Lords Sitting of 5 December 1912

BARONY OF STRABOLGI.
A witness ordered to attend and produce certain documents.
Committee for Privileges met: Counsel further heard on behalf of the Claimants: Further evidence put in; the Attorney-General heard on behalf of the Crown: Further consideration adjourned sine die.
Ordered, That the Claimants be allowed to lodge a supplementary printed case.

EARLDOM OF OXFORD.
Report from the Committee for Privileges that the Petitioner Sir John James Hugh Henry Stewart Murray, K.T., Duke of Atholl, Marquess and Earl of Atholl, Marquess and Earl of Tullibardine, Earl of Strathtay and Strathardle, Viscount Glenalmond, Balquhidder, and Glenlyon, Baron Murray of Tullibardine, Lord Balquhidder, Balvenie, and Gask in Scotland, Baron Strange of Knockyn in England; Earl Strange, Baron Percy and Baron Murray of Stanley, County Gloucester in Great Britain; Baron Gleulyon of Glenlyon in the United Kingdom, hath not made out his claim to the dignity of Earl of Oxford; Made and agreed to, and resolved and adjudged accordingly; and resolution and judgment to be laid before His Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.
The proceedings before the Committee for Privileges to be printed.

BARONY OF FURNIVALL.
The minutes of evidence taken before the Committee for Privileges to be printed.
Several witnesses ordered to attend the Committee for Privileges and certain of them to produce documents.

NORTH KILLINGHOLME (ADMIRALTY PIER) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with an Amendment.

DEATH AND ESTATE DUTIES.
Memorandum showing the principles on which Death and Estate Duties are assessed in the case of the estates of deceased holders of licences in Scotland.
Presented (by command), and ordered to lie on the Table.

NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT, 1911.
Regulations, dated 5th December, 1912, made by the Joint Committee, the Insurance Commissioners and the Welsh Insurance Commissioners acting jointly entitled the "National Health Insurance (Administration of Medical Benefit) Regulations, 1912": Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and to be printed. (No. 180.)
MARRIAGES PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment, and to be read 3a on Monday next.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 15) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): The Amendments proposed by the Select Committee made: The Report of Amendments to be received on Tuesday next.
NORFOLK FISHERIES PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): The Amendments proposed by the Committee made: The Report of Amendments to be received on Monday next.

MEDICAL BILL. [H.L.]
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT MORLEY): My Lords, I ask your Lordships to read this Bill a second time. In the language of the distinguished man who is the president of the General Medical Council it is a simple but a necessary change. It is an amendment of Section 8 of the Medical

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Act of 1886, for the purpose of diminishing the expense of elections of direct representatives. Under that Act the General Medical Council was constituted so as to contain various elements, and, among others, direct representatives of the medical profession—there are now four direct representatives for England, one for Scotland, and one for Ireland—to be elected respectively by the practitioners resident in the various parts of the United Kingdom. The case with which this Bill deals is a very simple one. Should a casual vacancy occur either by death or for any other reason amongst these six gentlemen, according to the Act as it now stands, the person elected to fill the casual vacancy is made to hold it, not for the unexpired residue of the term for which he succeeds, but for five years. What this Bill proposes, in deference to common-sense, I think, and also to experience, is that in future any practitioner who is elected in the way that I have described to fill a casual vacancy caused by the death or resignation of one of these direct representatives shalt hold office so long as the person in whose place he was elected would have held office, and no longer. There is another clause to the effect that where a casual vacancy is caused by the death or resignation of a direct representative within twelve months from the time when his term of office would have expired it shall not be necessary to fill the vacancy. That is the substance of the simple and necessary change effected by this Bill. The Bill further provides that the tenure of office of the present representatives shall come to an end on December 31, 191.6, so that they may start with a fresh period on January 1, 1917. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Morley.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.

THE MENTAL DEFICIENCY BILL.
LORD RIBBLESDALE LORD RIBBLESDALE rose to ask whether His Majesty's Government have any intention of reconsidering their announced decision not to proceed this session with the Mental Deficiency Bill. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I believe that every one here to-night, quite irrespective of the side of the House on which
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he sits, will have seen with regret the announcement that the Government have found themselves obliged to drop the Mental Deficiency Bill; and I think we shall all deplore the fact that a measure of the scope and intention of this Bill and of an agreed social value to the community should have been sacrificed to the peculiar and complicated—shall we say?—Party necessities of His Majesty's Government. In saying that. I make the Government a present of going on with their Home Rule Bill. I think they were bound to do that. But I confess that when I hear that. a Bill of this kind, as I say of an agreed social value, is to be set on one side because of the Welsh Disestablishment Bill and the Franchise Bill, I do not feel very comfortable about the state of affairs in this country. Whatever we may say about the Welsh Bill, the disestablishment part of it may have a great spiritual future value for Wales, upon which I should be the last person to hazard an opinion, but I do not suppose any one would pretend that under disendowment anybody would be very much happier, or that there would be any great accession of social prestige or social comfort to Wales or anywhere else because you passed that -part of the measure. What is quite certain is that under the disendowment part of the Bill a few needy and hardworking clergymen will be made very much poorer. As to the Franchise Bill, I confess that I view it as not an altogether unmixed benefit if the extended franchise which the Government propose is to be shared by a very large and increasing number of mentally deficient persons.
As against the Government's enforced liabilities I submit that the passage of the Mental Deficiency Bill into law is a matter of great concern to large numbers of authoritative people who are very well able to express and have very ably expressed themselves about it. But it is also a matter of great moment to an immense number of helpless people whose sad circumstances make them and their belongings peculiarly dependent on others to state and to further their case. I see that a few (lays ago Mr. Lloyd George made some speeches in Scot land, and when he got to Aberdeen lie naturally had a very fine audience, and he equally naturally had a great deal to say. Towards the end of his observations, some of which were not, perhaps, quite conciliatory to people

