tical. On clause 7 (machinery of the Bill) Mr. Bennett (Woodstock, Oxon) objected that in rural districts the Pension Committees, who were to decide on claims after reports from the pension officer, would be saturated with prejudices, sectarian, political, and social. His apprehensions were shared by other members; and Mr. Balfour thought that too much power was given to the pension officers, who were to be Excise officials, and questioned their competence. The Chancellor of the Exchequer replied that they would merely have to discover the age, means, and past character of applicants; that the machinery would be developed by elaborate regulations to be prepared by the Local Government Board; that the officers would not be the sole sources of information, and were needed to protect the interests of the Treasury; and that there would be an appeal from the refusal to grant a pension. An amendment moved by Sir W. Foster (Ilkeston, Derbyshire) substituting stipendiary magistrates or county court judges for Pension Committees was negatived; another, moved by Mr. Dickinson and accepted by the Government, giving a right of appeal to the President of the Local Government Board, was carried by 343 to 92. The rest of the clauses were passed under the guillotine without debate, but after divisions, the majorities varying from 203 to 277. "Never," said the Spectator, "had there been a clearer case of the suppression of debate.”

A few days later (July 6) a protest against the passing of the Bill in the current session was issued by about twenty eminent persons, some of them specially experienced in poorlaw questions. Among them were the Dean of Wells (Dr. JexBlake), Sir William Chance, Sir Edward Brabrook, Professors Darwin, Dicey, Knight, and Kenny, Mr. John Murray, Principal Reichel of Bangor, and the editor of the Spectator. On the other hand, the Bill was endorsed by the Federation of Trade Unions at Oxford (July 2), which expressed its hope that the limiting conditions would soon be modified.

Meanwhile the militant women suffragists had resumed their aggressive tactics. A crowded Convention was held at Caxton Hall, Westminster, on June 30, under the auspices of the Women's Social and Political Union, as a prelude to an attempt to convey personally to the Prime Minister the resolution passed in Hyde Park on July 21; and bills were issued inviting the people of London to attend "in their thousands outside the House. A large crowd responded, consisting, however, chiefly of sightseers, with many roughs; and a deputation of thirteen women left the Hall for the House, but was refused admittance. A more moderate suffragist, Lady Grove, who intimated that the course proposed was impolitic, was told by Mrs. Pankhurst, who presided, to "be true to her own sex.' On the return of the deputation unsuccessful, the meeting broke up, and its members tried to force their way into the Houses of Parliament singly or in small groups, but in

vain. Twenty-seven in all were arrested, each arrest setting up a dangerous rush in the crowd. One lady harangued members on the terrace from a boat; two others broke the windows of the Prime Minister's official residence with stones; one of them was stated to have said, "It will be bombs next time”; and an attempt, which nearly succeeded, was made to get into Palace Yard from a pantechnicon van. The window-breakers were imprisoned for two months; of the other twenty-seven, twenty-six refused to be bound over to keep the peace, and received terms varying from one to three months' imprisonment, being treated as ordinary criminals.

Throughout this disturbance the police behaved with good temper and judgment; and the Report of the Royal Commission, appointed two years earlier (ANNUAL REGISTER, 1906, p. 127), which was published next day, fully vindicated the discipline, arrangements and general behaviour of the force, and commended it to the confidence of all classes. In the specific cases examined, the result was generally favourable to it, and entirely so in that of Madame d'Angely (ibid.), the occasion of the inquiry.

Mention may here be made parenthetically of a proposed reform in standard time which was endorsed in principle by a Select Committee of the House of Commons in a Report issued on July 2. The Daylight Saving Bill, based on a suggestion of Mr. Willett, of Brighton, and introduced by Mr. R. Pearce (Leek, Staffordshire), proposed that on each of the first four Sundays in April of each year the hour between 2 and 3 A.M. should consist of forty minutes, and on each of the first four Sundays of September (after 1908) the corresponding hour should consist of eighty minutes. The eighty minutes of daylight thus gained would be available for recreation on summer evenings, to the benefit of the general health and happiness. The Bill had been read a second time without debate on March 27, and the Select Committee to which it was referred suggested that one alteration of the clock in the spring and autumn respectively would suffice. But the Government refused to take it up.

