Lords Sitting of 24 July 1918

LORD GLENARTHUR.
Sir Matthew Arthur, Baronet, having been created Baron GLENARTHUR, of Carlung, in the county of Ayr—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

LOTTERIES (WAR CHARITIES) BILL [H.L.]
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I beg to present a Bill to legalise in certain cases lotteries promoted by war charities.
Moved, That the Bill be read 1a.—(The Marquess of Lansdowne.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; and to be printed.

PRIVATE BILLS
[From Minutes of July 23.]
MAIDENHEAD GAS BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.
BRITISH GAS LIGHT COMPANY (NORWICH) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered, and agreed to.
CALTHORPE ESTATE BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 2) BILL.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
Reported without amendment, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

MORECAMBE CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Commons Amendments considered, and agreed to.
SMITH ESTATE BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order) and passed, and sent to the Commons.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL (ORDERS No. 1) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 2) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

FOOD PRODUCTION.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE THE EARL OF SELBORNE rose to call attention to the prospects of food production in Great Britain in the harvests of 1918 and 1919; and to move for Papers.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, the Motion that I have upon the Paper may be considered as a supplement to the debate which we had in this House during the proceedings on the Corn Production (Amendment) Bill. I do not, of course, propose to repeat what I then said, except to remind your Lordships that I look at this question exclusively from the point of national safety and of winning the war. I should like to remind your Lordships that the importance of this matter of feeding the people will not end with the termination of the war. The problem will be with us, altogether apart from any question of future policy, until normal conditions can be restored and our shipping has again risen to its proper tonnage. Therefore the period of stress, in my judgment, will be prolonged long after the war; and the importance of that observation consists in this, that some of my noble friends who

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have felt it their duty to criticise the ploughing policy of the Government have seemed to me to forget that the value of a ploughing is not to be measured only by the results achieved in the first year. It is very possible that some of the ploughings that took place this year were completed too late, and that the crop to be derived from that arable land this year will represent a smaller production of foodstuff than the hay gathered from that land this year would have represented if the land had not been ploughed. But that land will be most valuable next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. Therefore I would make, as the first point, that every ploughing has great importance beyond this year's result.
I hope that the speech which the President of the Board of Agriculture made in the House of Commons last week has been widely read, because I do not think any noble Lord can fairly judge the policy of the Board of Agriculture or its results unless they have read that speech. I can only say that in my opinion the story which the President was then able to tell is the story of a great performance, and also, I think, it has been done at an extraordinarily cheap rate—that is to say, cheap as measured not by our standard of economy before the war but as measured by any of the performances of any other Government Department during this war. If you contrast what the Food Production Department has done, and the cost, with what the Food Control Department has done and the cost, I venture to say that the comparison is very greatly in favour of the Board of Agriculture.
I only here want to draw your Lordships' attention to one sentence in Mr. Prothero's speech. He said—
"The result of the work of the executive war agricultural committees has been not only a great increase in the area of arable land, but a most substantial improvement in the general standard of farming throughout the country.
I draw attention to that because it certainly is contrary to the impression of many critics of the Government, but it entirely tallies with the result of my own limited observations. I would say that the pressure of the Department, of the war agricultural committees, and the help which we got from the Army last year by the intervention of my noble friend now sitting on the Front Bench—the Secretary of State for War (Viscount Milner)—com-
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bined with an extraordinarily favourable season last autumn, winter and spring, resulted in the raising of the standard of cultivation very greatly throughout England and Wales.
My noble friend Lord Chaplin the other day asked Lord Clinton to give the figures of the increased acreage of wheat, barley, and oats and we have those in Hansard. I have endeavoured to form an estimate of what that means as an addition to the produce of the land last year in the three same crops of cereals. I think that we may fairly take an estimate of an average crop of wheat and barley, but I am convinced that we ought to be very cautious in our estimate of the yield of oats, particularly because a very large proportion of the oats—a far larger proportion than the additional acreage—will have been grown on the freshly ploughed land Forming the best estimate that I can make on that basis of those three crops, wheat, barley, and oats, we should get about 30,000,000 quarters of corn from England and Wales alone, and that not reckonng the rye, the beans, or the peas, or anything from Ireland or Scotland. I think this is a very remarkable performance, and I do not think that the result will be very far short of that, on one condition—that the Government find the labour for the farmers with which to get in the harvest.
I am glad to see the Secretary of State for War here, because it really comes back to him, and to what the Army can do. There is no other source from which the men for the harvest can come. These men will be wanted more than ever owing to the result of this wet weather. These three weeks of wet have done far more good than harm, but the result has been to log a great quantity of the oats and the wheat, and the harvest will be difficult. Therefore the help of men from the Army to get in the crops will be as important this year as it was last year. I want again to remind the Government of the results of their action in helping us last year. Had it not been for the help coming from the Army last year the harvest never could have been got in, nor could the cultivation which has resulted in the harvest of this year have been undertaken. Therefore I date the success of the policy of the Board of Agriculture so far— and I think it has been successful—from the moment when Lord Milner came to our assistance, and in our dire need gave us the men who

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alone have made these results possible. On the top of that help came the good season.
Since then a difficulty has been caused which really is at the root, I do not say of all but of a very large proportion, of the criticism levelled at the ploughing policy. It is the sole cause of the sudden stopping of that ploughing policy. I refer to the withdrawal of 30,000 men from the land, of whom a great proportion were key men. I shall have something to say about that presently. What I want to bring to the notice of the Government now is the matter that I have privately mentioned to the Secretary of State, and that is the extraordinary difficulty of getting back on to the land men who are no longer fit for fighting. When the Government decide that they must take away our men they can act very swiftly and effectively, as we found only too well to our cost last month and the month before. But when it comes to getting back on to the land men who are classed as no longer fit for fighting, it is an extraordinarily difficult thing. I personally have been trying to get back three men from my parish for three months past, and I am no nearer getting one of them to-day than I was when I started. I know that this is the experience of other people. There is no reason why the process should be as cumbersome as it is. I have had a correspondence on the subject with my noble friend Lord Stanhope, and he knows the points to which I wish to draw his attention and the attention of Lord Milner; but I assure you the process is as cumbersome and slow as the process of taking the men from the land is rapid and direct.
Having now given the Government my own estimate, I want to ask them if they will give us a cautious estimate of the extent of our national self-sufficiency in the matter of food, after the coming harvest and for the year 1918–19 in wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, hay, meat, and milk. Then, if possible, I want them to go further and to give us their estimate of the degree of sell-sufficiency that will be required after the harvest of 1919. I ask for that quite irrespectively of any suggestion as to whether the war will be ended or not, because I believe that the national need of homegrown foodstuffs will be almost, if not quite, as great if the war has come to an end as if it has not come to an end. I want also to ask—a matter intimately connected with that question—for any information
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that the Government can give us as to the prospects of shipbuilding. Of course I do not ask for any figures that will convey information to the Germans which it is not to the interest of our country that they should have. But I do ask for any information which can be properly and safely given, because we have great misgivings on the subject. We have had large promises from time to time here and in the United States, and the fulfilment of those promises, so far as I know, lags very far behind.
But I would make this prophecy with confidence—that whatever estimate the Government may make now of tonnage to be created in the immediate future, the results of that forecast are sure to be disappointing. In the first place, these estimates have a wonderful way of not being fulfilled; and, in the second place, if the estimate is fulfilled, what is going to be the first use to which that tonnage is put? Why, to support the American Army in France. That is going to be the great military problem of the immediate future —not getting the American Army over to France, for that has been solved so far in a most astonishing way owing to the efficiency of the British Navy and the American Navy. But the problem of feeding that Army and supplying it when it is in France is a tremendous problem, and I venture to prophesy that all the increased tonnage that can be created both here and in America will be utilised in that task, and not mainly in bringing food for the people of this country.
I wish also to reiterate my warning against any estimate that we are at the end of the submarine trouble. I believe nothing whatever of the sort. That trouble has from the very commencement gone in waves, and it will continue to go in waves. At the present moment, apparently, the defence has got the better of the attack; it is more than likely that before the end of this year the attack will again get the better of the defence, and you will see the figures of tonnage loss mount high. For these reasons I suggest that the estimate of self-sufficiency for the future must be put at a high level by the Government if they want to exercise the ordinary prudence of statesmen in a national crisis. It is for this reason that I said the other night, and I repeat again to-night, that I think the Government would be very rash if they made any promise now that they would

