work of odd man in the Cabinet. In | hon. Member may be as to the very conclusion, he would remind the Prime Minister that legislation was hanging fire, that the Bankruptcy Bill had made no progress, that the Law of Partnership required consolidation and amendment, that the Patent Laws required revision, while Bills of Sale were a scandal and a disgrace under the present law; and last-not least-the question of a new Anglo-French Commercial Treaty must be decided within a very few weeks. Under these circumstances, he expressed a hope that the Prime Minister would give his sanction to a Motion which had received the support of a Member of the Cabinet and of other Members of the Government. Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "it is desirable that the functions of the Executive Government which especially relate to Agriculture and Commerce should, as far as possible, be administered by a distinct department, and be presided over by a responsible Minister of the Crown," (Sir Massey Lopes,) -instead thereof. Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question." То rapid and early accumulation of those MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, when I heard the proposal of the hon. Member opposite (Sir Massey Lopes) described to me at the outset in general terms, I was afraid it was of a character similar to that of 1879, which undoubtedly it would have been my duty to resist. I could not, in any circumstances, consent to any Parliamentary Resolution going to determine by a vote of this House who should be, under all circumstances, constituent Members of the Cabinet. I shall not trouble the House with my reasons; but they are grave and serious. However, I am perfectly satisfied with the manner in which the hon. Member op-ject of foreign Tariffs owing to the want posite has framed the Resolution and stated his case. What the hon. Member states is-"I am satisfied that there will be such a development of these functions, if you will only allow it, that the importance of the Minister will bring about a state of public opinion which will in volve a sure corollary that the man who has such functions to discharge must be a Member of the Cabinet." Upon that footing I am perfectly ready to leave the matter. I am not so sanguine as the YOL. CCLXI. [THIRD SERIES.] of a formal recognition of a Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. It was my fate to be Vice President, and afterwards President, of the Board of Trade during a period when this country was endeavouring to enter into foreign Tariff Treaties, and I say without hesitation. that the machinery of the Government was perfectly adequate for the purpose. The failure of our attempts was doubtedly on account of the difficulties inherent in the case, and was by no Q un "Lords of the Committee of Privy Council appointed by Her Majesty for the consideration of all matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations." means due to any unfortunate dualism | receiving £1,000 a-year for doing very between the Board of Trade and the little, in order that they might, when Foreign Office. We did after that con- superannuated, receive £2,000 a-year clude a great Commercial Treaty, which for doing less. I do not wish to commit for the last 20 years has produced enor- myself to the question of Board or no mous benefits. But that was not done Board; but I am bound to admit that, either by the Foreign Department or by with due consideration, the question the Board of Trade. It was done en- may fairly be raised whether a change tirely as a matter of revenue by com- may not be made in the title of the munications between the Treasury and Board now so well filled by my right Mr. Cobden, who was residing and prac- hon. Friend (Mr. Chamberlain), because tically representing this country in Paris. they areAs at present advised, I am not aware whether any advantage with regard to the negotiation of Commercial Treaties would be gained by a change of arrangement, seeing that additional expenses Now, in the word "Plantations" there have been incurred in the Foreign Office, is a smack of agriculture; but it is and an additional establishment has been "Foreign Plantations." The title, I created in deference to the wishes of the admit, is very incongruous, and there commercial classes of this country. Quite may be a fair and reasonable question apart from the subject of Tariff Treaties whether there may not be a change in in this country, we have had in ex- the title. I am not prepared to announce istence for nearly 60 years Reciprocity what the title should be; but I think Treaties on the basis of equal dues and there should be a change of title, with equal facilities, and Treaties on very the view of making it what I have now sound principles thus have been made described-namely, that there should be without any sort of conflict between the a responsible Department, of which it Foreign Department and the Board of should be the duty to take up all funcTrade. I will explain to the hon. Mem- tions connected with this subject as far ber what I mean by acceding to this as possible. At the same time, it is not Motion. I understand myself to accede always easy to say to what particular to this proposition-that a Department Departments certain subjects