they saw would increase the good feeling already existing between Great Britain and Russia. The Tsar, in reply, hoped that the friendly welcome given to the Duma and the Russian squadron previously would indicate the growth of a cordial relation between the two countries, founded on common interest and mutual esteem. In the interview already alluded to, M. Isvolsky laid stress on the harmonious co-operation, present and prospective, of the two Governments; and the same note was struck by the Tsar's replies to the addresses presented him by the Corporation of the City of London and by the London and Liverpool Chambers of Commerce. A great deal of friendly and amused good feeling was aroused by the "shore leave" of the Tsar's children, when they played on the beach and bought picture postcards, and by the visit of the Imperial party to Osborne the elders going by water privately-where they were shown over the Naval College by Prince Edward of Wales. They left on August 5.

Meanwhile, the House of Commons, temporarily relieved of the Finance Bill, was getting on with its primary work of supply; and incidentally the debates were of considerable interest. On Monday, August 2, on the War Office Vote for scientific investigation, Mr. Haldane stated what the Government were doing for aviation in connection with national defence. From a Report to the Imperial Defence Committee it appeared that for naval purposes, at any rate under existing conditions, the rigid dirigible alone was of real value, for the Army the non-rigid dirigible was more useful; the utility of the aeroplane was more remote. The Admiralty, accordingly, was dealing with the rigid (or Zeppelin) dirigible, the War Office with the rigid dirigible and the aeroplane. Though at present behind other nations, he believed we should overtake them as we had in submarines and, he believed, in motor cars. The Advisory Committee (p. 118) would report very shortly, and he specified the technical points on which it had been at work. The Admiralty were having a large rigid dirigible constructed at Barrow, and the War Office was enlarging its factory at Aldershot, building a large shed, and had ordered a gas-bag for the largest size balloon. By the aid of the Parliamentary Navy Committee, the Morning Post, and the Daily Mail, a large non-rigid dirigible, a shed at Wormwood Scrubbs, and a rigid dirigible, would be provided. One of these would be presented, the other, if satisfactory, bought by the War Office. They would experiment further with two new aeroplanes. These instruments were of little use in war as yet, but must not be neglected. The total spent in the current year would be 78,000l. In the subsequent debate Mr. Lee, Mr. Du Cros, and other members thought that Mr. Haldane was too optimistic, and that more should be done by purchasing foreign airships and otherwise; and Mr. Lee suggested that the airship would be very useful both for reconnoitring and for punitive expedi

tions against savages. Mr. Harold Cox urged reliance on private enterprise; a Government had no inventive organs. Lord Balcarres suggested that the casting of explosives from airships on unfortified places and civil property should be prohibited by an addition to the Geneva Convention.

Later, a reduction in the salary of the President of the Board of Trade was moved by Mr. Snowden (Lab., Blackburn) to emphasise a demand for the reduction of the hours of train staffs from twelve to ten under the Railway Servants' Hours Act, but was negatived after explanations from Mr. Tennant, Under-Secretary to the Board. Some of the outstanding Votes in Supply were then closured and passed after divisions. The rest were similarly treated next day, August 3, after a debate on the Report of certain Navy Votes, in which Mr. McKenna defended the action of the Government in regard to the provision of destroyers and on other points, and declared that "heroic efforts were being made to ensure for our Fleet a superiority in every type of vessel. This was questioned by some Unionists; two Liberals, Mr. Byles and Mr. Lough, deplored the increase of armaments, and Mr. Bellairs urged a naval loan.

A Shops Bill, consolidating and amending the Shop Regulation Acts, was introduced by the Home Secretary on August 4. It limited shop assistants' hours to sixty per week, with compulsory Sunday closing (subject to certain provisions to meet the case of Jews), a weekly half holiday, and other alleviations of their lot; but it was dropped on August 20 for lack of time.

