Lords Sitting of 2 December 1912

EARLDOM OF OXFORD.
Committee for Privileges met: Counsel heard to open the case on behalf of the Claimant the Duke of Atholl: The Attorney-General heard on behalf of the Crown: Committee adjourned till Tomorrow.
Charles, Lord Bishop of Oxford—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
NORTH KILLINGHOLME PIER BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments.
NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT, 1911.
Provisional Regulations of the Welsh Insurance Commissioners as to meeting places of Approved Societies: Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and to be printed. (No. 176.)

THE LAND INQUIRY.
THE EARL of HALSBURY THE EARL of HALSBURY rose to ask the Lord Chancellor whether the distribution of printed matter without the name and address of the printer in legible characters on the matter so distributed is not an offence punishable by a fine of five pounds for each copy of the matter so distributed; and to call attention to the circumstances under which certain papers have been distributed.
The noble and learned Earl said: My Lords, before addressing to the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack the Question of which I have given notice I think it desirable to explain that there has been distributed very widely over Great Britain a number of documents, in connection with which I will not impute anything that I cannot absolutely prove but which look to me very much as if the person who had devised them had intended them to be understood as official and authoritative documents that required to be answered, and I know certainly of more than one person having been misled into the belief that failure to comply would subject them to a penalty. In pursuance of that belief a great number of these

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documents have been answered—how we do not know, but upon that I shall have a word to say presently. I should like your Lordships to understand the sort of documents these are. I hold two of them in my hand. They are headed "Private and Confidential," and their origin and object are expressed very neatly in these words—
"The fact that this inquiry is definitely for the object of providing information for a Liberal Government makes it naturally difficult to expect help from those who are opponents; but there may be a good many cases in which such opponents, if they are convinced that the real object is to get at the facts impartially stated, may be willing to give information. In such cases information would be readily welcomed."
I do not suppose anybody familiar with public affairs will be misled by such phrases as that the facts are to be "impartially stated." Of course, you cannot expect that a person would ask for facts not to be impartially stated. Neither, I suppose, would anybody he misled by the statement that it is only intended to get facts and not to derive inferences, and that people should be very careful what they say. Those are words which anybody distributing documents of the sort would be likely to use; but if I were to go through the questions—I do not know whether your Lordships have observed what a volume there is—I might point out that the tone and object of the interrogatories are such as to make them what we would call in the Law Courts leading questions.
But my object is not so much to call attention to the actual questions themselves, some of which I dare say might be usefully and properly asked before an impartial inquiry which sat in public and heard witnesses, in which case—and this is, perhaps, the most important point of all—the answers given, however favourable or unfavourable to the person asking the question, would be published and known; but this volume of questions is presented to Great Britain to be answered, so it is suggested, by every town and village in it, and the inquiry is to be private and confidential. The questions scattered through these documents show the tone of the inquirer. How much the land is kept away from being built upon and affording opportunities for small cottages for small people, etc.—what questions of that sort can be put can be easily imagined. But, as I have said, if His Majesty's Government would be good enough to appoint a Com-
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mittee and ask these same questions only in public and not secretly and not regard the information as private and confidential, I do not think anybody would complain. It is, however, obvious that a roving inquiry of this sort over all these fields may produce, and no doubt will sometimes produce, ill-feeling between landlord and tenant, which appears to be the object principally aimed at here. These questions if properly asked might very properly be put, and the responsibility would lie upon the persons with respect to whom they are said whether they would take notice of them or not; but what one does object to here is a collection of malevolent gossip by private and confidential inquiries, when no one will see the answers except the person who has been good enough to print all this, and no one will know what the accusation is that is made. I can imagine that in view of a General Election it might be convenient enough for a collection of this sort to be given into the hands of a candidate, without any authority and without any knowledge of where it comes from, as an example of the way in which land is held in this country and the sort of treatment that small tenants receive, etc., etc. I can imagine a good many electoral speeches made on this subject without the least authority beyond saying "I have been told" so on and so on, and perhaps the speakers might add "privately and confidentially," that such are the relations between landlord and tenant in that neighbourhood. It is most formidable that this sort of thing should be allowed with the qualified approval—I am not quite certain of the exact phrase I ought to use—with, I think, the qualified approval of the Prime Minister given in reply to a Question addressed to him in the other House.
My first objection is that the distribution of this printed matter in this way is contrary to law, and that is why I ask the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack whether the Statute to which I refer does not forbid it. That if it is in force it does forbid it there is no question. No question can arise about the language of the Statute, because it says that "any printed matter whatsoever" shall require the printer's name and address, and that in respect of every document distributed without the printer's name and address a fine of £5 may be enforced. I suspect that if I could attach the person who did this it

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would be rather a large fine that he would incur, from what I hear. But if it is contrary to law I suppose the answer would naturally be, Why not prosecute? Therein appears to me to come in the responsibility of His Majesty's Government. The old Act, the 93rd, I think it was, of George III, is repealed whereby anybody could prosecute, and now only the Law Officers of the Crown can prosecute. It is within their power to suppress this. But to again quote the language of the gentleman who contrived this document, the inquiry is "definitely for the object of providing information for a Liberal Government." That is what seems to me to bring in the responsibility of the Government; and if this is contrary to law—and I should be very much surprised to hear the Lord Chancellor say it is not—they are, by noninterference at all events, approving of this proceeding, which appears to me so liable to produce ill-feeling as it is so obviously information, unauthoritative and anonymous, for a Liberal Government at election time. It is to be "secret" and "confidential," and this is the sort of inquiry which is to proceed all over the Kingdom, and whenever an election occurs it would not surprise me very much to hear that a good deal of the information so collected was being put at the convenience of Liberal candidates. Having made that preliminary statement of my object, I ask my noble and learned friend the Question of which I have given notice.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT HALDANE): My Lords, I do not know why the noble and learned Earl should find anything so unusual in the course that has been taken to make inquiry in the matter to which his Question refers. This inquiry is being made by Mr. Lloyd George. No Minister can divest himself of his official capacity, but so far as it can be done he is doing it unofficially. The cost of the inquiry is not defrayed out of any public funds, nor is it defrayed out of Party funds. The inquiry is being made quite unofficially under the direction of a gentleman who was a very well-known member of the other House at one time—Mr. Arthur Acland. The object is to collect information for Mr. Lloyd George, who wishes when he has got a certain amount of information to know where he stands on a very great and important question. I conceive that to be a perfectly legitimate mode of procedure. It may be
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followed by a public inquiry hereafter. It may be that the information will come to nothing. It may be that it will come to a great deal. It is obvious that it is not official information and cannot be information which is binding on anybody until it has been considered and further steps taken in order to sift it. That is my comment on the first part of my noble and learned friend's Question.
Now I come to his next proposition. He says that he has grave objection to this on the ground that it is an illegal proceeding under the terms of an Act of Parliament. I think he refers to the Newspapers Act of 1869. That Act I have here, and the terms of it are very simple. It is a venerable and somewhat musty revival or keeping alive of a part of the Statute of George III, which was passed at a time when the country was in great fear of seditious movements. The particular section has been kept alive with some alterations as regards penalties, to which the noble and learned Earl has referred, but kept alive to this extent. The original Act was repealed by the Statute of 2 and 3 Victoria, and now 2 and 3 Victoria is repealed, but two sections of that Statute are kept alive which are material for the present purpose. The relative section is Section 2 of the Newspapers Act, 1869, which says this—
"Every person who shall print any paper or book whatsoever which shall be meant to be published or dispersed, and who shall not print upon the front of every such paper, if the same shall be printed on one side only, or upon the first or last leaf of every paper or book which shall consist of more than one leaf, in legible characters, his or her name and usual place of abode or business, and every person who shall publish or disperse, or assist in publishing or dispersing, any printed paper or book on which the name and place of abode of the person printing the same shall not have been printed as aforesaid, shall for every copy of such paper or book so printed by hint or her forfeit a sum not more than £5."
And then it is provided that without the initiative of the Law Officers of the Crown the penalty cannot be recovered. I agree that that is a most formidable section, antiquated as it may be, if the penalties have been incurred; but I can reassure your Lordships upon this point.
In order to make the penalties recoverable there must be publication or dispersal. Now "dispersal" means broadcast dispersal. It does not mean sending a

