Lords Sitting of 21 February 1901

EARLDOM OF NORFOLK.
Petition of Charles Botolph Joseph, Lord Mowbray, Lord Segrave, and Baron and Lord Stourton of Stourton, for leave to lodge his printed case; read, and ordered as prayed.
Petition of Charles Botolph Joseph, Lord Mowbray, Lord Segrave, and Baron and Lord Stourton of Stourton, praying that he may be permitted to refer in his printed case, and in any proceedings which may follow in their Lordships' House, to the printed evidence adduced in support of the Petition of Alfred Joseph, then Baron and Lord Stourton, presented on the 11th of May, 1876; read and referred to the Committee for Privileges.

DARCY DE KNAYTH, MEYN1LL, AND FAUCONBERG BARONIES.
Petition of (1) Marcia Amelia Mary Countess of Yarborough, and in her own right Baroness Conyers, the wife of Charles Alfred Worsley Earl of Yarborough, and of (2) Violet Ida Elvyn, the wife of George Charles Earl of Powis; praying that they may be allowed to refer in their printed case and in any proceedings which may follow in their Lordships' House, to the evidence adduced in support of the Petition of George William Frederick Marquess of Carmarthen, claiming the Barony of Conyers, presented on the 25th of April, 1797, and also to the evidence adduced in support of the Petition of Sir Henry Paston Bedingfeld, claiming the Barony of Grandison, presented on the 20th of February, 1854; read, and referred to the Committee for Privileges.
Several Lords took the Oath.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

  TRADE REPORTS.
  I. Annual Series:
  No. 2556. Yucatan.
  No. 2557. Thessaly (Trade and Agriculture).
  II. Miscellaneous Series:
  No. 548. United States (Beet Sugar Industry).

  RAILWAY AND CANAL TRAFFIC ACTS, 1854–1894.
  Twelfth Annual Report of the Railway and Canal Commission; with appendix.

  ARMY.
  I. Return of Military Forces in South Africa: 1899–1901.
  II. Correspondence between Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, Commanding-in-Chief South African Field Force, and Acting Commandant-General Botha, dated 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th June, 1900.

  AGRICULTURAL SEEDS.
  Report and evidence taken before the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture to inquire into the conditions under which agricultural seeds are at present sold; together with appendices and index.

  INDIA (ROYAL INDIAN ENGINEERING COLLEGE).
  Correspondence relating to the remodelling of the studies and the retirement of certain of the Professors and Lecturers.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  SAINT VINCENT.
  Amending Prison Rules, 1900.
  FRIENDLY SOCIETIES, WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION SCHEMES, INDUSTRIAL AND PROVIDENT SOCIETIES, AND TRADE UNIONS.
  Reports of the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies for 1900.

  PUBLIC RECORDS.
  I. Court of Common Pleas: Further schedule containing a list and particulars of classes of documents of His Majesty's late Court of Common Pleas, at West minster, which are now in the Public Record Office, but are not considered of sufficient public value to justify their preservation therein;
  II. Paymaster General's Department: Second Schedule, containing a list and

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  particulars of classes of documents which have been removed from the Office of His Majesty's Paymaster General, and deposited in the Public Record Office, but which are not considered of sufficient public value to justify their preservation therein.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  SOUTH AFRICAN (CAMPAIGN).
  Return stating the number of sailors and soldiers, giving their names and description, who have been invalided home since the commencement of the South African campaign, and have died from wounds or disease—Address for (The Marquess of Ailesbury.)
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  BERWICKSHIRE COUNTY TOWN BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to constitute the town of Duns to be the head burgh or county town of Berwickshire—was presented by the Lord Balfour; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 9.)

  PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.
  Report by the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons—

  1. That provisions of the Caledonian Electric Power Order, the Caledonian Railway Order, the Cyde Valley Electrical Power Order, the Glasgow and Renfrew District Railway Transfer Order, the Glasgow and South-Western Railway Order, and the North British Railway Order, are of such a character that they ought to be dealt with by Private Bills and not by Provisional Orders.

