Commons Sitting of 26 June 1917

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING ACTS, 1882 TO 1909 (PROCEEDINGS).
Copy presented of Report by the Board of Trade, respecting the Applications to and Proceedings of the Board of Trade under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 to 1909, during the past year [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS.
Accounts presented of all Deposits received and paid during the year ended 31st December, 1916, together with a Statement showing the aggregate amount of the Liabilities of the Government to Depositors in the Post Office Savings Banks on the 31st December, 1916, and the nature and amount of the Securities held by the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt to meet those Liabilities at that date [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 99.]
LEVINSTEIN (RAILWAYS) BILL.
Copy presented of Report of the Attorney-General on the Bill [presented pursuant to Standing Order 175 a]; referred to the Committee on the Bill.
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
Copy presented of Annual Statistical Report by the University Court of the University for the year 1915–16 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

PRISONS (SCOTLAND).
Copy presented of Rule, dated 25th June, 1917, made by the Secretary for Scotland as to communications between prisoners and their friends by visits and letters [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 100.]
Paper laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House:—
Friendly Societies, Industrial and Provident Societies, Building Societies, Trade Unions, etc.,—Reports of the Chief Registrar for the year 1916. Part A. [by Act]; to be printed. [No 101.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE.
    Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether the American soldiers now on the Western Front are under the supreme command of the French generalissimo, of General Haig, or of the American general?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): My hon. Friend has asked me to answer these questions, as he is unable to be present to-day. The American Government will doubtless make a suitable announcement as to the disposal of their forces when they consider it opportune to do so.
    Mr. KING: Does that mean that the hon. Gentleman is unaware of what is the answer?
    Mr. FORSTER: No Sir; it does not imply that. It means I do not think it is desirable to say.

    MILITARY SERVICE.

      DISCHARGED DISABLED MEN.
      Sir GEORGE TOULMINasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether, while a lunatic soldier discharged to pension is receiving treatment in a military or civil institution, any charge can, under the Regulations, be made against him for maintenance or treatment, providing that his disability is due, directly or indirectly, to military service; and, if so, will he state under what Regulation such charges can be made?
      Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the Pensions Minister whether the care and treatment of a lunatic soldier discharged

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      from the Army is regarded as an obligation of the State; and, if this is not the case at present, if he can assure the House that it shall be so regarded in future and without charge against either the man or his dependants?
      The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. Barnes): The cost of maintenance in the case of a discharged man under detention in an asylum is chargeable against his pension under the Lunacy Act, 1890, and the Royal Warrant of December, 1914. I have now arranged that a discharged disabled man shall, while in an asylum, be treated on the footing of a private patient, his maintenance being paid for by the State. An extra payment of 3s. 9d. a week is made to the asylum authorities to enable them to provide suitable private clothing and other amenities for the man, and the 2s. 6d. is given to the man himself for personal comforts. Under Article 6 of the new Warrant and Order in Council special provision is made for the maintenance of the family and dependants of a man in an asylum whose disability is due to war service.
      Mr. HUGH LAWasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether a lunatic soldier who is a single man and without dependants can be retained in the Army and upon the regimental pay roll until he is pronounced by a medical authority incurable; and whether, if the man recovers prior to his discharge, there will be paid to him on his discharge a sum equal to the amount of pay he would have received had treatment not been necessary?
      Mr. FORSTER: During the War certain classes of lunatic soldiers defined in an Army Council Instruction—of which I am sending my hon. Friend a copy—are retained in the Army. Broadly, those so treated are those whose mental trouble may have been produced by war strain. A soldier so retained is credited with his pay.
      Mr. ELLIS GRIFFITHasked the Pensions Minister (l) whether the wife, children or dependants of a discharged lunatic soldier are entitled to twenty-six weeks' payment of separation allowance and at the end of that period pension upon the scale appropriate until the man recovers, or, if he does not recover, upon the same terms
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      as pension is issuable in the case of a deceased soldier; (2) whether he will state if the wife, children or dependants, either Class A or B, of a discharged lunatic soldier receive pension from the date of his discharge; and whether that pension is subject to any deduction for the man's treatment or maintenance in a civil or military institution?
      Mr. BARNES: The continuance of separation allowance (which is a matter for the Admiralty and the War Office) only obtains in case of death while serving. If a man in discharged as a lunatic his maintenance as a "Service," i.e., private patient, will be undertaken by the Pensions Ministry. As regards his family: if the lunacy is attributable to or aggravated by service his wife will, from the date following the man's discharge from the Service, receive the same allowance as would be granted to her if she had been left a widow, together with allowances for any children; his dependant will similarly be provided for. If the lunacy is not so attributable or aggravated, the gratuity, in most cases a substantial one, which would have been awarded to the man, will be administered by the Ministry in the interests of the man's family under the Lunacy Act of 1890.
      Mr. H. P. HARRISasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether, in the case of a lunatic soldier discharged to pension and undergoing treatment in a civil institution, medical examination other than by the medical authorities of the institution can be permitted at the instance of the man's parents or dependants; and whether a certificate of such medical examination can be accepted as authoritative to secure the man's discharge to the care of his friends?
      Mr. HOGGEasked the Pensions Minister whether, in the case of a lunatic soldier discharged to pension and undergoing treatment in a civil institution, medical examination other than by the medical authorities of the institution can be permitted at the instance of the man's parents or dependants; and whether a certificate of such medical examination will be taken into consideration with a view to securing the man's discharge to the care of his friends?
      The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Brace): I would refer the hon. Members to

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      Section 49 of the Lunacy Act, 1890, under which the relatives of a patient in an institution for lunatics may obtain authority from the Commissioners of the Board of Control for his examination by two medical practitioners. The certificates given after such medical examination are always most carefully considered by the Commissioners in connection with the question of discharge.

      EXEMPTIONS.
      Mr. RICHARD LAMBERTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the peculiar circumstances of Private Issy Pressman, No. 55,522, 2/6th Essex Regiment, who is under seventeen years of age and enlisted without his father's consent; and whether, in case his father succeeds in his efforts to return forthwith to Russia, the son will be released to accompany him?
      Mr. FORSTER: Further inquiries are being made into this case.
      Mr. LAMBERTasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether, in view of the decision given by the Central Tribunal concerning the proprietors of one-man businesses, he will consider the case of Gunner E. G. Finley, No. 223,347, 1st Reserve Battery, Royal Field Artillery, a dairyman, of 96, Holly Avenue, Jesmond, Newcastle, whose business, which has been built up entirely by his own efforts during the past nine years, is now slowly dwindling and almost entirely without guidance owing to the illness of his wife; and whether immediate steps will be taken to procure Gunner Finley's temporary release from the Army until such time as his wife is able to take charge of the business?
      Mr. FORSTER: Inquiries are being made about this case, but I must refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply given on 18th June to the hon. Member for Leith Burghs with regard to the principle underlying the decision referred to.
      Mr. LAMBERTasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether he is aware that the military authorities are calling up for re-examination under the Review of Exceptions Act men who are in possession of a certificate of exemption on medical and other grounds issued by a tribunal, contrary to the provisions of paragraph 6 of Section 1 of the First
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      Schedule of Exceptions under the principal Act; and whether he will issue instructions that this practice is to cease in the future?
      Mr. FORSTER: I am not aware that any men are being called up for re-examination under the Military Service (Review of Exceptions) Act, 1917, who are in possession of any valid certificate of exemption. Men who were not excepted from the provisions of the Military Service Acts, 1916, are not subject to the 1917 Act at all. If, however, a man was excepted from the 1916 Acts, and had no military liability prior to the 1917 Act, any purported exemption which he held was inoperative as being an exemption from a liability to which he was not subject. To avoid possible misunderstanding, however, instructions were given to recruiting officers some time ago that certificates of exemption, although they might be in strictness invalid, were to be recognised as operative if held by attested men who had been rejected but not discharged, or by unattested men who had been rejected but had not been given a certificate marked "Rejected and therefore excepted from Military Service."

      POST OFFICE (CLERICAL AND MANIPULATION STAFFS).
      Mr. T. WILSONasked the Postmaster-General if he will give the proportion of clerical and manipulation staffs of the 650 men in the Post Office exempted from military service as indispensable?
      The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Illingworth): Roughly, the figure is equally divided between clerical and manipulative staff.

      CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if a conscientious objector, named George Pickles, stationed at Dartmoor, recently sent a telegram, on the instruction of the agents, to the Home Office Committee asking for permission to attend his brother's funeral and offering to pay his own expenses; whether, in spite of the fact that four days' leave were due to him, his request was refused; and will he say for what reason the Home Office refused this request?
      The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir G. Cave): Pickles telegraphed applying for leave for

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      the purpose stated, and asked for a free pass to Leeds No leave was due to him, as all leave is now suspended, and the Committee decided that they could not make an exception in his case. He had recently had a week's special leave on account of his mother's illness.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked why no reply has been sent to Mrs. Little, 2, Beacons-field Terrace, Westoe, South Shields, who, on the 3rd June, wrote to the Home Office Committee on Conscientious Objectors conveying to them her husband's request, who is now in Durham Prison, to be allowed to accept the Home Office scheme which he had previously refused; and if steps will be taken at once to put this man under the scheme?
      Sir G. CAVE: The Committee has no power to send this man out to work, as he declined to have his case considered by the Central Tribunal with a view to his release under the Home Office scheme. The reply to his wife's letter was delayed owing to extreme pressure of work.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked what action has been taken or is intended to be taken as a result of the decision of the Merthyr Tydvil stipendiary magistrate, delivered on the 19th June, in the case of Henry Thomas, who was dismissed from the Home Office settlement at Dartmoor and handed over to the military for return to the Army; and, in view of the decision of the stipendiary that, since the Central Tribunal had judged Thomas to be a genuine conscientious objector, be could not be a military absentee and was therefore discharged, will the Home Office immediately demand from the Army the recall of all men who have been returned to the Army under conditions identical with the case of Thomas; and will a stop be made by the Home Office Committee to any further illegal practices of this character?
      Sir G. CAVE: In this case the magistrate appears to have been erroneously informed that the man had been exempted from military service by the Central Tribunal, and to have dealt with the case on that assumption. A decision based on this assumption does not affect the action of the Committee, which deals only with men who have not been exempted. No further action appears to be necessary in this case, so far as the Home Office is concerned.
      Mr. SNOWDEN: With regard to the latter part of the answer, does it mean that the Home Office are not going to interfere with this young fellow who has been discharged by the stipendiary?
      Sir G. CAVE: I do not think there is any question as to the decision of the magistrate.

      BRITISH SOLDIERS IN INDIA.
      Mr. WATTasked the Secretary of State for India whether a concession granted by the Government of India to British soldiers resident in India whereby they could receive tobacco in parcels sent from home without being charged a second duty thereon is being construed as not applicable to officers of the Regular Army but only to officers in Territorial or garrison regiments; if so, will he say why this distinction is made; and will he take any steps to have the concession extended to them?
      The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Chamberlain): I would refer the hon. Member to my replies to his questions of 21st and 25th June.
      Mr. WATT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this concession is made to British soldiers, but that exception is made in the case of officers of the Regular Army? Are we to understand that officers in the Regular Army are not British soldiers?
      Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: If the hon. Member will do me the honour to read the answers to the questions which he has already put, he will find that I have already answered the question which he has just repeated.

    TOBACCO FOR SOLDIERS (ITALY).
    Mr. STEWARTasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that the importation of tobacco into Italy is prohibited and that our soldiers serving there find it very difficult to accustom themselves to Italian tobacco, he will approach the Italian Government with the object of letting our soldiers get tobacco they are accustomed to?
    Mr. FORSTER: I understand that this matter is at present the subject of negotiation with the Italian Government through the Foreign Office.

    WOMEN'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS.
    Colonel WEIGALLasked the Undersecretary of State for War what number of women are now employed in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in expeditionary forces and in Home forces?
    Mr. FORSTER: I am afraid that it would not be in the national interest to give these figures, but I may say that substantial progress has been made with the employment of members of this corps overseas. The extension of the corps to this country is not yet in force.

    NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
    Mr. WARDLEasked the Pensions Minister whether the mother of a soldier who is in receipt of separation allowance in respect of her husband receives a pension in respect of her son if he is killed or dies on active service, and his death is due directly or indirectly to military service?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Colonel Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen): The answer is in the affirmative, provided dependence on the son before mobilisation or enlistment is established. The grant of pension in these cases is one of the changes introduced by the new Warrant.

    ALLIED POWERS (CONFERENCE).
    Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that on 12th June the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs presented to the French Minister, M. Thomas, a note urging a conference of representatives of the Allied Powers at an early date to revise the agreements concerning the War aims of the Allies, and that the pact of London of 5th September, 1914. was to be excluded from revision; and whether the British Government is moving to carry out the wishes of our Russian Allies?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Balfour): I understand that the Russian Government informed Monsieur Thomas that it was their intention to suggest the convocation of such a Conference so soon as circum-
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    stances permitted. His Majesty's Government have, however, as yet received no communication from the Russian Government on the subject.
    Mr. KING: What attitude or inclination does the Government take up in regard to this question, which is considered in Russia to be absolutely vital and very pressing?
    Mr. BALFOUR: The hon. Member is asking me about an inclination: perhaps he had better put down a question.
    Mr. D. MASON: Is it not the case that the British Government have already expressed the wish to proceed if it is the desire of the Russian Government?
    Mr. BALFOUR: Better put down any further questions.

    PORTUGUESE WEST AFRICA.
    Mr. WATTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for what reason William Trayner, a British subject, of Lubango, in Portuguese West Africa, was deported from that territory on 2nd May, 1915, without inquiry or trial; what steps were taken by the British representative there to have this man's rights maintained; whether he is aware that Trayner represented in that district a well-known London firm, who suffered loss by this action of the Portuguese Government; and whether any reparation will be offered to Trayner for loss of reputation and income?
    Mr. BALFOUR: Mr. William Trayner was expelled from Portuguese West Africa in the spring of 1915 on the ground of conduct which, at the time, appeared suspicious to the local authorities. His Majesty's Consul-General at Loanda took all such steps as he properly could to protect the interests of Mr. Trayner. The Government of Portugal contends that the action of the Portuguese Colonial Administration was justifiable on the broad ground that in abnormal times the Administration is entitled, for the safety of the State, to expel aliens who may have incurred suspicion, without waiting for them to commit overt acts. This proposition His Majesty's Government are not prepared to contest. Conditions having changed the Portuguese Government were prepared, in December, 1915, to permit Mr. Trayner to-return to the Colony, and, as a matter of

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    grace, he was offered a free passage to Angola. This offer was refused by Mr. Trayner. His Majesty's Government are still in communication with the Portuguese Government on the incidents which led to Mr. Trayner's expulsion. His Majesty's Government are aware that Mr. Trayner was the representative of a London firm.

    GERMAN OFFICERS (YORKSHIRE).
    Mr. MALLALIEUasked the Undersecretary of State for War if he is aware of the manner in which the interned German officers at Colsterdale Camp, Masham, Yorkshire, are living; are they allowed out in batches to wander at will with only one guard in front and one behind without weapons; are they allowed to go to the officers' quarters to have luncheon and play tennis with them; if he is aware that when they hear news, such as the recent air raid in London, their band plays and they drink toasts; is he aware of the dissatisfaction which is felt by our soldiers when they compare their own conditions with those of their prisoners; and, while treating the prisoners well, will he see that they are only treated as such?
    Mr. JAMES HOPE (Lord of the Treasury): Officer prisoners of war are allowed outside places of internment for the purpose of taking exercise. They give a temporary parole on each occasion they leave camp, and have to conform to Regulations framed on the subject. They are accompanied by one officer and an orderly, both of whom are armed but not with rifles.
    I am informed there is no foundation whatever for the suggestions as to luncheon and lawn tennis with British officers, the playing of bands or the drinking of toasts.

    SCHOOL TEACHERS' SALARIES (SCOTLAND).
    Mr. BOLANDasked the Secretary for Scotland whether, in view of the expected introduction of educational reform for Scotland, he will state, from the returns furnished by school managers to the department, what are the average salaries for each of the following grades of primary school teachers in board schools and in Catholic schools, respec-
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    tively, in the Glasgow school board area: male principals, excluding second masters; male assistants, including second masters; female principals, including infant mistresses; and female assistants, excluding infant mistresses; and will he state the number of children per certificated teacher in board schools and in Catholic schools, respectively, for the same area?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): I would refer my lion. Friend to my answer to his question of the 11th instant, to which I have nothing to add.
    Mr. BOLAND: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in my former question I asked for a very much larger set of figures than this I This merely refers to the Glasgow area. Would it not be possible from the returns of managers to give this information?
    Mr. MUNRO: I am sure the amount of labour and time required would be out of proportion to the value of the result.

    FOOD SUPPLIES.

      DANISH BACON.
      Mr. STANTONasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether the managers of the Ellerman Line are the persons responsible for the negligence reported by the inspectors of the port sanitary authority of Hull, and which resulted in the destruction in a soap works of tons of valuable Danish bacon; and whether, as his Department have already prosecuted several poor persons for wasting crusts of bread, he will commence criminal proceedings against Sir John Ellerman and his fellow directors of the Ellerman Line?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Bridgeman): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative; the second point does not, therefore, arise.

      MEAT.
      Mr. STANTONasked (1) the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether on Tuesday, 5th June, a deputation from Smithfield Market, consisting very largely of the same persons who procured the holding up of Govern-

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      ment imported mutton in March last in order to prevent a fall in the price of Scotch mutton, visited his Department and were interviewed by a person named Towle and suggested certain amendments to the Meat Trades Order; whether he will state what those proposals were, in order that the workers' committee for Smith-field Market and the riverside cold stores will be enabled to give the matter their consideration before any alterations in the Order are made; (2) the President of the Board of Trade whether a committee of the London Central Markets Association are seeking to influence his Depart-men with regard to the maximum prices of meat; and whether, before adopting any scale of maximum prices as suggested by these persons, he will take the opinion of the respective trade unions of the workers in the trade?
      Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Two representatives of the London Central Markets Association were invited to discuss matters relating to the control of the meat markets with the head of the section dealing with such matters, who has similarly consulted all other sections of the trade. No Amendments were suggested to the Meat Sales Order, and the interview with them, as with others who have been consulted, was confined to obtaining information on technical questions necessary to a full examination of the subject.
      Mr. STANTONasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the majority of the cold-air stores and of the salesmen who handle Government meat are paying less than the trade union rate of wages recognised for cold-produce work by the respective trade unions concerned; and whether his Department, before trouble arises, will intimate to all these concerns that it is their duty to pay the standard rate of wages?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Roberts): If my hon. Friend will supply me with particulars of the rates of wages now being paid by the employers referred to, and of the wages claimed by the trade unions concerned, I will cause inquiries to be made.
      Mr. ANDERSONasked the Secretary to the Local Government Board whether his Department has issued a
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      recommendation to local authorities that they should sterilise and place for sale for the purpose of human consumption the meat of cattle affected with tuberculosis, and that such meat should be disposed of to the poor; and if he can state how many authorities are acting on this suggestion?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative, and the second part does not, therefore, arise.
      Mr. ANDERSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that municipalities such as Aberdeen are acting on this suggestion, and that it apparently comes from the Local Government Board?
      Mr. FISHER: I believe that Aberdeen and one or two places are making experiments of this kind. The Local Government Board have not thought fit, on the evidence, to make any recommendation.
      Mr. ANDERSON: Would the Local Government Board on the evidence discourage the practice of selling sterilised tuberculous meat to poor people?
      Mr. FISHER: No, Sir. If municipalities are willing to make the experiment we should not put any obstacle in the way of their making it, but we are not prepared on any evidence that has yet been adduced to make any recommendation to the municipalities that they should make this experiment.
      Mr. STANTONasked whether, owing to high prices and profiteering, meat within the last fortnight has been held up until it reached a putrid condition; and whether he will state the total amount seized by the inspectors of the City of London and the twenty-seven Metropolitan boroughs for each of the weeks ending 10th June and 17th June?
      Mr. FISHER: The Department has been in communication with the authorities referred to. I am informed that twenty-five authorities have not had occasion to seize any unsound meat during the period mentioned. I am making further inquiries as to the conditions under which considerable quantities have been seized by the inspectors in the City of London and the boroughs of Finsbury and Southwark, and I am communicating with the Ministry of Food.

      UNLOADING GRAIN (WASTAGE).
      Captain CARR-GOMMasked the Prime Minister if his attention has been drawn to the complaints of wastage in unloading grain in the Port of London; and whether he will state what steps the Government will take to deal with this matter?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of SHIPPING (Sir Leo Chiozza Money): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply. I have had careful inquiry made into this matter and cannot find that there has been any avoidable waste in unloading grain in the Port of London, or that any complaints have been made. Examination of a number of recent cases of unloadings shows in each case a wastage of less than 1 per cent., which is considered good discharge. It is possible, however, that my hon. and gallant Friend knows of a case which has not been brought to my attention, and, if so, I should be much obliged if he would let me have particulars to enable me to prosecute further inquiries.
      Captain CARR-GOMM: Can my hon. Friend say whether this answer covers the case of ships unloading at private wharves?
      Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: I am afraid I have imperfectly heard my hon. Friend's question, but I shall be obliged if he will give me cases himself for inquiry?

      EARLY POTATOES.
      Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT(by Private Notice) asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether his attention has been called to the immediate lifting of the early Ayrshire potato crop; has he considered the wasteful effect of lifting the crop in an immature state for the purpose of selling it at high prices to the wealthier classes; and whether he has considered the advisability of postponing the digging for a fortnight, or any other period of time, in order to secure larger supplies of food?
      Sir J. SPEAR: Before the hon. Gentleman answers that question, may I ask him whether he is aware that large areas of the early potatoes were taken up in order to clear the ground for other crops, such as sprouts and cabbages, and that, therefore, the action asked for would be against the provision of food for the people?
      Mr. BRIDGEMAN: It was pointed out to the House on 8th June that there are difficulties in the way of prohibiting the lifting of early potatoes and that the cleaning of the ground enables another crop to be sown. It is not, however, clear that the consumption of potatoes in July will be confined to the wealthier classes. For these reasons it is not proposed to adopt the course suggested by the hon. Member.
      Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that these potatoes are now being sold at 7d. and 8d. per lb. retail, and has the Department formulated any policy with regard to the new crop in the immediate future?
      Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am afraid I cannot answer the second part of the question without reference to the Food Controller.
      Mr. EUGENE WASON: Has the hon. Gentleman seen any of these early Ayrshire potatoes? They are remarkably well grown.
      Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter for the Kitchen Committee.

    LABOURERS' WAGES (IRELAND).
    Mr. BYRNEasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) if he will see that a minimum wage of not less than 30s. per week be paid to labourers in the Irish Department; if he is aware that in many parts of Ireland married men are being paid a starvation wage; and if he will state the wages paid and the holidays allowed to labourers at Dundrum, county Tipperary?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Duke): The reply to the first portion of the question is in the negative. As I have already stated in reply to previous similar questions, the rates of pay for labourers are fixed with reference to and not below the rates which prevail for similar labour in each district. The wages of the labourers permanently employed at the Dundrum forestry centre are 18s. per week. They are allowed three Bank Holidays with pay. The question of granting a war bonus in these cases is under consideration.

    BOARD OF WORKS AND IRISH LIGHTS EMPLOYES.
    Mr. BYRNEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether any agreement has been made to place Board of Works employés and Irish Lights employés on the same level as those similarly employed in Great Britain; the amount of war bonus paid to those employés in Ireland and to those in Great Britain since the outbreak of war; and the total sum paid to both parties?
    Mr. G. ROBERTS: Labourers employed by the general lighthouse authorities are not Civil servants, and, as I informed the hon. Member on the 8th June, the practice of these authorities is to pay them the current local rate of wages and war bonus. The adoption of this principle necessarily involves differences of pay and war bonus in different localities, but the principle is an equitable one, and there seems no reason to depart from it. The preparation of the statistics asked for in the latter part of the question would involve an expenditure of time and labour which it does not appear justifiable to ask the lighthouse authorities to undertake. I have no information as regards the employés of the Irish Board of Works.

    SEAMEN'S EFFECTS (LOSSES).
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the President of the Board of Trade if he can explain why so much delay occurs in regard to the settlement of claims put forward by seamen who have lost their effects on ships sunk by submarine; and why letters on this matter forwarded to the Marine Department of the Board of Trade are frequently not even acknowledged?
    Mr. G. ROBERTS: Claims made by seamen who have lost their effects on ships sunk by enemy submarines or mines are dealt with as rapidly as possible, and no avoidable delay occurs, as the importance of dealing with these claims expeditiously is fully realised. In the case of ships damaged but not sunk some delay may occur owing to the necessity of obtaining full information as to the loss or damage to the effects, and it is possibly cases of this kind which the hon. Member has in mind. If he will give me further particulars inquiries shall be made. As regards the second part of the question, with a view to paper economy, formal
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    acknowledgments of letters have to a large extent been discontinued by the Department.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in the case of seamen who have lost their effects on ships sunk by submarine, the Government cover the men's risks to the extent of £5 and to the extent of £10 in the case of petty officers; whether, before paying this, the Government deduct the cost of clothes supplied to shipwrecked crews; whether he is aware that the deductions made render it impossible for the men to provide themselves with new kit; and whether he will see that the monetary payment is irrespective of any necessary clothing that may be provided?
    Mr. ROBERTS: No deductions are made from the amounts paid to seamen under the Government scheme for insurance of effects, but in certain cases of ships lost on Government service, where allowances of the valued stated in the question are granted for procuring a new kit (including clothes), the cost of clothes actually supplied has been taken into account. If the hon. Gentleman has any particular case in mind where he thinks there is any cause for complaint, I shall be glad to look into the matter on receiving particulars.

    ENGINEERS' DISPUTES (IRELAND).
    Mr. BYRNEasked the President of the Board of Trade if any agreement has been arrived at with reference to the engineers' dispute on the Irish railways; and whether an arbitrator has been appointed to deal with the dispute of the engineers employed by the Dublin Port and Docks Board?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: At a recent conference between representatives of the Irish Railway Executive and the Amalgamated Society of Engineers a proposal was made and is being submitted to the men. The Department understand' that the Dublin and Limerick members of the society voted for acceptance and a return to work and members at Dundalk against acceptance. With regard to the latter part of the hon. Member's question, an arbitrator was appointed on the 18th instant to determine the dispute involving engineers employed by the Dublin Port and Docks Board.

    COAL DISTRIBUTION (LONDON).
    Mr. ROWLANDSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, as a result of the conference of local authorities held last week, he intends to authorise them to buy, store, and supply coal to consumers in their respective areas during the coming winter?
    Mr. GILBERTasked the President of the Board of Trade what London local authorities were represented at the conference called by the Local Government Board on 21st June to consider the question of coal storage and supply for the coming winter; did the conference come to any decision or pass any resolution; and, if so, will he state what these were; and does the Coal Controller propose to act on the conference decision; and, if so, what proposals he intends to bring forward in order to prevent shortage of coal supplies to small consumers during the coming winter?
    Mr. ROBERTS: A conference of local authorities in the London area was held at the Local Government Board on the 21st June to discuss the general question of an improved distribution of coal. It was attended by representatives of 6 county councils, 21 Metropolitan borough councils, 3 town councils, and 11 urban district councils. A resolution was passed urging that local authorities should be authorised to buy, store, and distribute coal. This proposal will receive full consideration. The Controller of Coal Mines hopes to put his scheme for controlling distribution before the local authorities next week, after which the matter can be further considered.
    Mr. GILBERT: Is it proposed to call another conference in order to consider the Coal Controller's scheme?
    Mr. ROBERTS: I think we had better wait until the scheme is issued, and then see whether it is necessary to call another conference.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: Can the hon. Gentleman supply us with copies of the scheme?
    Mr. ROBERTS: I think I shall be able to do that.
    Mr. J. M. HENDERSON: Is it not nearly six months since this course was recommended to the Board of Trade?
    Mr. ROBERTS: The problem is a very big one, and I think the hon. Member will understand that the question has been approached very thoroughly.

    MUNITIONS.

      ENGINEERING AND ALLIED TRADES FEDERATION.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Minister of Munitions whether, in view of the fact that there is now no Secret Service Department at the Ministry of Munitions, he will explain how the Department obtained a full report of all the speeches delivered at an aggregate meeting of the Engineering and Allied Trades Federation at Huddersfield on Sunday, 13th May, where only federated members were admitted on showing their Huddersfield contribution cards and where there were eleven doorkeepers who admitted no one unless guaranteed by one or other of the doorkeepers; and why, on the Monday morning following the meeting, the secretary of the federation was taken to Sheffield by the Ministry of Munitions and there shown a transcript of all the speeches that had been delivered at the meeting, and where he was also told that two of the speakers at the meeting had been marked, and that if the meeting had decided to strike these two would have disappeared during the night?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. Kellaway): The suggestions contained in both parts of the question are inaccurate and misleading. The only information which the Ministry has received of the speeches made at the meeting referred to was vounteered by persons who rightfully attended. The secretary of the Engineering and Allied Trades Federation, who is also the secretary of the Local Labour Advisory Board, was invited to Sheffield to consult with representatives of the Ministry as to the best means of avoiding a strike in Huddersfield. There is no truth in the suggestion in the last part of the question as to the statements made to him on that occasion.
      Mr. SNOWDEN: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, the gentleman to whom he refers, the secretary of the Engineering and Allied Trades Federation at Huddersfield, is a man of the highest character

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      and reputation, and that he has made himself responsible for the accuracy of the statements made in this question?
      Mr. KELLAWAY: I am exceedingly surprised to hear that.
      Mr. W. THORNE: May I ask whether it is a fact that no one is sent at all from any of the Government Departments to attend any of these meetings to take a report?
      Mr. KELLAWAY: I have answered the question on the Paper, that no one was sent by the Ministry to attend this meeting, and the information given was volunteered by men who had a right to attend the meeting.

      ALEC GORDON.
      Mr. KINGasked the Minister of Munitions whether Alec Gordon was employed in the Clyde area; whether he acted there in co-operation with the police, who secured the conviction of John Maclean; and whether the reports of Alec Gordon to his superiors at the Ministry of Munitions will be shown to any hon Member desirous of perusing them?
      Mr. KELLAWAY: The answer to the first two parts of the question is in the negative. It is, therefore, not necessary to answer this third part.
      Mr. KING: If the third part stood alone, would it be answered in the affirmative?

    ENEMY AIR RAIDS.

      WARNINGS.
      Mr. CATHCART WASONasked the Prime Minister, if, in view of the fact that it is impossible to estimate within miles whereabouts an enemy bomb may drop, and the certainty that such action as ringing the bells of St. Paul's when a raid is anticipated will cause crowds from theatres and workshops to rush into the streets causing, in all probability, a greater loss of life than has as yet been sustained by any hostile raid, he will insist that no such warnings be issued except with the direct approval of the Defence Committee?
      Sir. G. CAVE: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply. For the reasons referred to in the question and for other reasons which have been stated in Parliament, His
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      Majesty's Government are of opinion that it is undesirable in the interest of the public safety that public warning of impending air raids should be given in London. The warnings already given privately in quarters where special precautionary action is necessary will, of course, be continued. It is understood that the municipal authorities in London are willing to be guided by the opinion of the Government in this matter, and it appears therefore to be unnecessary to give any directions.
      Mr. P. A. HARRIS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Lord Mayor of London has made a statement that he intends to ring the bells, and will he make it clear that it is undesirable that he should take that course?
      Sir G. CAVE: I have had the advantage of an interview with the Lord Mayor since that time, and I understand that he agrees with the Government in regard to this matter.
      Sir C. HENRY: Are we to understand that the ringing of the bells of St. Paul's will not take place?
      Sir G. CAVE: I understand they will not, but there is no official direction on the matter.
      Mr. C. WASON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Lord Mayor has made a public statement that he will not ring the bells?

    PRISONERS OF WAR.

      KUT (TREATMENT).
      Sir J. SPEARasked the First Lord of the Treasury if he is aware of the ill-treatment of prisoners taken by the Turks at Kut; and if he will take all possible further steps to secure the humane treatment of these men?
      Mr. HOPE: I would refer my hon. Friend to my reply to the hon. Member for Mile End yesterday.

      BRITISH MERCHANT SHIP CAPTAINS.
      Mr. PETO(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that information has reached this country that Captain Blaikie, of the steamship "Caledonia," was at the time of writing being transferred from the officers' internment camp

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      in which the German authorities had placed him to a soldiers' internment camp on account of the refusal of the British Government to pay the 100 marks per month necessary to enable him to remain in the officers' internment camp; whether this also applies to some sixty captains and officers of British merchant ships: and whether he will at once communicate with Lord Newton at The Hague and send instructions that the necessary arrangements are made forthwith with a view to ensuring that these officers will in future be treated as officers?
      Mr. HOPE: Such information has been unofficially received, but I cannot trace that there has been any refusal to pay monthly allowances to these officers. The matter has not hitherto been before the Government as a whole. The trouble appears to have arisen from a difference between the British and the German view as to the status of these officers. Instructions to the British delegates at The Hague are already being prepared, and will, I hope, be sent immediately. I am fully alive to the necessity of meeting the case of these gallant officers, to whom the country owes so much.
      Mr. PETO: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in some eases the steamship owners have expressed themselves as perfectly willing, had they had any notice whatever with regard to this difference of opinion between the British Government and the German Government in this matter, to have paid the necessary 100 marks; that this money could have been got from other private sources if the Government had taken any objection to paying it; and will he see, whatever steps are taken, that this money is provided from some source at once?
      Mr. HOPE: Yes, I have heard that. As a matter of fact, both with regard to the British Government and the owners of the ships, I do not think there is any indisposition to pay. The failure has been due, I believe, to the want of machinery for meeting these particular cases, and that, I hope, will be immediately supplied.

    LABOUR UNREST.
    Colonel C. LOWTHERasked the Prime Minister whether he will name an early date for a Debate in this House upon reprisals and the labour unrest in the country?
    The CHANCELLOR Of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): The answer is in the negative.
    Colonel LOWTHER: In view of the statement made yesterday that the Headquarter Staff considered that there is more need for our aircraft in other directions, will the Government give orders for special aircraft for the specific purpose of meeting air raids?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I made no such statement as my hon. Friend alleges. All I stated was that the Government were in consultation with the military advisers in order to use our aircraft in the best possible way to meet air raids.

    GREECE.

      EX-KING CONSTANTINE.
      Mr. LYNCHasked the Prime Minister whether an invitation will be given to King Constantine to take up his residence in this country?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the negative.
      Mr. LYNCH: Would it not be in accordance with the policy of the Government to invite this gentleman over here, considering the fact that they have thought his dynasty more important than the salvation of Europe?

