GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (INDIAN NAVY) BILL.

HC Deb 09 March 1927 vol 203 cc1267-324

Order for Second Reading read.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Earl Winterton)

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

This is a Bill to recreate the Indian Navy, and I think I can best explain its purpose by saying a word or two about the history of the naval forces of India. As long ago as 1613, or at any rate very soon after the Charter was granted to the East India Company, there was a naval force which was paid for by and controlled by the East India Company.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

1612.

Earl WINTERTON

I am very much obliged to my hon. and gallant Friend I was only a year out. It is true to say that that Navy for three-quarters of a century before it was finally abolished by an Act of this House and another place in 1862, bore the brunt of policing the Northern Indian Ocean and the adjacent seas. Its record of service included China, Burma, the Persian Gulf, Aden and a great many other places, and it is true to say that it was a distinguished and a romantic one. Among the members of that old Indian Navy were men with very famous names, who did great service to the Empire in those parts.

Because of his interesting career, perhaps I might refer to one figure in particular, a certain Captain Haines, who was a member of the Indian Navy, and was the Political Officer with the Indian Naval Forces at the time of the taking of Aden in 1838. He was afterwards Governor of that place for 14 years, and a very successful one. During that period he never once left Aden. It is almost incredible to us to-day to think that a European could have remained there for all that time without leave. In the course of his Governorship he made several requests to the East India Company to be supplied with an accountant, saying, without such an officer, it was almost impossible properly to run the finances of the place. That request was invariably refused. At the end of 14 years he gave up his Governorship and expected to be received with some marks of commendation by the Company, to whom he had given 14 years most successful service, during which he had succeeded in turning what was a barbarian place into a peaceful and contented one. So far from that, however, as soon as he arrived in India he was asked to account for some £20,000 which it was alleged was missing, and he was prosecuted for criminal breach of trust. He was acquitted by the Count, but immediately on leaving the Court was served with a writ to return the £20,000. The case went against him, and he spent no less than seven years of his life in a debtors' prison, being eventually released by Sir George Clerk, only to die shortly afterwards of bad health. That story shows that, not only were the members of the Indian Navy men of courage and stalwartness, but that they did not always receive from those who employed them the treatment one would expect a public servant to receive.

In 1862, it was decided, for reasons I think which were perfectly good at the time, that the Royal Navy should take over the Naval Defence of India, and the place of the Indian Navy was taken by a non-combatant force which eventually developed into the Royal Indian Marine.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

Non-combatant?

Earl WINTERTON

I said non-combatant, and I intended to say non-combatant.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

It was never non-combatant.

Earl WINTERTON

It was formed into a non-combatant force. The Royal Indian Navy was abolished in 1862, and the personnel and many of the ships were formed into a nor-combatant force. In the year 1884 an Act of Parliament was passed which established that force as the Royal Indian Marine.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

The Noble Lord will forgive me. I heard him perfectly on all three occasions, but, if he will allow me to say so, "non-combatant" is not the right term to use. It was always a combatant force.

Earl WINTERTON

I am sure the last thing I wish to do is, if I may use a slang term, to split hairs over the mean- ing of the term "non-combatant." It is the term which has been usually applied to the Royal Indian Marine. In point of fact, it was, for the greater part of its service, a non-combatant force, and its duties included marine survey, transport of troops and the care of lighthouses and all duties pertaining to a force having to look after so large a coast line as India has. By almost a side wind, that Act of 1884 made it possible for the personnel and vessels of the Royal Indian Marine to be incorporated in the Royal Navy in times of emergency, which was done in the first year of the Great War. The vessels were then taken over by the Royal Navy, and of the personnel some were taken over by the Royal Navy and some were drafted to the Inland Water Transport, and they rendered most valuable and valiant service in every sphere of sea conflict from the Euphrates to the Channel. In substance, the personnel of the Royal Indian Marine will probably be almost entirely absorbed in the new Indian Navy. But the old name will go, and I feel I must pay my tribute to it in its passing. The Royal Indian Marine has had during its history no small or mean quota of good men and true, both British and Indian, and one can say with confidence that the new force will inherit from its first personnel great traditions of service.

I come now to the reasons for the creation of this new force, for the recreation of the Indian Navy. After the War, for various reasons, the question of reorganising the Royal Indian Marine as a combatant naval force, able to take its place amongst other naval forces of the Empire, came to the fore. It was examined by Lord Jellicoe in 1919 and by two separate naval commanders-in-chief on the East India Station in 1922 and in 1924. I think it was a result of the recommendations of the last of those two authorities, the officer commanding the naval forces on the East India Station in 1924, that a scheme was laid before a Departmental Committee in India, with Lord Rawlinson as Chairman, and with the naval Commander-in-chief among its members. The outcome was that the Committee's Report was accepted by the Secretary of State for India, by the First Lord of the Admiralty and by the Government of India, and the announcement of the intentions of the Government was made in February, 1926.

5.0 p.m.

The policy declared in the announcement followed the recommendations of the Imperial Conferences of 1923 and 1926, which were to the effect that primary responsibility rests on each part of the Empire for its own local naval defence. I will now proceed to explain the provisions of the Bill, after having given this short history of the events which led up to it being produced. It is intended that the name of the Navy shall be the Royal Indian Navy. Its functions in peace time will be the training of personnel for war, and the maintenance of services which are required at all times by the Government of India, such as survey and transport work. It will also be used for the organisation of naval defence of Indian ports. Eventually, it may undertake patrolling in the Persian Gulf, which is at present carried on by the Royal Navy. That would involve a very small addition to the force which is at present contemplated, but it would certainly have advantages, I think, from the point of view of the Royal Navy, in so far as it would relieve the officers and ratings of the Royal Navy from a very arduous and difficult service for Europeans Clause 1 of the Bill applies to the new force provisions analogous to those already applied by Statute to the land forces. That is to say, it provides that, if those naval forces and vessels are placed at the disposal of the Admiralty, the revenues of India could not, without the consent of both Houses of Parliament, be used to defray such expenditure, as long as they are not employed on Indian Naval Defence. In other words, authority would have to be given by this House before the force could be so employed. The Clause goes on to apply, or rather goes on to give powers to adapt the Naval Discipline Act to Indian conditions, as has been done in the case of the Dominion Naval forces. Sub-section (3) of Clause 1 is merely a drafting Sub-section, and Sub-section (4) deals with the question of the Naval Discipline Act and is based very largely on what has been done in the Dominions.

I think there are no other points in connection with the actual wording of the Bill with which I need deal except to say this. I appreciate the fact that most of the provisions of the Bill take the form of legislation by reference, and I would be the last person to deny the general disadvantage of that course, but it is quite impossible to avoid it in the case of the Government of India Bill. India is, I think, the only part of the Empire which has a written constitution. The Government of India Act has to be amended in order to make Statutory provisions for an Indian Navy, and you have to amend it in this way. Amendments are, in the main, full substitution Amendments, and are, therefore, far less cumbersome and confusing than in those cases where a Bill seks to amend a principal Act by altering a word here and a phrase there. I am almost sure to be asked as to how this Bill affects the question of commissions for Indians. The Bill does not alter the existing law as now applied to the Royal Indian Marine. Under the existing law, Indians are eligible for commissions in the Royal Indian Marine. In practice, it has been found that a class of educated Indians willing to, and capable of serving as officers on ships is almost non-existent. Pull opportunity will, however, be given to any young Indian who comes forward and is prepared to be trained as a naval officer. The new service is to be small in numbers, the number of vacancies for new officers, British or Indian will he limited, but, as I have said, Indians if they come forward will be eligible for those vacancies when they have passed the necessary examinations and had the requisite training.

I do not think it would be in Order for me to attempt to deal in advance with any Amendment that may be moved to this Bill, but I gather from questions which have been asked in this House that objection is likely to be taken to it on two grounds, first, that it is an addition 'or that it will constitute an addition to the naval forces of the Empire and, secondly, that the Indian Legislature has not been properly Consulted. As regards the first point, I am bound to point out that there is nothing in the Bill which need bring a blush even to the most pacifist cheek, because the Bill only provides, and is only intended to provide a service to carry out the duties which will always have to be carried out, even if the ideal of universal disarmament, as far as combatant ships are concerned, is reached. It will always be necessary for every country with a large coast-line like India to have survey ships, to prevent smuggling and to control poaching by other countries. I do not contemplate that any circumstances will arise which will need combatant ships. The type of ships in use will be similar to those in use by the Royal Indian Marine, except that, possibly, the new Indian Navy may, in the course of time, take over the patrolling in the Persian Gulf. No one can say that the ships which now carry out that patrolling, such as sloops or launches, constitute a menace to any other country. Therefore, as regards the argument that this means a considerable addition to the naval forces of the Empire, I do not think that it can be held for a moment. There is nothing in the constitution to the effect that Parliamentary legislation affecting India requires the previous approval of the Legislative Assembly, nor is there any precedent for doing so. And I would point out that certain hon. Gentlemen have on the Order Paper in this House a Bill, the Commonwealth of India Bill, which has not yet come forward for Second Reading, which proposes to make fundamental changes a hundred thousand per cent. greater, if one may use such an expression, than the changes proposed in this Bill in the Government of India Act. It practically sweeps that Act away. That Bill has never been discussed in the Legislative Assembly, although there is nothing to prevent any private Member of that Assembly bringing it forward and discussing it. There is nothing, however, in the constitution which makes it necessary for the Legislative Assembly to discuss the Bill now before the house.

Someone may ask what opportunity will be given to the Legislature in India to deal with the Bill. The opportunity will be this. In the first place, this Bill cannot come into effective operation in India without consequential legislation by the Assembly, and when that Bill is discussed by the Assembly, there will be full opportunity of discussing the whole question of the Indian Navy. In addition, this new Indian Navy will be in exactly the same position in relation to the Assembly as the Indian Army is at present. While I believe it is true that it is not possible under the Government of India Act for the Assembly to discuss any actual items dealing with military expenditure in the Budget they can discuss and reject or accept the whole Budget of which these items are a part, they will have exactly the same rights, from the legislative and statutory point of view, over the new force as they have over the Army. May I say, in conclusion, that I commend this Bill to the House for the reason that, to the best of my belief and the belief of my Noble Friend the Secretary for India and of the Government of India, it is desired by the people of India. There have been in the past many questions asked in the Assembly as to when it was proposed to put the recommendations of the Committee into operation. This Bill gives an opportunity for Indians to be trained for commissions. It turns over the existing personnel of the Royal Indian Marine to the new force, and that force will, therefore, start with the very great advantage of having a tradition behind it, and a very valuable tradition indeed. It is hoped that this force, which is not intended to be a menace to anyone, will do the same beneficial work for the coasts of India and for the people of India that the Royal Indian Marine has done since its inauguration and which was done by the old Indian Navy.

Mr. AMMON

I beg to move, to leave out froth the word "That", to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words this House, being desirous of extending, the powers of the elected representatives of the Indian people in the control of Indian affairs, cannot assent to the Second Reading of a Bill for the provision of an Indian Navy which fails to place such Navy under the control of the Indian Legislative Assembly, has not been submitted to and approved by that Assembly, and incidentally involves an increase in Imperial Naval Forces. The Noble Lord has referred to the difficulty and undesirability of legislation by reference, and I would only say that when a Bill of this kind is brought forward, there ought to be an explanatory memorandum which would help the House to understand matters which are so involved and technical. I join with the Noble Lord in paying a tribute of praise to the old Indian Marine and of regret at their passing, although that reference to the Indian Marine points to the fact that they could have done everything which is stated in the Noble Lord's speech as having to be done by the Indian Navy. One is bound to point out that we cannot accept his statement as wholly covering the ultimate intention and work that is cut out for the proposed Royal Indian Navy. Again and again, we have been informed in this House that we cannot, under any circumstances, amend the Government of India Act, and we are forced to the conclusion that it can be amended only as and when it may suit the purposes of the Government.

Earl WINTERTON

I never said that the Act could not be amended. Since I have been in my present position I have brought in no less than four Bills to amend it.