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require no additional ploughing in the future. I see that the President of the Board of Agriculture guarded himself in the House of Commons, and I hope Lord Clinton will guard himself to-night. I believe that more land will have to be ploughed before we come out of this trouble safely. But it all comes back to the question of labour, as I will show presently.
Before I deal with the question of labour I want to touch on the auxiliaries of labour. Take the question of motor tractors—a subject about which Mr. Prothero spoke at length in the House of Commons and gave a very interesting description of what has been done. We must all admit that the use of motor tractors and the question of the best type is still in the experimental stage, and the whole organisation has to be started from the beginning. But I want to make this point to the Government, and it is made as the result of personal observation, that a very great deal can be done by better organisation of the tractor service. With all these tractors at work I do not think nearly as much work is being got out of them as ought to be got out of them, or can be got next season by better organisation; and the service has cost a great deal too much. Up to now the Government have charged the farmer £1 an acre for the use of a tractor.
I had two of those tractors at different times. One of them was run by two men, and better men I could not wish to see. They knew their job, they worked very hard, and did their work excellently. The other one was run by six men, and a more scandalous exhibition of waste of Government money and of time I have never seen in my life. Four of these men were sent to learn. The man who was sent to teach them was a wholly unfit man to have anything to do with a tractor at all. He simply took as long over his job as it was possible for him to take; he had relations a few miles away, and I cannot describe to you the scandal of the way that this team worked, or the waste of public money. I do not say that this was typical, but it was a very bad case. It has not been the only case, and the question is ones of organisation—who is to control these men, and how are they to be controlled? Up to now these men have been hired out to the county council but not controlled by the county council; they have been under military control, and that control was really no control—perfectly worthless.
I think that the remedy lies in giving somehow the control to the county councils, with properly appointed officers in charge of each group of tractors. I suggest to the Government that the remedy is not to raise the price to the farmer to a high figure. I do not say that it might not be necessary or fair to increase the price from 20s., but I am sure that if the price is raised (as I understand it is to be) to nearly 40s. an acre—well, the farmers will not use the tractors. I am certain that it cannot pay a farmer to use these tractors at a price of nearly £2 per acre; therefore, however the organisation may be improved, or however many tractors there may be, if the Government charge what a farmer will consider to be a prohibitive price the tractors will not do the work which we hope they will do. Then I should like to ask my noble friend to tell us what arrangements have been mate for the supply of fertilisers, of feeding stuffs, and of machinery. All those things are essential if the greatest production is to be got out of the land next year.
I want to say one further word about prices. I hope the new Food Controller will remember that the really important thing is to get a maximum of production at a reasonable price to the consumer. It is a great mistake, I think, to look too closely at the profits of the best farmer. The best farmer will always make the best profits in any given circumstances, and it may well be that, at present prices or at prices which may be fixed, the best farmers will do very well for themselves. But the best farmers, the men of brain and of capital and of energy, are a very small proportion of the whole farming class, as they are of any other class; and if you want to get the maximum of production out of the average farmer, who is usually quite a small man—remember that 80 per cent. of the farmers of this country farm under 150 acres—you must give them what they will consider to be a fair price; because what might be a fair price to the best farmer might be a price out of which they could not make a living; therefore to get the maximum production of the country you must think of the average farmer and not of the best farmer.
Now, if the Government cannot ensure us the labour, the fertilisers, the feeding-stuffs, and the machinery, then I admit that they are right in stopping their policy of additional ploughing; because without

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those things there will be no use in ploughing fresh land. If more production is required, the first thing to do is to clean and to fertilise the land that is ploughed. There is, in my opinion, much less foul land to-day than there was a year ago. Mr. Prothero evidently thinks the same, and he has a far greater opportunity for judgment than I have. It is only after we have done this, that, if the labour is forthcoming, the policy of additional ploughing could be safely resumed. I have already said that I believe we shall come to that; but I am entirely with my noble friend Lord Chaplin and others—although there are some points of disagreement between them and me as to the general policy—in thinking that without the labour the thing is impossible.
I wonder whether the Government are altogether pleased to-day about having taken away those 30,000 men from the land. They acted in a crisis, and the responsibility was on them to decide whether those men were mostly wanted on the land or in the Army. I wonder whether they realised as completely then as they probably realise now that, when they took those men in the very critical days of May, they would not be available for the fighting line for three or four or five months; and I also wonder very much whether they would not wish that those men were now on the land rather than in the training depôts. However, the responsibility was on them and they had to come to a decision; but the decision was absolutely fatal to the policy which up to that moment we had been told on the authority of the Prime Minister was essential for the safety of the country.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: The life of the country.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Yes. That was to get to the nearest point of self-sufficiency possible. I believed the Prime Minister then, and I believe now that this is true; and it is for that reason that I bitterly regret the loss of these men from the land, with the consequent necessity of suspending for the time the policy of additional corn production.
My last question to the Government is to ask for the programme of 1919. That programme, of course, cannot be as ambitious as it would have been some weeks ago, now that the policy of plough-
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ing more land has been suspended. But it does not follow from this that there must not be a policy. We want to know what crops are mostly required. We want to know what steps the Government are going to take, on the lines that I have indicated, to assist the farmers to make the utmost they can of the land that is ploughed. On that subject Mr. Prothero was silent in the House of Commons. He told us only that the policy of ploughing was suspended for the time. He indicated very clearly his view that the point of national safety had not yet been reached, although we were much nearer to it than we were a year ago; but he did not tell us what he was expecting the farmers to do next year—what crops to grow and at what to aim.
Now, it is very necessary for the farmers to know this. They are, as my noble friend and the whole House know, most anxious to do all they can to help the Government, and they have shown it in every way; but at the present time all they know is that a policy which they had been told to expect—and which I admit was not very popular with them—has been suspended. They have not been told what is expected from them. If the Government are to get the most they can out of the land, they must not only make their own organisation and their own preparation, but they must take the farmers into their confidence. I beg to move.
LORD LEE OF FAREHAM: My Lords, I ask the special indulgence of your Lordships, not merely because I am addressing you for the first time, but because the speech that I have to make has to be something in the nature of a personal explanation, dealing with a subject in which I fear I am not likely to elicit the sympathy of at any rate the majority in this House. At the same time I feel that it is only respectful to your Lordships' House that I should take the earliest opportunity of explaining why it is that I have felt it my duty to resign the office [Director-General of the Food Production Department] which I lately held. I have already indicated in the Press that it was owing to serious difference of opinion with regard to policy with my right hon. friend the President of the, Board of Agriculture; and I am glad, as I said in that letter, that this difference of opinion should not in any way have affected our cordial personal relations.
But I may, perhaps, be allowed to explain this with regard to what I have

