Lords Sitting of 2 March 1915

BEAMISH'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 on Tuesday next, and Standing Order No. XXXIX to be considered in order to its being dispensed with.

EARL ST. ALDWYN.
The Right Honourable Michael Edward, Viscount St. Aldwyn, having been created Viscount Quenington of Quenington, in the County of Gloucester, and Earl St. Aldwyn of Coln St. Aldwyn, in the said County of Gloucester—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
The LORD CHANCELLOR 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 not been complied with:
Worksop and Bawtry Railway.
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

MULLINGAR AND KELLS RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
LIVERPOOL CORPORATION BILL.
(Petition for Additional Provision.)

WORKSOP AND BAWTRY RAILWAY BILL.
Examiners' Certificates of non-compliance with the Standing Orders referred to the Standing Orders Committee on Tuesday next.
DEAF AND DUMB POOR ASYLUM BILL [H.L.]
MERSEY RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
ILFRACOMBE GAS BILL. [H.L.]
Committee to meet on Tuesday next.

PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.
Report by the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons under Section 2 of the Act—

1. That the provisions of Clauses 4 and 5 of the Caledonian Railway Order are of such a character and raise such questions of policy and principle that they ought to be dealt with by Private Bill and not by Provisional Order;

2. That, save as aforesaid, the Provisional Orders be allowed to proceed, subject to such recommendations as may hereafter be made with respect to the several Orders.

Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and ordered to lie on the Table.

SUSPENSORY ACT, 1914, AMENDMENT BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, I do not propose to ask the House to proceed with the consideration of this Bill to-day. As many of your Lordships will be aware from the statement made by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons last week, negotiations are proceeding in connection with this question. But in asking leave to postpone the Second Reading of the Bill to-day I would take the opportunity of pressing most strongly on His Majesty's Government that this delay, which has already been of considerable magnitude, should not be much further extended. Not only in this House but outside considerable anxiety is felt as to what is to happen. We have placed our proposals in the Bill which I have had the honour to lay on the Table of your Lordships' House, and we are anxious to know what view the Government take. I can quite understand that the Government may want a little further time in which to consider the question, but in view of the urgency of the case and the fact that it is possible that Parliament may rise at no distant date for a considerable recess it is important that we should have a decision on this subject as soon as possible. I hope that the noble Earl opposite will be able to give the House some information on the point.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (EARL BEAUCHAMP): My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Duke for consenting to postpone the Motion for the Second Reading of this Bill. As he I am sure realises, this is a question upon which a great many people hold very strong feelings, and it concerns a subject which has been during the past a matter of acute controversy. In these circumstances it will be quite evident to the noble Duke, as it will be to every member of your Lordships' House, that it is difficult to come to any conclusion on the subject without considerable thought, without very great care, and without consulting all the various interests which are involved in the settlement of the question. In spite of that, His Majesty's Government are anxious that there should be no unnecessary delay in connection with a matter of such importance as this, and I can assure the noble Duke that we shall lose no more time than we can help before coming to a final conclusion on the matter. But I am quite sure the House will realise that at a time like this it is impossible to give undivided attention to a matter of this kind, however important, and we are obliged to ask for some latitude from those who are interested in this question before we are able to make any announcement on the subject. There are, as I have said, so many considerations involved and so many people who ought to be consulted that I hope the noble Duke will not think that our request for delay is, in the circumstances, unreasonable.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH: My Lords, I should like to point out that delay in this matter adds very greatly to the embarrassment of Churchmen in Wales, who have a very difficult work to face. The Bill is being postponed at the request of the Government, and I trust that no undue delay will occur, and that His Majesty's Ministers will be able to give their answer within a few days.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, considering the immense importance of the subject we all feel that the noble Earl who spoke for the Government is within his rights when he suggests that he and his colleagues should not be unduly pressed to give us a full statement of their opinions; but I desire, if I may, to support what has been said by the noble Duke behind me, and to express a hope that we may at an early date be made aware of the
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decision arrived at. The noble Earl knows that we were able, I think a week ago or more, to put him in possession of certain suggestions which we thought well to make, and those, no doubt, have been considered. May I ask the noble Earl whether he can give us an approximate idea of the date by which my noble friend would be justified in putting his Bill down again?
EARL BEAUCHAMP: I would rather not be tied down to any date; but if the noble Marquess will allow me, I will communicate with him on the subject.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: With the noble Earl's permission, I will put the Bill down again for Tuesday next.
Second Reading put off to Tuesday next.