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like ourselves—he was, however, in a good-natured mood generally—he had a great deal to say on the duty of helping those less gifted in health, in strength, and in power than ourselves; and in the execution of this task Mr. Lloyd George discovered the Divine purpose. Indeed, he claims pretty often, not only to discover, but to interpret the Divine purpose. Unluckily as it seems the Divine purpose and the closure, the guillotine time-table, and "kangaroos" did not get on well together, and the result is that this Bill, which I should have thought was just the sort of Bill Mr. Lloyd George himself would be much concerned about from what he said, has had to go.
I spoke just now of the concern and anxiety felt by high authorities about this particular Bill. This has been attested in many ways. There have been many letters in the newspapers. We had one from the Bishop of Birmingham in The Times, a Times leader on November 21, another letter on the 22nd, a letter from Sir Thomas Acland on the 23rd, and on the 27th a very important letter appeared in The Times with a great many signatures, including Archbishops and other people who make the care of society their special concern and who are therefore very competent to write that kind of letter, in which they urged the Government to reconsider the course they were taking. I saw that all that the Westminster Gazette had to say about this mass of informed information, which took shape, as it were, in the letter in The Times on November 27, was this—
"We cannot quite understand the distress and dismay of the people who signed this letter."
The Westminster Gazette was good enough to concede that they were influential people, but went on to say there was no special urgency, and so on. The Daily News, which I believe is to some extent the organ of His Majesty's Government, took the same sort of line and put in a strong plea for a well-thought-out plan. It comes very well, I think, from the Daily News, in view of the kind of measures that have been thrown at the head of Parliament by His Majesty's Government, that they can only move at all if they have a well-thought-out plan. They have not been very particular about that in the past.
As neither the Westminster Gazette nor the other Liberal newspapers seem able to understand that there should be any special urgency for this Bill, I must try and enlighten them. I need not remind the House that the case for the Mental Deficiency Bill rests on the Report of the Royal Commission on the Feeble Minded. At Paragraph 17 of that Report it is estimated that in England and Wales there are 149,628 persons who are mentally defective—that is, mentally defective but not certified lunatics. Of these, 66,500 are in need of care in their own interests or for the welfare of society or for public safety, and of this latter class 9,500 are in London. I will not take your Lordships through the various classifications, but there is one class to which the Education Committee of the London County Council attach great importance—that is, the children discharged from the schools under the Defective and Epileptic Children's Act, 1899. These children the Education Committee of the London County Council urge should not be thrown, as they are at present., upon the world. Unfortunately persons who are mentally defective do not get any better. They remain mentally defective, and when thrown on the world with nobody in particular to take charge or care of them, not only are these unfortunate people of no use to anybody else but they run very great danger of being exploited in all kinds of ways by other people. I think that is one of the problems which, although the Westminster Gazette thinks that no one is filled with dismay or concern about these poor people, has filled a great many of those who have been interesting themselves in this Bill with very grave regret that the Government have not been able to go on with the measure.
The only other paragraph in the Report of the Royal Commission with which I will trouble your Lordships is Paragraph 9, which deals with the seriousness of the problem which the Bill is to solve, and I think you ought to know about this because this will enable you to form some sort of opinion of how ill it comes from the Government to drop this Bill. This particular paragraph was quoted almost in extenso on June 10 by the Home Secretary in the House of Commons. The Bill came into the House of Commons, I think, on May 16; the Second Reading was taken on June 10, and on July 19 the Under

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Secretary for the Home Department, at the conclusion of the Second Reading debate, declared that the Bill had been waited for by the country for many years past, and he added several other very proper observations of the same kind. Then the Bill went into Standing Committee of the House of Commons, and the Home Secretary gave pledges on more than one occasion to the Standing Committee, without any qualification, that the Bill should be carried through all its stages in the present session. This unfortunate Minister does not appear to have foreseen the events which, I suppose, are responsible for having led to the Bill being dropped owing to the time-table having been upset. I dare say I shall be told that that is the reason and that it cannot be helped. Well, possibly it cannot. But if that be so, I confess I think it is greatly clue to the infelicities of noble Lords below me and their friends in their Constitution-making or rather Constitution-remaking. Speaking generally as a spectator and a bystander, it seems to me that you have got the whole Parliamentary machine into such a condition of over pressure and jar that what has happened to this unfortunate Bill is not likely to prove an isolated instance, and I believe it is perfectly possible at any time that agreed social legislation in the true sense of the word "social" may have to be dropped under the rigid and standardised machinery which the Parliament Act has brought into operation and activity. I have only now to put my Question to His Majesty's Government, whether they will not see their way even now to reconsider their decision to drop a Bill which the country at large outside Party politics is anxious to see proceeded with.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD STRACHIE): My Lords, I do not think there is any difference of opinion between His Majesty's Government and the noble Lord who has asked this Question as regards the merits of the Bill or the necessity for it; but I at once take issue with the noble Lord when he compares the merits of the Mental Deficiency Bill, not with the Home Rule Bill because he admits that it is inferior to the Home Rule Bill, but with the Welsh Disestablishment Bill and the Franchise Bill. I would remind the noble Lord that both of the last-named Bills have been long overdue, and have been discussed at great length for many
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years. Reform of the franchise and registration has been a question which has been constantly before the house of Commons and the country during the last twenty years, and I take issue at once with the noble Lord when he says that these two Bills are inferior to and could be put behind the Mental Deficiency Bill.
Then I noticed that the noble Lord stated that the Mental Deficiency Bill is being sacrificed to Party necessities. It is not being sacrificed to Party necessities, but to House of Commons necessities. Those who have sat in another place know that constantly when Bills that have the approval of both sides of the House and apparently are not controversial in any sense at all begin to be examined in detail they are very often found to be most controversial and take up greater time than a Party Bill would. The mere fact of their being non-Party Bills induces the Government of the day to give greater latitude and allow longer time for debate in the hope that they may go through as agreed Bills. This has been simply the old story over again. This Bill, as the noble Lord truly said a Bill that is much wanted and on which there was general agreement, came before the House of Commons on June 10 in an evening sitting, when one might have t bought it could have been given a Second Reading and referred to Standing Committee. But nothing of the kind. At once there developed, I will not call it obstruction, but that desire to talk on the Bill which has characterised it during the whole of its course through the House of Commons. The consequence was that the Second Reading had to be put off from June 10, after the evening's debate, until July 19. Noble Lords will at once see that the mere fact of having to postpone it till July 19 made it impossible for the Bill to be considered in Standing Committee before the autumn sittings.
What happened on July 19? The Bill was given a Second Reading by 242 votes to 19. It is true that it was supported by Mr. Lyttelton, speaking on that occasion on behalf of the official Opposition, but the right hon. gentleman entered a caveat. He said the Bill must be drastically amended. Then, again, Sir Frederick Banbury, who was a very strong critic of the Bill, spoke on July 19 of the Bill

