HC Deb 23 May 1930 vol 239 cc761-78
Mr. MacROBERT

I beg to move, to leave out the Clause.

Hon. Members who remember the Bill when it was introduced on Second reading will not recognise this Clause. As originally introduced it proposed to make all statutory small tenants, landholders. holders. In Committee the Government put forward an alternative to the effect that every statutory small tenant shall have the option to become a landholder if he chooses. They have given an option on one side. That is not fair, but nevertheless, that is the proposal of the Government. They were satisfied that it was not right to make every small tenant a landholder, knowing that many of them would be unwilling to become landholders, and, accordingly, they have sought a compromise, which is to give an option to a statutory small tenant to become a landholder if he chooses. The Clause as originally drafted gave a statutory small tenant the right, once and for all, to exercise this option, but the Government have now gone much further. They are apparently prepared by Amendment to meet the Liberal party and provide that every statutory small tenant for all time and at any time shall have the right to exercise this option. That was the suggestion made in Committee by the Liberal party but it did not receive any support from the Government at that time. Now apparently it is to receive their support.

We on this side are entirely in favour of small holdings, but we take a different view as to the means of effecting that result. There is no evidence at all before the House that statutory small tenants wish to become landholders. The Clause, as drafted now, has received no support. No statutory small tenant has asked any party or the Government to make them all landholders compulsorily; they have never asked the Government to give them this option. I wonder if statutory small tenants know exactly their rights under various Acts. I have often referred to the number of landholding Acts and pointed out the desirability of a Consolidation Act, because no person, not even a lawyer, can understand these various Acts unless he is prepared to spend weeks on weeks in perusing them. Do statutory small tenants realise that the proposal of the Liberal party is that they shall have imposed upon them the burden of the maintenance and upkeep of buildings upon their holdings? If that point was put by hon. Members below the Gangway to any meeting of small tenants I am sure that no statutory small tenant would say that he desired to take upon himself the burden of the maintenance and upkeep of farm buildings for which at the present time the landlord is responsible.

In particular, they would not have desired that change if they had also been told that if the landlord did not equip the holding properly and maintain the buildings and permanent improvements properly, the statutory small tenant had the right to go to the landlord and ask to become a landholder. That has been forgotten. There is no hardship at all upon the statutory small tenant at the present moment. I remember that the hon. Member for Kincardine (Mr. Scott) on one occasion suggested that what was taking place with the statutory small tenants was that they had provided many buildings and permanent improvements and were not entitled to get compensation for them because they did not belong to them. That is not according to the facts. The statutory small tenants in Scotland have not spent money, in the Lowland country in particular, in equipping the farms and making permanent improvement. They leave that to the landlord, knowing full well that it is the landlord's duty to do so. Accordingly the suggestion that at the present time the statutory small tenants are labouring under any hardship is not correct. The proof of that is that there are no complaints made by tenants.

Although I represent a county constituency I have never received a single letter from any of my constituents with regard to this Bill—certainly no suggestion by any statutory small tenants that they are desirous of becoming landholders. There is absolutely no demand for it, as far as I know. I have never been asked a question in all my Parliamentary life about this so-called grievance of the Statutory small tenant. There is really no hardship at all at the present time upon any of these Statutory small tenants. I reminded the House on a previous occasion that Statutory small tenants as well as agricultural tenants have certain rights conferred on them by the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1923. Under that Act they are entitled to take away any buildings or permanent improvements that they make. At any rate they can prevent the landlord from getting them. Some of the things would not be of much value if taken away. They are mostly sensible landlords in Scotland, and no sensible landlord would ever allow the buildings which were of value to him and his holdings to go away without making a reasonable offer for them. Accordingly, that point also fails.

The other point was that if you give these statutory small tenants, particularly in the South of Scotland, power to become landholders, they are then to be liable for the maintenance and upkeep of their buildings, although they are not owners of them in any sense. Take the case of the crofting counties. Although technically, in a legal sense, certain buildings were the property of the landlord, nevertheless, they were not provided by the landlord, and that was the reason for the Crofting Acts. The position in the Highlands was that the crofter, or the predecessors in his family, had provided certain buildings and permanent improvements on the croft and although technically these were the property of the landlord, nevertheless, he had not paid for them, and, in that particular case, the crofter did become a landholder and he really was maintaining and upkeeping that for which, at the end of the period he would be entitled to receive compensation. Although, technically, he was not the owner, he had a very real interest in seeing that the property was properly maintained.

