REGISTER HOUSE, EDINBURGH.

HC Deb 28 June 1932 vol 267 cc1715-41

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £90, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 3lst day of March, 1933, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices in His Majesty's General Register House, Edinburgh."—[NOTE.—£10 has been voted on account.]

Mr. N. MACLEAN

I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £10.

7.30 p.m.

This is a matter which affects Scotland very much indeed. The amount of money which is devoted to the recording and the indexing of the historical records of Scotland is in no way comparable with the amount that is required, and no matter how efficient the staff might be there is not a sufficient number of them to codify the records, and consequently large numbers of very valuable documents which ought to be collected, indexed and made available for research work are lying neglected and becoming practically useless. The present Estimate is for only £200, whereas England is asking for and probably will obtain £2,300 for similar purposes. Although there is not sufficient money to provide for the proper collection and maintenance of Scottish records, there is plenty of money for English and Welsh purposes. Whereas only £455 is given to the National Library for Scotland, £15,300 is given to the Welsh National Library. If such a large sum of money can be voted to the National Library of Wales there is no reason why a proportionate amount should be withheld from Scotland.

Mr. J. WALLACE

I have pleasure in associating myself with the statement made by the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean). This question has to do with an old grievance about which I knew very little until quite recently. I happened to read an article in the "Scotsman" of 28th April last, which gave a very full account of the whole position. But up to that time I had no idea of the disgraceful condition into which the Record Office in Edinburgh had got. It has been the subject of many representations in past years. At the last meeting of the Convention of Royal Burghs the representatives present thought it was not the slightest use to raise the question again with Scottish Members of Parliament, as they had been disappointed so frequently. The attitude in Scotland to-day, I understand, is that nothing will be done at all in order to right what is a very definite Scottish wrong. A deputation which we met last evening was composed of reputable Scottish gentlemen who knew exactly the importance of the subject about which they spoke. They surprised most of the Scottish Members who were present.

What is the position? We have, I am afraid to say how many hundreds of thousands of valuable historical records uncodified, uncalendared, and unclassed in any way whatever. They are lying about in the garrets and the cellars of the Register House, and many of them, I am told, are in a state of hopeless decay. I find it almost impossible to believe what I have been told about those records, but it is a fact that very strong representations have been made to the Scottish Office and to the Government before on the subject. I understand that in 1922 very strong representations were made to the Scottish Office; again in 1929; and once more in 1930, to the late Secretary for Scotland, Mr. William Adamson. We have a paltry sum of £200 allocated in these Estimates for these historical documents. It is impossible even to make a beginning with the work with a sum of that kind.

The complaint is twofold: First, that these documents are not looked after in any proper way and that they are being allowed to decay; and, secondly, that the staff is utterly inadequate to do the work. It is almost impossible to get recruits to enter this particular service in Scotland. That was the testimony we got last evening, with every possible evidence to support it. As a Scottish Member I ask, how is it that the Scottish Office permits this to go on? The whole history of the Records Office is one of parsimonious neglect so far as the Treasury is concerned. But we have a Secretary of State for Scotland. I remember that when I was last in the House I took a small part in bringing to the notice of the House the unfairness of our having only a Secretary for Scotland instead of a Secretary of State, and I was very glad when the higher status was granted later. The Secretary of State occupies a very important position in the Cabinet, and the country and I cannot understand why he permits neglect of this sort to go on. As others have said, we cannot blame him personally, because this is a record of sin and neglect which has characterised many Secretaries and Secretaries of State up to now. But I think we must now expect our Secretary of State to do something. He has the fighting qualities. There are occasions when he can unsheath a shining sword in championing Free Trade, and I do not see why in the interest of Scotland that sword should not be drawn again metaphorically.

But I think my right hon. and gallant Friend is afraid of the Treasury. Perhaps it might not be altogether inappropriate for him as a Highlander to remember that there have been occasions when a Scotsman thought it was the right thing to "lay the proud usurper low." In his attitude towards the Treasury something of that old Scottish spirit will have to animate him if we are to have these records properly kept. We have heard a good deal from my right hon. Friend about economy, and we have all agreed with him on the broad question of economy, but as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) said, there can be false economy, and I suggest that for these extremely valuable records, the most important records in the world, so far as Scotland is concerned, to be left in the present state of disgraceful neglect, is false economy. All we want is a perfectly reasonable thing. We say that the Scottish Record Office should at once be brought up to a relative status, so far as staff and equipment are concerned, to the London Record Office. Surely that is not stating our case too highly. I commend this subject to the early attention of the Secretary of State.

Mr. BUCHAN

I would like to associate myself with the two hon. Members who have spoken on this question of the Scottish records, a matter which has long exercised most seriously the minds of those who are interested in Scottish history. The Scottish History Society, of which I have the honour to be President, has for some years made an annual protest, and the case for Scotland on this question has been argued most ably and energetically by the Convention of Royal Burghs, which is the best we have at present in Scotland in the way of a national council. The facts are perfectly plain. On this question in the last half century the interests of Scotland have been shamefully neglected. Our records are in a deplorable condition, un-catalogued, unindexed, in no way properly accessible to the public, and there is a real danger that unless we take care many of them will be destroyed altogether. That is not the blame of the officials. The Record Office during the last century has been in charge of very able public servants and very eminent scholars, but they are hopelessly understaffed, and there is nothing like enough money even for the mere purpose of physical preservation, let alone reorganisation of the Department so as to make it properly accessible to the public.