  2. That the provisions of the Paisley Police Public Health and Tramways Order (other than those relating to Tram ways) raise such questions of policy and principle, that they ought to be dealt with by Private Bill, but that the Provisional Order so far as it relates to Tramways may proceed.

  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

BILLS INTRODUCED.
  CREMATION BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill for the regulation of the burning of human remains, and to enable burial authorities to establish crematoria—was presented by the Lord Monkswell; read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 10.)

  MERCHANT SHIPPING ACT, 1894, AMENDMENT BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to amend the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894—was presented by the Lord Muskerry; read la; and to be printed. [No. 11.]
  House adjourned during pleasure; and resumed by the Lord Chancellor.

  SOUTH AFRICAN WAR—HOSPITALS COMMISSION.
  THE EARL OF KILMOREY: My Lords, I rise to ask the Under Secretary of State for War what steps the Government intend to take with reference to the recommendations contained in the Report of the Royal Commission appointed to consider and report upon the care and treatment of the sick and wounded during the South African campaign; page 69, lines 6, 7, 8, and 9. With the indulgence of the House, and for the benefit of those noble Lords who may possibly not have read the Report of the Royal Commission, I would ask leave to quote the words to which I allude in my question. The Commission say:—
  "We recommend the appointment at some early convenient time of a departmental or other committee of experts to inquire into and report upon the steps needed to effect the following objects."
  I will not attempt to occupy your Lordships' time by going into those objects in detail. I may say that I have no wish or desire to embarrass His Majesty's Government by putting any inconvenient questions. Of the numerous points included in the question of Army reform this is the only one upon which a Royal Commission has reported, and I hope that the Government will take action upon it within a reasonable time.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Lord RAGLAN): My Lords, I am afraid I cannot give the noble

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  Earl the information he desires as to the exact manner in which the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Hospitals are to be carried out by the Government. The noble Earl is aware that the Report is a very important and a lengthy document, and that it has only just been issued. The Government therefore have had hardly time as yet thoroughly to digest the suggestions. But I can assure the noble Earl that we are fully alive to the great importance of the question of a thorough reorganisation of the medical system of the Army, and that in any reorganisation that will be undertaken we shall avail ourselves to the utmost of any advice or assistance which we can obtain either from the heads of the medical profession or from any other source whatever.
  EARL SPENCER: I do not think the noble Lord has answered the question put to him by the noble Earl on the Cross Benches—namely, whether the Government intend to appoint a departmental committee or other committee of experts to examine into the matter as recommended by the Hospitals Commission. I can quite understand that the noble Lord may not wish to go in any great detail into the steps the Government are going to take. All I say is this, that this matter is of great importance to the Army, and particularly to the unfortunate wounded and sick, and therefore it is necessary to ascertain whether the Government intend to take the matter in hand at once themselves, or whether they are going to act upon the Report of the Hospitals Commission, at the close of which there is a very specific recommendation.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): I think the noble Lord who spoke for the War Office made it perfectly clear that that Department is fully alive to the great importance of the recommendations embodied in the Report of the Hospitals Commissions. As the noble Lord has said, the Report has only been a very few days in our hands, and it is rather too soon to make an announcement as to the particular action which we should take in order to give effect to its recommendations. The Commission suggested that there should be appointed at an early or convenient time a depart-
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  mental or other committee of experts. Well, my Lords, I am able to say that it is the intention of the Secretary for War to have recourse to the best expert advice he can obtain from the medical profession or from other sources; but whether that advice is to be taken by the appointment of a Committee or Commission, and whether the inquiry should be departmental or not departmental—these are matters of detail which we may fairly ask for a little time to consider. Your Lordships may rest assured that the investigation promised in another place by the Secretary for War will take place, and that it will be, as he said, a very thorough one indeed.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: My Lords, I think we have a right to complain also of the supplementary answer given by the noble Marquess. Those who have read the Report and recommendations of the Hospitals Commission will agree that they felt their inquiry was by no means complete; that they had not the powers necessary to enable them to carry out their duties efficiently; and that they thought it was absolutely necessary, in order to come to a fair conclusion on the subject, that a supplementary inquiry should be held, for they say—
  "We recommend the appointment at some early convenient time of a departmental or other committee of experts."
  All the noble Marquess suggests is that the Government are going to take the best advice they can get from medical experts. Well, my Lords, I do not think the advice of medical experts alone is at all sufficient.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I said experts generally.
  LORD TWEEDMOUTH: Then I withdraw my remark. I do not think the plea of the noble Marquess with regard to the want of time is altogether sufficient. This is the 21st of February; the Report was delivered in January, and the Government have had a month to consider whether they should not at once adopt some of its recommendations. I am afraid that the Government take somewhat too optimistic a view of the matter, as they have done on other occasions. I would venture to quote a sentence taken from a newspaper which is cer-