What is the position regarding the statutory small tenant? He has not provided the greater part of the buildings and permanent improvements. Indeed in the South of Scotland he practically provides none of them. But you are going to make him a landholder if he chooses, and then you are going to hand over to him the maintenance and upkeep of property which is really the landlord's. The landlord having paid for it is the real owner as well as the technical owner. You are going to hand that property over to the landholder. [An HON. MEMBER "If he wants it!"] There may be some who do want it, though we think there will not be very many. Then look at the result. That statutory small tenant is going to be charged with the whole cost of the maintenance and upkeep of the permanent building and improvements, and he has no interest in that upkeep, because he is not in any sense the proprietor, nor is he going to be paid compensation for it. Thus his position differs entirely from the position of the landholder.

In other words, you are going to give statutory small tenants the right to become landholders, although as a matter of fact they are quite distinct classes. In Scotland at present, landholders are a distinct class. One can understand why this should be the case, because they have paid for most of the buildings on their own holdings and at the end of the period they are entitled to full compensation from the landlord when they vacate the holdings. That is very different from the position of the statutory small tenant who, in nearly all cases, has provided no part of the buildings or the permanent improvements and who will be in this position, that although he has no interest in the property his duty is to maintain it. It is quite true that if he fails to maintain the buildings and improvements properly there may be at the end of the period a question of compensation to the landlord. That compensation is fixed under the Act and is, limited, and indeed whether the landlord will get compensation or not is another matter, but I am not going into that now.

The point I am making at present is that you are going to have a kind of dual ownership with regard to the property and the permanent improvements. You are going to ask a man who has no interest in doings so to maintain and upkeep certain property and improvements, while at the same time the proprietor has no right to interfere. It is not his business to say that he wants this or that done to the property and the statutory small tenant who becomes a landholder can prevent him doing anything. Therefore, you are going to get this extraordinarily anomalous result. Reference has been made more than once to the Nairne Report. The Nairne Committee was a very representative body, and one of its members was a Socialist. It says, in paragraph 62 of its Report: Careful consideration of all the circumstances set forth in the foregoing paragraphs has led us to the conclusion that the creation by the State of small holdings should be discontinued on privately-owned estates in the Lowlands and in other districts in Scotland where conditions are akin to those of the Lowlands. Then it goes on: We are of opinion that the experiment initiated by the Act of 1911 of extending crofting tenure to the Lowlands has not been a success. From the point of view both of landlords and of tenants the system of settlement has proved, when applied to Lowland conditions, to contain defects, the results of which become more apparent as times goes on. I think the Farm Workers' Union representative signed that Report.

Mr. BARR

Is it not true that we took exception to the composition of that Committee when it was formed?

Mr. MacROBERT

I did not know that that was so. I should have thought the Committee was a representative Committee, but if the position is put that it was not, I must say I should have thought that if the Secretary of the Union of Farm Workers in Scotland was not representative of the farm workers, I do not know who you could have got.

Mr. BARR

The present Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, myself, and others took exception to the Committee, particularly because the gentleman to whom the right hon. and learned Member has referred as being highly esteemed is not an enthusiast for the idea of small holdings.

Mr. MacROBERT

I see. The hon. Member would have desired that the Committee should have contained only those who took his own view. I should have thought that to exclude this gentleman because he had strong views on—

Mr. BARR

We protested against that Committee, and I would not have intervened if the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not said that it would be a Committee of which we would approve, because there was a Socialist on it.

Mr. MacROBERT

I do not know the gentleman personally, nor do I know his views, but he must have some views, and the fact that he has views in favour of views which I hold surely should not be used as a point against him. On our side of the House anyhow, it seems to be in his favour that he has taken such a sensible view, and the fact, if it be a fact that he has indicated the same views previously is no reason why they should be urged against him, if they were honestly held by a man who ought to know more of what is necessary for the agricultural workers in Scotland than any other person. I should have thought he would be a person whose opinion would have been of great weight. I am not personally familiar with any of the Members of the Nairne Committee, nor did I know that the hon. Member opposite had objected to the composition of the Committee, but no doubt some of my hon. Friends may be able to deal with that point.