    "EMPIRE."
    Mr. LYNCHasked the Prime Minister whether he can state the occasion on which the word "Empire" was first officially used since the Hanoverian succession, and also when it was first applied to include the Dominions; and whether he will submit to the Governments of the Dominion the question of the advisability of the phrase "My Empire," both in reference to the word "My" and the "Empire"?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot add anything to the answers which I have already given to similar questions.
    Mr. LYNCH: Will the right hon. Gentleman not refer to the Dominions the question of these Kaiser-like phrases, which is simply flouting in the face of democracies?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: If the hon. Gentleman will read the documents presented by the Prime Ministers at the Dominions Conference, he will find that they constantly use the objectionable words.

    COURTS EMERGENCY POWERS BILL.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the Prime Minister if he can give any indication of when the Courts Emergency Powers Bill, which amends the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interests (War Restrictions) Act, is likely to come again before the House of Commons?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The Bill is, I understand, being read a third time in another place to-day.

    CURRENCY (INFLATION).
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has considered fully the effect of the increasing inflation of the currency upon the increasing rise in prices; and whether it is his intention to take any action either with respect to the present or the future inflation of the currency?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The relation between existing currency conditions and prices is a question which has been and is receiving the constant attention of the Government and we are fully alive to the importance, from the point of view of checking the rise of prices as well as from that of the maintenance of the foreign exchanges, of controlling undue expansion of currency issues.

    METROPOLITAN POLICE FORCE (PAY).
    Mr. SNOWDENasked if the pay of first-class police officers in the Metropolitan police force is £2, war bonus 8s., rent allowances 2s. 6d., boots Is., and coal 4d., and, in addition, if married, men receive 1s. 6d. for each child and men on special duty 6s. weekly; if police' pensioners who have been recalled to service with the force during the War are paid an inclusive wage of £2 10s. with no war bonus, no allowances, and no free doctor; if this £2 10s. is the same wage as was paid in peace times; if he is aware that many of this latter class have had to give up
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    good situations to return to the force, that in many cases they have now to keep up two homes where they are doing work away from their home; whether these men were told on rejoining the force that they would receive the same benefits and allowances as others; will he say why this difference of treatment exists; and will steps be taken to put men doing the same work on the same basis in regard to remuneration?
    Sir G. CAVE: A police constable in the Metropolitan Police, on reaching twenty years' service, receives a salary of 40s. a week, with rent-aid allowance varying from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d., and the other allowances mentioned in the question. A pensioner who has rejoined receives 50s. a week, with free medical attendance, and in addition draws the full amount of his pension. The pensioners rejoined voluntarily, they have received the full benefits promised them, and their continued service is voluntary. Pecuniarily they are better off than their colleagues who are still on the active list, and they would lose by an exchange.

    TRAVELLING FACILITIES (DOCKYARD EMPLOYES).
    Mr. T. WILSONasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether workmen employed in the royal dockyards and who are living at a distance from their homes are receiving a proportionate share of the cheap week-end tickets to enable them to visit their homes; and, if not, will he make arrangements whereby these men can have the same travelling facilities as the workmen employed by firms controlled by the Minister of Munitions?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): We are taking steps in the direction desired by my hon. Friend.

    DISTURBANCES IN DUBLIN.
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he has received any report on the rioting that took place in Boyne Street, Dublin, on the 18th instant; whether houses of women whose husbands are serving in the Army were attacked and windows and doors broken; and will he say what action the authorities are taking in the matter?
    Mr. DUKE: I have received a report as to the matter referred to. Stones were thrown through the window of a shop occupied by a woman whose son is in the Army Service Corps, and the soldier's wife was attacked by the crowd Seven persons have been arrested and returned for trial.
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the individual responsible for the murder of Inspector Mills, Dublin Metropolitan Police, in Dublin on the 10th instant has been apprehended; and, if so, is he still in custody or has he been liberated with the Member for North Roscommon and other politicians who were present when the murder was committed?
    Mr. DUKE: No arrest has yet been made.
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he will state the pension to which the widow and dependants of Inspector Mills, Dublin Metropolitan police, who was murdered in the execution of his duty, are entitled; and is it the intention of the Irish Government to make such pension or gratuity equal to that which the wife and dependants of a sergeant-major of the Regular forces killed on active service would receive?
    Mr. DUKE: I cannot yet add anything to the answer I gave to the hon. Members for South Tyrone and Dublin University on Thursday.
    Major NEWMAN: May I ask the right lion Gentleman to answer the last part of the question?
    Mr. DUKE: I told the hon. Member that I could not add anything to the answer that I gave on Thursday last.
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he has any information to give to the House relative to attacks made in Dublin last week on invalid soldiers and on the persons and houses of the dependants of soldiers; and will the Government ensure that the victims, if protection cannot be afforded them, are adequately compensated?
    Mr. DUKE: I have not received any reports of attacks upon invalid soldiers. There have been some cases of assault on the relatives of soldiers. These have been, or will be, dealt with by the police magistrates.
    Major NEWMAN: Is it not a fact that the reason of these attacks was that these people displayed the Union Jack?
    Mr. DUKE: I am not sure about the particular cases to which the hon. Member refers, but certainly there were cases a week ago in which the display of the Union Jack was the occasion upon which violence was offered to persons who had displayed them.
    Major NEWMAN: If that is the case, will the right hon. Gentleman see that the Union Jack is flown from every public building in Dublin from now, at any rate, to the end of the War?

    INDIA (MRS. BESANT).
    Commander WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of Madras have prohibited Mrs. Annie Besant from publishing or speaking; whether an internment order has been served on her; whether these orders were made with his knowledge and sanction; and, having in view Mrs. Besant's attitude towards the War, if he will explain why such orders were made?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The Madras Government have prohibited Mrs. Annie Besant from publishing and from speaking in public, and have required her to take up her residence and reside within any one of six specified areas. As regards the rest of the answer, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answer which I gave on the 21st to the question of the hon. Member for the Elgin Burghs.
    Commander WEDGWOOD: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether this internment of Mrs. Besant was referred to him and had his approval before it was promulgated?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir; the Madras Government took action on their own responsibility and within the powers and duties which are conferred upon them. It was not referred to me, but I approve of their action.
    Commander WEDGWOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is action such as this which tends to strengthen the Home Rule movement in India?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir; Mrs. Besant has been engaged in a dangerous

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    political agitation which might become highly dangerous and even disastrous to India. Her operations have come under the notice of more than one Government, and I cannot for one moment indicate any doubt as to the wisdom of the course which the Government of Madras have taken in this case.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Are we to understand from that reply that it is a dangerous thing to advocate an extension of self-government for India by constitutional means?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: That is not what I said, and there is no colour for it in the answer which I gave.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: What other offence has Mrs. Besant committed than to advocate Home Rule for India by perfectly constitutional methods, and is it not a fact that she has throughout the whole propaganda deprecated anything in the nature of sedition or illegal action?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: She has taken part in an agitation and has pursued that agitation by means which in the opinion of the authorities in India, and in my opinion, are dangerous to the peace in British India.
    Commander WEDGWOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman imagine that you can suppress an agitation for freedom in this way?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have no desire to suppress any movement for freedom.
    Mr. KING: Will an opportunity of debating this question—
    Mr. SPEAKER: Commander Wedgwood.

    MADRAS (STUDENTS AND POLITICAL MEETINGS).
    Commander WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for India whether the new Order by the Madras Government directing that no student of any school or college shall be permitted to attend political meetings received his sanction before it was promulgated?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have seen what I presume is a correct transcript of the Order in the Press. The Madras Government acted within their powers. They have informed me that, in view of per-
    200
    sistent attempts to bring students in schools and colleges under the influence of a political propaganda of an undesirable kind, they considered it necessary to-reassert and supplement existing Regulations on the subject in the interests of education and of the scholars themselves. I am not disposed to question the propriety of their action.
    Commander WEDGWOOD: Who is this Governor of Madras?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The Governor of Madras is a gentleman who was well-known in this House not so very long ago—Lord Pentland.

    WOOL.
    Sir J. SPEARasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office the terms on which the Government proposes to take farmers' wool; and will he provide that the demand of 2 lbs. per cwt. overweight,, which caused so much dissatisfaction last year, be discontinued?
    Mr. FORSTER: The terms—I use the word "terms" in a technical sense—on. which the wool is purchased this year vary according to the areas in which it is grown. The scales of terms and allowances have in every area been drawn up by the local advisory committees, and before approval they have been scrutinised by experts to ensure that divergences did not exist between the different areas. With regard to drafts or the amount allowed as overweight, in accordance with a unanimous resolution passed at the Joint Conference of the Central Advisory Committee for England and Wales and the Advisory Committee for Scotland, these have now been made uniform throughout Great Britain and fixed at 1 1b. per cwt. on the gross weight of all classes of wool.
    Sir J. SPEAR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that since farmers are liable I to prosecution—and rightly so—for having on their premises weights which are unjust, even if they be against themselves, they resent very strongly the Government coming in and demanding and taking by force 1 lb. per cwt. overweight as immoral and inconsistent?
    Mr. FORSTER: I am not aware of the difficulty to which my hon. Friend refers. This matter has been very carefully and closely considered by the very representative Committees to which I have alluded,

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    and on which farmers were very largely represented, and the decisions which they reached were unanimous.
    Sir J. SPEAR: Does the right hon. Gentleman think it a sound business principle to take 1 lb, per cwt. overweight? It is not the value of the pound, but farmers feel that it is unjust treatment.
    Mr. FORSTER: That is not the opinion of the farmers who were on the Committees to which I have referred.

    ARMY ORDNANCE DEPARTMENTS (WAR BONUS).
    Mr. ROWNTREEasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether the war bonus of 5s. which was granted to the engineering trades is also being paid to the staff of the Army Ordnance Departments at Chatham, Dover, Harwich, and other places and is not being paid to the staff at York; and, if so, whether he will give instructions for the bonus to be paid at York?
    Mr. FORSTER: As I stated in my reply to my hon. Friend on the 13th instant, this is a bonus to the engineering trades. At a few stations where the engineering work is considerable the concession has been extended to other employés, but I fear the bonus cannot be extended generally.
    Mr. ROWNTREE: Will you extend it to the same class of work?
    Mr. FORSTER: It is not so much a question of the class of work. It is more a question of the classes of workpeople.

    CIVIL SERVANTS (SCOTLAND).
    Mr. WATTasked the Secretary for Scotland whether, in dealing with pensions to civil servants in Scotland, the Order in Council of 10th January, 1910, Part 2 (17), forbids any officer to accept any part in the management of any society, or any trading, commercial, industrial or financial firm or company which would require his attendance in working hours between 10 o'clock and 6 p.m.; and, if so, will he suggest the alteration of this order, so that these Civil servants may be put in the same position as higher placed and higher salaried officials, who are known to be accepting
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    fees for directorships in trading concerns which require their attendance repeatedly between the hours of 10 o'clock and 6 p.m.?
    Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): The provision in the Order in Council of 10th January, 1910, referred to by the hon. Member applies to all permanent Civil servant without exception, and I see no ground for altering it.

    SELECT COMMITTEES (IRISH REPRESENTATION).
    Mr. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he proposes to move the appointment of the Military Service (Review of Exceptions) Act Select Committee at the beginning of Public Business to-day, and whether his attention has been called to the fact that the Irish Party have not got their proper proportion of the members of that Committee, because, according to immemorial usage they are entitled to two members out of eleven?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes, I did propose to move it immediately at the end of Questions. My attention had not been called to the fact until this morning, when a representative of the Irish party came to me. I believe it is accurate to say that on such committees there, always have been two members of the Irish party. If the hon. Member will propose an additional member I shall not be prepared to oppose it.
    Mr. DILLON: I can do that to-morrow.
    Mr. BONAR LAW: You can do it today.
    Mr. DILLON: I cannot do it until tomorrow.
    Mr. SPEAKER: It is necessary to give notice. It can be done to-morrow.

    SELECT COMMITTEES (IRISH REPRESENTATION).

      Land Purchase (Ireland).
      Mr. FFRENCHasked whether occupiers of land in Ireland who have signed agreements for the purchase of their holdings under the 1903 or subsequent Land Purchase Acts, but in whom their holdings have not yet been vested by the Land Commission, are assessed for Income Tax as owners and also as occupiers; and, if so, can he state why

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      they are assessed as owners before the sales have been completed and ownership vested in them?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: The execution of the agreement to purchase has the effect of transferring the equitable ownership of the land to the purchasing occupier, who is chargeable to income tax accordingly, but an allowance is made from the assessment in respect of the interest payable by him to the Land Commission.
      Mr. FFRENCH: Not having fully heard the answer, may I ask whether any decision in law has been taken as to whether it is the landlord, who is still the owner, or the occupier who should pay the owner's Income Tax?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: As I understand it the question is of no importance for this reason, that although the tenant is liable, he has an allowance on the purchase instalment equivalent to the amount he pays.

      Poor Law Administration.
      Mr. MALLALIEUasked the Secretary to the Local Government Board if his attention has been drawn to the action of the London County Council in raising the question of the centralization of the administration of the Poor Law in county and county borough councils; and does the Local Government Board contemplate any action in this direction?
      Mr. FISHER: The London County Council have forwarded to the Local Government Board a proposal for the centralisation of the Poor Law administration within the county, with a view to the further equalisation of the Poor Rates. This proposal would involve legislation of a controversial kind, and I do not think it would be practicable to deal with the question at the present time.
      Mr. C. DUNCANasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the wages of the women telegraphists were fixed by two Parliamentary Committees of inquiry, after official evidence had been given as to the hours and conditions of employment; whether he is aware that the hours of employment on which the wages were based have been materially altered for the worse; and whether, seeing that the conditions have been varied by the Post Office, inasmuch as the women are now called upon to work until 10.37 p.m., he will direct that
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      all women telegraphists of the Central Telegraph Office who are called upon to perform attendances covering hours of night duty shall be paid the equivalent age pay per hour of the men for all such, night duty performed?
      Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The women telegraphists receive in respect of night duty; the same additional time allowance as male telegraphists—namely, one-seventh of the total duty performed between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. As regards the rate of pay I can add nothing to the reply which I gave to a similar question on the 24th of May.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,
Reported, without amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie-upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
Local Government Provisional Orders-(No. 3) Bill,
Reported, without amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (No. 2) Bill,
Reported, without amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders Bill,
Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered Tomorrow.
Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders Bill,.
Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered Tomorrow.
Gas and Water Provisional Orders Bill,
Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie-upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered Tomorrow.
Seaham Harbour Dock Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.
Sir Robert Trotter Hermon-Hodge, Baronet, for the County of Oxford (Southern or Henley Division).
NEW WRIT.
For Borough of Belfast (South Belfast Division), in the room of James Chambers, Esquire, K.C., deceased.— [Lord E. Talbot.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders Bill,
Gaming Machines (Scotland) Bill, without Amendment.
Courts (Emergency Powers) Bill, with Amendments.
Amendments to—
Kenilworth Gas Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

TRADE UNIONS AMALGAMATION BILL.
Lords Amendments to be considered upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 68.]
COURTS (EMERGENCY POWERS) BILL.
Lords Amendments to be considered upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 69.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: May I ask the Home Secretary if he can say how far it is proposed to proceed to-day with the Representation of the People Bill?
  Sir G. CAVE: We hope to get Clause 8.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Proceedings on the Representation of the People Bill, if under discussion at Eleven o'clock this night, be not interrupted under the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[Mr. Bonar Law.]
  The House divided: Ayes, 221; Noes, 10.

  Division No. 61.]

  AYES.

  [3.40 p.m.

  Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

  Galbraith, Samuel

  Middlemore, John Throgmorton

  Arnold, Sydney

  Gibbs, Col. George Abraham

  Molloy, Michael

  Baird, John Lawrence

  Gilbert, J. D.

  Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred

  Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

  Goddard, Rt. Hon. Sir Daniel Ford

  Money, Sir L. G. Chiozza

  Baldwin, Stanley

  Goldstone, Frank

  Montagu, Rt. Hon. E. S.

  Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)

  Greenwood, Sir G. G. (Peterborough)

  Mooney, John J.

  Barnes, Rt. Hon. George N.

  Greig, Colonel James William

  Morton. Alpheus Cleophas

  Barnett, Capt. R. W.

  Gretton, John

  Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

  Barran, Sir J. N. (Hawick Burghs)

  Gulland, Rt. Hon. John William

  Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

  Barran, sir Rowland Hurst (Leeds, N.)

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

  Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

  Beach, William F. H.

  Hackett, John

  Nolan, Joseph

  Beale, Sir William Phipson

  Haddock, Major George Bahr

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Beck, Arthur Cecil

  Hambro, Angus Valdemar

  O'Donnell, Thomas

  Bellairs, Commander C. W.

  Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence

  O'Dowd, John

  Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

  Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire)

  Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

  Bentham, George Jackson

  Harris, Henry Percy (Paddington, S.)

  Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

  Bird, Alfred

  Harris, Percy A. (Leicester, S.)

  Paget, Almeric Hugh

  Blake, Sir Francis Douglas

  Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

  Palmer, Godfrey Mark

  Bliss, Joseph

  Haslam, Lewis

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Boland, John Pius

  Helme, Sir Norval Watson

  Parrott, Sir James Edward

  Boles, Lieut.-Col. Dennis Fortescue

  Hendry, Denis S.

  Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

  Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.)

  Pennefather, De Fonblanque

  Bowden, Major G. R. Harland

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir R. T.

  Peto, Basil Edward

  Brace, Rt. Hon. William

  Hewart, Sir Gordon

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Bridgeman, William Clive

  Hewins, William Albert Samuel

  Pratt, J. W.

  Broughton, Urban Hanlon

  Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

  Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest George

  Brunner, John F. L.

  Hinds, John

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Hodge, Rt. Hon. John

  Pringle, William M. R.

  Bull, Sir William James

  Holmes, Daniel Turner

  Prothero, Rt. Hon. Rowland Edmund

  Carnegie, Lieut.-Col. D. G.

  Holt, Richard Durning

  Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

  Carr-Gomm, H. W.

  Hope, Harry (Bute)

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Rendall, Atheistan

  Cave, Rt. Hon. Sir George

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Richardson, Arthur (Rotherham)

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A.

  Illingworth, Rt. Hon. Albert H.

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Chancellor, Henry George

  Ingleby, Holcombe

  Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

  Jacobsen, Thomas Owen

  Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

  Clay, Capt. H. H. Spender

  Johnston, Sir Christopher

  Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Collins, Sir Stephen (Lambeth)

  Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Robertson, Rt. Hon. J. M. (Tyneside)

  Collins, Sir W. (Derby)

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  Robinson, Sidney

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

  Rowlands, James

  Cowan, Sir W. H.

  Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe)

  Rowntree, Arnold

  Craig, Ernest (Crewe)

  Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)

  Samuels, Arthur W.

  Craig, Colonel James (Down, E.)

  Jowett, Frederick William

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry (Norwood)

  Croft, Brigadier-General Henry Page

  Joyce, Michael

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

  Crumley, Patrick

  Kellaway Frederick George

  Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

  Currie, George W.

  Kenyon, Barnet

  Shaw, Hon. A.

  Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy)

  Kiley, James Daniel

  Shorn, Edward

  Davies, Timothy (Lines., Louth)

  King, Joseph

  Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir F. E. (Walton)

  Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire)

  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)

  Denison-Pender. J. C.

  Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade).

  Smith, Sir Swire (Keighley, Yorks)

  Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

  Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)

  Spear, Sir John Ward

  Devlin, Joseph

  Layland-Barratt, Sir F.

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Sir A.

  Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H.

  Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert

  Steel-Maitland, Sir A. D.

  Dillon, John

  Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

  Stewart, Gershom

  Doris, William

  Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

  Stirling, Lieut.-Col. Archibald

  Dougherty, Rt. Hon. Sir J. B.

  Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)

  Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

  Duke, Rt. Hon. Henry Edward

  M'Callum, Sir John M.

  Sykes, Col. Sir A. J. (Ches., Knutsfd.)

  Duncan, C. (Barrow-in Furnsss)

  Macdonald, Rt. Hon. J. M. (Falk. B'ghs)

  Talbot, Lord Edmund

  Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles

  Mac master, Donald

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Ferens, Rt Hon. Thomas Robinson

  Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Firench, Peter

  McNeill, Roland (Kent. St. Augustine's)

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. L. (Hallam)

  Maden, Sir John Henry

  Tickler, T. G.

  Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Tootill, Robert

  Fleming, Sir John

  Mallalieu, Frederick William

  Toulmin, Sir George

  Forster, Rt. Hon. Henry William

  Marriott, John Arthur Ransome

  Turton, Edmund Russborough

  Foster, Philip Staveley

  Mason, David M. (Coventry)

  Walsh, Stephen (Lanes., Ince)

  France, Gerald Ashburner

  Mason, James F. (Windsor)

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

  Wardie, George J.

  Whitty, Patrick Joseph

  Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)

  Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay T.

  Whyte, Alexander F. (Perth)

  Worthington Evans, Major Sir L.

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Wilkie, Alexander

  Yeo, Alfred William

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Williams, Aneurin (Durham, N.W.)

  Young, William (Perthshire, East)

  Watson, Hon. W.

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)

  Watt, Henry A.

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Captain

  Wedgwood, Lt.-Commander Josiah

  Winfrey, Sir Richard

  F. Guest and Mr. J. Hope.

  White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

  Wing, Thomas Edward

  NOES.

  Blair, Reginald

  Hunt, Major Rowland

  Thomas-Stanford, Charles

  Burdett-Coutts, William

  Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, East)

  Byles, Sir William Pollard

  Newman, John R. P.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Lord

  Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

  Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, E.)

  Hugh Cecil and Sir F. Banbury,

  Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord C. J.

  Question put, and agreed to.

  MILITARY SERVICE ACTS (MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into and report upon—

  (1) The instructions issued by the War Office with regard to the administration of the Military Service (Review of Exceptions) Act, 1917;

  (2) The method, conduct, and general administration of medical examinations under the Military Service (Review of Exceptions) Act, 1917;

  and to make recommendations."—[Mr. Bonar Law."]
  Commander WEDGWOOD: No doubt the reference to the Committee, as it appears on the Paper, is in accordance with, the pledge given by the Government last Thursday, but I think the Government might possibly be willing to extend the scope of the inquiry, because a great number of cases that were brought before the House last Thursday will not be covered by the reference as it stands. This reference is solely to people examined under the Military Service (Review of Exceptions) Act, 1917. A great many cases we heard the other day were cases of people who have been, possibly rightly, sent into C 3 under this re-examination, but who have been subsequently re-examined and moved up to B 1 or into some other category. It is notorious that that subsequent examination is often more of a farce than the examination which put them into C 3 to begin with. The C 3 people are sent to camp and a perambulating body of doctors go round, and, without any sort of examination, they take a certain percent age of these men and move them.
  Mr. SPEAKER: We are not discussing policy. We are discussing now the appointment of a Committee.
  Commander WEDGWOOD: Perhaps I went too far in discussing individual cases, but every member knows as a fact that a large number of complaints have been complaints of re-examination which do-not come under the Review of Exceptions Act, 1917, but which are every bit as bad and are causing every bit as much dissatisfaction in the country as the original examinations under this Act. Therefore, I think the Government might be willing to enlarge the terms of reference. From what we have heard, the scandal is certainly greater in connection with these examinations in bulk than it is with the individual examinations in the first place. I hope that the Government will see their way to alter the terms of reference, so-as to make them embrace all the cases concerned in what has been no less than a national scandal.
  Sir F. BANBURY: The Military Service Act does not apply to Ireland, and therefore this does not apply to Ireland, Under these circumstances, why is it necessary that Ireland should have two representatives on a committee to discuss a matter which does not apply to-Ireland?
  Mr. SNOWDEN: It may be as the hon. Member (Commander Wedgwood) says, that the limited terms of reference are in fulfilment of the promise given by the Government last week, but I should like to point out that in the course of that Debate I protested against the restricted character of the Debate, because this-scandal of passing into the Army medically unfit men did not begin with the Review of Exceptions Act. It is nearly twelve months since I first raised this question, when the present Prime-Minister was Secretary of State for War, and he promised to make inquiries into-cases submitted to him. A considerable number of cases were submitted, but an-inquiry was not made into a single one

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  of them, upon many occasions previous to the passing of the Review of Exceptions Act debates took place in this House in regard to this matter, and if this Committee be set up with these limited terms of reference its labours will be altogether futile. We were told by the Under-Secretary for War in the Debate last Thursday that men are being examined under the Review of Exceptions Act at the rate of 15,000 a day. It is ten weeks since the examinations began, so that practically the whole number of men who can be called up under the operations of that Act have already been examined. But every day thousands of men are being called up, not under that Act, but under other powers which the Army authorities possess, and the scandal in regard to the maladministration of this medical examination is quite as great as in the ease of men who are called up under the Military Service (Review of Exceptions) Act. There are cases, too, of young men who are brought under the operations of the Military Service Act for the first time, and every Member of Parliament must be aware that there is a great deal of complaint in the country about the character of these examinations. Therefore, if the Government really want to allay public unrest upon this question, they must not appoint a Committee with such limited terms of reference, because it will leave a vast number of cases outside the purview of this Committee. It will leave grievances unredressed and it will not put an end to agitation in this House and outside. In the kindest spirit possible I would appeal to the Government in their own interests not to confine the inquiry within the narrow limits of this reference. I should be very glad if the Leader of the House would agree to extend the terms of reference so as to include the whole system of medical examination.
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): As regards the point raised by my right hon. Friend (Sir F. Banbury), the case is not quite so simple as he puts it. So long as the Irish Members are in this House, and a Committee is appointed representing the House, it seems to me that they must have that share of representation to which their numbers entitle them. In addition to that—though, of course, I recognise the force of a good deal of what my right hon.
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  Friend said—there are a great many Irishmen in the regiments which are enlisted in Great Britain, and I think for that reason also I would not make such a change as that suggested by the right hon. Baronet. As regards the larger question, it is my desire to do what my hon. Friend (Mr. Snowden) has mentioned, to allay the agitation in this House, but I am sorry to say that I cannot fall in with his suggestion. It is quite possible that the agitation may not be allayed even if the examination by the Committee has the result, which I personally think it will have, of showing that this Act has been honestly carried out by the War Office with a desire to fulfil the conditions laid down by the House of Commons. There is no Member who does not recognise that a Committee at all during war-time which takes up the time of officials in answering questions is in itself a bad thing. There is no one who does not recognise that that in itself is a bad thing. For that reason committees of many kinds have been asked for, but have been refused. In this particular case there wore several reasons which made the Government willing to appoint a Committee. I say quite frankly that neither the Government nor the House of Commons like the necessity of this particular method of getting men into the Army, and we felt most strongly that it was clearly the duty of the Government to see that at all events it was carried out fairly and in accordance with the wishes of the House of Commons. We recognised also that there was a widespread feeling that that was not the case. I do not believe that feeling to be justified, but we certainly were determined that there should be an opportunity of probing this in the fairest way in our power and of finding our whether or not the intentions of the House of Commons were being carried out. There was not a word said about anything except the last Act in the whole of the Debate, so far as I know.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: I must protest against that. It must be within the recollection of hon. Members that I strongly protested against restricting the inquiry simply to cases under this Act.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I must accept my hon. Friend's statement, but I was present during the larger part of the Debate, and my hon. Friend told me that, so far as be knew, there was no request made that the inquiry should be extended. In any case, if we were to follow the suggestion of the

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  hon. Member (Mr. Snowden), it would mean raking up the whole of the facts, which would mean an amount of work which I am perfectly certain, the House would not be justified in putting upon the War Office at the present time. I should like to say this, further, that it is a pity that every time the Government make a concession of this kind with a desire to meet the wishes of the House we should be urged to go further and further, and, in this case, to an extent to which I think it would not be in the interests of the country or of the prosecution of the War that we should go. I am sorry, therefore, that I cannot agree to extend the scope of this inquiry beyond the promise which was given on behalf of the Government.
  4.0. P.M.
  Mr. PRINGLE: I beg to move in paragraph 2, after "1917," to insert the words:
  "(3) The Instructions issued by the War Office with regard to the reexamination of men in the lower categories and the method and conduct of these re-examinations."
  I regret deeply the decision which has just been announced by the Leader of the House. Nobody can complain that the Government has not carried out literally the promise given by the Home Secretary in Thursday s Debate, but the ease of those who advocate an extension of the terms of reference is based on the public interest. It is true that the Review of Exceptions Act was the matter which brought the agitation to a head. But long before the passing of that Act, indeed, before the House went into Committee on the Army Estimates, this matter of re-examination had been raised, and particularly the methods pursued in respect to the re-examination of men in the lower categories and the passing of them into classes A and B. This was a matter of the utmost consequence and was causing a great deal of discontent in many cases. In these circumstances the inquiry, if it is held under the terms of reference which appear on the Paper, will be a truncated inquiry which will only affect those men who are in this particular Act, and will not relate to the operation of medical boards, regarding men who have been classed as C 3. Many of the greatest scandals have been in relation to these men. The hon. and learned Member for Ealing (Mr. Nield) has already pointed
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  that out in the House, and my hon. Friend opposite the Member for Barnstaple (Sir G. Baring) has been equally emphatic in the matter. In these circumstances, as the Government is adamant in the matter, the only course to be pursued is to take the sense of the House in the matter, and I therefore move this Amendment.
  This extension of the terms of reference will bring within the purview of the inquiry the examinations to which I have referred. It will be within the power of the Committee to ascertain whether, if a man has been classed as C 3, it is true as has been alleged frequently that these men are subsequently passed into B1 and into B2, without any examination at all. That is a matter within the knowledge I think of a large number of Members of this House. It is cognate to the inquiry. It figured largely in the Debate last Thursday. The Leader of the House is in error when he says that these things were not mentioned. I certainly quoted at least one of these cases, and a particularly distressing case. In these circumstances I sincerely hope that the Government will not adhere to the letter of their promise, but will rather seek to carry out the spirit of their undertaking; I may remind the House that the inquiry was not asked for by us. No claim was put forward for an inquiry. The inquiry was volunteered by the Government. There are many ways of dealing with an awkward question raised in this House, and I think on the whole that the Government saw that this was a very useful way to deal with this particular subject in Debate. In these circumstances, as we did not ask for an inquiry; we are entitled to examine the terms of reference which the Government put forward, and if, as we believe, the inquiry which the Government suggest will not be a satisfactory one and will not cover the whole ground, it is our duty to ask the House to make the inquiry one which will cover the whole of the matters which have raised this agitation.
  Sir COURTENAY WARNER: I will second the Amendment, though it does not cover the special point that I would like to press. The wider this inquiry is the better I shall be pleased. But there was one thing which went through the whole of the Debate last week which is

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  absolutely left out of the terms of reference of this inquiry. That is the constitution, not the method, of these medical boards. It was pointed out that these medical boards are made up of officers in the Army. The President, who is always an officer in the Army, is practically under the jurisdiction of the War Office, and almost every speaker in the Debate asked that these boards should be made independent, and that the civilian representation should be independent upon these boards. That is absolutely left out, because the reference here is only as to the method, and not as to the constitution of the board. Therefore, I do not think that even the terms of reference come up to the promise which was made yesterday. There was a distinct promise to have a Committee of Inquiry into the whole subject of these boards, under this particular Act, I agree. But the idea certainly was that the Committee should have powers to inquire into the constitution as well as the methods of procedure of these boards. I do not think that the Government will be carrying out their promise if they do not add "constitution of the boards" as well as "methods" to the scope of the inquiry. Personally, at the time I asked for drastic measures to be taken instead of a Committee of Inquiry, which, I think, is utterly inadequate. There is a pressing matter to be dealt with at once, and it is not a question to be referred to a Committee to be dealt with three months hence, after half the men have been sent in unfit and many of them have died. What I think was required was drastic measures by the War Office. But that was refused. I hope that the Committee of Inquiry will be empowered to deal with the constitution of these boards as Well as with their method and procedure.
  Mr. ASQUITH: My hon. Friend who has just sat down has raised a point which I confess did not occur to me, and which I hope and believe is not well founded. The words, "method, conduct, and general administration of medical examinations," necessarily include, as a fundamental point, the constitution of the boards themselves which make the examinations, and I am quite sure—I hope that I am right in saying—that the Government had the same intention.
  Mr. BONAR LAWindicated assent.
  Mr. ASQUITH: Certainly I think that any Chairman of a Committee, as far as I can express an opinion, with these terms of reference before him would be going beyond his duty if he excluded from consideration such a vital matter which went to the root of such an inquiry. With regard to the wider point raised by the Amendment of my hon. Friend, I should be glad—and I agree in this with my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, because I believe that it would promote the smooth working of these Acts—if the inquiry could be of as wide a character as possible. I am glad to say that the Government have carried out the pledge which they gave. No one can say that there is any obligation upon them as regards any inquiry further than that which is included in the words upon the Paper, Therefore, I should not myself, in view of all that has happened, feel justified in voting for an Amendment of that character. At the same time, I would submit to my right hon. Friend opposite that if either through this Committee or in some other way the Government would take some step to allay the very widespread apprehensions which exist in regard to administration, independently of this particular Act, they would be doing something which would be entirely in the public interests, and which would facilitate the active prosecution of the War. Beyond that I do not go at the present moment.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I agree entirely with the spirit of what has just been said by my right lion. Friend. It was the object of the Government not, as one of my hon. Friends has said, to get rid of criticism in this House, but to get rid of something which they regard as more serious—a feeling of discontent in the country. It was for that reason they volunteered to have this inquiry They would be willing to go a step further and extend the scope of the inquiry but for the reason, which I have already given, that the War Office is overcrowded with work in every direction, and we cannot go beyond the terms of reference to which we have agreed without, as I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree, going into the working of previous Acts. That means—and I have taken the trouble to make inquiry—more or less a fishing inquiry, and an amount of work which nobody can foresee. I should certainly be glad to do what my right lion. Friend

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  has suggested if I had not been specifically aware that it was against the interests of the conduct of the War that we should do it. But I did consult the War Office in regard to this matter, and with the desire of doing what my right hon. Friend has said, and I pointed out to them that the medical examinations are the same both in regard to those under the last Act and those under the previous Acts, and while it would be very undesirable to rake up the past, I thought it was possible that the general system of medical examinations should be brought under review; and I am glad to say that the War Office authorities themselves thought that that would not involve much additional labour. If, therefore, my right hon. Friend and the House think that there is a distinct advantage in extending the scope of the inquiry in this manner, then I am prepared to alter the terms of reference to this extent so as to make paragraph 2 read, "The method, conduct, and general administration of medical examinations under the Military Service Acts"—that is to say, bringing the system of medical examinations under review in all respects. I hope that the House will consider that that is sufficient.
  Mr. ASQUITH: I think that that is a very reasonable suggestion, and I would press my hon. Friends to accept it.
  Mr. PRINGLE: In view of what the Leader of the House has said, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment made: In paragraph 2 leave out the words "(Review of Exceptions) Act, 1917," and insert instead thereof the word "Acts."—[Mr. Bonar Law.]
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Sir Godfrey Baring, Mr. Montague Barlow, Mr. Cochrane, Colonel Faber, Colonel Gretton, Mr. Hugh Law, Mr. Nield, Mr. Pringle, be members of the Select Committee."
  Mr. KING: On that point—
  Mr. SPEAKER: To which name does the hon. Gentleman object?
  Mr. KING: I object to them all!
  Mr. SPEAKER: I will take the first name, and the hon. Member must confine his objection to that—Sir Godfrey Baring.
  Mr. KING: My point is easily stated, and I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Barnstaple (Sir Godfrey Baring) that I have no personal objection to his serving on this Committee, but my objection against the list—and it is one in which, I believe, a large number of Members will agree—is that no Member has been nominated to this Committee who has medical experience.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member cannot take exception in that way; he must deal with each Member separately.
  Mr. KING: In order to make my point clear, I beg to submit the name of the hon. Member for Derby (Sir William Collins) in substitution for that of the hon. Member for Barnstaple.
  Mr. SPEAKER: Has the hon. Gentleman obtained the assent of the hon. Member for Derby?
  Sir WILLIAM COLLINS: No, Sir.
  Mr. KING: May I have the hon. Member's assent?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member will also have to give notice of it.
  Mr. Montague Barlow, Mr. Cochrane, Colonel Faber, Colonel Gretton, Mr. Hugh Law, Mr. Nield, and Mr. Pringle, also nominated members of the Select Committee.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Caradoc Rees be a member of the Select Committee."
  Mr. WATT: I have an Amendment on the Paper to substitute the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Merionethshire (Mr. Haydn Jones), but, unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Member for Merionethshire refuses to act, and therefore, as my hon. Friend has indicated that he is prepared to do his duty manfully in that way, I do not move.
  Mr. Shortt and Mr. Sutton also nominated members of the Select Committee.
  Ordered, "That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records."
  Ordered "That four be the quorum."

