I beg to move, "That the Committee do consist of sixteen Members."

I beg to move to add, at the end, the words "chosen by ballot from the respective groups in the House in the following proportion: Liberals six, Unionists six, Irish Nationalists two, Irish Independent party one, and Labour one."

I should like to enter my emphatic protest against the Government having put down a very strong controversial measure of this sort just in front of another controversial measure.

The hon. Member is too late in raising anything of that sort. The only question he can now debate is how the sixteen Members who are to form this Committee are to be appointed.

I thank you for allowing me to make that preliminary observation. Ever since this Motion appeared on the Order Paper it was quite evident to hon. Members on this side that it gave satisfaction to nobody. The various Amendments which come after mine clearly indicate that. I am not going to criticise for a moment the names the Government have put down of colleagues and Friends of ours on both sides of the House, still I am sure most of the House will agree with me that it would be extremely undesirable to have a debate upon what is, after all, the personal element, and it is with that object that I have put down the Amendment standing in my name, which, I believe, commands certainly a very considerable amount of support on this side of the House, whatever it may do on the other. Perhaps hon. Members opposite are better pleased with the selection than hon. Members on this side. Of course it is one of those matters in which I think everyone will agree that the House ought to have a certain amount of liberty and not one on which the Government should put on their Whips. I may say frankly that if my Amendment is negatived, I shall vote straight through against my hon. Friends' other Amendments by which they propose to place one name against another. It is only fair to the Government to say that. I think it will save a considerable amount of time and be more consistent with the dignity of this House, if we pass the Amendment which I now move.

I beg to second the Amendment. I have no desire to enter into any kind of criticism of the names submitted in the Motion, but I think that on these personal matters when Amendments are down on the Paper to leave out certain names and substitute others a somewhat invidious duty is imposed on hon. Members who support one name as against another. One hon. Member proposes to substitute the hon. Member for North-West Lanark (Mr. Pringle) for the hon. Member for the Montrose Burghs (Mr. Robert Harcourt). I cannot conceive a more disagreeable and embarrassing situation than that the House of Commons should be called upon to decide as between these two gentlemen. I think in so important a matter as this it is essential that the House of Commons should have the fullest possible choice. Although the sixteen names in the Motion may be very excellent names, I am not at all sure that if we submitted the nominations to a ballot we might not provide a better Committee. The Amendment proposes that the vote should be in camera. That is a system which has been adopted in other Assemblies, and which might be adopted here with advantage. I shall have the greatest pleasure in supporting the Amendment.

I am sure that my hon. Friends who have made themselves responsible for this Amendment as to the selection of this Committee by ballot would not say that the Government exercised any influence of any sort or kind over the selection of these names except as regards six of the Members. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The Members are nominated in accordance with the undertaking which I gave when the question was originally debated. The Government have nominated six of the Members and the whole of the rest are drawn in the usual way from other quarters of the House. What I wish to observe is that the names have been allocated, in fact, in the proportions which my hon. Friends desire, Six belong to the regular supporters of the Government, six are Unionists, and two are Irish Nationalists, whose names were suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond), one is an Independent Nationalist, and one a Labour Member, so that we have selected the names exactly in the way my hon. Friend suggests so far as the balance of parties is concerned. It will be entirely in the discretion of the House to propose other names if it is considered those proposed do not properly represent the balance of parties. It would be a very reasonable objection to take. The House has complete control over the names, but I see no reason why the Motion should not be passed in the form now proposed.

I only express my difference from the Prime Minister with great hesitation, but I do so with some confidence on this occasion, for this reason: I believe the Prime Minister, who generally apprehends the sense and feeling of this House, does not understand how this matter is regarded in all parts of the House of Commons except on the two Front Benches. If he had heard the conversation which has been indulged in frequently in regard to this Motion, he would have gathered something which would have enlightened him.

What was the conversation?

That is a challenge which I shall not accept, though I am usually ready confidently to reply to any challenge. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] Because it might involve me in having to repeat un-parliamentary epithets. Seriously this point ought to be understood by the Prime Minister. There are several of these names—in fact there are more than two, more than three, more than four of these names—I will not go any further—which do represent a tendency which we do not want to have stronger than is necessary in this House. They represent officialism, and a tendency to block all proposals coming from private Members. We understood that the Committee was to be appointed in order to provide that private Members might have a chance. I say that the names proposed for the composition of the Committee indicate that the reverse would be the result. I therefore most earnestly represent to the Prime Minister that if he cannot give way, he should, at any rate, indicate a large alteration in the list of names when we come to consider them individually. I beg to support the Amendment most heartily, and if it is necessary to go to a Division, I shall endeavour to prevail upon other Members, to support it.

It is with considerable reluctance that I rise to support the Amendment. We do not want to enter into recriminations as to who is or who is not fit to sit on the Committee. I suppose all of us have full confidence in the Committee which has been proposed, but it is idle to, deny that there is some dissatisfaction about the selection of the Committee. I remember an occasion on which I was personally concerned when a Committee was appointed to consider the matter of London traffic, and when there was such an outcry on the part of parties interested in the constitution of that Committee that I myself and others were asked to retire in order to make way for others more interested in and conversant with the subject. I would ask the Prime Minister to consider this question more sympathetically than he has done hitherto. There is a feeling in this House that some of our oldest and most weighty Members are not adequately represented on the Committees which are set up. The younger Members of the House can speak freely on this matter. There are Members here who have vast knowledge of the procedure and working of, this House, and we consider that they are very much passed over in the appointment of Committees. I shall, feeling quite conscious of being in the right, support the Amendment if it goes to a Division.

May I ask the hon. Member (Mr. Cathcart Wason) what he really means by the words "chosen by ballot." Does he mean that all the names shall be put into a box and voted on secretly, and that those which are first drawn shall be taken to, constitute the Committee.

What mean is that hon. Members on the opposite side of the House should elect by ballot those Members who seem to them most desirable to place on the Committee, while we on this side of the House, representing the Liberal party shall do the same thing with respect to the Members we desire to serve on the Committee. We should not vote on the names of the Committee at all, but hand to the Patronage Secretary the names of those we wish to be included in the ballot.

Although I do not feel that the suggestion made by my hon. Friend in the Amendment now before the House is the most perfect way of realising his object, I shall support him in the Lobby as the only way of entering an objection to the manner in which these Committees are from time to time appointed. In the present case where the object of the Motion put down by the Government is to allow the average Member of the House to pass in review the arrangements for the procedure of this House, and in order to test the possibility of facilitating the progress of legislation, and particularly private Members' legislation, I cannot help thinking, this being the primary intention of the Motion, that the nomination of the Committee has been too narrow in its character. No one contends that the particular names included in the nomination do not give other than an official complexion. There can be no sort of objection to the names individually.

My hon. Friend says that the names give an official complexion to the Committee. Will he kindly indicate what names he means?

