Lords Sitting of 3 August 1909

THE LORD DE CLIFFORD.
Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificates from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bills have been complied with:

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 6).
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 9).
  The same were ordered to lie on the Table.
HEYWOOD CORPORATION BILL.
Moved, That the Order made on the 18th day of May last, That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after the 30th day of June next be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a; agreed to: Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
NORTHALLERTON WATER BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (GENERAL POWERS) BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, a further Amendment made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, further Amendments made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
LLANELLY WATER BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, a further Amendment made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendment, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
SOUTH WESTERN AND ISLE OF WIGHT JUNCTION RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
  GATESHEAD AND DISTRICT TRAMWAYS BILL. [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered, and agreed to.

  BARRY RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
  WEST KENT ELECTRIC POWER BILL. [H.L.]
  METHWOLD AND FELTWELL DRAINAGE BILL. [H.L.]
  SOUTH EASTERN AND LONDON, CHATHAM, AND DOVER RAILWAYS BILL. [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (GAS) BILL.
    METROPOLITAN COMMONS PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
    Returned from the Commons, with the Amendment, agreed to.

  SEA FISHERIES (TEES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
  CENTRAL LONDON RAILWAY BILL.
  HULL AND BARNSLEY RAILWAY BILL.
  BLACKWOOD GAS BILL.
  HOLYWOOD TRAMWAYS BILL.
  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (TRAMWAYS AND IMPROVEMENTS) BILL.
  MIDLAND GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY OF IRELAND BILL.
  Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL.
  The King's consent signified, and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
  HEYWOOD CORPORATION BILL.
  The Chairman of Committees informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn: The Order made this day discharged, and Bill committed for To-morrow.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION (AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION).
  Return showing the figures in Column (c) of Table II of the Tables of Expenditure for Agricultural Education [Cd. 4569] for the year 1906–07: Laid before the House (pursuant to Order of the 21st of July last), and to be printed. (No. 129.)
  SUNDAY LABOUR IN THE MERCANTILE MARINE.
  Correspondence respecting: Laid before the House (pursuant to Order of the 26th of July last), and to be printed. (No. 130.)

  SOUTH AFRICA BILL. [H.L.]
  Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
  Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Earl of Crewe.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  House in Committee accordingly.
  [THE EARL OF ONSLOW in the Chair.]
  Clauses 1 to 25 agreed to.
  Clause 26:
  LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH had an Amendment on the Paper to Clause 26. The clause ran—
  "The qualifications of a senator shall be as follow:—
  He must—

  (a) be not less than thirty years of age;

  (b) be qualified to be registered as a voter for the election of members of the House of Assembly in one of the provinces;

  (c) have resided for five years within the limits of the Union as existing at the time when he is elected or nominated, as the case may be;

  (d) be a British subject of European descent;

  (e) in the case of an elected senator, be the registered owner of immovable property within the Union of the value of not less than five hundred pounds over and above any special mortgages thereon.

  For the purposes of this section, residence in, and property situated within, a colony before its incorporation in the Union, shall be treated as residence in and property situated within the Union."
  He moved to insert after "British subject," in paragraph (d), the words "and if representing the Province of Transvaal or Orange Free State." He had a similar Amendment to the clause relating to the qualifications of Members of the House of
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  Assembly. The object of the Amendment was to qualify natives for election to the Union Parliament as representatives of the Cape or Natal. In these colonies no bar of race or colour existed to election to the local assemblies, so that his Amendment, if carried, would maintain the existing law with respect to natives in the Cape and Natal. Since he spoke on the Second Reading of the Bill he had received a copy of a petition of a simple but touching character from the assembled chiefs in these colonies pleading with great earnestness for the retention of the privileges they now enjoyed in the Cape and Natal, and which, they said, and said truly, they had never abused. This petition had been addressed to the Governor-General at the Cape to be forwarded to the King. Had he known of its existence before, he would have moved that the petition be printed and circulated among their Lordships. In the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill there was an extraordinary concurrence of opinion as to the impolicy, if not something worse, of making the natives ineligible for election to the Union Parliament. The one exception was Lord Northcote, who referred to the strength of the popular feeling in Australia in favour of maintaining that Commonwealth as a white country. But there was a wide difference between Australia and South Africa. In Australia the demand was not that coloured inhabitants should be disqualified for all time from taking any part in the government of the country, but that the immigration of coloured people should not be permitted. In South Africa there was no such absence of coloured population as there was in Australia. The blacks were there; they could not be excluded or got rid of, and they multiplied more quickly than the whites. In these circumstances was it good policy that they should be excluded from the sphere of government? In Cape Colony there were over 22,000 natives on the register. The noble Earl the Leader of the House, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, had spoken of the Cape as a halting place to which people did not go to settle. That might be said of many places. But the pathetic fact was that the Cape had become a halting place because it was not a good place for the settlement of whites in consequence of the dissociation of sentiment between the blacks and the whites. Since the blacks were there he maintained that it was a matter of policy and of good

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  government to provide that they should be duly qualified, without any bar on account of race or colour, to enter the sphere of legislative government. He had been speaking hitherto of the natives of South Africa alone, but there were many other persons of colour there. Among them were University men, medical practitioners, men in considerable positions who had earned the respect of their white fellow subjects; and if the Bill were passed in its present form these men would be disqualified for election to the Union Parliament. It was said that if any change were made in the Bill it might endanger the scheme of the Union. As to that, he had heard that if a sincere and clear issue had been raised at the Conference by the representatives of the Cape and Natal in favour of making the coloured races in these colonies eligible for election the disqualification would not have been inserted in the Bill; but no such proposal had been made. He was surprised at the degree of tolerance and, indeed, of agreement expressed by certain members of the delegation now in London in regard to what he had said in favour of the coloured races in the debate on the Second Reading. He admitted the difficulty of pressing his Amendment to a Division. If it were inserted the delegates here had no authority to accept it, and it would probably have to go back for consideration by a new Convention. Their Lordships might therefore hesitate to take such a step. He himself would hesitate to press the Amendment to a Division; but he submitted it for the purpose of eliciting, if possible, another chorus of agreement as to the painful character of this disqualification, being persuaded that an expression of opinion on this subject on the part of their Lordships would have the greatest influence for good in South Africa—influence which might prevent further steps being taken in an injurious direction and which might freely be taken if it were not apprehended that the feeling here was strongly against such a course.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 6, line 15, after the word 'subject,' to insert the words 'and if representing the Province of Transvaal or Orange Free State.'"—(Lord Courtney of Penwith.)
  THE LORD BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM*THE LORD BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM, in supporting the Amendment, said he did not yield to any one in his enthusiasm for the South African Union. That satisfaction
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  was, however, tempered by alloy of the most serious kind if the Amendment was not inserted. Their Lordships ought to object to disqualification which was purely and simply that of race. Lord Courtney's Amendment merely allowed them to retain the status quo. He did not say that the great measure of Union must not take place if accompanied by this disqualification, but he urged their Lordships to emphasise the displeasure with which the insertion of the disqualification was regarded. Their Lordships would be in a far better position if they passed the Amendment even if afterwards it had to be withdrawn at the request of the South African delegates. Then at any rate there would be on record an expression of their Lordships' feeling on the matter in which they would he ventured to say be representative of the higher feeling in this country. If it was merely allowed to rest on sentiments expressed in speeches he was afraid it would rest on something which would be easily forgotten; but if it rested on an Amendment carried in their Lordships' House even though afterwards withdrawn he ventured to say that it would rest on a far more solid basis.
  THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF CREWE): My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will all agree that my noble friend behind me has brought forward his Amendment, and the parallel Amendment to Clause 44, in the most moderate and least aggressive form which he could devise, and that he has set it before the Committee in a speech of equal moderation. My noble friend said that to pass this Amendment would, after all, only be to maintain the status quo. In a sense that may be accurate, but I think the statement does not represent the real position. The creation of the Union Parliament so completely alters the whole position that the status quo cannot be said in any real sense to exist any longer. The mere fact that natives could be elected to the Cape Parliament does not make it a retention of the status quo to declare that they should be capable of being elected to the Union Parliament.
  My noble friend said very truly that there was something like a general concurrence of opinion that in itself this provision is an undesirable one. There was, as he truly said, scarcely a dissentient

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  voice, if any, raised to that proposition; but there was an equally marked and declared concurrence that it would not be wise for your Lordships to attempt to amend that provision. That concurrence was at least as strongly marked as the other. I confess that I am not able to fall in with the proposition suggested by my right reverend friend the Bishop of Birmingham, that it would be a wise or a dignified thing to insert an Amendment of this kind in the Bill on the understanding that it would be immediately withdrawn if the delegates, as they undoubtedly would, objected to its insertion. The process of marching up a hill and then marching down again is not one which I think would commend itself to your Lordships' House, and I confess I do not see that anything whatever would be gained by following the course which the right reverend Prelate has suggested.
  My noble friend behind me misunderstood, I think, one observation which I made when moving the Second Reading, when I spoke of South Africa having been in past history a halting place on the road of travellers and, of adventurers into other parts of the world. That was so, but it has altogether ceased to be the case. It is in no way true now to speak of South Africa as being a halting place. It is the home—the permanent home, as I hope—of a great white race, and although my noble friend was right in describing the complications which exist there from the presence of a coloured population, that does not alter the fact that as much as any part of His Majesty's Dominions South Africa is now a permanent white settlement. I do not think that my noble friend is really doing a good turn to the native population, whose interests he has at heart, by moving this Amendment, and I do not believe that we should be doing them a good turn by inserting it in the Bill. It has often been said, and I believe with truth, that if after the great Civil War in the United States the conquering North had not been quite so urgent in declaring the equality of the two races in the Southern States, real equality, which, after all, does not exist there now after the lapse of more than forty years, would have been sooner approached than by the strong and overwhelming assertion of equality which at that time they thought it right to make. Similarly, I believe that if we were to attempt to force upon white opinion in South Africa to-day provisions of this kind
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  which conflict, if you like, with the prejudices, but also with the views which are most strongly held, we should be deferring rather than accelerating progress in the direction of equality between the white and the native races. The opinion even of the native population is not entirely unanimous on this point. This very fear has occurred to some of them. Some of them are actually afraid that any demonstration of this kind might serve to influence white opinion against them rather than in their favour, and so operate prejudicially to them. I share the belief which my noble friend at that time on the Woolsack expressed, that as years go on there may be, as we hope there will be, a change of opinion in South Africa in this respect. We must look forward to that future, but I do believe that that future would be made more remote if the Amendment of my noble friend were adopted, and for that reason, as indeed he has clearly foreseen and most fairly stated, the Government cannot agree to the insertion of this Amendment or the one to Clause 44.
  LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH said that the precedent of the United States which the noble Earl had quoted was not applicable. He was not inclined to force on the South African colonies something entirely repugnant to their views—the establishment of perfect equality between black and white; he was trying simply to maintain that which existed. He put it to his noble friend whether he thought that the eligibility of the native to sit in the Cape Parliament ever since that Parliament was established had retarded the advancement of the natives of the Cape. Compared with the native in the Transvaal the native of the Cape was much more advanced. He was more educated and was admitted to functions of a highly useful and public character. Was he, therefore, in seeking to maintain the privileges now enjoyed by natives in the Cape, doing something which would retard their advancement? He could not but think that the experience of the last fifty years falsified the suggestion which the noble Earl had made. He would not withdraw his Amendment although he did not intend to press it to a Division.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: My noble friend has put a question to me, and I will answer it. I think he misunderstood the drift of my argument. I was far