  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE [EXPENSES].
  Resolution reported, "That it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money to be provided by Parliament of the Expenses of returning officers, and of part of the Expenses connected with registration under any Act of the present Session to amend the Law with respect to Parliamentary and Local Government Franchises, and the Registration of Parliamentary and Local Government electors and the conduct of elections; and of the remuneration and travelling allowances of assistant judges appointed in pursuance of such Act."

  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL.
  Considered in Committee—[Progress, 25th June].
  [Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL.

    CLAUSE 6.—(Qualifying Period.)
    The qualifying period shall be a period of six months ending either on the fifteenth day of January, or the fifteenth day of July, including in each case the fifteenth day:
    Provided that in the application of this Section to a person who has been serving as a member of the naval or military forces of the Crown at any time during the qualifying period, one month shall be substituted for six months.
    Mr. T. DAVIES: I beg to move to leave out the word "six" ["period of six months "] and to insert instead thereof the word "three."
    I do not think this Amendment requires many words to recommend it to the House, because its effect will be to shorten the qualification, and enable persons who will be entitled to vote to have their qualification earlier. It would, if adopted, undoubtedly add, especially in boroughs, a large number of persons who otherwise would not be in a position to vote. As the House is aware, under present conditions, no one is entitled to vote unless he has been in occupation any time between eighteen months and two and a half years. Under this Bill the qualification period is put at six months,
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    and a person might be six months, nine months, or fifteen months before he would be in a position to exercise the right to vote. My Amendment would enable a man, if an election took place in six months, to vote, and under the circumstances I am sure I shall obtain the support of representatives of labour, and those who usually sit around me, for the alteration I propose. If you take the constituency of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board (Fulham), the right hon. Gentleman knows very well that at least 1,000 men come in and go out every three months, and my Amendment would place upon the register 1,000 men who otherwise would not be on the register if the Bill passed as it stands. I think I might almost claim the support of the right hon. Gentleman, who I am sure wishes that a larger number of men should be qualified to vote for him than in the past. Therefore, without wasting the time of the Committee, I submit my Amendment, as we all desire to see the Bill passed quickly, and in the best possible way.
    Mr. J. W. WILSON: I would ask the hon. Member not to press this Amendment. It is one of those proposals which it is easy to move, and anyone of us could submit a similar Amendment and obtain a certain amount, of popularity for having endeavoured to broaden the franchise. But I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that this Amendment would interfere with one of the fundamental points agreed upon by the Speaker's Conference, and I submit that the great bulk of private Members in this House do not desire to interfere with the compromise on which we understood this Bill was introduced, and on which the Government have a right to rely. It is perfectly easy for an hon. Member to get up and advocate a broadening of the basis of the Bill, but I do hope that the House as a whole will at any rate loyally and honestly see that the Bill is passed in such a way as will carry out the avowed intentions of the Conference. There are many points on which Members would like to see their wishes carried out, but they have to consider this Bill as a whole, and the circumstances which attend its production in this House. There is a large number of Members of this House who wish to support the Bill as a whole, and who ought not to have put to

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    them the question whether or not they will have a three months' or a six months' qualification—six months being one of the fundamental recommendations of the Commission.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): I hope the advice given by my right hon. Friend will be followed by the Committee. After all, there has been a great amount of controversy in times past as to what would be the very best period for the qualification of a voter. I do not think there is a man in the House who will disagree with the proposal in the Bill. At present the period of qualification is twelve months, but on some occasions it is eighteen months and even more than two years before an occupier is able to get on the register. Whatever period of qualification we take it would involve a conflict of opinion, and if any Government had brought any Bill suggesting three months' qualification I am sure there would have been a very stiff fight over it. Probably it would have taken months before the question would have been decided, and perhaps it would not have been decided at all, Governments coming and going before any agreement could be arrived at. The Speaker's Conference discussed this question at very great length, and came to the conclusion that for a compromise they might fix on a six months' qualification. All were agreed about that six months' qualification, and, as my right hon. Friend has pointed out, it was one of the fundamental points decided by the Speaker's Conference. It is really, therefore, unfair on the part of any Member to ask the House to divide on a question of this kind. The compromise of six months is infinitely preferable to the present period of qualification, and it will add hundreds of thousands of men who would not obtain the right to vote under the present qualification.
    I agree with my hon. Friend that I represent a constituency, which he at one time also represented, where there are many removals, and that if a three months' qualification were adopted, it would put a great many more men on the franchise than would be the case under the six months' qualification. But on that basis you might go on and propose a one month qualification in place of a three months' qualification as putting more men on the register. We could go
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    on bidding against one another in that way; but I would point out that this is one of those compromises which is generally accepted, and which was accepted by the Speaker's Conference unanimously. If in a few years we are to alter the six months to three months, we should probably then have to go in for a continuous register—not two registers in one year, but a system of continuous registration. It may be said for that proposal that it would admit a great many more men to the franchise after a short period of qualification. But while there may be a good deal to be said for it, there is a good deal to be said against it. The proposition before the House is a six months' qualification, and that was unanimously agreed to by the Conference, and I hope that no Member of the House will be against that compromise. Unfortunately, under the present system many hundreds of thousands of men cannot get their votes until after a long period of qualification, and I think the Committee will be acting wisely if it accepted the advice of my right hon. Friend, and I trust that the advice will be taken by my hon. Friend also, and that he will not put the House to the trouble of a Division, but allow this compromise to stand.
    Sir J. D. REES: The Amendment of my hon. Friend is in itself a good Amendment, but we are told by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Wilson) and by the Parliamentary Secretary (Mr. Hayes Fisher) that we should not pass it, because this period was agreed on by the Speaker's Conference. I want to know who made the members of the Speaker's Conference princes and judges over the Members of this House who were elected by constituencies to express their opinions upon matters of great importance, and amongst those matters are these now before us which are of the very greatest importance. Members are urged to accept an arrangement because it was a compromise. Why should they accept it because it was a compromise.
    Mr. WILSON: I appealed to the supporters of the Bill not to delay it by Amendments of this sort.
    Sir J. D. REES: That is exactly what I object to. Why should matters that have convulsed the House and the country for generations be put before the House in a cut-and-dried manner as if this Bill was a jig saw, and that if any one par-

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    ticular piece went out it would destroy the whole scheme. That may be so. I do not know. Why is the fact that it is a compromise to have any weight whatsoever with Members of this House? Each matter is balanced against another, and deals with something on which any individual Member or party in the House may have the strongest possible opinion. That has already happened with regard to other matters. Here we have it as a doctrine put in its most naked narrow terms, that because this is agreed upon by a certain number of gentlemen, never elected by any constituency, therefore when it comes before the Members of this House, who were elected by constituencies, pressure is to be put upon us to accept that which Members may not think good, or may think bad, simply because the matter came before a body, the conclusions of which have no binding authority.
    Sir G. TOULMIN: On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member in order in talking about the Conference in this way? Is not the question before the Committee whether the period should be three months or six months?
    The CHAIRMAN: I think the point was put as to a compromise, and the hon. Member is entitled to state his opposition to that argument.
    Sir J. D. REES: I come straight to the point of whether it should be three or six months. I admit that the six months is part of the Bill of which I approve. I believe six months is a great improvement upon a year, and the good, if it be good, is twice as good, when it is three months instead of six. Therefore I think my hon. Friend's Amendment improves upon the period provided in the Bill, only portions of which appear to be good to many Members, of whom I am one. It only shows the prejudiced attitude of many Members of this House, when my hon. Friend opposite, who generally is a fair-minded man, actually objects to another hon. Member protesting against the arguments put before the House in regard to the Amendment. I think the argument with which this Amendment was opposed was really one which ought not to be addressed to the House. If my hon. Friend goes to a Division I shall support him.
    Mr. DICKINSON: I hope my hon. Friend will withdraw his Amendment.
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    It is quite true that in accepting six months as the period there was accompanying that very important provisions regarding successive residence and dealing with removals. Therefore I really believe that the great drawbacks in that respect which have hitherto existed will no longer exist even in populous places in this country.
    Mr. DAVIES: I think I had a perfect right to propose the Amendment, and I did not waste any of the time of the House in doing so. I have supported the Bill throughout. I recognise the point about successive occupation which has been made by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Dickinson). I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Major HUNT: I beg to move, after the word "who" ["who has been serving "], to insert the words "is or".
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir G. Cave): A man who is serving is dealt with by Clause 5, and in that case serving for one month in any one place will enable him to get on the register for that place. This Clause is intended to meet the case of a man who has ceased to serve. The idea is that if a man leaves the Army or the Navy to go home, he may do so in the middle of the qualifying period, and we desire that nevertheless he shall get on to the register. If this Amendment is disposed of, I propose to insert the words "and has ceased so to serve."
    Amendment negatived.
    Amendment made: After the word "period" ["qualifying period "], insert the words "and has ceased so to serve." —[Sir G. Cave.]
    Sir G. YOUNGER: In the unavoidable absence of my hon. Friend (Sir C. Kin-loch-Cooke), who had given notice of this Amendment, I beg to move to leave out the words "one month," and insert instead thereof the words "such service." The service, I think, ought to be sufficient qualification without any residential condition. It does not seem to me, therefore, necessary to have any limitation such as is provided in the Bill.
    Sir G. CAVE: If you put in these words there would be a difficulty as to the place for which the man would be entitled to vote.
    Sir J. D. REES: I do not think the words "one month" have any application to any particular place, and, if that is so, what becomes of the criticism of the Amendment?
    Sir G. CAVE: One month is passed in the constituency where he seeks to be registered.
    Sir J. D. REES: It does not say so here.
    Sir G. CAVE: Yes; it has that effect.
    Mr. MACMASTER: The difficulty entirely arises from a condition of residence instead of giving the vote to the man because of his occupation as a soldier. It would be far better to adhere to the original idea of qualifying a man by reason of his occupation as a soldier or sailor than to insert a month's qualification. A residence of that length would not give the man any great knowledge of a particular locality.
    Mr. DICKINSON: We give the soldier or the sailor the vote on a particular qualification, and we come face to face with the question of a large number of poisons who are being discharged now and as to how we are going to prevent them being disfranchised. The ordinary civilian has to have a six months' residential qualification, but in this case we desire to have as short a residential qualification as possible. I think there must be some qualification, and we propose to give the man the vote after a residence of one month. I do not see how you can give any shorter qualification.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: It occurs to me the intention of that Clause is quite clear, and that is to give the man who has served as a soldier a shorter qualifying period than is given in the case of the ordinary civilian. I do not think that it is the intention of the Home Secretary to perpetuate that advantage, but as the Clause stands I think any man who has been a soldier would be entitled at any time to come up and say, "I have served as a soldier. Therefore, I am entitled to the one month's qualification instead of the six months'." I am sure that is not the intention of the Clause, but may it not be its accidental application? Perhaps the Home Secretary will tell us in what way this qualification is limited to a man who has left the Service recently?
    Sir G. CAVE: If the right hon. Gentleman will look at the proviso he will see that it says:
    "Provided that in the application of this Section to a person who has been serving as a member of the naval or military forces of the Crown at any time during the qualifying period."
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: I quite agree. I did not see that. It means, I presume, during the qualifying period of six months and not of one month?
    Sir G. CAVE: Yes.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Is that clear?
    Sir G. CAVE: Yes.
    Amendment negatived.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: I beg to move the Amendment standing in the name of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rutland (Colonel Gretton)—at the end of the Clause to add the words "and in the application of this Section to any person compelled to leave his residence or business premises on account of actual or prospective naval or military operations any period of time during the qualifying period shall be substituted for six months."
    People have been, as we know, ordered out of their houses at very short notice by the naval and military authorities. On the East Coast particularly they have had to leave, and that may go on for a very considerable period. This Amendment provides for that, and as there are a great many of these cases I think the East Coast Members will support it. A great many people may be affected by it.
    Mr. FISHER: I hope that my hon. Friend will not press this Amendment. We are all in sympathy with those who at the present time, living on the East Coast, find themselves constantly bombarded and constantly under the awful and terrible influence of air raids. Many of them, if they have young children, cannot stand the coast any longer, and even if they have been informed that they must send away their wives and children, probably they themselves will go as well. After all, it would be exceedingly difficult under this Amendment for any registration officer to say who has been actually compelled to leave his place of residence because it was subject to bombardment or air raid, or anything of

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    that kind. It is a matter that would be extraordinarily difficult of interpretation. My hon. Friend says that some men are compelled to leave their residences by reason of some order from the Army Council; that their houses are actualy taken. Yes, but there are a good many other people in other parts of the country whose houses are commandeered by the military, not because of air raids or of any danger. Their houses are taken and their residence is broken. I think it would be quite impossible to put anything of that kind into any Act of Parliament, and I believe it would be absolutely impracticable from the point of view of the registration officer and of the law. After all, I do not think there are going to be many who will lose their qualification by reason of the fact that they are driven out of their houses either because they are ordered by the military or because they are no longer able to live in their houses owing to a natural dread and fear of what may happen to themselves and their children if they stay there. There may be a few cases, but after all, the mere interruption of the period of residence will probably not be sufficient to lose them their qualification so far as residence is concerned.
    I do not think we have any reason to anticipate that many men will be deprived of the franchise either by reason of the fact that their houses are commandeered for national purposes, or because they have to leave such places as Ramsgate or any of the towns on the East Coast on account of their being subject to air raids, bombardment, or anything of that kind. These words will be absolutely impossible and impractical to interpret, and having given very careful consideration to this case as to whether we could meet the cases of hardship likely to arise, we have come to the conclusion that we cannot find a form of words that would cover the cases of real hardship and enable the registration officer to draw the distinction accurately between those who are compelled to leave and those who leave voluntarily. I trust my hon. Friend will not press this Amendment to a Division, but that he will be satisfied with my assurance that we have given every possible consideration to this case, and that we are unable to frame any form of words that would meet what I think will be the very few cases of special hardship that may arise.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I am afraid I have not been impressed by the arguments of my right hon. Friend who has just spoken. As I followed them, they were these: There are cases of hardship, or there may be cases of hardship.
    Mr. FISHER: There may be.
    Sir F. BANBURY: There may be cases of hardship; they are not likely to be very many; and it is rather difficult, to frame any form of words that would meet the eases of hardship, because it would be very difficult for the registration officer to find out whether any particular person had been compelled to leave or whether he was leaving his house of his own accord. That was the right hon. Gentleman's position as I understood it; but it seems to me that that is not a very logical position. I cannot see the difficulty myself of the registration officer finding out that a person has been compelled to leave by the military or naval authorities, or by other persons acting under some Order in Council. There have been very arbitrary enactments made by Order in Council, and some very arbitrary proceedings have been taken. One occurs to my mind at the present moment. There were a considerable number of people, I think forty or fifty residents, in Belgrave Road all turned out of their houses by the military authorities in order that those houses should be used as lodgings for soldiers returning from the front. They were all turned out, their furniture was removed, or they were ordered to remove it, and they had to find another residence. As a matter of fact, those houses have never been used for soldiers, and accommodation was found elsewhere. Have these people been deprived of their vote or not? It depends entirely, I think, on where they went; but the point I wish to make is this: One of these people had no difficulty in proving to the registration officer that he had been compelled to leave his house, and, so far as I can see, this particular case, or a similar case, with which the Amendment is concerned, is one of the simplest that can possibly be imagined. All the person claiming the vote would have to do would be to go to the registration officer and inform him that he has been compelled to leave his house or premises by the authority of the Crown, and the regis-

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    tration officer could surely easily find out whether that was a correct or an incorrect statement.
    I should have said that there are many conundrums in this Bill which will be put to the registration officer far more difficult to elucidate than this particular question; and it does seem to me that the form of words moved by the hon. Baronet the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) is a simple form of words which meets the case extremely well. I do not see any difficulty, and this simple form of words, easily understood by the people, might well be put in this Bill. It must be remembered that we are dealing at the present time with a very extraordinary state of affairs. We are enacting under this Bill certain provisions which will give people the right to vote at the next General Election, when, we are told, very important subjects connected with the reconstruction of the country after the War will arise. If that is so, I think it is very necessary to enact that no one should be deprived of their vote unnecessarily. This will never arise after this War. We are not likely, at any rate in the lives of anyone in this House, to be in a similar position again, and therefore this provision is not going to entail hardship on the registration officer for more than the next year or so. I will not specify any actual time, because I do not know how long the War is going to last. I think that this is a very reasonable Amendment. My right hon. Friend has admitted that there are cases of hardship which ought to be met, and that he docs not know how to meet them.
    Mr. FISHER: There will be very few.
    Sir F. BANBURY: But everybody who is entitled to a vote is entitled to be allowed to exercise it and to be put on the register to enable him to do so. That is one of the objects of the Bill—that the register should be simplified and that we should put everybody on we possibly can. If, therefore, my hon. Friend goes to a Division. I shall certainly support him.
    Mr. MACMASTER: If the individual has been compelled by circumstances over which he has no control to leave his business premises or residence, surely he should not be prejudiced by that fact. If the military interests of the country compel a man to leave his business premises or residence it is not a voluntary act but an involuntary act, and he certainly should not be penalised on account of it.
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: I do not think I could support the words moved by the hon. Baronet the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) as they stand because, I think, the view taken by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board is a just one. If you take the words "on account of actual or prospective naval or military operation," anything might be "actual" and still more anything might be "prospective." I would suggest words which might get over the difficulty. The right hon. Gentleman admits a hardship which may very seldom occur, and I would suggest that the words of the proposed Amendment "on account of actual or prospective naval or military operations" should be left out, and that the words "by order of the competent military authority" should be inserted in their place. That would reduce the number of cases in which this would take place to actualities, it would enable the registration officer to have some ground to go upon, and it would bet a clear indication of what had actually taken place and not what might prospectively take place. If the right hon. Gentleman will accept those words I would commend them to the attention of the Government in the hope that the Committee would accept them.
    5.0 P.M.
    Mr. RENDALL: I think it would be quite impossible to carry out the suggestion of my hon. Friend. These attempts are often made, but it is found that before anything can be done the military have taken possession of the houses themselves. He wishes to meet the position as to the result of actually commandeering by the military authorities.
    Mr. GILBERT: The question I raise is with regard to London. Members are aware that a week or so ago we had an air raid, and a number of business premises were demolished, and I should be glad if the, Secretary to the Local Government Board would have inquiry made into the position of some of these people.
    Sir G. CAVE: I really do not think there is very much in these points. The Debate turns on circumstances which are of a special character. Persons may be compelled to leave their homes by order of the military authority, but the persons so compelled to leave are sometimes suspected as to whether they are desirable persons. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no!"] Take the wider sense. What

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    happens to a person if he is turned out of his house? He does not lose his residence. The mere fact that he leaves it for a short time for temporary purposes will not cause him to lose his vote. Take the other case of a man who has moved elsewhere. Up to six months this fortunate man, because he may have had to leave house after house, will have half a dozen votes.
    An HON. MEMBER: But he cannot use them all!
    Sir G. CAVE: No; he may only be able to have one, but I cite the case as showing how the Amendment in his case will work. It may be a point which the hon. Member would like to consider further.
    Colonel GRETTON: In this part of the Bill there is a qualification for persons to have a vote in certain constituencies, although they may have resided in other constituencies. If that qualification is done away with it may not be set up again, because it may be done away with by the circumstances of the War. Then it might have another effect on the woman's qualification, unless some means were made for the protection of the women's vote. In these Amendments we look with great deference to the Government. We feel inclined to take a wider view than the Government seem disposed to consider. Owing to disturbances of people in moving about by the action of the military and by the Orders and operations of the Minister of Munitions there ought to have been a special provision. They have taken business premises all over the country and I am sure that should be considered, especially the hardship of losing provincial qualification when they are put into other places after gaining their qualifying period. These people have been removed owing to circumstances arising out of the War and have been moved from their old associations. I hope a form of words may be devised to meet their case.
    Sir J. D. REES: I support the Amendment. In the period of time in regard to it would it not be possible with respect to one constituency to take some action? Surely the resources of the draftsman in the Home Office would be equal to relieving the Amendment of that objection. As regards the area of military operations, this Clause is meant to save the vote of some person evicted from their house or
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    premises. What appears to be the answer to a person whose house has been taken for active military operations I have named? I had to work my way amongst the debris in the City to a house that was once in Fenchurch Street. What happens to that man, the occupier, who suffers by the operation of the law? I understand the President of the Local Government Board argued there would be few cases only and it was not necessary to deal with them. We all know the old adage that hard cases make bad law. The right hon. Gentleman seems to think that hard cases require no law. If there is not legislation the people in civil life are entitled to more consideration than they have had. The hon. Member for Bristol said that anything might be done with respect to naval or military operations. I may reply, well there is not. There are active naval and military operations by which a person who has suffered may suffer more than the loss of the vote. I submit that it is a part of the Government's duty to provide a remedy for such a purpose, but, above all, not to leave them outside the law, because they must accept as a compromise any provision that is made for dealing with their case.
    Sir F. BANBURY: The Home Secretary said that if people were turned out of their houses they were undesirable people.
    Sir G CAVE: No, indeed I did not. I said there might be a possibility of undesirable people being moved, and I said that the words of the hon. Member for Bristol would cover this.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I am speaking of people who have been turned out of their houses by the Minister of Munitions or some other Government body. While I was sitting down a certain instance occurred to me. There was a former Minister of Education who, when ho returned home, found the military in possession. He had had no warning of any sort, and had no idea that this was going to be done. Then the tenant of Montagu House was turned out, and as far as I know he has not received a single farthing for that magnificent house which has been taken over for Government purposes. Then take the case of the Hotel Cecil; the resident manager there would have his vote as a resident. I gee the hon. Member for St. Pancras (Mr. W. H. Dickinson) does not agree, but there can be no doubt about it. He would have had a vote, but he has been turned out by the

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    Government, and has not had a single farthing given him. Therefore I say these things require some consideration, and some words should be put in the Bill to meet them. There are any number of cases where people of all sorts have, through no fault of their own, had to move out under the Defence of the Realm, but under those circumstances they ought not to lose their vote.
    >Question, "That those words be there added," put, and negatived.
    Clause, as amended, agreed to.

    CLAUSE 7.—(Right of Person Registered to Vote.)
    (1) Every person registered as a Parliamentary elector for any constituency shall, while so registered (and in the case of a woman notwithstanding sex or marriage), be entitled to vote at an election of a Member to serve in Parliament for that constituency; but a man shall not vote at a General Election for more than one constituency for which he is registered by virtue of a residence qualification or for more than one constituency for which he is registered by virtue of other qualifications of whatever kind, and a woman shall not vote at a General Election for more than two constituencies.
    (2) A person registered as a local government elector for any local government electoral area shall while so registered (and in the case of a woman not withstanding sex or marriage) be entitled to vote at a local government election for that area, but where, for the purposes of election, any such area is divided into more than one ward or electoral division, by whatever name called, a person shall not be entitled to vote for more than one such ward or electoral division.
    The CHAIRMAN: The Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. A. Ward) and several other hon. Members to insert at the beginning of the Clause an Amendment relating to a referendum on the question of female Parliamentary suffrage is out of order, as I ruled on Clause 4. The next Amendment, in the names of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson) and the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Rutland (Colonel Gretton), to insert at the beginning of the Clause the words, "in accordance with the provisions of this Act, and, notwithstanding
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    the provisions of any Statute to the contrary," I think is unnecessary. It does not add to the Bill in any way.
    Colonel GRETTON: On a point of Order. The purpose of this Amendment is to do away with the disabilities imposed on a person by the Ballot Act, 1872, from voting in two constituencies of a divided Parliamentary borough. In another place this Bill gives to certain persons a residential vote and a business vote as well. In the case of Parliamentary powers, unless an Amendment of this kind is inserted that provision will be null and void; and in order to avoid this I desire to move the Amendment. If it is not out of order I should like to state my arguments to the House.
    The CHAIRMAN: I do not yet quite follow the point. The difficulty, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman will see, is that if we put in these words at the beginning of this particular Clause they may have an effect not foreseen on other Clauses. Is this part of a proposal which leads up to some subsequent Amendment which the hon. and gallant Gentleman wishes to propose, or has he some other point in his mind?
    Colonel GRETTON: No, Mr. Whitley; no other Amendment is necessary. The effect of my Amendment, if accepted, will be that this Act will be self-contained, and the provisions of other preceding Acts, which are contrary, especially to this Clause, will be set on one side. The intention of Parliament, as expressed in this Act, would be the law, and we should not be working under an old law intervening in the operation of this present Act.
    The CHAIRMAN: I now apprehend the point clearly. But surely that line of reasoning applies to a number of other Clauses: in the Bill? The proper course is to repeal in the Schedule when we have decided the matters in relation to the various Clauses as we go through them. The same thing applies, for instance, to women's disability now removed by Clause 4. If these words were necessary in this Clause, they seem to me, by the same argument, to be necessary in every Clause where we are repealing or amending a Statute.
    Sir F. BANBURY: On a point of Order. I do not think that is so. I think this is really a case which has been entirely over-

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    looked. Most of the Acts dealing with registration have been repealed. The Ballot Act has been continued. So far as I remember at the present moment there is nothing in the Ballot Act exempting a Clause like the present. Under the Ballot Act a constituency which was one constituency, and which was then divided into two or more constituencies, has certain provisions applied to it. Take my old constituency of Peckham as an illustration. Camberwell was originally one borough. Camberwell was divided into three constituencies — Peckham, North Camberwell and Dulwich. A man who was registered in North Camberwell and Peckham could only vote in one, but if he was registered in Peckham or one of the divisions of Lambeth, he could vote both in that division and in Lambeth, but he could not vote in Dulwich because it was argued this was only part of the division of one original constituency. The Bill we are discussing proposes to make London one whole constituency. Under the Bill, according to the terms of the Speaker's Conference, which I believe the Bill intends to carry out, each person having a qualification in St. George's, Hanover Square, or the Strand, can vote in both of those places. Unless, however, there is put in a repealing Clause in relation to the Ballot Act, which prevents a person voting more than once in one whole constituency—or, I should say, a constituency which is a part of a whole constituency— the result will be that plural voting will be abolished in London. I do not know whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite knows that.
    The CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Baronet is dealing with a point of Order.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Yes, of course, Mr. Whitley. The result of that would be that plural voting in London would be abolished. Therefore, it is necessary to put in the words suggested to the effect that notwithstanding any Statute to the contrary, such things may occur. It does not touch women's suffrage because that has never been dealt with before. It is a particular Statute which has not been repealed, but which ought to have been repealed and which, if it is not repealed, will create a situation which was never contemplated either by the Speaker's Conference, or, as I believe, by this Bill, and which applies wholly and solely to a position which would arise where several
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    constituencies are merged into one whole while at the same time the divided constituencies are left in the whole. I do not know whether I have made it clear?
    The CHAIRMAN: The point is perfectly clear to my mind. The hon. Baronet claims that there is something in this Clause which conflicts with the Ballot Act.
    Sir F. BANBURY: The other way about. There is an existing Clause in the Ballot Act which conflicts with the provisions of this Bill, and it is necessary in order to bring it into harmony to repeal that Clause in the Ballot Act.
    The CHAIRMAN: That is so, but surely that applies to every Clause in the Bill, and necessarily to every Bill which we amend. That is my point. If these words are in order now they will be in order in nearly every Clause we discuss, and probably in every Bill?
    Lord HUGH CECIL: I do not think my hon. Friend has quite made his point clear. The point is this: that the meaning of this Clause would be obscure unless these words are inserted. I should say then that it would still be ambiguous, and that it would not be certain whether it is intended to be read with the Ballot Act or whether it is intended to repeal the Ballot Act, or nullify its provisions. For the sake of clearness you must put in some words. I do not think those proposed are the best to make clear the distinction, and the true meaning of this Clause, which is intended to overbear the existing provisions of the Ballot Act.
    The CHAIRMAN: That is more a technical point, I think, than a point of order. I think it will safeguard the future if the hon. Gentleman will move his Amendment in this form. "notwithstanding any of the provisions of the Ballot Act, 1872"
    Colonel GRETTON: Yes, that exactly meets my point, and I beg to move the Amendment as suggested by you, Mr. Chairman. I do not want to delay the House by repeating arguments which have already been stated. The meaning is not that no elector would ask for two ballot papers in the same constituency, as it has been held that a borough divided into three, four, or five different divisions for Parliamentary purposes is, in fact, one constituency. The difficulty of

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    putting these matters into the Schedule is, as I understand it—I am not very skilful in these matters—that, I am informed, the Clause in the Ballot Act contains other matters which it is desirable to continue, and which the House does not wish to repeal. It is very difficult in a Schedule to make it quite clear what provisions of a Clause it is desired to retain or to repeal. I think the case has been made quite clear.
    Mr. GOLDSTONE: I hope the Government will not too readily give any assent to this proposal. It seems to me an effort to pre-judge the point which will be raised at a later stage of the Bill. For the present the question of proportional representation has been rejected by the House. In the compromise which was reached the parties assented to the second vote being given in respect of the occupation of business premises. It was understood that the large constituencies were to be divided, and proportional representation brought in as a kind of countervailing—
    The CHAIRMAN: That really does not arise at this point. The only point for the moment is whether these words are necessary at the beginning of the Clause to clear the- way for the consideration of subsequent words.
    Mr. GOLDSTONE: With respect, Mr. Whitley, it would appear to me that the object the Amendment is intended to accomplish is to safeguard, under any circumstances, the second vote in constituencies which under the existing law is not given. That is as I appreciate the point. I hope I am wrong. If not so, I hope the Government will carefully consider it, and not at this stage assent to the proposal of the hon. and gallant Gentleman.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has made a very interesting remark in relation to proportional representation. In this particular case, however, unless some words are inserted here, and there is some specific repeal of the Clauses in the Ballot Act, it will be impossible to vote twice in the two divisions of a single borough. As the matter is now proposed it is very clear. Everyone sees what they mean, and the desire is to bring things into line with Clause 1 of the Bill.
    Sir F. BANBURY: The hon. Member for Sunderland spoke a few moments ago
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    about proportional representation, but this really has nothing whatever to do-with it.
    Mr. GOLDSTONE: Perhaps the right hon. Baronet will say whether the intention of the Amendment is to safeguard the second vote in cases where, under the existing law, the second vote is not given?
    Sir F. BANBURY: I will explain the Amendment. Proportional representation has nothing whatever to do with this particular Amendment, because, so far as I know, the Government still adhere to the proposal of the Conference that London should be made one constituency, and that all the big towns in the country should also be made one constituency where they are not one constituency at the present moment. The result of that would be that if this Amendment were not inserted no one in London would be able to vote more than once. That was never intended. If the Government were to say they are going to leave the constituencies as they are, no no one would want this Amendment; but it is because the Government intend to make London and other places, which have hitherto been different constituencies, into one constituency, and then divide that one constituency into different divisions, that it is necessary to repeal the Clause in the Ballot Act which says that, where there are different Parliamentary divisions in one constituency, a voter in different divisions; cannot vote in more than one. It is perfectly clear that it was never the intention of the Government or the Conference to do this, and I do not see that it has anything to do with proportional representation.
    Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: I think there is reality in this point, because something to this effect is necessary, I believe, to carry out the basis of the Speaker's Conference, which was that, whilst the system of having a large number of votes was, broadly speaking, abolished, a compromise was made by retaining a business vote, in addition to a residential vote. That was the character of the compromise, good or bad. Different views are taken in different parts of the House as to that. But it is that which is effected by this Amendment. This Amendment is to give effect to one element of the Speaker's Conference compromise, which, as the Bill stands, will be lost without the Amendment.
    The CHAIRMAN: I am much obliged to the hon. Member (Mr. L. Scott). He

