country and Spain continue to be of a shall proceed with Votes A and I-that cordial and friendly character. is, the Votes for men and pay. It is difficult to make any forecast, because I do not know what progress will be made with those Votes on Tuesday; but, as far as I can say, the main business next week will be the continuation of Supply. appears MR. A. J. BALFOUR: There to be no truth in the rumour that the Spanish Government are mobilising their forces, though I believe they are adding to the strength of some of their garrisons. I am glad to say that the relations between this country and Spain are, and are likely to remain, of the most friendly character. Chinese Labour in the United Kingdom. MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury has any reference been made in the negotiations between His Majesty's Government and the Chinese Government concerning the introduction of Chinese labour into South Africa, to the possibility of Chinese labour being imported into the United Kingdom; and will His Majesty's Government under take not to entertain any such measure without previously consulting Parliament and taking its views on the effect such a measure would have in introducing competition with British labour. MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman seems to be under the impression that there is some legislative restriction in this country upon the importation of Chinese labour. That is not the case, and when it is necessary to impose such a restriction, I need hardly say that this House, which is an essential part of the Legislature, will have to be consulted before such a law is passed. NEW BILLS. FALSE STATEMENTS (COMPANIES) BILL. "To amend the Law relating to False Statements with respect to the financial position of companies or other bodies," presented by Mr. Attorney-General; supported by Mr. Solicitor-General, The Lord Advocate, and Mr. Mr. AttorneyGeneral for Ireland; to be read a second time upon Monday, 7th March, and to be printed. [Bill 96.] FOREIGN MARRIAGES BILL. To amend the Law with respect to Marriages between British Subjects and Foreigners," presented by Mr. Macdona; supported by Mr. Talbot, Mr. Rothschild, Sir Joseph Dimsdale, Mr. Winston Churchill, Lord Hugh Cecil, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, Mr. Samuel Evans, Dr. Farquharson, Mr. Stuart Samuel, Mr. Heywood Johnstone, and Lord Edmund Talbot; to be read a second time upon Friday, 4th March, and to be printed. [Bill 97.] BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE. SUPPLY. Considered in Committee. (In the Committee.) [Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.] SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs): May I be allowed to repeat the expression of our pleasure at seeing the Prime Minister again? Now he will resume his familiar function of telling us what the business for next week ARMY (SUPPLEMENTARY) ESTIMATES, will be. MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his references to me. On Monday we shall hope to get the Speaker out of the Chair on 1903-4. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £2,700,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the 1904, for Additional Expenditure, in resspect of the following Army Services, £ 2,000,000 2,100,000 Total £6,130,000 3,430,000 in full discharge of all liabilities which would have fallen cn the Government. And later on he added that the £1,000,000 was offered by the Government as a cash payment in discharge of all liabilities and it was accepted as such by Lord Milner, so that no further claim could be made on us. Now they were told that this was a new claim made by the 2,030,000 South African Constabulary in respect of their military services, which entitled. them to gratuities in the same way as ordinary troops. He held, however, that there was a clear and distinct pledge that under no circumstances should any further claim be made on this country in respect of the South African Constabulary. The £1.000,000 already paid was intended to cover everything, and it was even arranged that if there was a surplus it should not be returned to the Imperial Exchequer. If the the South South African Constabulary were entitled to the gratuity-and he did not deny that-it ought clearly to be paid out of the money voted by Parliament a year ago, and under these circumstances he moved the reduction of the Vote by £1,000. £2,700,000 MR. WHITLEY (Halifax) said he wished to draw attention to the item relating to gratuities to troops for active service £100,000. He found on reference to the original Estimate that the sum asked for on that ground was only £3,000, and he was bound to point out what a remarkable increase this Supplementary Estimate showed. Indeed, the Estimate throughout was extraordinary. The first line disclosed an increase of 15,000 per cent. on the original demand; the second an increase of 1,500 per cent. and the present item one of 3,000 per cent. The Secretary for War on the preceding Monday told them this sum was required wholly-or in large part at any rate-for the South African Constabulary. Did the right hon. Gentleman remember an occurrence in the House a year ago which caused no little excitement at the time? A Supplementary Estimate was presented for £1,000,000 sterling, which was to be paid to the Colonial Government in discharge of all liabilities with regard to the South African Constabulary. A misunderstanding arose in regard to it, with the result that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer then Postmaster-General-gave an explanatory statement on the Report stage. In the first instance, on the 3rd March, when submitting the Vote, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the Estimate represented a final adjustment and included all sums which the House would be asked to vote in connection with the administration of the Transvaal, but on the Report stage the following day the right hon. Gentleman said the Estimate represented a grant in aid of the colonial revenues Motion made, and Question proposed, "That item, Vote 1, Sub-head H (Gratuities to the Troops for Active Service), be reduced by £1,000."