Lords Sitting of 30 April 1918

Preamble
THE LORD ASHBOURNE—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
PONTYPOOL GAS AND WATER BILL. [H.L.]
  RED CROSS AND ORDER OF ST. JOHN BILL. [H.L.]
  Read 3a (according to Order) and passed, and sent to the Commons.

  BRITISH ALUMINIUM COMPANY (LOCHABER WATER POWER) BILL [H.L.]
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  VISCOUNT CHILSTON: My Lords, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill, the object of which is to provide, by developing the waters of Loch Laggan and Loch Treig, further power for the aluminium works at Kinlochleven, in Inverness-shire. The Bill is promoted by the British Aluminium Company, Limited, who are already carrying on work in the counties of Argyll and Inverness for the production and manufacture of aluminium. These works are carried on under the authority of Acts of Parliament obtained in the sessions of 1901, 1904, 1908, and 1910. It is desired to increase the production of aluminium at the works, and consequently further water power is essential.
  It is proposed to take the water from a point which will result in the development of 25 per cent. more power than would be possible at any other point. The diversion of the water which is required will be only from one valley to an adjoining valley. The development will take place in the same county and in the same district as that through which the water now flows. The works and any population which may result will be wholly in the county of Inverness. That county, and the district committees and the parish councils of that county, will get the whole benefit of the rates which may follow. The production of aluminium is what has been called
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  a key or pivotal industry. It is certainly a most important one at the present time, and I venture to suggest that every encouragement should be given to it. It plays a very large part in modern warfare. Without it many munitions of war, notably aircraft, would be impossible. The present output in the country is inadequate for war purposes, and it is even likely to be inadequate for peace purposes.
  The works which it is sought to authorise by this Bill will be commenced as soon as possible, but it is not expected that they will be completed for two or three years. They will provide for the employment of a large number of people, and that fact, I think, is very important at the present time. There will be a great number of demobilised soldiers who will require work, and no doubt they would far rather have work in their own county. In all a good many thousand men will find employment in the construction of these works, and when the works are completed I understand that the factory which will be crected will require permanently some 1,500 or 2,000 workmen. I believe that the various Committees which have been sitting recently are anxious that all encouragement should be given to those key industries, and in the Report of the Committee on Commercial and Industrial Policy After the War, of which my noble friend Lord Balfour was Chairman, you will find on page 64 the recommendation that these industries which have already been described as key or pivotal should be maintained in this country at all hazards and at all expense. I think this is some reason why we should press forward a proposal of this character, and not necessarily wait until the war is over.
  The requirements for aluminium, as I have said, are great, and I think that the sooner work can be commenced in an undertaking of this sort the better for the country and for those who would be employed. I understand that many Government Committees have considered reconstruction proposals. I venture to think that this Lochaber scheme is preeminently one that satisfies the conclusions which have been come to by these Committees. What is sometimes of great importance to consider in regard to private Bill legislation is the question of finance. I do not think that this will occasion any anxiety so far as this Bill is concerned. The British Aluminium Company were

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  the pioneers in this country of the utilisation of water power on a large scale in the production of aluminium. They have successfully overcome the difficulties which are common to the establishment of a new industry, and I am sure they can easily finance the scheme which is now before your Lordships' House.
  I understand that the Bill has the support of the Government, especially of the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Munitions, and the Ministry of Reconstruction, and I think that in view of the interests involved it is very desirable that it should receive the careful consideration of a Select Committee of your Lordships' House. I do not know whether it is necessary at this period—I believe I have a right to reply later in the debate to criticise the objections which have been taken to this Bill. I cannot help thinking that there is an answer to nearly all of these objections, and I trust that your Lordships will give me an opportunity later of mentioning these to the House. I only ask the House to sanction the Second Reading of this Bill and allow it to receive the careful consideration of a Committee. I do not, think this House can be the full judges of a question of this sort, as it depends largely upon scientific and other evidence. That evidence should be carefully sifted by a Committee of the House, and on those grounds I ask your Lordships to agree to the Second Reading.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Chilston.)
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH had given notice, on the Motion for the Second Reading, to move "That the Bill be read 2a this day six months." The noble, Lord said: My Lords, I rise to offer some reasons why I think the House will do wrong if it assents to the proposal just made, and allows this Bill as it stands to be read a second time. I wish to get rid of one idea before I go to the real substance of what I have to say. I want to make it quite clear that this is in no sense a selfish opposition. No one will object to the use of national resources in the way of water supply for national purposes and national objects, but in my opinion it must be on a properly-thought-out plan and should not take piecemeal, as this Bill proposes to do, valuable resources from one valley and one community for the benefit of a private company. There may be interference with sporting rights and
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  with the amenities of very beautiful district, but all these things would have to give way if we were certain that it was necessary in the interests of the nation and of the best use of our national resources that the sacrifice should be made. The noble Viscount who moved the Second Reading attempted to make a point against me in respect of a quotation from the Report of the Committee on Commercial mind Industrial Policy After the War. I adhere to every word he quoted. But the point which underlies it all is this, that the conservation of national resources must be on a national plan, undertaken after due consideration, and must not be done piece by piece for the benefit of a private company, however rich, however energetic, or however useful in other ways.
  The first point I want to make is that the proposal now before the House does not make the best use of the water. The Bill as it stands deals only with the matter from the point of view of a private company, and only for private profit. From my own experience I believe I may say without fear of contradiction that in three respects this Bill makes proposals which are absolutely without precedent, and which have never before been put before your Lordships' House; it is contrary to the public and national interests, and it is unjust to the local public and private interests of the valley from which the water is taken. The object of my remarks will be to make good those three statements. It will be common ground that the real advantages of water supply is this, that it can be used for generating power and that in its use it is neither consumed nor does its value diminish after it has performed MINT work at the top of the valley, and it can be used again and again for many different purposes as it proceeds down the slope to the sea, and its use does not interfere or disfigure the country side. I am afraid I must use distinct and strong language with regard to this proposal, and say that it is a deliberate violation of all the principles which have hitherto been accepted in dealing with these matters. The water is made to run in a reverse direction through many miles of pipes and tunnels to a remote district. In this course it cannot be used in the valley to which the water belongs by nature, and the scheme will disfigure a large part of this district, while its capabilities for human residence and development will be seriously damaged. The Bill gives this private company the

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  power to divert water from the valley to which it belongs to another valley for commercial purposes and for profit, and no sufficient compensation is provided.
  The noble Viscount said that the valley was practically the same valley. It is not so. It is a different valley, and an inferior valley for human residence. The glen to which the water is to be taken is not so extensive in its lower districts, and if you are going to develop the resources of the country I say that you cannot do as much in the glen of Kinlochleven as you can in the glen above Fort William. The Bill would also deprive the district of Fort William of all the benefits of its water supply. Every public interest in that district is opposing the Bill. There is not a single voice supporting the proposal. No reason has been given to us. The Bill gives no reason, and the statement of the noble Viscount in its support gave no reason, why water should not be used in the same watershed as that to which the water belongs. It might be used there for manufacturing, industrial, agricultural, or domestic purposes. There are better sites in the valley from which the water is being taken, more suitable on natural grounds and also with railway communication already made. There is no such communication in the valley to which the water is intended to be taken, and this in itself is a serious disadvantage.
  But apart from the merits of the Bill, which may be placed before a Committee, I say without fear of contradiction that it is absolutely without precedent in the history of private Bill legislation to give powers such as these to a private and profitmaking company. The work proposed will destroy the beauty and the amenities of the district, with disastrous results to all below. The River Spean itself will be made for a certain number of miles, 7 or 10 miles, a dry ditch, and a Bill which raises these highly contentious matters should not be allowed to proceed in present circumstances. Large numbers of those who are interested are absent on military duty; others are engaged on national work, and it is absolutely impossible to organise the opposition which is necessary to oppose an important Bill of this kind. In addition, there are large and important questions of general policy involved. The point is this, whether a private company trading for profit should be allowed to get the unused water power of the country into its own hands. I am
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  strongly of the opinion that the present time is not a suitable one for troubling Parliament with such a large and important question. I am equally certain that, if raised, it should be raised as a general scheme and not raised piecemeal as is done by this Bill.
  It was known locally that Government Departments were studying the water supply of this district last autumn. It has been since rumoured—and I think the report is well founded—that at one time the Ministry of Munitions wanted to use the water power in this district for a certain purpose. I have been informed upon high authority that the Board of Trade also had a scheme. It was believed in the district that one or other of these Departments, or some other agency, would promote a scheme along with this one, and this stilled opposition, because the people wanted to see the alternative scheme. It was not until the Notices for this Bill were published that it was found that there was no alternative scheme, and therefore the local people are confined to the duty of opposing, having no opportunity of putting forward any scheme of their own to save for themselves the water of their own district. It is quite obvious to any one who knows the practice of Committees of your Lordships' House that although you may oppose a proposal that is made you cannot put forward and run along with your opposition any competitive scheme of your own.
  I want to make it quite clear that Lochaber and Fort William raise no question on principle against the use of the water power for the development of national undertakings, but they object to its diversion away from their district and its monopolisation for the benefit of a small number of private persons. I have said that this is without precedent, and I believe I am right in stating that except under statutory powers to a statutory company or body wafer is never taken away from one watershed to another for purposes of this kind. A municipality or a town council may take water for a public supply, and has often been allowed to divert it from one watershed to another, but it is absolutely without precedent to allow a private company to do so for private profit. If it is necessary—and I hold with the noble Viscount who moved the Second Reading of the Bill that it is necessary—to conserve our national resources, let it be done on a comprehensive scale. Let us look all round and see what is the best use

