Commons Sitting of 10 March 1915

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Blyth Harbour Bill,
Skegness Urban District Gas Bill,
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
London County Council (General Powers) (Suspended Bill) (by Order),
Glasgow Corporation (Celluloid) Bill (Suspended Bill) (by Order),
Consideration, as amended, deferred till Tuesday, 20th April.
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 23) Bill,
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Lincoln Corporation Bill,
Copy presented of Report of the Attorney-General on the Bill [pursuant to Standing Order 175 a]; referred to the Committee on the Bill.
Ascot District Gas and Electricity Bill,
London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Bill,
Great Central Railway Bill,
Metropolitan District Railway Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Message from the Lords,—That they have agreed to,—
British Ships (Transfer Restriction) Bill,
Universities and Colleges (Emergency Powers) Bill,
Army (Suspension of Sentences) Bill,
Injuries in War (Compensation) (No. 2) Bill,
Army (Annual) Bill,
Army Act Amendment Bill,
National Insurance Act (Part II.) Amendment Bill,
Naval Medical Compassionate Fund Bill,
Without Amendment.
That they have passed a Bill intituled "An Act to dissolve the marriage of Phyllis Denny, of Claverdon Hall, in the county of Warwick, with Gerald Henry Maynard Denny, her husband, and to enable her to marry again; and for other purposes." [Denny's Divorce Bill [Lords].
Denny's Divorce Bill [Lords],
Read the first time; to be read a second time.

CHARITY COMMISSION (ENGLAND AND WALES).
Copy presented of Sixty-second Report of the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
STREET ACCIDENTS CAUSED BY VEHICLES.
Return presented relative thereto [Address 9th March; Mr. Cecil Harmsworth]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 150.]

SHOPS ACT, 1912.
Copies presented of Orders made by the Councils of the undermentioned local authorities, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department,—

County of London (Metropolitan boroughs of Bethnal Green and Stepney),

City of Chester,

Borough of Mansfield (three),

Borough of Middlesbrough (two),

[by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS (ESTIMATES, 1915–16).
Estimate presented for Civil Services and Revenue Departments for the year ending 31st March, 1916, with Memorandum by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury [by Command]; referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 151.]
CURRENCY AND BANK NOTES ACTS, 1914.
Copies presented of Treasury Minutes, dated 6th August, 20th August, and 22nd October, 1914, and 19th January, 1915, relating to the issue of Currency Notes [by Command]; to lie upon the Table

NAVY.
Annual Accounts presented of the Cost of Manufacturing Provisions, Victualling Stores, etc., at the Home Victualling Yards and Malta Yard for 1913–14, with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 152.]
Copy presented of Annual Accounts of the Royal Navy Torpedo Factory, Greenock, for the year 1913–14, together with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 153.]

ARMY (MILITARY SAVINGS BANKS).
Copy presented of Statement of the Amounts due by the Public to Depositors on 31st March, 1913, and of the Receipts, Interest, and Disbursements during the year ended 31st March, 1914, etc. [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 154.]
LAND JUDGES COURT (IRELAND).
Return ordered, "by counties, of all the Estates now in the Land Judges Court over which receivers have been appointed."—[Mr. Ginnell.]
AGRICULTURAL AND TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION SCHEMES (LOCAL CONTRIBUTIONS) (IRELAND).
Return ordered, "of all moneys contributed out of the rates by the county council and other local bodies in each county in Ireland during the financial year 1914–15 for the purposes of Schemes under the Agricultural and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899."—[Mr. Ginnell.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    DISASTERS TO TRADING VESSELS (PUBLICATION OF NEWS).
    Mr. HOLTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has caused the Censor to prevent the publication of news of damage to or loss of British merchant vessels by mine or submarine; and whether, in view of the responsibility incurred by shipowners in sending their vessels on dangerous voyages, he will give an assurance that no information regarding disasters to trading vessels shall be withheld?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): The Censor is guided in his action by the instructions he receives from the Admiralty, and announcements are made by him in accordance with these instructions. No such news has been suppressed, though the time of publication necessarily depends upon circumstances of which the Admiralty alone are the judge. Arrangements are made whereby the news of damage to or loss of British merchant vessels is communicated to the owners and Lloyd's at once. The immediate publication of individual losses would be of little assistance to the safety of the mercantile marine apart from the precautionary measures taken by the Admiralty. So far every loss has been published.

    NAVAL OFFICERS (SHORE APPOINTMENTS).
    Commander BELLAIRSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that a number of active list officers, filling appointments on shore in the coastguard and elsewhere, have applied for service afloat, and that the practice of giving the preference to retired officers deprives these active list officers of the legitimate opportunity of winning distinction in the proper sphere of a seaman; and whether he can see his way to take any action to meet such cases?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I am informed that many officers filling shore appointments have been given sea appointments since war broke out, and that it is not the case that preference is given to retired officers.

    RETIRED NAVAL OFFICERS (WAR SERVICE AND PENSIONS).
    Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, seeing that time served during the War is regarded as active service time and that such time counts towards an increase of half-pay for active list officers, he will consider the possibility of officers retired from the Navy on account of ill-health, and who voluntarily offered their services during the War, being allowed to count their War service towards an increase of pension; is he aware that the majority of these officers have given up civil employment; and that, should the War last any length of time, their chances of obtaining similar work after hostilities are over will be materially reduced owing to increased age, and especially will this be so in the case of men nearing their forty-fifth year?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I regret I am unable to see my way to recommending the adoption of the suggestion of the hon. Member. Retired officers recalled to service receive a war bonus of 25 per cent. of their full pay in lieu of counting their service for increase of pension. This system is undoubtedly the fairest for officers as a whole. Under the proposal of the hon. Member some officers would undoubtedly gain, but a very considerable number would receive no increase in pension whatever by counting their service under the present general rules on which the calculation of retired pay is based.

    HOSPITAL SHIP "ASTURIAS" (SUBMARINE ATTACK).
    Sir JOHN LONSDALEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if his attention has been directed to the apology issued by the German Embassy in Washington for the submarine attack upon the British hospital ship "Asturias" off Havre on 1st February; and if the excuse offered that the distinctive marks showing the character of the ship were not recognised has any validity?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The master's report says:—
    "It was a very light and clear evening and at 5.15 broad daylight, and in no possibility could the character of the ship be mistaken."
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    The report further says:—
    "Apart from the testimony of my officers, a number of people on board not only saw the course of the torpedo, but also observed the submarine following in our wake."
    As the submarine was herself seen by several of those in the "Asturias," it is difficult to believe that the ship's distinctive marks could have been mistaken.

    ADMIRALTY BADGES.
    Mr. NEEDHAMasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that there have been difficulties in connection with recruiting for the Army due to the omission of firms from the published lists of those doing Government work; what are the conditions under which badges for workers on Admiralty contracts and sub-contracts are distributed to the employers for redistribution; what system is adopted for re-collecting the badges when Admiralty work is completed; and whether the Admiralty is working in unison with the War Office in these matters?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As I stated in the reply to my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Lanarkshire on 16th February, the badges are issued to men continuously engaged upon His Majesty's ships and armaments, their issue being restricted to those employés who, from their experience and skill, are absolutely indispensable for the rapid and effective execution of the work referred to. The regulations which have been issued provide for the re-collection of badges, when this becomes necessary, to be done by the contractors. The Admiralty and War Office are in close communication in regard to these matters.

    ARCHBISHOP OF LEMBERG (PRISON TREATMENT).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can say whether the Archbishop of Lemberg, arrested by the Russians in territory invaded by them and imprisoned in a Russian fortress six months ago, still lives; if so, can he give any particulars of the prison treatment in the case; whether there is any difference in substance between the offence and that for which the Cardinal

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    Archbishop of Malines is restricted to his diocese; whether it is by direction of the Foreign Office or of the Censor the entire British Press is closed against one of these cases while giving full particulars of the other; and whether he will, on the principle of reciprocity, suggest to the Russian Government to concede to the Archbishop of Lemberg treatment similar to that accorded by the Germans to the Archbishop of Malines for an identical offence?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Primrose): I have nothing to add to the reply which was returned to the hon. Member on 3rd March.
    Mr. GINNELL: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether the principle of reciprocity in reference to prisoners of war is legalised at all; and, if it is, why it does not apply to these two men?
    Mr. PRIMROSE: That is hardly a matter for the Foreign Office.
    Mr. GINNELL: To what Department should I apply for the information?

    SS. "MONGARA" (DETENTION OF GOODS).
    Mr. SAMUEL SAMUELasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state the reason for stopping goods shipped by the British steamer "Mongara," from Aden to New York, for transshipment viâ London, consigned to Messrs. S. H. Shotwell and Son, Gloversville, New York, the goods consisting of Berberah blackhead sheepskins; and whether, seeing that Berberah is in British Somaliland, and in view of the fact that many cases of this kind are arising, His Majesty's Government will appoint somebody with commercial knowledge to deal with the business matters of this kind, so as to avoid unnecessary interference with legitimate business and expense to merchants?
    Mr. PRIMROSE: The British steamer "Mongara" arrived in London on the 4th ultimo and reported inter alia 400 bales of skins for transhipment to New York. Of these, 260 bales were shipped under the transhipment regulations of the steam ship "St. Stephen," which sailed for New York on the 16th ultimo. The remaining 140 bales were left over for shipment by a, later vessel; but on the 1st instant it was observed that the bales were marked "Arabia." This fact raised a suspicion
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    of enemy ownership which would, if established, ipso facto debar the goods from the benefit of the transhipment concession and entail their seizure as prize. Inquiries were accordingly set on foot to establish the ownership of the goods, which were meanwhile placed under provisional detention as is usual in such cases. Satisfactory evidence has already been produced in regard to thirty-five bales, and these were released on the 5th instant. Further evidence has been called for in respect of eighty-four bales. No applicant for the release of the remaining twenty-one bales has as yet appeared. In reply to the second part of the question I may say that such cases are dealt with by men of commercial experience, nor can I regard the present case as one of unnecessary interference. I wish further to point out that the importance of these examinations is so vital that it is impossible to avoid some temporary inconvenience to merchants, though this is minimised as far as possible.
    Mr. S. SAMUEL: Will the Government pay the expenses incurred on account of this detention?
    Mr. PRIMROSE: I must have notice of that.

    INTERNATIONAL LAW (VIOLATION BY GERMANS).
    Mr. RONALD McNEILLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any communications have been made to neutral Governments officially calling their attention to such violations of international law by the Germans as the murder of hostages and prisoners of war, the looting of private property, the enslavement of non-combatants, and the levying of indemnities in territory occupied by their troops?
    Mr. PRIMROSE: His Majesty's Government made an official communication to neutral Governments when they announced on 31st October last their policy respecting the arrest of enemy reservists on neutral ships. This announcement, in which reference was made to the action of the Germans in carrying off able-bodied male civilians from the parts of France and Belgium occupied by them, was communicated to the Governments of neutral maritime States represented in London. The French and Belgium Governments have, I believe, communicated the results of their official inquiries to neutral Governments.

    FRANCO-RUSSIAN ALLIANCE.
    Mr. JOWETTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is willing, inasmuch as the future of Great Britain has become identified with the interests of Russia and France, to request the Russian and French Governments to communicate to him the terms of the Franco-Russian Alliance, so that the British people may know the nature of the policy and liabilities to which they have been committed?
    Mr. PRIMROSE: The policy and liabilities to which His Majesty's Government are committed are those of the Alliance made with France and Russia on the 5th of September, 1914, which has been published. That is sufficient for the purposes of the War. Whether further obligations, as the hon. Member apparently suggests, should be undertaken is a point to be considered when the pressure of war is relaxed and gives time for that and other matters. The answer to the question is therefore in the negative.
    Mr. LYNCH: Has the full text of this treaty ever been published; if so, is it available?
    Mr. PRIMROSE: Which treaty?
    Mr. LYNCH: Between Russia and France—the Alliance, or whatever it is called?
    Mr. PRIMROSE: I will make inquiries on that point.

    SIR FRANCIS OPPENHEIMER.
    Mr. GRANTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state in what capacity, if any, Sir Francis Oppenheimer, who was appointed Commercial Attaché at The Hague, is now employed?
    Mr. PRIMROSE: Sir Francis Oppenheimer is employed as Commercial Attaché at The Hague.

    PRISONERS OF WAR.
    Commander BELLAIRSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether a lieutenant in the German Army. Baron Werner von Ow-Wachendorf, aged twenty-nine years, has been released on exchange as a member of the Consular service; and, if so, where was he serving
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    when war broke out; and, in view of the exchange of two German Consuls for two old British officers of eighty-eight and eighty-three years of age whose health had completely collapsed, whether he will make a complete statement on the Baron's release and the conditions, if any, attached thereto?
    Mr. PRIMROSE: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. Baron von Ow-Wachendorf is a member of the German Consular Service and was attached to the German Consulate-General at Cape Town before the War. He was detained in England on his way back to Germany. His release was effected under an agreement with the German Government for the mutual exchange of British and German diplomatic and Consular officers. No conditions were attached to the above-mentioned agreement on either side, but I may mention that none of the German officials concerned were released without the previous concurrence of the War Office and Home Office. As regards the two British officers mentioned, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply returned on the 4th instant, and add that, although the numbers exchanged under the agreement were equal, the exchange was in no sense a man-for-man exchange.
    Commander BELLAIRS: Has this gentleman been at liberty all this time—since 13th August, when he was arrested?
    Mr. PRIMROSE: I will make inquiries on that point.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: Can the Under-Secretary give the House any information as to arrangements for further exchanges?
    Mr. PRIMROSE: I am glad to be able to inform the right hon. Gentleman that in deference to the express wish and desire of the Pope the German Government has agreed to release all invalid civilians by way of mutual exchange.
    Mr. McNEILLasked the Prime Minister whether the Government have official knowledge of orders having been issued by German officers to their troops that British prisoners of war should be put to death; and, if so, whether the fact has been officially notified to neutral Governments?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): No such information has been received officially.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the report published by the Eye-Witness with the British Army to the effect that a Brigade Order has been found to this effect is incorrect?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I should assume it was correct if the Eye-Witness said so.
    Lord C. BERESFORDasked the Prime Minister what steps are being taken to alleviate the sufferings and hardships of British prisoners of war in Germany; whether he is aware that the British prisoners in five camps in Germany are not allowed the use of tobacco and are debarred other comforts; and whether the Government will take this question up themselves in order that these British prisoners may get tobacco and other comforts?
    The PRIME MINISTER: In regard to the first part of the question, I would refer the Noble Lord to the answer returned to the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin on 24th February. His Majesty's Government having learnt on good authority that British prisoners of war in certain camps in Germany were not allowed the use of tobacco, made representations to the German Government through the United States Ambassador on 28th January.
    Mr. FELL: Has there been any reply to that?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I think not.
    Sir HERBERT RAPHAELasked why letters posted to British prisoners of war interned in Germany are delayed for several days before being forwarded to their destination?
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Hobhouse): Correspondence posted in the United Kingdom for British prisoners of war in Germany is dispatched from this country immediately on completion of the Censorship. I have no control over the subsequent treatment of such correspondence.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in a recent case a letter was delayed by the Censor for ten days?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: I am not aware of that, and I very much doubt it.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will the right hon. Gentleman believe it if I bring the case to his notice?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: Certainly.
    Mr. PETOasked the Under-Secretary of State, for War whether, in view of the shortage of labour and the extensive road repairs, due to military user, that are required in Wiltshire and the adjoining counties, he will consider the advisability of employing prisoners of war on this work, thereby liberating a corresponding number of men for employment in agriculture?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant): This would be impracticable at present, as the prisoners could not be accommodated under canvas, and I am not sure than in any case the expense of special camps, with fencing, water supply, sanitation, together with the necessary arrangements for guards, would be justified.
    Mr. PETO: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that only at this season of the year they could not be accommodated under canvas or at any season?
    Mr. TENNANT: I spoke generally.
    Sir H. RAPHAELasked why information concerning officers who are reported missing given in letters from prisoners of war interned in Germany is deleted by the Censor?
    Mr. TENNANT: I should be glad if my hon. Friend would furnish me with particulars of any specific case. The deletion may have been made by the German Censors or by the British Censors, and in the latter case I should be prepared to make further inquiries.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware the deletion is made by the Censor in this country?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am not aware of it.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Is there any conceivable reason why such, deletions should be made?
    Mr. TENNANT: I cannot imagine any.

    SPIRIT (ALCOHOLIC STRENGTH).
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether, with a view to meeting the lure of the drink trade, he will consider the advisability of prohibiting the sale of all spirit under thirty-

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    five under proof, and so prevent the deleterious results arising from drinking spirit of greater alcoholic strength?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): I am afraid I cannot make any statement at present.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to offer him some samples of recent date?

    HOSPITAL TINCTURES.
    Mr. BRIDGEMANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider the desirability of providing in the Finance Bill for the supply of duty-free rectified spirit to hospitals for the making of tinctures under similar restrictions to those which regulate the supply of absolute alcohol free of duty for purposes of research in clinical laboratories and colleges?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The general question of the use of spirit is under consideration, but I am afraid that it would not be possible to grant this particular exemption.
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the London Hospital alone has spent £256 on tinctures of this kind, of which £229 is duty, and could he not, at any rate, make an exemption in favour of tinctures and solutions of iodine; I think it will be easier to do that?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I could supply the hon. Gentleman with the reasons given to me by the Customs as to the difficulty of making a discrimination. I will hand the paper over to him.

    LAND VALUATION DEPARTMENT.
    Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many men who were employed in the Land Valuation Department on the 1st August, 1914, are now serving in His Majesty's forces; how many men of military age are still serving in the Department; whether permission to join the Army has been refused to any employé of the Department; and whether those who join the Army are assured that they will be restored to their former employment after the war?
    Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state, approximately, the number of officials of military age who are now employed in land valuation; how many so employed have enlisted; whether enlistment has been forbidden to any of them; and whether in future the work of this Department can be carried on by officials outside the military age?
    Mr. JAMES MASONasked how many of the Government land valuers are of military age; and whether any and, if so, how many of these gentlemen have been refused permission to offer their services to the military or naval forces of this country?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Over 1,100 members of the Valuation staff are serving with His Majesty's Forces. This number represents a little under one-third of those of military age—a proportion which compares very favourably with that existing in other Departments in the Service.
    Mr. McNEILL: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer that part of question 25 which asks whether permission to join has been refused to the men?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Permission has been refused in some cases where it was impossible to carry on the business of the office without the assistance of those particular members. Of course, the hon. Gentleman must bear in mind that the Inland Revenue are bearing on their books the salaries of each of the members serving during the time they are away.
    Mr. McNEILL: Having regard to the cost of this particular source of revenue, could it not stand in abeyance till after the War?
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Could you not abolish this office altogether?

    WAR LOAN.
    Mr. JOWETTasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of the War Loan of £325,000,000 was underwritten?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: No underwriting commissions were paid in respect of any part of the £350,000,000 War Loan.

    GOLD RESERVE (TREASURY).
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether there is any and, if so, what reserve of gold maintained at the Treasury?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: A gold reserve amounting at present to £27,500,000 is held by the Bank of England on behalf of the Treasury against the issue of currency notes.
    Sir J. D. REES: Was that what the right hon. Gentleman meant when he spoke of the need for a gold reserve at the Bank of England and at the Treasury?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Yes, I referred to that.

    HOUSING (GRANT IN AID).
    Sir RYLAND ADKINSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Grant in aid of housing will be included in the Estimates for the current year; and, if so, on what principle it will be distributed?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I assume that my hon Friend refers to the Public Health Grant which was part of the scheme proposed last year for revised Grants in aid of local taxation. I am afraid that in present circumstances it will not be possible to proceed with that scheme.
    Mr. RAFFAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman give some of the schemes consideration so that no unnecessary obstacle is put in the way?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I should like to consider that very carefully, because I think it desirable that there should be restrictions in the matter of borrowing by municipalities.
    Mr. RAFFAN: In the case of housing schemes urgently required will the right hon. Gentleman give the matter every consideration?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: An urgent need for houses is a consideration which undoubtedly will weigh with the Treasury.

    NECESSITOUS SCHOOL AREAS.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the special Grants to necessitous school areas are to be continued this year on the same basis as last year?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. It is proposed to make provision in the Estimates for the payment of special Grants to necessitous areas in the same amounts as last year.

    GOLF CADDIES.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether he has any information concerning the number of golf caddies above school age who might, if relieved from the task of attending players, be available for agricultural labour, and so remove the need for the employment of school children?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir H. Verney): I regret that I am unable to give the information desired by my hon. Friend, but I shall be glad to bring his suggestion to the notice of the parties concerned.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Would my hon. Friend circularise the clubs in the districts where there is a scarcity of agricultural labour?
    Mr. FORSTER: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many clubs do everything they can to induce all their able-bodied employés to engage in agricultural labour?
    Sir H. VERNEY: Yes, Sir, I think that is so in almost all cases. In cases where it is not so, I should like to adopt the suggestion of my hon. Friend.

    WAR OFFICE TIMBER PURCHASES.
    Mr. WILLIAM YOUNGasked the hon. Member for the Saffron Walden Division, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether a new arrangement for the purchase of timber for the requirements of the War Office has now been considered or completed; and, if so, what are the terms and conditions of the new arrangement?
    Mr. BECK (Lord of the Treasury): Yes, Sir. The commission payable will be as announced up to £600,000, and will be 1½ per cent. from that figure to £1,000,000.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: Can my hon. Friend say whether Mr. Meyer is still able to buy and sell goods for himself while he is acting for the Government?
    Mr. BECK: I do not think that arises out of this question.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: I think it does.

    ENEMY SHIPS IN BRITISH PORTS.
    Mr. ROBINSONasked the President of the Board of Trade how many German and Austrian steamers and sailing ships are now lying unused in British ports; who pays the dock dues and watching expenses of these vessels; and whether they can all be made use of in view of the shortage of tonnage existing?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Runciman): All the German and Austrian steamers and sailing ships which were detained in British ports, with the exception of a few sailing ships which cannot be usefully employed at present, are either in use already or will be in use very shortly. Any expenses properly chargeable against the ships before the date of employment would, I understand, be payable by the Admiralty Marshal or other proper officer of the Crown.
    Mr. ROBINSON: Will my right hon. Friend consider carefully whether these sailing ships cannot be made use of? There are certain vessels between 1,800 and 5,000 tons lying in the same port at the present time which might be used.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Yes, Sir, if it were possible to make use of them we should certainly do so, but it is not only a question of making use of the vessels themselves, but of providing crews for them. There is at the present moment a great shortage of sailors, and I am advised that we would not be able to man any more vessels at our ports. If the supply of sailors were to alter, we could, of course, reconsider the matter.
    Mr. ROBINSON: Will not my right hon. Friend, under the exceptional circumstances, consider the advisability of obtaining Scandinavian sailors?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: We can consider that, but in British ships we have been rather deprecating the use of alien crews.

    BRITISH DYES, LIMITED.
    Mr. BOOTHasked the President of the Board of Trade if any expenses have been incurred out of public funds in holding meetings soliciting shares in British
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    Dyes, Limited, and how those costs have been met; what is the estimated cost of advertising the share issue; and is any brokerage to be paid for placing capital?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: No expense has been incurred out of public funds in holding meetings in connection with British Dyes, Limited. I am informed that the estimated cost of advertising is £1,450, and that no brokerage is to be paid for placing capital.
    Mr. BOOTH: May I ask for the first part of the question to be answered—how the costs have been met if not out of public funds?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I understand that the expense of holding meetings in connection with British Dyes, Limited, has been defrayed by people and associations who are interested in the use of dyes.
    Mr. BOOTH: Have any of these meetings been held since the Treasury Committee refused permission for this issue?
    Mr. BOOTHasked the President of the Board of Trade whether any director or promoter of British Dyes, Limited, is interested in any option mentioned in the prospectus?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: No, Sir.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the names of the directors representing the Government on this company and the pay they are receiving?
    Mr. JOWETTasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give particulars of the steps he has taken, if any, to facilitate the conveyance of crude by products from this country to Switzerland for the purpose of being manufactured into aniline dyes?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: An official consignor has been appointed to systematise shipments from this country, and to deal with the difficulties of transport by land and sea, which, owing to the congestion arising out of the War, have naturally been considerable. I am glad to say that, owing to his efforts, the shipping difficulties have, it is believed, been largely overcome. The Railway Executive Committee are giving facilities for dispatch of the materials in question on railways in this country, and the French Government have granted facilities in respect of transit through France. Further steps to ensure

    1393
    the expeditious interchange of products are now under consideration, and the formation of the new Dye Company will, I hope, greatly simplify the problem.

    OLD AGE PENSIONERS (FOOD PRICES).
    Mr. WILLIAM THORNEasked the Prime Minister whether he can see his way clear to recommend an extra 1s. per week to the old age pensioners in the different parts of the country in consequence of the increased price of food and fuel to the extent of not less than 25 per cent.?
    Mr. BIRDasked the Prime Minister, in view of the acute distress amongst old age pensioners owing to the increased cost of food and coal, many of these poor people being compelled to relinquish their pensions and to apply for Poor Law relief, whether he will cause an inquiry to be made in order that the more urgent cases may be afforded relief?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I must refer to the answer which I gave on 3rd March to the hon. Member for West Wolverhampton, and to the supplemental answer which I gave on that occasion to my hon. Friend the Member for the Tottenham Division. I am informed that the Local Government Board have no evidence that pensioners are being forced to apply for Poor Law relief.

