Lords Sitting of 27 March 1906

EARL OF BESSBOROUGH.
Report made from the Lord Chancellor that the right of Edward, Earl of Bessborough, to vote at the elections of representative Peers for Ireland has been established to the satisfaction of the Lord Chancellor; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Penllwyn Railway and Road Bill [H.L.]; London and North Western Railway Bill [H.L.]; Great Western and Rhymney Railway Companies Bill [H.L.]; Barry Railway Bill [H.L.]; Western Valleys (Monmouthshire) Sewerage Board Bill [H.L.]; Cardiff Railway Bill [H.L.]. Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Earl of Harrowby be proposed to the House as a member of the Select Committee on the said Bills in the place of the Lord Belhaven and Stenton; read, and agreed to.
North Sussex Gas and Water Bill [H.L.].—Reported, with Amendments.
Manchester and Milford Railway Bill [H.L.].—Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (Superannuation Fund) Bill [H.L.]; Accrington District Gas and Water Board Bill [H.L.]; Holyhead Water Bill [H.L.].—Reported, with Amendments.
Scottish Provident Institution Buildings, Limited; Petition of the Scottish Provident Institution Buildings, Limited, under their common seal, praying for leave to introduce a Bill "to enable the Scottish Provident Institution Buildings, Limited, to pay interest out of capital on certain of their shares; and for other purposes," together with a copy of the proposed Bill annexed thereto; read, and referred to the examiners.
Sheffield District Railway Bill [H.L.]. Report from the Select Committee. That the Committee had not proceeded with the consideration of the Bill, the opposition thereto having been withdrawn; read, and ordered to lie on the Table. The orders made on the 8th instant discharged, and Bill committed.
Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill. Brought from the Commons.
Millwall Dock Bill, North Metropolitan Tramways Bill. Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
Wallis Divorce Bill [H.L.]. Message from the Commons for copy of the Minutes of Evidence taken before this House, together with the proceedings and the documents deposited in the case: Ordered to be communicated, with a request that they may be returned.

PETITIONS.
  EDUCATION.
  Petitions in favour of denominational religious teaching in schools: — Of teachers in schools at St. Michaels-on-Wyre, Garstang; Moorside; Church Kirk; St. John's, Bury; Churchtown; Neales; Goosnargh; Wreagreen; Kingley; Stoneclough; Baxendale; St. John's, Bury; Ribby-with-Rea; Treales; Inskip; Walmsley. Of parents and guardians of children attending schools at Ribby-with-Rea; Ballarn; Kingley; Stoneclough; Moorside; St. Michaels-on-Wyre; St. John's, Bury; Churchtown; Hesketh-with-Beckensall; Inskip; Whitechapel; Church Kirk; Crawshaw Booth; Baxenden; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

  VAGRANCY.
  Minutes of evidence taken by the Departmental Committee on Vagrancy. Volume II. Minutes of Evidence, digest

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  of evidence, and general index to evidence, appendix, and report.
  Appendix to the report of the Departmental Committee on Vagrancy. Volume III. Appendix, with charts and maps.

  IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.
  Tables showing for each of the years 1900–1905, the estimated value of imports into the United Kingdom, and exports from the United Kingdom of articles of British and Irish production at the prices prevailing in 1900, with an introductory memorandum.

  BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.
  Annual reports of proceedings under the Diseases of Animals Acts, the Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Acts, etc., for the year 1905.
  Presented (by Command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  LIGHTHOUSES, &C. (LOCAL INSPECTIONS).
  Reports to the Board of Trade by the Trinity House of Deptford Strond, the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses, and the Commissioners of Irish Lights, of their inspection of local lighthouses, buoys, and beacons (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper No. 132 of Session 1905).
  SHOP HOURS ACT, 1904.
  Order made by the council of the borough of Barnstaple, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, fixing the hours of closing for certain shops within the borough.

  GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL.
  Returns of the receipts and expenditure of the General Medical Council and of the branch councils; also of receipts and expenditure of the Dental Registration Fund, for the year ended December 31st, 1905.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  SUNDAY TRADING.
  Message from the Commons to acquaint this House that they have appointed a Select Committee of five members to join with the Select Committee appointed by this House, as mentioned in their
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  Lordships' message of the 20th instant, to enquire into the subject of Sunday Trading.

  LIMITED PARTNERSHIPS BILL [H.L.]
  Reported from the Standing Committee with an Amendment. The Report thereof to be received on Friday next; and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 36.)
  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
  Read 1a; and to be read 2a on Thursday next (The Lord Privy Seal (M. Ripon.)).
  PATENTS, DESIGNS, AND TRADE MARKS (REGISTRATION OF PATENT AGENTS) BILL [H.L.]
  House in Committee (according to order); Bill reported without Amendment; and re-committed to the Standing Committee.

  CRIMINAL APPEAL BILL [H.L.]
  [SECOND READING].
  Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord LOREBURN): My Lords, this Bill deals with a subject which has been a great deal canvassed for many years in this country, and which, I think, has partially divided the opinion of legal experts, but I do not think there is, or has been for a long time, any considerable section of opinion, either at the Bar or on the Bench, that is not prepared for a measure going a considerable distance. Though I believe there is no country in the world where justice is more fearlessly and more effectively administered than it is in this country, and while I yield to no one in my respect and admiration for the spirit in which the Criminal Courts are conducted, of which I have had myself some experience, yet it is beyond human nature to suppose that there is, or that there ever can be without some opportunities for appeal, an entirely satisfactory condition of things. From time to time there have been, as, indeed, quite recently, instances of error, admittedly innocent error, on the part of the Courts, resulting in a great deal of hardship and suffering to

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  individuals, which have stirred the public mind. With that preface, for your Lordships are many of you familiar with the administration of criminal justice yourselves, I shall proceed to say a word or two on the subject of criminal appeals, and contrast them with the appeals allowed in Civil Courts.
  Let me take, in the first instance, the system of appeal which obtains in the Civil Courts of this country. In regard to civil procedure, the smallest cases tried, for example, in the County Courts, are subject to appeal upon matters of law, but they are not subject to appeal upon questions of fact; and I must say that I have never seen any cause for complaining of the state of the law. It is to the interests of the public that litigation should be ended, and where the sum of money involved is small it does seem to me more desirable that there should be some risk now and then of failure than that there should be constant opportunity for appeal, and the waste of time and money which that would involve. When you go from the smaller kind of civil case to the more important litigations, which are abundant in this country, you find that the facilities for appeal are enormous. A case may be tried by one of the greatest Judges of the day before a special jury. It may have lasted days, or indeed, as sometimes—but happily seldom—happens, it may have lasted even weeks; but there is an appeal, not only as to law, but an appeal on every point of fact on which the jury have come to a determination—an appeal to the Court of Appeal, and then to your Lordships' House. There is an appeal also on the point of damages that may be assessed, assuming that the verdict and judgment may be right.
  Not only so; there is an appeal on what may be called interlocutory proceedings. I would give an extreme illustration. Suppose that one side wishes to have a case, involving, say, £100, tried at Bristol, and the other side wishes to have it tried at Glasgow. Such is the state of the law that an appeal can be taken to the Court of Appeal and then to the House of Lords upon the question whether this case, involving merely £100, shall be tried at Bristol or at Glasgow. I am not making any complaint about the facilities for appeal that exist in regard to civil causes, but
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  I think it is a very open question whether there is not too much facility for appeal in regard to civil causes. It is not a matter that is relevant to my proposals to-night, but I think it may well be that some restriction would be advisable, but nobody would ever dream of proposing that there should be no appeal at all. All that the most zealous reformer in that respect would suggest would be that there should be some limitation to the exuberance of appeal in civil causes. So much for civil causes.
  Now I come to the criminal law. Your Lordships will find that in the Criminal Courts the law is almost exactly the reverse of that which obtains in Civil Courts. In small, insignificant cases tried before the magistrates, where three months' imprisonment is a possible penalty, there is an appeal. In small cases, where a man may only be fined, or where he may be sentenced to only three or four days' imprisonment, there is an appeal to quarter sessions, and very properly, too; but in grave criminal causes, in which a man may lose his life or his liberty for the whole of his life or for ten or five years, there is, with two exceptions, substantially no appeal at all. Let me give the two exceptions. I am not pretending to offer to your Lordships an exhaustive and detailed statement, but merely an outline, which I think will be found perfectly accurate, of the right of appeal in these cases. If the Judge who tries the case thinks fit to reserve a point of law for the Court of Crown Cases Reserved, he can do so, and then the point of law alone may be made the subject of appeal. But it very often happens that the Judge, being himself satisfied of his own opinion, refuses to grant a case at all; and there is no machinery of any sort, kind, or description known to the law—I mean no machinery of the law apart from the prerogative of mercy—by which that Judge can be set right, though it may be notorious that his law is wrong.
  There was the case, quite recently, of Adolf Beck, who, I believe, was perfectly innocent, and was so stated to have been by a Royal Commission. There was an undoubted misdirection in that case; evidence was refused admission which was palpably proper