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  that can be made of a district, and let whatever is done be done upon a settled scheme of policy. Surely it is a reasonable principle that the population resident in any of the various districts should derive a fair share of the benefit from their local watershed. It is their natural appanage. I know from personal knowledge that the Fort William district is at least as suitable for all these purposes—I believe I might say more suitable—as the district to which the water is to be taken.
  There is a certain mystery as to how far the Government are concerned in this Bill. No doubt the noble Lord who represents the Board of Trade will tell us something about it in the course of the discussion. But there has been no opportunity for the people to learn what has taken place. If arrangements have been come to, I think that those arrangements ought to have been made public at a much earlier stage, in order that they might be criticised and examined from a neutral point of view. The effect so far as the Bill shows is to give an absolute monopoly for all time of this valuable water power to a private company. The noble Viscount did not say—he knows that it would not be the case—that this Bill could be of any use for making aluminium for use in the present war. He put it very mildly: it would take two or three years to do this work.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Ten years.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: The Bill asks for ten years, and in these clays work of this kind will probably take much longer than is suggested. It must therefore be common ground between us that no real work can be done in this matter until after the war, and that it can be of no use to help us in winning the war. The public advantage is in my opinion a mere pretext to make a large gain of private profit to those who are concerned.
  I have detained your Lordships longer than perhaps you may think worth while, but there are two large questions of principle involved in this Bill which cannot really be considered by a Private Bill Committee of your Lordships House. In the first place, no compensation for water is provided by the Bill, and there is no precedent for a Water Power Bill of this kind being passed without compensation
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  water unless the parties interested in it have agreed. In this case it is proposed to force the Bill through without provision of any kind, notwithstanding the opposition of those concerned. In the second place, the promoters are not a public authority; they are not even under statutory powers. If they had to raise the money they would have to do so under the Limited Liability Acts. The Bill itself does not authorise, or provide for the raising of capital. Those concerned would not have to give security under the Lands Clauses Act that the whole capital would be subscribed before the powers of tile Bill were put into force.
  On all these grounds it seems to me that Parliament will do wrong if it authorises a scheme of this magnitude, and puts into the hands of a company constituted as tins one is the power to proceed with the works in circumstances under which the company would not necessarily give any security about raising capital. It might commence, the works and then abandon them, and no one would be responsible, and the injured landowners and people would be absolutely without remedy. It is true that the company are constituted under the Limited Liability Acts, and that they have the powers of such companies to increase their capital, but that is by resolution of the shareholders. That leaves the matter entirely in their own hands, and no power can compel them to do what under statutory obligation they would be obliged to do. I make a strong point of this, that if the House passes this Bill as it stands it will make a wholly new precedent in regard to this method of legislation.
  I do not know whether any of your Lordships have had sent to you the statement which I hold in my hands. It is said to be a statement in support of the Second Reading of this Bill. In the first paragraph there is one sentence which I think is likely to lead to misapprehension. The works to which this water power is to be taken are not the old works. They are works which are wholly new. For that reason there is no justification that I can see why they should not be established in the valley to which the water belongs. Then there is something which I can only describe as camouflage. It is about giving work to demobilised soldiers. My Lords, that can be done in one valley as well as in another, and it is no reason for taking a choice in

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  favour of this Bill. There are other sentences—
  The latent lower of the waters involved must be developed sooner or later."
  Granted. But everything depends upon the method under which it is done, and this seems to me a wrong and unjust method. In the middle of the paragraph in the second page it is stated—
  "The flow in the River Treig will not be materially diminished, and whilst the dry weather flow in the River Spean will be reduced, the reduction will not be such as to prevent the passage of salmon up that river."
  I cannot understand how any one can make that statement. It is perfectly clear to me—and this is confirmed by those who have longer knowledge—that at least 7 or 10 miles of the Spean River will be absolutely dry. There are other points involved in this which cannot be fully considered by such a tribunal as a Committee of your Lordships' House, and I venture to say, for the reasons have given, that it will be extremely unfortunate if your Lordships make a precedent by giving this Bill a Second Reading.
  Amendment moved—
  To leave out ("now") and to add at the end of the Motion the words ("this day six months").—(Lord Balfour of Burleiqh.)
  THE ACTING CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF KINTORE):My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I state shortly the history of this Bill since it has come under my cognisance, and, in the first place, if I state to your Lordships the course taken by my Department in regard to Bills of similar character. At the very outbreak of hostilities the Lord Chairman, in view of the necessity of economising the national resources and in anticipation of what he felt would be the judgment of this House, gave an instruction to all Parliamentary agents to the effect that during the war Bills for large works likely to be opposed were not to be brought before Parliament unless the works or the purposes of the Bill were calculated to add to the national resources in the prosecution of the war. I am glad to have the opportunity of saying that the great railway companies and other promoters have loyally co-operated in this suspension of Parliamentary contests. All ordinary schemes for new works are in abeyance, while on the other hand extensions and new works designed for the immediate
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  production of munitions of war have been readily sanctioned by Parliament. Consequently, when this Bill was introduced in the present session, three questions arose for my consideration—What are its objects? If it is passed, will is serve any immediate war purpose? And if not, is it seriously opposed?
  And now as to the Bill itself. Your Lordships will have heard from my noble friend behind me that the Bill is promoted by the British Aluminium Company, a prosperous company which owns and operates large works at Kinlochleven, on the borders of Argyll and Inverness, constructed under Parliamentary authority, dating back to 1901. The company is an ordinary limited liability company which, although producing an article of national importance, is operating, as I understand, solely for the profit of its own shareholders. The objects of the Bill are the construction of extensive new works for the increase of water power for the production of aluminium. The works are estimated to cost at least it £1,500,000—a moderate estimate, I think; and they involve the diversion of the West Highland Railway, the diversion of county main roads, the damming back of the waters of Loch Laggan and Loch Treig, as well as the diversion of the River Spean, embankments, the construction of miles of tunnelling, and other heavy work.
  Your Lordships will readily recognise that an increased production of aluminium for the purpose of the war is an object of national concern, and any proposals for that purpose would receive immediate and favourable consideration in this House. But the question I had to ask myself was whether the Bill, if passed, could possibly affect the supply of aluminium during the war. It must be granted that for works of this magnitude both a large capital and ample labour are essentials. It may be that the promoters could raise, even at the present time, the capital required, though this may be open to doubt. But no doubt whatever can be entertained on the question of labour. In view of the deficiency of Labour itappears to me to be an absolute impossibility that time works proper could be taken in hand until after the war, and perhaps not until some considerable time after it.
  On the remaining question, the opposition to the Bill, I found that it was opposed not only by many landowners, but also by local authorities, the County Council of

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  Inverness, the Lochaber District Council, the provost and magistrates of Fort William, and the two parish councils directly concerned—those of Kilmallie and Kilmonivaig. As regards the landowners' opposition, I cannot but regard it as a hardship that men who may be serving in the war, or who, if not actually bearing arms, are almost certainly occupied otherwise in war work, should be compelled to come here to engage in an expensive Parliamentary contest in defence of their interests at the present critical time, unless the Bill could be shown to have war urgency behind it. With respect to the local authority opposition, I have received a letter from the County Council of Inverness which, I think, will impress your Lordships as showing the difficulties and the inexpediency of proceeding with proposals of this kind in war time. The County Cleric writes that a special meeting of the County Council was held to consider the Bill, and he proceeds—
  "In consequence, however, of so many members of the Council being absent on military duty or engaged on national work, and of the present restriction on travelling in this county, which makes it almost prohibitive, the meeting was attended by only twenty-four out of fifty-five members of the Council. Those present, however, unanimously passed the resolution of which I subjoin a copy, and I was instructed to draw your Lordships' attention to the Council's protest against the Bill, as it involves great issues to the county, and, if proceeded with during the war, the Council may be precluded from having these issues fully laid before Parliament."
  In these circumstances I entertained very grave doubts indeed as to whether the Bill ought to be allowed to proceed. I conferred on the subject with the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons, and found that he fully concurred in my view. We had, however, been informed that both the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Munitions were in favour of the Bill passing, and I thought it, proper to obtain in a more definite form the views of those Departments. To my inquiry the Board of Trade replied that they regarded the proposal as deserving of the immediate consideration of Parliament, notwithstanding that it might not be possible to make much progress with the works during the war. In writing to the Minister of Munitions I pointed out that, having regard to the difficulty of raising capital and obtaining labour, it seemed highly improbable that the works could be seriously taken in hand for some years, and I invited his opinion as to whether arty war
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  urgency could be claimed for the Company's Bill which would justify the expense of a Parliamentary contest at this juncture. The Ministry of Munitions replied—
  "I am to state for the information of your Chairman of Committees that, while it is unlikely that the works proposed will be completed before the conclusion of hostilities, Mr. Churchill considers the scheme so important in the national interests that it should be proceeded with at once, notwithstanding the objections mentioned in your letter, the force of which Mr. Churchill fully appreciates."
  The letter further states that the postponement of the Bill till next session would, in Mr. Churchill's opinion, be most unfortunate. Your Lordships will observe that the Minister in fact admits that the work cannot be completed until after the war, and that he says nothing as to the cafe at which it can be even begun. I confess that I view with some surprise the attitude of the President of the Board of Trade and of the Minister of Munitions with regard to this Bill. They seem content to see at this time of stress a large expenditure of private funds on a heavy Parliamentary contest the issue of which is problematical, and which, even if favourable to the promoters, can bring no advantage to the country in the war; and I respectfully wonder how far their views will be endorsed by their colleague in the Government, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  I desire to add that there are practical objections to the sanctioning by Parliament of any scheme winch cannot be begun until after a lapse of years. In the course of time existing conditions may change, and it may then be found possible that the work could be proceeded with on different lines, or, perhaps, not be executed at all. In all the circumstances of the case I cannot feign surprise that the Second Reading of the Bill should be opposed in this House. I have given your Lordships all the material facts relating to the Bill so far as they have come to my knowledge. I can express only my decided view that, in the admitted absence of any war urgency, the consideration of the proposals in this Bill may well be left to a future session.
  LORD HYLTON: My Lords, I am instructed by the Board of Trade to put their views on this measure before your Lordships' House; but before I do so I may, perhaps, be allowed to remind the House that what you are being asked to do to-day is not, as my noble friend Lord

