I beg to move, "That this House, at its rising this day, do adjourn until Wednesday next, and that, as soon as Government Business is disposed of, Mr. Speaker do adjourn the House without Question put."

Before the House adjourns I desire to call attention to the question of the total lack of organisation which at present exists in connection with Imperial affairs, and the failure of His Majesty's Government to carry out the proposals which have been so frequently pressed by the Prime Ministers of the Dominions at recent Conferences. At this time when we have seen great internal strife as a result of industrial discontent we want to press with all the vigour we possess upon His Majesty's Government, and upon the public outside, the necessity for a reconsideration of the whole Imperial position, and also to make clear our opinion that we are guilty of great folly in not endeavouring to secure for our workers the great industrial future which the British Empire holds out. We have had six years of incessant party warfare in this country over questions of the greatest magnitude, none of which, it is suggested by their authors, will cure the disease from which the nation is suffering. We have had palliatives in great numbers, but curatives none at all. We have all been thinking too much of party and too little of the State, with the result that we have not dealt with these problems as they really are, and have not got to the roots of this question. In this connection, whilst our family quarrels have been continuing in this country proposals of the greatest value have been made by the Prime Ministers of these Overseas Dominions, and this House will hardly dispute the fact that these proposals have been met with scant courtesy, and with very small consideration by people outside, although they are in every respect questions of the greatest magnitude.

If I refer, firstly, to the first Conference which was held under the auspices of His Majesty's Government I would like to make it clear that in doing so I do not entirely exonerate the Unionist party in the past for not having taken greater steps to bring this question home to the people of this country. I would point out, however, that during the last Unionist Administration a great movement in this direction was made almost impossible by the fact that the Government were engaged in dealing with a great war. In the first Conference which was held under the auspices of the present Government, it will be remembered that the Prime Ministers of the Dominions once more unanimously reaffirmed their proposals for mutual preferential trading between the various parts of the Empire. It will be remembered also that they have shown their good faith in this question in that every one of those Dominions have given a preference to the Mother-country. They have carried it further, and are now proposing inter-Imperial Trade Preference between the various Dominions, with the result that in this great system which is being built up the Government of this country alone holds aloof from the policy which we believe would have as great an effect for good to this country as that policy which binds together the diverse and scattered States of America into the great united country that we know to-day, and by which Prince Bismarck knitted together the heterogeneous States of Germany into the mightiest military nation of the world, and the greatest commercial nation upon the Continent.

Because this question was not raised at the last Imperial Conference we need not imagine that the Dominions do not desire to see it brought forward again at the earliest possible occasion, for the Prime Ministers have repeatedly told us that in their opinion it is now the turn of the Mother-country to move in this respect. But they did bring forward proposals at the last Conference which dealt with this question of trade, which, after all, is of vital importance to the whole prosperity of this country They reaffirmed their desire for an All-Red Steamship Route between the Mother-country and the Dominions. Surely by increasing the communication in this manner we shall be diverting to the Dominions a great deal of the trade which at present goes to foreign countries. Yet we find in this important matter in which the Governments of the Dominions were prepared to contribute that His Majesty's Government have done nothing. They have left the position precisely as it was, with the result that if rumour is correct we understand that the Canadian Home Government, together with some private British financiers, are now endeavouring to deal with this question.

Then there was the question of the All Red Cable Route and establishment of a cable system throughout the British Empire in order that the business, diplomatic, and strategic secrets of this country might be kept in British hands instead of passing as they do at the present moment through foreign hands, in the case of cables between the Mother-country and the Dominions. Here again we have a question that vitally affects the traders of this country. It is perfectly obvious that in the Dominion of Canada, specially with its vast frontier on the United States, and with the greater telegraphic facilities a great deal of trade must be diverted to the United States which would otherwise come to this country and give employment to our people. The Government have done nothing in this case. We have only had from the Postmaster-General a general statement upon which he thinks he is entitled to congratulate himself, but which we regard as not at all sufficient, namely, that he managed to effect a small reduction of the cable rates, but I think it can also be truly said that he has made it plain that we do not intend in this country to do anything to break down what is practically a monopoly of the whole of the cable lines between this country and the Dominions, and which are in American hands, and which we consider a danger to the business people of this country. Then there is the more delicate question of greater consultation between the Mother-country and the Dominions. I think the last Imperial Conference has made this question one of far greater urgency than ever it was before. There was the question of trade treaties, and the Dominions suggested that in future they will make their own trade treaties. Then there is the question of the Fleet units and Australia's request to make her own Navigation Laws. On all these question I suggest, unless there is some constant and continuous consultation between the Dominion authorities and this country, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the First Lord of the Admiralty might very easily land this country into war. Then again it was plainly expressed by the Australasian delegates at the last Conference that in future they would not approve of the action of His Majesty Government, in a case such as that of the Declaration of London, in deciding upon a policy that affects the Empire as a whole without consultation with the Dominion's representatives. On all these important matters it is essential that there should be some method of closer consultation between the different parts of the Empire.

We shall never get a proper system of Imperial defence until we have a scheme of defence for the British Empire based upon common control, and we should never have a proper alleviation of the burdens which fall upon the Mother-country unless the Dominions havesome share in the control of the forces, naval and military, which they are disposed to place at the disposal of the Mother-country. If we bear these imperial problems in mind and turn to our home problems, it is easy to prove they are interdependent. What are the problems which confront this country at the present time above all others? First of all there is the increased cost of living. Secondly, the decline in real wages; and thirdly, permanent unemployment; and fourthly, the burden of armaments to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer devoted so much attention yesterday, and which everybody is agreed is a burden which is indeed difficult for this country to bear. We submit these questions can best be dealt with, and can only be dealt with, by securing to the workers in this country the great industrial future the Empire holds out by linking together by cable and by steamships, the traders of the whole Empire, and by bringing together the manpower of our race for the defence of the common weal. If we take these four problems, I believe I can show very briefly that their consummation is entirely dependent upon Imperial organisation. First with regard to the increased cost of living. I believe nobody will deny that that is really responsible for the recent industrial upheavals in this country amongst organised labour, and we have got to face the fact that unless we do something, food will be very much dearer in the future than it is to-day, unless we can increase the production of foodstuffs in the Empire, and therefore if food largely rises in price, we maintain it is the duty of statesmen to secure greater protection to the foodstuffs within the Empire, and consequently so to organise our business arrangements with our Dominions that the Mother-country may have the first call upon those food supplies in preference to the foreigner. We suggest this can only be dealt with in three ways: by preference, by subsidies, or bounties. Unless some such policy is adopted in the near future there is great fear that food will undoubtedly become dearer, and we believe the only way to keep the food of this country cheap is by opening up the virgin acres of the BritishEmpire—

The hon. Member is not entitled to discuss future legislation. He must confine himself specially to administration.

I will turn from that subject, merely reiterating that I believe this question must be dealt with in the interests of the consumers of this country. I turn to the second problem which confronts the people of this country, which is the problem of real wages. Without grave injury to the industries of this country, I maintain you cannot raise wages unless you increase the price of commodities or greatly increase the volume of your trade. We are driven to admit that if we establish a rise in wages in this country we must face far fiercer foreign competition in the future. We have to defend our industry from competition which is the result of a minimum wage and the burdens recently placed upon industry, and we must find scope for greater volume of production, and foreign tariffs only make this possible in the markets of the Mother-country and our Dominions overseas. In that way only can wages be raised, and in that way only can we absorb in our industrial system the unemployment which at the present moment is cutting the whole standard of wages down. We submit, if the House would regard this question in a non-party spirit in the same way as we regard naval questions, there is sufficient potentiality in the British Empire to give employment to the whole of this country, and, in addition, to raise the price of labour throughout the Mother-country.

Since the Dominions gave the preference to this country a marvellous change has come over our trade. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the Dominions at the present moment are saving the situation every year. We find last year Australia, situated twelve or thirteen thousand miles away, with its five millions of people, bought more manufactured goods from this country than Germany, with its sixty-five millions of people across the North Sea. We find that New Zealand, with a population of only one-seventh that of Belgium, bought more manufactured goods from this country than Belgium, and that seven million Canadians gave more wages to the British working man last year than forty-five million Frenchmen twenty-one miles across the English Channel. These facts entirely alter the whole position. In the old days it was a question of considering whether preference to the Colonies would not be a sacrifice. To-day we have to realise that the Dominions are saving the situation for labour in this country, and that we owe to the Dominions themselves an enormous increase in wages for our industrial people. If we consider for one moment that in the year 1910 Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Russia, and Switzerland, with 281,000,000 people bought £67,400,000 worth of manufactures in this country, and Australia, South Africa, Canada, and New Zealand, with 13,000,000 people, bought £68,700,000 worth of manufactures from this country, we realise that those 13,000,000 people in our Colonies bought more than the 281,000,000 people in our neighbouring great markets in Europe. Four of our Dominions bought £80,000,000 worth of manufactured produce last year, with a population of 13,000,000 people, and can anyone deny that in thirty years' time that population will have become 52,000,000, and if we keep the comparative position we hold to-day that means that we shall be doing a trade of £320,000,000 annually with those countries, or an increase of £240,000,000 within the next thirty years in our trade, or £120,000,000 extra in wages for the workers of this country, simply by instituting a proper business arrangement with our Colonies and keeping that position for ourselves? The Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission asserted that if £10,000,000 extra could be circulated amongst the unemployed we could cure unemployment. I maintain that with the enormous increase of our trade to which I have alluded we could circulate £120,000,000 extra in wages in this country, and if that is so hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway will realise that this is the one way of permanently insuring the working classes against bad times and securing a greater amount of employment for the people living in our midst.

Our Empire trade employs twice as many men as we have in the mines of this country. It gives twice as much employment as the great army of miners we have recently seen out on strike, and without our Empire trade we should have at least three times as many unemployed as we have at the worst times. With these facts in mind, can there be any further hesitation that it is necessary to insure this vast wage bill for our workers before it is too late, more especially realising that foreign countries have their trade agents swarming over our Dominions trying to secure the trade which we ought to have if we act on business lines?

How does the hon. Member propose to alter that state of things except by legislation?

By the trade agent system, Consular agents, closer cable communications, and better emigration organisations, all of which could be carried out under the present system.

If the hon. Member means that is his solution, of course he is entitled to proceed; but if he has in the back of his mind, as I rather think he has, Colonial Preference, that is a question which cannot be discussed to-day upon the Motion for Adjournment, because it involves legislation, and we cannot discuss legislation on this occasion.

Will it be in order to discuss a State-owned cable in our Debate to-day, because I think that would involve legislation.

May I ask whether we can discuss the questions raised at the last Conference with which the Government intend to deal?

Anything can be discussed which does not require legislation. This is the opportunity for criticising the administration, and if the hon. Member has any fault to find with the Colonial Office, the Board of Trade, or any other office, now is the time; but so far as legislation is concerned that is a question which cannot be discussed now.

I have a great desire to criticise the past action of His Majesty's Government, and I do not intend to sketch out any definite proposals. What I was endeavouring to do was to criticise the inaction of the Government in the past. I will now turn to the question of the burden of armaments. Every single party in this country admits the danger of the burden of armaments continuing at the present rate. Is it unreasonable to hope that it will make a very great difference if we are sympathetic in our treatment of the Colonies in regard to the burden of armaments which exists in this country? Compare the generous policy of our Dominions with regard to trading with this country with what I regard as the selfish policy of the Government in refusing to meet them half way owing to the immutable laws of Cobden, which are mutable with regard to the Insurance Bill and the Minimum Wage Bill, but which are immutable in regard to matters affecting our Colonies. Those laws are only considered immutable when we are dealing with our kinsmen across the seas. We have recently had a great warning in this respect from America. The whole world has been at the feet of Canada, and yet the Mother-country has refused to treat with her in regard to some very important questions. With regard to all those great Imperial questions the Government has done nothing, and the Colonial Office alone remains in the same position it was in one hundred years ago. I do not believe that the Secretary of State for the Colonies really desires to remain longer in that position. I really believe that his conservatism in this respect would stagger even the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), because he refuses in any way to meet the changed conditions of the times.

We make this appeal to the Government not only because, as Imperialists, we desire to see some return given to the Dominions for the great trade concessions they have made for us, and for their great gifts of "Dreadnoughts" and Fleet units which they are now building up, but because we feel just as much as hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway the condition of the workers of this country to be going backward instead of forward, and we maintain that the only way we can solve these great social difficulties with which we are confronted in this country is by the organisation of our Imperial forces and by endeavouring to put our whole Imperial policy upon a business footing. For that reason we ask the Government to look differently upon these questions, because we realise the vast increase in trade which has taken place in the last few years, and we believe that by this means alone can we really solve the difficulties which surround us which are agitating our country and blighting the lives of so many thousands of our citizens, and at the same time are keeping the standard of wages low and the price of food high. We ask them to look at it from this point of view, and I believe, if the Government were to take any action on a non-party basis in improving the position with regard to the Empire, they would find that every single Member on these benches would support them to the best of their ability.

