UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES (EMERGENCY POWERS) BILL. (Hansard, 10 March 1915)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, this is a Bill which is outside the region of Party controversy. Probably no institutions in the country of a civilian kind have rendered to the State in a great emergency services greater than those of the two old Universities. In the case of Oxford and Cambridge alike two-thirds of the undergraduates are serving in His Majesty's Forces. They have either passed through the Officers Training Corps and taken commissions or have volunteered in other ways and are serving the King on the field and in preparation to go to the field. That is a splendid example. Of all the difficulties connected with the British Army under the voluntary system perhaps the greatest was the deficiency in officers, notably in subaltern officers, but the Officers Training Corps of the Universities have nobly assisted in making up that deficiency. Lord Kitchener has been able to keep the Army well supplied with officers to fill vacancies caused by casualties and the creation of new units, and he has been able to do this largely owing to the exertions which have been made by the graduates and undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge and of the other Universities who have without stint given their services to the Crown.

I think we all appreciate what this means. It means that the Army secures the services of some of the most promising 649 and talented of the younger citizens of the State, whose enthusiasm has been applied to filling up the gap that most needs filling up under the Army system. There were some of us connected with the organisation of the Officers Training Corps who felt with confidence that this would be so, but even those who had most to do with the matter have been astonished at the splendid and noble response which the Universities have made in time of war to the invitation issued to them long ago in time of peace. I have not the honour of being a member of either of the two great Universities but I have been intimately connected with their military affairs, and nothing has impressed me more than the quantity as well as the quality of talent which has been placed at the disposal of the country by the response which has been made to our appeal.

This Bill proposes to do two things. It enables borrowing to make up deficiencies caused by the tremendous strain on the resources of the Universities through the absence of students and the non-payment of fees. It proposes also that the Universities and the colleges of the Universities should have power to make statutes unrestrained by certain conditions which operate for delay under the existing arrangements. In both cases the exercise of the new powers is safeguarded. In the first place, they are only emergency powers daring the duration of the war. In the second place, the borrowing can only take place with the permission of the Board of Agriculture, as it deals with landed subjects. In the third place, certain consents are required. That is the substance of this Bill, and I venture to commend it to the House as a measure which well deserves our warm and whole-hearted approval.

§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE

My Lords, I feel sure that the Bill which the noble Viscount has just proposed to the House will not encounter any opposition from this side at all events. During this war every class of the community has been called upon to submit to sacrifices, sometimes to very heavy sacrifices, and the two great Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have not escaped. They have had heavy calls made upon them, and they have met those calls nobly. That is true, I think, both of the teaching staff of the Universi- 650 ties and of the students. I was glad to note that the noble and learned Viscount referred particularly to the immense value of the Officers Training Corps at the two Universities. We all know that one of the greatest difficulties with which the country has had to contend as the war went on has been that of keeping up a sufficient supply of young officers. That difficulty has been to a great extent solved by the action of the Officers Training Corps. The least Parliament can do in recognition of those great services is to give the two Universities whatever facilities we can give them to meet the emergency which they have to face. The proposals in this Bill seem to us appropriate, and we gladly support them. I will only add this, that I know that if my noble friend Lord Curzon, Chancellor of the University of Oxford, had been able to be present to-night he would very gladly have given his support to this Bill, and, I have no doubt, would have told us something of the part which his University has taken in this matter.