Lords Sitting of 1 April 1908

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Honourable Artillery Company.—Petition of the Honourable Artillery Company, under their Common Seal, praying for leave to bring in a Bill to appoint special trustees in regard to certain land and premises of the Honourable Artillery Company, and for other purposes, together with a copy of the proposed Bill annexed thereto; read, and referred to the Examiners.
Cardiff Railway Bill [H.L.]; Argentine North Eastern Railway Bill [H.L.]; St. Marylebone Borough Council (Super-annuation) Bill [H.L.].—Reported, with Amendments.
Conway and Colwyn Bay Joint Water Board Bill.—Read 2a, and committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Derby Gas Bill.—Read 2a, and committed.
Stockport Corporation Bill.—Read 2a, and committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Pontypridd Water Bill [H.L.].—Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Aire and Calder Navigation Bill [H.L.]; Great Northern, Piccadilly, and Brompton Railway Bill [H.L.]; Metropolitan District Railway Bill [H.L.]; Rochester Bridge Bill [H.L.]; Stratford-upon-Avon, Towcester, and Midland Junction Railway, Evesham, Redditch, and Stratford-upon-Avon Junction Railway, and East and West Junction Railway (Amalgamation) Bill [H.L.]; Barry Railway Bill [H.L.]; Monmouthshire County Council Bill [H.L.]; Stockport Corporation Bill.—Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select
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Committee for the consideration of the said Bills; (viz.):—

M. Anglesey,

E. Hardwicke,

L. Dunboyne,

L. Seaton,

L. Newton (Chairman);

agreed to; and the said Lords appointed accordingly: The Committee to meet on Tuesday, 12th May next, at Eleven o'clock; and all petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the petitioners praying to be heard by counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also counsel for the Bills.
Bristol Corporation Bill [H.L.]; Bristol Tramways Bill [H.L.]; Keighley Corporation Bill [H.L.]; Wath-upon-Dearne Urban District Council Gas Bill [H.L.]; Ravensthorpe Urban District Council Bill [H.L.]; Rhymney and Aber Valleys Gas and Water Bill [H.L.]; Leith Burgh Bill [H.L.]; Ammanford Urban District Council Water Bill [H.L.]; Llanelly and Burry Port Water Board Bill [H.L.]; Conway and Colwyn Bay Joint Water Board Bill—Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lords be proposed to the House to form the Select Committee for the consideration of the said Bills, viz.:—

E. Carnwath,

E. Verulam,

E. Liverpool,

V. Hill,

L. Ludlow (Chairman);

agreed to; and the said Lords appointed accordingly. The Committee to meet on Tuesday, the 12th of May next, at Eleven o'clock; and all petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the petitioners praying to be heard by counsel against the Bills to be heard as desired, as also counsel for the Bills.

RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

  TRADE REPORTS: ANNUAL SERIES.
  No. 3965. Venezuela (Ciudad Bolivar).
  No. 3966. Russia.

  POLICE (SCOTLAND).
  Fiftieth Annual Report of His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland, for the year ended 31st December, 1907.

  CROFTERS HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND) ACTS, 1886–1887.
  Report by the Crofters Commission, for the year ended 31st December, 1907.
  Presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  JOURNAL COMMITTEE.
  Report from, that the One hundred and thirty-ninth Volume of the Journals (7th and 8th Edward VII., 1907–1908), with an Index, was ready for delivery; read, and ordered to lie on the Table; and the said Volume ordered to be delivered in the same manner as the preceding Volumes of the Journal have been delivered.
NEW BILL.
  COMPANIES CONSOLIDATION BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to consolidate the Companies Act, 1862, and the Acts amending it—Was presented by the Lord Granard (E. Granard); read 1a, and to be printed. (No. 44.)
MOVABLE DWELLINGS BILL [H.L.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, this Bill deals with a subject to deal with which several attempts have been made. The leading principles of the Bill are few, and, at first sight, I think, almost incontrovertible. The first of those principles is that it is inequitable that movable dwellings should be entirely outside the sanitary, social, and educational laws which govern stationary buildings; and the second is that, as far as possible, each movable dwelling should have some one authority which should be responsible for its compliance with the regulations. The Bill has been carefully restricted to dwellings which are in their nature
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  movable, or which are, in point of fact, generally in the habit of being moved about. A building which, for any lengthened time, is in one particular spot might very safely be left to be dealt with by the sanitary and educational machinery which at present exists.
  I will touch briefly on the history of this legislation. In 1877 an Act was passed for regulating boats that ply up and down the canals, and it is upon that measure that the present Bill is modelled. In 1885 there was a Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes, and that Commission dealt with the subject as it is dealt with in this Bill. The Commission recommended that—
  "The local authorities should be given jurisdiction over dwellings of this class by means of the extension of their power by statute to all habitations, and the powers given in Section 23 of the Public Health Act (drainage) should be extended to any hut or tent and to any cart used for sleeping which remains for more than two nights within 200 yards of the same spot. The recommendations of your Majesty's Commissioners are made for the benefit of the neighbourhood in which van towns are situated as well as in the interests of the settlers themselves."
  An Act for the Housing of the Working Classes was passed in 1885, and, among other provisions, there is one very excellent provision from the sanitary point of view from which great good was expected, but which we have every reason to suppose has, in a great many instances, been singularly inoperative, for reasons which I will shortly point out Section 9 of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1885, provides that—
  "9. (1) A tent, van, shed, or similar structure used for human habitation, which is in such a state as to be a nuisance or injurious to health; (a) or which is so overcrowded as to be injurious to the health of the inmates whether or not members of the same family, shall be deemed to be a nuisance within the meaning of Section ninety-one of the Public Health Act, 1875; and the provisions of that Act shall apply accordingly; (b) (2) A sanitary authority may make bye-laws (c) for promoting cleanliness in, and the habitable condition of, tents, vans, sheds, and similar structures used for human habitation, and for preventing the spread of infectious disease by the persons inhabiting the same and generally for the prevention of nuisances in connection with the same (d)."
  The difficulty that arises is this, that when these wanderers infringe the bye-laws of a local authority and their attention is

