Lords Sitting of 4 July 1916

STANDING ORDERS COMMITTEE.
Report from, That the Standing Orders not complied with in respect of the petition for a Bill by the
Shropshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire Electric Power Company
ought to be dispensed with and leave given to introduce the Bill.
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the further Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:
London County Council (Money).
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

SHROPSHIRE, WORCESTERSHIRE AND STAFFORDSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER BILL. [H.L.]
Presented (pursuant to leave given this day) read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.
RHODES ESTATE BILL. [H.L.]
Second Reading (which stands appointed for To-morrow) put off to Tuesday next.
NORTH BRITISH RAILWAY BILL.
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
CONWAY AND COLWYN BAY JOINT WATER SUPPLY BOARD BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a.
ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, KINGSTON-UPON-HULL, BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

LAND DRAINAGE (LILLESHALL) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL. (No. 57.)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL. (No. 58.)
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners.

CANADA COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered, and agreed to.
IRVINE'S DIVORCE BILL. [H.L.]
Minutes of evidence and proceeding before this House on the Second Reading, together with the documents deposited in the case, returned from the Commons.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
Reported, without amendment, and re-committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.

RETURNS, REPORTS, &c.
Miscellaneous, No. 21 (1916)—Further Correspondence respecting the conditions of diet and nutrition in the Internment Camp at Ruhleben (in continuation of "Miscellaneous, No. 18 (1916)" [Cd. 8259]):
Coal Shipments—Tables giving details as to shipments of coal abroad, coastwise, and as bunkers, from each port of the United Kingdom, for each of the years 1914 and 1915:
National Relief Fund—Report to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales by the Executive Committee of the National Relief Fund, on the administration of the Fund, up to 31st March, 1916:
Trade—Annual Statement of the Trade of the United Kingdom with Foreign Countries and British Possessions, for 1915, compared with the four preceding years. Volume I:
Australia—Report on the Trade of Australia for the year 1915, by Mr. G. T. Milne (His Majesty's Trade Commissioner in the Commonwealth of Australia):
Presented (by command) and ordered to lie on the Table.
Housing, Town Planning, &c., Act, 1909—Draft Order of the Local Government Board approving, with modifications, the Chesterfield (Chester Street Area) Town Planning Scheme:
Naval and Marine Pay and Pensions Act, 1865—Four Orders in Council, dated 27th June, 1916, made under the Act:
Foreign Jurisdiction Act, 1890—Two Orders in Council, dated 27th June, 1916, made under the Act:
Greenwich Hospital Act, 1865—Order in Council, dated 27th June, 1916, approving a Memorial of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty praying sanction to increased salary to the Superintendent of the Royal Hospital School, Greenwich:
Shops Act, 1912—Order made by the Urban District Council of Bedlingtonshire and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department affecting a certain class of shops within the said Urban District:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and ordered to lie on the Table.

PETITION.
Universities (Scotland) Act, 1889 (Ordinance of University Courts of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh, General No. 4 (Regulations as to Preliminary Examinations)—Petition that this House will present an Address praying His Majesty to withhold His assent from the above-named Ordinance of the General Council of the University of Glasgow; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

SMALL HOLDING COLONIES BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Marquess of Crewe.)
LORD JOICEY: My Lords, it is not my intention at this stage of the Bill to make any serious opposition to it, but I cannot help expressing my surprise that at the present time His Majesty's Government should have thought fit to bring in a measure of this kind, entailing a large expenditure of money, simply as an experiment. All municipalities and companies which require increased capital have the greatest difficulty in obtaining permission to get that money, which is needed to carry on what are in many cases very necessary works. Therefore it is, as I have said, surprising to me that His Majesty's Government should have brought in a Bill of this kind, which, so far as I have been able to learn from what has been said by noble Lords who have taken part in the debates upon it, is to cost at the least £300,000. I am certainly in favour of doing all that we can for the unfortunate men
512
who come back from the war incapacitated; but when I look at the expenditure involved in this Bill, and the fact that it will deal with only something like 300 men in all, it does seem to me an extraordinary thing that your Lordships should be asked to pass a measure of this nature at the present time.
I heard with interest the speeches made at previous stages of the Bill regarding what is to be done with the men who come back from the war. In my opinion, most of the men who have been taken from the industries of the country, and whose withdrawal has led to our industries suffering seriously, will return to those industries—it would be a great misfortune if they did not—and with regard to the land, so far as my experience in Northumberland and Durham goes, I am satisfied that there will be no lack of employment on the land for experienced men. It is little use putting men on the land who have not had agricultural experience. Many people seem to think that anyone can cultivate land with advantage. But my experience leads me to the conviction that it requires just as much expert knowledge to deal with land as to deal with any other industry; and if you place men on the land who are not competent to deal with it, you may rest assured that the scheme will be a failure.
My noble friend Lord Sheffield, in the course of the Second Reading debate, protested against this as a very bad Bill. I agree with him in the main. The principle undoubtedly is a good one—to provide for men who return from the war and to get more men on to the land; but I do not think this is the best means of doing that. I have some striking cases in my own experience, where men have started with small holdings and by degrees have got those small holdings up to large ones. In my judgment, our present system of land occupation is as good a system as we are likely to get from any legislation. It is a sort of graduation enabling small tenants to become larger tenants, and eventually to become large farmers; and that is the class of man who, in my experience, has been most successful on the land.
I was astonished, looking at the statistics the other day, to see the number of small holdings that there are in this country. From the statistics of 1915, which take no account of mountain and heath lands, it appears that there are 90,000 holdings of from 1 to 5 acres, 120,000 of from 5 to 20

513
acres, 78,000 of from 20 to 50 acres, 59,000 of from 50 to 100 acres, and 32,000 from 103 to 150 acres. These are what I consider small holdings, and they represent no less than 12,580,000 acres. Surely, with so many small holdings as this His Majesty's Government might have had an opportunity of testing the value of co-operation without spending £300,000 to create a colony. I had a property in Wales some time ago where the average size of the holdings was 100 acres. We had the co-operative system there, but it applied only to purchases. The men co-operated to purchase their manures, lime, coal, and things of that kind, but they would not co-operate to sell their produce; and I am afraid that if you do not have compulsion there will be considerable difficulty in getting the small-holders on the colonies proposed to be set up under this Bill to agree to the sale of their produce by other people. Co-operation is a good thing, and I would like; to see it tried; but there are many opportunities of trying it without going to the great expenditure proposed in this Bill.
Now, have small holdings been a success in this country? I had hoped to hear from the noble Earl who introduced this Bill (Lord Selborne) figures with regard to the great success of the small holdings which had already been established. I know the small holdings in Northumberland and Durham, and I cannot say that they are a success. The country has spent over £5,250,000 on small holdings. I admit that there may be exceptions, but if you take them as a whole I do not think that the Small Holdings Acts have been a success. This Bill appears to be an experiment, I presume in the hope that the proposed small holding colonies may possibly lead to success. I am doubtful about that. In the discussions that have taken place I have heard noble Lords say that one of the objects principally aimed at is to increase the produce from the land. I do not pretend to be so experienced regarding this as many noble Lords, but so far as my experience goes I have found that the largest produce in proportion comes from the large farms. Small farms do not produce anything like so much per acre as do large farms. I am sure that this small experiment will be a failure. The principle to which I have referred is the same in every industry in the country. Small shops have disappeared owing to the larger shops; small ships have disappeared owing to the larger ships;
514
small collieries have disappeared owing to the larger collieries. The same principle obtains with regard to farms. You will find that the large farms can produce more per acre because the large farmer has more capital, has a better knowledge of his business, and can work his land to greater advantage. I am therefore not in favour of small holdings for ordinary agricultural produce. You may, however, change the produce. You may have poultry; you may grow vegetables; but that is not an ordinary agricultural holding. It is a specialised condition of things, and it is only those people who have knowledge of these special things who are likely to succeed in connection with them.
This Bill involves a very large expenditure. I have heard the sum of £1,000 mentioned as the estimated amount required for a small holding. My noble friend Lord Grey, speaking on the Second Reading of this Bill, expressed the wish to see the number of small holdings largely increased. He alluded to Canada, where men who had been fighting in the South African War had received grants of land. I do not know what may have been my noble friend's experience, but my experience, so far as Canada is concerned, is that a large portion of the men who had grants of land have since sold their land and gone into the towns. It is no use giving land to people who do not desire it. That is clear from the experience in Canada and in other Colonies.
I see, further, that the scheme under this Bill is to be controlled by the Board of Agriculture. I am not in favour of any industries being controlled by Government Departments. My experience of departmental control is that Government Departments harass industries. They deal with questions which they very often do not understand; and I doubt, indeed, whether any Government Department has ever given real assistance to the industries of the country. My experience is that our industries have been developed and made successful by the individual efforts of the men who controlled and managed them. Government Departments make all kinds of regulations which hamper and restrict the operation of those people who have possession of the various industries; and I feel quite sure that when the Board of Agriculture come to deal with these small holdings they will act very much on the same principle, and that instead of being

515
an advantage it will be a disadvantage to have this scheme controlled by the Board.
I was rather surprised to find that His Majesty's Government propose in this Bill to buy the holdings and to make the State the owners of them. I look with considerable suspicion upon that proposal, particularly when my noble friend Lord Grey says that we shall eventually have 250,000 small-holders instead of the 300 to be accommodated under this Bill. If you create a further 250,000 small-holders on the principle contained in this Bill, it will mean an expenditure of £250,000,000. Are you going to sanction a great scheme for the expenditure of public money to enable the State to become the owners of the land? I think it is a very dangerous proposition to enter upon. We hear a lot of talk about nationalising this and that. Many people seem to want to nationalise everything they do not themselves possess. I think it is a dangerous step, and I regard with some degree of anxiety and surprise the bringing in by the Coalition Government of a Bill of this description. I find, however, that it has not been the custom for your Lordships to reject a Bill on Third Reading, and therefore I have not moved the rejection of this measure; but I have such an objection to it—I think it is a dangerous Bill and one which is economically unsound—that I have felt compelled to enter my protest against it before it leaves your Lordships' House.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, one interesting feature of the debates on this Bill has been two speeches from noble Lords sitting on this side of the House and owning allegiance to my noble friend the Leader of the House. Lord Sheffield, on the Second Reading of the Bill, made a speech which was an interesting reminiscence of the tenets of the Manchester school in the 'forties. Now the noble Lord who has just sat down has made a speech which I should imagine the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle would associate with the Toryism with which they would taunt me. But I do not hold the noble Lord's views. I am afraid that he has left me far behind in the principles of Conservatism. Let me briefly touch on some points that he has raised. He says that the minimum cost of these small holding colonies is to be £300,000.
LORD JOICEY: Judging from what has been said in the course of the debates.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: If the noble Lord had conducted his business on that principle I am afraid he would not have achieved that success on which we all congratulate him and for which he is famous, because he has substituted the word "minimum" for the word "maximum." The sum of £300,000 was the maximum cost to which this scheme was to run. The noble Lord will be relieved when I tell him that, with the assistance of Captain Bathurst and my colleagues at the Board of Agriculture—before I had to resign the position of President of the Board—we had already secured two of these colonies without purchase; that is to say, there will be no capital expenditure for the land. We are getting them on a very long lease; so that the £300,000, which was always a maximum, has now begun rapidly to dwindle.
In the second place, the noble Lord said that I had not, in my speech in moving the Second Reading of this Bill [on May 25], brought forward any statistics to show that small holdings had been a success. I regret that the noble Lord either did not hear me or did not understand me, because what he has said necessitates that I should repeat the figures which I then gave. I said that under the Bill introduced by a Conservative Government many years ago, and under the Bill introduced by the noble Marquess who sits on that Bench, nearly £6,000,000 had been spent on the creation of small holdings, dealing with something over 200,000 acres, and placing on the land 15,000 small-holders. I stated that this had been such a success that out of all the schemes of all the county councils throughout the whole of England and Wales there had been only four deficiencies. Of those four deficiencies, one (in Norfolk) was caused by the bursting of the banks of a river which laid the land, not only of the small-holders but thousands of acres of the land of big farmers, under water for many weeks; and another (in my own county) was caused by a waterspout that literally swept the whole of the soil off a certain area, including the area occupied by the small holdings, into Porchester Creek. Those accidents could not possibly be ascribed to any fault in the scheme or in the Act. In the two remaining cases the deficiencies might fairl attributed either to extravagance of management or to bad judgment, but in both cases they were very small. The fact remains that

