Lords Sitting of 17 May 1909

LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS BILL. [H.L.]
Report from the Select Committee that it is not expedient to proceed further with the Bill; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
ALEXANDRA (NEWPORT AND SOUTH WALES) DOCKS AND RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
  RIO TINTO COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
    SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE WATER BILL. [H.L.]
      ALLIANCE AND DUBLIN CONSUMERS GAS BILL. [H.L.]
      Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
NORTH METROPOLITAN ELECTRIC POWER SUPPLY BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
NEWRY, KEADY AND TYNAN RAILWAY BILL.
  AMMANFORD GAS BILL.
    CITY OF LONDON (STREET TRAFFIC) BILL.
    Brought from the Commons; read la; and referred to the Examiners.
LEYLAND AND FARINGTON GAS BILL.
  LITTLEHAMPTON GAS BILL.
    WANDSWORTH BOROUGH COUNCIL (SUPERANNUATION) BILL.
    Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.
GAS AND WATER ORDERS CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to order).

NATIONAL DEFENCE.
THE EARL OF WEMYSSMy Lords, I rise to move to resolve, "That in the opinion of this House the Territorial Force as at present established totally fails to give practical effect to the Resolution unanimously agreed to by the Lords
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on July 10,1905; and this House is further of opinion that immediate steps should be taken by the Government to render our land defences at all times such that, in the words of the said Resolution, 'no nation would ever attempt in any form a hostile landing on our shores.'"
I shall not, in submitting this Motion, occupy very much of your Lordships' time, as I do not feel up to making a speech. I wish, in the first place, to read to your Lordships the Resolution agreed to by this House four years ago, as it has a material bearing on the whole question of national defence. The Resolution was adopted on July 10, 1905, and runs as follows:—
"That it would be a danger to the realm and limit the power of the Navy as an offensive force in war to trust to it alone for home defence; and inasmuch as it is admitted that the Navy cannot guarantee us against so-called hostile 'raids,' it is the more needful that our land defences should at all times be such that no nation would ever attempt, in any form, a hostile landing on our shores."
I hold that to be a very valuable asset in our defensive policy. It was very valuable at the time, for your Lordships will recollect that the blue water was then in full flood. Even the Prime Minister plunged into it and told the nation, not only as Prime Minister, but also as head of the Defence Committee, that all that we need be afraid of were raids. The Navy, he said, could defend us against anything short of raids. Therefore the commonsense view of the matter is that it is wise to avoid the element of chance. But there is this other value in the Resolution, that both sides of the House agreed to it. It was accepted without a word of opposition by both Front Benches, and it therefore amounts to an I.O.U. on their part that they should do their best to bring about such a state of things that no nation would ever dream of a hostile landing on our shores.
Now what has been done by Government since this Resolution was adopted? They certainly have done a good deal, for they have revolutionised our whole system of national defence. The Militia has been abolished, and the Volunteers as such have ceased to exist. I know that the Secretary of State for War has said that we Volunteers did not take the matter seriously, that we looked upon it more as a club than anything else. He is welcome

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to say that. At any rate, the Volunteers are gone. In the place of the Militia we now have the Special Reserve, and in place of the Volunteers we have the Territorial Force. How has this revolution been brought about? It has been brought about in the main by the combined action of the two Front Benches, but also through the colonels of Militia themselves not protesting against the Militia Force, whose name is written on nearly every page of British history, being swept away. If they had put their foot down the Government would have been obliged to let the force alone, and you would still have had the old historic Militia. But that was not done, and the Militia has disappeared.
Let us see what the country has secured in the place of the Militia. The Special Reserve differs toto cœlo from the old Militia. The old Militia was a force specially for home defence, and it served abroad voluntarily. The Special Reserve is not for home defence; it is for over-sea work. The Special Reservist is bound by the terms of his enlistment to serve abroad if required. There is an interesting passage in one of Mr. Haldane's thousand and one speeches—I do not know which—in which he refers to over-sea enlistment. This is what he says—
"An over-sea Army can only be got on a voluntary basis, and must be recruited from men moved by enthusiasm—men with the virgin mind from a military point of view—which is attracted by a sense of mystery, and would be somewhat damped by preliminary compulsory training."
What this exactly means I do not know.
I pass to the question of the Territorials, who, as I have said, stand in the place of the Volunteers. They are specially for home defence. On April 26 I asked the noble Lord the Under-Secretary of State for War some questions, with a view to this Motion, as to the state of the Territorial Force on April 1. Why Mr. Haldane chose April 1 for its birthday I never understood; but this is what the noble Lord the Under-Secretary stated was the condition of the Territorial Force on its natal clay. He said that they had 79 per cent. of the number of officers required, and 84 per cent. of the men; that 107,857 men had engaged to serve for one year only in 1908, and that on April 1 last 56,238 of them had re-engaged for one year or more. should be interesting to know how many
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of the remaining men have signified their intention of re-engaging? The noble Lord also gave us on the same occasion the important information that out of the total number on the strength of the Territorial Force over 62,000 were under 20 years of age, and that the limit of age for men is 17 and for boys 14. That was the state of affairs when my noble friend spoke on April 26. The numbers may have increased since then. My noble friend will tell us.
I am willing, in dealing with this question, to assume that the 313,000 men have been obtained, that they are all 25 years of age or over, that each man can hit a bull's-eye at 2,000 yards, and that they are drilled as perfectly as any soldier on the Continent. Notwithstanding all that, I maintain that what I say in this Resolution is right, and that they would even then be of practically no avail. I mean that their number is wholly insufficient when it is considered what they would have to do. Read the Duke of Wellington's letter to Sir John Burgoyne written sixty years ago. What does he show? That of your force for home defence you require half in Ireland, that you require 10,000 in the Channel Islands, and 10,000 at every fortified naval base. How many will that leave of your 313,000 men? We have it on the high authority of Lord Roberts, in the patriotic and noble speech that he made in your Lordships' House in December last, that the Territorial Force is absolutely inadequate in numbers for the purposes which it professes to serve and that you require a force of at least 1,000,000.
I had hoped that the noble and gallant Field-Marshal would have been in his place this evening, but it is his golden wedding, and I am sure your Lordships and everyone in the country will agree in the hope that Lord and Lady Roberts may pass many more happy years together. I saw Lord Roberts last Saturday and I asked him, as he could not be present to-day, to embody his views in a letter; and my main object in speaking to-night is to read to the House the views on this subject of the greatest military authority in this country. Lord Roberts writes—
"I much regret I cannot be in the House of Lords on Monday next to speak in support of the Resolution you are bringing forward. I therefore write these few lines to tell you that I am entirely in accord with you as to the necessity for im-

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mediate steps being taken to ensure the security of our land defences. The extraordinary apathy with which the momentous question of home defence is viewed by both Houses of Parliament, and, as a consequence, by the country generally, is not only lamentable but difficult to understand. If the lessons we learnt during the war in South Africa had been taken to heart, some attention would have been paid to the earnest recommendation of the Elgin Commission that in order to provide a sufficient Reserve for carrying on war 'certain powers of expansion' were needed 'outside the limit of the Regular Forces of the Crown.' We have, in addition, the important conclusion arrived at by the Norfolk Commission, 'that a home defence army, capable, in the absence of the whole of the greater portion of the Regular Forces, of protecting this country against invasion, can be raised and maintained only on the principle that it is the duty of every citizen of military age and sound physique to be trained for the national defence, and to take part in it should emergency arise.' It really would seem as if we, as a nation, imagine that we are a peculiar people, exempt from the possibility of war, its dangers, and its consequences; yet less than a year ago Lord Cromer stated in the House of Lords his conviction that there is a possibility of war, and a war of a serious character, at no very distant period. How are we prepared to meet such a crisis?"
Are you prepared to meet such a crisis? I know that you hive what is called organisation, but your organisation, excellent and perfect though it may be, is like Mrs. Glasse's recipe for hare soup. The first thing is to catch your hare. Have you got your hare? You have not a seventh part of the hare Lord Roberts says you ought to have. Lord Roberts proceeds—
"We have no Army to speak of, and we have no organisation by which we could replace the losses which must inevitably occur during the first few months of any war on a large scale. On July 10, 1905, the day on which the resolution was carried to which you propose to refer, I said that 'I have no hesitation in stating that our armed forces as a body are as absolutely unfitted and unprepared for war as they were in 1899–1900.' Close upon four years have passed since then, and I have no hesitation in reaffirming my conviction. Moreover, as your Motion deals mainly with the supremely important matter of home defence, I would add that if the expeditionary force, or even the first four divisions of that force, were sent abroad, our land forces are, in my judgment, in such a deplorable condition that we should be at the mercy of any invader who could land any number approaching to 100,000 men on these shores."
That is Lord Roberts's opinion, and I am confident that he is supported in that opinion by every one of his brother Field-Marshals and by every soldier of note in this country. Yet we remain in this state, and apparently do nothing. It was with a view of calling attention to this state of things that I placed my Motion on the
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Paper. Lord Roberts's letter says all that is necessary to be said on the subject, and I will not trespass further on your Lordships' time.
What is the first duty of the Government to the State? It is to make the State safe, to make the Empire safe, and to make our hearths and homes safe. How are you performing that duty? Surely you do not suppose that all these Dreadnoughts in course of construction abroad are being built entirely for defence purposes? The question of invasion enters very largely into the foreign shipbuilding. As a very old man, who may never speak again in this House, I say it is the duty of the two Front Benches to put the safety of the Empire before every other consideration, and to act together to see what can be done. They laid their heads together destructively; I ask them to lay their heads together constructively. If you had the courage, the commonsense, and the justice to the country to do what ought to be done, which is to bring about such a state of things—never mind how it is done—that no nation would ever dream of a hostile landing upon these shores, what would be the first effect? The first effect would be that you would stop rival foreign shipbuilding. I beg to move the Resolution which stands in my name.
Moved, to resolve, "That in the opinion of this House the Territorial Force as at present established totally fails to give practical effect to the Resolution unanimously agreed to by the Lords on July 10, 1905; and this House is further of opinion that immediate steps should be taken by the Government to render our land defences at all times such that, in the words of the said Resolution, 'no nation would ever attempt in any form a hostile landing on our shores.'" —(The Earl of Wemyss.)
THE EARL OF ERROLLMy Lords, I wish to say a word or two in support of what has fallen from the noble Earl who has just sat down. I should like to point out in the first instance, that the whole problem, as I see it, of national defence has entirely altered since the speeches of the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Prime Minister on March 16 in another place. If those speeches did not come as a bombshell, which might seem an exaggerated form of speech, I venture to say that they came as a very unpleasant