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  evidence to have been allowed. The Judge was confident that he was right, although he was transparently wrong; he refused to grant a case; and no remedy against his refusal was possible. Another case where an appeal is allowed at present is that limited kind of case in which by certiorari the case has been brought up for trial in the King's Bench Division, and then there is an appeal both on law and on fact. But those cases are very rare. The result is that, no matter how bad the law may be that the Judge lays down—and criminal law is not always absolutely clear—no matter how erroneous the verdict of the jury may have been, there is at the present moment no means of obtaining redress in any Court of Appeal in this country. To put an extreme case, a man may be tried for his life and have no appeal; he may wish to get a case, involving only £100, tried at Glasgow instead of Bristol, and he may take that question up to the House of Lords. Surely, my Lords, such a state of things is a plain absurdity.
  As to the remedy proposed by this Bill, a Court of Criminal Appeal is to be constituted, consisting of Judges of the King's Bench Division, with the Lord Chief Justice of England as President. It is proposed that they shall have authority to entertain appeals upon all questions of law that may be raised, and that they shall be able to hear appeals on all questions of sentence. All points of law may be heard by them and reviewed; all sentences may be heard by them and reviewed; and also all questions of fact may be reconsidered by them in the same way as in Civil Courts. A prisoner is not to be required to be present, and, unless the Court think fit, he is not entitied to be present at the hearing of the appeal. He need have no counsel or solicitor, and, if he has none, the Judges will consider the depositions and the evidence he has given and any statement in writing which may be made.
  I would point out that there is only a small portion of this Bill which has not been already covered by high authorities. As to point of law, a Bill was introduced last year by the late Government, which I heartily agreed with, requiring any
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  Judge to state a point of law so that it might be made the subject of appeal. Substantially, I think, everybody will agree that my proposal is, in spirit, so far identical with that of the late Government. As to the reconsideration of sentences on appeal, that has been the subject of various Bills, and it was also the subject of a recommendation—I think a unanimous recommendation— by His Majesty's Judges themselves in the year 1892. As to the reconsideration of questions of fact, that is not a novel proposal, but I am sorry to say I cannot claim for it the same high authority, and I am afraid from what I hear that it is quite possible that it may encounter resistance. I do not propose to enter in detail or at length into that question tonight, because we are, after all, dealing with the Second Reading of the Bill, although I fully acknowledge that this is a very material portion of the Bill and wall no doubt require scrutiny afterwards.
  To those who object to the proposal I would put two questions for consideration. First, within the limited scope in which the Courts have already the power of reconsidering the findings of juries, has it not been found that the power is very necessary to justice? I do not think that any Judge will deny that that is the case, and if it is the case in civil practice, why should it not be equally necessary, or, at all events, equally expedient, in criminal cases? Secondly, in that limited class of criminal cases in which reconsideration has been tried by certiorari, is there any member of the Bar or Bench who has ever heard of any complaint of the way in which the power of revision of trials has been used and applied by Judges? For my part, I feel that the Bill would be shorn of more than half its value if, after granting an appeal on a point of law and also on a question of sentence or punishment, Parliament were to refuse an appeal on the ground which makes the full complement of justice—the right to reconsider from all points of view every element which had gone to procuring the conviction.
  It is said that a measure of this kind will in some way interfere with the functions hitherto discharged by the Home Office. I have not the least

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  doubt that it must be a most painful and difficult duty on the part of the Home Secretary to act as a sort of informal Court of Appeal from the trials of causes at assizes or quarter sessions. I believe that the work has been most conscientiously and most laboriously done, and with the most excellent effect in many ways. But I cannot help suspecting that every Gentleman who has ever filled the office of Home Secretary must have felt how inadequate was the machinery at his disposal for the discharge to his own satisfaction of this most important of all duties—the prerogative of mercy in all its various phases. This Bill does not propose to deprive the Home Secretary of any of the powers which he possesses at the present time, but it does give him a facility which, I think, he will value—that is to say, he is entitled, if he thinks fit and finds he has not the machinery for weighing evidence, to send any case which puzzles him for advice and recommendation to the Court of Criminal Appeal. That is the whole substance of this Bill, and I trust the House will give it a Second Reading. If, however, an onslaught is made on any particular part of the Bill, I will endeavour to satisfy the criticism when we reach the Committee stage. But I hope that the Bill will at least be allowed to reach Committee stage, so that it may be made into a workable measure.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  VISCOUNT CROSS: My Lords, having twice filled the office of Secretary of State for the Home Department, I can assure your Lordships that no one has felt more deeply than I have the grave responsibility cast on the Home Secretary in a great number of these criminal cases, and I am sure that no future Home Secretary would feel other than thankful to be relieved of some part of these duties. But it is quite clear that the prerogative of mercy must be retained. With that safeguard I only want to say that, so far as the Second Reading of this Bill is concerned, not only shall I offer no opposition to it, but I am glad to hail its introduction into your Lordships' House. At the same time, I am bound
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  to make one or two observations on the matter.
  I agree with the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that there should be an appeal for the revision of sentences, and to a certain extent an appeal on questions of fact; but I think, with regard to questions of fact, that this Bill is too large. I am quite sure that that part of the measure will require to be carefully considered, and probably a good many safeguards may be necessary there. With regard to the most important criminal cases of all, where the prisoner is sentenced to death, I think it is quite right that there should be an appeal to a Court of law on the question of law. There could be no appeal against the sentence. It cannot be denied that this Bill would involve a large increase in the Judiciary. I am perfectly certain that it would be impossible to throw these extra duties on the existing staff of Judges. They would not have time to discharge them; they are overworked as it is. There are great delays in connection with civil causes, and if you throw all these extra duties on the present Judges the delays will be very much greater.
  I believe the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will agree that where a man is sentenced to death and there is an appeal, the country would not allow that the death sentence should be hanging over the head of this person for a month or six weeks until the Court of appeal had given judgment. It would be absolutely necessary in the statute itself to lay down that appeals in those cases should be decided within a very limited time. I am very strong on this point, that that should be laid down in the statute itself, and should not be left to the Judges to be dealt with by rule. It should be laid down in the statute that wherever the Judges may be, whether on holiday or not, appeals in cases of murder should be tried within a limited time. The first effect of this Bill, if it passes, will be to render necessary a considerable increase in the number of Judges. When the Bill is in Committee I may have a good many things to say as to the details, which I will not enter upon to-day; but as one who has felt for many years

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  the burdens which are cast on the Secretary of State for the Home Department in dealing with these cases, I willingly support the Second Reading of the Bill, on condition that when we go into Committee the clauses will be very carefully considered.
  THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, I may say at once that I do not rise to move the rejection of this Bill. I think it would be disrespectful to the noble and learned Lord who has introduced it, and disrespectful, also, to the subject-matter, which is of supreme importance, not to consider the Bill and its details. Therefore, though I must admit that no amount of Amendment would induce me to consent to one part of the Bill, I gladly acquiesce in the suggestion that it should be read a second time. I cannot think that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack quite contemplates the extent of what he is going to do.
  Let me, in the first instance, point out what the effect of the Bill as it stands will be. There is to be an appeal on every question of law or fact. There is to be a right to have the question of the sentence considered, but it is a right that is only to be exercised in one direction. A conviction may be quashed; a sentence may be altered to the advantage of the prisoner who has been convicted; but there is no power to increase the sentence. This is a general right of appeal in every case, either upon law, or fact, or sentence, but it is only a one-sided appeal in this sense, that the sentence cannot be increased. What will the obvious effect of this be? Is it possible to doubt that there will be, if not in every case, in almost every case, an appeal? What has a convicted prisoner to lose by it? He may benefit; he cannot lose. That is rather a serious proposition. A jury is a constitutional tribunal, and to say that, on every question of fact, three, four, or it may be five, Judges are to be empowered to overrule the deliberate verdict of the jury in every case seems to me to be a most extraordinary suggestion, and one which is inconsistent with the constitutional theory which makes the jury responsible in this matter.
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  But what strikes me as one of the most important and serious parts of the suggestion is this. No one has, I think, more justly or more truly described the course of administration of criminal justice in this country than the noble and learned Lord himself. I think it is recognised to be as careful and as upright as could possibly be desired; but what do you suppose will be the effect of such an alteration of the law as this Bill proposes? Those who have been familiar with Criminal Courts will know that juries are rather reluctant to convict. They have a sense of responsibility involved in the fact that from their decision there is no appeal. Pass this Bill, and jurymen will say, "It does not much matter whether we convict or not. The case will be tried again before the Judges, and they will put it right if we are wrong." I think that the feeling of responsibility among jurymen has been of infinite value in preserving the care with which justice is administered in this country. Under this Bill that will be swept away. I have no doubt that jurymen, if this Bill is passed, will convict with much greater facility than they do now.
  I want to know what is the error in our system which calls for the introduction of a Bill of this kind. It is said that occasionally injustice is done. Just conceive the number of cases that are tried with perfect satisfaction to everybody, except, perhaps, to the prisoner convicted, and the number of cases which are supposed to constitute hardship. Take the case of Adolph Beck. It is quite beside the present question. What was the error in Beck's case? I am not now speaking of the technical error to which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack referred; but what was it which caused an innocent man to be convicted, sentenced, and severely punished? It was the evidence of the twelve independent witnesses who swore to his identity. How are you going to alter that? It is said that there was a particular question of law which ought to have been reserved. Probably that is so; but I think my noble and learned friend was a little hard on the learned Judge who refused to reserve a point. My experience is not like his in that respect. I have never known a Judge; to refuse to reserve a point of law.