I did not quite understand, Sir, whether you gave any reply to the Postmaster-General. I wish to know whether we should be in order in discussing the action of this Government in proposing, for instance, a State-aided cable to Canada, Australia, or any other of the Dominions?

On a point of Order, I would point out that before the last Imperial Conference it was decided that unless reductions in cable rates were carried out a subsidiary conference should be held. Those who wish to raise the question are simply calling attention to the fact that the Government have not called that subsidiary conference together.

That is a point which can be properly discussed now. With regard to a State-aided cable, I am not quite so sure whether legislation would be necessary. I should think an anuual Vote of Supply would cover it, but I do not like at a moment's notice to give any definite answer to that question. It is evident, however, the other matters with regard to proposing tariffs with foreign countries with a view of promoting Imperial Preference cannot be discussed to-day.

May I ask you, Sir, whether your ruling would prevent our raising the question of the action of the Foreign Office with regard to recent commercial treaties?

I should like to hear what particular question the hon. Member wishes to raise.

I wish to deal with that part of the question raised by my hon. Friend which does not require special legislation, but which refers to the trade between this country and the Crown Colonies, Dependencies, and Protectorates of the Empire, including India, as distinguished from the self-governing Dominions. At the last Imperial Conference it was decided that a Royal Commission should be appointed to inquire into the trade between the self-governing Dominions and the Mother-country and between all parts of the self-governing Dominions of the Empire, but in the terms of reference there was nothing to show they were to inquire into the trade between the Crown Colonies, Dependencies, and Protectorates and the Mother-country. These parts of the Empire, including India, in 1910 had a total trade of £372,000,000 in exports and imports, and out of that the United Kingdom had only £141,000,000 of that trade. I wish to deal first of all with the Crown Colonies, Dependencies, and Protectorates apart from India. These parts of the Empire had a total trade of £175,000,000, and the United Kingdom only had £51,000,000 of that trade. The Mother-country only got 26 per cent. as regards imports; in other words, she only got something like one-quarter of the trade, three-quarters of it going to other parts of the Empire and to foreign countries. In regard to the export trade of those parts of the Empire, the Mother-country only got 33 per cent. It is quite true that other parts of the Empire got a large percentage. This point was raised yesterday in an answer I received from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. J. M. Robertson) who pointed out with regard to the trade of the Straits Settlements that something like £16,000,000 was transhipment of foreign goods, and was not really export trade at all. There was included in that sum of £16,000,000 no less than £8,000,000 of British goods transhipped to foreign countries. Therefore, giving credit for £8,000,000 of British goods for transhipment, there still remains a balance of exports to foreign countries of £24,000,000, as against only £24,000,000 sent to the United Kingdom. We are spending over £1,000,000 in administering those parts of the Empire, and we are also spending over £2,000,000 in the military defence as distinguished from the naval defence of those parts of the Empire, and, in view of that fact, and also in view of the fact that we have at the present time 20,000 soldiers garrisoning the various ports and Protectorates of the Empire, I say that our share of that trade is nothing like adequate.

I suggest this is not a party question. We should look at it entirely from the point of view of existing circumstances, and not from any point of view which involves a change in our fiscal system. These Crown Colonies, Protectorates, and Dependencies have been saddled with the same fiscal system as the Mother-country, and, personally, I believe that to a very large extent is the cause of our not doing more trade with them, but, even under the present system, it would be possible in the case of nearly all those Crown Colonies and Protectorates to give a preference without legislation. Nearly every one of them has a tariff for revenue purposes, and it would be possible to give the Mother-country a preference in that tariff without hurting the feelings of hon. Members opposite who do not like the idea of departing from Free Trade. If the Government were to give that preference in the existing revenue tariff, the Mother-country would get a great deal more of their trade than at the present time. An hon. Member asked me what would happen to the revenue of those Crown Colonies and Protectorates. The revenue could be increased on foreign goods and diminished on our goods. That is not a protective policy; it is simply giving a preference to the Mother-country. I would in support of that put forward this view: that our competitors in the Colonies take very good care that we shall not enter their markets on the same footing as the Mother-country. Holland, France, and Germany in every case see that the tariffs in their dependencies and colonies are so framed as to favour the Mother-country rather than foreigners. I suggest that we take a leaf out of their book, and in so doing I am sure we cannot offend against the tenets of Free Trade.

Then, again, we could increase our trade by sending out to the Colonies and Protectorates experts as Trade Commissioners, commercial agents, in the same way as other countries do which are trying to develop their trade in foreign parts. Canada is sending out specially trained men for that purpose. I have in my hand a list of the Trade Commissioners for Canada. There are twenty-seven of them, and they are sent out for the sole purpose of pushing the trade of Canada, and to find out opportunities for increasing it. In addition to that there are Canadian Trade Commissioners in nearly every important market in the world and nearly every self-governing Dominion. They have three in the West Indies and one each in Australasia and South Africa. So much for Canada. Let us turn to America. America, although her border line is next door to Canada, for the sole purpose of pushing American trade in Canada, are doing exactly the same thing. So too is Germany. Why should we, who in this country which prides itself on having such an enormous export and import trade, fall behind other nations in this respect? We have only four or five of these paid Commissioners, one in each of our principal self-governing Dominions. But if we were to develop that service and send our Trade Commissioners to such groups of our Crown Colonies as the West Indies and those in the Pacific, and on the Atlantic, the result would be that our trade would enormously increase. It should be the duty of these Trade Commissioners to ascertain the character of foreign competition, to discover new openings for British trade, to assist British firms in finding local agents, to inquire into the question of transportation, to report on the opportunities that exist for the establishment of branch British factories, and to send home for the inspection of British manufacturers samples of goods which are underselling and undercutting the exports of this country.

That is especially the case in India, where an enormous trade is done by foreign countries—much larger than the statistics show—in selling imitations of British goods in the bazaars. If we had Trade Commissioners they could send home these articles, and our manufacturers would no doubt be able to meet that competition. They could also send home information as to the opportunities that exist for procuring in India and other parts of the Empire the raw material necessary for manufactures in this country. The statistics as regards trade in the Crown Colonies are exceedingly misleading, because they are based on the Customs Returns, which only record the countries in which the goods are manufactured. It is probable that 50 per cent. of the goods shipped from British ports are of foreign origin. I would in that connection like to draw attention to the way in which statistics of Indian imports are published at present. Since 1906 our trade with India has drooped from 66 per cent. to 61 per cent. There is no doubt whatever that a very large proportion has been wrongly described as British trade when it should be described as foreign trade, although it is shipped in British bottoms to India. Only last year I put a question to the President of the Board of Trade, and he said that in future the Returns should show the country of origin. But even with these statistics we shall not really be able to discover exactly what the foreign trade of India is, because a very large amount of goods are shipped to this country and landed in London or some other port and are then reshipped to the East. They are shown as British exports when, as a fact, they are foreign exports. In India, in all probability, our trade is not more than 55 per cent. of the whole. That is not a satisfactory condition of affairs. There the total trade is £197,000,000 a year, and if that is not a place where we ought to have Trade Commissioners I cannot conceive of any country in the world where we should. It is quite true we have very excellent statistical reports from administrators in every part of India. These administrators are some of the best in the world, but then they have no commercial training. All their lives have been spent in administration, and they cannot be expected to give the manufacturers and merchants of this country all the information which they require. It is absurd to expect it. The only way in which this information can be obtained for this country is by sending specially trained experts to these parts of the Empire in the same way as other nations do. I say we are not doing enough to promote our trade. The first duty of any Government is to promote the trade of the country, and I therefore strongly urge on the Government to try and push the trade of the country along the lines I have indicated.

I think the hon. Member (Mr. Croft) has done a really useful service in drawing attention to the neglect on the part of the Government of their administrative responsibilities in promoting the organisation of the Empire. I know the Speaker has ruled that we are not to discuss legislative questions to-day, and I fully admit that a discussion of the details or character of a preferential tariff would not be in order, but I submit that the administrative action of the Government in refusing to allow the Imperial Commission which they promised at the last Conference even to inquire into the question does justify us in dealing, at any rate, with the most general aspects of it. After all, while the actual execution of the work of Imperial organisation in detail will involve legislation here and in other parts of the British Empire, our complaint is not the absence or defect of this or that law, but of the general attitude of passivity, reluctance, and inaction on the part of the Government, not only towards the proposals for Preference, but towards any and every proposal which seems calculated to foster and strengthen the unity of the Empire. Let me take, for instance, the question of this Commission itself. It was understood that the Commissioners would be appointed immediately after the Conference. The Conference took place many months since. We gather from the Government that nothing is happening, but that they are still waiting for the names of some Commissioners. Apparently they consider it the duty of the Dominions to press forward the Commission, and not their duty to get the matter into working order. Again, on this question of cables, it is clear, not only as regards New Zealand, but as regards Canada, that it is we in this country who are lagging behind, and surely if hon. Gentlemen opposite are so strongly opposed to the one particular method of unifying the Empire which we believe in have they not an even greater responsibility in pressing forward other alternative remedies which are not in conflict with any shibboleth? There was a very important Debate in the House of Commons at Ottawa on 29th February, in which it was clear that both the Opposition, as represented by Mr. Lemieux, the late Postmaster-General, and the Government, as represented by the present Postmaster-General, are in favour of much more active work in connection with the Atlantic cable service than the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Herbert Samuel). May I quote a few words from the speech of the present Postmaster-General, Mr. Pelletier:—

"We desire to trade with the Mother-country, and in order to carry on that trade with facility we must have cable communication at the cheapest cost possible. Of course, the day may come—and the day will come—when the Mother-country will have some kind of reciprocal relations with the Colony."

He added that that was not the business of the Department, but he made it quite clear that he, as well as Mr. Lemieux, was in favour of an active line on this question of the Atlantic cable, and he also made it clear in an extract which he read from the letters of the right hon. Gentleman that it is this country, as represented by the present Government, which is not playing up. He said:—

"I do not wish to say anything in criticism of the Postmaster-General of England, but I am bound to give the facts to the House."

He ended by saying:—

"I repeat my expression of regret at the attitude taken up by Mr. Samuel."

I think we can only in this House repeat our expression of regret. Surely Gentlemen of every shade of thought will admit that, both from the point of view of trade and of strategy, anything which can facilitate communication does enormously strengthen trade and strengthens our defensive position. The same applies to cables and to the question of the All-Red Route. That was brought forward five years ago as an alternative and met with a very cool reception from the present Government. During all this time not a single step, as far as we have ever been able to ascertain, has been taken by the Government even to inquire seriously into the advantages and the possibilities of a really fast steamship service between this country and Canada, and between Canada and the Imperial possessions in the Pacific. Surely, while we are withdrawing our Navy more and more from the Pacific and from the Mediterranean and concentrating in home waters, it is all the more urgent that we should be in the most rapid communication with the outlying parts of the Empire and that we should have fast steamers which would serve either for the carriage of troops or which might in emergency act as cruisers for the protection of our mercantile trade. Again, the question of the Suez Canal was brought forward more than once at recent Conferences. The opening of the Panama Canal is going seriously to shift the world's trade, and at our expense, unless we take means to counteract it. We have got a great interest, as a Government, in the Suez Canal. An immense volume of trade going to the rest of the Empire passes through there and is handicapped by heavy tolls. Surely it will not be against the principles of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite to listen to the representations made by the Australasian Colonies on more than one occasion and see if something cannot be done either to reduce or else to repay in part or in whole the Suez Canal dues to British ships.

Again, the whole question of Preference in the Crown Colonies is not a question of legislation at all, but of the administrative action of the Government. It has been suggested by an hon. Member that from the financial point of view it would be unworkable. Is he aware that there are several Crown Colonies at this moment where a preferential system is at work, namely, the Protectorates in South Africa, which have the same preferential system in operation as the self-governing Dominion of the Union? Has he also forgotten the fact that a Commission appointed by this Government have expressed themselves in favour of such a preferential arrangement as between the West Indies and Canada. Surely we have here a very strong case indeed for blaming this Government—the right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench—for administrative neglect towards these great Imperial problems. Our objections are, I venture to submit, brought forward at an opportune time, because we hold, at any rate, on this side of the House—and I think that really our views are shared by many hon. Members on the other side of the House, who do not agree with us generally—that in the long run you can only solve the great problems with which you are faced—the problem of defence, and the problem of social unrest—by some measure for the greater organisation of this Empire.