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surprise to all Englishmen. Prior to those speeches our defensive measures were based entirely on the assumption of our absolute supremacy at sea; but in consequence of the admissions of the Government that within the next three or four years the relative strength of the British and German navies would approach much more nearly to equality, I venture to say that the conditions of the defences of this country have entirely changed. Precautions which we considered sufficient as long as the two-Power standard was maintained are no longer, I contend, adequate; and I venture to think it has become essential that we should have a highly-trained and efficient land force as well as a highly-trained and efficient Navy.
The Territorial Force as now organised does not, I think, supply this want either in numbers, in training, or in organisation. They have no horses with which to mobilise, no stores, and no reserve ammunition. If they ever reached their number of 313,000, I venture to say they would be absolutely insufficient, as it would take 200,000 men, by a calculation which Lord Roberts, I think it was, gave us, to garrison the naval bases. With regard to horses, I would like to give as an illustration the case of the London Yeomanry. There are three regiments horsed by Mr. Tilling, and I believe it is one of his conditions that these regiments should not go out at the same time, because he has only enough horses ready to mount one regiment out of the three. What, my Lords, would the result be if, in the case of a sudden surprise, the Yeomanry were ordered quickly down to the coast for reconnaissance? One regiment would be able to ride; the second, I suppose, would go down in motors or taxi-cabs, and when they got there would have to do their scouting on foot; and the third regiment would probably have to walk all the way.
I am not saying this in any spirit of hostility to the Territorial Force. On the contrary, I have the highest admiration for the spirit in which the men have come forward voluntarily and cheerfully to do the work which should be incumbent on all men of suitable age and suitable physique. The Territorial Force, if they ever have to fight, will have to fight the very best picked troops of the Continent, and I do not think that anybody would maintain that as at present organised they are equal to the
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task. As long as the Regulars are at home I admit that there is no fear of invasion, but when the Expeditionary Force goes out of the country I think that danger may arise. Your Lordships probably may remember that towards the close of the Boer War this country was very nearly entirely denuded of Regular troops. If my memory serves me, there were something like 17,000 troops only in this country, and most of those were recruits in the depôts. There were no guns at all, until we bought six batteries, I think, from Germany. I leave it to your Lordships to consider whether in the future that source of supply will be open to us. These conditions may recur in the future, but with this very important difference, that at that time we had the absolute command of the sea. Our position at sea at that time was so assured that it was absolutely unassailable and unchallenged.
In case of foreign complications, it seems to me that one of two things would happen. Either public opinion in this country would be so strong that the Expeditionary Force would not be allowed to go abroad, or, if it did go abroad, the country would be in great danger from the want of numbers and training of the troops that were left behind. We could not rely on the Army Reserve to be of any assistance, because it is impossible for the Expeditionary Force to mobilise without absorbing the whole of the Army Reserve. The question as it appears to me then is, When is an Expeditionary Force not an Expeditionary Force? and the answer seems to be, When the sense of insecurity in the country would not allow it to go on expeditions. India might be urgently needing troops, or a force might be wanted to act in conjunction with the Fleet and to carry a war into an enemy's country. That is the raison d'étre of an expeditionary force. I think that the suggestion of training the Territorial Force for six months after war has been declared is very dangerous. It means, in the first instance, keeping the Expeditionary Force at home when everything might depend on its being elsewhere. It must be remembered that when the Expeditionary Force had left the safety of the country would then be entrusted to the Territorial Force, who are 2,500 short in their officers, and many of whose officers have a very small amount of military experience. In addition, the noble Lord has told us that of the force 62,000 are under

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twenty years of age. It is for these reasons that I venture to support the Motion of the noble Earl.
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD LUCAS)My Lords, I am in some difficulty in replying to this Motion, for the reason that it reproduces the discussion which took place in your Lordships' House last session, inaugurated by Lord Roberts, whose absence to-day I should like to join in deploring, although the cause is one on which he is to be entirely congratulated. On that occasion my noble friend Lord Crewe dealt exhaustively with the proposals then put forward, and which, of course, had not come to his notice then for the first time; and he stated the views of the Government regarding the opinions as to the possibility of invasion which Lord Roberts then laid down. I do not think it is for me to repeat the views Lord Crewe then expressed. I do not propose, therefore, to take up your Lordships' time by discussing how far our preparations for home defence are adequate against invasion on the scale then suggested and repeated by the mover of the Motion now before the House and by the noble Earl who spoke last.
It is, of course, impossible for me to detail what the exact nature of our mobilisation plans is. It has been the invariable rule that mobilisation plans should never be disclosed in detail, and I do not propose to depart from that rule. But I would point out that this scheme was not produced by Mr. Haldane until he had been for a considerable time at the War Office. Mr. Haldane had at his disposal what no other Secretary of State for War in this country has ever had at his disposal—a General Staff to assist him in forming his plan. The fact that there was a General Staff, composed of some of the most capable officers in the British Army, enabled the Secretary of State to go into this plan in the most detailed manner, to consider it from every point of view, to consider the possibility of invasion and how far his plans would meet any possible invasion: and that was done in a far more minute and thoroughgoing manner than ever before in the history of the British Army. On that basis our schemes for home defence have been drawn up. They have satisfied, not only the General Staff and the Army Council, but they have also satisfied the Committee of Imperial Defence. It would be impos-
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sible for me to reopen that whole question, and I do not propose to take up your Lordships' time by doing so.
There is, however, one direction in which the situation has considerably changed since the discussion of last autumn. I refer to the condition of the Territorial Force as it was then and its condition now. As your Lordships are doubtless aware, the Territorial Force has improved both in size and in efficiency at an astonishing rate. The numbers have increased very largely lately. Our latest return gives the number at 254,000 men, and, with officers, about 263,000. That makes it in numbers far more formidable than was the old Force, and owing to the extraordinarily keen way in which the men have undertaken their duties during the winter it has become a far more efficient Force. It is now emerging as a Force, quite up to the standard of efficiency that we expected of it. In fact, I may say that it is far more efficient than we ever had any reason to expect it would be. With regard to the number of one-year men—a question which was considered to be one of danger to the Territorial Force—I am glad to say that our returns show that we are in no danger of losing any considerable number of these men. They are re-engaging in very large numbers. April was, of course, the month during which the term of most of these one-year men expired, and we had reason to believe that the total strength of the Force would drop; but during the past month, I am glad to say, this has not been the case. So few one-year men have gone out that they have been roughly counterbalanced by the number of recruits who have come in. That shows that the danger of the Force being very much depleted by the loss of one-year men was exaggerated.
The noble Earl, Lord Erroll,spoke of the difficulty of mobilising the Territorial Force. Mobilisation is a difficult thing. It cannot be worked out in a hurry. We are engaged at the present moment working out the mobilisation requirements of the Territorial Force, and we hope that we shall be able to say before a very long time has elapsed that the Territorial Force is capable of being mobilised immediately. One of the most important things, as the noble Earl said, is the question of horses. The number of horses available for training purposes—that is to say, the number you can hire for 5l. for the fortnight—is one

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thing, and the number of horses available in the country is another and a very different thing; and the fact that during peace time two or three different regiments of Yeomanry train with the same horses does not in the least imply that those regiments will be expected to ride the same horses or no horses at all on mobilisation.
LORD SALTOUNAn untrained horse for a cavalryman is absolutely useless.
LORD LUCASThe noble Lord knows what is done in the Yeomanry every year. The great majority of horses go into camp absolutely untrained, and if the men upon them know how to ride they learn their duties in a comparatively short space of time. An untrained horse for cavalry purposes is a less serious drawback than is supposed. We are making rapid progress with the horse census, which is being taken for the purpose of enabling us to lay our hands on all the required horses upon mobilisation. The census has only been taken in a certain number of counties up to the present, but we have good grounds for stating that there will be no difficulty when the time comes in securing sufficient horses for mobilising the whole of the Territorial Force, as well as the Regular Army.
As to the number of men under twenty, I do not think that is a consideration of the first importance when you remember that this is a question of home defence. The age of twenty was laid down as the age under which a soldier should not be sent to India because of the danger to his health, and it has been taken as the age below which a soldier should not be sent on foreign service in any dangerous climate. But there is nothing whatever to prevent a man being a perfectly efficient soldier for war in this country under the age of twenty. Therefore the fact that there are a large number of men in the Territorial Force under the age of twenty does not necessarily impair its efficiency.
THE EARL OF ERROLL: May I inform the noble Lord that in foreign Armies they take no one at all under twenty?
LORD LUCASIf your Lordships adopt the Resolution which has been moved by the noble Earl it will be inconsistent with the action of your Lordships' House two years ago in passing the Territorial and
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Reserve Forces Act. On that occasion the whole of the schemes of the Government with regard to the Army were before your Lordships. Our proposals with regard to the Regular Army, the reductions that have taken place in the Regular Army, the proposal to convert the Militia into the Special Reserve, and the use we were going to make of it—all those matters, as well as the composition of the new Territorial Force, were before your Lordships; and, as far as we can tell at the present time, the reorganisations that have taken place have been carried out with success. The predictions of failure with regard to the Special Reserve and the Territorial Force have not been fulfilled. What we believed at the time would take place if our schemes were carried through has occurred; and therefore, having approved the reorganisation and having allowed the Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill to become law, it would be inconsistent on the part of your Lordships to adopt a Resolution such as that on the Paper.
LORD LOVATMy Lords, I rise to make two protests, one as a Member of your Lordships' House and the other as a member of the Territorial Force. I protest, in the first place, against the charge of inconsistency, on which we have been ridden off on several occasions already. Surely because this House passed the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act it is not responsible for all the follies committed in the name of that measure. The inconsistency is entirely on the other side. We were definitely promised certain things, but we have not got them. We were definitely promised that we should have our mobilisation arrangements immediately. I ask, What mobilisation scheme for the Territorial Force has yet been arranged? I think the greatest credit is due to Mr. Haldane for the work he has done in giving us a thorough organisation of the British Army. This is undoubtedly an advance on anything done before. But the point is that Mr. Haldane has not got sufficient men, nor men with adequate training, to face the duties that may have to be performed in the event of invasion. I protest against the idea that the new Territorials are so much better than the Auxiliaries used to be. Take the Yeomanry. The Yeomanry as units have not improved because the training in many commands has been reduced while the officers' schools have been abolished. This is a direct

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violation of what is in the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act and of what we were promised. Then take the question of musketry. The new musketry regulations are such that a man has only to fire at a miniature target, or in a thirty-yards range, or on the open range on three occasions to figure in the Parliamentary sense as an efficient shot. This is in order to pretend that you have a larger number of efficient defenders of the country than you really have; and to state that these men are more efficient than the old Auxiliaries is to state a thing which is not necessarily true. The preliminary mobilisation arrangements are by no means completed. I do not say that we have not made an advance, but to say, as has been stated in the country by Mr. Haldane, that we have advanced to anything near thorough mobilisation, and that we are in any sense ready to take the field as a mobilised Army to-day, is to state what is not absolutely a matter of fact.
LORD RIBBLESDALEMy Lords, before my noble friend the Leader of the House replies I should like to say a word on the question of horses. If I heard the noble Lord the Under-Secretary aright, we must take it that he is perfectly satisfied that on mobilisation there would be plenty of horses available and sufficient to meet the wastage which would have to be provided for. I am also willing to take it from the noble Lord that it does not matter very much whether the horses are trained or untrained. The old exercises have been done away with, and where horses have only to do the duties of scouting, or to cover an advancing Army or things of that sort in an enclosed country where they must more or less stick to roads or by-roads, the soldier, it he can ride at all, can probably get along as well on a horse that had not been through the riding school as on one that had. But though horses need not be trained in any sense in the old idea, they must, at all events, be in condition. It is no us taking one-year old or two-year old horses, or horses off grass, to do cavalry work. The noble Lord told us that some sort of registration was taking place—I believe in compliance with an undertaking given in your Lordships' House at the instance of Lord Lovat—and that we should very soon know what number of horses were available. We are told that, by some law of the Medes and Persians, nothing is ever to be revealed concerning mobilisation. I do not know
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whether that is right or not; but I should like to ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House whether the secrecy regarding mobilisation is to apply to the question of horse supply. I take some interest in the question of horses, and I was asked by the remount authorities to endeavour in my part of the country to open up a supply of Government horses, but if we are only to be told that when the time comes sufficient horses will be forthcoming the interest of people who are trying to do their best in the matter will disappear. I think we should be told what is the number of horses really available.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Lansdowne is unfortunately still unable to be present, perhaps I may be allowed to say a few words as to the feeling on this Bench regarding the noble Earl's Motion. I confess that many of us have felt sorry that it has been necessary at so early a moment to review the position since the passing of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act. I believe there is hardly a man on this side of the House who has not done something to press forward the operation of the Act in his own county, and I hope we shall all continue to take that step. I feel that a premature condemnation of the Territorial Force is greatly to be deprecated; on the other hand, I confess that the attitude which the noble Lord the Under-Secretary feels himself constrained to take on these occasions makes it extremely difficult for us to give that blind confidence to the Government which he requires from us.
This is the second or even the third occasion on which the noble Lord has excused himself, I admit in the most courteous manner, from giving us information, for which it seems to us reasonable to ask, and he has done so on the ground that to give the information would be to divulge mobilisation plans. I hope I may be pardoned if, having had to deal with this question in different capacities for more than twelve years in another place, I ask your Lordships to consider for a moment whether the information which is refused is secret mobilisation information or whether it is not information which has been repeatedly given by successive Governments to successive Parliaments. Take, for instance, the question of numbers. The numbers are given in the Estimates.