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    has made my mind now quite clear. If this proposition is required at all, it must be introduced at the end of this Clause as a new Sub-section. That would be the right way to do it, but we may amend the Clause so as to make it unnecessary. Therefore we had better bring it in on that basis at the end of the Clause if required. If the hon. Member will take that course, I will make a note of his name and will call upon him then to move the Amendment.
    Colonel GRETTON: I am very glad to take the course you suggest. My only object is that the matter should be dealt with, and dealt with in the most convenient and correct manner. I, therefore, beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Sir P. MAGNUS: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "but a man shall not vote at a general election for more than one constituency for which he is registered by virtue of a residence qualification or for more than one constituency for which he is registered by virtue of other qualifications of whatever kind, and a woman shall not," and to insert instead thereof the words "no person shall."
    In any circumstances, I take it, this Clause will have to be altered, because as it stands it gives a privilege to women which is denied to men, and as women are obtaining the vote for the first time under this Bill it would not be recognised as fair or right that a privilege should be given to the fair sex which is denied to the male sex. Therefore, in accordance with the Amendment that stands in my name, the Clause would read,
    "no person shall vote at a General Election for more than two constituencies."
    That implies that a person may vote for more than one constituency, although he may not vote for three or more constituencies. It might be said that by altering the Clause in that way, without making some other alteration, a person who had a house, we will say, in London, and a house in the country, might be able to vote for both those constituencies, which, I understand, is not intended by the Report of the Speaker's Conference. In order, however, that the question I have raised may be fully considered, I think it right to move the Amendment as it stands in my name.
    Sir G. CAVE: This Amendment would make a very serious change in the Bill. I quite agree with my hon. Friend that we cannot give a privilege to women which we do not give to men. The Bill provides that a man may have two votes, but may not vote in respect of two residences. Of course it is quite possible that a man may have residences in two places, but the Bill provides that he may not vote for those two residences, but may have one vote for a residence and one for business premises, or for a university. The Bill goes on to provide that a woman shall not have more than two votes, and that, I agree, gives her an advantage which her husband has not. Therefore, I have put an Amendment down which says that a woman shall have one occupation vote and one for any other qualification she may have. That places her as nearly as possible on the same footing as the man.
    Sir P. MAGNUS: Could she have a second vote for a business residence if she had a business residence as well as a private residence?
    Sir G. CAVE: No; because the provision as to business premises does not apply to the woman's vote.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: Obviously there is a mistake in the Bill, and the only chance to get that rectified was to put the man in exactly the same position as the woman. This Amendment was put down with that object. It has served its purpose of inducing the right hon. Gentleman to put the matter right by another Amendment.
    Colonel GRETTON: There is still doubt in my mind as to whether it is intended that the woman is to have a vote for a business occupation. It is not at all clear. The Amendment that has been moved would leave a woman's qualification as it is, and put a man on the same footing as a woman. That is to say, a man might have two qualifications, or he might have twenty qualifications, but he could only vote for two constituencies, and the same in the case of a woman. Of course, we have not come to the Home Secretary's Amendment, but it appears to me rather doubtful whether he will not deprive the woman of a business vote if there is one. I think that is so, and therefore I am rather unwilling that this Amendment should be abandoned. This Amendment proposes to leave out words which are very complicated and very long. Why not say straightly, clearly, and

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    simply that no man may vote more than twice in one General Election, whatever his qualifications are? It is stated elsewhere in the Bill what are the qualifications for the Parliamentary vote, and why not state simply that no man may vote more than twice, and the same with a woman? You put them on an absolute equality, and I cannot follow the argument against the omission of these complicated and, to many of us, rather meaningless words.
    Mr. ROCH: I am rather inclined to agree with the last speaker, that the effect of what the Home Secretary has said is that a woman is deprived of a business vote. That, I think, is clear under an earlier Section of the Bill, and I must confess that when I read this Section I thought the policy was, in a clumsy way, to give a man a duality of votes for residence and business premises, and then in a muddled way to give a woman equality by giving her two votes. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to put it on a proper basis, let him give two votes to men and women who are qualified, and let a woman have a business qualification in the same way as a man.
    Sir J. D. REES: Is it necessary to provide for a business qualification for a woman? According to this, may not a man have a residence qualification and a business qualification and may vote in respect of both in a General Election, and that a woman may do the same?
    Sir G. CAVE: A woman does not have a residence qualification, but can have an occupation qualification and a university qualification.
    Sir J. D. REES: But she has two qualifications. Was that laid down by the Speaker's Conference or have the Government departed from that in that respect?
    Mr. DICKINSON: What has happened is this: The right hon. Gentleman first of all gave a woman two votes in any circumstances if she had any two qualifications. The Conference, however, proposed that the man should have first of all a residence vote, and if he had a business qualification he should have one for that also, and that is the proposal put down in the Bill as it stands. Having given the woman more than she is entitled to, the Government now find it is necessary to give her rather less than she is entitled to. Personally, I am not unwilling to
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    accept it. I do not think it is going to be a very harsh measure on her, and I do not see why, in giving this new franchise, we should give a woman a second vote in respect of her business qualification.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: Why not?
    Mr. DICKINSON: I object so mush to second votes that I do not see why a woman should come in under a system to which I object. The point, of course, is that the woman gets her vote for her place of business. Why does she get it? Because she occupies that business place, and therefore she has got a vote. She may be living with her husband. [An HON. MEMBER: "May be? I hope she is!"] Every woman who has a business qualification is not living with her husband, but we hope, she is, and, if she is, then she would get a vote in respect of that or in the place where she has her business qualification. My own personal view is that that is sufficient, and I do not feel inclined towards the Amendment put down by the Home Secretary. I have, however, a very strong objection to the Amendment before the Committee because under it if a man has two or three or four business qualifications he is to be able to give two business qualification votes. [An HON. MEMBER: "Yes, but only two!"] That is quite right, but it would be an extension of the principle which divided the Conference. Myself, I think it is sufficiently generous to give a man a right to vote for his home and a right to vote once for his business. I hope the Committee will not listen to this Amendment, and if the price of rejecting this Amendment is to accept the Amendment of the Home Secretary, I am prepared to accept it.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: I think it is generally agreed in the Committee that the Bill as it stands cannot possibly become law. I am very glad of that, because I have repeatedly pointed out the anomaly which is now raised when dealing with the local government franchise and women franchise. The point is which of the two Amendments are we to have. The Amendment moved by the hon. Member for the London University (Sir P. Magnus) is perfectly plain, and it lays down that nobody, man or woman, shall vote more than twice. That is perfectly plain. The Amendment proposed by the Government which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North St. Pancras said he is

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    willing to accept, is a very complicated one, and provides that a man may have one residential vote and one other qualification; but as far as women are concerned, they are to have one local government qualification vote, and one vote for any other qualification to which she may be entitled. I know of no other qualification provided in the Bill except the university vote. Surely the words which have been suggested are cumbrous and very difficult for people to understand who have to administer this law. A woman may be living in one constituency and she may have a business qualification in another place, and she would be entitled to vote for her business qualification, but she will not be entitled to have a second vote because she is not entitled to a residential qualification. I have protested all along against women franchise in this Bill being based upon the local government qualification, and I have never been able to understand why it was done, but that being so, surely we ought to make it as simple as we can now, and when there is a choice between two Amendments I should have thought the Committee would have preferred the simpler Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend rather than the complicated proposal put forward in the name of the Government.
    Sir J. SIMON: The hon. and learned Gentleman who has just spoken urged us to accept this Amendment because it is so simple, but the real question is whether this Amendment makes a material alteration in the Bill, and if so whether it is one which the Committee is prepared to accept. Now this Amendment does make a material alteration, and it is one which I am not prepared to accept. What does it do? It provides that wherever a man has two residences in different constituencies he may have two votes. Now that is quite contrary to the scheme of the Bill, which only allows in limited cases a second vote. This proposal has this result, that whereas a poor man who in 999 cases out of 1,000 only has one residence he can never vote more than once, but if you happen to belong to the rare class of people who have two residences, one in London and another in the country, then you get two votes. This point raises the whole of the plural voting controversy in its most objectionable form. If that is the result of the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for London University,
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    who is much too clear-headed not to see that point, the question is whether we prefer the one thing or the other. I could not consent to the very large extension of plural voting involved in this Amendment. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Rawlinson), who has just spoken with regard to women, and I would like their position stated a little more clearly. I think, however, the explanation is that which was given just now by my right hon. Friend.
    Some of us interested in woman suffrage noticed when this Bill was introduced that it really gave women more than they were entitled to, because, whereas men who happen to have two residential qualifications in different parts of the country could not use them both, it conferred upon women who happen to have two local government qualifications in different parts of the country the right to use them both. That appears to me not to be dealing on level terms with the two cases. I understand the Government have now put an Amendment down to prevent that, and it has this consequence, that whereas a woman would in fact have a business vote because she occupies premises, and she is a local government elector, I do think the Home Secretary's Amendment has an incidental and probably an intended effect of not giving the woman the business vote. If that is so it can be altered, but on the whole I do not think it is a very serious matter. I am not anxious to see any unnecessary multiplication of plural votes, but I do not regard this from a woman suffrage point of view as very important. So far as this Amendment is concerned, to accept it would not be taking clear words and putting them in place of obscure words. What you would be doing would be to remove a limitation on plural voting, and you would be creating a new form of plural vote.
    Lord H. CECIL: There seems to be a good deal in what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Walthamstow (Sir J. Simon). There is one point I wish to submit to the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman says this Amendment will bring back the plural vote in a form in which it has been excluded by our arrangement, because it will allow a man to give two votes in respect of two residences. I suggest that that is impossible, because a man cannot have two residences, and I should have thought it is clear that a man can only re-

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    side in one place at the same time. I know he can successively reside, but only in one place at any given time, and he can never be registered twice at two residences. I live in London, but I occasionally reside at Oxford. What happens is that I cease to reside in London and I go and reside somewhere else, but you cannot reside in more than one place at a time at any given moment. When I go to Oxford I cease to reside in London. I know that a vagrant who resides within the limits of the successive vote takes his vote with him wherever he goes. If that is not so, let me again appeal to the Government to define what "residence" means. I put down last night a definition which is intended to express in simple language the true meaning of "residence." I do not understand the arcana of the law, but I have tried to put it down in what is called King's English—that is, plain, intelligent language such as lawyers ought to use, but which they do not always use. If that definition is a good one, I suggest a person cannot have more than one qualification, and cannot regard more than one place as his home. It is absurd to say that when I am at Oxford I regard London as my home. Would it not be better to have adopted some basis of the franchise which is not susceptible to all these difficulties? If residence is this very ambiguous thing, this transitory thing that may be multiplied in such a way that you might have any number of residences; if it is this sort of doubtful, metaphysical phrase, is it not a pity that it was ever put into the Bill at all?
    6.0 P.M.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: I said a long time ago that I was surprised and could not understand why the word "residence" was ever introduced into the Bill, because it is a most difficult thing to decide what residence is. I have frequently asked the Government to define it, and it is not a very simple matter. Hon. Members will recollect that on one occasion I quoted from a book which I wrote quite a number of cases in which I showed the difficulties of using the word "residence" as an electoral qualification. I have not got it with me now. We are all agreed that it is an extraordinarily difficult and complicated point, which some unfortunate registration officer will have to decide, and which, as the Government says, he will be able to decide without any difficulty. I can imagine my hon. Friend the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford
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    University (Lord H. Cecil) or the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Pancras (Mr. Dickinson) appearing before the registration officer on this very point, and I can only wish them joy of the interview. I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Walthamstow (Sir J. Simon) that you must first understand what you want to do. The Bill as it stands gives the plural vote in a very advanced form to women. It is agreed on all sides that is to be altered. The Government are going to alter it, and this Amendment would alter it. You have therefore departed from the Bill, and not even the right hon. and learned Gentlemen the Member for Walthamstow or the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Pancras can seriously defend the Bill in its present form. The Bill in its present form is not what the Conference sent us, and when we are departing from the recommendations of the Conference it is not for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to get up and say, "I cannot accept this. You must accept what I give you." You are curtailing the ridiculously wide power of plural voting, giving it to women by the Bill whether you accept my hon. Friend's Amendment or the Government's Amendment, and, if you are going to curtail it in that way, why not equalise it and make it simpler by an extension of the plural vote and by saying that every elector shall have two votes and two votes only. The Bill as it stands gives a man the right to vote for his residence, his business premises, and his university. Is it a great extension of the principle to say that he shall have two votes whether he gets them for his residence or for his business premises.
    Sir P. MAGNUS: He "may" have two votes.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: Yes, he "may" have two votes. Surely that is not a very large extension. It is a common-sense extension. It is a common-sense extension, and it has the further advantage of extreme simplicity. Why should you not have the same principle as regards women? I say, that if a woman has two qualifications she shall have two votes. Why complicate a perfectly simple matter by saying that one shall be a business vote and one a residential vote, and, as we are altering the Bill, why not reduce it to the simple Amendment my hon. Friend proposes, namely, that no person shall vote more than twice, but that he or she shall have

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    separate qualifications and shall select which of those qualifications he or she shall use? The Noble Lord has pointed out the difficulty of a residential qualification. Surely a person is entitled just as much on a priori grounds to a residential qualification as he is to a business premises qualification. There is no particular difference in the bedrock principle between the two, and, that being so, I submit that a simpler Amendment is the proper and fair one to accept.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I thought that we had long ago abandoned the idea that any Amendment must be rejected because it is contrary to the provisions of the Bill or to the recommendations of the Speaker's Conference. We have on two occasions, if not on three, departed from the Conference, and on more than one occasion I have certainly said that I hoped we should hear no more from the Government of it being impossible to accept an Amendment because it was contrary to what was laid down by the Conference. The question of residence has always puzzled me very much. I could never make out how the registration officer was going to define residence. I have puzzled my brain over and over again whether it means that you must reside there six months or must be there on the last day. I raised the question a long time ago, and I was told both by the Home Secretary and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Walthamstow (Sir J. Simon) that it was a simple matter, but here is my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Rawlinson), for whose legal opinions I have great admiration, in absolute conflict with them, because he holds that residence is a very difficult word to define. He has written a book proving that it is a very difficult word to define. I presume it is a text-book, and I do not understand how the Home Secretary and the right lion, and learned Gentleman the Member for Walthamstow have departed from such a well-known text-book, which lays it down that it is very difficult to define "residence" and which gives learned reasons which, being a layman, I do not understand, for that particular view. This being so, we are in a very difficult position, and we, as laymen, cannot possibly solve it.
    There is no doubt that the Amendment of my right hon. Friend opposite would give an additional plural vote. It would give to a man who has a residence in
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    London and another residence in the country a vote for both, whereas, as the Bill originally stood, a person would not have a vote for a second residence, but only for a business premises qualification in some other constituency. Therefore, my hon. Friend's Amendment does go beyond the Bill, though, I think, in the right direction. I have never concealed from the House or from the country that I am in favour of plural voting. If a man pays rates and taxes in a place he has just as much right to vote there as somebody else who, as my hon. Friend (Lord H. Cecil) suggests, may be in a gaol, or may be just coming out of a gaol, or maybe in a lodging-house. There is no doubt that the Amendment does go beyond the original terms of the Bill and I presume it is no use attempting to pursue it, because I fancy neither the Government nor the majority of the Committee would accept it. Then there comes the question as to what is to be done with the women. A woman is in a better position than a man under this Clause. Supposing a man has a house in the country and business premises in town, he is entitled to be registered in both under this Bill and his wife would get a Parliamentary vote in both places, whereas he would only get a Parliamentary vote in one. The Amendment of the Home Secretary as far as I can make out—and it is difficult to understand— would result in the woman only having a vote in one place in which her husband was a registered local elector.
    The result of that would be to put her in a worse position than the husband. The husband must reside somewhere, and he resides, say, in some part of London. He is a local elector there, and he has a business premises qualification outside of London or even in another part of London. He is also a local elector there. Therefore, as the Bill stands, the woman, if you are going to give votes to women, will have a vote for both those places, a vote for her husband's residential qualification, and another for her husband's business premises qualification. If the Amendment is carried, she will lose one of those votes and only be able to vote once. Therefore, though personally I should like to see my hon. Friend's Amendment carried and should certainly vote for it, I think it is necessary that some words should be put in which will give the woman the same right to vote as the man. I think it should be made clear in the

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    Clause that the woman should have the right to vote where her husband is registered for a residential qualification. She should also have the right to vote where her husband is registered for a business premises qualification. That would put them in the same category. I have always been against the vote being given to women. I have not changed my mind, and, if I could prevent her having the vote, I would do so. But if you are going to say that sex is no disqualification, then in common sense put her in the same position and give her the vote on the same terms as men. While I support my hon. Friend's Amendment, I am afraid that he will not have much chance of carrying it, but I hope some other Amendment will be put in.
    Sir P. MAGNUS: In withdrawing the Amendment, I would like to ask the Home Secretary whether when we come to his Amendment he will endeavour to find some words which would place the woman in the same position as the man with regard to the two votes. I think as we are giving votes to women under this Bill, we ought to give them under exactly the same conditions as they are given to men. There ought not to be any disqualification of women that does not apply to men. As the Clause stood women were placed in a better position, but that if course must be altered, and I hope that the Home Secretary will be able to find some form of words—I cannot in the least suggest them—by means of which the position of women with regard to the two votes shall be the same as that of men.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    The following Amendment stood upon the Paper in the name of Mr. TICKLER: In Sub-section (1), leave out the word "or" ["a residence qualification or"], and insert instead thereof the word "and."
    Mr. TICKLER: I understand that the Home Secretary has promised to bring in an Amendment which docs away with the necessity of this Amendment, to the effect that a woman shall have only one vote instead of two votes in two constituencies, and therefore I do not wish to move.
    The following Amendment stood upon the Paper in the name of Mr. BUTLER LLOYD: In Sub-section (1), after the word '"kind" ["by virtue of other qualifications of whatever kind"], insert the words
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    "but if he has no such other qualification he may vote for two residence qualifications."
    Mr. BUTLER LLOYD: I presume this Amendment falls with the other, though otherwise I am quite prepared to move it.
    Sir F. BANBURY: On a point of Order. I do not think it does fall with the other Amendment, which provided that" a man might vote for a residence. This merely says that if he has no occupation, and therefore cannot get a second vote, he may vote for a residence twice.
    Mr. LLOYD: I beg to move, in Subsection (1), after the word "kind" ["other qualifications of whatever kind"], to insert the words "but if he has no such other qualification he may vote for two residence qualifications."
    Sir G, CAVE: This is the very point we have just been discussing and decided not to press. We did not divide upon it; we merely discussed it.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn
    Mr. P. A. HARRIS: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "kind" ["other qualifications of whatever kind"], to insert the words "nor in more than one division of a Parliamentary borough divided into separate constituencies."
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Maclean): I think this Amendment ought to come on Clause 28, Sub-section (1), and not here.
    Mr. H. SAMUEL: Clause 28, Sub-section (1), deals with the definition of a constituency. If we were to alter that definition it would go very much further than the limited point the hon. Member wishes to raise.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am quite prepared to hear the hon. Member.
    Sir F. BANBURY: On a point of Order. I would point out that we have already had a discussion upon this matter, when the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. H. Samuel) was not in the Committee. We had a discussion on an Amendment moved by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rutland (Colonel Gretton), and the Chairman of Committees ruled that it would be better if the hon. and gallant Member brought in his Amendment at the end of this Clause.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is another point.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I submit it is the same point, and that this Amendment is unnecessary, because the Bill as it stands does exactly what the hon. Gentleman (Mr. P. A. Harris) wants to do.
    Mr. H. SAMUEL: No, it does not.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I think I had better not rule the Amendment out, but hear what the hon. Member has to say.
    Mr. HARRIS: The Bill as it was introduced provided for larger constituencies in order to give an opportunity for the introduction of a system of proportional representation. With the dropping of proportional representation, it seems necessary to go back to the present state of the law. Even when plural voting was general it was always the law that a man living in a borough could not vote in more than one constituency, the borough being regarded as one unit for electoral purposes. In large boroughs like Bradford, which has three divisions, or Bristol which has three divisions, or Manchester which has five divisions, although a man might vote in several parts of a borough he could only exercise the franchise at one opportunity. By the arrangement to create larger constituencies and introduce proportional representation, we should have departed from that principle. We hare this curious anomaly, that although Mr. Speaker's Conference agreed to limit the opportunity for plural voting, this arrangement gives an increase in the borough where there is really no justification for it at all. When the Conference agreed to allow a man a business vote in addition to a residential vote, the idea was that when he lived outside a town he would vote as an elector in the county, but that for the business premises in the town he should have the opportunity, as a citizen of that borough, of exercising the franchise. I take it that there was no intention at the Conference to give increased opportunities for plural voting within one borough. Of course, there may be a departure from the principle already laid down by the House by a majority that proportional representation should not be introduced into the law of the land. In the meantime, if it is laid down that we are not to have proportional representation, it ought to be laid down that the old principle that a borough is one unit for
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    electoral purposes should be retained. That is all the more important if proportional representation is not going to be adopted, because the system of a borough being divided for electoral purposes into several constituencies does give an opportunity for the representation of minorities. In most boroughs, although not in all, the geographical division of a town usually takes the form of representing the various classes of the community—there is the west end or residential district, the working class district, and the business-district, so that it is a common thing in boroughs to find that the representatives are a Labour man, a Conservative, and, perhaps, a Liberal as representing each division of the voters. In that way, in spite of our system of voting, we did get a representation of minorities. That, to-a certain extent, will be counteracted if, under this new arrangement an elector is allowed to vote twice in the same borough. It would be an increase instead of a decrease of the system of plural voting which we all desire to decrease by means of this Bill.
    Mr. H. SAMUEL: This Amendment is-one to which many of us attach very great importance. It raises a question of much wider range than any of the Amendments which have been before the Committee for a considerable time. The difficulty arises out of the decision of the House to adopt proportional representation in the large boroughs. If the Committee on Clause 15 adheres to that decision the effect will be, in practice, to depart widely, to the extent of many tens of thousands of votes, from the recommendations of the Conference with respect to plural voting. The position arises in this way: The present law is embodied in the redistribution of Seats Act, 1885, Section 8, Sub-section (3), which says:
    "Where any Parliamentary borough is divided into divisions in pursuance of this Section a person shall not be registered as entitled to vote and shall not vote in more than one such division."
    The Conference recommended two things with regard to the Parliamentary boroughs divided into divisions, first, that that should be repealed and that a person should Be entitled to vote in more than one division of the borough, but secondly, it recommended that those divisions should be amalgamated into large three, four, or five Member constituencies, the effect of which would be practically to

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    restore that provision. If the Committee decides not to have these large constituencies, but to maintain the repeal of that provision, then it will be creating a vast number of plural votes which do not now exist and which the Conference never intended should exist. Let me give the Committee a concrete illustration. Take the City of Edinburgh, which has four divisions. There is a large number of men in that city, as in all other cities, who reside in one part of the town and have an office or business premises in another part of the town. At present, under the existing law, such persons have only one vote, because of the provision of the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885, which I have read. If the recommendations of the Conference were carried out in their entirety, such persons would still have only one vote, because all the four divisions of Edinburgh would be one constituency for the purposes of proportional representation. If we reject proportional representation, and, at the same time, leave in this repeal, then for the first time all these persons will suddenly be converted into dual voters. What will happen in Edinburgh will happen in the same way in all the other great boroughs throughout the country, except London, to which my remarks do not apply.
    It is true that if you take a city such as Liverpool, which has nine divisions, under the recommendations of the Conference, with proportional representation, that would probably be divided into two constituencies for the purposes of proportional representation, and that if a man happens to live in one of those and has an office in another he might have two votes under the Conference proposals. But under the Bill as it will stand, if he lived in any one of these nine divisions of Liverpool and had a residence or a place of business in any other one of the nine, he would get a dual vote. Consequently, you will be creating many times more plural voters than were contemplated by the Conference. I do not suggest to the Government that the Committee ought properly to decide this matter to-day because we do not yet know what the Committee will decide on Clause 15 with regard to proportional representation. It may be that proportional representation will be retained in the Bill, in which case the point I am now endeavouring to press on the Committee will not arise, but it is essential that at this point we should make our views clear in order
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    that the Government and the Committee should be cognisant of the point that if proportional representation is struck out we must press that the repeal Section should not include, as it now does, Subsection (3) of Section 8 of the Act of 1885, and we must press on the Report stage that this provision shall be inserted in this Clause I do not wish in any way to revive any old controversies. I hope that nothing I have said has been in any way partisan or raises any of the old points in a controversial spirit, but we do attach importance to this, and we ask that, if proportional representation is struck out, fresh plural voters shall not be created incidentally and by a side-wind, and shall not be created in a way which the Conference never recommended and never intended should be done.
    Lord H. CECIL: The speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. H. Samuel) has succeeded in convincing me that this Amendment ought not to be accepted either now or on the Report. Observe how the matter stands. The House has departed from the recommendations of the Conference by rejecting proportional representation. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] It has up to this point. It will either adhere to that decision or will change its decision. Let us suppose, in the first case, that it will adhere to that decision. Those who, like myself, regard proportional representation as a very, important safeguard, will be bitterly disappointed. The right hon. Gentleman suggests that as a sort of consequence the proposal of Mr. Speaker's Conference which permits a plural vote in different constituencies should be modified, so as to' prevent people having two votes if they have a residential qualification in Liverpool and a place of business in Liverpool or in any other great town. Those of us who think this Bill dangerous, as leading to violent movements of opinion, are first of all to have the safeguard of proportional representation taken away from us, and then are not to be permitted to have the slighter but still valuable safeguard of the plural vote in places like Liverpool and Manchester, where there are both residential and business qualifications. The two wrongs do not make a right. You do not make the departure from the Speaker's Conference arrangement any better by making a second departure. Indeed, from the point of view of all Conservatives who

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    are supporters of proportional representation, you manifestly make it much worse. You add another grievance to that which you have already inflicted upon us. I therefore very earnestly hope the Government will not assent to anything of the kind. The Speaker's Conference made this proposal, that the plural vote should be allowed where there was a residential and a business qualification. It is obvious that an incidental limitation of that arising out of the adoption of proportional representation does not vary the principle. The principle is that where a man has a residential qualification and a business qualification he is entitled to two votes. That, of course, imposes a very considerable limitation upon the plural vote as it now exists, because it destroys the ownership vote. It is acting very much contrary to the principle of the compromise to abolish the operation of this in all the large towns merely because proportional representation is destroyed. I quite agree that the right thing—and I hope we may persuade the House that it is the right thing—is to retain proportional representation, and that is advantageous both from the point of view of those who like the plural vote and those who do not like it. The compromise holds in respect of the plural vote completely. But if the compromise is broken at all, I earnestly protest against the unfairness of breaking it again in such a way as to injure the Conservative supporters of proportional representation by inflicting upon them a second wrong. I hope the Government will not accept this Amendment either now or on Report.
    Mr. WARDLE: I think the Noble Lord looks at this matter entirely from the point of view of his party and the Conservative opinion to which he refers; but it must be, understood that, when proportional representation was adopted, and the whole question of the plural vote was under consideration in the Speaker's Conference, this very point arose, and the point which has been put by the right hon. Gentleman from the other side was discussed at very great length. The question of the second vote for the occupation of premises was left at a certain stage in a very anomalous position. There was for a long time no question at all of the repeal of the old Act, which said that a man should only have one vote in places like Manchester or Liverpool or Glasgow or Edinburgh; and
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    it was not until proportional representation had been agreed to that my friends and those of us who on principle are opposed to plural voting altogether, and who do not even like the dual vote in the compromise, agreed to it, because we saw that it made a complete compromise, it destroyed anomalies all over the country, and put people in Manchester, in London, and everywhere else on the same footing. But if the compromise is destroyed with regard to proportional representation, that goes far beyond what we were willing to agree to in the matter of the dual vote, although the Noble Lord gets what he calls an additional safeguard by having many hundreds of votes which lie would not have had. If proportional representation had not come into this Bill this part never would have been agreed to upstairs, and I do not think it would ever have been asked for. It certainly was not asked for until proportional representation was in the Bill, and therefore we are in this peculiar position. Like the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Samuel), I do not want to put it in now, but I say to the Government that if, after full consideration, the compromise is departed from and proportional representation is not inserted, I, for one, cannot agree to creating a large number of dual voters in cities like Liverpool, where there are nine opportunities for it against three under the compromise; or in Glasgow, where there are probably eleven; or Manchester, where there are twelve or thirteen. I cannot agree to such a multiplication of dual voters in those cities as would occur if this Amendment is not inserted, providing the House does not eventually agree to proportional representation. Wherever we depart from the compromise I think we shall find we have upset some other part to such a degree as to endanger the whole compromise. This compromise gives us an opportunity for putting upon the Statute Book a Franchise Bill which if accepted in the spirit and in the totality with which it was brought into this House, will take us a huge stride forward and will give Members of all parties, I believe, a fair opportunity, and the more you depart from it the worse it is.
    Mr. DICKINSON: On a point of Order This Debate turns really upon the question of what is meant by the word "constituency." The definition of "constituency" is in. Clause 28, and I submit

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    that that is the point where this matter should be discussed. It was defined in Clause 28 so that it coincided with the recommendations of the Conference, including proportional representation, and therefore if, before we got to Clause 28, the Committee has decided definitely about proportional representation, it will be necessary to make some alteration in Clause 28 in the definition of "constituency," and I submit that it would be better, not only from the point of view of order, to have the discussion on Clause 28 but it would be better from the point of view of the convenience of the Committee, because by that time we shall know more about what the House decides on proportional representation.
    The CHAIRMAN: I have actually on my notes here, "See Clause 28, Sub-section (21). Not needed here." So I had in mind the same point. But a preliminary discussion like this does not do any harm and it draws the attention of the Committee to what we shall arrive at. Of course its need or otherwise will depend upon the decision of the Committee when we come to Clause 15. I think the hon Member was quite sound in that respect, and perhaps, after this preliminary canter, he will be satisfied with having drawn so much attention to it.
    Mr. FISHER: I think it is well to have some preliminary conversation at all events on the effects of this Amendment. It raises a very important question. Of course, the discussion must take a somewhat wider range than that taken by some of the Amendments which have been raised this afternoon. After all, it raises the whole question of the amount of plural voting which the House is ready by general consent to allow. There has been very sharp cleavage of opinion in the past about plural voting. The Speaker's Conference came to the conclusion that it did not desire to shut out an additional vote for business premises, and it deliberately allowed a vote for residence and a vote for business premises. But at the same time, when it came to consider the question of great areas like London and other large towns—but most particularly London—it said, "Yes, we will allow that amount of plural voting for your residence and for your business occupation, but we intend that London shall adopt a system of proportional representation." And if the system of proportional representation, had been
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    adopted, this question never could have arisen as to whether a plural vote should be exercised in a division of a Parliamentary borough. That is the whole question. There is no desire to disturb the decision of the Speaker's Conference, that a vote shall be accorded to one particular person for his residence and to that same person for his business qualification, provided that it is in a different constituency, and that constituency is not a part of the same Parliamentary borough. That is the question raised by the Amendment, and it is very difficult to obtain any real light or leading from the Speaker's Conference on the point. I am not going to say on behalf of the Government that this is not the point at which we ought to come to a decision, because I quite agree that this must be governed to a very large extent by the decision to which the House comes when we come to finally dispose of Clause 15 and the whole question of proportional representation.
    HON. MEMBERS: Why should we?
    Mr. FISHER: Because proportional representation really affects the whole decision of the Speaker's Conference. I was not a member of that Conference, but I am quite willing to believe the members of it who tell me they never would have consented to allow the additional vote to be given to a particular man for his residence and for his business premises in divisions of the same Parliamentary borough, but that when they were considering that they had it in their minds that the whole of the Resolutions of the Speaker's Conference would be carried out by the House, and therefore they never would have had to decide that a man would have a vote, say, for a residence in West Islington, and also a vote for business premises in East Islington, or you may take Bristol or any other town. That, I believe, was at the back of the mind of those who were willing to agree to that amount of plural voting. Then it is hardly fair to ask the Committee to come to a decision on the point until it has come to its final conclusion as to proportional representation. After it has come to a conclusion about proportional representation the law will stand in this way. The man will have a vote for his residence, say, in Islington, and he will also have a vote for his business premises in St. Pancras, in another Parliamentary borough. A doubt will arise in the minds

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    of many as to whether the man ought to have a vote for his residence in one division of a Parliamentary borough and another vote for his business premises in another division of the same Parliamentary borough. I have given no opinion upon that at all. I quite agree that this is a matter which ought to be left an open question to be debated later. My hon. Friend's Amendment would go too far, because the man would be able to vote in more than one division of a Parliamentary borough provided it has separate constituencies, even though that borough were divided into only two separate constituencies. That might possibly be going too far. It is not really important to go into that matter now as to whether particular words would carry out the intention of the House. On behalf of the Government I think I have satisfied the Committee that this is a matter which ought not to be disposed of until we come to a final decision as to whether or not we adopt proportional representation, and then we can argue this case whether plural voting should be allowed where the plural vote is in another division of the same Parliamentary constituency. There may be something to be said for that, and there is something to be said against it. The Committee must remember that as the Clause stands now a man may have, and does have, and justly has, a vote for his residence, say, in Islington, and a vote for his business premises, say, in the City of London; but lie cannot have a vote for his residence in one division of Islington and another vote for his business premises in another division of Islington. If you are not going to accept some such an Amendment, undoubtedly the House would be giving its adhesion to a considerable augmentation of the present plural voting power.
    Mr. HARRIS: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    HON MEMBERS: No!
    Sir F. BANBURY: This is a very important Amendment, and I want to say something in regard to it. I have listened with great interest to what the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hayes Fisher) has said, and I agree with him that a person having a vote in East Islington in respect of his residence, and a business qualification in West Islington, cannot vote in both cases. But I want to draw his attention to what
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    the Speakers Conference Report says, in paragraph (11), Sub-section (b). It says
    "that a constituency, where a county or borough is divided (or the purpose of Parliamentary elections, means a division of the county or borough so divided."
    It is quite clear that the Speaker's Conference recommend that where a Parliamentary borough is divided into constituencies for the purpose of Parliamentary elections, that that division should be a Parliamentary borough. A person would be entitled to have a vote both in that particular borough for his residential or occupation qualification and in another borough. It is quite true that paragraph 16 says:
    "Where there are contiguous boroughs which, if formed into a single constituency, would he entitled to return not less than three, nor more than five members, it shall be an Instruction to the Boundary Commissioners to unite such boroughs into a single constituency."
    Underneath that, however, there is a paragraph in brackets, which says:
    "This resolution would only become applicable in the event of a system of proportional representation being adopted, as recommended in a subsequent resolution."
    It does not refer to the other point to which I have just alluded. That is left as it 1s. It is left as a recommendation of the Speaker's Conference that where a county or borough is divided for the purpose of Parliamentary elections such division shall mean a Parliamentary borough. The only thing which is not applicable is paragraph (16), which I have read. Let me point out to hon. Members what the Conservative party have given up. Nobody seems to consider for a moment what we have given up. All this is based upon the statement that the Liberal party are opposed to plural voting. We knew that already. They are opposed to plural voting, and they have very nearly abolished it, but the Speaker's Conference have left certain remnants. Now hon. Members come down and say, "We thought that proportional representation would nullify that to a certain extent, and now because proportional representation has not been adopted we want to go behind the terms of the Conference and take away the remnant which is left of plural voting." That is one of the reasons why I left the Conference, because it became apparent to me at once that the members of the Liberal party and of the Labour party never recognised that we had certain things. They wanted us to give up what we had got and to give up nothing that

