Lords Sitting of 22 March 1916

Preamble
The Lord Belper—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

IRVINE'S DIVORCE BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill, intituled, an Act to Dissolve the Marriage of the Honourable Flora Fitzmaurice Irvine with Edward St. George Tottenham Irvine her now Husband and to enable her to marry again, and for other purposes: Presented (on Petition) and a copy of the Proceedings in and the Decree of the High Court of Justice in Ireland, King's Bench Division (Matrimonial): Delivered (on Oath): Bill read 1a.
Petition of Raymond Stephenson, a member of the firm of O'Keeffe and Lynch, Solicitors, of 30, Molesworth Street, Dublin, praying that the attendance of Claude Bernard, a Doctor of Medicine, on the Second Reading of the said Bill be dispensed with, and that the deposition of the said Claude Bernard, sworn before His Majesty's Vice-Consul at St. Malo, be received in evidence on the Second Reading of the said Bill: And that substituted service of a copy of the said Bill, and of the Order for the Second Reading thereof, and of all other Orders in connection therewith, be made upon Clifford Lloyd and Son, Solicitors, of 33, Kildare Street, Dublin, and be deemed as good service of the said Bill and Orders as if the same had been personally served upon the said Edward St. George Tottenham Irvine: Presented, and read, and to be taken into consideration To-morrow.

WESTON-SUPER-MARE GRAND PIER BILL. [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
BURNLEY CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
  SWANSEA HARBOUR BILL. [H.L.]
  Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

SOUTH EASTERN AND LONDON, CHAT HAM AND DOVER RAILWAYS BILL. [H.L.]
Debate on the Motion for the Second Reading resumed (according to Order).
THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH THE EARL OF PLYMOUTH had given notice, in the event of the Bill being read 2a, to move, "That it be an Instruction to the Committee to take into consideration the requirements of the traffic over the river at this point, and the effect that this Bill, if passed, will have upon them, and to hear evidence from the Royal Institute of British Architects, the London Society, and others on the treatment generally of this very important part of London."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I want to apologise for not being present when this matter was discussed a fortnight ago. On that occasion my noble friend Lord Beauchamp was kind enough to move the Instruction that I had placed on the Paper, and I do not wish to cover any of the same ground except to make one or two points clear. I understand that the House thought that I referred, in my reference to "traffic" in the Instruction, to traffic on the water. I regret that my Instruction was not more clearly worded, for I had no intention of making any reference whatever to water traffic. But I thought a reference to vehicular traffic necessary because neither the Royal Institute of British Architects, nor the London Society, nor any person interested in the improvement of London at this point could put forward a scheme without making some reference to road traffic facilities.
I hope I may make a further point clear. The noble Viscount, Lord Chilston, on the last occasion—I am quoting from the OFFICIAL REPORT—said:
"So far as the æsthetic appearance of the present bridge [Charing Cross Railway Bridge] is concerned, the railway company are perfectly ready to admit that it is certainly unsightly, and they would be very glad to see the bridge removed; but, after all, they are practical people, not philanthropists, and they are not prepared to build a new bridge for the benefit only of those who possess æsthetic tastes."
I desire to assure the noble Viscount that I had no intention whatever of trying to induce your Lordships to impose upon the railway company a much larger expense than their own requirements justify. The only point that I wished to make was this. I wanted to ask your Lordships not to confine the inquiry by the Committee to whom the Bill will be referred solely to the railway case, but to agree that other people—quite apart from the Port of London authority and the London County Council, Who might appear before the

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Committee to plead on the points which particularly concern them—people who have devoted a great deal of time and thought to this question of London improvements and who represent a large number of intelligent and thoughtful persons desirous of seeing such improvements made as will add to the dignity and beauty of the metropolis, should have an opportunity of stating their views before the Committee. I therefore hope that the House will consider it right not to pass this Bill without giving the representatives of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the London Society an opportunity to explain their views, and to give such assistance as they can to the Committee on the treatment generally of this very important part of London.
One word with regard to the question of traffic. It seems to me to be so closely connected with the question of any London improvement of this sort that to rule out altogether evidence referring to traffic would be practically to prevent the witnesses I have in mind from stating their case. Therefore although I do not wish to introduce into the labours of the Committee any matter which is not germane to this Bill, I hope the House will see that if the words referring to traffic are struck out the Committee to whom the Bill is referred might very likely say, "We are obviously precluded from touching the question of traffic because it was struck out of the Instruction to us." I therefore trust that if your Lordships agree to witnesses from the Institute of British Architects and from the London Society being heard you will not limit their evidence entirely to questions of an æsthetic nature, but will allow them fully to state their case, which must inevitably involve reference to traffic as well as to beauty in London improvements.
VISCOUNT CHILSTON: My Lords, in the course of the debate a fortnight ago I agreed, on behalf of the railway company, to the Instruction suggested by my noble friend Lord Plymouth. I pointed out that we had no objection to hearing evidence which might be given by the Institute of British Architects or by the London Society; indeed, that we would welcome any assistance that they could give us in beautifying, if possible, this structure, which is certainly at present an eyesore. We were not then quite sure what the object of my noble friend was,
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but by the new words which have been placed in the Instruction on the Paper its meaning is perfectly clear. It is that there should be a locus standi to discuss on a Private Bill some general improvements which I think are more germane to a Public Bill. The only traffic over this bridge at the present moment is railway traffic and traffic by a foot-bridge. So far as the foot-bridge is concerned, that is a matter for the London County Council, who have already petitioned in respect of this Bill. They ask that the means of communication should not be interrupted or interfered with by the construction of the works proposed by this Bill, but they do not ask for any further or enlarged facilities for foot passengers. If the noble Earl means by his Instruction that a new bridge for all kinds of traffic should be constructed, then I venture to think that your Lordships will agree that such a proposal is not germane to the purpose of this Private Bill, by which we seek only to strengthen and to render more efficient the existing bridge.
Then it has been suggested that the powers asked for in this Bill should not be given because if they were, and the bridge hereafter were by any other Act condemned or sought to be removed, a larger amount of compensation would have to be paid. That, my Lords, is not the case. The railway company at the present moment have powers to construct a bridge on the City side alongside the existing bridge. If the powers sought by this Bill are refused and the railway company are compelled to fall back upon their existing Act, a very much larger sum of money will have to be expended, and I take it that it is everybody's desire that at the present juncture unnecessary capital should not be spent. But if it were spent under the existing Act in the way I have indicated and it was sought hereafter to remove the bridge, a larger amount of compensation would have to be paid.
It seems to me that in this Instruction the noble Earl seeks to establish a novel principle and one which has not hitherto, I think, received the support of your Lordships' House. We have always understood that Instructions to Committees on Private Bills must not deal with questions of public policy which are properly the subject of Public Bills, but that they must be relevant and cognate

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to the provisions of the Private Bills. But, after all, that is a matter for the consideration of your Lordships' Chairman, and I am perfectly certain that we shall be safe in his hands. On behalf of the railway company, therefore, I can say this, that we raise no objection to the admission of the evidence which is sought to be heard, and we trust that the Chairman will see that the rules are strictly adhered to, because it is, in my opinion, a dangerous principle if on the ground of art or philanthropy we set up a new precedent by which questions of large public policy can be discussed under Private Bill legislation.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL of DONOUGHMORE): My Lords, I agree with what the noble Viscount has just said. Out of evil, in a way, good has come. We all regretted the absence of the noble Earl (Lord Plymouth) the other day; but we have had an opportunity, owing to the adjournment, of giving this matter further consideration. I confess that my view remains what it was on the previous occasion. I welcome the precedent which will allow bodies such as those mentioned to come before your Lordships' Committees to discuss matters that they know about. I recognise the Royal Institute of British Architects as being able to give most valuable evidence from the æsthetic point of view, but I am not prepared to admit that they know more than anybody else about traffic. From the point of view of precedent, therefore, I should have preferred that the Instruction should be passed with the three central lines of it struck out. In conversation the other day I suggested that I had no objection to it, but one is unfortunate sometimes and goes a little further than one means in the course of desultory conversation. My feeling is that we are going a little too far in passing this Instruction in its present form. At the same time, if the noble Viscount opposite representing the railway company has no objection to it, I do not feel that it would be fair to oppose it strongly or to ask your Lordships to divide upon it.
On Question, Bill read 2a and committed, the Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Then it was moved, "That it be an Instruction to the Committee to take into consideration the requirements of
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the traffic over the river at this point, and the effect that this Bill, if passed, will have upon them, and to hear evidence from the Royal Institute of British Architects, the London Society, and others on the treatment generally of this very important part of London."—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

ABERDEEN CORPORATION WATER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) deemed to have been read 2a (The Lord Stanmore), and reported from the Committee: Bill to be read 3a on Wednesday next. (No. 10.)
CITY OF DUBLIN STEAM PACKET COMPANY BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.

RETURNS, REPORTS, &c.
Education (Scotland)—Statement showing:

1. An estimate of the sums receivable by the Education (Scotland) Fund for the year 1915-1916, of the expenditure therefrom under Section 16 (1) (a-f) of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1908, and of the balance available for allocation under Section 16 (2) of that Act;

2. The allocation of such balance in accordance with the terms of the Department's Minute of 28th June 1912:

Ministry of Munitions (Health of Munition Workers' Committee, Memoranda)—

No. 7. Industrial Fatigue and its causes;

No. 8. Special Industrial Diseases;

No. 9. Ventilation and Lighting of Munition Factories and Workshops.