In the usual miscellaneous debate on the same day on the second reading of the Appropriation Bill, the subjects of most interest were Army matters and the treatment of the Suffragists in prison. In a general reply on the first head, Mr. Haldane stated that the shortage of officers was due to the inability of candidates to pass the qualifying examinations. Officers' pay would shortly have to be reconsidered, but it was better than in Continental armies. The shortage of Special Reserve officers he hoped would be met by the Officers' Training Corps; the Territorial officers numbered 10,987 out of a possible establishment of 11,267.

Some of the women Suffragists had insisted on being treated as first-class misdemeanants and had defied the Holloway Prison regulations, for which they had been sentenced to further punishment on August 4. Mr. Snowden (Lab.) now repeated the demand; the Home Secretary replied that he could not override the discretion of the court. Previously they had desired to be treated like ordinary prisoners; clearly they would regard whatever was done as wrong. It was untrue that one of them had been sent to a cell "icy cold, verminous, and smelling of sewage. They had been removed to special cells because they broke the glass in the ordinary cells. He himself had inspected

the cells, and he intimated that facilities would be given for inspection. Many of the Suffragists had assured him that they were satisfied with their treatment. (A "hunger strike," however, compelled the authorities next day to release several.)

The Indian Budget statement by the new Under-Secretary for India (the Master of Elibank, the Hon. A. W. Murray, Peebles and Selkirk) was made on August 5, and was debated as actively as in the three previous sessions. (The figures will be found in Foreign and Colonial History, Chapter V.) After explaining that the improvement after the famine and the effects of the American crisis had come later than had been expected, so that instead of the estimated surplus there was a deficit, and dealing with various points in the Budget, he mentioned that the position of the native labourer had considerably improved since 1900; the deaths from plague had been reduced to 150,000, and the people were now disposed to co-operate with the Government in combating it. He dealt at length with the alleged "drain on India," estimated in some quarters at 70,000,0007. annually, testing the estimate by the excess of Indian exports over the imports. The "political drain " amounted to 21,200,000. annually for home charges, mainly interest on railway developments; the "commercial drain" to 2,700,000l. representing the differences between the private remittances from India and the remittances to that country. The former consisted largely of savings and profits, the latter largely of capital; at least 350,000,000l. were invested in India. Passing to the agitation in Bengal, he paid an eloquent tribute to Sir Curzon Wyllie and Dr. Lalcaca (p. 155) whose murders were the act of an isolated fanatic, and declared that the masses remained unmoved, and recognised the benefits of British rule. Repelling the charge that the Government had oscillated between conciliation and coercion, he stated-evoking cheers, chiefly Unionist-that agitators would be deported so long as the Indian Government considered it necessary; and he repelled an attack made (in the Times) by Mr. Mackarness, defending the deportations, and insisting that the 6,500 Civil servants must be protected who were custodians of the lives and fortunes of about a fifth of mankind. But for the reform scheme we should have had to face a mass of sullen discontent, including some who were now among our most loyal supporters. After referring to the general awakening in the East and its effect on India, he mentioned that efforts were being made to befriend Indian students in Great Britain. An advisory committee and an educational adviser had been appointed, and a grant would be made from the Indian revenue to assist the unofficial Indian societies in London to provide a common head-quarters and entertain the students. Finally he appealed to the Press and to those who came in contact with Indians to remember their sensitiveness to all that touched their patriotism and self-respect.

In the subsequent debate Earl Percy, representing the

official Opposition, after some comments on the Budget, the situation and the claims of the Mohammedans, deplored the exclusion of religion from the schools, and insisted on the need of improving the educational system, primarily by encouraging the native schools. Sir Charles Dilke assailed Lord Kitchener's military reforms; educational reform was generally advocated, a resolution on the subject having been moved to stimulate discussion by Mr. Barrie (U., Londonderry, N.); and Mr. Mackarness dealt with the unrest, attacking especially the native police as cruel and corrupt. Mr. O'Grady (Lab., Leeds, E.), Sir H. Cotton (L., Nottingham) and other members, also deprecated the repressive policy of the Government, Mr. Rees (L., Montgomery District) taking the other side. After other speeches, the Master of Elibank replied, rejecting the charges against the police; he mentioned that the new Calcutta Police Act, which had been attacked, was virtually a reproduction of an Act already in force in Bombay.