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private document to private persons selected and picked for the purpose. Certainly I do not disperse a letter if I post it to some particular person, nor do I disperse 200 letters if I post them to named persons. Dispersal means something akin to dispersal broadcast. I have made careful inquiry, and I find that in all cases the recipients of these circulars have been selected. In fact, that is one of the things to which the noble and learned Earl objects. The circulars have not been dispersed; they have not been published; they have been sent to people who are able to give information. Careful inquiries have been made as to who the people should be who should receive the circulars, and here and there persons have turned out not to be so friendly to the inquiry as they were expected to be and have published the documents in the newspapers or something of that sort. But as for dispersal, there has been no dispersal in this case.
Now what is dispersal? I am able to give your Lordships an example of what dispersal is. The inquiry to which the noble and learned Earl has referred is not the only inquiry which is being made at the present time. There is a rival body, an important and unofficial body, called the Rural League, which has been set on foot, it is said, to get at the truth. Its president is the Right Hon. Jesse Collings, and it has a set of vice-presidents comprising many distinguished persons, including the noble Marquess who leads the Opposition in this House. This body sent out a circular headed "Important and Urgent." This circular runs—
"DEAR SIR,—The Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the consent of the Prime Minister, has appointed a committee to inquire into the question of the further taxation of land, or land values, in the rural districts. The Rural League feel that it is the intention of the Government, sooner or later, to place further taxation on agricultural land, whether owned by cottagers, small holders, village tradesmen, farmers, or larger landlords. Accordingly the executive committee of the League have themselves just appointed a sub-committee (consisting almost entirely of those who cultivate land) to ascertain what the effect of the taxation proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his friends would be. That taxation would be on the capital value of the land. I am therefore requested to ask you if you would be so kind as to reply to the questions on the enclosed form; or to get some other person to do so who is interested in agricultural land. I am sending the form out extensively, and I shall be glad to send you further copies if you can get them filled up, and if you will be so kind as to apply to me for the same. You will, I am sure, recognise the importance of the matter."
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And then the secretary (Mr. J. L. Green) adds—
"A report on the information obtained will be duly published, but without, of course, giving the names of those supplying the particulars and without in any way identifying the properties."
Appended to that is a list of questions. I look upon this as a most valuable procedure, because you get thereby a great deal of information which is not binding upon you and into which you can inquire; and if it appears profitable you can investigate it still further and subject the thing to the scrutiny of the official expert. But attached to the questions in the Rural League's circular is this note—
"Liberals propose to tax any village labourer, widow, shopkeeper, tradesman, farmer, or other person who owns a bit of land. It is to be an annual tax of 1d., 2d., or 3d. in the £ on the total value. The following will show how the proposal would work."
I have myself no knowledge of these proposals, but it is desirable that somebody should make all the inquiries possible, and I am sure we are all glad of knowledge, however obtained.
The secretary to the Rural League has accompanied his circular by a letter to the newspapers which I have in my hand, in which he contrasts his mode of sending round the League's questions with the mode adopted by the other Committee. The other Committee, he says, proceeded in a hole-and-corner way. They sent round questions in quite a different fashion from the way in which the Rural League is sending round its questions. For whereas the other Committee is not circulating its questions in a generous form but in a fashion which I have described to your Lordships, Mr. Green says—
"On the other hand, look at the League's inquiry so far as fairness is concerned. For instance, it has been made by means of forms sent to some 3,000 people occupying land— cottagers, small holders, small farmers, and larger occupants—the forms being sent by post from this office direct to individuals, irrespective of politics and without the intervention of Liberal, Conservative, or any other agents to put leading questions, and so on. Mr. Lloyd George's inquiry is being made through Liberal agents, all of whom know the sort of answers that are expected to the inquiries put, and who will no doubt achieve the end they have in view. As far as the Rural League's inquiry goes, it must, I think, be admitted that it is impossible for me or for any one else to pick out 3,000 names from agricultural publications all of whom would be of one political way of thinking. As a matter of fact, I have not the slightest idea of the politics of the people to whom the forms were sent; whilst the replies, which came to hand

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in shoals, have been tabulated just as they came in. Compare this with the Chancellor of the Excheqer's methods. Ours is at least open and above board; whilst the other is a backstairs inquiry of the meanest possible description."
What does that mean? It means that the unfortunate senders out of the Rural League's circular have made themselves liable, under the terms of the Statute to which I have referred, to large penalties. I do not share my noble and learned friend's regret that the Law Officers of the Crown have discretion as to whether proceedings shall be taken in a matter of this kind, and I will promise my noble and learned friend that so far as I am concerned I will use any small influence I possess to prevent the Law Officers of the Crown prosecuting those who have made these, as I think, very useful inquiries, though I wish they had been made in a tone a little more complimentary to the Liberal Party. I have demonstrated the difference between the two modes of inquiry from the letter by Mr. Green to the newspapers, and this has made it unnecessary for me to go into the details. In the case of the Rural League there has been a clear dispersal, and therefore the case comes within the penalty; but in the other case in which the inquiries were addressed to selected persons, though I have the profoundest respect for the opinion of my noble and learned friend I doubt whether he will contend that there has been in that case a dispersal within the meaning of the Act. As to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's inquiry I cannot help thinking that it will for better or for worse put us in possession of information which we did not have before.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: If my noble and learned friend challenges me as to my opinion I should have not the slightest doubt in the world in saying that the printed matter to which I refer has been dispersed to a very great extent.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: My Lords, when I came down to the House this afternoon and read the noble and learned Earl's Question I had not the smallest conception of what it meant, but the noble Earl in putting it unmasked his batteries and I think with a great deal of what he said most people would be in agreement. He said he had no objection to questions being asked before a Public Committee. I do not suppose any human
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being would have any objection to that. But what he objected to was the tone of this inquiry. He objected to the inquiry because it was a roving one. He stated that it was calculated to raise ill-feeling between landlord and tenant, and he went on to talk about malevolent gossip and ended as he began by stating his objections to a private inquiry. But we have heard from my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack that, after all, there cannot be so very much harm in this because it is a private inquiry. The inquiry did not start with any ill-feeling between landlord and tenant, and I do not for one moment suggest that the inquiry which is being conducted on the other side has for its object the provoking of malevolent gossip. But it seems to me that precisely the same inquiry is being conducted by the Party to which noble Lords opposite belong, and the object naturally is in that case to obtain information for a Tory Government. There does not seem to me to be very much objection to that.
As to whether or not it is contrary to law, of course as a layman I dare not for a moment express an opinion upon that. But I should like to point out to the House that this is not at all a new thing. Many years ago a noble Lord on the other side of the House said to me in confidence, "You know we are looking very sharply into your estate, and making some very grave inquiries into how things are managed on your estate." The inquiries were really practical ones, because a well-known London land agent and a land agent for one of the largest properties in England took a drive through the portion of the country in which I happen to have a farm or two, and, curiously enough, the horse became a little exhausted and they had to pull up exactly opposite a farm which belonged to me. The horse was so thirsty that they said to a man in the cottage, "Do you think anybody would be kind enough to give us a pail of water?" The man said "Certainly," and he gave them water for the horse. The animal put his slobbering mouth and filthy bit into the pail and drank his fill, and then some of the remaining water was taken up to London and analysed, and your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that it was hardly up to sample. Then they went into one of my cottages where there was a smoky chimney, which sometimes happens in ducal castles, I believe. The ceiling

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was black and the house was, I confess, not in as spick-and-span a condition as it ought to have been; but, of course, as your Lordships know, the tenant does all the inside repairs. I was astonished to see in The Times two or three days afterwards a long letter about the cottages which I happened to have built for £150 apiece, and the world was told that Lord Carrington's cottages were unfit for human habitation. I did not complain of that. I did not believe it was done from any malevolent reason or to bring discredit on the office which I held or the Party to which I belonged, and I only mention it now to show that inquiries, and very practical inquiries, have been made at different times in different parts of England as regards people's property.
This discussion shows one thing very clearly—namely, what a wise man the late Lord Beaconsfield was. Your Lordships have no doubt read the second volume of Lord Beaconsfield's "Life," written by the late Mr. Monypenny, in which Lord Beaconsfield is reported to have said—
"In an aristocratic country like England, if you want any extreme thing said or done you should always get a patrician to do it."
And he clinches his argument by the well-known remark that—
"Wat Tyler was hanged, but Bolingbroke founded a dynasty; Jack Straw was also hanged, but the Right Hon. John Straw might become a Secretary of State."
I do think this proves how extraordinary a judge of human nature Lord Beaconsfield was and how acute an intellect he had, for this discussion shows, if it shows nothing else, that one man may steal a horse but that it is a criminal offence for another man to look over the hedge while the horse is being stolen.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, whether those who are responsible for the publication of these documents have or have not brought themselves within the meshes of the law is a point which I must leave to the two noble and learned Lords who have addressed us this evening, but I wish to say one word as to an argument used by the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack which apparently gave him great satisfaction—the argument, namely, that the procedure followed by the authors of these papers is comparable with that followed by those who are responsible for the management of
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the affairs of the Rural League. It is no doubt the case that the Rural League has endeavoured by circulars and otherwise to collect information about various questions connected with agriculture. But surely there is this fundamental difference between the operations of the Rural League and the operations of this nameless committee—that in the case of the Rural League no attempt has been made to base upon the information collected an attack upon a particular class, and, what is still more to the point, that in the case of the Rural League no attempt has been made to parade the inquiry in a kind of semiofficial disguise. The Rural League, to the best of my belief, never has had anything to do with Public Departments. I can remember pretty distinctly the inception of the League. I think my noble friend behind me (Lord St. Aldwyn) was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I am quite certain that we never ran round to him to ask him to authorise us to say that our proceedings were instituted at his desire. That, it seems to me, at once establishes a clear distinction between the two inquiries.
I cannot help regretting that the noble and learned Viscount did not give us a little more information as to the second part of my noble and learned friend's Question, that which had reference to the circumstances under which these papers have been distributed. I sometimes wonder whether we shall ever succeed in obtaining from His Majesty's Government a coherent account of the origin and purpose of this inquiry. What are we told about it? On the one hand, it is said to be an informal and unofficial inquiry. On the other hand, we find one of the Government Whips appointed to take part in its proceedings, and we have had from the Prime Minister or from the Chancellor of the Exchequer—I forget which—an admission that the questions embodied in these circulars were actually submitted to His Majesty's Government and approved by them. Then there are papers which are being circulated—I have a copy of one of them here—in which the writer, who describes himself as the head organiser of this inquiry, begins his letter by saying, "You may have heard of the informal inquiry which has been instituted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer." Well, it is instituted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but, as we have heard to-

