THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 May 1906, Page 3

THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT

[by ELKCTUIC TELKGUAI’U —COI’YRIOIIT J [pEU PRESS ASSOCIATION’.] COM PULSORY INDUSTRIAL CENSUS. CHURCHILL ON' THE HAND CHINESE. THE EDUCATION BILL. I .ON DON. May 17. The Right .Hnii. Lloyd George (President of the Hoard ..f Trade) yesterday introduced in the House of Commons a Bill providing that in 1908 a compulsory census he taken of the home industries of the I nited Kingdom for 1907; and that, employers ho requested to furnish confidential information about the material used, the hours worked, the persons employed. the wages paid and the plant in use. ’ Mr Chamberlain said lie heartily supported the measure. He remarked that all were agreed as to the desirability of securing reliable statistics. Mr Crookes (Labor!le) introduced a Bill to secure travelling facilities for members of the House of Commons, j while engaged in the discharge of their Parliamentary duties. It was read tlit! first time. Mr Winston Churchill (Under-Sec-retary for the Colonies) speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, said he was opposed, as also were the Government, to the idea of having wire fences placed round the premises on the Rand where the Chinese coolies lived, except in the case of gates, and to have watchmen posted at the latter as had been suggested. The Government would not be readily disposed to | concur with such unusual devices for j the restraint, of the coolies. '1 he pro-] curing of a more adequate police force was preferable to that ; the cost of the extra police force to be borne by the importers of the indentured labor. Mr llunciman (Under-Secretary to the Local Government Board) stated that in the House of Commons that (lu, Government had been informed that it was untrue that Germany had acquired the island of Laid, near Borneo, as a naval station, or that she was constructing a coaling station there. Lord Portsmouth, speaking at Dover, said that unquestionably the two main principles of the flight Hon. Mr Birroll’s Education Bill had been affirmed at the general elections. There had been an unprecedentedly decisive expression of opinion by the electors in their favor. Tf the Liberals, with their majority of two hundred, allowed the Tory Episcopal Party in the House of Lords to repudiate the nation’s deliberately expressed voice, they would stand convicted of political sterility. If, he declared, the extreme policy of uncompromising hostility to the ptovisions of the measure were still continued, the Government would be propared to accept the challenge. The certain issue of the general election, which had been fought, over the Education Bill, would he to strengthen the 1 cause for the Disestablishment, of the I Church. Lord Portsmouth added : “While following the main principles of the Bill, the Government will approach any reasonable amendment to it. with an open mind.” Mr Hobhouso presided at a conference of sixty Ministerialist churchmen regarding the Education Bill. It was resolved that while maintaining the loading principles of the measure, the members of the conference would support such reasonable concessions in matters of detail as would promote the safe passage and smooth working of the Bill.

A, groat meeting of London churchmen was held on Wednesday, at which Mr Balfour and Sir E. Clarke were the chief, speakers. A motion of protest against the Bill was carried with only five dissentients.