THE ORDER OF THE BATH.
*LORD LATYMER*LORD LATYMER rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they would be willing to approach His Majesty the King with a view to the amendment of the Statutes governing the appointment to the First Class of the Order of the Bath so as to admit thereto officers of the Royal Marines.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, on a recent occasion [November 24, 1914] I drew attention to the disabilities and disadvantages under which the Royal Marines labour in comparison with His Majesty's other Forces, and I then mentioned that one of those disadvantages was that Marine officers are debarred from obtaining the highest class of the Order of the Bath—namely, the G.C.B. On that occasion I alluded to only a few of the disabilities under which the Marines labour. I shall have, I hope, later on, when the present stress and strain is over, some other opportunity of bringing to the notice of the House these manifest disabilities and disadvantages. When I brought forward my request for the appointment of a Committee to inquire into these matters, I was asked to postpone the Motion, and in accordance with that docility with which we are affected on this side of the House I gave way. But, as I say, I hope on another occasion to bring the matter forward again, and to press successfully the Motion for the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry.
But to-day I propose to deal with one particular point only—namely, the exclusion of Royal Marine officers from any chance of ever obtaining the highest class of the Order of the Bath. It seems, on the face of it, an incredible thing that this should be so. I do not know what possible reasons can be adduced for the exclusion. The Royal Marines, as we know, is one of the finest bodies of men that we possess. They are, I believe, the only Infantrymen in the world who are also Artillerymen. They won Gibraltar for us, and they may, for all I know, at this moment be winning Constantinople. Yet Marine officers are excluded from admission to the First Class of the Order of the Bath. Why? I shall be curious to hear the answer. I think every noble Lord who heard the reply of the Government which was given to me on the former occasion was satisfied that it was very inadequate. In fact, the noble Lord who replied took no notice at all of what I had said about the highest class of the Order of the Bath. He did not answer that point in any way. He afterwards had the courtesy, however, to send me a statement upon the matter, the first paragraph of which reads as follows—
"From the terms of the accompanying Statute it would appear that officers of the Royal Marines are excluded from appointment to the First Class, or Knights Grand Cross, of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath."
If there ever was a time when our troops of all kinds ought to be encouraged in every possible way, it is the present. And although this may not seem a very great matter, we must remember that all officers, whether in the Navy, the Army, or the Marines, are most sensitive on such points. What affects Marine officers is not that they cannot obtain this honour, but the slur which is cast upon them by being excluded from it. I therefore urge that the Government should give their attention to this small matter, the putting right of which would, I venture to say from my knowledge of many officers in the Marines, encourage them immensely.
I do not know what the reasons, if any, are why this extraordinary omission from the Statute came to be made. It certainly cannot be alleged that it is due to inadvertence, because at the time of the late Queen's Jubilee a special Statute was passed enabling one particular Marine
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officer to be made a G.C.B. I venture to say that that exception proves that the rule ought not to exist. For if there was an officer of the Royal Marines who was worthy to have the G.C.B. in 1887, there certainly must be cases of other officers similarly entitled to the honour. As I have said, the exclusion of Marine officers was not the result of inadvertence. There must be some extraordinary reason for it—a reason very much wrapped up, low down, and difficult to get at. As a small encouragement to this worthy body of men, who have gone all over the world and always done their duty wherever they may have been, I ask His Majesty's Government to approach His Majesty with a view to the Statutes in question being amended so as to admit officers of the Royal Marines to be appointed to the First Class of the Order of the Bath.
EARL BEAUCHAMP: My Lords, my noble friend who generally attends to Admiralty affairs in your Lordships' House is unfortunately laid up by the prevailing illness and unable to attend, but on his behalf I have pleasure in replying to the noble Lord's Question. It appears that under the Statutes which govern the Order of the Bath, General officers of the Royal Marines are not eligible for the Grand Cross; and as was said by the noble Lord just now, when an appointment was made in 1897 a special Statute was passed for the purpose. That special Statute, however, applied to the particular individual and was not made of general application. The explanation is that until now General officers of the Royal Marines have had, generally speaking, no military command open to them; it is only recently that they have been considered with Generals of the Army in the selection to certain commands, and there is one Royal Marine officer now in command in Sierra Leone. The fact that on the last occasion the noble Lord met with no satisfaction on this point is, I am afraid, due to my noble friend who replied not knowing that this question was going to be raised. He therefore had no information at his disposal without making inquiries into the subject. As it is, His Majesty's Government have no reason to be anything but obliged to the noble Lord for having drawn this apparent anomaly to their attention, and I can assure him that this matter will be considered, together with a whole lot of difficult questions of a similar kind.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I am glad that Lord Latymer has brought this matter forward, and it was with pleasure that I listened to the reply of the noble Earl on behalf of His Majesty's Government. It was obvious that when once attention was drawn to this extraordinary anomaly no one in authority would attempt to defend it. It is a commonplace with all of us what a valuable corps the Royal Marines are, and that they and they alone of the King's Forces should be debarred, in the persons of their senior officers, from receiving the highest reward of the Order of the Bath was certainly an anomaly which could not be upheld. I was glad also to gather from what the noble Earl said that there are other questions in connection with the Royal Marines which are going to be considered by the Board of Admiralty.
The officers of the Royal Marines are in a position of quite extraordinary difficulty. After a life spent in valuable service at sea and on land and just as the Marine officer rises to the top of his profession so are all avenues of employment closed to him. It was for that reason that the Board of Admiralty over which I had the honour to preside, when the new scheme of naval training was brought in fourteen years ago, settled that entry to the Royal Marines should be the same as that of officers of the Navy—through Osborne and Dartmouth. By that means, and by that means alone, the Board of Admiralty at that time thought that officers of the Royal Marines could be delivered from that professional cul de sac in which they always found themselves just as they arrived at the height of their experience and power; because the Army naturally did not consider itself responsible for finding employment for the senior officers of the Marines, and the only employment for those senior officers which the Navy had to offer were commands of a naval character for which Royal Marine officers had not been trained. Therefore it was that we hoped, by this common entry of all officers of all branches serving in the King's ships, we should be able to give an open career to the principal and most able officers of Marines just as to the principal and most able officers of the Navy.
Circumstances over which the Board of Admiralty had no control have, however, rather interrupted our intentions, because the expansion of the Navy has been so
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great that all officers who were educated at Osborne and Dartmouth have necessarily been taken for the Navy and none have been left for the Marines. Therefore entry for the Marines from outside had again to be allowed in order that the ranks of the officers of the Marines might be filled. I am glad, however, that His Majesty's Government are going to look into this whole question of officers of the Royal Marines, and that they have given us a practical pledge that they will, at a time which seems good to them, approach His Majesty with a view to throwing the highest honour of the Order of the Bath open to officers of the Royal Marines as well as to officers of the Navy and the Army.