—(Mr. Whitley.) *SIR A. HAYTER (Walsall) confessed that he also was astonished at this claim for gratuities. He agreed that the South African Constabulary deserved gratuities as much as the rest of the troops, but this was an enormous amount. It was almost incredible that they should amount to £10 per man, as they would be according to this Vote, even if the force had not been reduced from the original number asked for-10,000 to 7,000 men. He might mention that the original gratuity for the whole of the troops provided for in the 1902 Estimate only amounted to £350,000, and, therefore, the demand for so large a sum, as was now asked for, for one corps only was quite unintelligible. How did it come that this £100,000 was included in this Estimate? He thought the Committee were entitled to an explanation. If that amount was entirely for the South African Constabulary it was very much too large, or else it was very inaccurately described in the Estimate as "Gratuities to the troops for active service." THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER Belfast, W.) thought there was some mis conception about the matter. The whole of the sum was not in respect of the Constabulary, but the principal part was for that purpose. The number of men was 10,000, and the average amount of the gratuity per man was £7 10s. The hon. Member for Halifax had asked why this sum had not been added to the £1,000,000. The two had nothing to do with one another. The sum of £1,000,000 was arrived at in respect of the pay and maintenance of the Constabulary. The view the Colonial Administration took was that 6,000 would be adequate, but the Home Government took the view that 10,000 should be maintained. After some correspondence with Lord Milner it was arranged to pay £1,000,000 in respect of these men. The war gratuity was not originally allotted to the Constabulary. It was not originally intended to give it to them, but it was afterwards decided that, in view of the services they had rendered, they should receive it. The hon. Gentleman was perfectly right in saying that the whole of the sum was not for this purpose. He thought £70,000 was for the South African Constabulary and the remainder for gratuities to men in other branches of the service. What the War Office had now to do was to make good their undertaking to pay the grat uity to the South African Constabulary whose claims were coming in from time to time. SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs) asked the right hon. Gentleman to state the amount of the gratuity per man given to the troops. MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER said he could give the basis on which the gratuities were paid. It was £5 per man to privates, and to all the ranks above them the amounts varied acording to the ranks. SIR A. HAYTER said that what they wanted to know was the average figure for each force. MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER said there was no doubt about that. It was £5. *SIR A. HAYTER said it appeared to him that this sum did not properly come under the Supplementary Estimate. It should be in the main Estimate, because it was really for a new service. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that it was not originally intended to give gratuities to the South African Constabulary, but he supposed that in the intervening period a different resolution was come to. That should have been specifically noted on the Supplementary Estimate. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the whole sum was not for that purpose, but so far as he himself could make out from the figures, four-fifths was for that purpose. This illustrated once more the hand-to-mouth way in which these Estimates were presented to the House of Commons. The Financial Secretary stated the other day that the preceding item, headed" Pay, etc., of the Corps of Imperial Yeomanry (South Africa)," included not only pay but gratuities, and here they were discussing an item which included not only gratuities to the Constabulary but gratuities to the troops on active service. He thought the Committee had a right to know what the purposes were for which they were asked to vote money. It was incumbent on the Department presenting the Estimate to the House to give the fullest and frankest information. MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER said what had happened was this. The House of Commons had agreed to the principle of paying gratuities, and it was a question for those who had the administration of them to say how they should be given. There was no new principle involved. He entirely demurred when the hon. Baronet said this item was an illustration of the laxness with which the accounts were kept. This was the first time we had had a war carried on with money provided by Esti mates. In every previous war the expenditure had been by a Vote of Credit. He believed the attempt which had been made to conduct the recent war by a system of Estimates which the House of Commons could appreciate had been successful. This having been done they were met now with criticism on the of criticism in these cases. The right hon. Gentleman could not deny that within the last two or three days his hon. friends behind him who had been examining these items had discovered a number of very strange proceedings. The right hon. Gentleman considered that the explanations he had given were satisfactory, but it was the duty of his hon. friends to exercise their functions by making these criticisms. It was the system of close criticism that kept things straight. This new optimistic tone did not come well from the right hon. Gentleman. It was that tone which was more likely to lower the proper administration of public offices than any other. smallest points. He admitted that there carrying on its proper function of liberty had been delay in bringing up the accounts, but it was not because the War Office desired that there should be postponement. It was because of the exigencies in connection with the winding up of a great campaign. He thought they might with some advantage forego these minute criticisms of the details of remnants of accounts of three or four years back. The hon. Gentleman opposite seemed to suggest that there had been a sort of lâche on his part, or on the part of the Department. The War Office authorities had given their very best attention to the overtaking of the enormous task which had been devolved upon them during the war. They were as competent as the officials of any other Department. They had done what he was quite certain had never been accomplished by the Financial Department of any other War Office in the world. SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN said the right hon. Gentleman had given the Committee an admirable illustration of "the poacher turned gamekeeper." While he sat below the Gangway there was no one fuller of small and cavilling criticisms than the right hon. Gentleman. MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I do honestly say that during the time the war was going on I did not make those criticisms. SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN said that whether it was war time or not they had a duty to perform. The war was over now at last. It was over according to the right hon. Gentleman and his friends a long time ago. The right hon. Gentleman deprecated criticism, and said that all those criticisms were futile and so forth. [An HON. MEMBER: So they are.] They were, he quite admitted, inconvenient to him. Then the right hon. Gentleman said what an admirable staff the War Office had! He quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman, but why were they admirable? Because they were always liable to "futile" criticisms on the part of the House of Commons, and if there was any falling off in the financial scrutiny of the public De partments the fault lay with the House of Commons, on account of the House not MR. TREVELYAN (Yorkshire, W.R., Elland) said the praise bestowed by the Secretary for War on the Financial Department of his Office was rather excessive. It was very easy during a war to make excessive Estimates. He remembered when the South African war was coming to a conclusion the War Department asked something like £30,000,000 to carry on the war, when it was supposed that it would go on for six months. No one could reasonably suppose that on this occasion the War Office had made up the Estimates carefully. The truth was that the War Office went on the system of taking a large margin indeed, but in every case there had had to be Supplementary Estimates. The right hon. Gentleman the other day said that the Estimates had invariably been exceeded. "In deference to the wishes of the Treasury, the war expenditure has been met for the first time by Estimate, and not by Vote of Credit, and that in attempting to do so, for the better information of Parliament, great latitude must be allowed, both in bringing to account within the proper year, and in estimating in detail for each separate Vote and Sub-head." That opinion was repeated in the last Report of the Public Accounts Committee, which stated that— Estimates, and not by Vote of Credit, in defer"In adopting the plan of proceeding by ence to the wishes of the Treasury, the War Office must, in the opinion of your Committee, be allowed considerable latitude both in bringing the expenditure to account within the proper year, and in estimating in detail for each separate Vote and Sub-head." that this was the first war that had hon. Gentleman was a member, stated been conducted under a system of thatEstimates, and not under a Vote of Credit. The right hon. Gentleman was wrong. It was true that in the case of a small war against a savage country the system of Vote of Credit was used, but it was not in the case of great wars. For instance, in the war with Napoleon there was a Vote of Credit to begin with, but the rest of the war was always carried on on the system of Estimates. The right hon. Gentleman said that this new system, as he thought it to be, was adopted to be in accordance with the views of the House of Commons. He did not think there had been any expression of opinion on the subject in the House of Commons. It was adopted, no doubt with the best intention, to give greater control to the House of Commons over expenditure. But he did not believe that it had had that result. When the Secretary of State for War talked of minute criticism, might he remind the right hon. Gentleman of the circumstance that in the Public Accounts Committee it was avowed by the financial authority of the War Office that, in respect of the expenditure by officers in the field in the way of purchases, they could not tell what that was within a million or two. That seemed to him to show that the system of estimating in advance had been a failure. Perhaps that was because there was no machinery for it. It might be that they wanted an entirely new constitution for their financial arrangements in time of war; and that the Commander-inChief should have a sort of double to take charge of the financial arrangements. He though it might be a matter for serious consideration whether when-which God forbid we came across another big war, the old or the new system should be adopted. THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. BROMLEY DAVENPORT, Cheshire, Macclesfield) said that the hon. Member for King's Lynn had stated that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War was wrong when he alleged that this was the first time that the expenses of a war had been provided for by Estimates. Now, the Report for the year 1902 of the Public Accounts Committee, of which the He respectfully suggested that the point raised by the hon. Gentleman was rather small and minute, but if any further explanation was required he would be glad to give it. We were now at the end of the greatest war ever conducted, or attempted to be conducted, under circumstances in which, in the opinion of the Financial Department of the War Office, it could not be conducted, viz., under Estimates. They protested that it was practically impossible to conduct a war on Estimates, but their protest was over-ruled, and for four the Government had done their years best to prove that they were mistaken. This was an absolutely unprecedented war, conducted in unprecedented circumstances, and at an unprecedented distance from this country, at a cost of over £200,000,000, and he asked the Committee to make allowance for some little miscalculation and for small unforeseen expenditure. MR. WHITLEY said he could assure the hon. Gentleman that they were trying not to be too hard on the Financial Department of the War Office. He himself had only ventured to utter a word of protest against the way the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War had met their endeavour to extract information. It struck him that inherited a great deal of the spirit the right hon. Gentleman had already of his predecessor in the office of Secretary of State for War; and he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that |