rose "to call attention to the delay which his taken place in the erection of the new buildings at the British Museum; and to ask when the work will be resumed." The noble Duke said: My Lords, this question is one of rather a pressing character owing to the entire standstill of proceedings in connection with the new buildings at the British Museum. I will briefly narrate what has happened. As far back as 1903 the Board of Works had plans for this addition to the British Museum. After considerable delay the first contract was made in April, 1906. In April, 1907, the estimate was revised, and revised to such an extent that the original figure of £13,000 was advanced to £25,000. In June, 1907, the contracts were completed, and His Majesty the King laid the foundation-stone of the new extension. That was eighteen months ago, and from that day to this not one single thing has been done. The whole work is at a standstill, and repeated communications with the Board of Works from the trustees of the British Museum have, I will not say received no notice, but have led to no effective action being taken. The only thing that has been done—I refer to this for fear the noble Lord who will reply to me may mention it as if I had forgotten it—was in September last, when I believe some work was undertaken on the boiler house, which had absolutely nothing to do with the main extension. A promise was made that the work would be begun last September. That was to a certain extent retracted, because, when Sir William Bull, in the House of Commons, asked when any work would be done in this matter, it was then said it would be begun early in October. We are now at the end of December, but nothing has been done. Those are the facts concisely stated, and I have thought it my duty to put this Question in the hope that some acceleration of the business will take place, and that more energy will be shown in a work of such great public importance.

My Lords, in answer to the noble Duke I should like to say that the First Commissioner of Works of course fully appreciates the great importance of this work and the attention it should deserve. He also sympathises with the Trustees in respect to the delay that has occurred. As, I think, the noble Duke is aware, the engineering requirements with regard to the completion of the building of this extension of the British Museum have offered some considerable difficulty. The delay which has occurred has been largely owing to the protracted negotiations which have taken place between the engineer and the architect, more especially with regard to these engineering requirements. These negotiations have been satisfactorily concluded, detailed plans have been drawn up, and the various specifications have been made. The Board of Works have received a number of tenders, which are at present under consideration. I cannot state the exact date on which the building will be commenced, but the First Commissioner expects to come to a decision on those tenders in the course of a very few days. As soon as that decision has been arrived at the buildings will be proceeded with as soon as possible.

Am I to understand that, when the First Commissioner of Works stated that the work would be begun last October, he had not actually got the tenders out?

I am afraid I can not answer that question. He quite understood that the work would be begun at that time.

said he had carried out the suggestion made the previous day by the Lord Chancellor and had printed in extenso, in the shape of an Amendment, the new clause which he proposed should take the place of Clause 1 as now in the Bill.

thought that the suggestion of the noble Viscount was a good one. There was a difficulty in ascertaining what was the progress of a Parliamentary election. It depended on the circumstances of each case, and it was impossible to lay down any absolute rule.

asked whether the Government had considered the question of municipal elections, especially in the London area. He thought there was a serious anomaly in applying this penalty to small meetings in country districts held in connection with Parliamentary elections, and leaving out of the scope of the Bill possibly large and turbulent meetings held in the metropolis in connection with municipal elections. If, however, the Government were satisfied that it was better not to include municipal meetings, he would not move the Amendment to that effect standing in his name on the Paper; but he would like an expression of opinion from the Government on the point.

said the Government would be willing to accept an Amendment applying the Bill to municipal elections unless objection to that course were taken on some point which had not yet occurred to the Home Office.

was afraid there would be some difficulty in the matter. The words which, at his instance, their Lordships had inserted would not apply to municipal elections at all, because there was no issue of a writ in respect of such elections. Some other words, therefore, would be necessary if the Bill were to include meetings held in connection with municipal elections.

suggested that it would be better not to apply the Bill to municipal elections at all. He thought that would be rather going beyond the general purposes of the Bill.

intimated that, after the opinion expressed by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, he would not move his Amendment.