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  Balfour Burleigh remarked in one passage of his speech, to pass the Bill, but merely to give it a Second Reading and to send it to a Committee upstairs in order that the evidence of the promoters and of the opponents may be there heard and weighed.
  I think that the noble Viscount who moved the Second Reading stated so fully and concisely the objects of the promoters that it is not necessary for me to dwell upon them at any length; but perhaps I may be allowed once more to remind your Lordships of the extreme value to the nation of this metal, aluminium, which it is proposed to deal with tinder the Bill. Aluminium in former days, I believe, was comparatively little used, but its production has increased rapidly since the year 1900. In that year the five principal producers of aluminium in the world had an output of about 5,000 tons; but in 1911 this output had risen to 91,100 tons, only a small proportion of which was produced in Great Britain. Aluminium is an essential material, as the noble Viscount who moved the Second Reading pointed out, not only for war purposes but also for such important industries as tine manufacture of motors and of aeroplanes and of other plant needed in increasing quantities in the commercial and chemical world. I think, therefore, that your Lordships will hesitate before von put so definite a bar upon increasing the production of aluminium in this country as you would impose if you refused to give this Bill a Second Reading to-day.
  The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, spoke as if this scheme were one that had not been carefully considered, or had not received proper consideration from the Board of Trade or other Departments connected with His Majesty's Government. That is not the ease. There was a rival scheme for setting up works at or in the neighbourhood of Fort William. The Ministry of Munitions originally investigated the possibility of developing this water power at Fort William, and a scheme was worked out for that purpose. When the Aluminium Company's scheme was brought forward the engineering merits of the two proposals were closely compared by experts, and the Ministry were advised that the scheme of the company was on the whole to be preferred. They accordingly informed the company that they would support the Bill. I do not know whether
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  there are many noble Lords who have closely studied the question of the refining of aluminium, but those who have are probably aware that an enormous development of horse-power is required to be derived by water for refining the raw product; and according to the calculations that leave been given to me it appears that the scheme of the Bill would enable something like an extra 10,000 horse-power to be obtained at the works at Kinlochleven than could possibly be derived at Fort William. The Government were consequently advised that the Kinlochleven scheme, which is in the Bill, is preferable on the ground, amongst others, that it enables the available power to be utilised more fully.
  The Board of Trade are in favour of the Bill, as I have said, on the ground that an increase in the production of aluminium is of national importance. I do not think that your Lordships will expect me to go into any of the questions with regard to the beauty of the scenery being destroyed, or the salmon fishing in the river Spean being less good than it was before, for I am sure that you will realise that considerations of this kind are of comparatively little importance in these days. In the view of the Board of Trade there are many points in the Bill which are suitable for discussion in Committee, and the President, who has very carefully examined into this question, is anxious that the Bill should be read a seemed time.
  It is true, as Lord Balfour of Burleigh indicated, that certain arrangements have been made between the Board of Trade and the promoters for the insertion of two clauses in the Bill. Those clauses I will mention. The first is to provide that there shall be an annual payment by the company to the State in respect of the water power developed; but I am instructed by the President of the Board of Trade to say that he will be willing that this payment, instead of being made to the State, should be made to the public authorities who represent the ratepayers of the Spean Valley in respect of compensation for the loss of water power in their valley which they would sustain if the Bill passed into law in its present form. The second clause that has been arranged by the Board of Trade provides that if the whole water power is not eventually used by the company either for the production of aluminium or for other purposes of national importance steps

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  should be taken fur placing the surplus at the disposal of other persons.
  Lord Balfour of Burleigh spoke of this Bill as being of an unprecedented character. I have no doubt that the noble Lord is right in saving it is unprecedented that the water from one valley should by sanction of Parliament, be diverted to another for the ordinary purposes of what we are accustomed to call in this House Water Bills; but I respectfully urge upon your Lordships that this is a proposition of a very different kind from ordinary Water Bills such as your Lordships' House is accustomed to deal with. It is a Bill for developing a great industry—what the noble Viscount, behind me has very correctly described as a key industry— one of those industries which, when your Lordships a few months ago passed the Non-ferrous Metals Bill, you, I think, almost unanimously, agreed that it was the duty of the State to develop and foster in every way. I venture to agree with the noble Viscount behind me that this Bill would be one of those measures which, as we read the Report of the Committee on British Industries, of which Lord Balfour of Burleigh was Chairman, the Government ought certainly to support.
  As I have said, the President of the Board of Trade himself has examined into this question very carefully, and the Ministry of Munitions are anxious that the Bill should be given a Second Reading. The arguments for and against it can be heard upstairs, and I think most of your Lordships who have had a seat in this House for any length of time will agree with me that it is certainly a very unusual course to throw out a Bill of this kind on Second Reading. So far as I remember, that is a course which is very rarely pursued in this House; and it is a course which, if your Lordships think proper to take on the present occasion, will he taken, as I have said, against the advice of the public Department concerned, and against the advice of the President of the Board of Trade who has very carefully examined into the matter.
  THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I came down to the House without any knowledge of this subject beyond what I had seen in certain papers which had been distributed to me in common, doubt, with others of your Lordships. Indeed, the only prepossession which I
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  had on the subject, was that which the noble Lord who has just spoken mentioned towards the close of his speech—namely, that in nine cases out of ten, or indeed if you like ninety-nine out of a hundred, it is desirable that a Bill should be read a second time and go upstairs and be examined by a Select Committee. In my view, however, this is the exception, for the reasons which have been stated by noble Lords in the debate, and which have not, I think, been controverted by the noble Lord who speaks on behalf of the Board of Trade.
  There is clearly no need to repeat any of the arguments advanced with great force by Lord Balfour of Burleigh, but I desire to call attention to one statement in the paper circulated by the promoters. In paragraph 2 they say that the production of aluminium is a key industry—that aluminium is essential in modern warfare, and that the output in this country of aluminium is insufficient even for peace requirements. All that, my Lords, is perfectly true. But it is possible to use a certain amount of cant in speaking of key industries as it is in speaking of other desirable things. I have had some occasion to examine into key industries, and if I were asked to define what a key industry is in the sense in which it was used, I think, in the first instance in the Economic Conference in Paris and since freely used in connection with my noble friend's inquiry, I should define it by saving that it is an industry in this country which a convinced Free Trader might be, and indeed ought to be, prepared to subsidise or protect in any manner that can be shown to be necessary to keep it in existence and make it flourish.
  It may be that the production of aluminium in this country ought to be so protected—less obviously, perhaps, than in the case of some other metals and other natural products, because, as we know, one of the great sources of supply is France, from which the raw material will, we hope, be obtainable whatever fiscal arrangements may be made after the war. But one is brought to this further conclusion—that if key industries of this kind are to be subsidised from national sources in one way or another, speaking generally their production and their control ought to be in public hands and not exclusively for private profit. The promoters of this measure, I think, attempt to prove rather too much. They attempt to prove that this is a national

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  industry, but they forget that the consequence of its being a national industry is not likely to work out entirely in their favour in the way they hope; and, my Lords, I confess I am greatly impressed by the reflection that apparently by common admission the particular project which it is desired to send to a Committee can have no effect in the production of aluminium a considerable and even a great number of years to come, and that therefore it really is not accurate to speak of this as being in any sense a measure demanded by the war. That being so, I confess that, I altogether fail to be convinced by the enthusiasm either of the Board of Trade or of the Munitions Department for this particular scheme.
  It may be quite true that in the future, in the times of reconstruction, some great project for both increasing the output and making more easy the refining of aluminium may be necessary, not only in this particular part of Inverness-shire, but possibly in other parts of the United Kingdom. It may be also that this not inconsiderable water power ought to be put to this purpose. I say "not inconsiderable," because we have to face the fact that, as compared with Switzerland, or Norway, or other parts of the world, all the water power of the British Isles is, by comparison, an insignificant affair. If it is found possible to develop in the way some to of us hope the provision of electrical power from great centres throughout the British Isles, making use of our unequal stores of mineral wealth in the most economical way, it may be that the question of utilising water power will disappear almost into the background. Probably for such cases of considerable water power as Loch Laggan some use will be found either for the production of aluminium or in some other way, but it may be that the use of our national water power, such as it is, will come to be regarded quite as a side issue as compared with the provision of power on a large scale by electrical means. All this being so, I do not dwell on the points of opposition which might more properly be considered, I agree, in a Committee room—namely, the æsthetic considerations, the damage to fisheries, and damage to amenities. If the Bill were to go upstairs these would be matters which a Committee of your Lordships' House would be fully qualified to balance and to give an opinion upon. But my own feeling is that the points of principle involved are so important that the Bill ought not to be read a second
  890
  time, and therefore I leave these points altogether aside.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I entirely agree with what was said a moment ago by my noble friend Lord Hylton to the effect that in nine cases out of ten when these private Bills are before your Lords-hips' House it is much better to let them go to a Committee upstairs. I shall show in a moment why I think in the case of this particular Bill a different line of action is desirable. Nor, again, do I quarrel with anything my noble friend said with regard to the importance of the aluminium industry. Whether it can be described as a key industry or not I do not know, but I firmly believe that it is of great importance, and generally I am anxious not to stand in the way of any new industries which can be now started and which are likely to afford employment when this war is over. But I must say, having listened attentively to the speech of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh and the weighty observations that subsequently fell from the Chairman of Committees, I cannot come to any conclusion but that there is a very strong case now for refusing a Second Reading to this Bill.
  I was glad that my noble friend did not rest any part of his case upon the resulting interference with sporting rights. At a moment like this one may treat considerations of that kind as negligible. Nor do I think any objection on the ground of interference with what the auctioneers call "amenities" should be allowed to prevail. I would willingly let any number of golf courses be swept out of existence, or desirable villa sites be spoiled, if I thought I could do anything to strengthen this country in the great struggle in which it is engaged. But objections of a very different kind are urged, and I think rightly urged, against this Bill. This Bill involves a violent disturbance of the natural features of the extremely interesting area of country which it affects. It involves the disfiguration of a very beautiful tract; it involves a violent interference with the rights of the resident population; and I must say, when I find this interference glossed over by such an expression as "the development of the waters of Loch Laggan," I think it is necessary to bear in mind that what is spoken of as "the development of the waters of Loch Laggan" means that the

  891
  water supply of this valley is going to be forcibly annexed and carried over five-and-twenty miles in tunnels, and carried out of its own natural watershed into another watershed with which it has no geographical connection.
  There may be a certain amount of sentiment in these matters, and I should be very sorry in a case of this kind to ignore sentiment altogether. There is a great feeling in many of these picturesque parts of Scotland of passionate attachment to the country for the very reason of its great beauty and interest, and I do not think we ought to do violence to that feeling. But there is a great deal more than sentiment in this. This is really a practical injustice which is bitterly resented, as far as I can make out, by everybody in that part of the country who has a right to be articulate upon the subject. I would ignore these objections if I believed that this Bill was going to help us in any way to wage the war which is now going on. It is evident on the face of it that the work on this enterprise is not going to be begun until the war is over, and it may be spread after the war over a period of ten years.
  There is only one other objection that I will take, and I think it is a weighty one. It has been pointed out to the House that this is an attempt to deal piecemeal with a very great question which is still under the consideration of the Government—I mean the question of the proper way of dealing with the generation and supply of electrical energy in the country generally. I must say that if that question is to be taken up at all I should like to see it dealt with in a very different way from that in which it will be dealt with by this Bill. In these circumstances I do not think we should be justified in allowing an inquiry to take place which must be troublesome, prolonged, and expensive, and which must involve a great strain upon the attention of people who have plenty of other work to do in these days. Therefore I shall vote for the Amendment of my noble friend opposite.
  VISCOUNT CHILSTON: My Lords, after the very strong expressions of opinion that we have received from the House I think I should be best consulting your Lordships' wishes if I, on behalf of the promoters, said that we would not proceed further on this occasion with the Bill. The objections made, especially by the Lord Chairman, show that your Lordships think that this
  892
  Bill ought not to be proceeded with at all events this session. The last thing I wish to do is to place the promoters in the position of taking any action against the general sense of the House. Therefore with your Lordships' consent, and without making any reply, I ask to be allowed to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
  LORD PARMOOR LORD PARMOOR rose to call attention to the text of President Wilson's executive Order respecting conscientious objectors; and to move to resolve—

  1. That where non-combatant service is assigned to conscientious objectors prepared to accept such service, it should be service of a national value, and not merely of a penal character.