    SUGAR.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister whether, as chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Food Supplies and Prices, he has received any communication from sugar-using manufacturers complaining that their inability to make forward contracts for sugar, to be delivered some months hence at prices substantially below those now asked by the Royal Commission on the Sugar Supply, is handicapping them, and must involve them in heavy losses; and whether he will impress upon the Royal Commission the importance of ending immediately the uncertainty which prevails?
    The hon. Member further asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, the Debate on the Government's sugar policy having been postponed until after the Easter Recess, the
    1394
    Royal Commission on the Sugar Supply has yet come to any decision as to allowing manufacturers to make forward contracts for sugar; and if he is aware that the delay in regard to this matter is prejudicing the interests of various trades, preventing them from making arrangements for the future, and rendering them liable eventually to losses?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): Neither the Government nor the Royal Commission on the Sugar Supply can give any positive assurance as to what the position of sugar may be in the autumn. There is nothing to prevent sugar-using manufacturers from making any forward contracts they can, subject to the prohibition of the importation of sugar being removed before the autumn or to their obtaining licences to import should the prohibition be then still in force. If, on the contrary, they prefer to trust to obtaining supplies from the Commission, the Commission has every reason to hope that the prices it will be charging in the autumn (if it be then still in being) will not be in excess of those now prevailing.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will my right hon. Friend say why it is that sugar, which is the only commodity of which the Government has taken control, is the one commodity which has risen higher in price than any other?
    Mr. McKENNA: No, Sir; my hon. Friend is mistaken in assuming sugar has risen higher than any other commodity. As a matter of fact, sugar before the Government took control of it—that is to say, in the early days of the War—rose 80 per cent., and it is the only commodity which has fallen in price since the first week of the War.
    Mr. HOGGE: Is my right hon. Friend aware that figures supplied by his colleague the President of the Board of Trade show it is larger?
    Mr. McKENNA: I think if my hon. Friend will look at the wholesale prices of wheat and sugar, he will find that the wholesale price of sugar has not risen quite as much as the price of wheat.
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any licences for the importation of sugar have already been given, and if so, whether he will, in the form of a printed answer or otherwise, supply the information to the House?
    Mr. McKENNA: Licences have only been given in respect of pre-war contracts, and in respect of contracts which were so near completion at the time of the prohibition that it was felt to be a special hardship not to allow the sugar to be imported. There has been no general grant of licences.
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: May we have a list of the specific instances in which licences have been granted and the grounds on which they have been granted?
    Mr. McKENNA: There is a question to be put to me later by an hon. Member on this point, and I will reply then.
    Mr. STEEL-MAITLAND: Arising out of the Home Secretary's answer on another point, will he be able to give any assurance that the prohibition on the imports will be removed by the time any of these contracts have taken place, without which it is quite impossible to make them?
    Mr. McKENNA: The existence of a prohibition depends solely upon the danger of enemy sugar being imported into this country. We have every reason to believe that in a very few months now, probably in less than two or three months, the danger of such importation will have absolutely passed away, and the moment it has passed away the prohibition will be taken off, but it is quite impossible for me to give any guarantee.
    Mr. STEEL-MAITLANDasked the Home Secretary (1) if he will grant a Return, as soon as the House reassembles after the recess, of the purchases made up to that date of sugar by the Government, stating the kind and quantity of sugar purchased in each case, together with the country of growth, the price paid, the dates of contract and of delivery, and any other material circumstances—e.g., whether f.o.b. or c.i.f., whether duty paid, etc.; and (2) if he will grant a Return, as soon as the House reassembles after the recess, showing the quantities of sugar out of the special purchases by the Government to refiners and others sold in each week since this operation was undertaken; and the average selling price in each week obtained for the various classes of sugar?
    Mr. McKENNA: Subject to some slight modifications, I think I shall be able to give the hon. Member all the particulars for which he asks.

    M. CAMBON'S LETTERS.
    Mr. JOWETTasked on what date the letters exchanged between M. Cambon and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and read by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in his speech of the 3rd August last, were first communicated to all the Members of the British Cabinet, as distinguished from the section of the Cabinet that was always aware of the existence of these documents?
    The PRIME MINISTER: As stated in my right hon. Friend's speech on 3rd August, the letter addressed to M. Cambon was considered and approved by the Cabinet, and the reply was in due course submitted to them.

    LIQUOR TRAFFIC (RESTRICTIONS).
    Mr. JOHNasked the Prime Minister whether, having regard to the fact that the continuance of warlike operations for twelve months will involve the State in an expenditure, exceeding £600,000,000, and that the national expenditure upon intoxicants amounts to £150,000,000 per annum, and failing an agreed Bill dealing with licensing restrictions, he will, before the adjournment, indicate to the House the nature of the proposals of the Government so that the country may accurately allocate responsibility for their failure; and whether, under such circumstances, the Government will administratively take measures to amend licensing conditions in Scotland and Wales?
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister whether he contemplates taking any further powers to deal with the liquor traffic than are at present given by the Defence of the Realm Act?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Further legislation would be required to extend the present regulations, which go as far as the Defence of the Realm Acts allow. The existing powers conferred on the naval and military authorities by the Acts have, however, not yet been fully exercised. Referring to the last part of Question 51, I can only say that the whole subject is receiving most careful consideration of the Government.
    Mr. HOGGE: May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman's colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer was referring at Bangor

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    simply to the powers under the Defence of the Realm Act and not to any further legislation?
    The PRIME MINISTER: My right hon. Friend says "Yes."

    SOLDIERS AND SAILORS (PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES).
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister whether an opportunity of discussing the contemplated creation of a new Board to deal with and administer the pensions to wives and dependants, etc., of soldiers and sailors will be given to the House before such is finally sanctioned?
    The PRIME MINISTER: This will be a matter for consideration when the further recommendations of the Select Committee have been received.
    Mr. HOGGE: Can my right hon. Friend give us the assurance that no body will be set up without us being able to discuss it, such for instance as the Road Board?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir; we cannot possibly limit the power of Parliament to discuss it.
    Sir ARCHIBALD WILLIAMSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the case of Mrs. Jane Donald, of Auldearn, Nairnshire, whose adopted son, on whom she is dependent, is serving in the 4th Cameron Highlanders; whether the adopted son has made an allotment in her favour; whether a separation allowance has been refused by the State; if so, will he say if a soldier's adopted child is regarded as his own, but the dependence of a woman on the son she adopted and brought up is not recognised; and, in that event, will he give favourable consideration to the facts with a view to paying separation allowance in this case?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Harold Baker): On the facts as stated this case, which has not come under my notice, is one that is met by the new definition of dependant adopted on the recommendation of the Select Committee, and Mrs. Donald should avail herself of the appeal machinery now provided.
    Sir A. WILLIAMSON: Has the hon. Gentleman not received a letter giving full particulars of this case?
    Mr. BAKER: I have no doubt such a letter was received.

    ENEMY SUBMARINES (REWARDS FOR DESTRUCTION).
    Sir JOHN LONSDALEasked the Prime Minister if it is the intention of the Government to offer adequate monetary rewards to the officers and seamen of British merchant ships for the destruction of enemy submarines?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The Admiralty are always ready to mark any act of daring and good seamanship which assists the naval operations in a fitting manner, but I have no further statement to make on the subject at present.

    FRUIT SEASON (RAILWAY FACILITIES).
    Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSONasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that anxiety exists among the market gardeners and fruit growers in the neighbourhood of Botley, Hants, as to whether the South-Western Railway Company will be able to afford them the same special railway facilities during the coming fruit season as they have provided in recent years, owing to national requirements; and if he will approach the railway company with a view of ascertaining, as soon as possible, what facilities can be given this year?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I have communicated with the railway company on the subject, and am informed that whilst it is difficult to give any precise undertaking in view of the possible military requirements, it will be their intention and endeavour to give facilities as nearly as possible equal to those in previous years.

    EXPORTS PROHIBITED.
    Mr. HARRISasked the President of the Board of Trade if he can state approximately the total value of the prohibited exports to Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden for which licences have been granted to individuals or firms located in the British Isles since the 4th August; and whether he is satisfied that the export of prohibited articles is practically confined to those goods for which a licence has been obtained?
    Mr. BECK: The compilation of the statistics required by the hon. Member would be a lengthy and laborious task, and

    1399
    I should not feel justified in asking the Departments concerned—who are working under great pressure—to undertake it. The answer to the second part of the question is in the affirmative.

    CUSTOMS WATCHERS (ARMY PAY).
    Mr. W. THORNEasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that the Customs watchers who have joined the Colours are not being paid anything by the Government over and above the Army pay; if he is aware that all other Government servants have had their wages or salaries made up to them; and if he intends taking any action in the matter?
    Mr. BECK: Customs watchers are treated in this matter like other Government servants. They receive the balance of civil pay remaining after the deduction of Army pay and separation allowance, if any.

    BEEF TRUST OF CHICAGO (INCOME TAX).
    Mr. BOWERMANasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that, with one exception, the companies operating in Smithfield Market and elsewhere in this country, and known as the Beef Trust of Chicago, have paid no Income Tax for about ten years, although their turnover in this country aggregates about £20,000,000 per annum; whether this matter has been under the consideration of the solicitors' department at Somerset House for over two years; and whether any proceedings have been, or are likely to be, taken against these companies?
    Mr. BECK: The matter referred to by the hon. Member presents points of considerable difficulty, but I can assure him that it continues to receive careful attention.

    AUXILIARY WOMEN WORKERS (WAGES).
    Mr. W. THORNEasked the Postmaster-General whether he is now in a position to state what increase in wages he has recommended for auxiliary women workers who have been taken on in the various Departments under his control since the War?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: Women engaged temporarily on postal or telegraph work in the larger provincial towns are now paid a minimum of 22s. a week after three months' service if they are twenty-one years of age or more, and 20s. if they are less than twenty-one. The application of these minimum rates will have afforded appreciable increases in many cases, but in a large number of cases rates in excess of the minimum were already being paid. Specially qualified women employed as temporary counter clerks and telegraphists in London may be paid up to 30s. instead of 24s. a week.

    SHROPSHIRE YEOMANRY.
    Mr. BUTLER LLOYDasked the Postmaster-General the reason that Private Evans, who gave up service in the Shrewsbury Post Office to enlist in the Shropshire Yeomanry, after having obtained verbal permission to do so, has been treated differently, as regards pay and promise of resumption of work at the end of the War, to others who apparently enlisted in exactly similar circumstances?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: I am having inquiry made into the matter, and will communicate with the hon. Member.

    NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.
    Mr. W. THORNEasked the President of the Local Government Board whether hiss attention has been drawn to the need at this crisis for the treatment, apart from lunacy, of recent and uncertifiable cases of nervous breakdown; and whether, in that case, it is still imperative that any application from the London County Council or other county councils for powers to provide such treatment must be delayed till after an expert inquiry, seeing that borough councils now possess these powers?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Herbert Samuel): I would refer the hon. Member to my reply on Monday last to a question by the hon. Member for the Tottenham Division. As regards the powers which the London County Council are seeking in their General Powers Bill, it will be for the Committee before which the Bill comes to decide whether the particular powers should be given.

    LOCAL WORKS.
    Sir J. D. REESasked whether the Government propose to issue a circular to local bodies requiring them to practice strict economy during the present crisis, in view of the demands already being made, and of others likely to be made, upon the resources of taxpayers and ratepayers?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: As I stated in answer to a question on Monday last, I am about to issue a circular to local authorities. This circular will emphasise the desirability of restricting local works in view of the need of economising both labour and capital.

    NATIONAL RELIEF FUND.
    Mr. RUPERT GWYNNEasked if any inspectors and, if so, how many have been appointed to inquire into the administration of the National Relief Fund; and, if so, will he state by whom they are appointed, what salaries they are paid, out of what funds they are paid, and what are their duties?
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Existing officers of the Local Government Board and of other public Departments have been selected by the Government Committee for the Prevention and Relief of Distress to act as inspectors. The number of these inspectors in England and Wales is thirty-one; I have no information of the number of Scottish and Irish inspectors. The duties performed for the Government Committee by these officers are described in a circular issued in September last, a copy of which I will send to the hon. Member. No additions to the public service have been necessary, and no salary is paid to any of the inspectors in respect of the work undertaken for the Government Committee.

    GERMAN ATROCITIES (COMMITTEE'S REPORT).
    Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the Report will be published of the Committee appointed to investigate the German atrocities; and whether the Report will be officially communicated to neutral governments?
    Mr. McKENNA: I understand that the Committee hope to be able to report
    1402
    about the end of this month. Until the Report has been received I cannot make any statement as regards the action to be taken on it.
    Mr. McNEILL: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether, after the Committee report, it will continue in existence in order to investigate any further actions that may take place during the War?
    Mr. McKENNA: I am afraid I cannot make any statement until I see the Report.

    ALIENS.
    Mr. FELLasked the Home Secretary if he has further considered the question of compelling aliens who are trading in this country under assumed names or descriptions to exhibit their true names for at least ten years after they assumed a British name or British description, and that on all papers they must sign both the assumed name and their original name?
    Mr. McKENNA: Yes, Sir. I considered the suggestion when made by the hon. Member some months ago, but I came to the conclusion that such a far-reaching change affecting aliens of all nationalities would go beyond the proper scope of the emergency powers relating to the War.
    Mr. FELL: If the right hon. Gentleman cannot go so far as is suggested, can he do something to stop the fraud perpetrated throughout the country by people trading by deceit and inducing people to frequent their establishments under the impression that they are British?
    Mr. McKENNA: Any case of fraud, of course, could be proceeded against in the ordinary way, but I think the proposal upon the Paper goes a great deal beyond the scope of our emergency powers.
    Mr. FELLasked the Home Secretary if alien enemies are now being employed at some of the hotels and restaurants in London; and, if so, will he make it a condition of such employment that such hotels exhibit a notice at the entrance that aliens are employed there, so that customers may be warned of their presence and of the risk involved in discussing the War or similar topics?
    Mr. McKENNA: I have no power to impose conditions on the employment of waiters, British or alien. I am afraid that the suggestion that the danger of espionage is confined to aliens is too sanguine.
    Commander BELLAIRSasked the Home Secretary whether he can state when the German lieutenant Baron Werner von Ow-Wachendorf was arrested, where he was interned, and where he subsequently resided at liberty; and whether this officer has now been exchanged, and is at liberty to fight against this country?
    Mr. McKENNA: The Baron was never interned. He arrived in this country from South Africa in the middle of August, and from then until his departure on 1st March resided continuously in London. As to his exchange, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply already given by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
    Commander BELLAIRS: I understand that this officer was released and remained at large as a Consular officer. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in the view of His Majesty's Government, he could properly be called a Consular officer having regard to the fact that he started on mobilisation before the War broke out and ceased to be a Consular officer?
    Mr. McKENNA: That is a question to be addressed to the Foreign Office.
    Mr. STANLEY WILSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this officer served his military training in German South-West Africa a year ago, and was not such information given to the Intelligence Department of the War Office about 16th October of last year?
    Mr. McKENNA: That is a question which must be addressed to the War Office. I have no knowledge on the matter.
    Mr. S. WILSON: Do not you work together?
    Mr. McKENNA: I cannot answer for all the details of the work in the War Office without notice.

    ASYLUMS.
    Mr. C. DUNCANasked the Home Secretary whether he can state the position of the staffs of those asylums taken over by the military authorities; whether the Government propose to utilise the services of the existing staffs; whether their continuity of service for the purposes of superannuation will be safeguarded; and whether their pay and prospects will remain not less favourable than those at present enjoyed in the services of the local authorities concerned?
    Mr. McKENNA: The answer to all the points in the question is in the affirmative. I am advised that as the asylums will during their use as military hospitals continue to be for legal purposes asylums, and the officers will remain in the service and pay of the asylum authority, the Asylum Officers Superannuation Act, 1909, will continue to apply to the officers, and their service for pension purposes will not be broken.

    FALSE NEWS (DISSEMINATION).
    Mr. R. GWYNNEasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to a newspaper published in the English language which claims to have a circulation of 60,000 copies in neutral countries; whether he is aware that this paper habitually contains false statements as to the progress of the War and articles prejudicial to the Allies; whether he is aware that copies of this paper are regularly sent to this country; whether he has information to the effect that it is owned or edited by a person of British nationality; and, if so, what action he proposes to take against this person?
    Mr. McKENNA: The answer to the first, second, and third heads of the question is in the affirmative. I cannot say for certain who is now the owner or editor of the paper. It belonged formerly to a person of British nationality, but, in any case, as it is now edited and managed in Germany, it is impossible to take any proceedings. I will consider what can be done to prevent the dissemination of false news by this paper, but many of the statements it contains are so obviously false as to defeat their own purpose.
    Mr. GWYNNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman inquiring further into the matter with a view of stopping the paper circulating here?
    Mr. McKENNA: Yes, I should be glad to stop it circulating here, but, of course, I cannot stop it in Germany.

    EXECUTION OF TRUSTS (WAR FACILITIES) ACT, 1914.
    Sir J. DEWARasked the Lord Advocate if he is aware that the Execution of Trusts (War Facilities) Act, 1914, does not apply to Scotland; and if he will introduce legislation to extend the principle of this Act to Scotland?
    The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. R. Munro): The answer to the first part of the hon. Baronet's question is in the affirmative. The question of applying the Act to Scotland was carefully considered, and the decision not to do so was reached in view of the differences between English and Scots law relating to trusts, and of the absence of any demand for such legislation in Scotland.

    BROOD MARES.
    Mr. T. M. HEALYasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) what is being done to secure the return of brood mares unfit for war service?
    Mr. T. W. RUSSELL (Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture, Ireland): Owing to the danger of introducing equine disease, the Department do not favour the return to Ireland of mares from the front.
    Mr. HEALY: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if there is not a very strong feeling in the country that we are being depleted of horses and that nothing whatever is being done to renew the stock; and must not some risk be run in war time or the country will be absolutely short of horses?
    Mr. RUSSELL: No, we are very far from being short of horses. The hon. Member will recollect what happened on the return of horses to Ireland after the South African War. Ireland for three years after that suffered from equine disease and had great trouble. I have summoned an advisory committee, and the Department is acting on the best advice.
    Mr. HEALY: Has the right hon. Gentleman got the resolution of the Cork Breeders' Association asking the Government to take some steps, and does he not think, having regard to the number of horses and mares unfitted for war service, that something should be done by experienced men for the country?

    SEEDS (HIGH PRICES).
    Mr. PATRICK O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware of the high prices of seeds of all kinds in Ireland owing to the War and the difficulties which confront farmers, and especially small farmers, in this connec-
    1406
    tion at the coming spring setting of their crops; and whether he intends, by legislation or in any other way, to provide relief?
    Mr. RUSSELL: The Department do not consider that any action beyond seeing that the seeds supplied to farmers are of good quality is necessary. Information is furnished through the various agricultural instructors as to persons having good seed of cereals for sale. All other seeds are plentiful, and although in some cases, they are dearer in price, this rise is, as a rule, not more than proportionate to the general rise in the prices of agricultural produce.
    Mr. LYNCH: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in view of the great discontent in county Clare with respect to the action of the inspectors, he will publish the general instructions given to inspectors, so that the public may be able to control their action and see whether they conform to the law?
    Mr. RUSSELL: I will see if any further action can be taken.

    WAR OFFICE CONTRACTS (BACON).
    Mr. PETOasked the Under-Secretary of State for War (1) if he can state approximately the amount or proportion of the bacon, as apart from ham, supplied for the use of the troops which has been purchased from Great Britain, Ireland, and foreign countries, respectively; and how much of that produced in England has been supplied by English curers other than co-operative curing companies this year; and (2) whether, in view of the taxation on manufacturers in this country for War purposes at the present time, he will see that the supply of bacon for the use of troops is, as far as possible, drawn from English bacon-curing companies, and is not confined to English co-operative bacon-curing companies which, owing to being registered as friendly societies, are not required to pay Income Tax on their profits, and to merchants dealing only in Irish or foreign produce?
    Mr. BAKER: Excluding comparatively small local purchases, the bacon for the troops has been obtained from the following sources, namely:—

    Great Britain

    …

    11·3 per cent.

    Ireland

    …

    45·4 per cent.

    Colonies

    …

    25·5 per cent.

    Foreign countries

    …

    17·8 per cent.

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    Of the English bacon bought in the present year (1915), 78 per cent. has been supplied by English curers other than co-operative factories.
    Mr. PETO: I shall refer to this matter on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House.

    ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS (WESSEX DIVISION, INDIA).
    Mr. PETOasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether the corps pay of 4d. a day of water duty men of the Royal Army Medical Corps serving with the Wessex division in India has been stopped; whether these men volunteered for India on the understanding that they would draw the same pay as they had been drawing at home; and, if so, whether he will state the reason why this reduction of about 22 per cent. of their pay has been made?
    Mr. BAKER: I am not aware of the facts of the case, but will have inquiry made in India and inform the hon. Member of the result in due course.

    GERMAN USE OF BLAZING PETROL.
    Sir J. D. REESasked whether the fact that blazing petrol is used as a weapon by the Germans in the trenches will be verified and placed upon official record?
    Mr. TENNANT: As the statement referred to occurred in a French official communiqué, it may be assumed that the facts were duly verified, and they have been placed on official record in the Department.

    BRITISH BLOCKADE (SEIZURE OF "PACIFIC").
    Sir J. D. REESasked whether the American cotton ship "Pacific" has been seized by a British cruiser, and subsequently allowed to proceed to Rotterdam?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I am informed that the vessel in question was not seized, but detained pending identification of her cargo, in the usual manner. Her papers being in order, the vessel was allowed to proceed.

  DEFENCE OF THE REALM ACT.

    CONFISCATION OF NEWSPAPERS (IRELAND).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether the military authorities empowered to administer the Defence of the Realm Act are required to make themselves acquainted with its terms; if so, will he say on what part of the Act they rely in discriminating between different portions of the United Kingdom by seizing and confiscating on their arrival in Ireland newspapers allowed to be published and circulated in Great Britain; if he will say how many newspapers besides that called "The Worker" are treated in this manner; and whether this discrimination in administration is to be continued?
    Mr. TENNANT: The Regulations made under the Defence of the Realm Act are in force generally, and the competent military authorities have of course made themselves acquainted with those Regulations. But the responsibility for action must necessarily be decentralised and action in any locality must be determined by conditions prevailing at the moment. If any acts of illegality were alleged it would be investigated and, if proved, redressed.
    Mr. GINNELL: Does the right hon. Gentleman not deny that papers circulated in Great Britain are seized on their arrival in Ireland?
    Mr. TENNANT: I do not admit anything of the kind. But if the hon. Gentleman will bring to my notice any fact for which he can vouch I will, of course, have it investigated. But I am not aware of the practice at present.
    Mr. GINNELL: The fact is in the question on the Paper.

    CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS (ROYAL NAVY).
    Mr. BOLAND: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty a question, of which I have given him private notice, namely: Whether any progress has been made towards improving the arrangements for the spiritual welfare of Catholics serving in the Fleet?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes, Sir, my right hon. Friend has been in consultation with the Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster, and he intends early next week to hold

    1409
    the conference referred to in my answer to the hon. Member of 16th February, when it is hoped that a satisfactory solution will be reached.

    Royal Dockyards (Wages).
    Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the case of leather hose-makers was considered when the answers to the last petitions were given; and, if so, can he say what wage these men received when the last concession was made to them, and how their position compares with other mechanics in His Majesty's dockyard?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The case of the leather hose-makers was considered, and a reply was given on page 54 of the Printed Replies to Petitions, dated 23rd February, refusing an increase. Until 1908 these men were classified as skilled labourers. In that year it was approved to put them in a separate class on the then maximum rate for skilled labourers—namely, 28s. a week for hired men. Later, special rates up to 30s. were approved, and in 1912 the maximum special rate was made 31s. No advance has been approved since 1912.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: How many men are there on the 31s. rate?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: In all the yards? I cannot say off-hand.
    Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has recently received a deputation from the skilled labourers in His Majesty's dockyards; and, if so, will he give the House some indication of the reply given to the deputation?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I received a deputation on 27th February, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness, representing the views of labourers and skilled labourers in His Majesty's dockyards at Portsmouth, Devonport, Chatham, and Pembroke Dock, and the Royal Victoria Yard, Deptford. They asked for larger increases in time rates than those announced to the House on the 16th February, and also raised the question of the overtime scale. I stated that their representations would receive the careful consideration of the Board, and reminded the members that, as stated by
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    the Prime Minister on 25th February, in reply to a question by the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness, the question of an increase in wages to Government workmen in consideration of the rise in prices in the present emergency is receiving the attention of the Government, who are taking the advice of the Arbitration Committee, whose appointment was announced on Monday last, the 22nd February.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Was there any statement in regard to the minimum rate of labourers in the dockyards?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: What was said was that there should be an increase. I said that. They asked for a large increase in the time rate, particularly that we should not confine ourselves to the minimum, but give concessions all the way through the scale.
    Mr. BARNESasked the Secretary to the Admiralty if the inquiry promised last June in regard to the wage and other conditions of labour at Gibraltar has yet been instituted, and, if so, with what result; and if recent increases of wages given in Home dockyards will also be given to Gibraltar workmen?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The Annual Petitions regarding the wages and conditions of labour in His Majesty's Dockyard, Gibraltar, were received at the Admiralty on the 22nd ultimo, but there has not yet been time to deal with the various questions raised in them. The matter will be dealt with as quickly as possible. The recent increases in wages given in the Home dockyards will not be applicable to workmen at Gibraltar.
    Mr. TYSON WILSON: If the reply is favourable, will the increase of wages date back?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Oh, I cannot say.
    Mr. BARNES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the increase of price has been even more marked out there than in the Home dockyards?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I could not say off-hand what the facts may be. I know there have been increases in price.
    Mr. BARNES: And that rents have in creased out there even more than at home?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I cannot say. I will take careful note of what my hon. Friend says, but can give no undertaking.