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  called to the fact, they adopt the simple expedient of moving into the area of another local authority where they wait until again detected in their malpractices. It would, therefore, seem to be necessary that there should be some one authority to which these dwellings should belong, an authority which could make regulations for them and enforce those regulations, by taking away, if necessary, the certificate in right of which they move about the country.
  A Committee of the House of Commons sat upon a Bill introduced in another place in 1887, and Sir Hugh Owen, who was appearing for the Local Government Board, said—
  "I think it is very likely that before the summons was served the van would be outside the jurisdiction of the justices."
  That is practically what, in practice, is found generally to happen. Another difficulty which has arisen is that it is impossible to expect a van dweller to be acquainted with the multiplicity of bye-laws. Giving evidence before the same Committee, Sir Hugh Owen said—
  "It would be unbearable that a man who can pass within ten minutes out of one district into another should be subject to varying provisions of bye-laws."
  The Bill of 1887 was not proceeded with. With regard to bye-laws, the Local Government Board have rightly objected to sanction varying bye-laws for various districts. Sir Hugh Owen told the Committee in 1887 that up to that time the only bye-laws to which the Local Government Board had given their assent were those of Battersea, and I do not think many have been sanctioned since. Middlesex, however, a couple of years ago obtained a provision in a private Act which enabled them to deal with movable dwellings. The effect of that Clause is that where a movable dwelling is occupying land within fifty yards of a public highway or dwelling, so as to cause injury to the residents or to be a nuisance, or dangerous, or injurious to health, the local authority may complain, and the council may make an Order; but an exception was made in favour of vans frequenting fairs.
  I now come to the Bill before your Lordships. Clause 1 has for its object, first, the registration of all movable
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  dwellings, and this registration is committed to counties and county boroughs. The object of restricting the registration authorities to these two bodies is that they are, as a rule, the educational authorities of the district. They are not too numerous, and therefore, we avoid the difficulty which I mentioned a moment ago of a great multiplicity of regulations. They also cover fairly large areas. Clause 2 provides for the making of regulations for the registration Of movable dwellings, for the lettering, marking, and numbering of such dwellings, and for registering the number, age, and sex of the persons who may be allowed to use a movable dwelling as a place of abode, having regard to cubic space, ventilation, provision for the separation of the sexes, and general healthiness and convenience of accommodation. I might remark here that I admit there is no necessity for those regulations being so stringent in their nature as in the case of permanent dwellings in towns for instance, regulations with regard to cubic space which are eminently suited too lodging houses may be somewhat too stringent when applied to a van in the open air. The clause also enables regulations to be made for promoting cleanliness in and providing for the habitable condition of movable dwellings, and for preventing nuisances, fire, and the spread of infectious disease. Clause 3 defines the registration authority, and Clause 4 deals with the certificate of registry. Clause 5 is somewhat on the lines of that in the Middlesex Act. It provides that—
  "Where it appears to the registration authority that the encampment of occupiers of movable dwellings on any specified place or places within their area would be dangerous to the public health, or constitute a nuisance to the neighbourhood, the registration authority may by bye-law prohibit such encampment on such specified place or places; and any person acting in contravention of any bye-law made under this section shall be guilty of an offence under this Act."
  This clause goes, perhaps, a little further than the principles I have enunciated, because it deals not only with vans halting on common land but with movable dwellings on private land or on land leased or hired; and it seems to me that this is reasonable on the analogy of the building bye-laws and other sanitary