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night, it is not paid for out of public funds. The sinews of war are found, unless we are misinformed, by certain benevolent millionaires, with a distinct Party complexion.
Then look at the boundless area covered by this inquiry. Look at the countless problems it raises. And remember, my Lords, we were told in the month of July last by the noble Marquess who leads the House—I am sorry he is not here this evening—that this information was going to be used by His Majesty's Government at sonic future time. In spite of the fact that this information is to be so used, we have an inquiry of, it cannot be denied, a purely partisan character. I ask your Lordships to consider the extent of the ground covered by this investigation. Your Lordships have no doubt seen the circulars, which have appeared in the public Press. I take at a venture a few of the subjects which are going to be investigated. The social and economic conditions in the rural parts of Great Britain—that is a pretty large order to begin with. Questions like co-operation, the law of entail, the game laws, primogeniture, railway rates, transit facilities, the whole question of rating, Crown lands, small holdings. That is the agricultural part of the inquiry, and there is a not less copious bill of fare in regard to the urban portion. Besides that there is a further series of interrogatories with regard to the Scottish branch of the question. This inquiry is a colossal inquiry. It is an inquiry which would find ample work not for one Royal Commission but for two or three Royal Commissions.
And what adds to the wonder of the whole story is that we find that His Majesty's Government, or at any rate the more conspicuous members of it, cannot even wait until this Committee has begun to collect evidence, but are already pronouncing the conclusions at which they have arrived. I wonder whether most of your Lordships have seen the speech made two or three evenings ago by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Scotland. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is not going to wait until he gets this evidence before him in order to make up his mind what is the matter. Remember we had it from Lord Crewe last year that this inquiry was to deal with
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the Scottish land question, and in particular with the question of rural depopulation. Well, here is what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has to say on the subject. He announces that in Scotland every year scores of thousands of the most able-bodied, robust young fellows are fleeing from their native land as if it were stricken with pestilence. He is not going bank to the history of the depopulation of the Highlands. He is describing what is happening "every year" at the present time. He speaks of great tracts lying waste, "turned over to deer and grouse." "The people," he says, "have been driven off amongst other things by the difficulty of obtaining sites for houses"—every one knows that the housing problem is not the difficulty in obtaining sites but the difficulty of finding money to build houses—"and by sport." All this is laid to the charge of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is pleased to call the feudal system. Whether the feudal system ever had anything to do with grouse moors and deer forests I really am not aware. Nor, I fancy, had it much to do with the system of ninety-years leases as we know them in Scotland.
My complaint is that this language used by one of the most conspicuous members of His Majesty's Government is altogether without that quality of impartiality which has been claimed on behalf of the promoters of this inquiry. He entirely ignores the investigations that have already taken place into the question of agriculture, and particularly into the question of agriculture in Scotland—inquiries which have thrown a great deal of light on this question of rural depopulation, and which I think would have shown the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he is altogether mistaken in believing that the movement from the country to the town—which has taken place not only in Scotland but in other parts of the United Kingdom, and not only in the United Kingdom but in foreign countries as well—is entirely due to the preservation of game or to the spread of deer forests. Again, the Chancellor of the Exchequer appears to have forgotten all the legislation for which his own Government has been responsible for the purpose of improving the position and adding to the security of those who till the land, and particularly in that very part of Scotland to which his remarks had reference. Can His Majesty's Government be surprised that these kinds of ebullition should

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occasion a certain amount of alarm? Lord Crewe last year endeavoured to reassure us. He told us that our apprehensions were not well founded. He deprecated in particular what he called "sensation-mongering." Was a more sensational speech than that which I have just quoted ever delivered by an English Statesman? And above all things Lord Crewe begged us not to be too credulous about these statements. I deplore these outbreaks. I deplore these statements made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he intends to what he calls "burst up" the present land system. I venture to say that that is not the proper frame of mind in which to approach the consideration of this enormously important question. We know there is a land question. We are anxious to help to solve it. Many of us in a humble way have done something in that direction ourselves. But, my Lords, if the question is to be approached on the one hand by the kind of surreptitious inquiries which we are discussing this evening, and on the other by inflammatory speeches of the kind which I have just quoted, made before any evidence has been collected, we must despair of a reasonable and statesmanlike solution of the difficulty which we all desire to solve.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, this discussion, like some others which I have listened to in this House before, has not been productive of ally facts except some autobiographical details furnished by the noble Marquess opposite, the ex-Agricultural Minister—information which he is always ready to supply upon any occasion. On this particular occasion I have gathered that a horse's thirst was assuaged at the door of one of his farms, that the chimney of one of his cottages smoked, and we have had also his impression upon the recent volume of Lord. Beaconsfield's "Life" which appeared the other day. These facts are no doubt interesting in themselves, but they do not appear to have any particular bearing on the question we have been discussing, and I only rise to ask one single and extremely simple question. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack informed us, I thought with particular care, that this inquiry was not paid for out of public funds and he said it was not paid for out of Party funds. In that case I confess I feel some legitimate curiosity to know who is actually providing the funds. It seems to me that if
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this is the meritorious investigation which we are assured that it is by noble Lords opposite, it is only right and fit that the names of these public benefactors should be disclosed as soon as possible, and I hope that without any further delay noble Lords opposite will relieve my anxiety on the subject.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: In answer to the noble Lord who has just spoken I may say that I have not the least idea who is finding the money. But this I do know, that a very large number of persons are greatly interested in the land question as in other questions, and whenever money is needed for an inquiry of this kind there is no difficulty in finding it.
LORD NEWTON: May I be allowed to suggest to the Lord Chancellor that perhaps his colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be able to furnish him with the information.

AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS BILL. [H.L.]
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 1:
Notices to Quit for Purposes of Sale.
1.—(1) Where the landlord of a holding gives to the tenant notice to quit in view of the sale or offering for sale of the holding or any part thereof, the notice shall state that it is so given, and a notice to quit so given shall be void unless an agreement for the sale of the holding or of some part thereof is entered into, and information in writing thereof is given to the tenant before the date on which but for this section the notice to quit would have taken effect; and if an agreement for sale is so entered into, the notice to quit shall not take effect until one year from the day of expiry next succeeding the date on which information that an agreement for sale has been entered into is given to the tenant:
Provided that within two months after the receipt of a notice to quit under this section a tenant may give notice ill writing to the landlord that he accepts the notice as notice to determine the tenancy on the date on which but for this section it would have taken effect, and thereupon the notice to quit shall operate to determine the tenancy as if this Act had not been passed:
Provided further that if, not later than two mouths before the expiration of the notice so given by the landlord, an agreement is entered into for the purchase of the holding or any part thereof by a council under the Small Holdings and Allotments Act, 1908, for the purposes of small holdings, and notice of such agreement is given to the tenant, the notice given by the landlord shall, as regards the land to which the agreement relates, be treated for the purposes of the Small Holdings and Allotments Act, 1910, as having been given at the request of the council with a view to the use of the land for the provision of small holdings.
(2) The expression "day of expiry" means the day on which a year of the tenancy expires.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY To THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD LUCAS): The first Amendment standing in my name is one of which I gave notice in Committee. It is simply intended to prevent contracting out of this Bill. We have had a great deal of experience in connection with previous Acts that unless some words of this kind are inserted the Act gets very freely contracted out of. I could instance the case of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1875, now dead, and-the Market Gardeners Compensation Act. The latter Act did not contain any provision of this kind and the result is that the Act has been to a great extent a dead letter simply because it is the custom to contract out of it. We want to prevent that in this case, and therefore I move to insert these words.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 5, after ("(1)") at the beginning of the clause insert ("Notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary").—(Lord Lucas.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD LUCAS: The next five Amendments are of a drafting, character.
Amendments moved—
Page 1, line 8, leave out ("be void") and insert ("not take effect")
Page 1, line 15, after ("information") insert ("in writing")
Page 1, line 18, leave out ("under this section") and insert ("to which his section applies")
Page 1, line l9, leave out ("notice to determine") and insert ("determining")
Page 1, line 24, leave out ("the notice so given by the landlord") and insert ("a notice to quit to which this section applies"),—(Lord Lucas.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD LUCAS: The next Amendment is rendered necessary because the provision to a similar effect which was in the Bill originally was deleted by Lord St. Levan's Amendment. The provision when it was in the Bill before did not arouse any debate in this House. I think your Lordships were prepared to accept it in principle, but it was deleted by Lord St. Levan's Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 4, leave out ("as regards the land to which the agreement relates") and insert("operate to determine the tenancy as if this Act had not been passed, and").—(Lord Lucas.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD LUCAS: The next is a drafting Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 5, leave out ("and allotments").—(Lord Lucas.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2:
Avoidance of Certain Notices to Quit.
2. A notice given to determine a tenancy from year to year of a holding or any part thereof on a date earlier than one year after the date of the service of the notice shall be void:
Provided that nothing in this section shall apply to a notice to determine a tenancy of an allotment given under section thirty of the Small Holdings and Allotments Act, 1908.
LORD LUCAS*LORD LUCAS had the following Amendment on the Paper to Clause 2—
Page 2, line 11, at the beginning of the clause insert ("Notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary") and after ("given") insert ("by a landlord") and leave out ("from year to year").
The noble Lord, in moving the first part of the Amendment, said: The same observations apply to this Amendment as applied to my first Amendment tonight. We want the necessary words to prevent contracting out.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 11, at the beginning of the clause insert ("Notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary").—(Lord Lucas.)
VISCOUNT GALWAY: I should like to ask the reason for the Amendment standing in the noble Lord's name. As the law is at present, a year's notice is bound to be given unless a landlord and tenant choose to agree between themselves to a six months notice. That is the almost universal custom in Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and in some portions of Derbyshire and Yorkshire. I ask why the noble Lord proposes to alter that system altogether. Surely the farmers and landlords are the best judges in a matter of this kind as to what is the most convenient for the district in which they live. I ask your Lordships not to accept the Amendment for the reason that it would unnecessarily and unreasonably disturb a custom which has obtained for many years. If a tenant who has not sufficient means wishes to get out of his farm in six months, why should he not be allowed to do so? The longer a tenant without sufficient means goes on farming the land the worse it is for the farm and the whole district as well. The noble Lord professes

