Lords Sitting of 23 July 1914

PACK-BERESFORD'S DIVORCE BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read: Counsel called in: Witnesses examined: Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª agreed to: Bill read 2ª accordingly and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

BARONIES OF FERRERS, BOURCHIER AND COMPTON.
Report from the Committee for Privileges; read, and agreed to.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 19).
Also the Certificate that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:
Sheffield Corporation.
The same were ordered to lie on the Table.

PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
(UNOPPOSED ORDERS).
ST. ANNE'S-ON-THE-SEA IMPROVEMENT BILL.
Committee to meet on Tuesday next.
SHEFFIELD CORPORATION BILL.
  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL.
  Moved, That the Order made on the 25th day of May last, "That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall he read a second time after the 25th day of June next," be dispensed with, and that the Bills be now read 2ª agreed to: Bills read 2ª accordingly.
MIDDLESBROUGH CORPORATION BILL.
Read 3ª, with the Amendments: Further Amendments made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
SOUTH SUBURBAN GAS BILL.
Read 3ª, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
LEYLAND GAS BILL.
Read 3ª, with the Amendments: Further Amendments made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.
SHEFFIELD CORPORATION BILL.
Committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL.
Committed for Tuesday next.
MALL APPROACH IMPROVEMENT BILL.
  OXFORD AND DISTRICT TRAMWAYS BILL.
  Brought from the Commons, read 1ª, and referred to the Examiners.
ELLESMERE PORT AND WHITBY URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments.
WHITWELL AND DISTRICT GAS BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered, and agreed to.
EXPORTATION OF HORSES BILL.
To be read 2ª on Thursday next (The Lord Leigh).
CRIMINAL JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION BILL.
To be read 2ª on Wednesday next (The Lord Chancellor.)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 3) BILL.
Moved, That the Order made on the 25th day of May last, "That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after the 25th day of June next" be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2ª agreed to: Bill read 2ª accordingly and committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment, and to be read 3ª on Monday next.

ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 5) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): The Amendments proposed by the Committee made: The Report of Amendments to be received on Monday next.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS NO. 6) BILL.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 9) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bills reported without amendment and to be read 3ª on Monday next.

GAS PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 10) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): The Amendments proposed by the Committee made: The Report of Amendments to be received on Monday next.

GAS PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): The Amendment proposed by the Committee made: The Report of Amendment to be received on Monday next.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER. (No. 3) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (NO. 22) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bills reported without amendment, and to be read 3ª on Monday next.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 12) BILL.
Read 3ª (according to Order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

GOVERNMENT OF THE SOUDAN LOAN BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD STRACHIE): My Lords, I will explain the reason why it has been necessary to come to your Lordships' House again as regards the Soudan Loan This Bill makes no alteration in the principle of the Act which was passed last year with the general assent of this House and with the support of the great authority of Lord Cromer, who we all regret is not able to be with us this evening. The alteration which this Bill makes is entirely with regard to the schedule of the Act of last year—that is to say, in regard to the allocation of the money. For instance, instead of £1,000,000 being applied for the purpose of irrigating the Gezireh Plain, that amount has been doubled, a further £1,000,000 being allotted to it. Then as regards railway extension, the amount has been decreased from £1,600,000 to £800,000; and the amounts under (ii) and (iii), together with the amount for contingencies, in the schedule of the Act of 1903—the three amounts totalling £400,000—have been reduced to £200,000. The object of reducing these amounts has been that there should be no change in the amount asked for, but only in the allocation of the money.
This is not a loan to the Soudan. But the Treasury, as your Lordships will remember, have power under the Act to guarantee the interest on the Loan so that the Soudan Government may be able to raise it at a lower rate of interest than would be the case were there no Imperial guarantee. The reason for this alteration in the allocation of the money arises front the fact that Lord Kitchener appointed a Committee of technical experts to inquire into the cost of the construction of the dam for irrigating the large area of land between the Blue Nile and the White Nile. The original estimate which we had last year was £1,000,000, but that had been made on only a tentative survey. It was impossible until there had been an investigation on the spot to say what the cost actually would be. After very careful inspection by this technical body appointed by Lord Kitchener, it was considered that a further £1,000,000 was necessary for the scheme in order that the 4,500 square miles of land

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might be irrigated. Up till the time of this investigation no accurate estimate was obtainable of the necessary expenditure. The expert Committee reported that it was necessary that there should be a dry dam built, and in order to do that it is necessary to drain that part of the river and lay it bare so that the foundations may be laid. Consequently this additional expenditure is necessary.
Although there will be this increased expenditure on the dam Lord Kitchener is of opinion that the net result will be a very large increase in the revenues of the Soudan. He estimates that there will be something like 10,000 tons of cotton raised from this area after irrigation, and that the increase in revenue thereby will amount approximately to £250,000 a year. This additional expenditure will also make the irrigation of a much larger area possible at a later time. I think this will show that it is a wise step on the part of Lord Kitchener to ask for a revision of the schedule in the Act of last year in order that an extra £1,000,000 may be spent on the dam instead of being spent on railway extension and contingencies. I hope that, after this short statement, your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading and that it may have a speedy progress through this House. It is of the utmost importance that the Bill should become law as soon as possible in order that the estimates may be put out, as the only period during which this dam can be constructed is between the months of November and May.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Strachie.)
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday next.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (DEFECTIVE AND EPILEPTIC CHILDREN) BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL BEAUCHAMP): My Lords, this is a small measure which is in sequence to the Mental Deficiency Act of last year. Your Lordships may remember that that Act made provision for the care of all
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mentally defective persons, except children who were illegitimate. It was considered that those children should remain under the supervision of the local education authority and not be transferred to the care of the Board of Control. Local education authorities have at present power to educate children of this kind in special schools or classes certified by the Board of Education, and the principal object of this Bill is to convert that power into a duty. The Bill, however, contains various provisions to relieve the local education authority from any excessive financial burden in connection with the performance of this duty, and there are also clauses which deal with the rights of parents. There are three clauses in the Bill—Clauses 5, 6, and 8—which deal not only with mentally deficient children but also with epileptics.
Perhaps it would be convenient to your Lordships if I dealt with the various clauses seriatim. The first clause imposes on the local education authority the duty to educate mentally defective children over the age of seven, but your Lordships will see that there are three provisos which make important limitations. The local education authority need not educate a child in a boarding school if suitable provision can be made in some other way, as, for instance, in a day school. The second limitation is that they need not educate a child in a boarding school unless Parliament provides half the money, including half the loan charges. The third limitation is that they need not establish a boarding school unless there are 45 children in their area for whom boarding school accommodation is required. Clause 2 provides that if the number of children in the day school falls below 15 the authority may discontinue the school and make some alternative provision for the children. Clause 3 provides that the authorities must consult the parents and give effect to their wishes as far as possible in determining how the child should be educated; and on the question of religious instruction Section 8 of the Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf) Act, 1883, makes provision for observing the wishes of the parent. Subsection (2) of Clause 3 is practically directed against the erection of unnecessary schools. The authority is not to build a school of this kind if it can get what it requires in schools provided by other authorities or by private individuals.

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Clause 4 allows, in cases where the area is too small for many children to need provision, the local education authority to hand over these powers to another authority so that they may provide for their own children and those of the smaller authority at the same time. Clause 5 makes a distinction between day schools and boarding schools. A parent who is not- providing education for his mentally defective child may be required to send the child to any day school which is within reach. The child, however, cannot be taken away from its parent and sent to a boarding school unless the parent consents or the consent of the parent, is unreasonably withheld, and it is provided that the parent, shall not be held as behaving unreasonably if his object in refusing to consent is really to benefit the child; so that the only case in which the child could possibly be removed from the care of the parent would be in those cases where the parent was not consulting the best interests of the child.
Clause 6 is due to representations which were made to the Board of Education that the head teacher is very often able to give valuable advice as to the future treatment of the child. The clause provides that the head teacher is to be consulted upon the condition of the child and the best way of educating him. Clause 7 provides that when a certificate has been granted it is not to be brought up against the child in after life; it prevents hint from being prejudiced thereby. Finally, Clause 8 provides which authority shall be responsible for the education of a child which moves about from place to place. In Committee I may have two small Amendments to move, but I do not anticipate that there will be any difficulty in securing the general assent of your Lordships to this Bill.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Earl Beauchamp.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, we are obliged to the noble Earl for the lucid account which he has given of the provisions of this Bill, all the more so because your Lordships have had very little time in which to consider it. The Bill was only presented to your Lordships' House the day before yesterday, and we are already engaged upon the Second Reading. I do not make any complaint, because I know that at this period of the session it
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is not very easy to give prolonged time for the consideration of a Bill, and if there is to be time given it is better that it should be between the Second Reading and the Committee stage than between the First Reading and the Second Reading. At the same time, this is one further illustration of the great difficult which your Lordships rest under as being the Revising Chamber. I believe that is what we are now looked upon as, yet we are given very little time in which to do our revision work.
The noble Earl, feeling no doubt the difficulty of the situation in which he stood, availed himself of the well-known defence that, after all, the Bill is only a little one. I am afraid I cannot quite share his; view that the Bill is of such small importance. It is an important. Bill, important because it deals with a very important subject and because it is in some of its clauses one further invasion of the liberty of individuals, which may be necessary but ought always to be approached by both Houses of Parliament with the greatest care. I think we should have been interested had the noble Earl given us in greater detail some account of the working of the Act of 1899, because, as he has told your Lordships, there is an Act already in operation, an enabling Act, enabling local education authorities to establish these schools if they think fit. The noble Earl did not tell your Lordships in how many cases this has been availed of, and what the result, has been. As a matter of fact, one or two great centres have availed themselves of the Act of 1899 almost, to the full extent of the necessities of the case. I believe both London and. Glasgow have done so, and it would have been very interesting for your Lordships to have been told what the number of defective children was, what cost had been thrown on the authorities in providing for them, and what results had followed from their activity. All that would have been very valuable as material for your Lordships to consider before this Bill is carried into law.
Though the two great centres I have named have used the Act of 1899 to its full extent, other great cities have not done so. I will not say that no others have, because I do not possess the information; but certainly a great many others