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been doing. For the past year and a-half I have been responsible for the administration of the Food Production Department, and for carrying on as an executive officer the food production policy which was settled by the War Cabinet a little over a year ago. I am well aware that that policy is not popular—cannot be popular—amongst either landlords or tenants, and it certainly has been no pleasant duty for me to override in many cases the wishes and interests of others of my fellow-countrymen; but I should like to make it plain that I have not been engaged in any sort of private piratical enterprise, but in carrying out what was described at the time as an absolute national necessity. My orders were within the limits of the programme to push the production of corn and potatoes to the utmost limit that was possible—not as a measure of good husbandry or of the improvement of agriculture in this country, but in order to avert what was then felt to be a grave national peril—the peril of scarcity and possible famine.
The programme which was drawn up by the Food Production Department and approved by the Board of Agriculture and the Cabinet was frankly a war measure, and I have always proceeded in the belief that whilst the situation may have eased a little now and again—it is not only at this moment that it appears to be easier, but there were moments last year when the hopes and fears fluctuated with regard to the food position—one ought to aim at nothing less than in the last resort making this country as nearly self-supporting as possible in the matter of food-stuffs, and particularly of bread-stuffs. I have en-deavoured to carry out these orders, and at any rate to a certain extent I think the Food Production Department may claim that it has, to use a common phrase, "delivered the goods." That is so far as the programme of 1917 and 1918 is concerned.
Now I come to 1919. I would ask your Lordships to note somewhat carefully the sequence of events, because they very much affect not only my personal position but the causes which led to my resignation. The Proclamation cal ling up the 30,000 men was issued on April 28. The maintenance programme, by which I mean a programme which provided that the corn production of next year should not fall below the corn production of this year—my noble friend, Lord Selborne, asked what was the pro-
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gramme? That was the programme. Not a very ambitious one, but necessitated by the labour conditions—this was approved on May 30, a month after the Proclamation calling up the labour. The Food Production Department and county committees at once set to work to carry out that programme. A re-organisation was effected, and various requisites to carry out the programme were ordered. Towards the end of June, so important was the programme considered to be, that certain additional powers and status were conferred upon the Director-General of the Food Production Department, and incidentally at about the same moment I had the honour of becoming a member of your Lordships' House.
This brought us to the beginning of July, and during the whole of the first week of July I was in full belief that the programme was to proceed full steam ahead; that I was entering upon a new spell, I will not say of usefulness but at any rate of activity, in connection with this work; that whilst the programme was necessarily elastic in its scope according to the supply of labour, there was a minimum which was approved by the Cabinet as well as a maximum; and the minimum was the maintenance programme, and it had also been approved that the Defence of the Realm powers which had hitherto been exercised by the agricultural executive committee should, of course subject to the consent of Parliament, be continued until the end of the war. It was on those understandings that I proceeded.
Now, my Lords, the first shock to me came on July 10, when I saw my noble friend Lord Clinton's Amendment on the Paper, put down on behalf of the Board of Agriculture, agreeing to modify the Corn Production (Amendment) Bill in such a way as to deprive agricultural executive committees of a very large part, if not the greater part, of the powers which they now exercise. That step seemed to me disastrous from the point of view of the work of the committees; but it was done, and I will say no more about it at the moment; because I see from what took place in the other House last night that the Board of Agriculture is, I think, alive to the danger, and is proposing to do what it can in order to put the matter right.
The second blow that came to me in connection with this matter was on July 15, when I received in a very curious way the intimation that the programme was

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dropped, and not only that, but dropped without consultation with me. It was not communicated to me that there had been any change of decision on the part of the Cabinet, but it was indicated to me in the form of a draft letter addressed to the county committees which was put before me and which I was required to sign and issue to the committees at once, in order that it might be sent out before the President of the Board of Agriculture met the Parliamentary deputation which was headed by Sir Frederick Banbury. I am afraid that I am not sufficiently flexible to do business in that way, and I had respectfully but firmly to decline to sign that letter. That was taken very properly as equivalent to my resignation, and I accepted it as such.
The reason for this sudden decision is unknown to me. It cannot have been the labour situation, because any change which there had been in the labour situation since the Cabinet had come to its decision to strengthen my powers had been, if anything, in the direction of improvement, because it had been agreed not to call up the whole of the 30,000 men at once, and some 16,000 additional hands of various kinds had been supplied to the land as against the 30,000 that were being taken away. It was not represented that the food position had become suddenly safe, nor was it represented in any way that the extra production was not needed. The sole reason, as far as I am aware, was the approach of the formidable deputation. And, if I may, I would like to extend my congratulations to the noble Lords and my late colleagues in the other place who blew such a mighty blast upon their trumpet that the walls of Jericho fell flat without further action. That I was myself buried in the ruins is only an incident. These two reversals of policy, as I take them to be—whether they were justified or not, they were reversals of policy combined, and they seemed to me not to be justified by the facts either of the labour situation or the Parliamentary situation—seemed to me so disastrous from a national point of view as well as from an administrative point of view, that, with the deepest regret, I felt myself unable to accept any responsibility for them. There I was not only the material effect, but the moral effect upon the whole organisation was, I venture to say, deplorable, and I should have been required in addition to everything else, to have demobilised to a large extent the new organisation which
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the Food Production Department had just been completing in order to carry out its task in a better and more expeditious manner.
With regard to the two specific points upon which I announced my resignation—namely, the questions of the relief land programme and the powers of the committees—I will not deal with the latter, because I assume there will be a further opportunity when the Bill returns from the Commons to your Lordships' House. I will only say this, that I believe those full powers to be absolutely necessary. There are, I know, a great number of people in this country who believe that if only the farmer is let alone he will achieve greater results. Well, my Lords, we tried the policy of letting the farmer alone for the first two years of the war, and the result was that the curve of production went steadily down until it reached a very low point indeed at the end of 1916. Then the policy of control was brought in under these Regulations, and there was at once an enormous rise in the scale of production until it has reached a point now which it has not touched before during this generation. This may be merely a coincidence, but I rather doubt it. I think that it is the result of control which, on the whole, has been fairly and intelligently exercised by the war agricultural committees; and certainly, if the policy for next year is to concentrate on existing arable and to raise the standard of farming, those powers of control in respect of the bad farmer are more necessary than ever they were, and should be continued.
At any rate, I only wish to say this—and I do ask the most earnest attention of your Lordships to this point—I know intimately the feelings and the position of these committees, of which there are over sixty throughout England and Wales, and I have received from every one of them during the last fortnight protests, couched in the strongest terms, against this proposal to limit their powers. I believe the results of crippling the committees for the period of the war will be to dishearten and destroy those bodies and cause the good men to leave them. They are all volunteers, after all. I do, therefore, most earnestly appeal to your Lordships to give fresh consideration to that most crucial point when the Bill returns.
Now, may I deal for one moment with a point with regard to what is called the

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relief land programme, about which there seemed to be some misapprehension in your Lordships' minds in the recent debate. The other day the President of the Board said that he stood between those who wished to plough up nothing and those who wished to plough up everything, and I see it is suggested that I belong to the school which wishes to plough up everything. There is really no foundation for that. I do not believe that, in the conditions which now exist with regard to labour, anything more than the maintenance of the programme is practical politics at the present time. We have at present 60 per cent, of our arable land growing corn as against an average of 51 per cent. That is too high a percentage to maintain, and we must endeavour to restore the proper rotations, as land which has been for two or more years growing corn crops must be cleaned and rested and roots grown upon it, or, in cases of some heavier land, must lie fallow. That process entails less corn next year unless fresh land is provided upon which to grow more corn, and that really is the need for the relief programme.
It has been said many times—I think my noble friend Lord Selborne said it to-day—Why not concentrate on the existing arable? But to produce the same amount of corn on the existing arable land requires a great deal more labour and a greater quantity of fertilisers than we possess, and every one knows, I think, that high farming means a heavy labour bill, and continuous corn growing means either high labour or very foul land. Therefore, if production is to be maintained—and that was the whole point of the programme—a certain amount of relief land must be provided. I think that this was agreed—in fact, I know it was agreed—by Mr. Prothero, but it was held (as I think it was by my noble friend Lord Selborne) that this is impracticable on account of the labour position. No one deplores more than I do the labour position, or rather the calling up of the 30,000 men. We did everything we could to avert it, and only when it was made clear to us that the military position required it did we acquiesce.
But, serious as the position is, there is no need to exaggerate it. After all, there are at the present time 830,000 men on the land in England and Wales, or there were before the 30,000 were called up, so that 800,000 remain and only one in twenty-
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eight have been taken. If we agree that one half of these 30,000 men are. "key" men, which I think is a fair assumption, and that the taking of any one of these key men from a farm means that that farm is rendered incapable of doing anything additional in the way of cultivation, that will only demobilise, so to speak, for further cultivation one and a-half million acres out of a total of 27,000,000. Twenty-five millions must be unaffected by this call-up of men. There are some 15,000,000 acres of grass remaining, and if we assume that only one-third, or 5,000,000 acres, is of a suitable kind for breaking up, our maintenance programme only suggested 500,000,, which is one-tenth, and I venture to believe, after receiving reports from the committees who are in touch with the problem, that that amount could have been found without any great difficulty or hardship. At any rate I am confident of this, that ii a call had been made on the farmers of this country they would have responded if they felt it was the national need.
It seems to me that the country has always been ready to make greater sacrifices than the Government have demanded of it, and the farmers are no exception. They have risen magnificently on every occasion to every call made on them, and I believe they would have responded successfully to this small additional call. Of course if this production is no longer vital, if it is not needed, then my whole case falls to the ground; but there I am entirely unconvinced. It is true that we have had some exceedingly comforting speeches during the last twenty-four hours. At the best we are relying very largely for our food upon America. It is not only a question of the submarine; there is only a certain surplus in America. If the next harvest in America is a bad harvest there will be no surplus, no food to send to this country. Lord Selborne mentioned the problem of feeding the American Army in France. Surely we ought to do what we can to save shipping in connection with that problem also. Therefore nothing has been said, or proved, which will sufficiently convince me that we ought not still to be striving for the maximum production that is possible, not as an agricultural policy but as a war measure of the greatest urgency.
Meanwhile what is the position of the farmer? I have the utmost sympathy with him in his trials, but, after all, his

