CLAUSE 20.—(Offences in connection with lotteries.) (Hansard, 7 November 1934)

§ Mr. WISE
I beg to move, in page 17, line 31, to leave out from "distribution" to "any", in line 32.
The effect of this Amendment would be that only those persons who had actually engaged in the distribution or sale of lottery tickets would become liable to the penal Clauses of the Bill. I think it is a reasonable Amendment, because it may well be, and it certainly will be that, in spite of all efforts to suppress such lotteries as the Irish Sweepstake, a very large majority of the people of this country will continue to buy tickets for it, and there is very little doubt also that the number of people who desire to buy tickets will be vastly increased by the prohibition. Therefore, particularly as a little later in the Bill we are to have domiciliary visits from the police to search for lottery tickets in our country, it is possible that during the course of one of these friendly calls from a uniformed constable, even the most innocent of us may be found with half a dozen tickets in our possession. If that is the ease, I presume, under the general procedure which is being adopted in this Bill, the onus of proof will be thrown on the holder of the tickets to show that he is not intending to distribute them, because that is the principle on which, apparently, the Government have been working in all the penal Clauses hitherto passed in this Bill. That is a reversal of the old principle that a man is innocent until he is proved guilty. It will be incumbent upon him to prove his own innocence. In other words, if he is found with half a dozen lottery tickets, he will be haled before the magistrate, who will say to him: "Now will you satisfy me by proving that you were not endeavouring to sell or distribute these half dozen tickets?"
1058 Let us assume that this man has what very many people have in the Irish Sweepstake, namely, 20 tickets. It is a very plausible case that he is intending to sell or distribute them, and if he is not protected by the onus of proof being on the law, which undoubtedly it will not be, he will be liable to prosecution and conviction. I suggest that this is carrying police work a little too far. This Amendment, which is a very simple one, and, I think, a very reasonable one, merely avoids that difficulty, and does ensure that only those persons who are actually caught in the act of selling or distributing lottery tickets will be convicted of an offence. I do not believe that there is anyone on any side of the Committee who really in his heart of hearts can think that that is unreasonable. It is not asking a great concession from the Government, and I hope that they will see their way to make this first concession to their own supporters.

§ Sir WILLIAM DAVISON
I beg to support the Amendment. The more we look at this Bill, the more it appears to be a Bill to establish Star Chamber inquisition once more in this country with regard to lotteries. There is to be domiciliary search, and everything is presumed against the person. Apparently it is intended, although I think a man may be got at, that a person holding a ticket shall not be liable to these savage penalties which are out of all proportion to the offence. But how are the authorities to know? For instance, in my own case, I have got on my library table at this moment a book of Irish lottery tickets. I have not purchased them. I have not asked for them to be sent to me. They were sent to me by some unknown person. There they are on my table. Suppose somebody comes in who has a "down" on me for any reason and sees these tickets. The Home Secretary might be calling. He might want a cup of tea. I will not suggest that; I withdraw it. The Home Secretary is responsible in his office for this Bill, but he would not personally carry it out. I give him credit for better intention. But there is a case in point. Am I going to be prosecuted because I have in my possession these Irish sweepstake tickets?

§ Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT
You have a complete answer.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
I shall be presumed to have them for sale, unless I can show to the contrary. I say that the words in question are objectless unless some form of inquisition is intended.

§ The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour)
I think that the position is not understood by the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment or the hon. Member who has just spoken. In the first place, a search of this kind cannot be made unless it is granted by a magistrate, who has to be satisfied that there is reasonable ground to suppose that there exists on premises the distribution of propaganda or tickets on a large scale. If we were to accept the Amendment as proposed, it would prevent the police from taking further steps in a case where they go into premises, after getting a warrant from a magistrate, and find, say, 10,000 or 5,000 tickets. That, I am quite sure, is not what is contemplated. It is clear that this is not an inquisition on a private individual, but an endeavour to get at those who propagate, on a large scale, the distribution of these tickets. In the circumstances, I would ask the Committee not to accept the Amendment.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
Will the right hon. Gentleman say on whom lies the onus of proving the purpose for which the tickets are in a man's possession? Does the onus lie on the Crown or on the individual?

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Donald Somervell)
In this case the onus would be on the prosecution to prove the purpose.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
The word "presumed" is used frequently in the Bill?

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
There is a latter Sub-section in this Clause which does provide for a presumption that possession is for the purpose of sale. That can be dealt with when we come to it. In this case the prosecution must prove the purpose. If the prosecution proved mere possession, they would not succeed in proving their case.

§ Major COLFOX
May I ask a question? Where in the Bill is there anything about having a large number of tickets or doing 1060 this on a large scale? So far as I can see, there is nothing in the Bill to that effect.

§ Mr. PIKE
Sub-section (4) says: He shall be presumed, until the contrary is proved, to have brought the matter in question into Great Britain for the purpose of sale or distribution.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Captain Bourne)
I think that we had better deal with Sub-section (4) when we come to it.

§ Mr. PIKE
It has reference to the Amendment we are now discussing, because the same words appear in the Amendment—for sale or distribution. Might I ask, in view of the right hon. Gentleman's reply, if, for instance, I purchased 50 tickets in the Irish Sweepstake, one for myself and 49 for distribution to friends without charge, would I be guilty of a contravention of the Act?

§ Major COLFOX
Might I have an answer to my question?

§ Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND- TROYTE
There is not a word in the Clause about tickets on a large scale. It says distinctly "any tickets." Therefore, if there is one ticket, and certainly two, in a man's possession, there would be a prosecution.

§ Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS
The Home Secretary, presumably, based himself on the assumption that these things would be found in somebody's house. I come to this House every morning to take up my letters, and I put them in my pocket. It is a most mixed bag of letters, such as Members get, and I have, in fact, received lottery tickets run by a Conservative club in South Croydon in which I won a goose and a bottle of whisky last Christmas. That is merely in passing. If I pull out these letters while passing a policeman on my way to the office, and he sees some of these tickets in my possession, although there is no intention on my part, obviously, to sell or distribute them, the tacit assumption would be that I am going to distribute them, and I do not think my evidence alone would be of much value unless there were some corroboration.

§ Mr. J. JONES
I happen to have a book of these tickets on me now, and 1061 they are going to be sold by me. If at the end of the time when the tickets expire, I have not sold the lot, I shall give them away. It is all for the good of the cause. [An HON. MEMBER: "Which cause?"] The cause of Socialism. I want the Committee to realise the position. There are numbers of working men who take tickets for various lotteries and sweepstakes. I should have met one of them here this afternoon so that he could hear what you think of their morality, but this man has been kept at work at the docks, and has telegraphed to me to say that he is not able to attend to hear the Debate. That man, it is suggested, is a potential criminal, because he has a few tickets to sell for some cause in which he may be interested. I remember the Debate here on sedition, and the very thing Members are opposing now was supported then. They said that people ought to be searched because they thought they were in possession of subversive pamphlets. How can hon. and right hon. Members reverse their opinions in a week? If it is wrong to have certain pamphlets in your possession how can they now say that if a man has a book of sweepstake tickets upon him he is a potential criminal?

§ Mr. WISE
Does not the hon. Member recognise any difference between treason and lotteries?

§ Mr. JONES
A lottery is treason to your family, according to some hon. Members you are spending money on things which you cannot afford and which do not matter. I stand for the right of a workman, if he wants, to be able to buy a ticket. My tickets only cost 3d. but they guarantee a Christmas dinner to the winner, and you cannot get a Christmas dinner for less than 3d. It is no use arguing about the morality of these things. Whether you agree or do not they will go on in spite of you, and to try and make the law so tight that people canot evade it is a useless exercise. You should be reasonable in these matters. The man who sent me the telegram saying that he could not attend the debate is a dock labourer, and every time there is an Irish sweep he gets a book of tickets. He makes nothing out of them for himself, but the fact that he is in the possession of a book of tickets makes him a criminal. Is that right? It is bringing Star Chamber methods into this country, 1062 any I shall support any Amendment which enables us to say that we are not screwing the people too much. This kind of business must stop sometime or other, otherwise there will be a revolt against it among the common people.

§ Mr. T. WILLIAMS
The decision which the Committee took last night disposes once and for all of the question of a national lottery, and, therefore, I presume steps will be taken to deal with the situation created by that decision. I want to ask the Solicitor-General whether the powers already possessed to prevent either the printing, selling, distribution or advertising for sale of these tickets will not cover the case? If there is a possibility involving this search then in certain circumstances it might be possible that a search will take place merely because of someone's bad temper or prejudice, and I am sure the Home. Secretary does not desire that. I hope he will give us an illustration as to the kind of thing he has in mind, which will satisfy us that the powers already possessed, without these offending words, will not meet the situation.

§ Mr. LENNOX-BOYD
May I put again a question which was put a moment or two ago? Many of us have been reluctant to oppose the Government on this Sub-section, and would be reassured if the right hon. Gentleman could show us the provision in the Bill which bears out what he has said. Paragraph (b) enables proceedings to be taken against people who possess tickets as he says on a large scale, say 5,000, with the intention of selling. If the Home Secretary can show us any provision which justifies that statement some of our fears will be removed.

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
The Committee must decide the matter in view of the decision which was taken last night. It is obvious that there are certain people who deliberately will set themselves out to defeat the decision which the House then took. It may come to the knowledge of the authorities that at certain places agents are acting in defiance of the law, it may be in large or medium quantities of tickets, I do not specify the amount, but they are deliberately using 1063 their premises for the purpose of selling or distributing these things broadcast and thus nullifying the decision which Parliament has taken. If that information comes to the officer responsible he has to go in the first instance to a magistrate and put the information before him, and the magistrate, taking all circumstances into account, may think it right to issue a search warrant. The officer then makes his search, and whether he finds or does not find what he anticipates is a matter which must be subsequently decided. If the Amendment were accepted it would render such action impossible, and, in view of the experience of those who have handled this problem, and in order to make the Clause effective, I must ask the Committee to give us this power.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
The right hon. Gentleman has said that the object of the Government is to prevent large numbers, or considerable numbers, of tickets being distributed. Will he agree to put in after the word "possession" the words "not less than 100 tickets"?

§ Sir W. DAVISON
Then the whole thing is specious. That is a large number, other wise you are going to try and find the individual who has tickets.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
I think the Home Secretary must carry the matter a little further, and be a little more precise. He has made a very important statement. He has said, quite plainly, that the Government did not intend to disturb those with merely a few tickets in their possession; that they were out to deal with the wholesale merchant who has large supplies, or medium supplies, of tickets in his possession. I thought that was satisfactory, but there is nothing of it in the Bill, and if the right hon. Gentleman would insert words in the Bill giving effect to his purpose it would remove the anxieties which many people feel on this point. I hope the Home Secretary is not going to suppose that just because during the passage of the Bill he makes a well-meaning and good-humoured speech pointing out that everything is easy, no difficulties will arise, and that that is a sufficient protection for His Majesty's lieges against words which 1064 are actually in the Act of Parliament. Experience shows that if there are breaches of the law they are not always treated in such a friendly, smooth, tolerant and considerate atmosphere as that which the right hon. Gentleman outlined in his statement. The right hon. Gentleman owes it to the Committee to put in words, or take from us a form of words, which will make clear the distinction between the casual possession of a few tickets and a deliberate importation of large quantities of tickets with a view of defeating the purpose of the Bill.

§ Mr. ISAAC FOOT
I understand that lotteries are illegal under the present law—

§ Mr. J. JONES
Not church bazaars.

§ Mr. FOOT
When we come to church bazaars I should like to see the same law applied.

§ Mr. JONES
You will not get much chance.

§ Mr. FOOT
Can the Solicitor-General tell us whether under the existing law it would be an offence for me to have in my possession for the purposes of sale or distribution tickets relating to a lottery? Is it not a fact that the Clause does not extend the existing law at all?

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS
The Home Secretary has spoken as if the Clause relates solely to illegal lotteries. The words in the Clause are: Subject to the provisions of this Section every person who in connection with any lottery promoted or proposed to he promoted either in Great Britain or elsewhere. If you contemplate the promotion of a lottery in Great Britain you are contemplating something which is illegal, but which under Clause 2 the right hon. Gentleman is legalising. There can be private lotteries. The lottery under which I was successful last Christmas will promote another lottery this Christmas and I shall get a book of tickets, which will be handed to me. That is a book of tickets in a legal lottery if the Bill becomes law. But if I have that book in my possession and I am trying to sell any ticket then if I understand Clause 22 I am committing an offence in selling a ticket in an illegal lottery. The Home Secretary talked about a search warrant 1065 and a special number of tickets. If the Government want to catch the wholesaler they should catch him without catching the innocent citizen.

§ Colonel GRETTON
The Home Secretary has justified the Clause and resisted the Amendment on something which is riot at present in the Bill. As the Bill stands two or three lottery tickets will make a person guilty of an offence, but at the same time the Home Secretary says that he wants to get at the wholesale people. He has not offered us the slightest information as to what he regards as the wholesale people, while the little man may be prosecuted for having in his possession two or three tickets which he is not proposing to distribute or sell. The Committee should put into the Bill what it means, and the Government ought to put in what they mean.

§ Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS
When we are dealing with the matter of lotteries we should lay down the law in such a way as to make it clear to the public outside. As the Bill stands the Government are going to legalise certain smaller lotteries and to make the law clear. That is a thing which will bring a considerable amount of satisfaction. Then the Government are going to try. to stop the distribution of tickets in certain lotteries, such as the Irish Sweepstake lottery. I am concerned in this way; I do not think the Home Secretary or anyone else wants to prosecute the odd person who has an odd book of tickets, but it does seem to me that there is some step between the person who has a considerable number of tickets for sale and, say, the hon. Member opposite who has one book of tickets sent to him by accident from some unknown person.
I will give a case of which I heard the other day. Someone's motor driver by the sale of lottery tickets made something over £100 a year. There were two tickets in each book which were his without any payment being made for them. It seems to me that he is the kind of individual the Government want to stop, exactly as they would stop the man who has an office for the sale of tickets. Unless we make the law more watertight we shall have very awkward questions coming up again. As there is considerable doubt about the matter I suggest that the Home Secretary should 1066 go into the whole question between now and the Report stage, and see whether it is not possible to frame the law in such a way that, first of all, it is possible to get at those who intend to sell tickets on a considerable scale, and, secondly, so that there is no danger of infringement of the right of a private individual to have a small book of tickets in his pocket. We do not want to be dependent on the good will of a magistrate or a Home Secretary. We happen to have a very good Home Secretary now, but three or four years ago we had a very bad one, and the law should not be left in such a lax position that we do not know as ordinary citizens where we are.

§ Major COLFOX
It seems to me that the Home Secretary and the Government are dealing with this problem of lotteries in an entirely wrong way. One of their main contentions in introducing this Bill and pressing it forward is that they are going to clear up the position as it exists to-day. It is obvious to anyone who reads these few lines of the Bill that they are merely increasing the difficulties and perplexities. The Home Secretary in his usual genial way has made a speech in support of his point of view against the Amendment. It was a speech containing a very definite statement that his object and the object of the Government is not to penalise anyone with just a few tickets. But the Bill does not say that; the Bill talks about distributing any tickets. That is entirely at variance with what the Home Secretary has said. My right hon. Friend talked about doing a thing on a large scale, on wholesale lines. Let him put the gist of his speech into the wording of the Bill. I urge him most strongly to reconsider this matter most carefully and to bring it into line with what he has said. It is no use whatever him getting up and making speeches on this or any other subject if he is not prepared to implement his words in the Bill. We all admire and respect and like the right hon. Gentleman, but unless he does what he says is his intention, while our admiration will remain as great our respect will not be as unbounded as it has been. If he cannot do anything at this moment I urge him to give an undertaking that before the Report stage he will implement his own promise and speech.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
Perhaps it would be convenient if I answered the questions that have been put to me. The hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Isaac Foot) stated, quite correctly, of course, that at the moment all lotteries are illegal, with the possible exception of those of the Art Unions, which have statutory permission. It follows that under our existing law the sale of a single lottery ticket is an offence. The hon. Gentleman also asked whether under the existing law it was an offence to have illegal lottery tickets in one's possession for the purpose of sale or distribution. I am sorry to say that under our existing law that point may not be quite clear. It is completely clear under the Bill. But I think probably it is not an offence. Apparently it has never been tested in the courts. I am not myself a great expert on criminal law. It might be suggested that such action was aiding or abetting the commission of an offence.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
You are creating a new offence.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
We are seeking to do what the House has decided should be done, namely, taking steps for properly enforcing the law against such lotteries as the House has decided are illegal. Let me deal also with the question put to me by the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams). I think the answer is to be found in Sub-section (2) of this Clause. The hon. Member made the point of someone who has tickets in a legal lottery and then wanted to sell them or distribute them. I think that matter arises under Sub-section (2) which says: In any proceedings instituted under the preceding subsection it shall be a defence to prove that the lottery to which the proceedings relate was such a lottery as is declared by any subsequent section of this Part of this Act not to be an unlawful lottery … That covers the hon. Member's point. Let me say a few words about the cases that are put with regard to a single ticket and so on. My Tight hon. Friend the Home Secretary stated that this Subsection was intended to cover the larger cases. Nothing is easier, when any offence is created, than to give instances or circumstances in which a prosecution 1068 would be ridiculous. There is a speed limit of 30 miles an hour in Oxford and therefore a man commits a criminal offence if he travels at 30 miles and I furlong per hour. Those responsible for the administration of the law would not make themselves ridiculous by launching prosecutions in cases where the turpitude against which the Act is directed does not really exist.
As a matter of legal language it is very difficult to insert such words as a large number or a considerable number; by such an Amendment there would be introduced a very indeterminate phrase which might be the subject of argument in every case. But although the letter of the law had been overstepped, there may be no element of culpability to justify those responsible for administering the law in instituting a prosecution. If the words proposed to be omitted were left out of the Clause, there would be a very serious hole in the powers that are necessary to deal with the prevention of illegal lotteries. Those who conduct these lotteries would take every precaution to see that the actual sales were conducted in secret, and unless the powers provided in the words under discussion existed, the purpose of the Clause would be crippled.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
The Solicitor-General has given an instance of a speed limit and spoken of the difficulty of deciding between 30 miles an hour and 30 miles one furlong per hour. But there is no difficulty at all in this Clause. Will he put in 30 tickets if not 100? That would be something. His analogy was absurd, and did no credit to the intelligence of the Committee. The law says that a motor-car speed in certain areas shall not exceed 30 miles an hour. If this Clause said "shall not exceed 30 tickets," that might be hard lines on the man with 31 tickets, but to say that the analogy of the speed limit was comparable is absurd. What we object to is that the man with one ticket may be prosecuted. The Home Secretary in the kindness of his heart says he does not mean the fellow who has only one ticket. But a judge has to decide on the words of the Act, not on the words of the Home Secretary.

§ Mr. DAVID MASON
The hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) is very active on this subject. We know he is in favour of lotteries, and that explains why he is active in trying to find fault with the Bill. The Clause is clear to the common sense of the Committee as a whole, and the Division Lobby will show that very soon. Why the hon. Member for South Kensington should go over the ground again and again and ask the Government to put in a certain figure, I cannot say. The magistrate will exercise his discretion in granting or not granting a search warrant. He will grant a warrant only if convinced that there is a real case of turpitude. The hon. Member for South Kensington is very ingenuous. He is supported by another very ingenuous Member, the right hon. Member for Epping. The right hon. Gentleman, an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported an Amendment last night in favour of lotteries for the purpose of helping with the National Debt, although he disclaimed that intention. I mention that incidentally to show the character of the opposition to the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman and of the hon. Member for South Kensington.
These hon. Gentlemen, having been soundly beaten by the common sense of the Committee last night, come here again to-day and take up time by going over the same ground again and again, trying to get the Home Secretary and the Solicitor-General to put a specific figure in the Bill. I hope that the Home Secretary and the Solicitor-General will do nothing of the kind. It is self-evident that we must trust to the common sense of the magistrates. It would be easy to go through this Bill and by comparing one part with another, to find certain discrepancies. Even I might emulate the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping in finding such discrepancies, but we expect something better from him. He has played a great part in Parliament; he has sat on that Front Bench but he comes here this afternoon and uses the great abilities of which he is undoubtedly possessed, to fiddle about and split hairs on a matter of this kind and take up time—

§ Mr. PIKE
On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member within the Rules of 1070 Procedure in casting innuendoes against another Member instead of dealing with the Amendment?

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I did not hear the hon. Member cast any innuendoes.

§ Mr. MASON
I imagine that you Mr. Deputy-Chairman are quite capable of keeping order without the assistance of the hon. Member. I am not making any innuendoes. I am making definite assertions and I think I can see by his face that the right hon. Gentleman himself admits that they are true. Otherwise he is quite capable of defending himself and he does not require the assistance of the hon. Member for Attercliffe (Mr. Pike). I hope that the Home Secretary and the Solicitor-General will adhere to the position which they have taken up and I am sure that the common sense of the great majority of the Committee will support them in doing so.

§ Mr. HANNON
I do not think that the Home Secretary and the Solicitor-General are being quite fair to the Committee. The Home Secretary in a very charming statement as to the circumstances in which a prosecution might arise if this Bill becomes law, spoke of "a large number" or "a considerable number." The Committee are entitled to have words in the Bill which will influence the decision of a magistrate in a particular case coming before him. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping put this point very forcibly to the Home Secretary and I do not think that the explanation given by the Solicitor-General, however delightfully worded, was satisfactory. The right hon. Gentleman said that we were by this Clause creating a new crime. We ought not to legislate for the manufacture of criminals. Our function is to suppress crime and we ought not to agree to any provision which is open to the objection which the right hon. Gentleman has indicated. Unless there are words in the Clause defining the limits within which a prosecution can arise, the Bill will be unfair to the public. Those of us who sit on these benches and who share the view I have expressed are doing our best to help the Home Secretary with this Bill. [HON. MEMBERS "Oh."] Certainly we are, but we do not want to be parties to the passing 1071 of a Measure which in our judgment will lead to continuous prosecutions and exasperation in the magistrates courts. I hope that before the Report Stage some form of words will be found which will make this matter more precise in the Bill.

§ Mr. J. JONES
It is remarkable to observe the difference between the speeches which were made from these benches last week and those to which we are listening to-day. I am opposed to a lot of the Clauses of this Bill, but I was also opposed to the Incitement to Disaffection Bill, and I can therefore claim to be consistent. Hon. Members opposite are putting forward an Amendment which is, I think, reasonable. I have already sold four tickets and I hope that before the House rises to-night I shall have sold the rest. This Clause as it stands would only make criminality more possible by saying in effect that the magistrate has the right to decide when a crime is being committed in this way. I thought that it was the law which laid down the nature of the crime. I thought Parliament existed for the purpose of laying down the conditions in which a crime is being committed or about to be committed. Surely a magistrate is not to be regarded as if he were an emperor in his own right. I happen to be a magistrate myself and I can see what would happen to the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) if he came before me at Stratford. He would go down straight off the reel, without the option.
Legislation ought to guarantee equal rights to all citizens. Now with regard to these tickets I have had some experience. I have been in it myself as a buyer of tickets and I know that there are firms of bookmakers who take these tickets wholesale and have people going about selling them on commission. But the man at the head of the show never gets into trouble. If there are prosecutions the person prosecuted will be the poor unfortunate, perhaps an unemployed workman, who is trying to sell the tickets on commission. He will be found committing this illegal act and the other chap will immediately disappear from the scene. It will be Phil Garlic who will go through the mill. I do not be- 1072 lieve in that kind of thing. I say that you should make it difficult for the wholesaler to deal in the tickets by fixing a minimum number, a number which will not enable him to make a profit worth while. I had 30 tickets and I have sold four and I have 26 left. Why not make the minimum number 30. We have heard of 30 pieces of silver in history.
At present many bookmakers or syndicates run quite a big business in these tickets. Their agents go to Dublin and buy as many as 10,000 tickets at a time and those tickets are distributed in the intervals between one sweepstake and another. I ask the Home Secretary, realising that situation, to consider between now and the Report stage whether the number of tickets which any person is allowed to have should not be limited to 30 or 25 if you like. That would place a restriction upon wholesale dealing in tickets because it would prevent these people from making considerable profit by exploiting the public as they do under the present method. It may be said that the Government ought not to admit the principle and that people would still have the opportunity of having one ticket occasionally but I suggest that that is no good. I have these 30 tickets and I suppose if this Bill were law I should be brought up for it—not that I care whether I am brought up or not because I have been there before and I can go there again. But I ask the Home Secretary seriously to consider placing a reasonable limit on the number of tickets.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
I should be very sorry indeed if any heat were to be imported into this discussion, and I hope that the Government will not allow their naturally mild disposition to be inflamed by the Berserk fury of their Liberal allies. I only rise for the purpose of pointing out that the Home Secretary, wishing to be helpful and agreeable and to smooth the path of this business, has actually put us in a rather difficult position—and himself also. He commended this Clause to the Committee by pointing out that it was never intended to apply it to any small scale or accidental operation but only to large and wholesale—though that was not his word—undertakings. But neither he nor the learned Solicitor-General has been able to point—and they certainly would have 1073 pointed with great acumen to any such provision if they had known of it—to anything in the Bill whereby the slightest effect is given to the pious and to a certain extent genial and reassuring sentiments uttered by the Home Secretary.
I do not think that the matter ought to end there. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, whose disposition has always endeared him to his fellow-Members, would not wish to gain votes for his proposal by arousing with his soothing eloquence hopes which on closer examination are found to be disappointed by the harsh, rigid, legal pedantry of his Bill. I should be sorry to have to occupy the time of the Committee with a Division, although it may be necessary to do so. I venture to make a suggestion, and, in doing so, I speak only for myself as a Member of the House attending to my duties in the House to-day, as I propose to do in the manner which seems to me fit and proper, without even asking the permission of hon. Gentlemen opposite. It seems to me that the Home Secretary might meet us on this matter, or at any rate go some way towards implementing the clear expression which he has given of his wish, if, for instance, he were willing to insert in line 32 the word "organised" so that the Clause would read: or has in his possession for the purpose of organised sale or distribution. That would clearly draw the line between eases of the kind which if this legislation is to be enforced should certainly be. prosecuted, and the large number of petty derelictions from the strict course of civic conduct which we know occur continuously all over the country. I do not put this suggestion forward in order to embarrass my right hon. Friend in the course of business, but it seems to me that if he promised to consider such a suggestion before the Report stage, it might make it worth while for my hon. Friends not to press the matter further at this stage. I do not ask my right hon. Friend to put in such a word this afternoon. I only ask him to promise that the point will be considered before the Report stage, and if possible met. If he can do so, I think that would take some of the edge off this particular proposal.

