1461 he doubted whether they were entitled to discuss what the Government might do. All he could say was that he himself had been more than amazed at the extraordinary industry-and he said it with great sincerity--which his right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board had put into everything which had come to his hand in the way of Poor-Law administration, and the noble Lord must be aware of that because inquiries had already been set on foot in certain directions with regard to administration. More than that he did not think he was entitled to say under the rules of the House. The noble Lord had asked if they would inquire whether the deliberations of the Commission must be still further prolonged, and whether they could be requested to furnish an interim Report on certain pressing points. He would communicate with the President of the Local Government Board to see whether they could with propriety address the Royal Commission, asking them what they could do to meet the noble Lord's proposal. He was afraid that was all he could properly say under the rules of the House, but he trusted it would be sufficient to induce the noble Lord not to move the reduction standing in his name. MR. J. WARD (Stoke-on-Trent) asked whether farm colonies came within the words of the reference" various means outside the Poor Law for dealing with unemployment, and whether the Commission would consider the effect they had on rates of wages in the various districts where they happened to be established. He had very good reason for asking the question, because for some time they had been discussing the rate of wages at Ipswich barracks. They had succeeded in getting the War Office to agree to a certain rate of wages. Only that week four men had been sent from Hadleigh Colony, which was under the Salvation Army, but which, he was afraid, was also subsidised from public funds to a certain extent, to work at the Ipswich barracks. Those men were only allowed to work if they would take d. an hour under the usual rate. They applied for the full rate, thinking that as they were to be engaged on public works they were entitled to a proper rate of pay. He had received that very morning from the four men to whom he referred, a letter stating that having asked for proper pay they were not allowed to return to the colony and were stranded in Ipswich. He had advised them to apply to the town council for the purpose of seeing whether something could not be done to get them out of their difficulty. He would like to hear the Parliamentary Secretary's view on the question of farm colonies for the unemployed in connection with the rate of wages in the various districts where they happened to be, and he thought the attention of the Poor Law Commission should be drawn to the point, as it was a most important matter. LORD BALCARRES (Lancashire, Chorley) said he wished to ask a question statements about the Welsh Church Commission. There had been various in the Press to the effect that there was disagreement between the Chairman of that Commission and certain of its members. The Secretary to the Local Government Board had told them that his Department was not concerned with the conduct of business by a Royal Commission. That, he imagined, was the ordinary constitutional position to take up. However, in the newspapers, apparently with the authenticity of an official communication, it was said, three or four days ago, that there was a difference of opinion as to the interpretation of the reference to the Welsh Church Commission and as to the conduct of business by the chairman of the Commission. It was said, moreover, that had to be they were in such a state of difficulty arbitrators that the that and further called in, arbitrators nominated were the Lord Chancellor and the President of the Board of Trade. He did not wish to discriminate between two Members of the Cabinet. was a distinguished person of judicial mind, but, with all respect to the President of the Board of Trade, he scarcely thought that on the question of the Established Church in Wales it could be alleged that he approached the subject from an impartial point of view. He had One of these arbitrators would be very glad to hear that the Members out of every ten went through statement that the Lord Chancellor the debate without the facts before was to be an arbitrator was correct, but them. The Prime Minister himself, that the President of the Board of Trade earlier in the session, said, “We are had not been called upon to interfere in woeful ignorance." He presumed on a subject on which he was an avowed the right hon. Gentleman did not at and acknowledged partisan. that time mean the House but the *MR. REES (Montgomery Boroughs) said that the provision for £1,400 for the Welsh Church Commission carried them up to the end of the current financial year. He would like to know how long provision on this account was it was time that the Report of the Ridgelikely to be required. Judging from the way Committee was made public, way in which the proceedings were as there was a growing opinion outfrequently interrupted to consider the side the House that it was not published terms of the reference it would seem because the decision of the Government that