To return to the House of Commons: on July 2 the proposed allotment of a supplementary grant for Irish education of 114,000l. was fiercely criticised by both Nationalists and Unionists, on the ground that 2,857 teachers in schools of less than thirty-five children would be excluded, and that it might lead to an amalgamation of small schools unfavourable to the rights of denominational minorities. The buildings of some rural schools were also said to be very bad. Mr. Birrell, while favouring a reduction in the number of small schools, gave way to the general wish that they should share in the grant, and said that the localities should do something for the buildings, seeing that there were no education rates in Ireland.

This debate supplied Mr. Lloyd-George with an effective illustration for his first speech in the City as Chancellor of the Exchequer (July 3) at the customary dinner to bankers and mer

chants given by the Lord Mayor. In sharp contrast to some Liberal comments on the Budget, he spoke of "a stunning deficit, a falling revenue, and a depression of trade," the last-named phenomenon, however, existing also in France, Germany and the United States. Everything (he said) was diminishing except the demands on the Treasury, and these were all reasonable on their own merits and very influentially backed up. He referred to the storm that had burst over Mr. Birrell on the previous evening, and stated that, had all the concessions demanded on the Old Age Pensions Bill been granted, they would have increased the cost of the measure to 30,000,000l. a year. They were all accompanied by demands for the reduction of taxation, and the only remedy for them was that the public should interest themselves in expenditure.

The economic apprehensions thus emphasised could only be intensified by the debate on the Coal Mines (Eight Hours) Bill, which was concluded on July 6 (p. 145). It was resumed by Mr. F. E. Smith, who said that the limitation of hours had first been defended as a means of reducing output and raising prices, then as obviating unemployment, and then on the plea of health and safety. He predicted unfavourable effects. The Under-Secretary for the Home Department, Mr. Herbert Samuel, remarked that the Unionist objections to the Bill were of recent date; it had been approved by Mr. Chamberlain. The estimates of the rise in price were exaggerated. In Austria a reduction of hours from twelve to nine had resulted in an increased output. The modifications suggested by the Chairman of the Select Committee (p. 146) would receive consideration in Committee. The miners merited this preference over other trades owing to the severity of their labour and the endorsement of their demand for twenty years by the House. Austria and Germany had shorter hours; England ought not to fall behind. The alternative to the Bill was a great coal strike. Mr. Beck (Wisbech, Cambridgeshire), a Liberal, opposed the Bill from the consumers' standpoint; but Mr. Keir Hardie (Merthyr Tydfil) declared that the actual time now worked averaged less than eight hours daily, and that there would be no rise in price, taking the country as a whole. Many colliery shares were at an enormous premium, and the high price of coal was not due to wages, but to dividends. He emphasised the danger of a strike. Among subsequent speakers, Mr. Markham, a Liberal and an expert, said the increase of price in South Wales would be 1s. and in the Midlands 3d. to 6d. per ton. Sir Charles McLaren (Bosworth, Leicestreshire), a coalowner, held that only the old collieries would suffer; Welsh coal would cost more, but the money would be got from the foreigner. It would mean generally an increase of d. per cwt. Opposition members had to make a fuss about the Bill to justify the speeches at bye-elections. Mr. Bonar Law (Dulwich) said that the Bill had been an open question as long as it

was purely academic. To say that it must be passed to avoid a strike was an object lesson to other trades. But the Bill would tend to increase working hours in Durham and Cumberland, and this set up a greater danger of a strike. The Report of the Committee had shattered the argument that the change was necessary to health, and the Bill would increase rather than diminish mining dangers. Miners preferred to work longer hours and take occasional holidays, and shorter hours might be secured by negotiation. It was foolish to stereotype conditions for the whole trade. The Bill was the first step in a movement for the general restraint of production, to which the Government were being driven by the Labour party. The output would be diminished to keep up the price. The South Wales Miners' Federation aimed at preventing the adoption of double shifts. Mentioning various other reasons for expecting a rise in price, he laid stress on the danger to other trades and hoped that the opposition to the measure in the country would affect its subsequent fate.

