often a very difficult position. They have to stand in circumstances very often of great difficulty, in cases where so-called public opinion—a passing wave of public opinion of the moment—may lead to very great wrong and very great injustice, and often in cases, too, where the erroneous acts of Departments of the Government may lead to very great abuse. Therefore I say it is not in the interests of anybody in this country to attempt by sneering remarks at the judges to in the least belittle the high position which they not only do occupy, but which they will occupy in this country.

Who is belittling them?

I believe it to be entirely untrue to say, as has been said, that the judges shirk work. I believe that to be an absolute falsehood. I hold no brief for judges. They are nothing to me, nor am I to them, nor do I ever want to be, but all I can say from observation day after day in the courts is that I have never yet seen a judge trying to shirk work in any way. People imagine that the only persons who are occupied in the administration of the law are judges. But you have to work the legal machine as a whole; you have to work it in reference to the jurors, in reference to the litigants, in reference to the counsel, in reference to the solicitors, and in reference to the various experts and various people concerned. It is not such an easy thing as people seem to imagine it to be to work the whole of that, taking it from one hour of the day to the other and from one end of the week to the other end. How often have I been in cases myself when on Friday the whole body of jurors have handed a requisition to the judge that, as they had been kept the whole week from their businesses, they might be allowed to stay away on Saturday, so that they might pay their men, see their overseers, and make arrangements for going on with their business. Then, if the judge accedes to their request, it is alleged that he is a lazy judge. You cannot look upon it in that way. Over and over again what happens is this: On Friday witnesses who have been kept up from the country all the week very often approach the judge, or counsel make the application on their behalf, to ask "Can we get home to-morrow? Everything is going to ruin down in the country while we are away"; and you have got to make some accommodation for these people.

There is not a word about that in the evidence.

Therefore, do not run away with the idea that the judges want to, or are trying to shirk work. There is no truth in the statement that they are. I heard the observation made here to-day that the judges never sit on Saturday. Before this matter was mooted many judges did sit on Saturday. Very often judges did not sit on Saturday because they could not get jurors to attend. Very often they did not sit on Saturday because it was inconvenient to bring up witnesses at the end of the week and keep them hanging over the Sunday until the case would come on on Monday. There is no fault to be found in this respect, and there is no desire whatever upon the part of judges in my opinion, whatever it is worth, and there never has been any desire on the part of the judges to shirk their work. As to the present condition of affairs, some hon. Members talk as if the judges had created the arrears which have accumulated. They, however, have resulted from the work which has been added to that of the King's Bench Division. If Members will read the speech of the Lord Chancellor on the Criminal Appeal Bill, they will see that he pointed out that there would be some 6,000 or 7,000 criminal appeals to be heard by the King's Bench Division. How could the King's Bench Division deal with all that work with the same staff as before? The hon. Gentleman says it is quite simple. What has happened? There was this nucleus of some six, seven, or eight thousand cases to be dealt with, and these are cases which require very grave consideration. They are appeals from the solemn verdict of the judge and jury of the Criminal Court. For this work you have to take away three judges every week for at least one day. In addition, the judges have to go through the whole of the cases beforehand, and to read up the papers and evidence connected with them. All this involves a great deal of work which never comes before the public at all. Do you ever read, as I dare say you do not, the long and elaborate judgments delivered from time to time by judges of the High Court? Do you think that those judgments take no time to prepare? Do you think that the judges each evening they leave the Bench have done all their work? If they do not sit on the Saturday they have other matter to prepare for the next week, and all I say is that I wish they had even more time in which to consider and elaborate their judgments. It is an utterly incorrect view which is held amongst Members of the House of the real functions of judges, and I believe that the duties and functions of His Majesty's judges are honourably and admirably performed by the present holders of those judicial offices. In my opinion the appointment of two judges without other reforms will not be sufficient to clear up the arrears. I believe, however, that without these two judges you cannot make a commencement. I also hold the view that until the King's Bench Division, like the Chancery Division, are kept to their work, you will never be able properly to deal with the business of that Division. The Chancery judges are not taken away to do odd jobs. They are not called upon to take the business of the Railway Commission, which often occupies the time of a King's Bench Judge for many days, nor have Chancery Judges to deal with criminal appeals or with election petitions. Yet all these matters are thrown upon the King's Bench Judges from time to time, and then you ask why they do not get through their work.

I believe that until you set about a scheme by which the King's Bench Judges will be kept to their work from one end of the term to the other, and not to leave that work, you will never get a satisfactory state of affairs in the King's Bench Division. I hope, however, that, besides the addition of two judges, something of this kind will be done. For my own part, I am one of those who think that the Long Vacation is too long and that the time has come when that question may very well be considered. Some hon. Members pay my profession the compliment of stating that the Long Vacation is retained by leading men at the Bar, who are making money and who want a long holiday. I think I know enough of the Bar to be able to say that men with a large practice make enough money to be in a position to take a holiday at any time. It must not be thought for one moment that any attempt is being made by any leader of the Bar against any reform in the interests of the public business. There is no foundation for that idea. Another hon. Member asked us to look at the way in which the judges treat the Long Vacation. It is not the judges who regulate the Long Vacation at all, and if it becomes necessary, on consideration, to shorten it, I do not believe you will find any real opposition on the part of those who are engaged in the administration of the law. A good deal has been said about the age limit of the judges. I believe judges should be appointed at a younger age than they are, but to lay down any hard and fast rule, I think, would be fatal. Supposing a vacancy occurred, and you were to look around and saw a man who was pre-eminently fitted and suitable, but yet outside the age limit by a year or two, while another was inside it, but whom you knew would not make nearly so good a judge as the elder man, would it not be against the public interest, under such a hard and fast rule, that the authorities should be prevented from appointing the man who possessed by far the greater qualifications for the office. At the same time. I think it would be entirely in the interests of the administration of justice that, as a general rule, younger men should be appointed, but, as regards age, I think it is impossible to lay down a limit. You may have a man at sixty-five, or whatever age you lay down. who would be most admirable as a judge. Some of the best judges we have had were far beyond that age. Look at the late Lord Chancellor (Lord Halsbury). Would anybody like to have lost his services? He was one of the greatest judges by far that I have ever practised before—and I have practised both here and in Ireland—since I have been a member of the Bar. Yes, and I would not like to lose him now. for I think he is still a valuable asset in the judicial administration of this country. Do not let anyone imagine for a moment that the Bill is adding excessively to the staff of judges. I believe you can make no proper reform or set up any diary for legal business to the satisfaction of litigants unless you have a sufficient staff of judges to cope with the business of the various courts. Those who vote against the Bill are not punishing the judges or counsel, except perhaps those who might not get the appointments; they are punishing their fellow-subjects in denying them justice because of the insufficiency of the staff of the High Court.

I wish to impress upon the Solicitor-General most earnestly the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Hackney and supported by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for York. I have not that great knowledge of the practice of the law courts which some hon. Members claim to possess, but I do know something about shorthand writing. and it does seem to me that the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman is a valuable one. There are many survivals in the Law Courts which are picturesque, but the survival of longhand writing in these days, at the expense of public time, is surely an anachronism which might be got rid of. It was pointed out that the number of judges might be diminished and au actual saving of time effected by the adoption of such a suggestion. It is not only the time of the judges, but the time of counsel, suitors, and the public generally which would be saved if a reform of this kind could be introduced into our courts, and shorthand writers took the evidence and produced it next morning, as is done for ourselves in this House, where at this moment reporters are taking down the wisdom and the nonsense spoken here. Last year I was a member of a Select Committee which had shorthand experts, and we had the evidence complete the next day. I submit that this is a reform which ought to be carried out. I hope my right hon. Friend will give serious attention to it, as I think it would be a saving of both time and money.