    South Manchurian Railway.
    Mr. NEEDHAMasked whether the net railway rates and charges for traffic carried on the South Manchurian Railway are the same on British goods as on Japanese goods; if there is any difference, is it in favour of Japanese goods; and, if so, to what extent?
    Mr. PRIMROSE: Special 30 per cent. reduced rates for specific through goods from Japan to Manchuria via Dairen, Antung or Newchang were introduced in July last. Owing to representations by His Majesty's Government, the Japanese Government promised that these rates should be extended to specific through goods from foreign countries. It appears, however, that, in practice, the South Manchurian Railway only extends these rates to goods carried by shipping lines having a special arrangement with them on the subject; and that, although the railway company has expressed its willingness to conclude such an arrangement with any shipping company—Japanese or foreign—these arrangements have, so far, only been concluded with Japanese companies.

    Eastern Bengal Crime.
    Sir J. D. REESasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he will place in the Library a copy of the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into crime and its causes in Eastern Bengal?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Charles Roberts): Presumably the hon. Member refers to the Report of the Committee on district administration in Bengal, the scope of which was much wider than he appears to suggest. I shall be glad to place a copy of the Report, in the Library as soon as possible, but the usual supply of copies has not yet been received.

    Estate Duty (Ireland).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether there is any precedent in this country for the Commissioners of Inland Revenue retaining the Law Officers of the Crown, as in the case of Cookman, tried in Dublin recently, to hold that Estate Duty must be paid, not only on the value of a purchased farm, but in addition on the vague beneficent effect of legislation enabling land to be purchased with State assistance; whether he can refer to any English decision thus taxing the value of legislation in addition
    1412
    to the value of land or any other property; what is the scale on which Estate Duty on the value of beneficent legislation is assessed; whether the Commissioners propose to resist at the public expense the appeal against the Dublin decision; and if he will specify the law or principle on which the Commissioners discriminate between classes of beneficiaries under Irish land legislation by making this addition to Estate Duty on land on account of beneficent legislation as against tenant purchasers only, and not as against vendors receiving State money for the land, nor as against vendors receiving State money for mansions and demesnes sold to themselves under the same legislation, nor as against those who, by refusing to sell, reject the said beneficent legislation?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am unable to admit the correctness of the assumptions on which the hon. Member's question is based. There has been no departure in the particular case referred to from the principle that Estate Duty is payable on the open market value, as at the time of death, of the property passing, and no discrimination is made between different classes of beneficiaries. The question of resisting an appeal against the decision referred to has not arisen.
    Mr. GINNELL: Is it correctly reported that duty has been levied, not only on the property, but on the beneficent nature of certain legislation; if so, will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question on the Paper as to what is the scale on which Estate Duty on the value of beneficent legislation is assessed?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think I have answered the question; the assessment is purely upon the market value of the estate.
    Mr. GINNELL: Then the reported judgment is incorrect?

    Tax Surveyors.
    Mr. THOMASasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether any grant has been made to the legal representatives of Mr. C. F. Wood, late clerk to the surveyor of taxes, Wigan district, and, if so, the amount thereof; and whether the amount is less than that which would have been granted had the deceased clerk been placed on the establishment under the terms of the Treasury scheme of July, 1914, relative to clerks to surveyors of taxes?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: No grant has been made to the legal personal representatives of the late Mr. Wood, as at the date of his death he was still in an un-established capacity and had not served long enough in that capacity to qualify for a gratuity.
    Mr. WILKIEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many clerks in the tax-surveying branch in the scales £200 to £300 and £85 to £180, respectively, will be due to retire in the next ten years, and how many of the latter scale, provided the efficiency bar is passed, will have reached their maximum pay in the same period?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Six clerks on each of the scales £200—£300 and £200—£250, and twenty-six on the scale £85—£180 will have attained the age of sixty before the conclusion of the next ten years, but they will not be required to retire at that age provided their efficiency remains unimpaired. It is possible for about 270 clerks on the scale £85—£180 to reach the maximum of the scale within the period mentioned.
    Mr. ROWLANDSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that a number of clerks who entered the tax-surveying branch subsequent to 28th July, 1909, and consequently have to pass a literary examination, are now with His Majesty's Forces; and whether, under these exceptional circumstances, the Treasury would consider the desirability of placing such clerks forthwith on the establishment?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am aware of the fact referred to by my hon. Friend. A literary examination cannot be altogether dispensed with in the case of clerks now serving with His Majesty's Forces, but opportunities will be afforded to them on their return to civil duty to qualify for establishment under conditions laid down by the Treasury.

    Board of Agriculture (Pamphlets).
    Mr. BRIDGEMANasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture what steps are being taken to make known to farmers, small holders, and cottagers the various publications of the Board giving advice on various agricultural processes, and of making such pamphlets easily available to those concerned?
    Sir H. VERNEY: Every practicable means which the ingenuity of the Board of Agriculture can devise is being used to
    1414
    circulate the information referred to. I am sending the hon. Member a detailed statement on the subject.

    Colonial Mutual Assurance Society, Limited.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the President of the Board of Trade what the alleged asset of £112,493 14s. 1d. in the 1913 accounts of the Colonial Mutual Assurance Society, Limited, consists of; and whether it is available for the benet or security of those insured in that concern?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The sum of £112,493 14s. 1d. appearing as an asset in the balance-sheet of the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society, Limited, under the description of "Extension of Industrial Organisation Account," represents the proportion of expenditure which is attributed by the society to the organisation of the industrial branch of its business as distinguished from the expanses of carrying on the business. The value of this expenditure is available, with the other assets shown in the company's balance-sheet amounting to £3,658,000, for the policy holders of the society.

    Law Integrity Insurance Company, Limited.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the President of the Board of Trade what the alleged asset of £25,098 16s. 8½d. in the latest accounts of the Law Integrity Insurance Company, Limited, consists of; whether it is available for the benefit or security of those insured in that concern; and, if the company has any assets so available, will he say to what amount?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: The sum of £25,098 16s. 8½d. appearing as an asset in the balance-sheet of the Law Integrity Insurance Company, Limited, under the description of "Establishment Account," represents the proportion of expenditure which is attributed by the company to the establishment and organisation of the business as distinguished from the expense of carrying on the business. The value of this expenditure is available, together with the other assets shown in the company's balance-sheet, amounting to £32,395, for the policy-holders of the company.
    Mr. GINNELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman able to say as a fact that this concern has got any assets whatever?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I shall require notice of any further questions on this subject.

    Railway Freightage (Minerals).
    Mr. W. THORNEasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that some of the railway companies have already given notice to their traders that the freightage on minerals will be increased by 12½ per cent. to compensate them for the extra wage given to the railway employés; and if he intends taking any action in the matter?
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am not aware of any such cases.

    Provincial Engineering Third-Class Clerks.
    Mr. BARNESasked the Postmaster-General, having regard to the fact that the Holt Committee reported in August, 1913 (Paragraph 1052), that their recommendations should come into force within six months, when he intends to give effect to the recommendations in regard to the provincial engineering third-class clerks?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: The recommendations in regard to the provincial engineering third-class clerks are still under consideration, together with those affecting other clerical classes of the Post Office. The case is complicated by the Report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service, upon which the Government has not yet reached a decision.
    Mr. BARNES: In the event of a favourable decision, will the increased pay date back to August, 1913?
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: I am not quite sure about that, but the general effect of the recommendations of the Committee is that all recommendations for increased pay date back to the 2nd February, 1914.

    Metropolitan Police.
    Sir F. FLANNERYasked the Home Secretary whether there is at present an absence of any provision for properly nursing and attending sick members of the Metropolitan Police force who reside in section houses; and whether any improvement is in contemplation?
    Mr. McKENNA: I would refer the hon. Baronet to my answer to a question on this subject on 28th July last, in which I stated fully the arrangements now in force. I think he will find that ample provision is made.
    Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the Home Secretary if he will state why
    1416
    Constable Gutteridge, of the R Division (Greenwich), Metropolitan Police, has been transferred to another division; did this constable give evidence that he had not been asked by Constables Davies, M'Shea, or Chave to join the Police Union; had this evidence any connection with the subsequent transfer; whether he will state the reason for the transfers of Constables Power and Taylor, also of Greenwich; and were they witnesses at this inquiry?
    Mr. McKENNA: The constables mentioned gave evidence at the inquiry, but their transfer was not made in consequence of the evidence they gave. The transfer was made for administrative reasons, of which the proper judges are the Commissioner and Assistant-Commissioners, with whose discretion I am not prepared to interfere. I am satisfied that the proceedings have been both regular and proper.

    Glasgow (House Rents).
    Mr. BARNESasked the Secretary for Scotland if his attention has been directed to the resolution adopted on Thursday last by the Glasgow Corporation asking the Government to institute an inquiry into the recent increase of house rents in Glasgow; has such resolution been submitted to the Government; and, if so, with what result?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): I received the resolution in question on Monday, and am giving the matter my most careful consideration.

    Schools of Art.
    Mr. GRANTasked the President of the Board of Education if he can state the number of detailed inspections of schools of art in England and Wales held in 1914; the number of inspectors and assistants who were, on an average, engaged in inspecting each school of art; how soon after each inspection was the report issued; how many corresponding inspections he has sanctioned for 1915; and how many detailed inspections in the course of five years are such large schools of art like those in Middlesex, Yorkshire, Surrey, Staffordshire, Lancashire, and Wales subjected to?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Dr. Addison): In the school year ending 31st July, 1914, there were, sixty-four detailed inspections of Schools of Art, conducted

    1417
    on the average by three or four inspectors. The preparation and issue of the reports occupied, on an average, nine weeks. There have been no detailed inspections since the outbreak of War, and arrangements for the future are now under consideration. Hitherto it has been the practice to hold a detailed inspection of each School of Art once every three years.

    Land Purchase (Ireland).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he is now in a position to state the aggregate area of the grass farms on the estate of Lady Chapman, Killua Castle, Westmeath, which the Estates Commissioners propose to enable the graziers to purchase, notwithstanding their status as graziers; the amount of land on the estate available for distribution; and the probable date of its distribution?
    Mr. RUSSELL: The Estates Commissioners are at present unable to add to the information contained in the replies to the several questions asked by the hon. Member on the subject of this estate last year.
    Mr. LYNCHasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland (1) whether, with regard to the Scott estate, Doonmore, West Clare, one of the trustees has allotted to himself the choicest portion of the turbary; whether the inspector in his report condemned this proceeding; whether some of the tenants have not been allotted turbary; and whether, to ensure fair treatment all round, the division of the turbary will be re-examined and equitable steps taken; (2) whether, with regard to the Scott estate, Doonmore, West Clare, the deed conveying the estate to the three trustees was in due form; whether the signatures of the tenants were required; and, if so, whether they were all obtained; and (3) whether, in regard to the sale of the Scott estate, Doonmore, West Clare, public notice was duly given in the Clare newspapers; and, if so, whether he can give the dates; whether a number of tenants have no turbary although paying rent for it; and whether, if there has been illegality in any of the proceedings, steps will be taken to have the matter rectified?
    Mr. T. W. RUSSELL: The holdings on this estate have been vested in the tenants in accordance with the purchase agreements signed by them in pursuance of proceedings for direct sale instituted by
    1418
    the owner under the Land Purchase Acts. One of the terms of sale agreed upon between the owner and the tenants was that the former should convey the turbary to trustees for the benefit of the residential tenants. This he did by Deed out of Court executed in due form by himself, the trustees and all the tenants but three. Under the deed the management of the turbary is vested in the trustees and the Commissioners have no power to interfere with them. My right hon. Friend is informed, however, that when dealing with the property the Commissioners were satisfied that the trustees were administering the trust in a proper manner, and they have no knowledge of the allegation made in the question with regard to the allotment of the turbary which the trustees have marked out in accordance with the terms of the deed for each of the tenants, including the three who refused to subscribe to it. It is, at the same time, open to parties who consider that their rights have been interfered with to take such legal action as they may be advised. The notice to claimants, which is a notice issued in connection with the distribution of the purchase money, has not yet been published.

    Monaghan Assizes (Michael Daly).
    Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, if he will say by whose authority the Solicitor-General for Ireland went to Monaghan Assizes on Wednesday, 3rd March, to prosecute Michael Daly, a Nationalist county councillor, for treating and bribery in connection with a county council election; what fees are receivable by the Solicitor-General for this case; why were the two circuit Crown prosecutors for Monaghan not considered competent; if the Treasury Remembrancer was consulted; and why the general practice that the Law Officers of the Crown only go as special counsel to prosecute where the charge is a capital one or of special importance to the Crown was departed from in this case?
    Mr. RUSSELL: The Solicitor-General for Ireland attended to conduct the prosecution referred to by the authority and direction of the Attorney-General for Ireland. He was entitled to the usual fee of one hundred guineas for attending at Assizes to prosecute. There was no departure from the general practice as the Attorney-General was of opinion that the case was one of special importance.
    Mr. McNEILL: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain what constitutes special importance of the case?
    Mr. RUSSELL: That is a matter for the discretion of the Attorney-General, and he has personally assured me to-day that it was a case which necessitated the attendance of either himself or the Solicitor-General.
    Mr. McNEILL: Can the right hon. Gentleman get from the Attorney-General a statement as to why it was important?
    Mr. RUSSELL: I must take the statement of the Attorney-General on that matter.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. BONAR LAW: What will be the course of business for the remainder of the present sittings?
The PRIME MINISTER: I understand that the business which has to be considered by the House of Lords will make it impossible for that House to deal with it this week. Therefore we have abandoned our intention of moving the Adjournment this week, and shall ask the House to sit on Monday and Tuesday next.
To-day we shall take the first three Orders of the Day.
To-morrow, the business will be the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill.
We hope to take the Welsh Church (Postponement) Bill on Monday.
Mr. BONAR LAW: May we take it that it is the intention of the Government to pass the Welsh Church Bill through all its stages during these sittings?
The PRIME MINISTER: I do not say it is the intention, but we hope to do so.
Lord ROBERT CECIL: Is the Government going to do it or not?
The PRIME MINISTER: I have expressed our hope that it will be done.
Mr. LOUGH: Is it absolutely necessary to take the Customs (War Powers) Bill during these sittings, seeing the difficulty we are under just now? Can it now be left over till the next sittings?
The PRIME MINISTER: It is in our opinion an urgent Bill.
Mr. HOGGE: Is it proposed to proceed with the Plural Voting Bill, as well as the Welsh Church Bill?

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  DEFENCE OF THE REALM (AMENDMENT) (No. 2) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair).

  DEFENCE OF THE REALM (AMENDMENT) (No. 2) BILL.

    CLAUSE 1.—(Powers for Expediting Production of War Material.)
    (1) Sub-section (3) of Section one of the Defence of the Realm Consolidation Act,
    1454
    1914 (which gives power to take possession and use for the purpose of His Majesty's naval and military services certain factories or workshops or the plant thereof), shall apply to any factory or workshop of whatever sort, or the plant thereof; and that Sub-section shall be read as if the following paragraphs were added after paragraph (b):—
    "(c) to require any work in any factory or workshop to be done in accordance with the directions of the Admiralty or Army Council, given with the object of making the factory or workshop, or the plant or labour therein, as useful as possible for the production of war material; and
    (d) to regulate or restrict the carrying on of work in any factory or workshop, or remove the plant there-from, with a view to increasing the production of war material in other factories or workshops; and
    (e) to take possession of any unoccupied premises for the purpose of housing workmen employed in the production, storage, or transport of war material."
    (2) It is hereby declared that where the fulfilment by any person of any contrast is interfered with by the necessity of complying with any requirement, regulation, or restriction of the Admiralty or the Army Council under the Defence of the Realm Consolidation Act, 1914, or this Act, or any regulations made thereunder, that necessity is a good defence to any action or proceedings taken against that person in respect of the non-fulfilment of the contract so far as it is due to that interference.
    (3) In this Section the expression "war material" includes arms, ammunition, warlike stores and equipment, and everything required for or in connection with the production thereof.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this Clause stand part of the Bill."
    Sir F. BANBURY: I have a Clause down which I am afraid is out of order, because, although it does not actually impose a charge it gives the option of the Government to make a charge. I will therefore make a few remarks on the present Motion so that I may explain why I put the Clause down. It was because the Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared to think it was necessary that compensation cases should go through all the formalities of the Lands

    1455
    Clauses Act. No one on this side of the House would suggest that that should be necessary.
    Mr. DENMAN: I have an Amendment to the Clause, of which I handed in notice this afternoon.
    The CHAIRMAN: I am sorry no Amendment has reached me. The hon. Member did not rise when I put the Clause and now the Question has been put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." The hon. Baronet is in the course of his speech on that Motion, and I regret I cannot go back.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I put down the Clause in order to show that there was a way which would enable the Government to pay compensation without going through all the long formalities of the Land Clauses Act. I showed the Clause to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and I think I may say that he approved of it. It would be perfectly easy for the Government to bring in a Clause of this sort at a later period. It will require a Resolution in Committee authorising expenditure, therefore it is quite impossible for a private Member to move it. The Government might probably do that. I do not put my opinion against that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a moment, but I am very doubtful whether he has the powers that he says he has under the Vote of Credit. Yesterday I asked the right hon. Gentleman by what authority the Admiralty or the War Office could pay compensation, and he said under the Vote of Credit. If he will excuse me saying so, I think he is wrong. The Vote of Credit does not give power to do anything except to pay money for something which has already been legalised by the House of Commons. This Bill is quite a new departure, and I do not think it has been legalised at any time before. I do not see the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee here, but unless there is something legalising the payment of compensation the right hon. Gentleman will find the Public Accounts Committee will say that the Government have no power to make a payment.
    I have also been advised by a right hon. Friend sitting on this side of the Committee that only a few days ago he made inquiry at the War Office and was told by them that there was no power to pay compensation. However that may be, it is very necessary that some authority should be
    1456
    given to the Government to pay compensation. It is not right that they should come down here and say, "We are not bound to pay compensation, but by an act of grace we will do so." That is introducing an element of favouritism, which no one on either side of the Committee, nor even the right hon. Gentleman himself, would desire for a moment. I put the Amendment down, not believing that it was perfect—unfortunately I am not a lawyer and I put down what occurred to me in my simple-mindedness—but as being something which might meet the necessities of the case. I earnestly trust that the right hon. Gentleman will consider whether it will not be possible, when we come back in April, to introduce a short Bill empowering the Admiralty or the War Office to pay compensation, and, if they think it necessary, something in the same form as the Clause I have put down.
    Mr. TYSON WILSON: I should like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for the time that has been given for the discussion of this Bill. In Clause 1, Sub-section (1) (c), power is taken to take over any factory or workshop, or the plant or labour therein. We ask that in taking over the labour, the right hon. Gentleman should give us an assurance that the men will not be asked to receive less wages than they are receiving at the present time, although they may have to do some other work. The men desire to do all they possibly can to expedite the output of munitions of war. If they are taken from skilled work to do work that is semi-skilled, I hope we shall have a pledge that there will be no change in wages. In taking over a factory it may be necessary to transfer the workman from a firm in one town to a firm in some other town. I want to get an assurance from the Government that if the men are transferred from one town to another they shall be given what is called a subsistence allowance. What I mean by that is, that no workman shall be placed in a worse position, so far as home life is concerned, if he is sent from London to Birmingham or from London to Glasgow, and that he shall be given a subsistence allowance. The Committee will realise that married men will be placed at a great disadvantage unless some such provision is made for them. The right hon. Gentleman will realise the importance of the point to the workmen who may be transferred.
    Mr. T. M. HEALY: I wish to ask the Government what is their proposal with regard to the question of broken contracts.

    1457
    I understand there is a provision in the Bill that the workshops taken over shall be protected. That is quite right. But what about the person whose work is in hand at the workshop? The job may be a very big one. There may be a very big order, and it may suddenly be stopped. Every manufacturer in the country has to have recourse to these engineering shops, which are the foundation beds of manufacture. Is there to be no compensation for a person whose contract is broken? You are merely providing that it shall be a good defence by the person with whom the contract is running—that is to say, the engineering shops will have a good defence if an action is brought against them for breach of contract.
    4.0 P.M.
    What consolation is that to the man who has given an order for a particular piece of machinery—a printing press or boiler, or whatever it may be? That order is in hand, and the person who has given it is expecting completion of it, when suddenly the Government step in and say to an engineering firm, "Do not conclude this order." He will say, "Here is an Act which will give me a complete defence. I have broken the contract because the Government has directed me to break it." What about the man who has been injured by the breach of contract? Is he to have no claim against the Government? I quite understand that this may be a smaller matter than I think it to be. We do not know what the Government are going to do, nor do we wish to know, neither do we wish to have information which may give strength or comfort to the enemy. The Government may think that such a provision is unnecessary. We do not know. We are in the dark as to the proposed extension. It undoubtedly means that many private individuals who have contracts running will be disappointed in the fulfilment of these contracts. It is a very poor thing to be told, "Oh, the Government have taken us over, and when the War is over you will be looked after!" Remember that the bread and butter of the local working man is at stake here, too. It cannot be done, and therefore the local workmen may have to be dismissed unless some assistance is afforded. If the Government is only intending to take two or three shops it may be a small matter, but if they are going to take over a great many of the shops there must be a good many contracts broken, and in that case the person who suffers should have compensation.
    Mr. HOLT: I really want to raise substantially the same point which the hon. and learned Gentleman has raised. First of all, when you start breaking contracts you cannot possibly tell who is the person who is really going to be injured. Take a contract to supply a particular form of machinery. The man who is under contract to do that may in reality be only a sub-contractor for someone else, and the person who is not getting the piece of machinery which the Government prevent him from getting may be exposed to an action for damages by a third person. The Government under this Clause gives A an answer to an action for damages brought against him by B, but that may involve B in an action for damages by C to which he has no answer whatever. The Government ought really to carefully consider what the position is of those persons who have bought from a man whom they are preventing from fulfilling his contract and are themselves under a contract to re-sell those goods to someone else, possibly after having manipulated them with other goods or used them as part of more complicated machinery than that which they are buying. It seems to me that that is a very serious question which ought to be dealt with, and if it is not possible for the Government to think out a plan which will deal with it satisfactorily as far as the subcontractor is concerned, it would be much better not to let the original manufacturer have a right to break his contract, but to make him responsible for damages and leave him to deal with the Government, because the Government would be in a much better position to judge what ought to be done as regards the man with whom they have actually interfered than it will be to judge of what is fair and right as regards these people in the chain of contracts.
    Then there is another person whose position ought to be considered. There is the man who has made a contract for the erection possibly of large works, possibly of a thing like a steamer, who is prevented by the Government from receiving a small part of the machinery which is necessary to complete the whole, and he might have paid a very large sum on account towards the completion of the whole work. The result of that will be that he will be kept out of the money he has already paid for an almost indefinite period of time, because the Government are preventing him from getting a small amount of machinery or manufactured articles which are necessary

    1459
    to enable him to get the whole piece of work completed. I think there are some problems here which do not appear to be fully met by the Bill, and I hope the Government will seriously consider and do what they can to meet them.
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): The hon. Member (Mr. Tyson Wilson) is concerned about workmen who are transferred, under the Bill, from one district to another; but there is no compulsory transfer.
    Mr. TYSON WILSON: It is practically compulsory. If work is offered to a man by a Labour Exchange and he does not go, his unemployed insurance money is stopped.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am very glad to hear it. The Government are quite prepared to meet the point of my hon. Friend by dealing with it on exactly the same basis as they now deal with workmen who are transferred from the dockyards. I think he will find that that will be quite satisfactory. Now I come to the question of compensation. I think the hon. Baronet Sir F. Banbury) will find that the terms of the Vote of Credit are quite wide enough to cover compensation under the conditions which I indicated yesterday, and that is the view which has been taken by the Government on the advice of those who have been looking into the matter and informing the Department for the "conduct of Naval and Military Operations; for assisting the Food Supply, and promoting the Continuance of Trade, Industry, Business, and Communications, whether by means of insurance or indemnity against risk, the financing of the purchase and resale of food-stuffs and materials, or otherwise; for Relief of Distress; and generally for all Expenses arising out of the existence of a state of war." That is very sweeping and comprehensive. If it is found that under these very wide terms we still are unable to pay compensation, we could not remedy it in this Bill. We should have to bring in another Bill which would have reference not merely to operations under this measure, but to more general operations which we have taken under the original Act. Therefore we will undertake, at any rate, that no technical difficulty of that kind will stand in the way with the assent of Parliament. We submit a proposal to Parliament which will enable us to pay necessary compensation, not merely for what is done under this Bill, but for what has been
    1460
    done under the Defence of the Realm Act in 1914. I hope that will satisfy the hon. Baronet.
    As to the general question raised by my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. T. M. Healy) and one or two others, of course business men will be subjected to inconvenience—and some business men to a great deal of inconvenience. That is inevitable. But this is a state of war, and we cannot conduct war and allow business to be conducted as usual. Instead of "business as suual" we want "victory as usual," and you cannot have that unless everybody in the community is prepared to suffer all kinds of inconvenience and, if necessary, sacrifice. I do not think you can therefore hope to have the same complete measure of compensation which you would enforce in time of peace, where you take one man's property for the benefit of the public. After all, this is for the general defence of the realm. Those who remember the French Parliament in 1870 or 1871 will remember M. Thiers' remarkable speech when similar proposals were placed before the French Parliament. There were suggestions of compensation to people whose property had been destroyed and business interfered with, and he delivered one of the most remarkable speeches of his career in which he objected in toto to the idea of giving compensation to anyone for anything which was necessary in order to defend the integrity of France. I agree that this is on a different basis, but in France, where we have the French armies bombarding their own towns and villages, destroying workshops and houses, tenements, and agricultural equipment, they cannot consider compensation. In France, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out yesterday, all this has been done. But why was it done? I went over in September or the early part of October to look into this very matter. They have done it there under the pressure of invasion. It was done just at the time when the German armies were rushing into France, and people were terrified, and there was no legislation necessary. It is the fact that we are immune from legislation—
    Sir F. BANBURY: I wish we were!
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: No, I am sure the hon. Baronet does not.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Radical legislation!
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I hope this is good Conservative as well as good Liberal legislation. It is because we are immune