I need not remind the Committee that in recent years there has been a very remarkable revival of interest in historical study in Scotland. We Scots are all historically minded. The past is a very real thing to us. We have history in our bones. We have a very admirable recent record in Scottish historical scholarship, and recently we have seen two professorial chairs successfully founded in Scottish history. But there is very little encouragement for a Scottish historical student to pursue his researches in Scotland. It is a melancholy business to compare London with Edinburgh. At the Record Office in Chancery Lane everything is in beautiful order and the work of research is easy and simple. In Edinburgh a student finds himself wading among masses of irrelevant and dusty materials, with very small chance of discovering what he wants. Again, I say that that is not the blame of the officials. They are exceedingly competent as far as it is possible to be competent in their miserable jobs. The Scottish Record Office at present can only be described in the words of the popular hymn: Change and decay in all around I see. Yet these are wonderful records. They are not only of unparalleled value to the student of the history of our country but they are also of great legal interest There is every likelihood that in the near future they will be very largely supplemented, as great estates are broken up and as the muniment rooms of great country houses are emptied. The natural place for such papers is the Record Office, but at present the Record Office cannot receive them or deal properly with them. There is a real danger that unless we take great care we shall lose some of the most valuable material of the country's history for ever.

I know that it is very difficult at this moment to ask for more money, but I understand that the amount required is very small. A matter of £1,000 or £2,000 is required in order to prevent these valuable documents falling into physcial decay. That is not a large sum, and I understand that the Register of Sasines makes a considerable profit. Is there no possibility of some reallocation by which some of the profit which is now taken by the Treasury from that department should go to the service of the Public Record Office? I appeal seriously to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I ask him to consider that in this matter Scotland is being treated, and has long been treated, with gross unfairness as compared with England or with Wales. We cannot face the prospect of our descendants arising and examining our work and finding that we, for a miserable ha'porth of tar, have spoiled an invaluable ship. I appeal to my right hon. Friend both on the ground of the unfair treatment of his own country in this matter and in the general interests of historical scholarship to deal with this grievance before it has passed all hope of redress.

Mr. MACPHERSON

May I briefly reinforce the arguments which have been advanced by my two hon. Friends who have preceded me? I am like the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Buchan), a member of the Scottish History Society, and I had the honour of presiding at a meeting of Scottish members last night, when we had before us a very important deputation from the Convention of Royal Scottish Burghs. I think I can speak for everybody who was there when I say that we were deeply impressed by their statements. Some of the facts have already been placed before the Committee, but I was astonished to find that, in the twentieth century, a country with a great past should have to confess that the Government are treating it in such a niggardly fashion and with such callous indifference in this respect. My colleagues and I were told that thousands of bags and boxes of documents which were placed in the Register House in 1789, the year of the French Revolution, have not been dusted since. If that be true, if documents of great historical value, some of them dating from centuries before, are lying there unsorted and undusted, it is a shame and a disgrace, and we, as the representatives of the people of Scotland, should not tolerate such a condition of affairs for a single moment.

We have heard a great deal about economy, but we are not asking for much. All we want, I believe, is something like £1,200 in order to have six Second Division clerks, who will begin the work of sorting these documents. These documents have not been treated by anybody during all these years and it is necessary, first, that they should be sorted. Nobody can say a word against the present officials. They are competent, sympathetic and able but it is beyond human powers to tackle the work which ought to be tackled, in historical research of this kind, in a house which contains so many documents. I understand that the Treasury in a normal year makes a profit of £10,000 on the Register House. If it be true that that sum is pocketed by the British Treasury, it is a great disgrace that we should allow these documents to become useless and valueless for the sake of £1,200 a year.

The British Record Office in Chancery Lane gets £67,000 a year. My hon. Friend the Member for the Scottish Universities who has, on occasion, added so much to our enjoyment as the result of his researches there, has pointed out that in the British Record Office research is a delight. Why should it not be the same to him in his own native country? We are as proud of our historical documents as any Englishman is proud of English historical records, and we are making this demand to the Treasury as a united nation. There is not a man or a woman in Scotland who is not sincerely anxious that this matter, after such a long delay, should be put right at once. Scottish feeling is running high and is bound to ran higher if callous indifference of this kind to national aspirations and national hopes should continue to be shown by the British Parliament and it is on behalf of the whole of Scotland that we ask my right hon. Friend to take it upon himself to approach the Treasury and remedy an age-long disgrace and grievance.

Sir PATRICK FORD

There is a certain difficulty in dealing with this subject because economy is usual in Scotland and we are economical in our departments. We have this one department of registers and records and it fulfils functions which are fulfilled by two separate departments in England. Therefore if we want to bring a charge of unfair treatment against the Treasury, it is difficult to disentangle what goes to the Re-cord Office and what goes to the ordinary Register Office. It is hardly necessary to explain to the Committee the functions of these two offices. Roughly speaking the function of the Register Office is to see that records with regard to titles and deeds and so forth are properly prepared. Once they have been lodged, it is the function of the Record Office to see that they are properly kept and are accessible. I maintain that it is very difficult to fulfil even the first function owing to the conditions of penury under which we live in Scotland to-day as a result of the Treasury treatment of our country. Secondly, it is almost impossible to get any proper access to these valuable documents.

