extracted a satisfactory explanation from Minister would undertake that full opporthe Government. tunity would be afforded of discussing the naval policy on Vote A and Vote 1 The hon. Member having resumed his he would advise his hon. friends not to seat, divide against the Motion. MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON rose in his place and cl imed to move, “That the Question be now put," but *MR. SPEAKER pointed out that there were still a few minutes left, and he had no doubt the House would be ready to agree to the Motion to go into Committee before a quarter past eight. *MR. COURTHOPE (Sussex, Rye) said he did not want to detain the House for more than a moment, but he could not help thinking the Prime Minister would be one of the first to regret that he had not seen his way to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for King's Lynn. His refusal to do so would inevitably be misunderstood. Taken together with his recent article in The Nation and his utterances during that debate, his refusal must be misunderstood in the country. Only that night, when the Leader of the Opposition asked if he upheld the two-Power standard-he had made a note of it at the time-the Prime Minister said, "Yes, as a rule." SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Certainly. leave the Chair," put, and agreed to. Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now SUPPLY. (In the Committee.) [Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham), in the Chair.] NAVY ESTIMATES, 1907-8. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That 128,000 officers, seamen, and boys be employed for the Sea and Coast Guard Services for the year ending on the 31st day of March 1908, including 18,595 Royal Marines." *MR. COURTHOPE said there were one or two points which he would like to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty. One was As far as about the saving of £450,000. he could make out, the decrease, small as it was, was only created by leaving over SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: some £438,000 for the Works Depart 1 said "as a rule of action." more. *MR. COURTHOPE was glad to hear that the qualification was now further qualified. [Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No, no." He quite appreciated the right hon. Gentleman's contention. He had misunderstood him, and he was sure if he had misunderstood hearing, those who read his speech would misunderstand still On another point the right hon. Gentleman had asked incredulously were to maintain the standard were in close alliance with other Powers. That must inevitably be misunderstood, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would take some opportunity of removing the risk of misunderstanding which would inevitably occur in the country if nothing more definite was said. if we when we SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD (Somersetshire, Wellington) said that if the Prime Mr. Samuel Roberts. ment upon the Estimates of next year, and the real decrease was only £12,000. He might have misread the Memorandum, but that was the meaning of it to his mind, and he hoped that an explanation would be given of what that £438,000 carried over meant. In the Memorandum about the education of naval cadets there was an appeal to county and other public authorities. Surely, as the late Civil Lord of the Admiralty had stated, if it was the policy of the Government to make the education cheap it should be done by them, and not by issuing appeals of this kind to public authorities, who already had quite enough on their hands. There was a further point he wished to ask about torpedo craft in home waters. And, it being a quarter past Eight of the clock, further proceeding was postponed without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 4. ARMAGH URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL The Armagh Urban Council asked for Order for Second Reading read. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time." special powers in this respect in a Bill which was primarily introduced for another purpose altogether. He contended that they ought not to be granted this exceptional authority unless they satis led Parliament that they could be safely trusted to exercise the power MR. LONSDALE (Armagh, Mid.) in fairly as regarded every part of the commoving the rejection of the Bill, said he munity. It was a fact that he thought was taking that course at the request of it his duty to mention that in the district a large number of his constituents which would be affected by the milk who believed that their interests as provisions, a strong feeling existed that traders and ratepayers would be seriously the Armagh Urban Council could not be prejudiced if the proposals contained relied upon to apply the powers in this measure received the sanction of impartially and with a single eye Parliament. The Bill was promoted to the public good. He did not, howby the Armagh Urban District Council, ever, base the case for the rejection and it contained three separate proposals. In the first place, it proposed to empower the urban council to acquire compulsorily the market rates of the city, which were now in the hands of a body of trustees; in the second place, it contained a provision enabling the council to exercise greater control over the supply of milk to the inhabitants; and in the third place, it proposed to relieve the council from an obligation to pay a sum of £150 a year towards the maintenance of main roads running out from the city into the surrounding rural districts. The main purpose of the Bill was contained in the first of those proposals. In comparison with that, the other matters were of less importance, but they were objected to on various grounds, and their presence in the Bill did not weaken the case for the total rejection of the measure. On the face of it, perhaps, hon. Members might be disposed to regard with sympathy provisions to enable the local authority, responsible for the health of the district, to exercise more effective control over the milk supply. Purity of milk and its freedom from contamination was a matter of great importance in relation to public health, but however desirable it might be to endow the local authority with adequate powers to safeguard the public in that particular, he submitted that any extension of authority which might be necessary should be granted only after careful inquiry, and be made applicable by general enactment to all public bodies who were responsible for the administration of the laws relating to public health. of the Bill upon the milk provisions or upon the third of the proposals in the Bill. The question of the road contribution was somewhat complicated, and he did. not propose to detain the House by attempting to explain it. It was a comparatively small matter, but he thought he ought to mention that the Armagh Rural District Council, who had been credited with the £150 paid annually by the urban council, naturally very