    1461
    from invasion that we are able to discuss these things with great calmness as if they were matters of compensation. They are really matters of life and death to this country. It is essential that we should increase, and increase enormously, our output of munitions of war. We have done all we could, short of taking powers to extend our facilities for making munitions of war, and we have waited so long that we have been criticised for waiting too long. I do not think we should have been justified in bringing in a drastic Bill of this kind unless we felt that we could not get very much further without it. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. T. M. Healy), though not complaining of it, said that the Government might be in possession of facts which perhaps for the moment he was not informed of. I do not think it is desirable to state the whole of the case even in a matter of this sort. The hon. and learned Gentleman can just as well imagine as I can why it is essential that we should get the fullest power.
    Mr. HEALY: I have not the least objection.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: No, I said so; but whatever the inconvenience may be to individuals, the national need is so overwhelming that I hope even those who are disappointed in the matter of contracts will put up with it for the time being. Of course it is a very hard case where a ship has been contracted for. That is a case we have considered. It is one of the cases which were put when we were trying to discuss the Bill. It was one of the specific cases we had in our mind. We said it seems to be unfair that in that case the shipowner shall be disappointed of his ship, but however great his disappointment and however great his temporary loss, it is a loss which I am confident he would face if he knew that it was necessary that the whole of the energy and resources of that particular firm of engineers should be turned on to the production, let us say, of shells. All those who know the military position know how much depends upon getting an adequate supply, and if necessary an overwhelming supply, of the necessary explosives at the critical moment.
    A very remarkable letter appeared in one of the evening papers to-day from an officer in France. Any hon. Member who has any doubt at all about the need for this Bill has only to read that letter and he will realise that the Government has
    1462
    not brought it in without the most urgent need for it. That is my only defence for taking the Bill in its present form. I hope the Committee will not press the Government too far in regard to compensation. I agree that compensation has to be paid to a man whose property you are taking away. But the doctrine of compensation can be so over-elaborated that a demand can be put forward on behalf of a man who indirectly suffers from the effects of engineering works being taken over. If you begin that, you find that the whole community suffers. If you begin to limit your engineering output, the community does suffer undoubtedly. But we have all to contribute, in the measure of inconvenience which we bear, towards bringing this terrible war to a successful and triumphant issue for our country. I am sure that unless we are equipped with full powers of this kind we shall be unable to supply the necessary materials of War for that purpose.
    All these questions which have been raised to-day are questions more of administration than of the form of the Bill itself. If the Committee insisted upon inserting all sorts of conditions and restrictions here they would only cripple the powers of the War Office in dealing with the problem, and they would probably find that there are a hundred and fifty matters which we never could have foreseen and for which we had made no provision at all. It is very much better to secure the right sort of people to administer these affairs. More depends upon that than upon any conditions that can be inserted by Parliament after the fullest consideration. I hope that we shall be able to get these matters administered by the right sort of people, and that business men will do their best to assist us in the interest of the country in regard to all of them. I cannot believe, like my hon. and learned Friend, that this is a case of routine and machinery, and that there is very little to be done. I cannot imagine anything of that sort. It is impossible for the Government to take over works and to make the owners drop contracts which they have in hand without causing some inconvenience. All these things had much better be considered in reference to each particular case. In each particular case these matters can be better arranged with the management than by anything we could conceivably insert in an Act of Parliament.
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I feel so strongly the force of what the right hon. Gentleman has said about the need of getting these powers and of putting them quickly into operation, that I certainly would not say a word if I thought that by doing so I would delay the getting of this Bill. There was one thing said by the right hon. Gentleman with which I do not quite agree. He said that the mobilising of French industry was due to the invasion of Frame, and that we were not quite ready for it. I quite agree that, taking the War as a whole, that may be, but I think that from the beginning of the War the House of Commons has realised its full importance, and I am sure that if the Government had asked these powers six months ago they would have got them from the House of Commons quite as readily as now. I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said about the difficulty of dealing with individual cases of hardship that may arise. I may go further and say that in my belief the effect of passing this Bill will be that there will be no need for the Government to take over works of any kind. It will give them power, and the knowledge which manufacturers have that the Government have power will be sufficient motive power to bring their patriotism into operation and to give them protection against Articles of Association or anything of that kind.
    In my belief by passing this Bill we shall get more output in the ordinary way by the ordinary owners of factories. I believe that will be the effect. As regards the question of compensation, I entirely agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said. Nobody has a right to expect that he is going to be scot free, not only from inconvenience, but from loss of money in a case of this kind. All I would ask is that what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said should be quite clear to all the officials responsible for administering these powers. In other words, it should be understood not only by him, but by everyone who is going to act for the War Office or the Admiralty, that the payment of compensation is not an act of grace, but that people have the right to compensation where real damage has been done to them. What often happens in cases of this kind has happened again. I have a letter from a friend of mine in which he states that he had a building taken over, and that this deprived him of his means of making his
    1464
    livelihood. This is his experience as described to me. He went to an official of the War Office and said. "My damages are so and so." He was told, "That is far too high. I will give you so and so." He replied, "That is nonsense," to which he got the reply, "You are not entitled to anything. If you get anything, it will be as an act of grace." He told the official of the War Office to go to a pretty warm place, and I do think it is worth the while of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider whether in some shape or other something should not be put in the Act of Parliament—not to give people the right to go to the Courts of Law, but to make a claim, and to be able to show that it is the intention of this House and Parliament to give reasonable compensation in case of damage.
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir J. Simon): That is so.
    Mr. BONAR LAW: What the Chancellor of the Exchequer said yesterday was that it was not to be left to the officials of the War Office, but to somebody who was to decide in the capacity of arbitor. That is all we want, and I think it ought to be, in some shape or form, put in the Act of Parliament. If that is the condition, I think we might ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider whether it is not possible to make some provision of that kind quite definitely in the Bill. The only other matter to which I wish to refer is one of detail. The hon. Gentleman made a point which. I think, the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not quite understand. It is not a question, as I said to him, of compensation in money, but this is the question—one person is free by this Bill from having an action for damages raised against him. Well, I think that equally anybody who is in the position of sub-contractor should be free in the same way. Like my hon. Friend behind me, I have the good fortune, or it may be the misfortune, not to be a lawyer, but it seems to me that you should protect everybody who will be affected by this measure. If the Attorney-General tells me that is so, I will be satisfied.
    Sir J. SIMON: That is the intention.
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I think that entirely meets the point, which is a perfectly legitimate one. The whole House of Commons is anxious that these powers should be given, and that there should be no unnecessary delay in giving them to the Government.
    Mr. HOGGE: I wish to ask one question. I see that in Sub-section (c) there is a reference to "factory or workshop." I wish to know what is the definition of factory or workshop? Is it the definition under the Workmen's Compensation Act or not? The reason why I ask is that, in my opinion, everybody should be roped in for the national good who can be. People with small concerns may be called upon as well as the owners of big concerns.
    Sir GEORGE YOUNGER: I listened very carefully to what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said when speaking on the question of compensation. It was in answer to a question of mine he told the House what he proposed to do in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman said that if it should be found that there was no power for doing what he proposed, he would see that a short Act was passed. He made that perfectly clear, but what he did not make clear was that in the event of his finding that he had no power he would pass a single-Clause Act giving the right of compensation. It is not satisfactory that this very important question should be left as the right hon. Gentleman has left it. What we want is that something should be done to show that these people have the right to compensation, and that it is not paid merely as a matter of courtesy.
    Mr. HEALY: I quite agree with what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said, but he himself has belied the position which he had taken up, because the Government have given compensation. In the general view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer compensation should be paid, but this Bill, in my opinion, is defective in many of its provisions, which can be amended without doing any damage. Take this case: Suppose I have given an order for a steam engine at a particular place. It is half-finished, and the engineer has expended £3,000 or £4,000 on the work. Am I entitled to go to some other place and start that all over again? I have placed my order and put my penny in the slot. Where am I entitled, under this Bill, if the shop has been taken over by the Government, to go for an engine? Am I entitled to go next door and renew the order? If I cannot do that, that is part of the injustice of the Bill. You are only protecting the man whose shop you are seizing, and not the man who is dealing with the owner of the shop. My suggestion is that no action should be brought for anything done or undone by reason of
    1466
    the passing of this Bill. It should provide that claims may be made in the prescribed manner, and then you can make rules under the Act. I would take away all right of action in respect of anything done or undone. That would be the affirmative side of the case. Then, in regard to the negative side, any man who has a contract running with the owner of a shop which is taken over by the Government should have the right to transfer that work to another shop. A man might send over to America or to some other neutral country. This Bill impounds the contract where it was legally made, but it leaves the man to the end of the War in the position of being unable to transfer the work for the ship, boiler, engine, or whatever it may be. The Bill is defective in many ways, and I think that it would be safer to insert a general Clause which would enable a contractor to take his order somewhere where it could be executed.
    Mr. HEWINS: I see the point which has been raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. T. M. Healy). I doubt very much whether in the circumstances it would be possible to carry out his suggestion. I wish to insist upon what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said about the way the Act was to be administered. I cannot see in the Bill itself, or in what was said by the right hon. Gentleman, that the Government have so far worked out any plan of organisation. This Bill has obviously been drafted without the Government having before their eyes any actual organisation. I do not know whether the Chancellor can assure us that he, or Lord Kitchener, or the President of the Board of Trade has any actual scheme; but if the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the President of the Board of Trade, tries to draw up a schedule of firms producing things which will come under the definition of war material, as referred to in this Bill, he will find that it will come to many thousands. Under modern conditions, war is very largely the whole of the industries of the country organised for a particular purpose.
    I cannot believe that the Government has really thought out any scheme. Take the case provided for in this Bill, that of taking over the business of a firm. I should have thought that stronger Government powers would have been quite enough, but, at any rate, when you go through the list trade by trade—so far as the general public are aware—there is no classified list

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    of firms available, except those which have been compiled for the purpose of the industries concerned, and I imagine that those do not throw much light on the subject from the War Office point of view. There are at present from 80,000 to 90,000 firms in the country engaged in production in an effective way. Of those firms, an enormously large proportion produce war materials within the meaning of the definition of the Bill, and the ramifications are perfectly extraordinary. Take pottery: who for one moment supposes that it is related to munition? And yet it is related very closely. So, unless there is a scheme going thoroughly into the whole matter, the Government may find themselves let in for an exceedingly large thing. I am not pressing the Chancellor of the Exchequer to disclose any particulars which the Government think it undesirable to disclose, but if he could give us some kind of general sketch of what is in the mind of the Government it would be well. I do not very much like the idea of local committees, because I am sure that the essential thing about the whole matter is rapidity of action.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: That was with reference to what the Leader of the Opposition said about France. I did not promise to do the same thing here, but we must have a Central Committee.
    Mr. HEWINS: I should say despotic power. But from what I know about the firms in the country, there is no need whatever to be under any anxiety as to the production of the necessary munitions of war if we do organise the firms. But neither in what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, nor in the Bill, do I see any trace of a scheme at all at the present time, and I would like very much to know whether the Government are prepared at this moment to take action and to put the industries of the country in a posture for war. That is what we intend to insist on. We do not want to give vague and undefined powers to compensate the firms or workers of the country; what we want is a definite scheme of war organisation of industries. The Government have had seven months to prepare such a scheme. It was in August when the discussion of this matter began. I think that many representations were made to the Government about it. There has been ample time to work the scheme out in detail, and it ought not to be necessary at all to hurry a Bill like this through in the way in which
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    we are doing at the present time. What we on this side want is the knowledge that the Government are determined to carry out a complete and effective scheme for promoting the efficiency of our industries for war purposes.
    Mr. J. W. WILSON: I would ask in reference to Sub-section (c) and the requisitioning of factories, workshops, plant, or labour referred to therein, whether the Government is prepared, if necessary, to take action in reference to the efficiency of labour. Some of us think that it is fast becoming necessary to put the efficiency of labour alongside the efficiency of the military and to take in hand if necessary the further restriction of the opening of public-houses, and of the temptations to drink, particularly in the neighbourhood of these works. I thoroughly believe myself, from inquiries made in industrial parts of the country, that a great part of the working men of this country are working overtime and giving very good work. At the same time, there is undoubtedly a section, and though it is a small section, it may be that it can do a great deal of harm—
    The CHAIRMAN: That is opening a very large question.
    Mr. WILSON: It comes under Sub-section (c).
    The CHAIRMAN: No, I have been searching the Sub-section and I think that this does not come in.
    Mr. WILSON: In reference to the efficiency of labour?
    The CHAIRMAN: I do not think that this applies to Sub-section (c).
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: There is one point which deserves reconsideration by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That is the question: What is to be done in the case of large works where there are several departments? There are many large works in the country which may have one department for the Admiralty, or for war purposes, and other departments where neither the hands, the machinery, nor the appliances are in any way applicable for purposes with which the Government are concerned, and it would give considerable satisfaction to the owners of the large works if they knew that the other departments, which are not required by the Government, will be dealt with as considerately as possible. That is to say, we want to secure that, while portions of the factories which are useful for war purposes

    1469
    should be used to the very utmost extent, the other parts of the trade should not be injuriously affected. Works may contain many shops. There may be one shop which the Government require, and at the same time all these other shops should be applicable for the general purposes of trade. While we all agree that the Government should take, and take even without compensation if necessary, whatever they want for the purpose of the War, we do not want our factories affected more than is necessary, so that our general trade may come back to us later on.
    Mr. HODGE: To me it is quite amazing that when the Government propose to do anything of an exceptional character a certain section of the community are always like a pack of hungry wolves seeing how they can bleed the Government in the shape of compensation. There are at present a great many firms in the country who have devoted themselves to making munitions of war, and their ordinary industrial contracts have had to be set aside. But there has not been a word from anybody so far as compensation is concerned, and I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to be commended for—
    Sir F. BANBURY: What about the trade unions?
    Mr. HODGE: I did not interrupt the hon. Baronet when he spoke. Probably he will permit me to go on to express my own thoughts in my own way. I know of my own knowledge that there are a great many manufacturers in this country at the present moment who cannot get the machinery that is necessary for their ordinary industrial pursuits, because of the fact that the firms which make it are engaged in the manufacture of armaments and munitions of war, and those firms are being held up as a consequence. They have never thought of asking for compensation. We have got to realise that every section of the community are making sacrifices at the present moment.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Trade unions.
    Mr. HODGE: I do not consider that there ought to be any favoured section in the community. I quite agree that if works are taken over by the Government the firms concerned ought to suffer no loss, but to extend it further than that would lead the Chancellor of the Exchequer into unknown paths. I hope, therefore, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will remain firm so far as that point is concerned.
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    There is one other point that I would like to impress upon him. There are certain trades in this country that are not working whole time at the present moment. I believe that a great many of those men could be drafted into districts where they could do the unskilled work. Take the tinplate trade for example. In South Wales at the present moment there are only 61 per cent. of the tin-plate mills in operation.
    There is a shortage of labour if the whole of the mills were working, due to the number of men who have enlisted, but still 49 per cent. of the men have not enlisted, and the men who remain are distributing the work, some of them getting three days a week and some four. As against that, in the steel works, where the Government have been pressing the workers to make steel ingots for the purpose of going to the armament firms in Sheffield, there is a real shortage of labour, and those tin platers, to my mind, if they were properly mobilised, could be transferred from certain tin-plate districts where they are half idle, into the steel districts where they could do semi-skilled work. I think that it would be a great advantage if the Government were to consult those of us who know something about these matters, so as to help them in mobilising labour for national purposes. It must be understood that if men are brought from one district into another something should be done on the same lines as that which has been done with reference to the dockers—giving them a subsistence allowance. If you bring them away from home to the place where the works are the majority of the unskilled men cannot pay for their board and lodging in the town where they might be working and at the same time keep their families. I trust therefore that the Government will keep that point in view. [An HON. MEMBER: "They have promised that."] I am sorry that I was not present to hear all the remarks which the right hon. Gentleman made. I did not know that reference had been made to this point.
    Mr. WALTER LONG: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Gorton (Mr. Hodge) should have chosen, in connection with this question of compensation, to speak of people as a "pack of hungry wolves let loose" as soon as the Government brings forward a proposal which raises the question of compensation. Really it is not a question of a pack of hungry people trying to get something for themselves. All

    1471
    we ask for is really what the hon. Member for Gorton has chosen to ask for—in fact, I do not know whether he realises that he has gone much further than we have gone. All we have asked, and all I rise to ask for, is that where injury has been inflicted upon individuals or bodies by the action of the Government in the interest of the State there shall be fair compensation paid. How does the hon. Member for Gorton deal with these things? He goes further than we do.
    Mr. HODGE: No.
    Mr. LONG: The hon. Member is really going further than we do. I take a case suggested, the case of a factory which is full of machinery connected with the sewing machine industry. The Government say that they can make a better use of it, and propose to remove it. Does the hon. Member suggest in that particular case that the owner of the machinery is to receive no compensation for damage done? He is receiving injury, and all we ask is to give him fair compensation. However anxious you may be to treat people fairly by giving some amount of compensation, some amount of damage must accrue whatever compensation is paid. There is a case within my own personal knowledge. The War Office is engaged in making a camp in my own county, and, unfortunately, for some mysterious reason, they have selected for the camp a place near which there is a road not much wider than the floor of this House. It is a place in the vicinity of a very small railway station, which has no proper or convenient approach. It suddenly came upon those engaged in the work that it would be necessary that steam engines, lorries, and so forth, should pass from the station to various parts of the camp, and it was found that this particular road was not wide enough for that description of traffic. In order to make it wide enough they took down the wall protecting the property of a retired professional man, and by that destruction they have done permanent damage to the property. What the amount of damage is can only be ascertained in one way, and that is to put the property up for sale and see whether the price realised is what would have been the value if the property had remained uninjured. That is entirely problematical, and all you can do is to compensate the man for the actual injury done to his property at the moment. And that is all we ask. But the hon. Gentle-
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    man goes further, because his is a suggestion which would not only mean giving compensation on the actual injury covered by the act done, but it would mean guarding against contingent losses which may follow in consequence.
    We have adopted the formula laid down by other hon. Gentlemen opposite, that in times like these everybody should make some sacrifice, but you have no right to take two men side by side or two businesses side by side and say to one, "You shall bear a double burden." You say to them both, "You must conduct your business on war conditions; you will both bear the same amount of taxation, and you must do everything in your private and commercial life with the constant knowledge that you are living in time of war." But surely it would be a new form of justice to say to one of them, "All these conditions apply to you," and to the second, "All those conditions apply to you; you have to bear all those disabilities; but, in addition, we are going to take your property, take that which represents pounds, shillings and pence, and not give you a single penny of compensation." I quite recognise the difficulty which confronts the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has admitted it, and what he said yesterday is quite sufficient, for we know perfectly well what he says he will do will be done, and it is admitted that the principle of compensation will be accepted.
    But the right hon. Gentleman is reluctant to introduce words into the Bill because he does not at present see how, if words were introduced, it would be possible to avoid litigation. We all want to avoid that. We know that litigation is resorted to by those who are very often the least worthy to claim compensation, the least worthy seekers after justice, while it is putting a weapon into the hands of the stronger which is not always available to the weaker. Further, the majority of those who have suffered injury do not, I am convinced, desire litigation, because they want a prompt settlement of these questions. Some of those questions have been running on now for some months, and, so far as my information goes, the general desire is that there shall be a satisfactory tribunal of some kind established in order that the treatment of these questions shall be immediate. All I want to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer is this: He has said already that he is willing to make

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    a public announcement in the ordinary way of the appointment of some individual—
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Or individuals.
    Mr. LONG: Or individuals, to deal with this question. What I want to make clear, and what I respectfully ask the Government is this: "Are they quite clear that when the claimant appears before the tribunal which they will establish, that tribunal—which will have a chief and sub-commissioners, if I may so describe them, who would have to do some inquiry work—may not say to the claimant, "You appear here not as a litigant, and you have no statutory right whatever to compensation. You come here as a mere seeker for relief under the conditions of a mendicant, and you are not personally entitled to the justice we shall do you." That would damnify the whole case of the applicant for compensation, and might reduce the actual amount to which the claimant might otherwise be entitled. Even if the Government cannot introduce words into this Bill without running the risk of litigation, would it be possible to draw up a reference to the tribunal, to be made public after their appointment, and which would make it clear that the Government want the tribunal to grant compensation, which, in their opinion, is just compensation, and which would be, primâ facie, welcomed as just? If something of that kind could be done, it would go a long way to meet the case. I, for my part, would do nothing to further litigation, and I can assure the hon. Member for Gorton that he is not accurate when he says that this is an attempt on the part of hungry people to get money out of the Government. Really, from what I know of many thousands of people in this country, with many of whom I have come in contact, and from many of whom I have heard, whether they own property, or factories, or whatever it may be, or whether they do not, they have but one desire, with all classes and all people in the realm, and that is to support the Government by all means in their power in doing the nation's work, though at the same time they ask that the work shall be done justly if it is to be done well.
    Sir J. SIMON: I really do not think that there is very much difference between the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Gorton, who used a picturesque phrase which was perhaps
    1474
    not in every way suited to a collection which consists of nothing but lambs; but, at the same time, what I think he was pointing to is the necessity of avoiding those very elaborate and technical rules which sometimes are glorified by the name of compensation; and, if I understood him rightly, that is what he wants to get, and he spoke exactly in the same spirit that the right hon. Gentleman has spoken. Something has been said about compensation. Compensation is not dealt wit a by this Bill at all, as we all recognise, and the fact that it is not dealt with by this Bill is not in any way to be understood to mean that in passing this Bill we consider that no compensation should be provided. The reason why compensation is not dealt with in this Bill will, of course, be obvious when this is remembered: The Bill is only an amendment Bill, and though it raises very large and important questions, it touches only a very small part of the whole thing. Take, for example, the case mentioned several times in debate—the case of agricultural interests that have been very seriously interfered with by certain operations connected with the defence of the realm. That case has to be considered, but obviously it could not be considered within the four corners of this amendment Bill, because this Bill is introduced to deal with certain industrial areas, and it has nothing to do with agricultural questions at all. For that reason, if for no other, you cannot provide what is a proper amount of compensation within the four corners of this Bill. In the next place, I want to say this: The statement which was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer earlier in the Debate to-day showed, I think, quite plainly the lines on which, as it seemed to us, compensat on ought to be aimed at and provided.
    5.0 P.M.
    What I say now is not intended in any way to enlarge or limit what the right hon. Gentleman said, but I may add that, as the right hon. Gentleman said, it is very important that we should deal with this matter promptly. To have this thing hanging about for a long time would leave people seeking compensation in a state of uncertainty as to what they were going to get, and would really inflict a disadvantage upon them of a very serious kind. We hope—I am not offering any pledge—to be able before our present sittings are suspended, before we break up for a few weeks, to announce the names of the Commission who will be asked to deal with this very important matter. I should

    1475
    think there must be more Commissioners than one; but, at any rate, before the sittings are suspended we shall announce the constitution of the Commission which is suggested, so that the House will have an opportunity to discuss our proposal. It is inevitable that the Commission will have to be left with a good deal of discretion. This is not a case where you can lay down any very precise or elaborate rules, saying exactly what they are to do or what they are not to do. If we choose the right kind of body—if we choose Commissioners who command the confidence of reasonable and sensible people who have claims, it would be right and proper that, within certain limits they should have laid down some principles or some rules by which they propose to be guided. And as soon as that is worked out, I trust it may be found that there will be much less disputing about these matters than there sometimes is in connection with compensation. There is another point which has been raised and with which I desire to deal. The Leader of the Opposition asked whether Sub-section (2) would be certain to protect not only the individual who was himself complying with the Regulations, but the person who was contracting with him, and it may be other persons connected with the working of a series of sub-contracts. This is not a case where we can afford to be in any doubt, and I think it would be very much better if the Committee would agree to insert a few words to prevent the possibility of misunderstanding. We can only do that with the assistance of the House by recommitting the Bill just to insert those words, and I hope that if we do so it will be done with the general understanding that the recommittal is merely for that purpose and that we are not to have a general discussion over again. It was suggested by an hon. Friend behind that it might be done by putting in that famous pair of adverbial expressions, "directly or indirectly," but I do not think that that is quite the best way. What I would suggest would be that we should insert after the word "necessity" the words "on the part of himself or any other person." The Sub-section would then read:—
    "It is hereby declared that where the fulfilment by any person of any contract is interfered with by the necessity on the part of himself or any other person of complying with any requirement, regulation …"
    1476
    then he is to be protected if by reason of that compliance he does not perform his contract. I think that would make it clear and will meet the case referred to by the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Holt), who pointed out that you may have one man complying under compulsion with the Regulations, and in consequence of that compliance you may have another man who is in his turn threatened with proceedings because he also is behind time and unable to do what he contracted to do. There was another suggestion made by the hon. and learned Member for North-East Cork (Mr. T. M. Healy) which we have done our best to consider. He thinks we might provide a Clause which would stop these claims at the very outset. Our Sub-section only says it shall be a good defence, but the hon. and learned Gentleman suggested that we might say that no action should be brought. I doubt whether there is much difference between the two things. In most cases the claim would very likely be for nothing more than a breach of contract. It would be quite impossible to interfere and stop the action without investigation as to whether is was a good claim. It might be a good claim not touched by this Statute, and, on the other hand, it might be a claim which would fail because of the Statute. It is not really until the thing is looked into and until the details of the scheme are known that it will be seen. I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will be content if we make it quite clear by the Amendment in the way I have suggested.
    Mr. HEALYmade an observation which was inaudible.
    Sir J. SIMON: I do not think the War Office is going to be bound automatically merely because there is collusive judgment between two private persons. That is not my understanding of the matter. This is merely for the purpose of defending one contractor as against another where, owing to the Regulations of the War Office, it is not possible to comply with the conditions about time. That is the suggestion which I made, and if the Committee feel that we do now fairly cover the ground, I would invite them to agree to the Clause, and as soon as we have finished the Committee stage we propose to move to recommit straight away in order that we may insert those words.
    Mr. HEALY: I am not going to controvert what the Attorney-General has said, but I wish to make one suggestion with regard to the delay of a contract