It would take far too long to go into the history of the documents. About 1590 or thereabouts, they were more or less complete but owing to a very sad train of historical and other events, some were taken to England; some which were being returned by Cromwell were lost in the wreck of the ship which was conveying them, while a great many were left in private country houses. There is actually a Bull which was issued by Pius IV some time about 1560 upon which I believe the titles to the properties in almost half a county of Scotland depend and owing to neglect on the part of the whole Government, and not of the Treasury only, of these things in Scotland, it was discovered only three weeks ago in a secondhand bookshop or auction room. That example reinforces the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Buchan) that we ought to set up with Treasury support, some general body in Scotland, to see that these records are properly kept. As a matter of fact these records are not only of historical interest but have a practical interest as well and though I feel that it is difficult to make an appeal of this kind in these days when we must be strict in our economy, yet it always seems to me that the Treasury rather takes the Biblical attitude: Moab is my washpot, over Edom will I cast out my shoe. If we substitute Scotland, that has been the attitude of the British and predominatingly English Treasury on many Scottish questions. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is getting an opportunity of working with the National Government to secure these things for Scotland and we will applaud him if he does his duty, but we can never forgive him if he does not satisfy Scotland that he is doing his very best not to get up a special caste for the Treasury, but to get up Scotland's case and to bring the Treasury face to face with it. I maintain that we are not getting our proper grant for Scotland in proportion to what goes from the Treasury to England, and in proportion to the taxation which we pay to the common purse. Over and above that consideration there are 500 years of callous neglect and worse, to be made good with regard to the Record Office.

8.0 p.m.

With the indulgence of the Committee I would like to deal with the practical aspect of the question as it concerns the clerks in the Register of Sasines—those second-class clerks of whom we have heard, off and on, for the last two and a-half years, to the great annoyance, I think, of the powers that be, but to the even greater annoyance of those who have had to make a plea for them. It is all very well to become sentimental about the great past of a great nation—though there are practical issues involved as well—but we have also to ask, what are we doing for our sons to-day? What are we doing for the clerks who are entrusted with the preparation and revision of these documents and with seeing that those documents, upon which land tenure in Scotland depends, are kept in proper order. Their treatment is not within 20 per cent, of that received by their "opposite numbers" in England. In that office we have people who are responsible for the preparation and revision of those documents and for seeing that they are properly filed and tabulated, and we are told that they are not worth any more than the clerical service in the corresponding English offices. It may interest the Committee to know that the corresponding nearest grade is what were called Second Division and are now called Lower Executive clerks in the Estate Duty Office in England. These people are recruited at the age of 18 to 20. Our clerks of the same grade in Scotland are recruited at the age of from 20 to 25. There is a difference there, and yet these boys begin in England at the rate of £100, rising by the not very princely increase of £15 a year to a maximum of £500. A maximum of £400 is grudged to ours, and they do not begin at the same scale either. There was a Reorganisation Report in 1920, and they lost the status that they had in correspondence with their English opposite numbers up to that time. They put in a claim on the 7th January, 1921, but it was two years and more after that before the Arbitration Board to which they sent their claim got from the Scottish Office its counter-statement, not a statement, as one might have expected, supporting the Scottish clerks, but a statement supporting the Treasury attiude. There was the counter-statement put in two years after the Geddes axe had fallen, after the other civil servants whose livelihood was concerned had got more or less what they wanted, and these poor Scottish clerks came in and were told, "Oh no, we do not consider that you are of any more use or any more value than the lowest clerical servants in England."

You cannot have it both ways, because you insist, before you take people as second class clerks in the Register House in Scotland, that you do not recruit them except between 20 and 25, as against between 18 and 20 in England, and you insist that they not only must have passed higher standards in second grade school examinations, but that they must have had practical knowledge of conveyancing and all its intricacies in Scotland, and under our feudal system there are far more differences in writs and in conveyancing and all those things which are a puzzle to the layman, and far more special knowledge required than in England. They have to have all that, and also, and very rightly, they have to have had practical office experience. When my right hon. and gallant Friend and I had a discussion on this subject, he was most courteous and went into the matter, but he suggested that perhaps that service in an office might not really be very serious. On my own suggestion, he got a tabulated return of what service these people had done, and it was nothing illusory at all. They actually had done service that rendered them better practical men in dealing with practical points and confirming their theoretical legal training with practical legal experience.

Further, if you say that they have no more value than these lowest grade clerks in England, why is it that you insist upon their having these qualifications? Why is it that the general feeling in Scotland is that the requirements of the work they are put on to do are such that they deserve better emoluments, but get less? As a practical proof of that, in 1924 an examination was held, when there were 11 vacancies, and only four candidates were fools enough to turn up. One of them failed, and out of the three who passed one, on reconsideration, was less of a fool, said the terms were not good enough, and withdrew. Remember too that your higher grade clerks are recruited from that second grade, and you have therefore absolutely dying out the recruits and the material for dealing with things that require the greatest special knowledge; and in a few years the chaos of the deeds and writs on which we depend for our proper tenure of landed property in Scotland will be almost as great as the chaos that has overtaken these old records after 500 years of neglect.