517
the State and the county councils have invested £6,000,000 in the creation of small holdings, with no loss to the public at all; and therefore the economic success of the small holdings policy is, I submit, already proved.
What I set out to do, with the assistance of my colleagues, was to try by this experiment, which the Cabinet sanctioned, to put the small holdings policy on a still better foundation. The noble Lord said that the more small holdings the less produce from the soil. I am not prepared to accept that dictum as a fact. But I do not put forward small holdings mainly or principally on the ground of an increase in production from the soil. I do not think they entail any diminution, and where intensive culture replaces extensive culture they certainly imply an increase of produce. But what I do base them on is this, that there is no more urgent political or social necessity in England to-day than to increase the rural population. I put that before all the schemes which the noble Lord mentioned. There is nothing which any municipality can desire money for, nothing that any corporation may contemplate in the way of public improvement, which is so urgent as the increase of the number of men and women and children who live on the rural land of England. And if I did not believe—as I do believe—that this will be a useful and successful experiment economically, I should still think it worth trying because of the paramount and overshadowing importance of that great national question.
I have only one further word to say. As I have explained previously, this is not a part of the demobilisation plans of the Government; but so far as it does go, this experiment is to be utilised to assist in settling on the land the seamen and the soldiers who have saved our nation. When I first spoke to your Lordships on the subject of this Bill I had not the information with me that I have now. Sir Douglas Haig very kindly undertook to make inquiry on this matter from several Divisions at the Front when they were resting from the trenches. Every man in those Divisions was asked whether he contemplated, after leaving the Army, settling on the land. A great number of men said they had no such idea in their mind; a certain number said they had not thought about it; but the number of men who answered quite definitely that they did mean to settle
518
on the land, if they got the chance, somewhere in the Empire, was far larger than I had anticipated. The question which the noble Lord has to face is this. Are we to tell these men, "You may go to Canada, you may go to Australia, you may go to South Africa, but in your native country the Government of the day will do nothing to help you"? I should, indeed, be sorry if this House followed the lead of the noble Lord and let it go forth to the Army that not only had we no sympathy with an increase of the rural population but that we would try no experiment, and raise not a penny of public money, in order to assist some of these men to settle on the land which they have saved.
THE EARL OF HARROWBY: My Lords, I venture to express my hearty approval of what the noble Earl has just said about small holdings. Perhaps I have some little authority to speak on this matter, as I have from 2,000 to 3,000 acres under small holdings and small farms. With regard to what the noble Earl said about increasing the population and the produce of the land, I can give your Lordships two instances. The first is of a large farm of 500 acres, which was cut up and four farms created. There is now treble the population employed on that area, and the produce has more than trebled also. The second case is that of a farm of 200 acres, which was equally cut up. There is now milked on half of the acreage twice as many cows as the larger farmer kept.
My quarrel with the Board of Agriculture's proposal is that the Board have given this House very little information as to how they propose to deal with the creation of these small holding colonies. I quite agree with their proposal with regard to market gardens. But with regard to the creation of small farms, I think that one mistake they have made is in under-estimating the cost. I agree with Mr. John Burns that what we want to do is to build cottages which will be a pleasure to the owners. We do not want to build a lot of barracks at a cost of £200 apiece; and I venture to state that no cottage can be built in these days at a cost of under £300. Yet in the Report of the Departmental Committee I notice that the sum of £200 is stated. Then, again, there is the cost of farm buildings. I have spent £20,000 on the creation of small holdings

519
during the last few years, and I can state with confidence that you cannot erect farm buildings for a holding of fifty acres at a less cost than £200. Together with the house, and the drains, roads, and fencing, I estimate that the cost of creating a small holding of fifty acres cannot be less than £600. Therefore the figures in the Committee's Report ought, in my opinion, to be amended.
I agree with the noble Karl who has just spoken that there is a great future for small holdings in this country, more especially in the case of land near our large centres of population. There are to-day hundreds and hundreds of large farms running right into the large towns which could and should be cut up into smaller farms, because there is a strong demand by a large number of efficient and able men who would be only too glad to take these farms; and the net result would be an increase in the rent to the landowner, an enormous increase in the agricultural population on the area, and, consequently, an increase in the amount of rates paid to the locality, and in the amount of Income Tax paid to the Exchequer.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF CREWE): My Lords, after what fell from my noble friend Lord Selborne it is only necessary for me to say a very few words in finally commending this Bill to your Lordships. I also felt, as he did, that Lord Joicey took a somewhat needlessly gloomy view of the Bill itself and also of the possibilities of increasing the number of smaller farms and small holdings in this country. It is, of course, perfectly true that our system in relation to certain kinds of farming is not likely, and ought not, to be superseded by the creation of small holdings. Speaking broadly, sheep farming, whether on hills or on downs, or on what are known as turnip and barley farms, is never likely to be carried on by a system of small holdings. But that does not, of course, preclude the fact that there are a great number of branches of farming, some of the most interesting and the most lucrative, which can unquestionably be carried on quite as well, and in some cases better, on the smaller class of holdings.
As regards co-operation, my noble friend (Lord Joicey), speaking from his own experience in Wales, pointed out that although farmers generally are not averse
520
to a system of co-operative supply, yet it has not been easy to bring them either to a system of co-operative labour or of co-operative distribution. That is quite true. We all know that the farmers of Great Britain are not easy people to move into new paths, but that surely is no reason for not trying. And knowing what co-operation in all its branches is able to do in other countries, how farming is intensified by it, how production is increased and how profits are made, it surely is wise not to neglect an experiment such as this.
I am sure the House recognises what my noble friend (Lord Selborne) all through has enforced—that this is an experimental measure, and that the particular series of projects which it is intended to carry out have, as a matter of fact, not been tried under any of the previous measures for the encouragement of small holdings which have passed through Parliament. That, again, is surely a further reason for not neglecting an experiment of this kind, which can be undertaken, as my noble friend has pointed out, at a quite moderate cost in the first instance. My noble friend opposite, Lord Harrowby, whose experience in these matters I fully recognise because I have had occasion to know something of what he has done in his own county in the encouragement of small holdings, gives us a word of wise caution as to the possibility of the experiments costing more than the Board of Agriculture have been disposed to believe. That is no doubt a matter which is not to be lost sight of, particularly in view of the express desire and intention of my noble friend that these schemes should, to the utmost extent possible, be self-supporting. Personally I do not hesitate to say that close attention ought to be paid to such cautions as those made by Lord Harrowby. But all that only further points, I venture to think, to the desirability of making the experiment, and also of recognising that it is an experiment. Without troubling your Lordships more, I will merely congratulate my noble friend on the fact that, with the two notable exceptions to which he drew attention—of my two noble friends who sit on this side of the House—the reception of the Bill has been thoroughly favourable by your Lordships' House, which is so competent to form an opinion upon it.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

MILITARY SERVICE—CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
EARL RUSSELL EARL RUSSELL rose to call attention to the operation of the Military Service Act with regard to conscientious objectors who have not been so found by the Tribunals, to the case of C. H. Norman, and to complaints of brutal treatment at Wandsworth Detention Barracks and of the commandant, Lieut.-Colonel Reginald Brooke, and to move to resolve—
That in the opinion of this House it is undesirable to subject military prisoners to punishments not authorised by law.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I have to call your attention this afternoon to some extremely painful matters. We have had in this House one or two small discussions on the question of the conscientious objector, but they have generally dealt rather with legal considerations than with the actual facts. To-day, even at the risk of wearying your Lordships, I think it necessary that some of the actual facts should be placed before this House. Your Lordships are familiar, from the discussions we have already had, with the fact that the Act provided that there should be an exemption for conscientious objectors who were so found by the Tribunals. The Question that I have put down relates to objectors who were not found to be conscientious objectors by the Tribunals, and I venture to say that almost every one of these represents a case in which the Tribunal has failed to carry out the duty which Parliament imposed upon it. I know the suggestion has been made, in answer to previous Questions, that the men concerned have been found by a competent authority, sometimes not once but twice, not to be conscientious objectors, and therefore they have to be considered as ordinary soldiers. The noble Marquess opposite (Lord Salisbury), who has experience on the Central Tribunal, knows, I think, that the Tribunals have not always succeeded in adequately distinguishing between them, and that the instances in which they have failed to give that relief which the Act of Parliament contemplated are not mere ones and twos, but are, unfortunately, more numerous than they should be.
When the Tribunal has not been effective in carrying out the duties imposed upon it, you have the result that there is drafted into the Army and into the military machine technically a soldier—merely technically
522
a soldier—a person who is, in fact, a conscientious objector to any form of military service There then at once arises the inevitable result. There is a conflict with discipline, the discipline of the Army. The persons who administer the military machine cannot be expected to put up with breaches of discipline. The conscientious objector, if he is, in fact, one, whether he can be expected to or not—and apparently by the Army authorities he sometimes is expected to—does not, in fact, submit to the military discipline, and you get the inevitable conflict which has had many unfortunate instances to which I will draw your Lordships' attention.
There are, of course, legal punishments of all kinds provided for refusal to obey discipline, but there has also been in a great number of cases a great deal of illegal pressure and illegal punishments, and it is to those that I desire to draw your Lordships' attention to-day. The object of that punishment is very easy to understand. It is administered by people who are of opinion that a conscience can be formed, or at any rate that the conclusions of a conscience can be modified, by sufficient physical pain and ill-treatment, and they hope, by the ill-treatment of persons who occupy this position, to make them give up their position and to serve in the Army without raising their conscientious objections; and in some cases they have succeeded, as your Lordships will hear.
I now propose to read to your Lordships some of the circumstances that have happened. This is a case from a barracks where several reports have been collected. This writer says—
"It has been a terrible day for them. One of them, S., has given in. They were stripped and scrubbed up and down fiercely several times. ' Horrible torture,' they said. One fainted. We saw the corporal, and he was nearly insane—"
That is the corporal who had been administering this form of illegal punishment—
"He had had such a terrible day with C.O.'s that he wanted to chuck the job and go to the cells instead. He was told to go on and he swore horribly, saying he would break our hearts and kill us to-morrow…. It is a most terrible ordeal…. A military prison seems to be a special place for torturing us."
Another man says—
"When we refused to obey orders we were either kicked in the back or hit in the face, in addition to being dragged round by the ears. … B. is the biggest brute I have ever seen, read or

523
heard of. There are now only four sticking it, and they have just had a scrub and been badly kicked. K. and R. can hardly walk."
Another report, referring to the same man, runs—
"The greatest bully in the camp, Lance-corporal B. (6 ft. 6 in. in height), after a time kicked us out of the tent and tried to make us march. A.I. got badly kicked on the leg. T.B. and D.C. each got a terrible blow on the side of the head. W.H. got his face badly scratched. J.J. got a thick ear and his nose bursted, while I had a stunning upper-cut breaking a tooth. He put us on our backs and ate his breakfast in front of us as we lay there (we got no breakfast). We were taken to the washhouse, and there—gave in. … It was a terribly brutal ordeal."
Another, referring to the same corporal—
"Also I. was kicked terribly; he can only crawl along leaning on me in terrible pain."
In these cases, as your Lordships will notice, the treatment had had the results hoped for. A visitor to this camp writes—
"The four persons are still standing out, and of the five who were sent here on Saturday all have given in except D. and S. … I saw the fellow, Lance-corporal B., who has been the person to give the brutal treatment. … When he learned who I was, he made it in his way to come round by me (while I was waiting to see the commanding officer) to say ' I've only seven now! ' The commanding officer would not yield. He would not admit that the men were being badly used, and said that so long as they were in the Army they must yield to discipline. I pleaded for a Court-Martial very hard indeed, but he would not promise to give one. He pointed to the fact that so many had given way already! We talked a good deal about the Army, Prussianism, etc., and, after telling us what they would do with such like in Germany, ' Yes ' he said with pride ' and in Russia,' and he would be glad if they could do it here…. It is most pathetic to see our boys; they looked so ill, worn, and depressed."
Here is another case—
"The commandant said ' Take him to the special room.' Four of them then set on me. … The sergeant I have mentioned deliberately punched me behind the ear, and all of them set on me again and bruised me more."
A little further on—
"We are getting knocked about in a terrible manner. We have been threatened to be shot—a message from the War Office, I was told. They are trying to stop letters from getting out. We are all getting bashed about. H. and I fainted to-day. F. has a swollen face."
Your Lordships know that persons of ordinary health and of military age do not faint readily from comparatively slight knockings-about.
Here, in this same report, is an illustration of the effect which this unfortunate
524
conduct is having upon discipline, one of the things which I myself most desire to remove—
"To-day they dragged another to church, which struck one as rather blasphemous. The opinion in the ranks is that they deserve what they get, but already I note a slight but very slight change in the demeanour of some of the men, chiefly old soldiers, or men who have knocked about the world. The corporal who beat his man on the face expressed great respect for him in my hearing, but doubted whether he could ' hold out against such a mighty big machine.' I am not particularly squeamish, having seen and taken part in many curious things …"
I believe that the majority of the cases I have been reading to your Lordships refer to Wandsworth Detention Barracks, but there are also several very bad cases which have been supplied to me from the Whitchurch (Salop) Barracks. Some of these cases referring to Lance-Corporal Barker, the man called "B," are from Whitchurch. This is one of the things this man said—
"' You are the damned ring-leader. I'll break your bloody heart. I've tamed the others. I'll scrub you myself; you're my man. I'll scrub you until the blood comes.' ' He scrubbed me cruel,' says this man; ' I was forced to cry out …'"
Here is the case of a man who was ordered to fall in—
"I refused, explaining that I was a conscientious objector. The commanding officer then called upon Corporal Barker, who had been specially sent for to deal with us."
This is, again, the same man. Apparently that was the way in which he dealt with them. This is from another letter—
"He said ' March.' We did not. He kicked me on the ankle. I fell. He then kicked me just below the knee; it is bruised yet. He again said ' March.' I staggered along slowly, so he kicked me again on the thigh. I went down again. I thought my leg was broken. I felt some one helping me up. It was Ban. He helped me back to the tent. I could not walk myself. Then we were taken to the baths and scrubbed with a stiff sink brush. Dan practically appealed to be shot. So you can reckon what it was. We were followed by about 4,000 men, a lot of them booing."
It may be suggested, and it has been suggested, that these stories are not true. I say at once that as far as I am concerned I am not prepared to accept any official denial of these stories, and that I should not be prepared to believe in any inquiry that was not conducted by independent people who were in no way under the domination of any official pressure whatever. These stories—I say at once that