  2. That in no case should the total term of imprisonment exceed a fixed limit.

  The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I propose to say one or two words as regards the general problem involved before I come to the particular conditions attached to the Resolution that I am moving. I do this because I think I can show by that method why it is of importance that the Resolution which I propose to the House should be brought forward at the present time. I have been in communication with the noble Viscount, Lord Peel, who I understand is going to answer for the Government, and have told him what are the points I intend to raise, and how they are raised upon the proposals which have been adopted by President Wilson in the United States of America.
  I should like to say, in gratitude of what the Government has done, that under the better arrangements which were promised on behalf of the Government some months ago by the noble Earl the Leader of the House fifty-four men have been discharged from imprisonment who were suffering from debility of mind or body. At the present time there are fifty-nine ill in prison, fifteen have been certified as insane, and the general level of debility owing to the flux of time has become much greater than it was a few months ago. Conscientious objectors who have already undergone as long a term as two years imprisonment number 263, and, if the present conditions

  893
  continue, before the end If this year, 766 men will have suffered two years, and over, in aggregate imprisonment. That statement, to one who understands criminal law in this country, speaks for itself. The maximum punishment known to the civil law in this country is that of two years imprisonment. For a number of years I have had to take part in criminal proceedings and I have never known a sentence of that harshness imposed in any particular case. The other day one of the Lord Justices, who possesses great knowledge in matters of criminal law, also stated that in his experience no such sentence had been given.
  I may remind your Lordships that as regards Section 68 of the Army Act the limitation is given in these words—
  "The offender under this Act shall not be subject to detention for more than two consecutive years, whether under one or more sentences."
  Therefore it is quite clear so far as the principle of our law is concerned that this is the maximum term, whereas 263 conscientious objectors have already suffered more than the maximum term, and if matters are not readjusted the number will be 766 by the end of the year. I am aware they are only subjected to this continuous term of imprisonment under a technical—I think purely technical—justification. The man is sentenced to imprisonment. Immediately his sentence is over he is rearrested, court-martialled, and sent back again; so that technically there is a break between the sentences, yet practically for all ordinary purposes they are continuous sentences. Over 605 have been court-martialled twice, 474 no less than three times, 140 four times, and 7 of them five times.
  I will read one piece of information which has been brought to my notice from a person who has had exceptional opportunities of seeing the condition of conscientious objectors. It is for this purpose more especially that I am bringing the matter forward. He says—
  "They are going down hill on a very steep gradient, and the speed is accelerated. Health is broken, nerves are unstrung, and their mental vision is clouded."
  I think it is a terrible indictment against the cause of justice in this country that such a statement can be made, and I believe it is perfectly accurate at the present time.
  Let me give three illustrations only of who these people are who are suffering in this way. I will take three notorious cases. One is that of Mr. Malcolm Sparkes, who is really the author of the much praised Whitley Report. He is a writer and investigator of great eminence, and even while in prison has been consulted by the Government in reference to this Report. What is his position? He has already suffered sixteen months of solitary confinement in prison. We are not so rich in men of that kind that we can afford to waste them in such a manner, apart from the torture which it is to men of that intellectual eminence to be in prison under existing conditions. Take the case of Dr. McCallum, a member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, the holder of numerous prizes and medals, and one of the most distinguished students of his time. If there ever was a moment when medical and surgical service was of special value it is at the present; yet that man in solitary confinement is not only punished far in excess of what a just punishment ought to be, but his services are lost to the country at a most critical time. Take an illustration from another point of view. It is the case of a man who served for nineteen months with the Ambulance Corps, and during that time he was in the firing zone. He was a member of the Quakers' Ambulance Corps. He was arrested in January, 1917, sentenced to 112 days, which were served in Wormwood Scrubs; court-martialled a second time as soon as he came out, sent to Exeter prison and sentenced to six months; then released, sentenced again to six months in Ipswich prison; and again in March last he was sentenced to eighteen months—a period on the whole far in excess of the maximum term of two years to which I have referred. This man won the Mons Medal for distinguished service in the firing zone in connection with the Ambulance Corps. I think that the illustrations I have given are sufficient to show that this question, although I have troubled your Lordships with it before, is one which cannot be allowed to rest until some juster and saner method has been introduced of dealing with these men of honest and sincere conviction.
  I had a letter sent to me from a conscientious objector in America, and it wag this letter which first led me to examine what the conditions are in that country. Subsequently I saw a very
  accurate extract

  895
  in the Manchester Guardian of the conditions, but in order that no mistake might be made I went to the American Embassy, and with great courtesy and kindness they gave me the full Order. I wish to say with reference to that full Order that the statement attributed to Mr. Balfour—I think it is in The Times this morning—is a rather incomplete one if he really had the full Order before him. This is the statement which came from the conscientious objector in America—
  "We have been allowed considerable freedom. The officers are instructed to great us with great consideration. For the last few weeks we have been helping in the library. This is under the American Library Association at—
  I will not give the name of the particular camp—
  "We are helping in the Young Women's Christian Association—"
  Every one knows what that work is
  "The officer in command—"
  I will not give the name—
  "is tolerant and reasonable. It is very good how President Wilson is dealing with the situation. All bona fide conscientious objectors are to be respected now instead of only religious ones. They are to be treated with rigour but not with tyranny."
  I wish to emphasise those words, because they seem to me to give the effect of the Order to which I want to call your Lordships' attention. He then says—this is rather going outside the particular point—
  "Alas! President Wilson is the only philosopher among the influential Allied politicians."
  That is, perhaps, going a little further than the purpose for which I quoted this letter.
  Let me as shortly as I can explain to your Lordships the documents supplied to me from headquarters. I want to show what is the nature of the executive Order which President Wilson has made for the purpose of dealing with this very complex and difficult question in America. I do not quote it because it collies from America. I quote it for the reason that, having given a great deal of attention to this matter, not on grounds of general principle but in order to try to devise some fair method of dealing with what is a great difficulty, I think that a solution may largely—I do nut say entirely—be found in the proposals which are contained in the executive Order of President Wilson. In the first place, so far as there are conscientious objectors, either on religious or on other grounds, the principle is total exemption from combatant
  896
  service. Then is no question of the exemption from combatant service not being a real exemption. That is a very important matter. What has happened in this country in my opinion is this. Although I believe that the first Military Service Act did contemplate real exemption from combatant service, as a matter of fact that was not realised, because exemption from combatant service was placed on conditions which were known to be impossible. That, I think, has been one of the greatest difficulties. It has led to extreme hardship as regards the treatment of conscientious objectors in this country. I am not for a moment dealing with the shirker. No one deserves harsher punishment than he does. I am dealing with men who legally have been found to be in the true sense conscientious objectors, and who, after having been so found, have only been conditionally exempted from combatant service. Every one knows that the conditions which have been imposed are so impossible that they cannot be complied with, and therefore the exemption is not in force at all.
  The first matter that I want to make quite clear is that the principle of exemption from combatant service is under the American scheme a real exemption which cannot be interfered with. There is no question of conditions or limitations. The non-combatant service is very carefully defined under three heads. I need not refer to them in detail. The special service is a Medical Corps service wherever it happens to be performed, whether in America or at the Front. The second is service in the Quartermaster's Corps in the United States, and certain other relevant conditions. Thirdly, any engineering service in the United States may be treated as non-combatant service. Having got a distinct definition, so as to get free from the eccentricities of Tribunals, of what noncombatant. service is, let us see how the conscientious objector is dealt with. It is stated as regards the non-combatant service that the conscientious objector will be assigned to non-combatant military service as defined in paragraph 1 (that is the definition I have given). See what the limitation is—I will ask the noble Viscount to hear this in mind—
  "to the extent that such persons are able to accept service as aforesaid without violation of the religious or other conscientious scruples by them in good faith entertained."

  897
  In other words, the conscientious objector is only to be put in the non-combatant service, to the extent that he is able to accept such service without violation of any religious or other conscientious objection. There you get the protection to which a man of honest conviction is entitled. You get a just protection, that you are not to force him under any circumstances to do what he believes to be religiously or morally wrong. I take a very strong view myself that no nation can afford to attempt to enforce any of its citizens to do that which is felt to be morally or religiously wrong.
  The writer of the letter goes on to say that the conditions of non-combatant service are to be dealt with by what is called a tactful and considerate officer. I lay great stress upon that. I think it is very important that these questions of law and how it can be dealt with should be placed before these conscientious objectors by a tactful and considerate officer. It is extremely disappointing to those who have attempted to advise conscientious objectors to do their duty to find afterwards that—although they had persuaded them as far as they could to do their duty, without, of course, impinging upon their consciences—they were treated in such a rough and inconsiderate manner that they refused to do anything. I say from a large experience that this has happened in a great number of cases in this country.
  Very important as safeguarding the position of the individual is the regulation that when a man has once been assigned under the conditions stated—that is to say, not in opposition to his conscientious scruples—to non-combatant service, he cannot be transferred to any other non-combatant service without his consent, and he is entirely free from any obligation for combatant duty. Just think how this differs from what I pointed out to your Lordships. Suppose a man here does take non-combatant service, and suppose, as has happened in many cases, he has not been able to perform that service in a satisfactory manner, he at once comes under the obligation of combatant service, and in that way, in a round of time, by first of all imprisonment and then Court-Martial, a man may practically be in prison in solitary confinement during the whole period of the war unless there is some executive intervention.
  Let me come to the next point. Of course, it is contemplated in this Order that there are certain conscientious objectors who will not be able to take non-combatant service owing to their conscientious scruples, and the problem is how to deal with them—a difficult problem in all cases, but I commend the way in which it is proposed to be dealt with in the executive Order of President Wilson. He says, "We have to deal with men who have been unwilling to accept, by reason of conscientious scruples, assignment to non-military service as above defined." Now what is to be done in this case? In the first instance there is to be a short record sent to Headquarters, so that the Secretary for War may deal with the matter as he may think fit. But what is to happen meanwhile? That is really the important matter—
  "Pending such directions from the Secretary for War, all such persons not accepting assignment to non-combatant service" [that is, the man known as the absolutist] "shall be segregated as far as practicable and placed under the command of a specially qualified officer of tact and judgment, who will be instructed to impose no punitive hardship of any kind upon him."
  This is what I have asked for in this country. What we are complaining of is punitive hardship inn posed upon individuals who hold sincere and honest convictions.
  What I want to point out to the House is that the executive Order of President Wilson is right. He says that a man under these conditions will be put under an officer of tact and judgment, who will be instructed to impose no punitive hardship of any kind upon him. Surely in this country we ought to have arrived at a stage when you do not submit, not only to punitive hardship but practically to torture in these long periods of solitary confinement, a man on conscientious grounds and on the grounds of opinion and conviction. And the Order also points out—I think quite rightly—that although the man is to have no punitive hardship, yet the fact that he is a conscientious objector is not to put him in a privileged position. To that, I think, everybody will agree. I should agree to it, and I think it is a right principle. Do not give a privilege, but do not inflict a punitive hardship for matters merely of opinion and thought and of religious or moral scruple.
  There is only one other point to which I need refer, and that is that ultimately a conscientious objector may, of course, have to be court-martialled—I mean that