19
to wish to encourage agriculture and good farming, but the steps he is taking now can only prejudice it by keeping a tenant without sufficient means on the farm for a year and a-half when he himself would like to get out at six months and the landlord would be in a much better position without him.
LORD ZOUCHE OF HARYNGWORTH: It will be in the recollection of your Lordships that in Committee I moved an Amendment to insert at the end of the first subsection of this clause the following words, "except by mutual agreement between the landlord and the tenant." I said that I did not specifically disagree with a year's notice per se and that in most cases it would be more convenient than the shorter time, but that there might be other cases where it might be to the mutual advantage of the landlord and tenant to come to an agreement to vacate the tenancy at a shorter notice. It is easy for noble Lords to see that such cases might, and perhaps do, frequently occur. Speaking upon my Amendment in Committee Lord Lucas said—
"This amendment, if we were to accept it, would practically leave the law as it stands at present. I would point out that there is nothing to prevent a landlord and tenant agreeing to the surrender of a tenancy at a shorter notice, but the tenancy would then be terminated by agreement. What we object to is the termination of a tenancy by a notice under 12 months."
Then I went on to say that on the understanding that there was nothing in the clause to prevent a mutual agreement on the subject I would not press my Amendment. Then after that come these sweeping words, "Notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary." I labour under the disadvantage of not being a lawyer and I do not know the exact value of those words, but it might be that the words which it is proposed to insert now would take away that very power which the noble Lord said existed previously to this Amendment coining on—namely, that there is nothing in the law to prevent the surrender of the tenancy at a shorter notice by mutual agreement between the two sides. I think the House would like to have some authoritative statement as to what the exact effect of these proposed new words would be, because I need not repeat that it would be a lamentable state of affairs if in no circumstances whatever agreements such as I am speaking of should be allowed to be carried into effect by mutual consent between the two sides.
LORD LUCAS: I think the position is perfectly clear. These words are intended to prevent there being inserted in the lease an agreement by which the lease or contract shall be determined at six months notice. That is a different point from the tenancy being terminated by an agreement come to quite apart from any provision that there may be in the lease—a mutual agreement between the landlord and the tenant to enable the lease to be brought to a close. If your Lordships insert the words which I am now proposing, nothing would prevent the landlord and tenant coming together and making a mutual agreement for terminating the tenancy, but it would prevent the insertion in the terms of the lease of words enabling a six months notice to be given.
VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN: I am not quite sure that I entirely appreciate the noble Lord's explanation. The point appears to me to be this, that in parts of England yearly agreements are the rule. In many parts of England we never think of having an agreement for a farm or agricultural holding with less than twelve months notice. But in other parts of England, especially, I believe, in Lincolnshire, that is not the rule, and what the noble Lord has tried to do is to apply a hard-and-fast rule of twelve months notice all over England contrary to the custom in some parts of the country which I believe is appreciated both by landlords and tenants. That is not all. The noble Lord does not apply it to both sides, but only to the landlord. The tenant might still give six months notice, but the landlord would only be able to give twelve months notice. What is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander. I confess that for myself I very much object to interfering so harshly with the agricultural customs of England by a law which really will be, I believe, odious to Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire farmers, and I hope the Government will not think it necessary to press this clause as part of the Bill.
LORD LUCAS: There are two entirely separate points raised in this Amendment, and I have only moved and spoken hitherto upon the first point—namely, the insertion of the words "Notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary." The later part of the Amendment raises an entirely different point which I think ought to be treated separately. I do not know whether your Lordships would deal with the first part of the Amendment and then discuss the later part.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: By inserting the words "Notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary" now the noble Lord is prejudicing the question. I therefore hope your Lordships will not agree to insert these words.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: On the last occasion when this Bill was under discussion several members sitting on this side asked the Government before they persisted any further with Clause 2 to state some reasons why they considered this clause an advisable change in the law. I do not know whether the noble Lord in charge of the Bill proposes to make that statement now or whether he would rather postpone his explanation until later.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL BEAUCHAMP): The course which would probably be most convenient would be that my noble friend in charge of the Bill should say what he has to rayon the later Amendment to omit Clause 2. The Amendment now before the House deals with two quite different points. There is, first, the point with regard to allowing agreements to be broken; and, secondly, the point as to whether landlord and tenant should have separate powers. The latter point is distinct from the one now before the House, which is whether you should allow landlords and tenants as a normal custom to contract out of the Bill.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I would point out that the first part of the Amendment only deals with a matter of drafting, for whether you insert "Notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary" or not, you are saying exactly the same thing. The words add nothing, but merely call attention to the fact that no agreement to the contrary would prevail.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: The noble and learned Viscount is quite right. The words are not material. The question that is material is whether or not we should retain Clause 2. The noble Lord behind me (Lord Hylton) has an Amendment for the deletion of Clause 2, and it is on that Amendment, I think, that the discussion could most conveniently be taken.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD LUCAS: Now I come to the second part of my Amendment, which raises the whole point of Clause 2. I was instrumental in Committee in having the words struck out which I am now moving to reinsert. I dare say your Lordships will remember that the clause as it came to this House gave power to a tenant to give six months notice of his intention to terminate the tenancy, but made it incumbent upon the landlord to give twelve months notice. In the course of the Second Reading debate noble Lords pointed out that what applied to one party ought to apply to the other, and I gave rather undue weight to that argument with the result that I moved the omission of these words. On further consideration, and especially in view of what was said in Committee, I think I made a mistake. The provision ought to have been left as it was originally drafted—namely, giving the tenant power to quit after giving six months notice but making it incumbent on the landlord to give twelve months notice. In the first place, the landlord is in a very much stronger position to deal with this question than is the tenant. If the landlord objects to his tenant being able to go at six months notice it rests entirely with him. He draws up the form of the lease, and he need not insert a provision for a six months notice at all. He could make it a yearly notice, and then the question of the six months notice does not arise at all. As was pointed out, especially in the case of Lady Day tenancies, circumstances do arise under which it is a great advantage to the tenant to be able to quit at six months notice. Some of your Lordships pointed out that it is a great advantage to a man to be in a position, after his harvest is over, to make up his mind whether or not he will quit on the following Lady Day. Very often his intention to remain or to go depends very much on the kind of harvest he has had. Therefore it is a great advantage to him to be able to go at six months notice. We do not want to take that advantage away from him, and consequently we think that we ought to allow matters as regards the tenant to remain as they are at the present moment—that is to say, that he should be in a position to give six months notice of his intention to quit. On the other hand, we think it might cause an undue amount of hardship to the tenant to be made to

23
quit at six months notice. The view that this Bill is framed to carry out, and it as been freely expressed al] through the debate, is the view your Lordships accepted in the case of Lord St, Levan's Amendment—that a tenant ought to have a year to be able to look round for another farm.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: In the case of sale.
LORD LUCAS: Yes, in the case of sale. But, after all, it is immaterial, looking at it from the tenant's point of view, whether the farm is going to be sold at the end of his tenancy or whether it is going to be passed on to somebody else. The position which we want to obtain for the tenant is that he should have a clear twelve months to look round in order to find another farm.
VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN: The landlord ought to have a clear twelve months also to find another tenant.
LORD LUCAS: If he wants it, it rests entirely with him to make it a case of a twelve months notice in the lease. That is where the landlord has the advantage, and he apparently does not mind its being a six months tenancy or he would not have his lease drafted in that way. In all these questions of bargaining the landlord has the best of it. The form of his lease is drawn up for the landlord under expert advice.
LORD HYLTON: The tenant does not agree to it if he does not like it.
LORD LUCAS: The landlord, especially at the present time, is in a very much stronger position than the tenant is in that matter. There is another point of view that one has to consider this matter from, that is from the point of view of the actual results both to the landlord and to the tenant. The landlord where a tenancy is terminated has the farm on his hands, and he may or may not obtain another tenant. In most cases he does obtain another tenant, but even if he does not do so the amount of inconvenience and loss that he suffers is certainly not comparable to the amount of loss and inconvenience the tenant suffers who has to give up his home, sell his stock, and clear out, and find, if he can, another farm. I think one
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is bound to admit that the tenant has very much more at stake; he stands to lose a great deal more by a change of tenancy than the landlord does, and that is a thing you have to give due consideration to in considering this point. As I said before, the position really is this, that it is a valuable privilege to the tenant especially in the case of Lady Day tenancies to be able to go at six months notice. But if the landlord has a strong objection to his tenant quitting at only six months you must remember it really lies with him, because, practically speaking, he can insist on a yearly notice. Therefore, my Lords, I think on those grounds there is a clear case for differentiating between the tenant and the landlord. This is one of those cases where, to use the words of the noble Viscount opposite, what is sauce for the goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander, and I think it is only fair to allow this differentiation of treatment as between the landlord and the tenant.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 11, after ("given") insert ("by a landlord").—(Lord Lucas.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Lord has made a statement, for which I am very much obliged to him, as regards the position which the Government take in this matter; but I world like to remind him that the statement he made was purely a priori. What your Lordships wanted was some information which would lead the House to conclude that the tenants in the parts of England referred to really did desire a change in the system which exists there. As the noble Viscount who sits behind me has already told your Lordships, in Lincolnshire and in Nottinghamshire and in parts of Yorkshire this system of six months notice to quit, ending at Lady Day or May Day, is a very common practice, and according to a great deal of information which has been submitted to me it is a very popular practice. I am quite aware that there is evidence upon the other side. It is a very difficult question. Some people like this system and some people do not, but in order to justify a change in the law the Government have to make out their case; they have to show that on the whole the system has worked badly, and that people do not like it. I am sorry to say I have no connection with that part of England myself, but I have taken some trouble to inquire into the