GERMAN MILITARY ATROCITIES.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I wish to ask the Lord Chancellor whether he can give the House any information in respect of the proceedings of the Committee appointed by His Majesty's Government to inquire into such allegations of atrocities on the part of the German troops in Belgium and France as can be investigated in this country.
Your Lordships will remember that when people in this country were staggered with the stories of the terrible doings of some of the German soldiers in Belgium it became evident that many stories were passing currency which could not be substantiated as well as stories which, alas! were only too fully corroborated by evidence which could not be controverted. I think many of your Lordships felt that it was not to the honour of the Allies that we should allow stories of atrocities to be manufactured for which no evidence was forthcoming. Not only was that contrary to the honour of the Allies, but it necessarily followed that for every invented story proved to be unfounded so much doubt was cast on narratives which were only too well and clearly substantiated. In those circumstances I had a private correspondence with the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack, as a result of which he informed me that it was the intention of His Majesty's Government to appoint a Committee to investigate, so far as was possible, all stories of atrocities committed in Belgium and France which could be in any degree examined and weighed in England. A notice also appeared publicly afterwards to the effect that such a Committee had been appointed,

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but I have never seen any report of its proceedings or any further notice as to the course of its action. Therefore I have put down this Question, and I shall be glad if the noble and learned Viscount can give us some information on the matter.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT HALDANE): My Lords, I think I can give the noble Earl the information which he requires. He will remember that it was towards the end of September that the Prime Minister stated in the other House that as numerous allegations had come in about these outrages he had referred the matter to the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General to consider what steps should be taken to sift the stories which had been told. As a result of that the Public Prosecutor was communicated with. He placed his staff at the disposal of the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General, and an investigation was made in which great assistance was given by the Belgian Legation, our own War Office, the War Refugees' Committee, and other bodies, and information was obtained from the wounded in hospitals in France and here. A large number of cases were thus collected and it was necessary to investigate them still more closely. Accordingly several members of the Bar gave their assistance for this purpose voluntarily. They saw the persons who had furnished the narratives, examined them, sifted their stories, and collected an immense mass of material. There were about 1,000 cases in all. Those were collected, and then it became desirable to sift them yet more closely. Accordingly the Committee to which the noble Earl has referred, of which Viscount Bryce is the chairman, was appointed. That Committee, which was of a more or less expert character, has been at work and has done an immense amount of sifting; and although the work is not complete I understand from inquiries I have made that the Committee are in sight of the period at which they can make their Report. They hope possibly at the end of this month to present a Report upon the large number of cases which have been submitted to them, and the inferences that are to be drawn.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Will the Committee's Report be presented to Parliament eventually?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will inquire about that. I should think it is not improbable.