further provision on account of this did not march with the terms of the Commission might appear even in another Report, it being believed that the Report Supplementary Estimate. Could the Secre- went one way and the decision of the tary to the Treasury give them any Government on which the Constitution was intimation as to how long the Commission granted, another. If that was the case were likely to sit? He would also like it seemed to raise a very serious state to know whether they were paid in a of things. Until it had been distinctly lump sum to each member, or by stated by the representative of the the sitting, or how they were remuner- Colonies that it would be against the ated. He presumed that this refer- interests of the public service that any ence to arbitrators was a very unusual disclosure of the Report should be made, proceeding. So far as the people of the disquiet which had been caused Wales were concerned, however, they would not be allayed, and any further would view the appointment of the delay in publication would but intensify President of the Board of Trade as one the disquiet already existing. of the arbitrators not only with equanimity, but with satisfaction. There was a strong feeling in Wales that the terms of the reference should have been more carefully drafted, and that its purview should have been long since explicitly ascertained. There was considerable dissatisfaction with the delay which had already taken place in dealing with the matter, and he would like the Secretary to the Treasury to answer his questions. If he would do so the Welsh people would be extremely grateful. *MR. GEORGE FABER (York), referring to the West Ridgeway Committee, said that not only the Members of the House but the public who had to pay the £4,000 for its expenses were entitled to see the Report which was issued by the Committee on their return to London. The Members of the Committee went out last April; they returned last July. When the Transvaal Constitution was discussed in the House seven hon. Lord Balcarres. SIR F. BANBURY (City of London) said he wished to ask a question about the care of the feeble-minded. He scarcely knew to which hon. Member on the Treasury Bench to address his question, but he would put it to the Secretary to the Treasury. There was an additional £1,300 required, and, according to a footnote, it was wanted for the remuneration of medical investigators. He had looked at the original Estimates, and on page 510 he found that the salaries were put down at £872. An increase of £1,300 for salaries was an enormous amount; in fact, it was something like 150 per cent. of an increase. He was inclined to think that there must have been a large number of feebleminded people last year. [An HON. MEMBER: It is through the general election.] A little further on he found that the remuneration to medical investigators for 1906-7 was £630. In the year 1905-6 there was no remuneration 1465 was these at all for medical investigators, and or, at any rate, they did not want therefore he presumed that in that year it in its present form. If that was the there were no medical investigators. case why should they spend another After raising in 1906-7 £630 more than £1,400 upon it? They did not know what the previous year, they were now being the total cost would be, but they knew asked to provide another £1,300 for the that the cost was to be £1,400 more same object. There must be something than was at first supposed. An hon. very curious in the care of the feeble- Gentleman opposite who seemed to minded last year, and he hoped the hon. consider that the Commission was going Member would be able to give the House to last a long time wanted to know a satisfactory explanation. He noticed whether the Commissioners were paid. an increase of He did not know whether the hon. also that there was £1,200 for the expenses of the Poor Law Gentleman asked that question because Commission. He found that there was he was of opinion that it was somebody's cause delay. The House £872 for the secretary, assistant secre- interest to tary, clerical assistance, and typewriting, should have some justification for the and allowance of £110 for messengers, Commission, which, according to two but there was no item at all for investi- supporters of the Government, gators, which was apparently a new item. either not being carried on in a businessWith regard to the West Ridgeway like manner or was not wanted at all. Commi tee Report, they were told in the He hoped that before the debate closed an answer would be given on debate yesterday that there was only a demand for three more seats by the points. Progressives in the Transvaal that they actually obtained. What a difficulty that placed the House and the country in. The very important question had been raised as to whether the finding of this Committee was an impartial one or not, and they were told that it was impartial, but nevertheless it was thought advisable to withhold the Report from publication. They were told that the Report was such that it very nearly met the demand of one particular political Party in South Africa, and, notwithstanding that, the Government continued to refuse to place It the Report before the House. was not a question