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containing sixty-eight clauses, and he defied any one who had read it for four or five days to thoroughly appreciate what was contained in the Bill. That was the opinion of Sir Frederick Banbury, who certainly on this matter is a great expert in another place; and he stated, in the same way as Mr. Lyttelton, that the Bill was one of very great complexity indeed. Although it passed with only nineteen Members voting against it, yet those nineteen gentlemen are very active Members of the House of Commons and are drawn from both sides, including such men as Sir Frederick Banbury and Mr. Booth, who have opposed the Bill at all its stages. This is a Bill of thirty-four pages and sixty-eight clauses. When it got into Standing Committee in the autumn sittings there was a shower of Amendments. So much so that in sixteen sittings only seven clauses were passed and when the Bill was reported this week to the House, with a special report that the Committee were unable to deal with the whole of the Bill, at that very moment on the Order Paper there were actually thirty pages of Amendments to the Bill. I think that will show the noble Lord that this is not a non-contentious Bill or a Bill that the House of Commons could have hoped to pass through Committee before Christmas except with the greatest difficulty, and it could only have been done by sacrificing other measures to which the Government are more particularly pledged.
But as regards the future of the Mental Deficiency Bill, I think your Lordships are aware that the Prime Minister has stated that he hopes to reintroduce the Bill early next session, embodying as a basis the Amendments made in the Standing Committee. Therefore it is not certain that the time which has been spent upon the Bill is going to be lost, because there will be the advantage of the discussion which has taken place on these seven important clauses, and it is hoped that if there is no obstruction these clauses will go very rapidly through the Standing Committee next session. I can assure the noble Lord that His Majesty's Government are fully conscious of the importance of this Bill, and had time permitted they would have liked to see it placed on the Statute-book this year; but, though they had the best intentions in the matter, in the circumstances of the case it was
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impossible for them to proceed with the Bill.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, the House must have heard with regret the confirmation of the report that this important Bill is not to be further proceeded with this session. Its fate is. I venture to think, an object lesson. Its abandonment is the inevitable result of an attempt to force through Parliament in a single session three great measures of dimensions which would have occupied the greater part of the time of an ordinary session in ordinary circumstances. It must result from that that legislation of the ordinary useful type has to he side-tracked. The noble Lord who spoke for the Government drew what seemed to me rather a fine distinction between what he called Party necessities and House of Commons necessities. The House of Commons necessities are Party necessities. You bring in three measures intended to placate different sections of your supporters, with the result that those who are not in a position to put in similar claims and to use similar methods to enforce them are obliged to stand aside. This Bill is admittedly a Bill of the greatest urgency. The noble Lord who brought the subject before the House to-night dwelt upon the fact that there are, in round figures, 150,000 people in the country who would come under the operation of this Bill, and of these a large number are poor creatures whose case stands most urgently in need of immediate treatment. That is admitted by the Royal Commission. It is admitted by the Education Committee of the London County Council. I noticed the other day that a member of the Government, the First Lord of the Admiralty, announced that he saw nothing in certain recent by-elections to discourage His Majesty's Government from bringing forward what he called "large constructive social policies." I venture to think that under the present dispensation large constructive social policies will stand a very poor chance of receiving the attention which they deserve. The business of Parliament is carried on under what my noble friend very properly described as over-pressure, and the result of that over-pressure is that valuable measures of this kind are put aside in order to make room for those other more controversial pieces of legislation for which House of Commons necessities apparently call so urgently.

PENARTH SCHOOL.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH*THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH rose to move, "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying him to with hold his assent to the scheme in the matter of the Glamorgan Intermediate and Technical Education Fund in the County of Glamorgan."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I want to draw the attention of the House for a moment to a secondary education scheme of the county of Glamorgan which is lying upon the Table of both Rouses. It might be thought that schemes of this sort are really of local interest and importance and ought to be settled and decided on locally. To a great extent t think that is true, but it has been provided that, as a precaution against any injustice being done by local authorities, schemes of this kind should lie on the Table of each House and that Parliament should have an opportunity of expressing an opinion upon them. I have therefore put down this Motion that an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying him to withhold his assent to this particular scheme. In allocating the money for secondary schools in the county of Glamorgan, according to the information and figures that I have, the county education sub-committee have not acted impartially in the matter. Penarth school is the one that I am particularly interested in. The facts concerning it are within my own knowledge, but I believe that objection also has been taken to the scheme by the governors of another school, the Gelligaer school, which apparently has been also hardly treated. But I will not go into that, because it is the case of the Penarth school to which I wish to draw the attention of the House.
Let me make it clear that the governors of the Penarth school have from the very moment that it was made public opposed this scheme because they thought they were not fairly treated. They opposed it when it first came to light, and they have opposed it ever since. They opposed it before the county council and also before the Board of Education, but they have not succeeded in getting what they consider fair treatment, and therefore in the last resort they asked that their case should be brought before your Lordships' House. Penarth school in this new scheme loses
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a sum of £900 per annum in comparison to what it has been receiving under the present scheme. Under the present scheme, which I will call the old scheme, after the allocation of the money received by the half-penny rate in the county, by the. Treasury grant, and by what is called the "whisky money," which was devoted to secondary education, there was a surplus of something between £5,000 and £6,000 a year, and that was divided amongst the secondary schools. The Penarth school got its share, which amounted to £460. Now mulct this new scheme the whole of that surplus of between £5,000 and £6,000 a year is absorbed in the fixed grant. The Penarth school received under the old scheme £1,000 a veal. as a fixed grant, and it will receive under the new scheme exactly the same amount as fixed grant, but the whole of the surplus to which I have referred having been absorbed in the money which is distributed as a fixed grant they lose the £460 a year. They also lose the Board of Education grant of £440 a year, which makes up the £900. But I should like to say at once that it is not of the latter loss that they complain. The whole of the money earned and which, is paid by the Board of Education is pooled, I am informed, and the sum of money that the Penarth school was receiving was more than, it quite agrees, it was entitled to receive from that, grant. Therefore I put that £440 which they lose on one side, and I do not complain of it; but I do complain of their position now in losing their share of the old surplus and of receiving under this new scheme not a penny more as fixed grant than they received under the old scheme. I confess that to me it is very difficult to make out on what principle the allocation is made.
I have a table here to which I should like to refer, showing that there are 252 pupils now in the Penarth school, excluding pupil teachers and district scholarship pupils, and they may not have so many of these as some other secondary schools have. There are 252 pupils, and the Penarth school receives £1,000 a year fixed grant. Barry has 281 pupils, but receives £1,550 fixed grant; Bridgend has 195 pupils, and receives £1,250 fixed grant; Port Talbot has 189 pupils, and receives £1,250; Neath, with 261 pupils—that is only nine pupils more than the Penarth school—receives £1,600 as fixed grant;