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  tainly not unfavourable to the Government—I mean The Times. This is what that newspaper said on Saturday last—
  "The Report needs no criticism, though it may be none the worse for a little elucidation by men who, like Mr. Burdett-Coutts and Mr. Murray Guthrie, were on the spot, and saw for themselves what was going on Remembering the limited powers of the Commission, its composition, and the general considerations by which it was no doubt governed, no one can regard the Report as other than a severe condemnation of the medical arrangements hitherto thought adequate."
  The Times also adopts as its own a further description of the Commission given in the House of Commons—
  "It is not incorrect to refer to the Report-, of the Hospitals Commission as a Whitewashing Report, yet the thinness of the wash and the obtrusiveness of the dirt which it covers are apparent to all."
  If that is the opinion largely held throughout the country, I do think it is most desirable that the Government should, as early as possible, meet the views of the noble Earl on the Cross Benches. I do not think the methods of taking evidence adopted by this Commission are such as to commend themselves to those who have this subject most dearly at heart. As to the arrangements, I can quote a case within my own knowledge which seems to be condemnatory in the greatest degree of the system adopted in South Africa. A leading surgeon in the Yeomanry wrote home in the autumn stating that there was a great deal of avoidable death from enteric going on, because with the exception of that one hospital and another—the Portland Hospital, I think—there were no hospitals out there, military or otherwise, which had any machinery at all for the purpose of sterilising milk. That is bad enough, but I should like to give the case of a neighbour of mine who went out to South Africa with a Militia regiment, and was placed in command of a post on the line of communications twenty or thirty miles from Kimberley. He fell ill, and was sent to the military hospital in Kimberley. The medical officer in charge was unable to see him when he entered the hospital, but fortunately he found a friend, an officer in the "Welsh Fusiliers, in one of the beds, who said to him—
  "Take my bed; I am only shot in the leg; it is clear that you are ill from some dangerous disease, and if you do not take this bed you will not be able to get another."
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  He was induced to take the bed, and for three days he lay in it in his clothes without having been examined. Fortunately for him he was removed to a civil hospital, and in due course recovered. He made no complaint of the treatment he had received. He said that, after all, it could not be helped. The medical officer of the hospital had too many cases to attend to there were no nurses and no orderlies, and the hospital work was done by convalescents. If that could happen at a place where there was no pressure—I may say my friend told me he came back from South Africa without having heard a shot fired—it is difficult to realise what must have-happened at places where there was pressure on the hospital accommodation from the wounded in battles and from the sick of fever. I do not wish to use anything like exaggerated language. This is a matter of the highest importance, and I venture most earnestly and strongly to impress upon the Government that they should not delay the issue of a thorough searching inquiry additional to the one which has already taken place.
  THE EARL OF KILMOREY: I am not quite satisfied with the answer given by the noble Lord. I can well understand that the Government are extremely busy, and therefore the request for further time is not an unreasonable one. Under the circumstances, and in view of the extreme interest felt by the whole country in hospital reform, I will reserve to myself the right to call further attention to the matter on some early day.
  House adjourned at a quarter before Five of the clock, till Tomorrow, half-past Ten of the clock.