of whether it When they went cost £4,000 or not. to the expense and trouble of an important inquiry like this in South Africa, he agreed that it should not be presented to the public too soon, in order that the Government might have time their course of to determine what action should be. But even after the their upon Government had resolved course of action they still persisted n refusing to publish the Report, although it interests was SO *MR. ELLIS DAVIES (Carnarvonshire, Eifion) said the hon. Member for the Chorley Division had thought fit to doubt the attitude that was likely to be assumed towards the Welsh Church Commission by the President of the Board of Trade. He did not know whether the noble Lord had studied the composition of the Commission, but he thought that the Welsh nation had a good right to complain of its composition, inasmuch as six of its nine members were members of the Church of England, while the great majority of the Welsh people were Nonconformists. The objection he took was not so much to the character of the Commission as to its appointment altogether. *MR. SPEAKER: I do not think that point is open to discussion on this Vote, which is only for a supplementary sum and not for the original cost of the Commission. *MR. ELLIS DAVIES said that the vital to the Welsh nation, not having requested the the appointment of the Commission, had a of the country and Empire. With regard to the Welsh right to enter a caveat to any Report Church Commission, he could not help that might be presented. So far as he was considerable understood, the inquiry was being made of noting that there feeling the other side of the by the Commissioners for the purpose House. He stated obtaining certain facts and statistics, and that nobody wanted the Commi sion, the Nonconformists raised no objection on had heard it to any inquiry of that kind. In the past there had been a difficulty in ascertaining the real position of the Church and Nonconformity in Wales, and the important matter for the present was that the statistics placed before the Commissioners should be in such a form as to be not only accessible to the public but also capable of being tested. For example, they should relate to exactly the same divisions so that comparison would, for instance, be possible as to each parish, and he understood that the dispute among the Commissioners was as to the limit and scope of their inquiries. In any event, before the Commission reported it was only fair to say that as Wales had never asked for it they felt that they would not in any way be bound by its Report, be it what it might. MR. STANLEY WILSON (Yorkshire, E.R., Holderness) said he desired to echo the remarks made by the hon. Member for York with regard to the suppression of the Report of the Ridgeway Committee. On the last occasion they were only allowed twenty-four minutes for discussing this matter before they were closured, and the Under-Secretary for the Colonies then stated that it was inadvisable in the interests of the public here and in the Transvaal to publish a great deal of the Report. They would accept an expurgated edition if they could not have it all. They wished to know the conclusions arrived at by the Committee, and the least the Under-Secretary could do was to offer them a perusal of the Report, or at any rate let the late Colonial Secretary see it. The public had to pay £4,000 for the Committee going to South Africa and they had a right to know what the Report contained. The Government had shown not the faintest reason for suppressing the Report, and he believed they had suppressed it because it did not fit in with the Constitution they had given to the Transvaal. He asked the Under Secretary whether he would inform the House if the Committee did report in favour of responsible government's being given to the Transvaal on the lines on which it had been given. A the Ridgeway Committee was signed on 31st July, the very day on which the Transvaal Constitution was announced in Parliament. He thought some explanation was due to the House of so singular a circumstance. It suggested to the average mind that the Government had practically come to its conclusion as to what the Constitution of the Transvaal should be, independently of that Report. It was surely reasonable to suppose that the Ridgeway Committee discussed their Report among themselves and digested the evidence which they had gathered from day to day, and that they could not and did not come to their final conclusion as to what the exact form of the Report should be until they signed it. definite question as to the date on which the Report was signed was put by Lord Lansdowne in another place and no satisfactory reply had been given. He asked the Under-Secretary: Did the Government come to its conclusions concerning the Constitution to be given to the Transvaal practically independently in many particulars of the considered decision of the Ridgeway Committee? No one could doubt the right of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet to draft a Constitution absolutely independently of that Committee. But the Committee was paid for by the taxpayers of this country, and they went out, as the Prime Minister and others responsible for the Colonial