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  The alteration in the law suggested by the late Government in the Bill which was brought forward by myself and passed through this House was simply this, that instead of its being optional with the Judge to reserve a point of law he should be compelled to reserve it. That would certainly have made no such revolution as is made here. As this is to be only a preliminary discussion—the noble and learned Lord has reserved to a future occasion the great discussion which we are to have on the subject—I do not propose to go through the various clauses; but I may say that there are points in the Bill to which no objection can be taken. I should not, for instance, entertain any objection to a revision of sentences, but it is not right that there should be no power to increase sentences. In civil causes the right of plaintiff and defendant are identical in that respect. You do not provide for small cases in this Bill because, you say, they are sufficiently provided for. But are they? You may have a cumulative sentence, for instance, of twelve months, and then you have to have notice of appeal, to serve the notice on the magistrates, and then to have the question discussed whether that appeal can be allowed or not.
  The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has no authority, that I am aware of, for saying that people are desirous of new trials on questions of fact. There was a Commission of the Judges on the subject. They made no Report in favour of new trials on fact. There was a subsequent Report of the Judges in 1892. They made no such recommendation at all. It must be remembered that you are dealing here with experts who have had long knowledge of what they are talking about. They made no such suggestion. There was, however, a suggestion as to revision of sentences. Let me read the recommendation of the Judges—
  "Such Court of Appeal should have power to revise a sentence on any person convicted of any criminal offence on application of the person convicted or the Attorney-General, and to confirm, or to increase, or to diminish the sentence."
  That was the recommendation of the Judges. The proposal in this Bill is an absolutely new proposal. It reverses the whole legal industry of this country. I do not say that it is necessarily a
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  conclusive argument against it. It removes from the people themselves—from the jury—the determining of guilt or innocence, and gives it to persons appointed by the Crown. That seems to me to be a very serious matter indeed. This is a rash experiment, and I must say, for my part, that I should be sorry to see the mode in which the administration of justice in this country has been hitherto conducted so seriously interfered with. I have had some experience myself as a criminal Judge, and my experience of the mode in which juries administer justice is that there is a most earnest desire to do right, and great reluctance, unless compelled to do so, to find a verdict of guilty. I believe this Bill, if passed into law, would most seriously interfere with the tone and spirit in which juries administer justice in this country.
  LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: My Lords, my noble and learned friend Lord Halsbury has extended considerable courtesy to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack in agreeing to the Second Reading of this Bill, but I think he will not be disposed to contradict me when I say that he is not foregoing the battle against it; he has only postponed the pitched battle which is to take place. I would ask your Lordships' permission to say a few words, a few very sincere words, in support of this Bill. Few things in my political life have given me greater pleasure than the prospect at last of seeing a real Court of Criminal Appeal in this country. As Attorney-General, and as a private Member, I have drawn three of these Bills in different directions. Fortune has been against me; but now, under the circumstances that exist in the other House of Parliament, it is to be hoped that, with your Lordships' sanction, this Bill will not only be considered, but will pass into law.
  Let me ask, What ought to be the chief aim of our criminal law and its administration? It is no doubt to protect the community and to punish the wrong doer. But I claim a higher duty than either of those—namely, that the law should take care that no innocent person suffers punishment. Let us see what safeguards we have in this country that innocent persons shall not unduly suffer. My noble and learned friend Lord Halsbury speaks, I think quite, correctly, of the anxiety of our Judges to

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  do their duty, and of the juries to find just verdicts; but they are not infallible, and those who have been in the Home Office know full well that many cases have arisen in which innocent persons have been convicted, and it must be obvious that there are a great number of such cases which are never known. We have a right, on behalf of our national character, to see that all is done under our machinery to secure that justice is administered.
  We stand unique among civilised nations in that we will accept error without attempting to remedy it. We have no Court of Criminal Appeal. I think in every other civilised nation in Europe, and certainly in America, there are these Courts of Appeal; but, strangely enough, while we have no Court of Appeal we also have no Minister of Justice, whose duty it is, as in other nations, to see that justice is purely administered, and to take care of the accused as well as the prosecutor. Notwithstanding the absence of such a Minister, we now hear from a very high authority that it is better that things should remain as they are than that there should be set up a Court of Criminal Appeal. The best we can do at present is to see that the prerogative of mercy shall be exercised. But instead of leaving that to persons who have had the training and experience necessary to enable them to determine when that mercy should be exercised, we have of late years entrusted this duty to men who, however able they may be, have had no knowledge whatever of criminal proceedings. In the first place, the machinery of the Home Office is no tribunal at all. How a prisoner makes his application to the Home Secretary no one knows. He is never heard in person at the Home Office; no witnesses can be heard; no advocacy can take place. It is simply an inquiry, no doubt by men who thoroughly desire to act conscientiously and with justice to the accused persons, but it is not any approach to a determination by a properly constituted tribunal. Many of your Lordships will recollect the time when the Home Office represented great legal strength. Men of legal experience were always chosen as Home Secretaries. There were such men as Sir George Grey, Mr. Austin Bruce, and my noble friend Lord Cross. Then came men like Sir William Harcourt, Lord Llandaff, and Mr. Asquith. You
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  could understand that those men were capable of seeing, by virtue of their experience, that justice was done. I remember one case in which a man was condemned for the murder of a woman in East London. Lord Llandaff instituted an inquiry, at which I was asked to be present, and I am confident in saying that no Judge could have made greater efforts to arrive at the truth than did the Home Secretary on that occasion. Now a change has taken place. I am speaking with the greatest respect of recent Home Secretaries, but what legal experience had Sir Matthew White Ridley, Mr. Ritchie, and Mr. Akers Douglas, or what legal experience has Mr. Herbert Gladstone had?
  THE EARL OF HALSBURY: Mr. Akers-Douglas has had experience at quarter sessions.
  LORD JAMES OF HEREFORD: Yes, as chairman. These four gentlemen have represented in this country the only approach to a Court of Criminal Appeal; and I say that it is an insult to our judgment that we should be asked to accept that state of things as sufficient. I believe your Lordships are not aware of the number of innocent people who are convicted in this country. I know—for I was in consultation with him on the subject—that Sir William Harcourt made most diligent and conscientious inquiry into this question, and was convinced, after he had discharged, during the first three years that he was Home Secretary, twelve innocent men whose cases had come accidentally before him, that they represented only a few of the cases of innocent men who had been convicted.
  My noble and learned friend Lord Halsbury has said that no authoritative declaration can be quoted in which the Judges have expressed themselves in favour of a Court of Criminal Appeal. I do not know that I have ever spoken in other than terms of the highest appreciation of the Judges of this country, but I must say they never have been legal reformers. They are more disposed to oppose reform than to support it. But there is an authority to be found. Very conspicuous Judges have been liberal and generous enough to see the necessity of such a measure as is now

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  proposed. In 1889 a distinguished member of this House, Lord Fitzgerald, who must be remembered by many of your Lordships, appealed to my noble and learned friend who was then Lord Chancellor, to institute a Court of Criminal Appeal, and he based his arguments upon the Report of the Committee of 1878, consisting of Lord Blackburn, Mr. Justice Lush, and two other experienced Judges.
  If my noble and learned friend will turn to the last sections of their Report he will find that the four Judges who sat on that Committee recommended an appeal upon questions of fact—an appeal against the verdict of the jury—with the qualification that it should be with the leave of the Court or Judge. That is a distinction, but still the infallibility of juries' verdicts was thrown over by these four Judges. Lord Fitzgerald, in an eloquent speech, appealed to my noble and learned friend on the subject, but his appeal was in vain. The late Lord Esher, who had been accidently absent when Lord Fitzgerald was speaking, wrote a letter immediately, which appeared in The Times, and his view was—
  "The appeal should be as large as possible on law, facts, and sentence. The Judges should be bound in case of conviction and sentence of death, at any inconvenience to business, to attend in a court within seven days after any such appeal."
  My noble and learned friend has described a jury as a constitutional tribunal. So it is. But my noble and learned friend does not hesitate to let a court overrule the finding of a jury in every civil case in this country, and, if they think right, they are entitled to enter a verdict of fact against the finding of the jury. Yet in the case where men are suffering all the torments of wrong conviction, and all the torture that men can suffer in this world, my noble and learned friend will do nothing for them, but wishes things to be left as they are. We may all approve of the exercise of conservatism to a certain extent, but surely we cannot steel our hearts against the demand that justice shall be done to all innocent men who are charged with crimes in this country.
  There is one appeal I would make to your Lordships, which I hope will not be misunderstood. I think it is one that ought to receive attention. This House has trying times before it, and, under the
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  present political conditions, we shall have measures brought before us which we individually may wish either to reject or to alter. We know the difficulty we shall have in determining whether we can exercise that power. But our power of resistance against such measures is but limited; we had better not waste it. I can tell your Lordships that this Bill is demanded by no political Party. Men have communicated with me on this subject over and over again. Lately I received as many as a hundred letters in connection with the conviction which crystallised this question, and I can say that it is the common sense of this country, and the feeling of justice of this country, which asks that this Bill should pass into law, and I therefore hope your Lordships will give it a Second Reading.
  EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, when I presided rather more than a year ago over a large public meeting at which a resolution was passed calling for the establishment of a Court of Criminal Appeal, I confess that I did not expect that within so short a time either Government would have brought forward so wide and comprehensive a Bill as the one which has been introduced to-day by the Lord Chancellor. I confess that I share a good many of the apprehensions which had been expressed by Lord Halsbury in regard to the question of criminal appeals. It is with a good deal of reluctance—reluctance which, I think, is somewhat instinctive when one regards the present criminal system—that I have been slowly driven to the conclusion which it would appear His Majesty's Government have now arrived at, that some Court of Criminal Appeal, I will not say for the moment how extensive, is necessary, and that the present system of revision of sentences by the Home Secretary, exercising his prerogative of mercy, does not give that full measure of justice and that full protection to innocent prisoners that is required by the law.
  The tone of the Second Reading debate to-night has been one entirely on the general question. I understand that the noble and learned Lord in charge of the Bill wishes to leave the discussion of details until a later stage. But there appears to me, on looking carefully at the Bill, to be one or two points which are