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have not fulfilled the hopes which were entertained when that Act was passed into law. I think the Government should have made out a case for compelling local education authorities who have not used the enabling Act to do their duty. I do not know in how many cases that would have been necessary, but I think the case could have been made out. But the Government, who love compulsion, as hardly any Bill is submitted to your Lord ships by the present Government which is not a compulsory Bill, are not only going to compel the local education authorities but they are going to compel the parents. I admit that in its passage through the House of Commons this provision in the Bill was largely safeguarded by the action mainly, I think, of the Opposition. I say that it was mainly by the action of the Opposition that the provisions throwing compulsion on the parents were safeguarded, because I think very little help was given by the Labour Members. The Labour Members, like the Government, are all for compulsion. The people who really look after the liberty of the poor are to be found on the despised Tory Benches. The Liberal and Labour Members do not care for the liberty of the poor at all, and it is to be remembered that this Bill only affects the poor.
I do not say that the Government cannot make out a case—I hope the noble Earl will make out a case at a future stage—for putting this compulsion on the poor. But I wonder why the Government do not try a voluntary Act first. Why should they not have compelled the local education authorities, who, I agree, need compelling, to provide the schools, and then see whether the parents would not have availed themselves of them. Why should not the parents have been quite willing to send their defective children to be educated at these special schools? I see no reason to think that the great majority of them would not have done so, and where the minority did not do so I see no reason to believe that they would not have very good ground for their refusal. At any rate I am surprised that as a first step the Government did not leave out the Compulsory clause so far as parents are concerned. But that has not been done. We hope that at a later stage of the Bill the noble Earl will tell us upon what evidence the Government have acted in
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declining to make this Bill a purely voluntary one so far as parents are concerned.
I make these few criticisms as regards what the Bill contains, but before I sit down I should like to make one criticism as to what the Bill does not contain. The Government have confined this Bill to mentally defective children. Why have they not addressed themselves to the much more urgent problem of physically defective children? That is a much mow urgent problem, because the education of physically defective children—I refer to those who are blind or deaf or similarly physically defective—is likely to be much more useful than the education of mentally deficient children. Such physically defective children are in the full possession of their mental faculties and are quite as capable of learning and of being educated to earn their own living as any individual fully equipped with all the senses and physical capacities, but because they are physically defective they will hereafter he placed in a very unfortunate position in earning their own livelihood. It is therefore of great importance that they should be taught. As I say, they are quite its susceptible of a full education as any other child is, and I regret very much that that part of the subject has not been approached.
I should like to know why the Government have not included physically defective children in the Bill. It is not as if they did not know how many physically defective children there are, because in the two great centres to which I have referred—London and Glasgow—where the problem has really been attacked and where the physically defective children have been dealt with equally with the mentally defective children the necessary statistics have been collected; and as we may assume that the case of London is typical of the whole, there is no reason to suppose that we cannot ascertain the proportions of physically defective children to the whole population of the country from looking at the statistics of London. Therefore the figures as to the number of these children were at the Government's command and also the figures as to the cost of educating them, because all that has been worked out in London, and it is perfectly well known how much it costs on an average to educate a physically defective child and a mentally defective child. The education of physically

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defective children is more expensive, I know, but the difference in cost is not at all prohibitive; it is comparatively small. I should have been much happier had the Government made their Bill a little less drastic in respect of compulsion and a little fuller in respect of the scope of its operations. It would then have been, I think, a sounder Bill. However, so far as it goes, with the slight criticism which I have made upon it, undoubtedly the Bill will be a valuable measure, and I shall he glad to see something of the kind placed upon the Statute Book, and shall, of course, not oppose the reading of the Bill a second time.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Wednesday next.

AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS BILL.
Read 3ª (according to Order), and passed.

STREET COLLECTIONS.
LORD NEWTON LORD NEWTON rose to ask whether the attention of the Home Office has been drawn to recent convictions of street collectors in London, and to complaints made by various Police Court magistrates with regard to the system under which street collections are at present permitted; and whether it is in the power of the Chief Commissioner of Police to put a stop to the practice complained of.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think it will be generally admitted that the practice of street collecting has increased enormously in recent years, and that it is a practice which it is practically impossible to prohibit. In fact, it would be no use trying to do anything of the kind. It is now the custom of all civilised nations to set apart certain days in the year for charitable orgies. In Paris, for instance, on New Year's Day everybody is allowed to beg without interference from the Police, and that practice is followed elsewhere. Here in this country—it has developed considerably of recent years—we have what I may term our own "charitable saturnalia," and in accordance with the sensational and advertising spirit of the age, persons, chiefly of the female sex, dress themselves up in more or less becoming costumes and solicit alms from the opposite sex iii public places. This may be permissible on certain occasions, although
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the practice of encouraging prepossessing-looking females to solicit subscriptions from unknown men seems a somewhat hazardous enterprise.
But as a matter of fact the streets are now permanently occupied with bands of people rattling money-boxes in order to excite the generosity of passers-by, and they are frequently reinforced by symbolical representations, such as stuffed cats, or canaries, or objects of that kind, which are supposed to indicate the nature of the object for which the charity is required. As far as I understand, permits for this sort of thing are no longer required. Anybody can beg for any mortal thing that he or she likes provided it is done in a stationary manner and an obstruction is not caused by moving about. There is not the smallest guarantee, so far as I am aware, that the object is a genuine one, and if you were to examine many of these collectors they would probably find it exceedingly difficult to give any intelligible explanation of the organisation which he or she was purporting to serve. Many of these pseudo-philanthropists are paid; in many eases they receive as much as 25 per cent. of their collections, and in reality they are nothing but box-shaking parasites. Some of them are obvious and palpable frauds, because among the collectors may be observed boys dressed up as Boy Scouts, when we know that by the rules of that organisation members are strictly forbidden to take part in any acts of this kind.
If any noble Lord wishes to study what goes on I recommend him to an article which appeared in the Observer on May 17, and to a paper which was contributed to the Charity Organisation Society by Mr. Price. My noble friend Lord Sanderson is a high official of that well-known organisation, and I have no doubt he will have something to say on the subject later. But I wish to call attention to some observations that have been made by Police magistrates on this matter. On January 10 this year at Marlborough-street Police Court a young man was summoned for pushing a collecting box in people's faces, and he described himself as collecting for a society for feeding poor children and providing seaside holidays. The address of the society could not be discovered, but a balance sheet was produced and it was shown that this collector's

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expenses were no less than £89,he himself getting 3d. in the shilling on what he collected. The magistrate, in fining the man 10 s., said that the defendant's operations were "a great scandal and a very great nuisance, and it was to be regretted that such a state of things should be allowed in the streets."
Then on April 19 this year two women were summoned at the same Police Court for soliciting subscriptions in connection with a fresh air fund, which, by the way, had nothing to do with the well-known Pearson's Fresh Air Fund. The magistrate, in fining these women for obstruction, observed that the present laxity was "a scandal." He said that those who were responsible should take care that the public who contributed should not be misled, and he thought that the collectors should carry a printed placard stating that they received 25 per cent. of what they collected. Then there was the case of a woman, on April 28 of this year, who was also collecting for a fresh air fund, and it appeared that this woman also received 25 per cent. of the amount collected. The magistrate, Mr. Denman, said he thought it was begging when a person collected money in this way and received a quarter of the amount collected. He had a strong suspicion that it was not a bona fide concern, and sentenced the defendant to one day's imprisonment. I might quote numerous other instances, and I might state that this question has been brought up at the Westminster Borough Council, but I think the quotations I have read are sufficient for the purpose.
In the collecting of money there are two methods in vogue. One is the old-fashioned method of appealing to reason, and that is the method which is employed by my noble friend Lord Curzon, whom I should like to congratulate on being the most successful collector of money with whom I am acquainted. There is nothing whatever sensational about my noble friend's methods. He writes to people in a perfectly straightforward way, sometimes at considerable length, and advances admirable reasons why the particular object which he is recommending should be supported. He is not content with a refusal, but perseveres until in almost every case he gets his way.
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: Not with you.
LORD NEWTON: My noble friend is more ungrateful than I should have expected, because I have unwillingly contributed to objects in which he is interested; and after his interruption I feel disposed to withdraw the commendation I have passed on him. But I assert that the method of my noble friend is infinitely preferable to the popular methods which obtain at the present day. My noble friend appeals to people's reason, but the appeals which are usually made are sensational appeals, and this is the form of appeal which commends itself to the Press, more especially the illustrated Press, because it provides them with an unlimited amount of cheap "copy." But the most questionable form of money collecting is to send people, especially women, into the streets to collect in an indiscriminate way. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, it is perfectly hopeless to try and attempt to stop this practice; in fact, it would not be reasonable. But if street collecting is going to be a permanent institution, then I think there should be a certain amount of control and people should at all events have some indication as to how their money is actually going to be employed. I do not gather that any legislation is necessary. I fancy that all that is required is some action on the part of the Police. I believe that the Police do not at all dislike the idea of the question being dealt with, and I feel convinced in my own mind that if the Government Department concerned cares to take any step with regard to this particular practice it will meet with general approval.
*LORD SANDERSON: My Lords, this question was discussed at a special meeting of the Charity Organisation Society in February last, and as Lord Methuen, who presided on that occasion and who is chairman of the council, is prevented from being present this afternoon, I venture to offer a few observations on the subject. We had before us at this meeting some rather painful instances of the results of inducing girls and young women to take about collecting boxes by offering them a salary and a portion of their collections. A lady got up in the middle of the hall and asked whether anybody was acquainted with a society for instituting an industrial home for little black boys and girls at Nairobi. There was no answer, and she then said she belonged to a rescue society, and that two young women who had come