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All the strengths are known, and are given in answer to Questions. The organisation of the Field Force has been even laid down by Act of Parliament, I believe; at all events, it has been laid on the Table. We merely ask, after the Regular troops have gone abroad, what organised force will remain in this country. That is a fair question. The information has been repeatedly given before, even in We do not ask for any secret information as to where those forces are to be employed. We do not ask what Ireland will absorb, we do not ask what time it will take to mobilise them, we do not ask anything which has been understood hitherto to be secret information on mobilisation. But we do ask for plain facts.
I am loath to go further into this matter because to-morrow evening the Duke of Bedford has a Motion on the Paper which it is our desire to press seriously on the attention of His Majesty's Government. When the noble Lord asks us to place our whole faith and confidence in the ipse dixit of the Secretary of State, and when he tells us that all that has to do with mobilisation and with defence has been the subject of minute and thorough-going investigation and that the General Staff have satisfied themselves, and also, I think he said, have satisfied the Government, that they have a sufficient force to resist any possible invasion, I would remind him that two or three years ago the Secretary of State stated, I think in the House of Commons, that he desired a Territorial Force of 900,000 men.
LORD LUCASThat statement is not correct. What my right hon. friend said was this —that he was setting up machinery for a Territorial force which could, if necessary, provide 300,000 or 600,000 or 900,000 men, but he never said that we required in this country 900,000 men.
THE EARL OF WEMYSSHe prayed for them.
LORD LUCASNo.
VISCOUNT MIDLETONI accept the noble Lord's statement that the Secretary of State did not ask for 900,000 men, but we known that Lord Roberts has expressed a strong opinion that 1,000,000 were
necessary. I am not endorsing that or
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criticising it, but we have yet to hear from the Government what their opinion is upon that statement by the first military authority in your Lordships' House. We have never heard from the Government since that opinion was given whether they have seen any necessity to revise their Estimates, and I cannot help pressing on the Government this point. When they ask us to accept military opinion, which they do not quote, in opposition to the strong military view which has been quoted here with all the authority of Lord Roberts, I cannot help pointing out that on half a dozen different occasions within the last three years we have been assured that the opinion of the military advisers of the Secretary of State was in one direction, yet that opinion has since been revised.
Take the question of the Artillery. In 1906 the Government announced that, contrary to all the opinion which had been given in and outside this House, they were going to reduce forty-two batteries of Royal Artillery and to substitute for them a Militia Artillery—persons trained, as the Secretary of State phrased it, on a Militia basis, who were to fill up the larger portion of those forty-two batteries. We protested by every means in our power against that change. Your Lordships were asked over and over again to discuss it, and, speaking in this House this time last year, I implored the Government to reconsider the position. The noble Lord met me by telling me that the military advisers of the Government we absolutely satisfied with these forty-two batteries on a Militia basis. We pressed and pressed again, and obtained a promise that the Artillerymen should not be disbanded until the men trained on a Militia basis were ready to succeed them; but we were told that it was unnecessary from a military standpoint to retain those batteries. Now, after this lapse of time, the Secretary of State comes forward this year and says he is satisfied that it is necessary to reverse that policy, and to keep the forty-two batteries on a Regular basis. We have yet to learn whether in that the Secretary of State was acting upon military opinion.
But what are we to the link of that nebulous body the Army Council, who gave such strong support to the Secretary of State in reference to this reduction, which we believed to be fatal and which was against

913
the opinion of Lord Roberts, Lord Wolseley, Sir Evelyn Wood, and every soldier who had been at the War Office—what are we to think of the Army Council if, having given that advice, they now come forward and say that it is necessary to overthrow the opinion they so confidently expressed for the space of three years? I have given that solitary instance, though I could give others, why I do feel that the Government are expecting your Lordships to exercise a degree of self-restraint and a degree of confidence which is unusual when they ask us to be content with the bare assurance that the General Staff are satisfied. I therefore feel that we are in a very grave difficulty in regard to the Motion of the noble Earl.
We feel most strongly that it is necessary that there should be further inquiry into this matter. We believe that the state of the Special Reserve and the want of officers should be the subject of further inquiry, and that it is impossible to allow the matter to rest where it is at present. We press that view on the Government. If they tell us that a Royal Commission would be unacceptable, as I believe is the case, we would not press for it. We would not even press for a public inquiry. There is at this moment a private inquiry by the Defence Committee going on into the condition of the new construction for the Navy. I urge the Government to consider whether they cannot in some way allay the doubt and uncertainty which exist on these Benches and throughout the country. I have no desire to impede the Secretary of State's efforts to improve the Territorial Force, but we want to know the military value of what would remain in this country after the Regular Army had been shipped to take part in operations abroad. The mere fact that the War Office say they are satisfied is not, I submit, a sufficient argument to advance. What I urge upon the Government is this, that they should allow some outside military opinion to be brought to bear. You have men in this country who may he past the age for service but who are not past the age to enable them to give a valuable opinion. You would not find the slightest difficulty in calling to the aid of the Secretary of State three men of the highest rank, who would tell you whether what is left behind is of military value and could be placed in the forefront in an engagement against picked Continental troops. Therefore we
914
wish to give the Government further time to consider the matter, and we would hope that the noble Earl would see his way not to divide the House on his Motion. I confess that, personally, I should feel great difficulty in going into the Lobby against him. On the other hand, I think it is a most serious thing for your Lordships to declare, as the noble Earl asks, that the Territorial Force as at present established fails to give practical effect to the Resolution of July 10, 1905—that is, in other words, to say that our position is absolutely unsafe.
THE EARL OF WEMYSSHear, hear.
VISCOUNT MIDLETONThat we should be unwilling to say so long as it is in the power of the Government to satisfy us on this absolutely vital matter by giving us an inquiry.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF CREWE)My Lords, it is not altogether an easy task to reply on this debate, because, as always seems to happen when the Army is under discussion, the criticism levelled at His Majesty's Government, although unusually animated, is also unusually elusive. Every noble Lord who has taken part in this debate has apparently spoken from a different standpoint, and if the secrets of their hearts could be revealed I think each wants something different. I am particularly sorry that my noble and gallant friend Lord Roberts, who, of course, speaks with such unrivalled authority, is not here to-night; and I desire to join in the congratulations which have been expressed towards him on the happy event of his golden wedding, for I think we are all moved and touched when we think of the happy domestic life of one who has given so many years to the service of the country.
I say that the criticism was elusive because the noble Earl who moved the Motion devoted himself to the shortcomings of the Territorial Army, whereas the noble Viscount who has just sat down said very little about the Territorial Army, but spoke almost entirely to the Motion of the noble Duke which is on the Paper for to-morrow. He asked for a military inquiry, saying, very truly, that there are many eminent men who might conduct an inquiry and

915
who are not beyond the age of criticism. With that I heartily concur, because nobody, I think, ever passes the age at which criticism is possible. But I do not propose to touch on that matter now, if the noble Viscount will excuse me, because it is really relevant to the Motion which appears on the Paper for debate to-morrow.
We have been told that the Territorial Force is insufficient. The noble Earl .said that, even though it reached its full complement of 315,000 men, and they were all active men of twenty-five years of age, yet he would not consider that the country was safe; and he quoted the opinion of the noble and gallant Field-Marshal, Lord Roberts, as to the necessity of there being 1,000,000 men. The noble Viscount has complained that we have never expressed any opinion as to the necessity of 1,000,000 men. We have never been told, when 1,000,000 is spoken of, what the 1,000,000 is to consist of. Is it to be an Army of 1,000,000 with a full complement of cavalry and guns? How many batteries of artillery go to an army of 1,000,000 men? I suppose something approaching 500 batteries. Is that what is intended? Or did Lord Roberts mean, what my impression is that he meant, that there should be at one time in the country 1,000,000 men who had undergone some form of military training in some period of their youth? Lord Roberts has always taken up the line that he is not in favour of any kind of compulsory service, but that he is in favour of compulsory military training—that is to say, I conclude, that at some period every man in the country, or, at any rate, a very large proportion of the men in the country, should have gone through some kind of training, always, I take it, purely infantry training, and that, therefore, there would be a very large reserve for any national emergency of men who had had some sort of training to arms.
VISCOUNT MIDLETONI do not like to interrupt my noble friend, but I think the opinion Lord Roberts expressed was that there should be 1,000,000 men with some kind of military organisation, not merely training—men who were capable of being used in the military organisation at the shortest notice.
THE EARL OF CREWEIf that is to include an Army of 1,000,000 men on the Continental model—I do not say neces-
916
sarily with the full Continental training, but an Army divisible into Army corps and divisions, with full proportions of cavalry, mounted infantry, and guns—if that is the programme, then you are embarking on a very large proposition indeed. What does that mean? If that is what you are to have, it means that we are the most unfortunately situated country, not merely in Europe, but in the world. We are bound by our insular position, which, under those circumstances, seems to be an unmitigated misfortune, to maintain a Navy upon a standard of the necessity of which we are, I understand, all agreed. In addition we are obliged to have what no other country, in the world has—a very highly-trained Expeditionary Army, more highly trained, I suppose, than any troops in the world; and then, in addition to that, we are to have all the youth of the country under arms to resist invasion. We have always believed until now that our insular position was an advantage to us. All the poets of past ages and all the politicians of past ages have dwelt with pride and also with great comfort to themselves upon our insular position; but now it appears to be, as I say, an almost unmitigated misfortune if it compels us to maintain a Navy on a scale which nobody else does, and at the same time to maintain an Army which is to be, at any rate to a very great extent, modelled on that of the great military Powers of Europe.
Does that really represent the position, and are we to understand that that is the position which noble Lords opposite take up? If it is so, I want to know what has happened within the last few years to create such a complete change of attitude and of policy from that which they followed when they were in office. We never had an inkling of anything of the kind. The party of noble Lords opposite went on with various schemes for remodelling and, as, of course, they believed, improving the Regular Forces. They never thought out, so far as I know, any special scheme of home defence. They did their best, no doubt, to maintain the efficiency of the Militia, the Yeomanry, and the Volunteers. But it is very hard to believe—I should be very unwilling to believe it of them myself —that they were so entirely devoid of foresight as not to have contemplated the possibility, supposing they believe it now to be necessary, of this stupendous change

917
in our system of national defence. Reference is made to 100,000 and even 300,000 men landing on these shores. I quite admit that our organisation is not based on the possibility of an invasion of that kind, and certainly not so when the Expeditionary Army is withdrawn. Therefore if that risk does exist—a risk which the noble Earl will admit we do not believe to be a real risk—it is certainly true that we are working on the wrong lines, and, whatever the sacrifice, we should have to go to something entirely different.
THE EARL OF WEMYSSHear, hear. The sooner you do it the better.
THE EARL of CREWEThen the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, and also the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, spoke on the question of mobilisation. I am certain that it is not the desire of my right hon. friend or of my noble friend behind me to keep back from the House or from the country any facts and figures of a kind which have usually been publicly stated, and which can be so stated without detriment to the public interests. What my right hon. friend does not want to do is to give figures which, although they might seem harmless to give in themselves, would yet tell more than he thinks ought to be told in the public interest of his mobilisation schemes. I cannot help thinking that there must be some misunderstanding on this point between noble Lords opposite and my noble friend behind me, and I cannot help also thinking that if they would communicate with the Department which my noble friend represents here, they would have very good reasons given to them—satisfactory reasons—why certain information for which they ask cannot be given. I am sure that my noble friend will go as far as possible to meet them in giving such information as can properly be given.
My noble friend behind me asked about horses. He, if he will allow me to say so, put the matter very well when he pointed out that for the purposes of the Territorial Army horses if in reasonable good condition could be used without any very great amount of riding school or previous training. I remember very well when I was in the Yeomanry myself, and when practically the whole business consisted of parade movements, it was astonishing to see how, even within the compass of a week or
918
ten days, quite green horses would take their places in the line and become like seasoned troopers. But now that parade movements have given way to a more useful form of drill the lessons to be learned by horses are fewer. I am quite certain that my noble friend desires to make no mystery whatever of this question of horses, and I entirely agree that it is desirable, in order to keep up the public interest in the horse supply throughout the country, that the War Office should, as far as possible, take those in the country districts into their confidence as to the number of horses available and the number which will be required. I think that noble Lords opposite have been hardly fair to my right hon. friend on the question of mobilisation. So far as I know, up to the time that my right hon. friend went to the War Office there was no scheme of any kind to mobilise the Auxiliary Forces, or, if there was, it was of the—
VISCOUNT MIDLETONI beg the noble Earl's pardon for interrupting him. The noble Earl said just now that while we were in office there was no sort of scheme, he believed, for the defence of the country. I can assure the noble Earl that there was a scheme in which every regiment was placed in the division in which it was to fight. The scheme was well known and could have been put in force in twenty-four hours.
THE EARL OF CREWEI have no doubt that when the noble Viscount was at the War Office it was settled in his own mind and in that of his advisers where each regiment or battalion should be moved to; but as to whether any scheme was thought out by which all the Volunteers and Yeomanry could have been moved with full complements for all purposes of defence, I confess I am somewhat sceptical. On that I should like to say that I think noble Lords opposite pressed my right hon. friend rather unfairly in this matter of mobilisation. I believe that his schemes, which are necessarily of an elaborate character, have been very carefully worked out, and that as much progress has been made as could reasonably be expected to have been made by any Department within the limit of time which has been at the disposal of the Secretary of State for War. I am inclined to challenge contradiction on that point, although, of course, I am not personally acquainted with the details. After all,