My point is this. The Committee is constituted by nomination of the Whips of the two great parties represented in this House. That is not a desirable way of selecting the members of a Committee for so practical a purpose as is the purpose of the present Committee. My hon. Friend who preceded me complained of the names selected, on the ground that the older and weightier Members of this House had their claims ignored. My objection to the Committee is of quite a different character. There is no Member of this House who has tried more assiduously to avoid nomination on any Committee than I have done, and therefore I do not share my hon. Friend's confidence that we all of us feel ourselves qualified to serve on any Committee. But looking at the names which appear in the Notice of Motion I find that eight of them, or one half of the total number, had a connection with this House prior to or as early as the year 1892. It does not need one to have a prolonged memory in this House to be perfectly conscious of the benumbing influence of the traditions and atmosphere of this House where rules and procedure are concerned; and I do think that a Committee of this character should present an opportunity for the service of Members who have a much more recent association with the House, and can bring to bear upon the consideration of this question a freshness of point of view which otherwise may be lacking. The Prime Minister questioned my reference as to the Committee being official in its complexion. I very strongly object personally to the Whips of the two great parties being represented on this Committee. I am perfectly well aware that the Whips have expert knowledge and experience of the rules and procedure of this House, but it does not follow that because the Whips are not personally Members of the Committee therefore no opportunity is afforded to them of presenting their views to the Committee, and I suggest that a very ready and direct way of presenting their suggestions to the Committee is by occupying a seat in the witness chair. Therefore, I should personally like to see the Whips association with the Committee ended by having them excluded and the names of others substituted. There is a perfectly natural, and, from their point of view, legitimate desire on the part of the Whips, to keep control of the arrangements of the business of the House, but the result is that the interests of private legislation, often of an urgent character, are again and again prejudiced because of the overwhelming control exercised by the Whips in the arrangement of the business of the House. For these reasons, and also because there are certain members nominated on this Committee who have what I may term a vested interest in the existing rule, and are therefore not the best qualified to suggest improvements in procedure, I shall vote for the Amendment of my hon. Friend.

The right hon. Gentleman says that it would be a mistake to depart from the method usually employed in the appointment of Select Committees, especially to adopt the method of selection by ballot, and he says that the names are put one by one from the Chair in order that reasonable objection, if such exists, may be taken; but it would be most unpleasant if we had to divide either on this or on any other occasion as to the respective merits of different names, and therefore we come back to the original method of selection. I am quite sure that the dissatisfaction which exists in a great many parts of the House with the present composition of this Committee, is due not so much to any question of disagreement with the names of particular persons, though I know that the disagreement in some cases is pretty strong, as to the fact that the decision to appoint six Members from this side and six Members from that side of the House in the main emerged from secret conclaves. That is to say, the general sense of the, House—though I know that there is a difficulty in the matter—is not taken as to who should be selected. I agree that while the actual official element of the Whips from either side of the House is meagrely represented on the Committee, none the less the membership of the Committee is essentially of an official character. It is rather remarkable that the tiniest party in the House should find itself represented in full upon the Committee. I refer to the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) and the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth). I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract does not take umbrage at my reference to him in that character, because he openly and proudly confesses to it.

My hon. Friend comes from Scotland and therefore does not understand a humorous suggestion.

My hon. Friend has made a perfectly legitimate thrust, but, humorous suggestions or none on his part, his actions prove that his words had some meaning in them. On that ground I say that these two hon. Gentlemen form in themselves a party which, as my hon. Friend says, have a distinct vested interest in the present rules of procedure. There is a further point. A Committee of this kind ought to be peculiarly the production of the House as a whole, because what is at stake at this moment? Not the interests of the Government with regard to the control of the House, but the interests of the private Member. After the deliberations of this Committee are completed, and after it has reported, it still rests with His Majesty's Government to decide what is to be done, and nothing but the most overwhelming pressure, not only from his own side of the House but from the other side of the House, could move them, if they were unwilling, to take action on the Report of a Committee which was as comparatively hostile to their own views. Therefore I think that the official character of this Committee is deserving of some public remark before we take a vote on the subject, and although, like the hon. Member for Huddersfield and the hon. Member for Saffron Walden, I do not care for the form in which the Member for Orkney has put his Motion, I shall be compelled to support the Amendment as a protest against the way in which the Committee has been appointed.

I have given as good advice to the House as I can on this subject. This is not a matter in which the Government have any concern at all, and they will gladly defer to any general expression of opinion by the House. I have only two things to say. It is said that this proposed Committee is official in character. I only wish to say, first, that fourteen out of the sixteen Members proposed are private Members and non-official; and so far as regards the Whips' Department, my hon. Friend (Mr. Illingworth) is perfectly willing that his Department should not be represented. I think it is a most patriotic position he has taken up in the circumstances, with his almost unrivalled knowledge of procedure. I should have thought, also, that there could be no objection to the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Sanders), who represents the other side. So far as concerns the suggestion that the Government are putting on a Whip, and that the Opposition are putting on a Whip with some sinister design to control the proceedings in their own interest, there is no ground whatever for it, and I trust that the House will now come to a decision.

Before we go to a Division I should like to associate myself with the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sherwell) in what he said. I do not myself care for the particular Amendment which has been moved, but I shall certainly support it as a protest against the composition of the Committee. In regard to what the Prime Minister has said, I should have thought the suggestion that the two Whips might give evidence before the Committee would give it the advantage of the knowledge of precedure which they possess, and then there could be no suggestion that the Whips were in any way attempting to influence the proceedings of that body in favour of an alteration of procedure which would make their power even greater than it is at present.

I are sorry that the Prime Minister asks us to come to a decision on this very important subject, which we have been debating only for half an hour. The Amendment moved by my hon. Friend, whatever may be thought of it, shows the general feeling of the House, which on more than one occasion has been displayed on various public matters, and my only surprise is that Members of the Government should be surprised that such an Amendment has been put down. If the older Members of the Government who were here before 1892 were in any way in touch with the pulse of the House they would see that this ebullition of feeling in one direction is only natural, and I must say that it is growing more and more, especially so within the last few months. It is felt that the Government are aloof from the feelings of private Members of this House, that they stand alone on a pedestal of their own imagination, unaware of the feeling among private Members, and that they are absolutely out of touch with the feelings of private Members, who, after all, are supposed to be the real power in the House. The Government have an unusual amount of power at the present time, and the more power they obtain the more they will require. That is the danger, and therefore this Debate is only the natural outcome of the feeling which exists. I hope that other private Members will continue voicing this feeling of general reluctance to serve as the galley slaves of the Cabinet. If the Prime Minister wishes to get the general feeling of private Members, and not the feeling of servile and obedient followers of the Government Whips—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"]—I withdraw the word "servile," and I withdraw the word "obedient." I merely call attention to the feeling of private Members of this House—let him take off the Government Whips when there is a Division.

I propose to do so.

My request is granted before it is made, and I am very glad of it. Before a Division is taken, perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland will devise a more popular Amendment [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—while maintaining the principle at stake. The appointment of this Committee should not be merely in the hands of the Whips of each party. If private Members are left free to express their general feeling in the Division Lobby, I believe they might possibly defeat the Government.

We have no desire to press the nomination of the Whip on this side, and if there is a general opinion that the two Whips should not be on the Committee, we on this side do not wish to raise any objection.

