THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST | him, or anyone else, to determine now LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. what issue or issues would be before the ASQUITH, Fife, E.): An opportunity for electors at the next general election, the such a discussion as that to which my disabling pledge which he and others hon. friend alludes arises every year on gave applied only to the action of the the Motion to go into Committee on the existing Parliament and that at its exCivil Service Estimates. piration the Liberal Party would claim and possess a perfectly free hand to deal with the whole problem of Irish Government. MR. HAROLD COX: Is the policy of reduced expenditure to which the Liberal Party pledged itself at the last general election still part of the programme of the Liberal Party ? MR. ASQUITH: Certainly. Ministerial Salaries. MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether it is proposed to increase the salaries of the President of the Board of Trade and of the President of the Local Government Board; and, if so, whether this increase will be provided by a reduction of other Ministerial salaries or by increasing the burdens upon the taxpayer; and, in the latter alternative, when he proposes to ask the House to make the necessary grant. MR. ASQUITH: The whole question of the functions and status of these two offices is the subject of inquiry by a Com mittee of the Cabinet; and I am not at present able to say what proposals we shall be in a position to make to Parliament. Mr. Churchill's Home Rule Declarations. MR. JAMES CAMPBELL (Dublin University) I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether he has made any declaration, or authorised the President of the Board of Trade to make any declaration, to the Standing Committee of the United Irish League of Great Britain, to the effect that Home Rule, in the sense of the recent Resolution moved by the hon. and learned Member for the city of Waterford, would be put by the Government before the electors at the general election. MR. ASQUITH: The only declarations of the President of the Board of Trade on this subject of which I have any cognisance are his public utterances. What my right hon. friend stated in substance, and with my approval, was MR. JAMES CAMPBELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the recent election in North-West Manchester a statement under the signatures of two hon. Members of this house (the Members for Waterford and for the Scotland Division of Liverpool) was published in the Press to the specific effect of the statement contained in my Question ? MR. ASQUITH: I have seen a statement to that effect. I am not responsible in any way for any construction put upon my right hon. friend's words by others. My right hon. friend assures me that after the statement to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred was published he repeated these words; and they are the only statement for which either he or the Government is responsible; and I can only repeat what I have already said, that the statement I authorised, and which my right hon. friend made, was in the terms and sense which I have described in the House. MR. LEVERTON HARRIS (Tower Hamlets, Stepney): Was it a condition of the pledges given at North-West Manchester by the President of the Board of Trade that he should have the official support of the Irish Party in that fight! *MR. SPEAKER: How can the Prime Minister know that? MR. BYLES (Salford, N.): Is there any manner of doubt that Home Rule for Ireland is still a cardinal point in the prograinme of the Liberal Party? MR. ASQUITH: The opinion of the Liberal Party and of the Government on this subject was, I think, sufficiently and plainly expressed in the amended Resolution to which we agreed. MR. PIKE PEASE (Darlington): Can the right hon. Gentleman say anything in regard to Scotland ? Irish Universities Bill. MR. WILLIAM O'BRIEN (Cork): I beg to ask the Prime Minister, seeing the general favour with which the Irish Universities Bill has been received, whether an early day will be named for the Second Reading; and, if so, whether he can now fix the date. MR. ASQUITH: The Second Reading will be taken as soon as the state of business allows, and I hope before long; but I cannot at present fix the date. Licensing Bill. SIR HENRY KIMBER (Wandsworth): I beg to ask the Prime Minister what is intended by the Government to happen under the Licensing Bill, either during the fourteen years time-limit or at the end of that period, as regards hotels of which the following are examples, namely, a hotel built on ground held on lease at a ground rent of £1,600 a year and which £150,000 has been spent in building and equipment, such hotel having or not having a tap, and a hotel built on a freehold site, acquired and built expressly as a hotel, at a cost of, say, including equipment, £50,000, and which only supplies liquors to its internal guests, and having no tap. on MR. ASQUITH said that subsection 2 of Clause 3 would, in the absence of fresh legislation, apply to all licences existing at the end of the reduction period; but it was quite clear from the wording of the subsection that further legislation on this subject was contemplated as necessary. PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS. kind permission and generous indulgence *MR. GEORGE FABER (York): By the of the House it has become my unpleasant duty to have to make a personal explanation. In the course of last Thursday afternoon I made a speech on the Second Reading of the Licensing Bill. In a part of that speech I made some remarks Blackburn Brewery, and in pursuing its unfortunately somewhat decadent fortunes I had occasion to refer at the conclusion of my remarks in these terms to the right hon. Gentleman the Patronage I asked-and Secretary. reports me correctly— The Times upon