Mr. Churchill, President of the Board of Trade, wound up for the Government. He argued elaborately that any reduction of the output would only be transient, assuming that it took place at all, and laid stress on the safeguards provided by the Bill-the provision for overtime, and for its temporary relaxation in emergencies, and suspension in crisis such as a corner in coal. Similar prophecies had been made regarding mining in the Transvaal, but the change had reduced working expenses; and here five years were allowed for the industry to adapt itself to the new conditions. The reasons for the legislation were social. Democracy demanded, not inadequate hours of work, but adequate hours of leisure. In an eloquent justification of this demand, he declared that the Bill was a step in a general movement for reconciling the conditions of labour with the ascertained laws of science and health.

This speech roused much enthusiasm, especially among the Labour members; and the Bill was supported by 390 to 120. Mr. Balfour moved to commit it to Committee of the whole House; but this attempt to shelve it was negatived by 391 to 113.

A few days later the Old Age Pensions Bill passed from the House of Commons. It was recommitted on July 2 for further amendment of the sliding scale, and for the insertion of a proviso that the acceptance of poor-law relief in the shape of food or comforts ordered by a medical officer, or of the funeral expenses of a dependant, should not disqualify for a pension. Attempts were made to revise the age qualification, to reconsider the disqualifications clause, to remodel the sliding scale, to restore the original figure of 5s. per week, to impose an industrial test on applicants, and to make the trade of pension-agent illegal; but all were rejected, the last-named partly as threatening to interfere with friendly societies in their

efforts to assist claimants. An amendment moved by Mr. Soares (Tiverton, Devon), accepted by the Government, and carried by 292 to 47, provided substantially that no pauper should be excluded from the benefit of the pension scheme after December 31, 1910. This was interpreted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a mandate to deal afresh with the question before that date. Ultimately all amendments from clause 5 onwards were dealt with under the guillotine. This abridgement of discussion afforded ground for a final attack on the Bill at its third reading (July 9). Mr. Bowles, who moved the rejection, declared that, had the Bill been fully debated, its inconsistencies would have compelled the Government to abandon it, and that it would cause grievous disappointment. Sir Henry Craik seconded the motion for rejection. Mr. Long also predicted serious difficulties and complications, but the official Opposition did not vote against the Bill. It was eloquently defended by Mr. Masterman, Secretary of the Local Government Board. The question, he said, could not be left alone, for the country had been tantalised, bewildered, and fooled long enough; a contributory scheme was impracticable and would be repugnant to the British people, and a universal scheme was too costly; so, acknowledging the anomalies and limitations of their scheme, the Government had decided to act at once. It was a great experiment, but their attitude. towards it was not that of apology. Mr. Snowden (Blackburn) followed with a bitter attack on the Government. The Labour party (he said) would take the Bill for what it was worth, and use it as a lever for extorting more. Their demand was for universal pensions of 5s. per week at sixty-five. He was sick of the parrot cry that there was not enough money for social reform, which he described as the making of the rich poorer and the poor richer; and he complained bitterly that the guillotine had prevented discussion of some of the points in the Bill, and that the character test was impossibly severe. Later, however, Mr. Fenwick (Wansbeck, Northumberland), another Labour member, cordially approved of the Bill. Mr. Balfour thought that there would be great difficulty in investigating cases, there was a possibility of undue influence, especially in Ireland, and pensions would become merely part of out-door relief, and possibly subventions in aid of wages. The question should not have been separated from that of Poor-Law reform, and the financial burden would swallow up for years all the funds available for social reform. He approved of the aim of the Government, but the responsibility for this plan must rest with it.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Lloyd-George) after declaring that, except the reduction of age, all the important principles of the Bill had been discussed in Committee, said that every part of Mr. Balfour's criticism of the Bill might have been directed against the scheme of Mr. Chaplin's Com