I quite appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's position, and I am sure the House will excuse me if I offer a few observations on the subject. The principle followed in this House is that each party shall have representation proportionate to its number, and the selection of nominees is a matter for the respective parties themselves. In reference to the party with which I am associated, in making a selection we have regard only to the fitness of the Member chosen for the duties which he will have to discharge on the Committee. If one of our party possesses intimate knowledge of the subject to be dealt with by the Committee to be appointed, he is selected. I assume that is the policy pursued by other parties in the House. In the Labour party the officials of that party, who obtain an accurate knowledge of the fitness of a particular Member of it for the duties to be performed, make a recommendation to a meeting of the Labour Members, who approve or reject the recommendation made to them. In this particular it may well happen that the composition of the Committee is not what the House would exactly desire. As the Prime Minister has stated, the House now has the opportunity of voting upon each individual name, and as the Whips are not to be put on it seems to me the desire of the House can very well be made known. As to the method proposed in the Amendment, I must say I cannot regard it as practical as far as I am concerned, and with my colleagues I propose to vote against it.

I am anxious not to allow the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetlands (Mr. Cathcart Wason) to pass without a word of protest. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sherwell) spoke of me as one of the older and weightier Members. When the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr. Pirie) says that the object of this Committee is to put more power into the hands of the Government than they have already got I desire to inform him it is nothing of the sort. It is following on the old procedure, and on the old lines. I agree entirely with the remark that the Whips in their selection of members for Select Committees do endeavour to get the best men they possibly can for those Committees, and that would be impossible if the Amendment were adopted. I have no hesitation whatever, although we are called "Servile and obedient followers of the Government," in saying that I am no more servile and obedient than the hon. Member. I have endeavoured to show why I shall support the Resolution and oppose the Amendment.

I should be very sorry to have it supposed that all of us have sympathy with what may be called the universal opinion expressed by some hon. Members. I am one of those who pressed for the appointment of this Committee, and I am grateful to the Government for having agreed to do so. I would remind the House of the purpose of the appointment of the Committee. It is appointed to inquire what alterations, if any, are desirable in the practice and procedure of the House. On a Committee of that kind I submit you must have men who are acquainted with the practice and procedure of the House. For that reason it is absolutely necessary that on that Committee you should have a certain number of men who have been in the House a very long time. In spite of the achievements of the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth), I submit that service for a long number of years in the House is necessary for most of us before we can acquire an acquaintance with the meaning of procedure. A Committee of new Members filled with a consciousness of the inconvenience of the present system is by no means the best Committee to inquire and report. It does seem to me what a good many of those who have spoken are asking for is ignorant criticism; and I judge so from their speeches. While I am anxious to have upon the Committee a number of the newer Members of the House to bring that fresh air from outside which they seem to think so desirable to bear on our procedure, and I so far agree with them, I do think it would be a real misfortune if we did not get also on the Committee a number of men who from their use, and even misuse, of the Rules of the House, know what can be done. I ask the House to look at the Committee. I scrutinised it with great care when the names were put on the Paper. I am exceedingly anxious we should have a strong Committee and a useful report. I do say that the names on the Committee are those of hon. Members who, nearly every one, can bring a real contribution to +he work of the Committee. I look at the names one by one. We have the hon. Baronet the Member for the City (Sir F. Banbury) and the, hon. Member for Pontefract. They have used the rules to the utmost possible extent, and I think any Committee on Procedure without them upon it would really not be fully representative of the House and of the way in which the House uses its rules. I think both should be on the Committee, because it is desirable that you should have the inquiry from the point of view of the Government and the point of view of the Opposition. Therefore I think those two past-masters in the art of making use of the most out-of-the-way rules for their own purposes are very desirable members of the Committee. The hon. Member for Dudley (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen) is a very old Member of this House.

Is it in order on this Amendment to discuss the individual names?

If this Amendment is defeated we shall then reach the discussion of the individual names, and that will be a more convenient time to do so.

The criticism put forward was that it was not representative of the opinion of the House for this purpose, and I was endeavouring to show that, taking the Members one by one, they really do represent the many points of view, and have a great deal of varied experience. I will not, however, pursue the matter. There are newer Members on it, and you have those elements which enable the Committee to fulfil the purpose for which it is required.

I beg to oppose the inclusion of the name of Sir Frederick Banbury.

As a matter of personal convenience, if your ruling had allowed it, I should have preferred to move my Amendment as it stands on the Paper—that is, to have moved the exclusion of two names and the substitution of two others. I may state my object in opposing these two names, in order to save repetition when the next name is taken. The hon Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) has an unrivalled knowledge of the rules of procedure of this House, and even of the by-ways of those rules as well of the main roads, but, in my experience of the House during the last seven or eight years, that knowledge has been most skilfully and assiduously used for preventing this House from fulfilling its primary function as a legislative instrument. The hon. Baronet takes the view, which is held by a few other Members, that legislation is in itself an evil, and that this House best fulfils its duty to the country by preventing rather than by enacting legislation. I still think, with all respect, that the country regards this House primarily as a legislative instrument, and wants us to justify our existence by doing good business for the country. My fear is that if the hon. Baronet is elected upon this Committee, his unrivalled knowledge of the rules of procedure will be used with the object of putting forward recommendations which will leave us pretty much where we are to-day in reference to the arrangements for business; and as the real object of the appointment of this Committee is to consider such revision of our rules as will facilitate rather than retard business, I think the hon. Baronet is a most undesirable Member to appoint. In my view, his unrivalled knowledge might be placed at the service of the Committee if the hon. Baronet would take his place in the witness chair. If he gave his views as fully and plainly as he is capable of doing, he would give the Committee and the House the full advantage of his knowledge, without any of those disadvantages which. I am afraid may attend upon his knowledge if he sits as a member of the Committee. I desire as a private Member to enter a very strong protest against the times that are usually chosen by the hon. Baronet and some other Members for the ingenious exercise of their knowledge. We are all aware that one of the real defects in our procedure is that the existing rules allow of the stultification of the House, particularly on Fridays. The Friday for the greater part of the Session——

The hon. Member will be entitled to discuss that in the Committee, but it is not relevant to the present Motion.

I, of course, defer to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, but I thought I might probably indicate to the House the general lines of my objection to the hon. Baronet.

The Motion of the hon. Gentleman does not require a seconder, but I think it is right that some one on this side of the House should state the objections to the hon. Baronet—I need hardly say in no sense personally. My objection is equally strong to the hon. Member (Mr. Booth), whose name will come up next for decision. I agree with everything that has been said by the hon. Member for Huddersfield. What is the object, according to the first part of the Motion, of setting up this Select Committee? It is "to consider and report whether any, and, if so, what alterations are desirable in the practice and procedure of this House with regard to public business." That object will be lost if the Committee contains an hon. Member whose public life in this House has been associated, honourably enough, with attempts to make the procedure more ridiculous than it is at present. I hold, very strongly, that if the procedure of this House, and that if the House of Commons itself, is to have the respect and position it formerly occupied in the opinion of the country, the procedure has got to be drastically amended—the surgeon's knife has got to be applied to the gangrene that is undoubtedly there. Although I would be the last to deny the services of my hon. Friend, and of the hon. Gentleman opposite in some directions, I do not think that they are the doctors to be called in to prescribe for the disease from which the House is suffering. There is at the commencement of the Book of Common Prayer a sentence that applies to the Church of England, which although hon. Members opposite may not agree as applying to the Church of England, yet perhaps will agree with me in applying to the procedure of this House.

"It bath been the wisdom of the Church of England; ever since the first compiling of her Publick Liturgy, to keep the mean between the two extremes, of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting any variation from it."