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under her notice had been engaged to collect for this supposed society. It had no office, and the girls met their employer at a tea shop. These girls were attractive girls, and when they came to her knowledge one of them had gone on the streets and the other was only just saved. It was an unfortunate feature in this case that the girls had been engaged through a Labour Exchange. It is a distressing tiring that a Government. Department should be made use of for such purposes.
There was a good deal of difficulty felt at the meeting as to what could be done. The Hospital Saturday Fund had given up its collection in the streets on one day in the year, and had not suffered in income. The National Lifeboat Institution on the other hand, felt that it could not do so without serious loss. A suggestion was made that any society which collected in this way should be restricted to one day in the year. That, of course, would prohibit all societies which were not large societies from collecting in this way. It was felt that there would be a great deal of difficulty in putting upon the Police or any other public authority the duty of discriminating between what charities were good charities and what were had charities. It was found on inquiry I hat there were some regulations at the present moment, but that they were more to prevent obstruction on pathways than anything else. There is, however, a rule that no boy under 14 and no girl under 16 shall collect in the streets without having a chaperon of adult age. The meeting, after discussing the whole subject, felt unable to make any specific recommendation. They passed the following resolution—
"That in the opinion of this meeting the present practice of collecting for charities in streets and public places offers easy opportunities for fraud and tends to bring discredit upon the cause of charity."
And they requested the council to take such steps as they could to remedy the evil.
We made a good many inquiries. The Police, in cases of actual fraud, do prosecute. As Lord Newton stated, there have been several occasions on which these people have been brought before the magistrates, and the collecting boxes in one case were seized on the ground that the collection was equivalent to begging. We shall no doubt hear whether it is pos-
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sible on the part of the Metropolitan Police or the London County Council to make further restrictions on the practice. Of course, the real remedy is that the public should be more discriminating in the distribution of its charity. Unfortunately, in England the feeling of compassion has always translated itself into the rather careless production of money, and I suppose that will continue. But if the noble Lord who will reply for the Government tells us that the Police and the County Council cannot take steps for restricting the practice, then the public ought to be made thoroughly aware that the fact that collectors are allowed to stand on the pavement or to walk about the streets shaking money-boxes in everybody's face does not give the slightest guarantee that the money is going to be applied in whole, or even in part, to the purpose for which it is said to be intended.
*VISCOUNT ALLENDALE: My Lords, I am sure we shall all agree with Lord Newton that this shaking of money-boxes in people's faces in the streets is a most annoying and objectionable practice. The attention of the Home Office had not been called to the matter particularly until the noble Lord put down his Question. Since then the Home Office have been in communication with the Chief Magistrate and the Chief Commissioner of Police on the subject. The Chief Magistrate states that no such complaints as those indicated have been brought to his notice. The Commissioner of Police reports that his attention had been called to the views expressed by one or two of the London magistrates—no doubt those to which the noble Lord referred—and he had been giving the whole subject his careful attention.
But when you come to the powers of the Police, they are, as Lord Sanderson has indicated, somewhat limited. The only power that the Chief Commissioner possesses is to make regulations under the Metropolitan Streets Act, 1867, as amended by the Metropolitan Streets Act, 1903, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, with respect to the places where and conditions under which persons may collect money in any street for charitable and other purposes, but he has no power to discriminate between persons and societies. Under these Acts the Chief Commissioner did issue regulations in 1910, and it was under those regulations

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that the convictions referred to by the noble Lord were secured. Those regulations, of which I have a copy and which I can show to the noble Lord, deal mainly with the obstruction of the footways so as to cause annoyance. They limit the number of persons who may act as collectors at one place, the use of tables in the street for the purpose, and matters of that sort, and also, as Lord Sanderson mentioned, there is a regulation that no boy under the age of 14 and no girl under the age of 16 shall act as a collector unless he or she is under the charge of an adult person. The powers of the Chief Commissioner are practically limited to making regulations of this sort, and if it is desired to strengthen the hands of the Police fresh legislation would be required.
The Chief Commissioner is of opinion that the charitable public are to some extent exploited under the guise of charity by many unscrupulous persons. A substantial proportion—25 per cent. very often so we have been told today—goes in payment to the collectors; but, as I say, it is impossible for the Police to undertake the duty of discriminating between one society and another. They have no machinery for doing so, and I think any attempt to establish a censorship as between different charities would give rise to a great deal of complaint and dissatisfaction. If, as a result of this question being raised the public to some extent abstain from contributing to street collections except in the case of well-known institutions—and even there I personally have grave doubts whether it is wise to contribute in the streets—some good will have been done. It would, I think, be very much better to make those charitable contributions through other and safer channels. That seems to me to be the best remedy, and if attention is drawn to the evil through the question having been raised in your Lordships' House this discussion will have done good. The Police, of course, always take proceedings when any case is brought to their notice in which there is evidence of fraud, but it is always difficult to obtain evidence of fraud and to establish it. If it is desired that more should be done than is done by the Chief Commissioner at present, his hands, as I say, will have to be strengthened by fresh legislation.

HEAVY TRACTION TRAFFIC.
*THE EARL OF MALMESBURY*THE EARL OF MALMESBURY rose to call attention to the increasing damage caused to roads by the development of heavy traction traffic, and to the expenditure thereby thrown upon local authorities, who are responsible for the maintenance of the highways.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, it was just after the Whitsuntide recess that I first placed this Notice on the Paper, and I am sorry that no opportunity has been available to raise the question before. Since I put down the Notice certain events have happened which may possibly make it felt that my action is superfluous and unnecessary. A deputation consisting of representatives of the County Councils Association and of urban and rural district authorities was very sympathetically received by the President of the Local Government Board on June 24, and subsequent to that we had an assurance from His Majesty's Government that a Joint Committee of both Rouses is going to be appointed, if it has not already been appointed, to inquire into the whole traffic question. I hope that the Committee will not lose sight of the very serious damage which is done to the roads by heavy traction traffic.
When the roads first became an object of serious consideration to the ratepayers in general, we were inclined to look to the ordinary motor-car as the cause of the greatest damage. The motor-car may do a certain amount of damage to the roads, but I am sure those of your Lordships who use motor-cars will admit that the motorcar is accused of doing a great deal more damage than is really the case. The motor-car is daily becoming a lighter vehicle, and yet the roads are being damaged more. What is the reason for this? The reason is that it is almost impossible to travel in any part of England for even a short number of miles without sooner or later coming across a heavy traction train with two or three, and sometimes four or five, wagons behind. The roads are costing a larger sum of money every year, and it seems to me that there will come a time—in fact, I am not sure that it has not already come—when we must cry stop to this expenditure.
The best way to bring about a decrease in the public expenditure on the roads is by taking action in regard to the traction trains which are increasing in number week by week. Local authorities have really no power in the matter. What is more, the excellence of the modern road is really responsible for encouraging this heavy traction traffic. I dare say many of your Lordships remember roads which are now first-rate which in the old days were in such a had condition that no traction train would have ventured upon them in the winter time. But the excellence of the modern road has led to these commercial traction trains being pat upon the roads in increasing numbers. And owing to these trains keeping to the middle of the road, other vehicles, perhaps heavy motor cars, have to pass very much nearer the edge of the road than they ought to, and by damaging the edge of the road they damage the whole of the draining system of the road and when a heavy rain comes there is more damage still. Again, the bridges and culverts on our country roads were never intended to carry heavy traction traffic, and their repair is an additional burden cast upon those who are responsible for their upkeep. I do not suggest what the terms of reference to this Joint Committee should be, but I respectfully venture to suggest that in Gaming the terms of reference special attention should be paid to this question of heavy traction traffic. I am convinced that quite half, if not more, of the damage to the roads is done by this traffic.
Then there is the other question, also a serious one. I refer to the enormous amount of delay and obstruction caused on the public, roads by the presence of heavy vehicles. There was a time when few of them did not pay ordinary respect to other users of the road, but now they do not even comply with the ordinary rule that there should be a man in the last wagon with a string by which he could indicate to the driver that there was a vehicle coming behind. These drivers of traction trains deliberately keep in the middle of the road and make no attempt to get out of anybody's way. Only the other day, when I was endeavouring to catch a train, I came across two long traction trains which had met and neither could pass the other, and it was only by going down a narrow side street, which might easily have been blocked, that I
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was able to catch my train; and I have heard of a number of similar cases. Our roads were never intended for such traffic.
I noticed in a discussion the other day that the question was raised of what further taxation should be put on these vehicles. When I hear the word "taxation" mentioned a cold shiver goes down my back, because I am afraid that the taxation will go on the wrong shoulders. That is why I hope that this Joint Committee, in considering the question of taxation, will be as careful as possible to avoid putting taxation on the ordinary motor-car, which is becoming every day lighter, and will consider the putting of taxation upon the vehicles which really damage the roads, and the owners of which, by the way, make a large sum of money out of this traffic. We are told that these traction trains are a great convenience in some districts, but I think there are not many districts that are not served by the ordinary railways or light railways. In Hampshire you find these heavy traction trains in very large numbers on the main roads where the main roads run almost parallel with the railway system. In other words, you are permitting a very unfair competition with the railways, who, by the way, being large ratepayers, have to pay a heavy share of the damage to the roads; so that not only do the railway companies suffer from unnecessary and unfair competition, but they also have to contribute heavily to the rates for the damage done to the roads by people who are in competition with them.
There is another class of vehicle which does a great deal of damage. I refer to the large motor chars-à-banes. These vehicles carry a large number of people and pay no passenger rates, whereas if these passengers had been carried on the railways the railway companies would have been responsible for paying rates. I hope I have succeeded in conveying to the noble Lord who will answer on behalf of His Majesty's Government the importance of a very strong reference to the Joint Committee on the subject of the amount of damage done by these traction trains. Parliament has recognised in many cases this session the principle, where corporations come to Parliament for powers to run motor-omnibuses, that they should contribute a substantial sum towards the roads, but so far we have been unable to get hold of the private trader. I sincerely hope that