525
I am not acquainted with them myself—come from people who I am assured are reliable; and your Lordships heard the speech which was made by the most rev. Primate the other night in this House. The most rev. Primate is not, I think, too ready to array himself against authority, or to give any support whatever to law breakers. Nor would your Lordships think that he was a man likely readily to believe stories of this kind which were without foundation. But he himself told you that the evidence was such that he was convinced that unfortunate incidents had taken place—incidents of the character which I have been reading to your Lordships. I say, therefore, that official denials will convey no conviction to me, and ought not to convey any conviction to any member of the public. These things have been officially denied in the other House, where they cannot be challenged and where no debate can be raised on a Question. The Government are responsible—every member of the Government is responsible—for allowing anything of this kind to continue, and every one of your Lordships is responsible if you do not protest against this kind of treatment and allow it to continue. It is not a responsibility that can be shelved by professing not to believe the stories, or by thinking that one has not personally ordered it, or by thinking that it is taking place unofficially and unauthorised in barracks. It is a responsibility which every one of us must share, the Government most of all, if it is allowed to continue one moment after attention has been drawn to it.
I now want to call attention to the special case of Mr. C. H. Norman. In this instance I know the man myself. I have known him for several years, and can assure your Lordships that I am prepared to accept as absolutely correct any statement that he makes. I have no sympathy with his opinions and am quite willing to admit that he is in many ways a very wrong-headed and very obstinate person. But the point with which I am dealing is merely the question of how he was treated. This is a diary of what happened to him at the Wandsworth Detention Barracks on the 23rd or 24th of May of this year—
"Met with shower of abuse on arrival. Asked for some paper to make will. They asked whether I would put on uniform—refused. Taken to cell and forcibly dressed. Repeated request to make will, as I might not be alive
526
more than three or four days. Officer went to commandant. I was taken to reception room and signed for things. Commandant arrived, and without a word to me ordered me to be taken to hospital and put in strait jacket. Was taken there and put in strait jacket, which was too small and caused me great pain. I told the attendant, but he could do nothing. Commandant and another officer arrived. Commandant mocked at me and spat at me. Other officer asked whether I was all right—a question which amused me in the circumstances. Medical officer came about 8 p.m., but did not explain anything. He said commandant had said I had threatened suicide. I told him I had asked to make my will, and that was all. I could not move myself in strait jacket and suffered a good deal, because I wanted to go to the lavatory but was lying on the floor and could not attract the attendant's attention. I did finally and went, and then was left standing. I had asked in the beginning for a chair, but was refused it…Sergeant-major came in and another officer, and asked how I was. I told him I was feeling ill. Medical officer came at ten, and released me on my giving my word against doing harm whilst under his authority. On the next day I was in hospital. On asking leave to write to my solicitor or friends, commandant swore and spat at me, expressing hope that the medical officer would put me in strait jacket again. … On the 26th May the commandant visited me again, cursed me, and said he wished I would cut my throat; that I was a coward who ought to be shot. Also spat at me.… June 1st, ordered to parade by commandant, who again cursed me, and said I should be sent to France and that it was a pity I was afraid to kill myself. Commandant again said I should be put in strait jacket. Ordered C.D. 1 and put in darkish cell; bread and water diet; all privileges taken."
I have also received a letter from Norman's father, a portion of which I propose to read to your Lordships—
"As the father of this young man, I can say without the least hesitation that his strongest convictions for years before the war were entirely anti-pathetic to every form of military influence—"
I am quite able to endorse that, and if ever there is or has been a conscientious objector, a person with every possible sign of the crank about him, it is this gentleman, C. H. Norman. The letter from the father goes on—
"It cannot possibly be in the interest of the nation that a young man of talent, imbued with strong intellectual convictions (however mistaken), and who has always had the public interest if anything too much at heart, should be subjected to every form of degradation and physical suffering because he will not abate the full force of his conscientious scruples."
Since these events, of which I have read you the diary, Norman has been court-martialled and sentenced to two years detention. At least I gather it is detention from the fact that he remained in barracks

527
and was subject to military control; at any rate, he has not been removed to a civil prison under the understanding—referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parmoor, the other day—regarding the operation of the new Army Order, and I saw the other day in the newspapers that there has been a second Court-Martial on this same man. The reason for a second Court-Martial while he is serving one sentence and the effect of it I do not know, but I shall be glad to learn; and I shall also be glad to learn whether it is proposed to remove this man, who has suffered so much under military discipline and control. If he is not to be removed it is a breach of the spirit of the Act and of the Tribunals and of the Army Order, because he is, to my knowledge, a perfectly honest conscientious objector and a person who ought to have whatever relief is to be extended to such.
I have also stated that I desire to call attention to the commandant referred to in the diary which I have read. The commandant is Lieut.-Colonel Reginald Brooke, and the facts in some of these cases connected with him cannot be denied, because they are in writing in his own hand and are therefore available to confute anybody who attempts to deny them. This was a case in which a man had written a letter referring to the treatment of somebody else, and the commandant refused to let it out of the camp. Of that, naturally, I make no complaint. But he wrote on it this endorsement—
"Letter returned. Not of the sort I will pass. If your news as to Private Rendal Wyatt is true I am delighted to hear it, and sincerely hope the whole lot of the conscientious objectors will be treated in the same way.
(Signed) REGINALD BROOKE,
Lt.-Col. Commandant, May 19, 1916."
He was also sent an inquiry about another conscientious objector named Forrester, and to this he replied—
"Private Forrester was given sentence by me, and I shall continue to act in my Barracks according to my orders, without any regard to what you and the ' so-called public ' may think. I do not care one atom for public opinion."
On another occasion he said to the father of two men who were suffering there—
"I mean to make these men soldiers, and I shall continue to give them severe punishment while they disobey military orders. I don't care for Asquith or Parliament. I shall do just as I like with these men."
I am not sure whether it was not, perhaps, the sacrilege committed in his reference
528
to the Prime Minister that has caused him to be removed from his position, rather than his treatment of these men. He said to another conscientious objector—
"I don't care a damn for your conscience. You'll do what you are told, or by God I'll make your life a hell. You will be put in a strait jacket twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four, and don't you think you'll leave this place when your time is up. I have power to bring you before a General Court-Martial and keep you here in my charge."
It may well seem incredible to your Lordships that anybody occupying an official position of this responsibility could act and speak in this way. I should like to inquire why this gentleman has been removed, and whether there is supposed to be any truth in any of the statements that have been made about him, or whether his removal has been in the nature of a promotion. If any of these statements are true I should have thought that the proper course to take would have been to have a Court-Martial upon him, and afford these people the opportunity of giving their evidence and having the matter dealt with on oath. That course has not been taken. And when one remembers that his immediate official superior, or at any rate the person who deals with conscientious objectors at the War Office, is Brigadier-General Childs, to whom I have called your Lordships' attention before, one may, perhaps, not wonder that brutality in a subordinate is excused or winked at.
LORD SANDHURST: Oh, oh!
EARL RUSSELL: The noble Lord says "Oh, oh." I will give you my reasons why I say that. Brigadier-General Childs was asked whether he knew any Quakers, and he replied that he was glad he did not. Since then he has given evidence and been cross-examined, and I understand he said he thought the best thing to do with conscientious objectors was to have them all shot, although the words he used referred to Army Order IX (a) which I understand has the same meaning. I do not know whether the noble Lord will deny that this has been said by this officer on oath and in public. I came across, in The Times on Monday, an interesting address by no less a person than His Majesty to the cadets at Sandhurst on the duty of an officer, in the course of which the King said—
"You must cultivate a high standard of honour and moral conduct. … These qualities have always been the distinguishing characteristics of officers in the British Army."

529
Is it contended, in view of what has been said, and in view of what cannot be denied without an official Inquiry at which these people are given an opportunity of making these charges—is it contended that this gentleman to whom I refer comes within that definition, and that he behaves as one would desire a British officer to behave?
There have been other incidents at other barracks, but I desire to-day only to call attention to those which I have mentioned. But I would ask what is intended to be done in this matter. There are only two logical courses. I need hardly say that, characteristically, neither has been taken. One course is to regard these people as outlaws entitled to no sympathy and to no consideration, and in that case the best and kindest thing is to shoot them out of hand if you feel justified in doing that. The other course is the one that was contemplated by the Act of Parliament when it contained the clause in question. You may treat these men as lunatics, if you like, but they are people holding opinions so strong that you cannot influence those opinions by argument nor by physical persecution. You can apparently, as I showed in the earlier instances, cow them to the extent of making them, through sheer terror, do that of which their conscience disapproves, but that is a method which I, and I think all of your Lordships, deprecate.
The official answer, no doubt, will be what we have heard before—that these men have had the opportunity of going before the Tribunals, and that the Tribunals have refused their claim. As a matter of fact, in the case of Norman, he did not go before the Tribunal, although of course he had only himself to thank for that. But when it turns out that these men are conscientious objectors in fact, that answer will not do. Since I put this Question on the Paper we have had an important statement by Mr. Asquith. After making it, Mr. Asquith said—
"I think, perhaps, I may appeal to my hon. friends to read my statement carefully in print."
I have taken that course, and when this statement was referred to last week I ventured to think that it would have to be read very carefully before we could suppose that it carried out what we understood was the intention—that is, that these men should be civilly imprisoned and dealt with civilly when it was found that they
530
were real conscientious objectors. The Prime Minister's statement began—
"The procedure to be adopted by the War Office in the case of soldiers, under Army Order X, of May 25, 1916, sentenced to imprisonment for refusing to obey orders, is as follows …"
The first thing that is not clear is whether this applies to those who were sentenced before Army Order X was issued. The second point is that it is limited to a sentence of imprisonment. You can sentence a man to two years detention in barracks, and so escape sending him into civil custody. This is an evasion which makes the Order unsatisfactory. The only thing that will make it satisfactory is that every one of these unfortunate men—mistaken, if you like, but at any rate very unfortunate in the way in which they are being treated—should be brought under civil custody, and that there should be no technical quibbling differences as to when their sentence was and the form it took. The Prime Minister's statement goes on—
"All Court-Martial proceedings on conscientious objectors will be referred for scrutiny to the War Office."
It is then said that if they supply the information required in the questions it will be examined into. I hope they will all be advised to supply that information and have it examined into. But I have seen some of these people. They are extraordinarily unreasonable, and it may quite well be that some of them will not do that. Then the Prime Minister said—
"If the information is refused … the prisoner will remain under military control, his sentence will at once be commuted to detention, and he will be sent to a detention barrack to undergo his sentence."
What exactly is the meaning of that? Why are they to be sent back to military control unless it is to be assumed that they are shirkers, and then what is to be done with them beyond imprisoning? I think the Prime Minister's statement does not go sufficiently far, and does not make it sufficiently clear that these men are going to be properly dealt with.
This gradual growth, as it has been, of militarism in this country—and militarism, as Mr. Bodkin said when prosecuting for the Crown, in a sinister sense—requires to be looked into. It will not be put up with indefinitely by the people of this country, and it will not be got over by denying the facts or by issuing Orders which do not honestly deal with the difficulty. My own

