§ (1) For the purposes of this Act there shall be constituted a tribunal, in this Act referred to as the tribunal, consisting in the first instance of the following persons, namely, the Right Honourable Walter George Frank Baron Phillimore of Shiplake (who shall be chairman), Admiral of the Fleet Sir George Astley Callaghan, G.C.B, G.C.V.O., and the Right Honourable Sir Guy Douglas Arthur Fleetwood-Wilson, G.C.I.E., K.C.B., K.C.M.G., and if any vacancy occurs amongst the members of the tribunal it shall be lawful for His Majesty to appoint a person to fill the vacancy:
1937§ Provided that in the case of a vacancy in the chairmanship the person appointed to fill the vacancy shall be a person who holds or has held high judicial office within the meaning of the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876, as amended by the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1887.
§ (2) The tribunal may act by two of its members notwithstanding a vacancy in its members, and may make rules regulating its own procedure and shall have a seal which can be judicially noticed.
§ (3) The tribunal may appoint a clerk who shall receive such salary or other remuneration as the Treasury may determine.
§ (4) The tribunal shall have all such powers, rights, and privileges as are vested in the High Court or in any judge thereof, on the occasion of any action, in respect of the following matters:
- (a) The enforcing the attendance of witnesses and examining them on oath, affirmation, or otherwise, and the issue of a commission or a request to examine witnesses abroad; and
- (b) The compelling the production of documents; and
- (c) The punishing persons guilty of contempt;
§ Mr. BOOTHI beg to move, in Subsection (1), to leave out the words,
Provided that in the case of a vacancy in the chairmanship, the person appointed to fill the vacancy shall be a person who holds or has held high judicial office within the meaning of the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876, as amended by the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1887.I apologise for my manuscript Amendment, but I did give notice of it yesterday. We passed about ten measures in a sort of a scuffle, and I was unable to leave my duties in the place where I am sitting and skip round to the Table to put in my Amendment. Sub-section (1), after referring to the constitution of the tribunal, and the personnel, continues,if the vacancy occurs amongst the members of the tribunal it shall be lawful for His Majesty to appoint a person to fill the vacancy:"Provided," and so on in the words I propose to omit. I do not think the Government ought to tie its hands. It is not necessary. They are not, I think, likely to appoint an unsuitable person, especially if there is available a judge of the calibre of Lord Phillimore. But why should they be bound to appoint a man with this particular kind of experience? There are three instances that I can give—I do not want to discuss them, but only to name them—which, I think, will carry the Committee with me. For instance, take a man 1938 like the present Home Secretary. He has filled his office for a number of years, and is a distinguished lawyer and gentleman; yet all this would not give him any qualification for this post. The same argument applies to the ex-Prime Minister and to Lord Haldane at the time when he left this House and just before he became Lord Chancellor. One of the most distinguished and experienced lawyers in the country, he would not have been eligible. Many other names will occur to hon. Members. I do not challenge the three names in the Sub-section. Lord Phillimore is an excellent judge, but my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary must remember that the first chairman will have a responsibility devolving upon him which will be much more than that of the second and third chairmen. He will be the one who will lay down the original decisions and precedents which will settle, to a certain extent, the practice of the Court. The load he will carry will not be less—if I put it in that way—than any of his successors; it may be more. What is the use of the words which I want to take out? If it were the case of qualification for nomination in some election where you desired to restrict candidates I could have understood it. It is not a case where anybody can come forward and try to snatch votes. In the case of very important appointments in the Church, in the appointment of an Archbishop of Canterbury, say, the appointment is usually made from a certain kind of cleric. The Prime Minister is bound, as a rule, to appoint a bishop or an archbishop. So here. It looks as if we were trying, when you are creating an important post, to narrow down to a certain class of the community the right always to occupy it. I object to that. We do not know what is in store for us in the future. We may have elected judges, and all kinds of things. I have no doubt we shall have. Possibly there will be a revolution in a good deal of this procedure in the course of the next generation. Why the Government should tie this down in this way I cannot understand. My view is that the Government can be trusted, for they will act as a rule upon the recommendation of the Law Officers of the Crown or the Lord Chancellor. I cannot conceive the Prime Minister making this appointment without consulting them or his colleagues. I do not think there is any possible chance of harm being done and I do appeal that distinguished public servants such as 1939 those whom I have mentioned should be eligible for this post, although they may not actually have sat on the bench.