It is, I think, apparent from the course of this Debate that there are some who seem to have some doubt, strange though it is that there should be any doubt, that the object of this Bill is merely to get rid of the arrears in the King's Bench Division, and that it is devised solely and absolutely in the interests of the public who are at liberty, and who have the privilege, and who are entitled to go to the Courts of Justice, in order to get redress for their grievances, and who are entitled, in my view, to complain of the administration of government in this country which does not secure to them not only judges of eminence and repute, but also a sufficient number to entitle them to get their cases tried at an early date, or almost as soon as they are ready, so that a man may not have to wait for money if he is entitled to it, or so that he may be able to clear his character without any undue delay if it has been attacked. I say, speaking in this respect solely on my own behalf, that I think of the two evils I would infinitely prefer the overstaffing of the judicial bench, and that there might be days when, perhaps, some members of the Bench might be idle, to the starving of the Bench, and in that way to the practice of what may be called, but what I think is falsely called, under those circumstances, economy. One of the greatest boons which can be given by the State to the subject is justice, and the longer you delay the subject from getting justice the more you are approaching, if you are not actually bringing, injustice to the subject.

I agree entirely with what fell from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Sir E. Carson) when he said that from his experience he has had to advise litigants not to bring actions, in order that they might have redress for some attack upon their character, or it may be to recover sums of money, because of the delay that would ensue. I will give one instance which occurred to me in my own experience, before I had accepted my present office, when I was in the capacity of counsel advising private litigants, an experience which, I think, serves very well to explain what happens when you have not sufficient judges ready to deal with the cases of litigants. In this particular case the man was suing for a sum of £12,000. He was not a rich man; he had to borrow money from his bank, and get advances upon security, and carry on his business almost entirely by means of borrowed capital for the time being. He was entitled to be paid £12,000, and, of course, under those circumstances, to pay off his bank and other persons. He was being pressed for the money he had borrowed. He had a perfectly good claim. I have no hesitation in saying, speaking as I am at the moment from a knowledge of all the documents which could be relevant to the discussion, that there was not the faintest defence to that man's claim. He could not afford to wait. A defence was put upon record which entitled those defending to have the case tried. That involved some five or six months' delay before the case could be tried. My client could not afford to wait that time, because before he could get his case tried he would be sold up or made bankrupt, and his whole reputation and credit as a merchant would go.

It would be very little satisfaction, it seems to me, to that man to say at the end of that six months, when the case came on for trial, "I have a perfectly good claim, and if I had got my case tried I should never have lost my business and credit." [An HON. MEMBER: "Might that sort of thing not happen during the Long Vacation?"] The Long Vacation would take some portion of the period, but that does not in the slightest degree answer the point I am dealing with. That point is that you have got a period of six months before the case can be tried. Having heard that man's story and having heard what my client's position was, and realising that he could not afford to wait all that time, I advised him, though I was absolutely satisfied that there was not a vestige of a defence of his case, to compromise his claim and to take 75 per cent. of the money, so that he might be able to carry on his business. I do not hesitate to say that that is a scandalous state of things, and that that man was really suffering from a very grave injustice. In consequence of this long delay he had to take so much less than what he was justly entitled to. I only instance that as a means of bringing home to the minds of those who do not seem to realise it, that this remedy is proposed in the interests of the public and that it is one that effects litigants.

That was caused by the Long Vacation.

I do not quite understand how even one who speaks, as my hon. Friend does, with long experience, can suggest that because you have a Long Vacation, which I heard put as being two weeks too long, that that is the cause of a delay of six or eight months. I note with much interest that the Amendment which is moved to the administration of justice in the King's Bench Division in England is an Amendment which was moved by a Member for a Division in Scotland, and seconded by a Member for one of the Divisions of Glasgow. It is very peculiar to observe that the Amendment does not call forth apparently the support of English Members, who are in the main interested in the High Court of Justice, and who know quite well that here in England it is so necessary that we should have prompt administration of justice, and apparently recourse has to be had to two Members representing constituencies in Scotland in order to place an Amendment on the Paper dealing with English administration of justice.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the whole Front Bench, including the Lord Chancellor, is managed by Scottish Members?

The point with which I was dealing referred to the administration of justice. The only criticisms which have been made have appeared to me to be in favour of, and not against, the creation of the two additional judges. My hon. and learned Friend who seconded the Amendment (Mr. Watt) told us on a recent occasion that he was a member of the English Bar, and I noticed while he was speaking that, although he was not speaking from experience at the Bar, yet his knowledge and training as a member of the Bar always in the end brought uppermost in his mind how essential it was that you should have prompt administration of justice; and although he seconded the Amendment, before he sat down he had given most cogent reasons why two more judges should be appointed, and also how necessary it was that there should be other administrative reforms. His argument, and I agree with it, was to the effect that it was desirable, not only that we should get rid of the congestion caused by the insufficiency of judges, but also that we should effect other reforms. I entirely concur, and it is for that reason we are asking the House to pass this Bill, in order that we may get on with one reform which the Joint Committee recommended should be done at once, while at the same time saying that other reforms should be considered without delay. I may tell the House, as I told them before, that those other matters are actually at the present time under the consideration of those who will have to deal with them, but nothing has yet been settled. The suggestions which have been made with regard to the circuits and other matters it would be quite impossible to discuss on this occasion. I have said, in answer to many questions, that ample opportunity will be given to this House to discuss those proposals before they are in any way put into active operation. But it is no easy matter, as anyone will recognise who takes note of the number of questions which are constantly being put to me as to what is being done with reference to various proposals. The moment it is proposed to remove an assize from one town to another in order to save judicial time and perhaps some expense, straightway there are complaints from the local authority and from the Member representing the constituency, who desire that the administration of justice should not be taken away from their particular town; but that that particular district should have an opportunity of seeing His Majesty's judges come there to dispense justice. I do not propose to discuss these points in this Debate, but I have always been impressed with the desirability, with due regard to economy and the saving of time, of His Majesty's judges going round the country and bringing home to the minds of the people something of what the administration of the law does mean, and bringing them into active close touch with one of His Majesty's judges of the High Court of Justice.

3.0 P.M.

With reference to the suggestions which have been made as to the desirability of a shorthand note, that again is a matter not quite germane to this discussion, although it would naturally arise. It is by no means so simple a matter as some hon. Members think. I am one of those who from not inconsiderable experience have often wished there was a shorthand note taken, so that words might be recorded as they were spoken, and one might have no difficulty afterwards in deciphering what had been written by the learned judge—although it is only right to say that that is not always due to the learned judge, as copies only are supplied. One of the speakers has said how convenient it is to get a record next morning, as we do of our proceedings here. That is true, but the difficulty is that the vast majority of cases are concluded on the same day, and no official shorthand note would be of the slightest use for the trial, although no doubt it is of use if the case goes to the Court of Appeal. But there is this danger to be borne in mind, that when a judge knows that a shorthand note is being taken he very often will not take a note of the evidence himself, but will rely on the shorthand note. He may think that the case will not finish that day, and that he will have an opportunity of examining the evidence before he comes to sum up. There is always that danger, and if the case comes to a conclusion there is no effective note upon which the judge can rely, and there is nothing to which one can turn in case of dispute as to what has actually been said.

The taking of an official shorthand note does not preclude the judge from taking notes of the evidence as the case proceeds.

How does the system work in the City of London?