Mr. AMMON

I am not accusing the Noble Lord of saying it, but it has been said again and again that the Act cannot be amended till 1929. When it suits the purposes of the Government, they can bring in Bills to amend it, but they cannot accept them when they come from the people of India themselves. What is the purpose of this Bill? In days gone by, I used to hear that the danger-spot of India, was the North-West Frontier. If that still be true, then it would seem to me that a far better thing for this Government to have done in the matter of defence would have been to have organised an Indian Air Force rather than an Indian Navy. In that case, I understand the difficulty might he that in no circumstances can Indians be used in the Air Force itself. It is nonsense to talk about this Indian Navy being an Indian Navy in the real sense of tin, term, because the only people who are excluded from it are the Indians themselves. The policing, coast guarding, and all that sort of thing could be, and was to large extent, carried out by the old Indian Marine. Although under this proposal it is quite true only about a dozen small ships are proposed in the first instance, it is undoubtedly a proposal to supplement the British Navy. Let us be quite sure about that. The Rawlinson Committee recommended, in regard to the recruitment of executive officers in the proposed Indian Navy, that they would be required at the rate of three a year. Boys should enter by competition in exactly the same way as the public school cadets are taken into the British Navy. Examinations for cadetship, they say, should be held simultaneously in England and India, but only one appointment every year should be reserved for an Indian boy, and he should be from the Prince of Wales's College, Dehra Dun, or an English public school. At the same time, the Committee say it will be several years before any Indian cadets will be able to enter from Dehra Dun.

In face of that, is it not absurd to talk about this being an Indian Navy? It is simply a proposal to supplement the British Navy, and impose it upon the Indian people. The Indian Press have evidently seen the humour contained in the suggestion, for I read in an extract from the "Modern Review," published in Calcutta: We are overjoyed at the prospect of India having fullfledged navy in A.D. 2526, by which time it is hoped naval warfare will have become obsolete owing to the greater vogue and efficiency of aerial warfare, and navies will have become objects of curiosity tit to be kept in aquatic museums. That is how the Indian people view this proposal. Here we are seriously told, as the Noble Lord has himself told us, that provision will be made to officer the Indian Navy, and suitable candidates will be given promotion as and when occasion arises, and it is going to be done at the rate of three a year, one appointment every year to be reserved for an Indian boy. I leave it to hon. Members to work cut how long it will take at that rate of progress before the Indian Navy is officered by Indians, and at what age one will be appointed to have a ship under his control.

The question of pacifism does not arise in the opposition to this Bill this afternoon. The opposition this afternoon arises from the point of view that here is an attempt to tell this House, the country, and the Empire if you will, that an endeavour is being made to create a real Indian Navy when it is nothing of the sort, but is simply an attempt to put on to the Indian people the cost of a British Navy, which ought to be borne by the Exchequer of this country. This talk about reforming the Navy is the same that we hear with regard to the Army. There we have a barrier put up. Only about 10 Indians per year are sent to be trained at Sandhurst, and there they are to be commissioned officers only in the Infantry and Cavalry. No Indian is allowed to be trained as a commissioned officer for the Artillery, Air Force, etc. Precisely the same position under different methods is to be set up with regard to this Navy. All lower ranks, we are told, will eventually consist of Indians. It simply means that probably the more unpleasant work, the work which is more difficult for Europeans to carry out, is going to be given to the Indian people, but they are not to have their own nationals to officer them, nor are they to be trusted in that particular respect.

In spite of what the Noble Lord has said, that this can be, and will be, discussed, there have been attempts to discuss this in the Indian Legislative Assembly and in Madras, and on each occasion it was ruled out, in the first case by the Viceroy, and in the second by the Governor, and we have no reason to expect that there will be any different action in the future. What Indians are asking is, that if there is to be an Indian Navy, it should be manned by Indians in all ranks, and be under the control of their own Legislature. The Amendment we have placed on the Order Paper asks that that should be the point of view taken by the Government. We are asking that if the Government seriously mean what they are saying, namely, that they are going to establish an Indian Navy, we should hear the opinion of the elected representatives of India on this matter, and they should be given an opportunity to discuss and consider it even before we have passed it in this House. It has been laid down that the Army in India should not be employed outside the external frontiers of India, except for purely defensive purposes, or in case of very grave emergency. That was accepted by Sir Godfrey Fell on behalf of the Government, and has been accepted in this House by the hon. and gallant Member for Fylde (Captain Lord Stanley) speaking on behalf of the Noble Lord. But if that be so, there is no substance in it whatever. The Noble Lord has already told us that this Government, by simply passing Resolutions in this House, can take over the Indian Navy, anti use it as and when they like, as circumstances may seem to them fit. That all points to the conclusion, at which some of us have arrived, that the Indian Navy is Indian only in name and not in actual fact.

Earl WINTERTON

I apologise for again interrupting, but this is really an important point. I did not say that, nor does the Bill say it. The Bill does not say that this House, simply by passing a Resolution, can take oven the Indian Navy. What the Bill says is: Any naval forces and vessels which may from time to time be raised and provided by the Governer-General in Council shall be employed for the purposes of the Government of India alone, except that if the Governor-General declares that a state of emergency exists which justifies such action, the Governor-General in Council may place at the disposal of the Admiralty," etc. It can only be done by the Governor-General in Council, and has nothing whatever to do with this House. When it has been done, it does not become effective, as far as money is concerned, unless this House passes a Resolution allocating the revenues of India for the purpose. It rests with the Governor-General in Council, and not with this House at all.

Mr. AMMON

I had omitted one stage, but it really makes it worse, as far as the Indians are concerned, because there would be a certain opportunity for discussion if it came before this House, whereas it means that the Governor-General can certify, and then it will come before this House for the necessary funds. No one would imagine that the Governor-General would place these forces at the disposal of the Admiralty unless he had received instructions from the Government on this side. He would be acting on those instructions alone, and it is reducing the whole thing to a farce to talk about the Indian people being consulted or considered in any manner, or to officer the Indian Navy or have any part in it other than having to foot the bill. The whole concern is not so much to help the Indians forward in their search for self-government and Home Rule, but is an attempt to impose upon them certain obligations that ought rightly to be borne by this country. As far as we on this side are concerned, we would have been prepared to welcome the Bill if it had been a real and genuine step towards the furtherance of self-government by the Indian people, that is to say, if the Bill had been so framed as to allow Indian people, if they so desired, to form their own Navy, to officer it and use it as they thought fit. That would have had our consent, but, as the circumstances are entirely different, as they have no voice in it, and it is being imposed upon them, we feel bound to oppose this Bill.

Having said that, one has a right to ask what steps are to be taken to train the officers and men for the Navy? Why are they not to be trained in our Royal Navy? Everyone who has had any contact with the Navy knows that you can see Chinese, Japanese and all other nationals being trained in our Royal Navy as officers. Yet there is no such provision made for our Indians, who are British subjects, who form part of the Empire. As far as one understands, there are to be no colleges set up in Bombay or Calcutta, and there are to be no seagoing ships in which to train officers. All we have got is this nonsensical proposal, which is merely meant to deceive both the Indian and the British public, that three boys every year can be trained, and one a year can be selected as a cadet. It is simply absurd to suggest that you can form a Navy in circumstances like that, and that seriously to ask people to believe that you are sincere in any such proposal. If there he any genuine intention on the part of this Government to extend the self-government of the Indian people, they must trust them and allow them a full share in the responsibility. That is what our Amendment calls for. This, however, is simply a means whereby this country is seeking to escape from its, own moral commitments and obligations.

What is the good of statements such as we have had this afternoon, that we are willing to consider and discuss the proposal of President Coolidge for the reduction of armaments to be brought before the League of Nations? What is the good of talking about the reduction of armaments in England while we are doing all we can to foment an armament race in Indian waters? The Indian people themselves are not unaware of what this means. The Noble Lord has not made any reference to it, hut this is simply a further development of the Singapore scheme. As the "Modern Review' says: Why should we grumble even if the 'Indian' Navy be a part of the Singapore Base idea in disguise? Contrary to all expressed wishes and desires to diminish armaments, and to reduce the possibilities of friction throughout the world, we are by this method and other methods setting up in Indian waters precisely the condition that was established in the North Sea prior to the outbreak of war in 1914. As sure as night follows day, the same results are bound to follow if we continue our present policy. In the Navy there has been a reorientation of our naval forces based on the Pacific and the Mediterranean as compared with what they were in previous years, and all this is part of the scheme. It may be small in its conception, but it can easily be extended. I believe the cost is about £150,000 a year placed on the Indian people, but above all that it is simply putting us again in the position of which we accuse other nations, that is, being hypocritical when we talk of our desire for peace and disarmament and giving support or approval to the Coolidge resolution.

I am aware that the Washington Conference had regard only to capital ships, but it is only sticking to the letter of the Agreement and violating the spirit when we are acting in this way by seeking to pile up our armaments and building naval bases in Eastern waters, and we are doing it by this means in order that there will be an accumulation of forces which can only be used for aggressive purposes. There can be no confidence in the talk about abolition of armaments while we are going on in this manner. The Foreign Secretary is now at Geneva, probably talking about peace and giving his blessing to proposals for a reduction of armaments, yet at the same time the present Government bring in a Bill which has for its object, not the creation of an Indian Navy as such, because it would not be officered and manned by the Indian people, although it would be paid for by them, and all this is being done without consultation with or ascertaining the views of India's elected representatives.

The proposals in this Bill with regard to the position of officers and their appointment to high rank is insulting to the Indian people. They will have to pay the bill. The position we are in is that we are signalling across to the United States that we are willing to join with them in any proposals for the reduction of armaments with our tongue in our cheek, because we have no intention of carrying them into effect. There is a growing desire, not in one section but throughout this country as well as other countries that all Governments should seek ways of peace, disarmament and reduction of expenditure on armaments. This Bill is not the way to do it. This Measure is arousing a great deal of dissatisfaction. If my statement in this regard is challenged, I can quote many newspaper cuttings from the Indian Press condemning this Measure, because they claim that the Indian people are excluded from participation in benefits although they will be called upon to foot the bill. We cannot, with any consistency, go, forward with these proposals without doing what the Amendment tries to suggest, namely, that the Indian people themselves should be consulted with regard to them through their elected representatives. These matters should be placed under the control of the Indian Legislative Assembly. Although it is claimed that the proposals in this Bill are the means by which you are-seeking to increase British armaments. What you are really doing is demanding an additional contribution from the Indian people.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

I beg to second the Amendment.

Like my hon. Friend (Mr. Ammon) I would like to join with the Noble Lord in his tribute to the service given by the old Royal Indian Marines who disappear through the passing of this Bill. The officers of the Royal Indian Marines, many of whom I have had the honour of meeting and serving with, are practically all drawn from the British Mercantile Marine and the Royal Naval Reserve. No one has ever given anything but very high praise to their capabilities, because natives and Europeans have performed very great services in the past. I think the Noble Lord was not quite so happy, in view of the position he holds in this. House as spokesman for the India Office, in his reference to the facilities offered to young Indians for becoming officers under these proposals. It was quite unnecessary for him to have suggested that up to now no suitable young Indians had come forward, and that he did not see any possibility of this happening in the future.

Earl WINTERTON

I did not say that. I hope they will come forward. I hope it will be possible in the future to obtain young Indians for this purpose.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

What chance have they had in the past? During my short service I actually served our ships with Chinese cadets, Turkish, and Siamese officers and Japanese. Even Chilean officers had been given a chance of serving in our Navy. The Siamese officers passed right through the training ship and became officers in the Siamese Navy. The Noble Lord, I know, is, very interested in the Mohammedans, and probably he will be interested to know that at one time I had in my special charge as a Lieutenant in the Navy a Turkish officer who kept watch with me, and he was excellent company. He claimed special dispensation from the Moslem law against taking alcoholic liquor, but I told him this could only apply so long as the ship was in harbour, and that it must be waived when he was on board ship. This man turned out to be a very good officer, and probably gave us a good deal of trouble during the Dardanelles campaign. If we can do that with Turks, Chinese and Siamese officers, why cannot we do the same with regard to Indian officers?

I see the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty on the Treasury bench, and as this is the first time I have addressed my remarks to him, may I congratulate him upon his well-merited promotion. May I say in this connection that while the Government is in office I should very much like to see it refreshed with agile brains like those possessed by the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty. When twenty or thirty years ago we wished to encourage the formation of Colonial Navies, we took special steps to induce the sons of Colonials to join the Navy and we gave them Colonial cadetships. When the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs) and the hon. and gallant Member for Evesham (Commander Eyres Monsell) entered the Navy, there was then a fierce competition in the Navy, and in order that the sons of Colonial gentlemen should have every opportunity of coming in, special cadetships were given and they made very good officers. Why is that not being done henceforward with regard to the Indian Navy? If you are in earnest in making this a new Dominion Navy, why do you not take up this matter in a large way? Even if some of these young Indian officers do not turn out very well, no harm will be done, and they ought at any rate to be given a chance. I am sure it would be quite possible to pick out suitable young Indians from the Universities and from the sons of suitable Indian families and pass them through the Training College at Dartmouth and send them to sea for a period of training. From what I have seen of these young Indians on the cricket field and the tennis court, and from what I know of their intellectual qualities, I think that with a few years training they would be well worthy of taking their places as officers in the Navy.