§ Sir WILLIAM WAYLAND
I wish to ask the Home Secretary whether it is 1074 not a recognised principle that it is useless for the House of Commons to pass laws which it cannot enforce. In regard to the question of the distribution of these tickets, as has been stated, there is not only the one method referred to but many other means of distribution, and I am certain that if this Clause is passed as it now appears in the Bill it will never be possible to enforce it. No doubt the chief object of the Home Secretary is the suppression in this country of the sale of tickets for the Irish Sweepstake. I do not suppose that this provision would have appeared in the Bill at all had the Irish Sweepstake not been in existence. But the right. hon. Gentleman has to think also of the thousands of sweepstakes which are conducted yearly, monthly, weekly, almost hourly, in this country, and not of the Irish Sweepstake alone. I hope that he will give way on this point. Under the law as it stands, the Solicitor-General has said that it is illegal, and we know that it is illegal, to hold a lottery or sweepstake, but millions of lotteries and sweepstakes have been held during the last 50 years.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
The hon. Gentleman is now making a Second Reading speech on lotteries.

§ Sir W. WAYLAND
I will finish by saying again that if we pass this Clause, it will be impossible, owing to popular opinion, to enforce the law.

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
The right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) and other Members have appealed to me to reconsider this problem. The Committee, of course, is seeking to prevent large lotteries, and whatever differences of opinion there may be on the subject, the House has decided in one direction. It is essential, if we are to do that, that we should have certain powers, and all that I have said is that we are asking for powers under which the Executive will have to go, in the first instance, to a magistrate and to convince the magistrate that they have sufficient grounds to suspect that in certain premises or in certain circumstances this kind of thing, which we all know is going on and which this House now directs us to stop, is in fact going on. It is essential that we should have reasonable powers.
1075 I am always willing to try to meet the general views of the Committee, and the right hon. Gentleman suggests the word "organised." I must not be taken by the Committee as accepting that particular word or any word. I will say, quite frankly, that I have looked at this question with my advisers with great care and with knowledge of the difficulties which we have had to face in order to try to carry out the existing law, and it is because of the difficulty of finding words which will allay the fears of this, that, and the other person, that after long consideration we have introduced the Bill in its present form, but I am prepared to consider the proposition afresh between now and the Report stage, as long as it is clear that I am not committing myself to accept this particular word or indeed any word. I must be frank in the matter, so that there may be no idea that I am promising to accept anything, but I am prepared again to consult my advisers on the question.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
I think we really are indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for the tone and temper in which he has dealt with this matter, and I am certain, from long experience—almost one of the longest—that the progress of Bills is often expedited by that kind of treatment on the part of a Minister. The right hon. Gentleman has not committed himself to anything definite, nor do I think it reasonable to ask the Government to commit themselves on the spur of the moment. They must naturally look over the matter and see how it affects the layout of the Bill and what consequential reactions there may be, but there is a Report stage prescribed by Parliament, and on the Report stage the right hon. Gentleman will make a further statement and will make it, as I understand, with the desire to meet the views that have been expressed, if it be possible to do so without stultifying his legislation. Such an undertaking from the right hon. Gentleman will be carried out not only in the letter but in the spirit, and in all these circumstances I must say, on this particular point, that I think we have been treated with consideration.

§ Mr. WISE
In view of the very generous attitude of the Home Secretary, 1076 for which both myself and my hon. friends are extremely grateful, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
I beg to move, in page 17, line 35, after "of," to insert "publication or."
The Amendment is to secure that if a person has in his possession for publication, as well as if he has it for distribution, any lottery advertisement and so on, it should be an offence in the circumstances set forth in this Sub-section.

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS
I beg to move, in page 17, line 37, to leave out paragraph (c ii).
I am moving this Amendment in the absence of the hon. Members for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) and Stroud (Mr. Perkins), in whose names, as well as in my own, the Amendment stands, as neither of them could be here at this time to move it. This is an Amendment moved partly in the interests of a vested interest and partly in a very definite public interest. The vested interest is that of the Newspaper Society, with which personally I have no connection at all, but of which the hon. Member for Sunderland was, I think, president last year, if he is not this year. He tells me that the Press of this country are gravely perturbed at the new principle involved in this paragraph. I think I am right in saying that in this country we have no Press law in the sense that a Press law is understood in. other countries. The restrictions on the freedom of the Press are few. The first is the law of copyright, with which the hon. and gallant Member for Hexham (Colonel Clifton Brown) was not too familiar the other day. The next are the restrictions imposed upon the publication of indecent matter, the restrictions on the publication of matter likely to lead to a breach of the peace, or seditious matter, next the law of libel, and lastly the Measure promoted by the then hon. Member for Aston, Sir Evelyn Cecil, who now bears another name in another place, under which newspapers were prohibited from publishing what was obviously a too popular amount of salacious details in connection with 1077 divorce cases. Apart from that, we have no Press law in this country, and those restrictions—

§ Mr. ISAAC FOOT
I do not know if the hon. Member is aware that the Commissioners referred to this matter and stated, on page 142, that notices relating to foreign or illegal lotteries which are of the nature of advertisements are prohibited under the Lotteries Act, 1823.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
I was not talking about advertisements, which are paid-for stuff. There is a vast difference between advertisements and ordinary things in a newspaper.

§ Mr. FOOT
They made no distinction.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
Obviously, they were considering advertised matter, but I am considering news. I can see why the Home Secretary is anxious to have this paragraph in the Bill. These people in Ireland are raking away from us each year as much as they ought to be paying us in respect of the land annuities, and on economic grounds, without any consideration of morals at all, many of us would like to stop that. One of the reasons which stimulated the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) in moving his Amendment last night was the economic reason, not merely the social reason. The Home Secretary considers that this is necessary as one of his devices to prevent the continued success in this country of the Irish lottery. My own belief is that the only way to stop that lottery effectively in this country is to provide an alternative, and that is one of the reasons why I voted as I did last night. But we are now proposing to say to the newspapers that they shall not be permitted to publish a fact. If, on some day before the next Derby, there is a draw in Dublin, the fact that that draw has taken place, which everybody in Ireland knows, can be published in every country in the world. The fact is not in itself seditious, demoralising, or indecent, but if this Bill becomes law, to publish that fact becomes a crime.
That is an appalling invasion of the freedom of the dissemination of news, and I do not object to its being applied in this case. If I could get all the newspapers to agree not to do it, I should rejoice. It is not that I want this news published, but I am concerned with what 1078 the newspapers, at whose request I understand my hon. Friend put this Amendment down, are concerned with—this invasion of what we have regarded as a fundamental principle in this country for many years past, namely, the right, certainly in times of peace—there must be restrictions if ever we are unfortunately at war—to publish bare facts. If this paragraph remains in the Bill, it becomes an offence to state a fact.
If, by some mysterious chance, the hon. and eloquent Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) became the possessor of a ten shilling ticket in the next Irish sweepstake, and if, owing to the fact that he is a magistrate, he was not spotted and was ultimately successful, he would naturally rejoice if the newspapers of this country were prohibited from publishing the fact that he had become the possessor of £30,000, because his constituents in Silvertown would not be aware of the fact and, therefore, would not be as pressing in their attentions as otherwise they might.

§ Mr. J. JONES
I should tell them.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
But if any newspaper reported the hon. Member's speech on that occasion, announcing the fact that he was the winner of £30,000, they would have committed a crime.

§ Mr. JONES
They would deserve it.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
It seems to me a dangerous invasion of the liberty of the Press. It is only a small invasion, but it may be a beginning. There are people agitating in this country who have no belief in liberty, some on the right and some on the left, but whether Fascists at one end or Communists at the other—and I have no respect for either—both of them in fundamental principles deny that liberty in which the bulk of us in this country believe; and here we are invading liberty in one of the most dangerous directions possible. I think that before these words become incorporated in the Bill, we should all be deliberately conscious of what we are doing, namely, for the first time saying that an event which has happened, an event which is not in itself indecent or criminal where it is happening, should be regarded as something which the Press of this land must not state. I can get up on the public platform and announce that the hon. Member for Silvertown has been success- 1079 ful, but if that announcement is reproduced in any newspaper, it will be an offence. I can publish it in this House, and it can be reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT—

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Captain Crookshank)
That is untrue.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
I hear the Under-Secretary of State say that that is untrue, and I am glad he has said that, because if it is untrue, I hope he will get up as soon as may be and show where it is untrue. The paragraph says that it is illegal to print, publish, or distribute any matter descriptive of the drawing or intended drawing of the lottery, or any list (whether complete or not) of prize winners or winning tickets in the lottery. An announcement that the hon. Member for Silvertown has won a prize is a list which is not complete. He is a list by himself. Whether complete or not, the announcement of at least two winners constitutes a list, if one does not, and I would ask the Committee to give very grave consideration before sanctioning this proposal and to press upon the Home Secretary the necessity of safeguarding he powers he desires to have in such a way that we do not create a precedent dangerous to the future of our liberties.

§ Sir JOHN PYBUS
Before the hon. Gentleman sits down may I ask him a question? I understand him to say that he and his friends are speaking on behalf of the Press. If that were so, it would have a very considerable influence on the Committee, but will he say for which organisation he is speaking? The Committee has a right to know.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
I am personally not speaking on behalf of any organisation of the Press. The hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey), at whose request I moved this Amendment, was, I think, President of the Newspaper Society last year. He is in close touch with the bulk of the people who print newspapers in the country, and he told me that the newspapers—he did not specify which—did not wish words of this kind to go into an Act of Parliament without their attitude being set on record. They were not concerned with the Irish sweepstake, but with words going into an Act of Parliament setting up the principle that 1080 the publication of a fact was in itself an illegal act.

Viscountess ASTOR
It is important that we should know what newspapers they are. It is dangerous to say that you are speaking on behalf of newspapers and not say which newspapers they are. There are newspapers and newspapers.

§ Mr. WILLIAMS
I understand that the hon. Member at whose request I have spoken was the President of the Newspaper Society, to which every newspaper in the provinces belongs. I am not certain whether he was speaking on behalf of the London Press. At any rate, all the decent papers in the country belong to that organisation. Whether he was authorised to speak on behalf of the organisation or of the "Observer" I do not know, and do not care.

Viscountess ASTOR
Was he authorised to speak for them?

§ Mr. T. WILLIAMS
I hope the Home Secretary will give the Government point of view before the Debate goes on long, because we find ourselves in an awkward position as the result of what has happened this afternoon. We decided last night, rightly or wrongly, that national lotteries should be illegal. We then sought to lay down the conditions whereby the Government shall be permitted to render them illegal in fact as well as in theory. The right hon. Gentleman, therefore, proceeds to make the sale, distribution, and so forth, of tickets illegal. He also in paragraph (c, ii) of this Clause suggests that it shall become an offence if newspapers publish lists of prize winners. That is a point which the Committee has now reached. While it becomes an offence to sell tickets, it is no offence to purchase tickets.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
On a point of Order. This Amendment does not deal with the sale of tickets.

§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
I fail to see how the hon. Member relates what he is saying to the Amendment.

§ Mr. T. WILLIAMS
If there is to be no sale or purchase of tickets there will be no point in newspapers publishing lists of prize winners, for the two things are one and indivisible. The point I am making is that if the law is to be carried 1081 out as the Home Secretary wishes it should be carried out, there will not only not be sales but there will not be 'purchases. If there are no purchasers of tickets, there will be no point in publishing results.

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS
There is nothing in the Bill to make it illegal for the hon. Member or myself to purchase a ticket in the Irish Sweepstake if we care to write to somebody and ask them to buy a ticket. That will be legal, but if we publish the fact it will be illegal.

§ Mr. T. WILLIAMS
If the hon. Member had done me the justice of listening to me, he would have heard that that is exactly what I intended to convey to the Committee. While it is an offence to sell tickets, it is not an offence to purchase them, but as the organisation of a lottery is illegal according to last night's decision, we must assume, if the law be carried out, that tickets will be neither sold nor purchased.