I am pointing out that there is some danger. I have already said that my own view has been in favour of an official shorthand note; but I wanted the House to understand that it is not so entirely a one-sided matter as might be thought from some of the speeches that have been made. There are objections, and, although I quite agree that the learned judge is not precluded from taking notes of the evidence, my experience is that if a shorthand note is being taken there is less disposition to have recourse to the manual effort of writing; the judge will rely on his memory and upon the fact that he is going to have a transcript next day. That is a difficulty which must not be lost sight of.

A transcript could be produced by arrangement at the end of the day.

That really would not do. You cannot get a transcript of the evidence which has just been given in order that the judge may sum up at, say, three o'clock. Nevertheless those who are in favour of a shorthand note are quite entitled to say, and to my mind to say with justice, that several of these difficulties might be met by the judge taking a careful note of the most material and relevant evidence, and that the shorthand note could always remain for use in the event of the case going to the Court of Appeal. The only other question of importance which has been raised is, I think, with reference to the age limit.

And Saturday sittings.

It must be quite clear that the age limit is not a matter which could be dealt with in this Bill. In fact I may ask the hon. Gentleman the Member for Tynemouth if he quite realised, although he spoke about it, that this Bill is not the proper occasion to introduce the age limit? You cannot deal with it in the case of two judges, and not with the rest. You could not introduce this matter in a Bill of this kind in the appointment of two judges, and not make it apply to the rest of the judges who have been appointed previously. But there is one important factor which seems to have been left out of consideration, even by those who are so very careful to take every opportunity—and rightly so—of impressing upon us the question of economy. Does it occur to these hon. Gentlemen, who suggest that you ought to make a judge retire at a certain age, that if he is still competent to perform his work, and that his capacity is as good as ever to act as a judge, notwithstanding that he has arrived at the age of sixty-five or seventy, that to put him on the retired list means the payment of his pension of £3,500 a year, and that you have to appoint another judge at £5,000? You are not by this method saving anything to the State, but putting on an increased burden. The whole truth of the matter is that when a judge has arrived at an age that he is no longer fitted to carry on his work, in case he does not retire, and that he does not see it himself, there generally are those who take upon themselves to impress the fact upon him. It is an invidious task, and sometimes one of considerable difficulty, but it has certainly always been done if necessary.

Take the power to make them retire.

The hon. Member does not really follow. I did not say anything about the power to retire. What I said was that if a judge arrived at a time when he was no longer competent to perform his work, that there were those who properly took the opportunity to tell him—not perhaps in an official capacity—the views of those concerned and the public opinion that it was time that he should as a matter of fact retire. Some of my hon. Friends who are acquainted with legal stories, will know there are many amusing anecdotes told in connection with some of these representations made to judges that the time had come for them to retire. Let me add to these observations a word as to what fell from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin. I know of no one who at this moment—invidious as it is to speak of the judges—who is incapable of performing his work because of his age. Criticisms have been directed against some of the judges. For my own part, I believe criticism is as essential to judges as to everybody else, and helps them to do their work efficiently. And really the judges themselves are the first to recognise that public criticism—of the right kind, of course—is most useful to them. The judges on the Bench at the present moment are as competent to do their work as ever they were. They perform their task in the same way, and I think quite as well now, as they did when they were first appointed. Any criticism that may be directed to them certainly cannot be criticism as to the age at which they have arrived. I would like to add my tribute, as one accustomed to go before the judges at times—and I am making such observations with regard to their conduct as I think fitting. I defy anyone who comes before the body of judges in the King's Bench Division to say that you can point to any body of public men who attempt to do their duty so thoroughly as the judges who sit in that Division. That they may not be able to do all that is expected of them is, perhaps, after all, to say that they are human. But that they strive to do everything that possibly can be done by men who are appointed to the very high position of judge is, I think, beyond question. I agree that you may say in regard to the judges that one judge is too quick, and another judge is too slow. You may say that one judge perhaps takes a view before he has heard sufficient evidence. All this is perfectly legitimate criticism. But what no one can do is to make any criticism of the judges that will show that they are incapable to do the work that they have to perform.

In respect to the observations made by, I think most of those who have spoken against this Bill in relation to the evidence of the Lord Chancellor, I do think that sometimes some unfair use is made of the evidence which the Lord Chancellor gave. The whole of the attack upon this Bill is centred upon the evidence of the Lord Chancellor. It must be remembered that the Lord Chancellor, who gave this evidence, is himself a supporter of this Bill.

Only out of courtesy to his colleagues.

I do not understand what that means. It seems to be a very curious suggestion, to make of the Lord Chancellor, occupying the position which he does, and I should be sorry to have it suggested of him that he is willing to support a Bill for the creation of two judges at the rate of £5,000 a year, out of courtesy to his colleagues. If that is meant to be of service to the Lord Chancellor I am sure that he will take the earliest opportunity to dissociate himself from it. The Lord Chancellor having first given his opinion, and put his views with all the force of which he is capable before the Joint Committee, the Joint Committee, composed of business men, except for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—except for him the Committee was entirely composed of laymen and not lawyers—that Joint Committee, having considered the evidence that could be brought before it, came to the conclusion, not really adverse to the Lord Chancellor's view, that two judges ought to Ire appointed at once. They added this, in opposition to the views of many who gave evidence before them, that these two additional judges were not to form a permanent addition to the King's Bench Division, but were to be appointed for the specific purpose and in order that we might get rid of the arrears of business in the King's Bench Division, that they should not, be reappointed within a certain period as described in the Bill, except upon the recommendations of the two Houses of Parliament. This, one may be sure, would never be given unless it is absolutely necessary that the two judges should be reappointed. Every precaution was therefore taken by the Joint Committee that you should not have unnecessary judges appointed or reappointed. The Joint Committee went on to add, and the Lord Chancellor, of course, agreed with that view, that there are several administrative reforms which have to be taken into account, which must not be lost sight of for one moment, which may be just as important—it is possible even more important—than the appointment of the two judges, but that it is useless to consider these reforms, it is futile to discuss them, unless you are prepared to take the initial step to appoint your two judges for the present purpose of getting rid of arrears and enabling us to get a little more up-to-date in the King's Bench Division. I have addressed my observations in answer to the criticisms which have been made by hon. Members on both sides.

Can the hon. and learned Gentleman tell us at this stage what has been done with regard to the administrative changes?

As I said in the House before, all that I can say, all that I am entitled to say at present, is that there are certain proposals at the present time before those who are responsible which are being carefully considered. I instance as an indication of it that these proposals are known in certain localities, and the number of questions which are being addressed daily to me, asking whether there will be ample opportunity given to discuss this rearrangement of circuit proposals before they become effective or are brought into operation. If the House is willing that this Bill should be read the third time there will be no loss of time in giving effect to it. We shall be able to proceed promptly and speedily with the appointment of the two new judges. There will then be an opportunity for the disposal of some of those cases awaiting trial for so long a time. I hope, myself, we are approaching a period which has always seemed to me, perhaps from my early training as a business man, before I became a lawyer, that for which we must always strive, as the ideal state of things in the courts of justice in this country, or in any other country, and which is that when the parties are ready for trial there should be a court, presided over by a properly appointed judge, ready to try the case, so that no time should be lost, and that every man should have the opportunity of getting that great boon which the State confers—justice at the hands of His Majesty's judges, and, above all, that the injustice should not exist of keeping a man waiting for that which he has a right to expect from the taxation and the money which is spent in the administration of justice.