The point I am making is that this Committee, which heard evidence and made full inquiries, came to the deliberate conclusion that this system is not a success in the Lowlands of Scotland, and that is what we, on this side, anticipated. Landholding is not suitable to holdings in the south in the same way as it is in the north. My submission is that the original Clause was admittedly bad, and I am very glad that the Government took the same view as we did on this matter, that the original Clause forcing every statutory small tenant to become a landholder, would not do. I think that the Government deserve some credit for resisting that demand from the Liberal party. It was quite out of harmony with the desire of the people of Scotland. A compromise has been tried, but I am not at all sure that compromises are always good things. I think that they have come forward with a half-hearted compromise, and it is no doubt true that that halfhearted compromise in the Bill is going to be extended a little towards the Liberal views. I do not know why, but that is so.

Mr. W. ADAMSON

Why not?

Mr. MacROBERT

I say that the Government's first thoughts were better than the latter. Clause 2 in the original Bill was absolutely bad. It has disappeared, and we have now got something that the promoters of the Bill did not ask for and resisted at the time; but no doubt they are quite prepared to take it now from the Government. I am surprised that they departed from their original position, that every statutory tenant should become a small landholder. I am not in the least surprised that they are prepared to accept the Clause as proposed by the Government, and, no doubt, they will accept all the Amendments that the Government have proposed to the Clause.

In conclusion, I would say that, despite what the Lord Advocate said with regard to a previous Clause, I am not at all sure that the first Clause brought forward by the Government this morning, and which has been added to the Bill, has not altered the whole position of the law with regard to statutory small tenants and landholders, and that that question will have to be solved in the Law Courts sooner or later, because it seems to me that the statutory small tenant, as fixed by the Act of 1911, has been quite transformed by the Clause which has been inserted in the Bill. Therefore, on the whole matter, I move the rejection of this Clause, which is not the original proposal in the Bill but a kind of compromise thrown to the Liberal party, and, being a compromise, I am surprised at their taking it. The compromise is nearly as bad as the Clause in the original Bill, but both seem to me to be bad.

Mr. SCOTT

I would like the House to resist the Amendment. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Major Elliot) made a personal reference to me on my return to the House, but I could have wished that he and his Friends had celebrated that event in a different way. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had the advantage of me on the Order Paper to-day. He had his Milk Bill first on the Paper, and, having been successful with some difficulty—the difficulty having arisen entirely among his own friends—in securing the passage of his Measure, he proceeds on his own account, and by inciting his Friends, to spend the rest of the short hours that we have this afternoon in doing his utmost to destroy our Bill, which is conceived and designed to confer real and lasting benefit upon a large class of landholders in Scotland. The Tory party have never ceased from the day when this Bill was introduced from calling it a mischievous Measure. The virulent opposition which the Tory party have given to the Bill right through the Committee stage, and which they have consistently shown in the Debate to-day, is the best compliment that the Bill could have got.

The proposed new Clause which they submitted is the best illustration of that. By it they seek to turn back the hands of the clock and to go back to a procedure which was discarded some 11 years ago. That is the true type of reactionary Tory proposal. The late Lord Advocate spent 25 minutes in supporting a proposal to delete one Clause of the Bill, and supported it by a rigmarole—for it is no other—of mis-statements of law and misstatements of facts in Scotland—[Interruption.]

Mr. MacROBERT

I am waiting to hear proof of the hon. Gentleman's statement.

Mr. SCOTT

I am going to give the right hon. and learned Gentleman proof. I say that he has given a rigmarole of mis-statements of fact and law, and I strongly advise my Friends on the opposite Benches, to whom most of his remarks were addressed, that they should accept with great reserve any statements that he has made. For example, with regard to the Clause what he wishes to have deleted from the Bill, he has entirely misrepresented the position of the statutory small tenants. I happen to know a great deal more about them than he does. I am not surprised to hear that he has received no complaints from statutory small tenants in his constituency. They know better than to go to him. They would get very short shrift. I have been in close personal touch not with one statutory small tenant but with hundreds of statutory small tenants, and not for one year but for the last 20 years, and when I give the right hon. Gentleman my personal assurance that I know that the reform sought in this Bill is demanded by statutory small tenants, I ask him to accept that assurance as having a little weight. If statutory small tenants do not wish for this reform, why have there been no protests from them since the Bill was introduced? It has been in the public eye and in the public prints for a long time. On the contrary, there have been expressions of approval of the Measure. [Interruption.] I have received many; naturally they would not go to my right hon. Friend.