Let us, after all, consider this question of social unrest with which we have been brought into such close and painful contact during the past few weeks. I do not wish to discuss the particular question of coal mines, but I would say that I do feel some dislike at the way in which the pressure of one powerful organised section of the workers led to agile deference on the part of the House of Commons in the matter of legislation, whereas the question as it affects millions of people outside is still waiting for some action to meet their needs. Here we have in this small country a large population and a total volume of production inadequate to supply that population with a reasonable real wage. I put some questions to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade the other day, and from the replies it is clear that the net output of our industries amounts to just over £700,000,000, and the gross output to £1,700,000,000. Out of that £700,000,000 before the workers receive any remuneration whatever you have to take profits, the cost of management, interest, rent, rates, taxes, depreciation, replacement of machinery, insurance, and advertisement. I tried to ascertain from the hon. Member what proportion of the whole these items might amount to. He was unable to give an answer, but I consulted various business men, and they say that the minimum to cover all these different items would be 20 per cent. on the gross output, that is to say, £352,000,000. Subtract that from £712,000,000, which is the net output, and you have barely £360,000,000 left to furnish wages to 7,000,000 workers—in other words, barely an average of £1 a week for the workers of this country. Unless you increase the total production of the country, you cannot increase the real remuneration of the workers, and you cannot really cope with the problem of industrial unrest. I say that, side by side with any efforts made to deal directly with the grievances of the workers, the Government ought to have been more vigilant and active in trying to bring about the business organisation of the Empire, by which alone they can really increase the total production of this country, and thereby the total remuneration given to the workers of this country.

If I may compare the figures I have mentioned with those of the United States, I would point out that there you have among 10,000,000 workers a net output in the same industries of some £1,700,000,000—in other words, you have £170 per head per year as against £100 per head of the workers in this country, and the proportion between these figures is very close to the comparison between the real wages in the two countries, because, after all, real wages and production are the same thing. The workers live on what they produce. I know that hon. Members opposite say that the United States are a new and vast country, and that they have illimitable resources of raw material which we have not got in this crowded old country here; but our answer is, that if the United States are a new and vast country, the British Empire is newer and vaster, and that if we are a crowded and old industrial country here, it is also true that the Eastern States of the American nation, such as Massachusetts and New York, are as old, industrially, as Lancashire or Yorkshire. The reason why the conditions are different there is that the old States on the Atlantic seaboard are part of one great business organisation, so that every new development in the farthest part of the United States, and every new development in the Philippines and Porto Rico, enures to the benefit of those working under those conditions. All we are arguing for, and all we press this Government to do, is as an Administration to consider whether we cannot improve the conditions of the workers of this country by linking up their willing hands to the boundless resources that exist in other parts of the Empire. I know that objections are urged that you would be increasing the cost of living and reducing the real wage. There are really two different questions. There is the question of the price to the consumer here, which is of vital importance to us in this country, and the question to the farmer in Canada or Australia, which is not what price the consumer here pays but what profit he gets.

It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman is actually trenching on the work to be done by the Commission, and that does not arise on this Debate.

At the beginning Mr. Speaker ruled that any reference to preferential legislation would be out of order, but I understand that he did allow that the question of Colonial Preference in quite general terms could be discussed. We are dealing with the Executive inaction of the Government in not even inquiring into this matter. They have refused to allow Preference with the other parts of the Empire to be inquired into.

It is quite in order for the hon. Member to deal generally with the question, but the work of the Commission must, of course, be left to the Commission. I must ask the hon. Member to confine his remarks to what was referred to in the early portion of the Debate, namely, the question of administration. Beyond that I cannot allow him to go.

May I ask your ruling on the point whether it would not be permissible for my hon. Friend or any other Member to refer to the Reference to the Commission and to the subjects which they will be expected to inquire into and discuss?

I will deal with the point when it arises.

I do not wish to pursue that particular argument, but I think we can say that the general question of the business organisation of the Empire is vitally connected with the question of our social conditions in this country. A particular remedy may or may not involve legislation, and in deference to your ruling I will not touch on particular remedies, but I do think that it ought to be a matter of common agreement on all sides of this House to promote the business organisation of the Empire. To bring together the Empire in trade development in every part is a matter which is of the very first interest to every social reformer, because it gives him the groundwork of an efficient production, on which alone the superstructure of further social reform can be based. If an Imperial organisation is of the first interest to social reformers in this country, it is of no less interest to those who are concerned with the great problem of defence. We have listened within the last few days to the Naval Estimates. On every side of the House there was acquiescence, a sombre acquiescence in some parts, as to the absolute necessity of paying these enormous sums for the maintenance of our security and of our trade. The Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated only yesterday that even further sums may be required this year. How much further is this going to go on? How much longer are we in this country, with only £700,000,000 net production, to bear Naval and Military Estimates which swell out our Budgets to something like £200,000,000? It is appalling to contemplate a tax of £200,000,000 on a net production of £700,000,000 and a gross production of £1,700,000,000. Yet every side of the House has come to the conclusion that there is no good in protesting against these armaments as long as the general situation of the world is what it is to-day. If we cannot devolve the burdens from our shoulders, cannot we do something to broaden the shoulders which have to bear them? Cannot we call a new world of Empire into being to redress the balance of the old world in which we are being weighed down? Ought we not to welcome every proposal, however much it may conflict with our natural prejudices, which would endeavour to make it easier for the Dominions to help us in bearing this burden of defence? We know that they are willing. We know, on the other hand, that they are still in the stage of development, and that their surplus wealth is limited. We also know that in many ways the full extent of their interest in the Empire has not been brought home to them. Here again surely every measure which brings Canadians into closer contact with Englishmen, makes them understand the requirements of the Empire more, makes them more willing to play a part in the defence of the Empire. Every measure which increases the volume of trade between Canada and England, increases the direct interest of Canada in the sea supremacy of the Empire. Again, every measure, whatever it may be, which increases the volume of goods bought by this country from Canada adds to the population and economic resources of Canada and adds to her power of contributing to the defence of the Empire. To these considerations we appeal. We ask you to consider the bearing of Imperial unity upon the narrower problems that we have to confront here at home, and if the Government are not prepared to introduce the legislation which we desire on this side of the House, at any rate we do feel that they might do a great deal more in other directions which they have not done, and might at least in their administrative action show a greater activity, a greater readiness to act, and a greater measure of sympathy for Imperial proposals than they have shown in the past.

Perhaps it would be convenient if at this juncture I said a few words with respect to the specific question affecting my Department which has been raised during the discussion to-day: the question of cable rates with special reference to the advisability of the construction of a State-owned Atlantic cable. The Government, of course, do not differ in any degree from hon. Members who have raised this question as to the importance to the Empire—the political, strategic, and commercial importance of cheap and rapid means of communication. They are indeed quite essential to the maintenance of the unity of the Empire, and to the drawing of its parts closer together. If our Empire had still to rely for its communication upon sailing ships, it is very doubtful whether its unity would have been so long maintained. If it had to rely only on the steamer, its continued existence would have been perhaps difficult. It is the cable which, more than any other one thing perhaps has contributed to the closer Imperial unity which now exists, and in which all parties in this House rejoice. For my part, so sensible have I been of these facts that since I have held the office of Postmaster-General I have been continually at work with a view to securing the reductions in the cable rates, and I am very happy to think that I have been successful in several directions in effecting those reductions. But before I refer to them I might point to the fact, which has not been mentioned in the discussion to-day, that more important than any reductions in the particular rates to the commercial community at large, has been a change which was effected at the last International Telegraph Conference. At that conference the use of artificial code words was sanctioned. The result of that has been that a single word sent in code across the cable is now able to contain within itself four, five, six, and sometimes as many as seven or eight ordinary words. The commercial community has derived more advantage from that change than from any reduction in rates, even as great as those that have been suggested here to-day. With regard to rates themselves, I may point out as regards the rates for code traffic that although per word the cost may seem great in effect it is not really at present very expensive. The rate of a shilling a word across the Atlantic is in practice to the commercial community a rate of not, on an average, more than about twopence or threepence per word of plain-language telegrams, and similarly the two shilling code rate to Australia is in practice a rate of perhaps fourpence or sixpence a word for plain-word telegrams. Where the rates press heavily is in respect of plain-language social telegrams, as they are usually called. With regard to them a very large proportion are not of an urgent character; they are communications which cannot wait to be sent as letters, but they are not urgent from the point of view of minutes or even of hours. Therefore I have concentrated my attention on endeavouring to induce the cable company to give reductions in plain-language telegrams which are not of an urgent character, and reductions of very large amounts.

Those efforts, I am happy to say, have been successful. They have not been small reductions as the hon. Member for Christchurch suggested. They have been reductions of 50 per cent., and whereas a year ago it cost 1s. a word to send any kind of telegram, except Press telegrams, across the Atlantic, now any plain-language telegram of a non-urgent character can be sent at 6d. a word. The rates to Australia have been reduced from 3s. to 1s. 6d., and now, throughout the world, this class of telegram can be sent at a reduction of 50 per cent. on the previous rate. Further than that, one of the great groups of American companies has given even larger reductions in respect of telegrams of a certain length which are dispatched at night, and others which are dispatched during the week-end—reductions even exceeding 50 per cent., and these new facilities have been largely made between this country and Canada, and between this country and the United States. Similar considerations apply to Press telegrams. Many of them are not of an urgent character, for the reason that delay would not really affect their use; and here, also, I have secured reductions throughout the Empire of 50 per cent. or more in deferred Press rates. The rate to Canada, instead of 5d. is now 2½d.; the rate to Australia and New Zealand, by the Pacific route, instead of 9d. is now 4½d.; and the rate to South Africa, instead of 9d. is now 3½d. It may be said that it is essential that the Press should have their news hot and without any delay of any kind before any part of it is transmitted. That is not the view of the Press itself.

I have been able to obtain figures from the Pacific Cable Board, and I find that during the month of February—the latest figures that I have received—the Press have sent more telegrams to Australia at the deferred rate of 4½d. than were sent at the urgent rate of 9d., so that this facility was used to the extent of nearly 30,000 words during the month, and the ordinary Press telegrams were about 1,000 words fewer. The exact figures are 28,913 words deferred, and 28,095 words ordinary. With a view to improving the strategic communications of the Empire, and also to enable Press rates to be reduced, I have entered into arrangements, as the House is aware, with the Marconi Company for the erection of a chain of wireless stations to connect this country with India, Australia, and New Zealand at a total cost of over half a million pounds, which, we believe, will be of importance from a naval and military point of view, but which will also, we anticipate, enable the rates to be reduced for wireless telegrams, and at the same time will not be unremunerative to the Governments which are partners in this enterprise. It is a plan which will place the British Empire far in advance of any country in the world respecting wireless telegraphy. Hon Members opposite are in favour of a specific which would achieve more than this, and their specific is to construct a State-owned cable between this country and Canada. Let me say, in the first place, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that when I raised a point of Order on this matter, I only did so for the sake of information, and I was in no degree desirous of preventing discussion on the subject. On the contrary, I welcome this opportunity of making to the House a somewhat fuller, though I hope still brief statement, than I have been able to do previously in answer to questions. There are two reasons which hon. Members opposite give for their proposal of a particular cable across the Atlantic.

The first is the strategical reason. The hon. Member for Christchurch, who raised this discussion, said that it was a danger to the Empire that our cable should go across the Atlantic and should be in the hands of American companies, and that there was a risk of our strategic secrets, that was his phrase, being made known to other countries through this circumstance. How are our secrets to be made known? Does the hon. Gentleman really imagine that Admiralty telegrams are sent in plain language? Has he got in his mind's eye a telegram from the Admiralty to the commander of the Fleet on some Canadian station, that war is imminent and that the Fleet should concentrate at such-and-such a point? Does he really suppose some employé of the American company will be ale to hand this over to some American newspaper, or to some person who is adverse to our interests?

I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but I would call his attention to the fact that no cipher code is a secret at the present time, and that it is known to all leading telegraph experts that practically every single code can be deciphered if the message is of sufficient volume.

If the message is of sufficient volume. I should be sorry to think that our Admiralty communications which are sent throughout the world in cipher could be deciphered by foreign governments that may be interested in their contents. However that may be, as a matter of fact, all these cables, controlled as they are by foreign companies, land on British territory on the other side of the Atlantic, and if we were engaged in any hostility with a foreign country on the other side of the Atlantic, which, of course, is in the highest degree improbable, there is no doubt that emergency measures would have to be taken for the protection of our communications. But I believe the contingency is so remote that it is not one to which the Government need attach any importance.

I did not wish to insinuate that there was any possibility of war; I was only referring to the undesirability of having any strategic secret going to different parts of the Empire, even with the neutrality of the United States. It is not a question of war with the United States.