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Porth, with 292 pupils, receives £2,000 a year in fixed grant; and Mountain Ash, with 161 pupils—that is, 91 less than Penarth—is going to receive £1,200 fixed grant. I do not know what the explanation may be, but it seems to me very difficult to show that Penarth school is being fairly treated under this new scheme. There is another point to which I must draw attention because it is significant. There is no representative of the Penarth district on the county secondary education sub-committee. I am not here to say that it is possible that every district should be represented on this sub-committee, but, considering that there is no representative of Penarth district upon it, it does seem to me rather strange that Neath has four representatives on the sub-committee, Porth four, Mountain Ash three, and Barry two. I do not wish to bring any accusation of favouritism against the sub-committee—I mean conscious favouritism—but I do think that special precautions ought to be taken by a sub-committee composed like this one seems to be to avoid any semblance of favouritism by treating the school districts which are unrepresented at least as fairly as, if not more generously than, the others that are represented.
When I come to the figures of the excess grant given under this new scheme to these districts I find that Porth, with four representatives on the sub-committee, has an excess grant of £925; Mountain Ash, an excess grant. of £630:; Barry, of £560; and Neath of £535; whilst the Penarth school district, and I believe Gelligaer, are the only two districts which do not get any gain in fixed grant by this new scheme. I think it should be mentioned that there is a population in the Penarth district of something over 58,000, and there are certain parishes which Penarth has claimed should be included in its district and which are nearer, both in mileage and in railway facilities, to Penarth than to the district to which they are attached; and the governors of Penarth school think that the population in their district ought, if they had been fairly treated, to have been larger than it is. Penarth, as I say, now has a population of 58,000 and a rateable value of £431,000. It seems to me on these figures that it is very difficult to make out that Penarth has had the consideration which it ought to have
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had. As I have said, I think every precaution ought to be taken, Penarth not being represented on this sub-committee, not to let those interested in the Penarth secondary school imagine, as they certainly do now, that they have been somewhat left out in the cold and are to suffer in this new allocation while other schools are getting an increased fixed grant.
This is a very serious matter for Penarth, because they are working naturally on the income that they have now got. They have nothing to spare, and if that income is cut down seriously, as it will be under this scheme, it naturally will be difficult for the governors to carry on the school as it has been hitherto carried on. I am waiting to hear whether there are sufficient reasons that can be given for this treatment of Penarth. It certainly seems to me from the figures that I possess that it would be very difficult to show that Penarth is treated in so favourable a way as most of the other secondary schools in the county. I do not know myself on what principle this allocation is made; but on population basis, certainly on rateable value basis, Penarth ought to receive at least. £1,400 or £1,500 as their share of the fixed grant; and they claim that their case is so strong that they are justified in requesting me. as being personally much interested in Penarth and its school, to move the Motion that I have placed on the Paper.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying him to withhold his assent to the Scheme in the matter of the Glamorgan Intermediate and Technical Education Fund in the County of Glamorgan.—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I hope that the supposed grievances of the two schools referred to by the noble Earl will not induce your Lordships to upset and wreck a scheme which has been in course of careful preparation for the last six years. As your Lordships know, the Welsh scheme has now been fifteen years or thereabouts in existence, and up to the present time has been working, by general consent, extremely well; but it was found that the changes in population, the population remaining naturally stationary in some