I maintain that even if it would cost more, and even in these times of economy, it would be a false economy not to do this, but that is not the case, because, as a matter of fact, as I understand, that branch at any rate of the Register and Record Office pays its own way. It made a profit, and I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) that, as far as our information goes, the Treasury very calmly took that profit and allocated it to other purposes, no doubt in the interests of the State, but not in the interests of Scotland, as far as I am aware, and certainly not in the interests of that Office. After certain changes took place, there were Acts passed in 1924 and 1925—a Conveyancing (Scotland) Act and an Endowment of Church. Property Act for Scotland—and they not only entailed more labour on these clerks, but in the conveyancing part of the Office they reduced the sum total of the fees paid.

For transactions up to £200 there is a charge of 5s. made by that Office for seeing that things are in proper order and form, and it goes up to £6 for transactions valuing £10,000 and upwards. We maintain that there might, at any rate, be some suggestion made in the direction of dealing with these fees, and I would suggest to my right hon. and gallant Friend that he should stand up to the Treasury and say, "If you will not give us money, at any rate, let us make our own rules by which we can spend it." He should stand up to them like the Scotsman he is, and the hero he would become in the minds of all Scotsmen, if he had the courage to do it. I am sure he has plenty of courage. There is a kind of courage that is only rash, but there is another kind of courage that comes from thought, and I am sure that that is the kind that my right hon. and gallant Friend would display to the greatest advantage. If he would do that, we could again make that Office practically self-supporting and meet the immediate needs of these depressed classes.

We talk about the depressed classes in India, but think of these poor fellows who spent their money on their education, in working in an office for very small amounts, because it was leading up to what they were going to get when they got into the magnificent Civil Service. Just think what it means to them. There they are; they have been axed, and cut down, and they have suffered all the economy cuts, and they see their friends in England who do not have the same qualifications getting much better paid—

Sir WILFRID SUGDEN

My hon. Friend may be a great authority on Scottish matters, but I suggest that if he wants an ideal Civil Service, he should come to England.

Sir P. FORD

As a matter of fact, my hon. Friend who interrupts does not know what he is talking about.

Sir W. SUGDEN

Again I say the English Civil Service is superior to the Scottish, section by section.

Sir P. FORD

I was saying that the opposite number, the specialist class in England, is paid infinitely more. I am not at all imputing any inefficiency to English people—far be it from me to do that, because they have been able to do a very good deal with Scotland—but I am merely saying that here are these people, who entered this service under certain conditions held out to them; they have been reduced all round, and they see their friends in England on similar jobs being infinitely better treated; and it does not seem to me to be fair.

There is one saving that is being effected, because there are a number of special clerks who, about 10 years or less ago, cost about £20,000 a year. There has been no recruitment for them in this Office, and they have been dying out, so that with the money already saved annually on that, if the Treasury did not interfere and if my right hon. and gallant Friend would insist on his rights as a Minister in Scotland, and not make special cases for the Treasury, but special cases for Scotland, he could get more than the money that is needed to meet the claims of these people. I speak feelingly about it, because I know about it. Very few of these people vote in my constituency, so let it not be thought that I am doing this as a vote-catcher. I am doing it because I want to see justice done to a very able, well-educated, conscientious body of men in Scotland, with wives and children dependent on them. I know that we do not live by bread alone. I know that we live by the spirit of our nation and our belief in it, but these men and their wives and children are practically starving, and I demand from the Secretary of State for Scotland less of this sickly hue of hesitation, a little more of the real Scottish spirit, and a little more standing up to the Treasury and getting justice for Scotland.

Mr. JAMIES JOHNSTON

Two points are raised on this Vote. First of all, there is the question of the Record Office, which is sadly under-staffed from the point of view of the carrying on of its work of preserving, cataloguing, indexing, and making available to the public and to students the documents which come within its care. Judged by that absolute standard of the adequate performance of its work, it is understaffed, and I maintain, and the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Buchan) has very strongly supported the view, that upon a comparison with similar departments in England we are less well served in this connection. There has been a long agitation about this matter, and various promises, or at all events half-promises, of additional staff have from time to time been made by various Secretaries of State when they have been far removed from the Treasury on visits to Scotland, but nothing, unfortunately, has yet materialised.

I am told that the under-staffing is such that while the Record Office is open to receive gifts, it refuses to receive documents on deposit, on loan from those to whom they belong, if the person who proposes to lend them attaches the condition that they must be made available to the public. I am told also that in all questions of that sort the head of the Department is able to exercise no discretion at all, but has to refer every important matter to London, before he can give a reply. That is to say, he cannot decide for himself whether he has to buy a box of pen nibs or engage an office boy. It has all to come to London, where it will come before people who spend their working lives in Whitehall under the shadow of the Treasury and who do all their work practically with a Treasury official looking over their shoulder. It is that government of Scotland from London in matters of this sort which creates a great deal of feeling. This is not an Imperial question in any way; it is not a question of policy in any way; it is a purely Scottish matter, and there ought to be a competent authority in Scotland, whether an individual or a body, with sufficient authority to administer questions which arise in regard to the control of the records without continual reference to the Scottish Office in London. Far better would it be to get as much money as can be got for the purpose and give it to a competent body to spend without tying it down too much, than have every item of expenditure scrutinised in Dover House.

There is, in connection with the Record Office, an allied question about the sheriff court records, which at present are kept in the different counties and have never been collected into one centre. I believe that at present they rest altogether in 56 different depositories in various parts of Scotland. The places where they are kept are in many cases unsuitable, and in charge of people who in many instances cannot read them. They are, to some extent, I am afraid, being lost and damaged and destroyed, and are certainly not kept so as to be of the least use to any member of the public or student who wishes to consult them.