I should like to congratulate my hon. Friends upon having been the occasion of such important and interesting Debates on one of the most important subjects that could occupy the attention of Parliament, and I will take upon myself now to suggest that the Amendment to the Third Reading of this Bill should not be pressed. In the speech which has been just made we have had promises that the defects in the administration of the courts of justice in the country is under consideration, and it is plain to anyone who has listened to the different Debates that have taken place that it is the determination of those who represent the learned profession in this House, as well as those who represent the business community that justice shall no longer be delayed. I need hardly remind hon. Members that the Sovereign in the Coronation Oath is presumed to accept the statement in Magna Charta not merely that justice shall not be denied, but that justice shall not be delayed. Under these circumstances I think we may rest secure that upon the passing of this Bill the litigant subjects of His Majesty will have quicker opportunities for receiving justice to which they are entitled than they had formerly. I hope, therefore, that tins Bill will he allowed to pass without a Division.

Question, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.

Bill read the third time, and passed.

I should like to raise one or two questions with regard to this Bill. In the fifth line of the first Clause, which is, of course, the beginning of the operative part of the Bill, we find "notwithstanding anything in Section 11 of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act (1908) contained that section shall not apply to valuations," etc. I venture to suggest to the Lord Advocate that Section 5 of the Act of 1908 ought to be specifically excepted also from the operation of this Clause. Section 5 is as follows: "Subject to the foregoing provisions of this Act any contract or agreement made by the tenant of a holding by virtue of which he is deprived of his right to claim compensation under this Act in respect of any improvement comprised in the first Schedule hereto shall be void so far as it deprives him of that right." It is perfectly clear from reference to the first part of the first Schedule that there is one item at any rate which will be affected by this Bill and is included under the terms of Section 5. That is the item of fencing. There is just one other point to which I would direct the Lord Advocate's attention. In lines 13 and 14 of the first Clause of the Bill the expression is used: "Whether such valuations and questions are referred to arbitration under the lease or not." It is perfectly clear on reference to Section 11 of the principal Act to which this Bill refers that that section refers only to questions which under the Act or under a lease are referred to arbitration. Consequently there appears to be no reason whatever why the last lines of the first Clause should be allowed to stand. It is a little difficult to see what these lines are intended to convey. I submit these two points to the right hon. Gentleman, and in both these respects it seems to me the drafting is bad and a little misleading.

The hon. Member has made his two points quite clear, but they are both purely Committee points, and they can be raised when the Bill goes before the Scotch Committee. I shall consider the matter and it can he reviewed in Committee.

Bill read the second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

Will the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Advocate tell us what is the meaning of this Bill?

The meaning of this Bill is that we desire to amend the procedure of the Sheriff's Court in Scotland. Experience has shown that the procedure is defective in some details which are sought to be remedied by this Bill. They are all purely technical points, and relate exclusively to procedure, and it will really not be fitting that I should weary the House with details about them. The hon. Gentleman can raise all the points he desires at the Scottish Committee.

There is no appointment of fresh judges I suppose?

The impression left on my mind is that the Lord Advocate has not read this Bill or the other——

I framed both Bills and carefully considered every detail I assure the Noble Lord.

These amending Bills are the result of hasty and ill-considered legislation of a few years ago. I believe that the Lord Advocate is perfectly justified in bringing in these Bills, but they are rather a strange comment upon legislation so recently passed. It is just another example of the manner in which the legislation of the last Parliament was very often rushed through very quickly, without sufficient consideration.

The one unfortunate experience I have had with regard to the Committees was when I was sent upstairs in 1907 to join the Scotch Committee. I remember bringing forward, at the instance of Scotch advocates, various Amendments with regard to this Bill, and they were all ruled out on the application of the then Lord Advocate. This Amending Bill is a standing illustration of the want of fore-thought with which Bills are brought forward in this House—important Bills like the Sheriffs Courts (Scotland) Bill. If you have to amend it so soon as three years after its passage, it shows the necessity of keeping such Bills on the floor of the House rather than sending them late in August to be considered by Committees compased, as that Committee was, of tired-out Members.

I was a Member of that Committee, and saw the Amendments which the hon. Member had put down, and it was a wonderful illustration of a man with a knowledge of the English law interfering with Scotch law. He would not have put a good many of them down if he had known anything about Scotch law.

I am sorry to rise on a point of Order. But would the hon. Member be kind enough to give an explanation and a description of those Amendments?

I think that is a matter for the Committee.

As a Member of a constituency in a considerable portion of the British Isles, namely, England, I should like to press the Lord Advocate just to give us English Members some explanation of what this Bill really means, because it is absolutely unintelligible to me, not being a lawyer or a Scotchman. If the hon. and learned Gentleman can assure me there will be proper opportunity for English Members to consider this Bill upstairs, I will raise no further objection, but if it is going to pass entirely out of the hands of English Members after its Second Reading, I think he ought to give us some explanation.

I protest against the method of passing Scotch legislation. This particular Bill was brought in and passed in the last three or four days of the Session of 1907. It consisted of something like 200 clauses, and no opportunity was given to the Scotch Committee to discuss it in detail. No Member had any opportunity of putting any Amendment on the Paper, and great pressure was brought to bear on everyone of the Scotch Members not to move any Amendment, but to let it pass. This position was put to them. The people of Scotland urgently wanted the Bill, and if any Amendments were insisted upon the Bill would be entirely lost. The option was given either to take this Bill in an unamended form, and, as this amending Bill proves, in a bad shape, or not to get it at all. That is the everlasting way in which Scotch business is treated. We are always at the tail-end of every sitting, or we are allowed a Friday afternoon. I venture to say the sooner we get Horne Rule for Scotland the better.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman tell us the meaning of this Bill?

It is to enable the Scotch Registrar-General to certify extracts from his books by means of a seal without requiring him to sign his name, just as the Irish and English Registrars-General have been able to do for generations.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

I want to invite my hon. and learned Friend to tell us the meaning of this Bill. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend (Mr. Watt) as to the way Scotland is treated generally. I think we ought, at any rate, to be always told when a Bill is brought forward for Second Reading what it means—if it means anything at all. Is this Bill the result of a blunder, like the other Bill?

This Bill is not intended to remedy any blunder. The abject of it, in the first place, is to enable a judge of the First Instance in Scotland to fix a day for a jury trial beyond three weeks from the date on which he is asked to fix it. At present, if he has not a free day within the three weeks, he cannot fix a date at all. He is at liberty to fix a day where the evidence is to be given before himself, but by the Act of 1850 he is not able to fix a day where the evidence is to be given before himself and a jury. That is the first operative clause. With regard to the second operative clause, wherever the court is satisfied that the verdict of the jury is bad, and there is no reasonable prospect of any additional evidence being available to alter their views, then they are at liberty to quash that verdict, and not merely to grant a new trial.

Will it expedite business?

Enormously, I think.

May I ask whether the Bill is concurred in by the Judiciary of Scotland and the legal profession?

Yes, Sir, it is.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill whether in its present form it meets with the approval of the friendly societies, and whether it has also the approval of the Registrar?

As far as I understand this Bill, the object is to set aside certain decisions of the courts. I understand that the Court of Appeal has in two recent cases decided that the conversion of a friendly society into a company does not give that converted company a right to extend its objects. I want to know what will be the effect of this Bill.