The hon. Member, I think, spoke, first, as to whether we were at war with some European country, and, secondly, whether the sending of a cipher telegram which could be deciphered by an employé of an American company, who might communicate with the European Power if we were at war. Really such a contingency is so remote that I do not think this House should make any costly provision to meet it. The second reason which is advanced as a ground for laying a State-owned cable across the Atlantic is that it would enable us to reduce the rates. That is, of course, the prime motive for this proposal. In the first place, I adhere to the position which I took up at the Imperial Conference that a State-owned cable across the Atlantic would undoubtedly be run at a loss. The reasons are these: It remains the fact that it could obtain no constant and certain volume of Canadian business, for the reason that the land lines in Canada are not the property of the Canadian companies, but belong to groups of companies which are in close connection and alliance with the cable companies; and if the cable companies were to be subjected to a rate-cutting competition by the State it is certain that the allied companies which controlled the land lines of Canada would not give facilities to the cablegrams which passed across the State-owned cable, and would not assist the Post Office in this country to undercut the companies with which they are in alliance. But the hon. Member says there is one company which is not so tied, the Grand Trunk Lines of Canada, and they have communications with several of the chief towns of Canada. The facilities that would be offered by that company and by the companies with which it is allied would, I am sure, be quite inadequate to furnish a general service throughout the Dominion of Canada. The Post Office of this country could not possibly put itself in the position of offering to the business community of England facilities for communication by a State-owned cable only to certain towns in Canada. We could not put up a notice in the Post Office to the effect that communications could only be sent to those towns in Canada, and that anyone who wished to connect with any other town must go to some private company with which we are in competition. That is not a position in which we could place ourselves. The fact remains that we could not get land connections in Canada to such an extent as to secure that we should be able to enter into competition with the other companies in the large volume of Canadian business, nor could we send across from this side any large volume of business, even if we could get those connections, because we have an old standing agreement with the Anglo-American Company, which was entered into by the Government at the time when the telegraphs were taken over by the State, and which provides that all unordered traffic—that is, traffic which is not directed to a particular line—shall be sent by the lines of the Anglo-American Company.

made an observation which was inaudible.

That would be a very strong step indeed.

Is it to go on for ever?

I believe there is no specific provision for determining it at any particular date, but it might have to be considered how far it would be legitimate to deprive the company of facilities which they were given years-ago, and which were originally given as an inducement for capitalists to come forward and to lay any Atlantic cable at all in days when the enterprise was exceedingly speculative. The Pacific cable traffic would be assured to such a new company. That traffic would amount to something between a million and a million and a quarter words, while the average loading of the existing Atlantic cables is two and a half million words or upwards. In other words, if the State-owned cable was to rely only on the Pacific cable traffic, it would do half as much business as any of the existing cables, which are loaded only to the extent of half their capacity. The average loading—that is, the average traffic—of the Atlantic cable is two and a half million words per year, while their capacity is somewhere between five and five and a half million. The cost of an Atlantic cable would be about half a million pounds if you laid only one, but these cables are liable to interruption, and if there were interruption in that one Government cable we should have to depend on the kindness and good will of the companies with which we were in active competition to carry out traffic during that time. Of course interruptions do occur to all cables from time to time. My advisers assure me on the best estimate they can form, and it is an estimate by no means weighted against the proposal, but what they regard as fair and proper, that the annual cost of the maintenance and working of such a cable, including sinking fund and interest charges, would be about £50,000 per year, and the probable revenue would be about £25,000 per year. That estimate was made a little while ago and perhaps now it might be increased somewhat. Therefore there would most certainly be a loss on this cable, so we estimate, approaching 50 per cent. of the expenditure upon it. In this House we are continually appealed to by hon. Members opposite to limit our State expenditure. Whenever questions of taxation are raised we have urgent appeals for national economy and for the limitation of expenditure generally.

Unnecessary expenditure.

I know hon. Members may urge that this is necessary State expenditure, but the fact remains that I do not think that during the two years I have been Postmaster-General I have received a single suggestion from any Member of the Opposition side of the House, or indeed from any quarter of the House, which has not involved in greater or less degree an increase of national expenditure, or which has not involved a loss of some economy which I have been trying to effect. Hero, at all events, the Government can see no reason for incurring what they regard as a certain loss in order to achieve results which can be achieved without any risk of loss at all. Perhaps I may be wrong in regard to the period of the Anglo-American Agreement. I am informed it is thought that it may expire in the year 1928. Therefore I am very glad to assure hon. Members that we shall not be bound for all time, but 1928 is far enough away to prevent us acting now with a view to the reductions that may be effected at that time.

The hon. Member for Central Finsbury (Major Archer-Shee) said that we have got now the whole of the Atlantic traffic in the control of two groups of companies, and that, though it was true that those two groups are now engaged in active competition, that at any time they might combine, and, having combined, they might rearrange their rates to our disadvantage, to use his own phrase. He has completely left out of account the measure which I have recently taken which secures Government control of cable rates, and which is the greatest advance in this matter, I venture to say, which has been made by any Administration for very many years past. Almost all the landing licences of the Atlantic cable companies have come up for renewal within the last year or two, all of them except that, I think, of the Direct United States Company, which has only one line to the States. I refused to renew any of them except with the insertion of a clause to the effect that the Government here, the Postmaster-General, is to have the right to call on those companies to reduce their rates. The companies are given an appeal to the Railway and Canal Commission to protect them against any unreasonable demand that might be made upon them. The hon. Members who have dealt with this question have made no reference whatever to this most important step, a step which makes it quite impossible for any combination of Atlantic cable companies to raise their rates to the disadvantage of the community. When the combination was effected and when the American group took over the lines of the Anglo-American Company and the United States Company, this matter became one of urgent importance, and I regarded, with a certain measure of equanimity, the possibility of combination between the various interests; because I had secured absolute Government control over rates which would render it quite impossible for any trust to be formed to raise rates against the interests of the commercial community and the rest of the nation.

How long do those landing licences run for?

They last for varying periods of years, but the control of rates is not at the moment of renewal, but is a continuing control; and at any time during the currency of the licence it may be, if necessary and if found advisable, put into operation. I am not proposing to put this control into immediate operation, in view of the fact that the companies have voluntarily made such very large reductions in their rates quite recently. But after we have had some little time in which the effect of those reductions can be observed the question will come up for consideration whether the present rates for Press telegrams and urgent messages should not require to be revised under the powers which are now conferred upon the Postmaster-General in this country.

Let me point out, lastly, what has been the fate of this proposal for a State-owned Atlantic cable on almost every occasion when it has been recently discussed and when the powerful arguments against it have been fairly and adequately stated. The proposal was first made to the Imperial Conference. There was on the agenda paper a specific resolution, in the name of the Governments of Australia and New Zealand, asking the Conference to decide in favour of a State-owned Atlantic cable. When the Conference had heard and was fully seized of the risks and disadvantages of this proposal, and was made aware of the alternative steps that might be taken without a State-owned Atlantic cable, the resolution was withdrawn, and a resolution, which I myself moved, and which has been referred to to-day, was substituted for it. That resolution provided that if considerable reductions in Atlantic cable rates were not made, the question should be again considered. What was meant by "considerable reductions"? I stated clearly to the Conference precisely what reductions were contemplated. The report does not refer to the Press telegram reduction, because that, at the time, was confidential. I stated quite clearly to the Conference what were the reductions that I was endeavouring to procure, and it was on my statement, followed by my resolution, the terms of which were based upon my statement, the original resolution was withdrawn. The Conference was fully aware that the considerable reductions referred to in the resolution were the reductions which I was then endeavouring to secure, and which have since, in fact, been effected.

At the same time is it not the fact that neither Canada nor New Zealand is satisfied with those reductions?

I am happy to think that our Dominion Governments are not yet in such a state of atrophy that they are likely to be satisfied with any reductions, and that in all parts of the Empire, whatever is received, we shall be glad to have more. Neither I nor the Colonial Secretary has had any intimation from the Dominions asking us to call the subsidiary conference referred to in the resolution, and, in view of the fact that the reductions contemplated at the time the resolution was moved have been since in fact effected, I am sure that the Dominions are not likely to make any such proposal. The matter was brought up in the Canadian House of Commons on 29th February last. Hon Members opposite have suggested that the Canadian Postmaster-General is in favour of their proposal. He has been quoted as a supporter of their plans and as a critic of my objections. The case is not so. The Canadian Postmaster - General indeed regrets that further reductions than those already made are not yet in contemplation, and very naturally so. Why should he not desire continuous and always increasing reductions in the cable rates? But so far as the State-owned Atlantic cable is concerned, these are his words in the Canadian House of Commons:—

"I do not think it will be necessary to have a State-owned cable. There are many heavy drains on the public Treasury of Canada. In this young country we have to expend a great deal of money to keep pace with the progress of the times, so that if we can dispense with the expenditure on a State-owned cable the money thus saved can very well be applied elsewhere."

So that Mr. Pelletier, the Canadian Postmaster-General, himself has declared that his view is the same as my own, and that a State-owned cable is unnecessary. In view of these circumstances, I do not see how hon. Members opposite can say that we are lagging behind Canada in this matter. Next, a proposal was made a few days ago at a meeting of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of this county, when a resolution calling upon the Government to lay a State-owned cable was proposed for their acceptance. My hon. Friend the Member for the Hawick Burghs (Sir J. Barran) was good enough at my request to attend the Conference and to state the objections to the proposal. The objections in themselves were so cogent, and they were stated by my hon. Friend with such force, that there again the resolution was withdrawn, and the Conference passed no resolution on the lines suggested. In view of all these circumstances, and in view of the fact also that wireless telegraphy is making great progress and has undoubtedly a great future, I think this House would be in the highest degree ill-advised to press upon the Government this large capital expenditure and considerable contingent annual liability, when the result which we all desire, namely, the reduction of cable rates, has already been in large degree achieved, and can be in future achieved in yet a larger degree by other methods which do not involve this expenditure and these risks.

While listening to the Postmaster-General, my mind went back to the days when he and I and others were engaged in doing what my hon. Friends have been doing to-day. I could almost hear the echoes of the voices of old Postmaster-Generals in his own. It seems to me that he who has proved himself in some things a very progressive Postmaster - General, is being overwhelmed by the accumulations of the old traditions which have prevented Postmaster-Generals in the past from doing what he and I believed was their duty. The Postmaster's statement and excuse were able, as most of his statements and his excuses are. The Government are past masters in making excuses. They have the ability to make them, and the inclination. But I think the case is not wholly sound regarding a State-owned cable. One reason given was that the Canadian Government would be placed in this difficulty, namely, that not owning the land lines, those land lines might in fact hold up the Government and this country in regard to their State-owned cable. But is it not the case that the Railway Commission of Canada has control of that matter as well as of the railway rates, and that therefore that particular reason falls to the ground. The question is really whether this Government is willing, because of the reasons in favour of it, to establish a State-owned cable, and whether Canada is willing to do the same. Would the Government be willing to establish a State-owned cable if Canada, in connection with New Zealand and Australia, agreed that it was a good thing to do? They did agree it was a good thing to do, and they pressed it on the Government. Why did they withdraw the Resolution? We know perfectly well why.

Canada did not propose it.

But Canada supported it in principle. Why was it withdrawn? Because of the promises made by the Postmaster-General. The right hon. Gentleman made promises and gave pledges, or what were equivalent to pledges. He is satisfied with what has been produced. But that the question was-raised in the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada is in itself evidence that the Members of that Parliament are not satisfied. How can they be? The right hon. Gentleman speaks of the enormous reductions that have been made. I am not an authority upon the details of this business, but I will ask the right hon. Gentleman to remember the circular issued by the Empire Press Union in January last, which has no doubt come into his hands, and in which, not the newspapers belonging to the party to which I belong, but the newspapers representing his party, like the "Daily Chronicle," and others, have stated authoritatively that these reductions—I regret if it is so—are not adequate, and do not meet the case. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me why it is that an urgent Press message to Australia costs 9d., and that the Pacific Cable Board is given 3d. for carrying it from Montreal to Australian ports, whereas the cable companies of the Atlantic get 5d. for carrying the message 3,000 miles the other representing 10,000 miles?

How can we be quite satisfied with these admirable arrangements, which the right hon. Gentleman, I know, has done his best to secure? That they are satisfactory he must first get evidence to prove from the newspapers of this country and the commercial people of this country, and from the newspapers and the commercial people of Canada. It is for him to get evidence from them, for his statement to-day is not wholly sound. I do not believe it is wholly sound. That Monsieur Pelletier, the Postmaster-General of Canada, said it is not necessary to build this State-aided cable is no reply. He did not say, "I do not believe in it." He said what the right hon. Gentleman was glad to hear him say, that from the evidence at his disposal he thought it was unnecessary now to build that cable, because of other urgent expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman does not wish to build it, I presume, because of the question of expense. He certainly would not consider it inadvisable to have a State-aided cable to keep our strategic secrets on our own wires. He does not oppose it in principle. He judges it from the point of expediency and expenditure. Well, then, will the right hon. Gentleman tell me why in his own Department he gives the Canadian Pacific Railway large sums, as a representative of his Department told me in this House, independent of the postal services rendered by that railway, and as the President of the Board of Education said, for Imperial purposes? Why does his own Department, as an established principle, pay money for Imperial purposes and not for direct services rendered? There is 135,000 dollars lost per year to this country—lost on paper—because of the non-establishment of this State-aided cable.