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS
It is legal under the law of the Irish Free State to conduct a lottery. It will be legal if this Bill becomes law to, purchase a ticket, but it will be illegal to announce the fact if one succeeds in a foreign lottery.

§ Mr. T. WILLIAMS
The hon. Member must know that the number of tickets that will be purchased individually direct from Ireland will be so infinitesimal as to be of no value to newspaper proprietors in printing partial or full lists. It seems to me that the omission of this paragraph will, unless the Home Secretary is very careful lead us up the garden, and the decision of last night will be null and void. I should hate to create precedents which meant that newspapers would be informed what they can or cannot publish. No hon. Member desires precedents and more and more offences, but the hon. Member who has moved this Amendment did not object to supporting a Bill in the House last Friday which creates a new offence. That is by the way, however. It happened four days since and political memories are very short. I advise the Home Secretary to be very careful before he whittles down this Clause, unless he intends to undo the decision that was taken last night. The Committee must do one thing or another: either lotteries must be permitted or they must be prohibited. If 1082 they are permitted, so much the better or so much the worse socially and otherwise. If they are prohibited, at least the anomalies that appear to be growing already in the first few lines of the Clause ought not to be multiplied.

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
Perhaps it may be desirable that I should state the position as I understand it. It is at present unlawful under the Lotteries Act of 1836 to print or publish any advertisement or other notice of or relating to the drawing or intended drawing of a lottery. The only addition to the existing law made by this paragraph of Clause 20 is that it makes it clear that it is an offence to publish any list of prize winners. If hon. Members who have been interested in this problem have taken the trouble to read the report of the Royal Commission dealing with this matter, they will see that, after hearing all the evidence, the Commission came to a clear decision that experience had shown, as in the case of the Irish Sweepstake, that the publication of lists of winners was a direct incentive to other people to go in for the same kind of thing. If that be so—and I think it is common sense—it is obvious, if the Committee means to implement what we decided last night, that we must prohibit the publication and the flaunting before the public of an incentive to go in for a thing in which they see there are great possibilities.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
My right hon. Friend used an expression about prohibiting the publication of lists of winners. Now he is using another expression about a thing being an incentive to other people. I hope he will keep himself to the precise statement in regard to publication.

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
As I understood it, my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment used language which justifies my using this expression. If this Amend-merit were accepted, it would permit the publication of large lists of winners, which obviously would be an incentive to people to take an interest in these sweepstakes. In these circumstances, it is essential that publication should not be permitted.

§ Mr. ISAAC FOOT
The Amendment does not, of course, stop at the actual 1083 list of winners. The Amendment proposes to leave out paragraph (c, ii), which deals with the lists of winners, and we shall later have an Amendment to leave out paragraph (c, iii), which relates to other matters relating to a lottery.

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS
I understand that that will not be called.

§ Mr. FOOT
On the question of general publicity, the Committee has to make up their mind whether they intend to do away with such sweepstakes as the Irish sweepstake or not. It is certain that whatever we do here will be scrutinised by clever people on the other side of the Channel. As soon as the Measure is passed it will be subjected to close scrutiny, loopholes will be looked for, and every step will be taken by able men to do what they have been able to do in the past, that is, to draw large sums of money from this country. The Commission was clear that publicity was a main contributing factor in the building up of these sweepstakes. I am certain that, if in any way the Home Secretary relaxed these restrictions, immediate advantage would be taken of his relaxation, and the purpose of the Committee would be defeated as a result of the ingenuity that is shown on the other side. I hate restrictions unless they can be proved to be necessary. I go on the assumption that every restriction has to justify itself, but in this instance, if we are going to stop pouring out all this money and the exploitation of the people of this country by those who are just across the Channel, we must strike first at publicity and exclude lists from the newspapers. We must also exclude the announcement of the lottery. If it came to a question of lists of the losers, whereas the winners take two pages of the "Times," the losers in one sweepstake would occupy every column of the "Times" for 100 successive issues.
I have as strong an objection as the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) to all these restrictions, especially on the Press, but I think from what was said at the time that many of the Press welcome the opportunity of excluding from their columns matter which they had to include if they were not to be behind other papers. The 1084 "Times" newspaper itself, in a leading article published after the introduction of the Bill, said reputable newspapers would welcome the relief from having to fill their columns with this matter, an obligation which they had to discharge if other newspapers did the same. Therefore, whatever plea has been put in for the newspapers, a plea may be put in for the other side, in order that, as a self-respecting people, we may have the news columns occupied by something which can contribute to the national wellbeing. We have to be careful to make the restrictions such that we shall not have the law of this country defeated by another country which is supposed to be a friendly country but in this matter has done a great dis-service, and I beg hon. Members who are concerned to defeat these proposals to see that the restrictions are not whittled down too much.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
Two of the things which our liberty loving people prize most are, perhaps, freedom of the person and freedom of the Press, and this Bill strikes a deadly blow at both. In a Statute which is making criminals of people whom ordinary citizens do not regard as criminals, the criminality ought to be clearly and precisely defined, but in each of these paragraphs the criminality is vague in the most extreme degree. In the case of the Amendment just withdrawn it was pointed out that it did not make the position clear, and the Home Secretary has agreed to consider the drafting of words to put in the Bill what the Committee have in mind. The hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Isaac Foot) pointed to what the Royal Commission said. I would remark here that I have read the whole of their report, as he has. They said it was an important factor in trying to stop money from going to Ireland and elsewhere to prohibit the newspapers from printing lists of prize-winners. There is a great deal to be said for that, and if those were the only words in the paragraph probably we should not have opposed it, but it is far wider than that. It speaks of: Any matter descriptive of the drawing or intended drawing of the lottery. and goes on: Or any list (whether complete or not) of prize winners or winning tickets. 1085 It is the words "any description of the drawing or intended drawing of the lottery" to which we specially object. It has been a feature of Irish Free State lotteries to have all kinds of pageantry in connection with them, to have girls dressed as jockeys—

§ Sir JOHN HASLAM
That is all part of the game.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
But it is not part of my argument. It is silly to interrupt like that. It is a very serious case. We are making criminals of large bodies of people whom no ordinary person regards as criminals and we ought to deal with the question seriously and without funny interjections. In the Irish Free State it has been part of their scheme to have pageantry in connection with the drawing of these lotteries. Suppose they had a procession of motor cars, or a procession of elephants, and the elephants stampeded, or one of the cars got out of hand and run amok among a number of British citizens in the Free State who were looking on. If an English newspaper, the "Times" or any other, reported that, unfortunately, certain hon. Members of this House or their relatives had been killed in that procession held in Ireland in connection with the drawing of the Irish Free State, that would be an offence under this Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Certainly it would be. The words are: Any matter descriptive of the drawing or intended drawing of the lottery. that is in connection with the drawing of a lottery. If there were a procession of girls to the place where the lottery was to be drawn a description of it would unquestionably be held to be an offence under these vague words.

§ Mr. MABANE
You said "in connection with."

§ Sir W. DAVISON
Well, take the words here. Supposing there were large numbers of people in the rooms and. that there was a stampede and they got mauled—there might be a cage of lions there to advertise one of these lotteries. The words are far too vague. We do not mind if the Home Secretary says that it is essential to forbid the newspapers publishing a list of prize winners, but the phrase "Any matter descriptive of the drawing or intended drawing of the 1086 lottery" goes far beyond that, and interferes unnecessarily with the freedom of the Press. Why not say, "No paper shall publish a list of the prize winners." That would put it in a simple way. Why speak of a "description of the drawing" and all that sort of thing? Why should it be made a criminal offence to say that lifeboatmen and the Irish Blue Shirts and the Irish Green Shirts marched in procession and there was a collision in the middle of the room in the process of the drawing of the lottery and some English people got mauled? It would be illegal to report it and if it occurred we should know nothing about it. Let us stick to the common law of the country—that the Press are free to report anything they see. Hon. Members opposite have always stood up for that, more strongly, perhaps, than any other party. Let us get rid of vague words which have no precise meaning and no object. If we say "You shall not publish a list of prize winners" this criminal statute will be clear in its terminology.

§ Mr. KNIGHT
I ask the Committee to take into consideration the fact that the words under discussion will be creating offences and that those offences will have to be scrutinised by the courts. In such a scrutiny the courts do not take into account any representation as to what were the intentions of Parliament. Their duty is restricted. I speak on these matters from a very long experience, and there are several of us here whose duty it may be to have to deal with these matters in the courts. Consequently we must have the words in this paragraph clearly expressed, because any representation as to the intentions of Parliament when passing the Measure will be quite irrelevant in court. It is proposed to make it an offence to publish any matter descriptive of the drawing or intended drawing of a lottery. If there were evidence that a newspaper had published an account of a lottery or an intended lottery anywhere, that would be an offence within the meaning of this paragraph. The Home Secretary stated just now that that is the law at, present. I cannot charge my memory as to whether those particular words occur in any statute, but I can only say that if they do it is obvious that the law has not been applied to many articles in the 1087 Press of recent years. Whether or not that is the case, in construing this Measure, the courts will have to confine themselves to looking to the words in this paragraph.
The mischief aimed at here is a twofold one. We desire, first, to prohibit the advertisement of a lottery, and secondly the publication of lists of prizewinners. Both those purposes are consequential on the words which the House accepted last night, which I think give effect to the public welfare. I accept the evidence of the Royal Commission on which they are based, but, restricting the intention of this paragraph to this particular purpose, I ask my right hon. Friend to consider whether it is advisable to put into an Act of Parliament words under which any newspaper can be proceeded against for publishing an account of a lottery or an intended lottery. So long as the account is news, and is merely a description of what is occurring, I cannot see what objection can be taken to it. If the account were a veiled advertisement of the lottery I think it would be covered by the paragraph relating to advertisements. Therefore, I suggest to my right hon. Friend that he should consider the propriety of being satisfied with the words which make it an offence to advertise a lottery or publish a list of winners, and take out of the Bill these very dangerous words, which are a serious infraction of the liberty of the press.

§ Mr. HOLDSWORTH
I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not accede to the appeal which has just been made. In dealing with a point on Committee stage we are always labouring under the difficulty of not being able to discuss what follows, and I suggest that this question would be ruled by the subsequent paragraph. The real purpose of these words is to do away with a cheap advertisement for the Irish Sweepstake. The hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) asked us to treat this matter seriously, but then referred to elephants running amok when the lottery was being drawn. I cannot imagine any officer of the Crown taking steps to prevent the publication of a photograph of an elephant running amok. Last night we decided not to have a State lottery 1088 in this country, and why should we allow newspapers to popularise a lottery run by another State? If we did away with the publication not merely of the proceedings of the drawing, but of the list. of prize winners it would diminish the tremendous interest now taken in lotteries. Look at the temptation. An ordinary person, in a poor way of life, sees a list of prize winners, and hears. of a person who has put down 10s. and picked up £30,000. That person is made a hero in the newspapers. His photograph is taken, and his history from birth, his employment and so on are given. To the people in the district it becomes a matter of conversation that so-and-so has won a prize, and they feel a direct interest in the lottery. I can see nothing vague in these words, which I think are very necessary. As we are determined that we will not have State lotteries in this country, we will not permit advertisements or cheap popularity through the medium of newspapers to sweepstakes from other countries. I hope that the Home Secretary will stick to the words.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
A very formidable proposition is contained in these paragraphs. I thoroughly agree with what has already been said very fully, that if it is the intention to attempt to prohibit by law participation in the lotteries of the Irish Free State, the main process of operation will be the prohibition of the publication of lists of winners or of advertisements in the newspapers. There I quite agree with the Home Secretary; this is the staple of his apparatus, worth all the rest of it put together, and certainly likely to be effective. Although I think that the other course would have been best, and one which would have most conduced to the public interest and been most in accordance with the public will, the House has decided that lotteries on a large scale will be illegal, and the right hon. Gentleman is fully entitled to the prohibition of the publication of lists of winners in the newspapers. There, I think, he ought to stop, and not to go further and bring in, as the hon. and learned Member for South Nottingham (Mr. Knight) has said with great experience in this matter: any matter descriptive of the drawing or intended drawing of the lottery. 1089 The speech of the hon. Member for South Bradford (Mr. Holdsworth) from the Liberal benches shows what a farce it is to pretend that there is any real championship of freedom there, where it is freedom when they can do the thing they want to do. In regard to things that they do not want to do, or which they think they have an interest to prevent other people from doing, politically or otherwise, they are perfectly prepared to use all those methods of repression, restriction, legal prevention and prohibition of every kind, as we have abundantly seen, while those methods in the hands of those to whom they are opposed are always dubbed weapons of villainous tyranny.
I hope that the Government will tread the sober path in this matter. It is very hazardous to go pressing into new paths of legislation. It is entirely novel that a newspaper should be prohibited from giving an account of any event that occurs, whether in Dublin, Paris or anywhere else. The House of Commons might consent to derogate so far from the liberty of the Press which we all regard as essential as to say that lists of winners shall not be published, as in the paragraph with which we are dealing, as well as to prohibit any advertisement of what is going to take place. Those two together are quite adequate. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. He might quite easily sit there and overload the Statute Book with a whole lot of vicious principles which are not necessary for the faithful and adequate attainment of the object which has been consented to and prescribed by Parliament. He has an overwhelming majority; he has only to ring a bell, and his vast, blind battering ram comes into operation, but he must be moderate for that very reason, and because of that power to carry anything right or wrong irrespective of what the country thinks about it. The decision is in his hands, and that is all the more reason for him to be moderate. He has no right to overload the Statute Book with things like this, prohibiting newspapers from describing facts and to say that a fact shall be blotted out. It is the sort of thing which happens in Germany. There were horrible murders, when great numbers of people were murdered, and the authorities said: "No reference to it shall appear in any newspaper." The fact was blotted out, and most people to whom I have spoken 1090 about it have forgotten it, except the relatives.
It is not necessary for the fanatics who are pressing this matter, and who have some pull or control over the Government, some influence utterly disproportionate to their numbers, virtues, or reasoning power, to drive the Government into producing new departures in legislation which are very questionable, and are over and above what are needed to achieve the result. The Home Secretary is the guardian of public liberty; he is not merely a sort of glorified chief constable for locking people up. He ought to remember that protection of liberty is his duty, too. I sat in his place for some years, and I certainly think it is very undesirable to put one word in that you do not need. What more could you need than to prohibit advertisements and to prohibit the publication of any list of prize winners, whether a complete list or not?
Now I should like to point out that it is impossible to discuss paragraph (c, ii) without having in mind the next paragraph, which is of an even wider nature. The words in (c, iii) are protected by a special enactment in Sub-section (3) of this Clause stating that Proceedings…in respect of matter published in a newspaper shall not be instituted except by, or by the direction of, the Director of Public Prosecutions. No such protection covers the words in (c, ii). I shall have something to say about Sub-section (3) when we reach it. I suggest that for the present, to begin with, the right hon. Gentleman might agree to leave out of (c, ii) the words as far as and including drawing of the lottery, or, and confine himself to any list (whether complete or not) of prize winners or winning tickets in the lottery; or. Then we can come to the discussion of (c, iii), bearing in mind that it is covered to some extent by the fact that it is placed under the very superior discretion and jurisdiction of the Director of Public Prosecutions. I hope that the Home Secretary will see that he has all that he needs if he takes the last two lines of paragraph (c, ii).