Since in accordance with the usual desire of the Scottish Office to get everything into its own direct control the office of Depute Clerk Register was abolished to comply with a shameful bargain with the Treasury, there has been no supervision or control of the Sheriff Court records to any purpose at all. There is no one in Scotland responsible for seeing how they are kept, or how they are indexed, or seeing what is done to make them of use to those who wish to consult them. In this connection a departmental committee was appointed by one of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's predecessors in 1925 to report upon various questions connected with the custody and preservation of sheriff court records. It was an exceptionally strong committee, and its report is undoubtedly instructive. The committee reported first upon a reference as to whether further provision or regulations should be made for the custody, preservation and arrangement of the record in the hands of sheriff clerks; and they recommended: That powers be sought and obtained for the constitution of a Record Authority, who shall have jurisdiction over the whole Public Records of Scotland, inclusive of the Sheriff Court records, and shall be furnished with sufficient powers to regulate the formation, transmission and preservation of these records. Again, they recommended: That provision be made for an increase of staff at the Record Office by the addition of, inter alia, two established clerks for the exclusive purpose of examining and arranging the records brought in from the Sheriff Courts; and that in addition to the present grant a sum of not less than £400 be furnished yearly for the adequate preparation of indexes and calendars. The committee recommended the transportation of the Sheriff Court records from the 56 repositories where they are now to the Record Office at Edinburgh. Upon other matters referred to it, this powerful committee found, for instance: That in most instances the necessary accommodation is not available locally for the proper protection and handling of the Sheriff Court records, especially those of earlier date. … That the state of preservation of a great proportion of the older records is unsatisfactory. … That large sections of the Sheriff Court records are difficult of access. … That the present custodians are almost without exception unable to read the older records. … That the Sheriff Court records are of very great historical value, And so on. So in regard to the Sheriff Court records, the committee recommended: That the Sheriff Court Registers of Deeds and Decreets, with relative warrants … and all other Sheriff Court Registers … which are of earlier date than 1876, should be transmitted to His Majesty's Records Office at Edinburgh for safe custody and preservation, as and when required by a properly constituted Record Authority, there to be made available to students as other public records are. The committee recommended similarly in regard to other records at present kept in the different counties. Lastly, the committee recommended: That provision be made whereby the Record Authority, on the advice of experts, and with the consent of the Lord President of the Court of Session, may regulate the disposal, by destruction or otherwise, of such Sheriff Court records as are not of sufficient value to justify their preservation in the Record Office. There is no need to say anything more. The report was made in 1926, and the outstanding recommendations are that the sheriff court records should be sent to the Record Office and that an authority should be set up to look after the public records of Scotland. All that we have to do is to ask why nothing has been done. We can do that without the least hesitation, as we are obviously not asking the right hon. and gallant Gentleman why he has done nothing because he has not had a very long time to consider it. We are, however, entitled to know what are the views of his Department of the report which was made so long ago as 1926.

There is the other question with which my hon. Friend the Member for North Edinburgh (Sir P. Ford) has dealt with regard to the clerks in the Register of Sasines Department. It is not a very easy subject to discuss as there are so many details connected with it, and I do not propose to enter into them. I can only say that we have in these clerks a class of men who have a good education of a secondary school character, have passed an examination in the law of real property, and have had practical experience in a law office. In other words, they were definitely engaged as people with substantial legal and general educational qualifications. I do not think that it is right now for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, after these qualifications have been laid down, to accept the Treasury view that the duties to be performed are, on the whole, no more than what might be described as of a clerical nature. You cannot engage people as lawyers and then turn round and tell them that they are only doing clerks' work and should only get clerks' pay. It is from those very people that the higher staff in the same Department are exclusively recruited, apart from one or two at the very top. I gather that no question is raised as to the legal qualifications of the first-class clerks in that Department.

The broad facts about these clerks are simply these: In 1919 they had the same salaries scale as those who were then called the Second Division class; they had the same salaries scale then as the clerks in the Customs and Excise Department. To-day they are £100 below the Second Division clerks, and £150 below the Customs and Excise class, because in 1920, when the general Civil Service was reorganised, this special class was missed out. They made an immediate claim for consideration and a delay of some years took place. For the last two or three years, whenever this question has been raised, the reply has been that any consideration of these claims and of what is to be done with this class must await the decision as to whether anything is to be done in the reorganisation of the Register of Sasines Department on the lines recommended by the committee presided over by Lord Fleming, which reported in 1928. That report has been under consideration for nearly three years, and no decision has yet been announced.

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman, in reply to questions recently, said that he was taking the opinion of legal bodies and hoped to deal with the matter shortly. Since then he has replied that these inquiries disclosed divergencies of opinion. All I can say is that it is not the business of a Government to wait until all sides are agreed before they take action. On a matter of this sort the Government, if there is not agreement, must make up its mind on policy, and decide one way or the other whether they are going to reorganise the Department on these lines or not. We do appreciate the difficulties in regard to both these matters. We realise that in the end we are inevitably up against the Treasury. I think, however, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will lend a sympathetic ear to representations from the Scottish Office. Our criticism, if we have one to make at all—and I hope I am unjustified in making it—is that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman and his Department, instead of being, as I would like to see them, the spearhead of the Scottish attack on the Treasury, are rather playing the role of the Treasury's first line of defence against any demands from Scotland. I should be very happy to feel that that is a wrong view, and that where we have, as we think, a legitimate demand for fair treatment for Scotland, we shall have a strong and helpful ally and advocate in the right hon. and gallant Gentleman.