    1477
    placed already. I think at least it should be in the option of any person injured to determine the contract, and I would suggest these words:—
    "Where the execution of a contract made before the passing of this Act was delayed by anything done hereunder, such contract shall be deemed to be determined unless the parties thereto otherwise agree in writing, and any moneys paid under such contract shall be refunded."
    It seems an extraordinary thing that you should take the right to impound a contract and hang it up during the period of the War, and that the man who has made that contract and perhaps paid caution money should not have the right to go elsewhere with his order, and that by reason of the passing of this Act he must continue to leave his contract unexecuted. It seems to me only common justice that where the Government, say, take over engineering works, the man who has a contract with those works should have the right to go elsewhere.
    Sir EDWIN CORNWALL: Every Member of the House realises the tremendous scope of this Bill and the enormous powers which it is proposed to give to the Government, but at the same time no one can hesitate about giving those powers at the present time. I am very much impressed with what has been said by several hon. Members as to how this Bill is to be used. You cannot attempt in a Bill of this kind to lay down any conditions, rules, or regulations, since the whole matter is far too extensive. We all hope that the main purpose of the Government will be achieved, and that the resources of the country will be used for the purposes of the War. It is clear, however, to all of us—and especially to those of us who have experience of business and of public bodies—that this Bill, when it becomes an Act of Parliament, in its working must lead to endless complications, such as those mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Cork (Mr. T. M. Healy). Everyone can see that when the Act begins to be put in force you are going to have complications in directions which none of us can now realise. I only rise to make this point: Not only does the Act depend on how it is to be worked, but you have also to consider the question of the Commission that is to be appointed. I have never been very satisfied myself with the way the Government appoints Advisory Committees or Boards of Control when it gives up the control
    1478
    itself. One can understand the Government taking the responsibility, or the War Office, or the Civil Service, or any Department doing so. But as a rule when the Government feels that neither itself nor any particular Department Should take the responsibility and seeks to appoint a Commission of Control, it generally ignores altogether Members of Parliament or public men connected with Parliament. The Government in those cases seeks to go to some well-known gentlemen—no doubt estimable persons—who have not been in public life and have no responsibility in public life, and who have no responsibilty as Members of Parliament.
    I think if you are going to have a Commission of Control such as is now suggested, and when the House of Commons is asked to give these enormous powers to the Government, that Members of Parliament ought not to be excluded from that Commission, and neither should the eminent persons who are not Members of Parliament be excluded. I do not know what is in the mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I can imagine that he may have in his mind some eminent person who is not a Member of Parliament, or two or three such persons. I do not wish to exclude them or to suggest that they should be excluded, but I do think, as this Act of Parliament we are passing is taking a leap in the dark, some representative Members of Parliament suitable for this purpose, and who have had experience in large engineering or manufacturing businesses, should be put on this Commission of Control in conjunction with any other outside eminent persons. We ought not to hand over so important a measure as this to entirely non-representative men. I hope the suggestion I have made may receive the consideration of the Government, because we are being asked to pass an Act which must lead to complications far and away beyond anything we can imagine.
    Mr. PETO: I understood that the Attorney-General was replying to the Leader of the Opposition, but I noticed that he did not refer to the very definite suggestion made by the Leader of the Opposition that we should have a very short Bill which would make perfectly clear what the views of the Government were on this question of compensation. Another suggestion was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand (Mr. Long) that the same effect might be produced by laying down very clearly the

    1479
    terms of reference and establishing the status of all the parties who claim compensation. I have not heard from the representatives of the Government whether they propose to adopt either one or other of those measures. It seemed to me there was an underlying current in what was said, even by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in referring to the speech of M. Thiers on an historic occasion, suggesting that compensation was out of the question, and that everybody ought to be prepared to bear their share of the burden. If compensation is paid, or not paid, it will not add by a single penny to the cost of the War in this country, and only alters the question of who bears that cost. The giving of fair compensation is merely carrying out the principle which the Chancellor of the Exchequer so often enunciated in his Budget, namely, that of distributing the burden fairly over the whole community. Although the Chancellor of the Exchequer may be very generous, it is not he who is going to pay this compensation. If fair compensation is paid because the land of one man is needed, or the business of one man is needed, it merely means that the amount will be distributed over the whole community and that each will be bearing his share of the burden. I do think it would be very much more satisfactory if this House were asked to pass a very short Bill, called the War Emergencies Compensation Bill, or with some title of that kind, showing perfectly clearly that compensation was to be paid in all these cases, and that would make it quite clear also that there was no question of a "pack of hungry wolves," as was suggested by an hon. Member.
    Such a Bill would make it clear that it was not fair to take one piece of land or to take one business in which a man happened to be engaged, and ask that those people should bear the cost while other people should not. Therefore, I think, if we are going to have a Chief Commissioner and some other subsidiary Commissioners, their appointments should be laid down under general rules under which they are to act in a small Bill such as has been suggested by the Leader of the Opposition. I certainly think that, if we are going to let this Bill leave our hands without a single word in it as to the payment of compensation, notwithstanding that we are told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that there is no reference to compensation
    1480
    in any other Defence of the Realm Act or in regard to any of the wide powers already given to the Government by Parliament, we ought to have the whole of this question shortly, definitely, and clearly laid down in a small Bill which could be passed in a couple of days. The Chancellor of the Exchequer asked for suggestions as to the Commissioners. I would urge that the task should be lightened and matters expedited by the appointment of Commissioners for definite localities—perhaps for every two or three counties to deal with questions of land—and for one county or one city to deal with the question of works. A well-known local man would know the local position, and his decisions would be fairer and much more readily acceptable by the people themselves. In this way we should get matters attended to quickly, which is really half the battle, because the whole question is one of emergency. Compensation which is held up for several months is really no compensation at all. Therefore I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will consider the suggestions made by the Leader of the Opposition, and see whether he cannot arrange for the country to know exactly what is the view of the Government on the Question of compensation and how it is going to be carried out.
    Sir ARTHUR MARKHAM: Having been associated for many years with the engineering industry and engaged in trade, perhaps I may be allowed to speak on this question. I understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that this was an emergency Bill, and that for the prosecution of the War it was urgently necessary that it should go through at once. To my own knowledge, the works in which I served many years—I will not mention any names, but they are well-equipped works, on the Admiralty and War Office list and employ a large number of men—until the end of this year never received a single inquiry from the War Office or the Admiralty with regard to making munitions of war, although they had during the last thirty years done a great deal of work at different times in both those Departments. In fact, the War Office and the Admiralty never took the trouble to organise the industry, and the Government now, owing to that failure on the part of those Departments, seek to take over the works of other people. Of course, if the Government think that this is necessary, it must be done; but I would ask the Chancellor

    1481
    of the Exchequer whether he can give an assurance on one point. Many industries in this country depend on repairs. There are large engineering shops run in the main for carrying out repairs. If the Government take over these repairing shops in order that they may make munitions of war, industry will be entirely dislocated. Unfortunately machinery does not run without breaking down, and unless machinery can be rapidly repaired you may very well have conditions under which industry cannot be carried on. I hope my right hon. Friend will instruct the Committee he is going to appoint that, as far as possible, works which are in the main engaged in repairing work should not be unduly interfered with—subject, of course, to the condition that any time they may have for making munitions of war should be devoted to that purpose.
    I have very strong objection to matters of this kind being carried out by reference. As soon as the Government get into a difficulty they refer the matter to some outside person or body. I think the House would be acting wisely in itself settling, not the amount of compensation, but the principle on which compensation should be paid. There is no desire on the part of anybody for anything to be done unfairly. All that members of the engineering trade require is that if their business is taken by the State they should have fair compensation for the dislocation thereby caused. As I understand the position, the House is going to divorce itself from all control in this matter, and leave an outside tribunal to settle the amount of compensation to be paid. I think the House of Commons ought not to delegate this power. I have already said that for five months the Government did not even take the trouble to inquire of engineering firms whether they could manufacture munitions of war. I might add that, owing to slackness of trade last autumn, the particular firm to which I have referred actually started making engines and machinery for stock purposes, and the Government now tell us that they were wanting munitions of war. I do not want to block this Bill in any way if the Government say it is necessary, but I object to the Government coming down and rushing through legislation of this character without the matter being fully considered.
    Mr. DENMAN: I rise merely to thank the Government for accepting in spirit an Amendment which I handed in before the commencement of the Debate. The words
    1482
    they propose to insert are far more effective than those which I put forward. Several Members have suggested that this Bill will be difficult of administration. Speaking for the manufacturers in my own Constituency, I have complete confidence that it will work smoothly, because I am sure that all of them will endeavour to meet the Government in every way, and when people work in that spirit you can administer most Acts. But business men like to know what their legal position is, and I am sure that the words the Government propose to insert will make that position materially clearer
    Mr. GOULDING: The House will be grateful to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for distinctly stating that the question of compensation is a real one and is to be very definitely considered, but I think the method in which that compensation is to be awarded requires more elucidation. Take the case of a large engineering works which are at present doing work for the Government, but have also far-reaching contracts not confined to this country or to this continent. How are you going to estimate the damage that they may suffer through the interruption of those contracts? Are the Government themselves when they take over the business going to proceed to the fulfilment of those contracts? If not, what is going to happen? We are under terms to fulfil those contracts within a certain time; if they are interrupted what will be the natural consequence? We are catering for these clients not merely for to-day, but also with an eye to the future. They must get their work done somewhere. The contracts are essential to them, and if we cannot finish them they will go elsewhere; we shall then have on our hands the unfinished product, which will be perfectly useless.
    What instructions will be given to the arbitrator to guide him in deciding what compensation is to be given? Will he estimate only the actual loss as regards the particular contract, or will he take into consideration the possible loss of the client, who may have been a client of the firm for many years? Anybody connected with business, especially in the engineering trade, knows perfectly well that, with the changes and adaptability which have to go on from time to time, people like to keep with a firm who have in the past turned out satisfactorily the products they require. If we cannot finish their contracts our clients may go to an American

    1483
    firm, and, if that American firm turns out satisfactorily the particular article they require, the odds are that those clients will remain with the American firm and not return to the English firm who have been interrupted. How is the compensation to be calculated, both as regards the possible loss of the clients and as regards the unfinished product? There are two distinct questions. Surely it is only reasonable that in a business proposition of this kind the House of Commons could be told the lines on which these arbitrations will be carried out.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I think the speech of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Goulding) is an illustration of the way in which compensation ought most distinctly not to be given. The hon. Gentleman is demanding compensation in a spirit of exacting the uttermost prospective damage.
    Mr. GOULDING: No.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: He wants not merely compensation for the actual loss in respect of the particular contract involved, but compensation in respect of possible loss of business. That is an impossible demand. His firm is not the only firm that will lose business in consequence of the War. Every business is suffering. Of course we do not know to what extent the prospects of business will be impaired, not merely in the class of business he is engaged in, but in every class of business. If we are going to pay compensation to any particular firm we shall have to pay compensation to a good many firms in the country. I do hope the Members of this Committee are not going to press upon the consideration of the Government these remote and indirect damages in respect of loss; otherwise I think the burden upon the State will not only be merely colossal, but enough to make any State insolvent.
    Mr. GOULDING: What I meant to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman was that there should be some pressure put upon the Government to try and finish those contracts which are in hand at the present time, so that the whole thing may not be wasted.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I know; but I was rather dealing with the other point. To compensate firms like these for the actual loss sustained, and also for the prospective loss which might be inflicted
    1484
    upon them in consequence of the loss of business in future, is a position that we cannot possibly contemplate, and I hope the House will not press it upon us. I am not at all sure that the hon. Member need be so alarmed. After all, there is only one place that firms can go to, and that is the United States of America. The United States are very busy turning out munitions of war for various countries—not merely for the belligerents, but for other countries of the world—and I doubt very much whether the United States is going to be a very dangerous rival in regard to contracts of the kind referred to. Another dangerous rival is for the moment out of the question altogether. I agree with some hon. Members who have spoken that it is very desirable that the House of Commons should have the opportunity of discussing the principles of compensation, but I still think that the most businesslike way of dealing with it is not to put down elaborate rules of compensation in an Act of Parliament, but rather first to appoint your Commission—and I hope we shall be able to appoint a Commission which will command the confidence of all—and let the Members of that Commission consider the character of the claims which come before them.
    They fall into two or three, or more, categories. There is, first of all, the man whose buildings have been destroyed. Take the case given by the right hon. Gentleman of the man whose buildings have been damaged and destroyed. I think the way in which he put that case was a perfectly fair way. The claim put forward was a demand, not for compensation on Land Clauses Act terms, but for the actual loss and damage inflicted upon these particular buildings. That, I think, is the spirit in which you can settle cases of the kind. There is the case of the farmer whose land has been destroyed for agricultural purposes for some time to come through the making of trenches and other military operations. There is the third case which comes in—the case of the business. But I would infinitely rather that this Commission should sit down first of all and invite claims, and then themselves consider the principles upon which they should proceed. I think that is the first thing for them to consider. After all, all this is subject to review by the House of Commons. It will take the Commission some time to consider their general principles. We shall report to the House of Commons what those general principles

    1485
    are, and the House of Commons will have the full opportunity of discussing them. If the House of Commons feels that those principles are illiberal they can say so, and not only say so, but the House can give instructions that they shall be enlarged and compensation given on more generous terms. On the other hand, if the House thinks that the payments are extravagant, and that they are imposing an unfair burden on the State, the House of Commons will have the absolute right, through the Executive, to give instructions to the Commission concerning them.
    An HON. MEMBER: Will the Commission be officially under any Department?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: It will be either under the Treasury or under the War Office. The War Office is primarily responsible to Parliament for the damage, and the money is paid under Votes of Credit; but perhaps the War Office and the Treasury between them may make an arrangement in the matter.
    Mr. DUKE: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider whether, as this is an entirely new field for compensation, it would be desirable to pass a short Act setting up the Commission with a limited statutory authority?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Nobody knows better than the hon. and learned Gentleman that the moment you put anything forward in the nature of a right you open the way to all kinds of litigation. I want to avoid that.
    Mr. DUKE: I want to avoid it, too, and that is what I meant. If the right hon. Gentleman would set up the Commission with statutory authority he could, in doing so, take care that the right, the eminent domain, of the State under which various powers of entry exist should be preserved, and that the payment made should be a payment declared to be ex gratia by the State.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I will consider the suggestion. I think the Act of Parliament which authorises a Vote of Credit does authorise, and give us statutory authority, to set up any Commission for the purpose of ascertaining the amount which should be paid. However, I will consider the suggestion of the hon. and learned Gentleman. I should very much like to be in a position, before Parliament
    1486
    separates, to announce the Commission and its character. It will take some time to constitute it. I have had admirable suggestions as a result of the Debate yesterday. Some names have been suggested to me which I should like to consider in conjunction with Lord Kitchener, who is primarily responsible for the Department that will make these payments.
    Sir A. MARKHAM: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider whether these payments should be suspended until the House has had an opportunity of considering the form of them?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I should be very sorry if this matter were delayed until Parliament had completely discussed the payment of compensation. There would be a good many cases delayed for some time. I hope my hon. Friend will not insist upon pledging the Government that we shall not pay any compensation until the House of Commons has had the opportunity of discussing it. This I can say: there will be full opportunity on the Motion for Adjournment to discuss this Motion. I hope the House will then be better informed as to the character of the Commission we propose to set up. If I fail to make an announcement in the House it will be because I have experienced some-difficulty in getting, in so short a period, a Commission which will be perfectly satisfactory. I trust I may be able to do so, and I ask the House now to let us have the Bill, Clause 1, so that the Bill shall be recommitted with a view to the insertion of these provisions.
    Mr. LONG: I cordially recognise, not only the spirit in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has met us, but also the fairness of the proposal he has adumbrated to the House. I quite see the very great difficulty in the way of making any promises either as to an Act of Parliament, or an amendment to this particular Bill. I quite appreciate that; yet the difficulty still remains to which I ventured to call attention earlier. I understand that the suggestions made remain before the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government—
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: To take one or the other.
    Mr. LONG: Yes, that is all we can expect. I will express the hope that nothing will be said here to cause delay or to

    1487
    prevent a settlement of these claims. Once this principle is adopted it is in the interests of economy to settle at once. You are much more likely to get the case settled and disposed of on reasonable lines if you settle it promptly, than if you keep it held up for a long time, with the resultant bitterness and perhaps a determination to get more. So far as I am concerned I cordially support the Government and hope that the Bill will go through.
    Sir CLIFFORD CORY: I cannot help thinking that in Sub-section (1) of Clause 2 there is a potential injustice. You may have the case of contracts with engineering and other large works that have been made with the owners of small struggling businesses. In such cases, as the hon. and learned Member for Cork said, when the Government takes the works or the factory it becomes a question whether the smaller man has any basis of claim against the owner of the works larger owing to the delay in the fulfilment of the contract. The hon. Member for Cork suggested that there should be power to cancel the contract. I think that is very desirable, because the machinery contracted for may be necessary to carry on the smaller business. I do not think it is sufficient to give cases of the kind the power of cancellation alone. They should have the power to receive some compensation, for, after having placed their orders, a few months might elapse, and the business might have increased. To a man in a struggling way of business it might be a serious thing if he had to pay £1,000. I think in such a case he should be entitled not only to cancel the contract, but be able to place his orders somewhere else. He should also receive compensation. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will take that case into consideration and amend the Bill so as to provide against possible injustice in the case of small owners.
    Mr. BUTCHER: I do not wish to delay the progress of the Bill by unnecessary criticism, but we are now considering a very serious question indeed. So far as payment to private persons is concerned, I entirely agree with the principle, or the object of the principle. I think it is only right that the Crown should be able to enter into the possession of any lands, buildings, factories, or anything else if it desires, for the purpose of helping forward war preparations. But surely if
    1488
    that is right in principle, is if not equally right and reasonable that the subjects whose lands, buildings, or factories are entered upon should receive compensation? May I put the case as it occurs to me? What you ought to provide for should not merely be provided for by a statement in this House, but also by a short Bill, which I have no doubt the Government could easily get. Our two points are these: In the first place, the right of the subject to compensation should, I think, be recognised—in other words, that it should be made clear that it is not merely some ex gratia payment, but some payment to which the subject is entitled to receive on behalf of the Crown in respect of any loss. The second point which ought to be embodied in such a Bill is some general indication of the principles upon which that compensation should be based. At present the whole thing is in nubibus. You have got a statement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it is intended to pay compensation. We have it from him that in some cases, at any rate, the compensation is to be limited in a particular way. I quite agree that it is desirable to put a limit, but I think that the limitation ought to be embodied, not in a statement from the Treasury Bench, but in the form of a short Bill.
    I agree, if I may respectfully say so, with the view that it cannot be put into this Bill, but is there any reason why, now we are agreed—as I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer admits—that the subject should receive some compensation, as we are also agreed that certain lines should be laid down upon which that compensation should be estimated, why these two principles should not be embodied in a Bill? It would be far more satisfactory to everyone concerned, both to the Crown and to the subject. We are told if this is put into a Bill you would necessarily have a large amount of litigation. I cannot see how that need be so. Let me suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the form of a Bill which would effectively avoid any litigation. It might be stated that anyone injured by the exercise of the Crown of its rights under this Bill, or under the previous Bill of which this is an Amendment, shall be entitled to receive compensation; the amount of that compensation to be decided by a Commission such as the Chancellor has suggested, and that the decision of that Commission shall be

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    final. Where would the law costs come in then? That would, I think, make the thing watertight against law and lawyers.
    Mr. DUKE: It would be a very costly process of arbitration.
    Mr. BUTCHER: Then limit the procedure so as to avoid the costs! It is admitted that there must be compensation. It is admitted that there must be a Commission to decide upon the compensation. Surely it is not beyond the power of the Chancellor of the Exchequer so to frame the procedure as to limit the cost and the delay to the very minimum! I think in that way you would avoid proceeding, as we are asked to do now, upon an entirely novel principle, and I think it would be far quicker in the end if this House laid down the conditions on which the Commission should act, and got the matter settled at once by this House.
    Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMS: Under the Bill which we have now before us the Government will, I presume, take over the control of a number of industries and factories, and it seems to me of the utmost importance that things should be so arranged that all the factors of production in those factories and industries should work together harmoniously. At present, unfortunately, we see that that is very far from being so. We see that the necessary preparations for the victorious carrying on of this War are very much interfered with by the fact that in many cases the workmen employed find that they are suffering hardship by the diminished purchasing power of their wages, while they also see, or believe that they see, certain employers and contractors getting increased profits. I hope that the Government will be able, when they take over industries under this Bill, to work out some better relation between capital and labour.
    I can quite see it may be necessary to take over the industries under any circumstances, but I think it would be a great misfortune if that involved the State in conflicts with labour, and, on the other hand, it would be an enormous advantage if it led to the setting up of a better and more harmonious relation between capital and labour.
    I see it stated that it is the intention of the Government to pay for these industries that they take over on the basis of three years of the average profits. Whether they do that or not, I suppose it will be on some such basis as it was in the case of the
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    railways. But I see it also stated that, in addition to that, they intend to pay to the previous owners one-fourth of the profits above the average profit of the last three years. If that is so, I hope there will also be some plan by which a part of the profits shall be paid to or made over for the benefit of the employés. I quite see it will not be easy, in any case, to ascertain what the profits are to be. But still, that problem has had to be faced in the case of the railways, and presumably it will have to be faced in the case of the industries and factories taken over under this Bill, and I hope it will be successfully faced. If it is faced as regards the owners, there is no reason, I think, why it should not be faced with equal success when you come to dividing a share of the profits for employés. Whether this particular way can be carried out or not, I do hope the Government, in taking over these industries, will not lose sight of the enormous importance of bringing about some arrangement between themselves and the labour employed by which the interest of the State shall also be made the interest of the workmen employed, either by some system of bonus or profit-sharing, or soma other system by which the two interests shall be bound together.
    Mr. DUKE: I do not want at all to advise His Majesty's Government as to how they should carry on industries of one kind or another; but this question of compensation to people who are dispossessed by the proposed operation of the Bill is a new and, it seems to me, a very serious question, and I should like to emphasise in a few words the suggestion I made to the right hon. Gentleman in the course of his speech as to the mode in which, consistently with public interests, the House might, perhaps, think it wise to deal with provision for compensation. I cannot at all take the view which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York (Mr. Butcher) took, that this House ought to lay down the right of compensation. That would be absolutely new. The principle of the Constitution upon the subject, I believe, is a principle which will be found embedded in the Constitution from almost prehistoric times, and certainly before any legal records in this country. There is in the State the right of eminent domain, by virtue of which in military emergency the State may take what it needs. To my mind that is a power of the State which ought not to be trifled with.