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
I should like to deal with one or two of the re- 1091 marks which have been made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill). The Home Secretary reproduces in this paragraph the existing law of the Lotteries Act, 1836. He is not reproducing anything novel to our Statute Book in prohibiting advertisements or notices of this kind. I am not referring to the specific words. They are not the exact words of the Act. I will deal with them on their merits. In our opinion, it is vital to the carrying out of the main purpose of Parliament, and it is much fairer to the Press, to have in the words to which the right hon. Gentleman objects. The words: sells or distributes, or offers or advertises for sale, clearly cover an express advertisement for sale, that is to say words which say "Come and buy." You can, however, advertise by other methods than by express words. There are pictures, such as those of the beautifully arrayed women during the drawing of the Irish Sweepstake during the drawing of the tickets, but showing also a little notice underneath saying "Every ticket which is drawn may bring the recipient so many hundreds or thousands of pounds." That is just as clearly an advertisement.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
No.

§ The SOLICITOR- GENERAL
Of course it is.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
Nonsense.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
It is an inducement towards bringing about what this Committee has declared shall not be brought about.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
Is the hon. and learned Gentleman describing the present Bill or the law as it exists? I thought that he was describing the law, but now I gather that he is proceeding to deal with an alteration of the law.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
I referred only to the law as it existed to-day in order to say that provisions of this kind are in the Act of 1836.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
The point is in the word "descriptive."

§ Sir W. DAVISON
The Act is 100 years old. Can we not improve upon it?

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS
My Amendment was to leave out paragraph (c ii) but the Solicitor-General is talking about paragraph (c i), which is now part of the Clause, to all intents and purposes. Is he not making a speech on a matter which has already been decided upon by the Committee?

§ The SOLICITOR- GENERAL
The words of the old Act specify an Advertisement or other Notice of or relating to the drawing. It is not restricted to advertisements, but covers a notice relating to the draw.

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS
If a notice means anything in the way of news, will the hon. and learned Gentleman tell me why he has not prosecuted newspapers for what they have been doing?

Viscountess ASTOR
It is a secret.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
I have merely referred to the old Act in order to make the point that there are to be found in it provisions of this kind.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
They are 100 years old.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
The words are: If any Person shall print or publish or cause to he printed or published any Advertisement or other Notice of or relating to the drawing or intended drawing.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
Why are those words not good enough?

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
They are rather ambiguous, and they might give rise to all sorts of discussions as to what was "a notice of or relating to." I am suggesting to the Committee, first of all, that matter descriptive may just as effectively be an Advertisement as an express advertisement, which is covered under paragraph (c, i). We think that it is fairer to the Press and that it is not only necessary to prohibit advertisements but to include these words, so that there shall be no ambiguity or difficulty. If these words were not here, newspapers would use matter descriptive of the drawing. It might then be suggested with some force that that was, in effect, a disguised advertisement of the lottery, and anyhow it would have just the same appeal as an advertisement. There will 1093 be no difficulty with the Press in this matter, and the wider and more general the words the less the difficulty. This is to be declared illegal, and every newspaper, if the words are left in, will say: "We must have nothing in our pages descriptive of or relating to the drawing or the intended drawing." "Relating to" is ambiguous, and difficult to construe. It is making the task of the Press easier to include these words, and it is necessary that they should remain in.

§ Mr. PIKE
I only rise to point out one omission on the part of the right hon. Gentleman from the excuses which he has given for not accepting this Amendment. The excuse he put forward was the recommendation of the Royal Commission, which was, he said, that they considered that any advertisement or any description of the drawing or intended drawing of a lottery was the greatest incentive to persons to purchase tickets in that or another like undertaking. But what exactly did the Royal Commission say in this regard? The Home Secretary only told the House half the story. In their recommendations, at page 146 of their report, they use these words: To publish any information concerning foreign or illegal lotteries, including information about the results of drawings and the award of prizes, save where the information is simply a piece of news and is free from any probable tendency to encourage participation in lotteries. That is the Royal Commission's Report. Why has not the right hon. Gentleman embodied this part of the Royal Commission's Report in his defence of the non-acceptance of this Amendment? Does the right hon. Gentleman elect to put himself in a better position to define the difference between a piece of news and an advertisement in relation to this matter than the law courts of the country? If so, why is he not brave enough to put it into the Bill, so that we can all know exactly where we stand? If the Report of the Royal Commission is good enough for the right hon. Gentleman to build upon it the major portion of this Bill, surely it is good enough for those who dislike the portions which he has accepted to point out to him some of those portions which he should have accepted and the acceptance of which would have conduced to the well-being of his Bill? 1094 What is going to be the position? The ultimate division of the spoils in the lottery organised in Southern Ireland depends upon the result of a horse race known as the Derby, raced at Epsom once a year. Will the publication of the result of that horse race—the winner, the jockeys' names, and the prices at which the horses started—inasmuch as it will be directly pertaining to the drawing of a lottery, be illegal; and, if so, what of the requirements of another section of the community of this country, who do not want anything to do with this Bill, or with any lottery in any other country, or even connected with the result of that race? If these words remain as they are, in spite of the obvious difficulty with which the Solicitor-General wriggled round the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), I want to know what is going to be the position when newspapers are challenged, simply because of the publication of a piece of news, for publishing descriptive matter in relation to the drawing or intended drawing of a lottery? Is the Home Secretary going to rely on the law which the Solicitor-General has just quoted? If he is going to rely on that law, why does the Solicitor-General say that the law is far too cumbersome to introduce it word for word into this Bill? That is the. law upon which he has to rely if he charges any newspaper with a contravention of this Measure, and surely, if that law is good enough to rely upon in the courts of this country, it should be good enough for embodiment in the Bill. The Solicitor-General told us that the newspapers prefer these words—

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
No, I never said that. I said we thought that it would be fairer to the newspapers.

§ Mr. PIKE
I do not know whether I can pursue that matter, but, if the right hon. Gentleman and the Solicitor-General thought it was fairer, why did they only think it was fairer? Why did they not take the trouble to find out? A very important question is at stake, that of the liberty of a newspaper to print descriptive news of any popular event, and I, for one, shall have the greatest pleasure in voting against the Government if they force this matter to a Division.

§ Mr. R. T. EVANS
I only wish to detain the Committee for a few moments in order to make an appeal for a sense of reality. The distortion, exaggeration and over-statement this afternoon have been worthy of a kindergarten. The great issue is one of the right of the Press to publish facts. Surely a list of winners is something tangible. They are facts. To distinguish between the fact of a list of winners and the fact of a description relating to the actual drawing requires far more psychological subtlety than I have at my command.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
If I may interrupt the hon. Gentleman, the words which are so helpful to this Committee at the present juncture are: save where the information is simply a piece of news and is free from any probable tendency to encourage participation in lotteries.

§ Mr. EVANS
I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is not so guileless as not to realise the possibility of a very subtle method of advertisement in these matters—

Viscountess ASTOR
I think he is.

§ Mr. EVANS
The Noble Lady has known the right hon. Gentleman much longer than I have. Surely, however, there is no issue here as to the freedom of the Press. What really matters is that a limit should be set to the inducement to purchase tickets in the Irish or any other sweepstake. That is the sound, utilitarian principle. The hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) talked about a great cavalcade of elephants, and his mental elephantiasis seems to have infected the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), who talked about the suppression of facts in Germany, and so forth. My appeal to the Committee is that they should come down to reality, that they should leave the phantom imaginings of a kindergarten and face this matter as a Parliament in Britain ought to face it.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
rose—

HON. MEMBERS
Divide!

§ Sir W. DAVISON
The matter which we are now discussing is a very important one, namely, the freedom of the Press. 1096 Let us have it properly dealt with. The hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. R. T. Evans) asked how it was possible to distinguish between a list of winners and the description of a lottery. The Royal Commission have made that distinction in the phrase which has been read more than once to the Committee. The hon. Gentleman spoke of a kindergarten, which exactly applies to the words which we are moving to delete. Are we all a set of babies that we cannot have a description saying that an Irish lottery was held? The next step would be to say that, because there is a certain amount of betting on the Derby, there shall be no description of the Derby itself. Good gracious! Where are we going to? I have been in this House for 18 years, and have never heard such a Debate as we have had to-day. If the Socialists had put forward this proposal, Conservative Members would have eaten them alive. But here we have a Conservative, or partially Conservative, Ministry—a Ministry represented by Conservatives—putting forward these monstrous things without rhyme or reason. The Royal Commission said, quite sensibly, that they did not recommend these big lotteries, and thought that the best way to stop them was not to allow them to advertise in the Press or to publish lists of winners. That is quite sensible. They used the words which have been read out, and it is quite a sensible recommendation. But this Government, who appear to desire to make us all criminals and to bring the whole of the law of the country into disrepute and ridicule, have put in the words: any matter descriptive of the drawing. How will that induce people to take tickets in a lottery which was held yesterday? If we see in the Press to-day a statement that the Irish Sweepstake was drawn yesterday, that the girls were dressed as elephants, or giraffes, or anything else, or that there was a procession of hyenas, how will that enable people to take tickets in the lottery when it has been drawn? The whole thing is grotesque from beginning to end, but it is serious in the sense that it aims a blow at a thing which is very precious to this country, and that is freedom—freedom of the individual, freedom of the Press. I say quite seriously that, if this is going to be stopped, the next thing will be that, when some paper reports 1097 that there was a crowd opposite the Elysée in Paris because people were all going to the drawing of a French lottery, that will be a crime. It will make the duties of the Press intolerable. I hope that the Socialists will stand up against this and vote in the Lobby to prevent the addition of this absurd and unnecessary Clause to the Bill.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
I hope and trust that the Home Secretary is going to give some reply on this point, which really is the crux of the whole matter. It is not a small matter. It has been debated on both sides, and we do not disagree on the major point; we agree that the publication of lists of winners should be prohibited. But this is an essential Clause in the Bill, and I hope we are going to hear from the right hon. Gentleman some answer to the arguments which have been put forward—some indication either that he is considering them or has found in his mind some mental process which enables him to reject them. I rose to ask him a specific question. Will he kindly say why it is that the provision in Sub-section (3) that a prosecution shall not be instituted except by the, direction of the Director of Public Prosecutions in respect of any proceeding under paragraph (c, iii) is not applicable to paragraph (c, ii), in which general words are introduced at the beginning? If paragraph (c, ii) had nothing in it but the precise, specific statement that a list of winners must not be published, it would not be necessary to have these vague words: any matter descriptive of the drawing of a lottery. It seems to me that this, at any rate, ought to be put into operation under the protection of Sub-section (3), for what it is worth. Can the right hon. Gentleman assure me that that can be done? It seems to me to be the only reasonable way.