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  indeed from saying that the fact that the native was eligible, or might be eligible, to Parliament would do anything to retard the progress of the race. On the contrary, I go farther and say that if there was a general native vote all over South Africa, I think it would do something in all probability to raise the status of the native in the other provinces to something approaching that which he holds in the Cape Colony. The conclusion which I asked your Lordships to draw from the American analogy was not that the suggestion was bad in itself, but that because it was forced upon an unwilling population that fact of itself had had the effect of retarding the progress of the negro.
  On Question, Amendment negatived.
  LORD STANMORE*LORD STANMORE desired, before Clause 26 was added to the Bill, to put a question to His Majesty's Government. He wanted to know what was meant exactly by the expression "European descent," and whether it included or excluded half-castes. He would be inclined to contend that a half-caste was on one side at least of European descent.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: I am happy to reply so far as I can to the question of my noble friend on the Cross Benches, although it is one which, I think, should have been addressed not so much to me as to the legal authorities in your Lordships' House. As a matter of fact, I believe no legal decision exists as to what "European descent" really means, and I have no doubt that after the Act has come into operation the phrase will be decided in the ordinary way before a Court of law. If it bears the construction, as to which I express no opinion, which my noble friend on the Cross Benches thinks it does, I can only say that the grievance will be considerably minimised in a great number of individual cases. We have been so far taking it in debate as excluding all persons who could be said to be coloured, but if not, there is no doubt the less objection to passing it in its present form.
  Clause 26 agreed to.
  Clauses 27 to 32 agreed to.
  Clause 33:
  LORD HAVERSHAM*LORD HAVERSHAM pointed out that this clause provided that the number of
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  members to be elected in the original provinces at the first election should be as follows:—Cape of Good Hope, fifty-one; Natal, seventeen; Transvaal, thirty-six; Orange Free State, seventeen. He presumed that the difference in the number of representatives was due to population, wealth, and other reasons. But with regard to the Senate there was absolute equality, Clause 24 providing that eight Senators should be nominated by the Governor-General in Council, and that for each original province eight Senators should be elected. He asked how it was that one principle had been applied to the number of Senators to represent each State and a different principle in regard to the House of Representatives.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: I have not discussed this point with the delegates because it was never raised in the course of the communications which I had with them. The noble Lord will notice that in the allocation of numbers for the House of Assembly some advantage is given to the smaller provinces in the numbers there put down. They get a somewhat larger share than their population warrants. I think it is safe to state that the provision of giving an equal number of Senators to each province represents a feeling of the same kind—namely, that the case of the smaller States demands some special consideration. As the noble Lord knows very well, in many constitutions of a Federal Government—for instance, in the United States—the States are all treated alike for the purpose of the Senate, although they are not so treated for the House of Representatives; and it does not seem to me, therefore, especially strange that in a unifying constitution such as this a similar plan should be adopted.
  Clause 33 agreed to.
  Clause 34:
  LORD STANMORE*LORD STANMORE called attention to the provision that—
  "The quota of the Union shall be obtained by dividing the total number of European male adults in the Union, as ascertained at the census of nineteen hundred and four, by the total number of members of the House of Assembly as constituted at the establishment of the Union."
  He asked whether the words "European male" excluded an American male who had been settled in the country for a long

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  period and become part of the recognised community there. If so, it would lead to very odd results. On the other hand, he could not construe the words "European male" to include an American male. The noble Earl in charge of the Bill had stated that these points were subject to legal interpretation afterwards, but he did not think their Lordships should be asked to pass dubious phrases to be hereafter interpreted in a way of which some noble Lords might approve and others highly disapprove.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: The noble Lord has raised another new point. An American male settled in South Africa would, I suppose, be of European descent unless he was of Red Indian extraction, while a negro who had come from America I have no doubt would not be treated as being a European. The general sense of the provision, of course, is that the natives are excluded in the calculation of the quota.
  LORD STANMORE: Is not this verbiage employed merely to avoid the use of the word you mean—namely, the word "white"? The phrase here used is not "of European descent" but "an European male." How can that include an American?
  Clause 34 agreed to.
  Clause 35:
  LORD MACDONNELL OF SWINFORD LORD MACDONNELL OF SWINFORD moved to amend this clause—
  "35.—(1) Parliament may by law prescribe the qualifications which shall be necessary to entitle persons to vote at the election of Members of the House of Assembly, but no such law shall disqualify any person in the province of the Cape of Good Hope who under the laws existing in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope at the establishment of the Union is or may become capable of being registered as a voter from being so registered in the province of the Cape of Good Hope by reason of his race or colour only, unless the Bill be passed by both Houses of Parliament sitting together and at the third reading be agreed to by not less than two-thirds of the total number of members of both Houses. A Bill so passed at such joint sitting shall be taken to have been duly passed by both Houses of Parliament.
  (2) No person who at the passing of any such law is registered as a voter in any province shall be removed from the register by reason only of any disqualification based on race or colour,"
  by inserting the following new subsection—
  "(3) No such Bill shall be introduced into Parliament until ten years, counting from the date of the establishment of the Union, shall have elapsed."
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  He said that if their Lordships regretted the necessity of having to place on the Statute Book a law of civic disqualification on the ground of race or colour, and also to pass the Bill without any material alteration, he thought that it was the more incumbent upon them to allow no opportunity to slip or anything to escape by which they might reduce as far as might be the prejudicial effect of the Bill. He was aware that the Leader of the House stated in his opening speech that it would be possible always to deny the King's approval to any particular Act promoted by the Union Parliament. He was also aware, according to the terms of the Bill, that if the members from Cape Colony were solid, it would not be possible for a long time, or, at all events, so long as the proportions of the population remained what they were now, to obtain a two-thirds majority for an alteration of the law. But he thought it was very uncertain that the Cape representatives would be able to maintain that solidarity in respect of the native vote, and he said that if the Union Parliament were unanimous in pressing on His Majesty such an alteration in the law as this clause contemplated it would be impossible to deny assent. They were not asking too much, therefore, or imposing on the Union Parliament too great an obligation, when they said that it should not proceed to touch the question of the franchise until such a period had elapsed—he suggested ten years in his Amendment—within which it might be hoped that the feelings which the present proposals called into existence had subsided, and when the Union Parliament might be disposed to come to the assistance of the Empire and relieve it from a difficulty which was, he believed, being generally recognised throughout the country.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 9,line 13, after subsection (2) to insert the following new subsection:
  '(3) No such Bill shall be introduced into Parliament until ten years, counting from the date of the establishment of the Union, shall have elapsed.'"—(Lord MacDonnell of Swinford.)
  THE EARL OF CREWE: I had occasion, when I spoke on the Second Reading, to deal somewhat fully with this Clause read in connection with Clause 152, which provides for the necessity of the two-thirds majority of both Houses sitting

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  together before any change can be made. I certainly do not desire to qualify anything which I said on that occasion in disapproval of the provision as it stands. I frankly confess that the provision for a possible change in this respect is the provision which I like least in the whole of this Bill. But for reasons which I then stated I do not myself think that the danger of a change being made is a great one, and I was glad to see that I was confirmed in that opinion by the speech of the noble Marquess who leads the Opposition. The noble Lord who has just sat down spoke of the possibility of a unanimous opinion of the Union Parliament for a change of this kind, and the difficulty there would be in disallowing a Bill so presented here for His Majesty's assent. I admit that. If opinion in South Africa should be so hardened that there was practically only one opinion in the country that no native ought to have a vote in the Cape Colony, it would no doubt be a serious matter to disallow such a Bill, although I will not go so far as to say it might not be done; but that, I confess, is a state of things which I cannot conceive. I greatly doubt, as I said before, whether it would be possible to obtain under any circumstances a two-thirds majority, but that there should be anything like practical unanimity is a consideration which I must decline to admit. The noble Lord, actuated, I am sure, by the very best intentions towards this native franchise, desires to insure it for ten years. Although I hope there may be a general improvement of feeling in this respect, in one way I am less afraid of this ten years than I should be of a sudden wave of feeling arising at some future and remote time. During the next ten years the passing of this Act of Union will be fresh in the minds of all the South African statesmen who have been here, and they will, I am sure, be unwilling to think of disturbing so important a provision as this; and my main objection to the noble Lord's Amendment is that it almost seems to invite reconsideration of the matter at the end of ten years. I should be so afraid of its being possibly taken in that sense that, even if I were asked to put it in by the South African delegates themselves, I confess I should have great hesitation in doing so. In those circumstances I must appeal to the noble Lord not to press the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 35 agreed to.
  Clauses 36 to 150 agreed to.
  Clause 151:
  LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH moved to amend this clause, which ran—
  "The King, with the advice of the Privy Council, may, on addresses from the Houses of Parliament of the Union, transfer to the Union the government of any territories, other than the territories administered by the British South Africa Company, belonging to or under the protection of His Majesty, and inhabited wholly or in part by natives, and upon such transfer the Governor-General in Council may undertake the government of such territory upon the terms and conditions embodied in the Schedule to this Act,"
  by inserting, after the words "The King, with the advice of the Privy Council, may," the words "at the expiration of ten years from the establishment of the Union." He understood that the delegates laid no great stress on this clause or on the schedule, and that they would even be content to see both clause and schedule struck out of the Bill. If he was not misinformed, certain questions did, arise on this subject between His Majesty's Government and the delegates. The Colonial Secretary desired to stiffen some provisions and the delegates replied that rather than consent to that they would like to see the clause dropped altogether. The delegates were not in a hurry to take over the Protectorates and were willing to come to the Parliament of the United Kingdom again for authority to have them transferred, when they wished the transfer to take place. If that was the situation, their Lordships were quite free to deal with the two Amendments that he had placed on the Paper. The first Amendment was that application for the transfer of any Protectorate should not be made until the expiration of ten years from the establishment of the Union, and this Amendment would be apparently quite acceptable on the part of the representatives of South Africa. His second Amendment was to add a proviso to the effect that no such transfer should be made until the terms and conditions of the transfer were made know to the chiefs and inhabitants of such territory and opportunity given them to express their desires with respect to such transfer, or in support of any modification in its terms and conditions. Their Lordships would