Dutton's "Who was the fortunate vendor? His name was Mr. George Whiteley, M.P." Patronage Secretary, but that, considering I went on to say that I did not blame the the high canons of morality which had been set up by the Prime Minister and by other prominent speakers on the Radical side. of the House with regard to brewery MR. ASQUITH: It is quite impossible companies, the right hon. Member might to answer an abstract question such as find it a somewhat difficult task when this, or even to say what will happen in a Monday evening came to drive the imconcrete case during or after the next maculate Radical sheep into the Radical fourteen years. But it may be pointed fold. The right hon. Gentleman was out that hotels, to which the holding of a not present when I made these observalicence is merely auxiliary, such as, tions. I regret that I did not give him perhaps, the hon. Member has in mind, notice. If he had been present I believe are to be given special consideration both that neither in manner nor in matter in regard to the reduction scheme (see would he have taken umbrage at anything First Schedule, Modification No. 2) and I said. The right hon. Gentleman saw in regard to prohibition (see Clause 2 (6)). me personally, later, and wrote to me MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS (Kent, St. Augustine's): Does the Prime Minister intend at the close of the Second Reading debate to move to refer the Licensing Bill to a Committee of the Whole House? MR. ASQUITH: Yes, Sir. LORD R. CECIL (Marylebone, E.): Is it intended that the provisions of subsection 2 of Clause 3 shall apply to all licences existing at the end of the reduction period? I need not disclose the details either of reply; and, therefore, this alternative presents itself to me, that either the right hon. Gentleman should make his speech, and I should be forced to remain silent, or that I should make the first statement. I say now deliberately in the face of the House that what I said in the House is in fact substantially the case, and that I cannot in any way withdraw from the position I took up, and if the House will grant me its kind indulgence I will explain why. *MR. SPEAKER: I understood the right hon. Gentleman was rising to make an explanation. It appears that he has only risen to repeat what he said. If he is prepared to withdraw anything from the statement which he made on the previous occasion, I am sure the House would listen; but if he is not prepared to do so, he has no status whatever. *MR. GEORGE FABER: The moment you rise and tell me that, Sir, I have done. [An HON. MEMBER: What did you begin for?] I showed no illfeeling towards the right hon. Gentleman. I say again in face of the House that I adhere to what I said. *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has really taken a course he had no business to have taken. I may say he entirely misled me. I understood that he was prepared to make some explanation as to how he fell into error, if there was an error. If he is not prepared to admit that there was any error, I am afraid the House will not give him any further opportunity. THE PATRONAGE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. GEORGE WHITELEY, Yorkshire, W.R., Pudsey): With the permission of the House, I desire to make a personal explanation; and I regret that my hon. friend has not seen fit to withdraw from the position he took up, because I have given to him as fully as I possibly could all the details of the matter; and the hon. Member knows exactly what I am going to tell the House. He came down here on Thursday in my absence, and without the courtesy of giving me notice that he was going to attack me he made a distinct and categorical statement to the House. He described the position of a brewery in Blackburn that had been floated first for £500,000 and re-floated for £750,000, and said that the profits of the re-flotation went into the pockets of the vendor. He said "No doubt hon. Members opposite were burning to know who was the fortunate vendor. His name was Mr. George Whiteley, M.P. He did not blame the Patronage Secretary; but how was he going to answer to the high canon of morality that had been set up on the other side of the House? What answer could he make to the Prime Minister, who was so strong against inflated breweries? And then he continued with a rhetorical display which had nothing about it to commend it except the fact that it was destitute of one element of truth. I was not the vendor of that brewery; I never owned or possessed that brewery; and I had no hand whatever in the reflotation of that brewery to the public. And, singular to say, the hon. Member had in his hand when he made that statement--because he showed it to me within an hour and a half afterwards-a prospectus in which it is distinctly said that another gentleman of the name of Mr. John Fraser, acting on behalf of a London syndicate, was the vendor of that brewery. The hon. Member shakes his head. I have not seen that prospectus for eleven years, except in the hands of the hon. Member. I am prepared to pay £1,000 to any charity the hon. Member is willing to name provided I am wrong. On the other hand, if he is wrong, I ask him to do the same. I leave the whole question in the hands of the right hon. Member for Dublin University, who has got the prospectus in his hand. SIR E. CARSON (Dublin University): When can I have the stakes? MR. GEORGE WHITELEY: A leading Tory paper in Yorkshire with which the hon. Member for York was indirectly connected made a similar statement a few years ago, and was communicated with by my solicitors, and withdrew and apologised. I do not know whether the House will bear with me for two minutes while I give the history of the re-flotation of the brewery, which will be found to be absolutely justifiable. The brewery was part of the estate of a gentleman who died in Blackburn towards the end of 1896. Four trustees were appointed, of whom I was one. For convenience sake and for the benefit of the estate the trustees immediately converted that (Chairmen's Panel). 