should beof State shall be created to take up and long; and, in order to see how far that meet any demand which may arise in is possible, let us take some of the quesconnection with Commerce or Agricul- tions that have been raised. There are ture; and of course we must look, in the many subjects and classes of subjects first instance, to those demands which that have relation to more than one Deare proximate and within reach, and partment. For instance, it has been which mainly have been mentioned by suggested that factory labour ought to the hon. Member. The office is hardly, go to the Board of Trade. I remember at the present moment, to be made a having a discussion on that subject with question of title. The hon. Member the late Sir James Graham, the very first has animadverted on the constitution of Administrator of his day-a man having the Board of Trade as it now stands; one of the most active, rapid, and combut he has failed to do full justice to it, prehensive judgments on any adminis for he omitted to name one most dis-trative question it has ever been my good tinguished and eminent member of the Board. He omitted to inform us that the first name upon the list of members of the Board is the name of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. I myself have a double interest in the Board, for I am not only one member of it, but two -as First Lord of the Treasury and as Chancellor of the Exchequer. There was a Board before, and it was Mr. Burke who abolished it, it is supposed, about the year 1780, because, as he described it, there were eight Members Mr. Gladstone fortune to know; and it was after full consideration and advice that factory labour was attached to the Home Office. I am not prepared to say that ought to be reversed. Then, with regard to Copyholds, the superintendence of the Home Office over Copyholds is a superintentendence involving minute interference With whether it ought to be treated as a matter of Commerce and Agriculture I may decline to give an opinion. regard to Highways little difficulty will arise. I do not know whether the hon. Duke of Richmond, Lord Ripon, and the Duke of Marlborough. There must be great advantage in an arrangement of that kind; but, notwithstanding, I could not give into the opinion that the present arrangement should be maintained. It is hardly right to expect that a Gentleman widely acquainted with agricultural life should be Vice President of the Council, and have charge of educational matters. Therefore, I think there is very much to be said, and, indeed, a general leaning in the minds of those Members of the Government who have considered the subject is, that the administration of the Contagious Diseases of Animals Act should be attached to the Department which is specially charged with the affairs of Agriculture and Commerce. I think I have now gone through the main points connected with the case. There is nothing against which the Government and the House ought to be so much on their guard as the re-organization of a Department; and nothing, I am sure, could be more unwise, as connected with our responsibilities with the public funds, than to set out with purposely instituting an extensive series of offices, each with salaries attached; but we undertake to fulfil the pledge that means shall not be wanting for assuming, and adequately discharging, such functions as have been described when they come into view. The Board of Trade has been re-organized over and over again; but what does it mean? It means the superannuation of a great number of public officers, and the institution of a great number of new public officers, who are probably again, after the lapse of a decorous number of years, to be again superannuated. We ought to adapt our machinery to the work to be done, and not set up a new machine, before we know that it will have work to do or not. That is the spirit in which we are prepared to accept this Motion; and if we do not act upon it to the satisfaction of the hon. Member, he will, no doubt, be prepared to call us by-and-bye to account, and if we cannot tell a reasonable story, we shall, no doubt, receive an adequate measure of animadversion. Member himself has considered the question. If he has, I admit much weight is due to his opinion; but its connection with Local Taxation and Government I cannot put out of consideration; and on the question of transferring it there may be a good deal of doubt. Then the hon. Member said, with a good deal of force, that all agricultural statistics and all returns as to the sale of corn, which are records of actual transactions and the point on which certain local operations turn, are proper questions for the Board of Trade. But they are already under the Board of Trade, and no doubt they support the hon. Gentleman in the principle of his Motion that the functions may be united. Several other subjects were mentioned by the hon. Member-I do not wish to make any invidious comments where all are united. We have put the President of the Board of Trade in the Cabinet; and not only so, but we have made some practical progress towards the object of the hon. Gentlemannamely, bringing comprehensively into his hands the management of all the great subjects in which the commercial class are interested. There