531
impression is that, to begin with, there were very few people indeed who had any sympathy with the conscientious objector, or who were in the least anxious to fight his cause in any way. But I am perfectly certain that the action that has been taken by the Government and the conduct which has been allowed to be meted out to these men has been such as to produce an unfortunate and most undesirable sympathy for them, and has also to a very considerable extent helped to injure discipline in the ranks of the Army. I am as anxious as any member of the Government can be to remove that, and I ask the Government to endeavour to deal with the matter seriously and in a comprehensive spirit.
But all that I have called attention to to-day are the illegalities which have been committed. I think there is no politician, no statesman, no member of your Lordships' House, who would be prepared to say that he is in favour of a prisoner of any kind, for whatever reason, being subjected to illegal or brutal treatment. These knockings-about to which I have called attention are no part of any official sentence and they are illegal, and I hope that an expression of opinion by your Lordships will lead to those who have to deal with these men realising that if they punish them as, so long as matters go on as they are, they are bound to do, they must punish them in accordance with the law, and not by methods which are extra-legal and which are unfortunate and do a great deal of harm. I do not think any of your Lordships will disagree with the Resolution which I now beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That in the opinion of this House it is undesirable to subject military prisoners to punishments not authorised by law.—(Earl Russell.)
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, the noble Earl has made his statement, if he will allow me to say so, in a temperate fashion, and with that lucidity of expression to which we are accustomed from him in this House. I regret, however, that he made an attack upon one individual in the War Office—General Childs. As to the statement which the noble Earl says General Childs made use of the other day on oath before a Court, I certainly did not see it; but the noble Earl did make reference the other day to the fact that General Childs, when asked whether he knew any Quakers, replied "No, I know no Quakers,
532
thank God." I think it is possible to attach too much importance to a statement of that kind. Had bitterness been intended, it would have been very easy to have formed a much more disagreeable sentence. Perhaps I may point out that this particular officer is one of great capability and great zeal, and I will go further and say, without fear of contradiction, that he is and has been a good friend to the conscientious objector. He has been instrumental, in the branch of the War Office in which he is employed, in reducing sentences and stretching privileges. I also know that he has been in communication verbally and by letter with various ministers of religion and also with officials of the Quaker Society, and I have seen appreciative letters which these people have written to him. He has been in close touch with these people and has always been accessible. So much I should like to say for General Childs.
The noble Earl covered a certain amount of ground. He said, in the last few words of his speech, that he particularly dealt with certain cases. But he did point out that prisoners were being subjected to illegal sentences, and he quoted three or four cases which he said had been denied, I understood, in the House of Commons.
EARL RUSSELL: Some of them.
LORD SANDHURST: The noble Earl will forgive me if I do not go into the details of these cases. I am not in a position to do so. He also mentioned the Prime Minister's statement. If he will allow me, I will take two or three of the various points he has raised in particular order, which may perhaps run more consecutively and be more convenient to the House. In regard to the case of Mr. Norman, whom the noble Earl mentioned as serving two years detention imposed by a Court-Martial, I do not know when that person was sentenced, but I believe I am correct in saying that no man is undergoing a sentence of more than 118 days in a detention barrack; and in regard to his being court-martialled a second time, I think the explanation is this. For insubordination, for refusing to obey orders, instead of the man being punished by the commandant of the prison, the commandant can set him back for Court-Martial, the result of which will be, if the man is convicted, that he will be sentenced to imprisonment in a civil prison in accordance with Army Order X, to which we referred the other day.

533
In regard to the eases that the noble Earl mentioned, noble Lords will readily understand that a variety of reports get about. Some are substantiated and some are not, and the evidence is contradictory. But in regard to the particular case of the man Norman, it is stated that he threatened to commit suicide; that he wanted to make his will because he wished to commit suicide. That being so, the order was given to put him under restraint, as the official term goes. This meant putting him into what I understand is a canvas waistcoat. Then he also either did, or threatened to, hunger strike. The consequence was that he had to be forcibly fed; that also requires restraint. But when either of these courses—restraint or forcible feeding—has to be resorted to, it is done under the supervision of a medical officer, who has in his report to state the time at which the treatment took place and the duration of the restraint. As regards forcible feeding, understand that this takes ten minutes, but that the prisoner is kept under restraint for somewhere about an hour to prevent artificial regurgitation.
EARL RUSSELL: The noble Lord will remember that I purposely abstained from making any complaint about forcible feeding.
LORD SANDHURST: Quite so. I am only stating the facts. There were five other prisoners, conscientious objectors, in this barrack, because they had refused to drill, and they had no complaints to make. As is known, this commandant has been relieved; but it has been reported that he did not act illegally, and that he did not exceed the powers that were given him.
The noble Earl went on to say that there was a variety of punishments. I do not know whether he used the term, but I rather gathered that what he meant was that punishments were invented or improvised for dealing with conscientious objectors outside what is legally laid down. I will give reasons in a moment to show that provision is made that such various punishments are not, or cannot be, made use of. The system of discipline in a military prison and detention barracks is laid down in what are known as the Rules for Military Prisons and for Detention Barracks. They are made by the Secretary of State under Section 133 of the Army Act and are laid on the Tables of both
534
Houses of Parliament for a period, I believe, of forty days, though as to that I will not be quite certain—it may be thirty days. The noble Earl gave instances of how a non-commissioned officer had kicked one man in the back, hit another man behind the ear, and so on. Again, by Section 37 of the Army Act such cases are provided for. When they are brought to light, the punishment is severe. In the case of an officer, he is liable to be cashiered; and in the case of a non-commissioned officer, severe punishment is provided for.
From what the noble Earl told us, this treatment to which he called attention is, in his view, going on not only in one barrack but in two or three. Now in connection with every detention barrack and every military prison there are officers known as prison visitors. The Rules laid down for the conduct of these officers are, like the others I have mentioned, laid on the Tables of both Houses of Parliament and come under Section 133 of the Army Act. I think the simplest plan to make the matter quite clear would be for me to read the Rules which apply to official visitors. They are—
"An officer, if possible not below the rank of Field Officer, shall be detailed weekly by the General Officer Commanding, or Officer Commanding the station, as detention barrack or military prison visitor. He shall see all soldiers under punishment and any other soldiers under sentence who desire to make a complaint, and shall inquire into such complaints and report direct to the General Officer Commanding. Complaints of soldiers under sentence may be heard in private.
A visitor appointed under this Rule is entitled to obtain access to all or any part of the detention barrack or prison, to see all men or any man under sentence, to inquire into the work and general conditions of the establishment, and to make such report to the General Officer Commanding or the Officer Commanding the station as he may think fit.
In the event of such report being unfavourable a copy will be forwarded confidentially to the War Office, and the fact that this is being done will be recorded in the Visitors' Minute Book. It will rest with the General Officer Commanding or the Officer Commanding the station, on receipt of such report, either personally to inspect the detention barrack or prison, or to take such other steps as he may consider desirable."
The noble Earl used the expression that these men are only technically soldiers. We all remember the Act that was passed a short time ago in which it was stated in Section 1, subsection (1), that every male between certain ages and on a certain date should be deemed to be a soldier and passed into the Reserve. I do not see

535
how the noble Earl can get round that. To my mind it is as clear as possible that all these men are soldiers unless exempted. Of course, there are always a great many people who let everything slide, who pay no attention to notices or proclamations, some owing to carelessness and some advisedly. These men, not obeying the summons, are absent without leave; and when a man is absent for over twenty-one days he is declared, under Section 72 of the Army Act, by a Court of Inquiry to be a deserter and is liable to apprehension by a constable. Then in the course of time he can be handed over by a magistrate to an escort to be taken to barracks; and this is the only way as I understand, by which that person can be tried, he being beyond the procedure of a civil Court.
Then comes the following process. The commanding officer, if he thought the circumstances warranted and subject to superior authority, might deal with the case summarily—that is, if he did not wish a man to begin his military service by serving a Court-Martial sentence—and inflict a punishment up to twenty-eight days in a detention barrack. I am speaking of the ordinary case, the case of alleged desertion. On the other hand, he has to give the man the option whether he would prefer to be tried by a Court-Martial—that is under Section 46; and if at the Court-Martial the man makes representation as to a conscientious objection, the case is, after confirmation, referred for scrutiny to the War Office. This is a particular point which the noble Earl mentioned. But that scrutiny is made with the sole object of ascertaining, if possible, by the Court-Martial proceedings, whether the man had been before the Tribunal, and if such be the case the records of the Tribunal are obtained with a view of supplying material to the Central Appeal Tribunal which may help them to form their decision.
The Prime Minister's statement was mentioned by the noble Earl, and with your Lordships' permission I should like to make a remark or two about it. In regard to conscientious objectors, there are two kinds under confinement—the first, who are obeying orders and behaving well in the detention barrack, and the others who refuse to obey any order at all. Those who refuse to obey any order at all—and this has a bearing on what the noble Earl said—are, I believe, being remanded
536
to trial by Court-Martial, which will result in their passing into a civil prison. They represent themselves to be conscientious objectors, and they will be dealt with by the Army Order.
EARL RUSSELL: Even if their sentence was before the promulgation of the Order?
LORD SANDHURST: I will answer that in a moment. I think it will be found, if these men misbehave themselves that instead of being punished by the commandant they will be set back to Court-Martial. That is my belief, and in accordance with the Prime Minister's statement they will be sentenced then to imprisonment in a civil prison. Men who are held to be genuine conscientious objectors will be released from the civil prison on their undertaking to perform work of national importance under civil control for the duration of the war. They will be transferred pro forma to Section W of the Army Reserve, and they will cease to be subject to military discipline or the Army Act so long as they continue to carry out satisfactorily the duties imposed upon them. And if they do not behave properly, they will then be put back to the civil prison to complete their sentence. If the man will not do national work, he will complete his sentence of civil imprisonment and then be discharged from the Army. Where a man, asserting himself to be a conscientious objector, refuses to give any information, and in all cases where the plea is not sustained, the sentence, under Army Order X, will at once be commuted to detention, and the man will be sent to a detention barrack to undergo his sentence and will there be under military discipline. As to detention, as I have said, I do not think anybody is undergoing a sentence of more than 118 days.
Doubts have been expressed that the Army Council will not follow the advice of the Central Appeal Tribunal. I do not think there need be any fear of that. The Army Council will never interfere with the final decisions of this body. That was endorsed in a statement by the Prime Minister in reply to a question last night. He said that the final decision as to the genuineness of a conscientious objection would rest solely and wholly with the Central Appeal Tribunal. I may add that the Central Appeal Tribunal who are to exercise this important function, in addition

537
to sitting on and sifting these cases, will frame the questions that it is desirable to put, and the only part which the Army Council will play will be that after the Home Secretary has released the man from the civil prison the Army Council will then be the instrument to release him from military law and discipline.
Now a word as to Lord Kitchener's statement that "the genuine conscientious objector will find himself under the civil power." This delicate question either was being considered or had been considered when that national calamity occurred and Lord Kitchener lost his life. I believe that Lord Kitchener had in his mind the conscientious objector purely from the religious point of view. But, as I read it, the Prime Minister's statement, taking the term "conscientious objector" as it appears in the Act, is all-embracing. I am sorry I forgot to mention one thing. I particularly wish to read what was said by the Prime Minister in regard to the scrutiny of these Courts-Martial—
"All Court-Martial proceedings on conscientious objectors will be referred for scrutiny to the War Office.
With regard to the cases of those who have been before a Tribunal, the records will be consulted. If the data therein are not sufficient, further investigation will be made; answers to categorical questions will be required, and those who have knowledge of the man's antecedents, such as ministers of religion, may be consulted.
With regard to those who have never been before a Tribunal, the first step will be to require them to answer the categorical questions which the Tribunal might have put. If the information is supplied investigation will be made into those answers, and for the purpose of such investigation, and in all cases where a prima facie case is established, the Army Council will depend on the advice of the Central Appeal Tribunal, or a committee of that Tribunal who have consented to lend their assistance for this purpose."
That is the answer that I have to give to the noble Earl. There are, of course, a number of people who, as the noble Earl has said, are not religious conscientious objectors. They may be few, but they are objectors from other points of view, and I have heard various terms applied to them, as have we all. I have heard them called on occasions cowards. The really conscientious objector may be respected, though his is a frame of mind that personally I cannot understand. In regard to the other men, speaking for myself I do not like to call any section of my fellow-countrymen cowards. If there is cowardice, it may be said to be mere moral cowardice of this kind—that they
538
are easily led and persuaded, very often, I think, by those who have ideas very different as to conscientious objections.
I desire to say only one word more. For six months it has been my duty to represent the War Office in this House. I have seen in the newspapers that possibly the Under-Secretary may be Lord Derby. Whether that is well founded or not I am not in a position to say. Sometimes these rumours are erroneous; but should it so happen that Lord Derby takes my place I venture very respectfully to say this, that I think the country and the Army will be very much to be congratulated, and also, if I may say so, that it will be a great advantage to your Lordships' House, because you will have an Under-Secretary to reply to questions you may raise who is fully conversant with every detail of his office. It has been very interesting to me to do this work and to be associated, if only in a very humble way, with that commanding personality, Lord Kitchener, whose relations with me were always so cordial and whose appreciation was always so generous. I should like to say this, as I leave the War Office for the third time All of us at times have no doubt criticised the War Office and been able to prove its various shortcomings, but until I got there the other day, in my humble capacity, I had no idea of the immense amount of work which the War Office has to put through. While I shall be sorry to take my departure, I can only thank your Lordships for the kindness with which you have received me whenever it has been my duty to intrude upon you.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, we have listened with great interest to the full statement that has been made by the noble Lord on behalf of the Government. I do not know whether the noble Lord regards it as an answer to the speech which was made by the noble Earl. He mentioned a great deal of interesting matter, and we heard the Rules, with which many of us have made ourselves familiar, that govern these questions of administration, the manner in which officers who visit the prisons are directed to carry out their inquiries, the possibility that prisoners have with regard to complaints, and a great many other subjects, including the important indications that the noble Lord gave at the conclusion of his speech about War Office administration generally. But