Mr. GUY

I think the Committee must be in general agreement that a very strong case has been made out why my right hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland should take a firm line with the Treasury. It is clearly a case of injustice to Scotland. I have no doubt the Secretary of State will say that he strongly sympathises with the case, and say also that on account of the necessity for economy and of balancing the Budget it will be impossible for him to get this additional money. I wish to put forward a suggestion which may influence his judgment in the matter. It is a truism to say that economy is wise spending, but in the particular case of the Register House there is a real danger that if additional money is not spent now the Scottish Office will be involved in considerably increased expenditure within the next two years, because it has been made sufficiently clear that the Record Office has fallen into a disgraceful condition.

It has also been made abundantly clear by my hon. Friends the Member for North Edinburgh (Sir P. Ford) and the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. Johnston) that the second class clerks as a body are below strength. They have not been recruited to any material degree since the War. There were only two additional candidates to fill up the vacancies in. 1924, and there has not been a single new candidate since 1924. That means that the existing second class clerks are becoming more and more senior, and that in numbers they are now below strength. There are only 36 left out of a total of 51. No fresh blood is being introduced; no new members are being trained in the duties of the department. Then we are approaching a decision upon the Fleming report, which, as my right hon. and gallant Friend admitted in answer to a question of mine the other day, will involve additional duties for the second class clerks. If that reorganisation has to be carried out within the next year or two it cannot be done properly by the existing staff, and that will involve a raising of salaries to attract new recruits in order to strengthen the staff considerably. It would be much wiser to increase the staff gradually, and to raise the emoluments, in common justice, to raise the maximum of the second class clerks and to put them upon the same level as their equivalent class in the Civil Service. If this be done it will only be a reasonable act of justice to Scotland, and, in addition, it will ensure the efficiency of a vitally necessary Department in Scotland. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman will be doing a good service and a popular service to Scotland if he tackles the Treasury in a right fighting spirit.

8.30 p.m.

Sir A. SINCLAIR

Let me say at once that the Government very much welcome the Debate, the opportunity for which has been given by my hon. Friend the Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean), and the helpful speeches which have been made in all quarters of the Committee on the very important question of the custody of the Scottish national records. The position there is thoroughly unsatisfactory. Boxes of valuable documents, irreplaceable records, are lying in the Register House unavailable to research students, uncatalogued, unindexed and not even examined, and the great majority of the records have been lying in those bags and boxes ever since the Register House was built at the end of the 18th century. None of us can view that situation with complacency, and it was a thoroughly good thing to have this Debate to ventilate the subject. It is right that we Scottish Members of Parliament should be vigilant in the protection of our national records, I am at least glad to be able to confirm the tribute paid by hon. Friends of mint; to the work which is being done in the Record Office and the unsparing efforts being made by the staff there to make the most of the available resources. But if we are to do better we shall need money. These records have been lying there more than 100 years, and I doubt if during those 100 years there was ever a worse moment at which to come forward and make out a case for getting additional money for this purpose from the Treasury.

If we are to make our case effective we must use arguments that we can sustain in discussion with the Treasury, and there are three arguments used by hon. Members to-night which could not be sustained. I have made a note of two small ones first, and I will come to the other one later. In his interesting speech the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. Johnston) said that loans were being refused now by the Record Office if it was made a condition that what was loaned was to be made available for the public. I am informed that that is not the case. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Scottish Universities (Colonel Buchan) said there was a profit on the Sasines Office of £10,000 a year, and I think that was repeated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) but, in fact, there is a loss of £4,,000. The third and most important argument used upon which we cannot rely is the argument that Scotland is being treated worse than England.

The hon. Member for North Edinburgh (Sir P. Ford) said, and said truly, that it is very difficult to disentangle the costs of the Record Office from those of the other sections of Register House. The vote for the Register House covers three main sections, with the addition of a very small chancery section. There is the deeds section, where deeds other than those concerned with the conveyancing of land are copied, registered and passed on to the Record Office. Then there is the Sasines Office into which the deeds concerned with the conveyancing of land are taken and copied. The origi- nals are returned in this case, although not in the cases of deeds other than conveyancing deeds. The writs are returned to the owners of the land and the copies are passed on to the Record Office and go into the Record book. In addition, in the Sasines Office they keep what is known as the search sheet, which is a subject-precis of the record book. Then the third section is the Record Office proper, where the records,, and in particular the records of the conveyancing of land, are received, and where also the minute books are kept. The minutes give a chronological precis, according to the time at which transactions take place? in different properties all over the country.

In the Register House there are a number of services which are common to all three of these sections, and therefore I am very far from saying that it is an easy matter to arrive at the exact amount of the charge which could properly be said to belong, strictly, to the Record Office at Edinburgh, and at the amount of money spent on the records in Scotland which would be strictly comparable to the amount of money spent on the Record Office in England. But I have had these figures very closely gone into, and nobody, I need hardly tell you, would be more pleased than I if the result were to provide us with a strong argument to be used in putting this thing right. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline (Mr. J. Wallace) mentioned the figure of £200 as being the amount of money which was spent upon the Record Office. Of course, that is very far from being the case.

Mr. WALLACE

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. I mentioned specially that the £200 was for the publication of historical documents.