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
On this matter I should like to say that, if the House is consistent with itself and with the country, it is necessary to accept arrangements for the taking of such steps as are necessary to carry into effect the directions of the House. It is clear from the report of the Royal Commission that the publication of these lists of the 1098 names of winners or losers, and the general advertisement of these things, is highly undesirable. That is why paragraphs (c, i) and (c, ii) are deliberately drawn in the way they are. When you come to (c, iii), about which the right hon. Gentleman asked me, it is, of course, a matter of opinion whether it is matter of a nature calculated to act as an inducement to persons to participate in the lottery. We have here had in mind the fact that a mere notice that the French Government had possibly produced some lottery to raise money for some Government purpose, and a description of what was being done, as the Royal Commission said, is not a matter which we should desire to prevent, and that is why I have tried to give the protection of that particular paragraph. As to how far anything published is an incentive to people to take part, that of course is a matter of opinion. As a further safeguard we provide that proceedings shall not be taken except with the advice and consent of the Public Prosecutor. It will then be for the court to decide.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
Will my right hon. Friend answer the point why he will not apply this to paragraph (c ii) as well as to (c iii)?

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
As I have tried to explain, one is a matter of fact and the other is a matter of opinion.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
It is not so. Surely, if there is any difference between the two there is more guilt in the second charge than in the first. The first charge may merely result from a description which is held to have an evil tendency irrespective of any purpose or intention. Paragraph (c iii) talks about matter of a nature calculated to act as an inducement, yet there is more protection for an error under that than under the preceding paragraph. That is not logical. We are completely in the right hon. Gentleman's hands. It is only his own censure that he will proclaim in the words of his own Statute if he allows an oversight of that kind to pass.

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS
If a newspaper published in another country describes a French or an Irish lottery and a copy is brought to this country, a person who 1099 distributes it will be distributing matter relating to the lottery. Do I understand that, when the Bill becomes law, the importation into this country of any newspaper printed in another country containing a description of the Irish or any other lottery will be illegal?

§ Sir W. DAVISON
May we have an answer? This is a most important point. There are regular organisations for the distribution of Continental and Irish newspapers, and we really must know if the Government know what are the repercussions of the Bill. We must know whether a paper coming in giving a description of an Irish or a French lottery is illegal. If it is legal, it knocks the bottom out of the whole thing. It is absurd, because we shall simply have French and Irish papers coming in. On the other hand, every time there is a draw in Paris or in Ireland are the "Temps," the "Belfast Newsletter" and the "Irish Times" to be shut out or to have portions blacked out, as is done in Germany? Will not that excite the curiosity of people who will want to know what it is?

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
My answer to that is that merely bringing in a particular newspaper would not be an offence but, if it could be shown that certain parties were deliberately bringing in large numbers of copies for the purpose of advertisement, it would, be an offence.

§ Mr. LOGAN
In Liverpool and in Scotland papers from other countries come in in thousands and are distributed by agents. This is prohibition against newspapers coming into the country. Am I to understand that any agent of any depot will be proceeded against? It is nonsensical.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
We must really have an answer to this important point. If only the first part of the paragraph is going to be put, the Debate can be resumed, but if the whole paragraph is going to be put now we must have an answer to this new fact which has only just emerged in the discussion. Suppose the "Irish Independent" or the "Irish Times" publishes a full list of these winners and it is brought over here in the ordinary course by thousands and 1100 sold, like the "Sheffield Daily Telegraph," or the "South Wales Daily News" in the bookshops, is that an offence, although it will contain information of interest to very large numbers of people which not a single newspaper in Great Britain may publish under the most severe penalties? Suppose the publishers of these papers foresee increased sales and send over many more copies, will those who distribute them be guilty of an offence? The Government must have an opinion one way or the other. They may have a majority, but they must also have an opinion.

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
I agree that discussion in the House very often brings out useful points. I tried to say that I did not anticipate that what we are doing here would interfere with ordinary commercial distribution, but if it is used deliberately for the circulation of what Parliament wishes to prevent being published in the Press, it is infringing the purpose of Parliament. I am prepared to look into the point between now and Report, but we must try to stop backdoor methods of doing the thing that the House desires to stop. I have so drafted the Bill that I think we are doing it, but I am prepared to look at the point between now and Report.

§ Mr. H. WILLIAMS
In view of the important declaration of my right hon. Friend, which naturally we accept in full sincerity, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, and I hope the Home Secretary will try to meet this very great difficulty.

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
I beg to move, in page 18, line 11, after "or", to insert "causes or knowingly."
This Amendment is merely to bring the Clause into line with what we have already done on Clause 3 as amended on Monday.

§ Mr. HANNON
I beg to move, in page 18, line 32, to leave out Sub-section (4).

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
I wished to move an Amendment to Sub-section (3).

§ The CHAIRMAN (Sir Dennis Herbert)
Does the right hon. Gentleman say he has an Amendment down?

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
No, but I wish to. move one. [Interruption.] Are we not allowed to do that now in the House of Commons?

§ The CHAIRMAN
We have passed the point at which the right hon. Gentleman wished to do it. If he wished to move an Amendment, the proper course was to hand it to the Chair. The Chair cannot take every word of the Clause right through to see if anyone wishes to move an Amendment. I have had no notice of it at all. In any case, we have passed the point.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
If you are not allowing verbal Amendments, I have lost my opportunity. I will take steps to bring it up on Report.

§ Mr. HANNON
I think that hon. Members who read the Sub-section must be astonished at its terms. It says: If, in any proceedings under paragraph (d) of Sub-section (1) of this Section, it is proved that the person charged has brought, or invited another person to send, into Great Britain any ticket in, or advertisement of, a lottery, he shall be presumed, until the contrary is proved, and so on. The common understanding in the minds of the people of this country is that British subjects or, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) called them, His Majesty's lieges, are presumed to be innocent until guilt is proved against them. But under the terms of this Subsection, the unfortunate person who is found in possession of a ticket, or of that undefined, X-value block of tickets which the magistrate may decide comes within the purview of the Bill when it becomes an Act, is presumed to be guilty until he can prove the contrary. That is a reverse of the process of the old common law of this country, for one of His Majesty's lieges is presumed to be innocent until a charge brought against him is definitely proved in a court of law. The Home Secretary, who, I am sure, has the greatest possible concern for the liberty of the subject in this country, proposes to put into an Act of Parliament the obligation upon a person accused of proving that he is innocent before the prosecution has to 1102 make good its case. That process of law will be against the common sense and good feeling, and certainly against the traditional rights of the citizens of this country. In observing the law they desire to be treated by the law with that consideration which Magna Charta conferred upon the citizens of this country.
I ask the learned Solicitor-General, who is more intimately acquainted with the law than anyone on these benches, how he can justify the expression in this Subsection? We have already had a very interesting, if somewhat disturbing Debate upon the interference of this Measure with the rights and liberties of the Press. Now we come down to the rights and liberties of the people, and, surely, if we proceed to tighten up the law in this country in relation to lotteries, we must no carry out that tightening process by striking a blow at the primitive right of the people of this country of being proved guilty of any charge being brought against them. The Amendment should be accepted by His Majesty's Government. [Interruption.] One does not expect in this Committee very much order from the Liberal benches.

§ Mr. ISAAC FOOT
At the time of that remark no one on these benches was making any conversation at all. We were listening to every word.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
It is the disorderly people behind you.

§ Mr. FOOT
I am not responsible for hon. Members sitting behind me.

§ Mr. HANNON
During a previous discussion this afternoon there was continuous conversation going on on those benches, and it was extremely difficult to hear what the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State was saying. It does not need any elaborate arguments in an appeal to the Committee to presume that the proposal in the Sub-section is an alteration of the existing law and an infringement of the right of His Majesty's subjects in this country.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
With the general tenor of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Moseley (Mr. Hannon), of course, we all agree. I also agree that, looking at the Clause for the first time, at any rate, it seems to be contrary to the principle to which 1103 he referred, but I think I can show the Committee that, in fact, that is not so. This Sub-section deals only with foreign lotteries, that is to say, the bringing into Great Britain of tickets or advertisements in connection with a lottery. The Sub-section says: If, in any proceedings under paragraph (d) of Sub-section (1) of this Section, it is proved that the person charged has brought, or invited another person to send, into Great Britain any ticket in, or advertisement of, a lottery. That is to say, that in dealing with tickets or advertisements which come from abroad into this country you are dealing with lotteries which are illegal.

§ Mr. PIKE
On a point of Order. This is very difficult to understand. The hon. Member's Amendment has to deal with Sub-section (4), which has relation to paragraph (d) of Sub-section (1), which says: brings, or invites any person to send into Great Britain for the purpose of sale or distribution any ticket in, or advertisement of, the lottery. It does not say what lottery. To apply to it the term "foreign lottery or sweepstake" is not correct.

§ The CHAIRMAN
That is not a point of Order, and I think that we should get on better if the learned Solicitor-General were not interrupted when he is actually trying to explain. Perhaps if the hon. Member would restrain himself until the Solicitor-General has completed his explanation he may have a chance, as he has had on previous occasions, of saying what he has to say.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
If my hon. Friend objects to my using the word "foreign," I apologise to him. I use the word in the sense that it applies to lotteries abroad where someone invites someone else abroad to send tickets into this country. I think that it is not incorrect to say that this Clause deals with foreign lotteries. Lotteries, subject to the exceptions of the next two Clauses, are being declared illegal and one of the main tasks laid by my right hon. Friend upon the authorities is the prevention of foreign lotteries, lotteries promoted outside Great Britain, but, in effect, being carried on within our borders. It might well, therefore, be thought proper by the House to have made it an offence 1104 to bring into this country, or to invite any person to send to this country, any ticket or advertisement of a lottery. If we had done that and had stopped before the words to which my hon. Friend drew attention, the law would have been more oppressive.
If the Sub-section is read in this form, namely, that any person who brings, or invites any person to send, into Great Britain any ticket in, or advertisement of, a lottery, shall be guilty of an offence if it is brought in for the purpose of sale or distribution. In making it an offence to bring into this country, or cause to be sent into this country, a ticket from one of those lotteries which it is desired to prevent, there can be no question of the purpose. It would be no answer to say, "I did not intend to sell or distribute it." The mere bringing in would constitute an offence. People might argue whether it was too onerous or not. Anybody would know that if he brought in a ticket of a lottery from abroad it would be an offence. I do not think there, could be any complaint if the law could be in that form, but we desire to be less onerous and not to bring within the pale of the criminal law someone, who, having bought a ticket outside this country, brings it here without any intention of sale or distribution. Having regard to the desirability and necessity of stopping this flowing in of tickets from abroad, we think that it is not unfair to say, "Though we will not make it an offence for you merely to possess or bring in a ticket, we will put the onus upon you of showing that you have not brought it in for the purpose of sale or distribution."

§ Mr. HANNON
The real point at issue is the presumption of guilt. It is that which really sticks in the minds of many of us. The wording is very awkward.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
It is contrary to the whole of British law that a man should be presumed guilty until the Law Officers of the Crown and the criminal law have proved him to be guilty. It is contrary to all our law, and these words ought to be put in in some other way. He ought not to be presumed guilty until he is proved guilty in a court of law.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
I was about to say that this did not in any way exclude that principle. If my hon. 1105 Friend wants these words out, we shall be driven to take a course which would be more onerous, and would make it an offence merely to bring in a ticket or to invite someone to send in a ticket. We can quite easily remove the offending words, but in the process make the law more oppressive. It is the principle of our law that people should not be presumed to be guilty until they are proved to be guilty, but that does not really apply where the presumption is only thrown on to the prisoner at a stage when he has already done something which in itself might constitute an offence. Therefore, for those reasons we are asking the Committee to accept the Sub-section. The effect of removing those words would involve the Government in making the law more oppressive.

§ Mr. ENTWISTLE
I cannot think that the explanation of the Solicitor-General can be regarded as quite satisfactory. As I understand his explanation, it is that under the Bill as drafted it is not an offence to bring in a ticket from abroad if you mean to keep it in your own possession and not sell it. The offence is committed only if you bring it in for the purpose of sale. That is the intention of the Bill. It is not to be an offence to bring the ticket in unless for the purpose of sale, and yet if a person does something which is professedly not an offence under the Sub-section, he is to be put to the expense of proving that he did not bring the ticket in for the purpose of sale, although he may have brought it in under a provision in the Act which will make it legal for him to do so. I think that is most onerous and unfair.
If the presumption is that he has committed an offence under the Act by mere possession, it means that he cannot do something which is allowed as legal under the Act without going to the expense of proving it in a court of law or, at any rate, proving it to the satisfaction of the Director of Public Prosecutions, or some other person of that kind. That is an innovation in the practice of the administration of British justice. The only case in which there is a presumption of guilt is where it is so difficult to prove it, and where it is very much in the interest of the public that the offence should be 1106 capable of being proved that you put the onus on the person to prove his innocence.