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  provisions, which are equally applicable to tile owners of private and public lands.
  Clause 6 provides for the making of regulations with a view to enforcing the law relating to school attendance in the case of children resident in movable dwellings. This is a clause on which, I think, great stress ought to be laid, for I am informed that in many instances these children almost entirely evade the Education Acts. It is not so much that the machinery which at present exists is insufficient to deal with these abuses, as that the inhabitants of these dwellings are able to evade supervision altogether owing to the control of movable dwellings being assigned to no one authority. Another difficulty, of course, is that the education bye-laws differ in various districts, and there is also a very strong objection to these children being admitted casually. If, however, they were under some one authority that authority would be able to insist on these people making provision for the education of their children and if they failed they would be able to enforce their authority by withdrawing the certificate upon which depended the movability of the dwelling. In subsection (2) of Clause 6 there is a provision that it shall not be deemed to be a reasonable excuse that there is not within three miles of the movable dwelling a public elementary school. The reason for that, of course, is that it would be very easy for the owner of a movable dwelling to halt on some distant moor far from any school, and so entirely evade the Act. Clause 7 applies statutory provisions relating to legal proceedings and the forgery of certificates. Clause 8 provides that—
  "It shall be the duty of the sanitary authority having jurisdiction in the place where a movable dwelling is for the time being situate to assist the registration authority in carrying out the objects of this Act by giving information and otherwise."
  There is a clause in the Government's Children Bill which appears rather to touch upon this point—Clause 107; but it seems to me to be directed to the sending of truant children to industrial schools and rather supposes them to be tramping about with people with no regular occupation and no regular dwelling. I submit that this falls very
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  far short of what we are aiming at—namely, that there shall be one authority responsible for the proper education of these children. If, however, the Government think that these educational clauses had better be left until we come to consider the Children Bill. I should not object. The definition clause leaves out temporary dwellings such as dwellings for hop-pickers and others, because they are not in the habit of being moved to any very great distance, and can be easily dealt with by the local authority in whose area they are placed. In conclusion, I have only to say that I am far from not having sympathy with those who live an open-air life; but I confess I can see no reason why, in matters of education and sanitation, they should not be subject to the same social regulation as others.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.)
  VISCOUNT CROSS: My Lords, I think the House ought to be greatly indebted to my noble friend for bringing forward this Bill. I had a great deal to do with the provisions dealing with children in canal boats in the year 1877, and I had the honour of serving or the Royal Commission in 1885 to which the noble Lord alluded. I can assure your Lordships that there is a real grievance which requires a remedy. When these people infringe the bye-laws of a local authority and are attempted to be dealt with, they move out of the jurisdiction of that authority and are consequently very difficult to get at. Without committing myself to the actual wording of the clauses, some of which, I think, will require considerable amendment I hope that, on the whole, the Bill will commend itself to the favourable consideration of His Majesty's Government. The point as to whether the education clauses should be maintained in this Bill or inserted in the Children Bill is one on which I care nothing, so long as these provisions are enacted. I know that there is a real evil to be dealt with, and I trust that the Bill will be read a second time.
  LORD FARRER: My Lords, I rise to support the Bill. I happen to live

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  in the County of Surrey, where this grievance is assuming proportions of enormous magnitude. I can remember the commons of Surrey being entirely free from vans and gipsies. One-tenth of that county is common land, and it is of enormous importance to keep the lungs of London free. Whereas it was formerly possible to enjoy those commons, they are now infested with tramps and gipsies of very description. The Census of 1901 showed that there were 634 persons sleeping in these vans on the night of the Census, and there were a very large number of tramps and nomads. These people pay no rates, no education is provided for their children, and the honest cottager who lives on the land detests these people in a way that would probably surprise your Lordships.
  We all have some sympathy for the picker-up of unconsidered trifles, but the old-fashioned gipsies are rapidly dying out, and the commons of Surrey are now infested with tramps and nomads to such an extent that a real and serious evil exists. One day last summer I found, on a marsh close to where I live, sixteen vans, with thirty-two children of school age who were attending no school at all and were being brought up in a most miserable condition. Two Sundays ago I was walking on the downs between Dorking and Guildford, and found twelve families camping there with about seventeen barefooted children in an almost savage condition. Last year alone there were three confinements in vans on Leith Hill Common, and at a recent meeting of the Dorking Board of Guardians attention was called to the terrible conditions under which medical men had to attend these cases. No satisfactory or decent preparation was made, and it was declared that the only satisfactory solution of the question lay in fresh legislation. Under the law as it stands sanitary authorities are quite powerless to deal with the evil.
  The education authorities are also powerless to deal with these children. I was informed by a county councillor that the reason for a great number of gipsies infesting a particular common was that the schools in the neighbourhood were quite full, and they knew they could not in those circumstances be compelled to
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  send their children. An attempt was made in another case at Reigate to get the police to interfere, but the chief constable replied—
  "I beg to acknowledge your letter relative to the existence of contagious skin disease which you consider was probably introduced by the gipsies in the neighbourhood. This appears to be a matter to which the sanitary authorities should give attention. Only the Lord of the Manor can remove gipsies from waste land. I cannot instruct the police to remove them. I am sorry I cannot help you.
  We are, therefore, powerless to deal with this matter under the present law, and I sincerely hope the Bill now before your Lordships will be accepted. I might add that we have managed to get rid of some of these people through the great powers which the Thames Conservancy possess. They have power, under their Act, to deal with all the watersheds of the Thames and it is extremely important that the water supply of London should be kept pure and clean. I hope your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading.
  EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, I have been rather surprised at the approval with which this Bill has been received. There is a tendency to too much registration and too much lettering and numbering in the Bill, and I think the reasons which have just been given apply not so much to this particular Bill as to some method for abolishing these vans and gipsies altogether, because there is nothing in the Bill which would prevent the greater part of the evils referred to by the noble Lord who had just sat down. As long as vans and tents are registered, they will be still permitted. Of course, I recognise that there is a good deal to be said for the children obtaining the necessary education, although, on the other hand, I am not at all sure that any great harm would be done to them if a considerable portion of their youth were spent on open commons instead of in public elementary schools. If your Lordships will look at Clause 14 you will see that the definition of the expression "movable dwelling" includes more than insanitary and overcrowded gipsy vans. It includes—
  "Tents and other structures capable of being moved front place to place"