1674 MR. GEORGE WHITELEY: There, again, the hon. Member is discovering a new mare's nest, which he is wonderfully clever in unearthing. The ordinary shares have been obliterated. The hon. Member did not tell the House the circumstances of that wiping out of the ordinary shares. He did not tell the House that two people who were interested in that brewery and had preference shares voluntarily surrendered a certain number of preference shares, which were given in exchange for the ordinary shares, and so the preference shareholders wiped them out. *MR. GEORGE FABER: For how much? MR. GEORGE WHITELEY: It does not matter how much. It was sufficient, in the minds of the ordinary shareholders to make them accept the exchange. The trustees did their duty to the state; and if the whole transaction were to be done over again they would act in exactly the 1673 Selection (Standing Committees) { MAY 1908} same way. COSTS IN CRIMINAL CASES BILL. Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee C. Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 134.] Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 134.] Bill, as amended (by the Standing Committee), to be taken into considera tion upon Thursday next, and to be printed. [Bill 208.] MUNICIPAL REPRESENTATION BILL [LORDS]. Read the first time; to be read a able figure by the capitalists I have second time upon Wednesday, and to be mentioned; and at the present moment, printed. [Pill 209.] even after the great "slump" in brewing profits after that great reduction-that concern in Blackburn is now making a profit which would pay a full rate of interest on the sum of money the trustees received from the purchasing syndicate. *MR. GEORGE FABER: What is it paying on the ordinary shares? SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES) (CHAIRMEN'S PANEL). Mr. STUART-WORTLEY reported from the Chairmen's Panel; That they had discharged Mr. Stuart-Wortley from being Chairman of Standing Committee A, and had appointed Sir Francis Channing to act as Chairman of Standing Committee A in his place. Mr. STUART - WORTLEY further reported; That they had discharged Mr. Eugene Wason from being Chairman of the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills, and had appointed Sir William Holland to act as Chairman of the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills in his place. Reports to lie upon the Table. NEW BILL. WORKMEN'S EVICTION (TRADE "To prevent the Eviction of Workmen in certain cases of trade disputes," presented by Mr. Walsh; supported by Mr. Enoch Edwards, Mr. Glover, Mr. Wads worth, Dr. Pollard, Mr. John Ward, Mr. Thorne, Mr. Arthur Henderson, Mr. James Haslam, Mr. Clynes, Mr. William Abraham (Rhondda), and Mr. Albert Stanley; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, 20th May, and to be printed. [Bill 210.] PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE. Ordered, "That Mr. Runciman be discharged from the Public Accounts Committee." Ordered, "That Mr. Hobhouse be added to the Committee."-(Mr. Whiteley.) BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (LICENSING BILL). Ordered, "That the Proceedings on the Licensing Bill, if under discussion at Eleven o'clock this night, be not interrupted under the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."-(Mr. Asquith.) LICENSING BILL. Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Amendment to Question [28th April], "That the Bill be now read a second time." Which Amendment was "To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'This House declines to proceed further with a measure which, while failing to promote the cause of temperance, violates the principles of equity.'-(Mr. Cave)—instead thereof." Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question." MR. CHAPLIN (Surrey, Wimbledon), resuming his speech, said: There are three points with regard to the general complexion of the Bill to which I still desire to devote some observations. The first of them is this: According to my mind it is really a misnomer to call this a temperance Bill at all. It is in reality a Finance Bill. Personally I feel obliged to describe it, as regards some of its clauses at all events— which I hope, however, will be largely modified in the future-as a great measure of what seems to me a financial blunder, which should never be introduced in our time or by any Government. I believe the Bill is fraught with injury and wrong to the great interest with which it proposes to deal, and in my judg ment the injury inflicted is by no means limited to that. I do not wish to exaggerate, and I do not think I shall do so if I say that one, and by no means the least, of the injuries inflicted by this Bill is that it has given something in the nature of a shock to public confidence. You have have frightened frightened and alarmed every other interest in the country, and, in my opinion, that is perhaps one of the most mischievous and most dangerous contingencies that appertain to the Government of this country. Nobody now, no matter who or what he is, whatever his work, calling, business, profession, or property, knows whether he may not be disturbed tomorrow. It is now the turn of the brewers; to morrow it may be that of the bankers or anybody else, and it is because that is the situation to-day that I have described this Bill as having given a shock to public confidence. The worst of it is this, that although the Bill may be destroyed, and I trust most earnestly will be, yet unhappily the shock to public confidence will remain. It seems to me that the Government are inconsistent in their policy. It is said that this is a great measure to diminish drunkenness and promote the cause |