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    they had got. They call that a compromise. I do not call it a compromise. A compromise is when both parties give up something; not something which they have not got—but what they would like to get—but something which they have got. That was not the attitude of the Liberal party. They did not want to give up anything they had got. They said, "We have not got this, but you have got it. We should like to take all of it away, but we cannot do that, so we will take away what we can." That is not my idea of a compromise. This is a very important point, and I hope we shall take a very strong stand upon it. Look what the Conservative party are going to give up. They are giving up the ownership vote, they are giving up the treble, as it may be, residential vote, and all they are going to retain is one extra vote, and that only if it is obtained for business premises. Surely, wherever that extra vote is, they ought to be allowed to exercise it. It is a very simple proposition which is not touched in any kind of way by proportional representation, and which, as I have shown by quotations from the Report of the Speaker's Conference, is not touched. By the words in brackets after paragraph (16) it is evident that the Speaker's Conference thought it was possible proportional representation would not be carried, and they put in words to say that paragraph (16) would only become applicable in case proportional representation was carried. They do not say anything about alteration in this matter. Therefore, I do hope that this Amendment will be rejected, and that we shall stand boldly for the very little that has been left to us in this so-called Conference.
    Sir R. ADKINS: I understood you, Mr. Whitley, in reply to the right hon. Member for St. Pancras (Mr. Dickinson), to say that in your judgment this Amendment was more appropriate to the Clause which defines a constituency. You said that before acting as Chairman of the Committee, in accordance with that view, you would allow what was pleasantly called a preliminary canter. That preliminary canter has now taken the form of alarms and excursions, which must lead to similar kind of utterances from other parts of the House; and I ask you whether this Amendment at this place is not out of order, and whether it would only be in order on Clause 28, when the definition of "constituency" has to be settled?
    Lord H. CECIL: I submit that it is not now in the power of the Chair to restrict the discussion. The matter is now in the hands of the Committee, and I most earnestly protest against the efforts which some hon. Members are making to diminish the fast waning powers of the Committee over its own business, thus placing authority increasingly in the Chair, which means—however much confidence we may have in the occupant of the Chair—the destruction of legitimate Parliamentary debate.
    The CHAIRMAN: I think the Noble Lord himself has put points of Order now and then. I am afraid I cannot agree with him.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: May I ask whether, permission to withdraw this Amendment having been refused, you have to put it from the Chair, and, if it is negatived, will it prevent the same point being raised on a later Clause?
    The CHAIRMAN: Dealing strictly with the point of Order, I do not think I can absolutely say that this Amendment is out of order. It has been permitted to be moved, and certain discussion has proceeded. It is quite true that, contrary to what the Noble Lord suggested, it is within the power of the Chairman, and it is his duty in certain circumstances, to withdraw an Amendment from the Committee, even after debate, if it appears to him during the Debate that it is not in order. I have exercised that power in certain circumstances, but I do not feel called upon in the present circumstances to do that. If, however, the Committee is at all willing to accept my advice, I will repeat what I said before, that it is clear that this Amendment depends upon the decision of the House upon Clause 1s. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no!"] That is my opinion. On the actual point of the Amendment I am not prepared to rule that it is out of order. With regard to the other point raised by the hon. Member (Mr. Whitehouse), if an alteration is made in the Bill in Clause 15 which affects this matter, I shall not now rule against the matter being subsequently brought up in the place which I suggest as the right place, namely, Clause 28. I think that makes the point clear.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Does that mean I that if any alteration is made with regard

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    to reversing the decision of the House on proportional representation it would not be possible again to raise this matter?
    The CHAIRMAN: I do not think so. On Clause 28, I think, it would be open to the Committee to review the position with regard to this second vote in the light of what has been done on the previous Clauses in the Bill. The Committee will then be in a clear position to come to a decision in view of all the circumstances. At the present moment the Committee cannot be in possession of all the circumstances.
    7.0 P.M.
    Sir W. BULL: I wish to enter a caveat at once in order to describe exactly how this came about. I would not like it to be said later that one did not give one's views of what happened at the Conference. Therefore, I should like to put those views before any decision is arrived at. I do not agree for one moment that this matter depends upon what happens in regard to proportional representation. This part of the reform franchise was dealt with long before we considered proportional representation. It is within the memory of members of the Speaker's Conference that when we gave up the duplicate vote we said very strongly that there should be two votes, and a university vote as well. Mr. Speaker said that he thought that three votes were out of the question, and he thought it was better we should only have two. He agreed that a compromise should be come to in regard to two votes, as a fair arrangement. We came to that agreement. I think it was the hon. Member for Norwood who finally moved that there should be a fresh plural vote instituted in constituencies adjoining each other. That is, if a man lived in one constituency and had a business in another constituency, that those two votes should stand. That is what we stood by as part of the compromise. Those who were not at the Speaker's Conference do not know what happened. It. really had not anything to do with proportional representation. The two things did not hang one on the other. I believe that if you turn to the minutes you would see the historical way in which the thing was dealt with was that we now and then went backwards and forwards. Perhaps we forgot one thing and the Speaker said, "we will discuss something else." But the question of franchise was dealt with
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    independently of proportional representation. I should not like to come down here on Clause 15 and give this version of the story as if I had made it for the purpose of fitting in with what I wished. In my opinion—I may be wrong—the question of the two votes was a fundamental part of the compromise that was come to.
    Sir F. BANBURY: May I ask whether it has not always been held that where an Amendment has been negatived that Amendment cannot be brought forward again in Committee though it may be brought forward again on the Report stage?
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: Apart from the theoretical aspect of it, is it not the case that the Amendment to the definition of a constituency would be quite a distinct Amendment from this, which would have quite distinct reasons, and therefore would be a different Amendment?
    The CHAIRMAN: That is a matter which I can only deal with when it arises. I think that the hon. Baronet is correct to this extent, that if a specific proposition is decided by the Committee, then as far as this stage is concerned, it stands. The other point I must deal with when it arises.
    Sir J. SIMON: I am anxious as far as I can to follow what I think is your own suggestion, and not to raise any new matter at this stage of the Debate. The position has been saved by your ruling, and I think that it is much better we should get on. But with reference to the statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, I regret very much that my own recollection does not in this matter quite agree with his. It is quite easy for people approaching these questions, perhaps from rather different angles to emphasise rather different points, but my own recollection is this, that the question which is now dealt with in 11 (b) namely, the definition of a constituency for the purpose of limiting plural voting was a question which I think was raised at the very end of the Conference proceedings. It appeared quite late in the proceedings of the Conference that that was a point which had got to be considered, and there was quite a natural argument on the one side that the proper model to follow was London, where you do get people voting more than once—it may be inside London—and on the other side that the proper model was

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    the Provincial model in places such as Liverpool and Manchester. I am quite confident, in view of the fact that the constituencies proposed for the big Provincial towns would be large constituencies, that consequently you would not be greatly aggravating what we regard as the plural voting evil. It was in the light of that that some of us, in view of our own opinion on Clause 15, were willing to say that to that extent it multiplied the opportunities for plural voting, compared with what they would be if the law in these great provincial cities remains what it is to-day. On the point of merit, the Noble Lord gave a very odd account of the argument now put forward. He seemed to treat the claim now made as adding insult to injury. He says that the Bill introduced was a Bill which provided for proportional representation, which he said," is a thing which I, among others, care about. When, for the time being, proportional representation is taken out of the Bill that is an insult. Now yon are actually coming down and suggesting that there ought to be no plural voting within the boundaries, say, of Liverpool. That is an injury. It is not an emollient to the first stripe to inflict a second stripe." That is not my notion of the position at all. My notion of the position is say, that the Noble Lord and I made a bargain together, I to hand him my watch in return for his handing me his money. The Noble Lord has now got a decision that he is not to hand me his money, and when I proceed to say that I do not propose to give you my watch then he says that is adding insult to injury.
    Mr. PETO: The order in which these matters were dealt with is indicated in the Report. First there were the least contentious matters. There was the registration of electors which we considered for a day or two. Then we approached the outskirts of the controversial matters. The first substantial question dealt with was the reform of the franchise. On that the main principle was that plural voting was to go with the exception of two votes, one residential, and the other occupational. It is true that as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said that the controversy with regard to the definition of constituency came later. It was present to all our minds that, if proportional representation carried the day and was made ultimately part of the settlement, it would limit to that extent even in large
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    constituencies in great places like Liverpool and Glasgow the opportunity for exercising plural votes. As I understand the Amendment before the House goes far, beyond that, and says that in no circumstances is the voter within the confines of a borough to vote in respect both of a, business qualification and residential qualification. The utmost that proportional representation would do would be that in a city like Liverpool to make it possible to exercise only two votes if you happened to live in a different third of that town, and therefore a very large number of people with a residential and business qualification in Liverpool in spite of proportional representation would exercise the two votes in Liverpool. This question of proportional representation is put in on page 5 of the Report in: its proper place in reference to boroughs, and the recommendation is to become applicable only in the event of proportional representation being adopted. That is how we left it. The hon. Baronet will remember it because he was there at the time and it was the first substantial point while he was there. One of our regrets was that Lord Grey's health broke-down, and he left the Conference before the question of proportional representation was ever discussed. Therefore, hon. Members will see that the whole of this idea that the exercise of the dual vote in the mind of any member of the Conference hangs upon the question of proportional representation is altogether unfounded and misconceived, and I do not believe that there was anyone who was present at the Conference and who taxes his memory who will trace any connection between the two things any further than I have indicated. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Walthamstow tried to limit the circle of the exercise of the vote to that small extent. In Glasgow you might have five places and in Liverpool three places, but it was never contemplated by anybody that the exercise of the dual vote is so restricted that in no-circumstances should you exercise two votes within the confines of one great borough.
    Mr. C. ROBERTS: To prevent possible misunderstanding which may arise, as I understand the point which this Amendment is intended to deal with will be cleared away if the House comes to the-conclusion that the limited experiment of proportional representation may be tried,

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    but if the House comes to an adverse decision then two doubts must be in our mind. The one is the doubt whether it is possible to raise this Amendment again, and on that the Chairman has only ruled that he will decide when he arrives at Clause 28 or on Report. But at all events, we are not very certain of getting this particular point dealt with when we arrive at Clause 28, and the Report stage is not a very favourable opportunity. The other point is this. I listened carefully to what the Secretary of the Local Government Board said. He made a speech very sympathetic towards this Amendment, but did not go very far. What he said was, that assuming that the Committee decided against proportional representation, then he thought that it might be left to the House whether they should accept this Amendment or not. That is possibly as far as he could go, but it is not a very firm or cast-iron undertaking, and it is not much to trust to. It is quite obvious that there is a considerable portion of this House which means by no means to concede this Amendment if it can possibly stop it. I do not think I have misrepresented the attitude of mind of the hon. Member for Hammersmith. Therefore, I think it is for the House to take notice of that when we come to Clause 15.
    Mr. DICKINSON: Will it be competent to move now, that the question be not now put but to leave the Motion where it remains, and would it preclude a full discussion on this question when we arrive at Clause 28?
    The CHAIRMAN: I do not think so. I do not think that I have ever heard in Committee of the Motion that the question be not now put. That question, as far as the Committee is concerned, has always been considered irregular. The Report stage is the proper stage for reviewing a decision of the Committee, if it is not open on the remainder of the Committee stage. The hon. Member, who moved the Amendment, asked leave to withdraw it. That leave was refused. Therefore, the Committee, I think, must come to a decision at this particular point.
    Mr. H. SAMUEL: If the Amendment is moved now, and if proportional representation be struck out of the Bill, in that state of circumstances can the matter be heard afresh?
    Sir W. BULL: I have no objection to withdraw the Amendment.
    The CHAIRMAN: I am very glad the hon. Member is taking that course.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Sir G. CAVE: I beg to move, in Subsection (1), to leave out the words" two constituencies" ["for more than two constituencies"], and to insert instead thereof the words" one constituency for which she is registered by virtue of her own or her husband's local government qualification, or for more than one constituency for which she is registered by virtue of any other qualification."
    Sir F. BANBURY: This question was discussed some time ago, and I pointed out that the House would deprive the woman of one of her votes. I think we ought to have some explanation from the Home Secretary as to whether that interpretation is correct. I think it was admitted that it was correct, and if it is correct, I submit that the Home Secretary should put in some new words which would meet the objections which have been raised, and he might do that on the Report stage. We all desire that the woman should not be in a better position than the man, but, on the other hand, we all wish that she should be put in the same position as the man.
    Sir G. CAVE: We are all agreed that something should be done in the circumstances, and, if the right hon. Gentleman considers it, he will see that the matter is very difficult, and that it is necessary to put the provision of the Bill in this way. The Bill as drafted went too far, for it gave the woman an advantage over the man, an advantage that it was not desirable she should have. Nobody has yet been able to suggest to me any other form of words which would meet this difficulty.
    Sir F. BANBURY: So far as I can make out. Clause 4 says that
    "A woman shall be entitled to be registered as a Parliamentary elector for a constituency (other than a university constituency) if she has attained the age of thirty years and is entitled to be registered as a local government elector in respect of land or premises in that constituency, or is the wife of a husband entitled to be so registered."

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    Then the Clause also goes on to say that:
    "A woman shall be entitled to be registered as a local government elector for any local government electoral area where she would be entitled to be so registered if she were a man, provided that a husband and wife shall not both be qualified as local government electors in respect of the same property."
    My contention is that the woman is qualified under that Clause to be registered as a Parliamentary elector if her husband is registered as a local government elector in the area in which she is registered, that then the woman also gets the vote and is also entitled to be registered as a local government elector, in which case she would also get the Parliamentary vote in respect of the premises. Take the case of a woman married and who lives with her husband at Hampstead. She is entitled to the Parliamentary vote because her husband is on the local government register. She would also be entitled to vote in respect of a theatre, because if she were a man she would be on the local government register for that particular business of the theatre. This Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman takes one of these qualifications from her, and I think that is wrong. I am opposed to the franchise for women, but, now that it is given, I am not like the right hon. Member for St. Pancras (Mr. Dickinson), who is a supporter of women's suffrage, but who seems to be actuated by a desire to prevent women from exercising the vote. I always find that he is desirous of limiting their exercise of a vote, and he voted against women having the vote at twenty-one. If there is any particular Clause which will minimise the woman's vote in any kind of way, the right hon. Member seems only too anxious to do so. For my part I do not hold that view. Having committed ourselves to giving votes to women, we say that you should do it on the same grounds as you do it for men. I think my contentions are right, and I again ask the Home Secretary not to press this Amendment at the present moment as it might put women in an invidious position or in a worse position than the man. The right hon. Gentleman should endeavour, on the Report stage, to put in words which would place her in the same position as the man. I think that is a very reasonable request to make. It is very difficult to remember
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    on the Report stage, which may not be reached for some weeks, what has taken place in the Committee stage, and therefore I think it would be better not to deal with the Amendment now, but to take it on the Report stage, after the right hon. Gentleman has had an opportunity of considering what words should be put in.
    Sir J. D. REES: I support the right hon. Baronet's appeal, and I think he has expressed the position of many of those who are opposed to female suffrage, but who, now that women are to have the vote, feel that they should have it on exactly the same terms as men. To me it seems that the definition now introduced by the Home Secretary's Amendment would put the woman on a different footing from the man.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the words "her own or her husband's local government qualification, or for more than one constituency for which she is registered by virtue of any other qualification," and to insert instead thereof the words" a local government qualification in respect of premises occupied by her as a dwelling-house, or by virtue of Her husband's local government qualification in respect of premises occupied in which they both reside, or for more than one constituency for which she is registered by virtue of other qualifications of whatever kind."
    I cannot see why a woman should not get the vote in her own right, nor can I understand how she can be kept out of it. Whether or not the words I propose cover the point I do not know, but I submit the Amendment for the Home Secretary's consideration.
    Sir G. CAVE: I will think about these words and look at them carefully to see whether it can be done. At present I do not see that it can.
    Sir F. BANBURY: Are we to understand that the Home Secretary will consider this Amendment or propose his own words? Will he really consider whether these or other words can be put in the Bill on the Report stage that will carry out the desire expressed by the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs? I do not think the right hon. Gentleman desires to deprive the woman of a vote, and perhaps he can give us an undertaking in regard to the matter?
    Sir G. CAVE: I will think about this Amendment and see what it amounts to.
    Amendment to the proposed Amendment negatived.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Colonel GRETTON: I beg to move, at the end of the Clause, to insert the words, "This Section shall have effect not-withstanding any provision of the Ballot Act of 1872."
    Section 24 of the Ballot Act of 1872 provides that it shall be an offence if a man who has voted once applies at the same election for another paper in his own name. The Board of Commissioners are at present considering the boundaries of the constituencies, and, whatever changes may take place, we will have two-member borough constituencies, and the same will be the case in some counties. This does not involve the question of proportional representation, because in two-member boroughs that would not apply. I do not think it is intended that those who get the business qualification vote and the residential qualification vote should lose their votes when in constituencies in the same borough or in a county. As the law stands, there are heavy penalties for voting twice at the same Parliamentary election. For that reason, these words, or words of a somewhat similar kind, are necessary in order to make effective the provisions of this Clause.
    Mr. L. SCOTT: I think a further word or two of explanation is necessary. Section 24 of the Ballot Act of 1872 provides that it shall be an offence of personation not only if a man votes in the name of some other person, but if he is a man who, having voted once at an election in a borough or county, applies at the same election far another paper in his own name. In the case of a borough like Liverpool, which is divided into different Parliamentary divisions, the effect of that Act is that the voter can only vote once at the election for Liverpool, although there are separate elections for each one of the divisions of Liverpool on the same day. In the Bill, as proposed, a man is to have a second vote for his business premises, irrespective of any such limitation as that. Consequently, if you leave Section 24 of the Act of 1872 standing, it has got to be read with the provisions of this Bill, and it is quite clear, if I may express an opinion as a lawyer, that it would be read in such a way as to
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    take from the business qualification voter the value of his business qualification if he happened to be within the same borough or the same county. The Speaker's Conference did not contemplate any such limitation as that, and, consequently, words to this effect are necessary to prevent that happening.
    Sir G. CAVE: This seems to raise in, another form the point about which there was a discussion just now. Instead of accepting these words now, my present view is that this point had better stand over for consideration.
    Mr. H. SAMUEL: The course which the right hon. Gentleman has suggested is, I think, a very wise one. If the Bill standing in this respect as it is now, certainly before it leaves this House we ought to modify any provision which is inconsistent with it, and I think it is quite clear that we cannot have two Statutes which contradict one another. It seems to me a pity to raise this question afresh and to put in additional provisions in the Bill in a sense which many of us object to if later on. the whole Bill in this particular is to be recast. Therefore, it appears to me that the right course would be to leave this over until we come to a final decision in the Committee stage. I quite agree with the hon. Member (Mr. L. Scott) if it is decided to leave the Bill as it now stands in Clause 7, then at some stage his desire ought to be met, and an Amendment in the sense he desires ought to be included.
    Colonel GRETTON: Even if the question of proportional representation is decided in a way contrary to the vote given the other day, I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the difficulty with which I propose to deal would still arise in a borough with two members. I suggest that it would be safe to take these words, or some such words now for that reason. If the right hon. Gentleman realises that point as to the two-member borough or county, even should proportional representation be adopted, and if he agrees to deal with it on Report, I am quite willing to withdraw. I should like to have an assurance on that point.
    Sir G. CAVE: I entirely realise the point, and I noticed it myself and mentioned it to my right hon. Friend before we came to this Amendment.
    Colonel GRETTON: On that assurance I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    The CHAIRMAN: The Question is that leave be given to withdraw the Amendment.
    Mr. KING: I object to the Amendment feeing withdrawn. I think it is much better that it should be negatived.
    Amendment negatived.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
    Sir F. BANBURY: Now that the Clause is amended, I suppose that does not make any difference to the undertaking given by the Home Secretary that on the Report stage he will consider this matter?
    Sir G. CAVE: No.
    Mr. KING: In reply to the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury), I wish to reserve my right to speak on this subject later. There are very good reasons, which arc shared by a great number of Members, why this Amendment should be negatived and not later on put in the Bill.

    CLAUSE 8.—(Provision as to Disqualifications.)
    (1) A person shall not be entitled to be registered or to vote as a Parliamentary or local government elector if he has received for thirty days or more in the aggregate during the qualifying period poor relief (other than medical relief), or other alms which by the law of Parliament disqualify persons from so being registered or voting:
    Provided that a person shall not be disqualified under this provision by reason only that some person for whose maintenance he is responsible has been maintained in any institution for lunatics within the meaning of the Lunacy Act, 1890, or in any institution for idiots.
    The disqualification enacted by this provision shall be in substitution for any disqualification on account of the receipt of poor relief or alms existing at the commencement of this Act, but this provision shall not affect any other statutory enactment for the time being in force giving special relief from any such disqualification.
    The expression "medical relief" includes all medical and surgical attendance, and all matters or things supplied by or on the recommendation of the medical officer having authority to give any such attendance and recommendation at the expense of any rate.
    (2) Nothing contained in this Act shall, except as expressly provided therein, confer on any person who is subject to any legal incapacity to be registered or to vote any right to be so registered or to vote.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I beg to move to leave out Sub-section (1).
    This is the Sub-section which disqualifies any person from being registered if he has received Poor Law relief in the manner set forth in the Bill. I am glad when we come to discuss this question that we are running no risk of upsetting any decision of the Speaker's Conference since, so far as I am aware, this matter did not form part of the decisions reached by that Conference. I think we should examine this provision which has been a feature of legislation in this country for so many years. This feature or something analogous has found a place in legislation affecting Poor Law and Poor Law legislation from the earliest times. I think that with the development of social reform and the position now arrived at we ought seriously to consider whether we should disqualify from voting a man or woman simply because they have received Poor Law relief. This is a policy which has in the past been a consistent policy, but it has become modified a great deal. In the reign of Edward III. the person who received Poor Law relief was subjected to very vicious penalties. In the Poor Law legislation of the time of Elizabeth the person relieved was still penalised in a very savage way. Although we have removed a great deal of those savage features, we still retain this amazing proviso that the receipt of Poor Law relief shall disqualify the recipient from the exercise of the vote. I should, like to ask the Committee why this should be a disqualification any longer. We do not disqualify the criminal because he is a criminal, and we do not disqualify other classes of voters who are in receipt of relief of precisely the same kind in principle as Poor Law relief. We do not disqualify voters because they receive public assistance in the matter of educa-

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    tion. We do not disqualify voters because they receive public assistance in the matter of housing, or in the matter of health insurance or treatment; indeed, legislation that has been carried through Parliament in connection with the subject of health insurance was legislation which was designed and intended to remove the need for Poor Law relief in many oases, and as all these forms of public assistance which are given, and in the opinion of Parliament are properly given, to many bodies of citizens are not any disqualification from the exercise of the franchise, why should the receipt of Poor Law relief be any longer considered a disqualification? I should like to point out that the local bodies all over the country who come most intimately in touch with this problem, particularly the parish councils, are in many cases opposed to this Subsection, and have expressed their desire, by memorials to this House and in other ways, that the disqualification should be removed. I hope the Committee will see there is something very illogical and very unfair in maintaining the disqualification, in view of the fact that all the other public assistance which is properly given to so many people forms no disqualification whatever.
    There is another reason why I desire to press this Amendment. Social conditions in our country have changed very rapidly in the last few years. Women occupy a place in our civic life which no one could have realised or anticipated a few years ago, and it has followed that in increasing degree women receive Poor Law relief. I think it would be very unfair to disqualify from the new franchise for women those women who have received Poor Law relief. This would be particularly so in the new social conditions that have arisen in this country owing to the War, because many old women, through no fault of their own, have to receive Poor Law relief. It should not be regarded as a stigma in a great number of these cases when women receive Poor Law relief. Parliament tried earnestly and successfully to prevent the grant of old age pensions being regarded as a stigma. The grant of old age pensions, as the Committee well knows, forms no disqualification from the exercise of the franchise. The grant of Poor Law relief in many cases is wholly analogous to the grant of old age pensions, and there is as little reason for Poor Law relief to be a disqualification from the exercise of the
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    franchise as there is for old age pensions to be a disqualification. I think this question of the new position of women and of the way in which they are affected by the operation of the existing law is very important in considering this question, and I trust the Committee will give attention to that new phase of the social problem as it exists to-day.
    I have only this further to say: I propose the entire omission of the Sub-section, which again affirms this disqualification, and which, of course, is an existing disqualification. I realise that it will not be sufficient merely to omit the Sub-section, but that other words will be necessary. I have preferred, however, to simplify the matter by moving my Amendment in this form in order that the Government may consider whether or no they desire to maintain this disqualification, because it would then be for the Government, if they decided to remove it, to insert the simple, appropriate words for doing so in the form that they, or their legal advisers, prefer. I will only say on the drafting of this Clause that it is drafted in a very ambiguous form. It makes the vaguest references to the enactments which are at present in force, and when I remember how many of the enactments at present in force are being repealed wholly or in part in the Schedule, I feel that the drafting of this Clause in any case requires very considerable alteration and much more definiteness. It is not on this ground, however, that I move my Amendment. I move it in order to protest against this disqualification being any longer embodied in our legislation, and I trust that the Government will give a sympathetic consideration to the Amendment.
    Sir J. SPEAR: On a point of Order. If this Amendment is dealt with will it prevent my moving the Amendment I have further down the Paper, removing this-disqualification?
    The CHAIRMAN: No. I am going to-put the words in such a form as to preserve the hon. Member's Amendment which stands a little later on the Paper. Here it is a question of two different forms of arriving at the same purpose. If my view is of any value, I think the hon. Gentleman's form is the better, namely, to express in terms what the Committee intends. to do rather than to leave out the Subsection. That, however, is a point on-which I am not giving a ruling, I am only expressing an opinion. All I will say is

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    that I will put the words in such a form that if the present Amendment is withdrawn—I am not sure about negatived—it will be left open to the hon. Member to move his Amendment subsequently.
    Mr. L. SCOTT: I desire to support in the very strongest words I can the principle of the Amendment. I think it is contrary to all the sound social principles that poverty should of itself be regarded as a disqualification for anything, and I must myself confess that from the point of view of the future it seems to me of the highest importance that the receipt of proper public assistance under proper conditions when it is deserved should not carry with it any stigma at all. If you are going to save that public assistance from the possibility of conveying a stigma it is essential that it should not be made a disqualification for a vote. The principle is so simple and to me so plain that I venture to say nothing more to the Committee than that. It is to me a principle of fundamental importance that it should not of itself be a disqualification. Of course, it must not be thought that the object of the Amendment is to confer the qualification on the inmate of a workhouse or anything of that sort. Nothing of that sort is meant by this Amendment. It merely means that if a person is qualified under this Bill for a vote the fact that at some time that person has received assistance from the rates as a pauper shall not disqualify him or her.
    Sir J. D. REES: I submit that the speeches to which the House has listened are very fair samples of the manner in which social reformers disregard other people's property and the actualities of any situation. The simple question is, Is a person who is living upon the public, not paying his own way, to vote the taxes, and to decide how much money is to be raised from other people who are paying for his keep, and how that money is to be spent? I think that once you put the matter on that footing it is sufficient to dispose of the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Whitehouse). He argued that it was no disgrace to be a criminal, and asked why the receipt of relief should be a disgrace. I am act sure that he was right. I am not sure that a criminal is able to vote in gaol, or that he in invited to put a cross against A or B. Nor is a person in receipt of relief disqualified unless he has received relief for thirty days or more in the
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    aggregate during the qualifying period. I fail altogether to see, therefore, the analogy which the hon. Gentleman has sought to establish. The hon. and learned Gentleman beside me (Mr. Leslie Scott) spoke as if this disqualification was perpetual. He said, I think, "has received at any time relief." For the moment, I think, he rather overlooked the particularity of the Clause, and the-way in which it is restricted to the receipt of relief for thirty days or more in the aggregate during the qualifying period. The speech of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Whitehouse) also indicates how right those were who argued that the process of pauperising the people was likely to be increased by the passing of the-Insurance Act. It is also noteworthy that that Act has not reduced the amount spent on Poor Law relief, at any rate in the localities with which I am familiar. I am not, of course, able to speak for others, but that it has not done so in the localities with which I am familiar I can say. I have only to repeat that I think we have gone very far in the direction of letting everyone live on everybody else and of encouraging them to do so, when it is proposed that people living on the public taxes should vote as to what those taxes should be and how the money raised is to be spent.
    8.0 P.M.
    Mr. DENNISS: It is not often, or perhaps it is almost never, that I am in agreement with the hon. Member who moved the omission of this Sub-section; but on this occasion I am. On the contrary, I differ most absolutely from the tone and manner of the speech of the hon. Member for Nottingham (Sir J. D. Rees). The old age pensioner gets as a right 5s. a week, and that does not disqualify him for the vote; but if a person gets Poor Law relief to the extent of 5s. a week that is a right equally with the pension, and yet he is to be disqualified from the vote. Under the Insurance Act the State contributes a considerable proportion of the insurance money to a large number of people who get that as a right. They are not disqualified in any way from the vote. The hon. Member for Nottingham seems to forget that many of the most worthy persons in this country ultimately get into poor-houses. The agricultural labourer, for instance, whose wages have been in the past—I" hope they will not be in the future— so disgracefully low, finds it impossible for him to save enough money, in

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    many cases, to keep out of the workhouse. Nine out of ten people who get into the workhouse do not get there through their own fault, but simply through misfortune, very often through sickness, and again a large family may have dragged them down. To the State they had to look at that moment, and the State has put them in an institution, and when they are there they will not get the vote. They will not have the residential qualification, and yet what distinction is there between the old age pensioner who gets five shillings a week from the Exchequer and an outdoor pauper under the guardians? There is none. Both have had a right conferred upon them by the State, and you cannot distinguish them from those who have received contribution under the Insurance Act.
    Sir J. D. REES: The House distinguishes them.
    Mr. DENNISS: The House has always made the distinction up to a point, but there is no ground for distinction except the prejudice which the hon. Member for Nottingham has made about people who, he says, live upon other people. Take the agricultural labourer. He is performing valuable duties to the community. He has not been able to save up to tide over old age, and perhaps he has only been able to save a shilling or two shillings a week after keeping him. He has to go into the workhouse. I think the time has arrived when not only the Labour party, but the Radical party and a vast majority of the Conservative party, should declare against making mere poverty, whether through misfortune or not, a reason for a man's not receiving a vote. I appeal to the Committee to remove such an odious disqualification.
    Mr. H. SAMUEL: I wish to put a word to the Home Secretary that we may know clearly how this question affects voters under the Poor Law disqualification. Would a person living in a workhouse be qualified or not? Would he be a resident for the purposes of this Bill 1 I am told by some that he would, while on the other hand it is pointed out that there is a difficulty as to whether he or she is a resident. Secondly, prisoners, I am told by the same authority, may be going to vote. Perhaps the Home Secretary will tell us his view on the matter. Pauperism
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    has very greatly altered in character during the last forty or fifty years. Able-bodied pauperism, even before the exceptional conditions of the War, almost ceased to exist, and persons in receipt of Poor Law relief were almost entirely disqualified, though their misfortune was owing to sickness or old age, or something of that kind. That, I think, should influence the opinion of Parliament. No very great outcry was known, probably, in those days of the Poor Law reformers of 1832. After that, the able-bodied man who refused to work, and lived upon the rates—that class almost ceased to exist. The persons who are in receipt of Poor Law relief are, generally speaking, widows left with large families to support. When I had the honour to be President of that Department we circularised Poor Law unions to ascertain whether the Poor Law-relief in such cases was generously given— not regarded as a dole, but as a means of providing for families when the mother had to have recourse to work. The mother ought not to be required to work in those circumstances; in the interests of her home she should be looking after her own children.
    It is very hard when the State acts in such a way as to deprive these women of the franchise. My own view of the matter is associated with the fact that associations of Poor Law unions have lately considered circumstances arising out of the Bill. They circularised Members of the House, urging the removal of that policy in toto. And what next? The Scottish Association, representing parish councils, standing, one would suppose, for thrift, have endorsed the action of the Poor Law Association in relation to the recommendations as regards this Bill. As to the majority of the Speaker's Conference, if there be in this House any strong body of opinion which says that we are to regard this as part of the compromise arrived at by the Speaker's Conference, and that we will require the Government to stand by the arrangement, that will have to be taken into account. No such view has been expressed in any quarter. The Government would hardly be adopting the recommendation if they did not close the door to it and indicate that in their view Parliament might in these circumstances abolish the Poor Law disqualification for the Parliamentary election. I am not sure whether all these instructions carry the same weight, when we come to local government later. I am not sure whether a

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    person in receipt of Poor Law relief would make a free and independent elector for local government purposes. I have not formed any final conclusion on the point, but as far as Parliamentary elections are concerned, my only feeling is that this object should be consulted as far as possible.
    Sir J. SPEAR: I am strongly in favour of the discontinuance of the disqualification of persons in receipt of Poor Law relief. I am bound to say that I think my Amendment would have been a better way of doing it than the Amendment under consideration, but so strongly do I feel in support of the principle that I gather from what you said, Sir, that as this Amendment is under consideration I should not move my Amendment. If I have the right to speak on the Amendment I would like to say that I am on a council representing 560 boards of guardians; that is, of the Association of Poor Law Unions, and the Council passed a resolution asking me to put down an Amendment in my name. Further than that, I have a communication from the representative of the Poor Law administration in Scotland in support of that Amendment. The time has gone when the taint, as it is called, should be removed. I have had forty years' experience of Poor Law administration, and I beg to repudiate the argument of the hon. Member opposite when he contended that this would lead to improvidence.
    It is painful that the people who have served the country well as regards labour should, through illness, have had to get assistance from the rates. They have been contributors to the rates themselves, but the hon. Baronet spoke just now as if they had made no financial response to the country. Their labour has been the foundation of our wealth, and they have paid rates towards other people in distress. It is only reasonable, if they are, in the opinion of the guardians, deserving and entitled to relief, that they should suffer no disqualification thereby. The guardians are not only guardians of the poor but guardians of the rates, and we are not likely to be unmindful or permit extravagance. When you have an association like the Poor Law Association, representing guardians all over the country, and representatives of the Parish Councils of Scotland in favour of the abolition of the disqualification, I think they are deserving of attention. The
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    Committee will not, I am sure, ignore all the opinions of men and women who have rendered great service to the country in the administration of the Poor Law that those under their care should be relieved of the disqualification. You have an anomaly in this respect. A man has a vote up to forty-five. He exercises the franchise. Misfortune falls upon him. He has had no opportunity, owing to the smallness of his remuneration in his younger days, to lay up for infirmity or old age, and, moreover, he has seen the breaking up of the village clubs which rendered some service at the time before the more general form of insurance became popular. The clubs had to go, and the man who had contributed to them for many years had to make provision for sickness again. If he lives till he is seventy and gets his old age pension he gets his vote again. Clearly the proposal now before us is illogical and inconsistent, and I appeal to the Government to put the matter right. The proposal which some of us are putting forward is in no way hostile to the decision of the Conference. The Bill itself provides that where a person has had relief for not more than thirty days the disqualification shall not be enforced; therefore the Government acknowledge the principle. We ask them to do away altogether with the limitation, and to give to these poor people the opportunity to take part in the government of the country.
    It has been pointed out that there are many persons receiving assistance in public health institutions who are not disqualified; neither are those persons disqualified who receive help by the feeding of their children at the schools. The receipt of an old age pension does not disqualify. Surely, under these circumstances, the time has come when this stigma should be removed? It is, I know, said that there are some improvident people who might be included in this. I admit that. But there also may be those amongst every class of people enfranchised by this Bill. Consequently that is not, I submit, a justification for continuing this disqualification any longer. I am sure the removal of the disability will he appreciated by those who are concerned, and who have been driven from sheer necessity, now they are not able to maintain themselves, to come upon the rates to which they have contributed for many years. Their position is painful enough as it is without it being made more so by

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    this stigma. As a member of a board of guardians it has often gone to my heart to see those who have worked hard all their lives driven, towards the end, to ask for relief. Those under seventy are certainly quite as deserving as those above seventy. They ought not to have this insult placed upon them any longer. I appeal to the Home Secretary to meet us on this point, and, instead of making the limit thirty days, to remove it altogether. He has, if he will allow me respectfully to say so, shown the right spirit by the provision he has put into the Bill. He has conceded the principle. Let him, I ask, now give us the whole substance.
    Mr. WARDLE: I am exceedingly glad that the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has said what he has said, speaking in the name of the Association of Poor Law Guardians, and also with the reference that he made to the Scottish Boards of Guardians. He reinforced the appeal made by my lion. Friend opposite in regard to this matter. I do not think that the Amendment quite meets the case. I am not quite sure that this is the proper way to do it, but I am going to add my appeal to those who have gone before, for I think it is high time that this stigma was removed—that the abolition of the pauper disqualification, for Parliamentary voting purposes, was removed altogether. For local government purposes, I quite agree, it may be different. That, as my hon. Friend opposite said, is a different consideration. It is a question whether a person who is actually in receipt of rates should be qualified to exercise the local government vote. With regard to Parliamentary voting purposes, it is perfectly true that the recommendation was made by the Speaker's Conference as to the thirty days. I would be the last person in the world—and I say it quite honestly and fairly—if I believed this matter was one on which the House felt keenly, or was one in which the Speaker's Conference had felt a deep concern, or that it would in any sense whatever affect this Bill, to be a party to wrecking the Bill, or the compromise, in order even to support the hon. Member opposite. I do not, however, think that that is at all the position in any degree whatsoever. This is a matter on which the House surely has a right to make up its mind! The Speaker's Conference considered the matter, and its recommendation was as far as it could agree to go.
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    I feel sure, however, that the members of the Speaker's Conference would have gone quite the whole length if they had felt that the House of Commons would have supported them in so doing. It is really a matter in which they made a very modest proposition, because they were afraid that they might not have the House of Commons with them. If the House of Commons says that it is anxious and willing that all this trumpery business—and, after all, it is a trumpery business— should be wiped out, and if we who support that clear-cut decision are unanimously agreed to wipe out the pauper disqualification altogether, I believe there is not a single member of the Speaker's Conference who would not hail with delight that decision. The speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down does him infinite credit. It is the boards of guardians and the local governing bodies who hitherto have been the great stumbling block in the way of this reform. When they, therefore, come in such large numbers and practically present a petition to this House to the effect that the pauper disqualification should be removed, I say that we are living in times very different to the old days, when, because a person received relief from the rates-it was thought necessary to disqualify him from performing the simple duty of voting for a Member of Parliament. It reminds one rather of the old idea of the theologians with regard to sin—that everything: that happened to a person was the result of or a punishment for sin. That idea has gone. This idea ought to go with it. It ought not to be thought that because a person is unfortunately in circumstances that require an appeal to the Poor Law that therefore he was a sinner or there was some wrong attaching to him. That is an invidious distinction which in these enlightened days is not entertained; it ought to be quite done away with altogether. I therefore join in the appeal that has been made by the hon. Members who have preceded me, that the Government should wipe out this stigma altogether, and do away with the pauper disqualification in the Bill. It has an awfully bad" name in the country, and if the Government can do what we ask I for one will be very glad.
    Colonel PENRY WILLIAMS: I desire to join in the appeal made from all quarters of the House that this pauper disqualification should be got rid of once and for all.