No. 10. Sickness and Injury.

Presented (by command) and ordered to lie on the Table.
Irish Universities Act, 1908—Statute VI of the National University of Ireland:
Lunacy—Return of all Sums received by the Visitors of Lunatics for Travelling Expenses, or upon other account, from 1st January to 31st December 1915:
Superannuation—Treasury Minute, dated 15th March 1916, declaring that Frederick Whatling Robinson, Telegraphist, General Post Office, was appointed without a Civil Service Certificate through inadvertence on the part of the Head of his Department:
Munitions of War (Amendment) Act, 1916—Act of Sederunt regulating Appeals under the Act:
General Medical Council—Returns of Receipts and Expenditure of the General Medical Council and of the Branch Councils; also Receipts and Expenditure of the Dental Registration Fund, for the year ended 31st December 1915:
National Insurance Acts—The National Health Insurance (Navy and Army) Consolidated Regulations, 1916, dated 13th March 1916:
Post Office (Foreign and Colonial Parcel Post) (Costa Rica)—The Foreign and Colonial Parcel Post Amendment (No. 78) Warrant, 1916, dated 21st February 1916:
Indictments Act, 1915—Rules, dated 18th March 1916, made by the Rule Committee under the Act:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and ordered to lie on the Table.

REGISTRATION OF FIRMS BILL. [H.L.]
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD SOUTHWARK: My Lords, the Registration of Firms Bill, to which I ask your Lordships to grant a Second Reading this afternoon, is the same Bill that I introduced during the closing days of last session. On that occasion my noble friend the Duke of Devonshire, in replying to my speech in moving the Second Reading, kindly suggested that it should be reintroduced in another session with a view to being referred to a Select Committee which could investigate and report upon it. I have with pleasure adopted that course and have allowed several weeks to pass before asking your Lordships, as I now do, to grant it a Second Reading. In the meantime men of business, through their
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Chambers of Commerce, have unanimously asked that the Bill should become law. I have read and re-read the speech that I delivered on the last occasion, and notwithstanding the opposition which I then received from the noble and learned Lords, Lord Sumner and Lord Parmoor, I think I stated the case fully and clearly. I am so satisfied that I did, that I should like to say "Ditto" this afternoon and sit down in the full confidence that His Majesty's Government will support the Second Reading of the Bill and allow it to go to a Select Committee. I feel, however, after the speeches of the noble and learned Lords, that it would perhaps have been wiser had I occupied more of your Lordships' time in going into the details of the long history of the Bill. So this afternoon I shall not repeat that indiscretion, but hope to say enough in that direction, without wearying you, to convince your Lordships of the importance and necessity of this Bill.
I will begin my observations by again, as concisely as possible, making your Lordships acquainted with the principles and outlines of the Bill. It is a Bill intended to provide for the registration of firms and persons carrying on business under trade names. It enacts that every firm carrying on business at any place in the United Kingdom under a trade name which does not consist of the full names of all the partners without any addition, and every person carrying on business at any place in the United Kingdom under any trade name consisting of or containing any name or addition other than the full name of that person, shall register the name under which their or his business is or is intended to be carried on. Where a firm or person carries on business under two or more trade names, each of those trade names must be registered; and where a firm carries on business in the United Kingdom and also abroad, the name of any foreign partner must be included in the statement, whether he is a British subject or not. Your Lordships will observe that the Bill does not apply to individuals trading in their own names either singly or with partners, so long as all the names without addition appear.
The manner and particulars of registration are set forth in the Bill, but I do not propose this afternoon to go into details as to the form of registration, because there will be no difficulty in the Committee dealing with that when the Bill is before them. What I want, and what business

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men want, is that the principle contained in the Bill—that there should be an effective registration of all persons and firms trading in this country in names other than their own—should be recognised. As regards registration itself, there are many ways in which that can easily be carried out, and the Committee can suggest the best, simplest, or, if you like, the cheapest way of accomplishing that end. That this end can be accomplished without much expense and without much difficulty is to business men perfectly clear. The question of penalty is also dealt with in the Bill; and this, again, is a detail which can be dealt with by the Committee. They can make the amount higher or lower as they deem wise, but there must, of course, be a penalty. It is no good passing a Bill like this unless some penalty is provided in cases where the law is not complied with.
I may be asked, What are we going to gain when we get this information? My answer to that question is that traders and others will then know with whom they are doing business and to whom they are giving credit, because foreigners and others trading in names other than their own will have to register, and the true and full names of those trading under other names or styles will be ascertainable. This Bill will not prevent foreigners or others from trading in this country, but it will compel them to disclose their names; and it will prevent those who become secret partners escaping their proper liabilities when losses occur. The Bill will not prevent individuals or companies making loans to private firms, nor will it make it necessary to disclose trade secrets. I see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Sumner, in his plane. On the last occasion he was under the wrong impression that I had stated in regard to the Bill that "its object is to win the war." I should like to case his Lordship's mind. This Bill, in my opinion, will not win the war, and I never said it would. What I did say—it will be found reported in Hansard without any correction—was this:
"In this time of war, when we have to deal with unscrupulous enemies, it is all the more important that the names of those who constitute firms should be made known."
I cannot see any objection to that. Further I said—
"Every one is doing all he can to secure the bringing of the war to a successful conclusion, and one way to do that would be to find out where we have enemies in the commercial world."
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There cannot be any objection to that either. The experience of the last few years has shown that our enemies have been trading in this country under secret names and in ways of which I am sure your Lordships cannot approve.
The noble and learned Lord was also worried about secret partners, whose names business men think ought to be disclosed, especially if they are foreigners. The noble and learned Lord said it was simple for them to be found out, but he did not say how accurate information could be obtained. The Home Office and the Police authorities would much like to know, and so would business men and Chambers of Commerce, from whom the authorities have recently been seeking information. In the City of London we have been asked over and over again to give the names of gentlemen composing different firms, and though our secretary and officials have been endeavouring to the best of their ability to obtain the names it has been found absolutely impossible to do so; whereas if we had a Bill such as this upon the Statute Book, every trader concerned would be compelled to send in the names to Somerset House or to some other Department, where the information would then become available. There is another gentleman who would much like to know how this information can at present be obtained—I refer to Judge Cluer. At Shoreditch, in a case which came before him in which the defendant pleaded that he was not acting on his own behalf but for a man whose name had not been disclosed to the plaintiff, Judge Cluer said—
"It is a pity that the House of Lords has not got to come here and listen to such cases as these. Lord Southwark has suggested that people should be compelled to trade in their own name, but his Bill was thrown out."
I said that before I sat down I would refer to the history of this Bill. It goes back as far as 1878. In that year Sir Frederick (then Mr.) Pollock was instructed by the Association of Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom to prepare a Bill for the following objects—(1) to consolidate the existing law of private partnership; (2) to introduce a system of limited partnership; and (3) to provide for a general system of registration of firms. The Bill was supported and backed by that distinguished lawyer, the late Lord Herschel], and by Mr. Gregory. then Member for Sussex. a well-known solicitor of great commercial experience. Sub-

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sequently the Bill was separated into three portions, and upon this being done three separate Bills were introduced into Parliament. The first, relating to the consolidation of the partnership law, was substantially enacted in the Partnership Act, 1890; the second, relating to limited partnership, was enacted by the measure introduced by Lord Rotherham in 1907, which came into operation in 1908 as the Limited Partnerships Act; the third, relating to the registration of firms—the Bill which is now before your Lordships—has been introduced in successive sessions since that date. It was introduced in the House of Commons in 1900 by Lord (then Mr.) Emmott; it was also introduced in your Lordships' House by Lord Rotherham in 1912 and given a Second Reading; and it went on one occasion at least to a House of Commons Select Committee.
In the Second Reading debate in the House of Commons in 1900, before the Bill was committed to a Select Committee, Mr. Ritchie, then President of the Board of Trade. said that he had no hesitation in saying that he entirely approved of the principle of the Bill. He went on to say—
"It deals with a matter which has engaged the attention of Public Departments as well as of the House of Commons for a great many years, and I think I am right in saying that the opinion of the mercantile community is practically unanimous in favour of the principle. At the Board of Trade we have received a good many representations on this subject in a like direction. There can be no doubt that in the existing state of the law scandals may and do arise through trade being carried on under names that inspire creditors with a confidence which the firms do not deserve. I am therefore prepared, on behalf of the Board of Trade, to support this Bill."
Mr. Ritchie urged that the Bill should go to a Select Committee so that its details could be carefully considered. The Second Reading of the Bill on that occasion was supported by Viscount (then Mr.) Bryce, who concluded his speech by saying—
"I hope that, if necessary, the Government will give the Bill a helping hand."
The Report of the Select Committee to whom the Bill was referred in 1900 contained this statement—
"It has been established before your Committee that it is desirable to obtain public disclosure of all individuals who at a fixed place employ for the purposes of trade the names or styles of companies, or partnerships, or any form of plural designation. An effective register of this information would not only tend to
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facilitate commerce, but would secure the identification of persons liable to legal proceedings or amenable to local government and other requirements."
Learned societies have also stamped the Bill with their approval. A communication to the House of Commons Select Committee from the Incorporated Law Society showed that the society was in favour of the principle of the Bill. The Committee of the Incorporated Law Society of Liverpool reported that they approved the principle and object of the Bill. The Committee of the Birmingham Law Society approved the main object and principle of the Bill, which they considered likely to be of service to the trading community. The Council of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland considered the Bill and approved generally of the provisions as far as they went. The Manchester Incorporated Law Society approved the principle and object of the Bill. The General Council of the Bar entirely approved the principle of the Bill. This is the only country, with the exception, perhaps, of Russia and America, which does not adopt this form of registration. Business men are absolutely unanimous in favour of the Bill and cannot conceive such speeches being made against it as that of the noble and learned Lord on the last occasion. I am glad to see present my noble friend Lord Joicey, who followed the noble and learned Lord in the previous debate and gave expression to the opinions of business men regarding this Bill. We like to have the law administered by learned Judges, but sometimes we desire to say what sort of law it is that we wish to live under. The Associated Chambers of Commerce, comprising 500 members representing 100 Chambers, recently held their annual meeting, and unanimously passed a resolution in favour of this Bill; the London Chamber of Commerce has done the same; and wherever I go amongst practical business and common sense men I hear the remark that they cannot conceive what objection there can be to the Second Reading of this Bill.
This is not a panic or faddist proposal. In the opinion of calm practical business men a Registration of Firms Act should be on the Statute Book before the war is over. Otherwise we shall have foreigners flocking over here and again trading, as they have for so many years past, under assumed English names. Business men claim that they are entitled to know