These words, as applied to debate, are what some of us who are anxious to see the procedure of the House amended, are aiming at. We wish to see the balance of power maintained between the Government—whatever Government is in power—which invariably wishes to prevent debate, and the good party men among the Opposition, who invariably wish to prolong it, we wish to see the balance evenly held. We recognise that it is not evenly held. The result is the appalling condition of affairs that has occurred in recent debates. It would not be in order to refer to the Debate in the earlier part of the week, but every private Member who cares for the honour of the House must have been impressed by the speeches on that occasion, and must have realised the need for some drastic treatment. I submit that that drastic treatment can only be carried out by appointing men on the Committee that are not known to be associated with one aspect of the work of the House, and that new aspect of which no Member who really cares for the House of Commons can be particularly proud.

I beg to support the Amendment, but for different reasons these given, either by my hon. Friend on this side or the Noble Lord. I do not wish to make any disparaging reference to the hon. Baronet, for I agree that there is no man more fully master of the procedure of the House of Commons than he is. Nobody admires his ability on this side of the House more than I do, with the possible exception of the hon. Member for Pontefract. But I would point out that the hon. Baronet is already a Member of two Committees. He is Chairman of the Estimates Committee, and a Member of the Marconi Committee, which has not yet discharged its great duties. [An HON. MEMBER: "And never will."] Under the circumstances it seems to me to be impossible for a Member of this House to discharge the duties adequately and well of another Committee, especially one with a very hard task like this. His nomination by hon. Gentlemen opposite seems to me to argue a lack of ability and talent in the ranks opposite, which we on the Government side would not have liked to attribute to them.

Banbury saved by the Irish.

I beg to oppose the inclusion of the name of Mr. Booth.

I need not detain the House with any lengthy remarks, because the same general arguments as I used in reference to the name of the hon. Baronet, the Member for the City of London, apply also to the hon. Member for Pontefract. The only difference is that whereas the hon Baronet has a long association with this House, my hon. Friend has contrived by very great skill in a very short space of time to acquire an almost equal mastery of its procedure. It is because I regard that mastery as dangerous in the object, and use made of it characteristically and habitually by my hon. Friend, in concert with the hon. Baronet opposite, that I desire to move the omission of his name.

I desire to associate myself with my hon. Friend, not from any feeling of animosity towards the Member for Pontefract, but merely from a feeling of my great admiration, and even affection for him. I feel strongly that it can do no good to a man to put him upon a Committee which is already discredited. The hon. Member was born for better and greater things. Moreover, cannot the House see that the storm is rising. On the first Division we only took forty-one into the Lobby, but on the second Division we had very nearly eighty, and I tremble to think what will be the result if this Division takes place. Therefore let my hon. Friend seek refuge while there is yet time, and let him gracefully withdraw his candidature from this Committee. There is only one other point, because I am anxious to come to this Division in which I anticipate a great success. I want to appeal to the Whips on the opposite side, and especially the Whips of the Nationalist party, to follow the excellent example which has been set by the Whips, which I invariably follow. I enjoyed the freedom accorded to me in the two Divisions that have taken place. Let the Whips on the opposite side give a like freedom to their supporters and they will find that they will be all the more devoted to them when they really want them. With this appeal to the Whips of all parties to unite in giving the House an opportunity of a free decision upon this momentous issue I beg to second the Amendment.

There are a good many reasons why Members are put upon Committees by the Whips. I make a suggestion, possibly the Whips think by putting an hon. Member on the Committee they have discharged an obligation and possibly the Whips may be animated by a desire to square a troublesome man. Let the House judge which is the case. My attitude would be to divide against every one of the names proposed. I still hold, in spite of the assurance of the Prime Minister, that the Whips are not acting so as to leave the House quite free to vote. In the last two Divisions I have heard of the Whips standing in the Lobby and giving the sign of the hand which way to vote. I would remind the Whips that a wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse. Whether the blindness has anything to do with servility or obedience I will leave to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Clackmannan and Kinross (Mr. E. Wason), who is such an eminent authority, and I may say that I shall not follow him in the course he is adopting on this question. There is another instance of how the House is still swayed by a nod or a wink in the Lobby, for I saw a body of men in one Lobby walk out almost like a company of Infantry who had got into the Lobby by mistake, and the Captain ordered them out.

It was a sense of fair play.

An hon. Member from the Nationalist Benches called out, "Banbury saved by the Irish!" but I think it is important that the public should know exactly what is going on, and for my own part I shall do my best to make known to the public exactly what is taking place in this Whip-ridden House.

I would like to say a word or two on this Motion, which I intend to support. In this House we represent the public outside. We seem to have got into a very frivolous state of mind, but there are a good many people outside who take a very serious attitude towards the performances of the two hon. Members, one who has just been voted upon (Sir F. Banbury) and the other who is going to be voted upon (Mr. Booth). There are many of us who have fought Bills through Committee. We have seen these Bills sent up to the other House, and afterwards we find that they are wrecked on the rocks of these two hon. Members. There are people who have devoted years of their lives to the study of questions of great importance to the community, and their efforts are killed simply to amuse these two hon. Members. The Irish Members opposite know their own business, and they may think it wise to alienate the rank and file of the Liberal party by supporting such Motions as these. I feel very strongly on this matter, and I am entitled to speak strongly. Hon. Members below the Gangway may think it wise to alienate the support of many hon. Members who simply voted for the last Motion because they had an idea that they would rather support the Government, although otherwise they might have been inclined to support us. We do take a serious view of a Committee which is supposed to be a body constituted to safeguard our rights, and it is a very serious matter to put on that Committee two men who have wrecked Bill after Bill in this House.

I rise to say that in the last Division I voted for the retention of the name of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury). I was not approached on this matter by any Whip or anybody else, and we voted upon that Motion as individuals and as Members of the House of Commons. Personally, I intend to support the Motion that the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) shall be retained as a Member of the Committee.

I would like to ask your ruling, Mr. Speaker, in regard to the Scottish Bill which is down on the Order Paper. I wish to know whether under any rules the House can sit after five o'clock in order to proceed with that measure?

I am afraid that is a point of Order which I cannot deal with at the present moment.

The Committee which is being proposed will have some very important duties to perform. Already a compliment has been paid to the hon. Member for Pontefract, who has succeeded in a comparatively short membership of the House in making himself fully acquainted with all the rules of procedure, and obtaining a certain position as a result of that knowledge. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether hon. Members think that the peculiar talents of the hon. Member for Pontefract are best suited for service on a Committee which has to discuss, above everything else, the question how freedom of debate can be restored to the House of Commons. If hon. Members think the hon. Member for Pontefract's talents are suited to such a Committee, then they ought to vote for him, and if they do not think so they should vote for the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend. Hon. Members who make a practice of making themselves acquainted with the rules of procedure and

I intend, if there are others who will go along with me to the Lobby, to divide on every one of these names. It is quite obvious that the object of this, Committee will not be attained unless the names carry the great sense and the weight of the House with them, and the last two Divisions have clearly shown that is not so. I object to the name of the hon. Member for Dudley, because he represents, as few of us do, practically the Front Bench. There is no one between him and the Gentlemen on the Front Opposition Bench. I have nothing against him personally, but I do think that his qualifications for this Committee are not very apparent.

I only desire to say, as one of the malcontents, that I have no intention whatever of continuing opposition right through to each member of the Committee. Those who have spoken against the two names which have been carried have made it perfectly clear what was their object. There was no possibility of any personalities. They were standing up for a principle, and it seems to me it would be a most ridiculous way of stultifying that

I think it would be in some respects an abuse of the procedure of this House to divide against every name, but I shall do my utmost to object of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Gulland), because I do not think any official representative ought to be on this Committee.