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  observe that the proviso did not make their consent a necessary condition of the transfer; it only required that they should be informed of what was proposed and should be allowed to make ally suggestions they might desire. As to his first Amendment, the one he was now moving, there was a real danger with respect to the transfer of the Protectorates. Two questions would probably occupy the Union Parliament in the future—first, the question of the relations between the coloured residents and the white; and, secondly, there would be a demand for the transfer of the Protectorates. Although the delegates were not eager to have these provisions inserted now, there was no doubt that on the part of a considerable number of inhabitants in South Africa there was a strong desire to get one or other or all three of the Protectorates transferred. The inhabitants of one province had already set longing eyes on Bechuanaland. Basutoland had been very much desired by another province, and Swaziland by another province. The thing to be apprehended was that at no distant time application would be made for the transfer to the Government of the Cape of one of these Protectorates. There was considerable objection on the part of the inhabitants of the Protectorates to being transferred. An interesting communication appeared in The Times three weeks ago giving an account of an interview between the Acting Administrator of Bechuanaland and the chiefs of that country. The Acting Administrator told them that there was no intention at present to hand over Bechuanaland to any local government, but the thing might happen at no distant time and he thought it well to submit it to them to be thought over; and they one and all replied that they did not desire the change, but wished to remain as they were. That was the unanimous opinion of the people of Bechuanaland; and representatives had come over from Basutoland to beg that no change should be made in their position. Not one of these steps should be taken in a hurry, and he heard, with satisfaction the remarks made by Lord Curzon in his speech on the Second Reading in which he pleaded for deliberation before any transfer took place. There was no fear in regard to the adoption of his Amendment from the point of view of wrecking the Union. The Amendment might be adopted and the Union would proceed as smoothly and efficiently as
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  without the Amendment. His Amendment would give ample time to the Union Government to look about them, to organise their Parliament and their government, to realise their situation, and to provide for the precautions that should be taken. This was a matter which should not be dealt with in a hurry. The whole question was whether it was a judicious step to require that there should be a term of years in which the new Government and the new Parliament should be able to look about them and realise where they were. There was one other consideration which ought to be impressed upon their Lordships. These Protectorates existed under the most solemn assurances which had been communicated to the inhabitants by different Colonial Secretaries. He admitted that all such declarations must be construed with reference to the conditions in which they were made and the conditions in which it was sought to apply them, and he did not think a declaration made in the past could be admitted to be an eternal bar against any transfer in the future; but it should not be done without much deliberation and ample time for the whole consideration of the problem. He therefore hoped their Lordships would see their way to enact that this period of ten years should elapse before any step was taken.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 38, line 29, after the word 'may,' to insert the words 'at the expiration of ten years from the establishment of the Union.'"—(Lord Courtney of Penwith.)
  THE EARL OF CREWE: My noble friend has stated his case with his usual lucidity, and if I may I will follow his example and deal with the various Amendments together. My noble friend is not perfectly informed, I think, as to the views of the South African Governments and their delegates on this question. He told us that, so far as he knew, the South African Governments would agree either to the total omission of Clause 151 and the Schedule, or, as he thought, to the insertion of this time limit of ten years. I have no reason whatever to believe that such is the case. It is quite true that the South African Governments expressed themselves, speaking generally, willing to agree to the omission of the Schedule if Clause 151 was so altered as to make the transfer take

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  place upon such terms as might be agreed upon at the time. I dwelt at some length, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, on what appeared to me to be the overwhelming reasons in favour of adding this Schedule and of not leaving the whole matter to be casually dealt with at such time as negotiations might be entered into between the African Union Government and His Majesty's Government here. Nor have I any reason to suppose—indeed, quite the contrary—that the existing South African Governments would agree to the ten years limit proposed by the noble Lord. I think that they would raise the strongest objection to the insertion of any such provision.
  From our own point of view we also object to it. If you say that no handing over shall take place for ten years, there is some case against the insertion of the Schedule at all. It might be argued, and would, I think, be argued, that if at any rate for ten years, and possibly longer, no transfer could take place, it is somewhat premature to enter into the terms of transfer as we have done in the Schedule—a Schedule to which, as I have said, we attach the highest importance. The general effect, I think, of the Amendment would appear to be that, having safeguarded the Protectorates for the next ten years, we afterwards wash our hands of them. That is the effect which would be produced on the ordinary mind; and the South African Governments might then come and say, "Our time limit is up and we must now be allowed to take over the Protectorates on our own terms," and it is to prevent the possibility of that arising that we have asked to have the clause put in this form and to have the Schedule attached to it. I cannot say that as regards, at any rate, one of the Protectorates there will not be a request to take it over in less than ten years; nor am I in a position to say that such a request could be refused. As regards the others, I altogether decline to make any forecast as to if or when they might be or ought to be transferred to the South African Government. But so far as Swaziland is concerned, I think it is extremely probable that within a period of ten years a request will be made to add Swaziland to the Union of South Africa.
  As regards the noble Lord's further Amendment, it really only represents what
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  is practically certain to occur if and when any transfer is proposed. My noble friend very rightly does not attempt to give the local chiefs an absolute veto on transfer; he merely desires that they should be consulted and their wishes should be considered. Of course, they will be consulted. I cannot imagine any High Commissioner or any Government in this country who would not consider most carefully the wishes of the chiefs and the natives in such a case as that; but I should not be prepared to say that the mere expression of a preference for remaining under the direct government of this country could be taken as an absolute bar to a transfer at some future time. That preference might be very complimentary to us and might be an index to the good administration under which the particular Protectorate had been governed, but it could not of itself be taken as anything equivalent to a veto, and with that I am sure my noble friend would agree. I wish to repeat that my noble friend has been really very greatly misinformed as to the attitude of the South African Government on this question. With that fact I venture to think a very large part of his argument falls to the ground, and I must ask your Lordships not to accept the Amendment.
  On Question, Amendment negatived.
  LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH then moved his second Amendment, the object of which he had already explained.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 38, line 37, after the word 'Act' to insert the words 'provided always that no such transfer shall be made until the terms and conditions of the transfer are made known to the Chiefs and inhabitants of such territory, and opportunity is given them to express their desires with respect to such transfer, or in support of any modification in its terms and conditions.'"—(Lord Courtney of Penwith.)
  On Question, Amendment negatived.
  Clause 151 agreed to.
  Remaining Clause and Schedule agreed to.
  Bill reported without amendment: Standing Committee negatived, and Bill to be read 3a, To-morrow.

  EDUCATION (ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS) BILL. [H.L.]
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTON): My Lords, I need not trouble your Lordships at any great length in asking you to give a Second Reading to this Bill. The Bill is of a purely departmental character. It has been before the House for some little time, and up to the present no serious exception has been taken to it. Should any criticisms on points of detail be forthcoming, I think they would be more appropriately and conveniently dealt with when we reach the Committee stage. I will, therefore, confine myself to a short explanatory summary of the proposals to which I ask your Lordships' assent.
  Clause 1 provides that the delegation by a local education authority of its powers under the Education Act of 1902 to its education committee shall be applicable also to the educational powers conferred by subsequent Acts, with the exception, of course, of the power of raising a rate or of borrowing money. The power of delegation under the 1902 Act has been widely exercised, but, in view of the wording of Section 17, it is open to doubt whether specific powers conferred by subsequent Statutes are powers within the meaning of the Act, and, more generally, whether a local authority can delegate any such powers which it may have acquired since 1902. By way of illustration, I may refer to the Children Act of last year. Some doubt exists whether the function of cleansing verminous children can be delegated to the education committee, as administrative convenience would naturally suggest, and the Home Office agrees with the Board of Education that in the public interest the point ought to be cleared up. The difficulty is of a purely technical nature, and this clause is designed to effect its removal.
  Clause 2 applies to the managers of provided secondary and technical schools the system of financial control and audit which the Act of 1902 imposes in the case of elementary schools. In practice it is found necessary to place sums of money at the disposal of the governors or managers of secondary and technical schools, and it
  872
  goes without saying that the expenditure of such funds should be properly controlled and audited.
  Clause 3 extends, for the purposes of higher education, the power which the Education Act of 1870 gives to two or more local education authorities to combine in the maintenance of elementary schools serving the areas of more that one authority. Administrative experience has shown the great necessity for the establishment of such machinery in the case of secondary and technical schools. I may mention that, where these combinations are effected, the accounts of the joint body will be audited as if they were a separate local education authority, unless the Local Government Board sanction an agreement to the contrary.
  Clause 4 proposes to simplify the means whereby students who enter a training college may give to the Board of Education some security that they will either follow the profession of teacher for a specified period, or will repay the money spent out of the Parliamentary grant to give them the education they receive at the college. The State has clearly the right, where it sets apart money for a specific purpose, to insist that the money shall be made to serve the object in view, and to impose conditions to that end on the persons benefiting by the expenditure. In this particular case the principal difficulty arises from the circumstance that the beneficiaries are almost invariably minors when they enter the training colleges, and that consequently, in default of statutory provisions to the contrary, agreements made with them are not enforcible at law. Prior to 1907 a declaration of intention to follow the teaching profession was usually exacted from such students, but this declaration had no legal force to bind the student, and did not in practice prove very effective, although obstacles were placed in the way of his entering the Civil Service. The Treasury were dissatisfied with the result and pressed for some amendment of the system. Since 1907 a new experiment has been tried, consisting of a tripartite agreement between the Board, the governing body of the training college, and the student, whereby the latter undertook either to serve as a teacher or to refund the money wasted on his specialised education; but in this arrangement also legal and administrative difficulties have

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  arisen. To refer to one point only, the students being minors, it was thought desirable to make the governors of the college parties to the instrument, but, as these mostly are unincorporated bodies, great obstacles presented themselves in obtaining their adhesion to the agreement. The clause in the Bill provides a remedy by substituting a simple agreement between the Board of Education and the students, and by giving it legal force in spite of the minority of one of the contracting parties. As the details are to be embodied in the Board's Regulations, it will be possible to ventilate any grievances through the usual channels.
  Clause 5 is designed to enable a local education authority, subject to the approval of the Board of Education and the Local Government Board, to appropriate to non-educational purposes land which they hold for educational purposes. Previous Statutes, notably the Education Act of 1870 and the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act of 1907, enable education authorities to sell or lease land which they hold for educational purposes; to appropriate to the purposes of elementary education land held for the purposes of higher education, and vice versâ; to alienate educational land; and to appropriate to educational purposes land held for other purposes. This clause legalises the converse of the last-named process, and completes the series. I may mention that it is drawn on the model of Section 95 of the Public Health Acts Amendment Act of 1907. Some of your Lordships will, perhaps, think that there should be a local inquiry into the conditions of any proposed appropriation, and I have no doubt that in Committee we shall be able to discuss that point and to deal with it in a manner satisfactory to those competent to express an opinion upon it. I beg to move.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Wolverhampton.)
  THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My Lords, I concur with the noble Viscount that this would not be the stage in which to deal at any length with the provisions of the Bill which he has so lucidly explained, but I think at the same time it would not be altogether out of place if I, as Minister for Education in the late Government, asked the noble Viscount to explain one or two provisions in the Bill which I do not
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  quite understand. Clause 1 of this Bill is introduced for the purpose of amending Section 17 of the Education Act, 1902. With that I have no fault to find; but the provision in the clause applies not only with respect to the powers conferred under the Act of 1902 but also to "any powers I connected with education conferred on the I authority or council under any other Act," except the power of raising a rate or borrowing money. I should like to ask the noble Viscount what are those other powers which are alluded to in the clause. The clause is not very clearly defined. I do not ask the question in any hostile spirit, but merely to get some idea as to what those powers are.
  Clause 5 opens up a new field. It allows the council of any county, borough, or urban district, with the consent of the Board of Education, to appropriate to other purposes land acquired originally for educational purposes only. There was a provision in the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act of 1907 enabling land acquired for the purpose of elementary education to be appropriated to the purpose of higher education, and vice versâ. That requires no comment. There was also a provision that land acquired for other purposes could be appropriated to educational purposes, but in that case the appropriation could only be with the consent of, and after inquiry by, the Local Government Board. In another case the council was allowed to alienate land acquired for the purposes of higher education, but that could only be done after inquiry by the Board of Education. I ask the noble Viscount to explain why there is this alteration in the present case, and why no inquiry is provided for in this Bill. If land were taken without inquiry for some other purpose it might be unfair to the person who sold it, or to the parishioners themselves who understood that the land was taken for one purpose only; and in my opinion an inquiry in such cases is always desirable. I think it would be advisable if the noble Viscount could see his way to introduce an Amendment in Committee to meet this point. Clause 1 of the Act of 1907 affords a precedent, for it is there provided that a local education authority may appropriate "with the consent of, and after inquiry by, the Local Government Board."
  VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTON: I can