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with whom they are trading, and if this Bill were passed that information would always be forthcoming. I ask your Lordships to comply with the request of business men by granting the Bill a Second Reading and adopting its principle, and then send it to a Select Committee to consider and revise its details. If this is not done, there will be very great disappointment in the commercial world, and I think that great harm will be inflicted upon the trade and commerce of the country.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Southwark.)
LORD STANMORE: My Lords, I am glad that my noble friend agrees with the suggestion made on the last occasion by the Duke of Devonshire, that the Bill should he referred for investigation to a Select Committee. On the previous occasions that this measure has been before your Lordships' House it has received a considerable degree of sympathy from His Majesty's Government, and they will not now offer any opposition to the Second Reading. At the same time I can give no indication that it will be proceeded with in another place.
LORD MUIR-MACKENZIE: My Lords, I had intended, I am sorry to inform your Lordships, to make quite a long speech upon this subject to-night, but the arrangement that has been made at the instigation of the noble Viscount (Lord Midleton) who is not here to-night, that there should be a concentration of business upon one night, has produced so large a programme for this occasion that I think I must suppress my loquacity. Nevertheless I should like to say one or two words in favour of this Bill, because for many years past I have been accustomed to hear in another capacity of this proposal and never understood that it was one that was likely to be opposed on Second Reading as a matter of principle by the legal profession. I felt, I must say, very much abashed when so distinguished a person as my noble and learned friend upon the Cross Benches (Lord Sumner) denounced the Bill on the last occasion; chiefly, I think, upon a ground which has almost passed away nowadays from serious consideration —that it interferes with individual liberty. We nowadays arc inspected, registered, valued—I am sure I do not know in what department of life we are not looked after, nursed, and tormented in every sort
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of way—and it is quite surprising now to hear any one take up that ground. I could not help thinking that if the noble and learned Earl who sits upon the other side of the House, who is not here to-night, had been present when my noble and learned friend on the Cross Benches gave the main reasons for his opposition the other evening, he would have been reminded of the early days of his many and long Chancellorships, when he used to have to find official answers to the Liberty and Property Defence League, represented in this House by the delightful personality and eloquent tongue of the late Lord Wemyss. I am sure my noble and learned friend the noble Earl would have felt as if old days had come back again.
I venture to say that a sufficient case for this Bill on ordinary lines has been made out by the noble Lord who moved its Second Reading. But I should like to add one matter to which I had expected him to refer, but which he did not mention. There was a very important Committee appointed some years ago to deal with the Bankruptcy Acts, and they made a most excellent Report, upon which was founded all the recent legislation on the subject. They had this very Bill before them and considered it, and this is what they said—
"We are of opinion that the general question of the registration of firms and of single partners carrying on business in firm names or in names other than their own is one of great importance to the trading community. The evidence submitted to us on this question both by official witnesses and by those who represent the mercantile community was strongly in favour of such a system of registration, to be enforced by penalties on failure to comply with the provisions of the law; and although it has been suggested to us that difficulty might arise in establishing such a register and keeping it correct, and that an obligation of universal application might impose inconvenience and hardship on many firms of repute, these objections do not appear to us to be supported by the evidence tendered us or to be in themselves well founded."
I think those are weighty words coming from that very strong Committee, and are worthy of the consideration of your Lordships. I have another authority to quote. I asked Lord Lindley, the greatest living authority on partnership law, who was, as your Lordships know, at one time a most distinguished Lord of Appeal in this House, what he thought of this Bill, and he wrote to me to say that he had read the Bill and thoroughly approved of it. I think this is an important thing for your Lordships to know.

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I cannot but think that the House was somewhat taken by surprise on the former occasion when this Bill was dealt with. The Government had informed the noble Lord who moved the Bill and the House that they would not resist the Second Reading, and would concur in the Bill being sent to a Select Committee. Then, without any notice having been given of opposition, so formidable a person as my noble and learned friend on the Cross Benches got up and opposed the Bill in what was practically a Motion for Rejection. When the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees, who was on the Woolsack, put the Question, he said he thought that the Not Contents had it. There is a saying in Scotland that "Nae-body can be hangit for his think," and the noble Earl said he "thought" the Not Contents had it. My noble friend Lord Southwark seemed to find himself in the position of a man who is knocked down by a feather, and he failed to rally his many supporters to the rescue of the Bill. I have no doubt that on this occasion he intends to press his Motion resolutely, and I have no less doubt that your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading.
LORD SUMNER: My Lords, I fear that I am guilty of some temerity in rising to address your Lordships after the two speeches we have just heard. At the same time I am afraid I might disappoint the noble Lord who introduced the Bill if I remained silent, and even appear to be guilty of some discourtesy to him. Possibly also I might be allowed at least to apologise for the offence which in the eyes of my noble and learned friend Lord Muir-Mackenzie I appear to have committed in the last session by venturing to address your Lordships without putting any advertisement of my intention in the newspapers, and by apparently addressing you with such success that positively your Lordships agreed with me. No doubt it may seem a strange thing, in these days when we are so loaded with fetters of legislation, that a mere lawyer should venture to say one word in favour of the ordinary right of a man to mind his own business and manage it in his own way. I do not think it is of great importance, to tell the truth, what course is pursued on this occasion, because I think Lord Southwark recognises that in the process of examination before the Select Committee the Bill may require and receive so much
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alteration that little will be left of it except what is called the principle. Therefore I, for my part, will direct my observations only to what I understand to be the principle, so stated, and the effect of this Bill; but I do think that it is necessary that it should not be treated as a matter either so universally desired or so universally beneficent that no observation should be made upon it on the other side. I learn from the noble Lord who moved the Second Reading that this Bill seems to have been first prepared in 1878 and since then to have been unanimously supported by the whole of the mercantile world. We have passed a good many measures since 1878, and if this Bill were so desirable as has been made out I am surprised that it has not long since been placed upon the Statute Book.
One of the objects of the Bill, I gather, is to bring to light the alien, especially the alien enemy, in our midst, and to provide some kind of national safeguard against his machinations. If that be so, I would seriously put it to your Lordships whether a Bill of this kind is not inopportune during the currency of the war. When this war ends—whenever that is to be—if it ends upon terms such as we all desire and hope we shall obtain, it will no doubt be necessary for this country to consider, and consider very gravely, questions in connection with the admission of aliens to this country as traders, their admission to citizenship, and so forth, which have never arisen before, which will require the most careful consideration, and which it will be fatal to deal with in any incautious way. If and in so far as this Bill is directed to dealing with that question and to dealing in some way with the terms upon which foreigners shall be admitted to this country, I venture to suggest that it may prejudge an issue that ought only to be decided very gravely, and that there is no possible excuse for treating it as a matter to be gone into now at a time when only emergency legislation is really desirable.
In its other aspect, which is not connected with aliens in our midst, the Bill appears to me, with all respect, to be still less a thing to be pressed on at the present time. May I explain to your Lordships in my own way what I understand to be the principle of the Bill? The principle of the Bill is this, that no two men or more in this country shall trade together in partnership unless they are put to the pains