In reply to the hon. Member for the St. Albans Division (Mr. Carlile), I understand that both the bodies he referred to are entirely in agreement with the purposes and drafting of this Bill. They have been consulted, and they are satisfied. In reply to the hon. Member for Newry (Mr. Mooney), I must say that the Bill has been drafted in order to protect the interests of societies which have been converted into companies. Two recent decisions of the courts of law have decided that a friendly society converting itself into a company can take no more extended powers as a company than the powers which it had as a friendly society, and in one of the decisions it was suggested by the court that the registration as a company of a friendly society might be invalid even after the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies had issued a certificate of incorporation. There are unscrupulous persons who are taking advantage of this decision to practically levy blackmail on those who have acted in ignorance of the law, and the object of this Bill is to protect societies thus affected. In future the law will remain as it is; this will only legalise what has been done, and done unwittingly, in the past. It will get rid of a serious defect, and I may say that the Bill is opposed by no authority, and no body of men who have any knowledge of this very complicated subject.

Do I understand that the Bill, as drawn, will only apply to those companies which have been converted from friendly societies, and which have, in their ignorance of the law, made themselves liable under the existing law? May I take it that the Bill will not apply to companies to be converted in the future?

The hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct. It only indemnifies acts up to the present; there is no indemnification as far as the future is concerned.

May I ask for some explanation of the reference to blackmail to which it is suggested certain people have been subjected?

There are several actions pending. One has already been tried. But they have all been brought on the lines suggested by the decision I have referred to, and some not very conscientious persons engaged in the law have attacked a particular company which I have in my mind. The object of this Bill is to meet that situation and to indemnify this particular company which has issued policies of insurance which I may say are perfectly fair.

Do I understand that certain actions are pending for certain acts improperly done?

No.

If it be the case that certain acts alleged to be improper are to be indemnified by this Bill —if, in fact, it is proposed to give ex post facto sanction to those illegal acts, I venture to suggest it is a rather serious thing thus to indemnify a company which has exceeded its powers. I am not opposing this Bill, as I understand it meets with general agreement, but I do think the House should realise the fact that it is proposing to give an indemnity for acts committed ex post facto.

It seems to me very hard that companies which, acting in perfectly good faith, have overstepped the legal limit and have committed acts which are not in themselves wrong, should be liable to these actions, especially seeing that for thirty-five years no doubt has been raised as to their legality. I think the Bill ought to be read a second time.

Question, "That the Bill be read a second time," put, and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House," put, and agreed to.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.

How does the right hon. Gentleman propose to proceed with this Bill if it is now read a second time?

I think it ought to go to Committee of the Whole House. It is a measure which meets with the general approval of everybody connected with industrial provident societies. I have consulted every society I could get in reach of, and I believe that every clause of the Bill is non-contentious.

This Bill deals with so important a subject that I rather regret that the right hon. Gentleman has not thought fit to give some explanation of its effect. After glancing through the Bill I should like to say, on behalf of the agricultural co-operative societies, that I welcome certain clauses, notably the second Clause, which substitutes £300 for £200 as the maximum amount of financial interest which any person may have in the shares of a society. In my opinion that will be a great lever in the development of agricultural co-operative societies in this country. Owing to the very small maximum of £200 no doubt a good many of the village societies have gone to the wall. As the House is aware, it is the custom to call up a very small proportion of the total share capital of the company, the uncalled balance being the security upon which advances can be obtained. Where in a society like this you have the maximum interest fixed at £200, and probably only one-eighth—or £25—is called up, and where you have a comparatively small number of well-to-do people in a village financially able to support such a society, the difficulty is great. I also welcome Clause 3, which enables the registered societies to combine and form a federated registered society with all the advantages which the industrial and provident society possesses, and particularly the avoidance of the large expense consequent on the formation and incorporation of a company under the Joint Stock Companies Acts. There is one other clause which is really significant of modern financial legislation, and that is Clause 8, which says that no Stamp Duty shall be payable on receipts given under Section 43 of the principal Act. It is an indication of the unfortunate trend of modern finance that you have in the case of a society such as this Bill deals with to make an exception with regard to a portion of the Finance Act of the past year in order to avoid an unfair burden being thrown on those who belong to these societies. I have always felt very strongly that this increased Stamp Duty was a very great mistake both from the financial point of view and from the point of view of developing the industries of this country, and this is a very strong indication that it is not altogether to the advantage, at any rate, of the poorer classes of this country.

I do not rise for the purpose of objecting to the Bill, but to ask the right hon. Gentleman what is the object of the Government in sending this Bill to a Committee of the Whole House when at the present moment the Grand Committee is doing nothing. This Bill is a complicated measure, and makes Amendments to three Acts of Parliament and to the Finance Act. Moreover, it imposes penalties, and I think it ought to be discussed upstairs in the Grand Committee, because, as the matter stands now, the Committee of the Whole House will be taken some time after eleven o'clock, and nobody will know what the Bill is about. I am altogether opposed to this system of amending Acts of Parliament by reference, but when there is any such Amendment it ought to be done after discussion upstairs, where we can see the effect of it. I really do think that the might hon. Gentleman should explain why the present course is taken.

I have really no preference for this Bill stopping in the House, and if the House wishes it to go upstairs, I should not offer any objection, but I think, on the whole, it being a purely uncontentious Bill, to which no objection can he taken, and which has been welcomed by the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Bathurst), and as very little opposition is to be expected, it might as well stay down here.

I really do hope the right hon. Gentleman will not follow the example of his colleagues on the Front Bench, and always give way to pressure from Ireland. I have the strongest objection to sending Bills upstairs, where we have a sort of hole-and-corner legislation. The speeches are not recorded and the general trend of the discussion on the Bill is not available to the public. Surely we have enough Bills sent upstairs, and if we can possibly keep them down here, where they can be discussed, we ought to do so. If the Bill is unopposed, why should we continue the foolish practice of sending it upstairs?

Interested as I am in the greatest possible economic improvement in the development of small culture in this country, I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will say why, if it is considered necessary that an alteration in the maximum amount of interest which any person may have or claim in the shares of the society should be made, the limit should he fixed at so small a sum as £300? An hon. Member who sits just below me has just explained to the House how seriously these small co-operative societies have been handicapped by the Clause limiting it to £200, and I cannot think that the change made in limiting it to £300 will adequately meet the objection. If small culture is to develop in this country, as we all hope it will, in the same way as it has been developed in many other countries, such as Denmark, the operations of these small companies are of considerable importance, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman, while he is extending the limit, will extend it still further, or at any rate provide that the extension is not to be confined to a limit of £300.

Bill read a second time.

Resolved, "That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House."—[ Mr. Hobhouse. ]

I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman how it comes about that money has been advanced amounting to £12,000 to a gentleman who apparently has died without leaving any assets. It seems to me to be a very serious matter that no steps have been taken apparently to obtain security for the loan and that then we are asked to pass this Resolution for the purpose of relieving the Treasury of the responsibility which they appear to have undertaken.

This loan was made a very considerable time ago and a very considerable portion of the money has been recovered. The money was lent for the purpose of certain buildings in the East End of London. Part of the money has been recovered, but the person dying without assets there is no money to meet the claim.

Resolution agreed to.

I should like to ask one or two questiones with regard to this Clause. I do not know whether it is following the regular course, and I should like to know whether these Gentlemen are the ordinary Gentlemen appointed in this Clause.

They are the ordinary appointments. In fact, it is the re-appointment of everybody who was appointed last time.

Clause added to the Bill.