§ Sir JOHN WITHERS
Suppose a person is charged with being in possession of stolen goods, is there not a presumption that he stole them?

§ Mr. ENTWISTLE
There is, but here you are making it legal to bring a ticket into this country from abroad if you do not mean to sell it. Why then should you have to prove that you are doing what is legal when there is no reason for thinking that you do not mean to keep it in your own possession? Why should you have to go to the expense of proving that, although you are only trying to do something that is legal under the Act, what you are doing is not illegal? That is a preposterous position, and one which the Committee should not accept.

§ Mr. O'CONNOR
I hope, also, that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General will reconsider the Government's decision in this matter. In the first place, was he right in saying that the Subsection applies only to foreign lotteries? The first words of the Sub-section show that the whole of it applies to lotteries promoted in Great Britain or elsewhere. Therefore, it is not only foreign lotteries that are affected. It is easy to conceive tickets being printed abroad for a lottery to take place in this country. Therefore, the Sub-section may apply to a British lottery. It seems plain that paragraph (d) creates an offence. The essential ingredient of an offence is that you should bring tickets in for sale and distribution. Until you have brought them in with that object in view you have not committed an offence. Why, therefore, if you have not committed an offence should you be liable to be prosecuted and asked to prove that you are innocent? That seems to me to be wholly contrary to the spirit of our administration of the criminal law. It is giving with the one hand and taking away with the other. It is saying: "We give you the lenient paragraph (d) and will not punish you unless you have brought the ticket in for the purpose of sale and distribution," but it takes away that benefit the moment the person is put on trial. It is an innovation that people should be tried for something which they have not done and which is 1107 perfectly innocent of the avowed criminal ingredient which is created by the Statute.

Mr. GURNEY BRAITHWAITE
I added my name to the Amendment because I felt that it raises a question of such great importance to the individual that the Committee would not be wasting its time in giving it a certain amount of careful and detailed consideration. Earlier in our proceedings this afternoon we were discussing the machinery for searching dwelling-houses for lottery tickets, and the Solicitor-General gave an answer to a question which comforted me, that in that event the onus would lie upon the prosecution. Other hon. Members were also relieved to hear that announcement. I was somewhat comforted by the speech he has just made, which showed that the intentions of the Government are perhaps a little different from what some of us thought when we tabled this Amendment. I should be grateful if he would clear up one or two points of difficulty which still exist in my mind. Several hon. Members have asked why there should be this presumption. Surely if a person buys one or two tickets in a foreign lottery when abroad, and he brings them home, that does not raise the presumption that he intends to sell those tickets?
There is another eventuality that may arise under the Sub-section. Suppose a person in this country asks a friend on the Continent to send him a ticket or tickets in a foreign lottery. Why should there be the presumption that those tickets have been asked for because he intends to sell or distribute them? Surely it would arise under this Subsection that just as it would be perfectly legal for me to bring from abroad into this country a ticket in a foreign lottery for my own use, so it would be legal for me to write to a personal friend on the Continent asking him to send me a ticket, as long as it is for my own use. Again, under the Sub-section the onus of proof will be placed upon me to show that the ticket was not sent to me for the purpose of sale. That is a serious departure from the usual procedure in this country, that an individual who is doing something which the Statute tells him is perfectly proper, having received through the post 1108 a ticket from abroad for his own use, should be put to the expense and annoyance of having to show that he is merely doing something which he is entitled to do. I should be greatly relieved to hear from the Solicitor-General for the second time this afternoon that in this case also the onus lies on the prosecution.

§ Mr. LOGAN
I hope that the Home Secretary will take into consideration a very important point which has not been raised up to now. The Sub-section says that if it is proved that the person charged has "brought." The word "brought" is conclusive. Persons may visit this country from the Continent, taking England in their itinerary with the object of viewing the sights. They may have in their possession lottery tickets which they have purchased. Therefore they will have brought them here. What will be the effect of this Sub-section? Will there be interference with those people? Is the passenger trade of this country to be impeded by the police coming along and putting into operation this Act in searching for those lottery tickets?
If I go to Dublin and I pay 10s. for a lottery ticket which I bring back with me, must I give an explanation on the presumption that I am going to sell it, although it is only one ticket? It seems to me a ridiculous proposition.
The National Government are perplexed over the question of sweepstakes and are at their wits' end to know how to legislate to get rid of the difficulty. The anomalies that they are creating seem to me to be greater than those which they seek to remove. You may have a ticket sent to you, but if you bring it yourself it is presumed that you are going to sell it and action may be taken against you, because it is in your possession. I do not know why you should have to prove that you do not intend to sell it, when it is only a question of one ticket. If there were dozens of tickets in one's possession there might be prima facie evidence that you were going to do some trade with them and that would be a different matter. It seems to me that amateur detectives and amateur lawyers will have a rich harvest out of this Bill when it becomes law, and I would suggest that this is amateur legislation.
1109 People ought to have the right to move from one place to another with as little difficulty as possible. The presumption that if you have only one ticket you are going to sell it is the most ridiculous thing that I have ever heard. If I had in my possession one or two tickets it would be reasonable to say that I had a right to purchase them, and that they belonged to me. Why then should I in England, the land of the brave and the free, under a National Government, be told that the conventions which we have exercised in the past are to disappear? We are to have an inquisition. We have to prove that the things in our possession have been lawfully bought by us. Until one can prove that these things are ours legally we are to be told that we have no right to them, because we may have brought them here to sell. Suppose one has a 10s. ticket. What is it presumed that a man is going to do with that ticket? The question of profit is not in it, because no one would give more than 10s. for a 10s. ticket. The ticket would not be brought in to be sold for less than had been given for it, unless there was something mentally wrong with the man who was selling it. A man is to be presumed to be dishonest and to be breaking the law and liable to be brought before a court of summary jurisdiction to prove that he is entitled to have a ticket. We have no right to inconvenience people in this way. The mere fact of going into court may be damnatory to many people. It is a most unfair procedure that is laid down. The Minister would be wise in withdrawing it.

Lieut.-Colonel AGLAND-TROYTE
I should like to know if the Home Secretary and the Solicitor-General could agree on this question. The Home Secretary says that he does not consider there would be any harm in having a few tickets to distribute to friends, but he wants to prevent a large number of tickets being brought into the country and a profit being made out of them. The Solicitor-General says that it would be an offence to have a ticket in your possession, to have a single ticket for sale. Apparently it is not illegal for a person to purchase a ticket or to have one in his possession. This is to prevent people from selling them. Under this Subsection we are considering, for example, 1110 if I were to write to a person in Ireland and ask him to send me one ticket, is it to be presumed that I have that ticket for sale It is obviously absurd to presume that I have the ticket for sale. Why should it be for sale? Really, it is absurd that we should be asked to pass a Sub-section of this sort.

§ Mr. BRACKEN
I would like the Solicitor-General to explain this point. If I import a paper, say the "Belfast Newsletter" with a full page advertisement of the Irish Sweepstake, might I be brought before a law court? I do not see why the hon. Member the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster should say "Rot."

§ The CHANCELLOR of the DUCHY of LANCASTER (Mr. J. C. Davidson)
I never opened my mouth.

§ Mr. BRACKEN
If I buy a newspaper that contains an advertisement of the Irish Sweepstake, and carry it about with me, I am in fact advertising an illegal procedure, and may be brought to court by the Home Secretary. It may be that I could explain to a magistrate that I did not intend to do anything of the kind. I might be able to prove that I bought it for its religious or political news. Still it would be a great inconvenience to be hauled before a court to explain my coming into this country with a paper advertising a sweepstake. It might put me in the criminal class. What is the point of all this useless legislation? Legislating for a stricter control over the Press, while it is open to anybody in Ireland to go to a Broadcasting Station and say what they like in favour of sweepstakes! One can go to Luxemburg and advertise the Irish Sweepstake and say, "Send me 10s. in an envelope and I will send you a 10s. ticket by return." It is ridiculous to try to prevent such things by this Bill. It seems extraordinary that the Government confronted by vast problems should waste their time bringing in a useless Bill, passing Clause after Clause to deal severely with anybody who gives information about sweepstakes, when it is open to anybody who likes to go to Dublin or Luxemburg to advertise sweepstakes. This Bill says that you cannot buy English newspapers, but you may import foreign journals. I congratulate the Government on this contribution to an English industry.

§ Mr. MABANE
I would make my appeal as one who has supported this Bill throughout, and who has supported the Home Secretary on every point that has arisen so far. I am a little uneasy on this account. I think the people of this country would rather know precisely where they are, than be subject to the ambiguity that they find here. If it were proposed to be an offence to be in possession of a ticket for a lottery, people would know where they were. If it were not an offence to be in possession of a ticket, but an offence to have it for the purpose of distribution, they would also know where they were. I think that, as the Bill stands at present, it is not an offence to be in possession of a ticket, though people might discover, if this Sub-section were put in force, that it is an offence to be in possession of a ticket, unless you can prove that you have not bought the ticket into this country for the purpose of sale or distribution. In fact, unless you could prove that, you would find yourself guilty of an offence.

§ Mr. O'CONNOR
The only offence is to be in possession of a ticket for the purpose of sale or distribution, in which case you might be hauled into a police court and forced to explain why the ticket is in your possession, in the same way that you might be asked to explain why you are carrying a watch.

§ Mr. MABANE
I think I merely stated. in my non-legal language, what the hon. Member has just stated. If I am in possession of a ticket and cannot prove that I am not in possession of that ticket for the purpose of distribution, I shall be guilty of an offence and be convicted. I am therefore uneasy on this point, and would like to add my voice to those who have asked the Home Secretary to reconsider this question, and either make it illegal to be in possession of a ticket or illegal to try to sell that ticket.

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
I have listened to this Debate and to the Debate on the whole of this Bill. I should have been quite frankly a little more encouraged to concede, if I had not been confident that the speeches had been delivered for the deliberate purpose of expressing hostility to the Bill. Of course, that may be per- 1112 fectly justified. These speeches have declared that a great many persons resent the restriction which Parliament has decided, to impose on these proceedings. That is apparent. It is unanimous. I am very anxious not to do anything which infringes on what we recognise to be fair and reasonable in dealing with matters of innocence. The kind of thing I have in mind is that there are people, whom it is not easy to catch, who come into this country to flout the law deliberately. The efforts of every Government to deal with this problem have been frustrated by the cunning of individuals. In trying to deal with this problem at this time we cannot shut our eyes to those facts. I am borne out in this attitude by the experiences of late. While I am quite willing to look at this problem again as a result of this Debate, I must be perfectly frank, and say that I am obliged by direction of this House to see that there are no loopholes left. I do not want to be unfair, but we must not burke the fact that there are loopholes at the present time, and it is essential that we should close them. In these circumstances, I will carefully go into this matter with the Law Officers.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
My right hon. Friend dealt in his speech principally with the case raised by the hon. Gentleman of the onus of proof being shifted to the person in possession of a ticket. He promised to consult with the Law Officers to see if that matter could be settled. I think we can certainly leave that aspect where it has now been put, because I am quite sure he is anxious to produce the best possible form with the desire to meet some of the objections. He has said that it is his duty to stop all these loopholes. The air is a very wide loophole, but I should say the ether, imperceptible, tenuous, which laps the universe, is the loophole which he will have to stop. What is the answer to that? What is the use of putting up all this tremendous apparatus of penalties, of restrictions on newspapers, prescribing that this and that shall not be done, no publication of winners, with all the forces of Liberalism behind it? What is the use of obliging those gentlemen in their ardour for repression, when all the time the great, wide world is free, and there is the fullest information coming from broadcasting stations?

§ The CHAIRMAN
If we are to enjoy listening long to the right hon. Gentleman on these lines, he will have to reserve these observations till we come to the Motion "That the Clause stand part."

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
Thank you very much; I will do that. Indeed, the Committee especially charged the Home Secretary to stop these loopholes, which will take a lot of his time. There are two gigantic loopholes, broadcasting and the Irish Sweepstake newspapers, for the plugging of which not the smallest plug has been suggested.