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work is well in hand. Crops this year are very promising. As Lord Selborne has said, the land is as clean as it has been at any time since the beginning of the war, and we have an addition of over 2,000,000 acres growing corn and potato crops at the present time. No other country in the world has made an increase, and the farmer has every right to be proud of what he has done, and has earned his country's gratitude. I know it will be said that what we require are quarters, not acres. It has been said many a time, and I would really ask your Lordships to believe—only yesterday, or two days ago, I had facilities for getting reports from every part of the country—that it is really sad nonsense to say that the condition of the crops on the new land, speaking generally, is bad. The consensus of qualified evidence is exactly the reverse. It has been a bad year in some respects—slugs, leather jackets, and spring drought—but on the whole the Spring corn is perhaps better on the new land than it is on the old. And remember this, the failures (of which there are always some) have been exceedingly well advertised. They have lost nothing in the telling or enumeration, whereas, generally speaking, the prospects of the crops are increasingly promising. Wheat is better than it has been for a generation, and it is quite as much above the average as oats and barley can be below. All the evidence of all the Departments concerned—I saw it in The Times this morning—is that this year's crops will be, if anything, above the average in yield.
I must apologise to your Lordships for detaining you at such length, but I have very little more to say. With regard to the yield of crops, Lord Selborne asks the Government to make known the conservative estimate as to what that means in the way of food. I am aware that certain criticism has been directed against the Food Production Department on account of the estimate which it made itself some few months ago, and in which it said that, given certain conditions (which were clearly defined) and the emergency was great enough, there would be forty weeks bread-stuffs, probably, available from the harvest of this year. I say that this was not an exaggeration, although it was deliberately an extreme estimate. It was based on a series of assumptions, which were given, and it represented what could be done in case of dire necessity—what, for example, Germany could do under similar circum-
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stances, and what she will have to do if she is to avoid starvation. It was a calculation which is full of significance for her, and was largely framed for that purpose. The assumptions were extreme; it is possible to take extremely conservative assumptions—that all the barley, or only a small portion of the barley and oats, will be used for flour, and none of the potatoes; that the standard of milling will be lowered in order to provide more stuffs (a very proper policy), the scale of consumption will be less restricted, and allowing a large margin for disappointment and accident. If you make that kind of estimate you may produce one of twenty weeks. The two things are quite compatible, and I make no apology for the estimate which was issued. In fact, I make no apology at all for the food production policy or the Food Production Department. Lord Selborne was good enough to say that it had been carried on very cheaply. I thank him for that. But if it had been very expensive it would have been thoroughly justified.
In this connection may I say that a great deal too much credit for what has been done in the Department has been given to me, and a great deal too little to my colleagues with whom I have worked. They have discharged an extremely difficult, delicate, and unpleasant task, for a year and a-half with the utmost ability, and scant justice so far has been done to their achievements in any public speech, statement, or Report, that has been issued. As between them I cannot pick and choose, but I do say that they have been engaged in a national work, the greatness of which will, I hope, some day be known; and I cannot refrain from testifying to the energy, the efficiency, and the single-minded zeal with which their arduous task has been cheerfully undertaken and successfully carried through by every section and grade of the Department over which I have had the honour to preside. I venture to say that a more patient, indefatigable, and devoted body of men and women have never served the State, and my deepest regret in resigning my office is in parting my co-operation with them.
The last word I wish to say is this. Speaking as a strong supporter of the Government, I regret deeply that I have felt it necessary to dissolve my partnership with my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Agriculture. The differences between us on policy were serious, but I

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shall always feel grateful for the opportunity and the privilege of having assisted him in the great crusade with which his name will always be associated, and which will find its triumphant vindication in the harvest which is now approaching.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (LORD CLINTON): My Lords, may I, in the first place, offer my congratulations to the noble Lord who has just sat down on the admirable speech that he has delivered on his first appearance in your Lordships' House. We are all sorry that this speech has had to be made in respect of his own resignation. That resignation, I know, is very much regretted. We, at all events, in the Board of Agriculture—and I think that generally throughout the country it is so—acknowledge to the fullest degree the great service which the noble Lord as head of the Food Production Department has rendered to the country. He has been indefatigable in his work, and we shall be very much the poorer for his loss.
There is, perhaps, one word that I might say with regard to the details which the noble Lord gave leading up to his resignation, because I think that there may have been some misunderstanding upon that point. I do not know that it is very important, but he told your Lordships that at the end of June, or during the first part of July, he received his first intimation of the change of programme. It certainly is understood that notification was sent to the noble Lord of the meeting between the President of the Board and the Government on June 26, in which it was plainly shown what the full consequences of the comb-out of the 30,000 men would be. The Government were fully acquainted with the situation. They knew the amount of skilled labour which would be taken, and it was made quite clear to them that the output of food in 1919 could not be increased, and possibly could not be maintained. But in spite of that the decision to take the men was confirmed on account of the imperative military necessity. Of course, this at once put the programme out of gear. I allude to this fact because there seems to be some discrepancy in dates between the time at which the noble Lord was first acquainted with the alteration in the programme and the time at which it was understood that notification was sent to him.
LORD LEE OF FAREHAM: May I ask whether there was any further decision of the Cabinet?
LORD CLINTON: At that date?
LORD LEE OF FAREHAM: At any time.
LORD CLINTON: I am not aware of any further decision. It was made quite clear at that time what the result of taking these men would be, and it was shown that as a consequence the programme which we had in view for the next harvest was permanently put out of gear.
The Notice of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, covers a great deal of ground, and goes into questions upon which I may say beforehand that I have not the fullest information. It deals with several different Departments, but so far as information is at my disposal I shall be happy to give it unreservedly to your Lordships. With reference first of all to self-sufficiency. The outlook for the harvest of this year is on the whole very satisfactory. There has been a season of prolonged drought which has been broken by the very heavy storms during this month, and it is certain that the result of those storms must be that a considerable amount of crop has been laid or lodged. Consequently there is reason to fear that the yield which we anticipated may have been affected. Up to the present our reports show that there is no reason to think that this lodging is anything very serious, but it exists, and it must affect to some degree the reliability of any estimate which I am able to put before the House.
Dealing with the cereal crops, the wheat crop is the crop of the year. It is generally very good. There is an increased acreage of 39 per cent. The winter wheat is especially satisfactory. There are some failures in the spring wheat, but it is hoped that they do not amount to any serious loss. A yield generally above the average is expected, and the production should show an increase of at least 4,000,000 quarters. The oat crop is very variable. The acreage is increased by 35 per cent. There has been some injury from drought on the lighter soils, and also on the newly ploughed-up heavy land. There has also been a certain amount of damage from insect pests, and the yield will be a little under the average, but there is an estimated excess of 2,000,000 quarters. Barley is a fair crop. The area