25
working of this system, and I am told that it makes for good husbandry—in fact, that during the interregnum the land is kept in proper cultivation all the time. The system is that the incoming tenant has the right to go upon the land and see that the outgoing tenant is performing his duty there. Supposing the cultivation of the land during the last six months is not properly performed he has a remedy, and the result is that when the expiration of the tenancy takes place the land is in the very best order, and the success of Lincolnshire farming is well-known all over the world. You have to deal with one of the most successful farming districts in England, and I am told on very good authority that this system works exceedingly well there and that the people do not want it altered. I wrote to a gentleman who I was informed knew all about it, and he writes this to me in reply—
"I am distinctly of opinion that if we could consult or take a plebiscite vote of the tenant farmers in the county of Lincolnshire there would be a very large majority in favour of six months notice to quit."
That is from a gentleman whom I believe to be thoroughly reliable in his information.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: Universal six months notice instead of twelve?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I will read the words again to the noble Marquess if he would like me to do so, because it is very important.
THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: Yes, it is—six months notice instead of twelve?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I agree. That is the point we are discussing. Then I have another letter from a gentleman who writes to me—
"We are and have been agents for no less than 120,000 acres of land in Lincolnshire"—
Your Lordships will admit that a man who is agent for 120,000 acres of land in Lincolnshire has a right to an opinion on this subject—
"and other places, and practically the whole of the tenants are under six mouths notice. I am of opinion that you cannot do a tenant a greater injustice than to force him to take a twelve months notice."
I do not think your Lordships could agree to the proposal of the noble Lord opposite
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to make a difference between the landlord and the tenant in this matter. It is quite true that when times are as they now are the market is rather in favour of the landlord, but, of course, we must not anticipate that we are always going to have good times. In bad times, of course, the market is against the landlord, and if it is easy for a landlord to get a tenant now formerly it was not easy for him to get tenants. If it is fair, therefore, that in these times the tenant should have more than six months notice then it would have been fair in old times that the landlord should have had more than six months notice. But I submit that there is no general opinion that either one or the other wants more than six months notice. I desire to be quite fair with your Lordships' House. I have myself received letters from tenants in favour of the change, but I have read to your Lordships two letters which show that the present system works well, and that there are very strong grounds for not altering it, and I do not think until the Government have made out a stronger case than they have done that one ought to alter the law.
LORD ZOUCHE OF HARYNGWORTH: It seems to me that this Amendment would not work fairly to both sides. Take the case, not of a lease necessarily, but of a yearly agreement, which is a very common form of tenure. A yearly agreement is an agreement, and yet something may be done under this Amendment notwithstanding any agreement that has been previously made. This might be construed as allowing the tenant, notwithstanding the agreement which he has made by which there is to be a year's notice given on either side, to terminate at a shorter notice. I would further point out, although I do not wish to quibble about words, that as the words run nothing is said about a six months notice at all, so that, assuming my contention is right for the moment., the tenant in that case might give notice to go at a very much shorter notice than six months—even at one month or two weeks. I am assuming the existence of a yearly agreement where a year's notice on both sides is put into the agreement and agreed to by both sides. Then come the words, "notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary."
On Question, Amendment negatived.
LORD LUCAS: The next Amendment, to leave out the words "from year to year" is rather a technical one, but it is to prevent contracting out of the clause. It would be perfectly possible, if you confine it as the Bill does in its present form to yearly tenancies, to get out of it by letting land to a man for a term of years, say on a seven years lease determinable by either party at the end of any year of tenancy by a six months notice. That is, practically speaking, in effect a yearly tenancy terminable by six months notice, although technically it would not be. You could override this provision simply by a condition of that sort, and so these words are proposed to be inserted in order to prevent evasion of the provision.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 11, to leave out the words ("from year to year").—(Lord Lucas.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HYLTON: Clause 2, as now amended, runs—
"Notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, a notice given to determine a tenancy of a holding or any part thereof on a date earlier than one year after the service for the notice shall be void,"
and then follows the proviso. I have ventured to give notice to omit Clause 2 from the Bill, and I do not think I need trouble your Lordships with more than a few words on the subject, because the noble Viscount, Lord Galway, and the Marquess of Salisbury and other noble Lords with much greater personal knowledge and experience than I can pretend to possess have already described that over very large portions of the country, in Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and other districts, it has been found for a great many years a convenient and workmanlike method of letting farms, agreeable both to owners and to tenants, to allow a tenancy to be drawn up with power to the landlord and tenant alike to terminate it at any later day by giving notice the preceding Michaelmas, and I respectfully venture to submit to the House that not one word that has fallen from the opposite Benches shows any cause whatever why that practice should not be allowed to go on. I do not want to touch upon the extraordinary suggestion of His Majesty's Government, that that which is to hold good against the landlord is not to hold good against the tenant,
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because that has been dealt with. I venture to rest the grounds for asking your Lordships to strike out this clause on what has fallen from Lord Galway, the Marquess of Salisbury, and other noble Lords on this side of the House. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 2.—(Lord Hylton.)
LORD LUCAS: As the noble Lord says, this matter has been already discussed to a certain extent, but I would like to point out one thing with regard to it. The very strong Committee over which my noble friend Lord Haversham presided, on whose Report this Bill is based, were absolutely unanimous—in fact, I think it was one of the few recommendations on which they were absolutely unanimous—in recommending that six months tenancies should be terminated, if possible. Your Lordships have discussed the subject from one point of view, but, after all, Lincolnshire is not the only county where six months tenancies exist, and the opinion of the Committee was that undoubtedly they did exercise a very detrimental effect on agriculture generally. To give your Lordships one instance. If you take the case of Michaelmas tenancies under a six months agreement it becomes a physical impossibility for the tenant to carry out the terms of his agreement.
VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN: Are there many six months tenancies?
LORD LUCAS: Yes, there are a great number, and the tenant is put in an extremely difficult position thereby, because if he only receives notice to quit at Lady Day and has in his lease certain conditions with regard to cropping it becomes a physical impossibility for hint to carry them out. After all, the process of agriculture, the rotation of crops, is a process which takes a complete twelve months. Therefore there is a very strong case from that point of view for giving a notice which shall include one complete rotation of the process. Had your Lordships been prepared to accept an amendment, which I think would have covered the Lincolnshire case perfectly plainly, it would have been to the general advantage of agriculture in other parts of the country to have left Clause 2 in and to have done away with six months agreements in other parts of the country.
VISCOUNT GALWAY: The only information the noble Lord has given us is practically that a Committee has reported in favour of this clause. He has not told us that there has been any application either from tenants or landlords in any bulk for this clause. What I look at as still more important is this, that by this clause as it stands the noble Lord will have virtually upset the whole of the custom in three large counties with innumerable tenancies simply because a Committee has made a Report that it may be desirable in certain cases. Surely Lincolnshire men and Yorkshire men may be trusted to know how to make a good bargain for themselves. Personally I have never yet found that a tenant is not quite as good a hand in making a bargain as any landlord I have ever known.
LORD HAVERSHAM: I should like to say that all of us on this Committee had the most overwhelming evidence that there is a great hardship now on tenants who hold Michaelmas tenancies. If I had known that this question was going to be brought up I could have quoted the evidence to that effect of Mr. Hall, the agent for the Duke of Bedford's large estates; of Mr. Vergette, who is a member of a great firm of auctioneers at Peterborough: of Mr. Rawlence, a member of a large firm at Salisbury; and of others who were unanimous that a great hardship is created by turning a man out at six months notice if he holds a Michaelmas tenancy. The man receives notice that he will have to no at the next Michaelmas, but he does not know until the next June whether he will hive to go at all, because he does not know for certain that the property will be sold. He does not know who his new landlord will be, and therefore he is unable to make any arrangement for himself. Then it appears he has only got about two months in which to look about for another farm, and we thought, and all these agents thought, that if the man had an additional year after the notice was given to him he would have plenty of time to turn round and find another farm. Undoubtedly you will do a very great injury to all the Michaelmas tenants —and these are the usual tenancies in the South of England—if this clause is struck out. The Committee over which I presided went thoroughly into the case and were unanimous in their submission that this clause should be inserted.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think it is material to the point which we are considering to remember that this clause is really an excrescence upon the general scheme of the Bill. This Bill is designed primarily to mitigate the hardship undoubtedly sustained by tenants who find themselves dispossessed of their holdings in consequence of the sale of the estate by their landlord. The Committee presided over by the noble Lord who has just addressed the House, was appointed for that purpose, and that purpose only. It was not a Committee to inquire into the general question of the law of agricultural tenancies. It was appointed to inquire into the best means of meeting the case of the tenant who was dispossessed in connection with the sale of the estate. We have dealt in Clause 1 with this case. We have not only dealt with it, but we have strengthened Clause 1 very considerably, and it is now a much more favourable clause to the tenant than it was when the Bill was first introduced to the House. Clause 2 makes a change in the general law, and a change which, I venture to think, ought not to be lightly made. My noble friends behind me have been able to cite cases in which the change in the law would be very inconvenient, not to the landlords but to the tenants who are used to the local custom under which they have held their lands and prospered in the past. The particular case in which this clause would, as far as I can make out, be inconvenient to the parties concerned is the case of the Lady Day tenant, and I would suggest for the consideration of the noble Lord in charge of the Bill whether he could meet us to the extent of allowing the clause to be made applicable to Michaelmas tenancies only, so as to leave outside its scope those Lady Day tenancies which my noble friend Lord Galway and others have particularly referred to. I should be very glad if the noble Lord would consider that suggestion.
LORD LUCAS: We would like to consider the noble Marquess's suggestion, and perhaps we may bring forward an Amendment dealing with it on Third Reading.
VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN: After what has been said, would it not be better that the clause should be negatived now, because we strongly object to its application to Lady Day tenancies while at the same time feeling the force of what has fallen