919
these things cannot be carried out in a day. The noble Viscount opposite was going to re-organise the Army on a system of Army Corps with short service troops. Well, how long would it have taken to mature the scheme? It would have taken something like ten or twelve years to have brought the scheme into completion; and if, supposing the noble Viscount had had an opportunity of carrying out his scheme, somebody had jumped up in your Lordships' House twice every session and attempted to pull the plant up to see how it was growing and complained that the noble Viscount was neglecting the interests of the country by not having his scheme matured, he would have had some right to complain. Similarly I think my right hon. friend has also some right to complain. It is the advantage which the preponderating strength of noble Lords opposite gives them in this House that they are able, on subjects like this, to raise debates of which I do not wish to deny the importance. When noble Lords opposite sit on this side we are not in a position to do anything of the kind. Our forces are not large enough, and consequently, therefore, we must bear it as best we can. I confess that I do not think it of serious moment whether the noble Earl goes to a Division or not. If he does, we shall, of course, be compelled to vote against him.
THE EARL OF WEMYSSMy Lords, I do not know what my noble friend on this side of the House proposes to do in the event of my pressing my Motion. My noble friend proposes an inquiry. I shall vote against any inquiry. We have had inquiries enough. What we want is action, not inquiry. An inquiry could tell you nothing you do not know. I shall oppose an inquiry whenever it is proposed. Four years ago both sides in this House pledged themselves to what is contained in my Motion—namely, that this country should at all times be in that state of preparation on land, not that you could crush any enemy that came, but in that state of preparation that no enemy would dream of coming. That was the I.O.U. which Lord Crewe and my noble friends on this side of the House put their signatures to four years ago. To-day I present that I.O.U. in the interests of the country, and I ask noble Lords to fulfil the promises they then made. It is necessary to act immediately, so that in six months time the country could be in that state which this
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House declared four years ago it should be in. I do not criticise in any way the quality of the Territorial Force. I pass that aside. My point is that in numbers it is quite useless as compared with the force required. Does the noble Earl the Leader of the House think that this force, if complete, will fulfil the condition contained in the Resolution of this House to which he agreed four years ago. I await an answer.
THE EARL OF CREWESo far as my opinion is worth anything, I say "Yes."
THE EARL OF WEMYSSI hope the rest of the House will say "No." The view of Lord Roberts, and every soldier in this House who has not an axe to grind backs Lord Roberts in that view, is that you require 1,000,000 men to put yourselves in the position referred to in the Resolution which your Lordships accepted four years ago. I desire to see whether your Lordships draw back from the action you then took or not, and if any noble Lord will support me I shall certainly divide the House.
EARL CAWDOR: My Lords, I hope the noble Earl will not divide the House on his Motion. I think your Lordships might be placed in an invidious position if a Division were taken upon it. We have had two distinct opinions expressed. The greatest military authority in your Lordships' House, who unfortunately is not present to-day, has given his opinion very clearly. On the other hand, we have the opinion of His Majesty's Government that they believe that this scheme, which has been passed through Parliament and has received the impress of Parliamentary authority, will be a success. We have many criticisms, and, I am afraid, many doubts, as to the success of the scheme, but we still wish that it should be a success, and we desire to do nothing which may hamper in the slightest degree the operations of His Majesty's Government and the work which the Secretary of State is endeavouring to do. The noble Earl the Leader of the House, in his speech to-night, has given us some ground for hoping that in the future we may get a little more information when questions of importance are asked than has been vouchsafed to us in the past. The noble Viscount behind me, Lord Hardinge, asked some questions the other day as to which he got no information at

921
all I think, however, from the statement by the noble Earl the Leader of the House, that we are entitled to hope that when these questions are again asked we shall certainly receive a little more information than we have had up to the present time. In those circumstances, and wishing to leave His Majesty's Government free,

CONTENTS.

Bedford, D.

Hood, V.

Penrhyn, L.

Saltoun, L.[Teller]

Bathurst, E.

Calthorpe, L.

Saltoun, L.

Cathcart, E.

Clinton, L.

Kilmorey, E.

Dunboyne, L.

Sinclair, L.

Leicester, E.

Faber, L.

Wemyss, L. (Barrington.)

Lovelace, E.

Kilmarnock, L. (E. Erroll.)

Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Falkland, V.

Muskerry, L.

Hampden, V.

Newton, L.

NON-CONTENTS.

Loreburn, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Hereford, L. Bp.

Lochee, L.

Wolverhampton, V.

Lucas, L.

(L. President.)

Airedale, L.

Mac Donnell, L.

Crewe, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Allendale, L.

Marchamley, L.

Colebrooke, L. [Teller.]

Monkswell, L.

Eversley, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Glantawe, L.

Pentland, L.

Carrington, E.

Granard, L. (E. Granard.)

Ribblesdale, L.

Chichester, E.

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

St. Davids, L.

Haversham, L.

Saye and Sele, L.

Portman, V.

Herschell, L. [Teller.]

Weardale, L.

Resolved in the negative.

SMALL HOLDINGS.
THE EARL of ONSLOWrose to call attention to the many difficulties experienced by county councils in the administration of the Small Holdings and Allotments Act, 1908; and to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he would introduce a Bill to amend that Act so as to expedite the establishment of small holdings and the creation of a class of occupying owners of the land.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I think that I shall not be guilty of any exaggeration if I venture to say that the Small Holdings Act which your Lordships passed three years ago is a comparative failure. I say "comparative," because I have no doubt that presently the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture will produce a number of figures showing that a great many small holdings have been created —I say a failure by comparison with what the noble Earl led the
922
so far as we are concerned, from anything that may hamper them, I hope the noble Earl will not go to a Division.
On Question—

country to believe would be the result of the measure. We all of us admire the cheery optimism of the noble Earl. We also admire the way in which he has managed his own estates, and we know that upon those estates he has been more than usually successful in creating small holders. We also admire the noble Earl's zeal towards his party, and his desire to do everything that he can to advance what he believes to be the interests of the Liberal Party. But perhaps I may venture to point out to him that your Lordships and the party sitting upon this side of the House were no less desirous than the noble Earl himself to create small holdings in this country.
The result of the action of the noble Earl has been that a very large number of his friends, mostly Liberal Members for different constituencies, have gone about persuading people that all they had to do was to make an application to the county council for a particular piece of land and they would get it for rather less than was its value, and that if they did not get it

923
their remedy was to apply to the committee rooms of the Liberal Member. That is not the duty of anybody except the Board of Agriculture and the Commissioners appointed by the Board. I noticed only the other day that a gentleman, a son of a member of your Lordships' House, addressing a meeting in Dorsetshire, said that if application were made to the county council and no reply received a representation should be made to his father's estate office when a question would be asked in Parliament as to why the Commissioners were not down there seeing that the county council did their work. I deprecate very greatly any action of that kind.
We were told by the noble Earl not very long ago that 23,000 applicants had applied for 373,000 acres of land, as he expressed it equal to a strip of land a mile wide from the Channel to the Firth of Forth. These have now been inquired into, and the number of applicants has been reduced to 13,000. I think the reason for their falling off is that they find they cannot obtain just that little piece of land they require at a lower price than anybody else would be willing to give for it, and that even the agency of the Liberal committee rooms has not been able to supply a piece of land, the best in the farm, at the same rent as the average of the farm without throwing a burden upon the ratepayers of the locality. Of these 13,000 applicants only 2,200 have been provided with 30,000 acres, an average of about 13 acres each, leaving 10,800 to be provided for; and if the average is the same these will require not less than another 140,000 acres.
What is the cause of this comparatively slow progress in the administration of the Act? I dare say most people will expect that the answer will be the reluctance of the landlords in the country to part with their land. Anybody reading the provisions proposed in the Budget would imagine that the scorpions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to be applied to the loins of the landlords of this country because of their reluctance to carry out this measure; but, so far from that being the case, one Liberal Member after another has got up in his place and said that the landlords, whether Tory or Radical, have not been obstacles in the creation of small holdings, but that, on the contrary, they have done all they could to facilitate it. Is it, then,
924
the county councils? My noble friend gave very good testimony himself of the work which has been done by the county councils. He stated that their local knowledge had been of the greatest possible value, and that if they had not tackled the work the Board would have had to send one Commissioner into every county in England, whereas the Board had received every possible assistance and co-operation from the county councils. I think one of the most remarkable features of English life is the enormous amount of voluntary work performed in this country. I happen to be a member of the small holdings committee of my own county. The work that has been done by that body is very much the same as that of other county councils throughout the country. They have held innumerable. meetings; they have interviewed applicants; they have made applications for farms; and they have not hesitated to ask the Board of Agriculture to put the compulsory powers into operation. Therefore, I think your Lordships will agree that the fault does not lie with the county councils. Well, whose fault is it?
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 24; Not-contents, 28.
The noble Earlopposite said some time ago that the lion in the path was the tenant farmer. It is not the landlords, it is not the county councils, but it is those who are now in occupation of the land who are the lions in the path. In 1906 the noble Earl opposite introduced a measure into your. Lordships' House called the Land Tenure Bill, and in his speech he said a great deal about the advantages of fixity of tenure and the iniquity of anybody trying to disturb his tenant. We were asked to put some words into that Act to provide for compensation in the event of loss being suffered by a tenant having to go from one farm to another. The noble Earl expressed the hope that your Lordships would not refuse to put these words in—and they were put in—because otherwise it would give the impression that—
"The House of Lords was driving a very hard bargain with the unfortunate devil who was being turned out of his farm."
Moreover, the noble Earl has upon several occasions protested that nothing of the sort could happen, and that the Act must be worked without doing injustice to the vested interests of the farmers. Well, that is the spirit in which the county councils have