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is 11 per cent. increase, and the estimated excess about half a million quarters. Generally speaking it is considered fair, so that the increase due to the over-average crop of wheat will at least make up for any deficiency that there may be in oats and barley. Consequently the yield all over should certainly be up to the average.
The degree of self-sufficiency as shown by these figures will be the total amount of grain grown. The noble Earl's own estimate is not, I think, very wide of the mark. The noble Lord, Lord Lee, spoke of the estimate which had been given hitherto of forty weeks. We understood fully upon what ground that estimate was given. But that is not the ground, I think, upon which the noble Earl would like to have his estimate, and it is probable that, looking at the self-sufficiency in a very ordinary way, we may say that we shall approach at all events something near half of what the noble Lord, Lord Lee, spoke of in his former estimate. That is as regards cereals. As to hay it is a smaller area in consequence of more land being ploughed up, and on the whole it is not a very satisfactory crop. We shall be at least a million tons less than in former years. The potato crop is very difficult indeed to estimate at this period of the year. The increase in acreage is 25 per cent.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Twenty-five per cent. over last year?
LORD CLINTON: Twenty-five per cent. in acreage over last year. Drought probably has affected the yield of the main crop, and though that has been very much alleviated by the recent rain, it is not considered safe to estimate for any increase over the big crop of last year. Within a few weeks I may be in a position to give a more reliable estimate.
With respect to milk, the dairy cattle are approximately the same in numbers as in 1917, but the milk supply will probably be less this winter owing to the smaller root crop, to less hay being available, and to the lower value of feeding-stuffs. Some set-off may be anticipated in the arrangements which have been made by the Government for the better distribution of the supply. Moreover, we have a very fair stock of condensed milk in hand. With regard to meat cattle and other stock, there is a slight decrease in the number of cattle, and there is a decrease in sheep of 4 per
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cent., or about a million. There is also a small decline in pigs, but on the whole the position is considered fairly satisfactory. It should be remembered that herds are slightly younger than they were last year owing to the lessened feeding-stuffs, and the carcases will certainly be lighter, and it may be that there will be a total decrease for slaughter. However, it is hoped that the ordinary ration may be maintained, but, supposing it is necessary to reduce that ration, we have, I understand, very ample supplies of bacon.
Those are the crops about which the noble Earl asked for information. He then asked me a very much more difficult question, and that is about the degree of self-sufficiency after the harvest of 1919. I am afraid it is quite impossible to give anything like an accurate estimate of that. It obviously depends on so many matters. It depends upon the nature of the growing season, the labour question, the amount of land we are able to maintain under crop, our ability to enforce a high standard of production, harvest risks, and many other matters.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: The noble Lord misapprehends my question. I knew he could not foresee those things. I asked him whether the Government had laid down a degree of self-sufficiency to be aimed at as a matter of Imperial strategy.
LORD CLINTON: I did not apprehend the noble Earl's question. I dare say that would be an easier question to answer, but I am afraid I have not got the reply. With regard to shipbuilding, the noble Earl knows something of our present position. I am sorry that I cannot give him any satisfactory information. All I am able to say is that a statement about shipbuilding is now being prepared by the First Lord of the Admiralty and will probably shortly be made public. I am not at present in a position to give any information about shipbuilding.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Is that because it is not in the public interest?
LORD CLINTON: I gather that it is because it is not ready. It is at the moment being prepared for the First Lord, and he will make it public shortly. The next question of the noble Earl's was in regard

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to the organisation of the motor tractor service. The noble Earl described it as "costly and inefficient." There perhaps should not be too much surprise at that criticism. It was, of course, brought in as a war measure, an emergency scheme. We were faced at the time with a great, possibly a very great, shortage of food, and the circumstances were such that it was impossible to act with due deliberation, and it was impossible to regard too much the cost. I need not go into the details of the tractor service, although I have plenty of information here for the noble Earl, if he requires it.
At the beginning of the season the Government had to find tractors where they could. Some were lent by the Russian Government; there were a few hired in this country. We gradually accumulated a supply of Government-owned tractors from overseas, and a considerable amount of work was done, of course largely of an experimental nature. It was necessary in a very short period to cram in experimental work which under ordinary circumstances would probably have taken years. We had, I think, in addition to steam tractors, something like twenty-four different types of motor tractors. These have now been reduced to six types, which of itself will add very largely to the ease of management and to efficiency. The supply of tractors from overseas has been good, and the Government own now, I think, something like 7,000, of which they are in process of disposing to tenants of between 3,000 and 4,000. It is quite clear that tractors owned by the farmers themselves will probably be cheaper and more efficient than they will be if owned by a Government, because every one will recognise that it is almost impossible for a Government Department, with its labour and machinery spread all over the country, to conduct any agricultural operations with economy or without some failures.
The noble Earl has anticipated the great changes in organisation which the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Fareham, has made. He has gone in largely for a scheme of decentralisation; he has placed a great deal more control in the hands of the executive committee and the local organisation. The executive committee appoints a chief executive officer, who is in charge of all the work in each county. Other officials are appointed under him—a tractor representative, a labour representative, a horse representative, and others. He is respon-
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sible for the carrying out of the general work of the executive committee with regard to cultivation. There is also a cultivation committee, which has control of the horse and tractor schemes which are now amalgamated, of the survey, and of the cultivation orders. In each district under the district committee there is another executive officer who generally carries out the schemes of the district, but who is responsible to the county executive officer. The tractors themselves are divided up into units of ten, and each unit is in charge of a mechanic whose duty is to keep them at work, to inspect them and overhaul them when required; and also of a supervisor who has the control of all the labour and all the drivers, and who has a store from which he issues his spare parts, fuel, etc. That is a very rough outline of the new organisation, and it seems to me to be somewhat on the lines which the noble Earl himself indicated.
The last question, I think, was about the programme of cultivation for the harvest of 1919. This has already received a considerable amount of discussion. Your Lordships are aware that at one time it was proposed to break up a largely increased area of grass. It was desired to increase our production; it was desired also to bring in a considerable quantity of "relief" land. But that scheme has fallen away; it has been made impossible owing to the call up of the 30,000 men, and I am bound to say that the President of the Board has abandoned the scheme with a great deal of regret, because he believes, and I think we all believe, that the importance of increasing the food supply is as great now as ever it was. But though the programme is for the moment given up on account of the scarcity of labour, and for that reason only, if the labour ever again becomes sufficient then I hope that we shall start on a fair-sized programme again. Meanwhile no more Ploughing-up Orders will be issued. It is hoped that a certain amount of additional grass may be obtained from the areas which we believe are going to be improved under the drainage scheme. It is, of course, impossible to say how much of such areas will actually be suitable for arable cultivation, but there is an estimate brought out which shows that there will be a considerable number; and if it is possible for sufficient prison labour to be obtained to work these areas, then they will be a very valuable addition both to our cropping areas and for use as relief land for the

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harvest of 1919. But while we have, for the reasons which I have stated, been forced to give up the programme of additional ploughing, it is, of course, all the more necessary for us to concentrate as fully as possible upon our existing land.
The noble Earl asked for some information as to fertilisers. It is hoped that there will he a considerable additional quantity of sulphate of ammonia and also of basic slag. There is an apparent shortage of potash and super-phosphate, but every effort is being made to increase the supply of these commodities before next spring. The other Departments are co-operating as far as is possible in our endeavours to increase the supply of fertilisers, which supply is of very great importance to us.
I think those are the main questions to which the noble Earl asked me to reply. The programme being abolished temporarily, the concentration on all our arable land becomes more important; and I paid special attention, as I hope your Lordships did, to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lee, in which he pointed out the absolute necessity, if that were to be done, of the Government retaining the necessary control over the cultivation and the enforcement of the rules of good husbandry. I do not want to dwell upon that for the moment, as there will no doubt be opportunities for discussing it again; but it is a matter of such very great importance that I have no doubt your Lordships will take it into careful consideration.
VISCOUNT CHAPLIN: My Lords, I shall not detain you for more than a moment, but I should like to say that I agree entirely with what fell from my noble friend who introduced this subject on two points in particular. One of those points is that the change which we are making, or are endeavouring to make, in our agricultural practice and methods at the present time is not by any means a temporary change of any kind. I entirely agree with the noble Earl that what we have to do is to make this country self-supporting in the future, at all events in regard to our essential foods—that is to say, in the main as regards bread and meat and milk and other things which we can produce in great quantities here if we choose to do so.
The other point is that, unless we make up our minds to do this, in the face of all the modern inventions which have deprived us of the advantages that we previously
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enjoyed by being an island, we shall have to make up our minds to something much worse—namely, that we shall cease to be a great country among the nations of the world. That is the real position which we have to face now; and although some of us may differ—as we undoubtedly do differ—as to the methods by which this object is to be accomplished, there the object remains. We ought to come to a full agreement as to how it can be attained, and only if we do that with all our hearts and souls shall we in this country attain an object which is, as the Prime Minister stated not long ago, "vital to the safety, to the life, and to the very existence of the nation."
LORD HARRIS: My Lords, I am sorry that I feel it my duty to throw out a warning note. I was unable to be here at the commencement of the debate, but so far as I have heard the speeches they appear to have been very congratulatory on the prospects of this year. As far as one can judge from one's own observations in one's own neighbourhood, those congratulations seem to be justified.
But the noble Lord who replied for the Department said, I think, that it was absolutely essential, given labour, that we should largely increase our production. Now, there is one factor which is a not unimportant one but about which I have not heard a word said as yet—namely, Is the product of the land going to be remunerative to the cultivator? If the farmer is going to produce but is not going to get a profit, something will certainly have to be done; and here it is to be noticed that whereas when the Corn Production Bill was passed the Government inserted a minimum wage of 25s. and a price for wheat of approximately 75s., the wages have now been approved in many counties by the Wages Boards giving something like from 30s. to 33s. for the ordinary able-bodied man, which wage has to be increased in the case of the skilled men—that is to say, the stockman, the horseman, the shepherd, and so on, up to more likely 39s.—I am told on very good information that the Government have resolutely set their faces against any increase in the price of wheat.
One is disposed to wonder whether the Government, who we know are supplying wheat to the public for the purposes of bread at below market price, are giving a longer price to the foreign producer