  1007
  hardly explained by the Bill as it stands. I suppose that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has fully considered them. I do not see, for example, any provision for prisoners, who are to appeal under this Bill being either kept in custody or released pending the appeal. I am not clear as to whether they are to be required to give any sureties, or whether they can appeal without any consequences even of a pecuniary character. If there is to be a right of appeal in every case, it does seem to me that there will surely be a large number of appeals, because by appealing every convicted person will stand to gain a great deal more than he can possibly lose, if, indeed, he can lose anything; and considerable addition will also have to be made to the Judiciary of the country.
  Then, I do not quite understand how far the Court is to sit as a sort of board and how far it is to sit as a Court. There is a provision in the Bill which is not perfectly clear as to the board not hearing or deciding these cases in public. I imagine that the judgment and the reasons for it will, at any rate, be given in public and in open Court. The question of appeal by criminals on matters of fact—matters of fact pure and simple—is a very difficult one, and I cannot help thinking that this provision will do something—it may not be much—to diminish the sense of responsibility under which juries at present arrive at a conclusion against the prisoner. There are some other provisions which will have to be added to this Bill if appeals are not to be universal and without reason. There seems to me to be no penalty at all. A convicted person has nothing to lose by an appeal under this Bill, and if he loses absolutely nothing the number of appeals will be such as to almost swamp the judicial business of the country. The fact that there is to be an appeal of a judicial character as against a consideration of a non-judicial character is to my mind a very great advance on the present law, and, so far, I most heartily welcome the Bill itself, and hope it will succeed ultimately in passing your Lordships' House without serious alteration in the objects at which it aims.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: May I say, in regard to the important question asked me by the noble Viscount as to the necessity of the Bill's providing in cases
  1008
  of murder for the hearing of the appeal without delay, that I heartily agree with him and will undertake to assent to any provision which he may propose to secure that object.
  On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

  PUBLIC TRUSTEE BILL [H.L.]
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this is also a Bill of great importance for which I anticipate a more propitious journey than appears likely in. the case of the Bill which your Lordships have just read a second time, as feeling in favour of this measure is really unanimous on both sides of politics. As long ago as the year 1890 a measure of this kind was introduced by the noble and learned Earl who preceded me on the Woolsack, and it passed through your Lordships' House. I do not say that it was identical, nor that the scheme was framed in exactly the same way, but in substance it was not different from the Bill the Second Reading of which I am now moving. On the change of administration which subsequently followed there was a great desire in the House of Commons for such a measure, and a Select Committee, of which I was chairman, was appointed to consider the subject. We reported unanimously upon the necessity of some measure of this kind, and, in the vain hope that a system which works admirably in Scotland might be made to-work also in England, we recommended the passing of a Judicial Trustee Bill. That Bill met with opposition from interested persons and was not passed by the Liberal Government. It was, however, passed by our successors in the year 1896, although mutilated, to some extent, on account of opposition. But it has not led to the good results that were expected. Sir Howard Vincent, who deserves the greatest credit for his unremitting efforts in this matter, for many years kept constantly pressing one Minister after another to do something in this direction, and at last, in the year 1905 a

  1009
  Bill was introduced in the House of Commons by Sir Howard Vincent which was practically supported by both sides. I, therefore, do not anticipate any unfavourable reception for this Bill.
  I will now state to your Lordships the substance of the Bill, and the objects sought to be carried out. In all ranks and conditions of life it is difficult to get private persons to undertake the troublesome and unsatisfactory duties of trustee. But among the poorer classes it is almost hopeless to get people to administer their properties, which, though small, are of extreme importance to their families. Then, again, there is the uncertainty that when you place your money in the hands of a trustee you will ever see it again. There have been many cases of dishonest trustees. The temptation is very great to people in difficulties who are sole trustees to convert the money to their own uses, and as a consequence a great amount of distress has been caused. In the newspapers one constantly sees cases of that kind. We are very anxious to prevent that, and the Bill proposes that there shall be established the office of public trustee, with special facilities for the administration of small estates. In the case of other trusts, the public trustee may be appointed as custodian trustee, which means that the property of the trust shall be in his custody while its administration remains in the hands of the trustees appointed by the creator of the trust. There is also a provision by which the public trustee may be appointed in a will or any other deed as trustee for any kind of private trust. Of course it will be in the discretion of the public trustee to decline to take up any particular trust. It is also provided that any money lost by any omission or fault on the part of the public trustee shall be made good out of the public funds.
  That is the scheme which we recommend to your Lordships. This is not a Bill directed against any particular profession. I believe that solicitors think that it is directed against them. Nothing of the kind, though, of course, there are black sheep in that flock as in every other. The only other observation I need add is that there are persons who look with the greatest apprehension on what they call officialism. I do not want to see officialism obtruded into private affairs more than is necessary, but I must say I
  1010
  think that nothing is more desirable than that some official should be responsible for carrying through affairs of this kind. I beg, therefore, to move the Second Reading.
  Moved, "That the Bill be read 2a." (The Lord Chancellor.)
  THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, I need hardly say that I heartily support the Bill, the Second Reading of which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has just moved, because for many years past I have been in favour of passing such a measure. As the Lord Chancellor has pointed out, very great difficulty is experienced in getting trustees. From my judicial experience I can say that if everybody knew the responsibility they undertook in becoming trustees there would be fewer trustees than there are. There can be no doubt that the public conscience has been shocked very much during recent years—I do not say whether the trustees belonged to one profession more than another, though a good many of them were solicitors—by the number of frauds committed by persons who have had trust funds to administer, and who have applied the money to their own use. Case after case of that sort has occurred within the last three or four years, and there is great need of a public trustee being appointed. I therefore heartily support the Second Reading of this Bill.
  LORD FABER: My Lords, though it is not my intention to oppose this Bill, I should not like to be taken as one who admits that the Bill is a necessity. The Bill is, in my opinion, a very much better measure than the one of last session which was not successful in getting through the House of Commons. I am afraid that a Bill of this kind will lead to concentration of business in London. The official trustee, I suppose, will reside in London, and it will be only natural, in those circumstances, that the business over which he has superintendence will be conducted in London. The country at present is suffering from the concentration of men and money, if I may put it in that way, in London. Again, as the noble and learned Lord has said, this Bill will create a new department with all its officialism and all its expense. In our very laudable desire to guard against

  1011
  fraud we shall be drifting, I fear, into officialism. Again, we shall want business men as officials if we can obtain them, and if we do not we shall find that occasional dishonesty is less costly than constant incapacity. We can insure against dishonesty, but we cannot insure against the incapacity of officials, and I confess I think it will be difficult to get capable officials. The Bill will require careful scrutiny in Committee. It was only placed in our hands yesterday. We have not had much opportunity of looking into its clauses, and I shall be glad, therefore, if the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will assure us that the Committee stage will not be taken before Easter.
  LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, I should like to say one or two words in support of what has fallen from the noble Lord who has just sat down. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack informed the House that there was unanimity in favour of this Bill among the Leaders on both sides. Although there may be a consensus of opinion in favour of this Bill among political leaders, I can assure your Lordships that there is by no means unanimity in the commercial community. I acknowledge that when Sir Howard Vincent first took up this question there was a strong case for an official trustee, but since then some of our most important banks and insurance companies have undertaken to act as trustees, and there is not now the same need for a Bill of this kind. I am not speaking from any interested point of view, because the firm with which I am connected have not taken up this business. This is, of course, part of that general system of transferring to Governments and to municipalities a great deal of business which has hitherto been carried on with great advantage to the community by private persons and by joint stock companies. The Bill has only just been distributed. Those who are interested in the matter have had no time to consider it, and I sincerely trust that His Majesty's Government will accede to the very reasonable request which has been made by my noble friend Lord Faber, and allow a reasonable time to lapse before taking the Committee stage, so that those who are engaged in this business may have an opportunity of considering
  1012
  the clauses of the Bill and the changes in the law which are proposed.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, with regard to the request which has been made to me I can at once comply with it. I would remind the noble Lord Lord Faber that in the House of Commons last year the Bill which he thinks was worse than this Bill was so altered that it satisfied him, and he expressed his satisfaction with it in the other House. I hope we shall be able to satisfy him equally in regard to this Bill when we go into Committee.
  On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

  AMERICAN INSURANCE COMPANIES.
  THE EARL OF ONSLOWrose to call attention to the recent disclosures as to the management of certain insurance companies in the United States having branch offices in this country, and to the laws of other countries and colonies affecting foreign insurance companies carrying on business there; and to ask His Majesty's Government whether they will take any steps to require that foreign companies carrying on business in England shall keep in this country such proportion of their assets as may suffice to meet claims that may be made on them by English policy holders.
  The noble Earl said: My Lords, I will endeavour to detain your Lordships for as short a time as I can consistently with putting before you the reasons why I think His Majesty's Government ought to take some steps to protect those who are insured in American insurance offices doing business in this country. Let me say, at the outset, that I am by no means desirous of pitting the methods of English companies against those of American companies. I remember too well that we have had cases in this country where great trusts have been administered with effects disastrous to those who entrusted their money to them, and I am not going to say, because I see a mote in the eye of brother Jonathan, that there is no beam in the eye of John Bull. Nor am I going to suggest for a moment that any of the companies carrying on business in this country are anything but absolutely solvent. I should