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  see very clearly the force of the second point which the noble Marquess has raised with reference to the necessity for inquiry. We will consider it before the Committee stage is reached, and I hope we shall be able to come to a satisfactory arrangement upon it. I can quite see that it might in certain cases be desirable for the protection of the various interests that there should be a local inquiry, but, if the noble Marquess agrees, I will leave that point to be discussed when we reach the Committee stage, with the observation that, so far as my own personal opinion is concerned, I rather incline to the view taken by the noble Marquess. As to the other point, I will give my best attention to the subject to see whether there are any powers which it might not be desirable to transfer.
  THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: May I ask when the noble Viscount proposes to take the Committee stage?
  VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTON: Not this week. I will endeavour to meet the convenience of your Lordships in this matter.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: If the noble Viscount says not this week, I presume he means not for at least three weeks.
  VISCOUNT WOLVERHAMPTON: I cannot say more than that at present.
  On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

  PUBLIC HOUSES IMPROVEMENT BILL. [H.L.]
  Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Lamington, I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
  On Question, Bill read 3a.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: There is an Amendment which I think it is necessary to introduce in order to make the Bill perfect. The Bill is intended to apply to England, Scotland, and Ireland. A definition of the licensing authority for
  876
  England was originally in the Bill; a definition of the words "licensing justices" has been added for Scotland, but there is no definition in respect of Ireland. This is purely a formal matter. Clause 2 reads—
  "In the application of this Act to Scotland the words 'licensing justices' shall be read as 'licensing court,' and appeals shall be to the Court of Appeal";
  and I move to insert words applying the Bill to Ireland.
  Amendment moved—
  "In page 2, Clause 2, line 8, after the words 'licensing court,' to insert the words and in its application to Ireland as the justices assembled at licensing sessions, or any justice exercising the jurisdiction of such justices.'"—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
  On Question, Amendment agreed to.
  Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

  REMISSION OF SURCHARGES (DUBLIN) BILL.
  House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment: Standing Committee negatived, and Bill to be read 3a To-morrow.

  LABOUR EXCHANGES BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: My Lords, before I deal with this Bill I feel that I ought to offer a word of explanation and perhaps of apology regarding another Bill which stood in my name—the Trade Boards Bill; and I think that an explanation is particularly to be asked of me by those many Members of the House who take a deep, and, I believe, a benevolent interest in that measure. The Second Reading of that Bill has now been twice put off. I am afraid that I was the innocent cause of the postponement on Wednesday last, and I beg to offer my apologies for that. To-day the Second Reading has again been postponed and the Bill has been replaced, for reasons which, I believe, will commend themselves to your Lordships, by this Bill dealing with labour exchanges. The Government attach very great importance to both of these Bills, to

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  one as much as to the other; but there is a special reason for urgency in the case of this Bill which does not exist in the case of the other.
  This Bill deals with unemployment, and it is in the highest degree desirable that the machinery which it sets up should be in readiness to commence operations before the winter comes. I think your Lordships will appreciate that and also the reasons which have caused us to press it on. The Bill entails the establishment of a great number, I think this year some 125, of different offices with the necessary staff, and preparations for them are being pressed on as far and as fast as possible. But the House will understand that the Treasury will not part with the money necessary to enable the scheme to be in working order until the full consent of Parliament has been given, and therefore we propose to ask your Lordships to so far co-operate with us as to agree, if you approve of this Bill, to its passing through all its stages during the current week.
  I have said that this Bill deals with unemployment. I do not think it is necessary for me to elaborate in any way the great distress and misery which arise from lack of work. I am sure that this House will be as ready as any other humane and thinking body of men to do anything it can to cure that evil, and I therefore assume that your Lordships will approve of the object of this Bill and that you will only require to be convinced of the desirability and the efficiency of the means by which that object is to be arrived at. There have been many attempts of late years to deal with unemployment, but perhaps the most important have been the relief works which have been started by many of the great municipalities. That, of course, is an old way of dealing with emergencies of this kind. It has been resorted to in all such emergencies. Anyone who has travelled in Ireland cannot fail to have been struck by the huge walls which surround many of the domains there. Many of your Lordships have such walls on your own property which were built in times of famine. Those works are monuments to the benevolence of your predecessors, but I am afraid they are rather expensive monuments to maintain and that they embody almost all the disadvantages of these relief works. As a rule these works are not wanted;
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  their cost is altogether disproportionate to the amount of relief they give, and after the emergency which they were designed to meet has subsided they continue to cost money every year. In fact, relief works cannot seriously be regarded as a cure for unemployment. At the best they are only a palliative. What is wanted is not a drug to still the pain of this disease, but a cure which will reach deep down to its roots.
  The closest study has been given to this problem, and as a result of that study a scheme has been evolved—a practical and economical scheme, which seems to go as far as it is possible to go in the direction of the cure of unemployment. The Bill which is before the House does not contain the whole of that scheme. In fact, I doubt whether it can be said to contain half of it, but as far as it goes it contains a scheme which is complete in itself, and which, though it is an essential part of the whole, is nevertheless complete in itself and capable of doing a very great amount of good. It is proposed by this Bill to establish a network of labour exchanges all over the country. A labour exchange is really quite a simple thing. It is what its name implies—a place where the man who wishes to buy labour will be put in touch with the man who has labour to sell. Its object is the same as that of any other exchange—to bring buyer and seller together. That is the simplest aspect of a labour exchange, and I think that if it did nothing more than that it would amply justify its existence.
  I would ask the House to consider for a moment what happens when a man is looking for work. It surely ought not to be necessary that he should have to hawk his labour round to every likely employer in the town where he lives, or perhaps walk great distances from one town to another in search of work. As a business process one cannot imagine anything more wasteful or cumbrous than that. One can hardly imagine it; but by a stretch of imagination one may think of what might happen if there was no such thing as a Stock Exchange, and if every share that was for sale had to be hawked round the City of London in search of a possible purchaser. That is exactly what happens when a man is looking for work, and that is a thing which can very easily be prevented by a properly-arranged system

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  of labour exchanges. It is not only the time of the man who is looking for work which is wasted, but the employer suffers also, because it often happens that an employer may require men to do some particular form of work and may not be able to obtain them, while all the time there are men seeking employment at no very great distance who are perfectly capable of doing that work. That is a state of affairs which, of course, does not arise as a rule in regard to unskilled labour, but it is by no means uncommon in skilled trades, and that is a thing, again, which could clearly be put an end to by a system of labour exchanges.
  In regard to unskilled labour the evil which has to be met is of a different nature. There are certain trades, of which the building trade is, perhaps, the best example, which give employment of a more or less intermittent character to a large number of men. Each building firm gives employment of that nature to a number of more or less unskilled labourers. Some of those men get employment which is practically regular, but there are many others who go down every day to the office or to the gate to see whether they can get a job. If trade is brisk, they are engaged; if it is slack, they are not. That sort of thing may be going on at half a dozen different builders' yards in a town, and the result is that each of them is maintaining on half rations more men than it is able to give regular employment to. That may be, to a certain extent, a convenience to those firms, though it is probable that they would be better served by men who were in receipt of regular wages, and, what is much more important, getting regular food and properly clothed and properly housed. Such men would do better work and earn their wages better. But whether it is convenient to the employers or not, I would ask your Lordships to consider what it means to the men themselves. It means that their life is made up of an alternation of full wages and of semi-starvation, and that is a state of affairs, again, where a labour exchange can come in, and where, by putting various employers in touch with each other, continuous work may be found for a number of those men and the evil of casual labour reduced to a minimum.
  Then my Lords, there are trades in which employment, as a rule, is brisk at one time
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  and slack at another, and here, again, the labour exchange, by a sort of process of dovetailing, will be able to arrange that men will get continuous employment, perhaps at one trade at one time of the year and at another trade at another time. As an instance of what I mean I would quote the case of building and brick-making, at which men may get work in the summer, and the same men may be found employment in gas-works and at docks in the winter. There are many other cases of the same sort. I have mentioned a very few of the more obvious uses of a labour exchange. Many others must suggest themselves to anyone who gives the matter a moment's consideration. I do not claim, of course, that this system will do anything to increase employment. Obviously it will do nothing of the kind, but what it will do will be to secure that wherever there is a vacancy for a man you will be able to put a man into it, and a vacancy will not go begging in one place while men are seeking work in another. There is another claim which can be made for this system, and that is that it will prevent any necessity for men tramping about the country in search of work, and in that way it will remove all excuse for vagrancy. That is, I think, an important consideration. The most important thing which I would urge in favour of this scheme is that it will prevent hard-working, decent men from being forced into the ranks of the unemployed and the casual labourers, as they often are at present, because the facilities for finding work for all such men will undoubtedly be increased.
  As far as the Bill itself goes, it is a short, and, I think, a simple Bill, and it does not require, as far as I can see, any explanation. What I think I ought to do is to inform the House what the Board of Trade propose to do under the regulations they are given power to make. It is proposed to set up a system of 240 exchanges—that is ultimately —grouped in ten principal divisions. The largest of these exchanges will be in towns of above 100,000 inhabitants, and will provide for the separate registration of several classes of workpeople, such as skilled men, labourers, and women. The smallest exchanges will be in the smaller towns of from 25,000 to 10,000 inhabitants and in the suburbs of the larger towns; and in each of the ten divisions there will be a divisional clearing house, the object of the clearing house being to receive and collate the regular