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than they are giving to the British producer. That is merely a query which passes through one's mind. But is is unquestionable that there are some lands—probably some lands in every county—which cannot possibly pay these wages. What is going to happen in their case? If the occupier is compelled by the Government to produce wheat, but to produce it at a loss, either the landlord must largely reduce his rent—and any good farmer will tell you that rent is an infinitesimal factor compared with the labour bill—or the Government will have to step in, oust the farmer and possibly the landlord, and produce themselves at a cost greater than the value of the produce: that is to say, the taxpayer will have to pay the difference. That is an inevitable result on certain lands of these measures which I admit have been forced upon the Government—the compulsory alteration of land from pasture into arable, the compulsory fixing of the price of corn, and the compulsory fixing of the rate of wage. I am afraid that it is a forecast which is likely to prove true; therefore I thought it was justifiable to throw out this note of warning that all is not as perfect as the speech which the noble Lord in charge of the Department in this House has delivered would lead us to believe. I believe that the present prospects are extremely favourable, but I do think that there is a cloud on the horizon.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF CRAWFORD): My Lords, the debate to-day has proceeded very largely from the point of view of home production, but Lord Selborne clearly showed in his speech that he appreciated that for the moment at any rate self-sufficiency cannot be fully attained, and therefore we must continue to rely upon imported food for a percentage of our bread-stuffs. It is from the overseas aspect that I should like to address a few words to your Lordships. Before doing so, I admit that what Lord Harris has said is very pertinent indeed. It is outside the reference which Lord Selborne was good enough to give to my noble friend beside me and to myself, and I am not prepared to make any statement on the subject; but I think Lord Harris may be sure that the Government, megalomaniac as it is popularly supposed to be, has no desire to control farms in the manner which would follow if the results which he forecast matured.
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I must say that Lord Selborne has put very pertinent questions to the Government, but they are extremely difficult to answer unless one analyses very closely what he desires to know. He asks, for instance, as to the degree of our self-sufficiency next year in wheat. It is impossible to answer that unless we settle the extraction at which we are going to use that wheat. If we are going to use it at the old pre-war extraction of 72 per cent., clearly we shall be very much less self-supporting than if we use it at the present extraction of 92 per cent.
Then he asks us what would be the degree of self-sufficiency in barley. I have to give an analogous and equally unsatisfactory answer. Our self-sufficiency in barley next year will depend upon our ability to import maize into this country. The two are allied and indeed interchangeable, and the answer altogether depends upon a variety of factors which cannot be predicted—climatic factors, economic factors, all irrespective of the great factor of tonnage. Everybody knows, and during these days everybody is giving great heed to, the contribution made by the United States to the food-stuffs of the European Allies, but who during the spring of last year would have predicted that during the autumn of last year hundreds of thousands of tons of Canadian wheat would have had to be imported by the United States of America?
During the spring of last year, or two years ago, who could have contemplated that the United States of America would have found it necessary to import large quantities of Australian wheat? Yet both those two things have happened. Surely it must make one very reluctant to prophesy about a series of conditions which are not merely doubtful with regard to our own locality but affected by so vast a concatenation of economic factors which take place in every part of the world. Therefore when one is asked what British crops are to be harvested in the summer of 1920, circumstances vary so greatly that really one must he very cautious in offering any reply.
Certain factors, however, in the food situation exist, and they remain unchangeable, and I will briefly run through some of them. First of all, I think everybody is agreed that home production must be stimulated as much as possible. It seems to me that, apart from labour, the only difference of opinion is as to technical methods—whether we should extend the ploughing of

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fresh land or concentrate our efforts upon the cultivation of that which is now arable. There is a controversy about relief land. I do not desire to enter into that; but I am quite sure that whether more land is cultivated, as Lord Lee would desire, or whether owing to labour and other shortages concentration must take place upon the existing arable land, everybody must agree that the need for stimulating home production remains unchangeable. In spite of that, and however successful that policy may be, the need to continue importation into this country must also remain. No country can say that it is self-sufficing in the matter of foodstuffs until for at least five years in succession it has been able to place itself upon an exporting basis, so great are climatic dangers and variations.
I wish from the bottom of my heart that I could accept the optimistic estimates of Lord Lee. The forty weeks' breadstuffs that he hopes to make available in the coming cereal year is, I admit, conditional upon a variety of factors to which he has drawn your Lordships' attention, but those who are responsible for overseas supplies must take the most cautious estimate of all these things. It is no comfort or consolation to those who find themselves short of bread-stuffs at Christmas to be told that there was a fine acreage in the month of May, and no estimate for October should be based upon the acreage of May.
I could give your Lordships two very concrete examples. A month ago the estimate of the Canadian crop amounted with variations to something between 250,000,000 and 300,000,000 bushels. The promise had been good, but, as occurs from time to time, there has been a succession of hot dry winds, and that yield of the Canadian crop to-day is estimated by some to have been reduced during the last four or five weeks only by anything varying from fifty to eighty million bushels, and some actually put it higher. That is the effect of adverse weather for four weeks—five weeks at the outside. There is another particular case, which I do not propose to state publicly to your Lordships but which I should like to state privately to Lord Selborne afterwards, wholly analogous, in some ways still more significant, and all tending in the same direction—firstly, that we must continue to rely on imports from overseas; and, secondly, that we must do our utmost to maintain home production.
My noble friend Lord Lee said that his forty weeks' estimate was not an exaggera-
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tion and that it was partly—indeed largely, I think he said—framed for German consumption. Well we should leave propaganda to the Propaganda Department. I do not mind a bit what the effect upon German opinion has been. I am afraid it has had a very bad effect on other persons who are more influential in controlling foodstuffs. But his estimate was based upon conditions which I fancy cannot be fulfilled. Your Lordships are aware that during the last eighteen months our bread has not been wholly made of wheat. We have used maize, we have used rice, we have used barley, oats, and beans, and, lastly, not so many potatoes as many would have desired. Potatoes have the advantage of giving a whiteness and at the same time a moisture to bread which is at times unpalatable.
As I say we have had this definite policy of admixture and dilution. My noble friend Lord Lee, in order to arrive at forty weeks supply of bread-stuffs, puts more than twice the quantity of non-wheaten cereals into the loaf than we have hitherto enjoyed, bringing up dilution of the bread to well over 40 per cent. of our flour extraction, which has been lately 92 per cent. of the berry going into the bread. Our bread, I am afraid, has not been considered palatable, though I am prepared to argue with anybody that it is quite as wholesome as that flat bread which we used to have before the war. Then, again, my noble friend assumes that the whole of the barley crop, with the exception of seed corn and I think 5 per cent, tailings, is to go into the loaf. But I do not think this can be done consistently with maintaining our live stock, and if you put the whole of our barley into the loaf it means that, unless we are to wipe out certain branches of our live stock, we have got to bring maize from South America. It would be much better surely to bring more valuable foodstuffs from South America and use the less valuable of our own crop here. If all the barley is to go into the loaf clearly none of it can go into beer. I do not happen to drink beer myself, but persons are attached to beer, and you cannot say offhand that no barley is to be put into beer without considering the reflex action which anything of that character must have on the life and happiness of our artisan population. Finally, he suggested putting two and a-half millions tons of potatoes into the loaf. Once more I am not quite sure if it can be done. What has been the result of this