  1013
  greatly deprecate it if the result of any discussion here were to cause those who hold policies in American companies to throw them up in panic for fear they might not get full value for their money. Indeed, in the case of the worst company into whose affairs inquiry has been made, where the assets have been, to use an American phrase, "scaled down" to the very lowest, it has been shown that, in addition to the face value of the policies, there is a reserve of £12,500,000 sterling for unassigned surplus funds; that is to say, for deferred bonuses.
  The system of deferred bonuses enables the accumulation of vast surpluses, and leads the officials of these offices into laxity of administration. Under the laws of the State of New York, and they are pretty much the same in all the States in America, there is practically no restriction on the class of security in which the managers may invest; it has thus been the custom to invest in subsidiary business corporations, necessitating sometimes advances of large sums of capital for the benefit of the shareholders in those corporations, while those shareholders have in many cases been the managers of the insurance companies themselves.
  The three great companies carrying on business in this country are the New York Life, the Mutual, and the Equitable. I shall have to state to your Lordships some figures the size of which will be somewhat startling, but I want to give an idea of the enormous amount of money which is controlled by these institutions. These three companies have absolute possession of money or property to the extent of £200,000,000 sterling, and a ready cash surplus of almost £40,000,000 sterling. This is greater than the combined capital of the four greatest institutions in Europe, the Bank of England and the Banks of Russia, France, and Germany. On the last day of 1903 they had £227,000,000 of assets, but their business was increasing so rapidly that it was estimated that if it went on at only 50 per cent. of its then rate of increase, they would have in twenty-five years no less than £800,000,000 sterling to deal with. That enormous sum of money is practically at the disposal of four persons; it is or was at the disposal of the Presidents of the Mutual and the New York Life, and the
  1014
  President and Vice-President of the Equitable. By an ingenious system of exchange proxies these gentlemen control the Mutual and the New York Life, while the Vice-President of the Equitable Society, holding 502 out of the 1,000 shares into which the capital of the company was divided, had the control of that company. The Vice-President gave a great ball, at which it was said that not all the dancing took place upon the floor, but some of it on the table, and that the proceedings were of doubtful morality—at any rate of doubtful taste; and the result was that the President and Vice-President began calling each other names, and, as usually happens when people of that kind fall out, honest men began to come by their own.
  Two inquiries were held into the condition of the affairs of the Equitable Society, and the report was that the Vice-President had made large profits out of the Equitable funds; that he had erected buildings and leased them to companies in which he was interested at rents which turned out to be a loss to the Equitable; that he forced himself on the board of other companies; that he took a salary of £20,000 a year; and that he had been accustomed to buying a large amount of securities and involving the society in other important venture without authority. In the case of the Mutual it was found that the President had voted himself a salary of £30,000 a year; that he had given £18,000 to what in this country I suppose we should call the Carlton Fund, and had given £40,000 to "oppose hostile legislation." That was the condition of affairs. What is the position now? As regards the Equitable it simply is that that gentleman has disposed of his 502 shares to another gentleman, a Mr. Ryan, who already has a large interest in the Mutual and controls another insurance office called the Washington, which does not do business here, for a sum of half-a-million sterling, and all that he has got for his £500,000 is 502 shares of £20 each, which cannot carry more than 7 per cent. interest. I leave your Lordships to judge whether so large a sum of money as that has been paid merely for the pleasure of owning 7 per cent. stock. I think it is quite clear that the position is no better now than it was before these disclosures were made.

  1015
  I throw no doubt on the solvency of the companies, yet when it is made manifest that these irresponsible persons are able to dispose in the way they have done of the assets of the companies, we have no security in this country that they may not do the same thing on a much larger scale, and that the English policy holders may not wake up some morning to find that the whole of their assets have been dissipated. Since these charges have been made there have been several resignations in one of these offices in New York, and it was announced this morning that the manager of the Mutual, in this country, who for nineteen years, at great sacrifice and at great pains, has built up the business of that society, is so dissatisfied with the administration of affairs in New York that he has resigned his post. People in the prime of life do not throw up offices of that kind, carrying with it the salary of a Secretary of State, unless they are profoundly dissatisfied with what has taken place. I know there have been some attempts on the part on these companies to meet the object I have in view. I believe one of them, the New York Life, and also, I think, the Equitable, deposited a sum of money in the hands of trustees in this country, but, if I am correctly informed, it is only £100,000. What is £100,000 in comparison with the £15,000,000 which one company—the Mutual—alone is liable for to policy holders in this country?
  I will not go through the laws of other countries on this subject. Suffice it to say that in almost every country—in France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and also in Canada, there are most stringent laws, everyone of them providing that there shall be deposited in the country where the business is carried on a sum of money or securities, in some cases equal to the whole of the premiums which have been paid, in other cases to a certain proportion of those premiums, while in some cases there is a State control and State supervision over every action of the companies. In this country, however, we have scarcely any control whatever. Your Lordships are, perhaps, aware that under the Act of 1870, every company has to deposit a sum of £20,000, but as soon as it can show that it has assets of £10,000 or upwards, that deposit is immediately allowed to be
  1016
  withdrawn. Every company has to make an actuarial valuation of its liabilities and assets. That is done by the actuary to the company, and the assets are simply taken for what they may be worth; there is no possible way of making an accurate valuation of them. I submit to your Lordships that that is no security whatever for the cash being forthcoming whenever it may be called for by those who hold policies in the companies.
  I am not concerned with anything that may happen to policy holders on the other side of the Atlantic; I am concerned with policy holders in this country only. One of these companies—the Mutual—has 26,000 policies, of which 20,000 are for £1,000 or under. The three companies, therefore, may reasonably be estimated to have out something like 40,000 policies, and if we put that at two persons interested in every £1,000 it gives us 80,000 policies. We may, I think, safely say that there at least three people—wives and children—besides the insured, who are interested in each of these, and, therefore, you get 240,000 English people—nearly a quarter of a million—who are interested in the affairs of American insurance companies carrying on business in England.
  A great deal has been said of the encouragement of thrift, and of the duty of the State to provide old-age pensions; but, in the case of Insurance it is the outcome of the thrift of the country. It is the provision of old-age pensions and provision for widows and orphans, and I say we cannot in this country allow the slightest risk to those who have invested their savings in this form of insurance. I earnestly hope, now that these disclosures have been made, that His Majesty's Government will see their way to introduce legislation which will follow upon the lines of that adopted by nearly every other civilised country, including our own Colonies, and insist that any foreign insurance company carrying on business in this country shall deposit, either with trustees or in some other repository, approved assets which shall be sufficient to meet any liabilities that they may be called upon to meet by those British subjects who hold their policies.
  THE MARQUESS OF GRANBY: My Lords, the whole question of insurance has become such an important one that the matter referred to by the noble Earl cannot fail to prove of great interest. I shall only touch on the aspect of the question as it affects English offices. It is possible nowadays practically to insure anything. You can insure yourself against any risk, and I believe some insurance offices would almost undertake to insure the life of anything, including a Government. At the same time there is no doubt that some offices are a little apt, in the great rush that there is to get new business and to compete with their rivals, to produce very attractive schemes which often have most undoubted risks attached to them, and it is difficult to see how far we can legislate to prevent people being attracted by those gaudy proposals.
  But I must say, speaking with all due deference to the noble Earl, that it does appear to me that there is one slight risk which might accrue if any legislation were initiated compelling foreign insurance companies to hold sufficient securities in this country to cover their liabilities to British policy holders. You might produce a certain retaliatory feeling, and it is possible that the large sums which some foreign countries compel English insurance companies doing business in those countries to have held in trusts and in securities abroad, might possibly, under such circumstances, be increased pro rata. But that is only a possibility. It does seem hard, I admit, on genera grounds, that English insurance companies should be compelled to work abroad in some cases under arbitrary conditions.
  I do not know that it really affects seriously the operations of English companies as regards their foreign fire insurances, but at the same time I would be glad if an inquiry into this matter were undertaken by His Majesty's Government, because it does open up a large matter. The question of insurance is becoming more and more important every day, and if an equitable method of dealing with the subject both as regards the business done by English companies working abroad, and by foreign companies who come over here to compete with English companies, could be arrived at, it would be a great advantage, taking into consideration the
  1018
  vast growth of the insurance business throughout the world.
  THE EARL OF GRANARD: My Lords, I think the majority of your Lordships' will agree that it is not at all unreasonable to ask a foreign insurance company trading here to give some guarantee for the protection of the policyholders in this country. In most foreign countries the same laws apply both for foreign and home companies. In France and Sweden there are separate laws for the foreigner. In the case of Germany the law is so very stringent that no foreign company whatever does any business in that country. The control that we have here is very small. Provided a company wanting to do business in this country places a sum of £20,000, with the Court of Chancery they can immediately commence business, but as soon as the policy fund reaches the sum of £40,000 they are at perfect liberty to withdraw the £20,000 originally placed in Chancery. There is one other condition we make. We insist on all companies publishing their accounts; but it is very hard to distinguish much from these, and especially with regard to foreign companies. We cannot tell how much business they actually do in this country. The Government have very carefully considered this matter, and they are of opinion that the best way to deal with it is by appointing a Select Committee. I hope to move the appointment of the Committee in a very short time, and I trust that this will meet the view of the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees.
  THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, I am very glad to hear that His Majesty's Government are going to take some action in this matter, because I think it is one of very great importance. I did not suppose that in the present state of public business it was likely that they would promise to bring in a Bill this session, and if they did, it is doubtful whether it would make any progress. Therefore, I welcome further inquiry into this subject. I think the public require a great deal more enlightenment. I am confident that the Select Committee will be efficiently manned, and I believe its Report will give satisfaction to the policy holders of whom I have been speaking.