My Lords, perhaps it would be convenient that I should now ask your Lordships not to insist upon certain of the Amendments which were made by your Lordships' House to this Bill The Commons disagree to the Lords' Amendment on page 6, lines 11 and 12, for this reason, that they consider that the system of working the mines in Northumberland and Durham cannot be reorganised by 1st July next. The Commons disagree also to the Amendment in page 6, line 13, to leave out the word "January" and to insert the word "July," because they think it is inexpedient to defer the operation of the Bill to so late a date as 1st July, 1910. The Commons propose to amend the Lords Amendment to leave out all words from the word "ten" in page 6, line 13, to the end of the subsection, by restoring the words "and elsewhere on 1st July, 1909." The practical result of this is that the Commons have reinserted in the Bill the clause in the shape in which it stood when the Bill came up to your Lordships' House. I beg to move.

I should like to know the precise Motion which the noble Earl moves. It is obvious that where the Commons have agreed to our Amendments nothing more is to be done, and where the Commons have amended an Amendment probably there would be no difficulty in agreement. I certainly object, however, to taking the disagreements en bloc. I think they should be put one by one, and on one of them I wish to make a few remarks.

We will do whatever is convenient to the noble Lord. I will first take the Motion that the House doth not insist upon the Amendment to page 6, line 13—that is, the Amendment by which your Lordships substituted "July" for "January."

For the purpose of putting myself in order, I shall move that the Amendment be amended so that it shall read: "the first day of October, 1909." The effect of that will be to shorten this period of preference by three months. I suppose it is hopeless to take any other course. Though I am not sufficiently versed in Parliamentary practice to state definitely, I am afraid that if we were to carry a Motion disagreeing with the Commons' Amendment it would have the effect of destroying the Bill. I do not intend to move that, but I demur altogether to the reasonableness of the course which has been taken. So far as I interpret it, the East of Scotland has been sacrificed by the Government for the benefit of the North-East of England. I think that is perfectly obvious. We are in exactly the same position; we are competing in the same markets for the export of coal, and we are known to be competing with each other, yet for a period of six months the North-East of England is to have a preference over the East of Scotland. I say that is unfair, and I think it will be regarded as unfair in the district with which I have the honour to be connected. I daresay that in the counsels of His Majesty's Government those in the North-Eastern counties of England are more powerful; but one of the constituencies affected is represented by the Prime Minister and both of the others by the most docile supporters which His Majesty's Government have in the other House. I say that their docility is being traded upon for the benefit of His Majesty's Government, and that it is entirely wrong, however docile they may be, that this advantage should be taken of the position. The preference cannot be defended on the merits; it has never been sought to be defended on the merits so far as I can understand, and there would be no real objection to this difficulty being diminished as far as possible. I shall, therefore, move that the Commons' Amendment be amended so that it should read: "on the first day of October. 1909."

My Lords, this is, I think, the third time I have had to speak on this particular point, and I should be unwilling to intervene now except that I think the noble Lord has brought a somewhat unfair charge against the Government. He said that the representatives of Northumberland and Durham were particularly strong in the counsel of His Majesty's Government, whereas the representatives of the district with which he is himself connected were not. Then he went on to say that the constituency which the Prime Minister sat for would be seriously affected, which seemed to me rather to answer the first part of the statement. In any case, it is very far from being true, because the other districts which consider themselves to be prejudicially affected by this particular division are the counties of Yorkshire and the Midlands. It has never been supposed that the West Riding of Yorkshire, the coal district, is other than a district which supports His Majesty's Government, and therefore the charge made by the noble Lord cannot be said to have any foundation whatever; and I am bound to say that what occurred yesterday in another place confirms us in our opinion that, although we have admitted the objections in this course, it was the only one open to us. Yesterday in another place Mr. Balfour stated that he heartily agreed with the course chosen. He said that postponement for eighteen months was an impossible course to take, and he would support the Government in rejecting it.