The right hon. Gentleman himself knows that we were told by two late Postmasters-General, in response to deputations which he and I attended, that money would be lost, and that therefore they could not establish cheaper postal rates. His reply and mine was that we ought to do it for Imperial purposes. That is what we are asking for to-day. That a State-aided cable would be a good thing for the Empire is undoubted. That it would not pay at first is very likely, as the reduction of the postage on newspapers did not pay at first—I do not know whether it is paying now. Notwithstanding that the right hon. Gentleman comes to this House and makes his defence on Imperial grounds. He does not wish to burden his Government with the expense of £25,000 per year, which would only be the initial expense, in order to establish a much greater thing, because it would protect the Admiralty and the Government in time of peace and war from the invasion of their secrets by other Governments, besides establishing better commercial communication with our own overseas Dominions. The right hon. Gentleman said that he could not see how it would very much benefit merchants on this side of the Atlantic. What about merchants on the other side? Trade does not always run one way. It runs both ways. Does anyone venture to say that if Canada with the United Kingdom established a State-aided cable, with control of their own land lines, as they could have by having control over their rates, that commerce would not be advantaged by it? You would be able, then, to secure a reduction in rates without this continual—not negotiation alone, but threatening—because I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has used the "big stick" occasionally in regard to these cable rates. It is possible, too, for this House always to abrogate any agreement for national purposes. It is not necessary in the case of the Anglo-American Company's Agreement, because it will, I understand, end in 1928. Meanwhile the right hon. Gentleman has the power in his hands, and would have power if that agreement were not going to end in 1928 to denounce it, and to secure better terms for the traders of this country and the traders of the overseas Dominions. I pass from that subject for the moment to another more strictly concerned with the Secretary of State for the Colonies. I do not see on the face of the right hon. Gentleman to-day that look—I will not call it superciliousness—in regard to great trade questions which affect the Empire that I saw last year when I ventured in a very few words to refer to closer trade relations and the proposed preference. The right hon. Gentleman gave the party to which I belong his own views, and did his fellow Members the honour to say that they had "trotted out the old nag for an airing." I could not congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the choice of his epithets on that ocasion or upon the humour that underlay his speech. He has heard to-day, however, the same kind of statement or speech that I would have made in a far more expansive form, and certainly in a form which everyone who listened must commend, because at any rate, whether the right hon. Gentleman agrees or disagrees to the policy which we advocate, he and his colleagues in the Government—

The hon. Member is trenching upon a subject which has been twice ruled out of order.

I was not going to pursue the subject, but I believe that the Under-Secretary of the Board of Trade is going to reply upon the question.

If the Under-Secretary to the Board of Trade dealt with that point he would be out of order.

Well, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I was only going to say what I did say to lead up to a point upon which I think I shall find that I am inorder—

The hon. Member has no need to deal with a subject which is out of order in order to lead up to his point.

I was going to say nothing further than to give my reasons for having touched upon the point. I was coming to this point—the appointment of the Commission which the Government is about to appoint to inquire into the trade resources of this Empire. And my reason for raising it was the answer given to a Member of this House on the other side yesterday by the Colonial Secretary to this effect, that the Reference did not include India or the Crown Colonies. The reason I raise that point is this, that it is an Executive act, and I think it is a mistake if the Government have settled upon that course, because I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman how that Commission can possibly fulfil the duties which will be placed upon its shoulders if there is not, within the scope of its inquiry, not alone the oversea Dominions, which have responsible Government, tout also the Crown Colonies so closely associated to those Dominions. For instance, the Government appointed a Commission to inquire into the trade of the West Indies and Canada. They did not exclude from the terms of Reference of that Commission any fiscal question. That Commission reported, and, in dealing with the resources of the Colonies and the relations of these West Indian Colonies with Canada, they had regard to the fiscal relation. In appointing this Commission it was quite certain that those who represented the oversea Dominions at the last Conference desired that the whole question not only of the resources but of the relations between the different Colonies and their resources, should be raised, because Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in his speech, used these words:—

"By way of illustration, I may say here that our relations in Canada with our brothers in Australia are not as satisfactory as they ought to be. We have been trying to get a mutual preference treatment, but we have not been able to do so; and I strongly hope such a Commission as I have indicated will be able to come to the end which we have not reached up to the present time."

It is quite clear the then Prime Minister of Canada had in his mind that in appointing a Commission this Government should exclude no subject that affected the commercial relations of the Dominions with this country, and, what is just as important, the commercial relations and development of the resources of the oversea Dominions with each other. If we are going to have an inquiry into the resources of the oversea Dominions, we must make inquiry also into the use to be made of these resources and the development of the profit to be got from these resources. How can you have useful judgment or a Report from a Commission appointed which is told it must not make any inquiry into the resources of the different oversea Dominions, have no regard to what use these resources can be put, and how inter-trading among the oversea Dominions can be advanced by any executive means of any Government and of all Governments? The fact is that the right hon. Gentleman himself, with his usual ability and suavity, was able to gain his end in that Conference and to secure a resolution, the final words of which I believe would make that Commission absolutely powerless to make any Report of value to this country or to the Empire at large if it was rigidly followed in the letter and was not liberally interpreted in the spirit. Here are the words:—

"And by what means, consistent with the existing policy of each Power, the trade of each Power with the other may be improved and extended?"

If the right hon. Gentleman had said that, having regard to the fiscal independence of each portion of this Empire inquiry might be made by that Commission as to whether between these portions of these Colonies which have similar fiscal policies the Report might be made—if they would make a Report upon the policy of these oversea Dominions that have similar fiscal policies, I should be satisfied, because they cannot deal with that unless they deal with the possibility of our changing our policy and what might be the result if all the oversea Dominions with similar policies were to come to an understanding in the development of their resources with the Mother-country as to closer commercial relations on the principle of preference, which the Government has apparently excluded from its reference to this Commission. That was the point I wished to raise, and I trust the right hon. Gentleman will see from the trend of public events how much fairer it would really be to raise the whole question, and if he is sure of his ground he will not hesitate to do so and make the reference to this Commission so wide as that these questions can be included. Finally, I want to say a word in reference to the question raised by my hon. Friends in regard to the Crown Colonies and Trade Commissioners. I think it is a mistake for the right hon. Gentleman not to encourage the appointment of Trade Commissioners in the Colonies and the appointment of Trade Commissioners from this country to our Colonies. Why should these authorities concerned with great resources and immensely great possibilities, as the previous development of the West Indies show, be excluded from developing their trade with this country by a lack of these facilities which in our larger way we find necessary for the development of our trade with foreign countries. We have got to begin somewhere. We ought not to take from the policy of our Crown Colonies a system of advantage which this Government has used in connection with foreign countries and with our oversea Dominions that have responsible governments. I think the somewhat cavalier way in which the right hon. Gentleman treated the question yesterday was hardly in keeping with the traditions of the office he holds, and holds with great dignity, from the period when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham entered upon his duties at the Colonial Office. I think the responsibility and the action he took, when Colonial Secretary, in advising the Crown Colonies to appoint Trade Commissioners on a very similar extent to the appointment of Trade Commissioners by this country to the Colonies, would produce results quite as good as my hon. Friends presented to this House to-day. I hope the Colonial Secretary will realise that I have spoken with perfectly consistent views, because in the years I have been in this House, dating back from a time before he entered it, I have advocated this policy in season and out of season.

I rise only to deal with two points alluded to in this Debate. We have been excluded by the ruling of the Chair from discussing the question of an Imperial Preference, and I leave all questions of trade organisation to be dealt with by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. There are two points with which I wish to deal. First of all there is the point raised by the hon. Member for South Birmingham, who suggested that I or the Government have done practically nothing to carry out the decisions or the wishes of the Imperial Conference which met last year. That really is not the case. It was said at the time that the Conference had been an inefficient one. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's Hanover Square (Mr. Lyttelton) suggested that there had been what he called an atmosphere of bland inaction. Well, if there was an atmosphere of bland inaction during the Conference there has been an atmosphere of great activity since it closed. We were able to get a unanimous assent to the Declaration of London which was nullified by action elsewhere at a subsequent date. We were able to renew and revise the Japanese Treaty with the assent and approval of every one of the Dominions represented, and on many other matters since the Conference closed we have been able to take effective action. A Copyright Bill, an Imperial Act, has been passed, and it is hoped and believed the Dominions will follow suit with a similar action. That action does not lie with us, but we have taken the initial step.

On the matter of patents, New Zealand has already followed the English law in an Act passed since the Conference, and that was one of the matters discussed upon that occasion. One of the Resolutions was an expression of a desire that there should be uniformity in the law of compensation for accidents, and New Zealand and South Australia in consequence of the discussions at the Conference passed Acts on that matter last year. There has also been passed an Australian Seamen's Compensation Act in the autumn of last year. Another Resolution which was the subject of discussion was that of international exhibitions. This is regarded as a matter of great importance by many of the States and many of the Dominions, and they have been asked by the Home Government to nominate representatives to a Conference on this subject. The Appeal Court is another matter in which great interest is felt by Canadians and Australians. We had a very full discussion on this matter, in which the Lord Chancellor and Lord Haldane took part, and at the request of the Dominion representatives we agreed to strengthen the Appeal Court and specially to strengthen the Privy Council by the appointment of two additional Law Lords who had been appointed not for British but for Dominion and Colonial purposes. The Bill was introduced last year, but there was great pressure of time and some objections, and it had to be withdrawn, but it will be reintroduced this year, and I shall make a personal appeal to the House to pass that Bill for the strengthening of the Courts to which the Dominions attach great importance.

3.0 P.M.

At the same time dissatisfaction was expressed by some of the Dominions in regard to the long-standing practice of the Privy Council in which a recommendation is made to His Majesty which does not take the form of a judgment. They were never able to understand the reason for a dissent which one member of the Privy Council may have given in the course of the proceedings. I have arranged for a new Order in Council to be issued, almost immediately, as soon as I have settled the actual terms in consultation with the Dominions, giving leave for the publication of the dissenting judgment in all cases applying to the Dominions. Naturalisation was another matter which was discussed at the Imperial Conference upon which we have already drafted a Bill on the recommendations which were then made, and we have sent it out to the Dominions for their consideration. We have received some suggestions, and that Bill will be introduced into the Imperial Parliament this Session. On the question of cheaper cable rates I need not dwell, because that has been explained by my right hon. Friend. I think he also mentioned what has been done in regard to wireless telegraphy. It is a remarkable advance in the eight or nine months since the Conference closed to be able to say that we are now covering three-quarters of the world by an Imperial system of telegraphy. We have a service from London to Egypt, from Egypt to Aden, from Aden to Bombay, from Bombay to Singapore. Northward, in the future, to Hong Kong, and southward, in the almost immediate future, to Australia, which is working its own station. Australia put up a circle of separate wireless telegraphic stations round its own coast to communicate with two stations in New Zealand, from which there will probably be wireless communication to Fiji. We intend to have wireless communication from Aden to some point in the Union of South Africa, possibly Pretoria; and if the resources of science will not allow that to be done, we may decide to make an intermediate at Nairobi.

There was a request made to the Imperial Government at the Conference to assist the Dominions to obtain a revision of some of the treaties made in the old days which include the Dominions of which they themselves would like to be relieved. These negotiations have been going on with several countries for some time, and we have already succeeded in our endeavours to release the Dominions from treaties with Mexico and Sweden. There was another question, that of the mutual enforcement of the judgments of superior Courts and commercial arbitration awards. We are prepared to legislate on that subject in the direction desired by the Dominions. We have asked for the observations of the individual Australian States. There are twelve definite and separate actions taken by this Government since the close of the Conference in June only last year which have either been actually carried cut or are in process of being completed now to meet the requirements put forward by the Dominions.

Have the Government appointed their own representative?

I was just going to deal in passing with the suggestion of the hon. Baronet that this Commission should be greatly enlarged in its scope. The Commission is the result of a resolution passed by the Conference, and that resolution specifies exactly what it is to do. It is only to inquire into the resources of the self-governing Dominions. The Imperial Conference never intended this should be a world-embracing Commission. I think they were wise, because, if they had made it world-embracing, they would have it continually enduring, whereas we hope to have a valuable Report from it before the next Imperial Conference. The hon. Baronet asked me as to the terms of Reference and the exclusion of the fiscal question. He probably knows from what he has read, and indeed from what I said to him on a previous occasion in this House, that the exclusion of the fiscal question from the terms of Reference was agreed to by the whole Conference. It was quite clear in the discussions at that Conference it would be just as inconvenient and disagreeable to the Dominions to have a Report of that Commission pressing Free Trade upon them as it would be unpleasant to us to have a Report pressing upon us a policy in which we as a Government do not believe. Everybody at that Conference was agreed as to the necessity and desirability of the exclusion of the fiscal question from the Commission, and that has formed the basis of the whole Commission and of every invitation which I have issued to individuals to join it.