§ Mr. KINGI should like to support this, partly on the grounds adduced by the hon. Member who last spoke, and partly because I am going to venture on a personal argument. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty has held his present position longer than any other Minister, and it is a well-merited position, but do not let him think he is going to hold it for ever. I hope he will not. I trust that after the General Election, which we are told will come very soon, there will be a complete change of Ministers, and in that event I should nominate him as an excellent man for the presidency of this tribunal. I am sure the whole House would declare it to be a good appointment. The whole legal profession would admit that there is one man outside its ranks who knows more about the work of this tribunal than any lawyer, and most certainly the right hon. Gentleman would have the whole Navy at his back. Under these circumstances I am sure he will adopt this Amendment.
§ Mr. BURNSI associate myself with the arguments advanced by the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth), and particularly With the excellent argument and the fine personal illustration which justified it, which the hon. Member for Somerset (Mr. King) has addressed to the right hon. Gentleman in charge of this Bill. I have another reason. I have no complaint whatsoever, and no one could have any complaint against the three distinguished gentlemen who have been nominated for this particular work. The first is Baron Phillimore, the second is Sir George Callaghan, and the third, Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson. We all know these three gentlemen for their distinguished services to the State in many capacities. In any case, Lord Phillimore well merits selection; so does Sir George Callaghan, and certainly Sir Guy Fleet-wood Wilson stands in the same category, I wish to emphasise the case of Sir Guy because if he were not one of the original three composing this tribunal, he would, in the event of a vacancy occurring, be disqualified from being a member because he is not a judge. He is not a lawyer, but he is a most practical, distinguished Civil servant, and in every office he has occupied he has justified his appointment.
§ Dr. MACNAMARAThis proviso refers only to the Chairmanship.
§ Mr. BURNSI see no reason why in the event of there being a vacancy in the Chairmanship Sir Guy should not become the Chairman. In this regard, in my opinion the Bill is fundamentally wrong, and the reason which induced the selection of this distinguished Civil servant to be one of the members of the Court is in itself a reason why the nomination for the first vacancy in the Chairmanship should be given to him. The case of the Secretary to the Admiralty has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Somerset, and there are other Gentlemen, not only in this House, but distinguished members of the Civil Service, who might well be nominated for the post—men of great technical knowledge, men who have distinguished themselves in the Civil Service, in the War Office, or in the Admiralty. They would be well acquainted with the administrative details of this work, and they ought not to be debarred from the Chairmanship. In my judgment, all careers ought to be open to all talents. We ought not to hedge round certain prominent positions, some of them well paid, many of them very honourable; we ought not, I say, to hedge round them class distinctions; we ought not to make them subject to naval or military inclusion or exclusion, and we ought not to add to the many privileges which the lawyers already enjoy by insisting that there shall always be a lawyer or a judge of the High Court as Chairman of the particular tribunal. I would just as soon give the Chairmanship to a sensible, practical, fair-minded admiral or general or Civil servant or ex-Member of the House as to any lawyer or High Court judge, however great his services may have been.
In these days when some of the services and interests of the State have been handicapped, and in some cases jeopardised, by the exclusion of men from certain ranks of certain classes—men who are not made eligible for particular positions because they do not happen to be members of a certain privileged service, it seems to me that that when the State interest is being jeopardised and endangered in some respects, as in recent years, by confining our selection too closely to a narrow, select coterie, we are doing no good either to the Army or Navy, who will be vitally affected by the administration of 1941 this particular Court. I plead with the Secretary to the Admiralty, who is in charge of this Bill, to be at least as open-minded in his consideration of the suggestion of the three hon. Members who have spoken as in my judgment he was tactful, just, and courteous in his acceptance of part of the suggestion just now of the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs), who, I believe, is going to speak on this proposal.