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  returns of situations unfilled and of men unemployed at all the exchanges in the division, thus enabling the demands for labour in one place to be met, if necessary, from another place. The divisional clearing house will be linked up with a national clearing house in London. It is proposed for the present that the exchanges shall be housed in premises which shall be hired; but it will he found more convenient and economical that, at all events in the case of the larger exchanges and clearing houses, premises shall eventually be built for the purpose, and it is proposed to carry out that building programme gradually.
  The annual expenditure which this Bill will entail will amount for the present year, which, of course, is only part of a year, to £100,000; next year it will amount to £210,000 and will remain at that figure till 1912, when it is estimated that it will fall to £200,000, and finally in 1919–20, when it is estimated that the building programme will be completed, the expenditure will reach its normal level, which will amount to £180,000. These details, my Lords, are given much more elaborately in the financial statement which has been presented to Parliament, and which I daresay your Lordships have in your hands. I have already said that this Bill contains only a part of the scheme of the Government for dealing with unemployment. The other part of that scheme is contained in the Bill which it is intended to introduce next year, but which has been announced by my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade in the other House of Parliament. My right hon. friend gave an outline of that scheme. It is not possible for me to give more than an outline myself.
  Broadly speaking, it is proposed by that scheme to establish a system of compulsory insurance to which workpeople and employers will both contribute, and to which the State will also make a contribution. It is not proposed, at present at any rate, to do more than include certain trades in which unemployment is chronic. The trades which my right hon. friend mentioned are these: house building and works of construction, engineering, machine and tool making, ship, boat, and vehicle building, including sawyers and general labourers working at those trades. That Bill and the Bill now before the House are a part of the same system. The one is the necessary
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  adjunct of the other. Without some system of unemployment insurance it is not possible to deal completely with unemployment; and also without some system of labour exchanges, even if those exchanges are only regarded as a test of the willingness of the men to work, it would be folly to set up any system of State-aided insurance against unemployment. By the system of labour exchanges we hope to fill all the vacancies in the country for men who are able and willing to work, and by the other system we hope to provide for those for whom perhaps no work may be able to be obtained. The remainder —the unemployable and the unwilling—will have to be dealt with in some other way. I imagine, and I think that it is a common idea, that that will be done by some reform in the system of Poor Law Administration. That, of course, is not a question which is. before the House, but, as everyone knows, it is a question which is receiving earnest consideration.
  This system of labour exchanges is not a new one. It has already been tried with success in London and particularly at the docks. It is in operation in half a dozen different countries on the Continent at the present time—in France, in Germany, in Austria, in Belgium, in Switzerland, and in Norway, and I understand that its establishment is contemplated in the United States of America. There is another thing I should like to say about this system of labour exchanges. It enjoys this unique distinction, that I believe it is almost the only proposal which is to be found in both the Majority and the Minority Reports of the Poor Law Commission. This proposal has been very favourably received by both masters and men. It is a purely voluntary system. There is no compulsion whatever on anybody to use these exchanges. It is recognised that it will be most important that masters and men shall meet us on this neutral ground, and the leading trade unionists have admitted that it is extremely important that that neutral ground should exist. They are aware that if that neutrality disappears there will be many employers who will not use the exchanges, and for that reason we have been assured that trade union leaders will do their best to maintain the neutrality of these exchanges. This is not a charitable scheme; it is an economic scheme; and I recommend it to your Lordships above all on the ground that it is a practical and honest attempt to deal with a very great evil. I beg to move.
  Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Hamilton of Dalzell.)
  THE LORD BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM: My Lords, I should be glad if I might be allowed to say a few words, partly of welcome to a measure for the like of which some of us have been looking for a long time, but also, if I might, of warning against exaggerated expectations of what labour exchanges by themselves are at all likely to accomplish. So much has been said, and justly, about the necessity for labour exchanges that there have been in the minds of a great many people expectations excited as to the good that is to come from the establishment of labour exchanges which are quite certain to be falsified and to lead to widespread disappointment and disillusionment if these exchanges are allowed for any length of time to stand alone. I am sure that the Bill ought to be welcomed, and that most cordially, by this House and by the country, because it is a step in the right direction, and a sign that we have at last learned the lesson of the futility of some of the remedies to which we used to look, as, for example, the remedy of relief works. We have learned many bitter lessons as to remedies that are no true remedies. It is at least a great thing that we should be in this Bill set upon a path of reform which certainly, as far as I know, economists and social reformers of all kinds believe to be the path of real progress.
  But, my Lords, I hope we shall not, even in welcoming this Bill, allow ourselves to hide from our eyes that all that labour exchanges, even if they answer to all the best hopes of their advocates, can accomplish is something very limited, and that the institution of labour exchanges must be followed up by other measures besides that which was mentioned by the noble Lord just now as forming already part of the Government programme. Of course, what we hope from labour exchanges is that they will do something, not actually to meet the evil of unemployment, but to meet an evil which is so very closely allied to it—that is to say, to decasualise or to regularise labour. Since I have been at work in Birmingham I think nothing has impressed my imagination with such terrific force as the vast and growing amount of casual labour. It is deplorable to hear those who know best the state of parish after parish bear witness to the fact that the area of persons who never expect to be in regular work is a growing
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  area. I believe that that lamentable state of things is so far true. The area of casual labour is growing, and that for certain assignable causes, and there seems to me no doubt in the world that the path of real progress is the path of ascertaining how much labour can be regularly employed. Even if the immediate result of that is that we have more and not less unemployment to deal with, I think it is better that there should be a smaller number of persons in regular work. What we have to recognise is that the institution of labour exchanges may be hoped, if they are well and wisely worked, to do something of a very real kind to decasualise labour. If that is so, then I think it is of great importance that all of us who are interested in this matter should realise that the institution of labour exchanges and anything which tends in the direction of decasualising labour must be followed up by other remedies.
  The noble Lord spoke of this as being only part, and perhaps not the larger part, of the Government programme, and he spoke of the extremely important measure which is announced of compulsory insurance against unemployment. I may say that no one in this House could welcome that proposal more cordially than I do, but I still feel that there are one or two other remedies on the necessity of which social reformers and economists of all kinds and schools are practically agreed, and which must also follow very rapidly on the heels of the institution of labour exchanges if they are not to lead to real disappointment. I will mention three. First of all, something effective must be done, and very speedily done, to resist the influx from the bottom of the great mass of untrained and unskilled labour which comes from the improper or unwise employment of boys. I do not think anyone can really contemplate the social situation at the present moment without seeing the disaster which comes from the extraordinary facility with which boys at the age of fourteen can get into posts by which they are enabled to earn small wages, which, of course, they and their parents hail with great enthusiasm; but when they are seventeen or eighteen they are turned out without any skill, without any real preparation for taking a permanent place in life, inevitably to swell the ranks of casual labour and to look forward to life without any hope of obtaining a permanent place. I have been very much struck with the evidence of those

  885
  who have had close experience of the vast number of boys who, at the age of seventeen or eighteen, have not really any hope or expectation of doing anything else except picking up a job.
  For the last two or three days I have been acting as chaplain to the Warwickshire Territorials in their camp in the New Forset, and I talked to a good many of the lads of eighteen who were there. The very facility with which they had been able to come to camp was due in part to the lamentable cause of slackness of employment. It was pathetic to see so many who were in casual employment, and there is no doubt that one of the very first things we have to do is to dam the influx of totally unskilled labour from the ranks of boyhood. I do earnestly hope that His Majesty's Government intend at an early date to take the step which it seems to me social reformers of all kinds are now urging upon us, and that is to raise the age of compulsory schooling and to continue compulsory training at night in such a manner as shall do something to put boys into a more effective path towards skilled permanent labour. I do earnestly hope that none of us who are interested in this project of labour exchanges will fail to see that one great part they are qualified to play in decasualising labour they will be unable to do unless we are at the same time diminishing the influx of totally unskilled labour from the unregulated condition of the boy market.
  Secondly, I hope His Majesty's Government are really prepared at an early date for the establishment of detention colonies for those who are proved—awl we shall have now, with the assistance of the labour exchanges, better opportunities of putting them to the proof—to be what the Germans call "work-shy." That, again, is a matter which is pressed upon us by reformers and economists of all kinds. It is hardly realised how great an invasion of the liberty of the subject it will be, but I think it is an invasion which ought to be altogether hopeful in its results. I venture to put that second among the other remedies not mentioned by the noble Lord which are quite essential, and which must follow upon the institution of labour exchanges if such exchanges are not to lead to disappointment, disillusionment, and reaction.
  The third is the institution of training
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  colonies for those whom the labour exchanges reveal to be necessarily for the time out of work because there is no work for them, but with regard to whom there is no reason to believe that they are not willing to work when work can be found. I venture to think that a great deal could be done if there were training colonies for such persons, where the interval in which they are out of work could be used, either in teaching them some new trade, or making them more efficient in the trade which they at present exercise, and I do not doubt that money expended on that line would be money profitably spent. I do not wish to do more than welcome very cordially the institution of labour exchanges, but at the same time to give voice to what is in the minds of a great many people who are interested—namely, to the fear that undue hopes may be excited as to what labour exchanges of themselves can do; and while we greet with the greatest satisfaction the statement of the Government that it is only half their programme, I hope it will not be forgotten that besides the other half there are measures which are absolutely necessary if the institution of labour exchanges is not to prove deficient in the results for which those who have longed for such an institution are constrained to hope.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I think that no one could have listened to the eloquent speech of the right reverend Prelate who has just sat down but must have been tempted to go into a far wider field on this subject than perhaps there is time to enter upon on the present occasion. He touched on the most critical problems which await solution in respect of the reform of the Poor Law and social reform generally. I am not qualified, even if I thought it were suitable, to follow him in all his most interesting remarks, but I cannot refrain from adding my humble testimony to the enormous importance, as it appears to some of us, of dealing without delay with boys who are being brought up in so unsatisfactory a manner for their subsequent battle in life.
  I would add to what the right reverend Prelate has said this further remark, that what is borne in upon us by all the evidence is the complete failure of the educational policy of this country to deal with this problem. I often think when we have education debates in your Lordships'

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  House and in another place, and when Minister after Minister comes before Parliament with the demand for untold millions and with an air of confidence that they never can be refused, that these gentlemen scarcely realise how profoundly upon its trial the whole educational system of this country really is. When the present educational system was introduced confident prophecies were made that it would banish all sorts of social evils; those prophecies have completely vanished, and now we are face to face with more misery and more poverty than when the Education Acts were passed. I earnestly hope that the eloquent words of the right rev. Prelate will not fall upon an infertile soil. I for one should welcome a change in the Education Acts, not only in the direction of a reform of the curriculum, but also in prolonging the age at which children are kept at school. I have always been in favour of evening continuation schools and not of prolonging the age in respect of day schools, and for this reason, that it is evident that you would meet with great resistance—I think legitimate resistance—on the part of the people of this country if after their children had reached an earning age they were precluded from earning money. That difficulty does not present itself in evening continuation schools, and the great waste that now takes place might thereby be spared.
  The right reverend Prelate has impressed upon us that this measure for the establishment of labour exchanges will have only a limited effect. That is no doubt true, but that does not in any way diminish my approval of the Bill as a whole. I do not think we must look to violent changes. Slight improvements are all that we can expect, and if this Bill makes a slight improvement we ought to be thoroughly satisfied. I think the noble Lord who introduced this Bill was justified in saying that the establishment of labour exchanges meets with general approval. He said it was the only point on which the Majority and the Minority Reports of the Poor Law Commission agreed. I think the noble Lord did less than justice, if I may say so, to those two wonderful documents, and I think it will be found that there are a good many points upon which they agree.
  LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: I
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  said it was one of the few points on which they agreed.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I entirely accept the noble Lord's correction. This is one of the points on which they agree. I go a step further than the noble Lord and say that I think this Bill will even tend to increase employment. I think that a better distribution of labour and an increase of supply where it is required will no doubt tend to the general prosperity of the country and the improvement of the conditions of labour as a whole. But I think your Lordships will agree that, this Bill is rather skeleton in form, and does not very clearly upon the face of it explain the method by which it is to be carried out. Like many other Bills introduced nowadays, this Bill is really to be carried into effect by regulation; and I thought we had every reason to be grateful to the noble Lord that he was good enough to add a little flesh and skin to the skeleton which the document itself presents to us by detailing some of the regulations that the Board of Trade propose to establish in pursuance of this Bill when it becomes an Act of Parliament. But I am to some extent a little doubtful as to the working of the Bill. There was one point on which the noble Lord did not dwell. I understand that the proposal is to carry on these labour exchanges as national and not as local institutions—that is to say, that the whole of the authority under which the Bill is to be worked is national, that it is to be worked by the Board of Trade and not by or with the assistance of any local authority whatever.
  LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: That is so.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: And although I do not think that, in terms, the existing labour exchanges such as there are, are abolished, yet it is proposed that no future such exchanges shall be established. The Bill may even go further than I have stated, but at any rate labour exchanges which exist at present under the control of local authorities are not to be any further encouraged. If, then, this system is to be a national system, its finance is to be national, and the financial clauses, if I may say so, are rather incomplete. I do not feel quite certain what expenditure is authorised under Clause 4. It appears that certain what