Earl WINTERTON

Hear, hear.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

The Noble Lord agrees with me now, but why did he disavow the evidence brought forward by the Rawlinson Committee which considered this question, because that is not the way to get acquiescence for these proposals. These proposals might have been used for carrying out a scheme of promotion in the Indian Navy, and this would have given them a greater responsibility for managing their own affairs and defending their own country. I sometimes think the real Imperialists are to be found on the Labour benches. At the present moment no Indian gentleman is permitted to be a commissioned officer in the artillery, although he can become a gunnery officer in the Indian Navy. That is an extraordinary anomaly, and I think it is time the War Office took notice of this in order to remove a very humiliating restriction upon the employment of Indian officers in the Army.

I wish to refer to the present officers of the Royal Indian Marines. These officers have done their course at Whale Island and on His Majesty's ship "Vernon" for the study of naval subjects, gunnery and torpedo. There is quite a respectable officers' list in the Royal Indian Marines. There are nine post-captains—one is the director—25 commanders, 21 lieutenant-commanders, 29 lieutenants, and nine midshipmen on the officers' list. In addition there is an engineer-captain, nine engineer-commanders, 25 engineer-lieutenant-comman- dens, and 11 boatswains, all of them Britishers, and there is not one of Indian birth in the whole of that list. Forthwith I think we should begin training suitable youths in the Dartmouth College, and we should train engineers as well. There is no question, surely, that the engineers should also be recruited from Indians. As we know, the Indians are very good technicians and engineers, if they are properly trained.

I took issue with the Noble Lord when he spoke of the former Service being non-combatant. The word "non-combatant" is looked upon as a slight at sea. These vessels were always armed, and I think the term should be "non-military." There is some soreness on that matter, and that is why I refer to it. As the Noble Lord referred to past history, I would like to point out to the House that really there is not so very much change. This Force was originally formed, as the Noble Lord said, in 1612 by the Honourable East India Company, and was known as the Honourable East India Company's Marine. In 1830, still under the control of John Company, it became known as the Royal Indian Navy, so that there is not such a very new de parture in this proposal. As the Royal Indian Navy, it served as far away as New Zealand in the Maori Wars, in addition to the campaigns mentioned by the Noble Lord. It also took a useful part in the South African War, and the Noble Lord has referred to the services of the Royal Indian Marine in the Great War, which are well known and were of tremendous value to the Empire. I might also remark that, during the Indian Mutiny, the Royal Indian Navy, as it then was, was loyal and stuck to its duties in a most creditable way. With this history and these traditions behind it, now is the time really to make this Force into a national force such as T have attempted to describe.

As Indian troops were sent very willingly to our service during the Great War, surely we can trust the Indian people, if our cause is just in any struggle in which we may he engaged, to put their forces at our disposal. There lies the objection to the present Bill because this Force will be at the sole disposal of the Governor-General in Council, and the permission of the Indian Legislature will not be sought. That is the blot on the Bill. It is a very important point in connection with the Resolution referred to by my hon. Friend, that was passed by the Legislative Assembly on the 25th March, 1921. This Resolution was brought forward, as the Noble Lord will remember, by a very moderate Indian Liberal —not a Swarajist by any means—Sir Sivaswamy Aiyer. He was referring to the Indian Army, and the Noble Lord said—I took down his words—that this Force would be in the exact position of the Indian Army. Therefore, I think the terms of this Resolution are of the highest importance. It was passed by the Assembly after its acceptance by Sir Godfrey Fell, as my hon. Friend mentioned, who was the Army Secretary speaking for the Commander-in-Chief. This was the Resolution: That the Army in India shall not, as a rule, be employed for service outside the external frontiers of India, except for purely defensive purposes, or, with the previous consent of the Governor-General in Council, in very grave emergencies; provided that this Resolution does not preclude the employment on garrison duties overseas of Indian troops at the expense of His Majesty's Government and with the consent of the Government of India. That is a very important resolution to have been passed by the Indian Legislative Assembly, and, in these Circumstances, the big thing, the Imperial thing, would have been to insert words in this Bill providing that, in case of grave emergency, this Force could be placed at, the disposal of the Admiralty with the consent of both Houses of the Indian Legislature. Why not? You will not get willing service unless you have the consent of the Indian. Legislature. We are gradually giving greater powers, as time goes on, to the Legislative Assembly. Why not allow words like these to be put into the Bill? That would remove the suspicions referred to by my hon. Friend, which are being aroused in India by this proposal. The Noble Lord, surely, wishes to placate to satisfy patriotic Indian opinion, and there is a patriotic Indian opinion which can be roused if it is properly met. Let us, if you like, play up to, let us acquiesce in the patriotic nationalist feelings in India, and play on those feelings. Why not? In the Fr6nch Navy they have commissioned officers actually serving in the Fleet who are not of the same race as the Indians, but are full-blooded negroes. There is actually a flag officer in the French Navy who is a full-blooded negro, and he has the reputation of being an excellent seaman and a good disciplinarian.

That is how the French, without any talk of democracy or giving self-government, manage to maintain the loyalty of so many millions of their colonials, and that is the sort of principle that the Noble Lord must follow in the ease of India, side by side with the carrying out of the reforms. Without it, in reviving the Royal Indian Navy, we lose an opportunity of satisfying nationalistic and patriotic feelings, and at the same time removing suspicion from the minds of the Indian people that this Force may be paid for, as my hon. Friend suggests, by them only, and may then be at the disposal of the Admiralty in time of war. The Government are doing a thing that may be defended as a right thing, but they are doing it in a most unfortunate way. In view of the presence at the India Office of the Noble Lord who is my Noble Friend's superior, and to whom I may not refer more fully, I am not surprised to find that it is being done in a foolish, a weak, and a small way, and as, without the. Amendments I have suggested, the Bill will do much more harm than hood, I and my friends will oppose it, and, in so doing, will be doing a service to the whole Empire.

Mr. PILCHER

I listened very carefully to the two speeches we have just heard from the Labour benches, and it seems to me that they have displayed both a fundamental misapprehension of the principles of the existing Indian Constitution and an almost complete ignorance of the real facts of the case we are discussing. May I first just allude to the question of facts? The hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) said, not once or twice, but many times, that the real gist of this proposal was to shift from the British taxpayer the cost, which he is rightly bearing at the present, moment, on to India. I cannot imagine a more complete and total misapprehension of the facts, a more complete failure to look up the facts and find out what they are, than that repeated asseveration of something which is totally false. At the present time the Indian taxpayer bears the cost of the Royal Indian Marine to the extent of 51 lakhs, or a matter of some £400,000, per annum. Under the proposal which is now before the House, and which later on will come before the Legislative Assembly itself, the position will be exactly as it was. There will be a matter of 10 lakhs a year more to be expended by the Indian taxpayer, but there are also proposals for economies and an important proposal, in regard to the matter of capital expenditure, under which a very considerable additional sum will, for some years at any rate, be borne V the taxpayers of this country. That did not appear from the speech of my Noble Friend the Under-Secretary; he did not go into the details of this Measure; but it is proposed, to begin with, that at any rate two additional sloops shall be added to the four sloops in Indian waters, at the expense of the British taxpayer, under the head of "Capital Expenditure. 'There is no question here of shifting the incidence of the expenditure or of taxation from one set of taxpayers to another.

On the question of the misreading of the Indian Constitution, there is a serious misunderstanding on the Labour benches of the reasons which have animated the Indian Government in making this arrangement with regard to the consent of the Assembly. At the present time, under the Indian Constitution of 1919, certain matters are kept from the final and absolute purview of the Indian Parliament. This arrangement was come to after very long and careful consideration in 1919. There was a certain reservation of final responsibility as between the Imperial Government of India, and the imperial Parliament. There was a careful distinction between reserved and transferred subjects, and, while very great powers were given to the Assembly—much larger powers than it had ever had before—there was a careful reservation of certain subjects—

Mr. THURTLE

A very astute reservation.

Mr. PILCHER

That was an understanding arrived at by Commissions and Committees composed of both Indians and Britishers. It was accepted by the Joint Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament. It was fundamental in that settlement that matters of defence and foreign policy, the Government of the Indian States, and ecclesiastical policy, were not to be placed absolutely under the control of the Assembly. That was a matter of arrangement for 10 years only. As a matter of fact, the Assembly has enjoyed very much greater privileges in discussing matters of defence than it was ever imagined that it would have in 7919. The Army Vote is submitted to the Assembly in very great detail every year, and very full discussion takes place. The Viceroy has the power, which was given to him with the greatest deliberation on the part of this House, of ensuring ail expenditure on the defence of India during this 10 years' term. That is the fundamental and purely technical reason why the Assembly is not made the complete arbiter in the matter of expenditure on this small Navy.

I would draw the attention of the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) to the fact that the proposal in this Bill goes very much further in a statutory sense than ever before in the matter of conferring on the Indian Assembly control over any branch of the defensive forces of India. No statutory power has ever been given to the Assembly to decide the use and destination of any branch of that expenditure until now. The Resolution which the hon. and gallant Member read out was a mere resolution of the Assembly, passed in 1921. It was approved by Sir Godfrey Fell, but it was not made a statutory power of control. This Bill, however, goes almost to the extent of making the Assembly the absolute arbiter in this matter. It is given complete control over the whole personnel of the Indian Navy. There has never been, in any Measure for extending the power of the Indian Parliament, anything quite corresponding to one of these Clauses, which gives the Assembly power even to alter the Naval Discipline Act as it pleases, even though there is a large white personnel in the Navy. It must be remembered that the Royal Indian Marine, which we are now handing over to become the basis of the Royal Indian Navy, is entirely, so far as officers go, English in personnel. It is to the fact that this experiment is to be built up on the basis of the existing Royal Indian Marine that, in reality, the smallness of the experiment is due as far as Indian promotion or Indian entry is concerned.

6.0.p.m.

This proposal has been criticised on the ground that it is very small indeed, and almost worthless. It has also been criticised on the ground that it imposes a new and heavy expenditure on the Indian people. You really cannot have it both ways. We are completely bound so far as the beginning is concerned by the conditions at present prevailing. We have had to accept the cadre of officers as it exists, and it seems to me impossible suddenly to arrange for this inrush of Indian personnel that is asked for by the hon. Member for Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy).

Mr. THURTLE

I take it there is nothing in the Bill that is going to make defence anything but a reserved subject, so I take it the Indian Government will control the Navy in future.

Mr. PILCHER

The Assembly is in entire control until a given moment when an emergency arises. That is a much better position so far as the Assembly is concerned than the position in regard to the Army. The Assembly controls it by Statute till an emergency arises, and then the head of the Executive has the power to hand the Navy over for the time being to the Admiralty. That, I imagine, is only what happens in the case of Dominion Navies. There, too, when we had an Imperial emergency it was found impossible for individual control of Dominion Navies to continue. In fact, I think that is really one of the most important lines of criticism which could really be offered; this Bill does from the naval point of view rather increase the centrifugal tendency in general Imperial naval administration. I am perfectly willing to run that risk because, contrary to anything that has been or will be said in the Debate, this proposal is essentially designed to satisfy Indian democratic sentiment. The newspapers that have been quoted—I know the Indian Press inside out—have very small circulations indeed. Very much of what is quoted is irresponsible. It does not very much matter what the. Indian Government proposes. However much it is designed to carry out what the Indian people want, you get some irresponsible criticism. This proposal very largely came from Lord Reading's most earnest desire to do something wherever he found the possibility to satisfy the growing sense of nationhood of the Indian people. In similar way, and as a like concession to Indian demand, a Committee was appointed to consider the possibility of promoting the growth of the Indian Mercantile Marine. At present you have practically no Indian Mercantile Marine. It is almost impossible to build up an Indian Navy in a country which owns only one shipping line.

I should like to say a word on the sources from which the Indian officers are to be found. The hon. and gallant Gentleman sincerely thought you could at any moment find a number of Indians who are prepared to take on this work. So far as the Hindu community goes—it is a matter of 160,000,000 people—the sea is taboo. In the orthodox communities if a Hindu of any but the lowest castes goes to sea he has to undergo very elaborate ceremonials and pay fines to the priests when he comes back. The sources from which you can recruit people for naval work are extremely small. There are lascars in very large numbers who will do the lower deck work and that sort of thing. You have large seafaring classes on the coast, but when you get away from the coast into the interior, the mass of the inland people scarcely know of the existence of the sea and will have nothing to do with it because it is more or less forbidden by their ancient law.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

The hon. Member speaks with very great authority. Does he really wish the House to believe that where you can make an Indian Army officer it is impossible to make an Indian gentleman a marine officer?