This Clause authorises the expenditure, or rather the borrowing, of £5,000,000 of money for the purpose of the Public Works Loan Commissioners and the borrowing of £600,000 by the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland. This £5,000,000 of money is borrowed by the Public Works Loan Commissioners, and is lent by them to the local authorities. I do not know whether there are any Members of this House who will agree with me, but I most strongly object to this borrowing of large sums of money by the Government or the State and the lending of it to local authorities. What happens? The local authority, not being able to borrow money in the market, because they have already borrowed a great deal too much, comes down to the Local Government Board and asks them to borrow money and lend it to them. When the local authority's finances are in a good position and they can borrow cheaply they go into the City to do so. Everybody knows what is going on. But when their finances have got into such a state that they cannot borrow or have to pay a high rate of interest, then they come and ask the Government, sub silentio, to lend them the money. The result is that investors do not know what is going on. I am well aware that the Local Loans were instituted by Lord Goschen and my side of the House, but another point which ought to be brought out is that the Government will go into the Money Market, borrow this £5,000,000 at 3 per cent., with the result that Consols will be depreciated. The Government therefore depreciate their own securities in order to encourage local authorities in their reckless extravagance. My hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Gibson Bowles), in a very interesting pamphlet he wrote on the financial position of the country, pointed out that the debt of the local authorities had increased, I think, from 1900 to 1906, from £274,000,000 to something like £576,000,000 sterling. Therefore I think that the Treasury ought to put some check upon this continuous borrowing by local authorities. Five million pounds is a very large sum to apply for at the present moment, and though I do not intend to move an Amendment, I think we ought to get some assurance that this system of lending large sums of money to local authorities will not be repeated.

I very much agree with the hon. Baronet, and I will go farther. I think the local authorities have since 1898 entered upon a course of borrowing the like of which was never known when they were issuing their own stock and getting good prices, and when these issues had been made trustee securities. I think we require to reconsider the old system under which we had Commissioners to lend small sums of money to corporations and others. All the more so as it appears in this Bill that these Commissioners do not always take sufficient care that their securities shall be good. The Committee must remember, when they authorise these Commissioners to borrow this £5,000,000, what they are authorising the Commissioners to do. I hope I may appeal to the Secretary to the Treasury to reconsider the whole system of these loans. All I would suggest is that the time has arrived when the question should be asked whether the time has not arrived when the Loan Commissioners ought to discontinue doing business for the local authorities.

I think the House should know in regard to the statement made by the hon. Baronet opposite that the Public Works Loan Commissioners are persons entirely independent of the control of the Treasury. All they have to be satisfied upon is that the security for which the particular money is advanced is ample to cover any loan that is contracted I do not think there is any damage to the public credit or public purse by the loans made under this system. As a matter of fact, there is an annual profit—I forget how much—realised, which in the end more than repays the amounts which are lost from time to time. My hon. Friend behind me (Mr. Gibson Bowles) also said a word or two against the principle, but I confess I see no reason why, if the public credit is good, public authorities—harbour trusts and so forth—should not take advantage of that credit in order to get money as cheaply as possible for works of public utility. The amount asked for every year is considerably in excess of any amount taken during twelve months. We never know how much we will require. As a matter of fact, last year we took credit for £4,000,000, but we lent only £3,000,000. The year before we took credit for £3,000,000, and lent out £2,750,000. We think that this year the demands upon us will be a little more than formerly, and that is why we have asked for £5,000,000.

The observations of the Secretary to the Treasury do seem to me to indicate that we ought to have some knowledge of what these loans consist. If the Treasury have no Parliamentary control they ought to have particulars furnished to them from time to time. Is it the case that loans are made to others than local authorities? If that is the case I submit that the Treasury should have some control, particularly in view of the passing of last year's Budget which has so materially affected the security for these loans. In the case of any companies or societies interested in the development of land the Treasury should see at once what is the condition of security afforded to the Public Works Loan Commissioners. If one's information is not wrong there is ample ground for fearing that the operation of the Budget has seriously depreciated that kind of security and, indeed, that we may find ourselves personally asked to indemnify the Loan Commissioners in very considerable sums of money in respect of advances made because the Treasury have no control.

I should like to ask whether I am right in supposing that this is the main source from which loans are being made to county councils in order to enable them to acquire land for purposes of small holdings.

No; I do not think so. I have no information of the facts and I am afraid I cannot answer the question off-hand. As a rule the loans are made for the purposes I have indicated. Money is also borrowed by the Territorial Associations and under the Housing of the Working Classes Act.

The matter appears to me to be rather important, because I am not aware that the county councils are obtaining advances of money locally for this purpose. It seems to me there is no other source from which they can obtain their loans. In any case there is a great development of small holdings at the present time, and an increasing amount of land is being purchased by county councils, with borrowed money for this purpose. If that is so, I am sorry to say it, but it does not appear to me that there is ample security for these loans, and if the security is considered ample today, there is everything to show that it will not be ample security in the future. With a steady increase not merely of taxes upon the land, but of rates, about which increase unfortunately we seem to have so very little sympathy from urban representatives, it seems to me that the capital value of this security is likely to go steadily down in future, and is becoming seriously depressed at present. Of course, if the right hon. Gentleman says that it is not the source from which county councils obtain their money for this purpose, I shall be satisfied, but I rather think it is the source from which most of them obtain it.

I will find out if they get their money from that source. The Public Works Loan Commissioners are the sole authority for deciding whether or not there is security behind the loan. That frees them from any suspicion of Treasury or political control. It is a purely business proposition. If they are satisfied that it is good security they make the advance. If they are not, they refuse it. They are all men of great capacity and knowledge of affairs.

I am aware that, as the law now stands, it is very difficult for the Treasury to refuse the request of these Commissioners. The object of my remarks, and I have made them for three or four years, has been to endeavour to induce the Treasury to make a change in the law, or, at any rate, to suggest to these Commissioners that for the moment sufficient money has been advanced by the Treasury. Of course, it is perfectly correct to say it is difficult for the right hon. Gentleman to do that at the present moment. He does not tell me that there are no means of impressing on the Commissioners, even without an alteration of the law, the fact that owing to the gnat extravagance of the Government, and the enormous expenditure of all local authorities, it is expedient for the moment rather to restrict the operation of borrowing. If the Treasury were to say, "We consider it is against the national interests to find this money," in all probability these gentlemen would say, "Under these circumstances we shall not sanction the loan." Even if they did not do that there is plenty of opportunity for making a change in the law, and giving the Treasury some power to say, "We do not think the finances of the country are in such a state that large sums ought to be lent upon these securities, and that the nation should be put in the position of having continually to go into the Money Market to borrow money." The right hon. Gentleman is mistaken if he thinks I was not aware that no doubt there is profit—that is to say, they lend at a higher rate than that at which they borrow, but that does not touch my point about the depreciation of Consols by the constant borrowing of local loans at a higher rate than Consols pay. That is a different point altogether. Whether or not they make a profit, which I believe they do, and possibly make up for the losses sustained on Irish land purchase that does not touch my point that the borrowing of money to return interest at about 3¼ per cent., which they are borrowing at now, must depress Consols, which only return 2½ per cent.

If I understand the right hon. Gentleman aright, the House and the Treasury find themselves in this very remarkable position, that they have no control over the operations of these Commissioners, and they are absolutely free and unfettered agents. However responsible they may be to their consciences, they are not responsible to the Treasury or the House or the Government. I can conceive no matter of higher public interest or more importance to be under the control of the Government of the day than the general financial policy of this country, and it cannot be surveyed as a whole unless the operations of local loans are taken into consideration. I emphatically agree that that state of things is extremely unsatisfactory, and the sooner the policy in the matter of local loans can be brought under the control of the Government of the day and of this House, so that it can be checked, if necessary, in the public interest, the better it will be for all concerned.

Clause 2 added to the Bill.

