Commons Chamber

Order for Second Reading read.

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

The Act which this Bill seeks to amend has been in operation now for two years, and during that time there have been no fewer than 8,000 applications made from all parts of Scotland either for small holdings or for enlargements of small holdings, and that probably does not even adequately represent the total applications that would have been made if the machinery of the Act had allowed of a larger number of applications. The result of those applications has been extremely disappointing. Less than 300 of the 8,000 applications have so far been accepted as applicants who are suitable for small holdings, and a very obvious calculation shows that if applications were made at this rate of progress it would be quite fifty years before these 8,000 applicants could seeure the land that they desire. Those of us who are interested in this Act are all agreed that it is working much too slowly. Our experience of the working of the Act has shown that this is due to two causes:—first, to certain express provisions in the Act itself, and, second, to the defective machinery of the Act. The provisions which have caused this delay are themselves again two in number:—first, those provisions which are imposed upon the Board of Agriculture in making it their duty to negotiate with the landlords, and, second, those which allow a reference to arbitration for the purpose of determining compensation. I wish to deal with those two provisions. In the original Act negotiation was made obligatory in the hope that the opportunity would be used in a bonâ-fide fashion for the purpose of arriving at a friendly agreement. As a matter of fact, the contrary has proved to be true. Negotiation has been used in a large number of cases for the purpose of placing obstacles in the way of the creation of small holdings. It has been, as a matter of fact, unsuccessful, and we maintain that it is due principally to the provisions in the original Act whereby compensation is only payable if holdings fail when such holdings have been constituted otherwise than by agreement. The conclusion to which we come, therefore, with regard to negotiations, is that its practical effect has been that very much valuable time has been wasted in those negotiations, which in nine cases out of ten could not be expected to be successful.

Taking now the second obstructive provision to which I have referred, namely, arbitration, Members of the House will recall that the original Act made arbitration at the instance of the landlord possible where the amount of compensation claimed exceeded the sum of £300. As a result of that provision, 20 per cent. of the whole have already had resort to this appeal, and many other cases are pending. The experience of arbitration, of which the Lindean case is an apposite example, furnishes in itself sufficient ground for abrogating the provisions of this Clause. I do not propose to discuss this case as the award has not yet been given, except to remark that on the basis of the claim that the landlord puts forward he would be in the enviable position, supposing he were successful, of drawing, roughly speaking, twice the amount of his present net income from his estate after these holdings had been set up. Therefore, under arbitration as at present devised you get two results. First, they provide an opportunity for putting forward absolutely preposterous claims, and secondly, they give rise to protracted and costly legal proceedings.

Turning from these obstructive provisions let us now look at the second cause to which I have referred as an obstacle to the successful working of this Act, namely, the defective machinery of the Act. That machinery is divided into two parts, comprised under the Board of Agriculture and the Land Court. The organisation of the Board of Agriculture is, we maintain, totally inadequate for the work it is called upon to do. It is incapable of dealing satisfactorily with the applications actually received, and as the outcome of this incapacity you have two very obvious results. The first is the consequent tendency on the part of the Board of Agriculture either to delay or to ignore applications for holdings except under pressure; and, secondly, to prevent them taking the means that were adopted in connection with other Acts of Parliament passed through this House, of making the people for whom these small holdings are intended acquainted with the actual advantages of the Act. Many of us who represent Divisions in Scotland, particularly in the border counties, know that this is so. Then with regard to the Land Court, owing to the limitation of the numbers of the Land Court, and the necessity for a quorum of three members, it has been found incapable of overtaking the work sent forward to it by the Board of Agriculture. For instance, at this very moment there are no fewer than 700 potential small holders in the waiting room of the Land Court with introductions from the Board of Agriculture, and that means that there are twice as many people waiting now to be accepted as suitable small holders as have been accepted under the operation of the Act during the two years it has been in force. We maintain, in view of these facts, that the operation of the Act has been far too slow. Let us turn to the remedies and provisions of the Bill.

I have dealt with the evils of negotiation under the original Act and I deal now with the provisions with which we propose to overtake those evils. It is rather significant that in the marginal heading of the Act in Section 7 it says that these provisions are printed in the Act in order to facilitate the obtaining of small holdings. We regard that pretty much as a joke, and we suggest other provisions to make it a reality. Sub-section (3) of Clause 1 in the amending Bill enables the Board of Agriculture to require landlords to give the dates of expiring leases and to produce those leases and all other relevant particulars of land, which is suggested as proper land, to be taken first for the purpose of creating small holdings. The Land Court, at the instance of the Board of Agriculture, is given power to compel the production of these leases in cases where the landlords refuse. Sub-section (5), which is Sub-section (2) of Clause 7 in the old Act, makes it no longer a duty on the part of the Board to negotiate with landlords, but leaves it entirely to their discretion. Subsection (7), however, gives the Board of Agriculture the right to go to the Land Court, either before or after negotiations, for authority to prepare a scheme, and after the parties are all heard the Land Court may then reject or make an order in favour of such schemes. It is well to bear in mind, however, that such an application does not in any degree bar negotiations, and further it is provided that while the scheme is promulgated, it shall not be within the power of the landlord to let such land until the issue has been determined by the Land Court. But the Board of Agriculture—and this will interest my colleagues opposite—is bound under these circumstances to compensate the landlord for any loss sustained through the operation of this particular Sub-section. Further, in order to facilitate the creation of small holdings we provide in Sub-section (12) that where an agreement is reached between the Board of Agricultur and the landlord the Board shall pay equitable compensation, and we hope that a provision of that kind will greatly facilitate the creation of small holdings by agreement.

This brings me quite naturally to the question of compensation for compulsion. Put briefly, the provisions in the amending Bill provide that where damage is done to a landlord or any other person in consequence of, and directly attributable to the creation of small holdings, the Land Court requires the Board of Agriculture to pay compensation in respect of such loss after all parties have been heard, and in determining the amount of compensation the Land Court is bound to take into account everything affecting the interests of the landlord, including all obligations incumbent upon him both before and after the constitution of these small holdings. But no allowance is to be made in respect of compensation for any injury or damage done to the letting value of a deer forest as a sporting subject. In that case only such loss of letting value as appertains to it as an agricultural or pastoral subject is to be taken into account. This by some people has been deemed to be a new provision, but I should like to remind this House that the principle of this provision is actually embodied in the Crofters Act of 1886, and I personally base the justice of this provision not on any words of my own but on the words of another: Sub-section (2), Section 7, of the original Act. Further changes are proposed in the machinery of the Act. Clause 10 provides that the maximum number of the Land Courts shall be increased from five to six members. The quorum is reduced from three to two, and the Land Court is empowered to delegate such of its powers as it thinks expedient to single members, with or without the assistance of assessors, but any order made under such delegation is subject to review by three or more members, one of whom must be the Chairman of the Land Court. Clause 11 provides that the maximum number of the Board of Agriculture shall be five instead of three. The Small Holdings Commissioner is absolutely abolished, and the Secretary for Scotland is given power to distribute the duties among the members of the Board, according to administrative needs. In effect, this means that where at present only one member of the Board can deal with small holdings there may in future be more. With additional members, the Secretary for Scotland can appoint someone to deal not only with small holdings, but with afforestation. We desire to give elasticity to the machine and to empower the Secretary for Scotland to use the men at his command in the best possible way at the particular moment. Those of us who are keenly interested for example, in the subject of afforestation, recalling the fact that one-fourth of the entire surface of Scotland is capable of being afforested, and the fact that very little is being done now—look forward to this provision to give a great stimulus to what we consider will be a valuable reform for our own country.

The remaining Amendments are not important, with, perhaps, two exceptions. Clause 6 gives power to the statutory small tenant to secure an enlargement of his holding; and Clause 7 enables enlargements to be held from more than one landlord. Clause 2 deals with the supply of water for small holdings; Clause 4 gives power to the Land Court over pastures and grazings; while Clause 8 deals with land within burghs in the crofting counties of Scotland. That is our Bill. Every question raised in this Bill has been discussed already in the House of Commons at one time or another. Let me, in conclusion, draw the attention of the House to a most significant fact. Last year the excess of births over deaths in Scotland was 47,476. The excess of emigrants over immigrants was 46,167, which means that the net increase in the population in Scotland in 1913 was only 1,309. Those of us who remember the history of our own country, who remember what our country has contributed to the Empire in all its parts deplore a fact of this kind, and this fact ought to arouse the attention of all my colleagues on both sides of the House. We Scottish Members have frequently, in the course of our Parliamentary duties, to journey down to our constituencies. On such occasions we more often than not witness the departure of the emigrant train, carrying the flower of our fellow-countrymen beyond the shores of our own and their native country. It is a depressing sight, particularly when we all know that it is preventible. Our own national poet has told us that to create

I beg to second the Motion. I rise with a great deal of pleasure to support the Second Reading of this Bill, which has been so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. J. Hogge). I regret to see on the Notice Paper Motions for its rejection in the names of two old opponents of mine, whom I see opposite, and also in the name of the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Captain Gilmour). It is a curious thing that the Bill is moved by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh, while the opposition to it comes from the hon. Member for West Edinburgh (Mr. Clyde). Verily one might say,

"How far is the East removed from the West."

We should like to see our Friends and colleagues on the other side join hands with us in this movement. Any Amendments they may suggest will be carefully considered, but we should like their valuable assistance in getting the Bill up to the Scottish Grand Committee, when any little differences that may exist between us will be easily settled. The Bill does not go so far as many of my hon. Friends on this side of the House would wish. They would have liked to have anticipated the scheme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I think they have wisely confined themselves to an Amending Bill, and they have done so simply to speed up the machinery. The hon. Baronet the Member for the Ayr Burghs (Sir George Younger) knows that in the county of Clackmannan—one of my two counties, because I have two to represent now—there were no applications under the Small Landholders Act, at any rate, none were brought to my notice. That is to be accounted for by the fact that there is less land in Clackmannan than there is in any other county in Scotland. In Kinross, where the hon. Member for West Edinburgh resides, many applications have been received, and I have no doubt he has had pressure brought upon him to see whether or not something could be done to get some small holdings in that beautiful and picturesque county. In the county of Ayr, in which I reside, the letters I have received from innumerable friends have really been pathetic. Practically nothing has been done there, and so far from getting men, who are in every way capable, supplied with land for small holdings, owing to the stiff machinery of the Act of 1911, we are unable to grant their requests. I do not think it is necessary for me to go through the provisions of the Bill; which have been so aptly stated by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh, but speaking on behalf of every Scottish Liberal Member in this House, we give to this Bill our hearty and most enthusiastic support.

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

I am sorry to have disappointed my right hon. Friend (Mr. Eugene Wason) in moving the rejection of this Bill, as he said he expected my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Clyde) would do so. It is not because there is little land in Clackmannanshire or no applications there that I have risen to move the rejection, but because no other possible course is left to those upon this side who had anything to do with the settlement of the differences between the two sides in connection with the Act of 1911. I waited until the very last moment last night before putting this Amendment on the Paper as I had hoped till the last moment that some information would have reached me which would have entitled us to propose a reasoned Amendment of a moderate kind on which we might all have been more or less agreed. But that is not so, and to-day there has been nothing in the speech of the hon. Member (Mr. Hogge) which entitles me to say I can alter, in any kind of way, the attitude I have taken of determined opposition to this Bill. It contains a certain useful provision, and, on behalf of my Friends, having accepted the principle of the 1911 Bill we are perfectly ready and willing to agree to any reasonable proposal for speeding up that measure and making it effective and useful, but we are not prepared to allow any breach of the arrangement made in passing the Act of 1911. Neither are we prepared to add, as this Bill would add, to the difficulties of the agricultural situation in Scotland, which are already heavy enough, and to put the whole agricultural position in the country into inextricable and abominable confusion.

The hon. Member talks about the essentially useful provisions of this Bill. One of them, for example, I pleaded for myself when this particular Act of 1911 was passed, namely, that the landlord who was ready to make a voluntary agreement with the Board of Agriculture should be placed, in respect of compensation, in exactly the same position as the man who is forced by the Board to give his land for the purpose of small holdings. It was rejected by the geniuses who were at the back of that Act. They thought it was an absurd provision. They did not realise how it would have speeded up the Bill. This Lindean case, which has been hung up so long, would have been settled long ago if Mr. Scott Plummer, who was willing to make a voluntary arrangement, could have done so without being deprived of compensation. That is the position of that case, and that is the position on which the hon. Member (Mr. Hogge) bases his claim to alter the whole of the principle upon which we settled the 1911 Act and to take away the arbitration Clause. A more ridiculous argument in the circumstances I have never heard, and one with less substance in it I do not think has ever been advanced by any hon. Member. So much for that part of it. You remove that in this Bill. I congratulate the Gentleman who prepared the Bill on having done so. I believe it will encourage in many cases the formation of small holdings by voluntary agreement, and I am very certain there are many land-owners who would be quite willing to treat in this manner with the Board of Agriculture if they are reasonably met by those gentlemen and are fairly treated. Certain procedure and measures in connection with the enlargement of the Land Court and the Agricultural Board and so on, are no doubt useful, but how is the addition of one member to the Land Court, even with the reduction of the quorum, going to deal with these 8,000 cases that we have heard of?

It makes three Courts instead of one.

I am not sure that the present Court divided into three will be much better than the present Court as a whole. I should think it would be rather worse. Anyhow I do not see that that really is speeding up the measure at all. I do not suppose we could do without some kind of Land Court if we are going to have procedure of this kind carried out in Scotland; but if you want to encourage the creation of small holdings all over Scotland, and if you want to do it on fair and reasonable lines, and in suitable and economic situations, you would do far better to put the power in the hands of the Sheriff Principal of the county with two agricultural assessors who understand the job, and understand the place, than having a Court of lawyers and certain people who know little about the subject. I should have divided the responsibility in that particular way. I should have utilised the services of people with local experience and local knowledge, and in some sort of way we should then have got a speeding up in a far better, more satisfactory fashion than this Bill will ever bring about. There are fairly good proposals in the Bill. Of course, I am not objecting to the increase of the Land Court. If we are going to have a Land Court, it has an overwhelming amount of work to do, and you are entitled to increase it, and it is probably necessary to do so if you are going to stick to it. I do not think it is a very good system, but there it is, and we must improve it if we can. Great stress was laid by the hon. Member on the new power given to the Board of Agriculture and to the Land Court to suspend all operations with regard to the renewal of leases between landlord and tenant when notice is given by the Board of Agriculture to the Land Court that they desire to submit, in respect of a particular farm, a scheme for small holdings. I wonder if the hon. Member knows much about agricultural conditions! Of course, he is a burgh Member.

So are you.

Yes, but I have some knowledge of agriculture.

So have I.

I did not suggest that the hon. Member had not. I was not aware of the fact. I imagine him now to be the tenant of a farm having perhaps two years of his lease to run. I imagine him to be in a farm, and that the Board of Agriculture has intimated to the Land Court that they desire authority to prepare a scheme of small holdings on that farm, and I imagine the position of the hon. Member as a tenant on that farm, on which his forefathers before him have been for years and years, hung up in a condition of suspended animation for perhaps a couple of years because there is no limit whatever placed on the time within which this scheme is to be concluded and arranged for.

The Court is to lay down a limit of time.

Parliament must lay down a limit of time, if it is to be of any use. What is the use of the Land Court laying down a limit of time? We know what the delays are now, and we know what they will be in the future. There is not the slightest proposal that there should be any limit of time within which that scheme should be prepared and arranged for, and this tenant and his land lord are both to be hung up during the whole of that period, if it suits the Land Court to do so, and the man does not know how to crop his farm, and does not know what stock to have on it, and whether to go on with his breeding operations, because he has no idea whether at the end of the two years he is to remain on it or whether the Board of Agriculture is to take possession. It is a suspension of the whole system of the free letting of farms, and an entire obstruction of the best agricultural interests. Although the hon. Member made a great point of providing for compensation, there is not, as far as I can see, the slightest word of any compensation whatever to the tenant. These are the Gentleman, headed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who every day are weeping crocodile tears over the position of insecurity in which agricultural tenants are placed. Here the hon. Member (Mr. Hogge), backed up the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Eugene Wason), who can hardly have read the Bill—

I have read it.

If you did, you did not understand it. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman could have understood it or he would have been no party to it. I do not mean to be in the least offensive. In a case of that kind, under the Agricultural Holdings Act, when the landlord of the farm without reasonable excuse removes the tenant, the tenant gets full compensation. But in this case the landlord has no choice. He is not removing the tenant, and the Agricultural Holdings Act would not apply, because it is the State, and not the landlord, who is removing the tenant. He would not get the compensation which, perhaps, the right hon. Gentleman thought he would get. I am assured by legal authority that the tenant could not, and would not, get it under this Bill as it stands. Therefore, although there is security to the landlord, the measure does not give security to the tenant. I would advise hon. Gentlemen who think they have got safe seats in agricultural constituencies—which, by the way, are at present rendered unsafe by the operations of the National Insurance Act—to go, say, to Aberdeenshire, and add on to their great difficulties the statement that they propose to deal in this way with the security of tenure of the farm tenants, and to deny them the compensation which Parliament has given under the Agricultural Holdings Act for re-removal through no fault of their own. The thing would be calamitous. It would put the whole agricultural system into confusion, and if a power of this kind is to be given, it must be strictly limited to six months, or something of that sort, from the time of giving notice, in order that there should be no hanging up in the way I have indicated. I quite agree that there should be simplification of procedure. I think the procedure at present is rather cumbrous, and I hope that some provision will be made to so simplify the process that there will be reasonable negotiation with the landlord. I do think that the procedure requires speeding up, and in so far as this Bill does that I have good reason to say that it is making quite a useful change in the operation of the law. But there are some extraordinary omissions. I should have thought that practical people, who are endeavouring to improve the system provided under the 1911 Act, would have tried to propose measures which would provide for enabling the creation of small holdings in a way that Act does not do—first of all, in regard to the system of equipping holdings, and. secondly, to assist in profitably carrying them on. I should have liked to see proposals for some scheme of co-operation in connection with the creation of holdings all over. I think there should be a compulsory scheme of co-operation, in order that these holdings should be conducted on business lines.

indicated dissent.