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the precedent which Parliament has established in the case of public bodies will be followed sooner or later in the case of private traders, whose vehicles do a great deal of damage, and who are well capable of paying rates towards the up-keep of the roads if the law on the subject was altered. I do not wish to touch the general question of traffic on the roads. That is a matter which the Joint Committee can decide better than any other body. But I do hope that the Joint Committee will pay special attention to the enormous damage done to the roads by this increasing motor traction traffic.
LORD LOVAT: My Lords, I would make a special plea that purely rural districts should be represented on this Joint Committee. The reference that has been made to heavy traffic may lead one to suppose that the damage is confined to the immediate neighbourhood of towns. I can assure the noble Lord opposite that the damage done to the roads in rural districts is infinitely greater than that in the case of the well-built roads in the immediate vicinity of towns. In regard to the district that I know best, in the North of Scotland with its mountainous roads, we have on two or three occasions made recommendations to the Secretary for Scotland, to the Road Board, and to other bodies, but as yet entirely without result. I would especially put forward a plea in respect of the mountainous rural districts, particularly on account of the possibility of the great damage which may be done to roads when a thaw comes after a fall of snow. I would also suggest that before any legislative action is taken in respect of grants, such legislative action should wait until after the Report of the Joint Committee has been received. I might say in this connection that a Local Taxation Committee is now about to sit in Scotland, but the whole question of the grants in respect of the roads has been decided before that Committee has reported.
LORD FARRER: My Lords, I venture to think that the noble Earl has done a great service in bringing up this matter. As a member of the Highways Committee of the Surrey County Council, the county which has to bear the vastest traffic I suppose out of London, I can say that we have felt for some time that this is a matter which must be considered from the point of view of the ratepayer. One does not realise,
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unless one lives in the country, what a vast change has come about since the introduction of petrol. In last week's West Sussex Gazette I saw a letter from a man who had started from London on a Sunday on a motor trip into Sussex, and he said he had not met a single horse-drawn vehicle until he reached the border, and when he got over the border he met only two.
The feeling of surveyors is this, that they are prepared to make a road for anything that is wanted, but they ought to have power to regulate these vast vehicles in some way that shall enable them to keep them off the roads at a time when they are not suited for such heavy traffic. For instance, take a frosty morning. Our surveyor told me only a week ago that £200 to £300 worth of damage might be done, when a thaw was just coming on, to a beautiful road. Noble Lords who motor must have seen also that when a road has just been tarred an enormous amount of damage is done by one of these great vehicles with trucks tearing up the newly-tarred road. In my opinion it is not a matter that can be purely dealt with by a Committee, because the real question at the bottom of it all is that of area. If the county council knows that it is the authority and has power to regulate the traffic, at any rate in our county I believe we should be prepared to do what we could; but the mixture of authorities is such that it is a regular chess board puzzle. There is a rural district council in certain cases, which has some roads; then there are the urban district councils and boroughs, all having little patches; and no proper system of control has been adopted throughout the country. Therefore I believe it is necessary for Parliament to settle the area that has to be governed.
I do not, I confess, quite understand the constitution of the Road Board as it at present exists. If the Road Board is going to have a definite classification of roads I think it ought to let us know as soon as possible what that will be. I do not see Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, who is on the Road Board, in the House, but perhaps some day he will let us know what is intended in regard to the classification of roads. Until the roads are classified and the area settled which shall be rated for particular purposes, I do not believe we shall get any further Any one acquainted with rural government knows that one

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rural council may have the most beautiful roads, but the authority next to it may have the very worst of roads; yet the cost of upkeep is £300 a mile different where the road is very good. The case which the noble Earl has brought forward for the regulation of these heavy vehicles is unanswerable, and I hope that the Government will see their way to take the matter up.
LORD FABER: My Lords, having had the opportunity three weeks ago of making a long motor trip down into the Western country extending over eight hundred miles, I can say that everything that fell from the noble Earl in introducing this subject was below the truth. For instance, on one occasion I remember getting behind one of these immense traction engines with metal wheels and metal flanges convoying two trucks also with metal wheels and containing bricks. I venture to say that those trucks must have weighed, with the bricks, thirty tons each. Personally, if doubt if there is any road in this country at the present time, however good it is, unless it is laid with six inch cement with wood on the top, which will stand the traction engine at all. It is no use putting a charge on the traction engine. The traction engine is too dangerous to the road. What happened in the case of the big engine dragging these trucks? I was behind and could not get by. It was making such a noise that the driver could not hear us. I was behind for half a mile. The road was a very good one, with a hard surface; it was in Devonshire. This engine and trucks as they went along smashed up the surface of the road and did damage to the extent of hundreds of pounds while I was following. That is why I say to the Joint Committee which will consider this question, that no tax, however big, that is put on these trucks and engines will compensate the authorities for allowing them to use the roads.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, I think the noble Earl who raised this question missed one point. I do not agree with him that road upkeep can be reduced. I think it is likely to go on increasing. What we ought to do is to try and pit the burden of road upkeep on to the right shoulders. The county to which I belong, Aberdeenshire, sent a resolution to every county council in Scotland in favour of petitioning the Secretary for Scotland to move in the matter of the
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rebate on motor spirit. Trade vehicles get a rebate of one-half the duty on motor spirit, yet they are the very vehicles which use and damage the roads most. And, as the noble Earl pointed out, they are competing with the railway companies at an unfair advantage. They pay practically no road rate, and they have no permanent way to keep up. When the Joint Committee sit I hope they will bear in mind, in regard to the relief we hope to get towards reducing our road rates, that in the last few years many of our road rates in Scotland have doubled and now stand at two shillings in the £, while in one or two cases they are over that.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD STRACHTE): My Lords, I am sure no one can complain of the way in which the noble Earl has brought this Motion before the House. In fact, I sympathise with him a great deal from the local government point of view. But I should like to correct the noble Earl in regard to an error into which he has fallen. He seems to think that this Joint Committee of both Houses which is about to be appointed by the 'President of the Local Government Board, and over which we are fortunate to have Lord Balfour of Burleigh presiding, is to be a Committee to inquire into the question of the use of roads by motors and locomotives, heavy and light. That is not so. This Committee will be appointed only to deal with the vexed question of motor-'buses. I made that announcement the other day when we were dealing with the Middlesex County Council Bill, when Lord Montagu of Beaulieu was objecting to a charge of ⅜d. per mile being imposed upon these 'buses. This Committee is to inquire into the whole incidence of the matter, and as to whether that contribution from motor-'buses should be made universal or not. The reference is entirely confined to that, and will not deal with the question of heavy motor traffic on the roads. But on the other hand, the President of the Local Government Board is going to set up an expert technical committee, so to speak, of engineers to inquire whether it is necessary to revise the Motor Car Acts. Then as regards the question referred to by the noble Earl and by Lord Farrer—
LORD LOVAT: Before the noble Lord leaves that matter, might I ask him to be good enough to answer the question which I put to hint with regard to the grants.
LORD STRACHIE: I will deal with that later. What I have said already has been to remove the misapprehension that the Joint Committee of both Houses would have anything to do with heavy motor traffic. Then there is the question of obstruction. I have myself been in the same position as the noble Earl has described, and also as described by Lord Faber. But I would venture to suggest that it is really much more a question for the Police, and perhaps for ourselves who have been obstructed. We ought to report the matter and see that a prosecution takes place where an obstruction has been unjustified. Perhaps in these days it is too much to hope that heavy motor traffic will decrease, or that we shall have none of these engines with trailers, which, from the personal point of view is a great nuisance but from the trade point of view is sometimes of great advantage. Then Lord Farrer referred to the question of surveyors regulating the traffic, and said there might be circumstances in which a valuable road might be destroyed in an hour or two. I would venture to suggest that the surveyors can deal with that by regulations as to the road being under repair and shut it up when it is not fit for traffic to go over it.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Is it possible for a surveyor to make a regulation to shut a road for certain kinds of traffic?
LORD STRACHIE: I am sorry if the noble Earl has misunderstood me. I do not mean, of course, one particular kind of traffic. But if the road is in such a state that it is undesirable that heavy vehicles should go over it, it might be right to shut it up for a certain time. As to that, of course, it would not be for the surveyor but for the local authority to judge.
LORD FARRER: The real damage is done very often when the roads are soft in the morning, whereas these heavy loads could pass over the roads quite safely in the middle of the day. The law, as explained to us, is that we have no power to prevent the passage for an hour or two of traffic over the roads, although damage might be done to the extent of hundreds of pounds.
LORD STRACHIE: I understand the noble Lord's point. No doubt the expert committee will take evidence of all sorts from surveyors as to the desirability, if there is not power already, of giving power to the local authority to prevent certain vehicles going over roads at certain times when it is not desirable to shut up the road entirely. But that is a matter of detail to be threshed out and considered by the Committee which will go into the whole of this question. I think it is unfair to say that this question has been neglected or has not been considered of sufficient importance by the Local Government Board. For a very long period this question has been pressed upon the Government of the day and they have dealt with the grievances of the time being, though, of course, as time goes on new matters arise; heavier loads are drawn, and other regulations are required.
Prior to 1896 there were very stringent regulations as regards traction engines; so much so, that a heavy traction engine could only go at four miles an hour outside a village and at two miles an hour through village streets. There was also a provision that these heavy traction engines should have a man walking in front with a red flag. Even now, though the flag has been abolished, the regulations applying to heavy locomotives still enjoin four miles an hour in village roads and two miles an hour in village streets. Then came the Act of 1896, which made a distinction between heavy and light locomotives. A locomotive not exceeding in weight three tons unladen, with one trailer not exceeding one ton—the whole unladen weight not to exceed four tons—was able to go at a faster rate, though the speed was not to exceed fourteen miles an hour. But Parliament was so anxious to safeguard the public that they provided that the Local Government Board were to make regulations as regards the speed limit, and they were given power to reduce it to under the fourteen miles per hour. As a matter of fact, the Local Government Board did not allow the maximum; they reduced it to a speed of twelve miles per hour. That regulation is in force at the present moment. Then came the Motor Car Act of 1903 under which there was a new system of registration and licensing, and powers were given to the Local Government Board to make regulations. They made what is known as the Heavy Motor Car Order of