Mr. PILCHER

I very much hope, exactly as the hon. and gallant Gentleman hopes, that we may succeed in inducing a considerable number of Indian gentlemen to take to this life, but the demand has not come from those classes from whom he imagines it comes. The educated class are not the sort of people who go to sea. The man who plays good tennis, cricket and football is not likely to volunteer for a sea life from what I know of him, and I am fairly intimate with his class. You will have to get this population from the sea-port towns and sea coasts, and even there there is going to be a good deal of difficulty in getting them.

The hon. Gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench (Mr. Ammon) rather suggested that no provision was being made for training the class of men we hope to get to officer the Indian Navy. He referred to the Prince of Wales's college at Dehra Dun. That is really a notable development, again a matter of the last three or four years. It had its origin, I think, in Lord Reading's Viceroyalty. There primarily we are trying to train a type of Indian officer for the Indian Army. If the hon. Gentleman would have the curiosity to get the first few reports, which describe the first few years' working of that institution he will see how difficult it is even with the best of intentions to get the type of man you want to undergo the training. You must have a certain amount of literary skill and capacity and some power of assimilation before you can begin to train them, and when the attempt began to bring this class of young Indian gentlemen to Dehra the fundamental difficulties were found to be very considerable. Their sense of geography and the most elementary things is extraordinarily limited. The period of training is necessarily a long one and all sorts of provision are made in this scheme for giving them a chance. They will have six years nominally at the Dehra Dun college, but the last two of those years are to be spent in touch with the sea at Bombay and the cadets are finally to go through a very elaborate two years' course at Whale Island and various centres in this country. There is, in fact, nothing repressive or timid in the scheme at all. It it simply that you have the Britisher officering the Indian Marine from top to bottom and gradually you are going to substitute for him the Indian officer and you are limited by the conditions prevailing at the outset.

There is one last point I should like to impress on my Noble Friend. I have been in fairly close touch with the officers of the old Royal Indian Marine for some years past and have had a number of letters from them during the last two or three months. That Service has always been regarded as a non-combatant service, as those who have been in India know. The pay has always been fixed rather on the basis of what men of the same type can obtain in the Mercantile Marine than on what they ought to receive in a corn- batant service. For the combatant service the rates of pay and pension which Royal Indian Marine officers are now receiving are very inadequate. They had their rates of pay raised in 1919, and they had their pensions re-arranged in 1923, and there seems to be an idea abroad that they are more or less satisfied. I should like to draw attention to the serious congestion on the engineering side. There is a whole batch of lieutenant-commanders who cannot move up in the promotion scale and have no possible hope of obtaining commander's rank by the time the 55 years' rule operates. Two-fifths of the pension is based on rank. Unless a man obtains commander's rank during his service, he gets three-fifths only of the pension which almost admittedly he is entitled to. To give the House some idea of the sort of unsatisfactory rates of pay these men are receiving, the cadets who are trained at the Prince of Wales's College and go to the Army start at 400 rupees a month. The starting salary in the Indian Navy is 200 rupees a month. You will certainly not attract the Indian gentleman of the type you want to attract to the new Indian Navy so long as that disparity obtains, and I would press on the attention of my Noble Friend the extreme desirability of eliminating the discontent which exists in the old Indian Marine and in the Royal Indian Navy at the outset of its existence.

Finally, with regard to the Amendment, it seems to me to be fundamentally inaccurate in every one of its sub-sections. It asks the House to say that the House, being desirous of extending the powers of the elected representatives of India, does not like the Bill. All those who know the genesis of the Bill know that it is a real and genuine effort to extend the power of the Assembly and to give it control over the new service. The Amendment goes on to say the Bill fails to place the new Navy under the control of the Indian Legislative Assembly. It does as much as could possibly be done, and it goes very much further than the resolution of the Assembly which the hon. and gallant Gentleman read. I give the Measure my whole-hearted support. It is a genuine effort to associate the Indian people in the solution of one of their chief problems of self-defence, and it goes as far as it is safe or possible to go while conditions are as they are in India.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I suppose in a long and varied political career I have heard more criticism of England from Indians than anyone else in the House. They all seem to pour their grievances into my ear. The grievance I have found it most difficult to answer is the accusation that in our occupation of India we have created in the Indians a slave mentality, that we have by our administration of India destroyed their self-respect. It is obvious to any of us who go to India that they, like many other people, suffer from the inferiority complex. To my mind the most important work we can do in India, and in this country also, is to destroy the inferiority complex from which so many people seem to suffer. How can we destroy it in India? We are doing something by making them, if only to a slight degree, responsible for their own Government, but I do not believe you will ever create self-respect in any people till they are in a position to defend themselves. I welcome the enormous development in India in recent years of physical training. The work done in the Benares College and the development of football throughout India is excellent and has created this spirit of self-respect. I look upon the development of an Indian Navy as a step in the same direction. It is humiliating to any people to be told that they may only serve in the stokeholds or in the ranks and that they can only occupy administrative posts of an inferior degree. The more we can associate them, not merely with the Government of India, but with the direction of the Army and the Naval forces of India, the more you create that self-respect which to nay mind is the most important work in politics.

This Bill is a pitiful start in that direction, and the start made in regard to the Army is equally pitiable; but they are starts. I would accept anything provided it came before this country as the wish of the Indian people, and not as the wish of the British Government. It makes all the difference in its psychological effect whether this is put before the people of this country as something which the British Government requires of India or whether it is put before the people of this country as something which is required by the Indian people. That is why I could have wished that there had been a direct, definite Resolution passed by the Indian Assembly in favour of this Measure before we were asked to debate it. It destroys all the value, or the greater part of the value, of the new development when it is imposed upon India instead of coming from India.

On this Second Reading, I would urge the Government to do a little bit more. If we are going to treat the Indians as fit to defend themselves, or as trainable to become capable of defending themselves, then, surely, let us do something more than this Bill proposes or more than is proposed in the recommendations of the Rawlinson Committee. What my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Ken-worthy) suggested is surely the right thing. Just as we took Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders into the Navy as Colonial cadets, just as they were taken into the Army in order to bring the Empire together, and to create in our great Dominions overseas a feeling of solidarity with ourselves, so, instead of confining our attention to the new Indian Navy, I would have brought Indians over here and put them into the British Navy. I would take them at the same age at which cadets are taken into the Navy here, at the age of 13, I think it is, and I would see that they were treated in our Navy as capable of becoming officers. Half the difficulty in India to-day comes from this infernal feeling of superiority on one side and inferiority on the other. If we could knock that feeling out by treating Indians just as if they were Australians, then we should find that they are exactly like Australians. If you expect people to accept a position of inferiority, they will only be fit to be inferiors. It is a question of atmosphere.

Mr. ERSKINE

Couéism.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

Yes, Couéism, very largely. Insist that people are capable of defending themselves, and they will defend themselves, but, if you expect them always to run away, they will run away. We must insist that they are capable of doing things. That is the whole essence of what we call moral in the Army and Navy. If we can break down this horrible feeling of jealousy, because it is nothing else, in our Services against an admixture of Indian cadets, we shall really he doing more to create the right spirit in India and to bring India and the rest of the Empire together than in any other way that I can think of. If we cannot persuade the Army and the Navy to accept this new Indian competition, at any rate could not something be done to persuade the great steamship lines to take Indian cadets? It is only in quite recent years that young Indians have gone into engineering. When we were young they went into the law. There seemed to be nothing else for them but the law and administration. Recently, they have taken to engineering. They come over here to take up railway work and go through the shops to learn engineering, but there is no opening for them beyond a few posts in the railway world. Generally speaking, as far as the steamship lines are concerned, there is no chance of their becoming even third or fourth officers, and no chance of them working their way up. Indians are still confined to the stokehold and the Lascars' quarters.

I think the Government might do something even more important than the provision of cadetships for Indians, if they would persuade steamship lines which trade with India to accept as engineer officers and as executive officers a small beginning of Indians, so that they might have posts where they would issue orders, instead of merely posts where they receive orders. This Bill is a beginning. It will evidently take a very long time before the Indian Marine can become officered by Indians. It is not so much a question of how long a time it will take for the new Indian Navy or for the Indian Army to become officered by Indians as how long it will take for this Rouse to realise that we ought to be anxious to get Indians as officers of the Air Force, the Artillery and all branches of the Services. The desire to keep them out of these branches of the Services is a horrible survival of the old spirit of the Indian mutiny. If these Indians once learned the real skill and art of flying, engineering and artillery proficiency, there is an idea that they would be a danger to the Empire. What we have to do is to convert our people to recognising the fact that trained on these lines the Indians would be an advantage to the Empire, and that it would create in the Indians a spirit of command instead of the mere spirit of obedience.

This Bill, as far as it goes, would be on the right lines, if it had been preceded by a Resolution of the Indian Assembly. For what it is, it is a pitiful step in the right direction, and to those of us who desire to see India a self-governing Dominion within the British Empire, and who desire to see the Indians themselves lose the inferiority complex and become a people to issue orders, it is an opportunity to press the Government to extend the principle of cadetship for Indians, to extend the principle of bringing Indians into the executive services, the Army, Navy, the Air Force, the Artillery, and into the civilian branches of engineering, the railway> and the steamship companies, so that we may seek the co-operation, and thereby secure the assistance of the Indian people in constructing that great union which the British Empire has become, thanks to the Resolution of the last Imperial Conference.

Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY

I, too, would welcome the provisions of this Bill to give a Navy to India. I cannot understand the mentality of hon. Members opposite who are out to give self-government to India, and who, when it is proposed to give a Navy to India, are the first to object to it. Reading their Amendment, I think their real objections must be contained in its last few words, because this Bill incidentally involves an increase` in Imperial Naval Forces. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment talked about an armaments race in Eastern waters. What more absurd definition could there have been? To provide a few ships to go round the lighthouses, for transport purposes and for survey purposes around the Indian coasts, and possibly even around the Persian Gulf, is an armaments race in the opinion of hon. Members opposite. I cannot imagine anything more ridiculous. Does not the hon. Member welcome our handing over these services to India? We are leaving the coast-line to the Indian people, who are accustomed to the sea. Has the hon. Member ever sailed those seas in the summer I Does he realise the extraordinary heat day in and day out, with a temperature of 100 to 110 degrees, and a dampless, moist-less atmosphere? It is not a suitable climate for Europeans When we bring Indian natives to our Northern clime, into our cold fogs, they shiver and are miserable. Just in the same way, our people, when they are serving in those hot Eastern seas, suffer from fevers. Yet hon. Members opposite object, when we are handing over these services to the Government of India, who are to be responsible for them, and who will gradually transpose Europeans and substitute natives of India.

The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Ken-worthy) was very anxious that we should provide officers for the new Indian Navy immediately. You cannot create a new body of officers to take over the new Navy immediately; it has to be done slowly and by degrees. You must do it cautiously, and find the right type. Hindoos are not suitable for the work to-day; they have to change their views and their mentality. It is from the Mohammedan population that we draw our sailors today. Along the coast-line in India they have great traditions. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary went back 300 years or more in dealing with the history of the Indian Navy. We might go back even to the time of Sennacherib, who sailed those seas and crossed "The sea of sunrising," as it was called. Sinbad the Sailor was not a myth; he lived on those coasts and sailed those seas. Fleets sailed along those coasts and went round the land of silk, and, incidentally, sacked Canton in those days. That was a monstrous thing to do, I suppose, in the view of hon. Members opposite; but it was done many hundreds of years ago by sailors from those coasts. Cities rose and fell along those coasts, whose life was on the seas. Pirates rose and fell. When we went 300 years ago and first brought our flag to those seas, bit by bit we routed out those nests of pirates. We made commerce safe in those seas, and for three centuries we have patrolled and looked after those seas and made them safe to-day for commerce. Many there are whose bones lie on those heated shores who could have testified to the work and the efficiency of our Navy.

To-day we propose to hand over this work to the Indian Government. It is a great step forward. The hon. and gallant Member opposite talked about amending the Government of India Act. I think he was mistaken. The idea was that after ten years they were to go into the whole question as to the revision or not of the Government of India Act. There was nothing about the amending of the Government of India Act being impossible. This Bill is a step in the direction which one would have imagined hon. Members opposite would have welcomed. It is giving the Government of India power and control over their Navy. They are put in the position as they are in regard to the Army in India to-day. The Assembly can refuse if they choose to vote the 50 lakhs of rupees or more which may be necessary for the provision of the naval services. The hon. Member opposite seemed to think that officers are the only men in the services. There are other ranks as well. The argument is that because these ships are not completely officered by natives of India, that, therefore, we have done nothing, and are doing nothing, to further the desires and wishes of the people of India.