Two other measures deserve mention. A Bill appointing a regular Secretary to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries was read a second time in the Commons on August 6, after a protest from Sir Charles Dilke that Ministries were already far larger in Great Britain than in any other country; it became law, practically without opposition, and Sir E. Strachey (L., Somerset, S.), Treasurer of the Household, who had hitherto acted as Parliamentary Secretary, succeeded to the new office. In the Lords a Bill protecting districts whose water supplies were encroached on for the benefit of places at a distance, presented by Lord Desborough on behalf of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, was affirmed in principle, the Government holding out hopes of inquiry and legislation.

In the country, meanwhile, the tide had seemed to be turning in favour of the Government. The Times said as much in the "Political Notes" on August 4; the Daily Mail next day published an article foreshadowing concessions in the Finance Bill and giving an attractive description of a "development programme for 1910, embracing grants for the improvement of agriculture and fishing, light railways, trunk roads for motors, the removal of the pauper disqualification for old-age pensions, sickness and unemployment insurance. Lord Northcliffe, who was interested financially in both papers, was stated to have informed Opposition members in the lobbies that the Budget was popular and that their attitude towards it was ill-advised. Other Unionist organs, however, condemned this defection indignantly, and neither the Daily Mail nor the Times maintained it. Still, the Budget Protest League was reported not to be prospering; its promoters were sometimes defeated at their own meetings; the campaign in favour of the Budget was apparently proving successful, and the declarations of great landlords, e.g., the Duke of Portland at Welbeck (Aug. 3), that they would meet the new taxation by cutting down expenditure

1

on their estates and payments to dependants or charities, proved singularly bad tactics.

Lord Lansdowne, however, speaking at Bowood on August 9, denounced the Budget as a hotch-potch of proposals involving a taxation of capital unprecedented in England, compared Mr. Lloyd-George to the "robber gull" which lived by stealing fish from other gulls, and intimated that the House of Lords would refer the Finance Bill to the people.

On the same afternoon Mr. Winston Churchill, amid some Suffragist interruptions, addressed a great demonstration at Saltburn. Referring to the turn of the tide and the failure of the Budget Protest League, he said that the Liberals had had reason to be disheartened in January, but they had been rescued from the danger of office without power by the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Budget of Mr. Lloyd-George. The first reason for the growing success of the Budget was the supreme constitutional issue. Again, the Government were in earnest, the Opposition inept; such speeches as that of the Duke of Portland were worth their weight in gold to the Liberal party. Further, the Budget was necessary and fair to all parties. Even with the new taxes, Great Britain would still be the best place for the rich, and all the more so when it had become the best place for the poor. He defended a tax on mining royalties in view of the scheme for workmen's insurance, and the tax on tobacco and spirits. Any increase on the price of beer was the work of the brewers. The Budget was financially sound, and finally there was no alternative. A duty of 10 per cent. ad valorem was proposed on the 143,000,000l. worth of goods imported annually; but from the gross yield of 14,000,000l. deductions would have to be made for re-exports, for the value of the goods excluded, for drawbacks on exports, for imports from the Colonies, and for the cost of collection, leaving 5,500,000l. to meet a need of 16,000,000/., to be raised, too, by taxes on two or three thousand articles of common use. The " encouragement" such taxes would give to British manufacturers would be given at a cost of some 50,000,000l. annually to the consumer, and the balance needed would have to be made up by the taxation of food.

But however feeling on the Finance Bill might fluctuate in the country, there was no decline in the resistance offered in the House. Progress, indeed, had been facilitated on July 28 by the carrying, after debate and divisions, of amendments to the Standing Orders, which practically extended all the powers of the Chairman of Committees in his absence to the Deputy Chairman, and also gave the Chairman (or Deputy Chairman) power to reserve amendments for discussion, by the leave of the House, from among those for which he had accepted the closure. Mr. Balfour described this as instituting "martial law in the House," and it was also objected that the Chairman and Deputy Chairman were admittedly party men. Mr. Asquith,