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  may be called administrative expenditure is authorised, but one of the most important provisions of the Bill, though that in itself is rather sketchy, which is, as it were, hinted at in Clause 2, is the power to aid workmen who have to travel from one place to another in order to take up a particular job. I do not find any direct authority in Clause 4 authorising this expenditure, but perhaps when another member of the Government addresses us he will explain how that may be carried out. In the same way the drafting of Clause 2 seems to be of rather an incomplete character. I see that the Board of Trade may, with the consent of the Treasury, authorise advances to be made by way of loan, but the Bill does not say to whom the loan is to be made. On the face of it, one would think it was a loan from the central authority to the particular labour exchange, but I gather from other sources that what is intended is really a loan by the labour exchange to the workman who wishes to travel from one place to another. That is so, I have no doubt, but I think the noble Lord will agree that the phrasing of the clauses is not very complete.
  The same kind of criticism applies to other parts of the Bill, especially to subsection (2) of Clause 2 as it now stands. That is a subsection which was not in the original Bill as it was introduced in the House of Commons, but was inserted in the course of its passage through that House, and it is a provision which, as your Lordships will recognise, deals with matters of great complexity and delicacy. I hope that when the noble Earl the Leader of the House speaks, if he is going to speak, he will tell us what is really intended by subsection (2) of Clause 2. This is the provision which says that—
  "The regulations shall provide that no person shall suffer any disqualification or be otherwise prejudiced on account of refusing to accept employment found for him through a labour exchange where the ground of refusal is that a trade dispute exists, or that the wages offered are lower than those current in the trade in the district where the employment is offered."
  I do not pretend for a moment that I do not understand the general intention of that subsection, but I think it is important that the Government should explain exactly what their policy is in that respect. The general intention, no doubt, is to prevent the operation of this Bill affecting
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  trade disputes. Taken in that general sense it is a very natural provision to insert in such a Bill as the present. I do not think any of your Lordships would desire that these labour exchanges should be used as a weapon on the one side or the other in trade disputes; but it must be admitted that the particular language used is very vague and seems to carry us a long way.
  I should like in that connection to make this observation. As I understand, these labour exchanges are to be managed by a committee consisting of equal numbers of employers and workmen, with a neutral chairman. Therefore, the workmen, who are to be representative, as I understand, of local trade unions, will have a very important position in administering the Act. I am not sorry. On the contrary, I am glad. I think it is proper that both the interests into which the industrial world is divided should be represented on the committees which are to manage these labour exchanges, and I am in hopes that the trade union representatives themselves will profit by the experience which they will thus gain. There appears to be a profound dread existing lest any provision in such a Bill as this should tend to lower the rate of wages. I am not surprised. When one looks back at the history of trade unions and sees the great battles which they most properly and successfully fought for their own interests and for the interests of their fellow workmen in years gone by, one is not surprised that they should shrink from any legislation which might have the effect of lowering the rate of wages. I have always spoken with profound respect of trade unions. I believe they have done splendid work in the industrial world, and I believe that the fact of the organisation of labour is in itself a tremendous benefit to the community, because it enables the community as a whole to deal with labour questions with some hope that they will be disposed of, because you have a settled organisation with whom to deal.
  But, at the same time, one cannot help feeling that there are occasions when this dread of any legislation which may affect wages may carry us rather too far. For what will be the natural operation of such a Bill as this? You will have a place where there are workmen of a particular trade who cannot get a job. There will be another

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  place where there will be particular jobs of that trade to be done and not sufficient workmen to do them, and the labour exchange will have the effect of transferring the surplus workmen to the place where there is a demand for them. The effect undoubtedly will be to, I hope, raise the wages in the place from which the workmen come, for it will reduce the surplus labour; but it will also undoubtedly have some effect towards lowering the wages in the place to which they go, because they will fill a demand for labour which otherwise would not be filled. I do not think we ought to shrink from that consequence. I cannot help hoping that the trade unions will take the same view, and that they will see that in the administration of a great national system it is right and proper that where there is a demand for labour in a particular part of England and a surplus of labour in another part, the surplus ought to be transferred to where there is a demand notwithstanding any effect it may have upon the rate of wages.
  I am specially tempted to make these observations because it has always seemed to me a very doubtful policy on the part of the Labour leaders to resist variation in the rate of wages when they have to deal with workmen different in calibre and ability. All of us know that as men grow older they cannot do quite as good work as when they were in their prime. Properly considered, these men should receive a lower rate of wages, but as the trade unions will not allow them to accept lower wages the result is that these men receive no wages at all and they help to increase the ranks of the unemployed. I believe that this policy of casting out workmen who are past their prime and no longer able to earn the full rate of wages of fully effective workmen has been carried a very long way and has been seen even in Government Departments. I have heard—I do not know whether it is authentic—of workmen being turned out of Woolwich Dockyard at an age when they were beginning to go a short way down the hill. I hope that when the trade union leaders find themselves upon these labour exchange committees brought face to face with these problems from the point of view of workmen out of employment through no fault of their own, but because they are past their prime, they will become convinced that this rigid policy of maintaining in all
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  circumstances and in all cases a fixed point below which wages should never be allowed to fall is a great as well as a cruel mistake, and is contrary to the public int rests.
  While I welcome most warmly the introduction of this Bill and hope that your Lordships will pass it into law, I trust that His Majesty's Government may be able to give us some explanation as to how they think Clause 2, and especially subsection (2) of that clause, is intended to work. As for the actual prospects of this Bill, I am quite sure I may say on behalf of my noble friend who sits beside me—indeed I say it with his authority—that we shall offer no hindrance to the rapid passage of the Bill through your Lordships' House. A certain limited amount of delay is necessary in order to insert any Amendments that might be thought necessary, but within that limit every facility will be given to His Majesty's Government in order to carry it into effect. I conclude by congratulating the noble Lord on the introduction of the Bill and the facility with which he explained it to your Lordships.
  THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: I am sure that the noble Lord who introduced the Bill and His Majesty's Government must feel encouraged by the reception which the Bill has received. I think the discussion to-night has been of real value and interest, not only for its own sake but also because of the evidence it will give to all who are interested in this subject, and who, perhaps, have hardly realised the difficulty which attends legislation respecting it, that they must take one step at a time towards the solution of the problem. That this Bill by itself could produce momentous results scarcely anyone would, I imagine, be prepared to maintain; but when followed by other Bills such as those which were sketched, and by the treatment of the other subjects referred to by my right reverend brother the Bishop of Birmingham, I have no doubt that the legislation will produce a vast effect upon the difficulties with which we are at present face to face.
  But it is worth noting that in all these matters we are face to face with this difficulty. When we attempt to deal with this subject as a whole, as soon as the initial discussion is raised we find it to be so vast that its solution would take, not one Bill,

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  but half-a-dozen Bills. On the other hand, we are deterred from taking one of these steps by itself because it seems hardly by itself worth a great deal of effort. It is because I believe that this Bill will fit in with other things that I welcome it with special cordiality to-night. The noble Marquess drew a gloomy picture of our educational system. That the educational prospects of forty years ago and the hopes founded on them by reformers have been altogether falsified I am not prepared to say, any more than I can agree with the view of the noble Marquess that there is more poverty and misery now than prevailed forty years ago. I am convinced that the contrary could be shown to be the case, and that where more misery and more poverty do exist they are attributable to other causes than the failure of our educational policy. That our educational policy needs amending I most cordially and firmly believe, but whether it should be amended exactly in the direction sketched by the noble Marquess I am not quite sure.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I was only referring to a remarkable passage in the Majority Report, with which, no doubt, the most reverend Primate is familiar.
  THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: I am familiar with that passage, and it was one of the points on which I had hoped to dwell in the course of a discussion which I had looked forward to raising tomorrow. But to meet the general convenience of the House this discussion will not take place till later, and I will await that opportunity to expound my views on the particular point to which the noble Marquess called attention. The whole subject, indeed, of which this Bill deals with a small portion, must necessarily be touched upon in any adequate discussion on Poor Law reform as a whole. But at present I enter a caveat of objection as to the words of the noble Lord who introduced the Bill when he spoke of the few points on which the whole of that great Commission is practically unanimous. I shall be prepared to show when the time comes, and I think conclusively to show, that in respect of the larger principles which are at stake the recommendations are practically one. But that is a big subject into which I will not enter now, although I hope to have an opportunity of doing so before very long. All that I desire to do to-night is to congratulate His Majesty's Government and to say
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  how cordially I for one welcome this measure as part of a greater whole. I am certain that the subject will require treatment in more directions than one before this Bill fits in its proper place if we are to get a coherent and unified system dealing with, on wise lines, some of the larger problems with which we are confronted.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: My Lords, my noble friend has no reason to complain of the reception of this Bill. On the contrary, the reception has been all through of a cordial character. It is partly, perhaps, due to the fact that the discussion has wandered in some respects a considerable distance from the Bill itself, but it is no doubt also due to the fact, which every speaker has emphasised, that this meaure forms only one part of a great scheme. I cordially agree with what has been said by the most rev. Primate, that there always is a difficulty in dealing with these slices of a great subject. It is impossible, by common consent, in any session of Parliament to deal with the whole subject of the Poor Law and kindred matters, whereas a single attempt to deal with one particular aspect such as is represented in this Bill may lie in some degree open to the imputation of being imperfect. But I am very glad that the House has so thoroughly understood that this is one step in the direction of what we hope may be a solution of the entire matter, and that it has been received in that spirit.
  Both the right rev. Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham and the noble Marquess opposite dealt for a time with some of the questions, educational and others, which are germane to this subject. The question of boy labour, one of the most difficult, as I should think, to deal with, was dealt with by both. It seems sometimes to be concluded, though it was not either by the right rev. Prelate or by the noble Marquess, that this question of boy labour, relatively well paid for a time and then ceasing altogether, is a simple one to cure. It seems to me to be one of the most difficult sides of the problem. Those noble Lords who are in the habit of indulging in the game of golf sometimes, I think, pause to reflect what is to be the future career of the active and intelligent little boy who is carrying their clubs. We see also the no less active and intelligent boy messengers belonging to institutions and also a large number in private employment, and we wonder what their future is to be. It is impossible to prohibit that kind of

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  labour, at least so it seems, and its regulation undoubtedly is a subject of the very greatest difficulty. The noble Marquess, I gather, looks for help on this branch of the subject from further development of continuation schools, and I venture to assume that he is not one of those who would object to at any rate some application of the principle of compulsion as far as they are concerned. The right rev. Prelate, who is not now in the House, the Bishop of Hereford, has more than once attempted, as your Lordships know, to deal with this question by a Bill, and I think it has generally been the case when he has brought it forward that he has received a great deal of sympathy; but it has been generally pointed out that public opinion in the country is not ripe for such a change. I think there is some reason to hope that it is ripening in that direction, and I, for one, trust that before very long by common agreement more may be done in that direction than anybody has yet ventured to attempt.
  Then the right reverend Prelate asked whether other Poor Law questions, such as detention colonies for those who will not work and training colleges for those who would like to work but cannot get work, form part of the programme of His Majesty's Government. I am sure the right reverend Prelate will forgive me if I do not attempt to give him any definite answer to that question, because I might be holding out hopes for the production of particular measures which it might not be possible to fulfil, and therefore, although unintentionally, misleading the right reverend Prelate and the House. But, of course, it is true that we have the whole subject in our minds, and we shall do our best to produce proposals dealing with it generally. As regards the Bill itself, the noble Marquess, as I said, treated it very kindly. My noble friend behind me said that the Bill could not be expected to create labour but merely to organise it, and the noble Marquess generously went a little further than my noble friend and seemed to think that in some respects it might do something in the direction of even creating labour. I am disposed there to agree with the noble Marquess opposite, because I can quite conceive cases where, while it would not actually create labour, it might have the effect of accelerating the doing of work which might otherwise be postponed. I can imagine cases in connection with public authorities and private individuals where
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  the certain knowledge that you could get the particular kind of labour you required would be a distinct inducement to begin work which might otherwise be postponed.
  The noble Marquess said that the Bill was in something of skeleton form; that, no doubt, is perfectly true; and he asked one or two questions on matters which he thought my noble friend had not entirely cleared up. He said he understood—and rightly understood, indeed—that the Bill was to be carried out by the national authority of the Board of Trade, and he asked how the finance of the Bill, especially with relation to Clauses 2 and 4, was to be worked. I am sure the noble Marquess will not expect me to give a definite answer to that question, but my noble friend will, of course, have noted what he said and will see whether the intention of the Bill, which is clear enough, is properly carried out in the wording of the clauses. Then the noble Marquess asked a question with regard to subsection (2) of Clause 2, which, as he said, was inserted in the course of the passage of the Bill in another place. The fear, I take it, that was felt by those who speak for labour was that these exchanges might, in certain circumstances, conceivably become offices for obtaining what they would call blackleg labour, and it was to meet that, in part, at any rate, I take it, that the provision was inserted. What they desire to avoid is that any man should be placed on an employers' black-list because he refuses to work under the conditions set forth in the subsection. That, I think, is a reasonable provision, and I do not understand that the noble Magness objected to it as such.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Does the noble Earl say that the disqualification or the prejudice contemplated is that the workman might not be afterwards well treated by particular employers?
  THE EARL OF CREWE: No; it is that he should not be prejudiced in obtaining future work through the exchange. Of course, the exchange cannot tell what may happen to a workman who engages in work at some future time, but the desire is that so far as the exchange is concerned he may not be prejudiced in any way by the fact that he has refused work under certain conditions. Then the noble Marquess asked about the committee. He went, I think, perhaps a little beyond the mark in describing this committee as having duties