§ Mr. C. WILLIAMS
The Home Secretary cannot accuse me of having said much upon this Bill. I might possibly have said a good deal if I had not wished to help him forward. In the first place, what is the use of saying that a, person may have a ticket and then later on contradict it? The right hon. Gentleman has promised to go into that matter but it is a pity that there should be this contradiction in the Bill. In the second place Sub-section (4) is meant to deal only with stuff coming in from abroad. In the first part of the Clause you are dealing with a lottery proposed to be promoted either in Great Britain or elsewhere, but under Sub-section (4) it is conceivable that you may have a ticket in a perfectly innocent lottery in Great Britain, a legal lottery under the Bill. If you went to Ireland or the Continent and came back with the ticket in your possession you would be bringing it in. It would be as well on Report stage for the Home Secretary to put in an Amendment making it perfectly clear that this only relates to lotteries promoted abroad. There is a loophole, and a difficult position may arise. We are bound to point it out to the Government. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will have success in stopping this loophole. I do not know how he proposes to deal with the Irish, being a Scotsman himself, but they have generally beaten most of us.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
I am obliged to the Home Secretary for having promised to look into this matter and get rid of words which are contrary to any idea of British justice, that a man is to be presumed to be guilty before he is found 1114 guilty. At the same time, I desire to register my protest against what the Solicitor-General said in replying to my statement. He said that if I and my friends did not like the Bill they would take out the words and alter the whole scope of the Bill and make people criminals who brought in a ticket from abroad for their own use. We are legislating for the public not to score off individuals. I rather resent the idea of trying to score off the public in order to score off a humble Member of the House. These words are objectionable and I am glad that the Home Secretary has promised to look into them. When he is cogitating on the matter I hope he will remember that the Government have said that the object of this part of the Bill was that it should commend itself to the great mass of public opinion. It will not commend itself to public opinion if anyone is presumed to be guilty until he is found innocent by the courts of this country.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
I will not weary the Committee by prefacing my remarks but will come directly to the point I reached in the course of my speech which was interrupted, to which we must have an answer. What is the answer of the Home Secretary? How is he going to stop the loophole of perpetual broadcasts of the winners and the advertisements? Has it ever occurred to him that there was such a loophole; or has it dawned upon him now for the first time? I thought he was startled when he began to realise what he had to do in the case of newspapers coming from Ireland. Whoever is going to benefit it is certain that the Irish newspapers will benefit very largely. They will have a continuous feature in all their pages of the state of the Irish Sweep, the methods by which tickets will be drawn, all those descriptive accounts which are such a shocking offence when committed by English newspapers, and also a list of winners. These papers will come in by the thousand; their circulation, of course, will go up. People who are following this matter for their own interest will ask their newsagents to get them. Is that to be a 1115 crime; is it an offence? Are you going to make it an offence? Let us have an answer before we cast these things into the form of statute law.
Assuming that a great many people would like to have the "Irish Times" for a particular week, or for particular days, is the newsagent committing an offence if, in the ordinary course of his business, he complies with the desire of his customers and gets the necessary copies of the journal? If that be an offence, we want to know. The Home Secretary said that it is a question of those people who are trying to advertise the sweep. These people do not care anything about the sweep; they are only selling their newspapers, and they are going to do good business. That is a point which must be met. For the moment I am enlisting myself on the side of my right hon. Friend, trying to face the difficulties which will confront him, difficulties which will have to be met. I thought that he himself would have made some contribution towards a solution. If you wish to be logical and carry this thing through with the high hand, or foot, as the case may be, you will have to have a new series of provisions designed to deal with the import of foreign newspapers, or Irish Free State newspapers.
The hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Isaac Foot), in his desire to put down this evil at whatever cost to liberty, has tried to play upon anti-Irish prejudices; he has tried to work up our dander against the Irish Free State. He must face the consequences. If the Home Secretary is effectively to prevent the circulation of the list of winners and other advertisements of the Irish Free State Sweepstake in this country, he must take power to blot out these passages in the Irish newspapers and in foreign newspapers which contain these references, or he must seize the whole edition. There are plenty of precedents for that process. In Germany at the present time we see in our newspapers again and again that a particular edition of the "Morning Post" or the "Times" or the "Daily News has been seized in Germany. Do you propose to do that? if you do not, you cannot handle this matter. Thousands and thousands of these newspapers may come in and the 1116 information will be given. If you are not going to take power to seize editions which have these advertisements and the results of the draw, then it is a farce to attempt to deal with this difficulty, and you are subjecting English newspapers to great injury and injustice. What are you going to do to Irish Free State newspapers? What are they going to do to you if you take power to blot out whole pages, say, of the "Irish Independent" or the "Irish Times" or to seize the whole edition? Do you think they will sit still and do nothing? They will retaliate. They might stop the "Times,' a great supporter of His Majesty's Government, going into Ireland, and then what a row there would be. They might say, "Let us have a quota, let us have reciprocity"; there is no limit to the difficulties into which you might get.
The Home Secretary may be a little vexed, but we are doing him the greatest service in warning him of these difficulties. It is amazing that he has not foreseen the pitfalls which lie before him. The whole of this Clause becomes valueless unless you take power to deal with the importation of foreign newspapers and also with what has never been mentioned before until my hon. Friend mentioned it—I confess that it had not occurred to me—the fact that everything can be disseminated by the broadcast, and that with the greatest ease millions of people in this country, between five and six million people, can listen to the whole story of the Irish Sweepstake. What a zest will be added to it when it is a way of getting round a law which carries with it no sort of public sanction. Instead of listening to the Home Secretary extolling the National Government, you will find them all listening to these other broadcasts. There will be a keen hour on the air. What is the right hon. Gentleman going to do about that? Is he going to start some great station to queer the atmosphere, set up atmospherics, to strike in with a. great boom? If so, he will raise further difficulties. Nothing is more dangerous than an illusory attack on liberty. Under the Liberal impulse this poor, unforeseeing Government is being drawn step by step into a series of confusions, contradictions and muddles, which will make it the laughing stock of the country.

§ Mr. O'CONNOR
The Home Secretary seemed to think that those who made some observations regarding this particular Clause were opposed to the principle of the Bill. That is not true, at any rate in my own case. In listening to the gallant eloquence of the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) I realised in what bad company I had got in venturing to criticise this part of the Bill, which has certain defect's which the Home Secretary has promised to consider. I agree with the Clause. I agree with every attempt to stop the sale of Irish sweepstake tickets in this country. The right hon. Gentleman said that it is possible to broadcast advertisements, but you cannot broadcast tickets, whatever else you may get. Up to the present the problem has been an administrative one, how to deal with the question of preventing tickets coming into this country. I do not think that the Home Secretary has even now gone the right way to deal with it, and I would suggest that a simple Clause saying that 100 per cent. of the winnings are to be forfeited to the Crown would be by far the simplest way of dealing with the situation. I imagine that there are but very few people who would care to go to Ireland and live there in order to spend their winnings. The money could be seized by the Government if it were brought here, or those who won could go outside and spend it.
A perfect nuisance these sweep announcements and publicity must have been to every newspaper in the country, even respectable journals like the "Times," with columns and pages plastered with this rubbishy invitation to meretricious gambling which is of no advantage either to the country or to the individuals who take part in it. I think most thinking people will be very glad to see an end of it, even people who are not particularly puritanical or Liberal in their outlook. At any rate in this Clause a good deal has been done to limit the amount of publicity that it can get. The Government have not stopped up all the avenues, for they cannot stop up the air, but they have limited the area of publicity, and to that extent something has been done to limit the power of these extra-British gambling associations to prey on the gullibility of people here by offering them very little for what they contribute, and to use this country as the 1118 milch cow for any kind of philanthropy they care to indulge in or any indirect taxation that they please. I cordially support the Clause.

§ Mr. ISAAC FOOT
I intervene for a moment only to follow what was said by the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill). He told the Committee that he was very anxious to help the Government, and I hope that that fact will be recognised by the Government Front Bench. But is it fair of him to say that the Bill is under the influence of such inspiration as may have come from the Liberal benches in this House? The right hon. Gentleman must know the genesis of the Bill. The inspiration of it did not come from any party but from the Royal Commission set up by the Government. When the Commissioners were charged with the serious responsibility of dealing with a recognised social evil no one knew what their recommendations would be. They might very well have recommended that some scheme of national lottery should be set up. There were some people who anticipated that result. I do not know that there was a single Liberal amongst the Commissioners. All I know is that there was not one of the Commissioners who had taken any prominent part in Liberal politics in this country. I could go through the list of Commissioners, from Sir Sidney Rowlatt at the head. Some, I know, are Conservative. Sir Stanley Jackson, one of the signatories, was for many years a Member of this House. He was chairman of the Conservative party. I do not think it can be said that if we take the 12 Commissioners there was any inspiration coining from a number of fanatics or a number of Liberals. Therefore, the inspiration of this Bill did not come from us. We were never consulted about it. The Commissioners made their recommendations to the Government. Some of those recommendations were not adopted, but in the main the Government have taken the Commissioners' suggestions, and in particular they have acted on the recommendation in relation to lotteries. It is mere empty rhetoric for the right hon. Member for Epping to spend so much time in gibing at those who sit upon the Liberal benches. We would like to know from the right hon. Gentleman whether he thinks it is an evil which should be 1119 dealt with or whether he thinks we are to tolerate year after year the going out of vast sums to another State.

§ The CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is now inviting a reply. It is time I called his attention to the Clause with which we are dealing. I did not raise any objection to what the hon. Member said on behalf of his party in reply to certain aspersions or supposed aspersions on the character of his party, but we cannot now enter into a Debate on the genesis of the Bill.

§ Mr. FOOT
It is a little difficult for us to sit absolutely quiet under the continual gibes of the right hon. Member for Epping. Upon this Clause I quite recognise that in dealing with a matter of this kind there must be loopholes. There is the newspaper; there is the difficulty of the broadcast. After some experience it may be necessary to take further steps to carry out what is the desire of the Government of the day; but I am satisfied that if we can take the steps that are included within the Clause at any rate a very substantial experiment will be made. The evil will be brought within very much narrower limits. There is nothing to prevent the Government, with the experience they gain in the next two or three sweeps, to take such other measures as will enable them to implement what is undoubtedly the intention of this House. So far as those steps are being taken I understand that generally that have the approval even of those who are the opponents of the Bill.
I think that the Government very rightly say that in this matter they do not contemplate that they can deal wholly with the evil upon which the Commissioners laid such emphasis. But they can deal with a great deal of it. We are prepared to support the Government to the extent that they do deal with the evil in the Clause now before the Committee. If it is found that newspapers pour into the country and use is made of the broadcast, I do not say that we can meet those difficulties, but to some extent they can be met, particularly in relation to newspapers, under the terms of this Clause. If it is found that the ingenuity of those who are running the sweepstake in the Free State can frus- 1120 trate the purposes of Parliament, the resources of this Parliament will not be exhausted, and such other steps will then be taken as experience will dictate.

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
I hope the Committee will now come to a decision on the Clause and let us pass on to other matters. I have undertaken already to look into the question of newspapers particularly. As the Bill has been before the House for a considerable time I can say that some proposals have been made during the Committee Stage that might well have been made at an earlier stage. I do not complain, but I do say that the matters to which the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill) has referred have been considered by the Government.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
With what result?

§ Sir J. GILMOUR
With what result it is not advisable to state. It would not be politic to advertise the fact any more than is necessary. That would be inviting the newspapers of another country to take advantage of the disclosure.

§ Sir W. DAVISON
The Home Secretary has suggested that some of us who were disappointed because the Committee came to a certain decision last night are introducing these Amendments to destroy the Bill. That is not the case, because we recognise the decision of the Committee; and the fact that the Home Secretary himself has agreed to take back three of the Clauses to see whether they can be improved is justification of our action in bringing forward these Amendments. The right hon. Gentleman said that a number of things had been discovered in this Debate and that they had not been overlooked by the Government. The Bill proposes to make a number of people criminals for doing certain things, and, that being so, it is essential that their crime should be clearly defined in the Bill. It was with the object of getting such a definition that the Amendments were put on the Paper. I have on the Paper an Amendment which was riot called. I and my friends do not understand the meaning of the words "or chances" in Sub-section (1, b), which contains the words: 1121 sells or distributes, or offers or advertises for sale or distribution, or has in his possession for the purpose of sale or distribution, any ticket or chances in the lottery; What is the difference between "tickets" and "chances" Will the Home Secretary look into that matter also when he is revising this Clause?

§ Wing-Commander JAMES
I cannot let the Debate on this Clause end on that note, with the suggestion by the hon. Member that this Clause was primarily designed to create criminals. The whole object of this Bill and of this Clause has been to prevent the public from being fleeced. The very necessary Debate on the Clause has disclosed certain weaknesses admittedly, but to say that the Clause is designed to create criminals and to repress, puts the wrong emphasis on it. The object is to stop the exploiting of the public, and that object has the support of a large number of Conservative back bench Members and other people who have not taken part in this Debate.

§ Mr. BRACKEN
I wish to raise a rather technical point but one into which the Home Secretary must look. Under this Bill it is possible for Lord Rothermere, who publishes the "Daily Mail" most excellently in London, in Manchester and in Paris, to be prosecuted for publishing it in London and for publishing it in Manchester but enjoy with impunity an enormous circulation for his Paris edition containing the Irish Sweepstake results. It is very unfair for the Government to give Lord Rothermere encouragement because he happens to publish the only Paris edition of an English newspaper. I do not think he is so well disposed to the Government that they should go out of their way to support him. The Government's action is most unfair to the hon. and gallant Member for Dover (Major Astor) and others who represent newspapers which have given unstinted support to the Government. We poor men in the newspaper industry have to watch this fine whale swim about in Paris and get an enormous English circulation for his newspaper. Why are London publishers to be disciplined because they cannot afford to publish a Paris edition? In any event it should be made a condition that Lord 1122 Rothermere should support the Government in return for the great, but unsought, favours he receives from this Bill.