Sir A. SINCLAIR

I am sorry if I misunderstood my hon. Friend. The £200 is only a payment, to the editors for the work of preparing the record publications for the Press. It is confined solely to that one purpose. The other chief figures are: Staff salaries and pensions, £6,300; printing of publications, £1,800; accommodation, rates, incidentals, stationery, etc., £3,450; and that is the lowest estimate that I have been able to get. That makes a total of £11,550 as compared with £65,000 as the cost of the Public Record Office in London.

Mr. WALLACE

The comparable figure with the £200 in Scotland is the figure of £2,300 spent in England.

Sir A. SINCLAIR

Ah, yes. But what we are discussing is the care of the records, and not whether a sufficient proportion of them are being edited for the press. That is not what we are discussing to-day, but it is that to which my hon. Friend's figure relates. We are discussing the whole of the money involved in the care, preservation, indexing, cataloguing and making available of the records for the purposes of research, including the publication work. The actual figure in the case of England is £65,000, and, in the case of Scotland, the lowest figure we have been able to get it down to is £11,550. I am making further inquiries into that.

Mr. GUY

May I ask whether the figure for England is not £37,000 for 1932?

Sir A. SINCLAIR

I thought I had the actual figure. I find that I have not it actually under my hand. I will make inquiries and give the figure to my hon. Friend in a minute. I see now that my recollection is perfectly right. The actual comparable figure is £65,849. I said that this £11,550 was on a comparable basis with £65,849, and it is as near comparable as we can make it in this Very complicated calculation. There are two additional factors which the Committee should bear in mind, each of which tells a different way. On the one hand, there is the fact that the public Record Office in London has nothing comparable to the Sasines Register in Edinburgh, and that is of course because the custody of the register rests with the Record Office in Edinburgh. In fact, it is in that office that the bulk of the searches actually take place. On the other hand, the activities of the London Record Office cover a much wider field of historical research: it is a United Kingdom Office, and Scotland has a direct interest in a good deal of its work.

It is apparent from these figures that we are not getting unfair financial treatment as compared with England at the present time. We are getting more than our due proportion for these services, and we must put our case on higher ground than that stated by the hon. Member for Dunfermline. It must be on rather higher than purely national grounds that we must base our claim. The waste of this valuable matter should not be allowed to go on, as much in the interests of England and Wales as in the interests of Scotland. There is a need for what I might call some quasi-capital expenditure—non-recurring expenditure—to get all this mass of information into the machinery of the office. Here is a mine of information which ought to be worked, which ought to be quarried out, which ought to be passed through our machinery and brought to the mills and presses of historical research. Knowledge and learning know no national boundaries, so do not let us put this case only on national grounds; it is in the interest of the whole country that these records should be properly preserved. Of course, the engagement of very highly skilled and relatively highly paid staff, which would be necessary for the full accomplishment of the work would be costly, but a strong case for it could be made out in normal times, and it is only with great regret that I have to make an alternative proposal, to which I shall refer in a moment, and to tell the Committee quite frankly that in these times it would be impossible to press the case for the expenditure which would be necessary in order to make a thorough job of this highly important work.

I should like to say in the meantime that nobody could be doing more than is being done at the moment by Mr. Angus and his colleagues in the Record Office. No small amount of time is spent in giving advice and assistance to research students. This is very valuable and useful work, and none of us would wish to curtail it, even though we might thereby get a little more of the time of these officials, and be able to turn them on to this other work which we are now discussing. I am sure that no Member of the Committee would wish that course to be adopted. A beginning has, however, been made with the arrangement, sorting and repairing of these old records, and with the arrangement of private collections which are coming into the Department at the present time. The hon. Member for the Scottish Universities seemed to doubt whether they were coming in, but as a matter of fact we have had, in quite recent times, some very valuable collections, of which the Lothian Papers are among the most recent. In short, the Record Office is not at the moment a stagnant pool of hopeless impotence and neglect. There flows through it a current of purposeful activity and highly skilled research, which will in happier times richly deserve and amply repay any financial reinforcement which this Committee may be prepared to give to it.

Reference was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Clackmannan to the records of the Sheriff Courts. If I may say so, his quotations from the report of the committee were accurate, but opinion on this matter was not so unanimous as the report itself. There was a good deal of opposition to some of the proposals, particularly that in reference to centralisation of the custody of the records, including opposition from the city of Glasgow. At any rate, I think it would be premature to discuss the eventual disposal of these Sheriff Court records. In the meantime, obviously, an immediate and important problem is what is to be done about these national records which are in the Record Office now. Obviously it is vital, in the first place, to stop the physical deterioration of the records, and, therefore, as it is evident that we ought to take steps to do that, and to be prepared to take advantage at the earliest possible moment of any hopeful opportunity of obtaining money for coping adequately with this problem, I have arranged for a kind of reconnaissance to be undertaken, that is to say, for one or two highly skilled officials of the Department to be taken from their present work on private collections, in order that they may go down into these cellars and make, as far as they can, a cursory examination of these records, and form some opinion as to their date and value and as to the amount of money and the organisation that would be required for an adequate solution of the problem of their preservation, cataloguing and indexing.