The Secretary for Scotland shakes his head. He has had some experience in connection with compulsory measures, and he has suffered, as many of us have done, from the results. I do think that some sort of compulsion should be applied. At all events, it would guarantee fairly reasonable treatment, good farming would take place on the holdings, and they might be conducted in such a way as to admit of the payment of economic rents. I would like to say a word about some system by which tenants would be assisted to stock their holdings. The Act of 1911 does not permit the Board of Agriculture to advance money for the stocking of holdings, and that has been unsatisfactory in this way, that many people who would make admirable tenants are not able to come forward and take small holdings because they have not sufficient funds to stock them. Why not propose some system of credit banks which would offer some reasonable service to the small holders? I think that could reasonably and properly form part of the improvements proposed to be effected by this Bill. The Secretary for Scotland has spoken to me on this subject, and I know that he has made approaches to the Scottish banks to see if he could get assistance from them in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman told me that the English banks had been not only sympathetic on this question, but had been able to provide certain assistance in England in a way that the Scottish banks could not afford to do. The Scottish banks are sympathetic, but the essential difference is that in England the banks may give advances on the security of the removable effects on a farm, while in Scotland that cannot be done. That is one of the difficulties which the Scottish banks have in giving assistance. Although it would be an entire change in the existing law, and would introduce a new principle in Scotland which would require careful consideration, I throw out as a suggestion whether the law of Scotland might not be altered in this particular case. That is the reason why the Scottish banks have not been able, having regard to the interests of their shareholders, to do more. They require to consider the security offered, and there is no security offered over which they could get a legal hold. I should have liked to see some proposal on the lines I suggest in the Bill. There are many other points that might have been dealt with in connection with the difficulties which have arisen, and the uncertainties which have been revealed, and, if the Bill gets into Committee, it will be time enough to discuss them then.

There is one question to which I must allude for a moment. There is no provision in the Bill making any difference whatever in the definition of "equitable rent" and "fair rent." It is a notable thing that those responsible for the drafting of Clause 32, the Statutory Tenants Clause, when they had to discover a term to describe the rents which were to be paid by the tenants, after great labour and consideration, selected the term "equitable rent" in order to make it perfectly clear that it was to be an ordinary commercial rent, and not such a rent as the Crofters' Commission fixed for crofts in the Highlands of Scotland. Would you believe it, the Land Court has not made the slightest difference in these rents? The previous Lord Advocate, now Lord Strathclyde, invented the term "equitable rent" to take out of consideration the fixing of an extreme rent on the one hand, or a sympathetic or competitive rent on the other. The Land Court has made no difference between equitable and fair rents, and that is a matter upon which it requires to be put right either here or by legal process in the Court of Session. Another proposal which, I think, the hon. Gentleman will find is not going to be very workable, is the power given to enlarge holdings by taking in the land of another proprietor marching with the holding which a man now occupies. That looks, on the face of it, not a difficult process, but when you begin to consider the terms of the 1911 Act you get immediately, so far as the statutory small tenant is concerned, into an inextricable difficulty.

The landlord, under Clause 32, is obliged to maintain the buildings. If he fails to do so the tenant can apply to the Land Court and can get himself declared to be a landholder or crofter. The obligation then ceases, and the rent will be a crofting rent, fixed by the Land Court. But, if to that holding has been added part of another landlord's property, which contains no buildings, is the man whose land has been taken to enlarge that holding to have any responsibility for maintaining the buildings on the other landlord's holding? Obviously he cannot; and, if not, what is to be done with him when the holding becomes changed into a land holding? Is he to suffer? Is part of his land to be a crofting land holding because the next landlord has not discharged his duty? It simply means that the Clause cannot apply to a statutory small holder unless there is some very different provision from anything which at present appears. There would be no equity in the matter at all. Again, in the case of the landholder, he can be turned out if he permits dilapidation of buildings. Suppose he permits dilapidation of buildings on the portion belonging to one landlord, can he be turned out of the whole holding on that account? Or, if he breaks his agreement in reference to crops on the other part of the holding, can he be turned out of the part on which the buildings are situated? Evidently the whole proposal has been made in haste, and will have to be amended. Great powers are taken with regard to the provision of water. It is obvious that you must have water for small holdings, but I do not approve of the Land Court having any extensive powers in this respect, and the power to interfere with the internal management of an estate. There has been enough of that already, and they should not be given any more. What about the other farms? Are they to be sacrificed in the matter of water supply in the interests of small holdings? What of the local authority coming in a year or two later and saying to the landlord, "This place is not sufficiently provided with water for a large farm"? The reply will be, "How can I? The Land Court has taken away the water for small holdings down there." "Very well, then," is the answer, "you must bring it from somewhere else." Is that to be taken into account? The hon. Member for Forfarshire (Mr. Falconer) laughs, but he knows very well that in many cases there is not sufficient water for farms, and that the expense of getting it from a distance is very great, and that must be considered.

1.0 P.M.

The most important proposals of this Bill in my opinion are those which deal with the Arbitration Clause in the Act of 1911, and which entirely alter the arrange- ment in respect of compensation which was settled by the conference downstairs, in which the hon. Member opposite took part, and which was put into the Bill on the Motion of the Lord Advocate. I am far from suggesting that the Secretary of State for Scotland is going to support these changes. I cannot conceive the Government countenancing such a gross breach of faith. The Act of 1911, having been before this House more than once, had been hung up for a long time. It was felt by some people on both sides that it was very desirable to come to an arrangement. We came to an arrangement. Part of that arrangement was to compensate to the full all interests concerned in connection with any loss which they might suffer through the operation of this Act. To ensure that that was properly done the Compensation Clause was, after careful consideration, agreed to, and was put into the Bill in this House, on the Motion of the Lord Advocate, on behalf of the Government. It was accepted without any discussion in Committee, and was unanimously agreed to. On the strength of that, and of a promise that an appeal of some kind would be given on questions of compensation, it became my duty, not a very easy task I fear, to induce the House of Lords to accept and pass this Bill. I had several meetings with Committees of the House of Lords on the subject. I succeeded, I hope fairly satisfactorily, in getting an arrangement made between the two sides on the question, and as part of that arrangement on the Report stage in the Lords, Lord Pentland himself moved an Amendment to an Amendment which had been inserted in Committee by Lord Camperdown, proposing this very Arbitration Clause which to-day the hon. Member for East Edinburgh proposes to cut out of the Act. I am not complaining of the hon. Member. He was not in the House at the time. He was not a party to the arrangement. He is a perfectly free agent and an independent man. But I cannot conceive it possible that the Secretary for Scotland can agree to these proposals.

The question originally arose on the question of appealing from the decision of the Land Court as to compensation to the Court of Session, and a suggestion was made in the House of Lords that it should go to the three valuation judges in the Valuation Court. That was not thought by the Government to be desirable.

Neither did they like Lord Camperdown's second Amendment, proposed on Report to meet their objections, to take the appeal to either the first or second division of the Court of Session. Lord Pentland said that the Government had been considering it, and, to show their bona fides in the matter, proposed the Arbitration Clause, which he hoped the Noble Lord would accept, instead of the Clause which he had on the Paper. Lord Camperdown accepted the Government Clause, and it is now proposed by the hon. Member opposite to cut it out. This Bill only came into operation in April, 1912, just two years ago. More than eight months were spent in making arrangements as to machinery. There has not been a single case decided yet under the Arbitration Clause, and it is suggested that it is the Arbitration Clause which is keeping things back. It would have been dealt with long ago if it had not been for the stupid mistakes made by the Land Court. No grievance has arisen which is not explained by the action of the Land Court itself. No award has been given. Everybody knows that the arbitrator who has been selected knows as much about land in his little finger as the whole Land Court, soul and body.

Now it is proposed to delete this Clause and to alter the Compensation Clause in regard to deer forests in a very drastic way, and in fact cut the heart out of the concordat which has been come to. I cannot conceive it possible that the Government will do anything of the kind. I do not believe they will endanger this Bill by permitting it, because it has not the ghost of a chance of passing if these provisions remain in it. Why should it? If, in the same Parliament, after a year and a half, an honourable understanding of that kind is to be broken by Government supporters, why there is an end of all honourable understandings.

The hon. Baronet has referred to me in connection with certain negotiations. He refers to an honourable understanding or concordat. I do not know in the least what he refers to so far as I am concerned. Until the last two days I have never heard anything of the kind. I should like, if the hon. Baronet will specify now, with whom he made that concordat, and for whom he was acting in, and particularly whether he was acting for, the House of Lords, what was the specific nature of the agreement, and in how does it affect the House of Commons, the Government, or any Member of the House in wishing to amend the Bill at any time that public necessity shows that to be desirable? I have heard of it for the first time to-day, though a couple of days ago I heard some rumours of it.

I only referred to the hon. Member in connection with the arrangement which was discussed downstairs.

Will the hon. Gentleman deny that it was an express condition of the meetings which took place between us that no agreement was to be made which was to be binding on anyone? If the hon. Gentleman will take the trouble to look at the OFFICIAL REPORT, he will find that the hon. and learned Member for Central Glasgow (Mr. Scott Dickson) stated in this House that in no sense was this to be regarded as an agreed Bill. Amendments were moved to that Bill.

The hon. Member is now making a speech, and he may lose his right to speak later.

It is perfectly true that he did make that statement. But we were not able to get downstairs the appeal which we insisted upon, and we went to the House of Lords, with the consent of the Government, and it then became an agreed Bill, and the Government were responsible for it. I never suggested that the hon. Member had anything to do with the Appeal Clause and the Arbitration Clause. I only referred to him in connection with the Compensation Clause. The Government negotiated with me; it does not matter through whom. [An HON. MEMBER: "Oh, but it does!"] I came to an arrangement not to mention through whom, and I propose not to do so, though I am perfectly ready to do so at a future time. The Prime Minister, at all events, knows who it was, for I told him by letter. I may say that the statements I made, and the letter I wrote to the Prime Minister, have not so far been contradicted.

What was the nature of the agreement?

I have described the agreement, which had reference to the question of arbitration and appeal.

Why should that agreement, or any other agreement, be binding on any person who in the future wishes to effect a change?

Of course not. Is there ever such an agreement made in Parliament? You can only bind yourself in an honourable way to observe an understanding or agreement. Contracts would never be entered into if they were to be broken at will in a year and a half's time. The present Government, if it again came into power, might in another Parliament effect a change, but I do not believe for a single moment that they would do so at the present time. I should like to say, in conclusion, that this extensive power, this power of saying what a man is to get in every kind of circumstances, little or much, as they chose, which is to be given to the Scottish Land Court, makes that body the judges of their own cause. It is very obvious that it is to their interest to make this Act run, and do what they can to encourage the formation of small holdings. They are limited to a sum of money which I do not think is nearly enough, and therefore it is to their obvious interests to make that sum of money go as far as possible in order to get as many holdings constituted as they can possibly manage. That being so, we will not under any circumstances agree to give them this extraordinary and enormous power. The Chairman at the Table ruled in this House that under the peculiar circumstances of the situation, we were entitled to discuss the Land Court as a whole, but not as to its members. We did so, and, in the circumstances of the ruling, we cannot have much to say in regard to the decisions arrived at, and people are at present looking with grave misgiving on this Court as being either competent or just. Its proceedings have been characterised by most non-judicial proceedings, and by expressions used from the bench which would have disgraced a Magisterial Court.

May I ask, Mr. Speaker, if it is in order to attack a judicial body?

This is not a judicial body, as I understand, in the ordinary sense. Is it not a body the cost of which comes upon the Votes?

No, Sir; it comes upon the Consolidated Fund.

Then I do not understand the ruling of the Chairman of Ways and Means.

By Act of Parliarment the Court is obliged to present a Report of its proceedings. It presented one last summer, I think, in July, and it was necessary to get a ruling from the Chairman as to the position occupied here with regard to the Court. I had given previous notice of the question, and the right hon. Gentleman came to the conclusion that the Land Court in Scotland is in the same position as a similar Court in Ireland—I do not know which—and that while we could discuss the Court and its proceedings as a whole, we could not discuss individual members of the Court, because their salaries are on the Consolidated Fund. What would be the good of Parliament discussing the proceedings of the Land Court unless it could discuss the Land Court itself?

How did the Report come before the House at all?

The Report was ordered to be put before the House by Parliament itself, and it was discussed on one of the days when we had the Scottish Estimates.

I do not quite follow. If the expenses of the Land Court are borne on the Consolidated Fund, what was the object of the discussion?

The Report of the Land Court records the whole of the decisions during the year, and also their expenses in connection with their administration.

What was the Question put from the Chair to enable the discussion to arise?

It was either the salary of the Secretary for Scotland or the Vote for the Land Court itself—I think the latter

I may point out that the salaries of the Chairman and the Commissioners of the Land Court are on the Consolidated Fund, and the other expenses connected with the Land Court are on the Votes, and the question came before the House in that way on that day.

I think if there are expenses coming before the House on the Vote, there does not seem to be any reason why the matter should not be discussed, as the general administration of the County Courts can be discussed by this House, even though the salaries of the County Court judges may not be on the Estimates. In this Bill also there is a proposal to increase the Land Court by adding an unpaid member. Therefore that seems to me to be a reasonable opportunity for discussing the general policy of the Land Court and their work, but it would not be right, I think, to single out particular members of the Court for criticism.

I do not think that has been done. I said the Court had been non-judicial; I did not say what member or members; I merely said the Court. I used the term "Court," and not the term "President" or "Chairman." I knew I was not entitled to do so, and I was careful not to do so. I have got your ruling, Sir, and I hope to stick to it. There is very much that could be said about the administration of the body to which these enormous powers have been entrusted. I do not think I need trouble the House with any particular or detailed account of the cases. We shall have an opportunity when its Report conies up of doing so to our heart's content, but there is, I assure the House, very grave dissatisfaction with the situation and with the administration of that body. So grave is the dissatisfaction and misgiving that we on our part cannot allow without serious opposition any addition to their powers and their responsibilities. They have, I think, most seriously delayed the advantages that might have arisen from the 1911 Act by themselves careering all over the country inspecting holdings, with their very limited knowledge, and reducing rents in a sweeping and arbitrary way. If they employed assessors to advise them about these holdings, they could have revised them or changed them in any way by hundreds instead of by tens, and no doubt with much greater satisfaction with the new rents if they were fixed on the advice of those who knew the local conditions, and fertility, and so on. They have not done so. They have gone in snowy weather and in fog to Orkney and Shetland, forsooth, to see what the fertility of the land was. Did anybody ever hear of people going to see a holding in a snow storm and digging a hole with a spade, about three or four inches, and then saying what the fertility of the land was and fixing the rent? Why the thing is ludicrous! One day they went in a fog, and could not even see the man who was showing them the holding. After five months they reduced the rents by 6d., or 2s. 9d., or 3s. 9d., or something of that sort. That disgusts people, and proves the absurdity of the whole position. Take the valued rents. I do not talk of the others; there may be good reasons for reducing those others. I refer to the rents that were fixed by the Crofters' Commission, by no means a body partial to landlords. They have taken 20 per cent, off the whole of them—and under what change of conditions? They have done so when prices have improved and agricultural conditions are much better, and when people are getting half as much again for their stirks. Down go the rents fixed by the Crofters' Commission, and that requires some explanation. That is one of the reasons that makes me doubt the competence of the Court. I am very sorry that we should have to go to a Division against this Bill, if, as I am afraid, the hon. Members opposite persist in this proposal. I earnestly hope that in the course of the Debate the Secretary for Scotland will give us some assurance that the Government is not going to back this provision to-day. I do not want to press him on it to say what he is going to do to-day, but I do say, under the circumstances I have mentioned, it is his duty to inquire before he pledges himself as to what he will do. I shall be content with that. I do not want to press him now or put him in a difficulty. He is entitled to inquire whether my statements are right or not, and whether they have substance or not. Upon that I shall be perfectly content if he says so to-day. He can do what he likes about the other parts of the Bill if he leaves that out for consideration until he has satisfied himself in how far I have stated the case fairly and honestly, and in how far I am entitled to say it would be in my opinion a gross breach of faith if they in any way took advantage of these proposals now.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I make no apology for doing so. Hon. Members opposite always appear to me to endeavour to make out that we on this side have no interest in the creation of small holdings, and that we always represent and speak from the point of view of the landlord, and that that is our one aim and object, whatever lip service we may render to the cause of creating small holdings in Scotland; and that in fact and in practice we throw everything in the way to oppose such a creation of holdings.

When I either listen in this House or read the speeches of hon. Members upon agricultural matters, I am led to reflect that however much one may know individually of agricultural matters in one's own locality and district, that it is a very grave undertaking to speak as if one had a thorough knowledge of agricultural conditions in all parts even of one's own country. I confess that this Bill, introduced as it is at this period, strikes me, as has been so clearly expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger), as a distinct breach of what was understood to be an arrangement by which both parties agreed to the passage of the Bill in 1911, with the understanding that every one on both sides was desirous of having more small holdings created, and the only way in which we on this side thought that possible was that there should be in that Bill certain provisions which would unmistakably protect the interests, the fair and legitimate interests of landlord and tenant and applicant. Having followed closely the record of the judgments of the present Land Court and Board of Agriculture, I believe if there is swept out of this measure this protecting Clause giving the right of arbitration to fix the price that there will be placed in grave jeopardy, not only the legitimate interests, the bare legitimate interests of the landlords and landholders of Scotland; but I am really as much concerned as for the interest in the interest of the tenants of the farms of Scotland.