I would like to call the attention of the Committee to what is proposed under this Clause. Although the rubric phrases it in somewhat stately terms, virtually the object appears to be to settle certain bad debts by writing them off. Surely that hardly supports the contention of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury as to the constant exercise of discretion on the part of the Public Works Loan Commissioners. I wish to call attention to the fact that a large amount of indebtedness may be written off by the method indicated in the Schedule to the Bill. I observe that all the names of these insolvent debtors are Irish. Is this the sort of security we have for the large advances which we have made and for which we have pledged British credit? I observe that one of the names is Thomas Kelly, Pollanagh, Kiltimagh, county Mayo, whose loan of £25 is to be written off except 14s. Is this to be taken as the amount which we are to be repaid in respect of the advances made to small proprietors in Ireland? If that is the case on a large scale, in spite of the discretion exercised by the Commissioners, it would appear that we are indulging a vain hope if we expect that the money will be repaid. How far is this to go? Is this to be taken as an indication of the general amount of solvency among these creditors?

If the hon. Gentleman will turn to Parliamentary Paper 194 he will find full particulars of all these debts set out at length. I do not think I need weary the Committee by stating them now.

Clause 3 added to the Bill.

Clauses 4, 5, and 6, and the Schedule added to the Bill.

Bill reported without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."

Question put, and agreed to; Bill read the third time, and passed.

I beg to move the omission of Clause 1, which is practically to move the rejection of the Bill, because, it seems to me, there is no valid reason and no reason in past municipal life to justify the Government in making the proposed alteration in the law. It is a Government Bill, brought in with Treasury sanction and supported by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board. It seeks to prevent an alderman of a borough from voting in the election of an alderman, and an outgoing alderman from voting as alderman in the election of mayor. What can aldermen have done to render them unworthy to exercise these functions which they have exercised for thirty or forty years without, as far as I know, any serious criticism, under the Municipal Corporations Act passed in 1882? This Act was passed on the initiative and with the sanction of a Liberal Government, and, therefore, it can hardly be said that this power was given by a reactionary Government, or one which wished to stand up for privilege and things which ought to be checked. On what grounds is it sought to take away this power? The office of alderman is still a post coveted by townsmen who have done well in municipal life, and who deserve well of their fellow-citizens; and they are elected to it by the municipal representatives. Why should the Government now say that in this respect aldermen should not have the same power as councillors? Have aldermen abused this power in the past? I have seen nothing of such a development in local municipal life. It, is a very great slur to cast on aldermen to deprive them of the power that was conferred upon them by the Act of 1882. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give us some good reason why this Bill should pass. I am aware of the case of the London County Council. But, after all, the London County Council is not the whole of the municipal life of England and Scotland. Other parts of the country wish to carry on their traditions in the way they have carried them on in the past, and it does not follow that because those who arranged the London County Council thought that the suggested arrangement was a proper one, therefore the rest of England should follow it.

I beg leave to second the Amendment. My hon. Friend has said practically all there is to be said in favour of aldermen, and I think the Committee will agree that they have always discharged their duties in an able and proper manner. I know that the aldermen of Coventry, the constituency which has done me the honour to return me, are a body of men than whom none more worthy can be found. We have in favour of aldermen even the words of Shakespeare, who describes the alderman as having:— Fair round belly, with good capon lined. I should object entirely to seeing the privileges of aldermen taken away in the way proposed.

I do not agree with the statements of the hon. Members who moved and seconded the Amendment, and if I may respectfully say so, as belonging to the county of Shakespeare, I strongly object to a quotation from him being misapplied. The two hon. Gentlemen say that it is very hard that aldermen should be deprived of the right of selecting other aldermen. The Mover of the Amendment said perfectly truly that this applied to the London County Council and other county councils where they have the power generally of selecting their aldermen. I think that is perfectly right. I strongly agree with the panegyric passed upon aldermen by the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment, and I have no reason to doubt that the aldermen of Coventry do their duty. But, after all, the aldermen are returned as a result of secondary selection by elected representatives. But it is held that those secondary representatives should have the power of selecting somebody on the top of themselves, as it were. It is a form of tertiary election which, I think, is contrary to representative principles. I, on that ground, cannot agree with my hon. Friend, who suggests that the people who have themselves been selected by elected representatives should have the further power of selecting other persons. I think very strong objection would be raised among elected councillors themselves if the right they consider they possess of selecting aldermen were watered down by the fact that the right is shared by people whom they have themselves selected. As to the second portion of the Clause dealing with outgoing aldermen, I understand that they are to be deprived of the right of voting for the mayor. When they have been once elected, I do not see why they should be deprived of any powers or rights that they possess. Of course, if it only means when the new council are elected, or when the mayor is elected, that the outgoing aldermen are still aldermen, and that the new aldermen are selected after the mayor has been chosen, and that, therefore, they have the power of selecting the mayor, not because they are going to be members of the new council, but merely because in the theory of the law they continue to be aldermen until the new aldermen are being elected—if that is all it means then I agree perhaps they ought not to have that right. It is only by accident, as it were, that they are present, and that the mayor is selected first. If it seeks to withdraw from them any power which they ought to have merely because their powers are going to cease then I object. On the larger point I think it is contrary to all proper representative theory, and that it is quite time that they should be placed on a level with what takes place in the county councils.

We are asked by this Bill to make a considerable change in powers of a body of men who from time immemorial have acted on borough councils, and against whom no complaint so far as I know has been made. I cannot agree with my hon. Friend (Mr. W. Peel) that when an alderman has been once selected as a member of a borough council that he ought to be put in a different and superior position to other members, but if he is once elected a member I see no reason why he should not exercise all the powers exercised by his brother members. I would ask on what ground are we asked to make this change? We have not heard of any. As far as my experience of borough councils goes in the North of England, I have not heard any reasons suggested of any abuses in connection with the election of aldermen which would justify such a change as this. Is this a change brought in purely and simply from a child-like desire for change? We know such desires exist, and for my part I am not very anxious to effect such desires. Therefore I would seriously ask the hon. Member in charge of the Bill if there is any solid ground or reason why the change should be made that we should know of it. Has there been any representation from the great Corporations in the North or elsewhere or from the citizens of the great cities throughout the country that they find that their rights are not properly protected by the existing system. Unless some reasons of a strong character are offered why this change should be made in the constitution of boroughs I say it would be a great want of tact to interfere with a system which has come down to us with great antiquity.

I hope my Friends will not persist in their opposition to this useful Bill. The hon. Gentleman who spoke last said that aldermen had come down from time immemorial, but the fact is they only come down since the Municipal Corporations Act of 1832. As far as I understand this Bill it is simply assimilating the method in municipal boroughs to that of the county councils. We are told the counties are reactionary, but in this matter they are acting under a better and more improved system than the boroughs. I should have thought the reason for the Bill was fairly obvious. Under a system under which aldermen elect brother aldermen, it is possible where the minority or majority is narrow that a particular side through the outgoing aldermen may have a majority which would not have been sufficient if left to the elected members of the council. I do not think anybody wishes to get rid of the system of aldermen. They are a valuable element in county councils and municipal borough councils, but if they are to be left they ought certainly to be left in such a position that those who are elected by the ratepayers have the controlling voice, and it is not possible to form in the borough a largely self-elected ring who continue to dominate the municipal politics of the borough after the ratepayers have declared against it. If my hon. Friends will reconsider the matter I think they will see that it is not a very serious change that is proposed. It is only bringing the standard of municipal government up to that which exists in the counties at the present time.

May I say with reference to the suggestion of a ring dominating the council that that is not at all the case? How can a minority dominate the majority? How can aldermen, who are naturally a small minority on the council, dominate the popularly elected representatives? Obviously, they cannot do it. If the council happen to take the advice of the minority of aldermen, my hon. Friend must quarrel not with the aldermen, but with the representatives who follow their advice.