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1904, and that is the Order under which traffic goes on at the present moment. I am sure the. Local Government Board's officers would be the first to admit that after an experience of ten years it is only right that that Order should be reconsidered, and, if necessary, altered, in view of that experience.
LORD FABER: Do I understand the noble Lord to say that by the Act of 1904 the truck load must not exceed four tons in weight on the road?
LORD STRACHIE: I said that under the Act of 1896 it was a load not exceeding three tons unladen for the engine and one ton for the trailer, a combined unladen weight of four tons as the limit.
LORD FABER: All I can say is that they are running ten times that weight on the roads now.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Does the noble Lord say that that is the existing regulation?
LORD STRACHIE: That is the regulation under the Act of 1896.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: It would interest us more to know what is the regulation to-day.
LORD LOVAT: Is it not a fact that, whatever your regulations as to weight are they are absolutely inoperative because there is no means of taking the weight?
LORD STRACHIE: This is really a question of detail. I have here the Order of 1904, and if noble Lords so desire I can quote from it.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Is that the regulation now?
LORD STRACHIE: It is the Order of 1904 and is in force at the present moment.
LORD FARRER: I think I might put Lord Lovat's mind at rest on one matter with regard to the weight. In Surrey we have requisitioned seven weigh-bridges in order to get at those who exceed the weight.
LORD STRACHIE: I will hand the Order to the noble Marquess. [The Order of 1904 was handed to the Marquess of Salisbury.] In view of the addition in weight and consequent increase in wear and tear, it has been proposed by the Local Government Board to set up this expert committee to go into the whole question of the necessity of revising the regulations as to tyres, the diameter of the wheels, and generally as to the conditions of speed and the construction of the vehicles, and as to whether the designs cannot be altered so that there may be less damage done without any unreasonable limitation as regards the traffic upon the roads. Undoubtedly there has been a great outcry by the local ratepayers as regards the damage done and the consequent charge upon the local rates.
Then the noble Earl said that very soon it would be necessary to stop any further increased expenditure on the roads, or, rather, that it would be necessary to reduce the present expenditure. I cannot agree with him unless he thinks it is desirable to starve the roads, or to decrease the expenditure which is necessary to make the roads fit to carry this modern traffic. We cannot expect to put back the clock and revert to the days when there were only horse-drawn vehicles or very light traffic on the roads. As long ago as 1882 it was recognised that the Imperial Exchequer ought to make a contribution towards the maintenance of roads which, from the fact that the public generally made use of them and they were not confined to the use of the locality alone, were to a large extent national roads. Parliament in that year made a grant of one quarter the cost of the main roads to the local authorities, and that grant was doubled in 1887–8. Then came the Local Government Act of 1888, and all the Exchequer grants were discontinued. But county councils and local authorities have received instead substituted licences such as game licences, establishment licences, and carriage and motor licences, up to a certain amount. Further, a Royal Commission as long ago as 1901, which was appointed by the late Conservative Government, made a valuable Report upon the question of the roads, and they declared that the maintenance of main roads was a national service and recommended that half of the total cost should be borne by the Imperial Exchequer. Nobody regrets

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more than myself, as a local ratepayer, that that recommendation has never been carried out.
But something was done by the Parliament of 1909, who set up the Road Board with the object of making grants to local authorities in order that they might construct new roads and generally improve the foundations of the old roads which were not fit to carry the ordinary heavy motor traffic of the present day. The Road Board was set up under the Act of 1909 and was financed under the Budget of that year, with the result that in the Report of the Road Board lately published we find that the amount of £1,675,000 has actually been granted to local authorities for the improvement of the main roads in their areas. But if we reckon the total commitments we find that a sum of over £5,000,000 has up to date been provided for local authorities for the improvement of their roads. So that it cannot be alleged that the Government have neglected this matter.
The Departmental Committee on Local Taxation, which was set up a few years ago, also reported upon this question of the maintenance of the main roads, and their recommendation, upon which the Government mean practically to act, was that roads should be divided into three classes—main roads, county roads, and district roads. In the case of main roads it is proposed that the local authority shall receive an amount equal to one half the maintenance of the roads; in the case of county roads the local authority will receive one quarter of the cost of the maintenance; but in the case of district roads they will receive nothing, the idea of the Committee being, no doubt, that those roads were purely local in their character and very properly might be maintained out of the rates. As I have said, the Government have in substance adopted that recommendation, and the Road Board has been asked to make a classification of the roads in order that in due course the grants may be made.
I think I may fairly claim that the Government and the Local Government Board have not been neglectful in this matter. I think a step in the right direction has been made by going back to the old system of
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making a direct grant to the local authorities in respect of main roads. No doubt the tendency has been to put more and more duties upon local authorities without at the same time providing some part of the necessary money for carrying out those fresh obligations. Therefore I think the House will see that the Government are doing the right thing in specifically providing money for partly maintaining those roads which are national in character and the whole cost of which certainly should not fall upon the local rates.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Your Lordships have listened to an interesting speech from the noble Lord, who, as I gather, has made three important announcements. The first announcement was that there was to be a Joint Committee, presided over by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh, to inquire into the damage done by motor-omnibuses; secondly, that there was to be appointed an expert Departmental Committee which was to revise the Local Government Board Orders in respect of the user of the roads; and, thirdly, that the Government had adopted the recommendation made to them that they should pay one half of the cost of maintenance of main roads and one quarter of the cost of county roads, leaving the smaller roads to be maintained by the district authority. I should like to ask the noble Lord when these two Committees are going to sit? When do the Government propose to appoint the Joint Committee of both Houses over which Lord Balfour of Burleigh is to preside? And when is the Committee of experts going to sit? Are they going to sit this Year?
LORD STRACHIE: As regards the Joint Committee, it will depend on whether the Chairman thinks it desirable to sit at once. Of course it will be in his hands. As regards the Committee of experts, that Committee will set to work directly it has been appointed, and the intention is to appoint it immediately.
LORD LOVAT: Will the noble Lord be good enough to answer the question I raised on the subject of Scotland? He has laid down the exact terms under which grants are to be given to roads in England. But what is to be given in respect of roads in Scotland?
LORD STRACHIE: May I remind the noble Lord that the Department which I represent has nothing to do with Scottish main roads.
LORD LOVAT: Who represents the Government in that case?
LORD STRACHIE: Lord Emmott.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The noble Lord will no doubt deal with Lord Emmott on a subsequent occasion. It is, however, almost a pity that in a subject of this kind, which is very much the same in England and Scotland, for a road is a road wherever it is, the expert Committee might not so far transgress the national feelings of Scotland as to inquire into what is happening in Scotland as well as in England. But perhaps the noble Lord does not feel that he has the courage to make such a proposal. I do not think that this multiplying of inquiries is a very good thing. I should have thought that if the inquiry had been confined to one important Committee, over which Lord Balfour of Burleigh presided, we should get good results. However, that is a detail. If the Government will take the matter in hand at once, that is the important point as regards the country at large.
We quite recognise the difficulty of the subject. Both industrial produce and agricultural produce in districts where railways are few must be carried over the roads, and it is very difficult to make any objection to the fact that they should be carried by mechanical traction. But I think the noble Lord, if I may say so, altogether under-rated the great evil which exists. For example, he was asked as to the actual regulations on the subject, and he referred us to certain Orders which, according to him, would tell us what the weights were which were allowed to be carried by these vehicles. Well, the Order which he handed to me had reference only to motor vehicles, and not to these heavy traction engines at all. The noble Lord talked about four tons. He was, may I say with great respect to him, ridiculously under the mark. Even motor traffic runs up to twelve tons upon the axle and four tons upon each trailer. But when we
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turn from motor-cars to the heavy traffic to which my noble friend Lord Malmesbury referred—I mean these great locomotives puffing out any amount of steam and smoke with which your Lordships are very familiar on the roads—I doubt if there is any limit. For I find in a memorial which was presented quite recently on behalf of the County Councils Association, I think to the Road Board, that one of the suggestions made is that the county surveyor ought to be informed when it was proposed that an engine should pass over the roads under his jurisdiction with a weight exceeding sixteen tons. Clearly if the weight may exceed sixteen tons the noble Lord opposite, with his four tons, is lamentably under the mark. The fact is, I doubt whether there is any regulation as to the weight which these enormous vehicles may carry.
LORD STRACHIE: These vehicles only go at the slow rate of four miles per hour.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: We were not discussing the pace. It is quite true that if they were going fast it would be worse. I cannot conceive anything more awful than one of these enormous engines and four trailers running at fifty miles an hour. But, as it is, the damage is enormous. Even while I have been in the House two of my noble friends have informed me of their experiences. One told me that he was travelling along the Great North Road recently and saw an enormous vehicle going upon a road which had been just newly made, dragging behind it a tremendous weight and making a positive groove with its wheels on the new road. Conceive what that means to the ratepayers of the county. Another noble friend of mine showed me an account of how, in the neighbourhood of a town, three miles of a very good road were absolutely destroyed because a quarry used that three miles of road and the heavy haulage to and from the quarry had reduced the road to an absolutely rotten condition. That has to be met by the ratepayers of the county. The ratepayers of the county have to put up with it so far as the expense is concerned, and the users of the road so far as their tempers are concerned. In any case it is a great evil and constitutes a great grievance.