Hon. Gentlemen opposite say, and I think truly, that this Act has been slow in its working. They regret, as I think everyone regrets, that greater result has not come from it in certain directions. After all, if you are going to deal with any question of land settlement, it is not a matter which can be carried out at express speed, and more particularly as it is difficult to expedite such matters unless either the applicants for the holdings or those who are backing those applications have got a thorough knowledge of the actual local conditions of the holdings for which they apply and will give the Court, which is to decide upon this matter, the fullest and the most complete information. I think myself that a great part of the delay is due to the fact that certain members of this Court, admittedly having no close personal practical knowledge of agricultural conditions, instead of confining themselves to the more legal aspects of the decision, have themselves gone about the country investigating the cases. I recognise the difficulty which any Court such as the Land Court must have. It is their desire, no doubt, to have a personal knowledge of the cases upon which they have to decide. I am at one with hon. Members opposite when they say that it is necessary and desirable to increase the numbers of the Court to deal with these matters, and so far as doing anything to expedite the machinery upon a fair and proper basis is concerned, I am in agreement with them. But what agriculturists feel, and what has been voiced in Scotland, both in the public Press and elsewhere, is that in settling these cases you ought to have certain men to prepare the cases who have a practical knowledge of agriculture, and who will be recognised, not only by hon. Gentlemen opposite, but by the general body of agricultural opinion in Scotland, as having that practical knowledge.

We have often urged the desirability of these men being chosen from the localities in which they have to adjudge. Unless that is done you are bound to have unfairness, or, if you have not unfairness, you are, at any rate, bound to have an amount of criticism and a belief that there is going to be unfairness, which is certain to retard the working of your measure. Unless and until you make up your mind to meet this feeling fairly and properly, in so far as you continue your present procedure, your measure will not be expedited. In connection with the cases which have arisen before the Land Court, we have many examples of a desire on the part of those who are pressing this matter to get land without giving that fair and proper compensation which even a man who owns land ought to have. I am quite aware that there are many hon. Gentlemen who think that a man who owns land is in a different position from the holder of any other kind of property, and that he ought to have his land taken from him, even by compulsion, if it is in the interest of the State, under conditions which they would not propose to apply to any other kind of property. Is there any justice or fairness in such a proposal? I think that hon. Members would expedite their measure and help in the creation of small holdings if they honestly went to the landlords in the first instance, and carried out the preliminary conversations a little more thoroughly than appears to have been done in many cases. I think myself that if you can show to the landlords that you are going to produce real bonâ-fide small holders, that it is not going to be merely a list of names of people as to whose practical capacity they can have no knowledge, if you can produce to them evidence that you have men ready and willing to take up particular small holdings, there will be no objection on the part of most landlords to these men receiving a fair chance of having the holdings. But you are endeavouring now to do away as far as possible with all those preliminary negotiations, and to make it a condition that the Land Court may take land from a proprietor without giving any undertaking as to the suitability of the holders whom they propose to place upon the land.

If land is to be taken and farms broken up, are you going to keep any record of the state in which the land is at the time you take it? Are you going to keep a record of the condition of farming in which that holding is when you take it from the land-owner? In the event of a rehearing or a reorganisation of the rents in the course of three or four years, are you going to make any adequate and fair allowance to the proprietor for the deterioration of his land? Hon. Members who are desirous of seeing small holders placed upon the land must remember that the success of small holdings can only be assured by their being placed in the hands of men who have a knowledge of agriculture. If that is admitted by hon. Members opposite, do let us have a little more evidence than we have had in the working of the Court as to the character of the men brought forward for these holdings. There are grave doubts whether many of the men who have been brought forward are really competent to take up the holdings. I have read accounts of proceedings in which it is quite clear that the representative of the Board of Agriculture, in producing the names of people who were likely to take up even an extension of their holdings, had no knowledge that the men had the necessary stock for the extra holdings, and certain comments have properly been made by members of the Court upon that fact.

We on this side are only too desirous of speeding up the machinery as far as it is fair and just. But upon this we must be quite clear. It would not be fair, either to the tenants or to the land-owning class as a whole, for anyone in this House to support a measure which would take away the small right of appeal which they still have under the original Act and place in the hands of a single body—with which even we in this House have the greatest difficulty in dealing, as there are so few opportunities for criticism—a power which no single body has over any other industry in the country. If that is the object of hon. Members opposite, if they declare their intention to treat the land-owning and farming industry of Scotland upon an utterly different basis from that upon which they would treat any other industry in the country, if they will come out into the open and say that they are setting up this body with full powers without any right of appeal, then we shall know exactly where we are. Confiscation we can understand. Veiled confiscation we can readily see in these proposals. We will never agree to any proposal of this kind without letting hon. Members understand that, believing that small holdings may be useful in certain parts of the country, we are as strongly opposed as we possibly can be to confiscation without a right of appeal. That, I believe, is what hon. Members opposite wish. If they do, let them say that they are prepared to bring in a Bill for the nationalisation of land straight away; because, if that is their desire, they had better state it more clearly than they have yet done. I beg to second the rejection of the Bill.

The hon. Member who has spoken last has dealt in his speech, as I understand it, mainly with complaints in regard to the action of the Land Court, and has stated his objections to entrusting the settlement of the compensation of land-owners or of tenants to that Court. My answer to that is, that the Court, so far as I understand it, complies with the very conditions he has named, in being a Court composed of men of large experience in regard to whom I have, not, until this moment, heard any responsible person utter any criticism on the ground that they were open to a charge of partisanship. Two of them are from the Highlands, one is from Kincardineshire, one is from Fife, and one from Dumfriesshire, thus covering the whole country. The Chairman of the Land Court is a lawyer. In regard to him I will only say this: I think there have been in five or six of his decisions appeals on questions of law to the Court of Session, and in every case his judgment has been upheld. As shortly as I can I should like to deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs. I wish that I may be permitted to do. so shortly, in order that I may deal with the special question regarding the alleged arrangement in which reference was made to myself. In the forcible criticism which the hon. Gentleman made against the Bill his first point was that the Land Court was composed of five or six lawyers, or persons of that sort. His remedy for that was to have a separate lawyer in each particular case—in each separate county—

Sitting with two agricultural assessors.

Under the Land Court at present there are four practical men, with one lawyer, who presides. The hon. Gentleman's remedy is to have a separate lawyer in each county, so that you would have something like thirty or forty lawyers turned on, each having two assessors. That itself seems to me to answer his criticism that the Land Court is composed of lawyers.

I did not say that.

I have quoted the words which I noted down. The next point was that no consideration had been given to the position of the outgoing tenant in dealing with the question of compensation.

The question of notice.

Well, the question of notice and also the question of compensation which the hon. Gentleman subsequently referred to. He seems to have overlooked the fact that in the Bill it is expressly provided that preference is to be given in the selected farms in the case where the present tenant is not an offerer. If he will look at the compensation Clause which is in the Bill he will find that it applies to persons to whom damage or injury may be done, and it covers also the case of the tenant. That criticism, there fore, is absolutely without foundation. I pass over his criticism in reference to the absence of provision for co-operation and assistance to stock farms and credit banks. In so far as it may be thought necessary to make provision for these purposes in addition to that which is already made under the powers of the existing Act, I am sure he will find those of us who sit on this side of the House ready to consider any Amendment. The next criticism of the hon. Gentleman was that the Bill did not contain any definition of "equitable rent." He entered into an argument into which I will not follow him—because I am sorry I cannot—as to what was the real meaning of the words "equitable rent." He said that it must be something different from a fair rent. I would suggest that there is no shade of difference between the two. In the course of his arguments he really showed what was the understanding of all of us who took part in these discussions, that it was to be something different from a competitive rent.

Quite so.

There I agree with him. I say that it is not a competitive rent. The rent may be "equitable" or "fair." There will be no difficulty.

Surely the hon. Member knows the conditions under which "fair" rents are fixed! Are these to be the conditions under which these rents are to be fixed? If you wanted a market rent fixed, you would use the term "equitable."

I would be very glad to enter into a discussion on that.

It is very important.

But I am anxious not to take up too much time. I will tell the hon. Gentleman what I understand the result of our discussion was. There were certain people who were so opposed to the idea of "fair" rent, not only when Commissioners fix it, but having regard in Ireland, that they shuddered when the name "fair" was mentioned. I do not think it was the Lord Advocate but another Member who mentioned the word "equitable," so as to remove the horrible dread from the minds of those who have to be persuaded to agree to an "equitable" rent.

I am sorry that I made a mistake.

I am bound to say I have never recognised any distinction between "equitable" and "fair." In the Committee upstairs and elsewhere where I have had occasion to discuss this question, I have said that there is no possible distinction. I should certainly oppose any attempt to alter the basis from a rent which is perfectly fair, and which is distinctly understood to be non-competitive. The hon. Gentleman also referred to the provision in regard to the water supply. That is rather a small point, but still, in order to satisfy him, I would suggest to him again that if he had read the Bill—Clause 2, at the foot of page 7—he will there find the very provision which he desires to see made. His criticism was that water might be taken for a group of small holdings which was required for other farms on the estate, and that the owner of the estate would get into difficulty with the Local authorities. He will find a proviso at the foot of page 7:—

"Provided that the Land Court shall not under this Section authorise the Board to take any supply of water which, in the opinion of the Land Court, is required for the use of the remainder of the estate."

Yes, in the opinion of the Land Court, that is what I object to.

Does not the hon. Baronet recognise that it is equally desirable, if you are creating small holdings, to have powers of that kind?

I said it was desirable.

And does he think it necessary to have an appeal?

I distrust the power of appealing to the Land Court.

Is the making of groups of small holdings to be held up because the hon. Baronet does not trust the Land Court to fix the price of supplying the necessary warfare?

No, certainly not.

What is the solution? Is the landowner to be free to say "Yes" or "No" whether a group of small holdings should get the water? I fail to see what scheme is to be worked out if power is not given to the Land Court to settle important details for the point of creating the holdings, but not having any important bearing upon the interests of the land owner. I think I have dealt with the criticisms of the hon. Baronet on the nature of the Bill. I now come to the criticisms with which he began and ended up as to the alleged agreements which prevent, as I understand, the Government giving facilities—

In my view.

Which in his view prevents the Government from giving facilities or support to this Bill for amending the Small Landholders Act.

:I think I had better correct that; it is a very important point. I said I could not give support to these particular proposals; I limited myself to these proposals.

To these two proposals with regard to the basis of compensation given to the landlords and to the tribunal by which that compensation is to be assessed. In order that there may be no misunderstanding—because language has been used much wider than that used by the right hon. Baronet—I should like to make clear so far as I am concerned—and I had some part in some of the conferences and discussions—what the position is so far as a understand. As everyone is aware, when the Small Holdings Bill of 1911 was in Committee, after some discussion there, there was certain informal meetings that took place, not for the purpose of making any agreement, but for the purpose of enabling us to understand the position. The Lord Advocate and I attended, and also the hon. Baronet, and I think the hon. Member for Bute and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, and I think also the hon. Member for West Edinburgh, and it was expressly understood and stated at these meetings that no person was in a position to make any binding agreement. That was stated, and ultimately proposals were submitted to the Committee upstairs. When the Bill came back again to the House on Report stage it was stated clearly that in no sense was this regarded as agreed.

I explained why.

I will deal with that in a moment, but on the Report stage there were a series of Amendments moved of a different kind, including an Amendment for an appeal to the Court of Session with regard to the fixing of compensation. That was opposed by Members on this side of the House, and it was defeated. It is therefore impossible to say, so far the House of Commons was concerned, that there was any agreement with regard to the provisions of the Bill in regard to compensation or with regard to the tribunal proposed to fix it.

With regard to compensation, but not the other.

This is the first time I heard that suggestion. The Bill then went to the House of Lords, and in the House of Lords the proposal for appeal was renewed. It went to a Division, and the appeal was inserted in the Bill, the Government voting against it. Subsequently, a modification came, somewhat on the lines of the existing provisions of arbitration.

No.

I think the hon. Baronet will find that it is so.

It was an appeal to the Divisions of the Court of Session.

There was a proposal put forward by Lord Camperdown for arbitration on questions where claims amounted to a certain sum. I remember very well the feelings of Liberal Members, who were watching this thing very closely at the time, was that rather than have the appeal to the Court of Session they would prefer the Government should drop the Bill altogether. That was communicated, as I know, to Lord Pentland, the Minister in charge of the Bill. Subsequently, a suggestion was made by him for the modification of Lord Camperdown's provision in the hope that it might be possible to get the Bill passed. That was accepted, and the only undertaking of which I ever heard, until two days ago, was that the Government would do its best to allow the Bill to pass through the House of Commons as so amended. I was in favour of allowing the Bill to pass, because its leading provision, as I always thought, would do good by giving to existing small holders security of tenure over Scotland, and thus at one sweep 60,000 small holders would be given fixity of tenure like those under the Crofters Act, and my view was, though a good many of my colleagues did not agree, that however defective the other provisions of the Bill might be, it was worth while to let them pass in order that we might get security of tenure for the existing small holders. At the same time we quite understood it was open to us at any time to amend the Bill in respect to any of these other provisions in regard to the creation of new holdings which public interest might demand. I tried to get from the hon. Baronet the specific nature of the undertaking which he suggests has been given. Does he suggest now that the bargain was made which would prevent an amending Bill from being introduced.

No, not in the least.

Does he suggest that it would not be open to any hon. Member to amend the Bill at the earliest moment at which it might require amending.

Certainly not.

Then what is the understanding?

It is perfectly open in the next Parliament for the Government to do so, but it is not open to them in this Parliament to do it unless these particular Clauses have proved unworkable.

We have been told that there was some sort of concordat or agreement.

I do not care what you call it, but there was an agreement with me.

The only question now appears to be is there any justification for the introduction of this Bill, and that is the only question for the hon. Members to consider. Anything else is almost unthinkable. Let us consider what the position was. The majority of the House of Lords refused to pass the Bill unless they got their own terms in regard to the question of compensation. Is that a very worthy position for any House of Parliament to take up.

They did not take up that position.

It seems that in this case you go and make some arrangement with somebody we have not heard of. Not only was that not put into the Bill, but there was not to be any amendment during the present Parliament. I cannot imagine anything less calculated to secure respect for the House of Lords than the suggestion which the hon. Baronet has made, acting as their agent.

I was not; I was the intermediary.

I do not know what is the definition of the hon. Baronet's position?

Peacemaker.

I understand that the House of Lords refused to pass the Bill unless the provision after compensation was satisfactory to them.

That is not the position.

If that is not the position of the House of Lords, why should the hon. Member persist in this opposition?

It is very inconvenient to carry on a Debate in this way. May I point out that the hon. Baronet's silence need not be taken as an acceptance of the statements made by the hon. Member.

I quite accept that, Mr. Speaker.

2.0 P.M.

I have been desirous-of ascertaining the real nature of this opposition. Let me point out that if the House of Lords did not make that a condition, what have they given? It will be for them to take the responsibility of saying "Yes" or "No" as to whether it is desirable that this Bill should pass in the public interests. They will have that opportunity of considering and dealing with it, and I hope they will be large-minded enough to consider the Bill on its merits, and not as to how much they will be able to get in respect of the land that may be taken. Now let me come to the question whether this Bill is really required. I will take the Lynndean case, which has been referred to. In this case 848 acres are to be made into small holdings, and the proportion of rent is £495. It is agreed that the land left out is better than the average. The landlord has to provide for the buildings and permanent improvements. The amount for that purpose has been fixed at 25 or 30 per cent., and therefore the net return which the landlord gets is £396. The fair rent he is to get for the land from the small holders, without taking into account the buildings, is £343. His claim for buildings is £4,668. Taking that at 5 per cent., you get £232, making his future return for the land, instead of £396, £578.

The point which the hon. Member is discussing is not in order.

Large claims are being made for injury to the estate by the Constitution of small holdings. In the discussion which took place in this House and in Committee my understanding was that claims of that kind would not be admissible. I am simply stating my understanding. The words quoted, "damage directly attributable to the constitution of small holdings," were inserted to exclude what we have called the moral and intellectual damage which might be claimed by a man whose return from his estate was not reduced because he did not like to have on his estate small holdings with security of tenure, or because his game might be disturbed by having small holdings. I understand that claims for injury of that kind would be excluded. If that is so, and if those claims were going to amount to such a large sum as to make the working of this Act prohibitive, it seems to me that it is time the principles on which compensation is to be settled should be reviewed by Parliament. I would like to say a word or two with regard to the other provisions in the Compensation Clause as to deer forests. That principle was laid down by the Napier Commission. It was approved in the Crofters Act after a long Debate, and I have taken the trouble to look up the Division List and the speeches.

The principle of refusing compensation to deer forests when a part of them was taken away for small holdings was defended by Mr. J. B. Balfour, subsequently Lord Kinross, on the ground that it was contrary to public policy that land which was suitable for small holdings should be turned exclusively to sport. His language was that a contract for that purpose was not, in the larger sense of the term, a legitimate contract. Therefore, he defended the taking of the land without paying compensation for a sporting right, and in the Division List of those who supported that principle I find men like Mr. Asher, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Bryce, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Donald Currie, Sir Robert Finlay, Sir James Ferguson, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, Sir Henry James, and the Marquess of Stafford. If I want the authority of people for taking land suitable for small holdings and for cultivation or pasture without being bound to give compensation on the basis that the landlord is entitled to devote, that land exclusively to sport, I think that there is all the authority which is needed in this House. The main provisions of the Bill are very much needed. It is absolutely essential that the Board of Agriculture should have their hands strengthened. There are, in addition to the people who have applied, thousands who know of this Act and have not applied because they know that they cannot get holdings. I am speaking of my own part of the country. I know, because I have made inquiries, that there are hundreds there—and I dare say it is the same in other parts of the Lowlands—who will not apply and give up their situations unless they know that they can get a holding. I hope that this Bill will not only receive a Second Reading, but that it will receive all the facilities it requires in order to enable it to be passed into law and to be put into operation at the earliest possible moment.