§ Mr. O'SHEEI desire to support this Amendment. I cannot see why a judge should have a halo round his head or be regarded as specially fitted for beatification or canonisation. I think the instances given by my hon. Friend must convince the House that this attempt to confine the chairmanship of this body to judges of the High Court is uncalled for. There is no necessity for the chairman to have a knowledge of the law. If it be required it can easily be secured by the appointment of a legal assessor. But a knowledge of the law is quite unnecessary, surely, in the administration of naval prize money. The provision in the next Sub-section to that with which we are dealing is to the effect that any two members of the tribunal may carry on the work for the time being in the case of a vacancy, and that again shows that there is no necessity for a knowledge of the law, as those two members may easily be two laymen. Then Sub-section (4) lays it down that the tribunal is to have certain powers and rights which are vested in the High Court for certain purposes. The first is the power of enforcing the attendance of witnesses. Anyone can issue a summons for that purpose. The second is the sending for documents. That, too, only requires a summons. The third is the punishment of persons guilty of contempt of Court. That does not require any knowledge of the law. It therefore does not seem, even on the phraseology of the Bill itself, that a knowledge of the law is necessary for any member of this tribunal, and I cannot see, consequently, why the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill should not agree to accept this Amendment.
§ Commander BELLAIRSMy right hon. Friend behind me invited me to speak, and I wish to say that I agree with the Government proposal in regard to this matter. The tribunal has got to settle very intricate questions of law as to what 1942 are the droits of the Crown and what are droits of the Admiralty Sir Fleetwood Wilson is the representative of the Treasury, and his yardarm, if I may use the term, is to get as much out of the droits of the Treasury as possible, and, of course, the naval representative has to look after the interests of the Navy. The question is a very intricate legal one, and what better plan could the Government follow than to appoint a distinguished judge, and appoint the very best man who has been associated with the Navy, in order to get the matter on a sound footing and provide that such a judge will be appointed in the future! For these reasons, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will stick to his point.
§ Sir J. BUTCHERThe speeches we have just listened to, with the exception of that delivered by my hon. and gallant Friend who has just sat down, have been characterised by a good deal of prejudice, and, if the speakers will allow me to say so, by a very large amount of ignorance. The reason why it is necessary for the chairman of this tribunal to be a judge is because there are very difficult legal questions to be decided, and it is not a question of privilege at all. A member of the Bar is able to decide legal questions, not as matters of privilege but because he has made it his business to understand legal questions. Therefore, to talk about privilege attaching to the chairmanship of this body is to display complete ignorance of the work of the tribunal and the duties which the chairman is called upon to discharge. The Government have selected a man as fitted for dealing with these difficult Admiralty questions of law as any man that they could have possibly selected.
§ Sir J. BUTCHERThat is the reason why he has been appointed, because he has special knowledge of this subject, and the Bill provides that if you want someone to succeed him you should get another man specially qualified in the same way. You make a man Commander-in-Chief of the Army because his knowledge and training fits him to discharge those military duties, and for the same reason you appoint a judge to discharge judicial duties. Consequently there is a proviso that when there is a vacancy in the chairmanship the person appointed shall be a person who has held high judicial office. This is not privilege for the Bar, but they 1943 have to select a person who has proved himself to be a distinguished and a learned lawyer. Therefore, I hope the Government will adhere to this provision, which to me seems to be based upon the most elementary common sense, in order to secure a man who is capable of discharging these important duties.
§ Dr. MACNAMARAMy hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) gave notice yesterday of his intention to raise this question, and I have devoted what time I could to it since then, and have taken the advice of those best qualified to assist me in the matter. If this proviso is struck out, you leave the Crown free to appoint any chairman. If the proviso is left out, you remove the limitation which we have placed upon the appointment in the case of a vacancy, and you set our hands more free. Broadly speaking, I am all for that. And I have got an additional inducement in the speech of the hon. Member for Somerset (Mr. King) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea (Mr. Burns), who have suggested that in some near but nebulous future I myself might be chosen for this position if the proviso is struck out. I am afraid in this matter I shall have to exercise a self-denying ordinance.