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The noble Lord who replied for the Government seemed to think that that was a matter for the Police. I know that the noble Lord is thoroughly conversant with rural conditions. But, does he really imagine that we could have police on every road to see how the traffic is managed just like we do in the streets in the metropolis? Of course it is impossible. Neither is it possible, as the noble Lord thought, to shut a road. Imagine what would happen to a district if one of the principal roads was shut up. It cannot be done. It is not like London, where you can shut up one street and every one can go down another street. That is not possible in the country. You have to use the main roads or not get about at all. We must have something much more than that, and I was glad to hear that the Government are going to undertake the reorganisation of the road system so that some weight may be taken off the burden of the ratepayers. The noble Lord said that half the cost of the main roads was to be borne by the central authority. If he refers to arterial roads, it should be the whole cost. I think arterial roads should pass altogether under the central authority. They serve His Majesty's subjects as a whole, and the cost of them ought to be taken off the shoulders of the ratepayers altogether.
I can assure your Lordships, being a member of the Hertfordshire County Council, that the suffering in purse which, we undergo in that county through the traffic on our roads is something terrific. Hertfordshire is so constituted that, although it is not a big county, all the great roads to the North run through it. Consequently there is tremendous traffic, hundreds and thousands of vehicles, every week, which destroy our roads, and we, the ratepayers of Hertfordshire, have to pay for them. The injustice is so crying that it has demanded a remedy for a long time. I think, with regard to roads generally, that there ought to be a much greater power in the hands of the local authority to regulate the traffic. They ought to be able to say, for example, during what hours of the day heavy vehicles such as we are complaining of should be allowed to use the roads. There is no reason why a great deal of this tremendous traffic should not be confined to particular hours of the night, when it would not interfere with people so much. Then the local authorities should have the
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right to say what weight should be carried; they should have the right to say that on their roads no vehicle should weigh more than a certain amount. They ought to have a general power, of course within limits and with an appeal to the central authority against injustice, to regulate the weight, character, and times of employment of these heavy vehicles, and, of course, also to regulate the pace in order to prevent the contingency suggested by the noble Lord of these tremendous vehicles going at a break-neck speed. All those regulations they ought to have power to make.
When it comes to the question of who is to pay the cost, there is the subvention from the central authority. But there ought to be some taxation put upon these very heavy vehicles; they ought to pay for the damage which they do. They are in an exceptional position, and I think there was something in what Lord Montagu of Beaulieu said the other night, that it was not fair to single out motor-omnibuses and say that they and they alone should be subjected to taxation. These other vehicles ought to share the burden. If these changes were made in the law, justice, in my opinion, would be done. I hope your Lordships will agree that my noble friend has done great service in bringing this subject forward and drawing from the noble Lord the statement he has made; and I hope that, unlike some Ministerial statements—I am not referring to this Government only, but to all Ministerial statements—it will be a prelude to immediate relief to those persons who have substantial grievances such as we have described.
LORD BARNARD: May I ask whether any of the numerous inquiries which the noble Lord has informed us are to be held will deal with the vexed question which is really at the bottom of the difficulty—namely, the question of extraordinary traffic?
LORD STRACHIE: As far as I am aware, that question will not be dealt with by either of these two Committees. The Joint Committee will deal with the specific subject of motor-omnibus traffic, and the other Committee will be an expert Committee of engineers who will examine into the question of how, by regulations as regards tyres, wheels, diameter, and

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generally the wear and tear of these vehicles upon the roads can be reduced. The question of extraordinary traffic is a very difficult one indeed, and when you bring an action in a Court of Law in regard to it you cannot be quite certain whether or not you will succeed.
LORD BARNARD: The object of my question was to ascertain whether the Government would assist in elucidating that difficulty.

THE IMPORTATION OF IRISH CATTLE.
LORD LOVAT LORD LOVAT rose to call the attention of His Majesty's Government to the steps taken by the local authorities of England and Scotland prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle, and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I want to call the attention of the House to the question of the cattle trade in Great Britain and Ireland. I think this matter is of such importance that it does not require any apology from me for introducing it. It is a matter in which all farmers are interested, whether they are breeders or owners of pedigree stock. It is also a matter which obviously interests the whole of the meat trade; and consumers naturally, through the fluctuation in the price of cattle which occurs and the disorganisation of the trade, are also largely interested.
The situation, put as briefly as possible, is that the cattle trade between England and Ireland for two years now has been disorganised. I do not say that during the whole of that time there have been outbreaks in Ireland or in England, but for the last two years outbreaks have been recurrent, and many of the restrictions put on to deal with one outbreak remain in force until the next outbreak has arisen. Even as lately as yesterday or the day before I noticed that there had been a further outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Ireland, making, I think, about the seventy-fourth or seventy-fifth outbreak in all since January of this year. It is obvious that this is a serious matter, and one which causes the greatest concern, not only to the farmers but to consumers, who are beginning to realise the difficulties in which they may be put.
The special side of the question to which I want to call the attention of His Majesty's
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Government to-day is the position of the local authorities of the counties and boroughs with that of the Board of Agriculture. We have had periods in which the Board of Agriculture have practically taken off their restrictions, and we have found that counties and local authorities have put on restrictions and acted in almost direct opposition to the Board of Agriculture. This is a most unsatisfactory state of things, and I believe it arises from two causes. The local authority obviously wishes to keep its cattle clear in the particular county or borough it administers, and I hear rumours of farmers' meetings which are held by which the local authority is forced to put on these restrictions. A situation occurred about three months ago in which practically the majority of the restrictions had been either withdrawn or considerably modified, and yet in Scotland the whole of the counties, with the exception of Clackmannan, did not allow the cattle to be landed. This restrictive action of the local authorities also prevents the movement of cattle. If a county imports stock from Ireland the cattle cannot be moved from that county. Therefore you have a combination of restrictions which is most hurtful to the trade in every sense. This restriction made by the local authorities arises partly from suspicion of the method of conducting work in Ireland, and also from a suspicion that political pressure is put on the Board of Agriculture. I do not subscribe to either of those two suspicions. I have no complaint to make of Mr. Runciman's action. As far as I can judge, he is certainly carrying out the work of dealing with disease in this country most admirably. But the fact remains that suspicion does exist, and that the cattle trade is very materially hampered by these restrictions made in places.
I suggest that an inquiry should be held to see what can be done to make the administration of the Animal Diseases Act more efficient in Great Britain and also to link together the administration in Ireland and this country. There is no doubt that the methods are entirely, or to a very great extent, different in Ireland from what they are here, and the mere fact of that difference naturally leads to suspicion. Ireland may be perfectly well administered for all I know, but there are certain methods which do not seem to be so good as those we have on this side.