I sincerely hope my hon. Friend (Mr. King) will not adhere to his resolution. Those of us who have made objection have done so in a serious spirit, and I, personally, cannot persist in an attitude which would prejudice what is intended to be a, very serious protest.

May I be allowed to withdraw, not because I am contented, but because I do not want in any way to interfere with the operations of this House or to seem unreasonable? I am not an unreasonable person.

Whatever my hon. Friend may do, I shall certainly go to a Division.

I desire to oppose the inclusion of my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Gulland).

On a point of Order. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries will certainly withdraw his name, as indicated by the Prime Minister, and I do not move his name.

On a point of Order. Is it not open to another Member of the House to move that the hon. Member for Dumfries be a Member of the Committee?

This Committee is proposed by the Government, and they are responsible for the names. If they do not choose to move that name, there is no power to compel them to do so.

Could not the Government propose some other name in place of that of the hon. Member for Dumfries, and would it not then be open to any hon. Member to move as an Amendment that he be a member of the Committee?

The hon. Member would first have to obtain his assent. That might not be so easily obtained.

Is it not possible for anyone to object to the withdrawal of this name?

:It is not moved.

I desire to ask an explanation from the Government. I do not wish to prolong these proceedings, but if they intend also to omit the name of the Whip upon the other side, that will facilitate the proceedings. We ought to know what they intend to do.

My hon. Friend does not propose to submit his name.

On a point of Order. The Resolution has been passed stating that the Committee should consist of sixteen members, but only fourteen names have been added to it. I should like to ask the Government or you, Sir, what is the position in which we stand. How is that inconsistency to be overcome?

It can be overcome by adding two to fourteen.

I feel that I owe the House some sort of apology for speaking on the Scottish Mental Deficiency Bill, but I do so with a certain amount of confidence, because during the Debate upon the English Mental Deficiency Bill one of the most able pronouncements in favour of that measure was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirlingshire (Dr. Chapple), a Scottish Member, and not only did he speak on the Second Reading of that Bill, but his name was added to Standing Committee D, which is to discuss the Bill upstairs, while my own name was kept off. If Scottish Members are preferred to English Members to deal with the English Bill, it gives a certain right to English Members to debate this Scottish Bill. The speech of the hon. Member for Stirlingshire was very largely directed against myself and against the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth). It dealt almost entirely with attempted refutations of my statements and those of the hon. Member for Pontefract. I think I may, therefore, fairly appeal to the House to give me, an English Member, an opportunity upon this Bill to reply to the statements made by a Scottish Member upon the English Bill. The hon. Member took up a very clear and definite position. He said that feeble-mindedness was entirely distinct from insanity, that there could be a hard and fast line drawn between the two, and that whereas insanity resulted—I think I am putting his point correctly—more or less from accident, feeblemindedness was congenital and born in the child.

I think the hon. Member is unconsciously misrepresenting me. I did not say that insanity was due to accident; I said it was due to disease of the brain.

Quite so. The hon. Member said that there could be a perfectly clear distinction drawn. He said that no definition could be drawn up of insanity, any more than that you could define feeble-mindedness, but that a doctor knew them perfectly well. Against that position I want to take up a most determined stand. If it is impossible to define either insanity or feeble-mindedness in an Act of Parliament, and if we are to take the mere ipsi dixit of a doctor upon the question and leave it entirely to the experts to decide whether a man is insane or feeble-minded, without giving the subject an opportunity of having a hard and fast definition and a clear law to which to refer, we are surrendering too much to the doctors in this matter. The hon. Member for Stirlingshire is, I know, a person who would not hurt a fly if he could help it, but there are, and he knows there are, among doctors in this country very various ideas as to the treatment of insanity and of feeble-mindedness, and as to the comparative rights of society and the individual. That is bound to be the case. Only the other day I observed in the "Times" a long appeal to the Home Secretary, signed by a great number of very distinguished surgeons, urging that these feeble-minded institutions, which are to be set up under this Bill and the English Bill, should be used for the purposes of research. When you see a suggestion of that sort made in cold blood, a suggestion that advantage should be taken by the Government and by the surgeons—of course, in the interests of the community, just as vivisection is carried on in the interests of the community—to employ these institutions for research, and to employ the inmates of these institutions as victims of research, it ought to make us doubly careful how far we leave it to the medical profession alone to determine whether or not a man or woman is feeble-minded. Therefore, I am not at one with the hon. Member for Stirlingshire in suggesting that it is possible to put in a perfectly loose definition of feeble-mindedness, and then to leave it to the common or garden medical practitioner, for these cases do not come before specialists, and the medical certificates will net be signed by men like the late Member of this House, Sir William Collins, or the hon. Member himself. In these circumstances. I submit that it is not fair to say, whatever the definition may be, that the state is well known to medical science, and, therefore, needs no more precise definition. Then the hon. Member referred, I thought rather boldly, to Turner as being a feeble-minded man.

I did not say Turner was feeble-minded. What I said was that if the hon. Member (Mr. Booth) had sail Turner was feeble-minded, and not his mother, I should have been more inclined to agree with him. I was contrasting the sanity of his mother and the alleged feeble-mindedness of Turner. I did not say he was feeble-minded.

I am sorry I misrepresented the hon. Member. I quite see it was a hypothesis which could not be imagined, and therefore which it was not necessary to agree to. At the same time, when the hon. Member says it is possible for a man to be feeble-minded in certain departments of his life and not in others, we are verging upon the very difficult question whether we are justified in saying that a man shows himself feeble-minded in business, however excellent a father he may be, and therefore ought to be locked up. Directly you deal with these states of mentality, you are dealing with a subject which is one of extreme difficulty and one where extreme carefulness of definition should be adhered to. That is why I strongly urged that certain Amendments asked for by that distinguished surgeon, Dr. Bernard Hollander, should be embodied in the Bill, though I regret to say when the Bill was discussed they were not accepted and apparently were not debated. The question of definition is, of course, an enormously difficult one, and the doctors themselves have failed to give a very satisfactory definition.

Now I want to pass on to another part of the hon. Member's speech. He tried to make out that I was calling these institutions prisons, whereas, as a matter of fact, they were homes. It is on that point that he and I differ, and that I shall ask the House to support a scheme which would ensure their being homes and avoid the possibility of their becoming prisons. I have offered all along to withdraw all opposition to these Bills, and my Friends who act with me will do the same, provided we could be assured that there will be no, asylum treatment, that there will be no warders and no bolts and bars, that the new institutions should be exactly on all fours with the existing institutions, so far as liberty is concerned. But they might be, of course, better than the existing institutions in that you might have more division of the different classes of treatment, not only keeping the sexes apart, but keeping persons of different ages apart, or of different ability and adaptability. On those lines there might be improvements on the existing institutions, but I would urge that on no account should that alteration be made in the existing institutions which would tend to deprive their inmates of such liberty as they possess at present. At present they are free to go and come if they like, and we all know that they do not go. There is no running away from these institutions, or whatever there is is of a very small character indeed. They are contented, they are comfortable, and they are well looked after. What I fear, and what I believe the hon. Member (Dr. Chapple) himself fears too, is that if you once give the managers of these institutions such powers as the director of a lunatic asylum has, where every ward is looked after separately from the next ward and where people are looked after by a big staff of nurses and warders who naturally become to a certain extent callous in their treatment of these people, you will be opening the door to all those abuses which he and I are most anxious to avoid. He says:—

"There is no consciousness of restriction or of chains, or of bolts and bars to which the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme refers."