much resented the attempt of the urban council to get rid of the obligation. Had it been competent for the rural council to oppose the Bill, they would certainly have petitioned to be heard. against it in Committee. They were, however, able to act only through the County Council of Armagh, and, although the majority of that body were in favour of opposing the Bill, the resolution authorising opposition was not carried by a sufficient number of votes to satisfy the statutory requirements. It appeared that the Local Government Board decided that the cost of opposing the Bill could not be levied upon the area of the rural district, but must be spread over the entire county, and members of the county council representing outside districts were reluctant to vote for incurring the expense in a matter in which their constituents were not directly interested. It was not necessary for his purpose that he should offer any opinion upon the reasonableness, or otherwise, of that particular proposal of the urban council. It was only due to the rural council, however, that he should point out that they considered they would be unjustly treated if the urban council were authorised to discontinue this payment of £150 a year. Now he came to what was, after all, the main purpose of the Bill, and that was the proposal to empower the urban council to acquire compulsorily the tolls and market rights of the city. He did not wish to detain the House at undue length, but in order that hon. Members might obtain a clear idea of the question at issue, it was necessary for him to explain the present position of affairs in relation to the tolls. The market rights of the city were formerly the property of the Archbishop of Armagh, who leased them to private individuals. The markets were conducted in that way during the 17th and 18th centuries and down to the year 1821. In that year there was a movement in Armagh for the improvement of the marke, and a trust was formed by a number of the principal inhabitants for the purpose of acquiring the tolls, and managing the markets in the general interest of the city. The terms of that trust had been faithfully carried out. Since the year 1825 the tolls committee, who were entrusted with the conduct of the markets, had expended nearly £6,000 on improvements in the city. Among other works they had provided funds for building a new post office; they had also expended upwards of £4,000 in extending and improving the market accommodation. As regarded the management of markets by the tolls committee, there had been, so far as he was aware, no complaint whatever. On the contrary, the farmers who brought their produce into the markets to sell, and those who attended them for the purpose of buying, had been, and were at the present time, perfectly satisfied with the management of the tolls committee. Why then did the majority of the urban council wish to disturb the existing arrangements which had worked so well during all these years? So far as he could gather, the only ground on which they came to Parliament for these powers was the general principle that markets ought to be under municipal control. He had no doubt that many hon. Members would approve that principle. He submitted, however, that Armagh was a case where an exception Mr. Lonsdale. the was justified. He looked upon matter entirely from the point of view of one who desired to promote the best interests of the city, which was in the Parliamentary division that he represented. He was intimately acquainted with all the local conditions, and he said without any hesitation that the result of transferring the control of the markets from the tolls committee to the present urban council would be to diminish commercial prosperity in the city and inflict serious loss upon the ratepayers. It seemed to him that the first requisite for the successful management of markets was that they should be conducted by experienced and capable men of business. The tolls committee, who now conducted the markets, comprised the largest buyers in the markets, and the principal merchants in the city. Their services were given entirely voluntarily, but having a substantial stake in the commercial prosperity of the city they were naturally interested in promoting the success of the markets in every possible way. The fact could not be denied that the markets had been conducted by them for the benefit of the whole community. Upon the other hand, the majority of the urban council had little or no interest in the markets-a few members of that body were business men, but they were in a hopeless minority, and, under the political conditions which ruled in Armagh, they would be allowed no voice whatever in the control of the markets if the council were to acquire them. The House would obtain some idea of the relative standard of the members of the tolls committee and the majority of the urban council if he gave some particulars of the valuation of their property for rating purposes. He found that the valuation of the members of the olls committee amounted in the aggregate to £500, or an average of £62. On the other hand, the valuation of the majority of the urban council totalled only £178, or an average of £15. One of the members of the urban council had no rating in the city at all, and four out of the twelve were rated upon a valuation of less than £8. It must be evident from the most cursory examination of those figures that the qualifications of the present tolls committee for powers and the removal of the restrictions placed upon the borrowing powers of the council by the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878. At the present time those borrowing powers had been exercised nearly to their full extent, and he submitted that managing the markets were infinitely serious attention of the House. The superior to those of the members of the urban council were asking for an unurban council who were anxious to limited extension of their borrowing assume control of the undertaking. It was a fact which ought to have great weight with the House that the Bill was not approved by a majority of the inhabitants of Armagh. It had been promoted by a majority only of the urban council, and the minority of that body who opposed were themselves substan- the circumstances of the city as well as tial and capable men, who were sup- the character of the majority of the ported in their opposition by at least urban council made it very undesirone-half of the population who paid quite three-fourths of the entire rates of the city. He did not ask the House to accept his unsupported assertion of that fact. Last year when a similar Bill was promoted, a plébiscite of the electors was taken, with the result that a clear majority of the electors disapproved of the proposals of the urban council. The number who voted against the Bill was 622, and only 550 supported it. That result was obtained after a record poll, 1,172 votes being cast out of 1,230 on the register. In spite of that emphatic verdict the urban council had chosen to promote this Bill in defiance of the express wishes of more than one-half the people of the city, including all the principal inhabitants. He asked the House to consider whether, upon any ground of urgent public necessity, they would be justified in forcing this Bill upon the city, in the face of such an emphatic expression of opinion that it was not wanted. The proposal came from a majority of the council who did not represent the wishes of a majority of the ratepayers. If that were disputed he pointed to the plébiscite of last year. But in addition to that, he ventured to suggest that it would be reasonable to submit the Bill as a definite issue to the electors before it was further proceeded with. An opportunity for obtaining the opinion of the ratepayer upon the scheme would occur in January next, when the triennial election of the urban council would take MR. T. L. CORBETT (Down. N.), in place. There was no urgency about the seconding the Amendment, said the proposal, and he felt sure Parliament case for the rejection of the Bill would like to be assured that the council had been so clearly, eloquently, and, in putting forward the scheme really he thought, impartially,. presented by had a majority of the ratepayers at their the hon. Member for Mid. Armagh back. There was another proposal in that it must have convinced nearly every the Bill to which he would invite the Member. Even on the usually impassive able that unlimited power of increasing the local indebtedness should be granted by Parliament. The restrictions embodied in the Public Health Act of Ireland were enacted by Parliament with the express object of preventing local authorities from borrowing more than double the rateable value of their respective districts. That was undoubtedly a wise provision intended for the protection of the ratepayers, and it ought not to be abrogated unless the strongest possible reasons could be advanced. In this case the effect of transferring the markets to the urban council would certainly be a considerable increase in the local rates. There existed the most urgent grounds for refusing the unlimited borrowing powers which were asked for. As the Member for the division in which the city of Armagh was situated, he opposed the Bill on its merits. If it were sent to Committee a great deal of expense would be incurred in opposing it and also in defending it, the cost of which would rest very heavily on the ratepayers of Armagh. In no circumstances could the acquisition of the markets by the present urban council result in any advantage to the city, and it was because he was convinced that it was for the best interests of the inhabitants that the control of the markets should remain in the hands of the present tolls committee that he moved the rejection of the Bill. features of the Attorney-General there in the matter. On such occasions was a kind of assent given to the argu- they generaly had a statement from a ments of his hon. friend as he proceeded. responsible Minister as to what the He himself had been associated with the action of the Irish Government was London County Council for nine years, and going to be, but the Attorney-General he would be one of the very last to offer remained silent as if in pursuance of a any opposition to anything advocated compact with hon. Members below the by a local body, which was usually the gangway; best exponent of local wants, unless there were very exceptional circumstances. But, as the hon. Member for Mid. Armagh had assured the House, there were very exceptional circumstances in this case. There was a conflict as to these markets and tolls. A very sensible thing had been done. A plébiscite of the people was taken, and the result showed a majority against the council. Therefore it was a fair thing to say, after such a vote had been taken, after such a challenge had been given by the council and answered as it had been by the ratepayers, that it would be wise and reasonable to wait for the next election and get a second verdict, though he would have thought the council ought to have accepted the first verdict of the ratepayers instead of trying to flout the will of the people, as they were proposing to do. Here they had a moribund council defying the known will of the people, and he thought he could appeal with confidence to the instincts of hon. Members on the other side, who were always talking about the will of the people, to defend the expressed will of the people against a council which was endeavouring to defeat the people's wishes. He had, therefore, great pleasure in seconding the Amendment. or was it an understood thing that the Bill was to be voted through without discussion, without a word from the Members who objected to it, because they had come to an arrangement with the Irish Local Government Board which up to now had been supposed to be an independent Department. In future one would be led to consider that Department under the present Government as controlled by the wishes of hon. Members below the gangway. He really thought the House ought to have some idea as to the position of this supposed impartial authority, but the Attorney-General sat as if he had no intention of taking the House into his confidence. He had noticed that when unanswerable cases were brought forward from the quarter of the House in which he sat the Government acted with great discretion. They did not attempt to reply, but simply voted them down. Here was a case where the majority of the people of Armagh wanted one thing and the urban council as a dying effort were trying to do another by running a Bill through with the aid of the Government majority and of Members below the gangway. The hon. Member for Newry had his arrangement with the Government, and therefore he did not trouble to get up to speak when he had the chance. He had known other Bills under which local bodies wanted power, notably in the case of Rathmines, and the House was well aware what the hon. Member for Newry said in regard to that particular Bill. On that occasion he said that he would not be a party to a Bill which proposed to confer on one set of people MR. MOORE (Armagh, N.) said he powers and privileges to the detriment would have thought that on a question of another set of people. The trustees of on which depended the well-being of the Armagh tolls had carried on their the majority of the ratepayers of Armagh, work without fee or reward for the last they might at least have had the spectacle fifty years, but the work was now to be of a Minister representing the Irish taken from them by means of a silent Local Government Board getting up compact with the Government. The and having the courage to tell them Attorney-General for Ireland did not what the Board were going to do dare to get up and say a word in Mr. T. L. Corbett. Amendment proposed To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words upon this day six months."-(Mr. Lonsdale.) Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question." |