I cannot claim any expert knowledge as an agriculturist, but I think that I can perhaps claim, although a new-comer here, some experience of the way this Act has worked since it was passed in 1911. I can corroborate most heartily some of the points which the hon. Baronet the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) has made with regard to the defective working of the Act. I think that not only in respect of the concordat, or rather understanding, of three years ago, but on the merits of the three questions, at any rate—the taking away of the Arbitrary Clause, the question of compensation, and also the question of the deer forests—this is a bad Bill, and should not be given a Second Reading. There is one very important point—at any rate it seems important to a lawyer—and that is that in none of their orders do the present Court in any way define the holding. That is a bad thing in a legal way. You cannot tell from any order of the Court what the holding actually is, and that has proved a serious difficulty in following out the result of the order and in the working of the Act. With regard to the Clause in the Bill which proposes to put what I may call an embargo on letting by the landlord if the Board has presented an application, I think that the Bill is seriously defective. It is defective in not providing compensation for the tenant. One has only got to look at the Clause, Clause 1, Sub-section (7), to see quite clearly that it gives the landlord compensation alone, and I have only to suggest a case to show how the tenant would suffer.

Perhaps the most serious thing that has happened to spoil the working of the Act has been the delay in the proceedings before the Land Court, and still more in the time which the Land Court takes to issue its decision. Imagine a case where the tenancy is running out, and the Board makes application for authority to bring up a scheme. Under the proposed Clause the landlord has this embargo against letting to a new tenant or looking out for a new tenant. The tenant himself does not know what is going to happen. Assume that which may perfectly well happen, that the scheme is refused by the Land Court. I do not think anybody can deny that under those circumstances the tenant undoubtedly suffers damage, but the principle of compensation does not apply, because it only applies where schemes go through. This Clause which should cover them should cover the tenant's loss as well as the landlord's loss, but it does not mention the tenant at all. That would undoubtedly be a case of hardship. The other point is the absence of any period within which the Court is bound to give its decision in any such application. On looking at some of these orders which have come out perhaps a year after the case has been heard, it looks as if the Land Court has forgotten about the merits of the cases and has applied a certain percentage of reduction right down the column. It would only be productive of good to put a limit on their deliberations in order that they might not forget so much as one might be disposed to think that they do forget at the present time. That in itself would do more to speed up the working of this Act than anything else. While the proposed addition to the Land Court would strengthen the number it would not remedy the quality in the way one perhaps would desire. I think that the quality, as well as the quantity, is open to improvement.

The hon. Member for Forfarshire (Mr. Falconer) took exception to the suggestion of the hon. Baronet (Sir G. Younger) with regard to having the sheriff of each county and two expert agriculturists, or valuators, inquiring in each county. That only means one lawyer in each town as against two experts, and I should have thought that a very happy combination. Not more than one sheriff now sits on it. At the present moment you have one lawyer sitting on practically every case. There is one other point I wish to raise. I think it is rather a defect, altering the whole provisions with respect to the re-hearings. If you have delegated a Court of two, of course they must agree, or else they will not come to a decision at all. There cannot be a majority decision in that case. You ask for a rehearing, and these two members may form part of the Court of three at the rehearing That is the provision under this Bill, and the two may outvote the independent and neutral man who is brought in. [An Hon. Member: "They have already disagreed."] At any rate, that in itself suggests an obvious defect. You are going to make the decision dependent on a Court of two. That is a weakening even of the present quorum, and, what is worse, the Court of two will not necessarily have the chairman as one of its members. That is, of course, because you want to set up three Courts out of six members. The serious objection is that you are putting, as the final arbiters on the important question of compensation, only two members of the Land Court, and neither of them need be the chairman. There is one very important condition which should have occurred to hon. Members who support this Bill and are anxious to remedy some of the glaring defects which have been brought to light in connection with it. It arises out of what is well known as the Polmont case. There are small land-owners in this country who, because they are in business and have no time until they retire, or are more at ease from the shackles of business, to run their small properties. They therefore let them. In at least one case the small land-owner has been deprived of the opportunity of retiring, which he was anxious to do, and of living on his own land, because his tenant has been turned into a statutory small tenant under Section 32. That is an undoubted hardship, and, so far as the question of reducing emigration from Scotland is concerned, I think it only needs to be stated to be admitted that an increase of small land-owners is more likely to retain people on the land in Scotland than any increase in the number of small tenants. I know, however, that that is a debatable point. Certainly, it will not tend to increase the number of small land-owners or of people who invest in small properties if they are to be subject to this disturbance in managing their land, in what, after all, is a resonable way.

In regard to the Arbitration Clause, and the supposed taking away of land, I of course was not present at the time of the honourable understanding to which the hon. Baronet has referred. But I should have thought that what all parties desired was undoubtedly to get the number of small holders increased and to do it without any injustice to the landlord. There are good landlords and bad landlords; there are good tenants and bad tenants; but I personally believe that the number of good ones in each class considerably outnumbers the others. It was not surely the intention or wish of this House to be unfair to good landlords. What everybody was anxious to do was, in the first place, at any rate, to give a fair opportunity to landlords to arrive by means of an agreement at the settlement of small holdings. The reason for that is very obvious, namely, that the place or portion of the estate on which the small holdings were to be put was of vital interest to the landowner, who, I fear, will eventually become a mere rent collector.

It is only right that under the Compulsory Clause the land-owner should get fair compensation for any estate he is deprived of, and for—I do not wish to use a harsh word—the partition of his estate, or for a piece being taken out of it. The Land Court, it is now suggested, should be made the arbiters of what is fair compensation to be given. I confess I should have thought that, from every point of view, the Land Court was the last Court qualified to judicially and fairly determine that point. The reason why the Land Court was brought into existence was to facilitate the creation of small holdings, and that is very properly its object under the Act. But that line of country, if I may use the phrase, is, to say the least, mildly antagonistic to the question of settling the amount of compensation payable on any increase of holdings. You cannot, if you look at the composition of the Land Courts—and I am not referring to the members at the present moment, though the remark does apply—you cannot think it is a very happy body to select for that purpose, particularly if you are going to allow only two members to settle this question of compensation. Speaking for myself, I can see no reason, in fairness or in justice, for departing from the present statutory provision, be it an arrangement or otherwise. Remember this, we have heard complaints from hon. Gentlemen opposite, complaints which have also been voiced on this side, of the delays in the Land Court. Is not this another means at least of giving them an excuse for delay? Are you not piling more work on them? The question of compensation is a difficult one. If it is to be fairly treated, any body or any Court dealing with it ought to be given time, and one can clearly see that if the increase which we hope for in the number of small holdings is to come, the question of compensation will take up an increasing amount of time, and will retard rather than produce that speeding up which, I understand, it is the object of the promoters of this Bill to attain.

I wish to say one word on the question of deer forests. I am speaking for myself only, when I say I am quite unable to follow the reasons of public policy, or justice, or equity, for this particular provision. I can quite understand it being public policy to say that the fact that land is used as a deer forest is not to prevent its being taken, or rather a reasonable part of it being taken, for small holdings. But it is quite a different matter to say that when it is taken no compensation is to be given whatever, simply because it is a deer forest. There is nothing unlawful, to put it mildly, in having a deer forest, and drawing rent for it if you let it, up to the date when the Small Holdings Act affects it. But having, as I confess I have, some suspicion of the methods in which the Act has been carried out hitherto, I think this provision for compensation is a very useful and a very fair check on this selection of the portion of the deer forest which is to be taken by the Board or by the Court for small holdings. If there is no provision for compensation for the deer forest interest the easiest thing in the world will be for the Board or the Court to put the small holding right in the middle of the deer forest. On the other hand, with this, as I consider, perfectly just and fair provision for compensation, the result is that the holdings are put on such portion of the deer forest as will provide a proper holding, and, at the same time, not so seriously interfere with the deer forest as a whole. The compensation is rendered so much the less by it. To suggest that that is an interest for which no compensation is to be given, is, in my view, a breach of the basis on which, judging by the ejaculations of hon. Members opposite in regard to a remark of mine a moment ago, this Act was intended to operate, namely, that as many small holdings as possible were to be obtained in places where they were suitable, in consultation, if possible, with the landlord, so that he could point out where it most suited the rest of his estate, and on the basis of fair compensation for what was taken away from the landlord, and its effect on the rest of the estate.

I have much pleasure in supporting the Second Reading of this Bill, and, in doing so, perhaps I may be permitted to congratulate the hon. Member for South Lanark (Mr. Watson) on the admirable first appearance he has made to-day.

I hope you will follow him into the Lobby.

While we on these benches by no means think that this Bill represents the last word so far as the agricultural problem is concerned, we believe that it will, to a considerable extent, remedy the defects in the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act, 1911. Consequently, we give it our hearty support, and hope that in Committee we may be able to make it of even greater value to the people of Scotland than it is in its present form. Two years' experience of the Act of 1911 has convinced even its most ardent supporters that it requires speeding up before it is capable of increasing, to any appreciable extent, the agricultural population of Scotland. The promoters of the Act of 1911 were hopeful that it would be the means of enabling us to employ on the land at our disposal a greater number of our people, and that in that way we should be able to stem the tide of emigration which had assumed such alarming proportions. One only requires to examine the question from the standpoint of the last Census, and to compare the increase that had taken place in the population of Scotland during the ten years 1901–11 with the increase that had taken place in a number of other countries during the same period, to be convinced that there was every reason to justify the alarm felt and the effort that was then made to cure the evil. As an illustration, may I point out that, according to the Census of 1901, Scotland had a population of roughly four and a half millions, which, in the ten years 1901–11, had only increased by 288,801, while the population of Denmark, which was only two and a half millions, increased in the same period by no less than 307,536. Not only does the Census reveal an alarming state of affairs so far as the natural increase of population is concerned, but it also shows that there is a decreasing number of persons engaged in agricultural pursuits in Scotland. Only 145,000 persons, out of a population of 4,760,000 in 1911, were engaged on the land. While the population had increased during the ten years 1901–11 by 288,800, the number of persons engaged in agriculture had actually decreased during the same period, showing a state of affairs which would have justified a more drastic measure than the Act of 1911.

That a more drastic measure is necessary is proved beyond a shadow of doubt by the fact that less than 300 new holdings have been created during the two years the Act has been in operation. We have had various views expressed on the opposite sides of the House this afternoon as to the cause of the small number of new holdings that have been created, one side contending that the defects in the Act are responsible, and the other contending that it is the method and manner in which the Act had been administered. Personally, I believe that the Amendments in this Bill, and others which I hope will be inserted at a later stage, are necessary before the parties entrusted with the administration of the Act will be able to keep pace with the demand for small holdings that exists in Scotland. Not only has the experience of the working of the Act of 1911 been a disappointment to its promoters, but it has also, to a certain extent, belied the prophecies of the opponents of that measure. During the course of the discussion in 1911 hon. Gentlemen opposite stated on more than one occasion that there was little or no demand for small holdings in Scotland. The fact that more than 8,000 applications have been made to the Board of Agriculture for holdings is a very sufficient answer to and belies the prophecies of hon. Members opposite. Those applications were by no means confined to what are known as the Crofting counties, but have been received from all over Scotland. As a matter of fact, from the Constituency I have the honour to represent, notwithstanding that it is one of the busiest industrial centres in the whole country, we have had more than thirty applications to the Land Court for holdings, although I am sorry to say that up to the present time not one of those has been granted. I am in a position to state that these applications would have been added to to a considerable extent if there had been any prospect of those who had already applied being granted holdings. I hope the House will pass this amending Bill by a large majority, and that in the Committee stage we may be able to give effect to some of the suggestions which have been made by the hon. Baronet (Sir G. Younger), in particular this one for the establishment of credit banks, and for such other Amendments as I would in a word suggest to the House, such as the education of the small holders in the most scientific treatment of their holdings, and also an Amendment which would make it incumbent on the Government to foster and stimulate a system of co-operation among small holders. I hope that not only will the House pass this amending Bill by a large majority but that, notwithstanding what has been said by the hon. Baronet as to some agreement of which we on these benches know nothing, the Government will take up this question and make it a Government measure in the interests of the people of Scotland.

I think the Scottish Agriculture Debate of 26th June last throws a very interesting light on the indirect objects, and perhaps also the direct objects, of this Bill. May I quote, first, from the speech of the hon. Member (Mr. Hogge)? I may call this an indirect object. He said:— Macpherson), also a supporter of the Bill, complained of the inherent obstinacy and dislike of Scotchmen to go out of their ordinary way and apply for a small holding. The Lord Advocate himself said:—

The Board of Agriculture can only assist by means of a loan for this expenditure. It can, I grant you, no doubt make a free gift for making roads and hedges, and such-like; but there, again, if money is given for these purposes from the Scottish Fund, there is less money to go on with the small holdings. I have heard there is a feeling amongst hon. Members opposite that a way might be found out by a relaxation of the regulations of local authorities dealing with byres and suchlike. I know an attempt was made in the Lynndean case. The Board of Agriculture approached the local authority to ask if they would not see fit to relax their regulations dealing with byres. The local authority naturally said they did not see that they could do anything of the kind. These byres, which I think the Board of Agriculture proposed to give the new small holders, were deficient in ventilation, cubic space, and light, and I heard the proposal that the Board of Agriculture should be the sole authority to decide about these regulations for buildings. I quite understand that might cheapen the creation of small holdings, but would it be any advantage to the whole country that there should be further opportunities for spreading the disease of tuberculosis? I cannot conceive that that would be acceptable to the present farmers or the future small holders. If hon. Members ever thought of introducing that provision into the Bill, I think they were wise not to introduce it. I do not know what the immediate fate of this Bill will be.

It will be passed.

I do not know. My hon. Friend the Member for the Ayr Burghs has challenged the Government to declare their attitude about it. I trust the Government will not take the opportunity of hanging up the Bill without stating their attitude about the proposals. I understand that in its present form it is good enough for electioneering purposes. The further it is examined, the less suitable will it be for these purposes, and if the Government are forced to condemn the Bill, as I understand they will be, it will be no use at all. I hope we will not allow ourselves to play into the hands of electioneerers in this matter. I think that is what hon. Members opposite would prefer. Let me say, in conclusion, that we should cordially support any real and genuine effort to promote the creation of small holdings throughout Scotland, and to give to suitable, young, and eager applicants the opportunity of securing them. There has been, I believe, a proposal to form small holdings in my own county. It is not actually before the Court. It is very suitable ground for the purpose, and there are two occupiers already there who are practically small holders. One of them keeps pigs, and he has a house and land, and the other is a dairyman. The Board of Agriculture came to these men and asked them both if they would apply for small holdings. One actually refused, and the other, under considerable inducement, agreed to apply, because he was practically told—

Has the hon Gentleman proof for that statement as to inducement? It is a sweeping statement.

The man was told that if he did not apply he would be turned out of his present holding. I was told also that one of the men was informed that if he applied for a small holding he would get as much money advanced as lie required at 3½ per cent. That may not be correct. But it is possible that electioneerers on the other side may use the statement. I say that there is a great deal of pressure being put upon possible applicants to induce them and compel them to come in, and I do not think you should press men to come in against their will. I believe there is very little demand for small holdings in the south of Scotland, but if it is shown to me that there is a demand, I shall support any fair proposals which may be made to provide suitable land.

On a question of this kind it is important that the House should hear the views of Scottish Members, and I would like to take this opportunity of congratulating the hon. Member for South Lanark (Mr. W. Watson) on his first appearance as a speaker in this House. I would congratulate him especially on the fact that the subject with which he has associated himself to-day is one of pressing and immediate interest to the population of Scotland. I do not think that there is any class more helpful to the community they live in than agriculturists, and I would ask every Member if he has not read with grave alarm the continual reports we have had during the last few years of the stream of emigrants who are regularly leaving Scotland, and of whom a large proportion are from the agricultural districts.

During eight years of Radical Government.

I ask hon. Members opposite to try by supporting this Bill to put a stop to the evil results arising, as they suppose, under the Government now in office. Whatever fault hon. Members may find with the Government, I can assure them that they will not find any opposition to what has been done by the Government in attempting to deal with migration and emigration, and to give more agricultural employment. I am extremely pleased that all the speakers this afternoon are agreed that the Act of 1911 wants amendment, and that they find fault especially with the delays of the Board of Agriculture and the Land Court. We sincerely hope that hon. Members opposite are going to act on their convictions, and that, instead of voting against the Second Reading of the Bill, they will vote for it, and send it upstairs to be considered by a Committee. I am pleased also to hear that we shall have suggestions and proposals from hon. Members opposite as well as from ourselves. It is very gratifying to those who, in season and out of season, when times were favourable and unfavourable, have steadily supported the necessity of doing something for the agricultural population of Scotland, to find that there is a general disposition to take action. I think we are all agreed on the principle of the 1911 Act—[An HON. MEMBER: "No!"]—and that we are prepared to support any Amendment which will make it more a workable measure than it is at the present moment. Hon. Members opposite tell us that when they go down to their constituents they are asked "What is the good of giving a man a holding if you do not also give him money to stock it? What is the good of his having a field if he has not a cow?" I do not quite understand the position of hon. Gentlemen opposite. You will lend money on land or lend money on houses. You cannot deal with an individual for a loan on something which, by some accident or other, may cease to exist. Hon. Gentlemen opposite who talk about the subject never condescended to say how money is to be advanced for these purposes, which are excellent. The only way in which you can do it is instead of lending it to the individual, lend it to the community. As soon as you do that and make the community the safeguard between the individual who lends the money and the man who has the spending of it, you may be quite certain that the community, being:, responsible, will take care of every loan no matter how small. That is the only way in which these credit banks, or whatever you call them, can be established throughout the length and the breadth of the country.