Government had stated, to gather evidence, not for the people of the country, but for members of the Cabinet themselves. They had some right to protest against public money being spent in that way while the House was supplied with no evidence on which the action of the Government could be criticised. But rumours came to them in many forms; these things could not be kept entirely secret, and there was information from a good many quarters in South Africa that evidence was given which no reasonable being could suppose ought to be withheld from the House. The Government were going to give a Constitution to the Orange River Colony. There was a grave question in connection with the granting of that Constitution. The Ridgeway Committee went to Bloemfontein and took evidence SIR GILBERT PARKER (Gravesend) from representative Dutch and British said it was rumoured that the Report of settlers. Petitions were sent into the Mr. Ellis Davies. Ridgeway Committee by the settlers in of the Commission, which, however, had the Orange River Colony on the supposi- been subjected to one arbitration, and tion that they would be printed in the he did not know how many others it Report of the Ridgeway Committee and would be subjected to; but it seemed submitted to the House. They gave to him that all the evidence pointed to their evidence freely. They were afraid the fact that the Commission ought not of the future. They had been up to the to have been appointed at all, and that present time in a position of great security. the voice of Wales at the general election The Government had given almost ought to have been accepted as expressed patriarchal consideration to them, and through the solid phalanx of Members properly so. They were looking forward sent to the House of Commons from with great anxiety to their future position Wales. He was bound to say that when in the Orange River Colony under the new money was short, and when millions were Constitution. They took great trouble wanted to deal with social problems, the and went to considerable expense to give Government would have consulted the the necessary information to the Ridge: wishes of the people if they had devoted way Committee, hoping and believing the money being wasted on this Comthat the British public would have an mission to matters of social reform. opportunity of judging of the value of the Wales had made up its mind on the evidence they sent in. He submitted question of Disestablishment, no matter that the House ought to get the whole what the Report of this Commission might of the Report of the Ridgeway Committee, be. but if they could not get it, they ought to get those portions of it which referred to the question of land settlement in South Africa. He was not pressing the matter from the standpoint of Party politics. The Under-Secretary had given a good deal of information on land settlement, but not sufficient. The Government were going to base the new Constitution of the Orange River Colony on the Report of the Ridgeway Committee, but they were going to withhold that Report from the House and the people of the country. He held that they had a right to have the Report. He appealed to the Prime Minister to give them an opportunity of reading the whole Report, or, at any rate, the portion dealing with land settlement. Those *MR. COURTHOPE (Sussex, Rye) said he wanted to raise some points in regard to the South African Committeepoints which had not yet been raised in debate. The Committee consisted of three distinguished gentlemen who took evidence in South Africa and came back home. But before they reached this country rumours were circulated that the Committee were going to draw up a Report which would be against the known desires of His Majesty's Ministers. rumours became more prevalent after the arrival of the members of the Committee. There might be nothing in the rumours; he could not tell. Following upon those rumours, however, there was the refusal of His Majesty's Government to publish the Report of the Committee, MR. BRACE (Glamorganshire, S.) and the reason given was that it could not wished to associate himself with the be published until after the Constitution protest against the Vote of £1,400 for the to be given to the Transvaal had been expenses of the Welsh Disestablishment promulgated, and after the elections for Commission, because he felt that in ex- the Transvaal Parliament had taken pressing regret that the Commission place. The elections for the Transvaal had been appointed at all, he reflected Government had taken place, but the the opinion of the large mass of the Welsh country knew nothing about the Report people. Wales had sent to the House of the Committee except for the result of of Commons a solid body of Progressive these elections. On the previous night Members, and if a general election was the right hon. Gentleman the Prime to count for anything at all, it ought Minister had thrown a certain amount to count for the expression of Wales of light on what was assumed to be in favour of Welsh Disestablishment with- the labours of that Committee, judging out the necessity of a Royal Commission. from the result of the first elections He did not desire now to discuss the work to the Transvaal Parliament. He |