pending Bill which was to be made more comprehensive; the prohibition of future leases for lives, and the conferring of wide powers on the Land Commissioners to vary and regulate the conditions of existing and future leases; a rate on site values to meet all future increases in local expenditure chargeable to the rates; further Imperial relief to local taxation, possibly amounting to 5,000,000_l._ annually, and statutory revaluation at least every five years, but annually if practicable. To return to the House of Commons, the Home Rule Bill debate had been interrupted for a Labour protest on the South African deportations, in the shape of a resolution moved by Mr. Goldstone (Lab., _Sunderland_) declaring that "the rights of British citizens set forth in Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, and the Habeas Corpus Act, and declared and recognised by the Common Law of England, should be common to the whole Empire, and their inviolability should be assured in every self-governing Dominion." The mover pointed to the Labour gains at the South African elections as indicating that the Government would be supported by the majority in South Africa in intervention. He offered, however, to withdraw the last clause. The Colonial Secretary pointed out that many of the rights specified in Magna Charta were obsolete, and that the Common Law of England did not run throughout the Empire; in South Africa the law was Roman-Dutch. South Africa could not be controlled by debates in that House. He suggested an amendment making the motion read after "Act"--"as representing the freedom of the subject, are those which this House desires to see applied to British subjects throughout the Empire." Lord Robert Cecil (U.) pointed out that Great Britain had less control over an autonomous part of the Empire than over a foreign country, but he held that the British Government might and should have offered advice. After other speeches, the motion as amended was agreed to. A Conference summoned by the Joint Board of the Trade Union Congress, the General Federation of Trade Unions, and the Labour party, met at the Memorial Hall (London) on April 7, and resolved to call on the Government to counsel the repeal of Clause 4 of the Indemnity Act passed in South Africa, and to send Mr. Ramsay Macdonald and Mr. Seddon, both Labour M.P.'s, to present a protest to the South African Government. An amendment that "failing satisfaction, the Labour party turn out the Government at the earliest opportunity," was rejected by more than ten to one, but the party's inaction was severely criticised by the minority.