3.0 P.M.

I do not think that hon. Members opposite need be afraid that this Bill will not be looked after well by the Government, but I would like to see introduced into the Clause which provides for the water supply of small holdings some small improvement. You may have a population which is living: in a village close by the sea, and which has some of these holdings. Under the Act you can supply water to the new holdings, but you have got to remember that the new holdings are occupied and cultivated by men who have houses somewhere else. All I ask is that they should have the power—I am not quite certain whether they have that power—to supply water for the farms or houses where the population who are working the holdings reside. Reference has been made to the subject of deer forests. When you come to men like Lord Kinross it is necssary to look at this question with a great deal of care, but in reference to the question of the future of deer forests, I am prepared to agree to whatever hon. Members opposite may think fair. Scotland is a country, and always will be a country, certain portions of which are more profitably and more economically used under deer. [HON. MEMBERS "Hear, hear."] I thought that that would be very pleasant to hon. Members opposite. As we know, whenever a Bill is passing through the House, a great deal of business is done behind the Speaker's chair, but this does not interfere with the power of the House of Commons to deal with the same question that comes before them in any other shape. I do not think that anyone accustomed to the procedure of the House can have any doubt of that. I sincerely hope that everyone here intends to vote for the Second Reading of this Bill, and to send it up to a Committee, and everyone who is a Scotsman will know that by doing so we are attending to matters which are of the greatest interest and importance to the inhabitants of Scotland.

We have heard a very interesting speech from the hon. Member for Argyllshire, but I will not refer to that at present as I prefer first to deal with the Bill as a whole. Hon. Members on this side seem to express surprise that this Bill should have been brought in in the way in which it has been. I do not express any surprise, because, whether I am more unbelieving or not, I certainly do not put what, without offence, I may call the political morality of the Liberal Cabinet on quite so high a plane as some of my hon. Friends.

It is a private Bill.

Backed up by the Government. The whole history of this amending Bill is very comic when we look at it. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh has suddenly become an agricultural expert. He has become the friend of the ploughman and the small holder, and for some unexplained reason he is now a Scottish Joshua. But the real reason why this Bill was brought in is perfectly well known. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh won the ballot a short time ago, and, being a man of high moral standard, anxious for the moral welfare of Scotland, he desired to bring in an anti-betting Bill. But this would never have suited the party book of the Scottish Liberal Members at this precise moment. Therefore they had to meet him in another part of the House, and say to him, "For Heaven's sake, do not bring in a Bill of this sort! There is no money in it just before an election—you must bring in something to do with land. It has not got a dog's chance this Session." No doubt they were remembering the words of the late Lord-Advocate at Boness, On 4th October, 1913, when he said

"he could give them a General Election to-morrow"—

He was talking of Home Rule for Ireland—

"and he could assure them that it could not be fought on the Irish question. Personally, he would never fight a General Election except on the land question."

There it is: and that is the same right hon. Gentleman who a short time ago said, "Now the land question is settled and a new heaven and earth are opened up to our people."

When did he say that?

He used words to that effect, and everybody was given to understand that, thanks to this wonderful Bill coming in, the whole land problem in Scotland has been settled. I was speaking in my Constituency very soon afterwards, and I said, "You need not think that it is settled. I know the Liberal party far too well. They will keep quiet for a while, and when it comes near to an election you will hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer talk land." A General Election is near. We know, of course, that they are in a very difficult position. I quite sympathise with hon. Members opposite. The Insurance Act is not a very nice thing with which to go to an election at the present moment, and when we have won an election hon. Gentlemen opposite have always turned round and said, "You have won it on the Insurance Act," thus showing that they regard it as an unpopular measure, and that, consequently, people voted on that issue and not on another. Then there is the Temperance Bill. Of course, hon. Members opposite are not going to the country on that subject, and they are rather glad in the meanwhile to draw some other red herring across the track, and the only red herring they can possibly use is the Small Landholders Act, which has been supposed to be so perfect in the past. I do not personally complain of the hon. Members' side of the transaction, because they are at perfect liberty to bring in any Bill they choose, but to my mind, the immoral side of the bargain rests with those on the Treasury Bench, because the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland and the Lord Advocate, it is perfectly well known, are supporting this Bill, and are using it as a means of securing certain Amendments which they want. But they ought to be the last people in the world to support a Bill which we claim is a breach of an agreement that was come to with the predecessor of the Secretary for Scotland and the former Lord Advocate. There are certain provisions of this Bill which are an absolute breach of the understanding between our side and the Scottish Office.

I submit that what has been agreed to with a former Secretary for Scotland and the previous Lord Advocate, should be observed by the present Secretary for Scotland and the present Lord Advocate, who should regard themselves committed to the policy which was adopted by their predecessors. I submit that the right hon. Gentleman has no right to support this measure, being, as it is, a breach of agreement in many points, and used, as it is, by the Government to secure certain Amendments which they desire to see effected. If the Act needs amendment in order that it may work better, no one would be more glad to support the right hon. Gentleman than myself. But I never said that I was an admirer of this Act, and if hon. Members want to know why I support it, it is because the troubles which have been caused in the North by hon. Gentlemen on the other side have really been detrimental to the land, and I thought it was best, in the interests of agriculture and in the interests of the population of that region, that I should not oppose an enactment of the kind. The whole of the disturbance to which I have alluded has driven people off the land, has spoiled security in the North, and has sent money out of the country, besides being responsible for a great deal of the emigration which has taken place, and which has vastly increased ever since the present Government came into power. They cannot say to-day that that emigration is not due to Radical policy in this country. Hon. Members opposite have done everything they can to draw money from the land. They cannot see that landlords run on a margin, and that if they are not running on a margin they are running on the wrong side. The Land Taxes have resulted in their employing less labour. I have myself cut down the labour bills on my estate by about £2,000 simply because of the taxation which has been imposed by the Liberal Government. It is the same with the Death Duties: nothing clears the population from the country more quickly than the Death Duties, a point which hon. Members apparently do not understand.

I should have thought that Scottish Members, however they disagree as to what is the proper proportions that ought to go to the various people on the land, would surely have enough business common sense to know that what is wanted is, not less, but rather more money on the land. An hon. Member who has spoken said that more money was wanted for small holdings. I admit that more money properly spent on agriculture is always a good thing, but it is impossible, I submit, to do it under this Bill unless, of course, it is brought in by the Government, and they adopt it. There is another way in which it could be got. Let hon. Members opposite practice what they preach, and give up their £400 a year, which would yield something like £21,000 in Scotland. If they will give up their salaries towards agriculture in Scotland I shall only be too delighted to give up mine. The real trouble with this Bill is to understand what part of it belongs to the Government and what part to the hon. Member for East Edinburgh. It is like the story of the old lady who employed a crofter's small son as page and butler, and to whom she gave a fine livery, telling him to be very careful of it. On a day when the lady had a dinner party he shoved his shock head in at the door and said, "Please, mum, shall I put on your breeks or my ain?" A large part of this Bill are the breeks of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh and the other part the breeks of the Secretary for Scotland.

I have no objection to anything that will help the machinery of the Act, but there is a strong likelihood of its not being set up under the Bill as it stands, because it is a Bill which is bound to meet with a great deal of opposition and if the right hon. Gentleman presses it in its present form it will be put off to the Greek Kalends. There is the point with regard to arbitration. The real reason for wanting to do away with arbitration is not to facilitate the working of the Act or anything of that sort; it is that they may do robbery on a wholesale instead of a retail scale. If any persons come to a man and say, "We are going to take your land for certain purposes," and if they cannot agree on the amount that ought to be paid to him, is there anything immoral in asking that the amount should be left to the-decision of an arbitrator? What hon. Gentlemen want is to take the land, and the amount is to be agreed by those who take the land and make themselves the sole arbiter. I do not think that there is anything unfair in our contention, but I do submit that there is something quite contrary to all idea of equity in the contention of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh. We have some reason for our attitude on this Bill. After all, look at the record of this Land Court. Take the question of arrears alone. Take Caithness. I will put it this way. Hon. Members thought that under the Crofters Act fair rents, that would satisfy, would be given; but, instead of that, we find the new Land Court actually lowering those rents which were lowered by their predecessors. What we are anxious to know is where is this thing going to stop, and what is the reason for this lowering, because it is not a question with regard to the land, because hon. Members must admit that practically all prices for land produce are far better than they Were thirty years ago. In spite of that fact, they are lowering the rents formerly lowered in the crofter counties by the Crofters' Commission.

There is then the question of arrears. In Caithness this Land Court not only lowered the rents, but cancelled £576 out of £771 of arrears, or 74 per cent, reduction. In Argyll they cancelled £295 out of £414, or 73 per cent. In Arran, they cancelled £175 out of £175, or all the arrears. In the Shetlands they cancelled £121 out of £149, or 81 per cent. Thus proprietors have got some reason to be rather frightened of this Court, and remember that they have had to pay taxes and rates on all those cancelled arrears, which, of course, they never received. Then turn to the reductions. In the Shetlands the Crofters' Commission reduced the rents in 1889 by 31½ per cent., and the Land Court has reduced them further by 23 per cent., which is difficult to explain in view of the higher prices for produce. Then in Orkneys and the Shetlands, in one case, a rent of £40 has been reduced to £32, and in Caithness a rent of £180 reduced to £115. I could give many more instances, but do not now desire to trespass too much on the time of the House. The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Adamson) spoke of the enormous demand there was in Scotland, and said that for this unrequited demand there were 8,000 people waiting. As a matter of fact a great number of those were for enlargement. Let me, however, deal with the number of applicants, which will prove, what we always said, that there is no necessity to have this Act in the South of Scotland. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members had better wait until I conclude what I have to say on this subject.

I perfectly admit there is land hunger in the north and west, and not the land to supply it. The Lord Advocate was one of the strongest opponents of dividing the Bill, although when another Bill came forward with reference to medical service in the Highlands, he immediately admitted that they were a different part, because he wanted all the money for himself. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"] He said so—it is the fact. What has really happened in this matter? In Argyll there is the enormous demand of 739, and Inverness 1,100, and in Ross and Cromarty 1,000, and in Caithness 244, and in Sutherland 197. That is where all the demand is and, of course, there is a fairly big demand in Shetland and the Orkneys. The whole demand, in fact, is on the west and north coasts, where most of the people are fishermen. Do you mean to say you are going to bring those people into the middle of Scotland, away from their subsidiary occupation. It is absurd to suggest so, and, of course, you cannot do so. Look at the demand in the rest of Scotland. In Aberdeenshire, with its enormous population, there are only forty-six applicants, which does not show that it is a very popular demand. In Clackmannan there is only one applicant, but the right hon. Gentleman said the reason was because it was such a small little county. There are, however, 47,000 inhabitants in it. In Fife, the hon. Member for Fife told us there was the enormous number of fifty-seven applicants, and that is out of a population of 165,000.

In his constituency.

I will take the whole of Fife, and out of a population of 165,000, there are fifty-seven applicants. In Nairn, out of a population of 72,000, there are only four applicants, and in Perthshire, out of 121,000, there are only seventy-nine applicants; and yet in Ross and Cromarty, with a population of 66,000, there are 1,000 applicants wanting holdings. That shows that there is not that great demand which hon. Members talk about in the towns and constituencies in the South of Scotland, but there is an enormous demand, I admit, in several parts. I do not know what applicants there are in East Edinburgh.

They will look after themselves.

I dare say they are capable of looking after themselves. It is not fair to go about speaking of this enormous demand. The small demand in other parts of the country might easily be dealt with, and you do not require new machinery for dealing with that, although possibly you do with regard to the north, and require special provisions for dealing with the north and the west if you like, but you should not disturb the rest of Scotland unnecessarily, and more than you can help, simply because we do want security on the land. A reference has been made to deer forests, and I admit that any land that can be put to a better purpose than a deer forest ought to be put, and I always said so. I think hon. Members will bear me out that I have been perfectly consistent. When I say land, I mean generally speaking—that is to say, if there is a great stretch of country where you can put a large number of small holders with good grazing attached, and where they can have happiness and comfort, put them there, but do not come and take small patches—the eyes—out of the deer forests all over the place, which you would be able to do by this proposal. By putting those small holdings in that way you might put out a great number of keepers and others who are living by it, and if you inquire you will find that some of the great deer forests are the only things that pay the rent. In my own parish, out of £23,000, sporting subjects pay £16,000. If you were to take certain small patches, which would probably keep small holders, you would do away with the whole of the subsidiary work of fifty or sixty other small holders. You must go cautiously and carefully in dealing with this question. I do not see why different regulations should be made with regard to deer forests or sheep farms. The point is that if you are going to be so foolish as to deal detrimentally with the great rent-paying subject in the district, you ought to be prepared to make some compensation towards the rates and towards the proprietor whom you damage. If no harm is done, it does not matter. An hon. Member opposite spoke about the Crofters Act. It was the Lord Advocate himself who granted the provision as it stands in the Act. He showed me the Amendment which he suggested, and said that it would have the same effect as Clause 13. I said that that was satisfactory to me, and withdrew my opposition. I think that hon. Members ought to observe a sense of honour in a Parliamentary transaction. I am anxious to keep any word that I have given, and I hope the Treasury Bench will be equally desirous of doing the same on their part.

When the hon. Baronet opposite was speaking, I was reminded of the old story in the Scriptures, where Balak, finding himself in a difficulty, tried to get Balaam to come and curse the children of Israel. For a long time I waited to hear the hon. Baronet's objections to this Bill, and it was not until almost the end of his speech that he cursed it with great vigour in reference to the Arbitration Clauses. I have the greatest sympathy with him on that point, and if that is all he has to quarrel with in the Bill I do not think that he will find hon. Members on this side very hard to please. With reference to the leaseholders, when the original measure was under discussion, I and many other Members on this side were extremely anxious that leaseholders should be included, but the Government of the day, through the mouth of Lord Pentland, refused to include them. One of our strongest supporters on that question was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand Division (Mr. W. Long), who spoke very strongly in Committee in favour of our proposal. I have just had a letter from a Presbyterian clergyman in my own district saying that he has been for seven years trying to get small holdings for small holders in that locality. The right hon. Gentleman to whom I have referred said on that occasion, "You are proposing a great extension; you have given your word through the Prime Minister that no one shall suffer any loss," and he pointed out that it was unfair that the measure should not be extended to leaseholders. Seeing that the Government of the United Kingdom have been able to grant £12,000,000 for the sole benefit of Irish land-owners, I, personally, should not quarrel if the Government of the present day came forward with a proposal to grant fair and equitable compensation to every landlord. After all, landlords are not so much to blame for the deplorable state of agriculture in Scotland as the lawyers are. With these few observations, I am glad to make way for my colleagues who desire to speak.

The Bill at present before the House proposes to amend an Act which is not yet three years' old, and to amend it particularly in regard to machinery which has not borne the test of practical use for twenty-four months. The great feature of this amending Bill is a proposal to rewrite from beginning to end Section 7 of the original Act—a very long Section, in many respects the most important Section, and certainly one of the most controversial Sections in the Act of 1911. Section 7 is the Section authorising the compulsory constitution of new small holdings, and it contains within its borders the whole conditions upon which the compulsory constitution of such new holdings should be carried out. The machinery of the Land Court, or of the Board of Agriculture, either for the matter of that, was not actually in working order until April, 1912. We have not yet arrived at April, 1914, and yet the House is asked, after so short an experience, to take out of the Act of 1911 its most controversial and difficult Clause and to substitute for it another and a new one. I have never pretended, either for myself or for any of my Friends, that we had any love for the principle embodied in Section 7 of the Act of 1911. We pointed out in the days when it was still a matter of controversy—and as far as I am concerned my opinion has not altered one jot—that it was not the best or the most expedient method of extending small holdings in Scotland to adopt the method of forcing by compulsion landlord and tenant into relations which were essentially contractual and voluntary in their character.

It always seemed to us, and I think that so far as experience has gone it has been shown to be true, although I admit the experience is short, that the result of that must be to leave the landlord with his property in name, but to reduce him to a rent-charger, without responsibility except as the whipping-post for local taxation; to leave him no doubt with his property in name, but without the right either to administer or to recover from it those returns upon which his contribution to local taxation is based; and yet to treat him throughout as the person responsible for the payment of that taxation, and, with regard both to party criticism and party controversy, as always the bête noire of the situation. It seemed to me, and I confess it seems to me still, if the community thinks—as it is quite entitled to think—that it knows more about the best way to manage real property than the people who own it, or have paid for it, the only honest and fair method of carrying out the administration which the State thinks most desirable is to put the responsibility on to the shoulders of the State. That will never be arrived at by a scheme, which will work smoothly and easily or obtain general acceptation or do justice, which forces on the proprietor lines of administration that commend themselves to other people than he, and yet leaves him, in popular language, "to hold the baby" of local responsibility and local taxation. While those objections were strongly entertained in 1911, and have been removed by nothing which has happened since, I think it is desirable to recall to the recollection of the House the circumstances under which the Act of 1911 actually became law.

When that Act was before this House the last time—I am not speaking of its predecessors, which were in very much the same terms, as hon. Members know—there was on both sides of the House a very strong desire to put an end to the long-standing controversy which it had aroused. It is in the knowledge of Members on both sides of the House that a very serious and a very earnest endeavour—I am not speaking for this side of the House alone, I am speaking also for some hon. Members on the opposite side—was made to see if we could not, somehow or other, put an end to what we all felt was a controversy of too long standing, and into which too much party bitterness had been infused. We did do our best to achieve what can only be done by mutual concession, although I am astonished to-find that the hon. Member for For-farshire (Mr. Falconer) cannot find in the exchange of mutual concession either the ground or the material to an agreement. If we were to achieve any end to the controversy on our side of the House, we had to do what certainly we fain would not have done: we had to accept the principle of the Bill as it was expressed in Section 7. We had to give our consent to the proposition that the Board of Agriculture—or, rather, the Land Court—or the two of them between them, were to have this power of forcing on tenants willing or unwilling, terms which in regard to the conditions of tenancy, etc., were too outside and beyond the control of the owner. When the Bill reached its Committee stage and, still more, the Report stage, that concession of principle had been made in exchange for others.