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districts and increasing very rapidly in others, necessitated a fresh scheme. The noble Earl has given the committee who have elaborated this scheme credit for impartiality as far as their lights went. I think I may ask the House to believe that that impartiality has been thoroughly carried out in every case. The question of the grievance of Penarth in particular strikes me as being rather an unreasonable one. I have not been able to verify the noble Earl's figures, because they are so extremely different from the figures which have been supplied to me by the clerk to the county council and by the chairman of the education sub-committee. In going through the grants to the different schools the noble Earl gave the total amounts of the grants under the new scheme, but he omitted to give the amounts of the grants under the old scheme. I should like to allude to the case, for instance, of Porth. Porth under the new scheme receives £2,025, and this is looked upon as a sort of grievance because Penarth would receive only about half; but the point is that Porth under the old scheme was receiving £3,459, and therefore actually loses over £1,400 under this new scheme, this £1,400 going to the four new schools which the great increase in population has rendered necessary.
We on the county council think that not only has Penarth not got a grievance but that Penarth is the most favoured school in the whole district, except, perhaps, from the point of view of not being represented on the education committee. In the initial stage the ground for the Penarth school was given by the noble Earl himself, but the county expended £11,750 on the building of the school. After a time the school found that they were not earning all the amount that was possible by grants, and they applied for an extension of the laboratory. Four years ago the county council built them a laboratory at a cost of £4,500. Since that time, while I might almost say nearly every other school of the twelve intermediate education schools in Glamorganshire has been earning the full grant, Penarth has been the one school which has been unable to earn the full grant, and we take it that the reason is that it has not kept up to its numbers, the pupils in this school paying higher fees than in any of the other twelve schools in Glamorganshire. The noble Earl said just now that the Penarth school had actually
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nothing to spare. I know what the other schools are doing, and I do not believe that any school has a balance—certain lucky schools may have £100; but. I see that the surplus to the credit of the Penarth school is about £3,000. I think it is extremely possible that the Board of Education might come down and say, "You have no business to have a. suns of this kind in hand unexpended, and if it is not for the purpose of repairs and renewals you must hand that sum back to us." Therefore it seems odd to say that a school has nothing to spare when it has £3,000 in the bank.
In addition to the other advantages possessed by Penarth school it has in its neighbourhood the school of Howell's Charity, to which between sixty and seventy of its girls can go, and it also Las a right to send any of its children to compete with Cardiff scholars in the Cardiff intermediate school. I cannot see that there is any grievance on the part of Penarth. In the case of Gelligaer, again, there is a charity from which they receive a grant. The school is on the borders of Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire. The charity applies to both counties, and consequently the children from two towns in Monmouthshire have to be taken in at this school. It is a grievance of the county council that children for whom the county of Monmouthshire get the Government grant, practically two grants, are educated in Glamorganshire, and they receive nothing from Monmouthshire except two or three 'scholarships and exhibitions. I cannot deal with all the figures. As I say, I have received the figures from the county council and they differ so largely from the noble Earl's figures that. I can only tell your. Lordships the difference between his figures and mine. Nine out of the twelve schools receive an increase under the new scheme and three a decrease—namely, Bridgend, a decrease of £900; Pontypridd, a decrease of about £500; and, as I have said, Perth a decrease of £1,400. Gelligaer actually gets an increase. I cannot understand under these circumstances where the figures have been found which show that this school is going to lose. I must again ask your Lordships not to wreck a scheme to which so much thought, care, and the result of vast experience have been brought for the sake of a grievance which we on the county council do not believe to exist.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL BEAUCHAMP): My Lords, it is a refreshing novelty to those who have taken part in debates of this kind before that we should not have heard in the course of this discussion that there is any element of religious strife in the controversy. Generally speaking, the opposition to any scheme which is brought forward very largely comes from the Episcopal Benches. I am glad to think that on this occasion it is purely a question of administration, due in the first place and chiefly to an increase of population in the particular districts affected.
The scheme which will be amended by the scheme now on the Table was originally drawn up in 1896. It is not unnatural that some amendment should now be thought desirable. It was the first scheme which was drawn up for this neighbourhood, and experience has shown the need for considerable change. Under the present scheme each school district receives, out of the income of the general fund, first of all a fixed annual sum calculated on the minimum numbers for whom accommodation had to be provided under the scheme, and, in the second place, a share of the residue proportionate to the population of the school district; while the Board's secondary school grants are by the scheme pooled and distributed among the schools in proportion to the minimum accommodation. Under the new scheme each school district will receive, in the first place, a fixed annual sum calculated on population but modified where necessary. For instance, in some cases there is a secondary school outside the school district, but where that exists inside the district it is not necessary to give them the same amount of money as if that school did not exist. Therefore in calculating the amount the existence of that school is taken into consideration. The share of the residue is proportioned to the number of day scholars, whilst the Board's grant is to go to the schools in proportion to what they earn. The difference, shortly stated, is that under the present scheme the fixed grants are so calculated as to leave a large sum to go to residue, but under the new scheme the fixed sum will be the larger one and there will be very little residue so far as one can see. Those are the principles upon which the scheme is based.
There is not, I think, any suggestion that, Penarth, qua Penarth, has been unfairly treated. It so happens that Penarth
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will not get so much money as it has in the past, but it has not been from any desire to pick out one particular school. It is merely because the new principles of administration happen to affect the school in which the noble Earl opposite is interested, and to which, if I am rightly informed, he has been a very generous donor. Penarth will get £1,000 as a fixed grant in the future, so that there will be no loss in education grant; but, there will be, as the noble Earl stated, a loss, in the first place, in the residue grant—of £460 according to the governors, though the Board of Education prefer to put it at £400; and, in the second place, in the secondary school grants, of which, however, the noble Earl did not complain. Therefore the real point at issue is the loss in the residue grants by the Penarth school of about £100 a. year. The point is this, that in this county and I think in most counties the amount of money available is not nearly sufficient for the needs of most of the districts, and the proper course is to apportion the funds as far as they will go amongst the schools on some well-known equitable basis, and, in so far as these funds are inadequate, for the local education committee to afford additional assistance under Part II of the Act of 1902. Your Lordships know that there are three bases which might be used for apportioning this money—either on population, on rateable value, or on average attendance. The joint education committee on the whole have come to the decision that the basis of the apportionment should he that of population, though they modify it in those cases where a secondary school is already in the district.
THE EARL, OF PLYMOUTH: I hope the noble Earl will pardon my interrupting him, but I do so in order to make a correction. I misread the figures that were given to me and stated that Penarth district had a population of 58,000. I was wrong. The figure is 38,000.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: The point really at issue between us is one of principle, as to whether population is the correct basis or not On a population basis Penarth would only be entitled to a fixed grant of £855, and that would have been reduced to £800 because of the existence of one of these secondary schools to which I have referred, but they are going to receive a fixed grant, of £1,000. That, I think, is common ground between us. In spite of