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and trouble of entering that fact upon a register somewhere or other, and unless, in order to enforce that obligation, they are liable to pains or penalties, which may or may not be severe. I am aware that the penalties can be altered, but as the Bill stands the liability is to a fine of £1 a day for the period during which the omission continues. There is not a farmer carrying on his business with his sons in England, Scotland, Ireland, or Wales, there is not a milliner, there is not a small shopkeeper of any kind who may not and will not come under these provisions. If a person adds to his name the innocent addition "and Co.," and calls himself "Smith & Co." instead of "John Smith," he is bound under this Bill to register what his firm is. The humblest persons, the most out-of-the-way persons, the most harmless persons are all bound to contribute their unimportant names to this great national register, and I imagine there must be thousands, probably tens of thousands, of decent people who, after all, pay their debts as they fall due and are neither aliens nor swindlers, who will be compelled to enter their names upon this register. And for what purpose? Apparently for two purposes only—one, in order that persons who are foreigners may be detected by the names which are registered, if any one has the curiosity to examine the register; and the other, in specious language, in order that traders may know with whom they are doing business and to whom they are giving credit. I have not the slightest objection to doing anything that can reasonably be done to assist traders in that respect. I think it is quite reasonable that traders should know with whom they are dealing, and if the law can assist them—which I doubt—it is right that it should. But is it really the correct way to assist traders to find out with whom they are dealing to compel this great register to be compiled in order that at various points—I think three or four in the United Kingdom—there may be a register which somebody may be able to search on payment of a shilling or so?
There are two ways in which business is done. One is that the proposed debtor, the man who wants to do business with you, comes to you and says, "Will you deal with me on credit?" What is the difficulty of saying to him, "Have you a reference, have you partners, do you object
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to telling me what your full name is?" and the rest of it. I can see none. He may go away; but if he has come to you to seek credit, he may tell you these harmless truths in order to get credit. The other way is that you should go to him and offer credit. The commercial traveller who calls at half the shops in a town and sees over some of them names such as "Commercial Agency" or "Californian Comfit Shop" probably knows very well that if he said, "Before I take your order I want you to tell me who you are," he would not get the order. Surely it is not necessary to impose on the whole trading community, great and small, this new and additional burden, which must be enforced by penalties, in order that persons who are sending out commercial travellers to canvass for orders should be saved the necessity of asking disagreeable questions. It is not as though the law did not already provide machinery of the kind, because in an action, if the case comes to that, there is machinery for finding out who the partners in the firm are, and there is machinery in aid of execution, if you have judgment, to enable you to enforce it. If that machinery needs improvement, let it be improved. But this is a roundabout way of constructing a register which is at best to relieve a certain number of persons who should make their own inquiries for themselves of the trouble of doing so at the expense of other people who are perfectly ready in the great majority of cases to pay their debts.
I know that it is constantly said that we have a great many registers, and why should we not have one or two more? We have a register of shareholders in companies, of dentists, of doctors, of solicitors, of moneylenders. Why, it is asked, should we not have a register of persons who trade as firms? It is a complete error, to my mind, to think that the register of companies has anything to do with this matter. You do not go to the register of shareholders in companies in order to find out who are the beneficial owners of the shares, because the shares may be there, and may rightly be there, in the names of nominees. Therefore that register, which is enacted for a different purpose in connection with the transmission of shares, is of no real analogy whatever to this proposal, which is a proposal to have a register from which you would be able

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to find out whether You are to look to the credit of A, or of A and B, or of A, B, and C when you come to seek payment for your goods. In the same way the suggestion that doctors and dentists are registered seems to me to have nothing to do with the present case, because they are registered for a totally different purpose—namely, to protect the community from unqualified persons, not to inquire into the personal relations as partners between one person and another.
The noble Lord rightly said that in this case, if the register is to be of any use, you must have penalties and you must enforce them; otherwise instead of having a register containing, say, 10,000 names, you would have one containing 400 or 500 names which would be of no use to anybody. First of all, there is nobody provided for in this Bill whose duty it will be to enforce registration. There is nobody provided for in the Bill whose business it will be to take proceedings against those who do not register. Except at the cost of creating another and a busy department—I suppose of the Board of Trade—at some substantial public expense, I do not know how you would get this register kept up to the mark. And if it was not kept up to the mark, what would happen? Every time somebody was summoned for not registering the names of the partners of the firm, he would say "It is perfectly notorious that vast numbers of people do not register and have never been called upon to register."
LORD SOUTHWARK: Would that be a defence?
LORD SUMNER: The noble Lord will hear in one moment. I was going to appeal to the experience of the large number of your Lordships who have some experience of petty sessions. Would any serious penalty be inflicted upon anybody who was in a position to say, "They have caught me—why I do not know—but there are great crowds of other people who are never summoned but who ought to be." The certainty is that a merely nominal penalty would be inflicted. If, on the other hand, you get the register fully created it would be necessary in the first instance to have some authority to keep it up to date, to enter the names when the firms are starting in business, and that could only be done by some fresh branch of a Public Department; and I am quite
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sure that a register that is allowed to fall into arrears or into desuetude is much worse than a register that has never been enacted at all.
I heard with some surprise on the last occasion that it was the deliberate intention of this Bill to abolish secret partnership. It is not that a secret partner can evade his liabilities, because he is liable if he is a partner. Of course, there is some trouble in those relatively rare cases where it becomes necessary to enforce debts by legal proceedings. Let those portions of our legal machinery be improved. But why is the right of two men to trade together without telling everybody what they are doing to be interfered with because of the fact that in a certain number of cases, perhaps too numerous, some partner manages to keep his secret to the very last and get away without paying the firm's debts? It appears to me to be the wrong way of going about the business. Instead of directing yourself to the person who is fraudulent, instead of heaping penalties upon his head, instead of providing as a matter of police that he shall be brought to book and punished for his crime, you endeavour to create at the expense of other people some kind of structure which it is thought will assist, I know not whom—inquiry agents, I imagine—to find out indirectly information which will be useful to those who employ them.
I will not detain your Lordships longer, because there is other business on the Paper. But I would quite seriously entreat the noble Lord who is in charge of this Bill to consider whether the best course would not be to withdraw it upon this occasion—first, because it is not a war measure and because it appears to deal with matters which I think could be more comprehensively dealt with later on; and, secondly, because it is a measure which not only requires consideration in Committee but recasting from end to end.
EARL LOREBURN: My Lords, this Bill has been familiar to some of us for many years, and only pressure of time has prevented its being brought forward and passed into law before. There is only one real purpose in the Bill. It is to prevent people from trading otherwise than in their own names—that is to say, under fictitious names and sometimes for dishonest purposes. I am not specially

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concerned with the Bill, but it is proposed to send it to a Select Committee in order to see how far this mischief can be prevented. I think that no good can result in concealing from traders the names of people with whom they are invited to deal. It seems to me that the straightforward course is that people should not be ashamed to state who they are and what their false names are, if they think fit to use false names. That would save traders the trouble of bringing actions in order to find out with whom they have been dealing.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD BUCKMASTER): My Lords, there are only a few words that I desire to say. I agree with Lord Summer that it is desirable that a man should mind his own business and manage his own work, but I should like to add that he should also manage it in his own name. I can see no reason at all why a man should be ashamed to trade, and I can see no reason why, if he is not ashamed of trading, he should object to stating his own name. I cannot see the difficulties to which the noble and learned Lord referred. Registration can be effected simply and at practically no cost at all. At the present moment we are dealing with a situation of difficulty which exists by reason of the very fact that provisions like this are not on the Statute Book. We are absolutely ignorant to-day of who the people are who are trading under apparently English and Scottish names. It is of the utmost importance to have this information, and we have no means of ascertaining it. If this Bill had been in force we should have known what steps to take to prevent trade being carried on for the benefit of our enemies. I cannot see why, in circumstances such as these, we should postpone this Bill until after hostilities have ended. The noble and learned Lord has said that there may be many matters connected with trade and business into which it will be desirable to inquire. But, whatever you do, this at least is surely the minimum, and why not do it at once? There will be no need to alter this provision when hostilities cease, though it may be necessary to add to it. We should have this necessary nucleus, from which our legislation can grow. I can see no objection to this Bill, and I hope your Lordships will read it a second time.
On Question, Bill read 2a.
LORD SOUTHWARK: I beg to move that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to, and Bill referred to a Select Committee.

PRISONERS OF WAR.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government what are the regulations with regard to the employment of prisoners of war and of interned civilians. It has not been easy to get any precise information on this subject, but I understand that there are certain facts in connection with it. One is that, although we have been at war for more than eighteen months, there have been no regulations issued respecting the employment of prisoners, or, if any have been issued, it is only at quite a recent date. I know that there has been a certain amount of employment conducted by the prisoners in making roads about the camps, putting up barbed wire fences, and in other minor matters of that kind, but I do not think very much employment has been allowed to prisoners outside their camps. I am even told that in one camp, where numerous huts are being built for the reception of prisoners, the work is being carried out under the supervision of the Royal Engineers but is put out to contract. The prisoners were not allowed to help in the building of the huts because it would have been against some trade union rule. I was told of another case where an offer was made by the commandant of a prisoners' camp to allow the prisoners to work on the public roads, but the local authority or some other body intervened and said it would not be permissible because it would be offending some labour organisation.
It seems incredible in these days, when there is such a scarcity of labour and when attempts are made on every side to get people to undertake the multifarious forms of employment to be carried out, that there should be any opposition to the utilisation of the labour of these prisoners. Considerable limitation is necessarily imposed by the difficulty of obtaining sufficient escorts to guard the prisoners outside the camps, but it should be easy to bring various forms of employment to the camps where the prisoners might give useful service. I believe it is done in France