Of course there is not, because, at present, they have not got these bars and bolts and these restrictions; but under this Act they will have.

Why should they have them?

Because under this Bill the homes are not places which the inmates are allowed to leave, because they will now be exactly on all fours with the asylums which we have at present. There will be the same necessity for control and the same powers, and I am afraid we are all inclined to be bureaucrats at heart, and if those powers are given they will be exercised. But I have a more serious bone to pick with the hon. Member than this misstatement of the character of these new institutions. He says the posi- tion of the poor parent at present is as follows:—

"They cannot keep the feeble-minded child at home since it is almost impossible to do so. They make use of these institutions which are now open to the rich."

Who wants to object to their making use of these institutions? But when the hon. Member brings forward a special plea such as that, he knows perfectly well that we are all anxious that they should make use of these institutions. We are all anxious that there should be more of these institutions so that they could make use of them. At present they cannot, because there are not enough of them. But what we object to is their being forced to make use of those institutions.

Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present. House counted, and forty Members being found present—

It is a misstatement to say that this Bill merely provides the poor with an opportunity which the rich already enjoy. It goes far beyond that. It not only provides them with an opportunity, but, in addition to that, it compels them, whether they like or not, to make use of that opportunity. That is a form of compulsion which I think is illiberal. I do not believe it is a part of true Liberal policy to compel parents even to be good parents. The only thing we can do is to provide opportunities for parents to be good parents, but not to say to them, "if you are not good parents, according to the ideas of this board of doctors and experts you will be compelled to be good parents against your will." We have got too much of that kind of compulsion. We have recently had compulsory thrift, we have had compulsory education, and we are now threatened with compulsory segregation of the unfit, and compulsory service in the Army. I maintain that I am on sound Liberal ground when I object to this kind of compulsion. It is not the business of Liberalism at any time to compel the people to be either moral, or thrifty, or well educated, or even to be excellent marksmen. All these things may be desirable, but it is not the business of any Government to enforce them on the people of this country.

That leads me to the question of inspection. This Bill applies to Scotland. My belief is that the people of Scotland are more liberal than the people of this country, that they do resent far more even than the English people do interference with individual liberty, and that they do resent having people coming into their houses at all hours of the day, and even of the night, and seeing that they are not overcrowded, seeing that the children's heads are clean, and seeing that the children are going to school. I have recently been in my own Constituency, and I can assure the House that there is in this country, even in a nice peaceful district Like the Midlands, a growing feeling of revolt against this perpetual inspection and interference with everything the poor citizen does. It does not affect us, because we are above the line that is inspected. Anybody who has over £160 a year, and who lives in a house which is rated for more than £16, escapes the attention of the inspectors; but it is those people who live in small houses who are getting badgered to death with our legislation and inspection from morning to night, from the cradle to the grave. That is what goes on in the houses of these poor people, and it is getting intolerable. Here we are, under this Bill, taking another decided step forward in this direction. I ask the House to consider what this Bill means in Scotland. The Irish got exempted from it, because in that country liberty is inborn, and they would not tolerate it for a moment. In every county in Scotland it will be the duty of the new committee of the county council, or whatever body it is, to inspect and to make a list of the people who come within the somewhat vague definition of feeble-minded. They have to draw up a black list when getting the information. The policeman, or the officer of the new authority, will search people's houses, examine the children, and make all sorts of backstairs inquiries from neighbours; they will get information from school teachers; and all this is to go on in Scotland as the result of an Act passed by a Liberal Government nominally in favour of Liberalism. I would ask any Scottish Members here whether they think that, when this Bill is passed and inspection is being carried out, they will be as popular as they are at present time or whether their popularity will not decline?

I know perfectly well it is difficult for an ordinary layman to differ from expert authority. It is difficult for an ordinary layman to attack this Bill when it has the backing of a Royal Commission, but I would ask the House to remember that while it is impossible to controvert their statement or to deal with their doctrine of heredity—although some doctors say it is not altogether true—it is quite possible to say that by passing this Bill we would be setting up a Vehmgericht. You are giving to these expert committees powers of smelling out, such as the witch doctors possess on the West Coast of Africa. It. will not affect yourselves or your relations, but it must vitally affect the deep-seated feelings of the working classes of this country. They will not like it, and what is more they will answer in this way, "Why do good Liberal Governments always seek to deal with the results of a bad social. system? Why not go to the roots of the evil and try to stop the causes themselves?" Hon. Members know that, if we have feeble-minded children, we can look after them, and that there is nothing we should hate more to see than the taking of them away to institutions. Why can we look after our children? It is because we have a certain amount of leisure and wealth and can afford to do it. Do you think that if the working classes got full reward for their labour, they would not be in a position to look after their children themselves? When you see how much larger feeble-mindedness is among slum people than among wealthy people, is it not obvious that feeblemindedness must be the result, not of heredity entirely, but of the conditions under which these mentally stunted children are being brought up in the slums? When your constituents ask questions about this Bill and begin to heckle you at by elections as to some of the scandals which will arise under it, I think, whatever your answers may be, and however plausible the plea of the hon. Member for Stirlingshire may be in regard to looking after unfortunate girls who have illegitimate children, they will answer, "Why not go, to the roots of the evil and deal with the poverty in the country, instead of always tinkering with the results and trying to look after the poor whose condition is largely due to economic causes?"

I want to raise another point. It was referred to by a Scottish Member who stated that there was a large demand in Scotland for this Bill. I ask where it is. It comes in resolutions from boards of guardians, town councils, and all manner of organisations of the middle class and other classes of people, who will not be affected by the Bill, but who are all permeated with the idea that it is their duty and their mission in life to improve the poor. These people pass resolutions, send letters to Members of Parliament, and interview the Scottish Office to press forward this Bill. Has any Minister of the Crown attempted to defend this proposal in Scotland? I think very few Members of the Cabinet have read the Bill, and, if they have, it is certain that not one word has been spoken in the country upon it by any responsible Minister.

It was supported by the Under-Secretary for the Home Department (Mr. Ellis Griffith) when speaking at Stockport.

He is only an Under-Secretary. I wish the name of some responsible Member of the Cabinet. As a matter of fact, this subject has not been mentioned in the country to any extent since the Bill was introduced, and before the Bill was introduced it was not mentioned at all. There is no shadow of mandate for the Bill. There is no shadow of any sort of authority from the electors of the country for the measure. It is quite true that a certain number of people, of whom I am one myself, are shocked and horrified at the condition under which these people are looked after and tended to-day, but we are shocked end horrified because there is not sufficient accommodation and because the State has never attempted to help in any way to deal with this problem, and while we are only too anxious to see something done to help these feeble-minded people, let us be quite certain that it shall be a help, and not A punishment. There is, of course, some possibility of getting this Bill and the English Bill through. It is only possible if hon. Members, like the hon. Member for Stirlingshire and the hon. Member for Heywood (Mr. Cawley) are prepared to modify their demands. Here you have these enormously long Bills going up to the Committee. These Bills will get through Committee, but if hon. Members in favour of them think that they are going to get from the Prime Minister a Guillotine Resolution in order to shove them through on Report, I can assure them that they are mistaken, and yet without a Guillotine Resolution we know perfectly well that these Bills can never become law. There are a good many determined friends of liberty in this House who are opponents of all such interfering and meddling legislation as this. Therefore, if hon. Members want to get the Bill through to help the feebleminded in this country, of course they will consider the possibilities of compromise and coming to terms with those who have been opposing them up to now, but who do honestly and earnestly wish to see something done for these feeble-minded persons.