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that, the fact remains that they will no doubt lose an amount of £400; but I think it is important that we should lay stress on the fact, referred to by the noble Lord on the Cross Benches, that the Penarth governors have been so fortunate as to get together a considerable balance at the bank in spite of the fact that they pay somewhat higher salaries than are generally paid in the district. If in the scheme as it exists any body of governors have been able to get together a considerable balance at their bank and there is great need for that money by other school authorities doing just as good work, does it not seem prima facie desirable that the scheme should be revised in such a way as to make that money available for other districts as well as for Penarth? There is only a fixed sum available, and this basis of population is believed by the joint education committee, by the county council, and also by the Board of Education not to be an unfair basis. I would venture to say that any other scheme would be open to objections from other schools which would got a reduced amount. That, I think, is quite obvious.
There is urgent need that this scheme should go through now. It has been under discussion for something like eighteen months. There are a number of schools waiting to be opened at the present. tune—I think a site for a new school has been generously given by the noble Lord on the Cross Benches—and waiting for this scheme, and in these circumstances I venture to think that your Lordships will feel that this is one of the cases in which we ought to trust the local authority. Power was given to the local authorities that they should be able to deal with matters of this kind, upon which I venture to say it is very difficult for your Lordships in the course of a debate like this to come to any very definite conclusion. We are really bound to trust the local authority, and in view of the attitude which they have taken up in this scheme I venture to hope that your Lordships will not agree to the Address for which the noble Earl has moved.
Tim EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, if I venture to intrude in this discussion it is only because I have had some experience of these Motions, and I do not remember ever to have heard one which was based upon an examination of details which your Lordships have no opportunity of
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determining one way or the other. My impression is that it has always been on some question of principle. It has been supposed that some injustice has been done or something contrary to the rights of some part of the community, but that your Lordships could vote to-night upon this matter without some examination of the facts is, I think, almost impossible to suppose. Anything that my noble friend who brought forward this Motion said of his own knowledge I would accept implicitly. He has been one of the most beneficent and useful persons in the county of which he is an ornament, and anything he said of his own knowledge I would, as I have said, accept implicitly. But how are your Lordships to consider the several values of the different figures that have been put before us ! I do not suppose anybody could do it. Nor do I think it would be a useful employment for your Lordships to enter into the quest ion whether Penarth or any adjoining district is more or less entitled to this or that surplus fund. I interpose partly on account of the precedent which I think an examination of this sort would create and partly because I know something of the district of Penarth and Cardiff, and I know that if this scheme were wrecked it would cause considerable disappointment on both sides of politics without reference to any religious difference whatever. In these circumstances I hope your Lordships will not assent to the Motion.
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH: My Lords, after what my noble and learned friend has said you will be prepared to hear that I do not propose to press my Motion. But I should like, on the question of fact, to refer to what Lord Aberdare said about the £3,000 which Penarth has somewhere locked up in its coffers. I believe the fact is that the building of the science part of tire school, which cost £,500, enabled the Penarth school to earn a. larger grant, and the governors in consequence reduced the fees of the scholars and increased the salaries of the teachers, and they, I believe, put by for the two years or whatever it was the increased amount of grant which I admit they earned at that time over and above what they were entitled to. I only wish to make that observation with reference to what the noble Earl on the Front Government Bench said. I do not propose to press the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

THE LAND INQUIRY.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE rose to ask the Lord Chancellor whether he will explain to the House the apparent discrepancy between—

1. The statement made by him in this House on the 2nd instant to the effect that the secret inquiry now in progress with regard to the land question "was being made by Mr. Lloyd George"; and

2. The statement made on the same evening by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons to the effect that certain persons who have lately issued notices in connection with the said inquiry "have no right whatever" to describe it as instituted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The noble Marquess said: My Lords, the Question which I propose to address to the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack requires only a few words of preface. I ventured to say the other night that we found it extremely difficult to obtain a coherent account of the origin and nature of what is now commonly known as the Secret Land Inquiry, and the more accounts and explanations we receive the more incoherent the story seems to become. I hope that this evening we shall obtain a somewhat clearer statement of what I might describe as the paternity of this inquiry. I should like the noble Viscount, if I may say so, to make an affiliation order against somebody. We have had a number of different statements bearing upon this question. I referred the other evening to one made over the signature of a Mr. Reiss, who dates his letter from the offices of the Land Inquiry Committee in this neighbourhood, and who describes himself as the head organiser of the rural inquiry. Mr. Reiss wrote to a friend of mine, by whom this letter was communicated to me, as follows—
"You may have heard of the informal inquiry which has been instituted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to bring up to date published information regarding social and economic conditions in rural England."
And then he announces that he has been appointed investigator for the particular district. I have here another letter written this time by a Scottish representative of the Committee. This gentleman begins by saying that he is writing "at great speed for the Government" a special report on the land and housing conditions of Scotland. He says that he believes there are cases where there are premises situated upon
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bare rocks and let at extravagant rents; he suggests that photographs of these places would be extremely desirable, and he goes on to say that he himself is prepared to find the necessary funds for obtaining the photographs in question. He states that they will be extremely useful for the purpose of impressing the Government. He adds that "the information will be treated as confidential." That means, I presume, that if it is adverse to some particular person that person will not have an opportunity of replying to it. He further says—
"It is a unique opportunity of driving it home."
Then we had the other evening the statement of the noble and learned Viscount himself. The noble and learned Viscount used this language. He said the inquiry was being made by Mr. Lloyd George, and he added a sentiment, which I think will receive general approval by your Lordships, to the effect that no Minister may divest himself of his official capacity. That is really fit for inscription in the copy-books, if there be such things, of public Departments. Then the noble and learned Viscount went on
"But so far as it can be done the inquiry is unofficial."
Those are really, if I may say so, rather cryptic utterances, and leave us with the feeling that no knot can be discovered tight enough to hold a Proteus who changes his shape as often as His Majesty's Government.
But while we were discussing this matter in your Lordships' House it was also being discussed in the House of Commons, and I desire to call your Lordships' attention to what passed in that House. The Prime Minister was asked by Mr. Long whether the persons who issued these circulars were at liberty to profess to be acting on behalf of the Government or any member of the Government. He also asked whether the nonofficial character of the secret inquiry had been brought to the notice of all the persons conducting such an inquiry. Mr. Asquith replied—
"The non-official character of the inquiry has been repeatedly insisted on by me in answer to Questions, and I cannot doubt that it has been brought to the notice of all persons concerned."
It certainly was not brought to the notice of the gentlemen to whom Mr. Reiss and this other agent of the Committee addressed their communications. There was nothing whatever in those communications to suggest the idea that the inquiry was an unofficial inquiry. Then the Prime Minister