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    I quite agree that it may not be politic to get rid of it so far as local government elections are concerned. So far, however, as Parliamentary elections are concerned, this disqualification is an antiquated piece of legislation and ought to go. Now I would like to call the attention of the Committee to the harsh operation of the pauper disqualification in many cases. Many of us who remember the national coal strike of 1912, which lasted for three months, will recollect that many people lost their vote through absolutely no fault of their own. The coal miners came out on strike and the iron workers, who had no influence in any way on the coal miners, were compelled to lose their votes because they could not exist for the whole three months without appealing to the boards of guardians. I put a question at that time to the then Prime Minister asking him if he would take steps to prevent people being disqualified from that cause, because I knew of cases where men were deliberately starving themselves and their children so as not to be compelled to lose their vote. I would appeal to the Government to consider in a sympathetic way the removal of this disqualification. There have been sundry Amendments to this Bill accepted by the Government, and I think I am correct in saying that they have all been in a narrowing sense—that is, a narrowing of the democratic principle of the Bill, if I may say so without offence— and if they accept this Amendment, or the Amendment of my hon. Friend later on the Paper, they will do something to restore the balance.
    Mr. WING: I should like to join with the other hon. Members in asking the Government to accede to what is really a general desire. There is no one better acquainted with the merits of the case than the right hon. Member at the Local Government Board who is now in charge of the Bill. The workhouses are no longer the workhouses as understood in other times. They really have become very largely, shall I say, infirmaries for the aged poor, and have become very much more humanised institutions. I would not like to do anything to endanger this Bill. I have supported the Government right through, and if this proposal were in any way undermining the compromise under which this Bill was drawn up I would be the last to urge it, but I feel that we are urging a matter in harmony with the opinion of that Conference. Whilst it has
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    been stated that there might be some objection, so far as local government is concerned, in the sense that rates come in, I hope my right hon. Friend in charge of the Bill, if he cannot accept this Amendment, will in some way, at any rate, provide means whereby the pauper disqualification shall be removed, so that this Bill will find a happy echo in many a poor man's breast when he knows that what he has suffered will not be suffered by his fellow-workers, and that he will live to see the time when this is wiped off the Statute Book, and that the man who takes a deep interest in national politics shall not, through circumstances of misfortune, be deprived of what he regards as of great value—namely, the vote. I do hope, after the expression of the feeling of the Committee, the Government will concede this small reform.
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: I have been very much struck by the tone and tendency of this Debate, and by no speeches more than that delivered by the hon. Member for Stockport, the Leader of the Labour party, who was a member of the Speaker's Conference. I think the whole Committee must recognise the extreme difficulty of the Government in going beyond the lines laid down by the Speaker's Conference, but when we are told by the Leader of the Labour party that the Speaker's Conference came to this very limited decision because they were afraid that the House of Commons would not support them if they made any more extensive recommendation, then I think that must weigh very much; and I think that anybody who has listened to this Debate, or who reads it, will bear me out in saying that there is almost a complete concensus of opinion that the Speaker's Conference had really not reached the high-water mark which the House would desire in dealing with this matter. This question of the disqualification of people who have received Poor Law relief has been discussed for many years, and has been the subject of much debate. The general law is governed by the Reform Act of 1832, Section 36, under which no person shall be entitled to be registered as a voter who shall during the qualifying period have received parochial relief, or otherwise be disqualified. The year 1832 is a long time back. No doubt there was a desire to encourage thrift in every direction, and to encourage the sturdy independence of our people,

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    but we have travelled a very long way from that time, and that law itself has been considerably eaten into, because I have been reminded by several speakers in this Debate that we have had the Medical Belief Disqualification (Removal) Act, which provides that the receipt by any person, or by any member of his family, of medical or surgical assistance at the expense of the poor rate should not deprive him of his vote. That law applied to applicants for old age pensions. Then we had the Act which prescribes that no disqualification shall attach, so far as voting is concerned, because a man's children have to be fed by the Education Department.
    We all know to what an enormous extent now public assistance is given in a great variety of quarters, and it leaves us in this position, that the only public assistance which disqualifies a man from exercising his vote is that form which is derived from the Poor Law. This subject was much debated by the Poor Law Commission something like nine years ago. The Majority and the Minority Reports were in favour of some modification in this law, which pressed so hardly upon many poor and deserving people. I think the Report of the majority of that Commission did not go further than to say that they would recommend that nobody should be disqualified who had had relief for less than three months of the period of qualification. The Minority Report was in favour of sweeping away the whole of this disqualification. I have listened very carefully to this Debate, and I do not think I am going beyond what the Speaker's Conference would really have desired, or what the House would desire, particularly after the speech made by my right hon. Friend who not long ago was President of the Local Government Board, when I say that the Government are prepared if they are supported by the House, to go considerably further than the recommendations made by the Speaker's Conference. In casting about as to what form that advance should take, I may say that I do not think it possible for us to accept the Amendment which has been moved by the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark (Mr. Whitehouse), because it is not in a form which we could accept, and it would necessitate other words being put in to enable everyone to know exactly what the law was after we have made the changes we propose to make. We are
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    desirous to make the law perfectly plain as regards the franchise, and we do not want to have any more legislation by reference if we can possibly avoid it.
    The Amendment which seems to fulfil the general purpose which T have in mind, and which I think the Committee has in mind, is the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for the Tavistock Division (Sir J. Spear), and which also stands in the name of the hon. Member for the Dartford Division of Kent (Mr. Rowlands). That Amendment appears to me, with some qualifications, to meet the main purpose which the Government, with the full assent of the House, desire to carry out. I wish to say how much I have been impressed with certain statements which have been made by the hon. Member for the Tavistock Division, who stated, speaking with, great authority as chairman of the Poor Law Associations, they had come to the conclusion that this punishment of disqualification of a voter because he has had Poor Law relief is really valueless as a deterrent to the kind of man we want to deter from coming on the Poor Law. During my term of office I have had other evidence to the same effect supplied by those who are most active in the administration of the Poor Law, many of whom have written me, or have seen me, and have told me that they no longer believe that this punishment or disqualification of men because they have at one time had recourse to the Poor Law is of any value as a deterrent for the kind of people they desire to punish, while at the same time it inflicts a very great hardship on many men who, often for only a very short time, have had to have recourse to the Poor Law, and who are consequently punished with the awful punishment to them of losing their independence and their power of voting for those who make the laws of the country. I think there is a real distinction to be drawn between the Parliamentary vote and the local government vote, and I do not feel able to go further here than to remove this disqualification in the case of a Parliamentary elector. T, therefore, suggest that the original Amendment might be withdrawn, and then I would accept the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Members for the Tavistock Division of Devonshire and the Dartford Division of Kent in this form:
    "To leave out from the first 'be ' to the end of the Sub-section, and to insert the words "disqualified from being

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    registered or from voting as a Parliamentary elector by reason that he or some person for whose maintenance he is responsible has received poor relief or other aims.'"
    By stopping there I avoid the necessity of putting in the whole of Sub-section (1) and of putting in the definition of medical relief. Those words I think practically cover all that we really ought to cover. I wish to make one further remark. I told the Home Secretary before he left the House what I was proposing to do, and he agrees with it, but he wishes to make this one suggestion: He thinks that anyone who is actually resident in a Poor Law institution should not have the franchise conferred on him, and later on he will propose himself or will accept an Amendment by which inmates of prisons, Poor Law institutions, and lunatic asylums shall not be qualified to vote.
    Mr. H. SAMUEL: Would that include infirmaries?
    Mr. FISHER: Perhaps my right hon. Friend will put that question when we come to that Amendment. I am now telling the Committee what words I propose to accept. We are really sweeping away the whole of the disqualification for Poor Law relief unless a person is actually an inmate of a workhouse. I apply that only to the Parliamentary elector and not to the local government elector. I have to consider this matter very carefully. I see other members of the Speaker's Conference present, and I have to be extremely careful as to how far I go in altering the Resolution of the Speaker's Conference, up or down or one way or the other. I feel that I cannot, being in charge of the Bill and speaking for the Government, undertake to make any great alteration of this kind, and this is a very considerable alteration, unless I feel that I have practically the consent of the House to do so. I think in this case I have that consent, and I am prepared to accept the Amendment in the form which I have suggested.
    Mr. SAMUEL: First of all, I wish to thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said, for I am sure his proposal will be welcome to the whole Committee. I am glad he has made the limitation with regard to prisons and residents in workhouses because I think there would be some objection to those people coming
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    out in a body to vote. There is another point I should like to put, and perhaps the Solicitor-General in view of the form in which the Secretary to the Local Government Board proposes to insert this Amendment will explain. He proposes, I think rightly, to draw a distinction between elections for local governing bodies and for Parliament, but the effect of that with regard to the women's franchise will be that the widow of whom I spoke previously will not have a vote for Parliament unless special provision is made to save her vote, because a woman is only qualified if her husband is dead—and in this case he is an occupier for local government purposes. If she is receiving for her children Poor Law relief that woman to whom we desire to give the Parliamentary franchise will not get it. I hope my right hon. Friend will give that point his particular attention to see that she shall be qualified for the Parliamentary franchise in spite of the general provisions of the Bill.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: I do not rise to express, any dissatisfaction with what my right hon. Friend has done, but I must express some surprise and say that I feel some amount of apprehension on behalf of my right hon. Friend himself. What has he done? At a time when the House might have been counted out—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—my right hon. Friend has not merely undertaken, as we have heard in connection with some other matters., to give consideration to this question on the Report stage, which is about as far as we have ever succeeded, but he has actually accepted an Amendment which sweeps away a principle which has been embodied in our franchise laws, as he himself told us, since 1832. An old Friend below me says, "A jolly good job, too." (Cheers.) I am not expressing any dissent whatever from that cheer. As far as I have ever had an opinion on the subject, it has been in favour of abolishing the Poor Law disqualification. I wonder, however, whether the unanimity with which the very small and select group of members in the House at this moment appear to greet this change will be absolutely reflected throughout the length and breadth of the land to-morrow. It may or it may not be, but I am a little apprehensive for my right hon. Friend seeing how very small the House was in which he made this enormous change. What will happen to my right

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    hon. Friend supposing, when it gets to be known in the Library and m the smoking rooms what he has done, there are still some Members who retain some part of the old Liberal tradition? I wonder what will be the fats of my right lion. Friend? This disqualification, which, as my right hon. Friend told the House, was put in in 1832, was the very life-blood of the old Liberal doctrine. For years and years, all the time the Liberal party was the predominant power in the State, there were two great Statutes which expressed their political philosophy, namely, the Reform Bill of 1832 and the Poor Law Bill of 1834. In both those Statutes this cruel disqualification, as it has been called to-day, and I am not inclined to dissent from that view, was enacted, find it was in the political philosophy of that party and has been sustained until practically the present day.
    My hon. Friend for Stockport (Mr. Wardle) expressed his gratification and surprise that an hon. Friend behind me (Sir J. Spear), representing the boards of guardians, should have come forward in favour of this Amendment. I do not think that he should have expressed surprise. If my hon. Friend had made a study, for example, of such a work as Mackay's "History of the Poor Law," he would have known that for years and years boards of guardians were seeking to gain more elasticity in the administration of the Poor Law and that they were being constantly gingered and spurred and curbed by Liberal Ministers at the Local Government Board, and that doctrine, which hon. Members with such unanimity have denounced this evening, "that poverty is a crime, and that you must do everything you possibly can to deter men from sinking into poverty and must drive them into thrift," is embodied time after time in famour Orders and memoranda sent down from Liberal Ministers at the Local Government Board to the various boards of guardians. Therefore, my only apprehension is that there may be some remnant of that Liberal doctrine left in the country. [An HON. MEMBER: "Do not worry about it!"] I am so afraid when it comes to be known what he has done in an expansive moment whilst there was practically nobody here—[HON. MEMBEBS: "No!"]—a select body, no doubt—I am so afraid when it comes to be known by that body of opinion outside, which is no doubt expressed by such a good old con-
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    servative organ of Liberalism as the "Daily News," my right hon. Friend will be denounced as taking advantage of a slack time in Parliament to bring in an old Tory doctrine. Hon. Members cannot deny—I am certain my right hon. and learned Friend (Sir J. Simon) will not deny—that from 1832 onwards, certainly for three-quarters of a century, and by no one more than by Mr. Disraeli, that Liberal doctrine was denounced. Now my right hon. Friend is following in Mr. Disraeli's footsteps, and I am very much afraid now that he is in a Coalition Government, sitting beside Liberal Ministers, it will be said that he has taken advantage of his position. All I can tell my right hon. Friend is that when he comes to be denounced for doing it I will promise him my support.
    Colonel YATE: We were all very much impressed by the speech made by my hon. Friend beside me (Sir J. Spear), and we all acknowledge the hardships that may occur under the Poor Laws, but I must say that I, for one, felt glad that the Speaker's Conference had put a limitation in their recommendations, and I was very glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman, when he announced that he was going to accept the Amendment, state that he too would put in a limitation cutting out from the franchise the permanent residents of workhouses. I would like to ask my right hon. Friend if he could not also cut out the occupants of our casual wards—the habitual vagrants. As far as I can see, they will be given the franchise. I have always all my life thought that when the State gives the franchise to its citizens there is a corresponding obligation on the part of the citizens to do something for the State. If a man pays Income Tax, of course he is entitled to a vote. If he pays rates he is entitled to a vote. In fact, if he does anything for the good of the State, like a soldier or a sailor who risks life or limb for the State, he is entitled to the vote. But I do not think a man is entitled to vote who is a burden to the State. A permanent resident in a workhouse is a burden to the State. So is the vagrant. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will maintain the limitations he has indicated, and that the State will not grant the franchise, which is the highest thing it can grant, to people who are a permanent burden upon it.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: I desire to thank the right hon. Gentleman for the very

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    kind speech he has made in favour of the great principle that has been advocated here to-night. Of course, we accept with gratitude the very large portion of the policy of this Amendment which he has adopted. I do not know that we all go quite so far as he does in leaving out the local government elector, although we all realise that there is a difference between the position of a Parliamentary elector and that of an elector for local government purposes. I suppose it might be asserted that if these persons had the vote in a local government election they might be considered as of some interest to the candidates putting up for boards of guardians and bodies of that description. So far as the principle of removing this disability from the Parliamentary elector is concerned, there will be no difference of opinion in the country at the present time. Hon Members have received from almost all the authorities in their constituencies an endorsement of that principle. We have moved a long way since 1834. When I was listening to the speech of the hon. Member for the St. Augustine's Division (Mr. E. McNeill), the only thing I regretted was that there had not been a Tory majority in this House since 1834 to sweep off the Statute Book the obnoxious principles held by the Liberal party. If ray memory is not at fault, it was in the period after the 80 elections that the Poor Law Medical Relief Bill was passed, which went on the lines upon which we are proceeding to-night. I admit it was only a small step in that direction, but it was passed—I do not in any way wish to introduce party politics into the question —during a Liberal Administration. However, what we want to do to-night is not to go back into past history, but to recognise that the old conditions of life and the old outlook on life have changed entirely now, and that we have to thank the 'Government for having accepted a principle we all endorse in the direction of removing the recipient of Poor Law relief from any stigma.
    9.0 P.M.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: I desire to associate myself with everything that was said by the hon. Member for the Tavistock Division (Sir J. Spear), and also to congratulate the Government upon the step they have taken. In the course of the -Debate several individual cases have been put forward, which were considered to be hard cases, in regard to men having been
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    deprived of their votes. There are two cases which have not yet been mentioned to the Committee and I should like to bring them forward. First, there is the case of the soldier and sailor. It may be said that the soldier or sailor will never come upon the parish for relief. I am very much afraid that in years to come you will find that some of the men who have fought in this War will, for some reason or other, be under the necessity of applying to the parish for relief. No member of this Committee would like to see that man deprived of his vote. There is another case—that of the man who has not received a pension, but who has been invalided out of the Army suffering from some disability judged to be not attributable to or aggravated by his service. I feel certain that a large number of such men will, sooner or later, have to apply to the parish for relief. It would be, I will not say a crime, but a most unpopular thing in the country if any of these men were deprived of the Parliamentary vote. Another point which I would ask the Committee to bear in mind, although it is hardly necessary for me to make it in view of the line the Government have taken, is that during this War many persons have suffered considerably, although they have not exactly taken part in it—mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and other people of a certain age. They have suffered materially owing to their sons or those who supported them being taken to fight at the front. What will happen after the War? A lot of these men have been killed. The class I have mentioned could hardly be described as being dependant upon these men, but they, no doubt, at no great distance of time, will have to come upon the parish for relief. No Member of this Committee would desire to see the dependants of any man who has fought for his country in this War disqualified because they had to come upon the parish for relief. These particular points apparently escaped the notice of some hon. Members who have spoken. I thought I might make them, so that the country, whom my hon. Friend (Mr. R. McNeill) thinks may consider the Government to have gone too far, may read not only what other hon. Members have said, but the points I have ventured to make to-night. Then there will be no discordant voice in the country, and every person, whether

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    Conservative or Liberal, or whatever his politics may be, will agree with the line taken by the Government.
    Sir J. SPEAR: I desire to say one word of thanks to my right hon. Friend for the way he has met us. He need not fear what the people will think of the action the Government have taken in this matter. It is another evidence of the broad-minded spirit which he shows in all matters of local government, and which I have seen displayed by him for many years, not only when in office, but when he has been a private Member. I am sure this step will gladden the hearts of those who have to prepare the register for elections. It will very much simplify their work. The right hon. Gentleman will never regret the action he has taken. It will be appreciated by all right-minded men, not excluding my hon. Friend the Member for the St. Augustine's Division (Mr. R. McNeill).
    Sir G. YOUNGER: As I understand the concession the Government have made, I believe it will meet Scottish opinion in the matter. In Scotland we do not send able-bodied men to the Poor-house. We are in the habit of providing for them by a system of out-door relief. I have very often felt that it is very unfortunate that some of these men—most respectable, decent people, who are getting that relief through no fault of their own—should be disqualified from the franchise in the way they have been. It is a very different thing to disqualify men who are living in the Poorhouse, particularly for the local government qualification. It is rather an absurdity that a man who is living on the rates should have a voice in the way they are spent. I understand that is being dealt with by the Government, and therefore that objection does not arise. But those who receive out-door relief are often deserving cases, and I am very glad the Government has made the concession.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: I do not like this matter to be decided without expressing gratitude, as representing a very poor and distressed part of London, to the right hon. Gentleman for the concession he has made. The hon. Member (Mr. McNeill). with the light and airy grace which is always associated with him, has allowed his imagination to establish the Poor Law disqualification as an eternal Liberal principle. He forgets that the Act in
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    which it was embodied is eighty-five years, old, that Liberalism makes progress, and that ideas do enlarge as society develops, and we within our own ranks have protested and girded against this thing for many years past. He also forgets that the concession, though made by a Tory Minister, is made by a Minister in a Coalition Government, presumably with the consent and assent of his colleagues, many of whom are Liberals, and that there is no need whatever to make a party cry of this because it is going to be carried into effect with the unanimous, consent of the House and the country. I thank the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment, and to thank the right hon. Gentleman for having, accepted its principle and for having responded so fully to what has proved the: unanimous feeling of the Committee.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: I beg to move to leave out all the words after the word "be" ["A person shall not be"], to the end of Sub-section (1), and to insert instead, thereof the words "disqualified from, being registered or from voting as a Parliamentary elector by reason that he or some person for whoso maintenance he is responsible has received poor relief or other alms."
    Mr. R. McNEILL: On a point of Order. As I understand the Amendment, it will alter the whole structure of the first Subsection. I have an Amendment which will come in at the beginning of line 23, and I want to know whether you can put this Amendment in such a way as to preserve my right to move it?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Not without some difficulty, but while the discussion is going on I will see whether I can devise some way of preserving the Amendment. I cannot do so by saving words. The Sub-section must go, but there are one or two other Amendments— for instance, the question of the disqualification of a person who has been an: inmate of a prison—and the best plan would be for this subject to be disposed of first, and then I think it would be open to the hon. Member (Mr. McNeill) to-move his Amendment dealing with the-j conscientious objector as a new Sub-section, after we have dealt with one or

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    two other Amendments which are cognate to the subject we are now dealing with.
    Mr. McNEILL: I should like to know whether it would be possible for me to preserve my rights among some other Amendments dealing with the same subject, though not precisely in the same way?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I should propose to take the hon. Member's Amendment first. It stands first on the Paper.
    Mr. DICKINSON: I entirely sympathise with the object of the Committee. In fact, at the Conference, I made the same proposal to abolish all the disqualifications, not only from paupers but also from peers, but in neither case did I entirely get the approval of the Conference. But in leaving out these words the right hon. Gentleman leaves out a proposal to remove the disqualification to a certain extent in respect of the local government vote. I do not know what he intends to do, but the proposal of the Conference was that both as regards Parliamentary and local government electors this disqualification should not be done away with altogether, but should be limited. If we leave out the words- as proposed we leave out all reference to the local government vote, and that immediately raises the question of the position, of the woman Parliamentary voter. Quite apart from' the question of the woman Parliamentary voter, I should strongly object to restoring the old pauper disqualification for the local government vote. That would be a retrograde step from the proposals made by the Conference. I shall certainly move, when these words are put as words to stand part of the Clause, to insert the words "or local government" between the words "Parliamentary" and "electors," so as to restore this Amendment to the shape in which it was originally proposed.
    Mr. FISHER: The Speaker's Conference did not touch the local government elector. Resolution 35, which was passed by a majority, is to the effect that the Conference was of opinion that no person who had received poor relief, other than medical relief, within thirty days of the qualifying period should be disqualified from being registered as a Parliamentary elector. There is no reference to the
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    local government vote. If the right hon. Gentleman seeks now to disturb the arrangement which was come to, we shall open up the whole question again. As regards the other point of the woman elector, I have already said that requires consideration, and at the proper time I will see, with the Home Secretary, that that has the consideration of the Government.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Colonel GRETTON: I have an Amendment on the subject of aliens voting. Shall I be able to move that at a later stage, in a slightly different form?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: It does not arise here. It comes up as an Amendment to an Amendment of the Home Secretary at a later stage.
    Colonel GRETTON: I beg to move, after the words last inserted, to insert the words: "A person shall not be entitled to be registered or to vote as a Parliamentary or local government elector if within the qualifying period such person has been an inmate, alter conviction, of any prison, or an inmate of any lunatic asylum or Poor Law institution, other than for medical relief, except as a member of the staff of such asylum or institution."
    There appears to be an oversight in the drafting of the Bill. It clearly cannot be intended that a person who is under treatment for insanity shall be registered as a voter, nor can it be intended that the person who is in prison for an offence against the law should be registered as a voter and allowed to vote. I have drawn this Amendment as a safeguard against any proposal of that kind which may hereafter arise. I do not think that anyone will argue that the inmate of a Poor Law institution whilst an inmate should be registered as a voter. The last words of my Amendment are intended to safeguard the staff who would otherwise be qualified, and certainly should not lose their vote, because they are performing public work caring for lunatics or insane people or in charge of persons who are inmates of Poor Law institutions. I will not labour the matter, although I am quite prepared to advance adequate and very strong reasons why an Amendment of this character should be inserted in the Bill.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Perhaps the hon. Member, in view of the alteration which has been made with regard to Poor Law inmates, will agree to my putting the Amendment in this form: "A person shall not be entitled to be registered or to vote as a Parliamentary or local government elector if within the qualifying period such person has been an inmate, after conviction, of any prison, or an inmate of any lunatic asylum, except as a member of the staff of such asylum."
    Colonel GRETTON: I agree to that.
    Mr. FISHER: I cannot accept the Amendment in the form in which it stands. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is anxious to put in words to ensure that inmates of lunatic asylums and prisons shall be disqualified from the franchise. If the hon. Member will be satisfied with that assurance he may rely upon it that some words will be put down by my right hon. Friend.
    Colonel GRETTON: In view of the Assurance given in regard to the Government, I will not pursue this matter, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: With regard to the Amendment of my hon. Friend (Mr. E. McNeill) which deals with conscientious objectors, I should like to point out that an Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs and myself was put down some time before that Amendment, and it was in the right place. Now I understand that the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member, which was in the wrong place, is to be moved. I should like to know if an Amendment which was in the wrong place before is now to have priority over one which was in the right place originally?
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Owing to the action of the Committee, the Amendment of the hon. Member (Mr. R. McNeill) is now in the right place.
    Mr. R. McNEILL: I beg to move, after the words last inserted, to insert the words: "A person shall not be entitled to be registered or to vote at a Parliamentary or local government election if he has been exempted on the ground of conscientious objection to
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    military service from any form of military service for which, but for such objection, he would have been liable."
    I see some hon. Members have put down an Amendment to my Amendment. There is nothing in that Amendment which, so far as I am concerned, I should not be willing to accept. I am glad to see that those three hon. Members (Mr. Denman, Mr. Frederick Whyte, and Commander Wedgwood) have included in their disqualification the conscientious objector to combatant service, which is the same as in my Amendment, and I, therefore, can claim the support of those hon. Members. I do not make any sort of charge or insinuation as regards, first of all, the physical courage of conscientious objectors. I do not do so for two very good reasons. First, because I do not think any of us have any evidence which would justify any such charge, and, secondly, and still more strongly, I think such a charge or such an insinuation could only be made by a man who has himself shared in the horrors and perils of this War. Certainly a man like myself, who for other reasons has not been able to do that, could not make any such insinuation against the physical courage of the conscientious objector. I do not make any charge or insinuation against the sincerity of these men because I am not in a position to do so. I have very little doubt that a great many of them are sincere, and I have very little doubt that a large number of them are insincere. But in that respect one cannot divide the sheep from the goats. However, I do not base my case upon any suggestion that these men are not sincere. What I say is that though sincerity is a quality which I respect, it is not by itself sufficient to entitle a man to respect. After all, sincerity may only entitle a man not to respect, but to compassion. A lunatic may be sincere; an inebriate may be sincere; a criminal may be sincere. Although sincerity is undoubtedly an essential of the character which deserves respect, it is only one, and when we consider the conduct of the man whom we call a conscientious objector it is not sufficient to feel satisfied, even if we can feel satisfied, that his conscience is a sincere conscience. I think that the man is responsible not only for his conscience being sincere, but for its being reasonable.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: What is the test?
    Mr. McNEILL: The hon. Member has touched on a difficult question, but a very obvious one with which I shall have to deal. After all, when we say "reasonable" we all claim, and science claims for us, that reasonableness is the distinguishing mark and characteristic mark of the human race among creation. I do not know whether it is a boast which is an undue boast for humanity, but we do boast that the distinguishing characteristic of ourselves is not sincerity or any other quality, but reasonableness or wisdom. The question which I want Members of the Committee to ask themselves is, is the conscience of the conscientious objector not merely a sincere conscience but a reasonable one?
    Mr. DILLON: Who is to judge?
    Mr. McNEILL: The hon. Member for East Mayo asks who is to judge. What is the test of reasonableness? We all speak of people being reasonable or unreasonable. My own belief is that in ultimate analysis the only possible test of reasonableness is what is accepted as such by the consensus of opinion or conviction among contemporary men of the same state of civilisation.
    Mr. DILLON: What is to become of Christianity if that is accepted?
    An HON. MEMBER: What about Ulster?
    Mr. McNEILL: I do not know whether hon. Members will or will not be good enough to enable me to put my argument. They will afterwards have the opportunity of showing how unreasonable it is, but I should not shrink in the slightest degree, if this were the occasion and there were time, from the challenge of the hon. Member for East Mayo. I am quite willing to meet him on that ground. But I do not think that anybody will seriously deny that there is no other test. It may be a bad one or an imperfect one, but "there is no conceivable test, and cannot be, of whether a thing is reasonable or not, except what is universally accepted. What does an axiom mean? It means a proposition which we cannot conceive anybody disagreeing with. If we get a person who does sincerely disagree with what we call axioms, what do we do? For the sake of convenience we put him into a lunatic asylum. We cannot prove these propositions. The more you get away from propositions of that sort down in the
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    scale from the axiomatic point you are dealing all the time with propositions which attract a greater or a lesser degree of consensus of belief and conviction. I cannot myself understand how you could ever arrive at any other test. Hon. Members know that. In other places and on other occasions one might be led into very interesting and very intricate discussions involving even perhaps the whole question of the inherent basis of morals and all sorts of things. But I am not in the least afraid that any hon. Member will seriously or successfully controvert the proposition, which I think is important in connection with the Amendment Which I move, that in a workaday world the only test of reasonableness is whether the proposition is or is not accepted with practical universality.
    I want to bring that idea a step down in my argument, and I do not want to do any injustice to the mental attitude of the conscientious objector. My belief is that the attitude of the conscientious objector may be put in the form of a syllogism. I will imagine that in doing so he thinks something of this sort. He would say, first of all, "Murder is always morally wrong." Then he would say, "Killing in battle is a form of murder," and then he would arrive at the conclusion that "therefore killing in battle is morally wrong," and he would consider that there was what Kant called a categorical imperative binding upon his conscience, to abstain from anything which would so become morally wrong. The fallacy of that argument comes in at this point. While I believe that the consensus of conviction will be found accepting the major premise of that argument that murder is always morally wrong, the consensus of conviction, not with such complete unanimity, but at all events with a very near approach to unanimity, denies entirely the proposition that killing in battle is a form of murder and consequently the conclusion, if I am correctly imagining the course of reasoning in the mind of the conscientious objector, at which he arrived, is an unreasonable one; and to say that he is not at liberty to take part in any circumstances in killing in battle is an unreasonable frame of mind or conscience, because it rests upon an argument which is not accepted by the common reason of contemporary mankind, but is rejected. If that is so, and I think it is so, I think it shows that the conscience of what we call the conscientious objector,