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I submit that it is well worth considering whether it is not possible to put the whole of the Animal Diseases Act under one authority, or at all events group the authorities so that they are much closer together than they are at the present time. As your Lordships will remember at the time of the introduction of the Scottish Land Bill the idea was to separate the authority for land from that dealing with animal diseases, which idea was stoutly resisted on this side of the House; and I think Scotland is to be congratulated that she has only one authority for animal diseases.
May I point out what advantages would arise if you had one central authority dealing with this subject. You could mobilise your inspectors and send them down at once to deal with any cattle disease that occurred. A single cargo of cattle suffering from disease can infect twenty markets in a day. Again, some of the cattle on arrival are driven off into the country and may infect three or four herds the first day. Therefore it is not only necessary to have adequate examination of the cattle but power to mobilise the inspectors on the spot to deal with any outbreak. It will probably be admitted that in all these matters in Ireland—it is exactly the same on the West Coast of Scotland—a good deal of local pressure is put on if you have an over-zealous inspector. I submit that if you had one central authority an inspector could be changed if the district got too hot for him, and another could be moved in to take his place. I further submit that that would also tend to the more efficient carrying out of the work.
Then there is the question of numbers, which is so important. If you had close relation so that inspectors could be changed over and sent to Ireland or Scotland or England wherever an outbreak occurred, that also would be a matter of advantage. Time also is of great importance. At the present moment there must be a loss of time arising from the necessity of one Department communicating with the other. A further point is that in Ireland your inspectors are veterinary surgeons and many of them are also practising privately. It stands to reason that a veterinary surgeon who has other local work to do cannot be such an efficient individual as an inspector of the Board of Agriculture of
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Great Britain who has nothing to do except his work under the Animal Diseases Act. He is a much more independent person, and can carry out the work more thoroughly. I put these views forward tentatively on the subject of what I believe should be the general line of inquiry.
I am confirmed in my belief that an inquiry should take place, because I notice that in the debate in another place on June 16 Mr. Runciman stated that—
"If any assistance can come from representatives of Irish stock-owners or English stock-owners, or local authorities in England or in Ireland, I think there might be some good in our holding some Conference of that kind or setting up a Committee which would sit with that object."
And the matter was taken up, not only by Mr. Bathurst, who speaks with authority on English agriculture, but also by an Irish Member of Parliament who said he had authority to speak for the meat trade, and by two or three other Irish Members.
As far as I know, everything may be done in the best possible way in Ireland to lessen and shut things in, but the fact remains that they have had seventy-five outbreaks there in the last few months, and those outbreaks are still continuing. That is one thing. The second thing is that you have had numerous instances in the last month in which practically the whole of the local authorities have said, "We are not going to have these cattle brought into our districts." Notwithstanding that the Board of Agriculture have given permission for the cattle to be landed. I think that what I have said is enough to show that the condition of affairs is unsatisfactory, and that there is suspicion in the country of the way in which the Animal Diseases Act has been administered; and, as such is the case, I think an inquiry is desirable.
Moved for Papers relating to the steps taken by the local authorities of England and Scotland prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle.—(Lord Lovat.)
LORD HENEAGE: My Lords, my noble friend has taken exception to the action of the local authorities—
LORD LOVAT: I do not take exception to the action of the local authorities. I only take exception to the existence of these separate authorities.
LORD HENEAGE: I quite understand that, but the noble Lord took exception to the county authorities taking upon themselves to prevent Irish cattle coming within their areas when they were not satisfied with the action of the Board of Agriculture. I believe Lincolnshire was the first county that started that, after the April Cattle Fair. There were some great sales, and there were representatives present from all the dairy farms in the Midland counties and stockbreeders and those who feed cattle for the butcher. There was a unanimous feeling that there could be no trust whatever in the action of the Board of Agriculture, because the Board relied entirely upon the representations made to them by the Board of Agriculture in Ireland. There is one thing that may be remarked. The Chief Secretary for Ireland has carefully never, during the last three years, stated in the House of Commons that he placed implicit confidence in the reports which were made to him. He has kept himself clear of every action with regard to cattle disease, and he has left it to Mr. Russell and to the Inspectors in Ireland to give him information to convey to the Board of Agriculture in England, on which they have acted.
I believe that Mr. Runciman has had the trust of all agriculturists in the way he has dealt to the best of his ability with the information he received, and I think he deserves our thanks, and I had the pleasure of moving a resolution to that effect last year. But we say that he relies too much on the reports from Ireland, and that those reports are not trustworthy. It is notorious that in the great outbreak in Ireland two years ago, when cattle were sent over in numbers to Liverpool, the cattle dealers in Ireland were well aware that they were not to be bought and did not buy them. It is also well known that, at the time when there was said to be very little disease in Ireland disease was actually prevalent everywhere, and there was not the care taken that might have been taken. In the last case where the inspectors had been down into the locality where it was supposed the disease existed, I believe they managed to slaughter a good many cattle; but the disease was set afoot again because one man in his selfishness had concealed a calf which had come from the locality where the other diseased cattle had been.
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When that sort of thing is going on in Ireland you cannot expect but that the English people will take care of themselves.
My noble friend says that it would be a good thing if all agricultural questions were put under one Department. I think every one will agree with that. But we have to take things as they are. They are under two Departments, and, speaking for the agriculturists of the Midland and Eastern counties, so long as the present system exists, and so long as the English Department is dependent on the information that they get from Ireland, we shall act on the information we ourselves get from Ireland and use the power which we have in Lincolnshire and other counties of keeping cattle out when we believe it is not to the interests of those whom we have to look after to allow them to come in.
*THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD LUCAS): My Lords, I entirely agree with Lord Lovat's object, which is to bring about a better understanding all round with regard to the present position, and to try and inspire a little more confidence on the part of those local authorities who are at the present moment keeping out Irish cattle. It is, unfortunately, because that confidence does not exist at the present time in the degree which it might do that a great many of the present difficulties have arisen, and I can only state what our attitude at the Board of Agriculture is. I am not here to answer for the Irish Department of Agriculture, and I should be very sorry to do so—for this reason, and for this reason only, that there inevitably must come times when we and they do not see eye to eye, and we have to differ from them. Both Departments acknowledge that. And in everything I say I want simply to state our point of view, and I am perfectly prepared to state candidly what our relations with the Irish Department are.
I should like to point out, first of all, that the cattle trade between the two countries is one-sided. We send comparatively very few animals to Ireland, whereas they send enormous numbers to this country. In a normal year they send over one million. When any stoppage occurs, due to foot-and-mouth disease, the damage done to Irish farmers is

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enormous. No one realises that more than the Irish people do themselves, and no one realises it more clearly than the Irish Department of Agriculture. Therefore it is only natural, apart from any other considerations, that they should do every thing they possibly can to prevent the existence of foot-and-mouth disease in Ireland. And speaking for the English Board of Agriculture I can say that we have no complaint whatever to make of the way in which the Irish Department of Agriculture have dealt with outbreaks as they have occurred, and they have done their best to keep the country absolutely clear of disease. They have done it from the strongest of all possible motives, the motive of self-interest; and I am quite convinced of this, that if we had had the duty of administering Ireland we could not have done more than they have done.
Lord Lovat suggests an inquiry on two grounds which he alleges are the cause of the present difficult position—one, the suggestion of political pressure, and the other the crop of rumours that are circulating in this country. I am not sure that any inquiry would be able to investigate satisfactorily such a charge as that of political pressure. I know that political pressure is always supposed to exist, but I can say that no political pressure has been exerted which has had the slightest effect on my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Agriculture, for the very simple reason that no pressure that could possibly be brought by, let us say, the whole of the Irish Party in the House of Commons would be one quarter so strong as would be the pressure brought upon him on the other side by the whole body of British agriculturists to maintain their interests. Therefore if there is such a thing as political pressure and my right hon. friend is in any way susceptible to it, I am quite sure that that pressure would be exerted against Ireland rather than in favour of Ireland.
The thing which probably has as great an effect with local authorities as anything else is the enormous amount of rumour that is going about as to the health of animals in Ireland. I do not suppose we get a quarter of those rumours, but quite enough reach us for us to know the sort of talk which is going on among British farmers. All I can say is this, that it would be of the greatest
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service both to us and to the Irish Department of Agriculture if those rumours, if they could be solidified into anything, could be brought straight to our notice, and I am quite certain that the Irish Department would be more than ready and anxious thoroughly to investigate them. We have had rumours brought to us from time to time and we have been asked to have them investigated, but I am bound to say that in no case have they materialised. I know that in the minds of a great many people there is the belief that foot-and-mouth disease exists in Ireland and that all information about it is being suppressed. Foot-and-mouth disease is, of all things, the one about which one never can be positive. I do not want in the least to dogmatise, because one cannot state anything with certainty about it. But I would like to point this out. The export trade of cattle from Ireland is considerable. It affects the whole of Ireland. You get the fat stock coming from the East of Ireland and the store stock coming in from the West of Ireland. They converge by various channels, by railways and steamers and markets; and I think it would be almost an impossibility, foot-and-mouth disease being the highly infectious disease it is, for the disease to exist in Ireland without our being able to trace it through the animals which have come into this country.
During the year 1913 over 1,000,000 cattle—nearly 2,000,000 cattle, sheep, and swine—came into this country. They all came to our landing places, and were examined by veterinary surgeons when they came in. Some went to be slaughtered and others went away as store cattle to various parts of England, but not one single case of foot-and-mouth disease was traced to those cattle. I do not think that would have been so had the state of things which some people believe to exist in Ireland really been going on. There was a point which Lord Heneage made in explaining the reason why the Board of Agriculture does not command the confidence of agriculturists in this country.
LORD HENEAGE: Not the English Board of Agriculture. I said that the English Board of Agriculture had their confidence, but that the Irish Department of Agriculture had not.
LORD LUCAS: I thought the noble Lord's point was that the English Board of Agriculture had not the confidence of the local authorities in this matter, because it acted on the information of the Irish Department. But if we have their confidence, I should like to ask him why they do not follow our advice and allow the importation of Irish animals? The fullest information passes naturally between the two Departments, but I would not like any one to think that the English Board of Agriculture always does what the Irish Department of Agriculture tells it to do. We reserve absolute freedom as to what steps we shall take, when to open the ports, what ports we shall open, and what restrictions we shall put on.
Lord Lovat suggested that the best way to deal with this question was by a closer linking up between the two authorities concerned—the Irish Department of Agriculture and the English Board of Agriculture—firstly because of the difference of method which he alleges to exist between the two, and, secondly, because under single control he thinks things would be better. As regards the difference of method, I am not quite sure that I gather what the noble Lord means. As regards the methods of dealing with the outbreaks, the methods of the two countries are practically identical; the steps they take are very much the same; and they consult us at almost every stage of the stamping-out proceedings.
LORD LOVAT: The different methods of using the personnel would perhaps more accurately describe what I mean.
LORD LUCAS: I do not think there is much difference in the method of using the personnel. The noble Lord was referring to the question of the local inspectors—
LORD LOVAT: And part-time veterinary surgeons.
LORD LUCAS: To a certain extent, though I speak without any special knowledge of the Irish Department, I think our methods are more or less identical. Both Boards have a considerable staff of whole-time inspectors in their employment, and those are the men who normally do the
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Boards' work. But I imagine that the Irish Department do exactly what we do when we are pressed with a heavy outbreak. If there is more work than our regular staff of veterinary inspectors can cope with, we have employed local veterinary surgeons to do a great deal of diagnosing and that sort of thing.
LORD LOVAT: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord once more. Perhaps I did not give the whole facts of the case. I think you will find on examination that in this country we have our inspectors for the tracing of these cattle. We do it by means of men who are inspectors, in nineteen districts, with their sub-inspectors who are not veterinary officers. In Ireland you do not have these people. The staff there are primarily veterinary officers. But there are also a certain number of half-timers, and these are the men who have to track these animals when an outbreak is about. Our method, I say, is more satisfactory.
LORD LUCAS: The whole of that work is done under the supervision and orders of the regular whole-time men. Of course, they have in Ireland one thing which I think is rather an advantage to them, and that is the Irish Constabulary, who by their organisation can be more readily utilised. I do not want it to be thought that the Police do not help us here. Our Police are an enormous help to us in the country, but I think the Irish Constabulary, from the point of view of helping in the event of an outbreak, are perhaps better organised than our Police. The noble Lord raises a far bigger question, when he talks about the uniting of the two Boards, than I am competent to deal with. I mean to say that the position of the Home Rule Bill being what it is, if you were going to take away from the Irish Department of Agriculture and place in the hands of the Government in this country some of the powers now exercised by that Department, that would probably be a constitutional question of the first importance. I would only like to say this, that I should personally be very sorry to be an Englishman going over to Ireland to carry out the duty of trying to find disease, if it is true, as is alleged, that disease is concealed in Ireland.
LORD HENEAGE: Hear, hear.
LORD LUCAS: I am quite sure that what the Irish Constabulary and the staff of the Veterinary Department in Ireland cannot find out no Englishman could find out. He probably would get his head broken, but he would not find out anything that the Police or the staff of the Irish Department are not able to find out for themselves. We know that cases of concealment exist, because of what happened in the Annoy outbreak; but for the reasons I have already given I really believe that local authorities are unduly frightened at the present time. I can say this for the Board of Agriculture, we have a great deal of information, and our information does not come only from the Irish Department of Agriculture, though, to do them justice, they supply us with all necessary information. I believe that we are in a better position to gauge the risks than any local authority can possibly be; and I think that it is a matter for great regret that the local authorities are not more prepared than they appear to be to take our advice upon this matter.
After all, the reputation of the Board of Agriculture, the reputation which my right hon. friend Mr. Runciman has been able to make for himself during the three years that he has been at the Board, is at stake in a case of this kind. He is not the man who is in the least likely to throw that away by being over-rash, and I think we can quote, to back that up, the success with which we have dealt with the cases that have arisen up to now. With the single exception of the outbreak at Birkenhead, when the landing place became infected at a time when both countries were thought to be absolutely free of disease, and when, therefore, no restrictions and no linking up of the two Departments would have been of any use, the measures which we have taken have been universally successful; they, were universally successful during the anxious time when in 1912 foot-and-mouth disease was cropping up in a number of different places in Ireland, and they were also successful at the time of this last outbreak, which, as Lord Lovat says, has been one of unusual severity. I think that might be adduced as a fairly strong argument that we are not running undue risks in the action we are taking with regard to the opening of the ports, and it should be some inducement to local
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authorities to follow the lines that we suggest they should take.
LORD LOVAT: My Lords, in asking leave to withdraw this Motion I would say that the noble Lord has made an admirable defence of his own Department and also a defence of the Irish Department, but his speech leaves us in exactly the same position as we were before. Also, his treatment of the suggestion that I have put forward was much less sympathetic than that given by Mr. Runciman in another place to those stock-owners and farmers who brought forward the subject there. I think he has admitted that the position is unsatisfactory. We have heard a noble Lord who has been chairman of the County Councils Association testify to the grave suspicion which exists on the part of local authorities. It does not seem to me, if Lord Lucas's remarks represent the final word of the Government on the subject, that there is any likelihood of improvement. I do not wish to say anything against the Irish Department, but there are rumours to which I have referred, and they have had the disease over there frequently. The seventy-fifth or seventy-sixth outbreak has occurred since January, and from week to week there are recurrences of the disease. The risk to England is enormous. One single slip with regard to a cargo, one single moment of inattention on the part of Lord Lucas's inspectors, might land the whole of this country in for an outbreak similar to what we had before. We have got the country clear for the moment, and we wish, by the action of the local authorities, to keep it clear. I hope the noble Lord will reconsider the question. The animal health of a country is not a question which is confined to one country alone. It is a question of the highest importance to every single agriculturist on both sides of the St. George's Channel.
LORD LUCAS: I do not in the least want to be unsympathetic to the noble Lord, but it appeared to me that he asked for an inquiry into two matters which he alleged were the cause of the dissatisfaction—(a) the suspicions of political pressure that were entertained by the local authorities; and (b) the rumours that were going about. I cannot see the least use of having an inquiry into those two grounds, which are the only ones the noble Lord has said were grounds for inquiry.
LORD LOVAT: I am sorry if I have not made myself clear to the noble Lord. I said the inquiry should be into the condition of the animals, and should be on the broadest lines possible.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