925
acted. They have been unwilling to turn men out of the farms which they were occupying, and they have waited, wherever they possibly could, until the farm came out of occupation and they had an opportunity of making an application to the landlord to let it to them for small holdings.
About two years ago the President of the Board of Agriculture became one of three Commissioners who administer some 62,000 acres of Crown lands in fourteen different counties of England. Knowing the way in which he administers his own estates, no word was raised in this House or anywhere else against the appointment of the noble Earl as one of the Commissioners of Crown Lands. But I wish to draw your Lordships' attention to a case which I think was one of particular hardship and one which seems to go diametrically in the opposite direction to the professions which the noble Earl has made. The case is one which occurred on a Crown farm near a place called Welwick the East Riding of Yorkshire. A farmer named Clark occupied a farm of 376 acres. The East Riding County Council were of opinion that it was not specially suited for small holdings because the land was heavy, and it was some distance from a railway station; but the Board of Agriculture and the noble Earl thought otherwise and they not only urged but compelled the county council to take a lease of that farm, and, of course, as a preliminary, they had to evict the tenant. That tenant had been in possession of the farm for sixteen years. It is quite true that he occupied another farm and held two farms together; but I am informed that his son was a man approaching full age, and that his intention was to settle him on one or other of these two farms. The man himself was a good citizen, and would have commended himself to Lord Lucas and the Secretary of State for War, for he was an active member of the Yorkshire Yeomanry, had raised a troop himself, and as a shot was a prizewinner. I venture to say that, however much one may be desirous of increasing small holdings, it is, to say the least of it, an arbitrary act to evict a man solely for that purpose. So strongly did the Chairman of the East Riding County Council feel that he said that, while hoping small holdings would succeed, he thought they were in that county starting under very intolerable circumstances with regard to this particular farm. I hope the noble Earl will
926
be able to give us some explanation. It may be that he has been able to make compensation for the loss which that man has suffered.
I venture to think that one of the great blots upon the Small Holdings Act is that there is not sufficient provision in it for compensation for disturbance. All the time that the Land Tenure Bill was passing through Parliament the noble Earl, while he was very insistent on compensation being paid to a man who suffered loss through being turned out of his farm, always safeguarded that by saying that it should not be paid in cases where he was evicted for purposes of good estate management, and he was equally careful always to tell your Lordships that he considered the creation of small holdings good estate management. The noble Earl may say that the man had no claim—as, indeed, he has not—under the law as it stands. At the same time, I think your Lordships will agree with me that it is an exceptionally hard case and not one that you would seek to imitate on your own estates. There is a very considerable fund at the disposal of the noble Earl, a fund about which, I think, there has been a certain amount of misunderstanding. Some thought it was to be £100,000 a year, others £100,000 a quarter, but we now learn that the sum of £100,000 placed to the credit of the Small Holdings Account is to remain there until it is exhausted—that is to say, until the noble Earl has drawn upon it; and not until that takes place will application be made to the Treasury for a further sum to be paid to the credit of the Board of Agriculture. I venture to say that it would be a fair and equitable charge to put upon that fund that where a tenant is turned out of his farm for the purpose of cutting it up into small holdings, or where a portion is taken away for small holdings, he should be entitled to receive from it compensation, to be fixed by arbitration.
In many cases landlords who would willingly have given up land for this purpose have said to the county council, "No, I will not turn my tenant out. If you want that land you must use the compulsory powers which the law gives." I have done it myself. When the Act first came into operation I said I would not do anything to compel any one of my tenants to quit his farm. I stated that if any portion of the land was wanted for

927
small holdings and a written declaration was produced from the tenant that he was willing to give up that part, I would be willing to treat with the local authorities at once, but that I was not going to be a party to turning a man out of his farm. That, I said, was work which Parliament had placed upon the county councils, and if it had to be done it should be done by the county councils. My noble friend describes the county councils which have not been so forward as he would have wished as "lame ducks," and amongst those lame ducks he classed the County Council of Surrey, with which I am more closely connected, and the council of the adjoining county of Sussex. I do not think that that can be from any rooted Toryism in the composition of those two particular councils, because I find that in some of the Welsh counties—in Flintshire and in Cardiganshire, neither of which can be accused of want of sympathy with noble Lords opposite—there have been even fewer small holdings provided than in Surrey and Sussex.
The County Council of Surrey—I am bound to say a few words in its defence—has spent upon the acquisition of small holdings £730. The result so far has been one holding of thirteen acres, not a very great showing; but the small holdings committee has held sixty-one meetings, there have been twenty-five local inquiries, and 244 applications have been received, of which only 104 were approved. Out of that 104, fifty-four of the applicants wanted 550 acres in the immediate neighbourhood of Kingston, Reigate, and Woking. I venture to ask your Lordships whether you think it is easy near such populous places to buy land at a price which could be let to small holders at a rent that they could make it pay. And not more than ten per cent. of those who applied in Surrey have been willing to leave their immediate neighbourhood. They want land at their very doors; otherwise the county council would have had no difficulty in providing them with small holdings in other parts of the county. We were told by the representative of the Board of Agriculture in the other House that the average price which the county councils have paid for land for small holdings has been from twenty to thirty years purchase of the agricultural rent. There are very few acres in the county of rrey that you could buy at twenty or
928
thirty years purchase of the agricultural rent; and, therefore, if the noble Earl thinks the county of Surrey more backward than some of the other counties, may I tell him the reason is that we cannot get land at the price at which it would pay small holders to cultivate it.
The noble Earlhas said that if peaceful persuasion fails some more stringent measures will have to be adopted by the Board of Agriculture. In Surrey we have had a good deal of criticism within our own borders and we are inviting on our committee, as we are able to do under the Small Holdings Act, our most vigorous critics. We hope when they get there they will be able to show us how to do the business which apparently they think is so easy to I would say the same to the noble Earl. If the noble Earl thinks that the county of Surrey is not doing its duty, and that it ought to provide small holdings more rapidly, then he has the remedy in his hands. Let the Board of Agriculture step in and provide small holdings themselves. The County Council of Surrey will not be in the least annoyed with the action of the noble Earl, particularly if, as I would not doubt, he is willing to put upon the shoulders of the Treasury the loss which in all probability would accrue from the operation.
But what I think we really want to know from the noble Earl is what is the policy of the Board. Commissioners are being sent into every part of the country, and are reporting, I believe, to the Board. Does the Board want to create small holders who will live on their holdings, cultivate them, and live by them? If so, that is a policy upon which we are all agreed. But if it is their policy to provide a man with a tiny plot of land and build a house upon it, I say that is not a small holding policy but a housing policy, and one which it has been shown cannot be carried out without throwing a charge upon the rates. As your Lordships are perfectly well aware, in Wales most of the land is already held in small holdings, and where it is not held in small holdings in the technical sense of the word—that is, holdings of fifty acres or under—it is held in small farms. The cost of equipping the land with farmhouse and farm buildings on every 100 acres or so is necessarily very much greater than in putting up house and farm buildings on 1,000 acres, and therefore the Welsh county

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councils are unable to provide land at a price which the small holders can afford to pay.
There are many other difficulties in the working of the Act which have been experienced by county councils. Some time ago I ventured to put a list of Questions on the Paper, but I was met with the observation that it occupied a good deal of space, and, therefore, I have contented myself on the present occasion with giving private notice to my noble friend the President of the Board of Agriculture upon the points on which we are desirous of the guidance of the Board. In the first place, I should like to ask the noble Earl how we are to deal with the question of compensation for the utilisation of the small holding as a market garden. It constantly happens that the small holder wishes to use the land for market gardening, and the land can be obtained by the county council from the landlord, who invariably guards himself against being compelled to compensate for the cost of planting fruit trees, bushes, and so forth; but the county council has to pay that compensation to the tenant, whereas it cannot recover it from the landlord, and consequently the burden falls upon the ratepayers.
Then, again, I should like to ask the noble Earl what is a county council to do when it applies to rent land which may become available some day for building purposes. If the council expend any money upon it all that they can do when the landlord calls upon them to give it up at twelve months notice for building purposes is to require compensation from the landlord for the expenditure so far as it is of value to the landlord. I need hardly say that pigstyes and cowsheds are not much use to building land, and the consequence is that the county con acids are left to meet the cost of equipping the land for small holdings. Then many councils have land which has been appropriated for other purposes, such as asylums and burial grounds, but the Board have decided, I understand, that they are not allowed under the Act to make use of those lands for the purpose of small holdings, nor may they acquire land in the rough and expend money in breaking it up for small holdings. There is also another difficulty which has confronted many county councils. County councils who have issued Stock are not allowed to borrow money for any subse-
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quent purpose for more than five years, and consequently if a county council has issued county Stock it is in the peculiar position of being unable to borrow money and spread repayment over a period of thirty-five years or eighty years, as the case may be, for the purpose of purchasing and equipping land for small holdings.
Then there is a further difficulty which arises in connection with the provision of land for allotments. Allotments are to be provided only for the labouring population. It is very difficult to define labouring population. Small holdings may be provided for anybody who is willing himself to cultivate the land, and I suggest to the noble Earl, if he contemplates an amending Act, that the definition of those who may have land for allotments should be assimilated to that of those who may have land for small holdings. There are other difficulties, but these are the principal ones. One is in ascertaining whether the applicant for a small holding has sufficient capital. There has been much difficulty felt in the county of Worcester, in the neighbourhood of Birmingham, where a small holder who made a profit last year of £150 had to borrow money which, with the interest, amounted to £115. County councils are also bound to register the land which they purchase, and I would venture to appeal to the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture whether registration of the land is not a charge which might properly be paid out of the Small Holdings Account. The Act provides that the land must be registered, although neither the county council nor anybody else wants to do it. I venture to suggest that it increases the cost of acquiring the land, and that the noble Earl might very well meet us with a grant out of the Small Holdings Fund.
One very great grievance is felt by those who become tenants of county councils—namely, that they are required not only to pay the rent, but also the proportion of sinking fund to repay the cost to the county council of the purchase of the land—in other words, tenants have not only to pay the rent but they have also to pay the capital value, and at the end of that time the land is not theirs, but is the property of the county council. I have gone somewhat carefully into the relative cost of purchase and of renting. I will give the

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noble Earl the figures if he likes in greater detail than I would care to trouble your Lordships with, but I would give very briefly an example. Taking a farm of forty acres and dividing it into two portions, assuming the capital value to be £1,000, and the interest £40 a year, you sell one-half of it to A and let the other half to B. The annual charge to A, who will ultimately become the purchaser, will be £23 ls. 3d., and the annual charge to B, who will never acquire the freehold will be £22 12 s. 6d. If the Government had accepted the suggestion that was made in the Report of the Committee over which I had the honour to preside—namely, instead of requiring the small holder who wanted to purchase to pay down one-fifth only to require one-eighth, it would be possible for the small holder to pay a smaller sum annually than he now has to pay in rent and yet at the end of the period he would own the freehold of the land. If it were known that the land could be thus acquired for rather less than is now paid to the county council, the noble Earl would find that the disinclination to become purchasers of the land would very soon disappear. That was one of the recommendations made by the Committee over which I presided; and there was another one which the noble Earl did not think fit to embody in the Bill, but which, I venture to think, would have done more to accelerate the creation of small holdings than any of the provisions of the Act, and that is that loans should be made to landowners to put up buildings to equip small holdings on terms equally favourable to those on which they are advanced to the county council. I observe that Lord Harrowby is about to deal with that point. If the noble Earl really wishes to accelerate the creation of small holdings all over the country, I can assure him that the landlords are only too anxious to do it, but they cannot afford it at the present rates for loans to equip their holdings. If those rates were lower, I believe there would be a very great extension of small holdings throughout the country.
In conclusion, I can only say that I do hope the noble Earl will not press county councils to evict sitting tenants from their holdings, but that they will wait until there are changes of tenancies. If the noble Earl wants to further accelerate the creation of small holdings, he has it in his Power to provide proper compensation
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where tenants are evicted from their holdings; and I think until they receive proper compensation neither landlords nor county councils will be prepared to sacrifice sitting tenants even for the purpose of creating small holdings.
THE EARL OF HARROWBYMy Lords, I rise to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he is aware that landowners providing cottages or equipment for small holdings, under the Lands Improvement Acts, are subjected to heavy preliminary expenses by way of commission for the negotiation of loans under those Acts, and of fees for visits of inspectors; and whether, with a view to facilitate such improvements being made, His Majesty's Government are prepared, in approved cases—(a) to remit the charges at present made for the visits of Government Inspectors in connection with advances or loans; and (b) to make advances or loans for the purposes mentioned to landowners direct on terms similar to those on which advances can be made to local authorities and co-operative societies; and whether, if necessary, His Majesty's Government will bring forward this session proposals for legislation with these objects.
The noble Earlhas kindly given me permission to put my Questions now. I put them down because I felt that the matter was of the greatest importance to the landowners and farmers of this country, and also affected the question of the development of small holdings and estates. I think the noble Earl will be the first to recognise that English landlords—I say English because I know nothing about Scotland—have been ready to do what they can to extend small holdings. I am not concerned this afternoon with the large landowners of the country, but I do want to make a plea for the small landowners. It may be said by the man in the street that the land is held largely by members of your Lordships' House. That may have been true thirty or forty years ago, but I do not think it is true to-day. Unfortunately I find that there is no Return of landowners in England. The last Return was, I think, made in 1860; but if a Return could be got out it would prove that the average holding of the landowners of this country only amounts to 2,000 or 3,000 acres. This class of landowner in England as a rule consists of men who live entirely by their rent. I am also not concerned with land-