are three of these to which we can point during the short time we have been in Office. There is the Patent Law, the Law of Partnership, and the Law of Bankruptcy-a good earnest, I submit, of the disposition in which we are desirous of approaching this question. There remains only one important question mentioned by the hon. Member on which I ought to say one word, and that is the contagious diseases of animals. That was a very fair case for him to raise, for I think some consideration should be given to the anomalous method in which those diseases are at present dealt with. He objected very much to the answer ho might receive from the Treasury Bench; but it is one thing to give a promise of careful consideration as a method of getting rid of a Motion, and the consideration required as to the best method of applying it; and I am bound to say that something may be said for the way in which this subject is now administered, when you have at the head of the Council Office almost always a Nobleman or country gentleman, not only of capacity, but of influence, conversant with subjects of agriculture. I might mention such men as Earl Spencer, the MR. R. H. PAGET said, he had heard with the greatest satisfaction the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. There were some points, however, on which he wished to receive further in formation. The first related to agri- | have this information all in one place; cultural statistics; and in reference to it it ought to be digested and printed at the Statistical Department of the Board the expense of the State, so as to be of Trade was one to which great atten- easily available for those outside. In tion should be paid. To be of any real, America, the state of agriculture was practical value, the information should carefully watched by the authorities, be fresh, for stale statistics, like stale who were at the utmost pains to circufish, were of no use whatever. The late information among the farmers. American Commissioner of Agriculture For instance, certain failures in the produced annually the most valuable grass lands having been reported, the Reports-nay, produced Reports month Department issued for the benefit of the by month. He (Mr. R. H. Paget) had farmers an illustrated series of specimens been the means of procuring, through of different grasses, explaining their rethe courtesy of the hon. Baronet the lative value and determining the best Under Secretary of State for Foreign kind to grow and the best way of growAffairs (Sir Charles W. Dilke), those ing it. That was what he hoped might annual and monthly Reports for the be done in England by an Agricultural Library of the House. In America they Department. It ought, however, to be were not satisfied with leaving industry something more than a Department; to entirely unaided, nor ashamed to go out use the Prime Minister's words, "to of their way to procure information about meet any demands which may arise in crops, cultivation, machinery, manures, regard to agriculture," it ought to have and other things connected with agri- the power of obtaining information, and culture, and place that information at of spending money in circulating it. He the service of agriculturists. The Com- urged that when the Department was missioner of Agriculture stated that, by created the two interests of Agriculture obtaining all the necessary information, and Commerce should be kept separate, he hoped to enable even new industries presided over, perhaps, by a single to be successfully prosecuted, and he Minister, but with an Under Secretary pointed to the action of England in the of State responsible for each separate cultivation of tea in Assam, which, he branch. He thought the demand was said, in spite of repeated difficulties and not unreasonable, considering the great disappointments, had proved a success, importance of Agriculture, and the fact and that the success was largely due to that, with a dwindling trade, its imthe expenditure of State funds. The portance was gradually increasing. American Agricultural Department had large funds at their disposal, and employed them in procuring useful statistics, which they put forth for the public benefit. He wanted to ask, would there be placed at the disposal of the new Department a sum of money to do what was so ably done in the United States? If he desired to obtain agricultural sta-paid by the Legislature to the question tistics now, he had to go up and down, through half-a-dozen Departments. He was sorry the hon. Baronet the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was not in his place, that he might thank him for having so courteously placed at his disposal most useful information from the United States. The great point was that everything connected with agriculture should be focussed and brought together into one Department. At present agricultural information was scattered in Reports from India and in the Statistical Abstracts of the Foreign Office, and of the Board of Trade. But they wanted something more than to Mr. R. H. Paget MR. SLAGG said, in rising to say a few words, he must express his satisfaction at the prospect that the commercial community were to obtain more attention in future; for it had often struck him as being surprising that, considering the