We welcome any cadets that may come forward as officers in the Indian Navy, we welcome as many cadets as possible, but this must be done slowly, by degrees. You cannot jump at once to conclusions arid imagine that it is possible to-day or to-morrow to complete the officers. We have sailed and fought in those seas and are proud of the traditions we hold along that coast, and it is a great thing to hand this duty over to the Indian marine, and in so doing to found and start an Indian Navy. It is the beginning, and I am surprised that hon. Members opposite object to it. I believe their only idea is —it is a wrong idea—that this is an increase of our Imperial naval forces. This is for the benefit of our own people and Indians, and only in cases of emergency can the Governor-General in Council lend these survey ships for service in foreign waters. The Legislative Assembly have control over the personnel of the Indian fleet. It is a great step in advance. I welcome it as such, and I hope hon. Members will not from purely party politics or because of the representations of a few native newspapers, which have a small circulation and are very extreme, oppose it, but will look upon it as a great advance towards giving India its own navy.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE

I rise to support the Amendment. The hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down welcomed the Bill, because it represents the creation of an Indian Navy, which is being handed over to the Government of India. The real question is this: Is this Bill creating an Indian Navy or is it creating a British Navy manned by Indians? If it be really creating an Indian Navy, then the hon. Member for Penryn (Mr. Pilcher) will agree with us when we say that it should be manned and officered by Indians. There is this further point, which hon. Members opposite do not seem to appreciate, that in order for it to be an Indian Navy, definitely manned and officered by Indians and controlled by Indians, India must have the last say in determining not merely how far it shall carry on its work of home defence but the conditions under which it can be used away from India in the defence of other parts of the Empire. It is perfectly clear that the Indian people have not that power. The hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Lieut.-Colonel Howard-Bury) explained that it was only in an emergency that it could be used in any other place than around the Indian shores. That might have passed muster if we had not had precisely a similar instance in regard to the use of the Indian Army. In a recent case, and t cite this only to show how an Indian Navy can he similarly used—the Governor-General has certified that an emergency has arisen at the present time in China and the Indian Army can go to China in order to further the interests of His Majesty's Government in China. The sending of the Indian Army to China is bitterly resented by the Indian people. I have only to quote as an illustration a distinguished Indian who is not against this country, in fact he has been honoured by the King—Dr. Rabindranath Tagore—who says that he bitterly resents this use of the Indian Army on foreign soil, not only without previous decision of the Indian Legislative Assembly but even without their being able to express an opinion as to the rights and wrongs of the case.

I want to put this question to any Service Member who may be in the House. The Services of this country are called upon to perform a patriotic duty. They are called upon to take their lives in their hands at the command of the Government of the day. They have but a very small say in determining on what purpose their services shall be employed, but they say: "We know it will only be by the Government of our own country that we can be sent to serve in foreign lands, and we are prepared to act at the dictate of our own Government because of our patriotic feelings." What are you asking the Indians to do? You are asking them to take their lives in their hands, to undergo all the perils of the Services, to be sent, it an emergency arises, to some foreign country, not at the instruction of the Government of their own people, but at the instruction of the Government of a, country which has empire over their land. In these circumstances I put it to hon. Members opposite that you will not command the services of the best of the Indians who might come in. If you want to get the very best men in India to take such risks as these services must necessarily entail, you can only do that by appealing to their patriotism. If you are going to appeal merely to the financial conditions of service, you are going to have a Navy of mercenaries and not a Navy of patriotic citizens. I am quite certain that if the position in this, country were that you were asking men to go into the Army and Navy and Air Force, to be used not at the discretion of the Government of their own people but at the discretion of an alien Government, you would not get the best men to volunteer and face all the risks and dangers of the service.

Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY

In 1914, did they not come over and help us? Did they not volunteer?

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE

Yes, because they were appealed to. The facts were put before them, and they had a free choice. They have not a free choice under this Bill, and that is what we are objecting to. We object to the power which is put into the hands of the Governor-General to declare an emergency. We know the kind of case that will be called an emergency. It will not be an Indian emergency, it will be an emergency of this country, and in those cir- cumstances these Indians can be used for foreign service without an opportunity of expressing their views on the matter.

One of the difficulties in granting Home Rule to India at the present time is that Home Rule for India without control of defence, without an Army that is Indian in reality and not merely in name, an Army that is officered throughout by Indians, can only be an imaginary and illusory form of self-government, and it is recognised, therefore, that complete self-government cannot come about for India until it has an Array which is really composed not only of Indians but manned by Indian officers. That will take a considerable time. In the case of the Navy it is also true that self-government for India cannot ever be genuine self-government unless the Indian Navy is also composed throughout its whole personnel of Indians. It will be felt in India, if this Bill goes through in its present form, that the obstacles which are placed against Indians taking the highest positions in these services will be one further obstacle against granting self-government to the country, and for that reason the view we take, that this Bill in its present form is not acceptable, is a view which should he worthy of the greatest consideration.

Finally, I want to remind hon. Members that these emergency powers of the Governor-General to send the Army and Navy to foreign lands are a source of the very greatest irritation to the Indian people.

In addition to Dr. Tagore, other great leaders like Ghandi have protested in the strongest way. The Legislative Assembly has been unable to debate the question, and if His Majesty's Government persist in this method of dealing with India, flouting their right to the final word as to the disposal of their men in the Army and Navy, you are going to increase ill feeing in India, which is unfortunately quite widespread enough at the present time. I heartily support the Amendment because I feel that if you are going to create an Indian Navy it should be an Indian Navy on the right lines, entirely confined to the defence of India, with the solitary exception that the Indian Legislative Assembly may after consultation decide that the force can be used in a special case away from the shores surrounding the Peninsula.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE

I trust the hon. Member who has just spoken will forgive me if I do not follow him in his references to the Indian Army and the conditions of their service beyond saying that I am perfectly certain it will be deeply resented in India if it were known that a suggestion has been made that the members of the Indian Army, the soldiers comprising the Indian Army, only went to China under some form of compulsion and would have refused to serve there if they possibly could. It may be that the hon. Member did not mean to convey this, but the impression I got was that there were a large number of soldiers in India who would never have proceeded to serve overseas unless they were absolutely bound to do so.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE

That was not my point at all. Of course, they had to carry out their instructions, and they went where they were sent. But the Indian people resent the power of this country, through the Governor-General of India, to send regiments overseas without consulting the people of India.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE

I am very glad to give, the hon. Gentleman any opportunity to explain what he means. But I say, further that I do not know to whom he refers when he speaks of the people of India. If he refers to those most concerned, the soldiers of famous Indian regiments, I entirely repudiate the suggestion that they object to serving overseas. If he refers to the vapour-inns of a few politicians, extremists or otherwise, that is quite a different thing. They very likely do object—they do not serve in the Army. The Amendment which we are discussing is, I imagine, one of the most difficult that the Labour party ever had to frame. If it be carefully read, it will be found, in the first place, that it is almost contradictory, and that is borne out i3y the speeches we have heard regarding it; and, secondly, it is extremely difficult, after having listened to the speeches, to follow exactly what it is that the supporters of the Amendment really desire. The speech which we heard from the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment was one of the most mischievous regarding India that I have ever heard in this House. It is likely to be used to try to stir up a considerable amount of trouble where no trouble existed before. It is likely to give a totally false impression, and I think it was based on very insufficient knowledge.

The hon. Gentleman seemed to object very strongly to the defence of India falling upon the Indian people. I should have thought that that was a thing which was extremely desirable. I am certain that it is a thing that the people of India desire. The whole trend of Indian thought in recent years has been, to my certain knowledge, to demand that when, as they hope, they eventually become a self-governing Dominion within the Empire, they shall control their own defence. If that is the case, it is essential that there should also be a beginning with a defence of the seas around the coasts of India. A great deal has been made in the Debate of the desirability of having the Royal Indian Navy officered entirely by Indians. In fact we had both the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), and, to my surprise, the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) suggesting that it would be possible almost immediately, if not immediately, to officer the Indian Navy by a system of cadetships similar to that of the "Britannia," and to enlist boys at 13 years of age to go to the "Britannia." I cannot understand anyone who knows India putting forward such a suggestion. I can hardly conceive that at present there would be a dozen Indian families willing to send their boys of 13 years of age to the "Britannia."

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I do not think it would be the slightest use sending them to the "Britannia," but there ought to be a training school similar to the "Britannia" at Bombay.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE

With that suggestion, when the proper time comes, I am in accord. But that is rather different from the proposal put forward in the Debate.

Mr. AMMON

I have suggested that there should be a college and a ship for training.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE

That is a thing on which all of us could agree. In connection with the possibility of training for sea life in the Mercantile Marine, the Superintendent of one of the training ships in this country—I believe it is the "Worcester"—was recently sent to India to make a report. That is a matter which I believe is under the consideration of the Government of India at the present time. On the whole question of sea training may I, as one who has some experience of the matter, say definitely that it is by no means easy to get Indian officers, to get any class of Indian to serve at sea at all excepting those whose whole life and surroundings and hereditary instincts are concerned with the sea? That is a comparatively small population which exists around the shores of India. The point I wanted to make was that one has always to remember, in dealing with India, that we are not only dealing with a population of 250,000,000 or 300,000,000, but, from a sea point of view, with a population of only about 70,000,000 Mohammedans, of whom not more than 5,000,000 at the outside have any connection with the sea, hereditary or otherwise. India is an enormous country and vast numbers of Indians have never seen the sea in their lives. There are no hereditary sea instincts, as in this country.

The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull surprised me when, haying referred to the sea sense of the Siamese and other nations, he spoke of the Turks as a non-seafaring race. I do not think he will find that history bears out that statement. In fact all the nations to which he referred are, compared with India, seafaring nations. The ranks of the Royal Indian Marine, and indeed of the old Royal Navy, were to a large extent recruited in the lower ranks from Lascars, as they are to-day, and most excellent seamen they make. But there is the greatest difficulty in getting Indians of a higher type to take to the sea—that is, Indians of a class who are likely to become officers. I can assure the right hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme that I have had actual experience contrary to what he said. I am sure that he did not know the facts. It was extremely difficult in the Mercantile Marine before the War to get men to join as deck officers with the intention of rising. It is not so difficult to get Indians to undertake engineering, for that work is more in keeping with their character. For every Chief Officer of a merchant ship who was an Indian, I fancy there would be five or 10 engineers. But both above and below decks it is extremely difficult to get the class of Indian who will make a suitable officer.

The statement was made that the intentions of this Bill were such as to bring the whole proposals into contempt, and, in fact, to make the proposals a part of the Singapore scheme. I never heard anything more preposterous declared in this House. I can assure the House that the conditions for docking for repairs and other matters of that kind, in India, are such as to be perfectly capable of dealing with all the ships that are likely, in any future that we can foresee, and that there will not be the slightest necessity to send them to Singapore. Singapore is a totally different problem. I think the authorities in Bombay would be offended at the idea that they were not able to deal with the ships that are likely to be built or commissioned under this Bill. One word about the historical aspect of this matter. I personally welcome very much, as I know almost the whole of moderate opinion in India welcomes, the re-establishment of the Royal Indian Navy. It is true that the original Navy came from the Navy of the East India Company, away back in the days when the handful of merchant adventurers to whom we owe India had to struggle against Sevaji and the Mahrattas on the landward side and against the sea pirates on the other. Then came the first of those ships which brought about the East India Company's Navy and eventually became and did wonderfully good service as the Royal Indian Navy. I would like to see not only a reconstruction of the Navy, but the reconstruction and the building of naval ships, for in those days India built a large number of very fine ships. In 1821 there was launched the famous "Ganges," of the then enormous tonnage of nearly 2,300, with 84 guns, built by the master draughtsman, though I think they called him the master builder of the Company, Jamsetjee Nowrowjee. I would like very much to see those days back again. Whether they came back or not, the traditions of the old East India Navy and of the Royal Indian Marine will be carried on in the new force, and the chance which the Indian people are now getting, of gradually accustoming themselves to a sea life and enabling their boys to take to the sea, will be welcomed not only by those in this country who wish well to India, but throughout the length and breadth of India itself.

Mr. LANSBURY

I have listened and waited for someone to tell us exactly what was meant by the "Indian people" and "Indian public opinion." Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen continually affirm that in making statements in reference to India they are speaking on behalf of the Indian people, and that those of us who take a contrary view speak only for the vapourings of extremists.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE

I did not accuse either the hon. Member or his party of that.