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    If you are going to attach to the exercise of the historic and necessary power of self protection in the State, incidents which result in the springing up of an enormous mass of costly arbitration or litigation, you are putting a burden upon the community which would aggravate the necessary burden of the War. For my part, I am entirely opposed to anything of that kind. I sympathise entirely with the resolution on the part of those who to-day are responsible for administration in this country, that the rights of the State in this particular should be safeguarded, but, of course, this House would insist that powers which are exercised under the control of the House should not be harshly and oppressively exercised. That is the alternative to the prospect of exacting and exorbitant demands which would spring up immediately you had a statutory scheme of compensation. The legal right of compensation is far too serious a matter to be lightly recognised even under the emergency of the present War. It goes an immense way beyond anything that has ever been done.
    The difficulty is, how to reconcile the desire of the House of Commons and the community that there shall be fair play in the distribution of the burdens which spring from the War, with a firm resolution that the State shall not be sponged upon because it is in difficulty, and the ancient rights of the State shall be preserved. I venture to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman, as something of a new departure is going to be made, as the Government is going to recognise by its public promise in the House of Commons its duty of considering the question of compensation, whether it should not set up by Statute a Commission, and that the Statute should declare that the duty of the Commission is to ascertain what payments, in its opinion, ought to be made ex gratia by the Crown in relief of the burdens which the War has thrown upon the individual citizen. That would, I believe, avoid any of the danger, which I regard as a serious danger, of enormous costs of arbitration arising out of a statutory scheme of compensation.
    I know that my right hon. Friend the Attorney-General—I may call him my right hon. Friend in times such as these—takes the view that there is probably a statutory sanction for the doing of what is necessary in Votes which this House has either made in Supply or is intending to
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    make in Supply. That may be so, but this granting of compensation in cases of entry under emergency is a very great new departure if it is made. It infringes upon an ancient right of the State, and, for my part, I venture very respectfully to press upon the Government that it is much better that what is done should be done upon a fair consideration of what is necessary in the public interests than that you should do it by a side-wind on Votes of Account or any procedure of Supply, and that in a year or two it should be said there is a precedent here for right to compensation by the State.
    Mr. BRYCE: I think, before the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, everyone recognised it is very undesirable to add to the burden of the State, and the weighty words he used certainly emphasised that point very strongly. But I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer was a little hard on the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Goulding) for asking that the consideration should be something more than the actual damage. That might have been perfectly right if everyone were going to suffer equally under this Act. But everyone is not going to suffer equally. Some people will actually be benefited by the action of the Government. Those who are not commandeered will have a better time than those who are commandeered, and the Government is actually spending money on a number of people who to-day are better than they otherwise would be. The Board of Trade has spent a great deal of time and money in showing how fresh markets can be obtained by manufacturers and traders in this country, and it is a most laudable object. But is it fair that the goodwill of one set of people should be less than the goodwill created at the cost of the State for another set of people? Because that is practically what is going to be the case. I think also the Government might diminish the necessary evils of this tremendous disturbance of industrial effort if they would first of all do their commandeering on the factories belonging to alien enemies. There is a very eminent German firm which has not been taken over by the Government, but which I believe, is doing some work for the Government, and is doing a large amount of other work. There are a good number of other cases, and the damage which will be done to many factories will be diminished pro tanto if the Government will, first of all, determine to commandeer factories of alien enemies.
    Sir W. PHIPSON BEALE: I only want to add one word, and that is a word of caution against any attempt by Statute to lay down a principle upon which compensation should be paid. The moment you do it you let in the possibility of an appeal to some kind of Court. The hon. and learned Member for York suggested you could do it by laying down a principle, and then saying that the decision of the Commission, arbitrator, or whatever tribunal it was, should be final, but the only real way is to follow on the principle laid down by the hon. and learned Member for Exeter (Mr. Duke).
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill reported without Amendment.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I beg to move, "That the Bill be recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House," in order to insert the words of which notice has been given.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly considered in Committee.
    [Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I beg to move, in Clause 1, Sub-section (2), after the word "necessity" ["where the fulfilment by any person of any contract is interfered with by the necessity of complying with any requirement"], insert the words "on the part of himself or any other person."
    Mr. HEALY: I am not going to say anything on the subject of merit at all, but only on the procedure. It should be distinctly understood that the procedure just now adopted has been assented to as an emergency, and not as part of the ordinary proceedings.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Bill reported; as amended, considered.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be read the third time."
    6.0 P.M.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: In the event of the Crown taking any buildings or factories in any part of the country, directly they are taken over by the Crown, ipso facto, cease to be liable for rates. Now that would be a very severe blow to the local authorities by whom those rates have previously been received. I am told that under the Emergency Act last year there is no power
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    given to deal with this point. Previous Acts of this kind have contained Clauses which give power to the Government to pay the same rates as the previous owner. It is a very technical point, but it is one of considerable importance to local authorities, and I hope that the Government will see the advisability of inserting in another place a similar Clause to that which has appeared in previous Defence of the Realm Acts giving them power to pay the rates in respect of such property, even though it is not made absolutely compulsory to pay those rates. If this is not done the local authorities will suffer a great deal. I hope those who advise the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not proceed upon a dangerous principle which is introduced into this Bill. I refer to the power given to the Government under the terms of the Vote of Credit to do practically whatever they like with the money voted. Surely the Vote of Credit ought to be dealt with reasonably and strictly on the understanding that the money is voted really for military and naval purpose.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Hear, hear.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: That can be construed strictly and reasonably, and it may be construed very widely and unreasonably. Supposing you found some particular society was going bankrupt owing to the War, you might make a donation to it of a very large sum. That is a conceivable state of affairs which might arise, but there will be great difficuly in defending such action, and there must be a limit of some kind under the Vote of Credit. You may make Grants for the rates which have been lost to the local authorities, but I do not think that would be a satisfactory way of dealing with the matter, and I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will see that this is done in some constitutional way, and that the Government have power to pay the rates in respect of these buildings taken away from their owners so that the local authorities shall not suffer.
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I will consider that question.
    Mr. JAMES HOPE: Do the Government pay Grants in relief of rates on Government buildings?
    Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Yes; they do that now.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read the third time, and passed.

LEGAL PROCEEDINGS AGAINST ENEMIES BILL.
Considered in Committee.
[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

CLAUSE 1.—(Provision with Respect to Writs Issued against Enemy in Certain Cases.)
(1) Leave may be given to issue a writ of summons in the High Court for service on an enemy out of the jurisdiction or of which notice is to be given to an enemy out of the jurisdiction if the court or judge is satisfied that the case is a case to which this Section applies, and the court or a judge may, on an application made at the time leave is so given or at any subsequent time, if satisfied that the writ cannot promptly be served or brought to the notice of the enemy defendant by any of the usual means, make an order (in this Act referred to as an enemy service order) directing substituted or other service of the writ or the substitution of notice for service by means of advertisement or otherwise; and on that order being complied with, all proceedings may be taken on the claim as if the writ had been served on the enemy defendant by the usual means.
(2) The Lord Chief Justice shall give directions for expediting proceedings and regulating procedure generally in a case where an enemy service order has been made and the enemy defendant does not appear; and any directions so given shall have effect as if they were included in the rules of court for the time being in force.
(3) The court or judge, where an enemy service order has been made and it appears not to be practicable to obtain the best evidence of any document which is, in the opinion of the court or judge, material to the case, may admit such other evidence thereof as appears proper in the circumstances.
(4) The court or judge shall have power, where an enemy service order has been made and the enemy defendant does not appear, to order the plaintiff, though successful, to pay the whole or any part of the costs of the proceedings, if he considers that it is just to do so in the special circumstances of the case.
(5) The fact that, for the purpose of obtaining the benefit of this Section, a writ of summons has been indorsed only with a claim for a declaration in accordance therewith shall not prevent any other
1496
declaration or any consequential or other relief being claimed in other proceedings, or prevent the case being dealt with, although no such other declaration or consequential or other relief is claimed.
(6) This Section applies to cases where—

(a) the plaintiff is a British subject and is entitled for the time being to bring an action in the High Court; and

(b) the defendant or one of the defendants is an enemy; and

(c) the writ is indorsed only with a claim for a declaration as to the effect of the present war on rights or liabilities of the plaintiff or defendant under a contract entered into before the outbreak thereof; and

(d) there is written evidence of the contract.

Amendment made: In Sub-section (4), leave out the words "he considers" and insert instead thereof the words "the Court or judge consider."—[Sir J. Simon.]
Mr. DENNISS: I beg to move, in Subsection (6), paragraph (c), after the word "on," to insert the words "present or future."
A deputation which came to me from the London Chamber of Commerce seemed to think this Amendment was necessary, although I am not quite sure that these words are necessary. I think that the insertion of the word "the" might be sufficient. The deputation, however, are anxious that the Government should give them some assurance that their future rights or liabilities, as well as their present rights, should be declared by the Government. If the Attorney-General thinks these words are unnecessary I shall be glad to withdraw my Amendment.
Sir J. SIMON: I thank the hon. Member for mentioning this matter, although his Amendment is not on the Paper, and I have not had an opportunity of considering it. It does not seem to me that putting in the words "present or future" would add to the matter at all, and I rather think the hon. Member is of the same opinion. It is quite right that the question should be asked, and I am glad to be fortified by the hon. Member's own opinion on this point. If we speak of rights or liabilities under the contract, I cannot doubt that such an expression covers all rights and liabilities.
Mr. DENNISS: After the Attorney-General's explanation, I beg to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
Mr. RAWLINSON: I wish now to ask whether or not the defendant would have any right of appeal against an order of this kind made under Clause 1, or whether the order would be made by the High Court without an appeal.
Sir J. SIMON: Nobody knows better than the hon. and learned Gentleman what are the ordinary principles which apply to a case where the defendant does not appear. I do not see why the procedure should be different in this case from what it is in any other case, and it appears to me that a great deal of the value of this Clause would go, if after you had fulfilled the whole of the conditions laid down you were still exposed to the possibility of finding the decision that has been given upset by some superior tribunal. The hon. and learned Gentleman will have in mind the provision made in Clause 3, that the Court, when it is dealing with one of these cases is to have the power, if it thinks right, to say that it is a case which cannot be properly dealt with under the Act, and consequently can dismiss the case without prejudice to subsequent proceedings. I think we may be satisfied that the Court will not pronounce a final determination in the absence of the German debtor, unless the documents before the Court are such as to enable them to do so justly and fairly. I think we should be depriving our own merchants and subjects of the real value of this Bill if we did not make their determination final.
Mr. RAWLINSON: I am quite satisfied with that explanation, and I only wish to have it made clear that there is no means of appealing.
Mr. HENRY TERRELL: The right hon. Gentleman will remember that a short time ago he accepted some Amendments of mine in another Bill to enable an action to be brought against enemies where those enemies had property and money in this country. He will remember the case I mentioned of an action against Krupp's where they had a considerable property here, and owed a very large sum of undoubted liabilities, and yet we could not
1498
sue them here, and could not prevent them taking their property out of the jurisdiction of the Court. On that occasion Clauses were introduced with the intention of partially meeting that difficulty, but they were subject to rules to be made with regard to the service of a writ. No rules have been made, and this Bill has been introduced to meet this difficulty, but it does not apply to cases such as the one I have mentioned. In the case of an enemy owing money in this country and having property here, the enemy can take it out of our jurisdiction and leave his English creditors unsatisfied. I think this Bill was intended to get over that difficulty.
Sir J. SIMON: In reply to my hon. and learned Friend I should like to explain that we had originally intended to have another Clause which would have dealt with the class of case to which the hon. and learned Member referred. But it was felt in passing this Clause about declaratory judgments it would be better to pass a simple Bill containing that Clause because the matter is very difficult to arrange. It is in a very advanced stage of preparation, and I should be very glad if I could have an opportunity of showing the hon. and learned Member our proposal. It would, I think, meet the point he puts, and we hope to have a further opportunity of making a proposal in that sense. In the meantime, I do not quite agree with him that a German debtor who has assets in this country can carry them out of this country. I hope that is not so. I think that the Trading with the Enemy Act has made certain, at any rate, that those assets will be kept here, but I quite agree that they are not made available at all for execution of a judgment against such a person until we have proper machinery for serving such a person with a writ demanding a judgment of that sort. The reason we limit it at the moment is because we thought we might ask the House of Commons for this simple declaratory proposal now, and we hope to supplement it by another proposal as soon as the opportunity arises.
Question put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 5.—(Short Title.)
This Act may be cited as the Legal Proceedings against Enemies Act, 1915.
The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Munro): I beg to move, at the end of the Clause, to add the words, "This Act shall not apply to Scotland."

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It may be said that the Amendment is really not necessary, and that the framework of this Bill makes it perfectly clear that it could not apply to Scotland. It is fell desirable, however, to put the matter beyond all doubt. I may take the opportunity of saying that to add a Clause applying the Bill to Scotland seems to me very undesirable. In the first place it is too important a Bill to apply to another country in that rough and ready manner, and in the second place the scheme of the Bill is such as to render the enterprise a hopeless one. With reference to the observations of a somewhat minatory character which fell from the hon. and learned Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Mr. Watt) yesterday on the Second Reading, as reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT this morning, I desire to assure him that I have very carefully considered the propriety of extending this Bill to Scotland by means of a separate measure. I have considered it as carefully as the time at my disposal has permitted, and having regard to our law and practice in Scotland now, and having regard to the fact that, so far as I am aware, there is no demand for a measure of this sort in Scotland, I have formed the conclusion that at present it is unnecessary and undesirable to introduce a separate measure for Scotland on these lines. But I may add that view is subject to reconsideration, and if, to use the phrase of the Scottish courts, "cause is shown"—if my hon. and learned Friend can show me that there is any demand for such a measure—that necessity exists for it, and that it is feasible to carry it out upon those lines, I shall be very glad to reconsider the matter.
Mr. WATT: I am surprised at the line of action which the Lord Advocate has taken. He had indicated that no similar measure is no be brought forward for Scotland, and he has said that his conclusion is based on the fact that no demand exists for it in Scotland.
Mr. MUNRO: I said my conclusion was based on the existing law and practice in Scotland and on the fact that there is no demand in Scotland for it.
Mr. WATT: I was referring to the assertion that there is no demand existing for it. The mercantile community there is under the same disability as the mercantile community in England, and they are asking for the same measure of relief as
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is afforded to the English trade. Their outcry is not so loud as that of the English trade, but nevertheless the demand exists, and I venture to say that when the traders of Scotland get to know that relief is being given to their brethren in England by an Act of Parliament their outcry will become a little more loud. It is a characteristic of the Scottish nation that they do not like to see much going past them, and if this boon is granted to the merchants and traders of England there will be an outcry from Scotland. I am very glad to learn that the Lord Advocate is open to reconsider the matter, and that if the outcry is such as to warrant the measure he will not be precluded by anything he has said from bringing one forward for Scotland on the same footing as England and Ireland.
Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill reported; as amended, considered; read the third time, and passed.

CUSTOMS (WAR POWERS) BILL.
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
Mr. LOUGH: I desire to make a very strong appeal to the Government not to proceed with this Bill in the hurried way which is contemplated at the present moment. It appears to me, so far as my study of the position has enabled me to judge that the Bill is perfectly unnecessary and that the existing law gives everything that is useful in the Bill. It bristles with restrictions which can only have the effect of throwing great additional burdens upon shipping and upon the conveyance of goods, and nothing has contributed so much to the rise in prices throughout the country as the difficulties imposed by the Government with regard to mercantile transactions and the transport of goods. The Bill is technical, and the best way to make the House familiar with it is to throw out what I believe to be a sketch of its origin. There is a War Trade Committee, and it is a very mysterious body. It is not one of the Departments accustomed to deal with trade in this country. We have the most excellent Departments for dealing with trade that exist in any

1501
country in the world. The Customs Department is one of the most perfect, and no Department of the Crown has excited so much of my admiration. We have also got a very effective body in the Board of Trade, but in the present emergency, so far as I can make out, both these great Departments have been pushed aside and a body has been constituted by the Government, without the House knowing anything about it, called the War Trade Committee, and I believe it is in their interests or on their behalf that this Bill is put forward. That is a very unhappy origin for the very sweeping and drastic proposal which the Bill conveys.
This Department, instead of being situated at the docks as is the Customs Department, is situated here amidst the cathedrals of Westminster, and the very great difficulty of getting at the Department is one of the greatest objections to it. It is more closely connected with the Office of Works than it is with either of the trade Departments in the country. It is under the control of a Noble Lord whom we knew very well in this House, Lord Emmott. I have no reflection to make upon the Noble Lord, but I think that he is a little out of his element. I would like to say that the chief official of the Department, Sir Nathaniel Highmore, is a Civil servant in this country. I have nothing whatever to say against him. I believe that he is a gentleman of great ability and courtesy who is doing his best in very difficult circumstances to struggle through the very heavy burden put upon him, and he and the very able Department he is working with have my sympathy in the great difficulties in which they are trying, and I believe almost vainly trying, to deal with this matter. That was the origin of the Bill. It is curious that we should have a Bill dealing with trade brought up hurriedly and that there should be no Department connected with trade represented on the Front Bench. Who is going to deal with the Bill?
Sir J. SIMON: I am.
Mr. LOUGH: My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General is going to deal with it. He is the handyman. He is as ready to deal with intricate matters of trade and commerce as he is to give a highly technical opinion on such matters as we have been discussing. I do not think it is desirable that this question dealing with trade should be dealt with by the Attorney-General instead of by
1502
someone representing the Board of Trade or the other Department I have mentioned. The first Clause of the Bill deals with the question of goods put upon ships for ships' stores, and provides that no goods shall be put upon ships for slips' stores without them passing the Customs. That is the law at the present time. The whole system of Clause 1 has been in strict operation since the War commenced. It applies not only to goods liable to Customs Duty, but to any goods that have been prohibited. I have made some inquiry and endeavoured to find out, and all the provisions of the first Clause are in fact at present in complete and smooth operation with regard to every ship. It says that more shall not be put on board ship than is required for the number of the crew and the length of the voyage. But that is already provided for under the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876.
Sir J. SIMON: In what Section?
Mr. LOUGH: I cannot give the Section. It may be that I am talking to a lawyer, but I am at the same time dealing with him as a business man of common sense, and I do not think there is any necessity for pleading technicalities. The right hon. and learned Gentleman must take it from me that no stores can be put on board ship except what are passed by the Customs authorities. The first Clause is, in fact, a sort of reflection on the Customs authorities of this country, and a perfectly unnecessary reflection. From that point of view, the broad criticism I make on the Bill as a whole is that, where there is anything good in it it is already the law at present, and what is new in it is very objectionable and ought not to be allowed to pass. The Bill bristles with penalties, but the Customs already have authority to inflict any necessary penalties, and things work quite easily at the present time. There are no ships in bur ports except British ships, or the ships of friendly countries, and, in my opinion, they ought not to be treated in a more hostile and unfriendly manner by the Government than is necessary. If further difficulties are placed on these ships, and if the owners are threatened with penalties and delay, the only result will be to increase the price of goods, and to cast a great additional burden on the community. Clause 2 deals with pre-entry of ships' stores, and here again the proposal is already the law and is in full operation.

1503
The Clause, therefore, is unnecessary. Clause 3 imposes an obligation on shipowners. I am not a shipowner, and have no great sympathy with them, seeing that they are charging very high freights, but the Clause imposes a penalty on them if the ship leaves port without due clearance. That, in my opinion, is wrong. I do not think shipowners do this thing. A ship is not a thing that can run away. If it does anything wrong in one port the matter may easily be put right afterwards, and we do not need this new provision in order to deal with these matters.
Clause 4 is the pith of the Bill. It brings a very important and new law into operation, and it really requires the attention of all business men in this House. I am sorry that the method of bringing this Bill forward has prevented it receiving the attention which is due to it. I believe if I can produce an effect on the minds of hon. Gentlemen present, the consideration of the Bill will be postponed, as, in my opinion, it ought to be. Clause 4 deals with exports which have been approved of by the Committee and the Customs to be sent to a foreign country. It lays down a new law with regard to bills of lading and invoices. The Government very properly has now adopted in some foreign capitals the practice of having some firm or agent to assist them in watching that goods exported from this country to that particular port do not pass to any of the enemy countries. In some cases the Committee which has control of these matters in this country gives a name—a banker's or a trader's name—and says the goods may be sent to another country provided that they are consigned to a particular firm thus named. But Clause 4 comes in and says that the name of the firm or bank must be put in all invoices, and also in the bill of lading. Let us look first at the invoices. The provision is impracticable, because the firm named was not the buyer of the goods. The services of the firm are only utilised to see that the goods do not reach a wrong quarter.
Then the rule with regard to the bill of lading involves an important alteration of the law, and ought to receive attention. It is that the name of this firm exercising this surveillance, or some other firm appointed by the Government, shall be put in the bill of lading. If that is done it will destroy the bill of lading as a security. The usual form of a bill of lading is to ship goods to the order of the consignee and on
1504
these goods advances are made, the bill of lading being the security. If anything occurs at the last moment the goods can be sent back, and they do not go out of the control of the consignor or bankers. I can only say if this provision is insisted upon with regard to both the bill of lading and the invoices a very great barrier will be imposed and big difficulties put in the way of the export trade of this country. I think hon. Members will agree with me that this is a proposal which should be studied and possibly amended, and such a great change in our present practice ought not to be made hurriedly at the end of these sittings. The matter ought indeed to be carefully looked into.
Sir G. YOUNGER: Cannot the consignor's name also appear in the bill of lading?
Mr. LOUGH: If the consignor's name can be put in, well and good, but an Amendment will be required to effect that, because the Bill as it stands will not permit it. It simply says—
"The name of the person, or place, or both, as the case may be, shall be inserted in all invoices, bills of lading, manifests and other documents relating to these goods, and if this requirement is not complied with as respects any document, the person by whom or on whose behalf the document is made out shall … be liable to a penalty of £100."
It is clear from these words that the goods must be definitely consigned to a particular man or place. That is a total change in our law. I do not think the bank would make advances on a bill of lading in that case. They want to include the name of the consignor, so that in case of necessity the goods may be brought back.
Sir G. YOUNGER: What you mean is that the consignor has nobody to draw upon, and therefore the bank will not discount the bill.
Mr. LOUGH: The bank will make advances on the order of the consignor of the goods. I admit that the matter is a little technical, but the House may take it from me that there is a substantial change being made in the law with regard to the bills of lading, and that it is a change which will put further barriers in the way of trade. Probably the next most important Clause is Clause 5, embodying provisions as to declarations as to the ultimate destination of exported goods. The

1505
word which the House must follow in this case is "ultimate"—the ultimate destination. The Government is very properly here laying down a provision with regard to goods which they allow to be exported, after having made all possible inquiries in this country. It may be these goods are sent to Italy, or Holland, or Denmark, and the object is to secure that they shall not pass thence into an enemy country. But this particular provision of the Bill is a terrible one. It alters what has hitherto been the whole procedure of the Government. The course adopted up to the present time by the Government has been to issue a paper in which particulars have to be given to the Government of the goods exported. The Government then either approves or disapproves. If they disapprove they black-list the exporters, who cannot export any more goods. This Clause throws on the exporter the duty of seeing what is to be the ultimate destination of all goods, and penalties are imposed for any default. It is an obligation which ought not to be thrown on exporters from this country.
While I admit that every assistance ought to be given to the Government by exporters in seeing that no goods reach the enemy country, or any country which practically, for the purpose of trade, may be at war with this country, I would point out to the House the great difficulty the exporter has in dealing with the matter, whereas the Government has every facility for dealing with it. At the present time no goods of any kind can be exported without the permission of the Committee or the Customs. It would appear to be quite reasonable that wherever the Government gives permission for the export of goods, the Commercial Attache, or the Embassy, or the Consul at the place to which the goods are consigned, should watch the buyers of the goods. They can get information which the merchant cannot possibly obtain. They can watch the buyers, and if they find anyone is not keeping the undertaking which has to be given—and it is a most solemn undertaking that the goods shall not reach an enemy country, but shall be distributed and consumed solely in the country to which they are exported—if they find anyone giving a false declaration, it should be their duty to report the firm, so that their names can be crossed off our lists and no further goods be permitted to be sent by them. That is the system which has been at work up to the present,
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and I believe it is the only practicable system. But it is to be now entirely altered, and the consignor is to be liable to the tremendous penalty of three times the value of the goods, or, £100 as the Commissioners may think fit, if he does not carry out this new provision. Three times the value of the goods is a big penalty, as the goods may be worth from £10,000 to £20,000, and I think it is a very questionable proceeding to authorise the imposition of such a penalty in this hurried manner.
There is another point. Sub-section (2) of Clause 5 provides that if the Commissioners suspect anything, the consignor must prove to their satisfaction the ultimate destination of the goods. This whole provision is based on suspicion. I have not had a large experience in these matters, because I am not largely engaged in export trade, but I have had some little experience, and I would point out that one difficulty here is that the Commissioners come to varying decisions; they approve of firms at certain times and afterwards they disapprove of them, because they may have heard something in regard to them. Very often they found their suspicions on a very curious basis. There was some experience of that in a case which arose in regard to the export of goods to a man named Smith in Sweden, that being also the name of his correspondent in this country. The Smith to whom the goods were exported was blacklisted in this country, but when inquiries came to be made it was found that it was a different Smith, and also that the Smith to whom the export was made had died eight years ago, and that there was now no Smith at all in the firm to whom the goods were sent. That was the ground of suspicion in that case.
In fact, all the provisions of Clauses 5 and 6 are based upon suspicions, which, it is said, must be reasonable suspicions. I submit respectfully that that is a very small foundation on which to impose such drastic penalties as are embodied in the Bill. Clause 6 refers to the importation of goods. There, again, the whole thing is based on mere suspicion. Everyone in this country is bound to assist the Government to the utmost of his power to prevent anything that will assist the enemy from reaching him. There is a sphere of work into which the individual exporter or shipper cannot go. The Government has machinery for reaching that, and the Government is utilising that

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machinery at the present time. The object of this Bill is to throw the whole thing back on to the exporter. I am not familiar with the exportation of jam, marmalade or biscuits. Who can tell that small goods of that kind will not get into Turkey? Is there to be a penalty of £10, £20, or £100 because a pot of jam happens to get into Turkey and its ultimate destination cannot be proved? Nothing can be done until the Commissioners of Customs give authority.
If this Bill be passed the exporter will be liable if a single box containing Palmer's biscuits gets into Germany or Turkey, and for anything he knows these heavy penalties will be imposed. Although everything ought to be done to assist the Government to bring this dreadful conflict to a successful issue for this country, these penalties are very sweeping and drastic and we ought to have a little more time to consider them. Certainly some Amendments must be moved, but how can they be moved if the Bill is pressed through? A very clever and able Department of the Customs is now attending to all these things quite satisfactorily, and I appeal to my right hon. Friend not to press this Bill, with its very onerous and far-reaching Clauses, at this time.
Mr. HOLT: I desire to commend certain considerations to my hon. Friend. I am not going to discuss the Bill in any technical way, because I do not know what the technical effect will be, but it is quite clear that the broad, general effect is to increase the regulations and restrictions of the Customs House. We do not want that at all. I do not dispute the necessity for the Bill, but a great deal will depend upon its administration. I would ask the Government to let us clearly understand that they are not going to be pedantic in the administration of the new rules. Everybody who has some experience of what is going on in our ports knows that a certain amount of the difficulties there is attributable to the increased stringency in the Customs regulations brought about by the War. If those regulations are necessary to the safety of the country nobody would complain of them. I should like an assurance that no new regulations will be imposed, and that the existing regulations will be relaxed in all cases where there is no reason to believe that substantial damage to national interests is being done. We do not want to have people made to toe the
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line of red-tape when there is nothing of any real substance that is wrong suspected to be going on. Throughout the commercial community the junior clerks as a class have volunteered very freely and readily to go to the War. That is precisely the class upon whom the work of carrying out these Customs regulations, so far as merchants are concerned, devolves. Their office staffs are short-handed at the present time. I would ask for an assurance that no regulation shall be imposed which is not really necessary as a matter of substance.
Sir J. SIMON: The right hon. Gentleman who spoke first (Mr. Lough) has given the House his view of this Bill. I quite understand that in doing so he is actuated by no desire whatever except to secure that the regulations which we make are not more than is necessary for the purposes of national defence and, at the same time, that they are, as far as may be, reasonable in themselves. There is no difference between my right hon. Friend and the rest of us about that. I hope I may also say this of him, that he is not an obstinate man, and if it can be shown to him that these regulations are quite necessary and in themselves quite moderate and reasonable in character, he is not going, simply because he made the speech to which we listened just now, to continue resistance to what may be a very necessary and urgent piece of legislation.
It is necessary that the House should understand what these Clauses do. They are quite few in number. They deal, it is true, with some rather technical matters. They are not enormous and novel interferences with our carrying trade; on the contrary, they deal with four or five quite limited and specific points, which, in the control and regulation of our export trade since the War began, have shown themselves to be matters which must be met. Let me take them one at a time, and I think I can show the House that they are really such as I have described. First of all, Clauses 1 and 2 of this Bill deal with the subject of stores. My right hon. Friend made compaint that it should be I, and not somebody else, who was to explain the Bill. After his explanation of Clauses 1 and 2 he will forgive me for saying that it is desirable that somebody in the course of this Debate who has some precise knowledge of what they do should explain them. Stores are different things put on board a ship in one of our ports

