asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been, called to the recent decision of the Court of Appeal on the Workmen's Compensation Act, whereby it was held that, where no weekly payments have been made, the right to compensation may be redeemed by payment of a lump sum, the receipt for which need not be registered in the County Court; and whether, in view of the dangers of this decision to uninstructed members of the working classes, he will consider the advisability of an Amendment of the Law to deal with this question?

My attention has been called to the case in question. The decision is an important one, and, if it is maintained when the same point comes, as no doubt it will, before the House of Lords, the question of an Amendment of the Act will have to be considered. In the meantime, however, the new powers given by Section 11 of the National Insurance Act in regard to agreements for compensation should go some way to meet the evil which might result from the decision of workmen concluding improvident agreements, and I am now in communication with the Insurance Commission on the subject.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury to whom Irish migratory labourers now working in England and Scotland should apply for certificates of exemption under Clause 81 (3) of the National Insurance Act; whether such applications may be made to the pension officers in the districts in which the labourers are working; whether the claims must be supported by statutory declarations or affidavits, or will statements of the facts signed by clergymen or justices of the peace of the districts in Ireland to which the labourers belong be accepted as sufficient evidence; and will he have leaflets issued immediately instructing Irish migratory labourers entitled to exemption as, to how certificates can be obtained before 15th July?

Irish migratory labourers now working in England, etc., should apply for certificates of exemption to the Secretary of the Irish Commission on forms which can shortly be obtained at the Post Offices and from Customs officers in the districts where this class of labourer is chiefly to be found. Claims need not be supported by statutory declaration or affidavit but should be verified by any clergyman or magistrate as primâ facie evidence of the truth of the statements in claim. Leaflets and posters will be issued immediately.

asked whether members of the staff of the Surrey County Asylum, who are already providing for old age by paying at the rate of 3 per cent. on their salary and emoluments under the Superannuation Act of 1909, are obliged to come in under the National Insurance Act, whereas elementary teachers are exempt under the Superannuation Act of 1898?

In such a case it is open to the employing authority to apply to the Commissioners for a certificate of exception from the compulsory provisions of the Act, on the ground that the terms of employment secure to the employés provision in respect of sickness and disablement on the whole not less favourable than the corresponding benefits under the Act. Unless such a certificate is applied for and granted the employé will come under the general provisions of the Act.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury if he will say, when an employer undertakes liability to pay full remuneration to an employé during the first six weeks of illness, to whom and in what manner must he give notice of such undertaking; and what steps are being taken to acquaint employers with the procedure it will be necessary for them to adopt in such cases?

The employer will be required to give notice to the Insurance Commissioners on a prescribed form in accordance with Regulations which will be published in a few days. Steps will then be at once taken to give special publicity to the substance of these Regulations, and the necessary procedure to be adopted by employers. Those, however, who employ servants to whom pensions or other substituted benefits under Section 13 may be more suitable than payments during sickness should remember that the payment of lower contributions under the provisions of Section 47 would necessarily penalise their servants as regards such substituted benefits.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the allowance of 4d. in the £ to bankers on Income Tax collected by them by deduction from interest or dividends applies to British as well as to foreign and Colonial dividends; and is the allowance made in respect of British dividends or interest made to the Bank of England as well as to other bankers?

Speaking generally, poundage is not paid in respect of British interest or dividends except in a few trifling cases and in the case of Municipal Stocks inscribed at the Bank of England, which receives poundage at the rate of 3d. for its services in connection with the assessment and collection of the Income Tax thereon.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury when the next Report of the Deputy-Governor of the Mint will be published?

I hope that the Report will be presented to the House before the end of this month.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury the date at which the residue of the personal estate of the late Mrs. Helen Blake, née Sheridan, was found to be £96,778 4s. 11d.; its present value at the usual rate of compound interest; what her real estate consisted of when acquired by the Crown; where situate; by whom managed; the annual gross and net income from it; the total income from it since acquired; and, if any of it has been sold or otherwise alienated, the amount received for it?

The amount stated is the present amount of the residue of the personal estate, and includes such dividends and other receipts in the nature of interest as were received up to the dates of the realisations of the various securities. I am advised that an heir-at-law or next-of-kin would not be entitled to compound interest on any part of the estate, but, however that may be, the question whether he would be entitled to any interest would be one for consideration when a claim was established. The deceased's real estate consisted of property in Middlesex, Surrey, and other parts of England, derived as to part from her husband, General Blake, under his will, and as to other part by purchase after his death. None of it was situated in Ireland. The accounts of the real estate have no materiality as regards any claim to be heir-at-law and could only be produced if this should be established.

asked the Chief Secretary if he will give the number of National schools formerly under the control of committees and owned by these committees that have been assigned to diocesan and presbytery boards of education, with and without the consent of these committees being had and obtained; when a school has been thus assigned have the rights of patron, including the appointment and dismissal of manager, which the committees exercised, been transferred to the ecclesiastical boards; and has that transfer taken place, even when the assignment of the school was effected by the manager without the committee being apprised of or having approved of the same?