Supposing Canada and the West Indies, in giving evidence concerning their products and resources, desired to show that by certain arrangements with each other they could advance the development of those resources and their exchange, would that be the kind of thing that would be excluded from the consideration of the Commission?

I think the hon. Baronet is really able to judge from the wording of the Resolution which will practically form the terms of reference. They can suggest any method consistent always with the existing fiscal policy of each part of the Empire, by which the trade of each part of the Empire with one another and with the United Kingdom might be improved and extended. Some complaint has been made of delay in the appointment of this Commission. I have staled it was not my fault I have not been able sooner to make the announcement; in fact, yesterday afternoon I could not have made the announcement, but to-day I am in a position to do so. The final step has been taken, I have made the necessary submission to His Majesty, I have received his consent, and I am able, if the House would like me to do so, to announce the names of the Gentlemen who will form the Commission. There are, as arranged, six members from the United Kingdom and five members from the Dominions, one from each. The members are:—

For the United Kingdom:

The Right Honourable Lord Inchcape of Strathnayer, G.C.M.G., K.C.S.I., K.C.I.E. (to be Chairman of the Commission).

Sir Edgar Vincent, K.C.M.G.

Sir Charles John Owens.

Sir H. Rider Haggard.

Mr. Tom Garnett (of Manchester).

Mr. William Lorimer (of Glasgow).

For the Dominion of Canada:

The Honourable George Eulas Foster, Minister of Trade and Customs.

For the Commonwealth of Australia:

Mr. Donald Campbell, LL.B., formerly a Member of the Legislature of South Australia.

For the Dominion of New Zealand:

The Right Honourable Sir Joseph George Ward, Bart., K.C.M.G., recently Prime Minister of the Dominion.

For the Union of South Africa:

The Honourable Sir David de Villiers Graaff, Bart., Minister of Posts and Telegraphs.

For Newfoundland:

The Honourable Edgar Bowring, Member of the Legislative Council.

With William Arthur Robinson, Esq., of the Colonial Office, to be Secretary to the Commission.

That constitutes a Commission of eleven, in my opinion as strong a Commission as has ever been formed within the Empire for any purpose. It is a Commission from which we have deliberately excluded all Members of the House of Commons, in order to exclude every possible question of party politics. It is a Commission which will be laborious, and whose labours must be long, but I hope they will be concluded in fact, I feel sure they will be concluded—before the next Imperial Conference. I believe it is a Commission in which this House, the country, and the Empire can feel complete confidence that they will carry out, not only with great ability, but with satisfaction to everyone who has the interests of the Empire at heart, the great trusts that have been handed over to them.

I desire to raise a question connected with the operation of the Housing and Town Planning Act as it affects rural districts. The administration of this Act has rendered the problem of rural housing even more acute than it was before. It has, by dealing with half of the problem, accentuated the evils of the other half. There are two evils connected with housing in rural districts—one is bad houses, and the other is the lack of sufficient houses I think the evil of bad houses in rural districts has been rather exaggerated in the Liberal Press and by others who are more or less pessimists on this question, and I also think the bad effects of insanitary houses in rural districts is not so great as in towns, because you have more space, and you have clean and fresh air. I am far from saying, however, that there are not a great number of houses in rural districts, practically in every village, which are not up to the standard of modern requirements. The operation of this Act has been to close throughout England a very large number of houses, and the movement is still going on. There are more houses being closed each day, but as yet comparatively nothing has been done to supply the want of houses by building fresh ones. The President of the Local Government Board, in answer to a question the other day, said that under the Act some 116 cottages had been built, and closing orders had been made in respect of 1,344 cottages in rural districts. He added, that did not mean all those houses were uninhabited. No, it does not, because in some eases the necessary repairs have been carried out. Section 17, Subsection (4) of the Act, however, provides:—

"Where a closing order has become operative, the local authority shall serve notice of the order on every occupying tenant of the dwelling-house in respect of which the notice is made, and within such period as is specified in the notice, not being less than fourteen days after the service of the notice, the order shall be obeyed by him, and he and his family shall cease to inhabit the dwelling-house."

I can say from personal experience that while these houses were being put in a state of habitable repair many families were without any lodgings of any kind; indeed, in some cases they had to seek shelter in the casual wards of the workhouses. It is also a fact that the majority of the houses which have been actually demolished belong to small owners. Whatever views hon. Members may hold on the question of rural housing, it is not necessary to point out that no man can build cottages suitable for labourers at a price which will give him a decent return on his money. I do not think many personal experiences have been given in the course of this Debate, but, in the county of Sussex, I have recently built some cottages, and I have found that the cheapest price at which double cottages can be built is from £220 to £230 per cottage. Where you are building a single cottage it costs more. All the return which is to be got from a cottage is about £5 per year, and in no country will you find anyone who wishes to invest his money in an industry in which he can only get, after including the cost of repairs, about 2¼ per cent. I would call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to a speech he made outside this House. He said there were rural districts where they are building on economical lines. I should like to know where they are. I believe the figures I have given will be found to be generally applicable to the whole of England; indeed, I think the hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Norfolk will admit it is more difficult and more expensive to get cottages there even than in the South of England. There is no place where cottages can be built on economical lines in rural districts.

Where are these unfortunate people, who are being dispossessed of their only habitation, going to find shelter? In every village in England at the present time there is a lack of sufficient cottage accommodation, and the operation of the Act, by speeding up the process of closing insanitary cottages, has made the position infinitely worse. It is the duty of the Government to deal with the matter immediately, either by some alteration in administration or in some other way. We are often told of the great attraction which towns have for agricultural labourers, an attraction which makes the difficulty of obtaining labour in country districts very great. My own experience, which is borne out by other hon. Gentlemen, is that, at the present time, emigration from towns is rather decreasing. Village institutes, cinematographs, and other attractions have made life in country districts more bearable, and there is not such a desire to go to the towns to seek brightness as there was in former days. Plenty of labour can now be hired. There is no difficulty in obtaining labour, the difficulty is to find cottages, and it is greater in the case of a man and his wife with a large family. There is nothing which acts as a greater deterrent to the bringing up of large families than the difficulty of obtaining deceit cottage accommodation in rural districts. This question has been made a great deal of by hon. Gentlemen on public platforms in the various constituencies. There is not a rural constituency in which, at the last election, the cottage scandal was not referred to very frequently, and both the "Morning Leader" and the "Daily News" were full of this subject daily We are entitled to ask the Government how they are going to deal with the difficulties which the Housing and Town Planning Act has accentuated. How are they going to deal with the problem generally? They have been in power six years. This is perhaps the most acute and trying of all the evils we have to deal with. It is at the root of many other evils which most vitally affect the future interests of this country. Yet, although the Government have had six years in which to deal with it, they have not touched it. Such matters as the Small Holdings Act, and the Allotment Act, and the Housing and Town Planning Act have really only accentuated the difficulty.

There is another point I wish to bring to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman. I think he has shown great remissness on the question of rural by-laws. By-laws in rural districts are totally unfitted to the circumstances of those districts, and there seems to have been no coherent attempts made to bring them into a uniform state. I believe the right hon. Gentleman did issue a model set of by-laws and building rules, but they have not been very widely followed. I hope he will tell us what he thinks of doing in regard to the question of the Housing and Town Planning Act. I should like, if I may, to quote some figures showing how this Act has operated. In 1910–11 there were 246 houses in rural districts in respect of which closing orders were made, and at that time only about 114 houses were built. Since that period the Housing and Town Planning Act, as regards the closing of houses in rural districts, has been largely speeded up, and many more houses have been closed during the past year. Unless this question is dealt with very promptly, there will be in many rural districts like Essex, a perfectly appalling state of affairs, and many honest respectable men capable of paying rents will be driven into the workhouses because of the impossibility of obtaining accommodation. I do not want to introduce any party prejudice into the question. I know hon. Gentlemen opposite are anxious to see some remedy applied. It is not a landlord's question; it is an economic question, and the authority responsible is the Local Government Board.

The point we want to bring before this House is this: that since the right hon. Gentleman came into power, notwithstanding all that has been said by hon. Members opposite about the need of housing in rural districts, operations have been slowed down in the most remarkable manner. If we take the figures given in answer to a question, put by myself to the right hon. Gentleman, as to the amount of money sanctioned in the way of loans for building purposes under all the Housing Acts in the last twelve years, what do we find? In the first five years, during which the party to which I belong was in power, no less a sum than £1,200,000 was sanctioned for building operations by local authorities. That is on the average £240,000 a year. In 1906, the right hon. Gentleman came into power, with his great programme of housing reform. What was the result? In the first five years that he was in office, the amount fell from £1,200,000 to £500,000, in other words, instead of £240,000 a year being sanctioned as loans for building purposes, the amount fell to only £100,000 a year. That means that there has not been the same energy and determination to carry out the Housing Acts under the administration of the right hon. Gentleman as there was when the party which is now in opposition was in power in the five years before. It is quite true that there has been a slight improvement since the year 1909. In 1910 and 1911, the amount rose to about £110,000 a year, and there was a wonderful spur at the beginning of this year, which coincided with the fact that certain Unionist Members have been so audacious as to bring in a Housing Bill. There has been a marvellous improvement since then. No less than £133,000 has been sanctioned by the right hon. Gentleman in the first three months of this year.

The "back to the land" movement was really taking on in the country, and there is no doubt that the attractions of the town were dying down. People were going back to the country, but, owing to the entire absence of decent housing accommodation, that most salutary movement has been checked, and the people have been driven back into the towns, where they go to swell the overcrowding in the slums, and make the housing conditions in the towns infinitely worse than before. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman thinks that everything is perfectly all right. His speech the other day was optimistic, and one would have believed that everything was being done by him and his Department to deal with the question. But when we asked him what was done in the rural districts in the year ending 31st March, 1911, the last year for which we have complete figures, what do we find? The total amount of loans sanctioned by the right hon. Gentleman for building in rural districts in that year, at a time when rural housing was tremendously needed, at a time when hon. Gentlemen opposite were preaching all over the country about bad cottages, was the paltry sum of £250. You could perhaps build one pair of cottages with that, sum, and that is all. In the same year, under the Acquisition of Dwellings Act, which is an Act passed by the Unionist party, and which we know has not been a very successful Act, and which the right hon. Gentleman contemptuously termed a "wooden nutmeg"—under that Act loans amounting to £3,000 were sanctioned by the right hon. Gentleman. If the Act of 1899 was a wooden nutmeg, the right hon. Gentleman's Act is an empty cocoanut, or something of that sort.

There are one or two other points I want to put to the right hon. Gentleman as showing the ineffective administration of his Department, which has ruined the good intentions and possible good effects of the Housing and Town Planning Acts. Let me put one or two questions to the right hon. Gentleman. The first section of the town planning part of that Act says that the Local Government Board may sanction schemes for town planning. That is the whole object of that Act. The Act has been in operation for over two years. How many schemes for town planning has the right hon. Gentleman sanctioned? I do not know whether he has any figures different from mine; but, according to my information, he has not sanctioned a single one up to the present moment. Let us take another matter. Under Section 55 of the Housing and Town Planning Act—the right hon. Gentleman's own Act—the Local Government Board are to issue general provisions as to the character of housing and town planning schemes, to show what ought to be done, and those regulations are to be included in the town planning scheme. Has the right hon. Gentleman carried out that Section of his own Act? Not at all. According to my information, he has not issued any sets of general provisions up to the present moment. I should like to ask what is the explanation of the omission of his own Department to carry out his own Act in this respect.

But there are not only sins of omission. Let me take the regulations that have been issued. Under the Act, the Local Government Board has the right and the power to issue general regulations. It is to be done by the Local Government Board in England, and in Scotland by the Scottish Office. The regulations issued by the Local Government Board are of such a cumbrous character that local authorities find it almost impossible to carry them out, whereas in Scotland the Scottish Office has issued different regulations, which are far more effective. Let me give an example. According to the Local Government Board's regulations, in the case of a town planning scheme being suggested by a local authority and being prepared by them, they have to issue notices to every single person affected. The result is a most cumbrous process that delays the whole proceeding. In Scotland, all they do is to put an advertisement in the paper. Why could not a simple process like that be adopted by the right hon. Gentleman, instead of this highly cumbrous system which has been adopted here, and which I am told has had the effect of absolutely snowing under the Hendon Rural Council, because they find it impossible to ascertain all the people to whom the notices have to be issued, and the whole scheme has been hung up in consequence. What I want to say, in support of my Noble Friend, is this: that what we want is a little less optimism on the part of the right hon. Gentleman in his speech, and a little more practical work in the affairs of his Department. We believe that a little more administrative work put in under his own Act would be far more effective than it is at the present time. We do not bring this forward as a party question. We fully recognise the great evils of housing, both in town and country. We want to see the rather more effective carrying out of the work, and if that is done we shall be perfectly content, and we shall leave the right hon. Gentleman in peace for the rest of his time.