31
from Lord Haversham with regard to Michaelmas tenancies. It would be perfectly easy if this clause were struck out of the Bill for His Majesty's Government to consider the matter before the Bill was dealt with in another place, and then they might send it back to your Lordships with an amended clause such as they might think right.
LORD HAVERSHAM: I should like to press strongly on my noble friend to accept that proposal. I think the real hardship is on the Michaelmas tenant.
LORD LUCAS: I am glad to agree to the suggestion of the noble Viscount that the clause should be struck out this after-noon, and I trust to be able to bring forward a new clause on Third Reading to which the House will be able to give its assent.
LORD HYLTON: May I point out that under the existing law shorter notices than one year are ineffective except in those cases where the landlord and tenant have agreed and signed, presumably for their mutual convenience, agreements embodying a six months notice. I cannot in these circumstances see where the hardship comes in of retaining the six months notice to which both parties have agreed. Neither party need accept it if they do not like it either in the case of Michaelmas or Lady Day tenancies.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3:
Saving for certain Notices.
3.—(1) Nothing in this Act shall apply to a notice to quit given—

(a) to determine the tenancy of land in respect of which undeveloped land duty is charged; or

(b) with a view to the use of the land by the landlord or a purchaser for building thereon; or

(c) for any purpose specified in section twenty-three of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1008, or any other industrial purpose; or

(d) on account of a breach by the tenant of the contract of tenancy, or any condition of tenancy; or

(e)on account of a receiving order in bankruptcy having been made against the tenant; or

(f)by or at the request of a Secretary of State with a view to obtaining possession of any land for military purposes

if the notice states that it is sc given, and specifies the purpose for which the land is required or the matter on account of which the notice is given, as
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the case may be; and in any such case the notice to quit shall take effect as if this Act had not been passed.
(2) Nothing in this Act shall affect the operation of a notice to quit served before the commencement of this Act.
LORD LUCAS: My Amendment in paragraph (b) of Clause 3 is largely a drafting Amendment, but I have added at the end of it "or for any purpose other than agriculture." That is to meet the point which was raised at the Committee stage by Lord Hylton. He has an Amendment down a little later on to insert those words, and I would suggest to him that from the point of view of drafting our Amendment is slightly preferable. I do not know whether he is prepared to accept our Amendment.
LORD HYLTON: I am quite willing to accept the Amendment put down by Lord Lucas in paragraph (b), after "thereon," to insert. "or for any purpose specified in Section 23 of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908," but as a matter of fact I think, owing to some printer's error, I ought to move first my Amendment in line 21. There is no question of policy involved. I move to put it in in consequence of the alteration made by Lord St. Levan when we were in Committee. Perhaps I had better read the paragraph to your Lordships as it runs at present. It is provided that nothing in this Bill shall apply to a notice to quit given—
"(b) with a view to the use of the land by the landlord or a purchaser for building thereon."
I have given notice of an Amendment that it shall run as follows—
"(b) with a view to the use of land comprised in the holding to which the notice to quit relates by the landlord or a purchaser for building thereon."
As the paragraph stands at present it would appear to indicate that the whole of the land in the holding must be acquired for building purposes. As I understand, that is not the real intention of His Majesty's Government. I therefore move the words that I propose to insert, because only part of the land might be required for building purposes.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 21, leave out the second ("the") and after ("land") insert ("comprised in the holding to which the notice to quit relates").—(Lord Hylton.)
LORD LUCAS: Lord's Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD LUCAS: I now move my Amendment to add to paragraph (b) the words which I explained to your Lordships a moment ago.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 22 after ("thereon") insert ("or for any purpose specified in section twenty-three of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908, or for any purpose other than agriculture").—(Lord Lucas.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD LUCAS: The next is simply a drafting Amendment. I have already taken the substance out of paragraph (c) and put it into the previous paragraph.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, lines 23 to 25, leave out paragraph (c).—Lord Lucas.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4:
Determination of Questions.
4. If any question arises under this Act as to whether a notice to quit has been given in view of the sale or offering for sale of a holding or part thereof, or as to whether the provisions of this Act with regard to the service of any information or notice in connection with an agreement for sale have been complied with by a landlord or by a tenant, or as to the purpose for which or matter on account of which a notice to quit has been given, the question may at any time after the notice is given be referred by the landlord or the tenant to arbitration tinder the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908.
LORD LUCAS: These are drafting Amendments.
Amendments moved—
Page 3, line 4, leave out ("service") and insert ("giving")
Page 3, line 6, leave out from ("to") ill line 6 to ("the question") in line 8, and insert ("whether a notice to quit is a notice to which this Act applies").—(Lord Lucas).
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD HYLTON: The next Amendment stands in my name. Before making a few remarks on this Amendment I should like to ask Lord Lucas how exactly in his opinion the word "may" in line 8 will take effect. Your Lordships will notice that the clause runs—
"If any question arises under this Act…the question may at any time after the notice is given be referred by the landlord or the tenant to arbitration under the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908."
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If "may" were a purely permissive word there would obviously on the one hand be no reason for putting the clause in, and there would equally he no object in any of us who do not approve of the clause moving its omission. Although I have no legal training, I think the word "may" does in this clause indicate that either the landlord or the tenant, if he wishes, may proceed to this particular arbitration. If I am incorrect would the noble Lord tell me?
LORD LUCAS: I think the word "may" is simple common form; it occurs in all Acts, and in this particular context it means that if a question arises and either the tenant or the landlord wishes to go to arbitration he can do so.
LORD HYLTON: It does not mean that they must, but, on the other hand, that if they want to each of them can?
LORD LUCAS: If they decide to go to arbitration the arbitration will have to take place, but it is permissive to them to go to arbitration.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Permissive to either of them?
LORD LUCAS: Yes.
LORD HYLTON: I should like in these circumstances to call your Lordships' attention to the considerable difficulty in the class of questions that will be submitted to an arbitrator under this Act and the class of questions submitted under the Act of 1908. Under the Act of 1908 the questions that had to be submitted and are being submitted to arbitrators from time to time now, as eases arise, are really questions of fact. They are questions about the amount of compensation payable, the valuation of improvements, what rent is to be paid by county councils for taking land for small holdings, and so on, but they are none of them legal questions, and there is a special proviso in the Act of 1908, to which I will refer in a moment, dealing with legal questions that may arise under that Act. But in this Bill the questions that would arise under Clause 4 and which His Majesty's Government propose to submit to this single authority cannot, I think, be ever regarded as questions of facts. They will nearly always be legal questions. They