To turn to the allied question which has been raised on this Vote, namely, that of the second class clerks, I think that, from what I said just now, Members of the Committee, even if they could not follow my necessarily untechnical and possibly, as my legal friends may think, very inadequate description of the functions of the Register House, will realise that there is there an extraordinarily complicated and technical but very highly useful apparatus of land registration, which no doubt is envied by many other countries. It is not the sort of thing that could be built up at this stage of civilisation; it is a thing which has grown up gradually, and of which Scotland is rightly proud. I think I have mentioned before, but perhaps I may be allowed to say again, that there are now in the Record Book at the Record Office copies of conveyancing deeds—writs, as I understand they are called technically—covering the whole of the land of Soot-land with very few exceptions. These records have been growing up since the beginning of the 17th century. Based upon this Record Book, there are the two precis, namely, the Minute Book, which is a chronological precis, and the Search Sheet, which is a subject precis, the Search Sheet lying in the Sasine Office and the Minute Book in the Record Office.

It was suggested by the last keeper that possibly the Search Sheet, which is a comparatively modern innovation, could take the place of the Minute Book, and that it might be possible to dispense with the Minute Book altogether. That proposal was referred by my predecessor to what is now known as the Fleming Committee, and that committee has provided two reports in favour of the abolition of the Minute Book. Unfortunately, however, in spite of those two reports in favour of such a change, there are strong differences of opinion among lawyers as to its advisability. It is, as hon. Members will realise, a highly technical and complicated subject, and the decision taken will be vital for this very delicate and complicated apparatus of land registration. My hon. Friend the Member for Clackmannan said that the Government must take their own responsibility and must decide policy, but, in a matter of this highly technical kind, a true decision is very difficult for a layman to make, and a false decision might cause, if not the collapse, at any rate the serious impairment of this very delicate machinery. Naturally, therefore, we are reluctant to take a decision unless we feel that it will command the confidence of those who will be working the machine in the future, and of the lawyers in Scotland who use it. Of course, a decision has to be taken, and we are moving towards that decision now. There will be no unnecessary delay but we are naturally proceeding cautiously. We are not at a standstill but we are taking the necessary but cautious step to reach that decision at the earliest moment.

It is true that, in the meantime, a decision in the case of these second class clerks is being held up pending the decision of the larger question of reorganisation. These second class clerks have performed their duty well, and they deserve, not indeed generous treatment, for in present conditions the State cannot afford it, but just treatment from the House of Commons. The fact that they have waited a long time in happier days does not make it any easier now. When prices have fallen and when other salaried servants of the State have been subjected to cuts in their salaries—these men themselves have shared uncomplainingly in the cuts which all civil servants have had to bear—it makes it necessary to have an overwhelmingly strong case to justify a demand for increases of salary at this juncture.

Moreover, whether or not the Government decide to adopt the recommendations of the Fleming Committee, they will have to reorganise this Department. In my opinion, and in that of my predecessor, such reorganisation is necessary, and it can be carried out with an increase of efficiency in the working of the Department, and, if this reorganisation is going to be carried out within the next few months, at any rate before the next Estimates are presented, it will be impossible to go to the Treasury now and say we want a Supplementary Estimate for this purpose. Reorganisation will not necessarily provide a means of satisfying all the demands that have been made on behalf of the second class clerks, but it will compel a reallocation of duties and possibly go a considerable way to breaking up that block in promotion which, I understand, is the principal grievance from which these men have been suffering in recent years—as a result of which, for example, a man of 51 is still on the scale of pay of a second class clerk. Therefore, this reorganisation will be the tide in the affairs of the civil servants in the Register House for which we should be well advised to wait. When that reorganisation comes, I think there will be an overwhelming case for meeting, at any rate, some of the complaints that have been made on behalf of these clerks.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if there is any truth in the statement that is being made in Scotland—it is in the "Glasgow Herald" this morning—that there is a great amount of these records in the cellars of the Register House covered up with the dust of ages. There is no doubt that there are ever so many landlords who have not title deeds to their land. If I had my way, I would burn the Register House and do away with the whole business. That is what we will do when we take the business over. All the records in Scotland are records of the working-class being downtrodden right through the ages. To give an instance, in 1560, in the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, an Abbey in the West of Scotland and thousands of acres were sold practically for an old song, and they had to petition the Pope in order to safeguard the interests of the monastery. They said, "You have got the whole of the names and everything connected with it," but they did not get the Pope's Bull. It was found in a second-hand shop and bought for an old song. This is what they call keeping the records. It is only certain records that have been kept. What has the right hon. Gentleman to say about that statement? I have sat throughout this and the last Debate, and I have heard references to the Sheriff Court. I want to raise the action of the Sheriff in the Dumbarton Court last week when the time comes. I want to stake my claim on that.

Sir A. SINCLAIR

I do not think there is any Member of the House more assiduous in attention to his Parliamentary duties than the hon. Member, but he did not happen to be present when I made my speech. I met all the points he has put to me, and I do not like to weary the Committee by reiterating them. The point he has brought forward about a particular document is as new to me, as it is to him, but the Register House cannot be held responsible for the custody of documents which have not been brought to it, but only for those which are there. As I have announced, I am proposing to conduct a reconnaissance. We are going to see exactly what is there, the condition it is in, how much it will cost to put these documents into a good state of preservation, and to index and catalogue them, and I do not propose to be deterred from that objective even by the hon. Member's threat that, when that has all been done, he is going to burn down the Register House.

Question, "That a sum, not exceeding £80, be granted for the said Service," put, and negatived.

Original Question again proposed.

Sir A. SINCLAIR

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.