The information asked for is not available, and could not be procured without an expenditure of time and labour out of all proportion to its public utility. If there is any particular case in which the hon. and gallant Member seeks information I shall be happy to make further inquiries.

asked the Chief Secretary whether, when the entire cost of the erection of a vested school is defrayed by the State, the manager in the Roman Catholic Church, with the concurrence of or at the suggestion of the bishop, has the right of disemploying its State- paid teachers without cause shown; and will the Board exercise a veto in the case of unjustifiable dismissal from such schools?

The Commissioners of National Education inform me that managers of all national schools, whether built with or without State Grants, have the power of appointing the teachers and of dismissing them in accordance with the terms of the agreements which they enter into with the teachers; but Roman Catholic clerical managers cannot exercise their power of dismissal without the consent of their bishops. Should any teacher feel aggrieved by the action of his manager he has the right of submitting his grievance directly to the Commissioners in writing for their consideration.

asked the Chief Secretary whether he is aware that the tenants on the estate of the Edinburgh Life Assurance Company, situate in the townland of Rossbrin, electoral division of Ballydehob and union of Schull, signed purchase agreements as long ago as May, 1903, and that the Estates Commissioners caused the estate to be inspected last year, and as a result of the inspection considered the price agreed on between the parties far in excess of what the estate was really worth, the price agreed on being a reduction off the first-term rents of 7s. 6d. in the £ and 5s. 6d. in the £ off the second-term rents; whether he is aware that the Commissioners then informed the landlord company that if considerable improvements, such as building dwelling-houses, making roads, and straightening boundaries, were not carried out at the company's expense and the purchase price reduced the sale would not be sanctioned, and that the landlords fell in with the suggestions of the Estates Commissioners; will the Estates Commissioners now see that those improvements are carried out immediately, and that the tenants get at once the benefit of the further reduction in the purchase price; and will he say within what time the Estates Commissioners expect to complete the sale of this estate?

The purchase agreements in the case of this estate were not lodged until December, 1905. The Estates Commissioners are in negotiation with the owners for the purchase of the estate under Section 6 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, and, when it is acquired, they propose to carry out such improvements as they consider desirable. The Commissioners hope to be in a position to deal with the property at an early date.

asked the Chief Secretary whether the principals of training colleges under local management submit candidates for the King's Scholarship who have passed that test and been summoned to training to what is known as personal instruction after they arrive at the college to which they have been summoned; do they sometimes reject candidates at the personal inspection ceremony: if so, is he aware of the financial loss that such rejection involves to candidates; will he say if there is any personal inspection standard set up by the Board, and any guarantee as to the character of the inspection; is it proposed to introduce it into the State training college; and will he consider the introduction of a system under which candidates for the personal inspection would be conducted by the inspectors at the Easter local examination?

The Commissioners of National Education inform me that there is a provision in the Rules and Regulations of the Commissioners that before candidates are admitted to a training college the medical officer of the college must certify that the state of their health is satisfactory, and that they are free from serious bodily defect or deformity, and the Commissioners are aware that candidates are occasionally rejected by the medical officers of the training colleges as physically unfit to enter upon a course of training. The Commissioners have no official cognizance of candidates summoned to training being submitted to any inspection other than that required under the terms of the foregoing provision. It is customary for the Inspectors superintending the King's Scholarship Examination at the various local centres to report to the Commissioners any physical defects which they may observe in candidate King's scholars, and the authorities of the training colleges concerned are duly informed of such defects.

asked the President of the Board of Education whether it is the practice of the Board of Education to sanction the dismissal of a head teacher on the ground that he is unmarried?

The dismissal of a head master of an elementary school does not require the sanction of the Board of Education. Their powers are limited to the determination of questions as to the validity of dismissals of teachers submitted for their decision under Section 7 of the Education Act, 1902, by local education authorities or the managers of non-provided schools. So far as I am aware, no question relating to the dismissal of a teacher on the ground that he is unmarried, has been referred to the Board under the Section.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether any protests have been made by prison doctors, either to the prison authorities or direct to the Home Office, against performing the operation of forcible feeding upon suffragist prisoners; if so, what is the number of such protests and the action taken in each case as a result of such protests?