That point does not arise on the particular Amendment I have moved.

That is perfectly true, and I will deal with that point if the noble Lord desires in a moment. The January date received practically no support in another place and I do not know that it received much here. I understand that the effect of the noble Lord's Amendment to-day is to substitute "October" as the general date.

I beg the noble Earl's pardon. I accept the position that we are obliged to agree to this preference, but I desire to shorten it. I do not propose to touch the general date. My proposal would have the effect of shortening the preference by three months.

I am very much obliged to the noble Lord for his explanation, because I had understood that he suggested October as a general date. That, of course, is a question which the noble Lord has a perfect right to argue; but, as I said before, it is not really reasonable to speak of this as a preference. It, no doubt, has the effect of giving a certain preference to those two counties, but that is not the object or the intention of His Majesty's Government. The question is whether the particular organisation of Durham and Northumberland is such that it is impossible for them to start their new arrangements in less than a year. The Government have taken the view that it is reasonable for them to ask for this time, and if that is so, the splitting of the difference which the noble Lord suggests would not really meet the case, I am afraid, therefore, we must adhere to our proposal.

My Lords, the noble Earl has just stated that it was not the intention of His Majesty's Government to give a preference, but he admits that what they have done has the effect of giving a preference. What matters is not the intention of His Majesty's Government, but the effect of the Bill which they pass. With regard to the particular date fixed for Durham and Northumberland, the noble Earl has told us that His Majesty's Government have been convinced that they cannot get their arrangements ready before 1st January; but during all the time this Bill has been in your Lordships' House I have never heard anything to show why other collieries can get their arrangements ready although Durham and Northumberland cannot. So far as Lord Newton went into this point, he rather intimated that Durham and Northumberland were more advantageously situated, if anything, than the other collieries. It would be satisfactory to us to know what are the reasons which have convinced His Majesty's Government that these other collieries can get their arrangements completed by 1st July.

I will endeavour to answer that question. The point is this, that in Durham and Northumberland the question is that of the reorganisation of the hours of the men. In Lancashire and South Wales the question is not so much the reorganisation of the hours of the men as the actual loss of time. In Durham and Northumberland all the shifts have to be changed. In Lancashire and South Wales in a great many cases there will not be an attempt to change the shifts but the actual hours of labour will be shortened. The grievance which the Lancashire and South Wales mine- owners conceive themselves to have is that they lose a certain time of the day for getting and winding their coal, but, at any rate in a great many cases, they will not attempt entirely to reorganise their shifts; whereas in the counties of Durham and Northumberland, as far as I understand, practically every colliery will have to go through a complete system of reorganisation of work.

My Lords, I will not repeat the observations I offered to the House yesterday on this subject, nor will I follow the example of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh and endeavour to fathom the mysteries of the transaction which apparently led to the exceptional treatment of these two districts. There does appear to attach a certain amount of mystery to the arrangement in question. I do not think I should have risen at all had I not desired to correct what appears to be an inaccuracy in the published account of the observations that fell from me last night. In an otherwise excellent description of my short speech which appears in The Times of this morning, there is a report of my concluding words which conveys a rather different meaning from that which I intended to convey to the House. I said I drew a great distinction between the Amendment moved by Lord Avebury and the Amendment which was carried at the instance of Lord St. Aldwyn, and I pointed out that, whereas Lord St. Aldwyn's Amendment in no way interfered with the machinery set up by His Majesty's Government—the machinery which was to take effect from the moment when the Bill came into operation—on the other hand the Amendment of Lord Avebury, which altered the date at which the Bill came into operation and also did away with the preference given to Durham and Northumberland, did very seriously modify a plan which I imagined represented the mature conclusions of His Majesty's Government; and I said that, in those circumstances, without myself expressing any opinion upon the question of preference or upon the question of date, I would not take the responsibility of endeavouring to force any views which might occur to me upon His Majesty's Government. The part of my observations which referred to Lord Avebury's Amendment appear in the report which I mentioned just now as if the whole of what I said had reference to the Amendment of my noble friend Lord St. Aldwyn, and I, therefore, desire to make that correction. The noble Earl referred to what occurred last night in another place. I have referred to the account of those proceedings, and I gather that the Leader of the Opposition stated to the House that, as His Majesty's Government had explained that in their view the least objectionable course was that the date of 1st July, 1909, should be accepted, and that the preference for Durham and Northumberland should be retained, and as His Majesty's Government were responsible for the Bill, he would support them rather than encourage attempts to alter their proposal fundamentally. I do not think the observations of my right hon. friend went beyond that, and they seem to me to be very much in accordance with what was said from these benches.