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owners who have private means, but only with those who look to their rents for their income, and we have been told recently in the Press that the landowners have a very small margin upon which to live. An excellent letter by Mr. Pretyman has opened, I hope, the eyes of the country to that fact; and I would ask your Lordships how the landowner who has a very small margin of profit to live upon can face the calls which will be made upon him in these days.
May I take the case of an owner of land who has succeeded to a property and has paid considerable death duties? His agents or tenants may ask him for a cowshed or a new set of buildings to cost £300 or £400. The landlord may say "I should like to do it, but I cannot." The farmer, if he has any grit in him, leaves, and that is the first deterioration of the farm. What happens next? The farm is let to an inferior tenant. It may be that the landlord spends £20 or £30 to patch up the buildings, but that does not meet the requirements of a good tenant. The second tenant takes what he can out of the land and leaves it. The third state of deterioration, as noble Lords will see, is that the farm is afterwards let as a sheep run, and you see all the fences tumbling down and the buildings going to rack and ruin. What is the position of the landlord who cannot put down the necessary capital to meet the requirements of the local authority? He lets the farm go at a lower rental for some other purpose.
Now I will paint the other side of the picture. The other day a landlord succeeded to a property where chaos reigned and where the tenants shot where they liked, grazed where they liked, and farmed as they liked, and paid when they liked. This landlord immediately discharged the tenants. He was not a very rich man, but he had access to capital. He cut up the large farms, created small holdings, and built cottages, and to-day the farm is a credit to the district, the landlord and the tenants. To-day there is no better set of tenants in the whole county than on that particular estate of about 5,000 or 6,000 acres. You must have noticed, travelling through the country by train, acre upon acre of land not properly cultivated, fields undrained, and bushes and thistles growing in them. The reason is that the landlord has not sufficient money to put
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up the necessary buildings for good farming. What agriculture is suffering from to-day is the want of access to capital.
I should like to urge upon my noble friend that he should do something for English farmers as has been done for Irish farmers. I believe the Irish tenant has means, through his credit banks, of getting capital at a low rate of interest. That is not so in England, and I do feel that by the establishment of these credit banks a great deal might be done to meet the difficulty of want of capital. What is the position of the tenant who desires to develop his estate? He is driven to some land company, and there I quarrel with the terms which he has to pay. If a small landowner wishes to build a cottage on a few acres of land he has to pay in initial expenses no less than ten per cent. If a landlord is allowed to spread his borrowing over a term of years he cannot do so as advantageously as a county council; but the great drawback to my mind to owners of land is that if they go to these companies they are unable to repay. It has come to my notice that many owners are quite prepared to borrow money from the Government or a land company if they could repay by instalments. When they borrow from land companies they have to charge their estate from twenty-five to forty years. I feel convinced that if there were some means by which a landlord could spend £200 or £300 and repay by instalments you would find the appearance of the country different from what it is to-day with regard to buildings.
Let me quote figures showing the difference between county council borrowing powers and those of land companies. A county council can borrow at 3½ per cent. for fifty years on new buildings, which means £4 5s. 3d. per year for interest and redemption. The land company can only borrow for forty years and the annual sum amounts to £4 16s. 11d. It may be said that is a small difference, but when you are dealing with small landowners it is a considerable item. With regard to alterations of existing buildings the term is twenty-five years, both for county councils and land improvement companies, and the premiums are £61s. 4d. and £6 4s. respectively. In connection with these improvement companies I

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should like to urge the noble Earl if he could see his way to allow them to lend money for the erection of village clubs. We all know what an important place village clubs occupy in our country life, and I know that several owners of land have applied to these companies for powers to borrow for this purpose, and they have been told that the Government would not allow it. What I ask the noble Earl to do is to create a department in the Board of Agriculture where landowners could go direct and borrow money on the same terms as county councils. If the noble Earl tells me he would require a special Act of Parliament, there is another way which I would like to suggest. I see several chairmen of county councils present this afternoon. I should like county councils to lend the money and charge one per cent. for the initial expenses as against six per cent. or seven per cent. at present charged. I think the security is good, as it would be a first charge on the property before all the mortgages. I am not asking the Government or the local authorities to run any risk in granting these loans. Failing these two plans I would ask the noble Earl if he could see his way to waive the fee of six guineas charged for inspection. It might very fairly, to my mind, come out of the £100,000 grant to the Board of Agriculture for the development of small holdings.
I think the advantages of my suggestion would be considerable to the country, because I have no doubt that if the noble Earl could see his way to carry out the suggestion a large number of small holdings would spring up all over the country. It is admitted that landowners can create these holdings much better, much cheaper, and much more satisfactorily than can county councils. I admit that the landowners of this country, or at any rate the great bulk of them, at present do not realise the possibilities of small holdings. I have always contended, in this House and outside, that small holdings can be created so as to pay the landlord, and I think the noble Earl will agree with me in that. Whom else would the adoption of my suggestion benefit? It would benefit a large number of men, principally labourers and small farmers, who want these small holdings but do not care to rent under a public body. Only to-day three or four men have told me that they would not rent under a public body but would much prefer to rent under a landlord.
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In conclusion, I should like to say a word as to the administration of the Small Holdings Act by the noble Earl. It has worked well in some cases, but I do not like the ginger which is being administered to county councils. There is a danger of forcing county councils to buy and rent land where it is not necessary. A case came before me the other day in which a small holdings committee of a county council sitting round a table said "We must buy this farm although we think the price high; if we do not do something, the Board of Agriculture will come down upon us." What was the consequence? They bought this farm of 120 acres, turned off the tenant, and put two other families on the farm. For those two families they spent £6,000. Now, I do not think it was the intention of the noble Earl or of the Act that county councils should incur this enormous liability for the sake of creating small holdings. To my mind I think it ought to be left to landowners to create the small farms. What the county council should do is to buy land near towns in small quantities to meet the demand in the villages or outskirts of the town. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to give us a few words of encouragement in this direction.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (EARL CARRINGTON)My Lords, I think it may be for the convenience of the House if I take the noble Earl's point first, and I wish to congratulate him on being one of the greatest friends that the small holdings movement has. As we all know, the noble Earl has more than 3,000 acres under small holdings, and all his tenants are happy and doing well. But he has rather sprung, if I may be permitted to say so, an important question on me at a moment's notice. These new proposals involve the most important financial consideration. So far as public money is concerned, of course it is a question for the Treasury; so far as county council money is concerned, it is a question for the Local Government Board; but, so far as my own Department is concerned, we are, of course, all in favour of economy and cheapness in the matter of agricultural development. If my noble friend would permit me, we might talk the matter over and see whether in any way we could remedy what I admit are some great difficulties that exist at present.

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As regards the question which has been brought before the House by Lord Onslow, I must admit that I have nothing whatever with which to find fault, except perhaps that his speech was rather too much about Lord Carrington, and too little about small holdings. That is the only criticism I make of his speech, though I think he really honestly looked at the question through his pince-nez with rather too grey glasses, for he conjured up the most hideous obstacles in working the Small Holdings Act. I venture to submit that what appeared to him in some counties to be high and inaccessible mountains, in other counties are very small mole-hills indeed. In his own county—the great historical county of Surrey, in which he is so well known and highly respected—there are ten acres under small holdings. One holding I believe belongs to the noble Earl. I congratulate him sincerely upon being a great exception in Surrey in having one small holding. Look at Sussex—sleepy Sussex, as I believe it is called. There are two county councils in Sussex. One has been successful and I suppose they are very proud of it. They have two acres under small holdings. That is in East Sussex. In West Sussex they have done better because they have three acres. Compare Surrey and East and West Sussex with Cambridgeshire, which has got 1,595 acres, Northumberland 1,635, Somerset 1,757, and Norfolk 2,217. How is it that this is possible in one county, and impossible in another? I really think that in some counties there is, perhaps, a more hearty desire to carry out the Act, and, if I may say so without offence, perhaps a more reasonable amount of intelligence.
THE EARL OF ONSLOWCan the noble Earl tell us what is the average price paid for the land in the counties he has enumerated?
EARL CARRINGTONI will have them looked out and sent to the noble Earl. My noble friend said there was a great difference between Cambridgeshire and Surrey. No doubt there is, but there is not such a great difference between Surrey and Kent. Owing very much, I think, to the great work Lord Darnley has done in Kent, that county has got 718 acres, and the conditions are very much the same as in Surrey. Therefore I really do not see why Surrey should not, if I may use a vulgar expression, "buck up,"
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and do a little better than it has done up to the present.
Then the noble Earl asked what is our policy. If he will kindly go down to our new colony in Norfolk he will see what the policy is. He will find there a colony of small holdings with allotments, a village hall, a fruit farm, and twelve or fourteen houses with fifty acres apiece, occupied by people not only able to pay their way but doing very well. That is our policy, and if the noble Earl will take the trouble to visit the colony I think he will be pleased with the result. With one of the noble Earl's contentions I quite agree. I quite recognise that very much could be done if county councils could let land to parish councils for allotments. As regards money spent on equipping small holdings which will be lost if land is resumed for building purposes, the whole of that question is a theoretical rather than a practical one, and I do not intend to detain the House on the point. Then as to the question of market gardens, and whether county councils will have to compensate their tenants but cannot recover from superior landlords. The Board have suggested a form of lease to safeguard county councils against loss in relation to market gardens. We have a form of lease of which I shall be happy to send the noble Earl a copy.
Then the noble Earlcame to the old question of the "magic of property." I am really not going to detain the House about that, because it is absolutely flogging a dead horse. The House will remember that the great Tory Act of 1892 was in force fifteen years, and at the end of that time there was the magnificent result that 800 acres of land were positively acquired. Last week under the present Act new schemes and orders embracing 1,256 acres of land were sent in, so that in six working days under our Act we secured fifty per cent. more land than the "magic of property" Act could obtain in fifteen years. Mr. Austen Chamberlain was good enough at Durham to make a speech on the subject, and he asked for £250,000 to support his pet subject. I do not think he is very likely to get that in this time of storm and stress. Then he wrote to The Times in February, but he was very neatly put on his back by Miss Jebb, and ever since we have not heard a word on the subject. I should like to point out that only one per cent. of the English applicants