Mr. LANSBURY

That sent that point of view people who express that in India.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE

I said there were such people.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. LANSBURY

And that our point of view was based upon them. This House has conferred on the people of India a Legislative Assembly. We think that before such a Bill as this was brought in that Assembly should have been consulted. If there were any real demand in India for a Navy it would have found expression in the Indian Legislature. The Noble Lord, the Under-Secretary for India, answering questions the other day, said there had been plenty of opportunities for such expression if the Legislative Assembly had so desired. I have taken some trouble to try to find out the facts, and if I am wrong I shall be glad to be corrected. I believe that the only official notification that has been given to the people of India that such a proposal as this was going to be made was given to them in February of last year in the speech of the late Viceroy, Lord Reading, and the subject has not been before the Legislative Assembly either directly or indirectly. The hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Lieut.-Colonel Howard-Bury) said that we were going to confer an inestimable benefit on the people of India by giving them a Navy. A more extraordinary statement I have never heard. We are not going to give India anything at all. Whatever revolts from this Bill, the people of India will pay for it, and we shall have the management of it. It will be under our control. That that is so is quite evident from the answer given to-day by the First Lord of the Admiralty to ray hon. Friend the Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon), who asked: Whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government that any naval forces and vessels raised and provided by the Governor-General of India in Council should be placed at his disposal to be employed otherwise than upon Indian naval defence. That is, to be placed at the disposal of the British First Lord. The answer was: The Bill makes provision for the possibility that the Royal Indian Navy, after being placed at the disposal of His Majesty, may be employed for purposes other than the purely local defence of India. Circumstances may arise in which it may be desirable to take advantage of this provision. That means that this new Navy may, if thought desirable, be brought into the Mediterranean, or even into the North Sea and be used against the will of the representatives of the Indian people. If it be true that the Indian people are so anxious to assist the British Empire at such times as the provisions in this Bill and the answer I have quoted contemplate, why is it that you are obliged to retain in the Viceroy power to certify the use of either the Army or this new Navy without the consent of the Legislative Assembly? This House, which is a representative Assembly, would never tolerate His Majesty using the Navy or Army without its consent, and I say that it is simply playing the fool with democracy in India to continue a provision such as that which we are complaining of in our Amendment.

As to the notion that this Navy is going to be one that is only to visit light-houses and to sail round the coast, to have a look at the harbours, why, you need not change the name at all if that be all you want. It is either a Navy you are going to create, or it is not. It is either to be something new or it is the old thing under another name. I am perfectly certain from the answer this afternoon that it is not the old Indian Marine under another name. This answer to-day proves conclusively that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Wardlaw-Milne) is quite wrong when he tells us that it is not a new Navy and an addition to the British Fleet which is going to be created, because what would be the use of these coasting vessels in time of emergency? What would be the use of the present Indian Mercantile Marine in times of danger? If it were true that you were not going to change it, you would not want this Bill at all.

The real fact is that you are trying, under the guise of giving the Indian people some sort of pride in the Navy, merely to create a new Navy in the Pacific. The main objections—and no-one has yet met them, and I hope whoever speaks for the Government will try to meet them—against these proposals are, first, that you have a Legislative Assembly in India and you have professed to give India a measure of self-government. You profess to consult the representatives of the Indian people, and yet here is a very big new departure, and you have never consulted them one bit. You have never asked their opinions and you have never got their opinions. So far as any Indian opinion is vocal at all, it is dead against this proposition, because you are going to create a Navy which is to be used in this way and paid for by the Indian people without the Legislative Assembly—the Parliament of India—being asked either for their consent or whether they are willing to pay.

So far as this Bill is concerned, there is no provision that Great Britain will pay, but there is a provision that the Navy shall be used when the Governor-General says it may be used, after an application from the British First Lord of the Admiralty. About that there can be no dispute whatever. As to who is to pay, there is no provision in the Bill at all. We are not at all sure, in spite of many questions which have been put, who is to pay for the troops which have been sent to Shanghai. We have not yet been told that, and in this Bill there is no provision at all as to who shall pay for this new Indian Navy when it is used, not for the purposes of defending India, but for some purposes which the Admiralty or the Government in this country may think desirable. If you concede a nation self-government, it ought to be real self-government. When you talk about the Indian people taking a pride in the Navy, I would like to emphasise another point. The hon. Member for Kidderminster, and the hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford were at some pains to tell us that this proposal really restored a tradition that along the coast of India there were, in days gone by, people who took a pride in sailing the seas and that now we were reviving that tradition. But you are only reviving it for the lower kind of posts in the Navy. I would like whoever replies to tell us how long they think it will take to train and get going the captains for these new ships, the admirals who will be in charge of the various squadrons, and so on. We have some evidence that will assist us in this matter. One Indian a year—the Noble Lord, I am sure, will not deny that—is allowed to be an officer in the Royal Air Force in India, and, if I concede the point—which I do not except for argument—that an Air Force is necessary in India and that you ought to have it manned by Indians, I venture to say that more than one Indian a year, if given an opportunity, could rise to the position of an officer in the Air Force.

Earl WINTERTON

I must not allow that to pass. There is no such thing as the Royal Indian Air Force. The hon. Member is speaking of a force which does not exist.

Mr. LANSBURY

If I am wrong in calling it the Royal Indian Air Force, I will call it the Air Force of which India pays a part and the British Empire pays a part, and, so far as the officers in that Air Force who serve in India are concerned, one Indian per year can rise to the post of an officer. I put a question to the Noble Lord, and he knows perfectly well that the number of Indians who have risen to the poet of officers in the Air Force serving in India—

Earl WINTERTON

The hon. Member really must not make a series of misstatements on a Bill which has nothing whatever to do with an Indian Air Force or the Indian Army. I repeat for his information and for flat of the House, that there is no Indian Air Force, and, therefore, the situation to which he refers cannot possibly arise.

Mr. LANSBURY

That will not do. It is all very well for the Noble Lord to he indignant, and to want to put me right. It is perfectly true, and I admit it, that the Air Force serving in India is part of the British Air Force, but it is equally true that Indians are allowed to serve in certain ranks in that force, and about one Indian per year rises to the post of officer. We have been discussing the relative merits of Indians becoming officers or remaining in the subordinate positions, but it is perfectly true that, as regards the commands and the officering of the Indian Army, it is very difficult to know, and there is no one who can tell us, when that Indian Army will be really officered by Indians. It has been in existence for many years, and, if the same policy is going to be followed with regard to the Navy, we shall see the same conditions prevailing there, namely, that the ordinary drudgery work of the Navy will be done by the Indians, and the officers will go out from this country. They will brave all the terrors of the climate. I also have travelled in the East but I have travelled in comfort, and, although it is very hot, it is not at all unenjoyable, as the Noble Lord himself knows. It is only when you have to do the work in the stoke-holes and the hard drudgery work on a ship that it becomes rather intolerable, and, according to the statements we have heard to night, the work that the Indians will be allowed to do in the Navy will be that kind of work, while the plume of the profession, the officers posts, will as usual go to the people of this country.

It is for those reasons that I object to the Bill in regard to India. We also object to the Bill, because we are quite certain that it does mean an addition to the competitive race that has commenced in armaments in the Pacific. In days not long ago the competition was between the German Fleet and our own in the North Sea. I happen to have sat in this House and to have heard all the Debates about the removal of the Fleet from the Mediterranean to the North Sea before the War. In these days we are told that the Singapore Base does not mean anything sinister at all, that it is simply something that we are doing, I suppose, in order to get rid of money that we do not otherwise know what to do with, that it is not against anybody, and that it has been created for some purpose that is called Imperial defence. Now there is this Navy. Hon. Members opposite cannot have it both ways. If it be only to give a new name to the Indian Marine, then it cannot possibly be used for the purpose which the First Lord spoke of in his answer to this question this afternoon. I take him as the best judge.

This Bill is going to create a new Navy of capital ships, submarines, cruisers and all the rest of the paraphernalia. I dare say that the Under-Secretaries and Parliamentary private secretaries know nothing about it; but the chiefs of the Admiralty have a very happy knack of getting their own way with Governments. They cannot get additions to the Navy directly, even out of the present Government, but they are going to do it in a roundabout way through what they call the Indian Navy. We oppose this Bill because we are dead against having this race in armaments and because we believe that if an agreement is come to with America, Japan and the other Governments, it ought not to be vitiated by Great Britain being able to reinforce the British Navy by an Indian Navy in addition to an Australasian Navy. For these reasons we are united against the Bill. The worst service that the Western nations are rendering the people of the East is in teaching them how to kill scientifically. Great Britain has done a great service to the world in opening up the waterways of the world. Many British citizens have done great service in India, China and other foreign lands by trying to raise the status of the people and preserve their lives, but the Governments of the Western world have done the worst disservice they could to the East by taking to them the knowledge which we have acquired—I was going to say the infernal knowledge—of how to kill and destroy, This Bill is one more step along that road. You are going to teach the Indian how to use the submarine and how better to destroy his fellow men. Many millions of these people have been brought up to honour all life as sacred. You are going to undo that teaching. That is another reason why I shall quite cheerfully vote for the Amendment, and I hope to vote against this Bill at all its stages.

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON

The main criticism which has been directed against this Bill is that it does not go far enough, that it is not important enough, that it is an insult to India and that the process of Indianising the Indian Navy will proceed exceedingly slowly. That I do not consider a sufficient reason for voting against the Bill. A beginning has to be made and if it is desirable that an Indian Navy should be created I think the Government are taking the best method of doing so by building on the basis of the old Indian Marine, and incorporating in the new navy the traditions of a very fine service.

Mr. PURCELL

I oppose this Measure for larger reasons than those signified by the Amendment. The extension of the Navy to India, in my view, is not for the good of the Indian people. I do not think it is designed to improve either the health or the general condition of the Indian people. On the contrary I think it is for the purpose of tightening the hold of certain interests upon India, and for that reason I am hound to oppose it. The position seems to be that we are eager to give military and naval forces to India and to man those forces, in the most important departments, from our own side rather than from the Indian side; but it would be a far better task for us and far better business for us and would be to the credit of our race, if we were to have greater care for the people of India themselves. It would be better if we sought to improve their conditions instead of arming them or seeking to set up a steel wall round their coast. I am bound to admit I have not seen India and know little about it, but the reports we have had in this country go to show that the conditions of the people there beggar description. The conditions under which many of the people on whom, I suppose, we should be compelled to rely for support in the event of any emergency, are vile in the extreme. Nobody can justify the conditions of the Indian workers in mills, mines or factories, and instead of turning their merchant marine into a _Royal Navy, or an Indian Navy, or whatever you are pleased to name it, we would do far more good by attempting to improve the lot of the Indian people generally.

I shall be told that this matter is within the purview of the Government of India, but at the same time we have representatives of the Indian Government here in London, though there always seems to be a difficulty either in getting information on these subjects or in getting confirmation of such information as comes through to these shores. Even in regard to the recent dispute, which I am glad to say is finished on the Nagpur Railway it was difficult to get information, but we are informed that shootings have taken place. It seems to me that it is not a Navy that India wants. It is consideration for her people who are working under these conditions; it is advice and, if possible, assistance in regard to the treatment of the operatives in the various undertakings in India. A Measure like the present will tend to withdraw the loyalty of the Indian people from the British Empire rather than assist them to be heroes of the British Empire. We are always more ready to consider questions of improving our military and naval position than we are to consider the ease of working people. All the reports which we get show that there is an awful death-rate in certain cities in India. To induce the authorities representing India to promote or to suggest legislation which would give greater health and strength to the people would be a real benefit to India. It may be true that you cannot impose legislation, though I cannot understand for the life of me our position in that respect in view of the fact that we have here before us a Bill which is legislation and which is being imposed upon India. I am strongly opposed, in any circumstances, to increasing naval or military forces anywhere until we have first given some attention to the position of our people here at home. We have masses of unemployed here, and if we can use our time on a question of this kind, we ought to he able also to get down to the real hard task of improving the lot of our people at home.