  899
  he may not have taken advantage of these Orders made in his favour, and it may be necessary to court-martial him. I should imagine that that would be only in exceptional cases. But in that case they say that great care is to be taken to secure uniformity of penalty. Well, how about uniformity of penalties in this country? They have been notoriously unequal in their incidence under different conditions and in different districts. Then the Order says this, and I ask your Lordships' attention to this part of it—
  "There may be confinement under these circumstances in disciplinary barracks or elsewhere, but not in the penitentiary."
  That is to say that in no circumstances, even after a Court-Martial, is a man for conscientious objection to be put under what we call the ordinary prison régime and the ordinary prison discipline. That, I think, is a right and just principle.
  The reason why I wanted to call your Lordships' attention to this Order is that in my view it has solved great difficulties on the whole in a fair, tolerant, and moderate spirit. First of all, it gives the right of non-combatant service, for no man is to be forced into combatant service against his scruples. Then it says that, if his scruples continue, he shall be segregated and treated without punitive hardship; and it further says that if perchance he comes under a Court-Martial he is not to be put into a penitentiary prison at all. The hardship in this country is putting a man as I think against the terms of the Military Service Act, but I will not go into that—into prison for a term of solitary confinement that may go on year after year, and has already extended in the cases I have mentioned to the two years period. There is one other matter to which I should like to refer, although the Secretary of State for War, naturally enough, is not present; no doubt he is much too busy. All these sentences in America, even after all these safeguards, come up to the War Secretary for revision, and no doubt he has a special department dealing with them. This takes away the injustice of the inequality of sentences which notoriously takes place at present in this country.
  The terms of the first part of my Resolution are that where non-combatant service is assigned to conscientious objectors prepared to accept such service, it should be service of a national value, and not merely
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  of a penal character. It should be noncombatant service of the same class and type as is provided in the United States of America. There is nothing more humiliating, more debilitating, both to mind and body, than to do work which is known to be useless and to be of a purely penal type. That has aroused the difficulty at Dartmoor and in connection with other Home Office schemes. A man knows perfectly well that the work he is put to is not work which is of any national value of any kind, but that it is purely penal and punitive. He does the same work at Dartmoor as the convicts used to do. I was told the other day of two bodies of conscientious objectors who were in two adjoining courts. In one court they were taking up the stones and in the next court they were putting them down; and then they were changed across from one to the other. I hope that the noble Viscount will be able to give some assistance, so that at a time when all work of national value is of the first importance these men should not be penalised by being kept under what are really convict conditions.
  The second point in my Resolution is that in no case should the total term of imprisonment exceed a fixed limit. I have not put in a limit, for a reason which I will state in a moment; but surely the present condition of hopelessness, the present condition which leads to insanity and illness, is largely due to the fact that there appears to be no escape from imprisonment so long as the war lasts. This is a scandalous miscarriage of justice. However you punish a man, you ought to fix a period beyond which the term of imprisonment should not go. I have stated it on a former occasion, therefore I do not wish to restate it now, that if you were to have a punishment proportionate to the offence six months would be sufficient in a case of this kind; but for the moment I am not suggesting one term or the other. What I am suggesting, and what I hope the noble Viscount will take account of is this, that whatever the term may be there ought at least to be a fixed limit beyond which the liability to imprisonment should not be extended in the case of any conscientious objector. The noble Viscount knows that at present a man may go what I call the dreary round of imprisonment and Court-Martial as along as the war lasts, so far as any provision is made. That is really a scandalous interference with the ordinary principles of punishment in this country;

  901
  so I hope the noble Viscount will be able to say that the total term of imprisonment should in no circumstances exceed some fixed limit.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: Does the noble and learned Lord suggest that after this fixed period of imprisonment these men should be discharged from the Army?
  LORD PARMOOR: Yes; that must be so, of course. They must be discharged from combatant service, I will put it.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: Not from the Army?
  LORD PARMOOR: From combatant service. I should like to explain what I mean, because there might be a misunderstanding unless I put it clearly. I will take the case of a man who has had two years imprisonment, as that is a very common sentence. He comes out; he is subject to Army discipline; he is immediately court-martialled, and he may go back for another two years imprisonment. That may go on from time to time without any definite limit whatever. What I mean is, supposing a man has undergone what is an adequate term, in my opinion he has purged his offence. The offence charged against him is noncompliance with the terms of the Military Service Acts. If a man has undergone—I will not say two years, but has undergone a fixed period of imprisonment he ought after that time to be free so far as his offence against society is concerned. I think the noble Viscount will understand me.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: I do not know whether it is convenient to my noble and learned friend that I should interrupt him.
  LORD PARMOOR: Certainly.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: What I do not understand is this. What does the noble and learned Lord propose to do with the conscientious objector after his sentence is over? Does he mean that the man should be discharged from the Army, or how does he propose to deal with him?
  LORD PARMOOR: My opinion is that he should be a free man.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: Discharged?
  LORD PARMOOR: He would in that sense he discharged from the Army; and you would probably find—according to my knowledge of a good many of them—that they would all be doing work of an admirable character. If it were a question of their not consenting to do any work at all, they would not have my sympathy; but that is not really the case. The case is that nearly all these men desire to do work of national value. That is their standpoint. What they do not want to do is work under the Military Service Acts. I am not saying whether they are right or wrong, but that is their attitude. Then I say that so far as that offence is concerned it ought to be met by some fixed term or period of imprisonment. I know of no other alternative; perhaps the noble Viscount will suggest one. With these repeated terms of imprisonment, extending as they do over a period of time much beyond a period of two years, it is hardly necessary to emphasise what the result is in debilitating both mind and body. At one time I thought—I think it was when the statement was made by the noble Earl the Leader of the House on a previous occasion—that there was to be something in the nature of a fixed term, but whether it was so or not that is not the practice at present.
  I know the prejudice which is aroused against this class of person at a time of critical warfare. One has to acknowledge this, and to recognise it. But what I am putting to your Lordships is—and the task is a hard one for those who try to support the principles of justice as applied to this class of man—however unpopular a class may be, however wrong they may be (although I do not take that view), however misguided they may be, still they are entitled to a fair measure of justice; and it is in the hope of attaining a result of that kind that I have brought this Motion before your Lordships' House this afternoon. I beg to move the Resolution which stands in my name on the Paper.
  Moved to resolve, (1) That where noncombatant service is assigned to conscientious objectors prepared to accept such service, it should be service of a national value, and not merely of a penal character; (2) That in no case should the total term of imprisonment exceed a fixed limit.—
  VISCOUNT BRYCE: My Lords, I do not desire to repeat what I have said on previous occasions on this subject, or to repeat the arguments which have been put forward by my noble and learned friend Lord Parmoor. I only rise to appeal to the noble Viscount before he replies to bear in mind that although this question has been allowed to sleep for some time in this House it does continue to excite a good deal of feeling. We have abstained from raising the matter here again because we did not want to go on saying the same thing and getting the same answers. But I earnestly hope that His Majesty's Government will recognise the great hardship and injustice and the inconsistency with the general principles of our criminal law which arise from this practice of fresh sentences which inflict upon these men a punishment in excess of the case. I trust, therefore, that His Majesty's Government will find some means by which this scandal may be avoided which is exciting a great deal of feeling in the country, and which is likely from time to time to find expression which we should regret, especially when a General Election approaches. I hope that the Government will find some way out of the impasse, and that this habit of subjecting conscientious objectors to fresh terms of imprisonment will be discontinued. I do not know whether it will be possible to set these men entirely free, but surely some other method could be devised which would prevent difficulties arising from its being represented that they are enjoying immunity. I would recommend this suggestion to the attention of the Government. There ought to be some way beyond the rigid, harsh, and mechanical methods which have hitherto been followed for dealing with this question.
  THE LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD: I should like to go into a consideration of this matter for a few minutes, if your Lordships will allow me. My reason for endeavouring to do this is that I find myself brought into connection with people, certainly not among the least able or the least useful members of society, who are being permanently embittered by the treatment which is being given to conscientious objectors. I feel sure that your Lordships will agree that it is a disaster to a country if any serious part of the best thought in the country is allowed to become enlisted on the side of destruction and bitterness, but that is what I am assured is happening.
  904
  That part of the thought of the country which one would broadly describe as liberal, the part which is most enthusiastically enlisted in the cause of progress or democracy—with which you may sympathise or not, but which is an extremely important part of the thought and literary skill of the community—is being, I am persuaded, to a degree which it would be very hard to exaggerate, embittered and rendered hostile to the orderly- progress of society, and enlisted on the side of revolution and destruction by the feeling inspired in their minds by the consideration of the treatment to which the conscientious objectors are exposed.
  It is not that I sympathise with the conscientious objectors, because I think that many of them are among the most aggravating human beings with whom I have ever had to deal, and I acknowledge the existence among them of a class of people who are out to wreck and who are extraordinarily difficult to deal with because they mean to push principle to a point when it ceases to be anything else except a motion to wreck. I do not in the least deny the existence of almost insuperable difficulties in certain cases, but I do not admit that about the whole body of conscientious objectors, many of whom are not of this irrational and irreconcilable character, but are men who have been and would be ready to do some service for the country, and do not take up the totally impossible line that they will not do any work for the country because the country is at war. There are many of these who have been treated in a way which seems to me to be intolerable; and, more than that, the evidence points to the fact that the treatment is getting worse—not worse objectively, but worse in its effect on their minds. I think the strain, tending to madness, on these Melt deepens and strengthens as time elapses, and. I frankly admit that this record seems to me to be undeniable of men who have been quite needlessly driven mad by this treatment. I am sure there are many people who, though they have no sympathy with the principles of the conscientious objector are really being needlessly forced into an attitude towards the organisation of society which is revolutionary and destructive, and by all means in my power I desire to avoid this.
  We are often told that it is the genius of the English nation to blunder and bungle