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will be questions dealing with the exceptions as to the Act which are contained in Clause 3, and your Lordships will see that all the rather complicated questions that may arise under Clause 3 are questions as to which any layman in this House would say, "I cannot deal with them myself; I must refer them to my lawyer." I think some of your Lordships have strong opinions as to the expediency or inexpediency of allowing even under the Act of 1908 a single arbitrator to decide questions of fact without any power of appeal. But when it comes to questions of law, legal questions such as will have to be dealt with under Clause 4 of this Bill, surely it is in the highest degree dangerous to entrust these arbitrators from the Board of Agriculture, gentlemen who may or may not be expert—surveyors, auctioneers or land agents, or members of a similar class—with the decision of these questions of law. I venture to say that they would not be any more competent to deal with questions of law than any other layman, and that all their expert knowledge as regards surveys and valuations of land, and so on, can be of very little assistance to them except so far as a good general education can be of assistance in deciding the legal points that not only may, but I think must, arise under Clause 4.
I venture, therefore, to ask your Lordships to say that when these legal questions come up they shall be referred to a legal tribunal, and the legal tribunal to which I ask leave of your Lordships to refer them is a County Court Judge. A County Court Judge is the officer selected under the Second Schedule of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908, subsection (9). where it says—
"Where any arbitration takes place the arbitrator may at any stage of the proceedings, and shall if so directed by the Judge of the County Court, which direction may be given on the application of either party, state in the form of a special case for the opinion of that Court any question of law arising in the course of the arbitration."
Perhaps His Majesty's Government will tell your Lordships that that Schedule would apply to the Act now before us; but a good deal of power under the Schedule of the Act of 1908 is put into the hands of the arbitrator, as your Lordships will see in the words I have just read out. It is that lie may state a case, but it is not directed that he shall state a case, and in any view of the subject the course that I
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am suggesting now to your Lordships must be much simpler and shorter and more convenient to the parties who are unfortunately involved in a dispute of this kind. Under it they may go straight to their County Court judge and get his decision on these purely legal matters. That must be simpler than for them to have first of all the arbitration under the gentleman appointed by the Board of Agriculture, and then in the second place to have these legal points decided by a County Court Judge. Those are very briefly the reasons I have for my Amendment.
When this Bill was in Committee I was anxious to see Clause 4 out altogether, but the noble Marquess inquired, if it was to be omitted, what was to be suggested in its place. I had not at that time thought out the question so carefully as I have tried to do now. It has occurred to me now that the County Court Judge would be a very proper person to decide these questions, and I hope that the course I suggest will be agreeable to His Majesty's Government, because he is the person under the Bill of 1908 whom they themselves chose to decide such legal points as must necessarily arise under this clause. I confess that I have a further reason for wishing to see the power of appealing to the law not taken away from us under this Bill, as it was very nearly taken away from us under the Act of 1908 and other measures that have been passed by His Majesty's Government. It is because I think both landlord and tenant alike would be more inclined to put confidence in the decision of a County Court Judge than they would in that of a gentleman, as I have said, who may or may not be qualified, such as one of these arbitrators sent out by the Board of Agriculture.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 10, leave out ("under the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908") and insert ("by a judge of a county court").—(Lord Hylton.)
LORD LUCAS: Perhaps I may make clear one point with regard to which I do not know whether I made myself plain to the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury. As I understand the position is this, that if a dispute arises either the landlord or the tenant may claim as a right an arbitration under this clause.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Yes.
LORD LUCAS: I now come to the point which Lord Hylton raises. It is quite true, as he says, that there will be a number of questions arising under this Bill not strictly analogous to the questions that arose under the Agricultural Holdings Act, though I think to a less degree than he makes out. Our practice with regard to this, as I stated in the Committee stage, is invariably to appoint, as arbitrators, surveyors and valuers of the very highest standing and experience. I could read out to your Lordships a number of names to show that our invariable practice when we have to nominate these arbitrators is to select men who have had very wide experience, who are generally respected and whose word is always taken in any case of this kind. We have had the Hon. Edward Strutt, who is President of the Surveyors' Institution, Mr. John Farrer, Mr. Herbert Smith, Mr. Morton, Mr. Oakley, Mr. Trustram Eve, and I have a list here of the most prominent members of the Surveyors' Institution, men who really stand at the top of their profession. After all, what is the kind of question that will come up? With one or two exceptions they are practical questions which nobody would be better fitted to deal with than a land agent in a big way of business. The cases that will come up under this Bill are typical examples of the kind of questions that come up for solution, I will not say in the every-day work of estate management, but that constantly occur during a long period of estate management, and therefore in our opinion the arbitrators who have been appointed to work under the Agricultural Holdings Act, and who have, I say it with the greatest certainty, done their work uncommonly well under that Act and to the general satisfaction, are really better fitted than a County Court Judge for this particular class of arbitration, and we are firmly of opinion that you will get a better decision under arbitration from them than from anybody else that you could nominate.
VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN: I feel a great deal of sympathy with what was said by my noble friend behind me on the general question of taking the decision in matters of this kind away from the Courts of Law. I think we had a good deal of argument on that matter when the Agricultural Holdings Act was before your Lordships' House. But I must confess that I should feel some difficulty in agreeing
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with my noble friend on this particular matter. I think there is great truth in what has fallen from the noble Lord opposite with regard to the qualifications of the gentlemen who have been nominated as arbitrators by the Board of Agriculture under the Agricultural Holdings Act. I have the names of two such gentlemen in my mind in my own county, and, without any disparagement to the capacity of the County Court Judge for that county, I would infinitely sooner have any matter in this Bill referred to either of those two gentlemen than to the County Court Judge, because it does seem to me that at first blush, at any rate, the questions arising under this Bill—they are not precisely analogous, I admit., to many matters of valuation under the Agricultural Holdings Act—can hardly be considered prima facie questions of law. It is a question of fact, surely, whether, to use the words of the Bill, a notice to quit has been given in view of the sale or offering for sale of the holding or any part thereof, and as to whether information in writing has been given to the tenant before the date, and all the rest of it. In both of the paragraphs in the first clause the matters do seem to me to be prima facie questions of fact which I think might, very well be decided by these arbitrators, considering the great experience they have had in dealing with all kinds of matters affecting the tenancy and ownership of agricultural property and agreements between landlord and tenant. They might perfectly well be decided by those gentlemen if they be, as I gather they would be, subject to an appeal in the event of a question of law arising. The next clause provides that this Act shall be construed as one with the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908. Therefore I assume that any provision for an appeal on points of law under the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908, would also apply to this Bill. If that be so, I confess I hope my noble friend, though I admit he has said a good deal in favour of his Amendment, will not press it to a division.
VISCOUNT GALWAY: The noble Lord in charge of the Bill said that if there was a dispute either the landlord or the tenant might go to arbitration, but I should like to hear it stated from the noble Lord opposite whether the landlord and the tenant can, if they choose, instead of going under the Bill to arbitration before a single arbitrator, go direct to the County

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Court Judge to settle the matter; or is it compulsory under this clause that they must go to the arbitrator and not to the County Court Judge, even if they both desire to do so?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Perhaps I might answer this question. If the landlord and tenant both agree they can go where they wish and take the matter to the jurisdiction of a Court of Law; but if either of them claims the right to go to arbitration the clause gives the right to go to arbitration. That is what was stated in answer to the noble Marquess's question, and stated rightly, by the noble Lord in charge of the Bill.
LORD HYLTON: I think the position is not quite as the noble and learned Viscount thinks if a legal question arises under the Act of 1908. If a legal question arises under that Act, either party or both parties can bring it to a County Court Judge. The subsection says this—
"The arbitrator may, at any stage of the proceedings, and shall if so directed by the Judge of the County Court, which direction may be given on the application of either party, state in the form of a special case for the opinion of that Court,"
and so on; but if the County Court Judge does not so direct I presume it will not be so decided.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that will be so, but I take the words from the noble Lord. The meaning of what he has quoted is this. The arbitrator may be asked to state a special case or he may not. If the parties are dissatisfied with his decision, then they may go to the County Court Judge, and the learned Judge may give a direction. That is all.
LORD HYLTON: I withdraw my Amendment after what has fallen from the noble and learned Viscount.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5:
Short title Construction and Commencement.
5.—(1) This Act maybe cited as the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1912, and shall he construed as one with the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908, and that Act and this Act may he cited together as the Agricultural Holdings Acts, 1908 and 1912.
(2) This Act shall come into operation on the first day of January nineteen hundred and thirteen.
LORD HYLTON: I have an Amendment to Clause 5 to leave out the last word "thirteen" and to insert "fourteen." At the end of Clause 3 it is stated that—
"Nothing in this Act shall affect the operation of a notice to quit served before the commencement of this Act."
To-day is the 2nd of December. This Bill cannot possibly reach another place until January, 1913. When this Bill was brought in a reprieve was given, but seven or eight months have elapsed since the Bill was introduced. I think it only fair that we should have an extended reprieve in regard to the provisions coming into force in this case. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 10, leave out ("thirteen") and insert ("fourteen").—(Lord Hylton.)
LORD LUCAS: I accept that.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD LUCAS: We shall have one other Amendment to put down, and I would like to ask whether it will suit the House if we take the Third Reading in about a week from to-day. Would Wednesday of next week be convenient?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I do not know what business is down for 1Vednesday, but if the noble Lord will put it down provisionally for Wednesday we can see.
Bill to be read 3a on Wednesday the 11 th instant, and to be printed as amended. (No. 177.)

