Politics and the Land 



tion of the action taken by Mr. ChapHn against 

 the Education Bill of 1902, they have passed 

 almost without protest. Nearly one hundred 

 M.P.'s were specifically requested (during the 

 session of 1907) to urge that the cost of ad- 

 ministering the Destructive Insects Act should 

 be defrayed by the National Exchequer instead 

 of out of the rates ; not one single member 

 raised the matter in the House. 



This sort of example can be multiplied 

 indefinitely, but enough has been said on this 

 point, and I turn to the Agricultural Committee 

 already existing in the House. I have every 

 reason to believe that there are two such 

 Committees, at any rate I know there were 

 two, one Liberal and one Conservative. These 

 Committees used to meet, though one never 

 heard of their doing much besides electing 

 chairmen and secretaries. It is possible that 

 they occasionally met and agreed to oppose 

 certain Bills, or clauses in certain Bills, but this 

 was when they were respectively in opposition. 

 Even if it can be shown that these Committees 

 have been useful in the past, their use has 

 entirely vanished now. In the Southern Daily 

 News of 2ist December, 1907, Lord Edmund 

 Talbot, M.P., is reported as having said : — 



" . . there was at this moment in the House an 

 Agricultural Committee to which he had the honour to be- 

 long, and which met to consider every agricultural question 