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  of an administrative character. Speaking generally, the committee is of an advisory character, because the actual administration of the exchange in the last resort belongs to the central authority; and I might add that the creation of these advisory committees seems to me of itself to be a very good thing, because there is no reason why they should not be able to exercise other functions of an important character relating to labour, possibly, for instance, the settlement of local labour disputes or matters of that kind, composed, as they will he, of representatives both of employers and of employed.
  Towards the close of his speech the noble Marquess entered a caveat against what he conceived to be the excessive rigidity of the trade unions in the matter of wages, and he expressed, I think, the hope that the establishment of these labour exchanges might do something to induce a greater elasticity in that respect, and especially in relation to the possibility of differentiating wages as between the older men whose work is supposed to be not so valuable and those in the full activity of life. I confess I do not exactly share the noble Marquess's view as to this particular result following the establishment of a labour exchange. I think he dwelt excessively, if I may say so, on the supposed economic result upon wages of the flow of labour from one district into another. Economically, no doubt, the result which he foretold would follow; but, as a matter of fact, in a country like this, where, so far as most trades are concerned, there is a standard rate of wages, I should have thought that the effect, if it followed at all, would only follow to a very limited extent, and in certain trades not very highly organised; and with regard to the special point which he mentioned of the wages of older men, it does not seem particularly likely that the special influx of labour into a particular district caused by the existence of a labour exchange would be wholly composed, or even mainly composed, of men who would he prepared to work, perhaps, and who, in the noble Marquess' opinion, ought to work, at the lower rate of wages. I confess I do not, therefore, entirely see the bearing of that particular question on the establishment of these exchanges. It only remains for me to repeat that my noble friend and I are very grateful for the really unqualified approval which this measure has received, and we certainly do not complain of the
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  pointing out by noble Lords opposite, and by right reverend Prelates that it is only a part of a great whole, but as such, and within its limits, we hope that its operations will be of real value to the country.
  On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next, and Standing Order No. XXXIX. to be considered in order to its being dispensed with.

  SETTLERS IN SOUTH AFRICA.
  LORD LOVAT: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government the Question standing on the Paper in my name—viz.: what are the conditions under which settlers under existing Settlers' Ordinances hold land (a) in the Transvaal; (b) in the Orange River Colony.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: My Lords, this Question is in its form a simple question because the information asked for is really at the disposal of the public; but I imagine that what the noble Earl desires me to do is to say something in general about the position of the settlers in the Transvaal and in the Orange River Colony. The system of settlement was established in both colonies on a similar basis in the year 1902. The arrangements were these. If land was offered on lease, it was let for five years at a rent which did not exceed five per cent. of its estimated value. In the Transvaal that lease might be extended for a further period of two years, and in the Orange River Colony for a further period of five or ten years. On the other hand, a licence might be taken out to purchase the land. In that case the settler purchased by sixty half-yearly payments extending over thirty years, paying four per cent. interest and 1¾ instalment of the capital sum.
  In the Transvaal in 1907 a change was made, and the amendment gave two advantages to the settler. It enabled him, in the first place, to convert the terms under which he held on licence to the terms of a lease, and it gave him a chance of having his farm revalued. In the Transvaal the practice had been to charge under a lease of five years one and a quarter per cent. for the first two years, and two and a half per cent, for the last three years. Your Lordships will see that under a lease the settler paid considerably less than he paid

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  under a licence. In 1907 legislation in the Transvaal made leases renewable for five years more, and it gave the lessee the right to obtain a full Crown grant any time on paying the full value of the holding. It also enabled him, if he chose still to hold under licence, to spread his payments over fifty years instead of thirty. The practical result of that was that by far the greater part of the Transvaal settlers elected to take leases. But it is important to know that that choice cannot be exercised as a right; it can only be exercised under the authority of the Minister of Lands.
  In 1907 there was also some amending legislation in the Orange River Colony. The purchaser, instead of going on paying 5¾ per cent. all through, was allowed to pay at the rate of 4 per cent. for the rest of his thirty years, and to pay off the balance of the instalments of his capital as he might find it convenient during the period. In the Orange River Colony I believe that practically all the land—certainly the greatest part of it—is held on the purchase system. It is the desire there to acquire the land outright. Settlers there are now in a position to acquire their holdings after five years by paying down the remainder of the purchase money, whereas in the Transvaal the holdings cannot be acquired under ten years residence.
  There is this important difference between the positions in the two colonies. In the Transvaal revaluation was provided for, but it had not been provided for in the Orange River Colony. Under the 1902 Ordinance of the Transvaal, a leaseholder desiring to purchase could ask for a revaluation if he thought the price was too high; but, as a matter of fact, the Commissioner or the Minister of Lands was not bound to carry out this revaluation. He might, if he liked, offer the holding to another applicant at the original price. Then in 1907 further powers of revaluation were given, and the Board might, with the consent of the Minister, grant revaluation on the application of any settlers. As a matter of fact, that was very largely done in the Tranvaal by general agreement, with the result that, speaking generally, no question arises as regards the settlers in the Transvaal. I do not think I need describe the provisions by which the settlers are tied, although in some ways they are onerous. It is only fair to mention that they exist in order to show that these
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  settlers do not stand exactly in the position of ordinary farmers. They are bound to reside for a very large part of the year—in the one case I think they may be absent only three months, and in the other four months—upon their holdings, and they have no mineral rights.
  As to the present position of the settlers in the Orange River Colony, some difference of opinion has been expressed as to the proper method of dealing with the difficulties under which some of them at any rate have laboured. As your Lordships know, they are under the administration of a Land Board. I ought, perhaps, to make it clear that the position of His Majesty's Government in this matter is not one where any direct interference is possible. By the Letters Patent the care of the settlers is handed over partly to the Governor and partly to the Land Board, and so far it is out of our hands altogether. But, of course, that does not preclude us from doing what we desire to do—to take a friendly interest in their fortunes. They were placed there under special circumstances which are well known to your Lordships, and, therefore, as far as we are able in any way to advance their interests, of course we are glad to do so.
  I am bound to say that the question of the position of these settlers is one of the most puzzling that has come before me during my tenure of my present office. One suggestion that has been made is that the complete Transvaal terms might be applied, of course by agreement with the Orange River Government, to settlers there. But I think if those terms were applied in their entirety they would not, for more reasons than one, be acceptable to the whole of the Orange River settlers. That is one suggestion. Then we have to consider what the policy of the Land Board has been. It is not, as I understand it, the opinion of the Land Board that the settlers as a whole desire revaluation. The policy of the Land Board hitherto when times have been hard, as they have, has been to remit rents. In a considerable number of cases they have from the funds at their disposal allowed a three years free occupation of the holding in the hope that that might enable the settlers to pull round. Lately—and I think the noble Lord will confirm what I say if he speaks—the prospects of at any rate a very large number of the settlers have been distinctly bettered. They have had better times and are altogether

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  in better heart. I am also quite certain that the noble Lord will agree that it is bad policy, that it is no kindness to anybody and an altogether thoroughly disadvantageous thing to do, to attempt to bolster up any who may be incompetent by assistance from public funds.
  The real question is what prospect is there of a large body of these people being able to get on their feet before the Land Board comes to an end in 1912, with the prospect of their coming, as they will, under the Union Government and being able, in due course, to become purchasers of their holdings. I should hope, as far as regards a very considerable number of them, that that happy consummation would follow without anything further being done. But it is no doubt a question whether the funds at the disposal of the Land Board are sufficient to enable them to carry out improvements and make remissions. I have had various friendly communications on this subject with those who are entitled to speak for the Orange River Colony, and I hope to have more; but whether it will be possible to find from any source any further funds, should such funds be needed, I am not in a position now to say. I believe that the sum required to make the position of all those settlers who are in a tolerably sound position really secure would not be a large one, and I am sorry I am not able to give my noble friend any definite figure on that point. I hope, however, that later in the session, if he raises the subject again, I may be able to tell him something more definite. I can assure him that the subject, as I have said, is one of the most puzzling I have had to do with; it has my constant attention, and as far as it is possible for me to suggest any remedy I certainly will do my best to do so.
  LORD LOVAT: I desire to thank the noble Earl for his sympathetic interest in the cause of the settlers, but I think it has come out pretty clearly from what he has said that although the settlement of the question has been going on now for three years there does not appear any immediate prospect of anything being done, and that at the present moment His Majesty's Government do not seem to have any plan. On the one side, which I will call for the moment the Dutch side, people have pretty definite clear-cut ideas of what they want, while on this side, the Imperial side, no opinions have held water for more
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  than a day at a time. The Ridgeway Commission went out with a definite promise from the Government that they were going to inquire into the whole of the settler problem. What happened? The settlers met the Commission out there and sent in certain statements. The Ridgeway Commission returned to this country and the subject was afterwards debated at some length in your Lordships' House, but we failed to extract a single fact regarding the settlers, and we now know that the portion of the Ridgeway Report devoted to the subject of the settlers was embraced in about six lines.
  We were told at the time the Orange River Colony settlements were made that the settlers were going to be looked after. We now hear from the noble Earl the Secretary of State for the Colonies that there are no funds. We stated that fact on this side of the House three years ago. Then there was another attempt made, at the time of the £4,000,000 loan, to redress this real grievance. Lord Selborne stated that the Home Government had a distinct duty to perform to these settlers, and it was his wish to take a certain portion of that money for redressing their just grievances. But not a fraction of that £4,000,000 loan went into the settlers' pockets. Six months ago a deputation of settlers from the Orange River Colony came over here to get some redress of their grievances. They were listened to sympathetically, but nothing has been done, and I believe nothing will be done for these settlers.
  There are certain definite things the settlers want. In the Transvaal, as the noble Earl stated, they are allowed to have their farms for two years at one and a-quarter per cent. of the purchase price and for a further three years at two and a-half per cent. In the Orange River Colony they have to pay four per cent. of the purchase price on their farms. The settlers in the Orange River Colony wish to have the rate of interest on their land reduced to the same figure as is paid in the Transvaal. In 1912 they know they will be handed over to the tender mercies of another Government, and they wish to be thoroughly settled on the land before the transfer. I think a more reasonable request could hardly be put forward; moreover, when these terms are granted in the Transvaal it is only fair that the settlers in the Orange