vast importance of our commercial relations, so little attention had been now raised. It had been the opinion of a large portion of the community for many years that a separate Department should be instituted for commercial affairs, and that the Minister should have a seat in the Cabinet. He must say, however, that he felt the difficulty of establishing a new Department. With reference to that question, our commercial information was now collected from a large number of Government Departments which had little connection with each other and very little sympathy, and in many instances were at variance with each other. It was therefore impossible that these numerous Departments somewhat at a loss to see. It was true that such statistics were of great interest and value; but it had been suggested that the duty of a Minister of Agriculture was to do something for the protection of agricultural produce. If that was to be his duty, he (Mr. Slagg) was quite unable to assent to it. If a new Minister for Agriculture and Commerce were appointed, he trusted he would be a man conversant with business, and not a mere official. He was heartily pleased that so much attention had been given to the subject to-night. It was certain that the interests of Trade and Commerce had suffered seriously from official neglect; and, after what had fallen from the Treasury Bench, he looked forward to the introduction by the Government of some practical scheme for placing those interests as regarded our relations with foreign countries on a more satisfactory footing in relation to their administration than they occupied at the present time. could work together harmoniously as they were constituted at present. Looking at the number of Offices with which the commercial interests were at present placed, he found that the India Office controlled the trading relations of that country, the Colonial Office undertook to supervise the commercial affairs of the Colonies, the Board of Trade undertook an endless variety of commercial functions, and the Privy Council was charged with many peculiar duties connected with the trade of the country, besides that of Education, while the Foreign Office undertook matters connected with the negotiation of Treaties. Some time ago the formation of a Commercial Department at the Foreign Office led them to hope that better attention would be given to these affairs. But he was very sorry to say that though it was directed by gentlemen of high ability, it was still very far short of that efficiency which they had a right to expect. His (Mr. Slagg's) idea was that before they established a separate Bureau, they SIR JOHN KENNAWAY said, that, should try to develop the existing Offices in connection with the subject, he deeply by making them so strong in the dis-regretted the absence from the House of charge of their duties that in course of Mr. Sampson Lloyd, who in times past time, when they could walk alone, the had so ably advocated the establishinformation they supplied might be con- ment of a Ministry of Agriculture and centrated. But before that was done Commerce; but they had reason, he there must be a very great increase in thought, to congratulate themselves on their efficiency. The misfortune was that the great progress which their ideas had in Government Offices commerce was made of recent years. The agricultural looked upon as a somewhat ignoble career and commercial depression from which for gentlemen who wished for promotion; the country had suffered had disabused and the reason of that was that, to some people of the notion that they could do extent, commercial affairs were not re- everything for themselves, in the same way garded as comparable in importance with as our recent military reverses had taught such matters as the Eastern Question, and us that an Englishman was no longer a no encouragement was given for the pur-match for three foreigners. It was felt suit of matters connected with commerce. Any plan that would produce such an encouragement would, he considered, be of much value to the country. He hoped in filling up the important office it would not be conferred upon a mere official of the Government. He hoped he would at least be thoroughly conversant with commercial affairs. He was sure it would not benefit the agricultural or commercial community to have a Minister appointed simply on Party grounds. The Prime Minister had told them that he thought one Minister would be competent to attend both to Agriculture and Commerce; but what a new Minister could do for Agriculture except in the matter of statistics he was that this country was engaged in a competition so severe with other countries that they could not afford to lose a single point of advantage. So far as regarded the agriculturists, they had a right to ask the Government that they should have the best and fullest information upon the agriculture of foreign countries. laid before them, such as that referred to as furnished by the American Bureau. He considered that the way in which the debate had been carried on, and the tone in which the Prime Minister had met the Motion, were matters of great encouragement; and he contended that the appointment of a Minister of Agriculture and Commerce would be of great benefit to both Departments. At the |