I can assure the House that the very last thing desired by this Bill is to cast a slur upon aldermen. I am an alderman myself, and have been for twenty-one years, though possibly the House may require some assurance on that point, because my physical proportions certainly do no credit to that quotation from Shakespeare with which an hon. Member opposite has favoured us. The simple object of this Bill, as has already been explained, is to bring the law with regard to the election of aldermen in municipal corporations into harmony with that which prevails in county councils and Metropolitan borough councils. Reference has been made to the fact that in 1882, nearly thirty years ago, this system was established or perpetuated in the municipal councils by a Liberal Government. But in the year 1888, when the Local Government Act was passed by a Unionist Government, that precedent, after six years' experience, was deliberately set aside, and the principle of electing aldermen by the directly elected representatives of the ratepayers was put in its place. After eleven years' further experience of the working of the system, when the Metropolitan Boroughs Act was passed, again by a Unionist Government, the same principle was approved and adopted; so that we have two definite Unionist precedents to go upon. All we are asking the House to do is to carry to completion the work of two Unionist Governments in that respect. The hon. Member for Blackpool (Mr. Ashley) said that aldermen are not in a majority on the council. That is perfectly true. Fortunately, or unfortunately, our municipal contests are largely conducted on political lines, and if you take a number of gentlemen belonging to one political party and throw them into the scale, the effect, as the Noble Lord opposite Viscount Morpeth) said, is to maintain power for an undue length of time in the hands of one political party. This Bill is not a party measure at all. It treats one party exactly the same as another. It is as great an advantage or disadvantage to one party as to another. I appeal to the House to regard it in that broad sense, and to complete the work of two Unionist Governments by passing the Bill into law. As a matter of fact, we know that there are towns in the country where it takes a political landslide to turn out the party in power. All we want to do is to give, as has been given in the counties and metropolitan boroughs, each party a fair chance. We think, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for South St. Pancras told us from the other side of the House, on the Second Reading of this Bill, that the system has worked admirably in London. He gave the Bill his hearty support, like the other hon. Member for one of the Divisions of London and the Noble Lord. It will give those who now can hardly look forward to taking an active part in the work of their respective municipalities an opportunity such as they have not hitherto had of doing so, because the present system in many cases does undoubtedly exclude these men from the work of local self-government. Representations have reached the Government from time to time with reference to the necessity for a measure of this kind, and I commend it to the House not as a party measure in any sense, but as one which will make for the bettering of local self-government.

May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether any representation has reached him from the Association of Municipal Corporations, or whether his attention has been directed to any abuses?

The attention of the Government has been directed to the

matter, and representations have reached us from time to time, of which I cannot discuss the particulars.

From the Association of Municipal Corporations?

As a matter of fact, I do not know of any representations that have been received from that association.

Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 113; Noes, 33.

I would like to ask the hon. Member as to whether, instead of having any surpluses there might be from the Army and Navy expenditure brought to the House, it could not be made a rule in the future that they should without the sanction of the House be utilised for the furtherance of the Army and Navy?

If the hon. Member desires to argue that these surpluses

"And whereas the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury have temporarily authorised the application of so much of the said total surpluses on certain Grants for Navy Services as is necessary to make good the said total deficits on other Grants for Navy Services.

"That the application of such sums be sanctioned."—[ Mr. Hobhouse. ]

should be used for Army and Navy purposes, then I think that would require an alteration of the law and is not in Order.

I want to ask for some explanation of one or two items. The first two items of deficits seem to show that the Government in the course of the year just ended recruited seamen rather more largely than they expected when their Estimates were laid before the House. That is satisfactory so far as it goes, because we have argued constantly that the Government's Estimates for that purpose have not been sufficient, but I see on the other side a surplus of £146,000 for material. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will be able to explain how the surplus occurs, but does it mean less expenditure on shipbuilding or does it mean that the stores and ammunition of the Fleet are below the standard which the Government estimated to be necessary at the beginning of the financial year just ended? That is a very important matter. There has been a constant decrease since this Government has been in office of naval stores, and the Vote has not been of the standard of previous' years. This has caused very grave anxiety to many expert critics in this country. I therefore desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman to what this item of £146,000 applies, and if he can assure us that it applies only to economies in price, and does not mean any deficiency in material? We have constantly urged the Government to proceed with the buildings at Rosyth, and it would allay considerable anxiety if the right hon. Gentleman was able to inform the House that the surplus of £133,000 on works, buildings, and repairs does not mean any delay in the works at Rosyth. We have been anxious for the efficiency of our dockyards on the East Coast. The only great work yet undertaken is that at Rosyth, and the delay there has been overlong. I think the time for that to be explained has come. I quite agree with hon. Members who hold it is a very vital principle that the surpluses available at the end of the year should be repaid and that the whole account should be laid before the House. It is, I know, not usual to make any criticisms on this Vote, but time will not be wasted if the right hon. Gentleman will make some explanation.

This is very much more a financial question than a naval question, and for this reason, that the Vote to which this sum applies totals something like £36,000,000 or £37,000,000. Upon that Vote there is a variation of one kind or another amounting to £138,000, and that is due to a very trifling miscalculation in the expenditure of a very vast sum of money. Whether it is a question of wages, or victualling, or works, or material, it must be borne in mind that from time to time and from year to year it is impossible to calculate with absolute exactness what will be the expenditure in the next twelve months. All that can be done is to give as close an approximation of the Vote as is possible. All these are matters which vary in detail over the whole year, but the hon. Gentleman can rest assured that any alteration is due to multifarious circumstances over which the Admiralty have no control.

I wish for some information as to the item for victualling and clothing for the Navy. The victualling of the Navy is a subject of great interest to Irish Members, as a great deal of what is known as "mess pork" used in the Navy is obtained from Ireland. It is well known that Ireland produces a very good article in the shape of bacon and mess pork. I suppose if we had to differentiate between North and South in regard to this important manufacture the hon. Member for Limerick would claim that the article which comes from there is the best in all Ireland. There is no need to go outside Ireland, or even outside England, for a supply of mess pork for the Navy. Ireland is the home of the pig. During his interesting life he pays the rent, the rates and taxes, and I have no doubt that after he is dead, out of his overwhelming resources, he is quite capable of feeding His Majesty's Navy.

The only question which can be raised with reference to this Resolution in regard to mess pork is whether any share of this £88,000 has been spent on mess pork. The hon. Member must not embark upon a general inquiry. He must not ask with regard to contracts for mess pork in general.

Keeping within the terms of your ruling, I would ask whether any portion of this £88,000 has been spent on mess pork for the Navy within the scope of the contract which the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth (Lord C. Beresford) placed in Ireland, probably about twenty years ago. I desire also to ask a question in regard to the clothing of the Navy. Twenty-five years ago I had the privilege of making a Motion in this House which was responded to by the then Member for Westminster, the late Mr. W. H. Smith, when he was Secretary to the Admiralty. He placed contracts for the supply of clothing for foreign service in Ireland. They were continued for a considerable time, and now I do not know whether there is any clothing for the Navy made in Limerick or not. It was then considered a matter of high State policy that a very excellent factory, which had been established for the purpose of supplying foreign service clothing for the Navy, not only for this, but for other countries of Europe, should be encouraged by receiving orders. The clothing made is very suitable and cheaper than could be produced by the Army factories.

I only rise to make one remark in the interest of financial accuracy. The Secretary to the Treasury told the Committee that the difference in the accounts was——

And it being Five of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Adjourned at Two minutes after Five o'clock until Monday next, the 18th instant.