Mr. SCURR

The Government are treating the House with very scant courtesy. We have bad a number of criticisms of this Bill, but not a single Member has risen on the Government side either to controvert or to admit those criticisms. Members of the Opposition who are putting forward a particular point of view, however distasteful that point of view may be to the Government, are entitled to a reply. There was some amusement on the Government side when the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) suggested that the idea of this Navy was to increase the forces of the British Empire, and when he said that he relied on the First Lord of the Admiralty rather than on other Members of the Government to know exactly what was being done. While the hon. Member was speaking, I was looking through an extract on the speech made by the then Viceroy of India, Lord Reading, when he opened the second Council of State on 9th February, 1926. He said: Subject to the approval of His Majesty the King Emperor, the service will be known as the Royal Indian Navy and will fly the White Ensign. Its functions in peace time will be as defined in paragraph 3 of the Report of the Lord Rawlinson Committee. Its most important aspect in the early stages will be that of a training squadron. It will train the personnel for service in war. For this purpose it will become from the first a sea-going force. In addition, in peace time, its functions will include the services required by the Government of India in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, the organisation of naval defence at ports, marine survey, in the Indian Ocean and marine transport for the Government of India. From that speech it, is obvious that it is not in the minds of those who have put forward this policy that this force should be merely a small squadron consisting of about four sloops and a few other vessels to go round the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. It would be more honest of the Government to say that they consider it necessary for the defence of India to have a real Navy there, but even from that point of view, has any case been made out for an Indian Navy The Indian people are always being assured that their danger of invasion does not come from the sea, but from the North-West frontier. We are constantly being assured that the one way to defend India is to have a highly organised military force on the North-West frontier. When protests are made by members of the Indian Legislative Assembly against the enormous expenditure on the British Army in India this view is always put forward. If we study the beginnings of the occupation of India we find that, with the exception of the English occupation, India was always invaded from the North. That has always been the danger point of India. So far as we are concerned, we went there as traders. The French went there in the same way, and because of the quarrels between this country and France at that time, the French and ourselves ingeniously used the Indian people to fight against each other. By that process of dividing and conquering, and as a result of our vic- tories over the French in Europe, and in the sea-fighting against the French in Indian waters, we were ultimately able to control the whole of India. That was not due to an invasion by a naval force, nor was there any necessity for India to be defended by a naval force. It seems that there is something, after all, in the criticism that the real object of this Bill is to get behind any arrangements which may be entered into for a reduction in the British Navy.

There is another strong point, and that is that if you are going to give real Dominion status to India—and that, we are assured, is the ultimate object of the policy of this country—and if you are going to supply armed forces to the Dominions, they should have the control of them themselves. I wonder what would be said if the slightest suggestion were made to the Dominion of Australia that, in regard to the officering of her Army or Navy, only a certain number of Australians per year would be allowed to take commissions. I think the reply from the Australian Government would be one that would set every one's ears tingling. There are only about 10 Indians per year sent to be trained at Sandhurst, and they may only be trained as officers for infantry and cavalry. Although the Noble Lord has said that the Air Force is not technically an Indian Air Force, yet, under modern conditions of warfare, you have to have artillery and an Air Force, and if you are going to have them and to give Dominion status to India, it is obvious that they should be under Indian control and officers. In regard to this proposal for an Indian Navy, we find that in the Indian Legislative Assembly last month the Army Secretary said that all lower ranks of the Indian Navy would eventually consist of Indians, but with regard to the higher ranks, one-third of the commissioned ranks would be reserved in the first instance for Indians, provided that qualified candidates were forthcoming. I suggest that, from the Indian point of view, they should control and officer their Navy themselves.

Finally, I want to associate myself with what the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley has said in regard to this question of increasing our armed forces. In regard to this country, occupying the position which it does in the world at the present time, if its rulers were to set themselves to the task of bringing about disarmament instead of increasing navies and creating new ones, they would be making a valuable contribution to the future of the Empire and of the world. A British Empire which was standing for bringing about such a position of affairs that disputes between nations would be settled by arbitration and conciliation, instead of resorting to force, would be making a very valuable contribution to civilisation, and even if there is something to be said, so long as we have lethal weapons, for India having its own forces under its own control, I think a Measure of this kind is going against all that spirit which some of us hoped, after the Great War, would be more prevalent in the world, namely, the spirit of arbitration and conciliation instead of a resort to force.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam)

When the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr) accused us of discourtesy, he was going too far, because I had every intention of saying a few words in reply to the very interesting Debate to which we have listened. It seems to me that the opposition to this Bill has been divided into two parts, one of which, I think, is perfectly legitimate and the other not. I rather resent that the hon. Member who moved the Amendment should read into this small Bill so much evil. I wish I could believe that the British Admiralty were going to be relieved in the way suggested by a gigantic Indian Navy. I wish that from a purely Admiralty point of view, but I cannot think that the Navy designed in this Bill can be considered as a serious threat to the peace of the world or as an attempt to increase our armaments unduly in foreign waters. No such attempt is intended, and there is nothing in the Bill to lead the hon. Gentleman to think so. With regard to the speeches that were made by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) and the right hon and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood), there is a great deal to be said for the idea, and I should like to inform the House that, so far as the Admiralty is concerned, every effort will be made to train Indians, where suitable, for the position of officers in this new force. The Admiralty has offered two sloops to the Indian Navy already for that purpose. I take it that the arrangement will be that, supposing suitable candidates for commissions can be found, they will be treated very much as our own special entry cadets are treated in this country. We cannot expect the parents of Indian boys of youthful age to send them across to be trained at Dartmouth in the way in which English boys go to school, but afterwards, as a special entry, when they are older, I can foresee that Indians who are willing will have every opportunity of learning their naval work and receiving commissions in the Royal Indian Navy.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

Does that mean that Dartmouth College is to be barred to Indian cadets?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM

The hon. and gallant Member must not take it to mean anything more than I have said. I am only saying that it will be the intention, that it is the intention, of the Admiralty to treat the Indian would-he officer in the same way as the English would-be officer who enters as a special entry cadet.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

The hon. and gallant Gentleman does not seem to have comprehended the fact that the normal way of Entering the British Navy is through Dartmouth, and that the non-normal way is the public school entry. Why not allow Indian cadets to go through the ordinary way?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM

If the hon. and gallant Member had only listened to what I was saying, he would have heard the reason. You cannot expect Indian parents to send quite young boys across here to be trained, but you can rightly expect them, when they are older, to allow them to come over here and he trained as officers, and that is the intention, so far as the naval authorities of this country are concerned. We have had an interesting Debate, and we have heard views expressed by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull and the right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme in which a great many of us have agreed. They say, and they say rightly, that the policy of this country is to try and make the Indians part of His Majesty's Dominions, self-respecting and able to defend themselves. You cannot run before you can walk, and the object of this Bill is to carry out the great principle, in which I think all parties in this House are united at the present time, and that is to enable the Indians, the various races and nationalities there, if possible, to come together and form a great Dominion of India. This is part and parcel of the same policy, and I hope that, now that the House has debated it, and we have found that so many are really in accord on both sides, we may have a Second Reading of the Bill.

Mr. MONTAGUE

I should like to know whether the remark of the hon. and gallant Member with regard to the impossibility or impracticability of bringing young India-us over to Dartmouth for training implies that it will be considered as a desirable thing to establish training colleges in India itself, or sea-going training ships for the training of young Indians. Before I sit down, I would like to make one comment which I think is deserved. When the Labour Government were in office in 1924, the question of the replacement of five cruisers was debated by this House. They were replacements, and not an increase in the British Navy at all, but from the Liberal Benches we had lecture after lecture—that is the only term by which I can describe the way in which the Labour party were criticised at that time—upon the subject of the necessity for disarma

ment. We were criticised, not for increasing the Navy, not even for doing what Manisters say is implied in this namely, bringing the status of the Marine Forces in India up to the basis of a Navy, which means the beginning and ultimate development of an Indian Navy, but even so, if it is only a question of maintaining just the amount of naval defence that there may be in. India at the present time, the criticism against the Labour party in regard to the five cruisers was that the Labour panty were not in favour of doing away with five cruisers and restricting the naval forces of the Empire, and we had caustic references all over the country on Liberal platforms to the supposed Imperialism and Jingoism of the Labour party. There was a perfect justification for the attitude which the Labour party took. We could not raise the whole question of disarmament in that short time. Now we find to-night, on a question of this kind, which, at the very lowest, and taking the statements of the Government themselves, raises the status of the Marine Forces in India up to that of a Navy, that the one Liberal speaker who has taken part in this Debate blesses the scheme. I think that is a comment that might be well made to-night, and I am glad to have had the opportunity of making it.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be loft, out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 245; Noes, 117.

Division No. 37.]	AYES.	[7.45 p.m.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Clarry, Reginald George
Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.	Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.	Clayton, G. C.
Albery, Irving James	Braithwaite, Major A. N.	Cobb, Sir Cyril
Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)	Briggs, J. Harold	Colfox, Major William Phillips
Alexander, Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l)	Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Conway, Sir W. Martin
Applin, Colonel R. V. K.	Brown, Maj. D. C.(N'th't'd., Hexham)	Cooper, A. Duff
Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W	Buckingham, Sir H.	Cope, Major William
Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.	Burman, J. B.	Couper, J. B.
Atholl, Duchess of	Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.	Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islingtn., N.)
Atkinson, C.	Burton, Colonel H. W,	Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Butler, Sir Geoffrey	Curzon, Captain Viscount
Balniel, Lord	Cadogan, Major Hon, Edward	Dalziel, Sir Davison
Barnett, Major Sir Richard	Calne, Gordon Hall	Davidson, Major-General Sir John H.
Beamish, Rear-Admiral T, P. H.	Campbell, E. T.	Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)	Carver, Major W. H.	Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.	Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Davies, Dr. Vernon
Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)	Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)	Dawson, Sir Philip
Bennett, A. J.	Cayzer, Maj.Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth.S.)	Duckworth, John
Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish	Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)	Eden, Captain Anthony
Berry, Sir George	Chapman, Sir S.	Edmondson, Major A. J.
Bethel, A.	Charteris, Brigadier-General J.	Elliot, Major Walter E.
Betterton, Henry B.	Chllcott, Sir Warden	Ellis, R. G.
Birchall, Major J. Dearman	Christie, J. A.	England, Colonel A.
Blundell, P. N.	Churchman, Sir Arthur C.	Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M)
Erskine, James Malcolm Montelth	Jephcott, A. R.	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Everard, W, Lindsay	Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)	Rye, F. G.
Fairfax, Captain J. G.	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Salmon, Major I.
Falls, Sir Bertram G.	Kennedy, A. R. (Preston)	Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Fenby, T. D.	Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)	Sandeman, A. Stewart
Fermoy, Lord	Kindersley, Major Guy M.	Sanders. Sir Robert A.
Fielden, E. B.	King, Captain Henry Doublas	Sanderson, Sir Frank
Ford, Sir P. J.	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement	Sandon, Lord
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.	Lamb, J. Q.	Savery, S. S.
Foster, Sir Harry S.	Lister, Cunlifle-, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip	Scott, Rt. Hon. Sir Leslie
Fraser, Captain Ian	Little, Dr. E. Graham	Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)
Frece, Sir Walter de	Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)	Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.	Locker- Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th)	Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)
Gadle, Lieut.-Col. Anthony	Looker, Herbert William	Skelton, A. N.
Galbraith, J. F. W.	Luce, Major-Gen.Sir Richard Harman	Slaney, Major P, Kenyon
Ganzonl, Sir John	Lumley, L. R.	Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dlne.C.)
Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.	Lynn, Sir Robert J.	Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham	MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen	Smithers, Waldron
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	Macdonald, R, (Glasgow, Cathcart)	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Grace, John	Maclntyre, Ian	Sprot, Sir Alexander
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland, N.)	McLean, Major A.	Stanley,Col. Hon. G. F.(Will'sden, E.)
Grant, Sir J. A.	Mac Robert, Alexander M.	Storry-Deans, R.
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.	Makins, Brigadier-General E.	Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.
Greene, W. P. Crawford	Malone, Major P. B.	Streatfeild, Captain S. R.
Grotrian, H. Brent	Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn	Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Guest, Haden (Southwark, N.)	Margesson, Captain D.	Sugden, Sir Wilfrid
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.	Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.
Gunston, Captain D. W.	Mllne, J. S. Wardlaw	Tasker, R. Inigo.
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)	Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)	Thorn, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)	Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)
Harland, A.	Moles, Rt. Hon. Thomas	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)
Harrison, G. J. C.	Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell
Hartington, Marquess of	Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)	Tinne, J. A.
Hawke, John Anthony	Morris, R. H.	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.	Nall, Colonel Sir Joseph	Turton, sir Edmund Russborough
Henderson, Capt. R.R. (Oxf'd,Henley)	Nelson, Sir Frank	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)	Neville, R. J.	Waddington, R.
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)	Ward, Lt.-Col. A.L.(Kingston-on-Hull)
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)	Nicholson, Col.Rt. Hon. W.G.(Ptrsfl'd.)	Warner Brigadier-General W. W.
Herbert, S. (York, N.R.,Scar, & Wh'by)	Nuttall, Ellis	Walts, Dr. T.
Hills, Major John Walter	Oakley, T.	Wells, S. R.
Hilton, Cecil	O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh	White, Lieut.-Col. Sir G. Dalrymple
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D.(St.Marylebone)	Oman, Sir Charles William C.	Wiggins, William Martin
Holland, Sir Arthur	Penny, Frederick George	Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)
Holt, Captain H. P.	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)	Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)
Hope, Capt. A. O. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)	Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)	Williams, C. P. (Denbigh, Wrexham)
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)	Phillipson, Mabel	Wilson, M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)
Hopkins, J. W. W.	Pitcher, G.	Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)
Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Colonel C. K.	Price, Major C. W. M.	Winby, Colonel L. P.
Hudson, Capt. A.u. M. (Hackney, N.)	Radford, E. A.	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd,Whiteh'n)	Raine, W.	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Huntingfield, Lord	Ramsden, E,	Wise, Sir Fredric
Hurd, Percy A.	Rawson, Sir Cooper	Withers, John James
Hutchison,G.A.Clark (Midl'n & P'bl's)	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.	Woodcock, Colonel K. C.
Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)	Rice, Sir Frederick	Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
Iliffe, Sir Edward M.	Richardson, Sir p. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)	Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Jacob, A. E.	Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes., Strettord)	Major Sir Harry Barnston and Captain Lord Stanley.
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert	Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.
NOES.
Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fife, West)	Day, Colonel Harry	Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Dennison, R.	Hirst, G. H.
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Duncan, c.	Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)
Ammon, Charles George	Dunnico, H,	Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)	Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)	Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Baker, Walter	Gardner, J. P.	John, William (Rhondda, West)
Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)	Gibbins, Joseph	Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)
Barr, J.	Gillett, George M.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Bondfield, Margaret	Gosling, Harry	Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Broad, F. A	Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)	Kelly, W. T.
Bromfield, William	Graham, Rt. Hon. Win. (Edin,. Cent.)	Kennedy, T.
Bromley, J.	Greenall, T.	Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)	Lanshury, George
Cape, Thomas	Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Lawrence, Susan
Clowes, S.	Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)	Lawson, John James
Cluse, W. S.	Grundy. T. W.	Lee. F.
Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.	Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Lindley F. W.
Connolly, M	Hardle, George D.	Lunn, William
Cove, W. G.	Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon	Mackinder, W.
Dalton, Hugh	Hayday, Arthur	Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Burnley)	March, S.