I am against freeing our hands in this matter and striking out this proviso, and I will explain why. In the first place I think my right hon. Friend misunderstands the extent to which this proviso does restrict our choice of a successor. My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea spoke of the selection being limited to a select coterie and allowing only a very narrow range of choice. It is, however, really much wider than that, for it includes not only ex-judges but also existing judges of the High Court or the Court of Appeal in England or Ireland, or the Court of Session in Scotland, or a Lord Chancellor or ex-Lord Chancellor, or a Lord of Appeal present or past. Therefore, so far from being a narrow coterie or range of selection it is a much wider choice than my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract seems to think. Now, why do we simply thus prescribe the selection of a successor as chairman if anything should happen to Lord Phillimore? The hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone pointed out that this tribunal has to deal with very complex, very ancient, and very controversial points of law. It has to separate the droits of the Crown and 1944 droits of Admiralty, and that is a very difficult problem, and I cannot imagine anyone better qualified to do that than those who are provided for in such a position as chairman in this Bill. I observe that the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. O'Shee) says that the work the chairman has to do requires no knowledge of the law. I am sure he could not have been wider of the mark if he had deliberately tried. This tribunal has peculiar and difficult points of law to decide. It is not an attempt to glorify the legal profession or to find another job for the lawyer, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Battersea seemed to suggest.
§ Dr. MACNAMARAAt any rate, my right hon. Friend did suggest that we were endeavouring to glorify the lawyer. But that is not so. Observe, there is no pay for this work. Now Jet me put this to my right hon. Friend. Observe the powers of this tribunal. Observe the authority that they have over the subject: "All such powers, rights, and privileges as are vested in the High Court or in any judge thereof in respect of the following matters." They can enforce the attendance of witnesses and examine them on oath, affirmation, or otherwise, and issue a commission or a request to examine witnesses abroad. They can compel the production of documents, and they can send a person to prison for contempt of court. I am not prepared to hand important functions of that sort, involving as they do the liberty of the subject, over to any person who is not very highly qualified in law. We have no desire to glorify lawyers, but only to make due assurance that we do get the right type of man with the right qualifications for this extraordinarily difficult task. While I sympathise with the purpose and aim of my hon. Friend and while I have no desire to seek to give any privilege to anyone, I do hope, for the reasons that I have stated, my hon. Friend will see his way not to press the Amendment.
§ Mr. BURNSIt is not because I narrowly interpret the class of people who will have access to this particular office as suggested by my right hon. Friend, but it is because I really want to let in very distinguished lawyers who themselves have not been judges of the High Court and have not held judicial office of any kind, but who in many cases are very great lawyers, even greater lawyers than some 1945 of the men who have held high judicial office, that I support the Amendment. I see no reason why some great and distinguished lawyer who has achieved a, great position at the Bar, but who has no ambition to be a judge and who has never held any judicial office should not, in the autumn of his days, if he has the leisure, the knowledge, and the public spirit, serve the community in this honorific post. In my judgment, such a distinguished lawyer ought not to be ruled out from being a member or the chairman of this particular tribunal simply because he has not been a judge or held other judicial office. There are some judges of the High Court that no man in his senses would nominate for this particular post.
§ Mr. O'SHEEThe right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill and the hon. and gallant Member (Commander Bellairs) are, no doubt, plain, blunt men, but neither of them is a lawyer, and it is because neither of them is a lawyer that they have not seen what I, as an humble member of the legal profession can see, that questions of droits of the Crown and droits of the Admiralty will not arise for the decision of this tribunal to be set up.
§ Dr. MACNAMARA indicated dissent.