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to a large extent. There a great number of prisoners are usefully employed. The prisoners in this country are well looked after, well fed, and well housed, but they suffer from lack of something to do; and it would not be contrary to the wish of the prisoners if they were allowed facilities to work outside their camps. And as they would be remunerated they might thus put by some small sum of money. This, moreover, would not be in conflict with The Hague Convention, because in Article 6 it is laid clown that—
"Prisoners may be authorised to work for the public service, for private service, or on their own account."
They may not, of course, do any work in connection with operations of war. But I read in the Press that this is what Germany is doing. She is employing her prisoners in connection with war work, but we do not wish to emulate Germany in that respect. Yet facilities ought to be given to prisoners to do useful service.
Before I sit down I should like to ask a Question of which I have given private notice—namely, what is being done in the case of prisoners in Turkey? All through this war, whether in Gallipoli or Mesopotamia, the Turks have, by every account, been most fair and honourable and chivalrous in their methods of conducting the war; and in yesterday's newspapers there was an account of how well the prisoners were treated who were taken off the "Tara." I hope the noble Lord who will answer this Question will be able to give some assurance that our prisoners who are in the hands of the Turks are equally well considered and looked after, and treated in a way something resembling the Turk's honourable methods of conducting war.
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD NEWTON): My Lords, with regard to my noble friend's supplementary Question, I am unable to give him as much information as I should have liked on account of the insufficient notice which I received. It is perfectly true, as my noble friend stated, that the conduct of the Turks on many occasions has contrasted favourably with that of certain other belligerents, but it would be a mistake to assume, as I am afraid he has assumed, that all prisoners in Turkey are being treated in a humane and satisfactory manner. That, I am afraid, would be an exaggeration.
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I may add that it is extremely difficult to obtain full information on the subject. If my noble friend cares to return to this question upon another occasion, I shall be glad to supply him with any information that is within my power.
The answer to the Question upon the Paper is that all prisoners of war, whether military or civilian, are obliged to carry out certain duties connected with the order and management of their places of internment without payment, and, as my noble friend is also aware, they are obliged to cook for themselves; and those, prisoners who are employed in various capacities, such as tailors, or shoemakers, or clerks, or in hospital receive certain rates of pay. The employment of combatant prisoners of war by the State, by public bodies, or by private individuals is regulated by Article 6 of the Annexe to The Hague Convention, and each man receives as remuneration the same amount of working pay as would be earned by one of our soldiers in similar circumstances. As my noble friend is aware, labour cannot be imposed upon interned civilians without their assent. With regard to the civilians interned in this country, regulations bearing upon their employment are now under consideration. In the case both of combatant and civilian prisoners such payment is demanded from the employer as will recoup the State for the expense incurred and leave proper remuneration for the prisoners. Prisoners in this country have been employed in the Isle of Man and elsewhere in constructing huts and otherwise extending their camps, and at Dorchester and Stobs work in the vicinity of camps has been found for them.
I am quite prepared to confess that in my opinion the situation generally as regards the employment of prisoners is by no means satisfactory, and I agree with my noble friend that it would be difficult to conceive a more ludicrous spectacle than that which is afforded us at the present moment. Here we are, with an alarming scarcity of labour throughout the country, imploring women to come to our assistance, whilst there are thousands of able-bodied prisoners in this country who are doing very little work at all. I might give an instance which came under my own observation. Some months ago, before I had any official connection with prisoners at all, I happened

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to be visiting a military camp where drainage work was going on, and I observed, much to my surprise, that the work was being carried out by civilians. Upon inquiry I discovered that these civilians had been imported from a considerable distance, and were being paid at the highest trade union rates of wages. I thereupon asked the prisoners whether there were none amongst them who were capable of discharging that particular work, and they replied that there was nothing they would have liked better and that they would have been enchanted to do the work for a penny an hour. To this day I have received no explanation of that very remarkable phenomenon. In Germany, on the other hand, from information I have obtained from the Red Cross, prisoners of war are employed in no less than twenty-eight different occupations, varying from labour in mines to acting as beaters at shooting parties. Here in this country nobody shows any desire to employ prison labour.
I have been informed that in the past the Government did endeavour to employ these men and made proposals with regard to their employment. I believe they approached the railways, but the reply of the railway people was that they did not want to have anything to do with prisoners. They tried mining. I believe they were told that the miners would have nothing to say to them at all. Then they fell back on the docks, and when the question of employing them in the docks was raised I believe that petitions were received by the Admiralty and by the War Office, and that as a climax the men who represented the Dockers' Union said that the dockers would have nothing to do with them. Then, again, it was suggested frequently that they should be employed upon public works, but in every case there has been opposition proceeding either from the employers or from the trade unions. That disposes of some of my noble friend's criticisms. But I must candidly own that I am not at all satisfied that sufficient efforts have been made to employ these men.
As my noble friend is perhaps aware, an inter-Departmental Committee has recently been appointed for the purpose of dealing with prisoners where two or more Departments are concerned, and I happen to be chairman of that Committee, I am happy to be able to say that although we have only held two meetings we have
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at all events made a little progress, because it has been definitely arranged, owing partly to persistence on my part, that a certain number of military prisoners should be allocated to the work of felling trees in Scotland for the purpose of supplying pit props, which are very urgently required at the present moment in the coal mining industry. It is hoped that before long the remaining military prisoners will be employed in some useful capacity. But I may say that the whole question of the employment of prisoners is not such a simple one as it appears, more especially when five or six different Departments are concerned. I can, however, assure my noble friend that the Government are fully aware of the necessity of utilising this particular form of labour, and that every effort will be made to utilise it in some form or other. This question is not only a complicated one but it is an important one, and one which cannot really be dealt with in the limits of an answer to a Question of this kind; but if my noble friend returns to the subject on a later occasion I hope I may be able to give him a fuller answer.
LORD BERESFORD: The position seems very difficult. Is it the Government who are governing the country, or is it the trade unions?
LORD NEWTON: It is not only a question of the trade unions.
LORD BERESFORD: I understood the noble Lord to say that the trade unions objected.
LORD NEWTON: I said other people as well.
LORD BERESFORD: Well, is it the Government who are governing the country or these "other people"? We are very short of labour, and ought to employ these prisoners. The Government should put their foot down and say, "We are going to employ them." I am not saying anything against the trade unions. When they began they were in the right. Working men in those days did not get their fair share from the output of labour. But since that time the trade unions have usurped power which is very harmful to the country. We are now at war, and neither the trade unions nor anybody else should be allowed to interfere with what the Government think is right.
LORD NEWTON: My noble friend is an old Government official himself, and I should have thought he would have realised that, as I said just now, this question of employing prisoners of war is not such a simple one as it appears. It is not only a question of the trade unions. As I pointed out, there are five or six Government Departments that have to be considered. If I were appointed Dictator and given powers to deal with these prisoners as I thought fit, I feel certain they would be employed in some capacity or another before very long. This is a thing, however, which cannot be done all at once, and I am doing all I possibly can to expedite matters in the direction which my noble friend desires.

LARCENY BILL. [H.L.]
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this Bill, to which I hope you will grant a Second Reading, is designed to consolidate the existing law with regard to larceny and kindred offences. It has been prepared by a Committee who have for some time past been engaged on work of this kind, and if your Lordships grant the Bill a Second Reading I shall move at a later stage that it be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses in order that it may be carefully examined and put into proper and complete form. At the present moment, so far as I can see from the Bill itself, it really is nothing but a careful compilation of all the existing law relating to larceny and kindred offences. It has followed very closely the provisions of the law as it stands, and indeed in some respects it has incorporated old provisions which appear now to have nothing but an antiquarian interest. Your Lordships know that according to the law of this country it is not larceny to steal a wild bird which is unfit for human food nor to steal its eggs, but from a long time back an exception has always been made to that rule in favour of hawks and falcons. Anybody who steals a hawk or a falcon or an egg of a hawk or falcon commits a larceny at Common Law, and that provision is carefully preserved in the Bill as it now stands. On the other hand, for reasons that it is not quite so easy to
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understand, the wild swan never appears to have enjoyed such immunity, and an express provision is introduced that if and when occasion offers a person can steal a wild swan or its eggs without being liable for larceny under the English law. I do not think, however, that this will have much effect, because the only place, perhaps, where wild swan can be found is Abbotsbury, and even then an interesting question would arise as to whether they were wild. I mention these matters merely to assure your Lordships that this Bill has faithfully consolidated the existing law and not imposed anything new, and I hope your Lordships will think it a measure which should receive further consideration and grant it a Second Reading.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I only wish to say how heartily I agree with what the Lord Chancellor has said. It is very important that this Bill should have a Second Reading, and then I understand the proposal is that it should go before the Joint Committee which deals with Consolidation Bills. I think this Bill will be a great advance and a great advantage in our Criminal Law.
On Question, Bill read 2a.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the Motion that stands in my name on the Paper is for the appointment of a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament to whom all Consolidation Bills in this present session may be referred. The Bill to which the House has just given a Second Reading is one that will go before this Committee, and I trust that your Lordships will think it right to appoint it.
Moved to resolve, That it is desirable that all Consolidation Bills in the present Session be referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to; and a Message ordered to be sent to the Commons to communicate this Resolution, and to desire their concurrence.

HOUSE OF LORDS REFRESHMENT ROOMS.
Moved, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and regulate the arrangements for the Refreshment Rooms in the Department of the Clerk of the Parliaments (The Viscount Hutchinson (E.Donoughmore); agreed to, and ordered accordingly. The Lords following were named of the Committee:

D. Rutland.

M. Lincolnshire.

V. Churchill.

L. Sanderson.

L. Strachie.

L. Parmoor.

L. Muir-Mackenzie.

The Committee to appoint their own Chairman.