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said that the answer to the second part of the Question—whether these persons were at liberty to profess to be acting on behalf of His Majesty's Government—was in the negative. The Prime Minister stated categorically that they were not so entitled. These papers in our possession show that they did profess, in the plainest possible English, that they were acting on behalf of I is Majesty's Government.
Mr. Long, however, returned to the charge and asked t he Prime Minister again whether he was aware that the authors of these notices preface their statement by a paragraph asking whether the people to whom they wrote were aware of the inquiry "which has been instituted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer." What was the Prime Minister's answer? He said—
"They have no right whatever to do so,"
And that statement was received with cheers. This is from the report in The Times newspaper. I say that, these conflicting statements leave the whole matter in a situation of great obscurity, but the obscurity is increased by a very remarkable discrepancy between the report of this conversation published in The Times and the report published in the official Hansard. It is a somewhat remarkable thing that in the Hansard report the Prime Minister's reply which I quoted, that they have no right whatever to make these statements, disappears altogether—it disappears, cheers and all. There is no trace of it. And what is equally remarkable, perhaps, is that another statement by the Prime Which in the newspaper report was described as being "inaudible in the Press Gallery," is reported in extenso in Hansard. It did not amount to much, because what the Prime Minister said was—
"I do not think I can do more than make this public intimation in the House."
But you have this somewhat remarkable thing—that the reply which was audible and cheered by the House does not appear on the official record, and the reply which was inaudible does appear. In all other respects the two reports agree textually.
I venture to hope that the noble and learned Viscount will put an end to our doubts, and tell us exactly where we stand with regard to this inquiry, because the thing is going ahead very fast., these catechisms are being circulated broadcast over the country, and those who receive
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them really do not know whether they are being appealed to on behalf of the Government to give information for official use with the expectation of its being properly sifted, or whether it is a kind of amateur investigation without more than the general good-will of the Government behind it. I hope the noble and learned Viscount will not, endeavour to convince us that there is a difference between an inquiry instituted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and an inquiry, as he put it, made by Mr. Lloyd George. If he does, I think we shall have to remind him of that wise dictum which I quoted a moment ago, for which he is responsible, that no Minister can divest himself of his official capacity.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR. (VISCOUNT HALDANE): My Lords, I cannot share the feeling of the noble Marquess that this topic is wrapped up in a cloud of obscurity. On the contrary, I think the answers which have been given by the Prime Minister to which I will in a moment call attention have made the matter as clear as it can be. Mr. Lloyd George desired to obtain copious information about the land question. He desired to obtain it because he thought that this was a most important topic. Apparently in that he found himself at one with many distinguished noble Lords who belong to the other side of politics, because more than one inquiry of this kind is going on with great vigour at the present time. I do not pursue that topic further, and certainly it is not in any spirit of reproach that I have alluded to the activities of noble Lords on the Opposition side of the House.
But what have we here? Mr. Lloyd George desired, first of all, to obtain as much information as he could. He desired to obtain that information in order to see what there was which appeared prima facie to be wrong in our existing arrangements with regard to land and what possibilities there were of dealing with the matter from the point of view of land reform. For that purpose he had to get a great deal of information which he did not possess, and which I do not know how he could have got except by inquiry. To have appointed a Royal Commission for this purpose would have been to put matters off for a long time. What he wanted was nothing going so far as a Royal Commission would have gone. He simply wanted to get as much information

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as possible on which he might form some opinion, and with that view he asked a very well-known man, Mr. Arthur Acland, who is keenly interested in this subject, to undertake the superintendence of an inquiry. Mr. Lloyd George does not undertake the details of the inquiry. The inquiry is conducted by Mr. Arthur Acland, with a committee—I am not sure that he has not more than one committee—who are endeavouring to obtain this information. When it is obtained it will be submitted to Mr. Lloyd George. At this stage I have not seen any information which has been obi wined; nor, I believe, has any member of the Government, not even Mr. Lloyd George. Nor should we he bound by it. It is not official information, nor is it obtained in any way for the purpose of committing the Government. What we want to get is the same kind of response to inquiry which is being sought elsewhere in order to inform our minds.
In this condition of things the inquiry is being conducted, as I said the other day, quite unofficially. No Government servants and no public funds are being employed. Mr. Arthur Acland and his Committee are getting together such information as they can. I dare say a good deal of the information may turn out, when sifted, to be untrue—that is the inevitable consequences of all such inquiries—but, on the other hand, we shall have possibly a certain amount of information which will enable us to direct our attention to the points which are necessary to be considered. I know of nothing obscure about such a transaction—of no cloud of mystery in which it is involved. I said the other clay, and I say again, that no Minister can wholly divest himself of an official capacity. Mr. Lloyd George is inquiring, not for the purpose of committing his colleagues nor for the purpose of even committing himself, but simply because he thinks there is a question requiring investigation on which action may be taken later.
The noble Marquess suggests that there is some discrepancy between what I said to your Lordships the other day and the view taken of this matter in the other House by the Prime Minister. I would remind the noble Marquess that the answer of the Prime Minister to which he referred is perfectly consistent with what I said. And that was not the only answer that the Prime Minister has given on this
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subject. He has answered innumerable Questions on this topic. On July S he replied—
"My right hon. friend has with my approval approached certain gentlemen, among whom are Members and ex-Members of the House, with a view to securing their services on an unofficial committee which has been formed for the purpose of investigating the question of land reform. The Government and not the committee will be responsible for any proposal that may ultimately be made, and will naturally obtain all such information as they conceive to be necessary before coming to any conclusion on the subject. I am not prepared to make any statement as to the intentions of the Government."
The Prime Minister, further questioned, said—
"The committee is a purely unofficial and informal body. It will be presided over by my right hon. friend Mr. Arthur Acland. I see no reason why the names of the members should he published at present. Should their report lie eventually laid before Parliament full information will, of course, be given. It will rest with the committee to decide what method of investigation will be pursued,"
And then there was the other occasion to which the noble Marquess referred. The Prime Minister then said—
"The non-official character of the inquiry has been repeatedly., insisted on by me in answer to Questions, and I cannot doubt that it has been brought to the notice of all persons concerned."
Further questioned the Prime Minister said that the persons who were putting the questions were not there in an official capacity to put these questions, and he added that he did not think he could do more than make this public intimation in the House. That is the history of the whole matter. If there is any other information which your Lordships would like and which I can give I shall do my best to place it at your disposal; but I fail to see that there is anything mysterious or obscure in the transaction.
THE EARL or CAMPERDOWTN: My Lords, there is one piece of information which I, and probably other members of your Lordships' House, would like to have, and it is this. Has Mr. Lloyd George a double capacity—an official and also an unofficial capacity? Is he a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? if so, it would be interesting to know when he is speaking in the one capacity and when in the other. Further, I should like to ask whether there has ever been an instance in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or other member of the Cabinet, has started an inquiry of this kind in a so-called unofficial manner. Your Lordships