There were certain things which we contributed, or tried to contribute, to the actual framework of the measure before it finally became law. We attributed a good deal of importance to the distinction which we thought ought to be made in any such Bill between the case of land which was equipped for agricultural occupation by the people who owned it, and land which had not been equipped for agricultural occupation by the people who had owned it. We thought that it was unreasonable to apply the same principles to one as to the other, and that, in particular, if a man had put into his land, or on to his land, the necessary capital equipment to make it a useful or valuable agricultural occupancy, it was neither fair nor reasonable to treat him as being in the same position with regard to interferences of this kind, as if he had done none of these things. We did not see, and we claimed that the House ought not to see, any material distinction between the right of the owner of capital to an economic return on his capital, whether that capital took the form of agricultural equipment or of any kind of industrial equipment, or any kind of property. We did succeed in that respect in making or, at any rate, helping to make, one contribution to the Bill. That was to place in a separate category these statutory small tenants as distinct from the small landholder. We thought if he thought, no doubt, that it might be reasonable in his case to give him security of tenure by way of a right to a renewal of his lease for a term to be fixed at a fair or equitable rent to be fixed, that the proprietor and tenant between them should be left the judges of the extent of the occupancy, and of the terms and conditions upon which it was to be occupied—subject always to the Agricultural Holders Act.

That was two years ago. You propose to upset that now. You propose now in this Bill to take a long step towards putting the statutory small tenants in exactly the same position as the small landholder. The distinction to which I am referring was made as a result of conferences in which both I and the hon. Member for Forfarshire took part. They involved without any qualification the distinctions which the Act drew. Amongst those distinctions was this: That in the case of a tenancy voluntary constituted and equipped by the landlord, you had no right to alter the character or extent of the holding, so as indirectly to affect the sufficiency or the quality of the equipment provided. Yet one of the things that this Bill proposes to do, is to give the landlord exactly the same right to alter or extend the size of a statutory small tenancy as he has in the case of an occupancy of an ordinary small holder. The second principle to which I and my Friends attached a very great deal of importance in this matter, was the preservation to the owner of the land as far as possible of some kind of effective control over his capital liabilities. Whatever may be said about the success or the failure of Crofter legislation, there is not anybody who is familiar with the facts but knows this: That if, owing to any rapidly acting and extensive social change in this country, there was to be a larger or general exodus from the Crofter counties, the result would be the complete bankruptcy of those Highland estates that were so deserted. The reason is that the liabilities which that system have imposed upon the owners of the land in respect of improvements and equipments are such that it has far passed in many cases the capacity of the owners to pay. That may, or may not, have been a necessary or inevitable incidence of crofter legislation, but it is not a good feature of that legislation, for no legislation of the kind can ever be solid or ever rest upon a sound foundation which is open to so large an economic objection as that. What we wanted when we were trying to see our way to some settlement of this small landholders' controversy was to try and preserve for the future, at all events, some protection, some limit and Qualification, to the liabilities which might otherwise be imposed upon owners of land willy-nilly. We saw, and hon. Members on the other side saw, there was only one way that that could be done consistently with accepting the principle of the Bill, and that means was by providing compensation, because the principle of the Bill itself took control out of the hands of the proprietors, although they were left with the responsibility. If you are to avoid the difficulty encouraged elsewhere, there was, and hon. Members opposite thought there was, only one road, and that road was compensation. The hon. Member for Forfarshire says he did not know anything about an agreement about compensation. I do! I know that a Subsection of Clause 7 was put in, and was to some extent drafted by the hand of the Lord Advocate, and to some extent by my own. I know that when it was proposed to alter the words in that Subsection in this House we were reminded, and most properly reminded, that that Clause was the subject of a bond, and our Amendment was withdrawn. The hon. Member for Forfarshire seems to doubt what I say, but if he will turn to the Debate on the 17th November, 1911, he will see that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Central Division of Glasgow proposed a certain Amendment, including the one dealing with the words to which the hon. Member for Forfarshire referred. He moved to leave out the words "And directly attributable to," and the Lord Advocate immediately replied, saying:— And the hon. Baronet the Member for Ayr Burghs got up and said:—

That was as to a suggestion, not a compact.

Not only was it a compact, but I was one of those who made it, and made it not only with the Lord Advocate, but with the Lord Advocate with the full knowledge and assent of the members of his party.

Is not what the hon. and learned Gentleman read out a suggestion of agreement as to the meaning of certain words, and not as to a compact entered into?

The agreement to which I refer was come to as to the words that were to go into the Clause. I have a distinct recollection of my own with regard to the framing of the Compensation Clause, which is pretty detailed, but I do not want to trust to recollection. With regard to the particular heads of damage referred to in Section 7, every one of these was the subject of careful and concertive consideration, and anyone who wants confirmation will find it in what occurred on the Report stage. There is no time to go through all this, but I would remind hon. Members of the words of Sub-section (11) of Section 7. They are:—

Provided that where the Land Court are of opinion that damage or injury will be done to the letting value of the land to be occupied by a new holder, or new holders, or of any farm of which such lands forms part, or to any tenant in respect that the land forms part of the whole of his tenancy, or to any landlord either in respect of an obligation to take over sheep stock at a valuation, or in respect of any depreciation in the value of the estate of which the land forms part in consequence of, and directly attributable to, the constitution of the new holding or holdings as proposed, they shall require the Board in the event of the scheme being proceeded with to pay compensation, etc."

I am in the recollection of the hon. Member for Forfarshire. All of us may from time to time forget things, but he will hardly seriously contest what I am saying that there is not a single item in that definition of damage in that Clause which was not the subject both of exchange of views and of agreement with regard to terms between both sides of the House.

I am sorry to interrupt, but so far as agreement was concerned it was stated in the whole of our discussions that these discussions which took place between us were not intended to constitute an agreement at all, and that was stated in the Committee upstairs more than once. We discussed these matters with a view to arriving at our mutual views. The Lord Advocate, if I remember rightly—and I am speaking now from recollection—when he made his statement presenting his Amendments expressly said so, and I think the hon. and learned Member for Central Glasgow said that was so— that there had been no agreement, and that everyone was left quite free. With regard to the particular Clause, and the words "directly attributable to," I certainly never did agree, and I do not understand that anybody suggested I did. I am not speaking with regard to what passed between the hon. and learned Member and the Lord Advocate, but so far as I am concerned I never came to any agreement with regard to that. I am speaking now with reference to what took place in the House of Commons. In regard to the alterations which took place in the House of Lords, I did not even know there was anything in the nature of an agreement.

It seems to me it is a great pity that the hon. Member for Forfarshire and the Lord Advocate did not both agree about this matter. The Lord Advocate had no hesitation in drawing our attention to the fact that this Clause was an agreement. Apparently we were very foolish in accepting what we thought the entire justice of the Lord Advocate's claims. The hon. Member for Forfarshire must not suppose that I am bringing any personal charge against him, at the same time it was quite clear that we were much safer in the hands of the Lord Advocate than we should have been in his hands.

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman suggest that he agreed with me or I agreed with him in regard to that particular Clause.

I think I might be spared some of these unnecessary interruptions. I agreed with the Lord Advocate because I thought he was entitled to represent the party for which he acted, and among others the hon. Member opposite. The hon. Member for Forfarshire knows perfectly well that there is no personal charge being made against him, but there is a charge being made that there was a great deal in the Act of 1911 which was the subject of an agreement which was honourably kept by both sides and which the hon. Member now desires within eighteen months of the starting of the machinery of that Act to upset So much for compensation.

This is a private Member's Bill.

I am aware that this is a private Member's Bill, and the Act of 1911 was a private Member's Bill, and I have no doubt that this is going to be treated in the same way.

It has not been taken up by the Government yet.

The hon. Member for Kincardineshire will pardon me for saying that I have been more struck with his enthusiasm than his discretion in this matter. There was a third thing, and it was in some respects the most important, because it very deeply affected both those things that went before. We pointed out that no compensation was to be made a feature of the Bill, and I think the other side agreed in that. I am not talking about a compact now; but that was agreed with on both sides. We pointed out that to make that effective it was necessary that the tribunal which assessed compensation, namely, the Land Court, should not be the final Court. We pressed for that because the authority which actually makes the interference with the disposition of the private property for the owner or the tenant under the Act of 1911 is the Land Court. The Land Court is entitled to say, "You shall keep land only until we find that we can use it." The Land Court is entitled to say to a tenant whose lease is running out, "Out you go, unless you pay some other terms than the natural terms at which the lease comes to an end." The Land Court are entitled to settle the terms as well as the date on which the outgoing tenants go out, and we pointed out that it was not reasonable or fair that the administrative body which did the damage should be the, tribunal to say how much should be paid for the damage; but

"The best laid schemes of mice and men gang of agley."

and schemes of this kind are bound not to be perfectly successful. Supposing land under small holdings falls out of tenancy, the Land Court prescribe to the proprietor the length of time he has to keep that land without a tenant, and the Land Court have to decide what is to be paid to the out-going tenant, and all this expense falls upon the owner of the land, and compensation is the remedy. With regard to all these occasions, for claiming compensation, again it is the Land Court itself that is given the duty of giving those orders. Under the scheme of the Bill, it was the Land Court that was also to determine what ought to be paid. In the first instance we ask for an appeal from the Land Court. I agreed with the hon. Member for Forfarshire upon this point. With regard to this matter there was neither agreement nor concordat nor understanding in the House of Commons. We claimed an appeal, and we suggested the valuation for it. It is true that the Government at that time were unwilling to give this.

There was a Division upon it.

4.0 P.M.

Yes, there was a Division, and if the hon. Member will look at the Report stage, he will find that it was in relation to that that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Central Division for Glasgow said the Bill could not be an agreed Bill unless and until this particular matter could be met and adjusted. The hon. Member will find that that is so. In a passage of my right hon. Friend's speech on the 17th November, 1911, the following words appeared in relation to the proposal for an appeal:— of Lords, on the proposal and the initiative of Lord Pentland himself. The hon. Member for Forfarshire says there is no agreement or concordat, and I understand what he means. It is quite true that there is not a piece of parchment on which the agreement is recorded, and there are no signatures and no seal upon it, but there certainly was a course of negotiations, attended with anxiety on both sides, which lasted for a long time, which involved the making of a number of very material concessions on both sides, and those negotiations had for their purpose and effect the passing of this Bill into law. I am the last person to say that because some such course of negotiation has taken place therefore Bills so passed can never be changed, but it was not too much to say that a Bill of this kind ought not to be changed until the machinery which it sets up has been put to a longer test than two years' experience.

When I come to examine what are the grounds which have been put forward for making this change, what are they? Those grounds were put forward in an admirable and lucid speech made by my colleague in the representation of Edinburgh, who introduced the Bill. He said that the Bill was asking for two things—one, negotiation with the landlord, and the other arbitration. He said that what made negotiations lengthy was the prospect of arbitration at the end of them. With all respect, I say that I never heard more flimsy grounds put forward for the changes proposed in this Bill. Arbitration is a thing that he found fault with. You have not got a single award out of your arbitrator; you have not even gone the length of a trial of the thing which you say has broken down. The hon. Member for Forfarshire tries to bolster up this case, but he does not say that the arbiter in the Lynndean case has done any harm. He says, "Oh, look at the size of the claim that was put before the arbitrator in Lynndean." What has that got to do with it? Will the claims be less in size when put before the Land Court What does it matter what the size of the claim is? What matters is what the arbitrator does with the case. What matters is that the claims, whether big or small, should be fairly adjudicated upon. What matters most of all is that the adjudication shall not be entrusted to the body which is itself the cause and originator of the scheme.

When the original Act was before this House the matter was not even as serious as it becomes under this Bill. It was true even then that the Board of Agriculture had no control over its own scheme. It is true that the Board of Agriculture, who proposed this scheme, could not give effect to it without the Land Court's order, and it is true that even then no new holder could be registered until the Land Court had fixed the rent, had determined whether there was any harm going to be done, and had authorised the landowner to be registered. Observe what this Bill does. This amending Bill proposed three stages. You are no longer to have any negotiations, but there is to be an application to the Land Court to authorise them to prepare a scheme. You have got your Land Court committed at the very beginning to the proposition that some settlement of the scheme is to be carried out. The next stage is that the Board is to come forward and ask for an Order constituting the holdings. That is the second stage. I suppose that the fair rent will have to be fixed then, or thereabouts. Then you have got a third stage. After all that has been done, and the applicants, if there are any, have been discovered, and their suitability passed, you come forward to the Land Court and say, "Now order the registration of So-and-so as land-owners." What do you think is the power given to the Land Court? They are authorised at any time whatsoever up to the pronouncement of the Order for final registration to alter the scheme, amend the scheme, add to the scheme, or take away from the scheme, exactly as they please. In other words, the framing of the scheme is now given to the Land Court, because they are given complete and uncontrolled power. Therefore, the objections to making the body which does all the harm—the body that is to determine whether compensation is to be paid—is increased tenfold by the proposals of this Bill.

I quite agree with the hon. Member for Forfarshire in one aspect of the case. We have neither agreement nor concordat that we could show to him in writing or enforce against him if we went to law, but we have a long transaction in which we made mutual concessions, and in which we saw our way in the end to a means of adjusting our admission of the principle of Section 7 of the original Act to the conceded machinery which was given to us, both here and in the House of Lords, to carry it out. Hon. Members opposite and right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench may take it for granted that so far as I am concerned nothing will induce me to consent in any respect to an alteration of what in that matter was adjusted honourably between ourselves until we have had a little more experience of the machinery of the Act. I cannot, of course, leave the question merely there. I think that it would be as unfair for me to come to any final and concluded judgment about the Land Court after two years' experience, as it would be unfair and inexpedient to come to any concluded judgment about the operation of the general machinery of this Bill after only two years' experience. Since the hon. Member for Forfarshire has referred to this matter, it is best to be perfectly frank. If he is unaware that the Land Court has been subjected to a great deal of criticism in Scotland, I think it must be because he has not paid that attention to the Press, or to general expressions of public opinion in Scotland which I think he usually does on other matters.

I have not said so.

I may have done the hon. and learned Gentleman an injustice.

I was speaking of the time when the Court was constituted, and the members who composed it, and I remarked that I had never heard anyone say that they were partisan.

I took no exact note of what the hon. Gentleman said at the moment, but the note I have here is that he had never heard any suggestion of partisanship.

When they were appointed, or as to the men.

I have no recollection that the criticism was so qualified as to refer to the time of their appointment. But I take it that the hon. Member agrees with me that the proceedings in the Court during the last two years have called for a great deal of public criticism, and more than that, that criticism has not been by any means confined either to one political party, or to the Press which represents the Unionist party. When we are asked to alter the provisions of the Act of 1911, and to place in the power of this particular Land Court precisely the things upon which we were anxious that they should not have the final word, it is quite impossible for us to leave out of account this other factor in the situation. I am anxious not to deal with any small matter, but I want to point this out to the House. The Land Court has adjudicated upon a very large number of fair rents. It has done so both in the case of holdings to which the landlord has not contributed equipment, and of holdings to which he has contributed equipment, and which fall within the category of statutory small tenancies. So far as I have been able to collect—and I do not think there is any complete collection available—the judgments with regard to fair rents which the Land Court has issued since April, 1911, there is hardly any difference at all between the reductions made in cases where the landlord has contributed nothing, and in those where he has contributed everything.

And when I look particularly at those cases in which the fair rent is fixed for the first time for landholders, leaving statutory small tenants out of view, I find whereas when the Act of 1911 was before this House we used to hear a great deal about good landlords and bad landlords, all the landlords have now become bad, and there is no material difference between them. I quite admit there are one or two instances where the reductions are very high, and one or two where they are very low, but generally the result of the reductions made is that they are on one level, and about 30 per cent, is the general amount of the reduction. I see that the other day the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Glasgow noticed that apparently all the landlords were the same. That is a very serious and formidable fact for this House to bear in mind. If what we are doing is to fix a fair rent on the basis of what one fair man dealing with another fair man would regard as proper for one to get, and the other to give as so much capital embodied in the farm, or land, or building—if that is the problem—it is a remarkable and disquieting circumstance that the result should be that throughout Scotland the landlords are so unfair, and the tenants are so weak, that 30 per cent, more is being paid than, in the opinion of fair people, one should get on the one hand or be asked to give on the other. It is a very striking result, and it is universal, for there are no rises and there are only two or three cases of no change. [An HON. MEMBER: "Yes, there are!"] The hon. Member is quite right, for yesterday, for about the first time, we had one or two. But the "no changes" do not represent more than 2 or 3 per cent., and the rises are extremely few. I should have regarded that as a very serious indictment of the management of land in Scotland if it had stood by itself. Just observe this: The functions of the Land Court are not limited to the fixing of fair rents for new holdings or for old holdings for the first time. They include the fixing of fair rents in succession to the fair rents fixed by the Crofters' Commission, not under a new Clause or under a new power, but under the same power and the same Clause. The fair rents fixed by the Crofters' Commission, at any rate, most of them I am talking about, have been fixed within the last ten or twelve years, and have all been fixed between the last fifteen or twenty years.

What is the result? If fair rents were fixed by the Crofters' Commission we must expect to find fair rents still being fixed by the Land Court. The ratio of reduction as between the fair rents of the Crofters' Commission and the revaluations or second fair rents of the Land Court is practically the same thing as the reduction of rents fixed for the first time. Hon. Members opposite may take it either way they like. If the rents which were fixed by voluntary contract were unfair and the rents now fixed are fair, then either the rents fixed by the Crofters' Commission were unfair or the whole of these revaluations in both cases are unfair. There is no escape from that, and there is no escape from it in particular when you make this reflection: Has any agricultural revolution which depreciates agricultural property happened since 1886; has any change taken place in the condition of agriculture in Scotland, and particularly of small holders that should depreciate their property since 1886; and has any change taken place—this is the bedrock of the thing—in the price of agricultural products, particularly their agricultural products, since 1886? Not only have changes taken place in all these respects, but they have all been vastly for the better. The value of agricultural property since the bad days of 1878 and 1880 has very gradually, I admit, but very steadily begun to rise again. The conditions under which agriculture is being conducted now in Scotland are increasingly better than they were in 1886, and the prices, on which the prosperity of the small holder entirely depends—his stirks, his ewes, his lambs, and the ponies, too, in the Shetlands—have largely increased. Hon. Members opposite are complaining every day that the cost of living has increased in the last twenty-five years.