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estimate? I hope it has had a salutary effect on the Germans. I am afraid here it has had a serious reaction against the policy of increased cultivation, because so many people have said—your Lordships must have heard, as I have heard, people say—If we are going to produce forty weeks bread-stuffs in this country why need we plough up any more of our old pasture? Therefore I impress upon your Lordships that, reluctant as we may be, we must continue the policy of importing breadstuff.
Then, of course, there is the question to which Lord Selborne paid brief, though very marked, attention—that of maintaining our shipbuilding policy. There, I think, everybody agrees with him; but I am cautious myself. I am just as cautious about the output of ships and the menace of submarines as I am about the yield of an acre of wheatland. The way to meet the submarine danger is, I take it, universally acknowledged. I have every reason to believe that the Admiralty is making great efforts to increase output, and I am likewise aware that the Shipping Controller is also making very great efforts to economise the use of tonnage at his disposal.
I wish to mention to your Lordships one other point, and that has reference to the question of feeding-stuffs. It has become more and more difficult to separate the problem of animal fodder from that of human bread-stuffs. They are, in many aspects, indissolubly linked together. There is no doubt that the country as a whole during the last twelve months has been lamentably short of animal feeding-stuffs. Last autumn the Cabinet settled that priority of tonnage was to be given to breadstuffs, and that animal feeding-stuffs should not be imported except where local conditions made such a course advisable. I do not quite know yet how far, or in what a degree, that policy of giving priority to bread-stuffs over animal feeding-stuffs can for the moment be revised, but it is very, very important indeed. There seems to be a prospect, certainly in my part of Scotland, of short root crop. Millers' offals during the last year in this country have, of course, been shorter than, I was going to say ever before in history, but certainly shorter than they have been since the middle of the Napoleonic Wars. I think I am right in saying that. All this reacts upon the cattle.
Again, the bread-stuff policy, which has
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carried admixture with it, which has put one-third of our barley crop into the loaf instead of giving that third of the barley crop to the animals, has again exacerbated this unfortunate state of things. I am quite sure of this, that the Government has every desire to ease the situation as regards fodder if circumstances—in other words, if tonnage considerations—permit, but I am also certain that here in this country we occupy a position far stronger, from the point of view of the population of live stock, than that of any Allied country in Europe. Substantially our cattle population is as great as it was twelve months or two years ago. Other countries have made their contribution towards solving the fodder problem by reducing their head of live stock, and it is a matter of which we should not ourselves lose sight.
I have detained your Lordships longer than I intended, but I should like to offer a word of general exhortation before concluding my remarks. We are agreed, I think, that we have to stimulate home production; that we must continue importation; that shipbuilding must be promoted, and that foodstuffs must be used with caution and with economy. But the great and the dominating note of all is to avoid waste in bread-stuffs. I am glad of this opportunity of saying so. I notice in clubs, hotels, and restaurants, and in the privacy of my own home, that there is this wave of optimism going over the country which is reflected in bread being used with less care and less economy than was the case last Christmas. Last Christmas people did not waste their bread; at midsummer this year our people are wasting their bread. I see it everywhere. Everybody who likes to take a walk down streets in the early hours of the morning and look into the dustbins will realise that bread is being wasted. It is as criminal an offence to waste bread to-day as it was six months ago. It is based on a variety of reasons—partly on the freedom with which vegetables are coming into consumption, partly on the idea that things are going better and care and caution may therefore be relaxed, and it is unfortunately reflected in the greater expectations of the public, which cannot be fulfilled unless every factor (and there are many of them in the food situation) synchronises in taking the turn for the better. I am indeed grateful to you for allowing me the opportunty of saying this.

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I most strongly advise a cautious attitude. We must run no risks. We heard about the submarine menaceending, I think, in August, 1915. Those responsible for the food supply mean to run no risks. We have strengthened our position enormously, incalculably, but much, very much, remains still to be accomplished. And, above all, we must remember that our obligations are not going to end with the termination of the war. The food obligations of this country, great as they are towards ourselves, are not confined to His Majesty's subjects within these Realms. They extend very much wider, and our obligations will not, and cannot, cease with the end of the war. It is therefore incumbent upon producer and consumer alike to do his utmost to maintain this, the vital strength of this country.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, I wish to congratulate my noble friend Lord Lee of Fareham on the speech he made this evening. I am sure it will be a great pleasure to us to bear him whenever he is disposed to take part in our proceedings, and, if he will allow me, I should like to say that I think his eighteen months as Director of Food Production has enabled him to do a great service to his country and make a real and substantial contribution to victory. I have also to thank Lord Clinton for his courteous and full answer to my Question, and particularly I thank my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal for the speech he has just delivered. He has tried to bring the people back from a wilful strain of wholly unfounded optimism. This food question is still a potential national danger, and still it is our duty to do all we possibly can to produce the maximum amount of foodstuffs from our own island. It really is the fault of the Government that this optimism has begun to glimmer. Had they not taken 30,000 men from the land at a critical moment nobody would have begun to think that our position was secure. On the top of that you see statements that, in order to do a popular thing, bread is going to be made more and more of wheat flour only; and then other speeches, all tending in the same direction, are made. I thank my noble friend for having endeavoured to bring us back to our senses at a moment when our fate is still in the balance, and when this question of food supply remains one of the controlling factors in the ultimate success or failure of the Allies.
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I am very glad the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, is in his place, because I was not at all satisfied with the answer which Lord Clinton brought from the Admiralty. I wrote to him more than a week ago to say that I should ask for figures about shipbuilding, and the answer given the noble Lord by the Admiralty certainly does not seem to me to be, as I understood it, consistent with what is due to this House. If the First Lord of the Admiralty cannot give figures for reasons of public safety, I have nothing more to say; but that was not what my noble friend said. Nor did he, as I understand him, say he really had not got figures to give, or would have them later. I understood my noble friend to say that the First Lord of the Admiralty did not choose to give the information.
LORD CLINTON: I think I told the noble Earl that the figures were not prepared, but that when they were prepared they would be made public. That was my information.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Is it that they could not have been prepared within a week, or that there was no attempt to prepare them? Such a reply as that would never have been given in the House of Commons, and we have just as much right to get information from the First Lord of the Admiralty, and I have as much right to put a Question as any member of the House of Commons. I ask Lord Lytton to ascertain whether it was that the information did not exist, or that the First Lord did not choose to give it, and be good enough to let me know.
THE ADDITIONAL PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE EARL OF LYTTON): My Lords, may I intervene for a moment? I should he very sorry if the answer that was given showed any discourtesy to the noble Earl, or to the House generally. Perhaps the position is not quite understood. The figures for which the noble Earl asked are now being prepared. If they had been given to the House this afternoon they could only have been given in an incomplete, and therefore not wholly accurate, form, and the First Lord of the Admiralty felt that it would not really be courteous, or right, to make in this House a statement which, in an incomplete form, would be misleading and inaccurate, and which in the course of a few days would have to be corrected elsewhere. The First Lord, therefore felt—and instructed my

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noble friend to say—that as these figures were not yet ready, he was not in a position to give them to the House. It is not that the information was refused. The information is not ready, and as soon as it is ready he will give it to this House if asked for, or anywhere else.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