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  So that boating parties on the Thames who took with them tents which they could erect on places where camping was allowed would be required to have their tents registered and numbered, and would have to receive a certificate as to the number, age, and sex of the persons who could use them. That seems to me to be carrying interference with people camping out in the summer farther than is necessary. It was, and, so far as I know, still is a habit for people sometimes to spend a portion of the summer in caravans and dwellings which are pulled about by horses—people who keep the interior of those dwellings in a very habitable condition. It is true that it will not be any very great nuisance to them to observe the provisions of this Bill, but it seems to me an unnecessary interference with persons who are doing no harm. Indeed, the effect of this Bill will be to create a large number of offences out of acts which are at present perfectly innocent. Persons who combined together to enjoy a trip through the country in a caravan or went up the river in order to camp out on the banks would apparently come within the scope of the provisions, and in my view this would be carrying registration further than is necessary. The Bill will need amendment in Committee so as not to cause unnecessary inconvenience. It would, I think, be very simple to give some control over both the education of the children and the sanitary provisions of the dwellings without requiring all these elaborate precautions as to registration and cetificates. I do not know how the certificate is intended to work as to the number, age, and sex of the persons using the dwelling. Suppose four undergraduates go for a trip in a caravan. Would the licence in that case be for four men? If a man took his wife for a trip would he have to get a different licence, and another later on if he took his sister with him? I submit that the Bill interferes far more than is necessary to secure the purpose of the promoters. But the root objection appears to be to the class of nomads as nomads. That is a natural objection on the part of those who are not nomads. But this Bill does nothing to do away with them; it will only harass them, and it will harass them to a greater extent than is needed

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  for attaining the objects which are stated to be those for which the Bill is promoted.
  *LORD ALLENDALE: My Lords, I have no doubt that the general objects aimed at in the Bill evoke the sympathy of your Lordships, but I am doubtful whether the provisions are altogether workable and will secure the desired object. The Local Government Board, however, have no wish to oppose the Bill at this stage. A Bill with a similar object was introduced in the House of Commons in 1889, but a greal deal of opposition was aroused on the part of showmen and others of the van-dwelling fraternity, and the Bill did not make progress. Movable dwellings have also been the subject of legislation. Section 9 of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1885, applies the provisions of the Public Health Act, with respect to nuisances to tents, vans, and similar structures used for human habitation, that are in such a state as to be dangerous or injurious to health. Urban and rural district councils have already powers to make bye-laws for promoting cleanliness in, and the habitable condition of, such structures, and for preventing nuisances and the spread of infectious disease in connection with them; and the Local Government Board have from time to time framed a series of model clauses for the use of councils who wish to make such bye-laws. Then there is the Infectious Diseases (Notification). Act of 1889, which applies to van and tent dwellers in the cases of infectious-disease.
  This Bill seems to be the result of views held in some quarters, and notably, I believe, by the County Councils Association, who passed a Resolution last year in favour of legislation on the subject, existing provisions being insufficient. In regard to regulations, this Bill appears to follow the lines of the Canal Boat Act. Canal boats are a special type of dwelling, and, from the very nature of the case, are restricted to the waterways of the country. It is obvious, therefore, that they can be much more easily registered and controlled than movable dwellings such as have been described to your Lordships to-day. It does not follow

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  that a system of registration applicable to canal boats is necessarily applicable to vans, and much less so to tents. If we only had vans to deal with, they might, perhaps, be made capable of registration and supervision; gipsies not only use vans but cleverly-constructed tents, which are suitable for their purpose, but which it would be almost impossible to register; and if it were made illegal to occupy these, large numbers of gipsies and other persons connected with travelling shows, would have to cease their present form of existence. Perhaps some of your Lordships—and I think we had an indication of that in the speech of Lord Farrer—would not regret that, but it has not been part of the general public policy of the country hitherto, and if this policy were to be adopted, I think it would be better that it should be done by a more direct enactment.
  As I have said, the provisions of the Bill with regard to registration are not quite appropriate to structures such as have been referred to, and when the Bill goes into Committee it will need a good deal of amendment in that respect. The definition clause, to which reference has been made, will also require amendment. The Local Government Board consider that the scope of the regulations which the Board would be called upon to make under Clause 2 is much wider than is desirable. As drafted, the Bill would appear to include tents used by people who prefer to camp out in the summer by the river and elsewhere, whom it would be difficult to register. As to general sanitary control, Section 9 of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1885, authorises urban and rural district councils to make bye-laws as to cleanliness, the habitable condition of the dwellings, and the prevention of nuisances generally; and bye-laws made by 179 authorities have been sanctioned by the Local Government Board. The Board consider that some of the matters comprised in Clause 2 would be very difficult to deal with—such, for instance, as the separation of the sexes and the prevention of fire. The Local Government Board are disposed to think that Section 9 of the Act of 1885 goes as far as is reasonably practicable
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  in controlling movable dwellings, and that if general regulations as distinguished from local bye-laws are needed, it would be better to make general regulations under that section than to proceed as proposed by Clause 4 of this Bill.
  Clauses 6 and 7 have reference to the question of education, which would be more properly dealt with by my noble friend the Lord President of the Council; but I may, perhaps, observe that this matter will no doubt receive consideration in connection with the Children Bill which is being discussed in another place to-day. As to Clause 8, which makes it the duty of the sanitary authority to assist in carrying out the object of the Bill, there does not seem to be any objection; but Clause 9, authorising county and borough councils to make bye-laws to prohibit encampments in specified places, will certainly require amendment. So also will Clauses 10 and 11, especially if the earlier clauses to which I have alluded are amended. While in the opinion of the Local Government Board the Bill goes rather further than seems desirable, the Government nevertheless are not prepared to offer any objections to the Second Reading, but hope a reasonable time will be allowed to elapse before the Committee stage, when the Government will themselves propose Amendments.
  LORD BELPER: My Lords, I am very glad to hear that the noble Lord who represents the Local Government Board, although somewhat critical in his speech as regards the details of the Bill, will offer no opposition to the Second Reading. I should not have thought it necessary to make any remarks after the full account which was given of the provision of the Bill by my noble friend Lord Clifford in moving the Second Reading; but I should like to mention that the Bill has been promoted by the County Councils Association in consequence of the very serious representations which have been made, not only by the county to which my noble friend Lord Farrer referred, the county of Surrey, in which there are a very large number of these movable dwellings, but by a large number of other counties in England. The noble Lord who spoke