539
I looked in vain for any answer to the specific points that were brought forward in what I think the whole House must feel to be a reasonable and temperate manner by the noble Earl who introduced this subject.
I was surprised, in the first place, that whereas Lord Russell had given notice of a particular case, with the name of the man about whom the complaint had arisen and about whom he desired to ask questions, the noble Lord, in reply, could only answer that he really did not know about a second Court-Martial, and that he thought such and such other things had happened. But these were exactly the points to which, as the Notice on the Paper definitely stated, attention was going to be directed. Then there were the incidents, of which I have no personal knowledge, which the noble Earl brought forward. What we all, I imagine, wanted to know was not whether these particular things had necessarily happened exactly as they were described, or not so much, but whether there is an arrangement now in force which will render the recurrence of that kind of thing impossible. About that we did not get the slightest hint in the speech of the noble Lord. The other important point, about which all of us have been eager ever since we heard the Prime Minister's statement, was, Are the provisions which the Prime Minister indicated in his statement retrospective or are they not? Do they refer only to cases which are now arising, or are men who are now being subjected—if these stories are true—to treatment of the kind described, in any different position from what they were in before as regards the investigation of the subject or the transference of the men to other authority? Those are the points upon which we have been hoping for an answer, but at present, as far as I can see, we have had no explanation whatever. The rules which exist with regard to the visiting of prisons, the inspection of what has taken place, and many more things, are exceedingly interesting, but they do not bear on the particular points raised in the noble Earl's speech, and, what is most important of all, in the statement by the Prime Minister of what is to be the course of action in the future.
I think we want to get into a non-technical and a larger air about this matter. Time after time when this question has been brought up we have
540
been told of perfectly admirable regulations which are so technical in terms that it requires an expert to understand what they mean, but we have failed to get at the plain facts whether or no mischief is taking place and whether that mischief is now being remedied, whether the new system will differ in any large respects from the old, and whether the operation of the new system will be retrospective as well as affecting men who may now come under it. I do not think it is unreasonable that the House should want to know those things; because, however remote we may be from the slightest sympathy in our hearts with the action that is being taken by men who raise these objections in a perfectly illogical and often perfectly unreasonable manner, we do want to know that things are not happening which are calculated to spread distrust in Army administration, and are especially likely when, as is certainly the case, they are exaggerated, to do harm in the country. About that I looked in vain for any answer in the reply which has just been given to us. All that, we were told was—quoting, I gathered, from a document which we have not seen—that the action of a particular officer, Lieut. Colonel Brooke, had not been illegal, and that he had not exceeded his powers. Whether that means that the statements made respecting him by the prisoners are untrue, or whether, if they are true, those are within the powers of an officer placed in that position, I do not know. That is what we want to know. I do think that the interest in this subject outside in very many circles warrants us in pressing for a fuller and more explicit general statement as to what has happened, the bearing which the new rules will have upon the past, and what is likely to be the operation of these things in the days that lie ahead. I confess I have looked in vain for that in the answer to which we have listened, and I venture to hope that we may have some further word about it.
LORD HAVERSHAM: My Lords, after the speech of the most rev. Primate I am bound to say I think we ought to take into consideration the answer which has been given to-day in the House of Commons by the Under-Secretary of State. He stated that for the future all conscientious objectors will be tried by District Court-Martial; they will not be punished by non-commissioned officers, but will be

541
tried by a tribunal the impartiality of which I and all of us who have served in the Army know perfectly well is certain. The evidence will always be taken upon oath. Moreover, no sentence can be passed by a District Court-Martial and put into execution unless it is confirmed by the General Officer Commanding the district. That removes all doubts about violence or ill-treatment. I am sorry to say I cannot accept, without hearing the evidence, the charges which the noble Earl has made. Only the other day an immense number of cases were brought forward which were said to have happened in the Army abroad. When I challenged that, Lord Derby said, "Not a single conscientious objector has been sent abroad," so that every one of those cases must have been based on falsehood. I do not know where the noble Earl gets all this evidence from, but every one of us acquainted with the Army knows that these cases get about rapidly and grow as they go on. I am sure the most rev. Primate will be satisfied with the statement made by the Under-Secretary that any refusal to obey an order will not be tried on the spot but will be submitted to a perfectly impartial tribunal, a Court-Martial, and that before the sentence is carried into effect it must be sanctioned by the General Officer Commanding the district.
LORD DEVONPORT: My Lords, the interesting statement has been made to us that something which has happened in the House of Commons has a bearing on this question. I do not know what the statement is, and I am not very much concerned what it is. I venture to suggest that it has no bearing whatever on the subject-matter before us this afternoon. There have been most serious allegations made as to a system of brutality. I do not express any opinion one way or the other as to whether they are true or not, but the cases have been cited. Indeed, in the Motion as it appears on the Paper there is one case set forward as to which, as the most rev. Primate said, the official spokesman of the Government did not vouchsafe any reply.
I need scarcely say that I have no sympathy with conscientious objectors, but I have some concern for the reputation of the Army; and we are informed that it is damaging its reputation or its reputation is being damaged by the isolated
542
action of individuals in carrying on a system of ill-treatment. We are entitled to ask for some reply to these very serious allegations. My noble friend Lord Sandhurst did not attempt to give a reply. He gave us an interesting dissertation on all sorts of things quite remote from the questions at issue. He cited rules and regulations that govern the discipline of the Army, and I suppose he was assuming all the time—at least one would suppose so—that these rules and regulations were always rigidly adhered to, and that therefore nothing of the kind that has been recited by the noble Earl behind me could have happened. That is not good enough for us. We, after all, have our wits and intelligence, and we expect to have proper replies to questions of supreme importance of this kind.
Since the House of Commons has been referred to, I venture to think that if a member of that House had raised a question of importance and there had been an attempt on the part of a Minister to fob him off with the sort of reply that has been given here to-day, it would not have been tolerated for a moment. I think that when questions of this sort are asked, setting forth the charge, and when supplemented by most astounding statements such as were made by the noble Earl—they may be false utterly, or they may be true—we are entitled to some answer, and I suggest that we should have that answer before this debate closes. I have no personal interest whatever in the matter, but I cannot sit here when charges of this kind are made and consent to their being disposed of in the way in which my noble friend has attempted to dispose of them.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, it is clear, I think, that there are two entirely separate questions under discussion this afternoon—the one the allegations of particular and illegal ill-treatment of individuals by individuals; the other the larger and wider question, more specifically alluded to by the most rev. Primate, of the method of trial of conscientious objectors and the form of punishment to which they are legally committed. Those two questions, although of course related to each other, are in effect distinct; and I think that my noble friend who spoke last was not quite fair to my noble friend Lord Sandhurst in complaining that neither of these questions

543
had been fully dealt with by him. So far as the case of Mr. Norman is concerned, my noble friend replied upon that, although I gather that his reply was not regarded as sufficiently full. On the other hand, all the circumstances of the case of Mr. Norman have been read by most of your Lordships in the public Press, his trial having taken place and having been publicly reported; and supposing that any further information of his particular case is obtainable, I have no doubt that my noble friend Lord Sandhurst will do his best to obtain it from the War Office.
As regards the other cases of brutal and illegal treatment which were mentioned by my noble friend Lord Russell, which I am sure affected those who heard them with a sense of profound regret that such things should be even possible, they are not specifically mentioned in the terms of the noble Earl's Question on the Paper, and I gather that my noble friend Lord Sandhurst was not supplied with information regarding them—I mean the specific statements, fortified by names and places, which the noble Earl made of physical assaults by a particular non-commissioned officer upon several people who were, or at any rate claimed to be, conscientious objectors. It is evident that anything of that kind, assuming it to have taken place, would be altogether repudiated by every officer in the Army, and not least, of course, by the Army Council. But I do not understand that these charges are admitted by the War Office as being well-founded, and I think that the form of reply which my noble friend made was not entirely understood by the noble Lords who followed. He alluded to the system of frequent visits by officers from outside whose duty it is to report to the General in command. Their duty is comparable to that of visiting justices, of whose functions most of your Lordships are doubtless aware, and my noble friend's assumption, I take it, was that supposing these violent assaults to have been committed upon the person of certain conscientious objectors, it is inconceivable that complaints would not have been lodged by those who suffered with the officers who must have visited these detention barracks in the course of a few days after the cases were alleged to have occurred; and he, I have no doubt, would argue that the complaints were either not well-founded and could not be supported
544
by evidence, or, if they were, that the guilty party would receive a severe punishment in respect of them. In the absence of specific knowledge I do not see how my noble friend could have said more.
Then there is the larger and wider question as to which the most rev. Primate thought that a full reply had not been given—the question of the form of trial and of punishment which conscientious objectors receive, and whether it could be shown that the pledges originally given in this House by the late Secretary of State for War, and repeated in another place by the Prime Minister, are indeed being carried out. I understand that the point is whether, as a matter of fact, conscientious objectors who can be shown to be such are tried by Court-Martial, and whether they, on conviction, assuming them to be convicted, are then civilly punished. As I understand it, in all cases where a conscientious objector has preferred or agreed to be tried by a Court-Martial—that is to say, since the pledge was given—he has been so tried, and on conviction has been handed over to the civil authority; but in cases where he has not, so to speak, lent himself to that form of trial, he has been tried by the military authority and sentenced to confinement in detention barracks; that is to say, to a military punishment instead of the civil punishment which it was generally agreed he ought to receive. As I understand, arrangements will now be made whereby in every case the conscientious objector will receive a trial by Court-Martial, and, if convicted, will be handed over to the civil authority.
EARL RUSSELL: Including cases before the issue of the Army Order?
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: So I understand; but I speak there without direct knowledge. It is true that the demand, which I think was originally made by the noble and learned Lord (Lord Parmoor) and was supported by some other noble Lords in this House, that the whole process of trial should be civil, cannot be met—and for this reason, that you would have to devise an entirely new civil offence by Statute before you could convict anybody, the offence of desertion or of refusing to obey orders being a purely

545
military offence; and although it may be argued with great plausibility that the offence is really against the nation, against society and not against the Army, yet without going through a somewhat elaborate process of legislation that particular change of method could not be adopted.
But the truer importance, I think, ought to be attached to the method of punishment than to the method of trial; and in the case of these—I will venture to call them unfortunate people, because in some respects I think they are more subjects for pity than for anything else; they are in almost every case people whom it is impossible to regard as anything but bad citizens, who prefer the satisfaction of their individual prejudice to what is almost universally agreed by the society of which they are members to be their duty as citizens—I trust the event will show that the form of punishment; to be inflicted upon them, which I venture to think ought not to be a light one—that that punishment, even if it cannot be civilly imposed, yet at any rate should be carried out by the civil power and not under the pretence, because it would be nothing but a pretence, of treating them as soldiers when they are not soldiers, will not be soldiers, and, I fear, are not worthy to be soldiers.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I should like to say that in my opinion—and I have studied this question with some care—what has been said by Lord Sandhurst and by the noble Marquess is most satisfactory as regards the future treatment of the conscientious objector, if I rightly understand the proposition. I agree that it does not depend so much on the method of trial, although I should have preferred a civil trial. The crucial point is that the punishment should be undergone only in a civil prison. That was the purport of the Army Order which was passed after the late Earl Kitchener made his statement in this House; and if that were applied, ad I think it ought to be, retrospectively to all conscientious objectors, I believe that in substance the complaint they are now making would be satisfactorily met. It is too difficult a topic to assume that you can meet every individual case. The same information which was supplied to
546
the noble Earl opposite was supplied to me—namely, as regards what he called the brutality of treatment in these different cases; and I have in my pocket at the present time cases that I could hardly venture to deal with in public having regard to the conditions. I do not believe that any regulations such as the noble Lord has referred to would, without a change to civil imprisonment, affect the question satisfactorily. It is the human nature of the bully coming out when there is an opportunity. But once put these men into civil prisons, and I think all legitimate objections will be met; and if that is done retrospectively I hope we shall have an end to what appears to me to have been a scandal.
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, I think I can clear up the point put forward by the noble and learned Lord. If under Army Order X, with which he is well acquainted, a conscientious objector is sentenced, he will go to a civil prison. Then the noble and learned Lord asked what about the men who are serving a period of imprisonment in a detention barrack. Speaking subject to correction, what I think will happen is this. If a man who is in a detention barrack misbehaves, instead of being tried by the commandant and subjected to this, that, or the other punishment, he will be tried by a District Court-Martial, which will have the result of sending him to a civil prison. Detention in a barrack is understood to be a less severe sentence than imprisonment. Therefore, of course, you cannot put a man back, without some process such as this, from the less severe punishment of detention to the more severe punishment of imprisonment.
LORD PARMOOR: Apart from technical difficulties, which I think might be easily got over, if you apply the principle of the Army Order retrospectively you deal with the whole question.
On Question, That in the opinion of this House it is undesirable to subject military prisoners to punishments not authorised by law—
A Division was challenged and the Bar cleared, but there being no Tellers for the "Not-contents" the said Resolution agreed to.