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have asked to purchase. In Cambridgeshire, which is one of the most go-ahead counties, only one man out of 1,013 applicants has asked to purchase his holding, and that man is an uncertificated bankrupt. As to the difficulty in regard to counties which have issued Stock, the Local Government Board are introducing a Bill to dispose of this difficulty.
That leaves me, mercifully, only two more questions to deal with. One is the difficulty, we are told, in obtaining land without eviction. What an extraordinary change has come over the spirit of the dream in two years! Two years ago the Benches opposite were filled with noble Lords who quoted the opinions of agricultural correspondents, chosen with much care, who told them that it was the most dishonest cry ever known; that there was plenty of land—more land, in fact, than applicants. We all remember the opprobrium that was hurled at the head of the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman when he said that in some cases there was a blank denial given to the people who wanted land. Practically speaking, there is a difficulty, no doubt, but it is not a serious difficulty. We have the offer of a great many vacant farms, and we most gratefully acknowledge the help we have received and are receiving from landowners who were not very friendly to the Act. Three names come to my mind. There is the Duke of Northumberland, who was not very friendly to the Act during its passage through this House, but who has behaved extremely generously in giving three or four farms in splendid condition and not charging the county council for putting them into tiptop repair. The same thing can be said of the Duke of Portland, who was an antagonist of the Act. Then the Duke of Marlborough has set a most glorious example. He has gone further than anybody, and has taken away from his biggest farms without interfering with the farmers' livelihood. He has taken 600 acres of land from different parts of his great estate and offered it to the county council in the most generous way, and I commend, with great respect, the example of the Duke of Marlborough to my noble friend who said that nothing on earth would induce him to take any land under any circumstances from tenants on his estate. There may have been some difficulty, but where there is a difficulty in getting land we have the remedy in our
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own hands. We can take it by compulsion, and the county councils are waking up to the necessity of that, as already fifty compulsory order schemes have been sent in to the Board of Agriculture.
I admit that some of the farmers are very sore on the subject. I allude to a meeting of the Farmers' League, a most worthy body of men without whose help I do not think I could have got the Land Tenure Bill through both Houses of Parliament. And what do they say? They say that Mr. Armstrong, of Selby, complained that several farmers had had notice to give up 20 or 30 acres of land for small holdings on large farms of 800 to 1,000 acres. I do not think that is a great demand to make, but Mr. Armstrong went on to say that this was a great injustice and that a more abominable Act was never passed through Parliament. In support of that the noble Earl brought forward a case of what he called particular hardship with regard to a certain Mr. Clark, of Welwick, who farms under the Crown. He told us that Mr. Clark had raised a troop of Yeomanry and was a very patriotic and excellent person I believe that is true in every particular, but I must say that the noble Earl did not do justice to his case. He did not even put the case as strongly as it has been put by a farmer's wife, who, in a letter to The Times, used language concerning myself and the Government which I think would hardly have been used by the most enthusiastic suffragette who ever hit a policeman. She went on to ask were our rulers children, idiots, or daft adults; and why should one raise troops to defend a country in which one had no stake. Now, that question ought properly to have been addressed to the Under-Secretary for War, and I think it would almost have puzzled my noble friend Lord Portsmouth in his best days. But Mr. Clark still has a stake in the country, and still has a stake in the Empire. He lives at Winstead on a farm of 367 acres.
Let me explain to the House the real story of the case with regard to Mr. Clark. The farm was bought in 1906, and Mr. Clark held the greater part of it under a yearly tenancy; another portion of the farm was under no agreement whatever, and as to another part the rent was regulated by the amount of stock which was kept. I ask, as a practical man, whether that was not an extraordinary arrangement. That sort of agreement, I admit, might have

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been very useful for the sort of patriarchal management of the friends of the Duke of Montrose and Mr. Pretyman, M.P., who, we are told, invest 75 per cent. of the net income in fructifying improvements and in bricks, mortar, and wages so as to retain unimpaired the heritage which they hold in trust for their successors; but I venture to submit that is hardly a business arrangement. As there was a great demand for small holdings, Mr. Clark received notice in April, 1908, that the whole farm was required for small holdings. Mr. Clark had no legal right to compensation, as we all know, but the Crown receivers advised me to send to the Treasury for compensation. I have not had an answer from the Treasury, although I think that compensation, which is quite right under these circumstances, will be paid to Mr. Clark.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYI should like to ask the noble Earl whether it has been the custom with regard to Crown lands in the past, when taken over for small holdings, for the Crown to take them over themselves; and why, in those circumstances, the county council was compelled to take these holdings from Mr. Clark, against, as I gather, the wish of the county council?
EARL CARRINGTONThat is one of those extraordinary stories that get about. There was never this compulsion upon the county council. If they did wrong they are particeps criminis with me. I can assure your Lordships that there has been no compulsion of any sort or description. To think that there has been is entirely a mistake.
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYMy Lords, I had hoped that the chairman of the county council, Lord Wenlock, would have been here to say something as to the attitude of that body. In his absence perhaps I may be allowed to observe in regard to the point in question, that the view of the county council does not appear to agree at all with the statement made by the noble Earl. I do not know if the noble Earl has read a report in the Yorkshire Herald of the meeting at which this subject was brought forward. If not, I hope he will allow me to draw his attention to it. Alderman Sticknell deprecated very much the action taken by the Board of Agriculture as against the county council. He said, with regard to the land
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at Welwick, that the Government stepped in and insisted upon the small holdings committee taking over that farm. Then he went on to say—
"Considering the courtesy the committee had shown to the Board of Agriculture, he thought that Department wanting in courtesy to send down their inspectors in the way they did and give the committee no option in the matter."
He went on afterwards to say if that was the course which was going to be pursued by the Board of Agriculture he would advise the committee, of which he was one, to refuse to act in future. I think your Lordships will agree that that does not look as if the county council supported the action of the noble Earl.
EARL CARRINGTONI quite accept what the noble Marquess says; but, of course, I cannot be responsible for Alderman Sticknell's remarks. He says that the county council were not treated with courtesy by the Board of Agriculture. But what did Lord Wenlock, the chairman of the county council, say?
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRYI have his speech here.
EARL CARRINGTONQuite so. He said every possible assistance had been given by the Commissioners to the county council. Some other members of the county council said that this unfortunate man, Mr. Clark, had been turned out of his home. There was, however, not a word of truth in that statement. He was never turned out of his home, and I really cannot, as your Lordships will see, be held responsible for statements made by independent members of the East Riding County Council.
I hope your Lordships will not think I am detaining you too long if I now say a few words on the question of compensation It is, as your Lordships will agree, an important question. I was twitted in the course of the debate about the Land Tenure Act, 1906. What really happened then was this. I thought that under the Compensation for Disturbance Clause we ought to bring in compensation under certain circumstances for farmers whose land was taken away for small holdings. I consulted the best opinion in England on the subject and asked, What had we better do? Shall we bring it into the clause or

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not? My friend said "No," and he did so for two reasons. The House of Lords, he said, is dead against the compensation clause as it stands; it will be a wonderful thing if it is allowed to go through the House of Lords, and I do not think it will be should it be overloaded with compensation for farmers. That was one of the opinions expressed to me. The second reason given was that landlords would raise the rents of small holders to an impossible height in order to recoup themselves for the amount paid in compensation to the farmers. A provision to afford such compensation was not, therefore, put into the Land Tenure Bill.
When the Small Holdings Bill of 1907 was under consideration by a Standing Committee of the other House a proposal was made by a Liberal member, Mr. Soares, to give compensation for tenant farmers who had land taken from them to be converted into small holdings, and that proposal was backed up by the whole of the Unionist members. It was pointed out, however, that it would be impossible—it would not have been right and it could not have been justified—to compensate farmers out of the public purse when landlords had not been asked, and would probably have refused, to pay the same compensation out of their private purse. A Division was taken on the subject in Committee, but the Unionist members saw the force of that contention. The result was that the whole question of compensation was at the time dropped like a hot potato, and we heard nothing more about it.
Perhaps I may be permitted to say that, whatever are the equities of the case as between a private landlord and a tenant, there is great force in the argument that a tenant has special ground for compensation where land is acquired for small holdings by county councils under the Act. In furtherance of a great national policy, which we hope will keep the people on the land, machinery has been set up which must inevitably bring prematurely to an end tenancies which must otherwise have existed for years to the satisfaction of owner and occupier. It is said—and I will admit the truth of it—that we have introduced a new and disturbing element into rural life. I repeat that I believe that is perfectly true; but, at the same time, I am convinced that what we have done
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will stir up the sluggish waters of rural life and convert them into living streams. This, of course, may entail changes and movements which may put farmers to some inconvenience and expense. It follows, therefore, that this class are the strongest critics of the Small Holdings Act. They are reluctant to see it put into force, not only on their own farms, but on the farms of their neighbours; and, naturally, they enlist the sympathy of the landlords, some of whom are unwilling to bring tenancies to an end for the sake of what they probably consider to be a problematic advantage to themselves and others.
I am glad to be able to say that this question has been raised in the Commons House of Parliament by Mr. Corrie Grant, a Liberal member, who was one of the great protagonists of the small holdings movement in days gone by. The Bill which he has introduced has been backed not only by Mr. Soares and other Liberal members, but by persons on all sides of the House. including the chairman of the Central Chamber of Agriculture. I think I may go so far as to say that the Government should approach the consideration of that Bill at any rate with sympathy, and with a full recognition of the strength of the case as it is presented to them. But, of course this must naturally be a question of degree, as it would obviously be ridiculous to compensate a man who has more land than he can manage, or the tenant of a large holding of which he is only asked to give up a few acres.
May I say that I honestly think the criticisms of the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, are not very damaging after all. The Small Holdings Act, as everybody knows, came into force sixteen months ago—that is, on January 1, 1908. The first six months, of course, was nothing more than a period of preparation and investigation. The county councils formed committees to work the Act, and they received in round figures 23,000 applications. Of that number 13,000 have been approved as suitable to be given small holdings, and up to the present 2,200 applicants have been provided for; 500 persons are in actual possession of 11,346 acres, besides which there are the small holdings provided by co-operative societies—about 200 on a thousand acres—and those provided by the landlords direct. The total amount of land

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acquired voluntarily is 31,663 acres, and the compulsory orders applied for have reference to 4,853 acres. The total amount of land comprised in the schemes and orders submitted is, therefore, 36,516 acres. The value of the land the county councils have purchased is £370,000, and the estimated value of the leased land together with the purchased land is three-quarters of a million. The county councils, as is well known, have a right to renew a lease at the end of whatever term it runs for, subject to the decision of a valuer appointed by the Board of Agriculture.
All that I have stated to your Lordships regarding the present results of the operations of the Act has been accomplished in pratically ten months. I do not want to boast or to swagger in any way whatsoever, but I really do not think this a bad record for ten months work. The noble Earl who brought forward this matter should remember that if you throw this small holdings legislation into the melting pot again his amendments would not be the only ones that would have to be considered; but other amendments might be submitted to which possibly he would have the greatest objection. It now only remains for me to thank your Lordships for the kind way in which you have listened to—
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGHI hope the noble Earl will pardon my interrupting him, but I should be glad if, before he concludes his observations, he would deal with one point in which I think everybody is most interested. I refer to the relative amount of rent which the small holder is asked to pay as compared with the sitting tenant. Can the noble Earl give your Lordships his view as to what rent the small holder should pay for land on which he is being placed and which is being taken away from the sitting tenant? As I understand, in many cases, county councils charge 3s. or 4s. an acre for administration, and the landlord, I believe, in some cases is increasing his rent as well. Consequently it seems is to me you will get a whole series of small tenures throughout the country at a higher rate per acre than the sitting tenant has been paying.
EARL CARRINGTONA higher rent than the sitting farm tenants are paying?
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGHYes.
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Can the noble Earl inform your Lordships what he thinks should be the relative position between the rent the sitting tenant now pays and the rent which the small holder will be asked to pay by the county council? I am sure we shall be glad to hear the noble Earl's views on the subject.
EARL CARRINGTONThat is a very difficult question to answer.
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGHIt is a most important one.
EARL CARRINGTONIt is a question which is almost impossible of answer off-hand, because—and nobody knows it better than the noble Duke—the value of land varies in different parts of the country. I must say, however, that while the world is as it is there is one law for the rich and one for the poor; and when a man has a small piece of land I am afraid we shall never be able to get the present condition of affairs altered, but the small holder will always have to pay more than the large holder.
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGHDoes the noble Earl think that fair?
EARL CARRINGTONI do not. I think it is extremely unfair. If a man has a small piece of land and wants a house you build him a house on that land, but you charge him four per cent. on the outlay. What, on the other hand, do you do with the farmer? You give him a house together with stiles, ditches, ponds, barns, and every possible convenience for carrying on the operations of his farm. You throw those things in, as it were. I think landowners may take this to themselves. If it is proved—and I think it will be able to be proved—that men can work small pieces of land and pay their way, and that they and their families can live while paying a rent for the house in addition to the cost of the land they till, then landlords might very well say to farmers, "What can be done in the green tree can be done in the dry "; and they could increase their rents by charging farmers what would be the proper letting value of the house in addition to the letting of the land, whereas at the present moment, as I have pointed out, the house is thrown in. I think there is a great deal in what the noble Duke says, but how any suitable adjustment is to be made in the conditions as between the