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  on behalf of His Majesty's Government referred us to a great many clauses which are supposed to be of some value in regulating movable dwellings. But as a matter of fact the difficulty is that the moment a sanitary authority or any authority steps in and tries to exercise jurisdiction, the people immediately move their vans or tents to a neighbourhood where the authorities are not so active. We want to prevent these scandals in some way. I do not know what the Local Government Board intend to propose; but unless there is, I will not say some form of registration as that seems to be objected to, but, at all events, some means whereby you can lay your hand on these people and prevent them evading the law, no legislation will be effective. Without that the provisions of this Act, if it passes into law, will be just as useless as the provisions referred to by Lord Allendale. In the county of Surrey alone there is a very large population living in movable dwellings—I think between 1,500 and 2,000; and of the 340 children only forty are attending school. That is a serious state of things, and one to which I think we have a right to ask the Government to assist us in putting a stop. I have not the past objection to the criticisms which have been made, because they were all criticisms of the drafting. As long as the principle is admitted we shall be only too glad to meet the Government in regard to the details. As to the penalties in the Bill, let me say that if you are going to enforce the law you must have penalties. It is necessary on moral, educational, and sanitary grounds to get control over these people in sonic way, and I hope that when we get into Committee a serious attempt will be made to enable those councils who wish to deal with these people to enforce education on the children and to regulate the sanitary arrangements.
  *THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord who has just spoken on behalf of the county councils should have given a little further stimulus to attention being devoted to this matter than would have been afforded by the rather luke-warm support extended to the Bill on behalf of His Majesty's
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  Government. I am perfectly certain that this is a matter which requires very urgent attention, not merely on sanitary, but on moral and educational grounds. It was my duty, all the time I was Bishop of Winchester, to deal with this subject in connection with the migratory folk living in the New Forest and the similar nomads who frequent the commons in the county of Surrey. The problem is an exceedingly baffling and difficult one, and for that reason it is apt to be left to solve itself. The evil is increasing; there are more dwellers of a vagrant type living as permanent campers-out than was the case some years ago. That is the case, not mainly in the sparsely populated parts, but in the regions where the ordinary population is increasing. The explanation I suggest is that some of these movable dwellers are not entirely free from a predatory inclination, and they are happier where there are houses and people than where they are far removed from human habitation. I am particularly apprehensive lest the question of the children should be found to suffer by falling between two stools. This question lies on the margin both of the Children Bill now before the other House and of the Bill now brought before your Lordships; and those charged with the one Bill may be apt in each case to throw off the responsibility on those charged with the other. I hope the question is not going to be treated as of comparatively small importance. It is one which eminently deserves the kind of consideration which this Bill endeavours to give to it. Some of the clauses appear to me to be better calculated to do their work than the critics suppose, and I hope the matter will continue to receive the attention of your Lordships.
  *THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Earl of CREWE): My Lords, the most rev. Primate and the noble Lord opposite both seemed to think that my noble friend who answered for the Government had thrown a certain degree of cold water on the Bill; but so far as he did, they, I think, supplied good reasons, for they both admitted the really exceptional difficulty of the subject; and when a subject of this kind is a very difficult one, it is necessary