REGISTRATION OF STALLIONS BILL. [H.L.]
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I will be as brief as I can in asking your Lordships to read this Bill a second time. You will remember that the late Minister for Agriculture, the noble Marquess opposite (Lord Lincolnshire), did a considerable amount of good work in connection with the breeding of horses. Amongst other things he instituted the Advisory Council, and from that the county committees were instituted. King's premium stallions were

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sent to various centres and a great point was made of the registration of stallions. Considerable encouragement was given to owners of stallions all through the country to have them registered, and up to May 3 of this year there were 261 light stallions registered, of which 170 were thoroughbred horses. There were 109 ponies, besides hackneys and others, a considerable number of shire horses, and in comparison a very few Clydesdales. The matter has been taken up by owners of stallions, and they have registered with the Board of Agriculture a considerable number of horses, and the register is increasing rapidly. Of course, the most important thing in breeding is that the stallion should be sound, because a stallion serves from sixty to sixty-five mares every year, and the result is that if the horse is unsound a very large percentage of unsound produce is left behind, whereas if a foal is bred from an unsound mare she can only leave one unsound foal behind her. That is an important: thing to remember.
I will read a few lines from the Regulations for the Registration of Stallions, which are very important—
"The object which the Board have in view in promoting the registration of stallions is the elimination of the unsound sire. The decline in the light horse breeding industry and the deterioration of the quality of many of the horses bred are in great measure due to the use of stallions which are affected by hereditary disease and unsuitable for breeding purposes."
That is the object of the Board of Agriculture in getting stallions registered, and it shows how important they consider the soundness of the sires. When the county committees were instituted I was appointed chairman of the committee of the county in which I reside. We had a premium horse down last year, and he was fairly successful. The committee took an enormous amount of trouble in finding suitable mares from which to breed, and, on the whole, the result was very creditable and satisfactory. But this year it came to be known that the premium horse was going about, and the result was that we have had a great number of very doubtful horses going about in front of the premium horse and going actually to the doors of tenants and small farmers, who very naturally, instead of having to send a mare four or five or six miles to the premium stallion, take advantage of the animal which is brought to them for a very small fee.
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I would like to trouble your Lordships, because I feel very strongly on the point, with a letter I received some little time ago, which seems to me to put the case very much in a nut-shell. My correspondent writes—
"It seems to me that since a King's premium horse has been up here and stirred up a bit of enthusiasm in the light horse breeding line the owners of unsound crocks of all types of light stallions (hackneys, Clevelands, Yorkshire coach horses, and all sorts of nondescripts) have taken advantage of it, and the country is swarming with these poachers who creep or hobble about from farm to farm and catch on mares at fees of 12 s. 6d. upwards. They would not have had any encouragement from the farmers before, but now the light horse breeding is being pushed and talked about they are reaping the advantage of it by coming in at a cheaper rate than the premium horse."
That is absolutely the fact. I believe there are as many as fourteen horses travelling about in my own county, and I know also that this is the experience in a number of other counties. Your Lordships know the great difficulty there was in supplying horses to the Army during the South African War. Yet in those clays you had all the omnibus horses and any quantity of different kinds of horses to draw upon, but since those days the advent of motors and different kinds of mechanically-propelled vehicles has cut all that out, and in the time to conic it will be found much more difficult to find horses for the Army. The Board of Agriculture have the right to stamp out all kinds of diseases in cattle, sheep, and pigs, and sometimes they order the slaughter of a whole herd of cattle because of a contagious disease. I cannot for the life of me see why they could not also have the power of saying that unsoundness should be eliminated from horses that are sent round as stallions. I think it right to pay a tribute to the Advisory Board. I quite recognise that they have done a great deal of work. I know that at the present moment they are inquiring into this subject, because I myself caused it, I think, to be brought before them, but if nothing is done just now to prevent inferior horses travelling it will be almost impossible to catch up the time that is lost. It is impossible for the Advisory Board to report before another year. Then it will take at least a year to draft a Bill and get it introduced, and probably two years before it becomes law. So that three or four years would be absolutely lost, and by the time such a Bill is passed the very horses that are being bred now and are foals this

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year will be those that you require to breed from, and if you allow this absolutely unlimited competitorship to go on amongst the stallions used all over the country you will have thousands and thousands of unsound produce which will be the only things eventually from which yon can breed.
That is all I have to say at this late hour in regard to the Bill. The Bill is not a very stringent one, but I feel that something must be clone, and therefore I have ventured to bring this Bill before your Lordships. Clause 1 says that every stallion which travels for a service fee shall be registered in accordance with regulations made by the Board of Agriculture. Any horse, whether he is sound or not, may stand, and if anybody wishes to send his mare to an unsound horse he is, of course, at liberty to do it. The second part of that clause says that in respect of every stallion so registered a certificate of registration shall be issued by the Board. I understand that the conditions as to soundness have not been absolutely settled by the Board, but there are conditions which have been already laid down which, to my mind, are very fair, and if those are adhered to I do not think there would be very much to fear; but, at all events, the Board have the right to alter any regulations that may be made from time to time whenever they choose. The second clause gives the Board power to make regulations. The other clauses deal with offences and penalties. I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Saltoun.)
LORD LUCAS: My Lords, I should like to say at once, on behalf of the Board of Agriculture, that we welcome the Bill of the noble Lord. When I say we welcome it, we are in absolute agreement with him as to the principle that is contained in it. But when we come to the details of the Bill I am afraid we shall find a great many points to differ on. As to our own position in the matter, I am afraid we do not agree with the noble Lord that the need for hurrying is quite so great as he made out. After all, the present system of horse-breeding has gone on for a great number of years, and in spite of there being a great many unsound stallions in the country the fact remains that we have the best horseflesh in the world. You have to move with a certain amount of circumspection
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before you upset a system that has gone on for a considerable time. I do not want it to be thought that I am for a moment taking up a brief on behalf of the unsound stallion, because I am not. Very much the opposite. We have ourselves moved in the matter, not by way of legislation, but rather from the point of view of getting public opinion focussed on this question by the issue of the Board of Agriculture's certificates. They have, I am glad to say, been fairly well taken up. This year we issued 715 of them, and this is only the second year of their existence; and from the information one gets I think that owners of mares, who of course are the people chiefly interested in the thing, are getting more and more into the habit of asking to see the Board's certificate before they send their mare to a horse. That is all in the right direction.
I do not think, either, that this is a matter in which we want, if we can help it, to move absolutely single banded. After all, there are the big breed societies, very important bodies, and as regards their shows and things of that kind they exact a careful and searching veterinary examination, and a certificate is required. I think it is not an unrealisable ideal that we, the Board, and all the breed societies and the other bodies interested in this matter should agree to accept some common formula of soundness—that is one of the first things we ought to do—and that we should then co-operate on some lines and all work together for the elimination of the unsound stallion. Personally I regard that as an indispensable preliminary before we set to work and take what you might call violent measures against the unsound stallion. I am afraid the question is not quite such a simple one as perhaps the noble Lord thinks it is. It is fraught with a large number of difficulties, and I may say his Bill falls short on a considerable number of points.
I would also like to say at once that there are a number of points in the Bill with regard to which we ourselves are not prepared with a solution. The moment one begins to go into this question one finds that it will be a very difficult and rather delicate task to undertake. I would like to call your Lordships' attention to one or two points on which it seems to me that the Bill falls short. First of all, the Bill legislates against the travelling stallion only, and does not deal in any form with

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the stallion that stands at stud at any particular place. Of course, that saves the noble Lord from having to deal with some of the difficulties that have been raised by breeders in that connection. Then there is another horse which you might almost call of the intermediate class. Fie does not travel; he stands for service at a particular place but is paraded a good deal for exhibition at markets and various places, and he is advertised as standing for service at such and such a farm, usually a place easy to get at, and a great many mares are sent to that horse. If you pass the Bill as it stands no doubt a good many of the horses that the noble Lord has referred to in his speech and rightly complained of would become that type of what you might call intermediate horse, and I do not know that you would have done much good. No doubt they would procure fewer mares, but that they would obtain mares is undoubted. Then there is a remarkable omission in the noble Lord's Bill. He omits all heavy horses and ponies.
LORD SALTOUN: I intended ponies to be included in "horses."
LORD LUCAS: Horses are horses and ponies are ponies as a rule, and it would require an amendment of the Bill to make the matter clear. But that is only a small point. I do not know why the noble Lord leaves out heavy horses. As we know, the percentage of unsoundness in heavy horses is probably higher than that in any other breed, and I do not think we could ever regard any Bill as satisfactory which did not include heavy horses. Then there is the question of when the Bill should take effect. The noble Lord suggests 1913. I think it would be very hard on a number of these stallion owners to make it impossible for them to use their horses after the end of this year. Apart from the merits of the question one has to remember that a number of these horses, unsound as they are, are very valuable animals still, and that their present owners regarded them as an investment when they purchased them, and you would certainly have to give a considerable amount of notice in order to allow these men to replace the stallions they had bought.
Then as to one or two smaller points. First of all there is the question of suitability. It is quite true that in the certificate that we issue we require suitability —that the horse should be considered from the point of view of suitability before he
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gets a certificate. I rather think that as a result of our experience we should not advise that to be continued. It is a very arbitrary thing to ask a veterinary surgeon, even where there is an appeal from his decision, which we provide for, to decide whether a horse is suitable, because you have to take both the horse and the mare into consideration when deciding the question of suitability. Then there is the question of the stud book. I think the noble Lord would meet with great opposition from all the people who run stud books, with the possible exception of the Hunters' improvement Society. It is not really a register of stock but a register of pedigree, and the opinion is that the two things should not be mixed up. There is also a good deal in the drafting of the Bill which would have to be overhauled. I will not detain your Lordships by going into that.
As I say, we are very glad to see the Bill and we welcome it, and I may be allowed to congratulate the noble Lord on bringing it in, because I think it is a very good thing that a move should be made in this direction. But I hope the noble Lord will be content with the Second Reading now, and not press the Bill further, because it has very little chance of passing into law this session and I dare say the noble Lord does not anticipate that it will do so. Then if I might make a suggestion to him it would be this, that between now and next session he should redraft his Bill covering some of the points I have mentioned and bring it up again. If we could be of any assistance to him we should be most happy to do everything we could to help in the redrafting of the Bill, but even then when it came up again there would still be a number of these difficult points that would want to be settled. I think the best way, probably, in which to deal with the matter would be for the Bill after it is redrafted to be referred to a Select Committee of this House. I can think of no body better qualified than a Select Committee of your Lordships' Rouse to deal with a question of this kind and with the number of very difficult points that arise. If I may make that suggestion to the noble Lord I believe that would be the best way of arriving at what we all want, which is a suitable Bill for dealing with the elimination of unsound stallions.
On Question, Bill read 2a.
House adjourned at Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.