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    however sincere it may be, is, for the reason which I have given, not a reasonable one.
    But I can imagine some person saying, "even supposing that is so, even supposing for the sake of argument we allow that kind of reasoning, is it not open to the individual to dissent from the conclusion of the great mass of reasonable mankind. Is he not entitled, however unreasonable it may appear to be according to your definition, to have a line of thought of his own?" The answer to that is, I think, that the individual is of course entitled to hold any opinion he likes, any conviction he likes, and he is entitled also to act upon it, subject to one qualification. There are other exceptions, besides killing in battle, to the proposition that killing is murder. Our law, and I suppose our morals also, accept the idea, and the phrase is known to our law, of justifiable homicide. A man according to our law may take the life of a fellow man in defence of his own. A woman may take the life of a fellow man in defence of her chastity. If these conscientious objectors choose to say, "You cannot make us do what your law and your morals may allow to us, and we would rather suffer death or dishonour than take the life of man, and we are entitled to do so." But why? They are entitled to do so because their action in that case affects no one, injures no one but themselves. Substantially speaking they will be justified in abstaining from taking life under those circumstances, because it is their own concern. But in the case of the conscientious objectors, which we are considering, it is exactly the opposite. The action they take does not injure themselves; in so far as one can see the immediate effect of it is to benefit themselves. They benefit themselves, but they injure everybody else. They benefit themselves by escaping from the burden, or escaping from the obligation, and they injure other people, because the inhabitants are bearing their common burden, and anyone who stands away necessarily imposes a greater burden upon those who are left. They injure the whole community in which they live; they even endanger the State of which they form a part, or, if they do not endanger it, the only reason is because they are not numerous enough to be a serious danger. They are comparatively few.
    I think the fact that they have been allowed the exemption which they have
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    enjoyed shows that while there has been very great tolerance, an amazing display of tolerance in this country, still it has been accompanied with a slight touch of contempt. If they had been numerous enough to make their action really a serious danger, in the national emergency which we have been going through, their conduct would have imposed a very difficult decision upon the Government and the majority of the State. The result of their action appears to be one of two things: Either the whole community, as expressed through the usual channels, is hopelessly in error over the rights and wrongs of this great struggle, or, on the other hand, the community is right and justified, and this notion of the conscientious objector, therefore, has been in essence anarchic and practically subversive of the State. If we are to accept the old maxim and the old tag, that the safety of the State is the supreme law, then if that is still a valid maxim for all of us, these men, sincere as they may be, and perhaps because they are sincere, have taken action which is the most dangerously criminal with which any State could be confronted in a time when its very existence is at stake. Another matter which must be considered, when moral value and conduct is at stake, is that their attitude, however conscientious, is selfishness and self-righteousness raised to the maximum degree. There may be combined with great piety and great beauty of character intense selfishness in a man's efforts to save his own soul, and he does not think how it will affect other people.
    Let me ask the Committee for a moment to consider—that being, in my opinion, the aspect of their conduct and their conscience—what it means in the eyes of their fellow countrymen. We have at the present time a combination of the most democratic and ethical-minded peoples on the earth, all in complete agreement upon a matter which is a, moral purpose, in complete agreement that unless these peoples withstand Germany and fight Germany to defeat her, the only alternative to that is the loss of all the highest ideals of humanity and of civilisation. That has been expressed time after time by the most representative minds in all the nations of the West. Then against that universal conviction of all these combined peoples we have a small handful of men setting up a little circumscribed, ignorant, uninstructed, dogmatism of their own, many of these men being, so far as we can judge

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    from what we have heard in the House and what we read in the papers, almost half crazy, and, so far as I can remember, not one of them a man who has had any past record established to claim to be accepted as either a leader of thought or a guide of conduct in this country. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the hon. Member for Blackburn?"] Possibly the hon. Member for Blackburn does not think that he is a leader of thought and a guide of conduct, though he may have friends who think that. I am speaking of the general opinion of the country at large, and I am sure the hon. Member for Blackburn will not think that I am trying to be in any way offensive to him or to depreciate him in any way if I say that he is not yet recognised as either a leader of thought or a guide of conduct These men, in their own eyes apparently, think that their morality is on so lofty a plane, as so much more highly refined than the morality of their fellow men, that they would soil their souls by condescending to take any part in the stupendous efforts of self-sacrifice in which not only the rest of their own country, but the whole of the rest of Europe is engaged.
    During this War these men have claimed a position of privilege. They have claimed to be treated as exceptional people, and that claim, as I said just now, by an extraordinary and memorable display of national forebearance, has been granted. The personal prejudice of these men, though perhaps I should not say personal prejudice, and I will call it the dictates of conscience, has enabled these men by the allowance of Parliament and the country to shelter themselves from the toil and the peril and the sacrifice which has been accepted by other people. These men continue, and this is a point which is, I think, material to the Amendment, and will continue until the War is over to enjoy in their own persons the liberties and the immunities that have been preserved to them by the efforts of other people. In other words, these men are content, and are being allowed and will be allowed till the War is over to enjoy the sweets of life out of the blood of their fellow-creatures. They are allowed and will be allowed to go on in this country battening upon the sorrows and sacrifices of the men of their country. Then the question comes: Are they to be allowed to exercise the franchise after the War is over? In other words, are they, when this peril is over and when the Army returns
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    and peace is restored, to enjoy all the rights and privileges of the State which they would not lift a hand to preserve? When the ship was in danger these men would not soil their hands by taking a turn at the pumps. Are these men to be allowed not only to have enjoyed immunity from the work we are engaged in, but also to be allowed to share both the honours and the promotions with the men who have brought the ship into port? To do so would an outrage upon all the enlightened conscience of the nation as a whole.
    I hope that no one will make the reply to this case that after all these men are only taking advantage of a position which is allowed to them by law. I was talking on this subject to someone the other day, who made the suggestion to me that because these men were taking advantage of a position conceded to them by Parliament and, therefore, law, it would be either improper or unfair to deprive them of the franchise. But the privileged position of these men was given to them for a particular purpose on their own initiative and on their own insistence. It was a concession which no other nation, so far as I know, has given, at all events with the degree of liberality with which it has been given here. It was a concession given on their demand which they could not fairly claim, and I do not think the nation would have thought they would have had any grievance if it had been denied to them. It was by their own desire and on their own demand that while the War was going on they were treated as exceptional people. That gives them no title after the War is over to be treated as unexceptional people. On the contrary they have insisted on being exceptions during the War and let us insist on their being exceptions after the War. There is nothing unreasonable in that. We are not taking away any right which has been already conceded by Parliament. It is quite true that they have been allowed to exempt themselves from service and escape the obligation. But is there anything unreasonable in Parliament and the nation saying to those men, "As a matter of concession to your demand we have allowed you to stand out of the fighting and when the fighting is over we will see that you stand out of the voting"? Why should we not demand that one should be the corollary, as I think it is, of the other?

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    The Amendment which I am moving, and which I hope will receive much support in the House and Lobby, is one which I know is very largely and strongly supported outside the walls of Parliament. I have endeavoured to put my case without saying anything unnecesarily offensive to any Member in this House who either shares or represents the opinions of these men. I do not know whether I have altogether succeeded, as it is not always a very easy thing to do when you have strong opinions and feelings strongly opposed to those of others. I can only say if I have hurt the feelings of any hon. Member I had not intended to do so, and I apologise for it. But I do earnestly press upon the Committee that this is a principle which at this tremendous juncture of our national history is demanded, and I think rightly demanded, by all the best elements in our nation. I believe it would cause dangerous resentment in public opinion if it were found that Parliament did not fully represent the country in this respect. It would be very easy to draw a picture of the feelings of persons of various classes in this country who have borne the brunt of the conflict, and who have seen their nearest and dearest go and who have made that sacrifice willingly, and it would not be hard to picture the imagination and the feeling of those people when they see other people's sons and other people's brothers and other people's husbands who shelter themselves in, comparatively speaking, soft employment by the mere device of going before a tribunal and talking about their consciences in language which other people with just as sensitive consciences as they would shrink from putting forward as a reason for escaping from the duties that they owed to their country. I do not want to draw pictures of that sort, but I do earnestly request hon. Members not to look upon this Amendment as a piece of mere intolerance or prejudice. I have endeavoured to put it on a broader ground than that, and I believe that when a Division is called it will be found to have a very large measure of support in this House, representative of a far larger support in the country outside.
    10.0 P.M.
    Lord H. CECIL: I follow my hon. Friend for once, because I should be very sorry indeed if this Debate partook in any degree whatever of u, partisan contro-
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    versy. As, therefore, in almost all political matters I am entirely in agreement with him, I wanted to be the first to oppose him on this occasion, so that whatever other disagreeable feature may intrude upon our discussion we may not mix up an issue which I believe is of very profound moral and religious significance with our ordinary partisan controversy. It would be impossible to exceed in moderation of tone the speech of my hon. Friend. There is nothing in it, so far as tone goes, to which any human being could take exception. I am sure that that speech represented a very strong and deep conviction, and that he was not acting in any degree whatever from any base motive of playing to a public outside, or from any of the other motives less creditable than those which ought to actuate, but which do sometimes actuate, members-of this House. Unfortunately, I think both from a lower and a higher point of view my hon. Friend's argument is defective. First of all, I think he very much underrated the force of the consideration; that what he is really proposing is to impose a retrospective penalty upon persons who have done nothing worse than, avail themselves of an exemption which Parliament themselves afforded them. Personally, I think Parliament did right; but whether Parliament did right or wrong, it is at any rate bound in honour by what it did. To go to people first of all and say, "If you allege a conscientious objection, and the tribunals we have appointed find you are sincere, you shall be exempted," and then to turn round on them after they have done what Parliament has offered and allowed them to do, and say "You have done this thing, you are the basest of mankind, and unfit for the franchise"—to do that without warning them beforehand would seem to me to transgress all the principles of legislation and national justice. My hon. Friend, in an extraordinarily interesting speech, tried to lay down—if I may say so, a very courageous enterprise—a basis on which the State ought to deal with questions of opinion, and he certainly laid down a basis which would have justified the persecution of the Christians in the first days of Christianity, and still more clearly of the Protestants of Holland. There were phrases in his speech which might have come without the alteration of a syllable from any distinguished prelate or judge in the reign of Richard II about Wycliffe and his followers. There is nothing, I

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    think, which he says about conscientious objectors which such a man would not have said with equal sincerity, ann even greater passion. Nothing is more foolish than to underrate the virtue of persecutors. They are very sincere people. They thought, and quite correctly, that the institution which was to them much more valuable than life itself was threatened by those they persecuted. They thought, and often quite correctly, that the persons they were persecuting were a small minority, ignorant and defiled by many faults and infirmities. The error they fell into is much more obvious than the one often imputed to arrogance. The error they fell into was in assuming that human beings have the right to impose opinions upon one another. I am following my hon. Friend on that ground, although I do not think it is necessary to traverse it for the purpose of this discussion. I am quite satisfied that the State can only act wisely in respect to opinions by not going into the reasonableness of any opinion whatever, but allowing liberty of opinion, because in the end it is in the interest of truth that liberty of opinion should be allowed. I am quite as certain as my hon. Friend that the conscientious objectors are wrong, but I am also quite certain that, shall we say, Presbyterians are wrong. It is a question of opinion.
    Mr. BUTCHERmade a remark which was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.
    Lord H. CECIL: As a matter of fact there are a great many, controversies turning on ecclesiastical questions which are to me, and I believe to the ultimate well-being of the nation, quite as important. I gather that my hon. Friend does not agree with me.
    Mr. BUTCHER: No.
    Lord H. CECIL: So quickly does intolerance grow on the human mind that my hon. Friend, who is intolerant towards conscientious objectors, is now intolerant towards me.
    Mr. BUTCHER: So long as my Noble Friend's opinions affect only himself I have not the smallest objection, nor do I in the least care what they are; but once, not the opinions, the actions of conscientious objectors injure the State, then I think it is time to take notice of them.
    Lord H. CECIL: It is exactly the same thing, but I am sorry to have got into controversy with my hon. Friend, for I was most anxious to avoid anything of that kind. I feel, however, that I should be doing wrong if I did not say that the-reason I care about this and regard it as important does not arise simply out of my respect for the religious convictions of other people, but out of my own religious convictions. It certainly seems tome to be part of the Christian religion to-say that if a person sincerely thinks a thing wrong, then to him it is wrong. That, seems to be to be very plainly taught in St. Paul's. Epistles, and to be quite an indispensable part of Christian belief. If that is so, though I deplore quite as much as my hon. Friend that conscientious, objectors should fall into the serious error they do, I think being in that error they would actually be doing a wicked thing if they fought in war. I want them not to fight in war, as I think it would be wickedness, because, holding their opinions, that they should fight in, war. I do not want that my world, which I honour as much as any man, should be stained by the wickedness of forcing people to do what it is wrongful for them to do, or punishing them for what is wrongful in that sense. That proposition is, I think, very little understood and appreciated. If people believe what their are doing is wrong, they are doing wrong. We recognise that about a great many people who are more conspicuously recognised than conscientious objectors. We hold it about Mahomedan subjects in India. Their religion is foolish, and, in. some respects, positively childish, but we-respect them for practising it, because-they have the right to do so. If a Mahomedan does things which are wrong it is for him to be wrong, 'because he believes them to be wrong. It would be shameful to force any conscientious objectors to do what they think would be-wrong, because it would be wrong for them. So I dissent from this Amendment because I think the conscientious objector, holding things he thinks right is only doing right, and that is what I wish to point out in their refusal to go to war. I quite agree that they hold mistaken opinions, but the whole of our life is saturated with respect for sacred things. The hon. Member says that the census of opinion of the world is against them. So it is against other things on which we differ. You cannot fall back on the proposition that

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    general consent justifies you. There would be no need of poor, petty persecutions if you could tolerate the opinions of people who have the right to follow their opinions. No more, indeed, is the impost of disability on people who are only doing what their sincere opinion requires of them, when the policy of the country is tolerating the opinion, and when it is part of our common religion that people should act in accordance with them.
    But I go further. I think there is behind the movement a most dangerous and pernicious movement which I am not here to protest against, because I think it is what is covered by the Amendment. It lies behind it, and I do not deny there is a strong body of opinion behind it. I think a great many people have ceased to care about religion and care more profoundly about their country. They are already embarked upon the path down which Germany has gone. My hon. Friend said that the safety for the public is the supreme law. It is profoundly untrue. If the safety of the public is the supreme law, the sinking of the "Lusitania" was right, and the bombing of towns and the killing of children would be right. The safety of the public is not the supreme law. The Divine will is the supreme law, and it is because the conscientious objector is mistakingly and perversely holding to the idea that he is wrong. To the credit of the country it is required of us being conscientious men in favour of Christianity that we should respect that conviction and support them in what they do. I know many persons claiming to be conscientious objectors mix up with their objection a great many things which I detest heartily. Many are rebels, not merely conscientious objectors. There are some, it is not necessary to go back for a long time, but there is a batch of conscientious objectors about whom I hear people say, "What is the clear opinion of those who have looked upon them as plain simple people clinging to their religious convictions?" My hon. Friend would deprive them of their personal rights because they hold an opinion which is unsound, but he wishes to make the national founder of supreme creation increase the contempt of whatever appeals to the highest sense. I would rather on the contrary he recognised as a valuable part of national life those conscientious people, not indeed in the correctness of
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    their judgment, but the earnestness with which they carry it out, which is an example to all. It is quite true they are mistaken, but being mistaken they can voluntarily be reserved to the standard for use. I wish we could all say the same, I wish the country was attended with like particular devotion to the cause in which they believe. If it were so the whole international life would be invigorated, and it would unfold a people who would be less intolerant in discussing these schemes. The franchise is given to all and sundry, persons convicted of crime who have been imprisoned for rebellion even during the course of the War, a rebellion against the authority of the British Crown. If the people I have been speaking about are not fit for the franchise, one knows not what they are fit for. Let us not give to the world the impression that what we care about is only the condition of the State, when we have at the back of our minds the sense of something higher than the good of the State to which people may appeal. Better that we should look to where the embodiment of all righteous action is than to pass on the way where we have seen Germans go before. I feel very strongly that in the years that are coming there will be two great principles leading the world. There will be the people who think of the country and of the State and all the great appeal that it makes to them; and there will be the people who say, "There is something higher and more universal, and that is to be found in the religion we profess." I am quite certain that there is no one who is saturated with devotion to that ideal and conception who will have any doubt whatever as to what is their duty towards the conscientious objectors. The mere fact that they appeal to a religious standard at once ensures our sympathy, and I very earnestly hope, not for the sake alone of the conscientious objectors, but for the sake of the honour and credit of this House, for the sake of the country of which we are citizens—because I would rather die than see it abandoned—the faith which I hold so dear—that this Amendment will be rejected in the Division to be taken now and for ever. I earnestly hope that we will adhere to the old doctrine that, much as we love our country, we love something better, and that when an appeal is made to that our answer is clear, firm, and without hesitation.
    Captain GWYNN: I do not know that in the ten years I have been in this House I have ever heard a speech which so much moved me as has the speech of the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University. Perhaps one may be allowed to say, as speaking from another country, that that is the kind of speech which makes one realise the inherent greatness of England. England is a country which has always kept before herself the cult of, freedom, and I do not think the spirit of freedom could be better spoken to than in the speech to which we have just listened. I agree with the Noble Lord in his opposition to this Amendment, but I do not know that I could give exactly the same reasons. Substantially, however, I think they are the same. I agree with him that these are people who are not a blight upon the community; they may very probably prove to be, in my opinion, the very salt of the community. I am speaking now as one who has seen war. I think that everybody who has seen war has one governing desire, and that is to see war abolished from the world. I am not at all sure that these people, whom we propose to reject as the outcasts of the State, may not be the best people to help in the fight to make an end of war. There is one thing that nobody can deny them—I am speaking now, as the Noble Lord spoke, of the real conscientious objector, let us put the other people aside—and that is courage, the most difficult form of courage in the world, the courage of the individual against the crowd. That is a courage which every State would do well to protect and guard. That is the courage which, above all other, makes for freedom. It is for that that I desire to see these men electors, and that I vote for giving them votes—just exactly as I would give votes to the soldiers—because they are the people who have shown not merely physical courage, but because they have made civic responsibility their plea. They have shown a spirit of initiative. These people, in refusing to act, must have taken action which must have been extremely difficult to take, and when we are told that the good of the nation is to be somehow impaired by allowing these men a voice in our national councils, I ask myself, What is "the good of the nation"? Are you going to advance the real interests of this country, or of any country, by stamping out such people from among your full citizens? Progress, as far as I can understand, comes not with the
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    crowd, but with individuals. Freedom in the last resort is won by individuals working against the crowd, and these are the people who make for freedom. It is in the interests of freedom during a war that is fought, at all events professedly, for freedom that I resist this attempt to limit what is the exercise of their legal freedom, and what is, I think with the Noble Lord, the exercise of higher morals.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to add the words "or who, having joined the Forces, has been sentenced by court-martial for refusal to obey orders, and who alleged conscientious objection to military service as a reason for such refusal."
    I am very sorry to find myself differing from my Noble Friend the Member for Oxford University and the hon. Member who has just spoken. My whole objection to my hon. Friend's Amendment is that it does not go far enough. I have no intention to deal with the ethics of the question and, as it is very late, probably the less I say on the subject the better. The Noble Lord based a very large part of his speech on the fact that the men with whom the Amendment deals were only taking advantage of their legal privileges. But what does the Noble Lord make of the 3,000 men who were not exempted by the tribunals, but were found not to be honest conscientious objectors, and who, having been taken into the Army, have refused, on the ground of conscientious objection, to do anything of any sort or kind, who have refused to put on their uniforms or attend drills, and have been sentenced by court-martial to various terms of imprisonment? They do not come within the particular exemption. I suppose I am the only Member of this House at the present moment who has seen a great many of these men. Those I am particularly speaking of now are the men my Amendment will deal with—I mean the men convicted by court-martial, whose cases were subsequently reviewed by the Central Tribunal, of which I am a member, many hundreds of whom it was my duty to see. I have no hesitation in saying—and I admit it quite frankly—that many of these men are quite honest and sincere. We had not very much time to go through the cases, for we had to deal with a very large number of them. The total number dealt with, according to the latest figures, was 2,865, which was a very large number for

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    a tribunal heavily, burdened and who, I venture to say, most carefully and conscientiously considered every appeal case summoned before them.
    I am sure everyone will admit that the Central Tribunal did everything they could to see that the Act was fairly administered. The Wormwood Scrubs cases were in a different position, and the same amount of time could not possibly be given to these cases because they were so numerous, and the Government thought, instead of making these men serve their term of imprisonment, they should be given the alternative of doing national service of another kind altogether under tile civil control of the Home Office, where they would be useful, at all events, and not confined, as they had been for a certain number of months, in Wormwood Scrubs. I could not help feeling that many of these men were not in the least honest, and a very large number of them were political objectors, extreme Socialists, and many of them denied not only any obligation to military service, but any right on the part of the State to ask from them any kind of service whatever; and although they were determined to have all the privileges the State could confer, they would not do a hand's turn in the way of civil service, and between forty and fifty of them absolutely refused to do the work offered them, and when they got into the hands of the Home Office Committee they refused to work, and were then sent back to the Army. The hon. Member for St. Augustine's (Mr. E. McNeil!) quoted certain cases. After all we have been told that the franchise is not a right, but a privilege, and I want to know why a man who refuses his duty to the State should have this privilege. I cannot see any logic in the argument at all. These men not only will not fight, but they will not do ordinary work simply because the State asks them to do it. There are some I should like to deal with less severely, but I do not see how it is possible to make any distinction, and I hope the Committee will accept the addition to the Amendment of my hon. Friend which I have moved.
    Sir J. SIMON: The Amendment which has just been Moved by the hon. Baronet meets a difficulty which I think must occur to anyone who has studied the original Amendment, but to my mind it does not meet the real difficulty, and,
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    indeed, rather exposes the difficulty that is inherent in any proposal of this sort. If you take the original Amendment moved by the hon. Gentleman behind me, and if you add to it what is now proposed, I find this is what is suggested: If you have a man, who, taking advantage of the provision Parliament has put in the Military Service Act, professes to have a conscientious objection, hypocritically pretends to that conscientious opinion for the false and mean reason that he does not desire to give his military duty, and if he is detected by the tribunal which judges his case as being a hypocrite, he is to have the vote. He has been sent to the front and is a soldier, and he therefore is to have the vote; indeed, he is to have that special kind of vote which in a previous Clause it was proposed to give to all those who serve at the front, and, according to some, he is to have the vote although he may only be nineteen years of age. That is the position of the man who hypocritically attempts to get this protection and is detected and told to do his duty like other citizens. Does anybody really and seriously propose that a man detected in the meanest possible attempt to exploit for his personal protection a section of an Act of Parliament designed for genuine people is to be put in that position, and yet those who have gone before the tribunal which is deputed by Parliament to judge of the genuineness of their case and have satisfied that tribunal are to be put in a worse position? I do not believe it can be the desire of the House of Commons that the convicted hypocrit should be dealt with in that way, and that the person who satisfies the test of the tribunal should be dealt with in quite a different fashion.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: The man who goes to the front does his duty and if he does his duty I will leave him alone. I am talking about the man who went there and would not do his duty.
    Sir J. SIMON: The position is quite plain. The view which we may ultimately form as to the proper way to deal with the case is another matter, but I have correctly analysed it. I say that if a man comes forward and takes advantage so far as he can of the Act of Parliament and is detected as the swindler he is then he is to be given the soldiers vote.
    Sir G. YOUNGER: If he does his duty, why should he not have the vote?
    Sir J. SIMON: That is a consideration which the Committee no doubt in due time will weigh, but for the moment I am not open to the correction which the hon. Baronet rose to give me. I am quite correctly analysing the situation, and I am pointing out that you are proposing in this Amendment to put the penalty upon the man who, claiming the right which the Act of Parliament gives him, shows that he is really entitled to that protection, while you are not imposing the disability on the man who claims to enjoy this privilege and is detected as fraudulent in attempting to do so. [HON. MEMBERS: "Are there any?"] There are many people who come forward and claim to be conscientious objectors but who in the judgment of the tribunal do not make out their case. For my part, I think, if the Act of Parliament says that this very difficult question is to be determined by a tribunal, it must be determined by that tribunal.
    Brigadier-General HICKMAN: Will you put down an Amendment to meet the case of the particular men to whom you refer?
    Sir J. SIMON: I am pointing out, and I think the Committee will see that it is quite a reasonable thing to do, that, as a matter of fact, if you desire to visit this penalty on persons who claim the privilege of this Section, you are not addressing yourself to the really unworthy person. I want hon. Members to consider that, because, just as I desire to see what is fair done about this, so I know that they also desire it should be done. I have a second consideration which I wish to put forward, which is really fundamental here. Let us make no mistake about it. This may be in certain quarters a very popular proposal, but we here in the House of Commons have to think of something else besides that. We have to think whether or not this proposal is one which really advances the principles by which this country desires to be governed, or whether, on the contrary, it is really a backward step. Let me remind the Committee how the matter has hitherto stood. There are people in this country called Quakers. I believe it is common for some who do not sympathise in the least with the opinions of Quakers as such to profess, no doubt most sincerely, great respect for their opinions. Under the Militia Ballot Act Quakers have always been entitled to an exemption from service. They have always had it. They
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    have had it, indeed, on very much easier terms than the terms of the Military Service Act, because all they had to do was to make a declaration before a magistrate and they got it. Nobody hitherto in our institutions has suggested, since first the Quakers got political and public rights, that they should be deprived of their rights because they took advantage of that. [An HON. MEMBER: "They were not fighting the Germans then!"] The people they were fighting at the time of the Militia Ballot Act were not indeed Germans, but they were very deadly enemies. The need of this country, in the view of our forefathers, was extreme at the time in question. I do most earnestly ask the Committee to put aside impulse for the moment and consider what we are really doing. Are we really contributing towards the advance of our institutions if we say, "We care not what was the protection offered in the times of our forefathers, to Quakers; we propose to reverse that in this Bill"?
    Mr. McNEILL: Is not the right hon. and learned Gentleman leading us wrong? He is now speaking of the exemption from, military service that was given to the Quakers. We are discussing the question of the franchise. They are two very different things.
    Sir J. SIMON: I may not have made my words plain to the hon. Gentleman, but I think he will see that what I am saying is historically accurate. I am pointing out that there has been historically for a great many years in this country a privilege conferred upon Quakers not to be taken under the Militia Ballot.
    Mr. McNEILL: I quite agree.
    Sir J. SIMON: I am pointing out that since that provision was introduced we have had, time and again, Franchise Bills introduced in this House and that more than once we have been involved in very serious wars, including the Napoleonic Wars, but nobody hitherto has thought that our institutions should be so framed that persons who took advantage, on conscientious grounds, of that exemption, should be deprived of the vote. The hon. Gentleman may not think that argument important, but as it stands that argument is perfectly right. It was pointed out by the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil). Any attempt to repeat his argument is bound to prejudice it in repeating it. I think

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    it will be the common opinion of everybody who heard that argument that it could not have been put with greater persuasiveness. I feel bound to put this consideration. We shall make a very grave mistake, even in this time of trial, if we reverse the good principle that people are to have their votes, if they are qualified, without reference to their opinions. [Interruption.] It is very easy to laugh, but it is a very serious matter. No one is more conscious than I am that persons who take this point of view are open to reproach, but one has to put the view as well as one can. Once you lay it down that some people are to be deprived of their votes because of the opinions they express and act upon you are taking a backward step in our institutions, the seriousness of which can hardly be measured. It is quite plainly a principle which is not of general application and acceptance. If you were to deprive them of their votes because the opinions which they hold are, as it seems to me, unreasonable and illogical opinions, there are a good many Members of the House who would have no votes at all. We should be disfranchising our own. The only principle upon which a State that is really pursuing a course of liberty can safely go is that you are not going to make the right to exercise the vote depend upon the holding or the expression of any opinion whatever. There is no other method by which you can really secure liberty of opinion. I perfectly recognise the force of argument that here you have people who for good reasons or for bad—I have the very fervent opinion of their logic; if their logic was good it would carry them very much farther—refuse to lend a hand in carrying out the overwhelming and impervious will of the majority and a will, as I believe, based on on perfectly good and overwhelming arguments; but, all the same, let us remember that that is not a good ground on which, apart from the Military Service Act, you could refuse the vote. I think you could not refuse the vote even if a man announced his determination to fight even against the will of the majority. I think it would be a most gross abuse of the powers of Parliament if, because Parliament held such opinions so strongly and fervently that they are prepared to take up arms against the will of their own people on grounds of conscience, we attempted to
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    impose the slightest penalty upon them. I most sincerely urge, not taking the short view, but taking what I think the long view of what is the real interest and the real destiny of our country, that, deeply though many of us resent the utter want of logic on the part of the conscientious objector—I have never said a single word in his favour, and I do not in the least sympathise with his point of view—we should not allow that very natural feeling which finds expression outside and inside the House to lead us to do a grave and serious wrong to the essential tradition of liberty in the country in which we live. It would be a very evil day for the history of freedom of opinion in this country if we ever penalised any opinion, however absurd, in the matter of voting. It would be a double disadvantage when you are dealing with a case of this sort, as the hon. Baronet's figures show, perfectly trumpery in point of numbers, a case in which Parliament explicitly assured these people that they had a right to appeal and get a certain concession given them. To say to these people, "You are entirely illogical. You are in many respects utterly wrong; none the less we do far more injury to our own institutions by imposing this penalty upon you than any advantage we could confer upon those institutions by concurring in this temporary and very natural hostile opinion against you."
    Mr. HAROLD SMITH: The Committee has listened to the right hon. Gentleman with that patience and courtesy which has characterised the attention which has been given to every speech on each side. I think upon this most controversial subject the Committee is to be congratulated upon the fact that it has been discussed without heat, and that each hon. Member who has contributed to the Debate has endeavoured to bring forward his point of view without any undue heat. I profoundly differ from the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Simon). I think I approach this subject from a different point of view than many members. It is within the knowledge of hon. Members that I have from time to time defended the conscientious objector. I have in this House, and in other places, defended these men because, and only because, Parliament has given to them exemption under the Military Service Acts, and because I believe that when Parliament has extended to them that exemption, certain military

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    authorities and numerous tribunals have endeavoured to take the law into their own hands and have endeavoured to override the expressed wishes of Parliament by ignoring the legitimate claims which have been put forward by these men. I call them legitimate claims not because I agree with them, but because they are claims which they have made under a Statute passed by Parliament. Though I have profoundly disagreed with these men I believe that the vast majority of those who called themselves conscientious objectors and have appealed to the tribunals are perfectly sincere and honest, and I think that in the vast majority of cases where the tribunals have decided upon their cases those tribunals have been wrong; that they have been influenced by prejudice, and that they have not been properly and judicially administering the Act of Parliament. If I am right in that, and I profoundly believe I am right, there is a most dangerous and most unwarranted interference with the rights of the citizen as approved by this House. It is one thing to sympathise with these men under those circumstances, but it is a different thing to say to the men who have appealed to the tribunals over and over again on the ground of their conscientious objections and their refusal to take up arms or even to assist their country in its dire peril, "You shall have the full rights of citizenship and you shall have the same rights as your brother, it may be, who has risked his life on the battlefields of France or Flanders." The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of the person who has hypocritically appealed to the tribunals. What does it matter? Whether he has appealed honestly or hypocritically he ought not to have the vote. I care not whether he is a honest or a dishonest conscientious objector. You can search the records of every tribunal—they are obtainable at the call of the President of the Local Government Board whenever he asked for them— and whenever you find in black and white the claim of any person that he is a conscientious objector—whether the tribunal agrees or whether it does not—if that claim is supported by that person's own evidence that he holds such views in his conscience as prohibit him from taking up arms on behalf of his country, I say that man, though I respect him, is self-convicted and ought not to have the responsibilities of citizenship at this time.
    I do not want to search these registers, or trace the man, either into the Army
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    or the prison. I am satisfied to have his own appeal in writing, supported by his own evidence, in which he says to the tribunal, to his fellow-citizens, "I have no responsibilities of citizenship." The majority of them say that one country is to them the same as another country, and when they are asked, as so many of them are properly asked by members of the tribunals, what they would do if the German's landed, they almost invariably answer that they would not care so long as the War is ended, that one country to them is as good as another, and that they would serve under the Germans in this country as happily as they would under the British flag. I respect these men for their honesty and sincerity and courage, but if you once believe that that is their attitude how can you say that such men should have the same responsibility of citizenship and the same rights as the man who has gone through the whole of this bloody War and shouldered arms over and over again? I trust sincerely that the Committee will adopt this Amendment. I believe that the Amendment of my hon. Friend to the Amendment is a very proper extension to make, and I do not think that the Amendment goes far enough, because I think not only does it exclude from the franchise those who are dealt with by the hon. Member for St. Augustines (Mr. McNeill), but it also excludes every conscientious objector who has not, in fact, taken up arms for his country. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Simon) has raised what, if it had come from anybody else, I should have called a pettifogging point. Surely with his great ability he sees the difference between the man who has claimed and has purged his claim by fighting for his country, and the man who has not? Does he see no difference between the man who has advanced this claim and has not succeeded before the tribunal, and has gone to prison, or into the service of labour, and the man who has purged himself on the battlefield? I would refuse the vote to every person, whether he has honestly or hypocritically claimed to be excluded as a conscientious objector from the responsibilities of citizenship, and I would give the vote to any such who have purged that claim by fighting for their country in her hour of peril.
    I hope that the House will not be too much moved by the very moving appeal

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    of my Noble Friend the Member for Oxford University. For once in my life I cannot follow his arguments. I always admire them and frequently I understand them, but to-night he is beyond me. We have never questioned the sincerity of the opinions of these men. But that is not the question. It is simply the question of deciding in this House that the man who has refused to fight for his country, for whatsoever reason, is a man who, for the rest of his life, shall have that freedom of opinion which this House gave him when it excluded him from liability to military service, but that he shall not have the ordinary responsibilities of voting. My Noble Friend gave the instance of the enfranchised Mahomedan continuing to vote, but if the Mahomedan has refused to fight for the country—
    Mr. SNOWDEN: What about you? You are of military age.
    Mr. SMITH: That is a sort of observation that has grown a little old, and let me say that the hon. Member who interrupts does not advance this Debate nor his own opinion by remarks of that kind. I shall answer to my own conscience. I beg the House to look at this question in the only possible way in which I believe it can be approached. It is not desired to interfere with the opinions of anybody, but I think it is essential that the House should decide whether any person who in effect says that his country is not worth anything to him, and that he is equally satisfied to live under the flag of any other country, is to be allowed to vote —a monstrous claim to make. At the same time, I wish to repeat that I have never questioned, and cannot question, the sincerity of the men who hold these views. I believe the vast majority of them are perfectly sincere. I earnestly support both the Amendment and the Amendment to the Amendment, and I hope the House will not give to these men those rights of citizenship which they have enjoyed up to now.
    11.0 P.M.
    Sir G. CAVE: I think that all my feelings and all my prejudices would be in favour of an Amendment of this kind, and I differ profoundly from some of the reasons given against it by my Noble Friend the Member for Oxford University and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow. I know something of the
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    conscientious objector, and I have seen more of him, perhaps, than many Members of this House. As regards the objector on religious grounds, I state frankly that though I say nothing against him, I do not understand him. I do not understand how a man, when his country and his people are subjected to murderous attacks, thinks that it is his duty to stand by and Set the attacks proceed rather than defend the lives and liberties of himself and his family and his country. I do not understand him, and I think I shall never understand him. As regards the objector on other grounds, sometimes referred to as moral grounds, sometimes I think more correctly as political grounds, I say frankly that I have the greatest possible antipathy for him; I differ from him in every possible way, and I cannot see how anybody in this House, so long as society subsists and must be held together, can defend his view. I differ from and, indeed, resent the attempt to compare the conduct of such a man with the conduct of a man who, rightly or wrongly, is willing to give his life in resistance to a law which he does not feel to be just. I have stated frankly and fully the view which I take of the conduct of these men—and, indeed, there are other reasons why my prejulices are all in favour of this Amendment. I think the line which the Government took yesterday showed that they recognise there is some force in the plea that the man who is fit to fight is fit to vote, and perhaps that does involve the view that the man who is not willing to fight is not fit to vote. We recognise the feeling inside and outside this House in favour of this Amendment, but those considerations, strongly as they move me, should not by themselves, perhaps not at all, guide our decision in this matter. It is, I think, the duty of the Government so far as they can to advise the House as to what in their view is the right decision to take on this amendment. The first consideration, it appears to me, is this, to remember exactly where we stand. We are endeavouring to pass through the House a great Bill which is founded upon agreement, and which could not be passed through this House except by the substantial agreement of all parties. Would it be right to introduce into the Bill that which, as this Debate has already shown, and as we