POST OFFICE ELECTRIC POWER.
LORD NEWTON LORD NEWTON rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether, in accordance with Section 6, subsection (6), of the Post Office (London) Railway Act, 1913, the Postmaster-General has invited tenders from the companies and local authorities able to supply the additional electric power required; and whether a decision has been arrived at.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the reason I put this Question is that last year the Post Office promoted a Private Bill for the purpose of constructing a tube through London. That Bill came before a Committee of which I was chairman, and amongst the members I was fortunate enough to be associated with several noble Lords with considerable experience of public business, one of whom I see present to-night, Lord Sydenham. During the proceedings it transpired that the Post Office were about to embark upon very heavy expenditure in connection with the construction of generating stations for the purposes of this railway. It appeared from the evidence that very little, if any, regard had been paid to the question of economy; and in the interests of the public we thought it necessary to strike out the clause which dealt with this particular question, because we considered that the Post Office, before embarking upon this heavy expenditure, should take steps to ascertain whether electric power could not be obtained on more reasonable terms by applying elsewhere.
We accordingly struck out that portion of the Bill, whereupon the Post Office, with a levity and petulance very unbecoming to a serious Department of the Government, came to this House and asked that the portion which we had struck out of the Bill should be restored. This House refused to assent to that proposal, and eventually a compromise was arrived at in the terms of my Question, and it was agreed that the Postmaster-General should invite tenders from the companies and local authorities which were able to supply the additional power required. The noble Marquess the Leader of the House remarked, when this compromise was arrived at, that
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it might be assumed that Question after Question would be asked in another place as to what actually was occurring, what tenders the Postmaster-General had received, what the amount of those tenders might be, and what the saving thereby would be as compared with the Post Office supply. I do not know whether any of those anticipated Questions have been put. If they have, I have not observed them; and that is my excuse for putting this Question this afternoon. Of course, I do not wish to imply that I have any distrust of the action of the Government or of the Post Office in regard to this matter.
LORD STRACHIE: My Lords, the reply to the noble Lord can be very simply made. The Postmaster-General has not the slightest intention of departing from the obligation imposed upon him in subsection (6) of Section 6 of the Post Office (London) Railway Act of last year. The reason why no tenders have been invited is that no works have been begun at all; no tunnelling has been done; in fact, the only thing that has taken place is this, that some experiments have been made upon land belonging to the War Office merely to give an idea how to act in the future. I can give the noble Lord the assurance that directly the proper time comes the Postmaster-General will, very naturally, abide loyally by the provisions of the section that was put in as a compromise.
*LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, I entirely agree with what has been said by my noble friend Lord Newton. It was clear to us in the Select Committee that the Post Office authorities had not examined the economic aspects of the question with which they were dealing, and this subsection was put in as a sort of compromise with a view to ensuring that such consideration should be given. Since the Committee sat, the whole question of electric supply has entered upon a different stage, which has a direct bearing upon what should be the policy of the Post Office with regard to that matter. A most important report has been presented to the London County Council by Messrs. Merz and McClellan which deals with the whole question of electric supply to London, and shows what is possible in the future. The general impression that the whole Report leaves upon one's mind is that the present condition can only be described as almost barbaric.

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With your Lordships' permission I should like to quote a few significant figures which bring out the present position with clearness. In the Greater London area there are no less than seventy authorities supplying electricity, apart from any connection with each other. There are seventy generating stations, apart from nine others which deal with traction only. There are in operation forty-nine different types of systems of working electricity, and 585 engines, some of which are quite out of date. Those figures surely tell their tale, and since the London County Council first considered this question of electrical supply matters have gone steadily to the bad by the multiplication of these small stations. The output of electricity in London has largely and steadily increased, but the cost, which is the all important point for people in London, has not diminished as it ought to have done.
The fact is that the advantages of London for the supply of electricity are quite exceptional. There is relatively cheap coal, and there is water transport. Then there is a large, increasing and diversified demand; and, finally, there is cheap capital available for all objects of public importance. Nevertheless, in spite of all these advantages, owing to this muddling arrangement from which we suffer, London compares most unfavourably with Berlin, Chicago, and Detroit, where concentration has been carried out effectively. Berlin may be taken as an example of what can be done by scientific methods carried out with German thoroughness. There coal is somewhat more expensive than in London, but there is only one authority dealing with the whole of the electric supply as compared with our seventy authorities. Although all the old plant has been scrapped and written off, the Berlin system returns 12.83 per cent. interest, supplying current at an average price of 1.7d. per unit; while in London the return on capital is only 7.85 per cent., and the average cost per unit is 2.29 d. In Chicago the return is 10.87 per cent., and the cost of electricity is very little over Id. per unit. The inhabitants in Berlin take 111 units per head per annum, while London takes only 48.5 units per head, which shows how much more generally used electricity is in Berlin than in London.
The experts, Messrs. Merz and McClellan, estimate that by concentration and employ-
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ing the best modern plant £170,000 per annum could be saved in working expenses in the central area alone, after allowing for all the extra charges on the new capital required for new plant and for new mains; and they estimate that the annual gain to the public of London by the concentration would be very nearly £5 per head per annum. I believe that those figures can be trusted, and they show the enormous loss to which London is now annually submitting. In the year 1931 the London County Council will have power compulsorily to purchase all existing private companies. If the present vicious system is allowed to go on, when that time comes the amount of more or less unsuitable and obsolete plant they will have to purchase will be excessive, and the total cost of transformation, which must take place before long, will be increased. The advantages of electricity to London cannot be over-estimated, and it is most important that there should be as little delay as possible in realising those advantages. In these circumstances I think it would be very unwise for the Post Office to embark on a new generating plant, and I hope, as we have been assured, that the question will be thoroughly looked into, and that the Post Office will avoid making such a grave mistake as that would be.

SHEFFIELD CORPORATION BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 3) BILL.
  Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Five Lords appointed a Select Committee on the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Corporation Bill and other Bills do form the Select Committee for the consideration of the Sheffield Corporation Bill and the Local Government Provisional Order (No. 3) Bill; read, and agreed to: All Petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the Petitioners praying to be heard by counsel against the Bill to be heard as desired, as also counsel for the Bill.

EDINBURGH AND DISTRICT WATER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to Edinburgh and District Water—Was presented by the Lord Emmott and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, sections 8 and 9); read lª, and to be printed. (No. 191).
House adjourned at ten minutes past Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, hall-past Ten o'clock.