THE INVENTIONS BOARD.
LORD GRIMTHORPE LORD GRIMTHORPE had the following Question on the Paper—
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the studies and investigations of the Inventions Committee have resulted in the discovery of any inventions that can be utilised to the advantage of this country during the course of the war.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have purposely framed this Question somewhat broadly, so as to leave the Government full room to say as much or as little as they like in reply. If, as I hope, the answer is in the affirmative, I do not, of course, ask the Government to specify exactly the kind or character of the inventions which they expect to utilise during the war. The Inventions Committee, under Lord Fisher, has been sitting now for a great many months, and no announcement has been made as to the result of its labours. During this period the brains of inventors have no doubt been in an incessant state of eruption, and countless plans and projects must have been submitted for consideration. The public take a very keen interest in this matter, and it would be a satisfaction to them to be informed that the labours of this Committee have not been in vain, and that something has been unearthed which may be of practical utility.
Up to the present time, as far as he is able to judge, the man in the street does
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not see that anything on sea or land or in the air has been discovered which has had or is having any practical effect upon the operations of the war. We all know that in Germany inventors are encouraged and invited to apply all their mental resources to the service of the State; and we have seen the results of that. In the case of a promising invention money is found for tests and experiments, and every assistance is given to the inventor. The German Government does all it can to secure the full fruition and advantage of any scientific and technical discovery which may be able to be obtained. Now, can the same be said of our Government? Undoubtedly in the case of Great Britain, as we have seen recently from various letters to the newspapers from men of science, it appears that scientific discovery, science in general, has been treated with neglect and indifference. Several instances of it might be given. I read with great interest the other day in a leading periodical of the epoch-making discoveries of Lord Lister with regard to the antiseptic treatment of wounds, discoveries which have been the means of saving thousands and thousands of lives. Nothing could be more valuable. They are among the greatest of the discoveries of the nineteenth century. Yet for years those discoveries were derided and pooh-poohed in this country, and were not put into practice here until they had been welcomed in the principal countries of the Continent.
There is another matter, referring to a War Office invention. Just before the war a certain colonel—who shall be nameless—presented a scheme to the War Office of a new invention. They examined it very closely. They did not say it was not practicable or would not be thoroughly effective, but—I read the words myself—that they "could not consider this invention because, if adopted, it would involve a revision of the established methods of attack." It may be said that since the war we have changed all that, and that we now approach inventors in a different spirit and with a more open frame of mind. But do we? If I am to judge from the amount of correspondence I have received and the complaints that have been made, I am not quite sure of it. I am fully aware that many inventors are mere cranks, and that nine out of ten, perhaps ninety-nine out of a hundred, inventions are perfectly worthless. But

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what we wish to know is, If the tenth or the hundredth invention is not worthless, has it been adopted and is it likely to be put into the service of the State? I do not wish to labour this point, but I confess that I am not quite sure that the suggestions of inventors are received in that spirit which is necessary in such times as these. A little time ago I listened to a lecture from Professor Bone, one of the most distinguished and enlightened chemists in this country, who is in charge of the laboratory at South Kensington. In an address delivered before the Chemical Society he referred to the fact that he had made repeated offers to the Government to place his staff and works at their disposal in order to increase by 25 per cent. the output of an ingredient in the manufacture of munitions which is absolutely essential and of which there is a danger of our running short. Professor Bone said that those offers to the Government, even though made through influential persons, had been so far entirely disregarded.
The other day we heard from Lord Montagu that the predominance in the air which was ours at the beginning of the war was for the time being lost. Why was this? Because Germany has gone faster ahead than we have in the discovery of new and better aeroplanes. I should like to ask the Government this question. It has been rumoured—I say "rumoured" because I have no means of testing the statement—that the Fokker, the wonderful new aeroplane now employed by the Germans with so much effect, was offered to but refused by our Government before it was offered to Germany. I cannot believe that to be true, and if untrue it is most desirable that the Government should say so. These and other instances do suggest that even under the pressure of the war we are not yet so wide awake as we might be to the supreme value of brain power. The old theory of "muddling through" has been scotched—thank goodness!—but not yet killed, in spite of the fact that it has produced many striking and painful instances of how not to do a thing and has cost us so dear in men, money, and reputation.
Another complaint made by inventors—it may or may not be reasonable—is that they are treated with scant courtesy and consideration. They say that they
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are employing their brains in the service of the country, that they have spent in many cases large sums of money upon experimenting with their inventions, but that when they present the inventions to the Committee they are treated in such a way as makes them think that those who offer inventions are regarded as troublesome and irresponsible persons who ought to be snubbed for their pains. That is not the way to treat them, although I admit that in some cases inventors have such a high opinion of their inventions that they are not ready to accept an answer in the negative. But they have a complaint of a more serious nature. They say that there is a lack of cohesion in dealing with inventions, that when their inventions have been accepted they do not know what to do because there does not seem to be any satisfactory machinery or organisation, that they are sent from pillar to post, from one Department to another, and, finally, in many cases they cannot find that there is proper machinery in existence for utilising inventions as speedily as possible even after they have been approved by the Committee.
There is another question I should like to ask the Government, although it is not of much importance. Are they able to say what number of the inventions which have been adopted represents the work of the general body of inventors and what number represents the work of inventors connected with Woolwich, Portsmouth, or the Royal College of Science or other Government institutions? For here, again, is another suspicion, in which I place no credence myself. It has been said that inventions are not always judged strictly on their merits but that the personality, credentials, and so on, of inventors are allowed to weigh in the scale. I think the Government will have no difficulty in dispelling that impression, and if they can do so in a positive manner it will do good.
I do not think it can be said that in asking for a general statement on this subject I am seeking information which it is improper or dangerous to furnish, because a little time ago the French Minister for Education issued to the Budget Committee a statement of the details of the work done by the Inventions Committee in France. Some of those details were published, and I was glad to read in an extract from that publication

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in France that a large number of suggestions, many of them of great value, had been received which dealt with all branches of the war, especially with the subject of anti-aircraft gunnery. This is comforting news, as I assume that anything of great value which has been discovered in France will be placed at our disposal. I hope, however, that English inventive genius has not lagged behind, and that it, too, has been able to suggest inventions of considerable value. No doubt in our weapons of defence and attack many improvements have been made. That cannot be denied for a moment, but I invite the Government to say whether we have gone beyond that, and whether anything of first-rate importance has been discovered which is likely materially to help us in our efforts to terminate the war successfully at an early date.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF CREWE): My Lords, my noble friend has, I think, shown full discretion in the manner in which he has enforced his Question. He has entirely realised that there is a great deal that cannot be said on this subject, and he has not pressed us to say it; but I will give him such information as I can on the subject, which, we all agree, is of absorbing interest to the public generally. As my noble friend knows, there are two bodies concerned with this question. There is the Munitions Inventions Department and also the body to which my noble friend particularly alluded, the Board of Inventions and Research, the headquarters of which are at the Admiralty and which is presided over by Lord Fisher. Those bodies work in close concert and co-operation. The meetings of each and their Committees are regularly attended by representatives of the other, and I think it may be fairly claimed that there is no loss of power or overlapping owing to the fact that there are nominally, at any rate, two bodies and not only one.
The Board of Inventions and Research is a highly competent body, comprising, I think, in its membership no fewer than fourteen Fellows of the Royal Society, including the very distinguished President of that body. The Board and the other body have received—I will speak of them now as though they were one—a very large number of suggestions and statements of inventions. By now I fancy that something like from
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14,000 to 15,000 suggestions of different kinds have been received. I think I can venture to say quite categorically, although perhaps it is hardly safe to do so without having personally examined the 14,000 or 15,000 inventions, that there is no colour whatever for the suggestion that those which proceed from what may be called official sources obtain any kind of preference over those which come from sources not so publicly known. The real answer to any supposition of that kind consists in the character and standing of the people who examine the proposals that are made, and I am glad to have the opportunity of saying as much as I have on this particular complaint.
My noble friend was quite right in his statement that a vast proportion of these proposals and suggestions are not of any very great value. A number of them are intrinsically useless. There will always be a certain, indeed a considerable, proportion of suggestions of that kind which are more worthy of the Island of Laputa than the country in which we live. But there is a quite definite fraction—I am sure my noble friend will not expect me to name any figures in this connection—
LORD GRIMTHORPE: No.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: There is a quite definite proportion which have been accepted and examined, and in a substantial number of cases have been found to be distinctly useful. A great many have been capable of development by the experts who are actively serving the Government. Some are probably rather crude and inchoate, but they contain some sort of novel suggestion on which it is possible for a skilled man to improve. There have been some other cases, perhaps not very numerous, in which the invention itself has been found applicable to our needs at first. A very large number, as noble Lords would suppose, of those submissions are connected with the more modern developments of warfare, a great many with aircraft, and also with the subject which my noble friend mentioned as having been dealt with in France, various anti-aircraft expedients. Those have been very numerous. There have also been a great many suggestions connected with submarines and projects of all kinds for meeting and defeating submarines; a great many connected with explosives, with different kinds of gases, and projectiles