From the report which I saw, I understood Mr. Balfour to say that he did not think a year and a half's postponement to be reasonable, and that he for one could not support it.

My Amendment does not touch the year and a half postponement at all, and, if carried, would not interfere with the general coming into effect of the Bill on 1st July next year. I shall not divide the House, but I shall not withdraw the Amendment, as I am entirely unconvinced by the noble Earl's argument. I am not able to argue at length the question as to how far the district in which I am interested will really be put to a disadvantage. The whole thing has been sprung so suddenly upon us that there has been only time for communication by telegram and letter; but I am assured that the effect will be to put the East of Scotland to serious disadvantage during this time. That, I think, is grossly unfair, and I shall record my opinion by refusing to withdraw my Amendment. I cannot imagine anything thinner than the statement of the noble Earl—that the intention of the Government is one thing, and the result another. If you carry that into fiscal affairs, what does it matter what your intentions are if the effect is to protect one thing as against another?

My Lords, I am the possessor of the only copy of the document which records what the House of Commons have done, I will state the Amendments to your Lordships. From Clause 7, subsection (2), this House omitted the words, in lines 11 and 12, "as respects mines in the counties of Northumberland and Durham." The House of Commons propose to restore those words. I now come to the second Amendment. This House, in page 6, Clause 7, line 13, struck out the word "January" and inserted "July." The House of Commons propose to restore the word "January." The third Commons' Amendment is to reinsert the words "and elsewhere on the first day of July, 1909." The first question to be put, therefore, will be, that this House doth not insist upon its Amendment omitting the words "as respects mines in the counties of Northumberland and Durham."

We will now take the Amendment in page 6, clause 7, line 13.

I move that the Amendment be amended by the substitution of the word "October."

My Lords, before the Bill is read the third time perhaps you will bear with me for a moment while I explain what have been the circumstances attending this Bill. It is a very important measure, designed to unite into one borough six of the large towns in the Potteries district. The Bill has been hotly contested before Committees of the House of Commons and of your Lordships' House, and the proceedings upon it in Committee of this House have been protracted literally to within the last few minutes. I am happy to say, however, that, owing to the very great tact displayed by the Chairman of your Lordships' Committee, Earl Cromer, the Bill was, in the end, assented to by all parties, and it now comes before the House practically in the form of an agreed Bill. I venture to think that a great work has been accomplished with much less friction than at one time might have been expected, and I thought that, under the circumstances, it would not be right to let a private Bill of this importance pass without one word of explanation.

My Lords, I am glad the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees has taken the opportunity of mentioning this extremely important measure. The accomplishment of this great work is a source of personal satisfaction to myself, as I happen to be a landowner in the neighbourhood, and I have taken great interest in this matter for some time past. What used to be known as the five towns, but are now six towns, are to be turned into one municipality. This was by no means an easy matter to have brought about, as all those connected with it are aware. I think great credit is due to the Local Government Board for the part they have taken in assisting this operation, and great credit is due also to those who locally initiated the scheme and who have worked hard to reduce the almost inevitable friction which arises in a matter of this kind, especially on the question of rating. It will, I know, be a source of keen satisfaction in Staffordshire that the measure has been brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and I desire to congratulate everybody concerned.