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declared to be for the purpose of victualling or otherwise providing the ship, as opposed to being commodities which are to be exported, that is to say, to a foreign country, or to be carried coast-wise, that is to say, carried from one port to another.
There you have three classes of goods—goods going to be exported goods going to be carried coast-wise, and goods going to be used as stores. So far as goods which are going to be exported or carried coast-wise are concerned, we have got, by the unanimous assent of Parliament, sufficient powers. We have found it necessary to prohibit altogether the leaving from these shores of certain goods for exportation, and, in the same way, for being carried coast-wise. We have found it necessary in several cases to make lists of commodities which cannot leave these shores for the purposes of export to certain named destinations. Stores, which are things put on board ship for victualling purposes or other provision, are not goods which are being exported and are not goods which are being carried coastwise, and they are not within our prohibition at all. What happens?
My right hon. Friend has told us that we are claiming in a great hurry to do something which in itself is a monstrous interference with legitimate trade. Let me give the House one illustration, and I will then ask hon. Members to judge whether the Clause is urgently needed or not. A week or two ago a vessel—a neutral vessel—left the port of Swansea with 400 gallons of petrol as stores and declared that she was going to Havre. She was not a motor boat, and I do not know why she wanted 400 gallons of petrol. She set out to sea with that petrol upon her victualling bill. There is, at this moment, no means by which we could prevent the petrol going. Where did it go? There were boats in that neighbourhood that wanted petrol, and they were enemy boats. Is it to be said that we are forcing something unfairly upon the House of Commons because we want to prevent that happening again, and because Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill provide that nothing should be put on board any ship until the Customs authorities have proved and satisfied themselves that the goods are reasonably required by the ship for the purpose of taking the ship to the port to which it is going?
Mr. LOUGH: Is not that the law now?
Sir J. SIMON: With great respect, that is not the law now. If it were I should
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not be occupying our time in considering the Clauses framed to meet the point. It is the law with regard to goods which are being exported and carried coast-wise, but it is not the law with regard to stores. We find it is impossible to allow that to go on in the national interest. It ii not because a colleague of mine is the head of the War Trade Department—I believe he was the most suitable person to select for that post because he has had great business experience—but it is because we cannot hope to do what we ought to do in the national interest to prevent submarines being supplied with petrol and other things from this country that Clauses 1 and 2 are proposed in this Bill. I come to Clause 3. There is nothing peculiar about it. It provides nothing more than this: That a coasting ship, that is to say a vessel which leaves one of the ports of this country in order to go to another port in this country, is not to leave without having what is called "clearance," that is to say, a proper authority from the Customs, and that if it does so leave without getting that clearance it is to be liable to penalties, and that those penalties may be enforced in an obvious way. What is the necessity for that? It is this: In rimes of peace very little happens of any consequence if the vessel leaves, say, Liverpool, in order to sail to Cardiff, even although the vessel in all cases has not precisely complied with the ordinary practice of getting clearance before it goes.
7.0 P.M.
It is a very moot point whether in all cases under the existing law you really can penalise the vessel. In time of war you may find that one of these vessels, which ought to have cleared, goes on a coasting trip down the coast, and does not come into this country again, or in the course of its coasting voyage has been supplying the enemy at sea. I do not say it is a British vessel. It may be a neutral vessel of whom we have a certain suspicion. All we want by Clause 3 is a provision which, under a proper penalty, secures that coasting ships shall not leave one port to go to another without having previously got clearance from the Customs, the reason being that the Customs will not give clearance until they know what is on the ship. Under Clause 4 my right hon. Friend seems to think that we are interfering with the whole operation of British commerce. Really, it is nothing of the kind. In three sentences I will tell the House what is contained in Clause 4. We prohibit certain goods from leaving this country, but none the less there may be

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certain cases in which the merchant may say, "I want a licence to export such and such a quantity of goods of this class from this country." We say to him, "Where is the stuff going and who is the person to whom you are selling?" He says it is going to such a place, and here is the name of the man who is instructed to buy it from me, and I want to get a licence to send it out of this country and fulfil that bargain. If he makes a good case, and shows that he is sending it to a place, which we believe in the circumstances to be a safe place, and a consignee of whose position and good faith we are assured, he may get his licence. That comes from the War Trade Department. What happens? Having got his licence, he puts his goods on board ship. It is at that moment that he takes his bill of lading. You do not get a bill of lading until you put the goods on board. The bill of lading is the receipt for the goods. He takes the bill of lading sometimes not as a bill of lading which puts the captain of the ship under the duty of delivering these goods to the consignee whose name he has given to us, but simply puts the captain of the ship under the duty of delivering the goods to the shipper's order in a way which is familiar to every business man and, allow me to add, to every lawyer.
A lawyer may, at any rate, have some knowledge of this department of business. That may be all right if there is complete bona fides in the transaction, but the House can see in a moment that having got the goods afloat in the Channel or in the North Sea, or wherever it is, he may then proceed to make other arrangements behind our back contrary to the licence which we gave him, and those goods may actually go to the enemy, and therefore we want to provide, not in reference to any past transaction, not in reference to anything which has already taken place, but with reference to future licences, that if you come and say, "Please give me a licence to export these goods. I want it in order that I may export them to a particular person whom I name and to a particular place which I name," we want to say, "You, the licensee, must put in your bill of lading something which will make it certain that these goods do go to the place you name and the person you name, and if you simply take a bill of lading to your own order we do not regard you as export-
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ing those goods under that licence." Surely that is a perfectly reasonable and sensible provision in cases where it is safe to give a man leave to export generally But if a man gets the licence on the distinct representation that he wants it in order to send the goods to A. B. at a given place, to whom he has sold them, the proper thing is that we should so draw up his shipping documents that they go to A. B. and to the person to whom he sells them.
The next Clause is this. My right hon. Friend in his indignation I do not think observed what is really the key to the whole Clause. Clause 5 deals with this position. At first we found it necessary to take securities in the nature of bonds from those who declared the ultimate destination of the goods they were exporting in certain cases, and the condition of the bond would be that if the goods were found not to go to that destination, the money secured by the bond would be forfeited unless a reasonable explanation was offered by the man who had given the bond. That is the ordinary practice. That is the thing which the Customs do in many cases in reference to special classes of prohibited goods. But this happens. I would ask my right hon. Friend to observe this because so far from being careless of commercial interests the object of the Clause is to provide an alternative at the choice of the shipper himself, which we think in many cases will be less onerous to him.
If you accept a great number of bonds from shipping houses you so far tie up their credit or, at any rate, involve a liability or a risk of having to find substantial sums of money at short notice, that you may seriously hinder the working of their business, and that has been pointed out. This Clause is devised in relief of such people to give them an alternative if they please. If my right hon. Friend likes to go on giving a bond by which he will forfeit the money he deposits if the ultimate destination of the goods is not what he said, be it so. No one will prevent it. But we say as an alternative, you may have your goods and they may go forward without any bond at all, but it must be on this condition, that if we afterwards have good grounds for knowing that those goods have gone to another destination than the one you named, then you must come under a penalty unless you are prepared to come forward and do that which you have to do under your bond, namely,

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show that there is really an explanation of it, and that it is no fault of yours. That is all that Clause 5 does, and it is a concession—an alternative—to commercial men who might otherwise be seriously prejudiced by having to find large sums of money in case of a bond suddenly called in and realised.
There is only one other Clause. It is one that my right hon. Friend did not take so much interest in because it has not to do with export, but with import; but there may be others who are interested in it. It provides that where the Commissioners of Customs and Excise have reason to suspect that the country of origin of any goods imported into the United Kingdom is an enemy within the meaning of the definition, the goods may be seized as though they were goods enumerated in the list of goods which must not be imported. The reason for that is this: We have had arrangements for months by which if you want to import goods—let us say, from Belgium, or Norway, or Sweden, or some neutral which is neighbouring to an enemy? country—you may protect yourself against the risk of being charged with trading with the enemy or importing goods of enemy origin by providing yourself with a certificate which in a proper case the British Consul in the neutral country will give you that those goods are the produce of the neutral country where he is Consul. He can satisfy himself. He can probably see them being manufactured. He has excellent means of knowing whether the goods are in fact what they profess to be—namely, a neutral product.
If you do that you escape all further consequences, because it is the Consul's fault if he gives you a certificate which is not what the facts would warrant. But there are some people who will not do that. There are importers in this country—and I think it is a pity that it should be so—who would take the risk of importing goods from such a country as Holland or Norway without taking that patriotic precaution and seeing that they are certified to be of neutral origin by the Consul in that neutral country, and all we say to that is, "If you choose to do that for your own profit and convenience, and if it afterwards turns out that these are goods which, in fact, have an enemy origin, we really cannot allow you to go making your personal profit on the terms that you are helping to maintain the enemy whom we are fighting in the field," and those goods
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must come under a series of regulations well known in the Customs. That does not mean, of course, that they are forfeited, but they are detained, and he will have to come and show, if he can, that the suspicion which the Customs entertained is wrong and that, as a matter of fact, the goods have an innocent origin.
That is the Bill, and I ask the House to consider in which of the Clauses in that Bill is this interference with legitimate trade in time of war, which might have appeared to be the case from the speech of my right hon. Friend. I submit, on the contrary, that there are half a dozen Clauses every one of which is obviously most urgently required. The failure to pass them before we break up would obviously mean opportunities which might be taken advantage of to our national prejudice in the interval which might elapse. It does not in the least interfere with the general carrying on of commerce. They are entirely necessary provisions, and ought to be passed at once. My hon. Friend (Mr. Holt) made an observation which I think applies to a great deal of this emergency legislation. What is important is that, having got your powers, you should use them reasonably. I entirely sympathise with what he said, and I will make it my business to communicate what he said, and said, I think, with the general approval of the House, to those who have to administer this and similar Clauses. As to the powers themselves, we need them urgently, and I hope we may get them now.
Question, "That the Bill be read a second time," put, and agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Question, "That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House," put, and agreed to.
Bill accordingly considered in Committee.
[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

CLAUSE 1.—(Provision with Respect to Shipment as Stores of Prohibited or Restricted Goods.)
(1) Where any goods are prohibited either to be exported or carried coastwise, or any goods are prohibited to be exported to any named country or place, it shall not be lawful for any person to ship as stores on any vessel any of the goods to which the prohibition extends, except

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such quantity of any of those goods as may be allowed to be so shipped by the proper officer of Customs and Excise as being reasonably required to be shipped at the port of departure for use on board the vessel during the voyage on which it is about to depart.
(2) If any person ships as stores any goods, or brings any goods to any quay or other place with intent to ship the same as stores, in contravention of this Section, the goods shall be forfeited and he shall for each offence be liable to a penalty of one hundred pounds.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
Mr. LOUGH: Although I took a great deal of pains to inform myself, I find I have not had correct information about the Clause, and I quite accept what my right hon. Friend has said about it. I was informed that the Customs had full power in regard to these ships' stores, and that nothing could be sent on as ships' stores except what they approved. An hon. Friend behind me says that that applies more fully to food and drink. I should be just as anxious as anyone to prevent any incident such as that mentioned by my right hon. Friend at Cardiff, and in view of what he has said I shall not offer any more opposition to the Clause.
Question put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 4.—(Provision as to Exportation of Goods under Licence.)
Where a licence to export any goods, being goods subject to any prohibition or restriction outwards, authorises the exportation thereof to a particular person or place or to a particular person at a particular place named in the licence, the name of the person or place, or both, as the case may be, shall be inserted in all invoices, bills of lading, manifests and other documents relating to the goods, and if this requirement is not complied with as respects any document the person by whom or on whose behalf the document is made out shall, if he is the exporter of the goods, be deemed to have exported the goods, without a licence, and, if any other person, be liable to a penalty of one hundred pounds.
Mr. LOUGH: I should like to put to my right hon. Friend a point which he did not completely cover with regard to bills of lading. I quite agree that absolute security must be taken that the goods
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shall go only to the consignee whom the Customs have allowed them to be exported to. But it seems to me that that might be secured without such a drastic provision as this embodied in the Clause. The bill of lading is spoilt as a security. Many bankers will not take it in the form in which the Bill puts it. I am only putting these matters with a view of hearing what my right hon. Friend has to say. I am very much obliged for the explanation he has given and the spirit in which he has given it, but it is a far-reaching matter, though I will not press it if he resists. If he says it is safe, I will leave it as it is; but he admitted that it is a substantial change in the law, and no one who knows the vast export from this country at present, all under these bills of lading, carried on in a certain way with the assistance of the banks, cannot but feel that it is a far-reaching provision. If my right hon. Friend can see his way to tell me that he would consider between this and the Third Reading and see whether anything that is necessary can be done, I should be quite satisfied to leave it in his hands.
Mr. SHIRLEY BENN: I should like to press upon the Attorney-General that something should be done to prevent the name of the receiver of the cargo or parcel of goods being on the bill of lading. I will give two reasons. In the first place, if you put the name of the receiver of the cargo on the bill of lading, and the receiver fails before the goods get out to the port of destination, how are you going to prevent the receiver from getting those goods, although he may be bankrupt? In the second place, drafts are attached to the bills of lading and they are not indorsed over until the drafts are accepted, and if you give the receiver of the cargo power to say, "I will not accept these drafts until the goods arrive and I see that they are in good order," you are going to interfere very much with the shipper.
Mr. HOLT: I want to ask my right hon. Friend this question. He justified Clauses 1 and 2 by the suggestion that shipowners might be practically acting in a spirit of hostility to this country, not accidentally but intentionally. Suppose you got a case in which these goods were going to be exported by a shipper of that kind, what security would Clause 4 give? In the case of collusion between the master of the ship and the owner of the goods, it seems to me that Clause 4 would give no security at all.
Mr. CAVE: I hope the Attorney-General will be very slow to accept any modification of the Clause. I do not think the Committee could engage in more necessary work than preventing goods leaving this country from reaching the agents of enemy countries abroad. I dare say the hon. Gentleman knows that in every port practically, in countries bordering on Germany, there are persons who are forwarding agents for the Germans, and the great object of the Clause is to prevent goods reaching those forwarding agents and going on to Germany. The Clause deals with the case of licences to export to a particular person. Licences are given sometimes rather freely, but they are limited to exports to a particular person in a neutral country. The only object of the Clause is to secure that the goods shall reach that person and no other. If you allow the goods to go "to order," or in any other form of negotiable document, they may be sold before they reach the foreign port, and they may go direct to somebody who may turn out to be a forwarding agent for Germany. We should be careful before loosening the tie sought to be imposed by this Clause. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not accept the suggestion to strike out the Clause.
Sir J. SIMON: The right hon. Gentleman who called attention to this Clause put very clearly the point which he wished to be considered. It has been considered. There are two considerations to be borne in mind. One is this. Of course, if the authorities feel that it is safe to give a license to export to a particular country, or to a particular place, without insisting upon the person to whom the goods are going being precisely defined and named, then the Clause cannot come into operation at all. We must, of course, suppose what the effect of the Clause must be in the case of a bill of lading not "to order," but to a named consignee. If you assume that the license is to export goods which you usually prohibit being exported, and if this particular exception is asked for and obtained merely because the licensee says "I wish to send to so and so and nobody else," then I say if we are going to be consistent we must make the document satisfy the recommendations we have made. The House will remember that we have intimated to neutral traders that we draw a very sharp distinction on examining cargoes where in one case the document shows that the goods are merely
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going "to order," or in the other case to a named consignee. With what justice can we say that we are going to regard their goods as goods which may be going to the enemy unless their document shows that they are going to a named consignee, while not applying the strict rule to ourselves? Surely, it is right that your document should carry out the rule you have made.
Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill reported without Amendment; read the third time, and passed.
The remaining Orders were read and postponed.

BRITISH PRISONERS IN GERMANY.

  STATEMENT OF MR. PRIMROSE.
  Mr. WALTER REA (Lord of the Treasury): I beg to move "That this House do now adjourn."
  Sir H. DALZIEL: Before the House adjourns, I wish to call attention to a subject which I think has been too long overlooked by the House in view of the early adjournments we have had lately, namely, the position of British prisoners in Germany. It is impossible to get the Government to do everything in their power; in the first place, to get accurate information with regard to the state of things in relation to British camps in Germany, and then to use every means in their power to see that the condition is improved. Public attention has recently been occupied to a considerable extent with regard to the manner in which this country has been treating prisoners from Germany. I do not wish to go into that matter to-night, but I think I may venture to say, on behalf of my five colleagues, some present, who have been invited to visit camps in this country, that we have found no real cause of complaint as to the treatment of the prisoners. I think we have now visited the majority of those who are in prison in this country. We invited the men to come before us, and we asked them if they had any complaints to make.
  The complaints we have had are infinitesimal. The Noble Lord opposite has visited a number of the camps, and, although I do not know his view, I venture to predict that he will agree with what I say when I state that I think we have

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  nothing on our conscience so far as the treatment of German prisoners in this country is concerned. I am doubtful whether we can say the same with regard to British prisoners in Germany. I do not wish to say anything to-night which might have the effect of retarding anything which might be done for them, but it is no use shutting our eyes to the fact—almost every Member of the House has been receiving letters from Germany—that there is cause for real anxiety as to what is going on in that country. We have overwhelming evidence that there is cause for anxiety and for immediate inquiry. Of course, it is to be remembered that the censorship in Germany is very strict, and that, so far as the ordinary channels of information—British newspapers—are concerned, they are practically closed so far as regards direct communication. The treatment of which we complain comes from people who have received it. I think we have abundant evidence now that the treatment of our wounded is not what any civilised nation might be supposed to expect. Only yesterday the Paris papers published an authentic diary of an officer of the German Army in which there were remarks in regard to what was done to the wounded which could only be read with horror by anyone with any civilised views at all.
  The treatment complained of starts on the battlefield, and it continues as the prisoners are being taken to Germany. I have direct evidence from one who travelled in a train, and who states how the British prisoners are treated. He says that the feeling of hatred is shown at every stage. The populace come with food to the stations; they ostentatiously hold it up in front of the Britishers and it is handed on to the French. Then, when they are taken to camps in Germany, there is undoubted reason to believe that the camps are not what they ought to be. The lodging is absolutely, insufficient, and the manner in which it is equipped is altogether unsatisfactory. Another complaint is with respect to insufficient food, and that, I think, is perhaps the most serious complaint of all. There is abundant evidence contained in direct letters as to the want of food, as to prisoners selling their clothes and as to their giving what money they possess in order to get enough bread to live. I had a letter this morning from a lady in Manchester, whose son is at the front. She says:—
  "I am a soldier's mother, and my son is a prisoner of war in Germany. Since 1st November he writes to me
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  for food. He says that if only I could send him dry bread, which I have sent three times—cannot afford it now. If the Government would help the prisoners, who are treated more like beasts than Christians, and not do so much for Germans, who have been branded as murderers in this country."
  The bread sent three times has never yet been received by that soldier. Apart from that, there is absolutely direct evidence from prisoners who are in Germany. Therefore, there is a case for immediate inquiry. Another complaint is that prisoners are unable to get money which is sent to them by their friends in this country. Money is kept back from them, and they are therefore unable to buy the additional food or comforts which they may require. It is also established that Britishers are made to perform the foulest work in connection with the camps, special preference being given to Russian and French prisoners. They are also harshly treated by the German officers who are, of course, reading the German Press every day, and are naturally infuriated with the British. We all know what the feeling is with regard to that, and therefore we have I to take that into account.
  I have in my possession an affidavit by a British merchant who has just returned from Berlin, having been in hospital for the last six months. I had intended to read it to the House, but there are some passages in it which, on mature consideration, I think that it would probably be better not to read. It is the statement of a Britisher who was at Dresden when the War broke out. He travelled to Berlin with the assistance of an American and was subsequently arrested and put in prison. He was ill in hospital for six months. He was in direct touch with the nurses, and was able to get some very important information, particularly information as to the number of British who I died from heart disease on the journey from the front, and also to another important fact. There is no particular purpose to be served by reading it, but I would be glad if any hon. Members who care to do so will read it. The gentleman himself is at the disposal of any hon. Member who is interested in the subject, and is perfectly willing to be cross-examined on the subject, his object being to assist Britishers who are imprisoned there, and because they sent messages through him hoping that when he got home he would do everything in his power to bring the exact facts before the British public.
  They are not able to get the letters which have been sent to them. That is a very general complaint on their part. They

  1521
  are also being deprived of the privilege of using tobacco. That also, although a minor thing, is of some importance to men living as they are. Their letters are very severely censored, but sometimes they are able to get through some indication of their feelings. A Noble Lord opposite read a letter the other day from a gentleman, whose name is well known in this country, who told him how the horses were being badly fed, and I think that there is no doubt from what he said, as to exactly what was the meaning of that phrase. Another friend had a letter which was got through, in which the writer said, "We are as happy here as we should be in Dartmoor." That passed the Censor evidently because he thought that Dartmoor was a palace in some part of this country. What I desire to ask is, What can be done in the interests of British prisoners there? We have to remember that the gospel of hate is being preached. That, undoubtedly, does not lead us to have much hope that our prisoners would be better treated than at the present time, but I think that we have reason to ask that we should have the same privilege granted to us as we have granted to the Germans. The German Government, not satisfied with the preliminary investigations which took place with regard to the camps in this country, were allowed by our Government to nominate a man of their own to make investigations. They nominated a gentleman connected with the American Embassy in Berlin to visit the British camp. He was afforded every facility in order to do so, and I believe that his report, like the Swiss report, was entirely favourable. I think that when we granted that special privilege to the German Government we should have said to them, "We will do it on condition that we get the same privilege and be allowed to nominate an independent man of our own." At the same time it seems to me that having granted that, we ought certainly to press for the same privilege.
  Surely someone connected with the American Embassy or the Embassy of some other neutral country can be got to go and make a special investigation of all the camps where Britishers are interned! Unless we do this the anxiety, which undoubtedly exists in this country among friends of the prisoners who are there, will continue to increase. And there is more reason to be anxious when we know what the state of affairs is becoming in Germany at the present time. For my part I would very much like, if possible, that all
  1522
  our prisoners should be interned in neutral countries, in view of the possibilities of the future, but I suppose that that is one of the things outside the region of possibility. I think that what the Government ought to do without delay is to press upon the American Embassy in Berlin the necessity of getting the privilege which we have granted to Germany. I do not think that anything short of that will satisfy British public opinion or British sentiment. I congratulate the Under-Secretary on the announcement which he made this afternoon that invalids from Germany were to be exchanged. I think it a great misfortune, almost a scandal, that men of sixty or seventy years of age, who just happened to be taking the waters in Homburg or elsewhere in Germany, should have been kept practically prisoners up to the present time. I think it is a great thing that they are going now to be exchanged and brought back to this country, and I hope, too, the Government will get them exchanged as soon as possible. I believe, that the exchange policy, in the long run, is in our favour, and therefore I ask the Government to proceed with the investigation still further and do everything possible to get the official facts, and above all to do something to help these unfortunate prisoners of war.
  Lord ROBERT CECIL: I would like to thank the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken for bringing this matter before the House. I am sure that it is a matter which is occupying a great deal of public attention, and I think that there has been a certain amount of inquiry outside as to why it is the House of Commons and the Government have not taken more active steps with reference to this matter. I also thoroughly agree with him that we should have an independent inspection of the prisons in Germany in which our fellow subjects are interned. I wish very much that the Foreign Office had been able to publish earlier the steps that they have taken to secure that that should be done. I believe, I may be misinformed, that weeks, perhaps months, ago we began to press for something of the kind to be done, but nobody outside knows that that is so. I think it a very great pity that the public was not earlier taken into the confidence of the Foreign Office in this matter and told what steps were being taken in older to have the conditions altered or, at any rate, to obtain some security for these prisoners. In one respect I think that the right hon. Gentleman opposite took