THE REGIMENTAL RIOT AT SINGAPORE.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I beg to ask the noble Marquess who leads the House a Question of which I have given him private notice—namely, whether he is able to give us any further information with regard to the serious outbreak which took place a few days ago in the 5th Light Infantry Regiment at Singapore. A certain amount of information has already been given in the newspapers, but it is not very conclusive either as to the origin of the outbreak or its extent. It remains, for instance, not easy to discover how the civilian population and some local Volunteers were involved in the disorder and sustained a certain number of casualties. We should also, of course, be very glad if the noble Marquess was able to tell us that steps had been taken sufficient not only to quell the disorder but to render any renewal of the trouble very improbable.
*THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE MARQUESS OF CREWE): My Lords, I am afraid I am not able to give any full account in reply to the noble Marquess's Question, although I can quite understand that there exists anxiety to know so far as possible the causes and circumstances of this lamentable outbreak, which is in such painful contrast to the loyalty and devotion to duty which the Indian troops have shown in many parts of the world during the progress of the present war, not least the Mahomedan troops whose comrades are unfortunately involved in this particular incident.
This 5th Light Infantry Regiment, to which the noble Marquess has alluded and in which the unhappy outbreak took place, is a Mahomedan regiment recruited mainly in the districts not very far from Delhi—some of the districts to the East and some to the West of that city—and comprises recruits of different classes. I call attention to that fact because the discontent which caused the outbreak was, I take it, undoubtedly due to some internal regimental feud between different classes composing the regiment and concerned with questions of promotion, upon which jealousy has existed. It is important to make that clear, because it might easily be supposed that an outbreak of this kind in a Moslem regiment might conceivably be due to some spread of what is known as a Jehad feeling—a sympathy with the altogether unau-

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thorised declaration of a Holy War which some who profess to represent, Islam have endeavoured to make but which has been not merely not accepted but absolutely denounced as false by those who are best qualified to represent the true Mahomedan feeling.
This regimental difficulty, however, existed, and of its actual cause and genesis I am not able to say more at this moment because that will be the subject of a most complete and careful inquiry. The regiment, or a great part of it, as noble Lords will have seen in the Press, broke out on February 15, attacked the commanding officer in his house, and created a condition of much local disorder which involved, as the noble Marquess has stated, the death of not a few civilians who in the general and evidently much excited mêléc which ensued fell victims to the violence of the rioters. A company of Volunteers was under instruction close to the quarters of the commanding officer. They assisted him, and enabled the attack which was made upon his quarters to be driven off and subdued. It took something like the best part of three days to quell the mutiny altogether—if mutiny is the word, and I think, on the whole, it is not the proper word to use. The violence was rather of the nature of a regimental riot than of anything which could possibly be described as a mutiny. The rioters fled in all directions to the plantations about, and it took a considerable time to round them up, although there are now not many, I fancy, who are still in hiding. By February 21 six companies of one of the Territorial regiments from India were disembarked at Singapore. Some fifty of the rioters were killed or wounded; and now the greater part of those who broke out have been segregated on one of the small islands in the harbour at Singapore. A company of the Malay State Guides was at Singapore at the time, and of these a certain proportion joined the rioters and have also been interned. A company of a Sikh regiment which was passing through assisted the authorities in quelling the disturbance; and it is important to bear in mind that a considerable proportion of the 5th regiment itself remained quite stanch and stood by the authorities in the restoration of order. A summary Court-Martial has been sitting to deal with some cases which could be dealt with on the spot, but an experienced General officer is coining from India to
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hold a fuller and more formal investigation, assisted by a strong Court. That, I think, is all the information which I can give the House at this moment. Whenever I obtain any more I shall, of course, be prepared to communicate it.
The precise circumstances in which the casualties occurred to the civil population have not yet been sent home, but, as I have stated, it was evident that a mêlée of a general character took place with not a little indiscriminate shooting, and I take it that it was in those circumstances that the officers of the Telegraph Company and others lost their lives—a matter, of course, of particular regret not merely to the colonial authorities but also to those of us who are responsible for the character and conduct of the Indian troops. I am anxious for the House to understand that the disturbance undoubtedly was of a purely local and special character connected with regimental matters, and that the sort of colour which in some quarters was endeavoured to be put upon it—the suggestion that it was of the nature of a racial or religious rising against the British Government—is in no way sustained by the circumstances. It is important that that should be known. Although the whole of the circumstances are most lamentable and disastrous, the fact that the trouble was isolated and formed no part of a general state of feeling or general movement is in itself so far comforting.
House adjourned at five minutes part Five o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.