STATE WOOL PURCHASES.
THE EARL OF LICHFIELD THE EARL OF LICHFIELD had the following Notice on the Paper—
In view of the wool clip of Great Britain and Ireland having been commandeered, to urge His Majesty's Government to pay the farmers at least the same prices as those ruling and obtained in 1915, so that the home producer should not be unduly penalised.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, this matter is an urgent one, and therefore I have no hesitation in bringing it to your notice even at this late hour of the evening. It is more than three weeks ago that the Government made the Order preventing any further transactions in home-grown wool, but it was only last week that the official announcement was made by my noble friend opposite, on behalf of the Government, that they intended to give considerably less than the market price for the wool which they were commandeering. The proposal then put forward was that the Government would pay the pre-war price of 1914 plus 30 per cent. This announcement has fallen as a great blow on the farmers of this country, who were confidently expecting an advance on the 1915 prices which would have compensated them for the increased cost of store sheep, feeding stuffs, and labour.
The prices proposed by the Government would, I think, work out at 10 to 15 per cent less than the 1915 prices. Lord Sandhurst stated the other afternoon that the Government figure was fixed after careful examination of wool prices over a long period, and after consultation with the Board of Agriculture, with wool buyers, and other interests. I should like to ask what possible relation wool prices over a long pre-war period have to the circumstances now existing, when cost and difficulty of production have increased so enormously. Again, as regards Lord Sandhurst's statement, I have no knowledge that the farming community were consulted in any way; and surely they are as much interested in this question as any other section. Further, I am given to understand that the Board of Agriculture have not agreed to the price that the Government name. Lord Selborne has left the House; otherwise I was hoping that he would have been able to tell us what the views of the Board of Agriculture were. Lord Selborne's resignation of the post of President of the Board
548
of Agriculture, just at this time when the wool question is before the country, has been a great loss. Surely the only fair basis of payment is to give as nearly as possible the latest market prices for the wool.
I have heard it suggested that there is justification for the Government taking farmers' produce below market price because farmers have been exempted from the Excess Profits Duty which was last year passed by Parliament. I cannot for a moment admit the justice of that argument. Why did Parliament exempt them? I have not with me the references to what took place in the other House, but surely the obvious reason was that most farmers, as we all know, are not "fliers" at keeping accounts, and under the old system they paid Income Tax on one-third of the annual value of their holdings. Therefore the authorities would have had no accounts to go upon on which to assess them for any excess war profits that they might have made. On the other hand, Parliament did impose a war tax on the farmers of this country; Parliament increased the amount on which they previously paid from one-third of the annual value of their holdings to the full value. Therefore farmers are now assessed at three times as much to the war chest of the country as they were in pre-war times. I do not think any case has been made out for denying a fair price to the farmers on the ground that they have been exempted from the Excess Profits Tax.
We all recognise that under the Defence of the Realm Act the Government have full power to take what they like, if they think it desirable and in the interests of the country, and to pay any price they may choose, or none at all, as they may see fit. I have no doubt that if an appeal were made to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack he would confirm this view of the powers which the Government possess under the Defence of the Realm Act. But surely the fact that the country has given these immense powers to the Government renders them under the greatest obligation to see that equal justice is meted out to all classes of the community, so that as little harm as possible should be done to trade and enterprise. Their duty obviously would be to give a fair market price for articles which they commandeered.
Let us consider for a moment the position of the home grower of wool as compared with that of the producer oversea who consigns his wool to this country. Your Lordships are no doubt aware that in the City there are periodical wool sales from month to month or during intervals of a few weeks. Next week there is to be one of these great sales at which wool will be sold from all parts of the world, mainly from the produce of our Empire; but also there will be large consignments from foreign countries, Argentina, other parts of South America, and so on. As far as I can make out, the proportion that home-grown wool bears to the wool imported into this country is only about 15 per cent.; of the rest, Australia sends by far the largest quantity. Let us take the case of the sale coming off next week. I believe that the Government would have a perfect right, under the Defence of the Realm Act, to commandeer any quantity of wool that was lotted out at this particular sale. But if they did this, do you suppose for a moment that they would give the sellers of the wool at this sale from 15 to 20 per cent. less than the market value? I cannot conceive that they would think of doing such a thing. Just imagine the position of the Australian producer of wool. He sends his wool over to this country believing that he will get a fair market price for it. There would be a turmoil in Australia if they heard that the wool had been commandeered by the Government at less than the market price. I think Mr. Hughes, who is now on the high seas, might be inclined to turn back and protest against such a course, especially after the splendid way in which Australia has rallied to the aid of the Empire. It is impossible to think that the Government would commandeer imported wool on such terms.
There is another reason why it would be impolitic for the Government to commandeer wool below the market price—namely, because this would have the effect of discouraging imports from neutral countries, and as the Government are anxious to get a large supply such action would have the opposite effect to that which the Government wished. Therefore I cannot conceive that they would in any circumstances adopt such a course. Why then should the unfortunate home producer be penalised in this way? You have urged him to
550
produce as much as possible on his holding as a national duty. Is this the way to encourage him to do so? Surely not. The only fair course seems to be to give him at least the 1915 price—not as much as he expected, but still the farmer will feel that his case has had fair consideration. And above all give it to him quickly so as to interfere as little as possible with his business. You can only secure the best results to the trade of this country by retaining the confidence of those engaged in industry and thus obtaining the largest returns for the successful prosecution of the war.
In connection with any interference with trade, let me quote the weighty words which fell the other afternoon from Lord Emmott, who has had exceptional opportunities, in his position in the War Trade Department, of judging of this question. He said—
"But I may perhaps express the opinion, from what I have heard this afternoon, that a case has been made out to show that this new Order was imposed without adequate inquiry having been made in regard to it."
And again he said—
"I appeal to His Majesty's Government to see to it that when interference is necessary it shall be made as little hurtful as possible to all interested by making as full inquiry as possible from experts in the trade before these new Orders are made."
The farmers of this country are absolutely unanimous that the 1915 prices are the minimum that should, in fairness, be given to them. At a meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, held at Manchester, with a large attendance of members, a resolution was passed to this effect, I believe unanimously—that no less than the 1915 prices should, in fairness, be given. Farmers' clubs, at meetings in all parts of the country, are passing the same resolution. I should like, in connection with this, to read a few lines from a letter written by the Midland Farmers' Association to the Board of Agriculture on the same subject. They say—
"Store sheep were bought at high prices, partly owing to the then expected high price of wool, and farmers would be seriously prejudiced unless a price considerably in advance of the 1915 clip price is fixed."
The Board of Agriculture sent that on to the War Contracts Department, Tothill Street, Westminster; and the Midland Farmers' Association received

551
this reply from that Department, dated June 26—
"In reply to your letter of the 21st instant, I am directed to inform you that in carrying out this scheme of the purchase of the wool the Department hopes to interfere as little as possible with the terms and methods of purchase hitherto prevailing."
I am very much afraid that the good intentions mentioned in that letter have not been fully realised; but now in the hope that the farmers' case may receive adequate consideration from His Majesty's Government I appeal to them, in view of the wool clip of Great Britain and Ireland having been commandeered, to pay the farmers at least the same prices as those ruling and obtained in 1915, so that the home producer should not be unduly penalised.
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, we all know the knowledge with which my noble friend who has just sat down speaks on this subject, and I can assure him that the Government in no way underrate the patriotism of the farmers. My noble friend covered a good deal of ground, but the main reference in his Notice on the Paper is as regards the question of price. I need hardly say that the Government do not desire to be unfair or unreasonable, and they hope to find the same spirit animating the farmers. This is an extremely technical subject and a somewhat difficult one to discuss across the floor of the House, and I am able to say that His Majesty's Government will be glad to receive a deputation on the subject of a representative character, including the Central Chamber of Agriculture, the Farmers' Union, and others interested, to discuss this question. I think that will be a piece of information which will be acceptable to the noble Earl.
LORD HARRIS: My Lords, as far as I can understand the views of the farmers in my neighbourhood, I do not think they will regard the noble Lord's reply as altogether satisfactory. And for this reason. The selection of the deputation, its reception, and the consideration of the discussion that takes place at the reception of the deputation—all this is going to take a very long time. This is really an urgent matter, and I am sorry that the noble Lord has not been instructed as to the intentions of the Government. The Government have commandeered the property of a particular
552
class. I am not contesting that they have the right to do that under the Acts which they possess. But I suggest to them that they have done so in this case without that careful consideration to which everybody is entitled when his property is taken. The farmer is as loyal a person as the member of any other profession, and when I have spoken to farmers about this matter they have not talked in terms of indignation at the commandeering of their property—they recognise that this is a possibility under present circumstances—but they do feel that in fixing the 1914 wool prices plus 30 per cent. the Government are not giving them a fair quid pro quo.
There are a few points that I will take the liberty of making public here, because in the report of the deputation that will presently be received it will be impossible to publish everything that is said there, whereas the records of your Lordships' House will contain all these points. Now I am perfectly certain of this, that the Government want to act with equity. I cannot believe for a moment that, in doing a thing of this kind, the Government would wish to act inequitably as between this particular profession and others. Curiously enough, I noticed yesterday in a Colonial newspaper a reference to what has been done by the Army in Egypt, and I will read one sentence—
"Food stuffs, and especially grain, are naturally the first need. All the wheat, maize, and barley required is bought in Egypt, and at prices which invariably show a substantial increase on the pre-war prices. Purchases are made in a compulsory fashion. The Army, for instance, took the whole of the last maize crop at an abnormal price."
That is what the Army is doing in Egypt. Why is the Army going to do something different in England? Farmers do not complain so long as they are treated equitably; but I submit that the Government's present proposal as regards payment for the wool clip constitutes inequitable treatment.
What is going to happen? Supposing you take the 1914 prices plus 30 per cent., how are you going to dispose of this wool? You are going to sell it to the usual purchasers, I presume, or to the manufacturers. At what price? Are you going to sell it at the market price? Very well; the purchaser will then be no worse off than if he had bought in the market. Then who is going to make the profit? The

553
Government. Out of whom? Out of the farmer. Is that fair? The wool is required for the manufacture of Army clothing. You are going to give to the manufacturer the price he asks; but the unfortunate farmer is to lose the 3d. or 4d. per lb. difference between the pre-war price and the 1915 market price. Or if you are going to let the purchaser have it at something less than the market price of this year, why, again, is he to have that advantage and the farmer to be put at a disadvantage? That is not equity, surely. I cannot understand what the Government are going to do as regards the price of the wool and its method of sale. It seems to me that they are in this dilemma—they have either to sell at the market price or below the market price. If they sell either below or at the market price, then they put the inequality on the farmer, for the purchaser is either in the position that he was or is better off.
I want to impress upon the Government the urgency of this matter. The wool business is a ready-money business to the farmer. A farmer's flock is his current cash. He can always turn to it for some ready money to pay his labourers. At this time of the year there are very heavy demands upon the farmer's purse. All his bills are coming in, and in some parts of the country they are exceptionally heavy—and then there is the rent I met one of the biggest and best farmers in my neighbourhood last week, a man who, I am perfectly certain, would regard it as a terrible disgrace to repudiate any debt. He told me, "I cannot help myself; I shall have next week to tell my landlord that I cannot pay my rent." So you are throwing an inequality upon the whole of the agricultural community, not only upon the farmer but also upon those who depend on the farmer. I am not at all sure that the Government can have realised what they were doing when they fixed upon the proposed price as compared with the market price. As my noble friend Lord Lichfield said, in what he quoted from the communication of the Midland Farmers' Association, the farmers this year were giving long prices for sheep, not only because of the price of wool but because there was a very good promise of keep. All the men who had the money thought it worth while to increase their flocks, because there was plenty of keep and they were certain of a return in consequence of the price of wool.
554
I will take the liberty of giving your Lordships one or two principal figure with which my agents have supplied me. They deal with various flocks of something like 5,000 sheep, and they find from their books that the weight of fleece to a Kent sheep, full size, is 6 lbs.; that is excluding lamb wool. They understand that the Government are going to take the basis of Kent wool at pre-war price as 13 d., and then scale that down for carriage and middlemen's profits, etc., which will most probably make it come out at an average to, say, 12 d. Now we got 13½d. in 1913. Therefore you are giving us actually worse prices than we got in the year before 1914. If you add 30 per cent. to 12 d., you bring it out at 15½d. The 1915 price was 18½d., so there is a loss of 3d. a lb. Take that at 6 lbs. to the fleece, and the loss works out at 18 d. to the sheep. Romsey Marsh, on which I have not sheep myself, bears about eight to the acre; so there is something like 12 s. an acre that you are going to take away. The farmer will be 12 s. an acre worse off in meeting his rent. And, as I have said, at this time of the year he looks to this money to meet his rent. Wool is a ready money business; the weight off the scales, and the farmer gets his cheque. He has already been waiting three weeks. The present state of things is inequitable as regards the men who have sold their wool. Sales had already taken place at market prices, and only those who happened to sell early are to get the benefit of the present prices.
Quite at the beginning of the war one of those Solomons who are constantly writing in the newspapers to educate practical farmers how to farm was commenting on the difference between the head of stock in various countries—in Germany and Austria-Hungary—and comparing the relative quantities, of course very much to the disadvantage of the British farmer, who, according to him, was a fool, a bigger fool than the German or the Austrian farmer. The writer pointed out what very much larger herds of cattle and pigs were being kept by those countries, and he concluded—
"It is only in the matter of that inferior animal, the sheep, that England exceeds those countries—"
This was a pretty useful "except" for the British Army—
"The United Kingdom possesses an aggregate of 27,000,000 sheep, compared with, in Germany and Austria-Hungary combined, 17,000,000."