  1523
  too gloomy a view. He spoke as if our wounded had been habitually badly treated in Germany. I do not think, from the information in my possession, that that is the case. On the contrary, as far as I have come across any evidence at all, it is that the moment our wounded got into hospital in Germany they were treated very well indeed, and with great care. I have come across, of course, a very considerable number of cases where this has been specifically and definitely ascertained. I have come across no case in contradiction of that view, and, indeed, I can recall several instances in which I have been assured that although the military authorities have been inclined sometimes to be very harsh, and sometimes to behave exceedingly badly—I do not deny that for a moment—yet when the British soldier or officer got into the hands of the German doctors he was treated uniformly well.
  With respect to the rest of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, I have nothing to say except that I agree. We all know about the hatred of the English—it is prodigious. I quite believe that very horrible things might easily have occurred if British prisoners had not been carefully guarded from the hatred of the German people, which has been deliberately stirred up by the German Government for political purposes, and which is one of the wickedest things which they have done in the course of this War. I would also say that with regard to the prisoners' camp I do not feel quite so hopeless as the right hon. Gentleman. I think it is possible, and I hope it is possible, that some of the worst stories that have reached this country are exaggerated. My impression may be wrong, but it is that, though officers have been treated with great roughness and brutality in all the amenities of life, I do not think really that they have had to suffer hardships, which is likely to be injurious to their health; as to the men I do not feel quite so sure. The evidence is very conflicting about them. It is one matter which necessarily gives rise to very serious anxiety in this country.
  As to the letters which the right hon. Gentleman read out saying that parcels, bread, and so on, have not reached prisoners, I think that that is exceptional. I think that, generally speaking, parcels sent to prisoners in Germany do reach them, and where they do not it is partly due to the breakdown, necessarily attributable to the War, and partly, I am
  1524
  afraid, to the fact that some parcels are not properly addressed, and partly, and very deplorably, sometimes to the fact that they are entrusted not to the Post Office, which is much the safer channel, but to some private agencies, some of which, whether well-meaning or not, may not be always very successful in delivering what has been entrusted to them to the destination for which it is intended. The right hon. Gentleman was good enough to refer to certain visits which I paid, in company with the delegates of the Red Cross of Geneva, to the camps of the German prisoners in this country. When they were over here they went to all the camps. Their report, which is wholly favourable, is a very important report, because I can testify that they were afforded the fullest possible opportunity, not only of inspecting the camps, but of talking privately in German to all prisoners, apart from any English officer who had any knowledge of German, or apart from any English officer at all. They were allowed to go amongst the prisoners and talk freely to them in their own language, and any kinds of complaint from them which the prisoners could make, they were able to make to these delegates, and their report—I think it has been published here, at any rate, I have seen it—was wholly favourable, particularly as regards our treatment of military prisoners, but really wholly favourable as to the treatment of all classes of prisoners in this country. That is a very important matter. But even in the case of the German prisoners we had constantly, and I myself came across several cases of, complaints of failure of letters to reach them. I am quite sure that that is not due to any want of care on our part.
  The greatest possible precautions are taken to see that every letter which is written to a prisoner in Germany is delivered to him, yet constantly they do not get delivered, and it is generally because they have been improperly addressed, or the man may have been moved from that camp and there is some difficulty in tracing him, and delay takes place. But, whatever the cause, we do come across constant complaints of delay in correspondence, and therefore we must not judge too harshly similar complaints as to the delay of letters and parcels in Germany. I am very anxious that we should not exaggerate the evil, because no advantage is derived from any exaggeration of evil. We do not want—I do not want—to embitter even this

  1525
  terrible War. It must be bitter enough in all circumstances. I am very anxious that we should say nothing which is not fully justified by the facts. In this matter particularly I am anxious, because I notice in the Press that there is a tendency to ask for retaliation against the German prisoners. I must say, with all the strength at my command, that I should most bitterly regret anything of the kind.
  I think that we must treat the German prisoners properly, not with foolish sentimentality or anything of that kind, but treat them according to what we think is right, whatever the Germans may think it right to do with our prisoners. On the other hand, I think that, if we are satisfied either now or later on that any of our soldiers or civilian fellow subjects have been ill-treated in such a way as to injure their health or endanger their lives, then we should make it perfectly clear that at the end of the War, if and when we are victorious, we will hold the official answerable for that ill-treatment responsible in his person, and if necessary in his life, and that whether he be the Kaiser or any subordinate of his. I think you could not make that too clear, because the ill-treatment of prisoners of war is not explainable like occurrences in a campaign, committed in heated blood or ignorance, or something of that kind. It is deliberate, cold-blooded cruelty, and ought to be punished if there is any relic of justice left in the world. I should be very glad if His Majesty's Government could see their way to publish an announcement that whoever was responsible for the ill-treatment of prisoners will be held responsible, in person and in life, at the end of the War.
  Mr. GEORGE ROBERTS: The Noble Lord has raised a point which I desired to have discussed in the hope that influence will be exercised in behalf of our people interned in Germany, lest reprisals should be set up in this country. Like the Noble Lord, I have observed with some apprehension a very strong feeling growing up in this country, that we should do unto the Germans here interned what it is alleged is done unto the Britons interned in Germany. I am certain that when the War is passed, even if we err on the side of generosity, it will tend to strengthen the credit of this country. For a long while I refused to believe all the accounts which reached us from Germany. I never believed that a civilised country could ever behave vindictively to those
  1526
  who unfortunately came under their control. But the letter read by the right hon. Gentleman who introduced this discussion gives so much evidence that, even making full allowance for inevitable exaggeration, which arises in the existing state of public opinion, I can no longer attempt to refuse belief, for I think that our people interned in Germany are subjected to hardships, and something perhaps even worse. I am hoping that the Government will be able to make representations through neutral powers to persuade the German authorities to treat our people there in a little more humane way, and more in accord with the treatment which we are bestowing on the Germans in this country.
  I happen to be one of those co-operating with the right hon. Gentleman in visiting the various internment camps in this country, and I can most cordially associate myself with his expressions, and those of the Noble Lord. All the places which we have visited certainly are comfortable and decent, and the food supply is ample and good, and, whilst we deprecate anything in the nature of luxuriousness, nevertheless, we feel that these people ought to be treated decently and well. Therefore, when our inspection proves that the highest traditions of the British character are being maintained in this regard, we feel that the whole world should know of the inquiries that we have made, and that it ought to be prepared to accept it as a fact that we are treating these prisoners interned here well and in a thoroughly humane fashion. It may be, of course, that if the neutral powers would only avail themselves of the opportunity for disseminating this knowledge through Germany, it might have a somewhat helpful influence in this direction. Supposing the German Reichstag could select six of its members representative of the various political parties to visit the places of internment in Germany, as this House has done in respect of places of internment in this country, I am sure that public feeling would be relieved, and that we should feel much happier in respect of the condition of our fellow subjects in Germany. I am hopeful that the hon. Gentleman who will reply to this discussion will be able to give us some assurance that every step possible is being undertaken in this matter, and that there is some hope that the regrettable circumstances which we see now existing in Germany, and the treatment

  1527
  of the prisoners there, may be brought into accord with our treatment of German prisoners in this country.
  Mr. PIKE PEASE: In reference to what has just been said by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, I also wish to ask the Under-Secretary if he will be kind enough to reply, especially on the subject of whether food is being delivered to prisoners in Germany or not. The other day a question was asked in this House by an hon. Member with regard to a large number of parcels, I think 7,000, sent to prisoners in Germany, and the reply was that a very large number of those parcels had already been delivered. Since then it has come to my knowledge that food has been sent out on various occasions to individuals in Germany, and that food has not been received. I am sure that every Member of this House is grateful to the American Embassy for what it has done in regard to these matters. They have been extremely courteous to individual Members in answering questions which have been put to them, and what I would ask the Under-Secretary particularly to consider in his reply is as to whether he would inquire why a certain amount of food had not been received by prisoners in Germany, and also to guarantee or get a guarantee from the American Embassy that they will do all they possibly can to see that the food is delivered in future.
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Primrose): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for having raised this question, because it has given rise to a good deal of comment in the country, and I regret to say that the papers the Noble Lord asked for, I think a week ago, giving an account of all the negotiations which the Government have entered into with respect to the treatment of prisoners will not be ready to be published before another two weeks at least. We propose in these papers to give all the information in our possession with regard to the negotiations that have taken place. We have already given to the German Government, through the United States Embassy, an account of the way in which the German prisoners are treated in this country. The figures will be published I think to-morrow or the next day, because it was suggested that it would be advisable to publish them, even though the remaining papers are not
  1528
  ready. I am glad to say that in the last few days we have received from the German Government an official account of the food which the prisoners in Germany are receiving. They have also given an account of what can be bought in the canteens, and the prices which are charged in those canteens. That I think only applies to Ruhleben, where civilian prisoners are interned. They are further giving accounts of various meetings which have taken place between the prisoners committees and the Commandant at Ruhleben, in which, according to the German account—and I think it would be injurious to cast any doubt upon it before we have any information to the contrary—the details of the present arrangement were quite harmoniously discussed. That is all, at present, we have got from the German Government as to how they treat their prisoners in Germany.
  Of course, they will be laid with other Papers on the Table of this House. In regard to the general treatment of the prisoners we have various accounts, all the reliable ones of which we propose to publish. I think that what the Noble Lord said is probably justified, that there is an inclination to exaggerate the harshness of treatment which our fellow subjects receive in Germany. I am the last person to say that they have been properly treated, or edequately treated, but I think there is a slight inclination for people to repeat or publish doubtful information which really cannot be traced to any reliable source, and I regret it, because it causes great pain and anxiety to the friends and relations of prisoners out there. As regards the letter which my right hon. Friend quoted, I think the Noble Lord misunderstood him. I did not understand the right hon. Gentleman's informant to say that prisoners were badly treated in the hospitals. I think his informant wrote that he had heard from people something of that kind.
  Lord ROBERT CECIL: I shall be glad if the right hon. Gentleman opposite will put me right. I understood him to say at the beginning of his observations that the wounded in hospitals had been badly treated.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: I did not wish to stop the Noble Lord while he was speaking, though, perhaps, I ought to have interrupted him in the interests of accuracy. What I was referring to with regard to the wounded was not the general treatment in the hospitals, but there was a case which

  1529
  was mentioned in the diary of an officer. It is a document which I have in my possession, and on more than one day it contains short remarks on what he has been doing, and the treatment of the wounded.
  Mr. PRIMROSE: I think my right hon. Friend was quoting a letter.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: I quoted a letter, but I stated that I did not read its exact contents.
  Mr. PRIMROSE: I thought my Friend was referring to an affidavit.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: Yes, that is true.
  8.0 P.M.
  Mr. PRIMROSE: That is what I refer to, an affidavit, which does not contain anything about ill-treatment in the hospitals. I understand that our wounded in the hospitals have been well treated, and that the treatment of prisoners on the battlefield and on their way to Germany has been very harsh in many cases. There are two other points raised. One is that the prisoners do not receive the money which is sent to them, and that parcels of food which have been sent to them have also not been delivered in many cases. We have had letters saying that. I saw the other day a prisoner who had been released and who stated that he had regularly received two hampers of food a week or a fortnight, and he did not seem to throw any corroboration on the statement that part of the food was not delivered. I think it will be found that the parcels and money which were sent through the Post Office—which is the most reliable way of sending out anything—usually are delivered. The point has been raised as to what the Government is doing in regard to the treatment of these prisoners in Germany. It is quite true that the German Government have been allowed to appoint an American from the American Embassy in Berlin to come and visit the camps in this country. Incidentally, I am glad to say, I saw the gentleman before he went back and he was in every way satisfied with what he saw. Hon. Members may wonder why that is not being done by the British Government in Germany. We have propounded a scheme to the German Government. It was suggested several weeks ago, and in the view of the Foreign Office it would work much better than merely having one inspection by somebody appointed in England, an inspection which might be haphazard through no fault of
  1530
  the inspector, but through the fault of the facilities which he might enjoy.
  The scheme which we suggested was as follows: That quartermasters from the United States should work at Berlin under the United States Ambassador and keep in permanent touch with the camps where our prisoners are confined and distribute whatever was sent to them by the British Government. That seemed to us a scheme which would ensure fair treatment of prisoners in Germany, and at any rate it would ensure that they should have enough to eat and sufficient clothes to wear. It was felt inadvisable while we were pressing this scheme on the German Government that at the same time we should make a further demand and suggest that an inspector should be sent from this country, because the quartermasters would appear to be sufficient inspectors in connection with any point that might arise.
  Lord EDMUND TALBOT: Can the hon. Gentleman give us the date when that suggestion was made?
  Mr. PRIMROSE: I think about five weeks ago. No reply for about a month was received from the German Government, and feeling that it looked rather hopeless we telegraphed to the United States Government to ask them to suggest to the German Government that we should be allowed to send an inspector to Germany in the same way as the German Government sent an inspector here. Since sending that cablegram I am glad to say we have every reason to hope that the German Government will accept the original scheme, in which case those quartermasters from America will go over and distribute any Government relief which is sent from this country. That is not all that has been done. Money has been sent out during the last few months to the United States Ambassador at Berlin to distribute among British prisoners out there. The amount which has been sent altogether is £47,000. A sum of £20,000 was sent last week and the remaining sum of £27,000 was sent some time before. Any case of bad treatment which we hear of we communicate without any delay to the American Ambassador, with a request to him to see what he can do in the matter.
  I would like to take this opportunity of expressing our sincere and heartfelt gratitude to the Government of the United States for the use which they have allowed us to make of their representatives, and

  1531
  for the ready way in which those representatives have put themselves at our disposal. As regards the policy of exchanging prisoners, to which my right hon. Friend referred, I think there is a good deal to be said for it, but, of course, exchange of prisoners needs the approval of the War Office, or, in the case of sailors, of the Admiralty, and we are bound by their decision as to the military situation. But I hope that we may make as many exchanges as possible, and I am glad to have been able to announce to the House that invalid civilians will be exchanged as soon as possible. As regards what the Noble Lord (Lord R. Cecil) said about reciprocity in the treatment of prisoners between the two countries, I am in the most hearty agreement with him. I think it would be a most deplorable policy to follow to try and pay back on those who are in our hands now any ill-treatment which British prisoners are receiving. There would be no possible sense in it. In the first place, the people so treated would be in no way responsible for what had been done, and, in the second place, it would hardly be likely to influence the German Government in a policy of leniency towards our prisoners, because they have not proved themselves to be a very merciful Government, and least of all are they likely to be affected by anything done to their own soldiers who surrendered or were taken prisoners. I think that we should remember the duty which we owe to our previous history in carrying on war. We have entered upon this War in a generous spirit, and I think in a spirit worthy of the best traditions of our history, and to those traditions we must remain faithful.

ROYAL FUSILIERS (EMPIRE BATTALION).
Mr. HOGGE: Before I enter upon a new subject, may I say how much obliged the House is to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for the statement which he has just made. And if I am not too presumptuous, as a Member who sat below the Gangway with him before he went above the Gangway, may I congratulate him upon the effectiveness of this, his first appearance in office, and to wish him success in this enterprise and many others which he appears to be contemplating? With regard to the topic which I desire to raise I find
1532
myself in this quandary. I understood it was to be raised on the Consolidated Fund Bill to-morrow, and that it has now been arranged by what are known in this House as "the usual channels" to take place on this Adjournment. But I find on being called upon by you, Sir, and being present at the request of those usual channels, that there is nobody in this House representing the War Office able to deal with the subject which I wanted to discuss. It does seem to me rather farcical that we should be brought here, and two hon. Gentlemen opposite who desire to discuss this matter, and find ourselves on the Adjournment without anybody on the Front Bench who knows anything at all about the matter, or could be expected to know. Under those circumstances I do not propose to discuss the question.
Mr. NIELD: I feel it my duty to take advantage of the first opportunity which presents itself, with or without the presence of a Member representing the War Office, to deal with a subject which formed over and over again in this House the matter of an attack by the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge). As far back as the 25th of February he put upon the Question Paper of this House questions which reflected upon the integrity and honesty of a number of officers and gentlemen who had been assisting in the raising of the Empire Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. I need only refer to one question put to the War Office on the 3rd March as follows by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh:—
"Whether General Woollcombe has now submitted to him any report of the inquiry into the nature of the illicit commissions paid to the members of the British Empire Committee in connection with the Empire Battalion Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), and whether he will state the nature of that report.
Mr. Tennant: I have not received the report referred to, but I am making inquiries.
Mr. Hogge: Does not the right hon. Gentleman see that the imputation conveyed by this question rests on all the members of the Committee, and will he consider the advisability of calling for the report at once."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March, 1915, col. 807.]
Up to the present time that report has not been dealt with in this House, although it may have been considered by the War Office. Under those circumstances I feel it my duty to bring the matter before the House, though the hon. Member for East Edinburgh does not avail himself of the opportunity and take his chance of the representative of the War Office arriving later.
Mr. HOGGE: I would have taken the opportunity if I had not been invited to

1533
come to-night by the Whips of my own party, and of the party opposite, and discuss the matter. Under those circumstances I think we are entitled to have a representative of the War Office here, and it is only for that reason I do not proceed.
Mr. NIELD: I appreciate that, but there is the necessity of having this matter dealt with once and for all on the floor of this House since innuendo has done so much mischief about it, so that I prefer even in the absence of a War Office representative to deal with the matter. Let us see who are the officers and gentlemen under the imputation. One of the foremost was the late Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, who took the keenest interest in the regiment from its formation, and was in constant communication with the General Committee, of which he was a member, and who did his very best to encourage the men and to support the battalion. We have as chairman of the General Committee General Sir Bindon Blood, and Major-General Abadie, Lord Ridley, Lord Glanusk, Sir Wroth P. Lethbridge. The hon. Member for the East Division of Derbyshire (Lieutenant-Colonel Bowden), Lieutenant-Colonel Lumsden, whose name is associated with that of the raising of Lumsden's Horse, which performed so much service in the Boer war; we have also Sir John Tavener, Major-General Herbert, Major Little, Mr. A. O. Little, Sir Godfrey Lagden, myself, Major-General Robinson, Lord Calthorpe, Mr. Bell-Scott, Mr. Innes-Ker, Mr. McCandlish, Captain Salmon, Mr. Corbett, Captain Sir Pieter Stewart-Bam, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir H. F. de Trafford, Major-General Sir J. W. Campbell, Lord Haddington, and Mr. Ernest Devereaux, and Mr. J. Watson. Those two last-named persons (Mr. Devereaux and Mr. Watson) were engaged in carrying on the Empire Agency in St. James' Street, and, although they were guilty of conduct which nobody could attempt to defend, I say this for them, at the outset of the recruiting of this Committee they did indeed render very valuable services, besides lending their offices in St. James' Street. That is no excuse for what followed. But I am bound to put it on record that they had been assisting the officers and gentlemen engaged in raising this battalion.
The battalion of the 17th Fusiliers is essentially a regiment connected with the City of London. It was raised within a week at the request of the War Office from amongst City men of relatively good position and of West End Clubs. I do not
1534
know of my own knowledge, but I am told that many men who are privates in this regiment have very considerable private incomes, and that the type of men we are dealing with are extremely valuable for the purposes for which they are required. The City of London is represented in this House by two very distinguished Members—my right hon. Friend (Mr. Balfour), a former Prime Minister and Leader of the party to which I belong, and that very persistent Member, the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury), who is never behindhand in advocating anything that concerns the City. Therefore, it is the more remarkable that this question dealing with a City regiment, and assailing the character of those who are identified with it, passed into the hands of an hon. Member who comes from a place so far removed from us as Edinburgh. I draw my own conclusions as to why that should be so. Without speaking derogatively of the hon. Member, I suppose he has copied the character of Rose Dartle in "David Copperfield," who asked questions for information, desiring to know, but generally conveying a considerable amount of information in the process. No doubt it is the well-known ability of the hon. Member which has induced those who are behind him to take up this subject.
What are the facts? A Committee was formed as soon as the War broke out, originally with the intention of forming a Cavalry regiment. After considerable negotiation with the War Office they were informed that a Cavalry regiment was not desired, but that if they would raise an Infantry regiment the War Office would be extremely grateful. Later they received a communication from the War Office, dated 29th September, informing them that in all matters relating to this regiment they should communicate with the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief in the Eastern district, and they have rigidly adhered to that direction. They commenced to deal with this matter in August. It was well on in August before the request of the War Office was received, but they proceeded towards the close of the month and in the early part of September to invite recruits. It is worth while to state that this battalion, 1,100 strong, was raised within a week, and went into camp on 12th September.
A large committee like this, many of whose members could hardly be expected to attend at all, obviously had to act through sub-committees. They had an executive committee consisting of well-

1535
known officers of experience—General Sir Bindon Blood, Major-General Herbert, Colonel Lumsden, and others. They had also a clothing sub-committee of which Lord Calthorpe, who had the requisite experience, was chairman. Tenders were invited for the clothing in open competition; samples were submitted; and on the 11th September, the day before the battalion left for camp in Surrey, the order was determined upon and given to the contractor. In pursuance of this order clothing was delivered in various quantities. It was examined, not by members of the committee, but by experts appointed by them. Everything was done in the most businesslike way possible. The goods were received, and there were very few rejections. According to the information I have received—I am speaking as a member of the general committee—the order was executed to the complete satisfaction of the committee.
What happened was, the order having been placed, one of the two men whose names I have mentioned, acting on behalf of himself and the other, went to the contractor and demanded from him a share of his profits. After some considerable demur the contractor agreed to concede one-third. The contract was performed—the Committee knowing nothing at all of these facts—during the month of September, and from time to time the contractor made payments to one of these men, Watson, who received them on behalf of himself and the other man, amounting altogether to £285. Nothing was known of these transactions by any member of the committee until the end of October. On the 6th October both these men resigned from the committee because they had accepted Government contracts, and they did not consider it consistent with their duty any longer to remain members of the Empire Committee. I agree it was a great pity they had not thought of that long before. Towards the end of October the matter was brought to the notice of the committee by one of its members, and thereupon an inquiry of the most formal character was held. The committee had the contractor before them; documents were produced and carefully initialled; I myself took down the statement of the contractor and dealt with his documents in the same way as if one were conducting an ordinary legal proceeding.
1536
After the contractor had completed his observations, these gentlemen, having had the documents read over to them, were invited to make their own statements, which they did. They produced a typewritten copy of a letter, dated mid-September, purporting to have been sent by them to the contractor, in which they specified that in respect of future transactions they should enter into a limited partnership and share profits—I think in the proportion of two-thirds to the contractor and one-third to them—on any orders obtained by them out of which profit was made, and that any sums of money which might be advanced to them by the contractor should be regarded as advances in respect of that agreement. That was their case. They both affirmed to the truth of the facts. The committee were therefore put to consider the matter in the light of these contradictory statements and the documents which were produced. I invite the House to consider the position in which the committee were then. Having heard these two persons they made a report. I do not know whether I am justified, even though it may be in anticipation of the arrival of a Minister from the War Office, in so prolonging the proceedings—
Mr. WALTER REA: Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to explain. I am sorry that there has been an unfortunate misunderstanding. My right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for War is unable to be present, but if the hon. Member will be good enough to make his case to-night, the Under-Secretary will make a full reply on the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill to-morrow.
Mr. NIELD: Of course I accept that, but I am sorry, because I distinctly informed the right hon. Gentleman last night of the proposal to deal with the matter in this way, in order that the Consolidated Fund Bill might be clear for other subjects.
Mr. HOGGE: May I ask the Junior Lord of the Treasury, who is in possession of the Front Bench, whether that means that the Under-Secretary of State for War will hear my side before he replies?
Mr. REA: I have no doubt that that is the intention of my right hon. Friend: that it is his wish to hear both sides of the case.
Mr. HOGGE: There might be misunderstanding again to-morrow.
Mr. PIKE PEASE: May I suggest, as this is a very important matter, that it might be a better plan to defer it till to-morrow, and have it raised again?
Mr. REA: I am in the hands of hon. Members, because I must admit there has been a misunderstanding.
Major BOWDEN: I am a member of this committee, and I have had the honour of commanding the battalion in question for the last six months. I possess all the data, and with the permission of my hon. Friend below, I would urge very strongly indeed that the Under-Secretary of State should be here and hear the facts.
Mr. NIELD: I am not going to force this matter forward, but I hope the House will understand that I have risen to-night to open the matter, because it was understood that it should be opened, and because I regard it as a matter of vital necessity to take the first opportunity of making a public statement to clear the names of these gentlemen. Under the circumstances, I am perfectly willing for a restatement of the case, and a continuance of the discussion to-morrow, in order that we may have an ordinary Debate and an official reply.
Mr. HOGGE: Let me suggest to the hon. Gentleman that before he gives up his opportunity we should be quite clear on both sides that we are depending upon the ordinary channels of communication to give us the opportunity we are asking. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do what may happen to-morrow. A great many other subjects may intervene, for it is the discussion on the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill. That can run till after eleven o'clock, and we may be
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kept until two o'clock in the morning before we are allowed to get to this question.
Major BOWDEN: I will stay till three o'clock in the morning if necessary.
Mr. NIELD: Then I think we understand what the arrangement is.
Mr. REA: The hon. Gentleman must understand I am not quite in a position absolutely to pledge the Government as to the time to-morrow. I can only say that I will take good care that, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Edinburgh has said, the matter is specially placed before the proper authorities, and I am sure that in view of the unfortunate misunderstanding—a perfectly genuine misunderstanding, there being no desire in any way to be discourteous to any hon. Member—all possible will be done. I will represent the situation to my chiefs, and, so far as I can, will endeavour to secure that an equal opportunity to the present one should be given for a discussion on this subject.
Mr. PIKE PEASE: I think my hon. Friend ought to be satisfied with that. We quite understand that the hon. Gentleman opposite naturally cannot pledge his party, but if he puts the matter before the chiefs of the party we shall doubtless get the facilities for which we ask.
Mr. NIELD: It may be that I am of a more confiding nature than some of my hon. Friends, but I am prepared to accept what has been said in relation to the matter.
Question put, and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at Half after Eight o'clock.