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can hardly imagine, I should suppose, that Mr. Gladstone, for instance, would have permitted any member of his Cabinet to start an inquiry into a matter so important in an informal manner.
LORD RIBBLESDALE: My Lords, the question on which I should like information arises out of what we have heard from the Lord Chancellor. He told us at the beginning of his remarks that as he understood the matter, on which there was supposed to be no obscurity, Mr. Lloyd George desired to obtain as much information as he could from certain persons, who were to be asked to furnish evidence by somebody else, so that he could get a prima facie view whether there was anything wrong in our land system. The question I should like to ask is this. Was lie at all anxious to hear, or was he prepared to hear, a prima facie case that there was anything right in our land system? Were all these people invited because it was perfectly well known that anything they would have to say would furnish Mr. Lloyd George with a prima facie case that there was a great deal that was wrongs If the Lord Chancellor could tell us that the object of the inquiry was to bring out anything that was right in the land system as well us anything that was wrong, a good deal of my misgivings in regard to the inquiry would be removed. But it is perfectly well known that this unofficial inquiry was set on foot for the purpose of forging weapons, as it were, to be used against the present land system.
THE MARQIESS OF LANSDOWNE: I quite understand that His Majesty's Government, and his Majesty's Government alone, can be responsible for any legislation founded upon the results of this inquiry. The object of my Question was to ascertain what responsibility His Majesty's Government accepted for the methods pursued in collecting this; information. That is one point. The other is this. Ant I to gather front the statement of the noble and. learned Viscount that His Majesty's Government adhere to the view expressed by the Prime Minister in the passage which appears in the unexpurgated edition of the report, to the effect that the persons who issued notices and circulars have no right whatever to represent themselves as making the inquiries on behalf of the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I certainly adhere to the view that these gentlemen have no right to represent themselves as making inquiries on behalf of the Government or on behalf of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his official position. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has delegated the conduct of the inquiry to Mr. Arthur Acland, and it is to him and his Committee that the inquirers are responsible. They certainly in no way represent the Government, nor have they any right to state that their questions are put on behalf of the Government. I do not see why Lord Ribblesdale should say that everybody understands that the object of the inquiry is to find out only the bad side of the land system and not the good side. Mr. Arthur Acland, who has been a distinguished Cabinet Minister, is a man of the very highest standing and fairness of mind, as well as one who is largely connected with the ownership of land, his family being among the greatest landowners in the West of England, and he would not have touched the inquiry except with the view of getting at the truth. My noble friend may dismiss front his mind the idea that the inquiry is of a partisan nature, directed to bringing out the case against with no reference to the other side.
LORD RIBBLESDALE: I was quoting the Lord Chancellor's own words. He said Mr. Lloyd George desired to obtain information in order to see what there was which appeared prima facie to be wrong in our existing laud system.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Either I am or the noble Lord is very obtuse. I should have thought those words quite free from ambiguity. I1 that is the only source for the suspicion of my noble friend then I am much relieved, As to the question whether Mr. Lloyd (barge has a dual capacity, I have already said that it is impossible for a Minister wholly to divest himself of his official capacity. Mr. Lloyd George is making the inquiry of his own motion and on his own account, but with the full knowledge of the Prime Minister, and, of course, it is impossible for any one occupying the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer, though he may be inquiring for himself and in an altogether unofficial fashion, to divest himself of the responsibility which attaches to the fact that he holds a high official position. I have stated the nature of the inquiry, and I leave it to the judgment of

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noble Lords who have heard the facts which I have given to draw their own inference as to what is the proper technical language in which to describe it.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, I am an unfortunate recipient of one of these communications, and I am still in a sea of doubt as to whether I ought to reply to it for the benefit of His Majesty's Government or merely for the private information of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The noble and learned Viscount surely realises that all of us who have estates may be most willing to give to the Government under ordinary conditions any information in our power with regard to the condition of rural England; but to ask us on behalf of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, as the noble and learned Viscount said, cannot wholly divest himself of his official capacity, to reply to a large number of questions in the course of an inquiry which is not a Government inquiry, which apparently is not under the control of the Government though actually to be put to any use which the Government may desire, is really an entirely novel state of things and one which would form a most dangerous precedent. I do not know whether the noble Viscount is willing to give us a little more information than has been vouchsafed in another place. If this inquiry is not being held with Government money, how is it being held? Is the inquiry being held with the aid of private subscriptions I If so, are those subscriptions being solicited by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the purposes of an inquiry which is afterwards to be made use of by the Government, if necessary, on which to found legislation? Such a position seems to me an extraordinary one for a Minister of the Crown to take up. My noble friend Lord Camper-down suggested that Mr. Lloyd George was acting in a dual capacity. Of that I think there is no question whatever. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, as Dr. Jekyll, issued an edict to Mr. Arthur Acland to inquire into this matter. Then in the House of Commons we are assured that these gentlemen have issued these documents to us without any authority, and that what we may have heard of the "informal inquiry instituted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer." is without authority; and when we ask the noble and learned Viscount he is unable to enlighten us as
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to whether it is Dr. Jekyll in the open or Mr. Hyde, under which Mr. Lloyd George hides himself apparently when this ceases to be an official inquiry. I hope the Government will either take the responsibility on their own shoulders, which they have not done hitherto, and promise that this information shall be given to Parliament, or insist that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should withdraw from the entirely impossible position in which he has placed himself, a position which I venture to say is without any precedent. The whole of the rural population will regard with suspicion the result of an inquiry in regard to winch two leading members of the Government on the same day in different Houses of Parliament give wholly different accounts.

THE CROFTERS COMMISSION.
THE EARL of CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, I desire to ask when the Report of the Crofters Commission for 1911 will be presented to Parliament. On May 15 last I was informed that this Report was in a forward state of preparation. On October 7 I was told that it was waiting for signature. It is true that the Report of the Congested Districts Board was at last laid on the Table, but up to the present the Report of the Crofters Commission has not been presented.
LORD WILLINGDON: My Lords, I have first to express the regret of the Scottish Office that this Report has not yet been presented, but I hope I shall be able to give the noble Earl two fairly satisfactory reasons for the delay. In the first place, the Report includes the first three months of the current year, making fifteen months instead of twelve, owing to the fact that the Crofters Commission came to an end on March 31 last. But the main reason for the delay arises from the fact that the whole of the staff of the Crofters Commission has been taken over by the Scottish Land Court, and there has necessarily been a great deal of heavy work in the construction and organisation of that Court. I am glad, however, to inform the noble Earl that the Report is in type, and the Scottish Office hope that it will be presented at the end of this month.
House adjourned at a quarter past Six o'clock, to Monday next, Twelve o'clock.