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two classes of tenants I confess I am at the moment unable to say. Only one word more. I wish to thank your Lordships for having listened to me for half an hour on this subject, and to express the gratitude I feel to you. I do ask the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, most respectfully, not to try to throw this legislation into the melting pot again, but to allow us to go on with our work and endeavour, without undue haste, to try to satisfy the requirements of those who only ask to be allowed to make a living on the land of this country.
LORD ZOUCHE OF HARYNGWORTHMy Lords, I should like to endorse what fell from my noble friend Lord Harrowby with regard to the important question of loans to owners of property, and, through them, to occupiers of small holdings. One of the points on which everything turns is, I believe, the facilities which are available for obtaining money for improvements. I have had practical experience myself, as no doubt many of your Lordships have, of cases which show the great difficulty there is for a poor man who has no capital of his own to borrow money on anything like favourable terms. There is a great deal of trouble about it, a great deal of red-tape; and many charges are made on him which do not help the situation, but simply put money into the pockets of this or that official. I daresay this state of things is rather inevitable under the present system, but if the noble Earl could give the House some idea that he would assist in solving this important point it would be a matter of great satisfaction to a large number of people. If greater facilities for obtaining loans, such as exist in Ireland, were given in this country, I am sure that much of the difficulty now experienced by small holders would disappear.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMy Lords, I am quite sure that at this late hour your Lordships do not desire that this discussion should be prolonged; but there are a few words I should like to say on the subject. I wish to thank the noble Earl opposite for the very interesting speech he has made and to assure him that it was not one bit too long. On the contrary, there were several points which, if the discussion had come on at a more suitable period, we should have desired to have seen elaborated. I think I may respectfully complain of the closing remarks in
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the noble Earl's speech when he took to task my noble friend Lord Onslow for what he described as "throwing into the melting pot" the whole of the small holdings question. I am quite certain that was not the intention of my noble friend, neither was it the effect of his observations. All he did was to ask for certain information on various specific points. I made a list of those points—I am not going to read it—and I am not quite sure whether the noble Earl opposite answered two or three of them. In fact, I believe he did not answer more than two of the questions put to him. I think that is a pity.
In my opinion it would have been far better had the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture devoted his great knowledge of this subject to solving some of the very difficult points of administration to which my noble friend called attention. The truth of the matter is, they all resolve themselves into the financial difficulty. When the noble Earl opposite complains of some counties because they are not so forward as other counties, he ought, I think, in justice to those counties, to realise fully that the backward counties shrink from the great expense which would be thrown not only on the county councils themselves, but on the small holders as well, if they were to carry out the Act with any precipitancy. It is quite evident that a county like Surrey differs from a county like Norfolk, and, if I may say so, it is a waste of the noble Earl's breath to ask that as Norfolk is able to carry out a particular policy why does not Surrey do the same.
EARL CARRINGTON: I suggested Kent.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYKent, no doubt, is a little better county to take as an illustration. The truth, however, is that when small holders ask, as they do, to have holdings in the near neighbourhood of towns, the financial difficulties are almost insuperable. I am a member of the small holdings committee of my own county, and I know that what I say is the case. Take the large rising urban community of Watford. The County Council of Hertfordshire are face to face with a great difficulty in respect to Watford because land in the neighbourhood of that town is extremely valuable. Even if land is not bought out and out in such a neighbourhood

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as that, its occupation value is very high. It is land which is valuable for all sorts of purposes, and the fact that it is in the neighbourhood of a town necessarily raises its price. If the small holder is to be asked to pay a rent based on the value of land of that description, all I can say is that his enterprise, no matter how well he cultivates the land, cannot pay. That is the difficulty which meets us in all directions. I hope the noble Earl opposite will use his authority in the Department over which he presides in order to prevent any undue addition to the expenditure which is necessarily thrown upon county councils.
EARL CARRINGTONCertainly.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYI am glad to hear that, because I saw a letter from the Board of Agriculture not long ago finding fault with some plans submitted to that Department on the ground that some of the houses were not sufficiently elaborate. A policy of that kind is fatal. If the Board of Agriculture are going to behave like other Government Departments and force unnecessary expenditure on the localities in respect of the buildings provided for the small holders they will make the experiment fail. The noble Earl just now quoted a very great authority on the subject, Miss Jebb. If he reads her book thoroughly he will see that in her opinion small holdings can only be made to pay if expenditure on buildings, and so forth, is cut down to the lowest possible figure. I hope he will see that this lady's advice in that respect is carried out, as it is in other matters, and will take care that his Department do not try to force county councils to spend more money than they ought to do.
There is one question I should like to put to the noble Earl opposite. My noble friend asked him what the policy of the Government was, but the noble Earl did not say much about it. I desire to ask him, for the guidance of county councils, what kind of persons he wishes to see established on the land in possession of small holdings. I think my noble friend put the question to him—it was one of the many questions which, if I may say so, he did not reply to—Are they to be persons who are really intending to make their living by agriculture, or is the acquisition of a small holding to be an additional enterprise for people engaged in other work
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and whose income comes from sources other than the cultivation of the land—people, that is to say, to whom a small holding would be only a pleasureable addition to their lives, an amenity which they would not otherwise possess? I can assure the noble Earl that we have had difficulties of this kind in Hertfordshire. Persons have come before us saying that they want small holdings, and it has turned out that they belonged, if not to the upper class, at any rate to the higher middle class, to whom small holdings are not a means of gaining a livelihood, but merely an amenity to their lives.
I trust that a suitable opportunity will be found—perhaps to-night would not be thought a fitting occasion—for the noble Earl to state, for the guidance of county councils, whether the Government expect small holdings to be provided for persons of that kind, or whether they really intend them to be devoted to the use of people engaged in agriculture. Perhaps the noble Earl would like to say something on the subject now.
EARL CARRINGTONIf I am not wearying the House I will say a word on the subject. The answer, I think, is that of course the ideal people to be put in possession of small holdings would be persons absolutely and entirely connected with the land. Your Lordships will no doubt agree with me in that. But at the same time, while they would be the ideal small holders, you must not rule out a lot of other people to whom the possession of a piece of land would be the greatest possible convenience. I do not mean fashionable, upper-class people who are friends of the noble Marquess; but why should you rule out the village higgler, the village butcher, or the village baker? Why should the a village butcher's wife not have a place where she can rear a few fowls and keep a cow? The Act is a beneficial Act, and we ought to bring under its operation as far as we reasonably can all the people who want land. What is the object of refusing land? What would do more to make a man stay, say, in a country town and give him an interest in the place than to provide him with a little piece of land where he could grow flowers or vegetables? I wish to say very plainly that land ought not to be, and must not be, refused to people who live in the villages simply because they are not absolutely and

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entirely connected with agricultural pursuits. It ought to be for everybody.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYI quite agree with what the noble Earl has said as regards the village higgler, the butcher, and the baker, but I do not think the same rule should apply in the case, say, of a clerk—whose business is in London or in a large country town. Does the noble Earl say that a person of that description ought to have a small holding?
EARL CARRINGTONHe might not have an objection to keeping a horse or a pony.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYProbably others of His Majesty's subjects would not object to doing so either; but the question is whether these drastic powers under an Act of Parliament ought to be put in force to secure land for a man of that class. The noble Earl has not only defended compulsion, but the eviction of tenant farmers. Can you be surprised if a tenant farmer who is evicted in order that a clerk in a country town may have a small holding resents it very much indeed? I venture to say to the noble Earl that if he goes about urging county councils to evict tenant farmers for purposes of that kind he will incur an amount of unpopularity which even his good humour will not be able to face.
For my own part I have always used my influence, such as I have, in my own county in the direction of reducing the application of the powers of compulsion to the smallest possible dimensions. I believe it is far better to wait a few months or even a year or two, in order to get the land by voluntary arrangement and in a good-natured manner than to apply the compulsory powers given under the Act. The dedication of the land which is so taken is of the highest importance. In that connection I repeat that to evict a tenant farmer who is really engaged in agriculture and is living by agriculture in order to put into a small holding a person who only looks on it as an addition or even an amenity to a life and career otherwise disposed of would create hardship and would be bitterly resented. I think my noble friend Lord Onslow will be satisfied with having raised the discussion; but I am sure —though I have no authority from him to say it—he would have been
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better pleased if the noble Earl had answered his Questions.
LORD LUCASMy Lords, I should like to offer one observation, though, of course, not from an official standpoint, because I have no authority to speak for the Board of Agriculture. The noble Marquess has raised a very important point, but it is one which I suggest the county council itself ought to decide. The council has to satisfy itself, in the first place, that people who apply for the land are likely to farm it well and to a profit, and pay rent. I suppose that would rule out a great many of the poor of the urban class. It seems to me, however, that one ought to approach the matter not only from the standpoint of the man himself, but to realise that what we hope to see arising out of the movement is a new generation of small holders. I think one ought also to take into consideration not only whether a man himself will benefit the declining years of his life, or rather the later period of his life, but whether the result of his possession of a small holding will be to produce in his family a taste for the land, a knowledge of how to till it, and a desire to stay on it. If that effect is produced, and, after all, that is our object, I should have thought the county councils, having the possibility of such a result in mind, would use their discrimination wisely in letting, small holdings to the kind of people through whom that result was likely to be produced. I thank your Lordships for allowing me to say these few words.

THE NEW SPIRIT AND TOBACCO DUTIES.
LORD MUSKERRYMy Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government if it is a fact that the Excise are charging all traders taking spirits and tobacco out of bond the proposed extra duties; if so, is it legal for the Excise to do so, and what authority have they for such action; and, if it is not legal, will the Government direct the extra duties to be refunded at once on application of the payees?
I hope to get from His Majesty's Government some information on a point of constitutional law. I have always understood, and I think most people would agree with me, that no tax could be levied on the people of this country except under the authority of an Act of Parliament; that

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is to say, that the proposals for new taxes should come before both Houses of Parliament, should receive the Royal assent, and should be published in the Gazette before they took effect. I am informed, however, that the authority under which the Excise at the present moment are demanding the new duties proposed in the Budget, and now under discussion, is a Resolution of the House of Commons, and that immediately the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduces the Budget the new taxes which he proposes in that Budget come into effect. But surely, my Lords, no Resolution of either House of Parliament can override the constitutional law of the land. If I am right in that, then surely the Excise in demanding these duties are acting illegally. In Sir William Harcourt's Budget, which was defeated at a later period, the extra impost there proposed was refunded, but, of course, that refund was only made to those traders who had dealt direct with the Excise and paid the impost to them. The customer, the man in the street, who had to pay extra money for the things he required had no possible chance of ever being repaid. I am rather astonished if what I have stated is true, that it is only a Resolution that authorises this charge being made. The fact that such a Resolution has been passed should not be allowed to infringe the constitutional rights of the people of the country.
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (LORD PENTLAND)My Lords, the Leader of the House has asked me to reply to the noble Lord. The noble Lord is quite right in assuming that the proposed new duties are being charged on all traders taking spirits and tobacco out of bond.
LORD MUSKERRYIt applies to some banking transactions also, I believe.
LORD PENTLANDSo be it. I assume it does. But all this is being done in accordance with an established practice by which the Treasury authorises the Commissioners of Customs and Excise to levy new duties from the date of the passing of the relative Resolution in Committee of the House of Commons. This is the information which I am authorised to convey to the noble Lord. I may refer him for further information to the note on page 589 of the 1906 edition of Sir Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, where he will find fuller details on the point.
LORD MUSKERRYCan the noble Lord tell me whether these duties must be authorised by an Act of Parliament?
LORD PENTLANDThe new duty is subsequently legalised. This is the established practice by which all these duties are levied as from the date of the passing of the Resolution. As the noble Lord knows, the passing of the Resolution is a preliminary stage and is followed by the introduction into the House of Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Finance Bill. The assent given by the House to the Finance Bill is the machinery by which the practice to which the noble Lord alludes is legalised.
House adjourned at five minutes before Eight o'clock, till Tomorrow, half-past Ten o'clock.