But I wish to go into the merits of this Clause. The statutory small tenancy was first introduced in another place. When the Bill of 1911 was introduced by the Liberal party there was only one—and there was intended to be only one—class of smallholders, and they were all to be landholders. It was from the House of Lords that the statutory small tenancy emanated—a purely arbitrary creation, inserted for one purpose only, and that was that the landlords of Scotland might be able to appropriate to themselves the permanent improvements made by landholders who were in the unfortunate position of not being able to prove to the satisfaction of the Land Court that the value of their improvements exceeded one-half of the total improvements on the holdings. A man who had created permanent improvements to the value of £249 19s. 11d. on his holding would get not a penny of compensation for them from his landlord, whereas a man who was able to prove that he had expended £250 0s. 1d. on permanent improvement was entitled to full compensation. What my right hon. Friend, speaking on behalf of the landlords of Scotland, as I know he does, wants to do, is to retain this iniquitous right of landowners to appropriate to themselves permanent improvements to which they have not a shadow of legal title. The object of this Clause is to entitle statutory small tenants to receive compensation for any permanent improvements which they have put on their holdings. There is no injustice to the right hon. Gentleman's friends. It is not proposed to take a single penny of the value of permanent improvements from the landowners. Whatever improvements have been made by the tenant the tenant will get; whatever improvements have been made by the landlord the landlord will retain. Could anything be more just than that?

The right hon. Gentleman has taunted me with being willing to accept in this Clause less than I had proposed in my original Bill. I see nothing dishonourable in that, nor is there so much difference between the Government's proposal and the one in the original Bill. Some representations were made to the Scottish Office by certain statutory tenants who said they did not want to become landholders. I make my right hon. Friend a present of that information. Accordingly, the Government thought it would be better to make the proposal optional, as they have done. May I remind the House of the exact position. Under my proposal in the original Bill it would not have been necessary or compulsory upon any statutory small tenant to come forward and claim to be a landholder. The position to-day under this Clause is that the tenant must send a notice to his landlord that he means to claim compensation and that is the only difference. I for one shall advise my colleagues to accept this Clause.

Mr. MacLAREN

There are such a large number of Amendments on the Paper that it does not require much foresight to see that this Bill will not pass to-day, and the reason for that is that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for East Renfrew (Mr. MacRobert) and his friends have been reiterating their arguments in order to kill time. That is not a particularly creditable performance. In the past, the whole struggle in regard to this kind of legislation has been to obtain security of tenure for the smallholder, and that has been the principal object of the various Bills which have been introduced. The entire struggle in Scotland has been one against landlordism, and an attempt on behalf of the small land user to obtain for him security of tenure.

Hon. Members, speaking from the Opposition side of the House, have stated, in discussing this particular point, that no well-disposed landowner would ever allow a small tenant to give up his tenancy without treating him fairly, and the landowner would never think of appropriating a tenant's improvements without showing some consideration for that tenant. That may be true, but I think hon. Members opposite will readily admit that that is not obligatory on the landowner, and that he is not legally bound to advance any compensation to the tenant at all. If he does pay any compensation under the present law, it is purely a matter of his good nature. I am not myself wildly enthusiastic about this Measure, but, at any rate, it is a step in the right direction, and it gives statutory power to the tenant to claim compensation for his improvements.

I am not going to say that all the land owners of to-day are like the landowners we read about in history, but I think it is always safer, and is a good Scottish attitude, to see that Acts of Parliament give to the tenant full power to exact from the landowner the value of any improvements that he has effected. I desire to emphasize what I said at the beginning about the attitude of my right hon. and learned Friend opposite, not only to-day, but all through the Committee stage, and I think it would be well that the country should appreciate chat has happened. Weeks have been spent on the Committee stage of this Bill. Public money has been spent on publishing the Reports, and valuable time has been spent. I am quite prepared to admit that in the original drafting of the Bill much was left that might have been better done, but, after all this time and money has been spent in getting the Bill to this point, we have this factious blocking of the Bill to-day. I am hoping that there is a time not coming when the nation will discredit this House, but I cannot watch what is going on in this House from time to time—[Interruption.] There is laughter when serious propositions are put before the House, but there are people outside who will begin to ask whether this is a serious Chamber of administration or a collection of buffoons. [Interruption.] Hon. Members can go on laughing.