  905
  through. We have been learning, I suppose, that that is a very dangerous principle to rely upon. I venture to think that nobody can look back upon the treatment of conscientious objectors during this war without feeling that it has been bungled, and that it must be some Department which prevents our making a fresh start. We have come to very cordial relations with the Americans, and we are all disposed to look up to President Wilson. He has often expressed thoughts which are in the hearts of all of us in a way which we felt nobody else expressed them, and we owe to him a very great debt of gratitude. I am sure the country will be quite prepared that he should show us the way in the treatment of these men. Although, until I heard Lord Parmoor, I had only read this article out of the Manchester Guardian, after hearing him, it does not seem to me that it is deficient or misleading, and it does seem to me to show a way towards avoiding the great evil of brutal treatment—treatment which seems to ordinary people to be brutal and which has at all costs to be avoided.
  I do not think that Lord Parmoor was unduly lenient in his conception of the ultimate punishment. It seems to me that there is a point at which punishment should cease; and after that, if the person who is let out damages the cause of this country by any kind of dealing, whether by literary methods or in any other way, he can be dealt with for another offence. I would implore the Government to give due consideration to the fact of the embitterment which is passing into the minds of a very large part of the men of progressive sympathies owing to the treatment which these conscientious objectors are receiving.
  THE MARQUESS OF LINCOLNSHIRE: My Lords, I wish to ask the right rev. Prelate a single question. Where on earth does he find these horrified persons who are rendered hostile by the treatment of the conscientious objectors? The diocese of the right rev. Prelate, is in the counties of Oxford, Berks, and Bucks. I happen to be Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, and I have been all over the county and know most of the people in it. I have been in all the towns, and I do not suppose I have seen a dozen people, certainly not twenty people, who can be classified as belonging to that body of persons who have been so eloquently described by the
  906
  right rev. Prelate. I do not know whether they may be in Berkshire or Oxfordshire, but I can conscientiously say that as far as the county of Buckingham is concerned these infuriated and hostile persons are very few and far between and would be most difficult to find.
  THE EARL OF DENBIGH: My Lords, I, too, should like to say that I have been present at a great many meetings all over the country, and that I always do one thing with regard to conscientious objectors. I regard them as people for whom I have the greatest possible contempt, and I always say that if only the women of this country knew a fraction of the things which the Germans have done in Belgium and in France, and what they would do in this country, especially to womenkind, and what everybody in khaki, whether at home or abroad, was endeavouring to defend them from, no conscientious objector would dare to show his face in the street. I do not know anything which will "bring down the house," so to speak, more than that. I am convinced that by the audiences I have addressed the conscientious objector is looked upon either as a cur or a crank, and I look upon him as a new form of lunatic—a dangerous lunatic evolved from the war. If it be right for a certain number of people to refuse their country service, it is equally right for a much larger portion of the population to do so. When fighting people like the Germans, what sort of position should we be in if any large section of the country were to turn conscientious objectors? To my mind, it is the most extraordinary product of modern days. Personally I can only say that I do not consider they are meeting with any sympathy whatever amongst any large section of the population.
  EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, the noble Earl who has just addressed your Lordships shows, I think, in what he has just said, the same difficulty in understanding matters which require a certain amount of imagination as he displays in some of his letters to The Times. He says that all the people he speaks to—I should think it very likely—regard these men as either curs or cranks. Well, so far as I know, neither the noble Lord who introduced the subject nor anybody else disagrees particularly with that view. What the right rev. Prelate who has spoken implored the Government to do, and what I have always implored

  907
  them in this matter to do, is to prevent the public regarding these men as martyrs. That is the one suggestion we make to the Government. Do not treat these people with an excess of hardship and cruelty, and really in many cases brutality, from which some have died and others have gone mad. Do not do that, so that equally unthinking members of the public learn to regard them as martyrs. That is the appeal which was really made by the right rev. Prelate, and that I think is an appeal not in the interests of the conscientious objector, but in the interests of good government in this country and of our own national honour.
  THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE NATIONAL SERVICE DEPARTMENT (VISCOUNT PEEL): My Lords, the subject of conscientious objectors, as your Lordships know, has been discussed more than once in this House. If I may say so, I think the new matter that has been introduced in the course of the discussion was introduced by Lord Parmoor, who wished to found the action of this country on the basis of the treatment of the conscientious objector in the United States. The noble Lord took as the text and the subject-matter of his observations both the law and the interpretation of the law in the executive Order issued under the authority of the United States by President Wilson. I also had the advantage, by the courtesy of the American Embassy, of obtaining a copy of this particular document. As a good deal of stress has been laid upon it, and as the right rev. Prelate wishes us to follow the example of President Wilson. I think I must detain your Lordships in order to make one or two observations upon this document.
  Although I agree with many observations of the noble and learned Lord upon the document and his interpretation of it, I think he has not stated one or two points in connection with it which should be stated in order to fill the picture which he desires to draw. I have this document in my hand. First of all, there is a distinction to be drawn between the law and the executive Order under the law. A very careful definition is given of conscientious objectors. They must be members of well-recognised religious sects or organisations; the creed of those organisations must prevent their members from participating in war in any form; and, moreover, the religious con-
  908
  viction of the particular conscientious objector himself belonging to that organisation must also be of a similar tenor. These persons need not do any combatant service, but no person so exempted shall be exempted from service in any capacity that the President shall declare to be noncombatant. In the executive Order, which, I quite admit, varies the Act in many ways and extends it, there is a definition of what non-combatant service is, and this definition is an exceedingly wide one. For instance, the noble Lord mentioned various forms of medical service with the Medical Corps, wherever performed. This includes—and I call the noble Lord's attention to it—service in the sanitary detachments attached to combatant units at the Front. Therefore, this non-combatant work includes work at the Front as well as in America.
  I will not go through the whole of these services, but there is also a large number of different services in the Quartermaster's Corps in the United States and also at the Front. Among the services and duties which are mentioned there are supply depots, bakery companies, etc., whose work is done in our Army, I understand, by the Army Service Corps, which is a combatant trained unit carrying arms. Then there is engineering service. The various classes of work among the engineers includes topographical work, camouflage, map reproductions, and other matters of that kind. There is a wide definition of non-combatant service. When we come to the executive Order we find that the definition of the conscientious objector is much wider, because there it includes, as the noble Lord has said, not only the people who have received certificates from their local boards that they fulfil the conditions under the Act, but also persons who object to participation in war because of conscientious scruples but have failed to get these certificates. I need not repeat what the noble Lord said about what happened next. All these persons go to the divisional or posting camp, where an officer persuades them to accept different forms of noncombatant service and they get certificates which show that they need not engage in combatant service but they must do, and do, the particular non-combatant service which they have agreed to do. Of course, they can be transferred to other noncombatant service with their consent.
  Now we come to the other persons who will not accept any of this non-combatant

  909
  work. They are more comparable, I suppose, to the absolutists in this country, and their position is rather a remarkable one. These persons are first of all segregated. They are put under the command of a specially qualified officer of tact and judgment. No punitive hardships are placed upon them, and no favours are granted. That is to say, while they are in this camp—and I want to draw the particular attention of the right rev. Prelate to the fact that it is a camp, because I am going to make an observation on that—while they are in the camp I presume they do the ordinary fatigues and work of that kind, while reports are made to the Secretary of War as to the grounds on which they object to do particular classes of work, and the Secretary of War will from time to time classify the persons so reported and give further directions as to the disposition of them. Therefore I suggest to your Lordships that there is nothing very final in their treatment. We know that they are segregated in this way, and put under the influence of this officer, and that the Secretary of War will decide what is to be done with them. I took some trouble to find out from the Embassy whether any other documents had arrived showing what action had been taken by the Secretary of War, but no reports have come over. Therefore, so far as the treatment of conscientious objectors in the United States is concerned, it is very difficult to compare it with the treatment in this country because there is noticing final about it, and you cannot say how they are going to be treated. The noble Lord was quite right in saying they are not only subject to Court-Martial, but that provision is made as to what happens after Court-Martial.
  The noble Lord spoke of the uniformity of penalties and the imposition of sentences. Under Articles of War 64 and 65 any man who wilfully disobeys a lawful order and command is court-martialled. Articles 64 and 65, of which I have a copy here, deal with the case of persons who strike officers or wilfully disobey any lawful command of their superior officer. The penalties are, of course, very severe. They may suffer death or such other punishment as the Court-Martial may direct. The noble Lord laid great stress on the fact that these men, under this executive Order, are to go not to penitentiaries but to disciplinary barracks; they are kept under Army detention and do not go to civil prisons.
  910
  I understood that the change from detention to civil imprisonment in this country was made at the instance of those who take up the ease of the conscientious objectors.
  LORD PARMOOR: That raised another point. It raised the question of detention beyond a certain period carried out in civil prisons.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: If it raises another point, I will not go it to it. I was pointing out that this particular change was made at the instance of those who protested in favour of conscientious objectors. "But this shall not apply to the cases of men who desert either before reporting for duty to the military authorities, or subsequently thereto." That is to say, the absolutist, who will not report for duty, does not, come under the provision of this section, but he may go to the penitentiary and may get a severer sentence under that provision. The first point is this—I think I have made it clear—that it is done under executive Order and not under an Act. The executive Order may be varied and cannot be taken as absolutely final. The second point is this—I should have thought that the provisions in this country were far more lenient than those which obtained in the United States. In this country you have absolute exemption from military service. People have appeared before the Tribunals and have been totally exempted on condition of doing work of national importance There is absolutely no provision of this kind in the United States, and I must draw the attention of the right rev. Prelate to that fact. Every man has to stay in the Army and wherever he is confined he is under military discipline and subject to martial law. There is no such exemption as there is in this country, and if the right rev. Prelate wants to follow President Wilson he must put all those men who have been exempted from the Army back into the Army. In the United States they all must do some kind of non-combatant service; if they do not they are kept under discipline and the Secretary of State decides what shall be done with them.
  I have referred to this at some length, because the noble and learned Lord laid some Stress on the provision, and I now must deal with the further points he raised. With regard to the first point that where non-combatant service is assigned to conscientious objectors prepared to accept