I could have understood that there might have been very little rise or, at all events, no fall in these artificially fixed fair rents, but there is. There is just as much reduction as is made in the case of a fair rent fixed for the first time as in the case of a voluntary agreed rent. What does that mean? It may mean many things, for the Land Court never lets anybody know what is the ground of their decision. They issue no opinion, and they are as difficult to understand as were the oracles of the Sybil. There may be a case where an opinion has been issued, but I do not know of one in the case of the fixing of a fair rent. Everybody is left wholly without guidance on that matter. I do not want to say that what I am going to suggest is the reason, because, if it is the reason, the sooner the Land Court loses its place the better. But this state of things, of course, would be explained if those fair rents are not fair rents. It would be explained if these so-called fair rents were policy rents. I do not want to say that is the reason, but I cannot at this moment think of any other. Although it would be easy to multiply proofs of our objection to giving any further authority to this Land Court, there is one general observation I must make. It has been in existence only for these two years. It has not had time to establish that reputation for discretion and even-handedness, or to show to the people of Scotland that example either of dignity or of responsibility, without which general confidence will never be given to it, and without which there never will be any general assent or acquiescence either in its judgment or in its policy. So long as that state of matters remains we shall be deprived of the advantage of that general co-operation in the achievement of a great end, without which the Act of 1911 will not only be a failure but will be a cause of increased friction and of increased difficulty in the situation with regard to the land, which is, as those who have made themselves at all acquainted with it, difficult and harassing enough as it is.

I congratulate my hon. Friend (Mr. Hogge), not only on the lucid speech in which he introduced his Bill and the moderation and force with which he advocated it, but also upon the reception which it has met with, which is much more favourable than I had anticipated. The principal impression left on my mind by nearly all the speeches which have been made is that every Member of the House interested in Scotland wants a few Amendments of his own, and that, broadly speaking, is surely a justification for an amending Bill. Some of these Amendments have been introduced to meet objections and criticisms of landlords. One of these is an Amendment of which I have always been in favour, and, indeed, it was first suggested to me by the hon. Baronet who advocated in the House an Amendment to get rid of what he described as a difficulty in the way of coming to an agreement, because it was felt that the landlord had an inferior chance of compensation if he came to an agreement with the Board of Agriculture than if he took his case before the Land Court. I think that was an extremely reasonable criticism of the Act. That in itself, I would urge upon the House, is an amendment of this Act for which it would be worth while to bring in an amending Bill. Surely we look forward to a time when there will be a settled policy, when the principles upon which these things are to be arranged will be understood principles and when there will be numerous cases of agreement between the landlords and the Board of Agriculture. I quite agree with the hon. Baronet that it is extremely desirable that we should sweep away any obstacle which stands in the way. Besides, the thing is obviously just and fair in itself. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Clyde) took as a subject of criticism another Clause which I understood was introduced to meet a criticism again by landlords, the Clause dealing with the enlargement of statutory small tenancies. They have complained that it is unfair to deal with them by creating them small landholders and that if they get an extension of their holdings it should be on the same basis as before. Of course, if the hon. Gentleman sees something sinister in that design I should imagine, though I cannot speak for my hon. Friend, that it is a matter which he is prepared to discuss.

I could not help feeling in listening to the whole Debate that everyone agreed that there ought to be amendments, and that all the speeches, naturally enough in a Bill which deals with amendments, were discussions of particular Amendments. I shall try, if I can, to deal with the matter from rather a broader point of view. I have been responsible, and it has been a great responsibility, for the administration of this Act for two years, and perhaps the House will allow me to give my view of the difficulties that have arisen, and which, I think, there has been time enough to discover. The hon. and learned Member for West Edinburgh made this a point of objection—a perfectly reasonable point if it can be substantiated in fact—it is a point which I feel my hon. Friend has to meet, and which I have to meet if I propose to vote for the Second Heading of the Bill. He says that we have only had this Act in operation for less than twenty-four months, and that surely there has not been time to discover what the defects are, and what the deficiencies in the machinery are. It is quite true that it seems a short time, but what has been happening? We have had a demand for small holdings that exceeded everybody's expectation. We have had over 8,000 applications. The machinery was not constructed to deal with that mass of work, and we have in that large mass of applications very few from certain districts of Scotland in which I have not the slightest doubt land most useful for small holdings can be found, and where small holders can profitably and efficiently occupy the land. We have only touched part of the subject. We have touched the Highlands and the West, but we have hardly touched the Lowlands yet. The time will come when we shall have to touch the Lowlands. I do not know that the machinery now proposed goes far enough. I do not know that the Land Court, extended as it is proposed to extend it, will be able to cope with the work. I am inclined to think that it will not, but these are matters for Committee, and I have no doubt that the hon. Baronet will be able to discuss that question in Committee, and to point out very reasonable Amendments. I dare say my hon. Friend who is responsible for this Bill will not object to any improvement in the powers or the numbers of the Land Court. I am glad to see my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer here, partly because these are matters which interest him, and partly because in this matter we know he takes a great deal of personal interest.

I will submit to the House some figures, because you can only consider the necessity for the amendment of the Act if you look at the facts, and I am in the greatest hope of converting the hon. and learned Member for West Edinburgh, who, I am sure, has his mind open on this subject. I think that twenty-four months have been amply sufficient to show that an amendment of the Act of 1911 is not only not premature, but urgently required. What is the position? Up to 7th March, 1914, the Board of Agriculture had lodged 156 applications, which provide for about 964 applicants. Final orders have been given by the Court—which means not that the whole case is settled, but only that fair rents have been fixed—to go upon the land in forty-four cases, which amount to 279 applicants. That is a total of 279 applicants in two years out of 8,000, and yet it is said that amendment is premature. But remember that in these cases the compensation is not yet fixed, and we know that there will be arbitration in a number of these cases. Besides that we have only had ten cases affecting twenty-eight applicants dealt with by agreement. Altogether the number is 307. Surely we must speed up the machinery. I want to put before the House clearly not only the amount of work done by the Board, though I am entitled to put that before them, because not only I myself, but I am sure all the members of the Board, had been most anxious to hurry on this work with the least possible delay, but we are blocked at present by the Land Court, though I am far from saying that it is the fault of the Land Court. I will explain what the position of the Land Court is. The number of applicants is 992 altogether. The Court has dealt with under 300 applicants, and it has before it 600 or 700 cases at the present moment. Surely I need say no more to show that there is a clamant case for strengthening the Land Court. Besides these cases there are forty-four schemes still now before the Board, or in process of negotiation, being prepared for lodging in the Court, dealing with 451 applicants. These mean schemes that have been considered by the sub-Commissioners and the Small Landholdings Commissioner, and been presented to the Board. Some of them are ready to go to the Court. These schemes will deal with about 1,100 applicants. So that altogether the number of cases that have been or are being dealt with by the' Board comes in round figures to 2,500 cases.

It is a burden of work which nobody expected when we passed this Act, and now we are to be told that the Act must not be amended because only twenty-four months have elapsed. Nor is that the fault of the Court that these matters have not been dealt with. I think that the Court has tried to deal with the new applications as far as it could, but it has got other work—that of dealing with the revision of rent. It has dealt with 527 cases of revision of rent, fixing fair rents for existing small holdings now coming under the Act. It has fixed fair rents for 520 existing small holders who come under the Act and has dealt with 168 cases of equitable rents—that is 1,215 cases where it had to inspect the property and value it. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Edinburgh said, and I was very much astonished to hear him, that the amount of reduction in the case of fair rents which had been previously fixed was as great as the reduction in the case of the new fair rents.

Nineteen and a half per cent, in one case, and 20½ per cent, in the other.

I have not got the figures before me, but my recollection is that one is nearly twice as great as the other, and that the figures are more like eighteen and thirty-three. You have got to remember the fact that in many of these cases you have got buildings which were valuable some years ago, but which have had to be replaced by the tenants since then. But I am not going into that; it is getting away from the purport of our Debate.

We had a great deal of discussions about negotiation. No doubt negotiation under the present system is a very serious block to the machinery. I quite agree with the hon. Baronet that you cannot do without negotiation, nor would it be proper that you should. Nobody wants that; it would be monstrous to go without the landlord's knowledge to Court and to start proceedings without his knowing anything about it. But I am trying in this case to bring no accusation against anybody; I do not-mean to mention anybody's name, and the House will believe me that I wish to state moderately those points of experience. There are very great difficulties under the present system. There is great difficulty in obtaining information. You cannot tell what compensation is going to cost on seeking to take a piece of land unless you know what the terms of the leases are. Often we have received a point blank refusal to let us see anything about them. We have no means of knowing when the farm will come out of occupation. We ought to have a right to know. It is better for the landlord, it is better for the tenant, it is better for the small holder, because we can do the work with greater facility, and nobody can be prejudiced or hurt. We have had a number of such cases. In one instance connected with a particular small holding, an applicant asked for a piece of land, and the agent deliberately held up negotiations on various excuses, often irrelevant, until at the last moment the farm was let over our heads. It has occurred that land has been let for fourteen years, and then we have had to pay compensation to the new tenant thus created, though it was known that the land was to be taken over. I submit that such action is not justified for the purpose of extracting compensation out of the public purse. We have plenty of cases of that kind where there has been similar procrastination.

The terms of the Bill, subject to revision and consideration, take a reasonable view of this question, and provide that there should not be an opportunity of reletting a farm and thus increasing the compensation. The proposal is to give the landlord notice of the intention to take the farm, and that he should be advised that he is not to let the land if a scheme is brought forward within a given time. Of course, it is obvious that if we did not provide a scheme for small holdings within a reasonable time, and the landlord lost his tenant, the Board of Agriculture would have to pay compensation. Nobody objects to that. But, after all, let us look at the matter from the point of view of the small tenants, men whom we want to keep in the country. It is necessary that we should deal with this matter by a procedure that is expeditious and reasonably cheap. If you have got to negotiate with the landlord for months, if you have to wait for a report for months, if you have to wait for an arbitrator for months, then these poor people become utterly disgusted, and they either leave the country for Canada or some other country, where business is done more quickly. The House will appreciate how serious a consideration this is from the point of view of the public purse. Sometimes when, we find schemes left dangling, as they have been, the tenants become tired of waiting, and they turn to some other occupation, or get land elsewhere, and there is an absolute waste of effort, waste of money, and waste of patience. I think it was the hon. Member for Fife who pointed out a case at the present moment in which some market gardeners hoped to get the land. They had about worth of fruit and strawberry plants, and the question was whether they dared keep them on the chance of getting land. I am afraid they had to give up the hope of getting it in time. That is merely an illustration of the sort of thing that happens, and of the inconvenience and trouble, which shows that we must get more expeditious machinery. The question has been put again and again in this Debate, not specially to me, but as I have had administrative experience of the matter, I will answer it, and it is: Why is it we are objecting to arbitration, and why we think arbitration causes delay and is cumbersome? There are a good many reasons. You have by it a double procedure, you have got to go into the question before the Land Court, which has to survey the property, and then you go before the arbitrator, who has to survey the property again, and the witnesses who have been heard before the Land Court have got to be heard again before the arbitrator, and most of the points have to be gone over twice. Landlords do not object because they do not pay any of the expenses. The taxpayer pays the whole of the expenses, and why should he pay twice over. I would point out this, that this Arbitration Clause was stoutly resisted in the House of Commons, and it was only taken by reason of force majeure in the House of Lords. The then Lord Advocate said that arbitration would smother the Bill, and he was quite right. There have been a great many criticisms of the Land Court, and I should be very chary of breaking a lance with the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Clyde) if it were simply a question of law, but this is a point of administration, and he has hopelessly muddled up the functions of the Land Court and of the Board of Agriculture. He has credited the Land Court with being the administrative body and entirely left out of account the Board of Agriculture. The Land Court is not the administrative body. The body which, in the first place, gets together small holders and decides what land should' be given to them is the Board of Agriculture. There has been much talk to-day, and uninformed talk, about this Court deciding in its own cause. That is an absurd observation, and I cannot imagine a more unfounded observation. The Board of Agriculture has to go to this Court, which has to exercise judicial functions, its chairman being of the rank of a judge of the Court of Session, and it has to say—

made an observation which was inaudible in the Reporters' gallery.

That is another charge. I have seen political judges in other places, but I am not going to be drawn by that foolish and irrelevant interruption. Here you have got this body which has to decide whether it is right that the Board of Agriculture should exercise compulsory powers. That is not an administrative but a judicial act. It has to decide what the fair rent is, and it has to decide various questions of that sort, but it does not initiate the schemes; it has no responsibility for the initiation of the schemes. All the administrative work is done by the Board of Agriculture. If this body—the Land Court—is competent to decide what is the fair rent, any difference in which compared with the existing rent has to be paid for as to its capital value out of the public purse. I do not see why it is not competent to decide as to the damage done to the farm, and other matters of that kind of a strictly similiar character.

The hon. Baronet (Sir G. Younger) made some very useful and important proposals. They were large proposals, and, if he would not think it an offensive observation, I think they were rather radical proposals. He used one curious phrase which I thought rather a contradiction in terms: He spoke of compulsory co-operation. Can you have compulsory co-operation? Not with Scotsmen, I think. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the Insurance Act?"] You may generally lead them to it, but I do not think you can have compulsory agricultural co-operation. At the same time, putting words aside, is the thing itself desirable? If small holdings are to be a success we must try the experiment of colonies, with the assistance of Land Acts and co-operation. If a small bolder tries to cultivate his holding on the lines of the big farm on which he has worked, it will not be the success that it ought to be. Special methods are required, and undoubtedly co-operation will be desirable. I shall not forget the suggestion of the hon. Baronet. As there are financial considerations, I will not commit myself; but I hope that he will take part in seeing that these matters are considered in the Committee upstairs. If money is involved in some of them, I will do my best to get the Government to assist.

When the hon. Baronet was rebuking people for talking about a subject with which they were imperfectly acquainted, he drew a graphic picture, which appealed to the House, of the Land Court going to the Orkney and Shetland Islands in winter to inspect farms that were under snow. I know those islands very well; I have been there many times; but I have never seen them under snow yet. It is an extremely rare occurrence for them to be under snow. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is not impossible."] No, but why draw it as a picture of the habitual folly of the Land Court? I am almost certain that they have never succeeded in catching the Orkneys under snow. The hon. Member for South Lanark (Mr. Watson), whom I should like to congratulate on his admirable maiden speech, also wanted amendments of the Land Court. So that really the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Clyde) stands alone in thinking that the time has not come for some amendment. He spoke about compensation, and said that it was an agreed Clause. I do not dispute it for a moment. I do not know anything about it, but I will take it from him that it is so, and, it being agreed, the Bill went through. Does he say that under the Act, or under the Amendment of my hon. Friend, the landlord stands to lose by the conversion of his land from large tenures into small holdings? I have not come across a case where I can see any prospect of the landlords losing.

I have. There was a very remarkable case of the deterioration of an estate, where the insistence on the settlement of crofters upon it played a very marked part in the final result.

The hon. and learned Member is referring to what happened a few years ago under the Crofters Act. Surely he is familiar with the fact that the compensation under this Act is entirely different. If you reduce the rent under the Crofters Act, you do not pay compensation; for every penny of reduction of rent under this Act you have to pay the capital value of the reduction. So that alteration would not do. That is not because I think there is any injustice under this Act. As my hon. Friend very well said, the landlord doing a public service by letting his land for cultivation for small holdings will probably make a larger income than before. It is perfectly right that he should make the same income as before. But I do not know that the public ought to pay him a bonus. Further, I cannot find anything in this Amendment that changes the compensation. The words are changed, but not the substance. Landlord and tenant both stand to receive compensation for any loss they may sustain. This Amendment does not alter that. If it does, the Committee stage will be the time to discuss it.

There is only one other topic with which I have to deal, that is the question raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman and by the hon. Baronet the Member for Ayr Burghs—the question, not as to whether the time is premature, but the point put by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Clyde) that this was too soon to alter a Bill that had been the subject of agreement. The view of the hon. Baronet, I gathered, was different. He said that we ought not to alter things that he desired to retain; he did want to alter other things. He said very fairly and reasonably that he did not expect the Government to make a pronouncement on the subject right away. It is perfectly obvious that the Government could not say what they are going to do in the way of giving facilities for the Bill until they saw how it returned from the Committee, and considered the time they had at their disposal. I am bound to say, however, that I certainly shall vote for the Second Reading. If the Government have made a bargain of any kind, the Government will fulfil that bargain. But I must guard myself by saying that I have listened to the Debate, and it seems to me the statements of the hon. and learned Gentlemen, as they stand without any qualification amount to this, that the habitual and ordinary practice of discussing Amendments when both parties, for reasons of their own, have thought that a Bill had better be passed into law, was observed in this case. We certainly wanted our Bill. The hon. Baronet, who is a very acute electioneerer, thought it had been hanging about long enough, and he wanted to get it out of the way. So we did the most ordinary thing in the world: we tried to come to an agreement, and we did so! I have looked at the only thing I can look at, and that is the Reports of the proceedings in both Houses of Parliament, and I can find nothing to show that it was anything but a most ordinary agreement—in fact, the other side were very wary about the matter. The right hon. and learned Member for Glasgow University late in the Report stage said there was nothing in the nature of an agreement. The Leader of the Opposition, who on that occasion made his first speech in that capacity, said the same thing. He wanted to deal with the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act. Nobody has ever alleged that there was any agreement that we should not deal with this Act—two years or six years after, or in this Parliament! So far, the whole position comes to this: that there is an agreement, and that we have got the Bill, because there are agreed details! I really think in that case to talk about a breach of faith or immoral conduct is rather exaggerating the licence hon. Members opposite so often assume. We have heard so much about breaches of faith that I am afraid that the accusation strikes me as requiring investigation. We shall have time to investigate the breach of faith before the Committee stage. I can see nothing in the speeches which are not Second Reading objections. Everybody wants something. I hope my hon. Friend will be sanguine enough to hope that when we get upstairs we will find a number of Amendments upon which we are all agreed. I would point out to the hon. Baronet that he need not complain of being a helpless person; he has his remedy, and, of course, if hon. Members put forward Amendments which have no chance in another place, that is their concern. I hope the House will give the Bill a Second Reading. I think the general consensus of opinion is that it is necessary, and that we ought to do everything possible in Scotland to speed up the machinery of this Act and make it more effective.