  LAND SETTLEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA.
  LORD LOVAT: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government their intentions (1) as to their policy in regard to land settlement in the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies; and (2) as to the steps they are to take to safeguard the interests of British farmers and others who have recently taken up land under the Land Settlement Ordinance in those Colonies.
  I make no apology for bringing this matter forward at the present time, because in the popular excitement on the subject of another South African problem, namely, that of Chinese labour, the importance of the question of land settlement is apt to be lost sight of. I do not for a moment wish to argue that the number of settlers whom it would be possible to place on the land in South Africa will ever numerically compete with the number of Boers in those Colonies; but I do wish to argue—and it is an argument which has been put forward by all authorities who have studied South African affiairs, from Mr. Cecil Rhodes downwards—that the putting of men on to the land, provided they are of the right kind, as British settlers, will have a tremendous effect in minimising the cleavage of interests urban and rural which exists between the Boers and the British, and which has intensified to such a great degree racial feeling. It is an admitted fact that individual Boers and Britons settled on the land have in times past got on very well together; also the effect during the late war of the Algoa Bay Settlement is well known. But for that settlement in the south eastern portion of Cape Colony, South Africa would probably not be ours at the present day. In 1820 their number was only 5,000, but mainly from that body of settlers 24,000 men took part in the late war on the British side.
  I wish to approach this question entirely from a non-political point of view. I bring it forward because I believe that His Majesty's Government have the interests of the loyalists in South Africa at heart, and have made up their minds that, whether the war was right or wrong, what we have got in South Africa we intend to hold, and that we shall not leave that country at the dictates of the Boers or at the wish of the capitalists,
  1020
  but that, if we do leave, it will only be at the wish of the majority of the loyalists in the country.
  As to the question of land settlement, may I just briefly indicate the work that has been done, and the work that still remains to be done? As your Lordships are aware, the sum of £3,000,000 out of the £35,000,000 loan for which this country is responsible was devoted to land settlement. Of this £3,000,000 some £2,500,000 have been allocated, half to the Transvaal and half to the Orange River Colony; and £1,000,000 has been already spent in the Transvaal, and £1,250,000 in the Orange River Colony. There is left a balance of £500,000. I am well aware that many criticisms have been passed on the way in which the money has been administered. I am not going into details at the present moment, but I would like to point out that this money was administered at a time when a war which had lasted nearly three years had only just finished, and the land on which the settlers were put had been devastated, the dams broken, and the houses burnt. The administration had to be formed fresh absolutely from the start, and the work had to be carried out under every difficulty. I think it is fair to say that in the Orange River Colony it has on the whole been very well carried out. One-and-a-quarter million has been expended, of which £1,000,000 has been spent in land, and about £200,000 in permanent improvements, only the sum of from £40,000 to £60,000 having been expended in administration. The land has been well bought, and the settlers appear to be well satisfied.
  In the Transvaal undoubtedly the difficulties have been greater, and I believe that the administration was not quite so good, but still excellent results have been attained, and some 600 settlers have been put on the land. There has been much hostility on the part of the Boer newspapers to putting British settlers on the land, but the statements made in those newspapers cannot in any way be accepted. It may be said that the number of settlers placed upon the land as a result of this expenditure of £2,500,000 is not large. That the settler themselves only number 1,200 is true; but many of them have with them eight or ten or twelve Britons on their farm, and therefore the number of persons

  1021
  affected is nearer 2,000 than 1,200. Again, a large number of men have settled alongside those who have been put on the land under the Land Settlement Ordinance, and therefore it can be argued that this expenditure of £2,500,000 has really resulted in the settlement of between 2,000 and 3,000 men on the land.
  That the cost is considerable it will be at once admitted, but it must be remembered that the £1,750,000 which has been, or is being put into the purchase of land is repayable; and, secondly, that the cost of the permanent improvements, which also formed part of this investment, is repayable by the settlers. Those repayments are now being made, and I contend that this money should be reinvested in land. That the majority of the settlers are prosperous and contented, I think, will be admitted, firstly, because when revaluation of the land was proposed the other day in the Orange River Colony it was opposed by a very much larger number than were in favour of revaluation. And secondly, it is a known fact that when land becomes vacant by a settler leaving it is at once taken by new settlers. Undoubtedly some of the settlers have failed, but that is bound to be the case in settling a new country. The settlers had to start afresh, and in addition they suffered from three years of drought.
  Now, my Lords, the question is, are the Government going to abandon the work done, and are they going to desert those settlers who at present are endeavouring to find their feet in the colony? Among the British settlers there is an idea that they are going to be deserted. They have in their memories what took place in 1881, when the loyalists who fought on our side lost their all after Majuba through the land being given back to the Boers. There are many persons who come forward to-day and tell those settlers that what was done in 1881 may be done again at the present day. I do not wish to speak in exaggerated language and to say that the handing over of these men to a Constitutional Government is going to amount to anything like what happened in 1881. But the facts of the situation have to be faced as they exist. In the Orange River Colony it must be remembered out of thirty-six representatives in the assembly to be created six
  1022
  British representatives are the most that they can expect. I need only ask you to read the statements that are made in the Boer Press with regard to these settlers, if you wish to know the policy which will be carried out towards them should they be handed over to the control of the Boers.
  I suggest to His Majesty's Government that the administrative work should be continued, that the Land Settlement Ordinance and the board should be continued in its action for a time, at all events, and until the men who have been settled on the land have enjoyed an opportunity to overcome the troubles under which they have laboured in the past. I would further urge that the £500,000 unexpended in land settlement should also be used to carry on this work, and in the main should be used for settling men in the Orange River Colony, where experience has shown that the land is most suitable for British settlers. I also suggest that a certain portion of the £10,000,000 underwritten or guaranteed by the mining magnates should be asked for. As your Lordships are aware, grave doubts have been expressed as to whether we shall see any of that £10,000,000. I would suggest that at all events a compromise should be made with the mine owners for a portion of this sum to be invested in land settlement and permanent improvement.
  Mr. Smutz and Mr. Delaray claimed the other day that this money should be given to the Boers for re-settlement on the land; but, if you examine the facts, you will see that although only £3,000,000 has been expended in the settlement of the British on the land, £9,500,000 has been expended on the Boers and others in South Africa to put them back on the land under the terms of surrender. Would it not be fair that an arrangement should be made to continue, by the aid of a portion of this underwritten money, the policy of land settlement for Britishers? I am aware that this £10,000,000 should come to the British people as a contribution towards the cost of the war, but I think it would be an excellent investment on the part of the people of this country if they devoted it to land settlement. The policy of land settlement is a preventive against future trouble in the Orange River Colony. In

  1023
  the first place, it would secure the possibility of cutting down military expenditure there. We have at present a garrison of 20,000 men in South Africa, and there seems to be little chance of cutting that garrrison down until things are in a more settled state than they are at present. I think no man who is acquainted with South Africa will deny that settlers who have been trained in war and are properly armed will be a much more valuable fighting asset in the Colony than the ordinary soldier from the barrack yard. The cost of a soldier in South Africa is, roughly, £125 a year; the placing of Britons on the land would be much less costly.
  I have found that the feeling between Boer and Briton has been much improved wherever these land settlements exist. The affection, I might almost say, which has in many places grown up between them is most marked as a result of these land settlements. Again, on the score of numbers, out of 10,000 farms in the Orange River Colony over 2,000 are occupied by British settlers, and the addition of a few thousand settlers, which could be brought about, would make, if not absolute equality of power, at least a fair representation of the British element in the Colony. At present throughout South Africa you have the British dominant in the towns and the Boers supreme in the country. The interests of the country are often subordinated to those of the towns, and race hatred is thereby increased, because the interests between Boer and Briton are so divergent.
  The whole of South Africa to-day looks to see whether the present Government are going to declare themselves pro-Boer or pro-Briton in their sympathies. I say this in no spirit of partisanship, but in any action taken as yet by the Government there has been no indication that it is on the side of the loyalists. I would cite the action of the other House of Parliament against a great public servant who has been closely identified with South Africa and the appointment of a Commission, with two of the terms of reference hostile to British interests, as facts that will hardly appeal to those in these Colonies as being favourable to the loyalist movement. Some definite action should therefore be taken by His Majesty's Government to show, as I
  1024
  believe, that they are in favour of the loyalists in South Africa.
  THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER: My Lords, in rising to address your Lordships for the first time, I claim that indulgence which I believe is always extended to one in that position. I am anxious to say a few words on the subject of land settlement in South Africa for several reasons—first, on account of my personal and close connection with South Africa and with the Orange River Colony in particular; secondly, and chiefly, from the Imperial point of view of settling Englishmen in the country; and, thirdly, because of the bright prospects—which anyone who has had the opportunities I have had of closely observing the country cannot fail to have noticed—which exist there for agriculturists. These prospects are going to be of primary importance if given some encouragement.
  In addition to schemes of farm colonies, as indicated by Lord Lovat, I would suggest that irrigation schemes should be started to give opportunities of close settlements, or, in other words, of a large number of settlers settling on small plots with common pasturage, which has been tried with success in many parts of the Orange River Colony. I mention irrigation, because one of the chief difficulties the settler has to contend with is the three months dry season during the winter. Irrigation, the building of dams, and the sinking of wells would to a great measure tend to relieve settlers of these difficulties. As regards well-sinking, springs have been found in apparently impossible places. I know of several places where water has been procured at a depth of twenty-five feet, and the amount of water procured has usually been from 40,000 to 50,000 gallons per diem.
  Owing to the railway extensions made by the present administration in the Orange River Colony, the value of land in many districts has much appreciated. I trust, therefore, that His Majesty's Government will continue and extend this policy, as it tends above all things to open up markets in the rural districts. From what I have seen recently of the Dutch and English around my farms in the Orange River Colony, where I have settled over twenty families, the relations between the two races appear to be