No such protests have been made.

asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the tube-feeding of suffragette prisoners in the different prisons is being done by fully qualified medical men; and, if so, what are the names and qualifications of these gentlemen?

The compulsory feeding of prisoners is in each prison carried out by the medical officers, who are always fully qualified medical men. In one or two cases they have had the assistance of medical men not in the prison service, who were also fully qualified. I place entire confidence in the discretion of these gentlemen and their ability to perform the duties required of them, and I do not think it is desirable to give prominence to their names by mentioning them here.

asked the Home Secretary whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a copy of the evidence, when completed, given in the inquiry now being held at Bermondsey Town Hall, and a copy of the letter which Mr. Morris, the Mayor of the Bermondsey Borough Council, wrote to the Home Secretary on 12th June, 1912, and which is now in the charge of the magistrate who is conducting the inquiry?

When I receive the magistrate's report I will consider whether the evidence should be laid before Parliament. I cannot decide this question until then.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware of the complaints in Burmah of the conduct of the trial of a planter for abduction and rape of a girl of ten years of age at Victoria Point, Tenasserim, in August last; if he is aware that the friends of the girl appealed to the lieutenant-governor to remove the case from the Court at which it was heard, on the ground that the magistrate who held the first inquiry and the judge who conducted the trial were both personal friends of the accused; that such appeal was refused; that bail was allowed, although abduction is a non-bailable offence, and that the accused admitted holding the girl in his house for three months, refusing her access to her parents, and not allowing her to see her father during his illness or attend his funeral; and if he will inquire into all the circumstances connected with the trial?

This case, on which the Government of India has made a report to the Secretary of State, will shortly be the subject of judicial proceedings in Burmah; pending which I must of course decline to express any opinion on the allegations made. But I may explain that a Magistrate's Court has power to allow bail even when the offence charged is described as "non-bailable."

asked the Under-Secretary of State for India the total number of deaths from plague occurring in India during the years 1901 to 1911, both inclusive?

The total recorded deaths from plague in India (including Native States) during the period in question is, in round numbers, 7¼ millions.

asked the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the ratepayers' memorial protesting against the pension awarded to the late Gateshead poor rate collector; and if he can say upon what grounds this official's retiring allowance was fixed at an amount largely in excess of the amount due based upon salary and length of service?

My attention was called to the memorial referred to, and I addressed a communication to the Town Council of Gateshead on the subject. I understand that the town council considered, on the unanimous recommendation of the special committee dealing with the matter, that it would be in the best interests of the ratepayers to arrange for the retirement of the poor rate collector, and as this could only be secured by mutual agreement they decided to pay him the retiring allowance in question. The accounts of the council are not subject to audit by the district auditor, and I have no control over the council in the matter.

asked the President of the Board of Agriculture the extent of the Australian fruit trade with the United Kingdom; and if any steps are taken by his Department to help this industry?

The imports of raw fruit from Australia in 1911 were as follows:—

Fruit imported otherwise than in a raw state in 1911 was as follows.—

asked the President of the Board of Trade how many applications for revocation of patents for non-working in this country have been made up to the end of June, 1912, since the Patents and Designs Act, 1907, became operative; how many patents have been revoked thereupon; and how many petitions for compulsory licences have been presented and adjudicated upon during the same period?

Since the 28th August, 1908, when Section 78 of the Patents and Designs Act, 1907, came into operation, up to the end of June, 1912, there have been eighty-three applications for the revocation of patents on the ground that the patented articles or processes have been exclusively or mainly manufactured or carried on outside the United Kingdom. In twenty of these cases the patents have been revoked. Section 24 of the Act which deals with compulsory licences, came into operation on the 1st January, 1908, and from that date up to the end of June, 1912, one petition has been presented for the grant of a compulsory licence. This petition was subsequently withdrawn, an arrangement having been made between the parties.

asked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether, in any case where an agricultural college is able and willing to act as a centre for the itinerant and miscellaneous work of a county agricultural staff other than that done in regular courses of instruction and for demonstrations or other work suggested for the farm institutes proposed in the Board's Memorandum [Cd. 6252], any of the sums to be advanced out of the Development Fund for such purposes will be available for that college instead of for a farm institute?

Grants-in-Aid of farm institute work will be payable to the local education authorities, which are responsible for the provision of instruction of the type referred to. Where local authorities make suitable arrangements with colleges for carrying on miscellaneous and itinerant work and for any other purposes to which the Farm Institutes Grants are applicable, the Board will be prepared to sanction such arrangements and to approve payments made by a local authority to a college, provided that the new work proposed in any particular case does not interfere with the educational work for which the college may be already receiving a Grant-in-Aid.