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down drew an unfavourable comparison between the action of the present Government and that of the last Government. I should like to remind him that upon one point, that of by-laws, the question was very prominent before this Government came into office, and it was particularly prominent in 1905, and that not much progress was made in that matter by the Administration which preceded this one. The Noble Lord (Earl Winterton) alluded to the question of housing in Norfolk. He spoke of a certain figure which represented the minimum cost of building a house in Sussex, and he alluded to Norfolk. I should like to tell him that he is correct in saying that the question is a very urgent one in Norfolk, but that the figure which can be quoted as the minimum in Sussex is very different from the figure which can be quoted as the minimum in Norfolk. Something more like £175.

I included wells.

I think it is certainly lower in Norfolk. Passing from that, I should like in the most friendly way to appeal to my right hon. Friend to add something to the declaration that he made the other day in the debate that has been alluded to. I am particularly concerned to express the point of view which is felt in many counties, and perhaps particularly in my own county of Norfolk, which is one of the counties where the lowest agricultural wage prevails. There the question has been brought to the front recently, particularly by the cases of the Litcham inquiry and the Edgefield inquiry. I shared the delight with which the House received my right hon. Friend's speech the other night, but it is only my duty to tell him that in the country districts there is a certain feeling that something is needed to be added to the declaration which he then made. There is a certain sense of dissatisfaction, or unsatisfaction, at the rather negative quality of his declaration as it applied to very poor agricultural districts. I should like to recall for a moment the point of view of those districts. What he then said was very impressive and represented that robust admiration for an independent spirit which I, for one, yield to none in admiring in my right hon. Friend, but in those districts the points which he made do not very fully and finally apply. What he said was somewhat cold comfort to the places where a number of people are suffering from very inadequate housing. There we are in a dilemma from which there appears to be no escape, and I should like to sketch the point of view of those places where an inquiry has been held, where housing has been admitted to be wanted, and yet owing to the inability to pay the rate necessitated, there is an absolute standstill. One of those places I know very well, and I wish I could get my right hon. Friend to come with me and see one or two houses there which have been reported upon by one of these inquiries. I could show him a house there where two rooms are occupied by four beds, and the four beds by eleven people, and in that particular family, which is blessed with a large number of boys, no boy has a chance of sharing a bed with less than two other boys, and the beds are placed not where it is most convenient, but where it is extremely inconvenient, because of the number of places at which water comes through the roof. That is not at all untypical of a very large number of houses in Norfolk.

I could show him another house where a family occupies for sleeping accommodation one room, not more than an attic, with another room, I was going to say, but in reality a mere cupboard, with no window at all, in which a child sleeps. These things are not altogether untypical of a somewhat widespread state of affairs. From the point of view of that village, where there is a general sense that something must be done, we are in an absolute quandary. Here one sees there is a general feeling duly expressed in the demand for inquiry and an inquiry has been held, a report has been made to the district council and the district council has occupied a day or two in debate upon the subject, and there has been a full inquiry into the maximum wage which could possibly be paid, and, finally, there has been on the part of the district council a resolution passed, after much opposition, in favour of building, but with this reservation, that the financial risk involved in the building should not go upon the district rate, but upon the parish rate. That offer was made to the parish council, and very naturally declined, because, although the cost of housing properly falls upon the land of the particular district, and the land is perfectly able to bear the cost of housing and the other costs of living of those who work upon the land, still there are ratepayers in the parish whose business it is not to subsidise in any way the building which is required to supply labour for working upon other properties than those of the ratepayers who object to this rate being levied upon the parish in particular. The result of all this is depopulation. I should like to give one little proof of that, rather a striking proof, and one peculiar to Norfolk, because in Norfolk we have what no other county has in any strength, an Agricultural Labourers' Union, and that union, though it does not, of course, include all the labourers in the county, is still a fairly strong union. It is recorded that in the last year or so no fewer than 300 members of the union itself have migrated from this country—300 members probably of rather more than average activity whom this country could ill afford to lose.

It must be admitted that the case of these low-paid rural districts is not being adequately met by the Housing Act. The social and economic machine does not work in respect to agricultural houses. May I ask my right hon. Friend how many of the councils to which he alluded, in answer to a question, are councils in the poorly-paid and purely agricultural districts? Something of a very positive quantity is needed to meet this case, though it is only a small part of the problem. Statistics of what is done in more favoured places do not apply strictly to this small, low-paid agricultural problem. In these county districts there is, in regard to the right hon. Gentleman, an affection and a confidence which I am sure is not rivalled in any other part of the country, and I have frequently had occasion to note the confidence, which I am sure would touch him, which is felt in his ability to deal with the problems of practical social reform which affect them. If there has been criticism of his administration in any section of the community it is certainly not in the low-paid agricultural community, where extreme confidence is felt in his interest in problems which affect that section of the community. It would not be in order to allude to many modes by which perhaps a solution is to be found. There is the question, raised the other day, of a subsidy, and there, of course, there are all the objections of logic and of strict, sound economics; but I do not know whether as the lesser of two evils we may not be driven to a subsidy, to deal with what is an urgent practical question. I must allude to the problem of rating reform, which may be at the bottom of the trouble, and to a proposal which, I believe, to be a very practicable one, that of giving powers to local bodies to provide not buildings but building sites at a reasonable rate, upon which that large number of men who have saved a couple of hundred pounds might very likely build purely as an investment for letting purposes, even to agricultural labourers. That class of man builds somehow very cheaply, and if land were available at a reasonable rate there would be a very great deal more buildings even for the poorer agricultural labourers than there are now. That will be a matter of legislation. Of course, at the bottom of it all is the abnormally low wages paid to labourers. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend can tell me whether he could support the application to agricultural labourers of the principle of the minimum wage. The whole housing problem, and all the difficulties and rearrangements of the economic order, would solve themselves if the wages of farm labourers were adequate, and probably that is the solution which will be required in the end. As a matter of administration I would put in a plea for the rural district councils in the lower-paid districts. I ask extremely sympathetic treatment for them, because their difficulties are greater than those of other districts. I hope the President of the Local Government Board with his unrivalled powers will be able to apply himself particularly to the problem of the difficulties of districts which are so poor that the provisions of the Housing Act do not provide for their needs.

No one representing the Local Government Board can complain that these questions have been raised by hon. Members on both sides of the House, but it is rather inconvenient that in matters where one his to defend the operations of a great Department over a wide area of administration one should be somewhat constrained in his reply and his defence, by the exigencies of time, and the desire we all feel to go off on a well deserved holiday. But I must reply to one or two of the points that have been submitted by hon. Members in different quarters of the House. As to the point raised by the Noble Lord (Earl Winterton) he took the line, and it surprised me somewhat, that some of the statements which have been made with regard to the domestic and sanitary condition of rural houses by some of the London newspapers had been grossly exaggerated, and particularly because, if there are density and overcrowding in a rural area, it was mitigated by the fact that there are pleasant environments and plenty of fresh air. I am not in favour of a typhus or typhoid seed plot behind a Virginia creeper in a rural cottage any more than an insanitary dwelling in a London slum. It is our duty to take the other line to the extent that though the environment of the labourer is pleasant, his wages are low, and that he ought, in my judgment, to have adequate compensation in the fact of having a spacious house giving immunity from either contagion or disease. I am very glad that the Noble Lord took that view, not that I agree with it, but because it does show that he does not appreciate the kind of criticism to which my Department has been subjected by newspapers that are very often as silly and sensational as they are stupid in their suggestions. [An HON. MEMBER: "It was the 'Daily News.'"] I will make my observations, and you can apply them where you like. Their statements are as sensational as they are often stupid. I ask the Noble Lord to apply that particularly to special papers representing all parties in this House, whose comments are very often as superficial on housing as they are on other economic and political matters. The Noble Lord made an extraordinary statement when he said that the operation of the Housing and Town Planning Act had in itself done a great deal of harm. He ought to have qualified his statement when he said that there had been 1,344 houses against which closing orders had been made. I presume he made the assumption that a number of superficial critics of the housing problem have made, that, because 1,344 closing orders were issued, therefore that number of houses were demolished in the rural areas.

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me—

No, the Noble Lord has made his statement on this matter, and I decline to give way. The fact is that although 1,344 closing orders were made, all the houses except 126 were put into decent and habitable repair. It is not correct to represent that 1,344 houses are in process of demolition. That is a considerable modification of the Noble Lord's statement.

made a remark which was inaudible.

The hon. Baronet must do me the courtesy of listening to me with patience, as I listened to him.

I have no desire to be discourteous to the right hon. Gentleman. I only wish to ask a question to elucidate this matter. We know that the closing orders were issued, and we never said that the houses were being demolished. The point is—were these closing orders made operative, and had the people to leave the cottages? I wish the right hon. Gentleman would reply to that.

I am quite willing to help a lame dog over a stile, and I shall proceed to reply to the hon. Baronet. As I have said, 1,344 closing orders were made, but they were only finally applied to 126 houses. The rest of the houses were made fit and adequate for habitation. Therefore the suggestion that because 1,344 closing orders were made the rural areas were short of that number of houses is not speaking according to fact. The Noble Lord wanted to know how it was that in rural districts it was possible for cottages and other houses to be erected and let at economic rents. That requires an answer, and I am willing to give it. In fifteen months nineteen authorities in rural areas have built 153 houses at a cost of £30,208 at economic rents. The hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Norfolk knows that in the parish of Montagu, and also in a rural parish of Happisburgh, economic houses are being erected on economic lines. If the people there are not able to sustain themselves on economic lines my suggestion to the Noble Lord and to Members in all quarters of the House is that they should join in criticising in the proper quarter the low standard of wages paid to agricultural labourers of 13s. to 16s. a week, instead of coming to Parliament for a bonus to landlords, who do not always do their duty, and to farmers, who do not always pay economic wages on which labourers can sustain themselves. I can assure the Noble Lord and his Friends that they will do more good for rural housing in the next twelve months, if they could get the wages raised only 1s. a week, than they will do by supporting a cadging organisation on the part either of farmers or landlords, and by coming to the House of Commons for ninepence a week subsidies for cottages to underpaid labourers in the country to be paid by unskilled labourers and charwomen in our large towns and cities. If the Noble Lord will undertake a peripatetic campaign in a gipsy van with a green door and a brass knocker, I would be pleased to take the chair for him.

Will you recommend Tariff Reform?

No; but I will take the chair for the Noble Lord at the first meeting that he will hold, say, in the county of Sussex or Dorset or Wilts, and will point out the injustice of asking a man on 14s. or 15s. a week to support a wife and family and pay 2s. 6d. rent out of his miserable wages. So much for economic rents. Now, as regards another point. From the criticisms made, anyone would think that the Government were dealing only under the Housing and Town Planning Act with houses in towns and rural areas, and that that was the only thing that was being done. I am very glad to say that during the last few years the Local Government Board have sanctioned advances of nearly £3,000,000 for the purchase of 140,000 acres under the Small Holdings Act, and that in connection with that Act alone 1,015 cottages, independently of the Housing and Town Planning Act, have been provided in rural areas. Hon. Members cannot have it both ways. My suggestion is that what the Housing and Town Planning Act is not doing in some areas the provision of cottages in connection with the Small Holdings Act is doing, and, both combined, do make a contribution of a larger total sum to the provision of cottages in rural areas than hon. Members are inclined to admit. One hon. Member made a great flourish about by-laws. A great deal of nonsense is talked outside this House, and sometimes in the House, about the Local Government Board and by-laws. That is disposed of by this simple statement. The Local Government Board has prepared both rural and urban model by-laws. We have the power, which we exercise on application, of varying those by-laws to adapt them to the peculiar circumstances of the district or county and the class of material available for cottage and house building in all the areas. We have only had one application from one authority at Gateshead to vary the by-laws about which so much display has been made.

4.0 P.M.

Then we come to the very remarkable statement of the hon. Baronet, who really does know better, in following the Noble Lord, and saying that the Housing and Town Planning Act had accentuated overcrowding in towns. The hon. Baronet should know that that is not true. Everybody knows that we have got 500,000 empty houses in the United Kingdom at this moment. The tendency is from the town to the suburb and from the suburb to the country, and from the semi-rural to the rural. That is one of the difficulties that rural areas are now labouring under. If you do get overcrowding in the towns the London County Council and all the great authorities are amply provided with sufficient power to deal with that without even coming to the Local Government Board for any stimulus or suggestion at all. London has 60,000 empty houses, and they are going from the centre to the circumference and from the circumference to the rural area. That is the condition of things which all of us have to face, but it is not true to say that people are coming back to towns and cities, or that the towns and cities have grown in volume or in intensity of overcrowding. It is really the other way about.