§ Mr. O'SHEEThis tribunal is to administer the Naval Prize Fund. You get the Naval Prize Fund from various sources. First, there is any money in Court—this is not a Court—paid in respect of any ship or goods condemned by any Prize Court. I do not know whether there is any confusion in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, but there is in the mind of the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs). This is not a Prize Court. The Prize Court has to consider and decide what shall be deemed to be a prize and what shall be deemed not to be a prize. The Naval Prize Fund is under the control of the Admiralty according to Clause 1 of the Bill, and it is to be distributed by this voluntary tribunal that is being set up. This tribunal is not in any sense a Prize Court, and it has only got to distribute, under the terms of Proclamation that is to be issued, the money that is paid into the Naval Prize Fund from the various sources defined in the Schedule. I therefore see no reason whatever why the chairman of this tribunal should be a lawyer. The only justification which the 1946 right hon. Gentleman gave for his being a lawyer was by referring to Sub-section (4) of Clause 2. That is merely a question of issuing a summons for the attendance of witnesses, which any ordinary justice of the peace throughout the country is entitled to do. It does not require any training in the law to enable anyone to be a justice of the peace, or to summon a witness, or to compel a witness to produce documents. The third provision to which the right hon. Gentleman referred was the punishing of persons guilty of contempt. As we all know, judges have been criticised more for the exercise of their power under the law of contempt than for anything else. That is just where judges make mistakes. It is not a knowledge of the law that you want to administer the law of contempt, but common sense; and it is because some judges have not exercised common sense, but have followed the juristic dictates in which they have been trained or have sought to follow them that in many cases they have made mistakes in putting into force the law of contempt. Therefore, the rights of the subject are much more likely to be guarded and conserved under the jurisdiction of a Layman who has no knowledge of the law as chairman of this tribunal than under the jurisdiction of a lawyer.
§ Dr. MACNAMARAIt is due to the hon. Member to explain that the separation of the droits of the Crown and the droits of Admiralty is really a function of this tribunal. If he will look at the Proclamation he will see that it says:
We do therefore now make known to all Our loving Subjects, and to all others whom it may concern, by this Our Proclamation, by and with the advice of our Privy Council, that Our Royal Will and Pleasure is and We do hereby order and direct that the net produce of all such prizes captured during the present War as shall be declared by the tribunal appointed under the said Act to be droits of the Crown, and of all other sums which under that Act shall be paid into the Naval Prize Fund," and so on.There is this most difficult duty. It is their function to separate the two, and I confess, with such knowledge as I have at the present, that I cannot imagine a more difficult problem, and one more calling for high expert legal knowledge. I cannot imagine a case where high legal knowledge would be of more essential value than in this particular task, and I hope my hon. Friend will not press the Amendment.
§ Mr. O'SHEEIf the right hon. Gentleman were a lawyer, he would know that it is not essential.
§ Mr. BOOTHIf the hon. and learned Member for York (Sir J. Butcher) had heard me move the Amendment he would probably have made a little different reply. My object was a much more modest one than some of those who have followed me have had in view. There are instances where a distinguished lawyer, even the ex-Prime Minister, if he were available, could not be appointed. The Speakership of this House and the Chairmanship of Committees is not always occupied by a lawyer. My suggestion is that if a former Speaker of this House, or a Speaker of the House of Lords, or an ex-Prime Minister, or an ex-Home Secretary, who has often had to decide questions of life and death and make high judicial appointments, were available, he should be appointed. I never sought to appoint him. If a judge were available of the character of Baron Phillimore, the Government would appoint that judge with general approval. It might not, perhaps, appoint him to the chairmanship straight away, but could appoint him to be a member of the tribunal, and it might appoint an experienced Civil servant to take the chair until the new judge had become accustomed to the Court. I simply proposed the Amendment to give the Government bigger scope. The matter cannot arise for some time, and if the Government do not want to have this power and prefer to be tied up, I propose to leave them in that bondage, and therefore ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ General McCALMONTI beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (1), to add the words, "and provided that at least one member of the tribunal shall be an officer of the Royal Navy."
The Amendment provides that if a vacancy should occur in the naval representation on the tribunal, the substitute or the successor should be a naval officer. I hope my right hon. Friend will see his way to accept the Amendment. This is not a very important matter except from the point of view that I think he will agree it is essential that the tribunal should command the confidence, not only of the financial authorities, but of the Royal Navy itself. It would be some satisfaction 1948 to them to know that on the tribunal there would always be an officer of the Navy.
§ Dr. MACNAMARAMy hon. and gallant Friend has accurately interpreted our purport and intention as regards any vacancy, if such should unhappily occur in the naval membership of this tribunal. I said yesterday that if it should be necessary to fill the post which is to be filled by Sir George Callaghan, the Board of Admiralty would naturally appoint a naval officer. The last point made by my hon. and gallant Friend was a good one, namely, that you might as well express that in words so as to avoid any misunderstanding and not to give rise to any suspicion on the part of the officers and men of the Fleet that there might be any gerrymandering. It is our intention that one member should be a naval member and, in order that there may be no suspicion about the matter, on behalf of the Government I accept the Amendment.