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of all sorts; a great many connected with trench warfare generally in all its strange and unexpected developments. There have also been a number concerned with transport and engines of different kinds, including several dealing with the not very hopeful possibility of perpetual motion.
Of the suggestions that are received a certain proportion, of course, are put aside at once, but a large number are carefully tested, and, as I have said, some have been found either to be of immediate use or easily adaptable to such use. The models that are sent in by inventors are in all cases returned; drawings as a rule are not returned, for reasons which would take too long to explain, but I think would be generally regarded as reasonable and adequate. It would be altogether unfair to conclude that any inventor receives discouragement at the hands of these Committees. Inventors are, as my noble friend I think himself indicated, something of a genus irritabile, and I have no doubt there are some who consider that their discoveries, offering vast and almost incredible prospects of use to the country, have been ruthlessly cast aside owing to the unhappy jealousy of the Fellows of the Royal Society and others who have considered them. But what I think is even more important than the reception of inventions and discoveries—though clearly they ought to be thoroughly examined and tested, because if even only one in a thousand turns out to be really practically useful it ought not to be discarded—is the regular carrying out of research by those most competent to undertake it at the places which are most suitable. It is safe, I believe, to say that all our best scientific minds in the country are now being devoted to research. It has been recognised nised that there have been various branches of industry, including the production of some indispensable commodities, in which we have fallen sadly behind, and which have been allowed to fall into the hands of our enemies. That balance, so far as possible, is now being redressed. A vast amount of work is now being done at all the principal chemical and physical laboratories in research and experiment. A considerable part of that harvest cannot be reaped until the war is over, but it will be then reaped to the great advantage of the country in a hundred methods of which the
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country as a whole is, I dare say, hardly now cognisant.
My noble friend said that there are some signs of discontent in the scientific world with the general position of the country in relation to science. That is quite true. My noble friend alluded to a letter to The Times written at the end of January and signed by a large body of the most eminent men of science in the country. The particular complaint contained in that letter is one of undoubted importance, though it only forms a small part of the whole subject of scientific education. That letter dealt specifically with the fact that examinations for admission to the Civil Service in practice put science aside almost altogether, and that in fact it was the literary student, classical or other, who in practice possessed the monopoly of entrance to the Civil Service. That is an important fact, as I have said, and it is one which undoubtedly merits close examination. My noble friend mentioned two specific instances, on which I am not particularly informed, and therefore I will not attempt to give him a definite answer. The first was with regard to the South Kensington Chemical Laboratory and an offer to supply materials.
LORD GRIMTHORPE: Organisation and superintendence of the chemical work, not necessarily at South Kensington but all over the country.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I did not quite apprehend what my noble friend said, but I am not specially informed on the matter mentioned by Professor Bone on that occasion. Therefore I will not attempt to answer. Also I am not actually acquainted with the facts about the Fokker aeroplane, and as to how far the story is true that that type of Dutch aeroplane was offered to our authorities here. But my noble friend will, I think, agree that although that machine has played a remarkable part in a certain type of attack or defence by the German troops at the Front, its supremacy has been somewhat overstated in the Press. It may have been talked of in terms too exalted for its merits, although no doubt within the limits of its powers it is a remarkable and an exceedingly effective machine. I think I need not detain the House longer. I should have been glad if I could have been more specific in reply to my noble friend, but I think he has fairly understood the limits which

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are of necessity imposed on a Minister in replying to the Question which he has put.
LORD GRIMTHORPE: I thank my noble friend for his very interesting answer, which I am sure will be satisfactory to the country.

WAR RISKS (INSURANCE BY TRUSTEES) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

ROYAL NAVAL AIR SERVICE.
LORD BERESFORD: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government whether any officers of the Royal Naval Air Service have lost their lives through flying in experimental or faulty machines.
THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, as far as is known there is no authentic record of a fatal accident to any officer of the Royal Naval Air Service due to a faulty machine. Commander Usborne and Lieutenant-Commander Ireland most gallantly gave their lives in carrying out an important aerial experiment last month. This experiment was not the mere trial of a new type of aeroplane but of an aerial weapon of an entirely novel type, further details of which it is not desirable to give in the public interest. It was realised at the time that an experiment of this nature involved grave risks, and every precaution which careful forethought and elaborate preparation could provide was taken to minimise these risks. It is hardly necessary to add that there is never any difficulty in obtaining volunteers for this description of work, and I feel confident that my noble and gallant friend would be the first person to deprecate the neglect of important and promising inventions on the ground that in the earlier stages of their development they involved risk to the personnel conducting the experiments. Aviation would never have advanced to the present stage had such a line been taken.
LORD BERESFORD: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his answer. The reason I asked the Question was that the other day in your Lordships' House I made
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certain statements relative to naval officers having lost their lives in machines which were not perfect. I made those statements in a quite bona fide manner on authority which I thought was unquestionable. Since then I have discovered that the statement was not correct; and I have to express to your Lordships and also to the authorities at the Admiralty my regrets that I made the statement. I am glad now to see that the Naval Air Service is really working very hard. There has been a raid made on the Germans of a most satisfactory character, and there is no doubt from the statement made by Mr. Balfour that the Naval Air Service, which was in a condition of utter confusion, has now been brought to such a state that we may hope for good action on its part in the future.

INTERNED CIVILIANS.
LORD LAMINGTON LORD LAMINGTON had the following Question on the Paper—
To ask His Majesty's Government what are the principles that determine the discharge of interned civilians.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Question ought to have been taken with the one which I have already put, and it is difficult to see how it became divorced from it. The whole question is no doubt a most difficult and complex one as to who should be interned and who should not. I gather that many mistakes have been made, that many who should have been interned have not been, and that many who should not have been have been interned. There are interned civilians who have a son or two sons fighting in our Army, yet they are treated as suspects. But from time to time the authorities allow some of these to come out of the camps. What happens to them then I do not know, but this has been represented to me as a most mischievous principle. These men have had their businesses ruined, and they feel that they have been unjustly treated; and they are liberated with an undoubted grievance against the authorities. I therefore ask His Majesty's Govern merit what are the principles that determine who should be let out; whether supervision is kept on these people when they are let out; and, in cases where they have had their businesses ruined and have nothing to live on, what is done with those unfortunate people.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I quite agree with my noble friend in his view that this question also is in an unsatisfactory condition. I am in entire agreement with him in his expression of opinion that there are a large number of people who are interned who ought not to have been interned, and it is highly probable that there are people going about free who ought to be in internment camps at the present moment. But I would remind him that the internments which took place on a large scale were due in great measure to popular pressure exercised in various forms. As regards the principles governing this matter, I would remind my noble friend that those principles were laid down not quite a year ago—in May last year—by the Prime Minister. It was then decided that all alien enemies of military age should be interned unless there were cases which called for exceptional treatment; and in order to carry out this policy an Advisory Committee of a judicial character was set up for the purpose of considering the cases of persons who might be exempted from internment. That Advisory Committee sat for a long time last year, and, I believe, rendered very valuable service. The principles adopted by that Advisory Committee, roughly speaking, were as follow. The usual grounds upon which exemptions were granted were founded upon long residence in this country, and upon the fact of whether the man was married to an English woman and had an English family. The Committee were also naturally influenced by such a circumstance as that the man who was applying for exemption had a son serving in one branch of His Majesty's Forces, and so forth. In addition to this, it was obviously necessary that any person exempted from internment should be free from objection on the part of the Police and of the military and naval authorities. A certain number of persons recommended for exemption by the Advisory Committee had been interned before the Advisory Committee was set up, and some releases have taken place under these circumstances quite recently. The principles laid down by the Advisory Committee have been observed in dealing with any cases which have arisen since the Advisory Committee concluded its work. In addition to these cases, there have been some releases of persons who have been satisfactorily ascertained to belong to one of the races
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friendly to the Allies. For instance, Ottoman subjects have been treated with exceptional leniency. I am glad to think that a long time ago I was instrumental to some extent myself in securing the exemption of many of these people, who are absolutely harmless. The number, therefore, of Ottoman subjects interned in this country at the present moment is relatively small. A few persons have been released on account of special circumstances that have arisen or in consequence of fresh information obtained since the Advisory Committee dealt with the case. This question of release is only one part of a very complicated and difficult subject, but I think I may say without indiscretion that the object of His Majesty's Government is to release from internment as many people as it is safe to deal with in this way. I think I may add that it is naturally the object of His Majesty's Government not only to release as many persons as can be released without danger, but by so doing to effect the release of British civilians now interned in Germany.
LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, there is one matter about which I should like to ask the noble Lord a question. Has the opinion or advice of the Advisory Committee always been followed after they have considered one of these cases of interned civilian prisoners, or has their opinion been over-ruled by the War Office or by other authorities?
LORD NEWTON: I should think it extremely probable that the recommendations of the Advisory Committee have in certain cases been over-ruled either by the Admiralty, by the War Office, or by the Home Office, but I am unable to speak with certainty upon the point.
LORD PARMOOR: It has been stated more than once that the safeguard of interned civilians is that they could go before the Advisory Committee and that the Advisory Committee would give at any rate a semi-judicial consideration to the case. If after they have been before the Advisory Committee the opinion of the Committee is over-ruled, the suggested safeguard to prevent injustice in the case of interned persons would not be a satisfactory one. The true position of the Advisory Committee is to see whether what is suggested by the War Office or the Admiralty is fair from a judicial point of view as regards a particular person.
LORD NEWTON: The Advisory Committee is not, of course, a Court of final appeal. I think it is perfectly obvious that in a state of war the decision of the War Office or of the Admiralty must be paramount.