Why is this stupid blocking of a Bill taking place? My right hon. and learned Friend opposite knows perfectly well that, if the question went to the vote now, he would be defeated. It may be what is called Parliamentary tactics, but I hope that Scottish Members of the House will take back the message on Monday that this Bill has met its fate to-day at the hands of my right hon. and learned Friend opposite, and that the Scottish smallholders will now be left where they were, in the hands of benign and beneficent governments of landowners. Let me say to my hon. Friends who are supporting this Bill that I am sorry that they are not going to get the Bill to-day, but I wish that they would be more Radical. [Interruption.] My recollection of these fights in Scotland is that in the old days a different attitude was adopted towards these matters from that which is being adopted now. People did not hope to circumvent the powers of superior landowners by devious methods of this kind; they had a very blunt and direct method of dealing with the whole matter. Let me emphasise something that was said in this House years ago, when the 1909 Bill was fought in this Chamber, by an illustrious Lord Advocate. He said then that it would be far better if the user of the land were allowed to use all the money he had, all the capital he had, by putting it into his land to develop it, rather than using it to buy out the landowner in order that he might have the right to become a landowner in turn himself.

I can see that there is straining at the leash on the other side, that the army of blockers are preparing to continue their blocking. This Bill will meet with a desperate fate. It will be another example of the difficulty of passing through this House any Measure of alleviation and giving back the land to the honest user of it. I am not commending any Act of Parliament which is going to impose on any landlord an army of smallholders who will become a nuisance on the estate, but to-day we are witnessing the difficulty of opening up the land of the country to the uses—[A laugh.] I cannot understand that insane laughter. It seems to be the hon. Member's only contribution. He is newly here, and is asserting himself, not by making any serious contribution to the Debate, but by a stupid and inane guffaw. I hope that that will be recorded in his constituency when he goes there to-morrow. We are witnessing to-day the effect of trying to open up the use of the land with security of tenure, at a time when unemployment is overshadowing the country and we want to do something to settle people on the land, to give men the opportunity of getting off the streets of the cities and back to the usage of the land.

If I were sitting on the Tory Benches, I could vote for this Bill with absolute equanimity. There is nothing to challenge the vested interests of the landowner. It is so innocent, but yet you are maintaining this blocking method to kill it. I hope the Government will adopt it before long and put it through the House. Let us hope also that in the near future another Bill will be introduced, more drastic, which has little regard to the vested interests of historic landlords and every regard for the man who is prepared to use the land rather than continue to be the parasite of society. I hope they will bring in a Bill which will open up the land of Scotland to the people who will use it and will despoil those who have had historic rights over it for so long.

Mr. SKELTON

I find myself in complete agreement with the hon. Member's closing remarks. There is nothing more desirable and necessary than opening up the land to people who will cultivate it, but if he had read and studied the Bill—

Mr. MacLAREN

I have. I was on the Committee.

Mr. SKELTON

If he had been more familiar with the existing requirements of Scottish agriculture and the true meaning of this purely reactionary proposal which the Clause contains, he would not have suggested that it is going to help to open up the land. One of my main objections to the Bill is that, far from facilitating land settlement, far from helping to open up the land to new cultivators, it interferes with such work from beginning to end and adds enormously to the difficulties of getting any proper system of small holdings for land settlement. The object of the Clause in its original, compulsory form and its effect, so far as it had any effect at all, was to introduce into Scotland that very dual ownership which in Ireland was a complete bar to agricultural progress and which was swept away by the Unionist party in favour of cultivating ownership on the part of the peasant. Far from the Clause being a measure of advance, it is truly reactionary. The only conceivable advantage its passage could have would be that it would make inevitable in the course of time that there should be brought forward another Wyndham Act.

The promoters of the Bill have attacked my right hon. Friend in front of me. They say everything he has said must be received with reserve. What he has said has not been received with reserve, but with thankfulness. No fewer than 10 of the later Clauses of the Bill are his work. It is poor thanks, after such action in Committee to inform the House that he is on a level, as far as this Bill is concerned, with a common vagabond. This is an attempt to give effect to a widespread introduction of dual ownership. The promoter of the Bill said he would explain to the House how my right hon. Friend had made many mistakes regarding the situation in Scotland with reference to this Clause. He said nothing to substantiate that statement, which though not actually out of order was certainly beyond any courtesy. No evidence can be brought forward to support such a statement. It is well-known by those who take an interest in the relationship between settlement and tenure.