  911
  such service, it should be service of a national value, and not merely of a penal character—the assumption is that the work done by these conscientious objectors under the Brace Committee is service "merely of a penal character." On behalf of the Government I have to give an unqualified contradiction to that, and the best way to make it quite clear is to point out the kind of work that is done by the men in these camps. I have figures here which may possibly interest your Lordships. The total number of men employed under the Brace Committee is 2,971. Of these, 830 are employed under various local authorities or private employers, and the remaining 2,141 are employed in the three work centres of the Committee at Prince-town, Wakefield, and Knutsford. Take the persons who are not at the work centres. The work they are engaged upon is agriculture, timber-cutting, water works, brick-making and sewage disposal. I challenge any noble Lord to say that any of these works are not of national character. Now I come to those men who are at the work centres. They are engaged in agriculture—there is a very large arable and stock farm at Princetown—reclamation of land, both for the Prison Commissioners and the Duchy of Cornwall, and large areas of land reclaimed will bear crops this year. The Duchy of Cornwall are paying over £5,000 to the Committee for labour supplied to them for this purpose. Ts there any suggestion that land reclaimed and put to agriculture is not of national importance? Then they are also doing quarrying, building, weaving, tailoring, shoemaking, rope-making. Which of these occupations can the noble Lord say is "merely of a penal character"?
  There is, of course, a variation in the work, and there is a great deal of work outside these centres which badly needs labour. It is the policy of the Home Office, as far as they can, to distribute these men in different parts of the country on work of even greater national importance than those I have mentioned. There is, however, great difficulty about this. The right rev. Prelate spoke of the strong feeling growing up that many of these persons were harshly and badly treated. If he says so it must be the case, but there is a great deal of evidence of exactly the opposite kind. The Home Office, while anxious to employ these people, not at the work centres but in those other works to which I think the noble Lord takes no
  912
  exception, is prevented from doing so by the hostility of the inhabitants and other people who refuse to work with conscientious objectors.
  I have a number of cases, but I will give only one or two examples of what I mean. Arrangements were recently made for taking a party of twenty men to cut timber for pit props. As soon as the men arrived they were driven out of the village by the local population, who smashed the windows and doors of their huts and destroyed their kit. I take another simple case, not so violent—a farm on the borders of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. A number of women workers and conscientious objectors were sent down. The women absolutely refused to work with them, although they did work with German prisoners on the same farm. These men have been offered to shipbuilding, coal-mining, and other industries of that kind, but they have not been accepted because the authorities concerned said that the other men would go out on strike immediately if these men were put on that work. I state this for two reasons. First, that there is a large body of working class opinion which, rightly or wrongly, is averse to these conscientious objectors and their ways, and second that the Home Office is doing its best to move the men from those particular centres to which I think the noble Lord took the greatest exception, and to spread them about the country to do this work of national importance. I hope that the noble Lord will appreciate the difficulties under which the Home Office is labouring; and, if I may respectfully say so, if he would go down to some of the coal-mining centres and persuade the men of his view of conscientious objectors he would be doing a great national service, for then these men might be able to work there.
  The Committee have recently inaugurated a new scheme by which the men who have been employed for over twelve months and have during that period consistently shown good conduct in industry may be permitted to take individual employment in work of national importance chosen by themselves and approved by the Committee. Words have been used about rigour and torture, and there have been other phrases of that kind; and it is incumbent upon me to show what has been done, and whether those phrases correspond or do not correspond with the facts of the case. There are about 3,000 men,
  and this offer is open to them all if they have done their

  913
  work properly for a year. I understand that 388 men have had this privilege offered to them and have accepted it, and that 227 have submitted proposals to the Committee which have been approved. Moreover, the Committee are now making arrangements whereby the consideration of these matters may be expedited, and they hope that the result will be to decrease largely the number of these men in the work centres. I think that this deals to some extent with that particular portion of the noble Lord's suggestion. Obviously it would be impossible for me on behalf of the Government to accept his proposal, because it would stultify the whole of the observations which I have made, and it would mean that the Government accepted the statement that the work now being done was of a penal character. I think I have said something, to show that that statement is not very accurate.
  The next point that I come to is the more difficult one of the total term of imprisonment. The noble Lord mentioned certain particular eases. I dare say he will excuse me from going into those cases, because he did not give me notice of them. I am not complaining of that, but obviously it is impossible in the circumstances for me to go into the details of those cases. I think that the House ought to remember who those men are who are serving these terms of imprisonment, for this bears upon the question as to how far they are or are not conscientious objectors. Under the law they have not only to be conscientious objectors, but they have to establish that they are so.
  LORD PARMOOR: I referred only to men who have established their position as conscientious objectors.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: And who are undergoing imprisonment?
  LORD PARMOOR: Yes.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: I do not quite understand to whom the noble Lord is alluding. I am dealing with the people who are imprisoned, and who are undergoing, as some of them are, more than one term of imprisonment. I want to call your Lordships' attention to who these people are. First of all, there are men who have been in the Army. They have all had the opportunity of going before a Tribunal and of proving that they are conscientious objectors.
  LORD PARMOOR: These are the very men who have come before Tribunals and have established their right as conscientious objectors, but conditions have been put upon them which they cannot accept. So far as conscientious objection is concerned, they have established their position.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: I should like to state the matter in my way if I may be allowed to. First of all, there are people who have come before the Tribunals and have not been exempted at all. The noble Lord admits that.
  LORD PARNOOR: I have nothing to do with them.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: I must state then that these men belong to three classes. First, those who come before Tribunals and have not satisfied the Tribunals that they are conscientious objectors, and who go into the Army. There is another class consisting of those who have satisfied the Tribunals that they may be permitted not to do combatant service, but who the Tribunals think, on examination, ought to do non-combatant service. There is a third class who have not pleaded before the Tribunals at all, and who have not taken the opportunity which was open to them of showing that they were conscientious objectors. Then, as the noble Lord says, they perhaps have committed some offence against military discipline and are sent to prison. Now comes the second test which they have to go through—a test very well known to the noble Marquess opposite. The Central Tribunal invites them to come out of prison and do some work of national importance. A large number of these men have come out of prison and are doing the work which I have detailed at these different centres and also scattered about the country. Some of them have not satisfied the Tribunal that they really are conscientious objectors, and have gone back to prison. Therefore those who are left in prison—I want this to be quite clear—are men who not only will not do combatant service or non-combatant service, but who will not do national work of any kind. These surely are to be put in a totally different category from those who will not fight. They are people who say, "I want to be entirely free. I can do what I like. I can take the advantages of being in the State, but I will undertake none of the obligations. I will do nothing for the State." I think that it

  915
  is fair to state that this is their view before we come to deal with the hardships to which the noble Lord referred.
  EARL RUSSELL: May I interrupt for one moment? If the noble Viscount wishes to state their view quite fairly, he ought to state that they say, "We will do nothing by order."
  VISCOUNT PEEL: That is very much the same thing. It means that they will do nothing but what they choose themselves. May I refer for a moment to a statement that was made by the noble Marquess? I think that he pressed the question a good deal in a previous debate. He said that there might be in the ranks of these men a certain number who went to prison between the two military Acts and had not had the opportunity of being totally exempted, or of being exempted on agreeing to do work of national importance, because some of the Tribunals did not know that these men had the full right of exemption. In a previous debate the noble Earl who leads the House gave, I think, an undertaking that this matter should be examined into by the Local Government Board. I asked at the Local Government Board what had been the result of their inquiries, and I found that they had received answers from all but nine of the Tribunals. The inquiries were not complete. The answers from these Tribunals bore out the judgment of the noble Marquess opposite, who I think in the previous debate said that he thought the numbers would be found to he very small. The noble Marquess may be interested to know that the numbers are so small that they are non-existent, and that all the Tribunals with one or two exceptions said that they were perfectly well aware that they had the right of total exemption, and therefore no man could have slipped through their fingers as it were by a mistake. There are one or two of the Tribunals which were not fully aware of this point, but which went into the cases and said there were no cases which they would have dealt with otherwise if they had known it—that is to say, there were no persons whom they would have totally exempted. There are nine Tribunals which have not answered. It may be a satisfaction to the noble Marquess who raised the point to know that there are really not any persons of flue kind he suggested who would have been exempted by the action of the Tribunals if they had
  916
  more fully known the law at the time. It seems to me rather hard for the nobly, Lord to attack the Government for inflicting these tortures on these men—because that is the phrase which he used in the previous discussion, as in this, and he has not given the Government any credit for the mitigation that they have introduced into the condition of these men—
  LORD PARMOOR: I specially said that I had given them credit, and that they had let out fifty-four men.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: I was alluding first of all to the mitigation under Rule 243A. I think the House is very familiar with the particular mitigations named under that Rule. The other point is that persons in poor health are reported upon, and many cases are discharged from prison altogether.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: May I ask My noble friend a question in respect to Rule 243A? Has the mitigation under that Rule been applied on a considerable scale?
  VISCOUNT PEEL: I understand that it has been applied on a liberal scale. These two considerable mitigations, therefore, have been made. Not only has the position of the men serving these sentences in prison been made easier, but it has been made easier in the different respects to which I have alluded.
  Now comes the really important point, raised by the noble Lord. He said that, having served a term of imprisonment of a certain length, which he does not specify, these men ought to be discharged from the Army. I think that was the point taken by the right rev. Prelate as well. I think noble Lords have in mind what I said about the Brace Committee, and the possibility of these men getting out of prison by doing work of national importance. The view taken by the War Office is that they ought to maintain the previous decision of the War Cabinet as regards punishments. Will the noble Lord consider what would happen if, after serving a term, say, of eighteen months or two years, these men were discharged from prison and from the Army, as he wishes? I am afraid in that case it would be very difficult to get many of these men to go under the Brace Committee, because they would feel that if they remained in prison they would, after