:I must say I am astonished to hear the right hon. Gentleman's description of what he calls an agreement. If he believes nothing is an agreement except what he finds recorded in the OFFICIAL REPORT, it makes things very difficult for the future.

I did not say so.

I hope I do not misrepresent the right hon. Gentleman, but he said he searched the Debates and it was definitely stated it was not an agreed Bill. If we are to be confined to what is to be found in the OFFICIAL REPORTS, anything of this kind becomes impossible. We all know the nature of the negotiations that were carried on, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) said, they represent an honourable agreement. Are such agreements no longer to find a place in our Parliamentary arrangement? If that were so I think it would be very bad for the Government. What is our objection to the Bill? It is that we have been brought into this agreement and, in consequence of this agreement it has been made possible to carry a Bill into law; and now that it has become law that agreement is to be set aside without any justification. If we had contemplated any such action on the part of the Government, do right hon. Gentlemen opposite imagine we should have consented to that agreement? We should not have consented unless we felt it would have been honourably carried out. This agreement was one which safeguarded the interests of men whom hon. Members opposite wish to destroy. [HON. MEMBERS "No, no."] The object of hon. Members is to destroy the land-owners of Scotland. It is all very fine for them to laugh, but those of them who come from Scotland ought to know that, at the present moment at least one-third of the land of Scotland is up for sale, and nobody will buy it.

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The House divided: Ayes, 205; Noes, 147.

Division No. 46.]	AYES.	[5.0 p.m.
Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)	Dillon, John	Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)
Acland, Francis Dyke	Donelan, Captain A.	Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)
Adamson, William	Doris, William	Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)
Addison, Dr. Christopher	Duffy, William J.	Jones, Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe)
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)
Alden, Percy	Edwards John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)	Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)
Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)	Esmonde Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)	Joyce, Michael
Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)	Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)	Kelly, Edward
Armitage, Robert	Esslemont, George Birnie	Kenyon, Barnet
Arnold, Sydney	Falconer, James	Kilbride, Denis
Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)	Ffrench, Peter	Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton)
Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)	Field, William	Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)
Barnes, George N.	Flavin, Michael Joseph	Lardner, James C. R.
Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick Burghs)	Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson	Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)
Beale, Sir William Phipson	Gelder, Sir W. A.	Leach, Charles
Beauchamp, Sir Edward	George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd	Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert
Beck, Arthur Cecil	Gladstone, W. G. C.	Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas
Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George)	Glanville, Harold James	Lundon, Thomas
Boland, John Plus	Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Lyell, Charles Henry
Bowerman, Charles W.	Greig, Colonel J. W.	Lynch, Arthur Alfred
Brady, Patrick Joseph	Griffith, Ellis Jones	Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)
Brocklehurst, W. B.	Guest, Hon. Major C. H. C. (Pembroke)	Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)
Brunner, John F. L.	Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)	McGhee, Richard
Bryce, J. Annan	Gulland, John William	Maclean, Donald
Buckmaster, Sir Stanley O.	Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)	Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Hackett, John	MacNeill, J. G. Swilt (Donegal, South)
Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)	Hancock, John George	Macpherson, James Ian
Byles, Sir William Pollard	Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale)	MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)	M'Callum, Sir John M.
Chancellor, Henry George	Hardie, J. Keir	M'Kean, John
Chapple, Dr. William Allen	Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)	McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Hayden, John Patrick	M'Micking, Major Gilbert
Clancy, John Joseph	Hazleton, Richard	Marks, Sir George Croydon
Clough, William	Henderson, Arthur (Durham)	Mason, David M. (Coventry)
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Henderson, John M. (Aberdeen, W.)	Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)
Cotton, William Francis	Herbert, General Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)	Millar, James Duncan
Cowan, W. H.	Hewart, Gordon	Molloy, Michael
Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Higham, John Sharp	Molteno, Percy Alport
Crooks, William	Hinds, John	Montagu, Hon. E. S.
Cullinan, John	Hodge, John	Mooney, John J.
Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)	Holmes, Daniel Turner	Morrell, Philip
Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth)	Holt, Richard Durning	Morison, Hector
Dawes, James Arthur	Horne, Charles Silvester (Ipswich)	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas
Delany, William	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	Muldoon, John
Devlin, Joseph	Hughes, Spencer Leigh	Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert
Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H.	Illingworth, Percy H.	Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C.
Nannetti, Joseph P.	Richardson, Albion (Peckham)	Waring, Walter
Nolan, Joseph	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay T.
Norton, Captain Cecil William	Roberts, George H. (Norwich)	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Nuttall, Harry	Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)	Watt, Henry Anderson
O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	Roche, Augustine (Louth)	Webb, H.
O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)	Rowlands, James	White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradesten)
O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)	Rowntree, Arnold	White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E.R.)
O'Dowd, John	Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)	Scanlan, Thomas	Whitehouse, John Howard
O'Malley, William	Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)	Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.
O'Shaughnessy, P. J.	Sheehy, David	Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)
O'Shee, James John	Sherwell, Arthur James	Wiles, Thomas
Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)	Shortt, Edward	Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)
Phillips, John (Longford, S.)	Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Pointer, Joseph	Soames, Arthur Wellesley	Winfrey, Sir Richard
Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.	Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert	Wing, Thomas Edward
Pratt, J. W.	Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)	Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)
Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)	Swann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.	Yeo, Alfred William
Pringle, Wiliam M. R.	Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)	Young, William (Perthshire, East)
Radford, George Heynes	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Raphael, Sir Herbert H.	Thorne, William (West Ham)
Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)	Trevelyan, Charles Philips	TELLERS FOR THE AYES. —Mr.—Mr.
Redmond, John E. (Waterford)	Verney, Sir Harry	James Hogge and Mr. Eugene Wason.
Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)	Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)

NOES.
Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R.	Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)	Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Anstruther-Gray, Major William	Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)	Paget, Almeric Hugh
Archer-Shee, Major M.	Haddock, George Bahr	Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)
Ashley, Wilfrid W.	Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)	Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)
Astor, Waldorf	Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)	Perkins, Walter F.
Baird, John Lawrence	Hall, Marshall (E. Toxteth)	Peto, Basil Edward
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham)	Pole-Carew, Sir R.
Baring, Major Hon. Guy V. (Winchester)	Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington, S.)	Pollock, Ernest Murray
Barnston, Harry	Harris, Henry Percy	Pretyman, Ernest George
Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Harrison-Broadley, H. B.	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel
Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)	Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)	Rawson, Colonel Richard H.
Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)	Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)	Rees, Sir J. D.
Bennett-Goldney, Francis	Hewins, William Albert Samuel	Rolleston, Sir John
Bird, Alfred	Hoare, S. J. G.	Rothschild, Lionel de
Blair, Reginald	Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy	Royds, Edmund
Boyton, James	Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)	Salter, Arthur Clavell
Bull, Sir William James	Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)	Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)
Burn, Colonel C. R.	Home, E. (Surrey, Guildford)	Sanders, Robert Arthur
Campbell, Captain Duncan F. (Ayr, N.)	Hume-Williams, W. E.	Sandys, G. J.
Campion, W. R.	Hunt, Rowland	Sassoon, Sir Philip
Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred	Hunter, Sir Charles Rodk.	Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'pool, Walton)
Cassel, Felix	Jessel, Captain H. M.	Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)
Cautley, Henry Strother	Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr	Starkey, John Ralph
Cave, George	Kerry, Earl of	Stewart, Gershom
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Keswick, Henry	Talbot, Lord Edmund
Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement	Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)
Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.	Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)	Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)
Clay, Captain H. H. Spender	Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts., Mile End)	Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North)
Clyde, J. Avon	Lewisham, Viscount	Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, North)
Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham	Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.)	Tobin, Alfred Aspinall
Cooper, Sir Richard Ashmole	Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)	Tullibardine, Marquess of
Courthope, George Loyd	Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)	Valentia, Viscount
Craik, Sir Henry	Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey)	Watson, Hon. W.
Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian	Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Colonel A. R.	Weigall, Captain A. G.
Dalrymple, Viscount	Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)	Weston, Colonel J. W.
Denfson-Pender, J. C.	Lyttelton Hon. J. C.	Wheler, Granville C. H.
Duke, Henry Edward	MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh	White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport)
DunCannon, Viscount	Macmaster, Donald	Wilson, A. Stanley (Yorks, E.R.)
Falle, Bertram Godfray	M'Calmont, Major Robert C. A.	Wilson, Captain Leslie O. (Reading)
Fell, Arthur	Magnus, Sir Philip	Wilson, Maj. Sir M. (Bethnal Green, S. W.)
Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert	Malcolm, Ian	Winterton, Earl
Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A.	Mallaby-Deeley, Harry	Wolmer, Viscount
Gardner, Ernest	Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton)	Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, Ripon)
Gastrell, Major W. Houghton	Mount, William Arthur	Worthington-Evans, L.
Glazebrook, Captain Philip K.	Neville, Reginald J. N,	Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Goldman, C. S.	Newdegate, F. A.	Yate, Colonel C. E.
Geldsmith, Frank	Newton, Harry Kettingham	Yerburgh, Robert A.
Goulding, Edward Alfred	Norton-Griffiths, J.
Grant, J. A.	O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES. —Sir—Sir
Gretton, John	Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.	George Younger and Captain Gilmour.

Question put accordingly, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 203; Noes, 145.

Division No. 47.]	AYES.	[5.10 p.m.
Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour)	Hackett, John	Norton, Captain Cecil W.
Acland, Francis Dyke	Hancock, John George	Nuttall, Harry
Adamson, William	Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale)	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Addison, Dr. Christopher	Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)	O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Hardie, J. Keir	O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)
Aiden, Percy	Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds)	O'Dowd, John
Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire)	Hayden, John Patrick	O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)
Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud)	Hazleton, Richard	O'Malley, William
Armitage, Robert	Henderson, Arthur (Durham)	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.
Arnold, Sydney	Henderson, John M. (Aberdeen, W.)	O'Shee, James John
Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)	Herbert, General Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)
Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)	Hewart, Gordon	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)
Barnes, George N.	Higham, John Sharp	Pointer, Joseph
Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick Burghs)	Hinds, John	Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.
Beale, Sir William Phipson	Hodge, John	Pratt, J. W.
Beauchamp, Sir Edward	Holmes, Daniel Turner	Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)
Beck, Arthur Cecil	Holt, Richard Durning	Pringle, William M. R.
Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George)	Horne, Charles Silvester (Ipswich)	Radford, G. H.
Boland, John Pius	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	Raphael, Sir Herbert H.
Bowerman, Charles W.	Hughes, Spencer Leigh	Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields)
Brady, Patrick Joseph	Illingworth, Percy H.	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Brocklehurst W. B.	Jardine, Sir J. (Roxburgh)	Redmond, William Archer. (Tyrone, E.)
Brunner, John F. L.	Jones, Rt. Hon. Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)	Richardson, Albion (Peckham)
Bryce, J. Annan	Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)
Buckmaster, Sir Stanley O.	Jones, Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe)	Roberts, George H. (Norwich)
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)	Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)
Byles, Sir William Pollard	Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)	Roche, Augustine (Louth)
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Joyce, Michael	Rowlands, James
Chancellor, Henry George	Kelly, Edward	Rowntree, Arnold
Chapple, Dr. William Allen	Kenyon, Barnet	Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Kilbride, Denis	Scanlan, Thomas
Clancy, John Joseph	Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton)	Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)
Clough, William	Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)	Sheehy, David
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Lardner, James C. R.	Sherwell, Arthur James
Cotton, William Francis	Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)	Shortt, Edward
Cowan, W. H.	Leach, Charles	Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)
Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert	Soames, Arthur Wellesley
Crooks, William	Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas	Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert
Cullinan, John	Lundon, Thomas	Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)
Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)	Lyell, Charles Henry	Swann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E.
Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth)	Lynch, Arthur Alfred	Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)
Dawes, James Arthur	Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Delany, William	Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)	Thorne, William (West Ham)
Devlin, Joseph	McGhee, Richard	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H.	Maclean, Donald	Verney, Sir Harry
Dillon, John	Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.	Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)
Donelan, Captain A.	MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South)	Waring, Walter
Doris, William	Macpherson, James Ian	Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay T.
Duffy, William J.	MacVeagh, Jeremiah	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)	M'Callum, Sir John M.	Wall, Henry Anderson
Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid)	M'Kean, John	Webb, H.
Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.)	McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald	White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)
Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.)	M'Micking, Major Gilbert	White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E.R.)
Esslemont, George Birnie	Marks, Sir George Croydon	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Falconer, James	Mason, David M, (Coventry)	Whitehouse, John Howard
Ffrench, Peter	Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)	Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.
Field, William	Millar, James Duncan	Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)
Flavin, Michael Joseph	Molloy, Michael	Wiles, Thomas
Furness, Sir Stephen Wilson	Molteno, Percy Alport	Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)
Gelder, Sir W. A.	Montagu, Hon. E. S.	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd	Mooney, John J.	Winfrey, Sir Richard
Gladstone, W. G. C.	Morrell, Philip	Wing, Thomas Edward
Glanville, Harold James	Morison, Hector	Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)
Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Morton, Alpheus Cleophas	Yeo, Alfred William
Greig, Colonel James William	Muldoon, John	Young, William (Perthshire, East)
Griffith, Ellis Jones	Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert
Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke)	Murray, Captain Hon. Arthur C.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES. —Mr.—Mr.
Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)	Nannetti, Joseph P.	James Hogge and Mr. Eugene Wason.
Gulland, John William	Nolan, Joseph

NOES.
Anson, Rt. Hon. Sir William R.	Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Campbell, Captain Duncan (Ayr, N)
Anstruther-Gray, Major William	Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)	Campion, W. R.
Archer-Shee, Major Martin	Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich)	Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred
Ashley, Wilfrid W.	Bennett-Goldney, Francis	Cassel, Felix
Astor, Waldorf	Bird, Alfred	Cautley, Henry Strother
Baird, John Lawrence	Blair, Reginald	Cave, George
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Boyton, James	Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)
Baring, Major Hon. Guy V. (Winchester)	Bull, Sir William James	Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin)
Barnston, Harry	Burn, Colonel C. R.	Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.
Clay, Captain H. H. Spender	Hume-Williams, William Ellis	Rawson, Colonel Richard H.
Clyde, James Avon	Hunt, Rowland	Rees, Sir J. D.
Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham	Hunter, Sir Charles Rodk.	Rolleston, Sir John
Cooper, Sir Richard Ashmole	Jessel, Captain Herbert M.	Royds, Edmund
Courthope, George Loyd	Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr	Salter, Arthur Clavell
Craik, Sir Henry	Kerry, Earl of	Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)
Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian	Keswick, Henry	Sanders, Robert Arthur
Dalrymple, Viscount	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement	Sandys, G. J.
Denison-Pender, J. C.	Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)	Sassoon, Sir Philip
Duke, Henry Edward	Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts., Mile End)	Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'pool, Walton)
Duncannon, Viscount	Lewisham, Viscount	Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)
Falle, Bertram Godfray	Lloyd, George Ambrose (Stafford, W.)	Starkey, John Ralph
Fell, Arthur	Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)	Stewart, Gershom
Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert	Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)	Talbot, Lord Edmund
Fitzroy, Hon. Edward A.	Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey)	Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.)
Gardner, Ernest	Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Colonel A. R.	Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)
Gastrell, Major W. Houghton	Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)	Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North)
Glazebrook, Captain Philip K.	Lyttelton, Hon. J. C.	Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.)
Goldman, Charles Sydney	MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh	Tobin, Alfred Aspinall
Goldsmith, Frank	Macmaster, Donald	Tullibardine, Marquess of
Goulding, Edward Alfred	M'Calmont, Major Robert C. A.	Valentia, Viscount
Grant, James Augustus	Magnus, Sir Philip	Watson, Hon. W.
Gretton, John	Malcolm, Ian	Weigall, Captain A. G.
Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.)	Mallaby-Deeley, Harry	Weston, Colonel J. W.
Guinness, Hon. W.E. (Bury S. Edmunds)	Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton)	Wheler, Granville C. H.
Haddock, George Bahr	Neville, Reginald J. N.	White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport)
Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight)	Newdegate, F. A.	Wilson, A. Stanley (Yorks, E.R.)
Hall, Frederick (Dulwich)	Newton, Harry Kottingham	Wilson, Captain Leslie O. (Reading)
Hall, Marshall (E. Toxteth)	Norton-Griffiths, J.	Wilson, Maj. Sir M. (Bethnal Green, S.W.)
Hamilton, C. G. C. (Ches., Altrincham)	O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)	Winterton, Earl
Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington, S.)	Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.	Wolmer, Viscount
Harris, Henry Percy	Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William	Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, Ripon)
Harrison-Broadley, H. B.	Paget, Almeric Hugh	Worthington-Evans, L.
Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)	Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)	Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)	Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)	Yate, Colonel C. E.
Hewins, William Herbert Samuel	Perkins, Walter Frank	Yerburgh, Robert A.
Hoare, S. J. G.	Peto, Basil Edward
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy	Pole-Carew, Sir R.
Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)	Pollock, Ernest Murray	TELLERS FOR THE NOES. —Sir—Sir
Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)	Pretyman, Ernest George	George Younger and Captain Gilmour.
Horne, Edgar (Surrey, Guildford)	Rawlinson John Frederick Peel

Main Question put, and agreed to.

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

Hansard

Volume 59: debated on Friday 13 March 1914

House of Commons

Private Business

Orders of the Day

Small Landholders (Scotland) Act (1911) Amendment Bill

Affiliation Orders Bill

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Petitions Presented During the Week