The hon. Baronet, in referring to the Housing and Town Planning Act, said, so far as I can gather, that there has not been a single application or any scheme sanctioned under the Act. You cannot have a scheme sanctioned unless application has been made. These are the facts. The preparation of fourteen schemes by fourteen municipal authorities has been already sanctioned by the Board. Applications for authority to prepare schemes have been made by three others. Notices have been given by eleven local authorities of other schemes. There are proposals in reference to schemes from twenty-two other local authorities under consideration at this moment, and negotiations are proceeding between the Board and thirty-nine other local authorities. In all there have been either sanctioned by the Board or are in course of development, not the minus quantity that the hon. Member suggests, but no fewer than ninety town planning schemes. If the hon. Member will only go to a greater authority than himself upon this particular subject—namely, Mr. Aldridge—he will find that, speaking the other night in a suburb of London, he said that "the Act had passed the stage of doubt. Mr. John Burns had told them that there were no fewer than sixty authorities"—there are now ninety—"and he knew that there were upwards of 200 authorities contemplating the administration of the Act." So much for the suggestion that not a single scheme had been sanctioned. Then the hon. Baronet, lacking material in other directions, wanted to know why during the recent period under the administration of the party that he belonged to, namely, between 1900 and 1905, there had been £1,238,000 sanctioned for housing schemes. But more than half of that was not for rural areas at all, and was not for small towns, but was for five large cities, such as Liverpool and Manchester.

I did not say that it was for rural areas.

No, but I am supplying the deficiency.

I said building schemes generally. My point was, whether it was for rural or other areas, a great deal more per annum had been sanctioned by the late Government.

The point of to-day's Debate is rural housing, and I want to point out to the hon. Gentleman that he cannot claim that in six years from 1900 to 1905 £1,238,000 was sanctioned, and hide from the House the fact that more than half of that was for great housing schemes in rich cities, and not for houses or cottages in the majority of cases, but for block tenement schemes that I do not like, and that I do my best to discourage on every possible opportunity.

I need not tell the House that from 1906 to 1910, on much smaller schemes, and more on rural housing than previously, £448,000 in loans had been sanctioned by my Department, but better still, in 1911, and in the three months of 1912, £245,000 had been sanctioned in that fifteen months. But as rural housing is being discussed, may I give a practical answer to a question which was asked to-day by the hon. Member for Wilton (Mr. C. Bathurst), in the form of a few simple figures? I am referring exclusively to the rural housing, and from 1890 to 1899 only £3,500 were sanctioned by the late Conservative administration in that ten years. From 1900 to 1905, £6,800; from 1906 to 1910, £37,380; and from 1911 and for the three months of 1912—only fifteen months—I have had the pleasure of sanctioning £29,688, or just half of the amount of the previous twenty-two years. I am glad to say that in the last fifteen months nearly three times as much has been sanctioned as in the first sixteen years of the Housing Act. But that is only for loans to local authorities. Hon. Members must not assume that these comparative figures which I have given of the amounts sanctioned for housing, by way of loans to local authorities, represent the total amount of housing done in rural areas. It frequently happens that when a locality knows that the local authority is going to apply for housing loans, the fact at once stimulates private enterprise which was dormant until the moment the local authority applied. The action of the local authority stimulates rivalry in other directions, and I am glad to say induces good landlords to become better, bad landlords to become good, and shames the worst landlords to become something like decent in comparison with their fellow men.

I believe that the Census figures with regard to rural areas to be submitted by the Registrar-General will prove very satisfactory in regard to the attempt made by the Local Government Board to bring pressure to bear upon the rural authorities to prosecute housing schemes. I can assure the House that we are losing no ground; we are making every effort to stimulate the rural authorities to build new cottages, and to put cottages which are not habit able into decent repair; and probably the best piece of work I have ever done at the Local Government Board, and which will never be recorded, is what I have doneby way of personal persuasion of land lords, who are continually seeking advice as to how they can tread the straight butnarrow path that will lead to rural happiness. It is in that direction that a great deal of good can be done. I have satisfaction in knowing that in rural areas the death-rate has dropped, infant mortality has diminished, and the Local Government Board, as the hon. Member for Norfolk kindly said, never stood higherin the estimation of the people of the rural areas than it does now. I have only one other cheering fact to give to the House. I approach this question with the optimism born of hope, and with the knowledge and experience that more is being done in the way of social activity than hon. Members realise. You have no right to approach a housingquestion with the temperament of an undertaker's mute, and that is not the spirit in which anything can be done. Hon. Members will probably want to know what independent authority there is whichconfirms what the Local Government Board is doing, and which I have recorded to-day. There is one body from which there can be no appeal, and that is the Public Works Loans Commissioners. From1890 to 1908 that body sanctioned on the average £30,000 per year for housing loans to companies for working-class houses and to other public utility societies. For the last three years, since the Housing and Town Planning Act has been in operation, the average has jumped from £30,000 per year to £192,000 per year; that is the defence of the activity that is now being shown by the central department and the local authorities that speaks for itself. Let me say, in conclusion, to rural Members that the extent to which I dislike large towns, those monstrous aggregations of men, women, and children in the cities, is the measure of my sympathy with all rural housing schemes, and if by more inspectors and by speeding up—

Hear, hear.

The hon. Member says "Hear, hear." Does he know that the average number of letters on housing before I took office was less than 2,000 per year, and at present it is over 10,000 per year. That is an indication of the spirit with which we are trying to animate rural authorities, and of the spirit in which we are urging them to do their duty in this regard. I shall be supported in the view that we take as a Local Government Board that the rural housing problem is a serious one in the many ways in which this Government have taken steps in a way that no previous Government ever attempted. All of that would be relatively ineffective unless the landlords and all political parties in this country realise that instead of advocating dear food for men, women, and children, and low wages, the better plan is to raise the wages, and let those wages be good enough to enable the agricultural labourer, out of his higher wages to build without subsidy from the rates or a bonus from the taxes, and live in a house of his own, or for which he pays rent from those higher wages which it is the duty of every one of us to the best of our capacity to secure.

I desire to bring to the notice of the President of the Board of Education certain matters of administration affecting his Department. In taking this opportunity, I would like to say that I am one of those who feel that the opportunities given in this House for the discussion of what are after all some of the most vital questions that can be discussed, questions of education, are altogether inadequate. That must be my apology for submitting one or two points for the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman now. I desire to ask the President to make some statement with regard to the attitude of his Department towards certain problems affecting particularly secondary education. I need not remind the House that during the past few years there has been a great development in the facilities for secondary education in this country. At that development we all rejoice. But it has taken place without this House having considered the relation of secondary education to other forms of education or the unity of our educational system as a whole. May I give an example of what I mean? Secondary education is much freer, much more open to experiment, much more adventurous, than our system of elementary education, because there are not the same restricting and narrowing influences operating upon the former as upon the latter. I invite the President to state whether we shall soon have an opportunity of considering the better relationship that should exist between secondary and elementary education. Are the words "secondary" and "elementary" to stand indefinitely for different kinds of education given to different social grades, or are they to stand for the various kinds of education that are appropriate to the different ages and needs of school children? I suggest that this great problem of the relation of one form of education to another has not yet been the subject of adequate consideration, and that the Board has not yet evolved any satisfactory system for the guidance of education authorities throughout the kingdom. I should like to submit one or two specific points. For many years there has been a movement on the part of masters in secondary schools to get an adequate pension system. That is a desire with which every Member will sympathise. Can the President tell us what kind of progress that movement is making? Is there any deadlock? Is there any reason why the masters in secondary schools should not look forward to the establishment of a satisfactory pension system at a very early date? Further, has the Report of the Consultative Committee upon the whole question of examinations in secondary schools yet been considered by the Board? May we hope at an early date to learn what the policy of the Board is with regard to a report which raises issues of the utmost importance, especially in connection with the great problem of the unity of our educational system to which I have alluded?

I also wish to apply a little stimulus and suggestion to the Board of Education. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the President will come out of the ordeal as well as his other colleagues have done out of theirs. I called attention by means of a question to a typical case, because the like of it is constantly recurring. I refer to a case where an elementary school finding itself in difficulties, both as regards the size and accommodation that it provides, and the quality of its buildings, seeks to enlarge. There is a case in Birkenhead. In this connection let me say that so far as I have been able to hear about that town, the Birkenhead local education authority is one of those which should have a constant supervision and caution of the Board of Education. The Holy Trinity school at Birkenhead required enlargement. Those concerned put forward a proposal to open some old and derelict buildings which were occupied some years ago by the Wesleyans. These Wesleyan schools were not actually condemned by the Board of Education, but the managers were warned again and again, six years running, that if they did not alter or improve them, they would have their Grant taken away. Moreover, the medical officer of health and the borough surveyor of Birkenhead condemned these Wesleyan school buildings; they were eventually, in 1908, closed, and have been derelict ever since.

What is the proposal? The proposal is that these buildings should be taken to form the enlargement of Holy Trinity Schools, though they are 300 yards away at the very least, though there is no common playground between them. When this proposal came before the Board of Education in December the Board very properly said: "These are new school buildings, and there must be a regular statutory notice of three months, and they must be recognised on the basis of the new school." After that the local authority put forward a specious proposal that they were not proposing to have anything like that increase of accommodation which the size of the school warranted, and therefore on that ground apparently, so far as I can make out from the answer given to me by the President, they contend that it might be considered as an old school. I understand from the answer given to me that the Board of Education in a weak moment has given way. This is a typical case, and this sort of thing is going on everywhere. I could quote similar cases. I do most earnestly and respectfully suggest that it is not consistent to condemn a school or to go within an ace of condemning the school as a Wesleyan school, and then allow it to open as a Church of England school. I am told that improvements will be made. Apparently the opinions of the medical officer and the borough surveyor have not been taken. I very much hope we shall get an independent opinion on this matter before the school is allowed to open. If this sort of thing is allowed there is no reason why every church institute or other building of a different character altogether from a school building might not be added for the accommodation of the schools and regarded as an addition and not a new school. It may be urged that it is there and is available, and instead of the real actual laws and regulations of the Departments which are applicable to new schools being put in force, as they should be, impartially and rigorously, in the interests of the children in every case, we may have any sort of building used as an addition to a school, and the rules for accommodation, sanitation, and so forth, disregarded. This is, I venture to think, a very important case, and I hope we shall have the personal attention of the President of the Board of Education given to it. One or two remarks upon another matter of the administration of the Board in connection with cases where teachers in voluntary schools are at the present time more and more harassed and harried by their managers. I brought to the attention of the House the case of a teacher, in my own Constituency, who was dismissed for refusing to be secretary to the Conservative committee in the parish.

Question?

There is no question at all. It is admitted by everybody, and if the Noble Lord gets up and says what I am saying is not true I will give him as strong, denial as the laws of Parliamentary Debate allow. Here is a man sent out of his school on purely political grounds. He had to deal with a board of managers, the chairman of which has been fined in the Police Courts for assaulting one of the teachers in the school. When he was in possession of the key of the school he happened to drop it one day, and it was taken up by the parishioners, who thereupon held the fort for six weeks against the parson of the parish. That is the sort of man allowed to harry elementary teachers in this country.

Will the hon. Gentleman give the name?

It is the Vicar of Whitchurch, in Somerset, and I will give his name to the Noble Lord privately.

I think the hon. Gentleman ought to give it across the floor of the House when he brings the charge here.

Another case occurred only the other day in Northamptonshire, where a teacher was actually dismissed from her school for attending a Wesleyan chapel. Fortunately the case was taken up by the National Union of Teachers and brought into the Law Courts, and I am pleased to say that the Law Courts have justified her rights and the integrity of her position. What a pass things are coming to when these cases, which might be multiplied, occur without the Board of Education intervening! I know they are in a difficult position, and that their intentions are good, but I want their courage to be equal to their good intentions, and until they try to do their utmost to maintain the liberty and position of teachers, I feel that continued protests will have to be made in this House. I throw out the suggestion that in revising the Code the Board might make it a condition of the Grant that teachers shall be fairly treated, and that if they are not fairly treated the school should be considered as not adequately and properly managed, and in these circumstances the Grant to the school might be reduced or taken away altogether. These are only a few cases which I have put before the House, but I hope I have said enough to show that there is urgent need for the Board of Education to take these matters into their consideraion.

I am aware of the grievances which occur in certain of the schools of this country, but the duty of the Board of Education is limited and our powers are limited with regard to intervention. So long as the education is efficient in these schools we have no legal power to intervene. No doubt the hon. Member has performed a useful duty in drawing attention to cases such as he has referred to, and I believe that public attention is more likely to stop any such scandal than anything else, and it is only by bringing them under the notice of the public that the few managers of this country who may treat their teachers without due regard can be brought to book.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has any ground for assuming that the facts are as stated by the hon. Member in regard to Whitchurch.