  917
  a certain time, get complete and absolute discharge from all military obligations of any kind. As I have stated already, the United States do not contemplate any such discharge. Moreover, what would be the position of those, possibly serving in the Army abroad, who are subject to very heavy penalties for disobedience to orders—the death penalty—when they saw conscientious objectors, after a time in prison, being discharged from all obligations to the Army. I do not wish to go at length into the question of whether they are suffering for the tame offence, because that was discussed at some length on a previous occasion, and I should certainly contend that what they are punished for is not their attitude or view, but simply the act which they committed—disobedience to orders. Take the case, for instance, of a man who is a conscientious objector to rates and who goes to prison for not paying them: if he came out of prison you would not acquit him from paying rates for the rest of his life, but he would probably go to prison when he committed the offence again.
  And may I say this, that not all and very far from all—the conscientious objectors are of the type suggested by the noble Lord or the right rev. Prelate men of high literary attainments, who are embittered by their treatment. On the contrary, I think anyone who reads all the numbers of The Tribunal, which is the paper of the No Conscription Fellowship, will say that in many cases it is not a matter of individual conscientious objection but of a regular organisation whose intention it is, as they phrase it, to defeat militarism, and smash up conscription and these Acts. In order to maintain this I want to read a passage out of this particular paper which, I suppose, expresses their views. I desire to show how much stress they lay upon this absolute exemption and this discharge from the Army, which the Government are now asked to grant—
  "If we can secure the undoubted precedent of absolute exemption we shall feel that we have won for them a victory worth many times what it costs us. We feel, in fact, that the granting of the right to absolute exemption will prove one of the death-blows to militarism."
  It is quite clear from views of this kind, as any who care to study the different numbers of The Tribunal will see, that among many of them it is an organised movement—not the work of individual conscientious objectors—and it is an attempt to defeat the whole value of the
  918
  Military Service Acts. As this country is now fighting for its life I do not think your Lordships will agree to assist a movement which wishes to destroy the value of these Conscription Acts.
  The Government, therefore, feel that it would be impossible to adopt a course which would have the effect of allowing these men to be entirely discharged from the Army. I think that the noble Lord is aware—in fact, I have already stated—that certain mitigation in the position of these absolutists in prison has already been put into force by the Home Office. I am authorised to say that the Home Secretary has under consideration the question whether such persons, possibly after a further period of imprisonment, should not be allowed some further mitigation.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The first mitigation takes place after twelve months imprisonment?
  VISCOUNT PEEL: Yes; and this, of course, would be simile further mitigation. I do not wish that anything I have said should be misinterpreted. I do not want to hold out any hope that the home Office could accept a certain limited term of imprisonment after which men should be perfectly free to go out into ordinary civilian life. But subject to that statement, the Home Office are now considering such a mitigation as I have outlined.
  LORD PARMOOR: My Lords, I should like to say one or two words in reply to the noble Viscount. I wish particularly to deal with the point of mitigation. The two points in the executive Order on which I laid stress were these. First of all, with regard to non-combatant service, that no man should be required to do even noncombatant service if it is inconsistent with his religious or conscientious scruples—which perfectly preserved the position of the conscientious objector; and, secondly, that taking a man who could not do such service who was also a conscientious objector, he was not to be subjected to punitive hardship. Although everybody recognises—and I recognise it as fully as the noble Viscount—the great difficulty of dealing with matters of this kind, it appears to me a lasting and continuing scandal that people should be subjected to the punishments to which they are subjected in this country for matters of opinion and because they act up to their views

  919
  from honest conviction. May I say one or two words only on what the noble Viscount said with regard to possible alleviation? There are 2,140 men in these work centres. I am taking the noble Viscount's own figures, which agree very much with the figures I have.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: They vary from day to day.
  LORD PARMOOR: Yes. I will take the conditions at Dartmoor. Exactly the same conditions of work exist at Dartmoor, as far as I am informed, as existed when that place was a convict penal establishment. The work of reclamation is what the convicts did; the same work of road-making and quarrying, which is practically valueless work, is also carried out. I do not believe that there is any difference between the conditions then and now. I was gratified to hear the noble Viscount say that an increasing number of men had private employment in various directions outside the work centres. The more that number increases the better it will be. I also understood Lord Peel to say—although I think the facts are hardly borne out at the present moment, but I do not want to have any discussion upon it—that in the work centres the tendency was to do work of national value and what I called not merely penal work.
  VISCOUNT PEEL: I think I said that none of the work was "merely penal work."
  LORD PARMOOR: I am glad to hear that, because my objection to it was that it was what I called "merely penal work." One word upon the other matter. The only persons for whom I am pleading and in reference to whom I gave statistics are men who have been found to be sincere conscientious objectors, men upon whom conditions had been imposed to which they could not conscientiously conform. What is the position with regard to those men? I am glad to hear that there may be some mitigation of their lot; but taking things as they are, men in these circumstances are subjected to what is nothing less than the torture of perpetual imprisonment, with the result that several have died and others have gone mad. I trust that some further mitigations may be introduced beyond those mentioned by the noble Viscount. When I was speaking before I stated that
  920
  I recognised that something had been done; in fact, I alluded to fifty-four conscientious objectors who had been allowed to go free owing to their condition of health or mental debility. The other mitigations are of a very small character, and I trust they may be altered. I say nothing about this at present, however, because it is a matter for the Home Office. Whatever the difficulties are, I must say that the present conditions are really a scandal to the ideas of justice and equity entertained in this country. Therefore any mitigation would be in the right direction. The noble Viscount referred to the Central Tribunal. I have a great respect for that Tribunal, but it has no power to do anything. It does not follow that their recommendations are adopted—in fact, I know that in many cases they have not been; and mitigations advised by them have not been complied with. I cannot put your Lordships to the trouble of a Division on my Resolution. I had hoped that the noble Viscount would have said something further with regard to mitigations, but I heartily welcome what he did say.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  WAR PRISONERS' PARCELS.
  VISCOUNT DEVONPORT VISCOUNT DEVONPORT had the following Question on the Paper—
  To ask His Majesty's Government whether they are aware that the Central Prisoners of War Committee has received notice from the authorities that no further parcels for prisoners of war in Germany, Austria, or Holland can be accepted for transmission at present; what is the reason for this cessation; whether it is expected to be enduring; and, if so, what steps are in contemplation to meet the situation.
  The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I have placed this Question on the Paper in consequence of a circular letter from the Central Prisoners of War Committee which has been sent to all Regimental Care Committees, local associations, and authorised firms; that is to say, to all of those who are empowered and authorised to distribute parcels to prisoners abroad. I will quote the letter. It is dated April 21, and runs—
  "The Central Prisoners of War Committee has received notice from the authorities that no further parcels for prisoners of war in Germany, Austria, or Holland can be accepted for transmission at present. It is impossible to say when

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  the service will be resumed. Associations are advised to pack as usual for the next week and to store the parcels at their own premises, so as to have a good supply in hand when the postal service is resumed. Immediate information will be sent as soon as we receive news of the reopening of the service."
  The first fact which emerges from this letter is that the transmission is stopped; the second is that it is uncertain when transmission will be resumed. Without making any speech on the matter, I think I am entitled to say what is in the minds of all of us—namely, that any interference with the transmission of parcels would be most serious to the prisoners, because we know full well, from evidence that has been given in this House and elsewhere, that in the main they are entirely dependent upon the parcels. I shall be glad, therefore, of any information as to the actual situation which the noble Lord can give me.
  THE ASSISTANT UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD NEWTON): My Lords, the noble Viscount may be perfectly satisfied that the authorities absolutely realise the necessity for the continuance of this service. It is true that the notice was given, but it was given only in consequence of the fact that there was an enormous accumulation of parcels at the Central Post Office, and until that accumulation had been dealt with it was not considered advisable to continue packing. The service is, about to restart immediately, and will be continued. At the same time I must warn the noble Viscount and everybody else concerned that absolute regularity in the service cannot be guaranteed.
  THE EARL OF SANDWICH: Perhaps your Lordships will allow me, as chairman of the Central Prisoners of War Committee, to say a few words in regard to this question. It is perfectly true that we had stopped packing since last Wednesday, but we have now received instructions from the Post Office which will enable us to start again on Thursday. I am certain that this will relieve your Lordships' minds. As Lord Devonport said, the Care Committees in the country have not actually stopped packing, so that their stores have been accumulating for the past week, and by the tune Thursday comes round they will resume their normal packing. As regards the question of shipping, I think there is every hope that in order to meet the very large increase in the number of
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  prisoners and enable us to send a sufficient quantity of food we shall have available the shipping required.
  Perhaps your Lordships would like me to mention what the Central Committee has been doing in order to meet the great emergency caused by the increase in the number of prisoners. As some of your Lordships may know, we have a centre in Rotterdam to which we send from time to time supplies in large quantities. Since the offensive, we have been sending emergency supplies in addition to the ordinary parcels addressed to men in individual camps, and trying to work up—of course, the facilities owing to the stoppage have not allowed this yet—to a maximum of 3,000 parcels per day. These parcels are somewhat different from the ordinary standard parcel. They contain enough concentrated food-stuffs to feed two men for a week, instead of the ordinary parcel sent three times in a fortnight. Thus some 36,000 men can be kept going at that rate. The system in Holland is that the Help Committees in German camps indent for supplies according to the number of prisoners they receive from time to time, to meet the demand before we can send addressed parcels from this country. In addition to this, we have increased the bread supplies from the two centres of Copenhagen and Berne, and are also sending—some have already gone—100 tons of biscuits from Huntley and Palmer's to meet the particular emergency. The War Office has given us permission to increase the parcel units in camps from 12,000 to 24,000, and with regard to clothing also to send out 30,000 units of underclothing for men and 1,000 units for officers. I thought that your Lordships would like to know those facts to show what has been done to help in this great emergency, and I think you may rest satisfied that everything possible will be done to the full limits of the shipping available to keep our men supplied with these parcels, and also with bread and clothing.
  LORD BERESFORD: As president of two Committees, may I ask the reason—is it a question of tonnage or Post Office difficulties?—why this large number of parcels has accumulated.
  LORD NEWTON: I prefer that the noble Lord should address that question to the representative of the Admiralty. It is really more a question for them to answer than it is for me.

  ARMY (ANNUAL) BILL.
  Returned from the Commons, with theAmendment agreed to.

  INCREASE OF RENT, &C. (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments. The said Amendments to be printed, and to be considered on Thursday next.
  House adjourned during pleasure.
  House resumed.

  ROYAL COMMISSION.
  The following Bill received the Royal Assent—
  Army (Annual).

  PRIVATE BILLS, &c.
  [From Minutes of April 25 th and 26 th.]
SCARISBRICK ESTATE BILL. [H.L.]
  CALTHORPE ESTATE BILL. [H.L.]
  Judges' Reports received: Bills presented, and read 1a.
  SEXUAL OFFENCES BILL. [H.L.]
  To be read 2a on Tuesday the 7th of May next.

  LEAGUE OF NATIONS.
  Adjourned Debate upon the Motion of Lord Parmoor, viz., to resolve, "That this House approves the principle of a League of Nations and the constitution of a Tribunal whose orders shall be enforceable by an adequate sanction" (which stands appointed for Wednesday next) put oft sine die.
  House adjourned at half-past seven o'clock.