As far as I can gather from the meagre reports in the Parliamentary Papers, there was a sort of tentative concession made upstairs on the English Bill which does not go far enough, and is entirely illusory as it stands at present, but which I hope indicates a weakening of the extremists' position on this question. They have put in that these feeble-minded persons shall not be put in institutions except after the parents' consent has been obtained. Then comes the proviso which takes away the whole point of the concession, that such consent is not to be reasonably withheld. We all know that the definition of "reasonably" is an extremely difficult thing to get in black and white. We have all seen the way in which the Vaccination Acts are treated in this country. I do not like to give to an unsympathetic magistracy, who are imbued with the idea that their business is to lock up everybody and to protect society against all these people, the interpretation of what is meant, by "unreasonably withheld." Where the parents are bad parents, people whom no reasonable being could trust with the responsibility of their child's welfare, there is always a case for refusing to consider that point of view, but in such cases as that it is always possible to proceed against them under the Children Act and under the Prevention of Cruelty Act, and I think that we shall want something a great deal more clear than those words "unreasonably withheld." There is another and more important point on which we differ. I ask the hon. Member for Stirlingshire to use his influence with the Home Office to see if terms cannot be reached. He and I both think that the existing institutions are good, though possibly they might be improved. Why, then, go out of the way to put in all these penal clauses, punishing people who help inmates to escape and giving this power of inspecting every year and taking them in for a further year if the state of their health is not good? All you want is to have a home, to see that those homes are run on similar lines to the present, with similar powers, with no addition to the penal restrictions of inmates or of the people outside who are interested. On all these points there will be required a great deal of remodelling of these Bills. The Bills are built up by experts of the Home Office, with the criminal code, the asylum laws and the Lunacy Acts at the back of their minds.

Those are the two points which I wish to emphasise: make it perfectly easy for the parents, decent parents against whom the police can really urge nothing except mere obstinacy, to retain control, and, in the second place, see that all restraints are removed from these home institutions. So far as the penal ones are concerned, I do not say that anything can be done with inmates transferred from prisons to these institutions which the Secretary of State is willing to pay for, but in an ordinary institution where the inmate has committed no crime whatever, where his presence is merely the result of sifting out from the ordinary elementary education, I maintain that if you keep these homes free until the child is sixteen, you ought to keep them open and free for the rest of the time. It might be that in 5 or, perhaps, 10 per cent. of the cases they will quarrel with the managers of the institution and go out and have these unfortunate, illegitimate children, but it is worth while submitting to a few cases such as that if you can only prevent the definite imprisonment of so large a portion of the population. You cannot make things perfect in this world by locking everybody up who ought to be locked up; but what you can do is to provide an opportunity by which feebleminded people can get looked after, and at the same time continue to enjoy the privileges of British citizenship. It can be done, and I hope it will be done before very long, both in the case of the English and the Scotch Bills. I have been emboldened to take up so much time because the hon. Member for Stirlingshire spoke of the English Bill and is on the Committee of the English Bill, and I have nothing more to say except to beg the House to believe that in all my actions as regards this Bill I have the interests of these mentally defective persons at heart Just as much as the Home Secretary and others. I want to get the best possible treatment for these people while securing their liberty, and to see that justice is done to them, as I believe it can be.

The hon. Member who has just spoken has explained how he obstructed the English Bill, but I trust he will not on that account raise any strenuous opposition to the Scottish Bill, but that he will allow Scottish Members to voice the opinions of Scotland, for I think that perhaps they are better capable of correctly interpreting Scottish opinion on the subject. The hon. Gentleman has voted in favour, certainly of Home Rule for Ireland, and probably Home Rule for Scotland, and I think we might ask him to let us settle a question of this kind in our own way.

Will you do the same for England, and keep away Scottish Members?

I did not interfere in any way with the English Bill.

Other Members did.

Personally I welcome the introduction of this Bill, and I trust that in some form it will be passed during the present Session. There is urgent need for legislation, both in the general interest of the community, and also on behalf of those for whom it is primarily designed, and who I believe will benefit by the measure if it is passed into law. The feebleminded are not of course able to exert political pressure or voice their own feelings on the subject, and all the more reason, therefore, that they should receive special consideration from this House, and that their interests should be sympathetically considered, as I believe they will and can be under this proposed Bill. I was glad to see that the Prime Minister the other day repudiated the suggestion of the Member for East Edinburgh that Scottish Liberal Members are opposed to this Bill. I trust that if the Member for East Edinburgh continues his opposition to this measure he will not receive any more support than he did on two occasions yesterday on Scottish matters—on one of which he could not even get tellers for his Motion. Personally, I am convinced that the overwhelming majority of opinion in Scotland demands that the principles of this Bill should be carried into law, and I believe that Scotland will be justly indignant if the English Bill is passed into law and the Government do not give time to complete the Scottish measure this Session. The Scottish Bill, as it is, already lags behind the English Bill, which was read a second time three weeks ago, and half the Clauses of which have already been dealt with in Committee upstairs.

Only one-third.

Twenty-six out of sixty-six Clauses have been dealt with, but those twenty-six Clauses include the most important in the Bill, and those which raise the most controversy. I submit therefore that practically half the English Bill has already been satisfactorily dealt with in Committee. I hope that the deliberations of the Committee on the English Bill will materially assist our deliberations on the Scottish Bill in Grand Committee, and that we may be able to make up leeway with the Scottish Bill. 1 believe the English Bill is a distinct improvement on the Bill introduced last Session, and that the Scottish Bill, which deals with our particular local circumstances and different local government, is an enormous improvement on the hurriedly drafted Clauses with which it was proposed that the Bill of last year should be made applicable to Scotland. I shall, of course, support the Second Reading, but I should like to call attention to one or two points in regard to which I think this Bill requires Amendment in Committee. I submit that its financial provisions are not generous or even fair to Scotland, as compared with England. The Home Secretary on the Second Reading of the English Bill made the special point that local authorities would not be required to deal with the mentally defective unless half the cost was provided from central funds. Scotland is to have £20,000, and the local authorities are to be compelled to provide for all the feeble-minded and pay for the remainder of the cost over and above the £20,000. In the Report of the Royal Commission, in 1906, it was stated that 26 of the population of Glasgow were mentally defective. If this proportion of the population holds good throughout Scotland there would be some 11,600 mentally defective to be provided for in that country. Taking the cost of maintenance at £25 per head—I do not think that is an excessive estimate—the £20,000 would only provide half the cost for 1,600 of these mentally defective, the whole cost of the remainder falling on the rates under the Scottish Bill. The Home Secretary said that he hoped more money would eventually be found for England, and I hope for Scotland, too. I would remind the House that in England the pressure of public opinion in regard to the mentally defective not being provided for will tend to loosen the Treasury purse strings, but in Scotland there will only be the cries of the over-burdened ratepayers to effect this object, and we know that the fulfilment of promises to the ratepayers is very often long delayed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