§ Colonel LESLIE WILSONWould it be possible to amend the Amendment to make it read "and provided that at least one member of the tribunal shall be an officer of the Royal Navy or Royal Marines"? This Bill applies as much to the Royal Marines as to the Royal Navy, and if there is to be appointment, an officer of the Royal Marines should not be excluded.
§ Dr. MACNAMARANo.
§ Dr. MACNAMARANo.
§ Mr. BOOTHI think it does. If the right hon. Gentleman looks at page 2 he will see that the term "Naval and Marine Forces" occurs at least twice. It occurs three times in Sub-section (6) of Clause 1.
§ Commander BELLAIRSMight I suggest that the Amendment could well be inserted in another place?
§ 10.0 P.M.
§ General McCALMONTI am perfectly willing to meet the desire of my hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel L. Wilson) and to add the words at the end of my Amendment. I would, however, enter the protest that I 1949 hope, if these words are added, another hon. Member will not propose to add a member of the Royal Air Force.
§ Dr. MACNAMARAI am the last person to suggest any disparagement of the great Corps with which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Reading (Colonel L. Wilson) has been so long and so honourably associated, and I cannot see that I can do other than accept the phrase, "Royal Navy or Royal Marines." There may be some difficulty in the matter as regards phraseology, but if I give my hon. and gallant Friend an undertaking that the spirit of the proposal that an officer of the Royal Marines shall be an alternative, I hope he will be satisfied.
§ Colonel WILSONI understand that my right hon. Friend is willing to insert the words. I am not entirely satisfied with the spirit; I should like to see the words inserted. If he assures me he is willing to insert those words, I am satisfied.
§ Dr. MACNAMARAI can do that, certainly.
§ Mr. BOOTHI suggest that we can include the words already proposed, and then the hon. and gallant Member for Reading can move to add the words "or Royal Marines."
The CHAIRMANCertainly; or the words can be added to the present Amendment. Perhaps that will be the simplest way.
§ Colonel WILSONI beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to add at the end the words "or Royal Marines."
§ Amendment to proposed Amendment agreed to.
§ Proposed words, as amended, there inserted.
§ Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Clause 3 (Provisions as to Prize Bounty), Clause 4 (Payment of Prize Money and Prize Bounty in Certain Gases), Clause 5 (Short Title and Savings), and Schedule ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Bill reported; as amended, considered.
1950§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
§ Commander BELLAIRSBefore we part with the Bill I should like to congratulate the Admiralty on having at last introduced a Bill which will please all sections of the community. I beg them to consider this lesson, that we have introduced this peace legislation, for it is peace legislation and has nothing to do with the conduct of the War, after four years of war, and I hope in future these things will be settled in peace time when we, and certainly the Admiralty, have more time at our disposal. I think they have distinctly improved the Prize Law of the country. They have at any rate got rid of the legal difficulties which used to encumber the Prize Law. They have succeeded in helping naval officers in another direction, by reducing the agents' fees from 2½ per cent. to 1 per cent., and they have got the Treasury to surrender the 5 per cent. which used to go to it. Naval officers have benefited all along the line. The pooling system, which is the chief characteristic of the measure, is also distinctly good. It does away with the great legal conflicts which used to take place. It does away, again, with all the favouritism that used to take place. The favoured sons of families used to be sent to cruisers where they would be likely to get prize money because the capture belonged to the ships that captured it. In doing away with the disputes which took place they have conferred a tremendous benefit upon the community, because great admirals used to fight each other through Court after Court, and the whole comradeship of the Navy got ruined in consequence. St. Vincent and Nelson fought each other through all the Courts, and Collingwood fought three admirals for several years in succession, to all the Courts, and I thank the Admiralty for having introduced a measure which has conferred, and will confer, untold benefit on the Navy.
§ Dr. MACNAMARAI thank my hon. Friends, particularly the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Commander Bellairs), who have met us with such kindly criticism and so sympathetically in their reception of the Bill. We have worked hard on this Bill, which I am glad to say has the approval of the representatives of the Overseas Dominions.
§ Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed.