MR. ACLAND: I am not yet able to give my hon. friend any information beyond that which has already been given to the House to the effect that the negotiations with the Board of Agriculture are proceeding satisfactorily.

EARL WINTERTON (Sussex, Horham): Was the account of the proposed scheme which appeared in the Press official or was it a leakage?

MR. ACLAND: I am afraid I must ask for notice.

Army Estimates.

MR. HAROLD COX (Preston): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the figure quoted by him on the first page of his Memorandum accompany ing the Army Estimates for the total of the Army Estimates for the year 1905-6, namely, £29,813,000, represents the Estimates as now arranged; and, if so, what is the meaning of the statement made on page 3 of the Army Estimates that this figure represents the Estimates as arranged in former years; and whether he wishes the Members of this House to take this figure or the figure £28,478,863 given in the Army Estimates as the true basis of comparison with his

Estimates for the current year.

MR. ACLAND: The figures £29,813,000 represent the total Estimates for the year 1905-6, and these total figures are not affected by the rearrangement of Army Votes. The figures £28,478,863 represent the total sum actually expended for the year 1905-6.

MR. HAROLD COX: Which figures compare with the Estimates for the present year?

MR. ACLAND: You must take the first figure; the second represents the expenditure and not an Estimate at all.

The Amir of Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Agreement. MR. SMEATON (Stirlingshire): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Amir of Afghanistan has yet signified his assent to the Afghan articles of the Anglo-Russian Agreement.

THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. CHARLES HOBHOUSE, Bristol, E.): Perhaps I may be allowed to answer this Question in the absence of the Under-Secretary. The Answer is in the negative.

Mohmand Rising.

MR. SMEATON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Amir of Afghanistan has made any effort to prevent the influential Mulla Hazrat Sahib, supported by bodies of Afghan subjects, from joining in the Mohmand rising.

MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: My hon. friend is informed that the Amir has taken action to prevent his subjects from joining in the rising and that it is producing the desired result.

Railway Surveys and Indian Frontier

Troubles.

MR. SMEATON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether one Mohmands is the projected railway across important cause of the rising of the the old frontier up to the Afghan border whether, in spite of the opposition of the tribes, and also of the Amir, to this railway, it is intended still to continue making the line; and whether, seeing that the Amir clearly indicated to the late Viceroy his dislike of so-called peaceful penetration by railway, he will consider the advisability of abandoning this project, which can at the best be of little use and must always be a cause of irritation.

MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: There is no reason to suppose that the railway surveys recently carried out in British territory on the right bank of the Kabul River, outside the limits of the country inhabited by the Mohmands, have been a cause of the tribal rising. As regards the present position of the railway project and

the attitude of the tribes and the Amir towards it, I would refer my hon. friend to the full statement on the subject made on 6th February last in reply to a Question from my right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean.

*SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean): Is it not the case that in that reply it was admitted that the

*THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL, Yorkshire, Cleveland): My hon. friend will be aware that the subject of death certification was fully dealt with by a Select Committee of the House of Commons, which reported in 1893, and that the proposals to which he refers are substantially covered by that Committee's recommendations. The Secretary of State has under consideration, as I announced on the Second Reading of the Coroners' Inquests Bill, the question of appointing a Departmental Committee to inquire into certain points relating to coroners' inquests, and so far as the proposed reforms affect coroners, they would come within its scope, and form part of its investigation.

*SIR W. J. COLLINS: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Report of the Select Committee to which he refers has

not achieved any legislative result up to the present time?

*MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: I am aware of that, and I think it very desirable that the Departmental Committee, so far as the terms of reference allow, should review the question.

Children Bill and Crêches.

SIR W. J. COLLINS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will be prepared to consider the introduction of a new clause into the Children Bill to enable local authorities to establish and maintain crêches, or day nurseries, where children of parents engaged on work away from home may be received and cared for during the daytime at reasonable charges.

MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: The subject comes within the purview of the Local Government Board rather than of the Home Office, and the Secretary of the Children Bill. State cannot undertake to deal with it in

Intemperance on Election Days.

MR. BOTTOMLEY (Hackney, S.); I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state the number of persons arrested for drunkenness in Hastings, Dewsbury, and NorthWest Manchester on the polling days at the recent by-elections.

MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: My right hon. friend has not got the information, but he is making inquiries.

MR. BOTTOMSEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to send him the information?

Lunacy through Religious Excitement. MR. BOTTOMLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can state the number of persons at present confined in public lunatic asylums whose insanity is classified as due to religious excitement.

MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: The Secretary of State is unable to say how many persons are at present confined in public lunatic asylums whose insanity is classified as due to religious excitement, but the yearly average number of patients admitted into county and county and borough

asylums, registered hospitals, naval and military hospitals, state asylums, and licensed houses in England and Wales during the five years 1902 to 1906 whose insanity was stated to be due to this cause was 137 males and 197 females, making a total of 334.

Metropolitan Police Commission. LORD R. CECIL (Marylebone, E.): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the Report of the Metropolitan Police Commission may be expected.

MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: The Commission inform the Secretary of State that their Report will probably be ready for submission to the King in about a month's time.

Minimum Punishments.

MR. HORNIMAN (Chelsea): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has considered, or will consider, the question of fixing a minimum, as well as a maximum, penalty for indecent assault and kindred offences committed against children and young persons, in view of the fact that at the present time prisoners can be, and sometimes are, awarded no punishment, but simply bound over in relatively small sums to come up for judgment if called

upon.

the inroads of the sea is no longer one for the local landowner; whether he is aware that at the present time at spring tides, the high road is flooded to a considerable depth, and that the village of Kilnsea and the Government lighthouse at the Spurn are isolated, and that if the sea makes a breach through the Humber bank these places will be completely isolated and probably eventually destroyed: and whether, under these circumstances, he can now see his way to Humber and the Spurn from these defending the navigable channel of the dangers.

THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRE TARY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. KEARLEY, Devonport): As I have already informed the hon. Member, the protection of the lowlands at Easington and Kilnsea is a duty primarily devolving upon the owners of the lands liable to be flooded, and the local Commissioners of Sewers, and the Board of Trade will be prepared to give careful consideration to any proposals they may make. I understand that by reason of the sea banks not having been repaired the sea flows over these low lying lands at spring tides, and the road to Kilnsea and the Spurn is at such times subject to flooding, but I am advised that the formation of a channel through the neck of land in question is somewhat improbable. It is proposed, however, to obtain a further report as to whether any additional steps are necessary for the protection of the Spurn. The Royal Commission on Coast Erosion, of which the hon. Member is a member, have, I under stand, visited the locality and investigated the question, but have made no interim report or recommendation.

MR. STANLEY WILSON: Will the hon. Gentleman lay on the Table of the House a copy of the report laid before the Board of Trade by Sir William Matthew and Captain Fredericks?

MR. KEARLEY: I think it has already been before the Royal Commission. I will consider the point.

MR. STANLEY WILSON: When is this further inquiry to take place ?

Shrewsbury Railway Accident. MR. SMEATON : I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether in view of the Report by Colonel Yorke on the cause of the fatal accident at Shrewsbury on the 14th October last, to the effect that Martin, the engine-driver, must have been overcome by sleep while the train was passing Crewe bank at a high speed, and therefore failed to see the signal and apply the brake in time, that Martin had been out of bed the whole of the previous night and most of the preceding four nights, with the exception of the 12th, he intends to take steps to prevent such overworking of engine-drivers, and what these steps

are.

MR. CHIOZZA MONEY (Paddington N.): At the same time may I ask the Secretary to the Board of Trade whether his attention has been directed to the fact that the official Report upon the recent Shrewsbury railway disaster attributes the accident to the deceased driver falling asleep on the footplate through overwork and lack of proper and regular rest; if he can state what representations have been made to the railway company concerned; and what steps the Board of Trade purpose to take in order to protect the travelling public from similar disasters.

MR. KEARLEY: The point to which Colonel Yorke drew attention was the frequency with which Driver Martin had been put on night duty, and he suggested that it would seem to be a wise precaution to prevent the driver of an express train being out of bed for two nights in succession, or, at any rate, to limit the number of such nights in any one week. The Board of Trade are in communication with the London and North-Western Railway Company regarding this and the other recommendations contained in the Report, and I need hardly say that the matter will receive careful and persistent attention.

MR. SMEATON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that men of experience have declared it is not uncommon for enginedrivers, owing to strain of working at nights, to dose and even fall asleep on their engines?

MR. TOMKINSON (Crewe): Has the attention of the hon. Gentleman been called to a large meeting of enginedrivers and firemen at Crewe the week before last at which the idea of an enginedriver going to sleep on an engine, and particularly one travelling fifty or sixty miles an hour, was condemned as absolutely impossible, and at the same time was it not the decision of the men that the failure of the brakes was most probably the cause of the accident?

MR. KEARLEY: I have seen a report of the meeting.

MR. SMEATON: Was it not discovered that the brakes were in perfect order?

MR. KEARLEY: I think the whole ground is covered by the Report.

Imports of Dairy Produce from Holland.

MR. JESSE COLLINGS (Birmingham, Bordesley): I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if he can state, looking at the prevalence of foot and mouth disease in Holland, what steps, if any, are taken to prevent the produce of the infected farms of that country from being imported into England in the form of milk, butter, or cheese.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS, Battersea): I am advised that the available information does not show that there is any material risk of foot and mouth disease from the importation of dairy produce from Holland. Hence it does not seem to me necessary to take any special action in the matter at the present time, but I will not lose sight of it.

Imported Milk.

MR. JESSE COLLINGS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, if he has seen the statement made at the meeting of the council of the British Dairy Farmers' Association to the effect that 578 cwts. (6,473 gallons) of fresh milk were imported into the United Kingdom during the nine weeks ending 1st February, compared with only 15 cwts. (168 gallons), during the corresponding period of last year; and, if the

steps are being taken to examine the