Mr. SCOTT

I must ask the hon. Member to adhere to the facts.

Mr. SKELTON

I do not propose to give way, but I gather that my statement of the facts is also said to be inaccurate. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is!"] It seems to me that my hon. Friend below the Gangway is in the happy position of thinking that everybody but himself is wrong.

Mr. E. BROWN

It is a fact. If you will give way we will show you.

Mr. SKELTON

The hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown) knows the Rules of this House. He keeps up a running fire of comment without taking the trouble to rise to his feet.

Mr. E. BROWN

The hon. Member will not give way.

Mr. SKELTON

I cannot give way at this hour when I have facts to place before the House. Such statements as can be made in favour of this Clause have been made. No attempt has been made to answer the criticism that this is an attempt to introduce dual ownership into the Lowlands of Scotland and into agriculture which, fortunately, has been free from it, and in regard to which recently a Committee has recommended that dual ownership should not be introduced, and pointed out that in those places where it has been introduced it has done harm. Those who are familiar with Scottish agriculture realise that in this matter of tenure the Liberal party have learned nothing and have forgotten nothing. They are in exactly the same frame of mind as when Mr. Gladstone introduced the Irish Land Act in the early 'eighties which brought about dual ownership. They are far away from the Twentieth Century and from any scientific knowledge of agriculture. I beg the House not to be deluded into believing that this a progressive Measure. I am satisfied that this Clause would jeopardise, and be harmful to, those small tenants who were foolish enough to take advantage of it.

Mr. MacLAREN

What is your alternative?

Mr. SKELTON

The hon. Member knows very well that this is not the time to present an alternative, nor need I be asked for an alternative, because in season and out of season, I am afraid for many hon. Members it has been out of season, have I urged the development of small ownership, but not the development of dual ownership, because one is the light and the other is the dark with regard to the successful small cultivation of the land. They did not know that in 1881, but they know it in 1930. My objection to this Clause is that the Liberal party, true to their nineteenth century point of view, immutable and nowadays perfectly useless, ask us to drag into lowland Scotland, which has its own agricultural difficulties, a perfectly unnecessary new difficulty; a system which would be hopeless and which would not be of benefit to the small tenants who make use of it, but whose evil effects would be far more widely spread. I said in Committee, and I repeat it now as the most important observation that can be made on this Clause, that I hope, and there is reason to believe, and the hope is not without foundation, that as time goes on there will be a renewed movement on the part of private land owners to set up small holdings in order to encourage land settlement on their own estates.

Mr. MacLAREN

Who pays?

Mr. SKELTON

The hon. Member must know better than to expect that at at three minutes to the hour it would be possible to explain that matter. The hon. Member must be trying to block the Bill. This is not the time to give the evidence, but I gave it fully in Committee and if the hon. Member will read the Committee proceedings he will find it there. There will come a time when private landowners will encourage small holdings on their own estates, but if this Bill were to pass it would absolutely jeopardise any such movement, because no sooner would a small holding be established than the smallholder, under this Bill, would have the right to ask to be made a small landholder. That is to say, that every landlord who was public spirited enough—

Mr. SCOTT

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Mr. SKELTON

This Clause would jeopardise the development of land settlement in Scotland by private landowners. Who would spend much money, and under modern conditions much money would be required to be spent, upon the setting up of small holdings on a private estate if, through the operation of this Clause, the settled man could immediately remove himself from the control of the estate? That is, in my judgment, the final criticism of this Clause. It is because the Government and the Secretary of State for Scotland, advised by the Scottish Law Department, knew well the great agricultural dangers that lay in the original form of this Clause, its compulsory form, that they have changed the compulsory into a voluntary form. They do not want to lose the support of hon. Members below the Gangway on this side of the House by saying that this is a useless Clause, therefore they have removed its compulsory character and have said that you shall not do this perforce.

Mr. SCOTT

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Mr. SKELTON

The Government have removed the compulsory characteristic and I suggest that in doing that they have given a lead to the House. They have made it voluntary, and it is for the good sense of the House to make it impossible. I most earnestly hope—

Mr. SCOTT

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Mr. SKELTON

I hope that at no time will this Clause be passed by the House.

It being Four of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3.

Adjourned at One Minute after Four o'Clock until Monday next, 26th May.