  1025
  excellent. I have had many opportunities of witnessing it; for instance, the friendly way in which Dutchmen will give hints to and help the English settler who has just gone out there, and who naturally at that period wants some advice. I may here point out the advantages that the English settler will have over the late Dutch settlers. Dutchmen before the war were merely content with scratching the surface of the land, and, therefore, raising a bare livelihood. The Englishman, with his knowledge of agriculture, his modern implements, and his desire for work, could, without much difficulty, once he is settled there, treble the amount produced by the Dutchman. Taking these facts into account these settlers are, I think, worthy of help.
  I would urge upon your Lordships to commence first with the present settlers who have overcome so many difficulties caused by the inconvenience of farming after the country had been denuded by the war, and I suggest that they should not be deserted and left to the tender mercies of a Boer Government. I further suggest, my Lords, that the Board and its present efficient administration should be continued in its excellent work. There are many loyal Englishmen in South Africa who are ready to carry out the wishes of the mother country as long as those wishes are adequate to keep her first in the field of colonising nations. The country in question is one that has been gained by the blood of our kith and kin. Therefore, let us combine to make the South African question a national one. I do hope that the question of land settlement will not be given over to the possible Government of the Orange River Colony, but will be kept for some time in the hands of the Colonial Office.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Earl of ELGIN): My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships have listened with great interest to the speeches which have just been delivered by the two noble Lords. They have both had the courage of their convictions, and have taken a great practical interest in this work in the South African Colonies; and I might be allowed also to express what I am satisfied is the gratification of your Lordships at the appearance once more k our debates of the name of the noble Duke who spoke last. I am in rather an
  1026
  unusual position this evening. It is generally the case that a Minister is called upon, often at very short notice, to give an amount of information on very complicated matters; but in this case I come rather to hear from the noble Lords an account of the work which they have taken part in and which they have done so well.
  The noble Lord who spoke first disclaimed any intention of speaking on Party grounds. That is the way in which I think this question should be looked at. I rather regret that in one part of his speech he used expressions which scarcely carried out the spirit in which he began. I must decline, with all respect to him, to follow him into the problem of deciding whether the Government are or are not a loyalist institution. I prefer myself in this connection simply to refer to the remark of the noble Duke, when he spoke of the good and friendly relations he had found between the two races in South Africa on the farms with which he was connected. I think that is a good augury for the future.
  Noble Lords will agree that in this matter of land settlement very much depends on the quality of the settlers themselves. If we have men who by birth, education, or sentiment have an interest in and a capacity for farming, I imagine that in South Africa, as in this country, we are likely to have a successful issue. But even then you require favourable surroundings. I suppose it is necessary for the success of the settlers the noble Lord has in view to have a well-watered farm, of moderate size, and I understand from papers which have I seen that the association with which the noble Lord is connected is able to give further advantages to the settlers he takes out in the way of a certain training before they take up business on their own account. That is of very great advantage to the settlers, and one which we might suppose would lead to good results.
  But I think the noble Lord will also agree that all the settlers have not been of the class to which I have referred. I rather gather from the papers that at the beginning of this enterprise the Government found themselves with a considerable number of applicants who had served during the war, and, therefore, naturally came up for consideration,

  1027
  and who yet were not men of the class of whom I have spoken, connected in their former history with the tillage of the land, and in some of these cases there has not always been a success. I understand the noble Lord advocated a scheme for the future in which we should again look to the Army for settlers. I can only say that unless these men coming from the Army really have capacity for agriculture I am rather inclined to think they will hamper the success of your operations.
  LORD LOVAT: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Earl, but I did not at all advocate that men should be taken from the Army. What I wished to bring out was the fact that something like 75 per cent. of the men now settled on the land actually fought during the war. I have no statistics to prove this, but the people mostly interested and therefore most likely to know have given me this information. I am also aware that there are a very large number of people with war service ready to take up land who have had experience of farming.
  THE EARL OF ELGIN: I am glad to hear that so many of the settlers capable of doing the land justice are soldiers who served in the war. The difficulties of the land settlement as a whole are not inconsiderable. It appears that although the Government were nominally in the possession of as many as 20,000,000 acres, the greater part of the land lay on the eastern and northern boundaries of the Colonies, remote both from markets and railways. There is also a distinction between wet and dry land, and, though much can be done, as the noble Duke pointed out, by irritation, it involves a large amount of expenditure. The consequence has been that large purchases of land suitable for settlement had to be made. Land has been purchased in the Orange River Colony to the value of £850,000 and in the Transvaal to the value of £500,000. All that has affected considerably the prospects that were entertained when the scheme of land settlement was first propounded.
  The noble Viscount on the cross benches, Lord Milner, in his despatch of 1902, made the proposal that £3,000,000 should be taken from the guaranteed loan and devoted to this purpose, and he estimated that for that amount of money
  1028
  3,000 settlers were to be put on the land, which meant an expenditure by the State of £1,000 per settler. The amount actually allocated was not so much. In the Transvaal the amount was £1,200,000 and in the Orange River Colony the amount was £1,100,000. But I find that of these sums no less than £1,350,000 has been spent in the purchase of land. In the Orange River Colony to June 30th last year 1,108,521 acres had been purchased for an outlay of £845,000. Practically every acre of that land available for allotments to settlers has been taken up and remains occupied, and there are a large number of other persons desirous of becoming settlers who cannot be accommodated, as there are no funds available for further purchases.
  The actual settlers number 700 heads of families, of which 598 are British and 102 Dutch. These figures do not include a certain number of oversea and other men of British birth who are settled on the land without proprietary rights. I cannot say that the results have been quite comparable with the anticipations with which the scheme was started. The expenses have been greater. Besides the purchase money, the direct monetary loss to the Government must be calculated on the basis of 50 per cent. of the purchase price of the land, this being the amount spent on free improvements.
  LORD LOVAT: May I ask whether that 50 per cent. does not refer to the Imperial South African Association Settlement? It does not refer to the whole bulk of the settlers, but to the South African Association settlers, who are only a very small percentage of the whole.
  THE EARL OF ELGIN: Possibly that is so. But the settlers are fewer in number than was anticipated, while the expenses have been greater. The noble Lord asked me to consider how the repayments from the settlers were to be dealt with, and whether there could not be some scheme for continuing the fund by means of these repayments. I am not prepared at this moment to give a definite answer to that question. There are various difficulties in connection with the interpretation of the Ordinance and other matters. Besides, I venture to

  1029
  think that the subject cannot be fairly dealt with in anticipation of the future Government of the colony.
  I hope the noble Lords will not think I have taken up a wholly unsympathetic attitude in regard to this matter. I think that land settlements, when they are successfully carried out, are of great advantage. I think so the more because I find that the Government in South Africa is not confining its attention altogether to the promotion of land settlement, but has set up a very large Agricultural Department, which is engaged, in many different directions, in promoting the improvement of agriculture in that country. The Report of the Director of the Agricultural Department is a book of some dimensions. I have had the advantage also of an interview with the present director, Mr. Smith, and have learnt from him how much there was done and how much prospect there is of doing further good work.
  The old regime in these Colonies was full of antiquated methods, if, indeed, they could be called methods at all. Farming was chiefly pastoral, and except for some small portion of land around the homesteads, there was very little cultivation, and that was not because there was no land worthy of cultivation, as the operations of the noble Lords have shown. Besides that, there was very little attention paid by the farmers of former days even to the pastoral side of farming. They knew very little as to the best means of improving their stock. Therefore the action which the Government has taken in establishing an Agricultural Department has led, I believe, to considerable improvement. If I may just quote some of the heads which are already undertaken, the House will see that the agricultural side of the matter is not being neglected by the Government. The object of the Agricultural Department is to instruct public opinion with regard to agriculture, the conduct of experiments, experimental farming, forestry, the combating of pests and disease, the improvement of the breed of cattle and horses, and to educate the farming classes generally. One of the great difficulties we find in the Transvaal is the high cost of living; and consequently this improvement in the production of agricultural products will ultimately be of great benefit to the community.
  1030
  I am afraid I cannot give specific answers to the two Questions which the noble Lord put on the Paper. As to the position of the settlers, they have a definite legal status, and I cannot suppose that that legal status will be affected by any arrangements which may be made, or by any Government which we desire to see established in the Transvaal. But if the noble Lord asks me to go further than that and tell him whether under the new Constitution there could be reservations on behalf of the settlers under the land settlement scheme, I can only say that a question of that kind is premature until we have obtained the information we desire in order to frame the Constitution itself. The noble Lord also makes a suggestion in regard to the possibility of obtaining assistance for the scheme of land settlement from the loan, which has been variously named, but the proper name of which I think is the war contribution. It was intended to be a contribution towards war expenses incurred by this country. I do not know whether the particular method which the noble Lord suggests would exactly meet that end; but I do not say that it would not be a very excellent opportunity for those who have been able to make fortunes out of South Africa to show that they have an interest in the future of that country.
  VISCOUNT MILNER: My Lords, in venturing to address the House after the sympathetic speech of the noble Earl, I do most earnestly beg that I may not be regarded as desiring to cause any trouble to the Government or to impart any bitterness or any unnecessary alarm into the discussion of the South African situation. I should like most sincerely to thank the noble Earl for the tribute which he has paid to the Agricultural Department of the Transvaal. To those of my countrymen who have worked desperately hard during the last few years to introduce better methods of farming into the Transvaal, and that mainly in the interest of the Dutch who form the majority of the population, it has been a subject of legitimate distress that in all the discussions that have taken place about South Africa their useful efforts have been very largely ignored. In fact, I do not remember any reference to the subject in any discussion that has taken place in this country, until the sympathetic