There is another point: The central Government Grant for pauper lunatics which is to be continued and available for new Boards of Control, is 4s. per head in England, and only 2s. 10d. per head in Scotland. I know that is the stereotyped Grant, but Scotland is a distinct loser by the Grant being only 2s. 10d. at the present moment as compared with, in England, 4s. per head per pauper lunatic, who, of course, would have to be dealt with by the new Board of Control. Nor is this all: Clauses 3 and 5 of the Scottish Education Act are to be made compulsory on school boards, that is to say, education will have to be provided for all mentally defective children between five and sixteen years of age. In England under the Defective and Epileptic Children Bill, to be read a second time to-day, the education authorities will only have to deal with children between seven and fourteen years of age. There again there is a heavier burden on the Scottish ratepayers than is to be imposed on the English ratepayer. In any case, I think Scotland would have especially felt the burden owing to her poor and thinly scattered population in the Highlands, and in many of the outlying districts. In Scotland we have also the small school board areas, which will feel the burden much more seriously than will the large county areas in England, over which the education rate is to be spread. The President of the Board of Education a week or two ago—I think it was in London—made the public statement that in order to assist the education authorities in England the Grant for mentally defective children would be increased from four guineas to £6, and that for residential schools for mentally defectives a most substantial Grant would be forthcoming. I asked the Secretary for Scotland last week if he had noticed this speech of the President of the Board of Education and he said he had, and it was receiving his attention. I asked him if he would give a guarantee that Scotland would receive an equivalent Grant, but I am afraid he declined to pledge himself. I trust that the Secretary for Scotland will be firm in demanding that Scotland should receive fair treatment as compared with England in all the financial parts of the Bill, and I trust that in this firm attitude he will have as full support from hon. Members opposite as was promised yesterday when he put forward claims for more money for Scotland on behalf of small holdings. I fear, however, small holdings have more claims on hon. Members opposite than the care of the mentally defective. There are certain election platform promises to be fulfilled in the ease of small hodings, and I am quite aware none of these have been made in the case of the mentally defective. I hope, however, that the Scottish Members upon both sides of the House will support the Secretary for Scotland in securing fair treatment as regards the financial aspects of this case.

The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) referred to the question of children under sixteen being placed in institutions without the consent of their parents. On that aspect I am somewhat in sympathy with him. I certainly believe that unless children under sixteen are neglected, abandoned, or ill-treated they should not be placed in institutions contrary to the will of their parents or guardians. I believe the English Bill has been amended in this direction, and under the English Bill as it now stands these children can only be placed in institutions with the consent of their parents, provided that consent is not unreasonably withheld. I should be quite ready to see that this Amendment was made in tins Bill, that no children under sixteen should be placed in these institutions without the consent of their parents, either by a judicial order or any other means, unless they were abandoned, neglected, or ill-treated, and that would place them on the same footing as adults, who can be placed in institutions if they are ill-treated, etc.

There is just one other point to which I wish to draw attention, and that is the representation of the county councils upon the governing board of control. Under the provisions of this Bill, for the first three years the county councils are to have representation to the extent of one-third. After that they are to have no representation at all upon the new board of control. That seems absolutely indefensible. The whole cost of the erection of these institutions—the whole capital cost—has to be provided by the county areas and distributed over county areas. Half the cost of maintenance is to be distributed over county areas. I am not now going into whether it is best to have the Poor Law system or county assessments, but the fact remains that the county as a whole will bear considerably more than half the expenses of the Bill, and that after the first three years the county councils are not to have any representation upon the board which is to replace the old Lunacy Board, which was practically the county council. I do not wish to go further into this case, because I have this morning received a letter which informed me that there had been a conference in Glasgow last Wednesday and that representatives both of the county council and the parish council were present, and as far as I can gather from the letter the parish council representatives equally agreed with the county council representatives that the county council should be represented upon this new board of control. They appointed a sub-committee to go into this question more thoroughly, and I believe there is to be a larger meeting in Edinburgh on 14th July to consider the report of the sub-committee, and I trust that that larger meeting, representative, as I hope it will be, of the county councils, the parish councils, and the school boards, will come to some agreement as to the precise constitution of these new district boards of control, and that when they have arrived at an agreement the Secretary for Scotland and hon. Members here will be ready to fall in with the enlightened suggestions of the county council, the parish council, and the school board.

Like the last speaker, I have a good deal of sympathy with the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme in regard to the treatment of youngsters under this Bill. I should draw a line between them and adults, because adults of defective minds may be of vicious habits and a danger to the community, which cannot be said of the young. Therefore, I am in sympathy with the hon. Member opposite who has spoken and with my hon. Friend here in regard to protecting so far as it is consistent with the public welfare the right of the parents to have control of their children, and if this Bill can be strengthened in that direction I will support the effort to strengthen it. I also have a good deal of sympathy with the hon. Member in regard to the character of the institutions under the Bill. We do not know exactly what the character of these institutions will be, but I hope that not only will provision be made for taking the youngsters out and some distinction made between them and persons of defective mind, but that power will be taken in regard to taking out children, if necessary, at the desire of their parents. I hope, also, that the institutions may be such that there will be some chance of restoring people to a normal condition of mind, if at all possible. I hope that the prison element and the asylum element may be as far as possible altogether re-removed. I am also heartily in sympathy with the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme in his observations as to the need, and, in fact, the duty of this House to devote some time, and a good deal more than it has done, in getting down to the underlying causes as to why we have so many people of defective minds amongst us. I believe with him that the causes are very largely the social and industrial condition in which our people live, and therefore I should be more heartily in favour of a Bill which would remove the causes that produce the feeble-minded than a Bill merely to deal with the feebleminded that we have got in our midst. But having said that, I part company with my on. Friend, because I am one of those practical minded persons who like to face face facts and unfortunately whatever may be the cause of the feeble-minded being amongst us, there they are, a source of demoralisation, and a source of danger to their immediate relatives and friends as well as to the community, and, therefore, that being so, we should make better provision for them than we yet have. I have come across cases in my own experience. I remember a brother and sister. The sister had been in prison over 200 times for drunkenness. She would be sent to prison for seven or fourteen days, and then on being liberated would get into liquor, and in the course of a few days be in prison once more. The brother I have seen in the streets, scrambling after insects on the posters. It is perfectly obvious that that type of person is a nuisance to everybody with whom they come in contact, and there is always the possibility that they may perpetuate their kind and land the community in further trouble with their offspring. The last speaker quoted a percentage which, in regard to Glasgow, works out at 2,500 people of that type. However strongly we may feel, as I feel, that landlordism and capitalism are largely, I do not say entirely, the causes of this sort of thing, whatever we may regard as the underlying causes, we ought, at all events, to face the fact that in Glasgow, with a population of 1,000,000, there are 2,500 of these people roaming about demoralising everybody with whom they come in contact. The fact that they depress the standard of living is one which we, of the Labour party, ought to have in view. Some of us have had experience of this type of individual in the workshops. A man comes along and gets a job, very often simply because he is willing to take it at less than a man of normal habits and full power. Therefore, the fact that these people are allowed to roam about is not only a cause of moral demoralisation, but a cause of economic trouble in that they depress the standard of living amongst large numbers of people throughout the country.