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  for those in charge of the Government Department which will have to administer any measure which may be passed to point out the difficulties which beset its administration if it becomes law. The real difficulty of the subject is—I think it has appeared from the speeches made in the course of the debate—that there is a considerable number of people who would like practically to prohibit the existence of this nomadic population altogether. We often pass these people on the roads, and we look at them with interest, not always, I am bound to say, without a certain degree of envy; and when the conditions under which they live, as regards sanitation and other matters, are spoken of, I think it is only fair to compare them, not with people who live in comfortable houses under good sanitary conditions, but with those who live in the slums of the towns—people of the same class and who lead the kind of existence which these people would have to lead if they were confined to urban areas. I do not know that I need say anything more on the general question.
  As regards the education clauses of the Bill, there are one or two words I should like to say in order to point out the very great difficulty which surrounds the subject. As matters now stand, except in the case of the children of canal boatmen, whose position is a different one from that of these nomadic children, for canal boats go on regular journeys, whereas these people wander about from county to county—except in the case of the children of canal boatmen there are no special regulations which enable school attendance to be specially enforced. By the Education Acts as they stand, if a child is found habitually wandering, a school attendance order can be made in his case, and no reasonable excuse, as it is called, can be produced in such a case; but it is very doubtful if that provision was ever intended to apply to people who live in movable dwellings. It was rather intended to apply to children who wander about with tramps. In any case, however, the practical difficulty is that the attendance order can only be made in respect of a particular school, and it is perfectly obvious that if a child is going to be made to attend a particular school
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  the dwelling then ceases to be a movable one and the whole position is changed. Therefore, the fact has been that it is not the law which is in fault; but it is practically impossible to enforce the law so long as children are allowed to travel about in these dwellings. If you are prepared to go so far as to prohibit children of school age travelling in this way, you may solve the question after a fashion; but I am not at all sure that public opinion would support a proposal of that kind. That is one of the points which no doubt can be carefully considered when the Bill is being examined more closely in Committee.
  Clause 6 of the Bill provides that the Board of Education shall make regulations with a view to enforcing the law relating to school attendance in the case of children resident in movable dwellings, and they have to designate the local authority whose duty it shall be to enforce the regulations of the Board. They might thus provide for the giving of certificates of due attendance in the case of children who were unable to attend regularly at any one public elementary school. This sort of school attendance, however—one day at one school and another day at another school—is one which arouses the utmost indignation in the minds of school managers and school teachers, and if you are really going to enforce it, I am afraid you will find yourselves in a practical difficulty. The clause says that the Board of Education is to designate the local authority whose duty it should be to enforce the regulations of the Board. That means, I suppose, the local education authority, because clearly the Board of Education can only deal with educational authorities. But how is the local education authority going to enforce the regulations when the parents, being ex hypothesi in movable dwellings, have left that area? That is a difficulty which I do not see the Bill will meet. There are various other minor criticisms which I might make with regard to these education clauses, but they are more suitable for consideration in Committee.
  On the other hand it is the case that to a certain extent my hon. friend Mr. Herbert Samuel, in another place, is trying to deal with this matter in the

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  Children Bill. I think it is worthy of consideration whether the whole discussion on the question should not be postponed until the Children Bill comes up, or, if the noble Lord prefers it, whether these particular clauses should not be omitted for the time, leaving the whole question to be discussed on the Children Bill. I am bound to say that, notwithstanding the fact that the Government are trying to deal with the matter in that measure, I am not, for the reasons I have stated, very hopeful that a solution will be arrived at, so far as the educational part of the matter is concerned. But we shall do our best. We feel that the wrong done to the children from an educational point of view is in many cases a considerable one. I rather sympathise with what Lord. Russell said as to the preferable condition of children living a great part of their time in the open air to that of some children who lead more regular lives; but we feel that the educational question is one which we ought to try to meet. We are, however, impressed by the extreme difficulty of it, and I cannot, personally, confess to being very confident that it is capable of a satisfactory solution.
  LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, I quite agree with the noble Earl the Lord President that if you allow these children to wander about they must attend school spasmodically, and that to that the school managers and teachers have a strong objection as the instruction is necessarily of an inferior kind. But if you insist upon their attending school regularly they cannot wander about. To that restriction, however, the noble Earl thinks public opinion would not agree. It appears to me that the only alternative is to let them wander and not attend school, and why this should be permitted to persons living in movable dwellings when everyone else is obliged to send his children to school I cannot conceive. I imagine that the education authority would, under the rules, be empowered to require from these people some return as to where their children were being educated, and to oblige them to give a notification when they were leaving the area of that authority as to the authority into whose area they were moving. The local education authority would then
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  communicate with the authority into whose area they were moving so that the regulations with regard to the children could be enforced. The only outcome of it would be that these people would be obliged to make some provision for the education of their children while they were wandering about the country. I cannot think that the alternative foreshadowed, that these children should be allowed to wander about without any education at all, is an admissible one. On many of the points on which the clauses have been criticised I hold no very great objection to emendations. I shall be most willing to accept anything which will make the Bill a more workable measure, and I will certainly consult the noble Lord who represents the Local Government Board before I take any further steps with regard to the Bill.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: My Lords, I should like to say a word with regard to the attendance of these children at school. Nobody can contend that they are wandering. The parents may be, but the children are under the control of their parents and do not come within the same category as children found wandering. I had many years experience of the entire failure to give effect to the Act relating to canal boat children. It is no use having a boat or a van registered in a place as long as you allow the children to travel about with their parents. In those circumstances the ordinary regulations for enforcing attendance are useless, and I do not think any ingenuity will enable you to make them effective. The canal boats had to be registered at their ports of departure, and in London they were mostly registered at Paddington; but we were unable to do anything in practice to carry out the Act owing to the impossibility of enforcing it. You could, of course, prohibit a parent from taking his child about in such a way as to render it impossible for the child to receive education. That would mean that the child would have to be deposited with a friend or boarded-out, while the parents tramped the country. But I think there would be considerable difficulty in bringing that about. Something could be done to enforce attendance if you had a provision in the Education Act to the effect that