  1031
  words that have just fallen from the noble Earl.
  I hold in my hand the Agricultural Journal of the Transvaal, which gives some account of the vast amount of work—both official and unofficial—which is being done. I have sometimes asked gentlemen more acquainted with agriculture than I am myself to give me their opinion of that publication and the work to which it refers. I am glad to say that I have been told by high authorities that it is as good as, if not better than, any work of the kind produced in any of our Colonies, although this is a Colony which has been only three or four years in the British Empire. In all the discussions that have taken place on this subject in this country, I do not think the vast amount of earnest effort which has been directed to this particular matter of improving this industry, which is the life of the majority of the dwellers on the land—this industry by which the Colonies will have mainly to live after the mines have been exhausted—has been at all sufficiently appreciated.
  The noble Earl was sympathetic with regard to the work done for the promotion of agriculture generally, but he was barely sympathetic with regard to the question of land settlement. He will forgive me for saying that in the statistics he gave to the House, he, I am sure accidentally, did not give land settlement quite as fair treatment as it deserved. I think he said there was a loss of something like 50 per cent. He will be glad I am sure if I am able to point out that the real loss on an expenditure of something like £2,200,000 which took place up to June 30th last, was only £200,000, and that only in one colony, the Transvaal. In the Orange River there has been an expenditure of £1,200,000, and there is good reason for supposing that every penny of that will come back. Speaking in round figures, I find that in addition to the £850,000, which has been invested in the purchase of land at a rate so reasonable that the settlers on it have lately decided not to apply for a revaluation, there has been something like £150,000 invested in live-stock and improvements to the land, including expenditure on water boring, which has had successful results, and which is added to what the settlers have to repay, something like £100,000 has been given in cash advances
  1032
  to settlers, while the rest is largely accounted for by other improvements, such as the commencement of certain expenditure on irrigation.
  I say that in the Orange River Colony the whole of the £1,200,000 expended is likely to come back. In the Transvaal I read in the latest Report of the Commissioner of Lands that he estimates there is value to the extent of £600,000 in land purchased, £200,000 in capital advanced to the settlers, and other assets, and that the loss in the Transvaal on this experiment amounts to only £200,000. That, too, was a loss incurred almost entirely in respect of a class known as squatter settlers—exirregulars, whom pressure of public opinion both here and in the colony compelled us to settle on the land immediately after the war, although the conditions were not favourable to such settlement, and although these men were not the sort of settlers we should have selected if we had had a free hand, and not the sort who are being selected under the careful methods of to-day.
  THE EARL OF ELGIN: I was wrong in regard to the 50 per cent. loss. I see that the noble Lord is correct in his version.
  VISCOUNT MILNER: I am glad the noble Earl recognises that. I felt sure it was merely an accidental mistake on his part. I would close this part of the discussion by simply saying that, as one of the first and one of the most ardent believers in the policy of land settlement, I thank the noble Earl for his sympathetic attitude. Now, I am sorry if I have to introduce into this discussion what may be regarded as a discordant note, and expose myself once more to the charge of speaking not merely in a Cassandra like spirit, but in a somewhat bitter spirit. There is nothing I am more anxious to do than to avoid this. I recognise the good will of the noble Earl, and I do not want to create difficulties for him in the great and arduous task which he has before him. But if I am to help him I must tell the House quite frankly what I know. And what I know is this—that the policy of land settlement, the position of the settlers at present on the land, and the future of the experiment is in great and imminent danger, and that if special provisions are

  1033
  not made in the constitutional arrangements which are before us, not only will this great and beneficial work of land settlement be absolutely stopped, but the majority of those men at present on the land, I am speaking of the Orange River Colony, will be squeezed out. I wish to support that statement by one or two authorities. The noble Earl says these men have got their legal rights, and it is not to be supposed that, whatever constitutional arrangements are made, they will be in any danger. It is true they have their legal rights; but it is also true that, if these new settlers, who have to contend with all the difficulties he has pointed out, have not in the first years of their struggle a sympathetic and helpful administration that will give them time and not press for instalments in years when they have met with serious and exceptional misfortunes, their position is an absolutely unsafe one.
  Now, what is the feeling of the settlers themselves about this matter? Not so very long before I left South Africa the Administration, which, of course, at that time was thoroughly sympathetic to the settlers, was making certain advances to the settlers in the Orange River Colony for the purpose of purchasing sheep, which they were to repay in five years, an experiment which I am glad to say has proved so far a very successful one. The deputation of settlers which interviewed the Government on the subject was headed by one of the most energetic and capable of the settlers, chosen by themselves, and in the course of the discussion he made the following remarks, which I am quoting from the official shorthand note which was taken at the time. He said—
  "There is one other matter which appears to the settlers as one of the gravest importance to their interests. Suppose Government makes this grant and another Government comes into power at home and the Orange River Colony is given responsible government, what will be the position of the settlers? The land settlement scheme will meet with very great opposition. The settlers would like to see this Government place land settlement on a sound basis, so that it will be beyond the power of any representative Government to oust them from their holdings. They are all of opinion that if self government is granted to the Orange River Colony in the near future it will be a lamentable mistake. If I can go back to the settlers and tell them that there is going to be no change, that any change of Government cannot affect their interests in any way, if I can say that they must just go
  1034
  on as best they can, being assured of the sympathy of the Government and that grace will be given to them until good times come, then I know that the men will be satisfied to go on and do their level best. But these men are sensible enough to know that they will receive not the slightest consideration when responsible government comes."
  That was the feeling of a representative man among the settlers little more than a year ago. What is their feeling to-day? I have here a letter—one of the many painful and distressing letters which reached me by my last South African mail—in which the writer says—
  "After all, England has sacrificed and suffered for the Orange River Colony. It is, indeed, hard if the Dutch are to be put in power; for, however much Ministers in England may hope and expect, it will bring about bitter feeling between the two nations. It will mean that the English will have to trek. It spells ruin to the very people who in time would be the greatest factor in making the colony both loyal and prosperous. Would there be any use in the English people appealing to the King? If there was any idea of treating the Boers in the way it is contemplated to treat the British, most of whom fought for their country, the whole world would be flooded with their abuse and recriminations. It is already suggested that the new constitution must safeguard the black population; but hundreds, nay thousands, of English men, women and children may be complacently abandoned to starvation. Hope to the contrary will be as much use as if a man pushed another who could not swim, into deep water and calmly trusted he would not drown."
  I make every allowance for the state of alarm in which these people are, and I make every allowance for a certain amount of exaggeration; but another letter which reached me by the same mail, and which comes also from the Orange River Colony and from a Government official familiar with the conditions of many of the settlers, says—
  "The prospect before the settlers is dark. If the Government were to foreclose the great majority of them could not weather the storm."
  I press this upon the Government now that there is time, in order that they may avoid steps which would lead to disaster. The position is this. I entirely agree with the noble Duke that there is a good feeling between the individual Dutch farmer and the English farmer settled side by side with him upon the land. There is very often good feeling; there is a growing tendency towards good feeling. That is the reason why some of us are so intensely keen to see the settlement of British people on the land. We know that they will never be more than a small

  1035
  proportion, that the majority must be Dutch; but we feel that the introduction of a British element to the land brings British people into closer relations and closer touch with the Dutch people than is possible in the towns, and forms a valuable link between the two. Not only do they come to regard the Dutch with greater sympathy, but they create in the Dutch greater sympathy with Englishmen than they would otherwise feel.
  Even to-day, when the difficulties are great and when memories of the war have not yet died out, and when for many reasons the experiment is being tried under unfavourable conditions, there is a growing good feeling between the British settlers and their Dutch neighbours. But I say with deep regret, yet again with absolute conviction, that that good fooling between individuals, on which we are justified in resting so much hope, is not going to save the British settlers from hostile executive action in a country in which they may have few representatives or no representatives in the Legislature. It will not save them, because the policy of the dominant party, or rather the policy of the men whom for the next ten or twenty years the Dutch Afrikanders will follow and return to power and support in power, is a policy directly hostile to the settlers and is so openly declared.
  The language used by the leading Dutch newspapers is language of bitter hostility to the plan of land settlement, which they wrongly regard as an attempt to swamp the Dutch, whereas it is an attempt to introduce a new and valuable element on the land which shall form a link with the Dutch. It is an absolute certainty that these settlers have got to face in the Orange River Colony—I am not speaking of the Transvaal, where their position is a safer one—hostile executive action in future. Therefore, although I could not expect the noble Earl to say more than he has said to-night on the subject, I would most earnestly submit the consideration of this question to him and to the Government in order that they may make some provision to protect these men, liable as they are to be ousted by a hostile executive. I beg them to take that to heart.
  And let me assure them that there is no single act which could be done by this Government, especially if they are going to give complete responsible government at once to the Orange Biver Colony—
  1036
  there is no single act which would be more calculated to reassure the British minority, who may possibly not have a single representative in the new Legislature, than if the Government took steps for the protection of this population on the land. Surely it is not a difficult thing to do. What is to prevent the Government, while giving if they please—and the Government know that I think it a rash proceeding—full and responsible government to the Orange River Colony, from maintaining the Land Settlement Board for a certain number of years as a branch of the British administration and under the Colonial Office? What objection is there to their cutting out, as it were, this little corner of the administration and keeping it under their own control, and so ensuring that these settlers shall continue to receive that sympathetic and considerate treatment without which it is certain that many of them will go to the wall?
  Nothing can possibly be calculated to start responsible government under more favourable circumstances than any act on the part of the Government at home which would show its recognition of the difficulties of these people and its desire to protect them. Even if their fears were groundless—and I am convinced that they are not—the fact of the Government here extending its protecting hand to them at a time like the present would be one not only reassuring to them but most reassuring to the whole British minority in the colony. That minority is at the present moment in a state of the greatest anxiety and alarm. There can be no doubt of it whatever; and, if that anxiety and alarm continue, they will prove of the greatest difficulty to the Government in any scheme it may submit to Parliament. Proper consideration of this land settlement and proper protection of the settlers on the land would be more than anything else conducive to the good reception of fresh constitutional arrangements in the Orange River Colony. I hope I may be acquitted, for once, of having imported anything like bitterness into the discussion in trying to impress on the Government the great seriousness of the question and the magnitude of the issue involved.
  House adjourned at twenty-minutes before Eight o'clock, to Thursday next, half-past Ten o'clock.