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  River Colony should get them also. Then there is the question of revaluation. After the war farms were transferred at inflated prices. Land has since gone down in value, and the settlers wish to have a revaluation.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: Does the noble Lord ask for a revaluation in the name of the settlers on all the farms in the Orange River Colony?
  LORD LOVAT: I do not ask for revaluation where a definite deal has been made. I think where there has been a definite bargain they would not like revaluation. Those cases are very few compared to the total number of farms. The farms were very much overvalued. The next point is the question of the revision of the Ordinance. The Ordinance lays down that the settlers can only leave their farms for three months. It would be rather ludicrous when a man had paid two-thirds of the purchase price of his farm that he should be turned out because he had left his farm for more than three months. Equally unsound it must be that the Governor in Council is empowered to readjust terms. There are other points which require that the whole of the Land Settlement Ordinance for the Orange River Colony should be gone into and revised. The other point I wish to bring out is this, Who is going to pay for this? At present the Land Settlement Board in the Orange River Colony has only about £40,000 a year to spend on necessary works and to carry on the administration. If the rate of interest is reduced from four per cent. to one and a-half per cent. they will be left with between £15,000 and £25,000 to carry on the administration, and therefore it would be necessary that some money should be forthcoming to make up the difference between that amount and the £40,000.
  The Ministerial organ of the Orange River Colony, the Bloemfontein Friend, stated recently that the whole policy of land settlement was not one they particularly cared for; they saw no reason Why the Orange River Colony should pay this money, and they looked to His Majesty's Government to make up the difference. The article concluded by saying—
  "The Old population may say, Is it our duty to save the settlers from their self-preferred Land
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  Board and the contracts they have voluntarily signed? If we do nothing, in a short time the few settlers will have left. Shall we not be satisfied, after they have left, in placing our own people upon the land on such terms as we please?"
  That shows the definite policy which these people have. I wish we could say that our Government had anything like so definite a policy. I shall bring the matter up again at a later period of the session, when my Question will take the form of asking exactly what His Majesty's Government intend to do. A very large proportion of the settlers will certainly stick it out if they can possibly do so. I agree that there can be no object in keeping bad men on the land; but the settlers who served us through the war and have since worked through five bad seasons ought to have something done for them.
  THE EARL OF CREWE: I was so much interested in the noble Lord's statement that I did not point out that he was not in order. He should have made his speech in asking the Question and not by way of reply, as he did not conclude with any formal Motion. There is one point I wish to make clear. The funds of the Land Board have been largely used in the direction of trying to make the valuations more uniform by spending, free of charge to the tenant, large sums of money in sinking wells and otherwise improving the farms which were considered to be too highly valued in order to bring their value up to the nominal valuations. I think it only fair to mention that.

  THE SHORTAGE OF CAVALRY HORSES.
  THE EARL OF ERROLL: My Lords, I rise to ask whether it is a fact that in consequence of the shortage of horses the Divisional Transport and Supply Park had to be omitted in the experiment of the mobilisation of one of the four Divisions at Aldershot during last week. The reason I put this Question on the Paper is that it illustrates the very unsatisfactory condition of the horse question to which I have called attention on one or two previous occasions in your Lordships' House. It is an object lesson which I think will bring home to your Lordships the state of the horse problem at the present moment. According to the newspapers, the Supply Park and Divisional Transport had to be left behind last week because of the shortage of horses. According to The Times

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  Correspondent, the establishment of horses for a Division is 7,504, but the number actually on parade last week was only 6,854, or a shortage of 650. The number of vehicles, which should have been 1,130, was actually only 946—a deficiency of 184.
  It is said that the reason why the requisite horses could not be obtained for the Divisional Transport and Supply Park was that they were engaged by the Territorials. This means that in ease of real mobilisation the horses would be taken, and rightly taken, by the Regulars, and that the Territorials would have to go without horses altogether. As an example of what happened last week, I may mention that the Territorial medicals had to lend their horses to the Royal Army Medical Corps to fill up their numbers. This seems to me to be a strange commentary on the Aldershot Command, which is supposed to have two Divisions always ready for war. Many of these horses, I am also told, were very thin and unsuitable for the work they had to do. As a further evidence of Territorials not getting their horses, I would quote from the report of a meeting which took place on Saturday of a branch of the Imperial Horse Society at Colchester, at which the Master of the Essex and Suffolk Hounds, said, with regard to the supply of horses—
  "Whenever the Regular Army wanted horses the Territorials would have none at all. Indeed, there were not enough horses to mount the Regulars."
  I venture to submit that the principle of three men to one horse is absolutely unsound and is bound to break down when the pinch comes. The Yeomanry, especially those in the South and in London, have not much more than one-third of their own horses. I read a comment upon this in one of the newspapers this morning, and if it were not so serious it would be really amusing. The newspaper observed—
  "The Yeomanry horses are nearly all supplied by contractors and come mostly front between the shafts of London cabs. The young City Yeoman sometimes recognises in the horse he is riding in the field the animal behind which he was driven to Waterloo."
  I shall be told, of course, that this is all a question of money, and that it would have been quite possible to hire the requisite number of horses if the Government had thought it worth while. I should
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  like to point out that the amount spent for the encouragement of horse breeding in this country is about £5,000 a year, whereas a country like Austria spends £370,000, and most of the other Continental countries spend in a similar ratio. Surely if we have, as was announced last night, a sum of £78,000 put away to provide aeroplanes, we might have a little more money put down for horses.
  The question of horses seems to occupy the attention not only of the War Office, but also of the Board of Agriculture, and the noble Earl the President of that Board told us on a former occasion that he had a well-thought-out scheme, and that if the Treasury would supply the money he would be able to do something for the Army. That at the time was a very big "if," but I hope that the noble Earl will be able to give us some satisfaction on that point to-night. What we really want is immediate action. I do not think that plans are of any use because this is pressing and should be attended to at once. We were told on a former occasion that in 1906 there were 10,000 fewer foals in the country than there were in 1905. As far as I can see, one of the chief reasons for our shortage of horses is that foreigners come over and buy our horses at three years of age, whereas our War Office do not purchase till the horses are four years of age. The result is that we only get what the foreigners will not take; and I have it on the highest authority that the Austrian, German, and French Cavalry are very much better horsed than we are, and they are mostly mounted on English horses or the descendants of horses bought in this country. This state of affairs is highly unsatisfactory.
  I am sure it is not the fault of the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture. He is an old Cavalryman and an old brother officer of my own, and I am sure he will do his best to help the Cavalry. The number of horses required for one Division is comparatively small, and I should like to ask your Lordships what would happen if we had a general mobilisation and instead of wanting 7,000 horses we required 150,000, and 300,000 before the end of the first year, and at a moment when probably the Continental market would be closed and we should have great difficulty in getting horses from our Colonies. It seems to me that we must depend on

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  our home market, and that some steps ought to be taken, and taken at once, to provide against all our best horses being taken out of the country. I do not mean to say that any restriction should be placed on horses going out of the country because that would interfere with the market, but I think our own War Office ought to purchase horses at an earlier age and make some arrangements by which they could be kept in this country until they were ready to be put with the regiments. I hope the noble Lord will be able to give me some satisfaction on this point.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD LUCAS): My Lords, I think I can best answer the noble Earl's Question by telling your Lordships quite shortly what the object of last week's operations at Aldershot was. The experiment that was being tried was that of bringing a Division up to its absolute war strength. I do not like to call it mobilisation. This was not mobilisation technically speaking, though the result was for our purpose the same. We desired to bring this Division up to war strength in order to test certain tactical problems. We wanted to see, for instance, how much space they would occupy on the roads, how much space they would occupy in bivouac, and there were certain problems as to the feeding of the men—all technical problems which did not require extended operations to give us what we wanted. In fact, the whole of the operations of this Division lasted only forty-eight hours. In military operations the theory of your Supply Park is that it moves one day's march behind your Division—that is to say, that in last week's operations supposing you had horsed your Supply Park it would not have left Aldershot. In fact, the Ammunition Park which we did horse did not move out of Aldershot at all. Therefore, there was nothing to be gained and no lesson to be learned by horsing the Supply Park, and to have done it would have involved a considerable sum of money. We did not consider the expenditure of this money justified because no useful results could possibly have accrued from it, and that was the reason we did not horse the Transport and Supply Park. Although we call it Divisional Transport, it is more fair to look upon the Transport and Supply Park as part of the lines of communication, which you could only have really made use of if the whole thing had been on a very
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  much larger scale than it was. There was no question at all of any shortage of horses due to the fact that a large number of Territorials were out for training or to any other reason whatever. I think we should have found it perfectly easy to obtain the necessary horses had they been required. As to the general question of the supply of horses, I would ask your Lordships to remember that, after all, the number of horses available for training purposes and the number of horses that would be available in the event of mobilisation and of the Government taking the powers which the Army Act confers upon them are two entirely different things. Until the census of horses which is now being taken throughout the country is completed it will be impossible to know the number of horses available, but from what we do know we are perfectly certain that there is a number sufficient not only for the First and Second Line in case of mobilisation, but to leave a large surplus over and above our immediate requirements on mobilisation. The future supply of horses affects my noble friend the President of the Board of Agriculture more than myself, and I will leave to him any further answer that can be made.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (EARL CARRINGTON): My Lords, I am glad to be able to inform my noble friend opposite, who has taken great interest in the horse breeding question, that I am authorised to say that a Bill will probably be brought in next week embodying the proposals relating to development which were described by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget Speech. This Bill will provide a fund for agricultural schemes such as my proposals with reference to horse breeding for Army purposes, which have been approved of by the War Office and the Army Council, and which I am confident will permanently insure a sufficient supply of horses being immediately available for military purposes besides giving a great impetus to the breeding of the right class of horses by the farmers of the United Kingdom. I hope this answer will be satisfactory to the noble Earl.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Will the Bill be introduced in this House?
  EARL CARRINGTON: The Bill will be introduced. That is all I can say.

  MILK AND DAIRIES (SCOTLAND) BILL. [H.L.]
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries whether it is proposed to make any, and, if so, what contribution from the Exchequer towards the cost of purification of milk and eradication of tuberculosis among cattle in Scotland under the Milk and Dairies (Scotland) Bill [H.L.] and the Tuberculosis Order issued by the Board of Agriculture in May, 1909.
  EARL CARRINGTON: As the noble Earl knows, I have been in communication with the Treasury on this matter, but, as I said last week, it is a serious matter and cannot be settled offhand. It requires the most careful consideration, and I can promise the noble Earl that as soon as we can come to any agreement or I can give him any information I will not lose a moment in letting him know.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: With the permission of the House I should like to say a single word. This is the third consecutive unsatisfactory answer which His Majesty's Government have made to this Question. I wish to remind the noble Earl that this is the fourth time I have put this Question, and what answer have I received? Why, no answer at all. The noble Earl cannot tell us what His Majesty's Government propose to do. Well, if His Majesty's Government cannot tell us what they propose to do with regard to a contribution towards the cost of this extremely important and expensive scheme, then at all events they cannot in decency ask this House to pass the Bill until they are prepared to give us this information. The noble Lord the Secretary for Scotland is not here to-night, and I understand from Lord Carrington that he will be here tomorrow. I therefore give notice that I shall ask the noble Lord to-morrow whether, in these circumstances, seeing that His Majesty's Government cannot give any information at all with regard to this matter, he will postpone the Third Reading of the Milk and Dairies (Scotland) Bill.
  House adjourned at twenty minutes past Eight o'clock, till Tomorrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.