YEOMANRY REGIMENTS.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government why certain second line Yeomanry regiments whose members attested and signed the foreign service obligation as Yeomen have been ordered to become cyclists, presumably for home defence. This Question was put on the Notice Paper very hurriedly, otherwise I am sure there would have been a number of other colonels of Yeomanry regiments and noble Lords interested in the Yeomanry who would have wished to take part in this debate.
I think it will be generally agreed that the position of Yeomanry regiments is not satisfactory at the present time. You have in them as fine a body of men as is to be found in His Majesty's Army. The second line Yeomanry regiments to which my Question is directed have been in training now for quite a year, perhaps longer. They have been in the first place doing mounted work and are thoroughly trained in equitation; and for the most part they have been engaged lately in dismounted practice. After all this training, notice was received last week that their horses are going to be taken away and the Yeomen are to have cycles instead. No inquiry was made as to whether it was a movement which would find favour with the regiments. This is quite a different procedure from that which was adopted last year with the Cavalry Reserve. They were first approached as to whether any of the men would volunteer to join Infantry regiments. A sufficient number, I understand, was not obtained, and therefore the Government brought in legislation by which these Cavalrymen were compulsorily drafted into Infantry regiments. But in the instance of the Yeomanry nothing at all was done, as far as I am aware; certainly not in my case. I simply received a copy of this order that the horses would be taken away and the men were to ride cycles. This is a vast change, a far greater change than telling a Cavalryman that he had to go on foot, and it seriously affects both the officers and men.
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The grievance felt is this. These men have been over a year in training, mounted and dismounted, and presumably, therefore, are fit to go abroad. They have been medically examined time after time, as though they were going to serve abroad; and now they are suddenly told that they are to have cycles. Presumably they are to be used simply for coast defence, and that is breaking the hearts of these men. They enlisted for the purpose of serving abroad, and this is therefore a very disappointing condition in which to find themselves. There may be very good reason for the change. The men recognise, of course, that they have to obey orders. But what seems to me extraordinary is this. Our first line in Egypt are so weak that they and the Ayrshire Yeomanry constitute between them only one weak regiment. Why not draft these men to fill up the ranks of their first line regiment? That, one would have thought, would be the most natural process. One hears week by week that men who have been at the Front for a long period come home and after a time are then passed as fit when they are not really fit, and those men are sent out again, in many cases unwillingly, owing to the military exigencies. Why not send these Yeomanry regiments out, and let the men who have "done their bit" at the Front guard the coasts? These Yeomen who are fully trained should relieve those who have been engaged in the strain and stress of modern warfare. That is the real object of my Question. There is in my regiment a feeling of intense disappointment at being relegated to home defence and not being able to take their share in the arduous and dangerous work that lies abroad.
LORD WOLVERTON: My Lords, as a regimental officer of the second line Yeomanry I rise to support the remarks that have been made by my noble friend who has just sat down. Yesterday I found myself in the position of having to hand over my horses to a colonel who had been sent down to take them away. I believe your Lordships think very sympathetically of the Yeomanry, and I am sure that in anything I say you will consider that I am not going too far. But what is one to think of the action which has been taken and to which my noble friend has referred when one picks up the evening paper and reads this —"Charged with a yell. How the Dorset Yeomanry routed the Senussi."

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I do not complain, but I want to hold a brief for the men. May I therefore detain your Lordships for a moment on this very important question?
Consider what these second line regiments are. When the war broke out there were the first line regiments only. It was determined by the War Office to raise reserve regiments. Officers like myself who are commonly called "dug-outs," joined these second line regiments. My regiment was embodied on October 14, 1914. We sent out drafts for our first line regiment, which has served with great gallantry in France and has been three times thanked by Lord French. We then formed ourselves into actual regiments. We enjoyed the hospitality of the noble Marquess opposite (Lord Lansdowne), who saw us through our period of training. He will remember perfectly well that at that time it was determined to make us into a second line regiment, and that a third was to be formed behind to find drafts for the first regiment which was abroad. That gave us a great feeling of hope. We were inspected by General Campbell, who I understand reported very favourably upon us, and we became a unit. What pleased us more than anything else was the next movement the War Office took. They made us all sign on for Imperial Service, which most of us did. The men and officers who did not do so had to leave that regiment and go to provisional regiments that were formed on the coast That is the history of the second line.
The men themselves certainly joined with the idea that they were to see some active service. They have been now for over fourteen months in England, moved about from place to place. They have no idea what they are going to do now; and the crux of the Question of my noble friend is that they are to become cyclists, presumably for home defence. We should like to know if that is so, because of the disappointment among the men whom we have trained. In my opinion, in fact in the opinion of many Generals who know the second line, these men are magnificent specimens of humanity. They have been taught to ride. The actual fact of teaching them to ride takes up three months of one's time—and now they are to be turned into cyclists! The second line would serve His Majesty on crutches and they will serve him on cycles, but I hope when my noble friend opposite answers this Question he will be able to do it in a
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sympathetic manner to the second line Yeomanry.
LORD SANDHURST: My Lords, I am sure that every noble Lord in the House, whether he has served or serves now in the Yeomanry, shares equally with the two noble Lords who have just addressed us the feeling of admiration for the Yeomanry and the services they have rendered to the country. We have fresh in our minds that specific instance of which Lord Wolverton spoke. The value of the first line of Yeomanry has been often proved. We know the value and promise of the second line, and we all recognise the patriotism and readiness with which the older officers have retaken their places in those regiments. Every one will, of course, enter into the disinclination of the trooper to give up his horse in exchange for a cycle. The cycle is very useful, but it is a sorry exchange for the troop horse. I have always understood that owing to the trooper feeding his horse and his constant attendance on it there is a feeling between the trooper and the horse more close than between any other man and his horse. But almost from day to day we have seen changes of service made and sacrifices asked for and invariably acquiesced in with patriotic cheerfulness.
My noble friend Lord Lamington asks a specific question—namely, why certain second line Yeomanry regiments whose members attested and signed the foreign service obligation as Yeomen have been ordered to become cyclists, presumably for home defence. The change does not in any way deny foreign service to those men who have attested and signed for foreign service, if and when opportunity arises. The turning of certain second line Yeomanry regiments into cyclists is dictated by military requirements, and has been ordered with the object of using the units in question in the manner best suited to the needs of the moment.
LORD LAMINGTON: I hope the noble Lord will make representation to the War Office that these men are fit and anxious to go abroad. It is not a question of not caring about the cycles. Their feeling is simply that they are going to be left at home and will not be able to do any real active service for their country. I do not know what the opinion of the authorities is as to a raid or an invasion of this island, but here is this fine body of men who think they are going to be left out in the

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cold. We have our first line in Egypt dismounted. They are depleted in their ranks. Why not let these men go out to them, or even to some other depleted units nearer than Egypt? I hope that my noble friend will recommend that in the proper quarter.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, my sympathies in this discussion are entirely with the two noble Lords on the other side of the House, and I am glad to bear witness to the fact that during the last summer and autumn I had the pleasure of constantly seeing the brigade to which my noble friend Lord Wolverton's regiment belongs, and any one who went week after week as I did and saw the pains which officers and men were taking to qualify themselves as Cavalry soldiers can well realise what a bitter pill it must be to them to find themselves condemned to what Lord Beaconsfield would call the "mechanical mediocrity" of a bicycle. Of course, in war these sacrifices have occasionally to be required; and we are all familiar with instances in which some of the most distinguished Cavalry regiments in the Service have been taken away from their horses and made to do duty through long weeks and months in the trenches. But these sacrifices are submitted to simply because of the general conviction that they are required, and that they would not be imposed by the military authorities if it were not for the exigences of the Service. I merely rose to assure my noble friends that what has been said by them to-night—and I am sure it expresses the general feeling amongst the Yeomanry—shall certainly be represented to the War Office by my noble friend (Lord Sandhurst) and myself.

THE AIR SERVICE IN GALLIPOLI.
THE MARQUESS OF SLIGO: My Lords, I rise to ask whether His Majesty's Government intend to publish in full the Despatches of Admiral de Robeck connected with the recent Gallipoli Expedition, including those portions dealing with the Royal Naval Air Service; and, if so, when.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, the proceedings of the Royal Naval Air Service in Gallipoli were incidental to the naval and military operations and no separate Despatch in regard to them has been received or was to be
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expected. I should wish, however, to take the opportunity of referring briefly to the work of the Royal Naval Air Service in Gallipoli. It is possibly not generally known that all air work throughout the Dardanelles Expedition fell on the Royal Naval Air Service. The military wing of the Royal Flying Corps was not represented, except in the person of Wing-Captain Sykes, who was lent to command the naval units. In the face of great and peculiar difficulties the Air Service carried out its varied duties much to the satisfaction both of the naval and military authorities. Publicity has been given to two or three special incidents where air pilots greatly distinguished themselves; but, in addition to this, the work of spotting and photographing was being constantly carried out with much skill and gallantry and gave most valuable results. The noble Marquess will find, on referring to the honours granted in the Gazette of March 14, that this work has not gone without recognition. I might, perhaps, add that in a recent letter the Vice-Admiral Commanding characterises the work of the Royal Naval Air Service in that area as having been admirable.
THE MARQUESS OF SLIGO: I assume that it is considered inadvisable to publish the Despatches in full
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: As a matter of fact, I do not believe there are any separate Despatches as such—at any rate no separate Despatches will be published.
THE MARQUESS OF SLIGO: Would it be possible to publish those portions that refer to individuals? It would appear from the Gazette which was issued on the 14th instant that a certain number of officers and men have been specially mentioned for distinguished, meritorious, or skilful service, or even gallant conduct; and it would be gratifying to their relations and friends if such reference as is made to the officers and men concerned could be published.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: One set has been published from Sir Ian Hamilton, as my noble friend is aware. There will, I understand, be another set of Despatches published later, and no doubt due mention will be made of the work of the Air Service on that occasion.
House adjourned at five minutes before Seven o'clock, till Tomorrow, half past Ten o'clock.