555
Fortunately in England there were these 10,000,000 more sheep than in those countries combined. It is a most fortunate thing for the British Army that England is a sheep-breeding country, and I should imagine that our enemies would have been very glad indeed had their countries possessed that excess of sheep instead of us.
I venture to suggest that this matter has been entered into by His Majesty's Government rather hurriedly, and that no harm would be done by reconsidering the price that has been mentioned. As has been suggested from many quarters all over England, the middle price—that is to say, the price of 1915—is a fair concession to make. I urge that this concession should be made, and that, above all things, it should be made as promptly as possible.
LORD LOVAT: My Lords, I should like to point out to the House the position of Scotland in this connection. There the whole of the points which have been made by Lord Harris are specially applicable. A large proportion of the clip in Scotland is a black-face clip, which has no value for certain purposes. The Government would appear to be buying this by way of speculation. The majority of this clip is never used in this country; it used to be sold in Germany, and will probably be sold in America now. The point which Lord Harris made with regard to the profit is particularly pertinent. Are the Government going to make this profit at the expense of the poor crofters in the North of Scotland? The price of black-face wool will be something like 15 d.; the price to be offered is in the neighbourhood of 9d. This particular portion of the community has given a larger proportion of men to the service of the country than any other; they have no means of sustenance other than their wool clip.
This year, as noble Lords are aware, was one of the hardest years known for sixty or seventy years in Scotland, and the mortality of the lambs was very high. The price of wintering had gone up, especially turnips; and, as a matter of fact, the sheep had in many cases to be taken down to the low grounds, covering distances over which sheep had never before been moved in the memory of man. It hardly seems fair that such a step as
556
this on the part of the Government should have been taken without inquiry. When I say that, I have the authority of a meeting of Scottish farmers—at which the larger farmers were represented but not the small men—who said they were never consulted at all. I should like to ask His Majesty's Government whether they consulted anybody in Scotland, or who was the wise man on whose advice they decided on this movement.
Then the question arises, on which Lord Harris commented—the question of time. Time is most important. This is a very serious moment for this decision to have been made. It is all very well for the noble Lord who represents the Department to say now that they are inviting farmers and associations to state their views; but this is the very time when the wool is being sold. The regular time for the big sales is the first week in July. What is going to happen? The buyers have made their arrangements, and this is the time when the farmer and small-holder hope to get a certain return in cash. This will all have to be put off. How long will it take before the different representative bodies have been consulted? I submit that this is an experiment which, if it is to be done on other lines, should be done with the very greatest caution, and not entered into, as in this particular case, without the least apparent examination of the facts and the least consideration of the serious hardship it will occasion, not only to large farmers—who, after all, may have capital and may be able to weather through troubles of this sort—but to all those small-holders in the North of Scotland who regard this wool money as the most important return they get. And this year the matter is particularly important, because this has been the worst lambing year known in that part, and the cost of wintering for sheep has been higher than it has ever been before. I trust that when this consultation with the farmers takes place the Scottish farmers' representatives will be allowed to have their say in this matter.
LORD ST. AUDRIES: My Lords, I should like to impress on the Government what has fallen from noble Lords—namely, that the question of time is everything in this matter; and though it is more or less gratifying to know that a deputation is going to be received, the

557
inquiry should have been made before the price was fixed. The Central Chamber of Agriculture are very anxious that the price should not be finally settled until the deputation has been received. I am bound to say I think it is putting things off too late. This question of price is an urgent matter, and I can assure your Lordships that the 1914 price plus 30 per cent. is not good enough; it is grossly unfair to the farmer. Some people seem to consider that sheep live by grass alone. They do not. They are very expensive animals to feed. We have been ordered to produce more mutton and more generally on the farms, and we have done our best to do that. But the production of that mutton and that wool has cost a great deal more during the last twelve months than in 1914 and in the early part of 1915. You have to give sheep cake and corn and hay and roots. The price of cake has gone up 100 per cent.; the price of torn is rising; and as for hay, well, that was commandeered by the Government. When the snow fell in March all the farmers wanted hay for their sheep, the snow being feet deep on the ground, and they had to pay £7 15 s a ton for stuff not worth eating. In the same way, everything in connection with sheep has gone up—hurdles, sheep netting, everything; and I think I am right in saying that the cost of feeding sheep, including the increased price of artificial manure so necessary for the roots, has gone up by something like 60 to 65 per cent. in the last fifteen months.
Now as to the proposed price of 30 per cent. on 1914 prices. I have made inquiries over a great part of Somersetshire, in which county there are a great many different kinds of sheep and of crosses. You may divide the wool there into two kinds—short and long wool. The price of short wool in 1914 was 14 d. per lb.; add 30 per cent., and it comes to 18 d. The price in 1915 was 20½d. a lb.; so that if the Government pay the 1914 price of short wool plus 30 per cent., the loss to the farmer is 2½d. a lb. The price of long wool in 1914 was 12½d. a lb.; add 30 per cent., and the price is 16¼d. In 1915 it was 18¾d., so the loss to the farmer on long wool is 2½d. a lb. The short wool fleece runs to about 6 or 7 lbs. weight, and the long wool fleece to about 10 or 12 lbs. On the whole, therefore, taking the greater value of the short wool fleece, it is very much the same whether it is one
558
kind of wool or the other. But what the Government are offering for both classes of wool is 2½d. a. lb. less than 1915 prices.
With regard to the market value, the price for this year's clip, the Government have deprived themselves of the best way of finding that out, because they have closed the markets. You cannot, therefore, find what the actual market value is; but some farmers had sold before the Order came out, and one neighbour of mine, a grower of long-wool sheep, sold his clip this year for 20½d. a lb., as against 18 d. in 1915. Therefore if the Government's offer of the 1914 price plus 30 per cent. is carried out, this man loses nearly 5d. per lb. A neighbour of his was offered 22 d. as against 20½d., but he was just too late to sell before the Order came out, and he will have lost an appreciable amount per lb. As my noble friend Lord Harris has said, in the Australian market there is a considerable rise in the price of wool. If, therefore, the Government buy at the 1915 prices they will make a very good bargain indeed, because they will be buying wool at 2d. or 2½d. a lb. less than the real value at the present moment. I think the Government are treating the farmers rather hardly. They ask them to produce more, and then when they do produce it they commandeer the result at less than the market price.
Nobody will accuse the Government of undue economy in the purchase of war material generally. It is common knowledge that there has been considerable extravagance and waste, and I think it is very hard that this sudden wave of economy on the part of the Government should hit the home producer. I consider this delay and this setting up of advisory committees of purchasers and boards all over the country as quite unnecessary. I know that the wool business is very difficult and complicated; but, after all, the machinery of that business, the machinery by which the wool goes from the producer to the manufacturer in the end, has been in operation in this country for years past, and is in the hands of experts. Why on earth should the Government set up side by side with that an entirely new machinery, some of it of experts, but some of it of military officers who know nothing whatever about wool and are likely to be like the fifth wheel of the coach. If the Government fix a fair price—say at least the price of the 1915 clip—then I believe

559
there will be no difficulty whatever in using the machinery which exists at the present time. It would save a good deal of delay and a great deal of worry, and I believe that in the long run—because you cannot set up a new Government machinery without spending money on it—you will save over and over again the difference between the price of the 1915 clip and the price you propose to give. I can say this to the Government. The farmers throughout the country have played the game with you, and I sincerely hope that you will play the straight game with the farmers.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I will not stand long between my noble friend Lord Crewe and the House, but I should not like this debate to close without saying something on the important matter which my noble friend Lord Lichfield has brought forward. As Lord St. Audries has reminded your Lordships, I have repeatedly on behalf of the Government urged farmers to produce more during this time of war, and I think that in the face of great difficulties the farmers have made a noble effort to respond to the appeal made to them. I have also had to resist a demand of the farmers, in respect of goods they require, such as particularly sulphate of ammonia, which has risen greatly in price, that the Government should fix a maximum price to enable them to secure these articles at what they consider a reasonable price. I pointed out to them that it would be impossible to fix the price of what they required and not fix the price of what they produced, and I did not think that would be on the whole an advantageous arrangement for them. Therefore I am really concerned at the position into which the War Office has got itself over the price of wool.
I do not question the necessity for the requisition of the wool. I do not pronounce any opinion upon it. I am quite prepared to believe that the War Office were wisely advised in requisitioning all the home-produced wool. But I do associate myself most earnestly with the arguments brought forward by Lord Lichfield, Lord Harris, Lord Lovat, and Lord St. Audries; there is not one of those arguments which I am not prepared to endorse and which I do not believe to be accurate. Except this. Lord Harris spoke of this being a Government matter. Theoretically that is true; but practically in wartime it is impossible
560
for my noble friends Lord Lansdowne and Lord Crewe, with their immense responsibilities, to follow the details of Army administration as regards the stores required. There is only one Department of the Government besides the War Office which had a duty to watch what was going on, and that was the one for which I was responsible.
LORD HARRIS: And the Treasury, surely?
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Yes, the Treasury and the War Office besides. The very moment I heard that the War Office contemplated taking the wool in the way they have done, I held a watching brief on behalf of the farmers. The War Office had the power to deal with the farmers without consulting me, but I need scarcely say that the War Office were quite prepared to listen to the representations of the Board of Agriculture. I instructed my officers to follow closely all that went on, to report to me from time to time, and to impress upon the War Office the farmers' point of view, because what the farmer is entitled to is this—he is entitled to absolutely fair play, neither more nor less. If you give him less than the value of his wool, you are imposing upon him and upon him alone a special tax. He is taxed like all the rest of his compatriots, but he would be suffering in a way they do not in respect of a particular article which he produces. Therefore I hope that the War Office and the Treasury, while being careful to see that the farmer does not get an inflated value for the wool, will recognise that he is entitled to get the full market value.
I think the first mistake which the War Office made was in the composition of the advisory committee. So far as I know—I may be misinformed, but I do not think I am—the advisory committee is composed entirely of wool merchants. I do not say a word against those gentlemen. I have not the least doubt they are thoroughly skilled in their own business, and will most patriotically and honestly endeavour to assist the War Office. But I do not think that this was a properly constituted committee to suggest the price at which the farmers' wool should be taken. The farmers should certainly have been represented on that committee, and so far as I know they were not. It happened just about the moment when I had, I regret to