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    know from other sources, must be an extremely contentious provision? Can we, as trustees for the Bill, if I may use the expression, imperil the prospects of this Bill by introducing into it a provision of this kind? It is, of course, a proposal of great importance, but after all, it affects in its original form only some few hundreds of votes, and in its amended form some few thousands. Speaking from the practical point of view, it has but small importance compared with the very wide issues which are involved by the passage of this Bill. I feel myself that the Government would be going beyond the commission entrusted to them and to the House, whatever were the personal feelings of their Members, if they took the risk of imperilling the whole prospects of this Bill, by accepting a provision of this kind. We have had proposed to us the other course of leaving this matter to the House. I never think that the most courageous course to take, and after all what one does and has to consider is this. Supposing we took that course and supposing the House. as it might, adopted the Amendment—[An HON. MEMBER: "It would!"]—what would be the effect of that Amendment on the Bill which we are trying to pass through the House and on the great reform which we are proposing to the House and to the country.
    I think, therefore, though the decision has been to us a subject of some consideration, that we ought to express our opinion to the House on the Amendment. My first reason is then, as I said, that I doubt whether this Bill is the place where an Amendment of this kind ought to find its place. This is an enfranchising Bill, and the proposal is to disfranchise persons who have taken a certain line. I doubt whether we have the right to ask the House to accept this Amendment; but apart from these considerations, I think we ought to take a rather wider line. Can we properly pass this Amendment? I know, as we all know, that at bottom our countrymen are just people, and desire to do justice. Let us consider the position. A very short time ago—within the last two years, certainly—Parliament passed an Act which allows a man to claim exemption from military service on the ground of conscientious objection to military service. If it had been desired to impose a penalty upon him in consequence of that claim that was the time, that Bill was the place, where such a provision ought to
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    have been inserted. For myself, I was never in agreement with that proposal. If any claim to conscientious objection was to be admitted my view has always been that it should be confined to men who had shown by their previous position and adherence to a religious community that they had a religious objection to service. That is, and always has been, my view of the case, but that was not the view taken by Parliament in passing the Bill. I think Parliament might well have said, "If you make this claim to exemption you shall also lose your right to vote."
    Mr. McNEILL: Does my right hon. Friend seriously suggest that a Clause of that sort disfranchising the conscientious objectors could in any circumstances have been combined with the Military Service Act?
    Sir G. CAVE: Indeed, I do; but at all events what seems to me to be justice is this: If you were going to impose this disability in consequence of that claim, you should have said so, and said so in the Statute at the time. It seems to me doubtful justice first to permit the claim to be made to exemption, to permit the Statute to be made, and then when the man has made use of the right you have given to him to claim exemption, to say to him, "Now we are going to impose a penalty upon you for exercising your statutory right." I think, when one thinks it over, that does not appear to be an action which would appeal to the sense of justice of my hon. Friend or other Members of the House.
    Let us take another consideration. Some of these men are Quakers or Christadelphians, and others have a religious objection to performing what would seem to be their duty to the country. Many of these men while refusing combatant service have done very valuable non-combatant service to this country. They have done service not only to the civil community, but to the Army. Some of them have risked their lives; some have undergone very grave danger indeed; some have lost their lives—
    Sir J. D. REES: Christadelphians?
    Sir G. CAVE: I had in my mind Quakers. I am speaking of men who have been exempted from military service. Some of them have risked their lives in this War; some of them, who have been treated as conscientious objectors

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    either by tribunals or by the Central Tribunal to which reference has been made, have in time come to see that they were wrong and have volunteered for service in the Army.
    I know several such cases. This Amendment would deprive them of the vote because they had come within its terms. There was a case the other day at Dartmoor. There was some slight mutiny there, and the man who was the leader of it immediately afterwards saw that he was wrong, joined the Service, and is now in the Army. Another man who was a conscientious objector was killed the other day in the Service. I only mention these to show that there are brave conscientious objectors. There are many I feel only antipathy and contempt for, but for others I do not. There are those whose conduct has shown that they have the feelings of Englishmen, and have done their duty in other ways than by fighting. I think if you put them all in the one mould you may, while doing justice to some, do the greatest injustice to others.
    I do not think that the House would like to feel in future years that religious men who mistakenly, most mistakenly I think, took this line seriously and conscientiously, were for that reason deprived of the franchise. Some of these were sent to prison for refusing to perform their military duties. They have been condemned and have paid the penalty for their offence. They have been convicted and sent to prison, and it is a matter of doubt whether, the penalty imposed by law having been suffered, after the offence has been committed and the sentence pronounced, we should add another penalty to that which the law imposed. I cannot help feeling some doubt whether that would be a fair line to take.
    I do not think we ought to indulge our prejudices in this matter. There are people who cry out about the conscientious objector, but among those I should like to disfranchise are some older men who, although Englishmen in name, have done their best against the interests of this country, who have joined with others in giving help to our bitter enemies. By this Amendment these men suffer. Are those men to escape? There are many pacifists that I should like to exclude, not only from the vote, but from this House, and so
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    put an end to their power for mischief. Indeed, if I went into the whole category of the people I should like to deprive of the vote this Amendment would assume very large proportions. I look upon the vote not as a matter of favour, but as a matter of right. While I recognise the strong arguments in favour of this Amendment I do not think that the House would quite do itself justice if it adopted the proposal put forward. So far as I have the power, so far as the Government has the power, to influence the vote of the House we think that the House will be best consulting its own dignity and the interests of justice by declining to accept this Amendment.
    Mr. WARDLE: I was very glad to hear the Home Secretary express the opinion he did in regard to this Amendment. I feel that the House, in regard to this matter, is very largely upon its trial, and on the question of the franchise altogether. I have listened throughout to this Debate. My own opinion in regard to the conscientious objectors has never been concealed. I have no sympathy with them. I do not believe in them. In my judgment I do not think the conscientious objector is on the right side. But I believe the Government, on this occasion, has taken the right view. Having taken that view, I hope my hon. Friend opposite will withdraw his Amendment. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no!"] Yes, I hope he will. It is within his province to do so. [An HON. MEMBER: "YOU ask him?"] I am going to do so. For this reason: I believe it will be very much to his credit and to the dignity and honour of the House of Commons if the Amendment is withdrawn, and no vote is taken, and we are absolutely unanimous. It is the option of hon. Members to have their own opinion, and to be conscientious objectors against the Government. But if the test as to whether a Member has to have the vote or not is whether he has or has not actually fought for his country, then there are not many Members here at present who are entitled to a vote.
    An HON. MEMBER: We are above military age!
    Mr. WARDLE: Then the question of age is to settle the vote and not the question of whether or not a man cannot fight? The House will occupy a most undignified position if it is going to disfranchise younger men of military age because they

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    have declined to fight and not disfranchise those men who are over military age who have not volunteered for service. I am reminded, of course, that Major Redmond, who has died for his own country as well as this, was over military age. But is it really that military service is the only way in which one does assist his country in a great war? And is it not true, as the right hon. Member for Walthamstow said, that these conscientious objectors, after all, are exceedingly illogical? They do not, and they cannot, so long as they are members of a civilised country, get out of assisting their country to some degree, at any rate. There is only one direction in which they have refused to assist their country, and that is as regards military service. Is military service to be the only ground on which men are to be entitled to a vote? I think this House will not, and does not, take that point of view, and in consideration of that fact alone, I think this Amendment ought to fall to the ground. The Quaker, in taking objection to military service, took the logical view, in the old days, that he would not appeal for the protection of the law in the Courts of the land. If he was deprived of appealing to the Courts for protection, that is one thing, but to prevent him from having a vote is another, and I venture to appeal to the House of Commons—this old institution which has been the Mother of Parliaments and the protector of freedom—to reject this Amendment. I hope my hon. Friend will withdraw it—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] —so that we may be absolutely unanimous.
    Colonel YATE: The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary told us a minute or two ago that he considered a vote to be not a matter of favour but a matter of right. I must say in this I entirely disagree with him. I consider that a vote is a privilege, and it is the greatest privilege a State can confer on its citizens. If the State confers that privilege there is a corresponding obligation on the part of the citizen to do his duty by the State, and it is because the conscientious objectors are not doing their duty by the State that this Amendment has been moved, and I hope it will be taken to a Division and carried. We have heard various accounts of Quakers, who a hundred years ago were a well-known body and had a distinctive dress and speech. But to-day they have no such distinctive marks, and we must remember that no Quaker nation could to-
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    day exist by itself, but only in the midst of some more virile people who agree to defend them and their property which they will not defend themselves. You invite Quakers to come and live among you and say to them, "We will protect you," but that does not give to them the corresponding privilege given to the citizens of the protecting State. For these reasons I think it is necessary that this Amendment should be pressed to a Division, and I hope it will be carried.
    Commander WEDGWOOD: Unlike other hon. Members who have taken part in the Debate, I believe that most of the conscientious objectors are honest people, and I feel the greatest sympathy for them. I think I am prouder of my country than I was before, because it has produced people who have sufficient conscientious scruples to enable them to face a long term of imprisonment rather than upset their consciences. It is something to be proud of even to produce martyrs of this sort as well as martyrs on the battle field. In the time of Queen Mary I am not aware that the Catholics deprived the Protestants of votes, nor in the time of Queen Elizabeth did the Protestants deprive the Catholics of votes. [An HON. MEMBER: "They took their lives!"] I know they took their lives, and it is a method which is not wholly unknown at the present time. Observe that these two original religious factions believed that the other faction, was driving the nation to hell and the devil, and when we are told that the conscientious objector is handing us over to the German Emperor perhaps the motives for depriving them of votes in the 16th century were as good as the motives of hon. Members of the Conservative interest who are now trying to deprive these men of their votes. All those with any respect for the continuance of the traditions of British history will vote this Amendment down with abhorrence. It is contrary to the traditions and principles which have made us a great nation, and I for one shall join in the appeal made by the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Wardle) to the hon. Member opposite, not to put us to the disgrace of showing anybody in the Division Lobby in favour of disfranchising people for their opinions. But there is something besides the mere justice or injustice of disfranchising people for their opinions, and it is that representative government is on its trial at the present time. Suppose you do deprive

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    these people of their votes, do you thereby deprive them of their interest in politics or even of their effective action in politics? Most of these conscientious objectors are Socialists and anarchists, and even if you do deprive them of their votes do you think that you deprive them of their influence upon the affairs of this country? Everyone knows that at the present time at the back of our minds there is a fear, not of the votes at an election, but of the direct action and two rival forms of government, and if you perpetrate this injustice of depriving these few Socialists and anarchists of their votes and drive them into direct action you make them a much more dangerous element than any incidental vote would ever make them. I ask hon. Members to remember that at the present time this country is not in an extremely peaceful and settled state. Affairs are boiling underneath, and you do not want to give up Parliamentary institutions such as we are enjoying at the present time, based upon an equal franchise and the belief in justice, for the direct action not of the majority, but of a minority armed by force with a sense of rankling injustice, which is far more dangerous than the result of a casual election.
    Mr. CURRIE: I wish to ask the Home Secretary a question. He knows that I am supporting the Bill. If this Amendment is put to the vote and carried, are we to understand that the Government drop the Bill and regard us as having wrecked it? If his answer is "Yes," I shall vote with him. If it is "No," I shall vote for the Amendment.
    Major HUNT: I agree with the Home Secretary when he says that he would like to give some punishment to the pacifists in this House and out of it, as well as to the conscientious objectors. Personally, I should send them all to Germany and let the German Emperor deal with them. Then they would know something about it. An hon. Gentleman behind me said that the conscientious objectors had already been punished once by having been sent to prison. No doubt that is true and they deserved it, but in all probability they had a very much better time in prison than the men in the trenches, so that after all they deserve a little more punishment. The Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) appealed to the Divine Law. We are told to
    340
    "Render unto Caesar the things that are Cæsar's," and I think that would apply to a man in defending his country. The man who gets all the advantages of a country ought to give his services to that country. I do not think, therefore, that there is very much in the Noble Lord's theory of Divine Law. People who refuse to risk their lives, and who have done nothing in order to preserve the lives and liberties of their wives and children and the liberty of the land which gave them birth are not justified in claiming the advantages gained for them by the sacrifices of their fellow countrymen. That surely is ordinary common sense. These people have no right to claim any share in governing the country which they refuse to defend. They ought to go to a country where the Government believes in the theory that force has no remedy, where outsiders, black, yellow, or any other colour, can come in from anywhere and outrage women and murder children without protest. These men, unless the Amendment is passed, will have been able to have stayed at home during the War, and to have acquired the qualification for a vote whilst hundreds of thousands of men who have faced all the hardships and dangers of the War will not have the vote at all. If anybody says, as an hon. and gallant Gentleman did say to me yesterday, that under Clause 5 soldiers and sailors are given votes because they are soldiers and sailors, then the Home Secretary made it quite clear yesterday that the conscientious objectors will get votes under this Bill, and that an enormous number of soldiers and sailors will not.
    Sir G. CAVE: I did not make that quite clear.
    Major HUNT: Let me read from the OFFICIAL REPORT what the right hon. Gentleman said:
    "The franchise is not given tin any sense as a reward for public service.… Our object is that no one who is otherwise entitled to vote shall lose his vote, or the opportunity of exercising it merely because he is in the service of the Crown in one capacity or another— that is, that a soldier merely because he is a soldier, and is abroad or is away from home, shall not for that reason lose his vote. That is the whole meaning of the Clause and the object which we have in view."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th June. 1917, col. 64.]
    After that the right hon. Gentleman is not going to tell me that he means that by this Bill soldiers and sailors shall get votes only because they are soldiers and sailors and have served in the War. In any case does the Government think that when the soldiers and sailors come home after this

    341
    War they are going to stand by and do nothing when they see men who refused to fight for their country going gaily to the polling booth to take their share in governing the country they refused to defend, while they themselves, many of them wounded and maimed in serving their country, are allowed no part in deciding its destiny? That is what is going to be put to you when yon go to the country unless you pass this Amendment, to prevent people from having a vote to decide. the destiny of the country, who have refused to defend that country in the time of its direst peril. I sincerely hope that for a good many reasons this Amendment will be carried.
    Sir J. D. REES: I believe the Committee will allow a minute or two to one who has passed his life among Hindus and Mahomedans to repudiate the reference made by the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) to those who form the greatest number of the Empire. For the Noble Lord to compare the conscientious, objectors, a handful of cranks who have little sympathy in and none without the House, with the Hindus, to the number of some 300,000,000, and to the Mahomedans to j the number of some 70,000,000, and speak j of their religions as childish and absurd, I seems to me a piece of arrogance which calls for some repudiation from one who has lived amongst those classes. I should have been not only wanting in moral courage, but a mean fellow if I had not got up to resent what he has said on the subject.
    It is not thus that the Hindus and the Mahomedans speak of the Christians. I protest against the description which the Noble Lord applied, which will be repeated in the newspapers in our Eastern Possessions and will not be regarded as a good return for the loyal and honourable manner in which they have supported the country in the crisis of its fate. I deeply regret that I have not time to indulge in theology like the Noble Lord. He spoke of the Divine will. I do not know who is the interpreter of the Divine will. Heaven forbid that I should presume to interpret it, but I remember that in the Old Testament it is said, "Who is the Lord God? It is the God of battles"; and there is a famous text in the New Testament which says, "I come not to bring peace but a sword."
    Mr. DEVLIN: I want to know whether this is a prayer meeting or a debating society?
    Sir J. D. REES: I was unwilling to let this pass, and with the remark that I whole-heartedly support this Amendment I have done my duty.
    Mr. McNEILL: I do not know if it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I accept the Amendment to my Amendment so that it may all be put in one.
    Amendment to the proposed Amendment agreed to.
    Question put, "That those words, as amended, be there inserted."
    The Committee divided: Ayes, 71; Noes, 141.

    Division No. 62.]

    AYES.

    [11.45 p.m.

    Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.

    Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord C. J. (K'ton)

    Rawson, Colonel Richard H.

    Barnett, Captain R. W.

    Hanson, Charles Augustin

    Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, E.)

    Bathurst, Col. Hon. A. B. (Glouc, E.)

    Hendry, Denis S.

    Rutherford, Sir J. (Lance., Darwen)

    Bellairs, Commander C. W.

    Hermon-Hodge, Sir R. T.

    Salter, Arthur Clavell

    Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

    Hibbert, Sir Henry F.

    Samuels, Arthur W.

    Bentham, George Jackson

    Hickman, Colonel Thomas E.

    Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth)

    Bird, Alfred

    Hope, Lt.-Col. J. A. (Midlothian)

    Sanders, Col. Robert Arthur

    Blair, Reginald

    Home, Edgar

    Smith, Harold (Warrington)

    Boles, Lieut.-Colonel Dennis Fortescue

    Hunt, Major Rowland

    Starkey, John Ralph

    Boyton, James

    Jardine, Ernest (Somerset, East)

    Stewart, Gershom

    Brookes, Warwick

    Johnston, Sir Christopher

    Stirling, Lieut.-Col. Archibald)

    Broughton, Urban Hanlon

    Kerry, Earl of

    Sykes, Col. Sir A. J. (Ches., Kn'ford)

    Bryce, John Annan

    Kinloch-Cooke, sir Clement

    Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

    Butcher, John George

    Knight, Captain Eric Ayshford

    Thomas-Stanford, Charles

    Carnegie, Lieut.-Colonel D. G.

    Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury)

    Tickler, T. G.

    Cautley, Henry Strother

    Meux, Hon. Sir Hedworth

    Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)

    Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham

    Meysey-Thompson, Colonel E. C.

    Weigall, Lt.-Col. Wm. E. G. A.

    Coats, Sir Stuart A. (Wimbledon)

    Newman, John R. P.

    Wilson, Captain Leslie O. (Reading)

    Craik, Sir Henry

    Newton, Major Harry Kottingham

    Wilson-Fox, Henry

    Denison-Pender, J. C.

    Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)

    Wood, John (Stalybridge)

    Dixon, Charles Harvey

    Orde-Powlett, Hon. w. G. A.

    Yate, Colonel Charles Edward

    Fell, Arthur

    Paget, Almeric Hugh

    Fletcher, John Samuel

    Perkins, Walter Frank

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

    Gretton, Colonel John

    Peto, Basil Edward

    R. McNeill and Sir George Younger.

    Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)

    Philipps, Captain Sir Owen (Chester)

    NOES.

    Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke

    Hackett, John

    Pollock, Ernest Murray

    Adamson, William

    Hall, D. B (Isle of Wight)

    Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

    Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

    Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence

    Pratt, J. W.

    Anderson, W. C.

    Harris, Percy A. (Leicester, S.)

    Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

    Arnold, Sydney

    Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West)

    Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

    Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)

    Haslam, Lewis

    Raffan, Peter Wilson

    Baldwin, Stanley

    Helme, Sir Norval Watson

    Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

    Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset)

    Hewart, Sir Gordon

    Rees, G. C. (Carnarvonshire, Arton)

    Barnes, Rt. Hon. George N.

    Higham, John Sharp

    Rendall, Atheistan

    Barton, Sir William

    Hill, Sir James

    Richardson, Arthur (Rotherham)

    Beale, Sir William Phipson

    Hinds, John

    Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

    Beck, Arthur Cecil

    Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E. H.

    Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

    Black, Sir Arthur W.

    Hodge, Rt. Hon. John

    Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

    Blake, Sir Francis Douglas

    Holt, Richard Durning

    Robertson, Rt. Hon. J. M. (Tyneside)

    Bliss, Joseph

    Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

    Robinson, Sidney

    Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith-

    Hughes, Spencer Leigh

    Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

    Bowerman, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Jacobsen, Thomas Owen

    Rowlands, James

    Brace, Rt. Hon. William

    Jones, Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

    Rowntree, Arnold

    Bull, Sir William James

    Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

    Royds, Edmund

    Carr-Gomm, H. W.

    Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

    Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

    Cator, John

    Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe)

    Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

    Cave, Rt. Hon. Sir George

    Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)

    Seely, Lt.-Col. Sir C. H. (Mansfield)

    Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University)

    Jowett, Frederick William

    Sherwell, Arthur James

    Chancellor, Henry George

    Joyce, Michael

    Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook

    Clough, William

    Kenyon, Barnet

    Smith, Sir Swire (Keighley, Yorks)

    Collins, Sir Stephen (Lambeth)

    King, Joseph

    Snowden, Philip

    Collins, Sir W. (Derby)

    Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)

    Stanley, Rt. Hon. Sir A. H. (Asht'n-u-Lyne)

    Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

    Larmor, Sir J.

    Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)

    Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe)

    Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle)

    Sutton, John E.

    Craig, Col. James (Down, E.)

    Layland-Barrett, Sir F.

    Talbot, Lord Edmund

    Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

    Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert

    Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

    Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas

    Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

    Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

    Denniss, E. R. B.

    Long, Rt. Hon. Walter

    Tootill, Robert

    Devlin, Joseph

    M'Cullum, Sir John M.

    Toulmin, Sir George

    Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H.

    Macdonald, J Ramsay (Leicester)

    Walsh, J. (Cork, South)

    Dillon, John

    Maclean, Rt. Hon. Donald

    Wardle, George J.

    Doris, William

    Maden, Sir John Henry

    Watt, Henry A.

    Dougherty, Rt. Hon. Sir J. B.

    Mallalieu, Frederick William

    Wedgwood, Lt.-Commander Josiah

    Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

    Marshall, Arthur Harold

    White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)

    Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes

    Morrell, Philip

    Whitehouse, John Howard

    Galbraith, Samuel

    Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

    Williams, Aneurin (Durham, N. W.)

    Gelder, Sir William Alfred

    Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster)

    Williams, Penny (Middlesbrough)

    Gibbs, Col. George Abraham

    Nolan, Joseph

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worse., N.)

    Gilbert, J. D.

    Nuttall, Harry

    Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

    Goldsmith, Frank

    O'Neill, Capt. Hon. H. (Antrim, Mid)

    Wing, Thomas Edward

    Greig, Colonel J. W.

    Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

    Gulland, Rt. Hon. John William

    Parker, James (Halifax)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Captain

    Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)

    Parrott, Sir James Edward

    F. Guest and Mr. J. Hope.

    Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again"—[Sir G. Cave]—put, and agreed to.

    Captain O'NEILL: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (1), to insert the words "A person qualified to vote under Section 5 of this Act shall not be entitled to vote if he has been convicted by court-martial on active service of an offence under Sections 4, 7, 12, 16 or 18 of the Army Act."
    12.0 P.M.
    The Sections of the Army Act which are specified in this Amendment may not be familiar to all members of the Committee, and I should like to draw attention to their provisions. Section 4 of the Army Act creates a series of offences against military law, which are of a very serious character. They may be summarised as follows: Shamefully giving up a garrison to the enemy, or shamefully giving up a garrison post or guard, or inducing any other persons to abandon or deliver up a garrison, and so forth; shamefully casting away arms, treacherously holding correspondence with or giving intelligence to the enemy, or assisting the enemy,
    344
    or voluntarily serving with the enemy, and so on; misbehaving before the enemy in such a manner as to show cowardice—these are military offences under Section 4 of the Army Act. Then we come to Section 7 of the Act, which makes mutiny a very serious military offence. I have selected Sections 4, 7 and 12, the latter dealing with desertion as an extremely serious military offence. I also mention Section 16, which makes scandalous conduct unbecoming the character of an officer an offence, and Section 18, Sub-section (2), which deals with a man who maliciously maims himself with the object of avoiding service. I do not suggest that the exact words which I have proposed are the words which I ask the Committee to accept, but I do say that I am raising in this Amendment a substantial point, in view of the fact that Clause 5 has been very rightly passed. At the present moment a man who has been con-

    345
    victed of felony is disqualified for the vote so long as he remains in prison, or until he has been pardoned. No doubt the Committee will consider that a perfectly right disqualification; but it may be asked, Why do you suggest that men who, in the Army, have committed certain military offences should be disqualified for the vote any more now than in times past? It may be said that we have always been subject to wars, that we have conducted various wars, and that in those wars the offences of mutiny, desertion, cowardice, and so on, have been committed, and would anyone suggest that a man should lose his vote on that account. My point, of course, is obvious, and it is that this Bill adopts a principle of the franchise which has not been adopted in any legislation which this House has passed before, and under Clause 5 we are at any rate giving to the soldiers, not to put it higher, facilities for exercising the vote which they could never possess except by the passage of this Bill. In view of what the Home Secretary said yesterday, we are going to create a special franchise for soldiers who are not twenty-one years of age, and it is only reasonable that those who prove to be thoroughly bad soldiers should be disqualified from exercising the vote. Clause 18 has a very distinct bearing on this Amendment. That is the Clause which deals with absent voters. Unless there is a disqualification in the way I suggest you may get a really extraordinary state of affairs. It may happen that a man is undergoing a term of penal servitude or imprisonment with hard labour for a military offence and yet by virtue of the fact that he is a soldier and votes as an absent voter he may be able to exercise the franchise while actually in prison. That creates a position which I am sure was not contemplated or desired by those who framed this Clause. It may be said that the man who is undergoing penal servitude for a military offence will not get the military vote because at that moment he is not on full pay. I do not know whether that is so or not, and I would ask the Home Secretary to say, as I think the position ought to be made clear in this respect. If the man who is undergoing imprisonment for a military offence is not on full pay and thereby does not come within the provisions of Clause 5, where are you to draw the line? Is the soldier who is undergoing field punishment of 90
    346
    or 28 days, or whatever it is, on full pay or not? If not I do not suggest that he should be disqualified because of field punishment, but I do suggest that the soldier undergoing penal servitude and in prison for certain offences should be disqualified unless he is already disqualified by not being on full pay.
    Then, take this other position which may arise. There may be an officer who has been tried by court-martial for one of the offences I have specified. He may have been dismissed the Service. An officer who is dismissed the Service now, as we all know, is subject to being called up under the Military Service Acts. I do say that an officer who has been dismissed the Service for any of the offences which I have mentioned should be disqualified from voting when he is subsequently serving as an ordinary soldier under the Military Service Acts within the provisions of Clause 5. I do not suggest that you should go beyond Clause 5. I do not suggest that a man should for ever be disqualified because while he was a soldier he committed these military offences, but I do say most strongly that, as you have enfranchised soldiers as such, or given them facilities for voting as such, it should be made clear in this Act exactly what the position is, and that they should be subject to disqualification for offences which in the case of soldiers are just as large and as far-reaching offences against the State and the country as the offence of a man who in civil life has possibly committed a felony.
    I suggest that this is an Amendment which would undoubtedly be welcomed by the Army. A man who has gone through his military service, who has a clean record, and has served his country with a clean sheet—when I say a clean sheet I mean with only minor offences—does not, I am sure, wish to see the man convicted of desertion, cowardice, or any of the other offences I have mentioned, on exactly the same footing as himself with regard to his vote. I say that this is a substantial point, and I hope the Government will give it every consideration, not only on its merits themselves, but because I feel perfectly certain that it is a point which would undoubtedly have the support of the Army as well as, I think, the support of all those who wish to make this Bill as good a measure in all respects as it is possible to make it.
    Sir G. CAVE: I would at once say that there is a great deal more to be said for the Amendment in the form in which the the hon. and gallant Gentleman has moved it, namely, as an exception to the qualification under Clause 5, than there would have been if he had moved it as a general disqualification. At the same time, I venture to think that this is not the way to deal with these offences. The hon. and gallant Gentleman proposes that anyone guilty of these offences, such as cowardice in the face of the enemy and the other offences mentioned, should for ever be disqualified from having a vote.
    Captain O'NEILL: Possibly my Amendment may be wrongly drawn, but it is not my intention. I put in specifically the words "those entitled to vote under the provisions of Clause 5" because, as I understand it, these msn, as soon as they cease to be soldiers and become civilians, are no longer under the provisions of Clause 5 and would no longer be subject to the disabilities under their military service.
    Sir G. CAVE: They would be for ever disqualified from exercising the special privileges given them by Clause 5. I do not think this is the place for that disqualification. If this consequence is to follow on these offences it ought to appear in a Bill dealing with those offences. I do not think it right that when you have inflicted punishment for an offence a man should,ex post facto, by a subsequent Act have inflicted upon him a further punishment. I think that is the right course to follow. We propose to insert words by which any man sent to prison during part of the qualifying period shall not have the right to vote. As regards men convicted I do not believe they receive their full pay, at all events they do not get it. I hope the Amendment will not be pressed now. I do not think it is the right way to do it.
    Amendment negatived.
    Major HUNT: I beg to move, at the end, to add the words
    "A person shall not be entitled to be registered or to vote as a Parliamentary or local government elector who is on the list of persons who have been interned or made subject to control by order of the military authorities or of the Home Office under the provisions of the Defence of the Realm Acts."
    There cannot be anything that need be said on this Amendment, and I
    348
    conclude the Home Secretary will accept it. A man or woman who has been put under supervision by the police is probably an enemy or a traitor, and is surely not a person who should have power to enable him or her to influence the policy of the country. I cannot believe that the Home Secretary would wink at that sort of person, and I fancy it must have been accidentally left out of the Bill, because as you were obliged to shut them up or tie them by the leg somewhere or other during the war. Certainly it is not safe to loose them in peace.
    Sir G. CAVE: These persons have not been tried or convicted of any offence. They are persona who, for the safety of the realm, have been put under care in time of war, not because they have committed an offence, but because it is thought they might possibly indulge in some mischief. They ought, as the hon. Member says, to be "tied by the leg" for the safety of the realm, but not to lose the vote.
    Major HUNT: Is it only a precaution to be interned, not a penalty? I should certainly consider it a penalty to be interned. However, I feel sufficiently on this matter that I certainly shall ask the Committee to divide.
    Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
    The CHAIRMAN: I think the "Noes" have it.
    Major HUNT: The "Ayes" have it.
    The CHAIRMAN: The "Noes" have it.
    Major HUNT: On a point of Order. Are you justified, when a Member challenges a Division, in ignoring that challenge?
    The CHAIRMAN: When I collected the voices it seemed to me clear that the "Noes" had it.
    Sir G. CAVE: I beg to move, in Subsection (2) at the beginning, to insert the words "A person shall not be entitled to be registered or to vote as a Parliamentary or local government elector if he is not a British subject and."
    Colonel GRETTON: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, after the word "subject," to insert the words "or has ceased to be a British subject."

    349
    During this War it has been brought very prominently to notice that there has been great laxity in our interpretation of the law as to what is a British subject. A very large number of persons here claimed to be British subjects who are certainly not British subjects, either in their actions or feelings. A very large number of them have done no service to the State. The fact of the matter is our naturalisation laws are in a most tangled and unsatisfactory condition. Many persons who are not and cannot, under these laws, be British subjects, are classed as such. I would propose the very simple test of the birth certificate. Any person who has been born a British subject shall, by that fact, be accepted as a British subject, and be capable of exercising the franchise. It may be said that some persons will, or may, be disfranchised by the acceptance of this Amendment. That does not seem to me to be a very serious consideration. After all, the franchise is a privilege and a right conferred upon Britons for the political governance of their State, and anyone not of British birth who is not admitted to the franchise has really no very great grievance, especially if it is unfortunately found that he is one of that class of persons who have not proved themselves trustworthy subjects of the Crown, for the purpose of exercising the franchise, and so taking part in the government of the country. This Amendment is not intended to infringe the right of anyone who claims to reside in the country, or to be naturalised. But there is a point at which we ought to draw the line, and declare that persons of alien enemy birth should not be allowed to take part in Parliamentary elections. I trust the Government will accept this Amendment, or accept an Amendment which, in principle, will make clear this ambiguous and difficult matter. It may be that there is no time at present to reform the naturalisation laws, but something in the matter under review should be done to satisfy people outside this House. The Government, apparently, have made no serious attempt to fulfil their promise. Therefore I propose that on this occasion, at any rate, we take a clear and definite step, and I ask the Government to accept the Amendment.
    Sir G. CAVE: I do not propose to shelter myself behind any statement that we are going to deal at another time with
    350
    the naturalisation laws. I told the hon. and gallant Member the position and he did not believe me.
    Colonel GRETTON: I was not in any way questioning the good faith of my right hon. Friend. I carefully said that people outside this House held those views, and I thought we might take steps, at any rate, to show that something might be done in the direction so much wished outside.
    Sir G. CAVE: Let us deal with the hon. and gallant Member's Amendment The effect of the Amendment would be to disfranchise naturalised persons and such persons as an American woman married to a Britisher. As regards the person naturalised, there is a scrap of paper which says he has the privileges of a British subject unless it is shown by some action that he is not worthy of them. As regards the wife of a British subject, she has become a British subject, and I do not think the Committee would desire to deprive her of her rights.
    Mr. HOLT: Supposing this Amendment were passed, what on earth would be the meaning of naturalisation? It means nothing whatever unless it means that the person naturalised has the full rights of citizenship, including, particularly, taking part in the government of the State, because any foreigner who chooses to come to this country has all the rights of a British subject except that of taking part in the government. An Amendment such as this in substance would mean that a person could not become naturalised, because naturalisation would have no meaning. I am very much surprised at the hon. and gallant Member proposing an Amendment so absurd.
    Colonel GRETTON: I really cannot understand the heat with which the right hon. Gentleman received my proposal. He is quite as well aware as I am that the position is not satisfactory as it stands, and he argued perhaps a little ad captandum on the point. We want some more definite test of what is a British subject. I will ask leave to withdraw my Amendment, but I think something ought to be done on the Report stage to make this matter more clear and definite and to put it in a more satisfactory position.
    Amendment to the proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: In Sub-section (2), after the word "rote" ["to be registered or to vote any"], insert the words "either as a Parliamentary or local government elector."—[Sir G. Cave.]
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow (Wednesday).
    The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
    It being after Half-past Eleven of the clock, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
    Adjourned at Twenty-six Minutes after Twelve o'clock