Maxton, James	Sexton, James	Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.
Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (Paisley)	Shepherd, Arthur Lewis	Viant, S. P.
Montague, Frederick	Shiels, Dr. Drummond	Wallhead, Richard C
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)	Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen
Mosley, Oswald	Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)	Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)
Naylor, T. E.	Smith, H. B. Lees (Keighley)	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. O. (Rhonddal
Oliver, George Harold	Smith, Rennie (Penistone)	Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney
Palln, John Henry	Snell, Harry	Wellock, Wilfred
Paling, W.	Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip	Welsh, J. C.
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)	Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles	Westwood, J.
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.	Stamford, T. W.	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.
Ponsonby, Arthur	Stephen, Campbell	Whiteley, W.
Potts, John S.	Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)	Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)
Purcell, A. A.	Sutton, J. E.	Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)	Taylor, R. A.	Wright, W.
Ritson, J.	Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)	Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W. R.. Eiland)	Thurtle, Ernest
Scrymgeour, E.	Tinker, John Joseph	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Scurr, John	Townend, A. E.	Mr. A. Barnes and Mr. Hayes.

Bill read a Second time.

Motion made, and Question put, "That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House.—[Mr. Ammon.]

The House divided: Ayes, 120; Noes, 244.

Division No. 38.]	AYES.	[7.54 p.m.
Adamson, Rt. Hon. W. (Fits, West)	Hayday, Arthur	Scrymgeour, E.
Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)	Henderson, Right Hon. A. (Burnley)	Scurr, John
Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')	Henderson, T. (Glasgow)	Sexton, James
Ammon, Charles' George	Hirst, G. H.	Shepherd, Arthur Lewis
Baker, J. (Wolverhampton, Bilston)	Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)	Shiels, Or. Drummond
Baker, Walter	Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)	Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)	Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)	Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)
Barr, J.	John, William (Rhondda. West)	Smith, H. B. Lees- (Keighley)
Batey, Joseph	Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)	Smith, Rennie (Penistone)
Bondfield, Margaret	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Snell, Harry
Broad, F. A.	Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Bromfield, William	Kelly, W. T.	Spoor, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Charles
Bromley, J,	Kennedy, T.	Stamford, T. W.
Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)	Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.	Stephen, Campbell
Cape, Thomas	Lausbury, George	Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)
Clowes, S.	Lawrence, Susan	Sutton, J. E.
Cluse, W. S.	Lawson, John James	Taylor, R. A.
Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.	Lee, F.	Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)
Connolly, M.	Lindley, F. W.	Thurtle, Ernest
Cove, W. G.	Lunn, William	Tinker, John Joseph
Dalton, Hugh	Mackinder, W.	Townend, A. E.
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)	MscLaren, Andrew	Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.
Day, Colonel Harry	Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)	Viant, S. P.
Dennison, R.	March, S.	Wallhead, Richard C.
Duncan, C.	Maxton, James	Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen
Dunnico, H,	Mitchell, E. Rosslyn (Paisley)	Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)	Montague, Frederick	Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)
Gardner, J. P.	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney
Gibbins, Joseph	Mosley, Oswald	Wellock, Wilfred
Gillett, George M.	Naylor, T. E.	Welsh, J. c.
Gosling, Harry	Oliver, George Harold	Westwood, J.
Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)	Palin, John Henry	Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.
Graham, Rt. Hon. Wm. (Edin., Cent.)	Paling, W.	Whiteley, W.
Greenall, T.	Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)	Williams, T. (York. Don Valley)
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)	Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.	Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)	Ponsonby, Arthur	Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)	Potts, John S.	Wright, W.
Groves, T.	Purcell, A. A.	Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)
Grundy, T. W.	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvll)	Ritson, J.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon	Robinson, W. C. (Yorks,W.R.,Elland)	Mr. Hayes and Mr. A. Barnes.
NOES.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Betterton, Henry B.
Agg Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.	Balniel, Lord	Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Albery, Irving James	Barnett, Major Sir Richard	Blundell, F. N.
Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)	Barnston, Major Sir Harry	Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Alexander. Sir Wm. (Glasgow, Cent'l)	Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.	Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Applln, Colonel R. V. K.	Beckett, Sir Gervass (Leeds, N.)	Braithwalte, Major A. N.
Apsley, Lord	Bonn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)	Briggs, J. Harold
Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W	Bennett, A. J.	Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. W.	Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-	Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd, Hexham)
Atholl, Duchess of	Berry, Sir George	Buckingham, Sir H.
Atkinson, C.	Bethel, A.	Burman, J. B.
Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.	Henderson, Lieut.-Col. V. L. (Bootle)	Pilcher, G.
Burton, Colonel M. W.	Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.	Price, Major C. W. M.
Butler, Sir Geoffrey	Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.	Radford, E A.
Cadogan, Major Hon. Edward	Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)	Ralne, W.
Calne, Gordon Hall	Herbert,S. (York. N.R.,Scar. & Wh'by)	Ramsden, E.
Campbell, E. T.	Hills, Major John Waller	Rawson, Sir Cooper
Carver, Major W, H.	Hilton, Cecil	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Cautley, Sir Henry S.	Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D.(St.Marylebone)	Rice, Sir Frederick
Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)	Holland, Sir Arthur	Richardson, Sir P. W, (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Cayzer,Maj.Str Herbt. R. (Prtsmth, S.)	Holt, Capt. H. P.	Roberts, E. H. G. (Flint)
Cecil, Bt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)	Hope, Capt. A. o. J. (Warw'k, Nun.)	Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes., Stretford)
Chapman, Sir S.	Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)	Ruggles-Brise, Major E. A.
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.	Hopkins, J. W. W.	Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Chilcott, Sir Warden	Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Colonel C. K.	Rye, F. G.
Christie, J. A.	Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)	Salmon, Major I.
Churchman, Sir Arthur C.	Hudson, R. S. (Cumberland, Whiteh'n)	Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Clarry, Reginald George	Huntingfield, Lord	Sandeman, A. Stewart
Clayton, G. C.	Hurd, Percy A.	Sanders, Sir Robert A.
Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips	Hutchison,G.A.Clark(Midl'n — P'bl's)	Sanderson, Sir Frank
Conway, Sir W, Martin	Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)	Sandon, Lord
Cooper, A. Duff	Iliffe, Sir Edward M.	Savery, S. S.
Couper, J. B.	Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)	Scott, Rt. Hon. Sir Leslie
Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington, N.)	Jacob, A. E.	Shaw, R. G. (Yorks, W.R., Sowerby)
Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)	James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert	Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)
Curzon, Captain Viscount	Jephcott, A. R.	Skelton, A. N.
Dalziel, Sir Davison	Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)	Slaney, Major P. Kenyon
Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)	Smith, R. W.(Aberd'n& Kino'dine, C.)
Davies, Ma|. Geo. F. (Somerset,Yeovil)	Kennedy, A, R. (Preston)	Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)	Kidd, J. (Linlithgow)	Smithers, Waldron
Davies, Dr. Vernon	Kindersley, Major Guy M.	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Dawson, Sir Philip	King, Captain Henry Douglas	Sprot, sir Alexander
Duckworth, John	Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement	Stanley, Co. Hon. G. F. (Will'sden, E.)
Eden, Captain Anthony	Lamb, J. O.	Storry-Deans, R.
Edmondson, Major A. J.	Lister, Cunilffe, Rt' Hon. Sir Philip	Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.
Elliot, Major Walter E.	Little, Dr. E. Graham	Streatfeild, Captain S. R.
Ellis, R. G.	Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)	Stuart, Hon J. (Moray and Nairn)
England, Colonel A.	Locker- Lampson, Com. O.(Handsw'th)	Sugden, Sir Wilfrid
Erskins, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)	Loder, J. de V.	Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.
Everard, W. Lindsay	Looker, Herbert William	Taster, R. Inigo.
Fairfax, Captain J. G.	Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman	Thorn, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)
Falle, Sir Bertram G.	Lumley, L. R.	Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)
Fenby, T. D.	Lynn, Sir R. J.	Thompson, Luke (Sunderland)
Fermoy, Lord	MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)
Fielden, E. B.	Macdonald, R. (Glasgow, Cathcart)	Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell
Ford, Sir P. J.	Macintyre, I.	Tinne, J. A.
Forestier-Walker, Sir L.	McLean, Major A.	Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Foster, Sir Harry S.	MacRobert, Alexander M.	Turton, Sir Edmund Russborough
Fraser, Captain Ian	Makins, Brigadier-General E.	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.
Frece, Sir Walter de	Malone, Major P. B.	Waddington, R.
Fremantle, Lt.-Col- Francis E.	Manningham-Buller, Sir Mervyn	Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L.(Kingston-on-Hull)
Gadle, Lieut.-Col. Anthony	Margesson, Capt. D.	Warner, B'lgadler-General W. W.
Galbraith, J. F. W.	Milne, J. S. Wardlaw	Watts, Dr. T.
Ganzonl Sir John	Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)	Wells, S. R
Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.	Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)	White, Lieut-Col. Sir G. Dalrymple
Gibbs, Col. Rt. Hon. George Abraham	Moles, Rt. Hon. Thomas	Wiggins, William Martin
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.	Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)
Grace, John	Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)	Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)
Graham, Fergus (Cumberland N.)	Morris, R. H.	Williams, C. P. (Denbigh. Wrexham)
Grant, Sir J, A.	Nail, Colonel Sir Joseph	Wilson, M. J. (York, N. R., Richm'd)
Grattan-Doyle, Sir N.	Nelson, Sir Frank	Wilson, R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)
Greene, W. P. Crawford	Neville, R. J.	Winby, Colonel L. P.
Grotrian, H. Brent	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Guinness, Rt. Hon. Walter E.	Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambrldgel	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Gunston, Captain D. W.	Nicholson,Col. Rt. Hn.W.G. (Ptraf'ld.)	Wise, Sir Fredric
Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)	Nuttall, Ellis	Withers, John James
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry	Oakley, T.	Woodcock, Colonel H. C.
Harland, A.	O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Hugh	Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.
Harrison, G. J. C.	Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Hartington, Marquess of	Penny, Frederick George	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Hawke, John Anthony	Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)	Major Cope and Captain Lord Stanley.
Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.	Peto, G. (Somerset, Frame)
Henderson, Capt. R. R.(Oxl'd,Henley)	Philipson, Mabel

Bill read a Second time, and committed.

Mr. SPEAKER

As there is business appointed for 8.15 of the clock, I leave the Chair until that time.

Sitting suspended at two minutes after eight o'clock.