561
say, to sever my connection with the Government. One of the last papers that came before me was the report of one of my officers, whom I had instructed to watch this business, as to the price which the War Office were prepared to offer—that is, the price of 1914 plus 30 per cent.—and almost my last Minute at the Board of Agriculture recorded the fact that I could not endorse this price, and that the Board was instructed to protest against it, and to point out to the War Office that they were, though unintentionally, using the fanner in an unjust and hard manner.
It is quite true that time is of the essence of the case. But as things are I do not reject, as some of my noble friends have done, the proposal of the War Office to meet representatives of agriculture from the Central Chamber, the Farmers' Union, and other bodies, and to discuss this question, I hope with an unprejudiced and open mind and with a real desire to arrive at a fair price. I would only make this suggestion to my noble friend on the Government Bench. I think it would be a good thing if they were able to arrange that this deputation should be received, not only by a representative of the War Office, but by a representative also of the Board of Agriculture and possibly of the Treasury. I think this is a matter that goes far beyond the Contract Department of the War Office.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Hear, hear.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Although I repudiate the suggestion that it is possible for all the members of the Government to follow such details of departmental administration, I do think that in this case it would be to the public advantage to strengthen the body, which, after all, does represent the Government, that is going to deal with the farmer. I am quite sure that there has been no intention on the part of the War Office to behave unjustly. I think they have erred from the method in which they set about the business. But it is not too late to set the matter straight, to offer the farmer the fair market price to which he is entitled. I am quite sure that my noble friends on the Government Bench are as conscious as I am, or as any noble Lord, that the farmer cannot be kept out of his money for weeks and months. He must get his cash down at the earliest possible moment, or otherwise he is injured to a degree exceeding that which is caused by
562
the offer of too small a price; because it means that the whole of his financial arrangements for the year are dislocated, and he is put in that position which no honest man likes to feel himself in, that he cannot meet the engagements he has entered into with other people. And why? Because his own Government have taken his produce and have not paid him for it.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: My Lords. I would like to corroborate what has been said by my noble friend Lord Lovat. In the hill farms in the North, the great wool-producing farms, they have had a bad winter and a bad lambing time; therefore presuming the weight of the wool is somewhat the same as last year, which is not the case, they will not make anything like the profits they might have expected. But they are quite reasonable, and I think the speech we have just heard from my noble friend Lord Selborne must have convinced the Government that the price fixed has been arrived at on a wrong basis and is not justified. Personally I do not think that the 1915 price would be quite fair to the farmer; but I feel sure, if it is gone into, that that price must be considered as the minimum. I would urge the Government, after the speech that has been made by my noble friend and other noble Lords on this subject, that even without waiting for a deputation they should issue a statement to the public that they are going to give a reasonable price which may satisfy the farmers and thus remove what one might almost say, though quite unintentional, is not fair dealing on the part of the Government. Inadvertently they have created a great injustice, and the sooner it is remedied the better for everybody.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, it is clear from the speeches that have been delivered, not only this afternoon but before, that this question is not merely one of great importance to those interested but is also one of no small complexity. That is quite evident to us all, and I am glad that my noble friend Lord Selborne recognised, as indeed one would have been sure he would, that there can be no intention on the part of His Majesty's Government to behave unfairly to those who are specially concerned in the production of wool. The price of 30 per cent. above the 1914 rate, which is complained of, was arrived at after a careful examination. My noble friend has pointed out that in his view that

563
examination was not perfect, in the sense that the elements composing the advisory body did not include all who might properly have been included, but care was taken to arrive at a figure which was considered fair.
It may be taken, as my noble friend said, that in the opinion of the War Office the purchase of this year's entire clip of wool in this country was considered necessary. It seems to an outsider—I include myself in that class so far as this particular subject is concerned, because I was naturally not cognisant of the negotiations as they proceeded—that it would have been desirable if notice could have been given earlier. That I quite admit. But, as I understand, there were special reasons, with which I am not able to trouble the House, which made the matter become suddenly and unexpectedly urgent; and therefore a complete purchase of this kind, which I suppose had not been originally contemplated, became in the opinion of the authorities urgently necessary.
It is very difficult to talk about a fair price and the market price in this connection. The wool of the world is now bought, as regards an enormous percentage of the amount; for military purposes and for military purposes alone; and if the market price is spoken of as the price which that artificial and inflated demand produces, it cannot be denied that those who get that artificial price are making a profit out of the war. And when a similar argument is applied to coal and to various other articles it is found, as a great many of us know, that the full profit due to the demand directly traceable to the war by no means goes to the pockets of those who are at ordinary times the recipients of the profit. Therefore it is reasonable, I think, to argue that the farmer, like other people, cannot expect to get the full advantage of the whole war profit either as regards his wool or as regards anything else. He does not get it, as we know, with regard to the hay—that is one of the cases of a commandeered article—and I fully admit the force of what fell from my noble friend below the gangway (Lord Selborne) when he stated that the case of the farmer is a peculiar one in this respect, that a demand which he might make and which indeed has been made for the fixing of prices for various artificial manures, sulphate of ammonia in particular—no doubt the same could be made to apply to basic slag—that it is not possible to comply with that demand.
564
The whole matter comes, in fact, to be one of price, as to whether the particular price which has been fixed upon as representing a reasonable figure for this year 1916 is a fair one or not, because nobody has attempted to contest the claim of the Government to obtain this clip if it is considered necessary. Then, of course, you are confronted by the difficulty that although the cost of production to the farmer has, by common admission, increased, the calculation of the percentage of cost of production is a more difficult one for the farmer to furnish as evidence than it is, so far as I know, for all other classes of trade. In a great many cases it is quite simple to calculate the increased cost of the production of an article. Take, for instance, an article such as finished steel. A trader can refer to his books and trace back the enhanced prices from the iron ore or the pig iron through all the various stages. He can trace the precise rise in wages which appertains to those who are engaged in each particular process, and he can furnish a mathematical calculation of what the enhanced cost of the steel is. But when you come to anything produced by the farmer the process is infinitely more difficult, partly no doubt owing, as has been stated in this debate, to the fact that farmers as a rule do not keep very accurate accounts. Farming accounts are infinitely more easy to keep than is sometimes supposed, but farmers as a rule do not keep them very closely, and the various elements of calculation are no doubt more complicated than they are in many other trades. Therefore though the farmer has an artificial impression—and he is quite justified in holding it—that a sheep has cost him a great deal more to produce before it can be clipped for wool, at the same time it is not easy for him to bring the precise evidence which would satisfy a Court as to what further amount he ought to receive.
We should all be glad, and not only glad but we should consider it reasonable in the circumstances, that where a doubt exists as to what the farmer is entitled to he should have so far as possible the benefit of that doubt. Where the precise figure is difficult to calculate the verdict ought, we should submit, to be in favour of the agricultural producer for many reasons, some of which have been given to-night. And it is quite clear, I think, that a case for further examination—and I should hope favourable examination—of

565
this 30 per cent. figure exists. For that reason I venture to hope that the House will agree that in consenting to receive the deputation of which my noble friend spoke His Majesty's Government are taking the most practical and the most reasonable course. I do not think that it need involve any serious delay. It cannot be difficult to collect a sufficient number of those who are entitled to speak with authority on behalf of the sheep farmers and to prepare the various data which they would desire to place before His Majesty's Government. I lay stress upon this, because I entirely agree that time is very greatly of the essence of this question. There is no doubt that the whole process of this purchase of the wool clip inflicts what is an undesirable, and what in general may be called an unfair, strain on the sheep farmers. They are undoubtedly kept out of their money longer than they would be if the market pursued its normal course, and for that delay it is evident that the Government ought to and must pay. It is clear, so far as the farmers are damnified by being kept two or three or more mouths out of their money, that pro tanto the price ought to be increased. Even then, as the noble Lord on the Front Bench opposite pointed out, they are placed at no little inconvenience, because a farmer is almost compelled to a certain extent to live from hand to mouth, and the fact of his being kept out of his money for a time deranges sometimes to an almost disastrous extent the course of his business, and that is clearly a point which the deputation would have to consider. The point that my noble friend Lord Selborne made of the desirability of adding the representatives of some other Departments, and in particular a representative of the Board of Agriculture, to those who receive the deputation will, I can assure the House, have careful consideration, and it appears to me to be reasonable in itself.
There was one point that fell from Lord Harris to which I ought to allude—namely, the question of the allocation of profit. He argued that, wool being bought below its price, somebody must make a profit out of it, and that the farmer is the person who might reasonably have expected to make that profit. And he asked, Who would make it? Would the manufacturer make it?
LORD HARRIS: The Government or the manufacturer.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: Yes. When the Government is mentioned it undoubtedly means the country. In speaking of the Government, we unfortunately do not make any profits for ourselves, but it is quite true that the National Exchequer would gain to a certain extent a profit which, supposing the farmer were able to get the full benefit of a highly-priced necessity of life at a particular moment, would fall to him, or, if so artificially arranged, would fall to the manufacturer. The saving will fall to the country as a whole, and not to any particular class of individuals.
LORD HARRIS: I gather from what the noble Marquess has said that the price to the manufacturer is to be the market price. Therefore the only person who is going to be injured is the farmer.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: The manufacturer, I take it, will make up the Government wool for Government purposes into military uniforms and the like, and be paid a reasonable price for so doing plus a reasonable profit. But it will not be sold to him, I imagine, or he will not get the benefit of the extravagant price which the Government might have paid and have not paid. The actual commodity will be Government property and will be passed on to him for Government purposes. That, I conceive, is what will happen.
LORD HARRIS: The whole of it?
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH: May I be allowed to ask the noble Marquess a question? I did not gather whether there is to be one deputation for the whole of the United Kingdom, or a separate one for England and another for Scotland. And in what form are we to communicate with the people?
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I am obliged to the noble Duke for reminding me. I had it in mind to say that the particular representations made on behalf of Scotland by himself and by Lord Lovat will be carefully considered. I am not able to answer now as to whether the deputation would apply to the whole country, but I presume that it will; and supposing that it does, I think it is quite clear that it would also be received by a representative of the Scottish Office as well as by a representative of the War Office.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Does this deputation apply to Ireland?
THE MARQUESS OP CREWE: I cannot tell you; I do not know.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Does the purchase apply to Ireland?
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I am afraid I do not know that either, and my noble friend (Lord Sandhurst) is not here.
LORD HARRIS: He is speaking to the Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN [addressing Lord SANDHURST, who had resumed his seat]: Does compulsory purchase apply to Ireland?
LORD SANDHURST: I think it does, but I am not certain.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, I am sure all those who take an interest in this question are much obliged to the noble Marquess for the very sympathetic speech which he has made, and of course the statements made by Lord Selborne are very strong evidence in proof of the general justice of the demand which we have been making on behalf of the farmers. I am sure there is not one of us who wishes to get an extravagant price for the farmer. All that we have been arguing for is that the farmer should not be placed under special disabilities which apply to his produce and to his produce only. The tendency of the debate to-night has gone very much in the direction for which we have been contending, and although the Government are prepared to receive a deputation, they probably will have to receive, as has been shown, more than one deputation—a deputation for Scotland, one for England as well, and so on; and it stands to reason that these deputations must take a considerable time. Is the difference as regards the price of 1915 so appreciable as to make it desirable to incur the delay which must necessarily take place if you are to go into these matters thoroughly? What really is the difference?
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: Although I do not carry the figures accurately in my head, I think you are approaching the region of millions when you are speaking of those figures.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Observe the way in which the Government have dealt with other great interests. If when the question of railways arose at the outbreak of the war they had gone into all the matters that were raised there would have been an enormous amount of time lost; there would have been difficult calculations and tremendous difficulties of every kind. The Government very wisely made a definite arrangement with the railway companies, which did away with all the delay and all the trouble which would have been occasioned. Now it occurs to me that if they were, in regard to this wool transaction, to agree to the prices of 1915 cadit quœstio they would not hear any more of the farmers, and I am sure the Government would save themselves an enormous amount of trouble of every sort and kind. I merely make that suggestion because I foresee that if you have this inquiry it will take longer than you think and involve going into a great many matters at a time when trouble and inquiry are undesirable. And I believe that in the end it will come out that the difference between whatever you arrive at and the price of the year 1915 will be so trifling that you had better accept the price of 1915 at once and have an end of the question.
THE EARL OF LICHFIELD: My Lords, I wish to thank the noble Marquess and the noble Lord for the care and attention they have given to this subject. It is, however, somewhat of a disappointment to find that no decision can be arrived at until after a deputation from the leading agriculturists has been received, because, as has been said all through the debate, the matter is of urgent importance and a speedy settlement is most desirable. But I am glad to find that the Government are not definitely committed to the price that was first suggested, and that they are willing to treat the farmers with consideration and to hear their point of view. I think, however, it will be very difficult for the farmers, when they are received on the deputation, if they are invited to argue their case as to price on anything like the lines which my noble friend the Leader of the House suggested. He talked about how much of the present market price was due to artificial reasons. If farmers are asked to prove how much of the price that they thought they were going to receive in 1916 was due to artificial reasons

569
and how much was due to the increased cost of production, it will be putting them a very hard case to prove. I must say I do not think it will be fair on the farmers if they are called upon to prove how much the price is inflated by artificial reasons. I therefore join with my noble friend who has just spoken (Lord Camperdown) in urging the Government to be good enough to consider whether really the simplest, easiest, and fairest plan to all concerned would not be to agree to the very
570
moderate request for 1915 prices which all the farmers will be satisfied with, though they do not amount to what they had been led to expect for the 1916 prices. I trust that this point may be considered, so that when the farmers come they may not be called upon to prove exactly how much they are entitled to receive.
House adjourned at Eight o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.