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  parents could be furnished with a book which would show the schools the child had attended during the wanderings, and the attendances made. Of course, if the book were falsified and false entries made, that would have to be an offence, and if at the end of the year the parent, on applying for a renewal of his licence, showed an imperfectly filled book that might be made an offence also, and a severe penalty might be imposed if no steps at all had been taken in the education of the child. I am not going to say whether that would be good or not; but the ordinary machinery of bye-laws and the ordinary discharge of their duties by local education authorities would be insufficient to cope with these cases. Take the West Riding. It would be too much to expect that tramps could be tracked from one end of that county to the other; there is no machinery in a county for following them. I do not say that what I suggest is a good thing to do, but I think clauses might be devised which would make it extremely disagreeable for a wandering parent to have done nothing for the education of his child.
  *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, whatever we may think as to the somewhat intricate problems to which this Bill gives rise. I hope we shall not hesitate to give it a Second Reading this afternoon. By doing so we commit ourselves only to the principle of the Bill, and the principle of the Bill is, I conceive, this, that we do not desire that persons who adopt a nomadic mode of life should thereby emancipate themselves from the laws and regulations to which other members of the community are subject, whether those laws have reference to sanitary matters or to the education of the children concerned, or to other matters. I hope, therefore, we shall read the Bill a second time. With regard to the manner in which it might be dealt with further on, I would venture to suggest that my noble friend would do well to confer with the representative of the Local Government Board and consider with him what course would be best. I should be rather sorry, speaking for myself, if the further examination of this Bill were to stand over until the moment, which we cannot at present anticipate,
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  when the Bill now before the House of Commons will reach your Lordships' House.
  On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

PATENTS AND DESIGNS BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
MUNICIPAL REPRESENTATION BILL [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to order); and Bill to be read 3a To-morrow.

LOTTERIES AND INDECENT ADVERTISEMENTS.
The Lords following were named of the Committee—

L. Steward (E. Beauchamp).

V. Llandaff.

V. Hutchinson (E. Donoughmore).

L. Ramsay (E. Dalhousie).

L. Herschell.

Ordered, That such Committee have power to agree with the Committee of the House of Commons in the appointment of a Chairman.
Then a Message was ordered to be sent to the House of Commons to propose that the Joint Committee do meet in the Chairman of Committees' Committee Room on Tuesday next, at Three o'clock.

ARMY (ANNUAL) BILL.
House in Committee (according to order); Bill reported without Amendment; Standing Committee negatived and Bill to be read 3a To-morrow.

NAVAL REPAIRS.
LORD ELLENBOROUGH: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government if they will grant a Return of the amount of money spent during the last two years on the repairs of each battleship and first class cruiser launched since 1st January, 1898, separately, divided under the following headings—(1) Repairs of boilers, engines, and other

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machinery used in the propulsion of the ship; (2) Repairs to armament, including all gun-mountings, torpedoes, and machinery connected with them; (3) Alterations in design, such as making cooling chambers, fresh ventilators, or supplying and fitting new apparatus of any description; also a Return of the number of days that our battleships and first class cruisers launched since 1st January, 1898, have been unavailable while undergoing repair during the last two years; and in addition to these Returns, for purposes of comparison, if the information is obtainable, a Return of the number of days that twenty or thirty of the best-known liners in our mercantile marine have been unavailable for the same reason during the last two years; and lastly, the weight allowed for indicated horse-power for all the vessels named in the above Return.
THE EARL OF CREWE: My Lords, my noble friend the First Lord of the Admiralty has been called away on an engagement connected with his Department, and he has, therefore, asked me to make the reply which he would have given to the noble and gallant Lord's Question. He says that he is anxious to give the noble Lord as much of the Return asked for as is possible, but he cannot give it exactly in the form in which it is asked for by the noble Lord My noble friend assents to Paragraph 1, but be is only able to give the figures for 1905–1906, and 1906–1907, those for 1907–1908 not yet being available. As regards Paragraph 2, my noble friend says that the form in which the ordnance accounts of the Admiralty are framed differs from that of the dockyard accounts and for service reasons he does not feel justified in giving information with regard to repairs to armament. He will be happy to give the information requested in Paragraph 3.
LORD ELLENBOROUGH: What about Paragraph 1?
THE EARL or CREWE: My noble friend agrees to that, with limitations. He cannot agree to No. 2, but he agrees to No. 3. As regards the last paragraph, my noble friend says he can give the information asked for if the noble Lord
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thinks it very desirable—that is to say, the noble Lord really presses for it—but it will involve a very large amount of research which my noble friend, if possible, would like to spare his staff, whom he considers very much overworked. My noble friend does not know how he could obtain the details with regard to the length of time that the great liners mentioned in the Question are kept under repair from time to time, and he considers that it is against the interests of the service that the weight allowed for indicated horse-power should be publicly disclosed. My noble friend has asked me to say that even the modified amount of information which he is able to give will take some little time to produce.
LORD ELLENBOROUGH: I am sorry to give the officials at the Admiralty additional trouble, but the Admiralty have been greatly attacked on the subject of repairs, sometimes justly and sometimes unjustly, and if these figures were given it might set the matter at rest. Therefore, I press for the details as to the number of days on which vessels were undergoing repairs. My reason for asking for the weight allowed for indicated horse-power, was that I believe the Admiralty, as a rule, have not allowed sufficient weight for indicated horse-power, and that is the reason why such a large proportion of our ships are kept under repair.

TERRITORIAL ARMY ADMINISTRATION.
*LORD HARRIS: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government whether they will consider the possibility of amending the new Regulations for the Territorial Army in the case of those regiments the recruiting areas of which lie in more than one county, with a view to alleviating the extreme inconvenience to which such regiments are put. This question refers to very few regiments, but they feel that they are suffering under a considerable grievance. The scheme of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War is that the Territorial regiments in a county should be brought under the County Association, and it is conceivable

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that the administration of their affairs will be no more complicated than they were under the War Office. But there are a few regiments in the extraordinary and unfortunate position of being under four or five counties, and those of your Lordships who have had experience of communicating with Government Departments I am sure, realise the confusion that will be caused thereby, for these unfortunate regiments will have to apply in all matters of finance, administration, etc., to each of these County Associations. Finding it difficult to deal with the cases of those regiments which recruit over several counties the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State has apparently left it to the regiments and to the County Associations themselves to get out of the difficulty as best they can. I suggest that it is the business of the War Office to get the regiments out of this dilemma, and that it would not be difficult for the War Office to devise a scheme by which the colonels of such regiments might have to do with only one authority. I may add that this is not a personal grievance of my own. I have been asked to put the Question on behalf of another commanding officer.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The Earl of PORTSMOUTH): My Lords, I regret that the noble Lord has not informed me what are the particular cases to which he refers.
*LORD HARRIS: They are perfectly well-known. The Marquess of Tullibardine's regiment, for instance, recruits over four or five counties.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: I understood the Question to refer to another matter—namely, the condition of those counties which practically adjoin London. Some men domiciled in Kent, Surrey, and Essex will, no doubt, want to join the London regiments, but I am afraid we cannot depart from the general principle established in the Act, that the county of which the Lord-Lieutenant should be the head should be the recruiting area for the different County Associations. No doubt in the neighbourhood of London some difficulties may arise, but these we trust will be
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overcome by the mutual good feeling of the Associations, whom, in matters of this kind, we expect to be able to come to some arrangement
*LORD HARRIS: I regret that my Question has been misunderstood. The cases I refer to are those of regiments coming under various counties for administration. Perhaps the noble Ear will look into that point.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: I now see what is in the mind of the noble Lord, and will inquire into it.

TERRITORIAL ARTILLERY.
THE EARL OF ERROLL: My Lords, I rise to ask the Under-Secretary of State for War what is the estimated cost of the 196 batteries it is proposed to raise for the Territorial Army, supposing the ranks are all full, including the hire of the horses for fifteen days training, cost of gun sheds, harness, ammunition for practice, and generally for the administration and training of the artillery; also the proportion due for the expenses of the County Associations; and whether he can also state the whole annual cost of a battery of Regular field artillery on the higher and lower establishment respectively. I understand that there will be a debate on Monday, initiated by Lord Denbigh, into the whole question of the Territorial artillery, and I cannot help thinking that it will be of great advantage to your Lordships that we should possess the information for which I am asking before that debate takes place. The noble and gallant Field-Marshal, Lord Roberts, told us the other day that imperfectly trained artillery were absolutely useless in war and liable to become a danger. After that statement from so high an authority it would be only prudent to consider whether it would not be preferable to have a smaller number of Regular and very highly trained artillery in the place of a larger number of imperfectly trained gunners. It is an acknowledged principle on the Continent of Europe that the less trained the infantry the more important it is that the artillery should be very highly trained. I have

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put clown the Question as to the cost of a Regular battery because I think it is important that we should have some idea how the cost compares with that of a Territorial battery, with a view to seeing whether we cannot secure fewer highly trained Regular artillery for the same price that we should get this larger number of less perfectly trained Territorial artillery.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: My Lords, as we shall be debating the general question of the artillery on Monday, I hope my noble friend will excuse me from entering into the various matters to which he has referred in putting his Question. I am glad to be able to give him the information for which he asks, subject to one or two reservations. The total number of batteries to be raised is 182, not 196 as stated in the Question. I do not know exactly how my noble friend arrived at the number of 196, but I think it is possibly a miscalculation arising from reckoning three batteries instead of two to a brigade of howitzers. The number of field and howitzer batteries to be raised for the Territorial Force is 148, the annual cost of which will be about £350,000, which includes the expenses of the County Associations. I am afraid I cannot give the noble Earl any accurate estimate as to the proportion due for the expenses of the Associations, as the Associations administer other units. The other batteries to be raised are fourteen horse, and twenty heavy batteries. The grants for these cover their ammunition columns and are not comparable with the figures for batteries of field artillery. As to the Question whether I can also state the whole annual cost of a battery of regular field artillery on the higher and lower establishments, respectively, I have to say that the annual cost of a Regular field battery on the higher establishment of 163, all ranks, is £15,000, and on the lower establishment of 132, all ranks, £12,000.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: Is any allowance made in the £350,000 for the cost of arming the batteries originally, or is that what they are going to cost when they are a going concern?
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH: That will be the annual cost when they are a going concern.
House adjourned at ten minutes past Six o'clock, till Tomorrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.