EXCHANGE OF PRTSONERS.
VISCOUNT DEVONPORT VISCOUNT DEVONPORT rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they are able to make any general statement as to the negotiations for the exchange of British combatant and civilian prisoners interned in Germany and elsewhere; whether their attention has been called to the exceedingly high death-rate of British and Indian prisoners in Turkey; whether efforts are being made to alleviate the condition of prisoners in Turkish hands; and whether any negotiations are in progress to effect an exchange of these prisoners on some basis analogous to that concluded by the Franco-German Agreement.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I am quite sure that I shall be expressing the feelings of every member of this House when I say that we are glad to have Lord Newton with us again after the weeks of strenuous work that he has put in at The Hague. We hope, indeed I think I may say we believe, that he has had success in his mission, and that he has brought back an Agreement which will be in accordance with public expectation and desire, and which will, we hope, fix a term to the sufferings of many who have endured so long and harsh a confinement. I presume that to-day Lord Newton will make something in the nature of a general statement, probably on broad lines, to give us at all events a definite outline of the terms and conditions which he and his colleagues have succeeded in negotiating, and of course it will be necessary for us to hear what he has to say before we can administer to him any of the interrogations which will necessaruily follow, if not to-day, then at some early moment.
But I venture to put to him one, and only one, interrogation, and it is of importance. This Agreement, I assume, is in good form, and awaits ratification. Perhaps he will tell us, in his reply, how soon he expects that ratification will be effected. I submit this question to him,
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because, as he will remember, at the time that the Franco-German Agreement was adjusted ratification followed immediately. He has had experience of a great interval elapsing between the signing of an Agreement and its ratification. We hope at all events that if this Agreement is in good form, ratification will not be delayed. That is all that I have to say at the moment with regard to The Hague Convention. It is impossible to say more, and therefore I pass on to the portion of my Question which refers to the position of British and Indian prisoners in Turkish hands.
About a fortnight ago, in the House of Commons, the Leader of the House, Mr. Bonar Law, expressed the hope that indirectly The Hague negotiations would be of material advantage to the prisoners in Turkish hands. He submitted the point that if we succeeded in concluding an Agreement with the Germans it would make it more easy, and possibly more certain, that we should succeed in accomplishing something of a more definite character as affecting our prisoners in Turkish hands, and he advised those who were pressing him on the point in another place to await the return of my noble friend and his colleagues. Therefore what I have to say to some extent has a considerable bearing on these recent negotiations, because it has been generally understood—in fact, I think it has been stated on behalf of the Government—that several matters bearing directly on the position of our prisoners in Turkey would be discussed at The Hague. For obvious reasons the Germans more or less hold the key of the situation as to what their Allies do or do not do; consequently if we could bring a reasonable amount of pressure on the Germans at The Hague it would react elsewhere.
As long ago as December an Agreement was reached at Berne between our delegates, of whom Lord Newton was the chief, and the Turkish delegates, for an exchange of prisoners. The scope of the Agreement was very narrow and restricted, because it provided only for three things. The first was the exchange of civilians, the second was the exchange of doctors, and the third dealt with invalid prisoners. The civilians are insignificant in number; the doctors, of course, are not very numerous, although all-important. As regards the invalids, the Agreement provided that 300 British invalids and 700 Indians should be exchanged forthwith for 1,500 Turks, and

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those exchanges, it was laid down I believe in the negotiations, should be effected by ship sailing from Alexandria across the Mediterranean to a small port just smith of Smyrna called, I think, Scala Nuova, and that this ship should carry on the outward passage our Turkish prisoners from Egypt, and should return with British and Indian prisoners now in Asia Minor and Upper Mesopotamia. It may be a surprise to those who have not followed these matters to learn that no effect has been given to this Agreement, and that nothing whatever has happened. It was concluded in December, but only ratified in April. No ship has sailed, and the thing is a dead-letter, I am informed. I do not know whether it is a Government determination, but I assume it is, that unless and until they get some guarantee of immunity from submarine action the ship will not sail. This is one of the questions that I understand has been dealt with recently at The Hague. We were certainly given to understand that it would be raised, because we should require the guarantee from the Germans and from their Austrian allies. I would be very glad if my noble friend could inform us first as to whether that question was raised, and if so, with what result.
I shall give some figures and facts in a moment which I think will convince your Lordships as to the urgency of the exchange of prisoners being brought about speedily. First I would say, as regards the Berne Agreement, that it stands and should be made effective. Whatever the difficulties may be, it is the duty of the Government to overcome them. But there remains the larger question upon which I hope we shall receive some assurance this afternoon. The Government are already dealing with, or intend to proceed to deal with forthwith, negotiations for a general exchange. Let me say a word or two as to the condition of the prisoners as we note it from information that percolates through. I will give a figure or two bearing upon the mortality, and I think your Lordships will agree that these figures, which are not disputed by the Government, are simply appalling. Mr. Hope, in another place, dealing with the British non-commissioned officers and men who are in captivity, stated that of all the British captured on all the Fronts—that is to say, on the Palestine Front, on the Gallipoli and Mesopotamia Fronts—55 per cent. are either known to have died, or, not having been heard of since their capture, are presumed to be
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dead, and I think that is a true assumption. Of course, so far as the British noncommissioned officers and men are concerned there is no proscription as to the writing of letters, whereas among the Indians I understand there is some. Therefore if these men have not been heard from since their capture I think it is fair to assume that they will never be heard from again. And it is not surprising that the mortality has been so immense when we consider that the men of the Kut garrison, who surrendered because they were starved, within seven days of their surrender set out to march 600 miles over the desert in the hottest period of the year to railhead at a place called Ras-el-Ain. Of course, the mortality was fearful. These men at that moment ere in a weak and debilitated condition. In the circumstances it is not really surprising, when we look back, that the mortality has been so heavy.
Before I pass from this I have a figure or two here which will illustrate, perhaps, in a more illuminating way what this fearful mortality has been among the British regiments. These figures have been collated from the British regiments at home, where records are kept of the happenings in Kut of some of our well-known regiments. Take, for instance, the Oxfordshire Light Infantry. At the time of the surrender there were captured 286 men; at the present moment there are only 77 of these believed to be alive. Of the Norfolk Regiment 253 were taken at the surrender; of those, 89 only are believed to be still alive. Of the Royal Artillery, Regulars, 731 were taken; of those, only 159 survive to-day. And of the Territorial Artillery 72 were taken, and 14 survive. Summarised, the figures are these:—Out of 1,342 captured, there are only 339 alive; that is to say, 74 per cent. are believed to have died.
As regards the Indian non-commissioned officers and men, Mr. Hope stated in the House of Commons that out of 6,238 men. 3,946 were dead or had not been heard of since their capture. I do not assume that they are all dead in the case of the Indians, because, as I mentioned just now, I understand there is a restriction placed on their correspondence—I do not know why, but it is so; but, assuming that all those who have not been heard of are dead, it would be 63 per cent. But I prefer to assume, and I think we can do that without possibility of question from any quarter, that 50 per cent. of them are dead.
This is not going unnoticed in India. I observed the other day, and I dare say many of your Lordships did too, a communication that was published in The Times and possibly in other papers, that came from Madras. It stated this—
" A strong feeling exists throughout India that on effort should be spared on behalf of the men who became prisoners of the Turks on the fall of Kut. There is danger in the great events which are occurring in the other theatres of war that these men may be forgotten. There is another danger. Such are the hardships that the defenders have been made to undergo in captivity that, in default of prompt and vigorous action on the part of the British and Indian Governments, none of these heroes may live to be restored to liberty."
Of course, that is what we feel with regard to the English prisoners. The telegram adds:—
" A petition is now being circulated in the Madras Presidency asking that arrangements may be set on foot for the exchange of these men."
Is it not obvious that if this remnant is to be saved some immediate action must be taken? There is no time to lose. I hope we shall hear—we shall be disappointed if we do not—that the Government have already taken action to resume negotiations with the Turkish Government, fist of all, so that the Berne Agreement, for what it is worth, may become effective; and, secondly, for the negotiation of an Agreement formulated on the lines of the Franco-German Agreement, or perhaps of the Agreement that my noble friend (Lord Newton) has brought back from The Hague.
It is, I am told by those who know, of the utmost importance that steps should be taken, if they are to be taken, to bring about this exchange before the winter comes again. As your Lordships know full well, in Asia Minor and in Upper Mesopotamia the winters are very severe, and the supply of clothing that the men have at the present moment is most defective and deficient. The Dutch Government, I believe, have supplied some, but from what I hear it is not of very good quality, and is lacking in quantity too. And of course, coupled with this, the inadequacy of the food supplies is calculated to drain the strength of these men so that they cannot sustain any further hardships that are associated with a severe winter.
With regard to the food position itself I do not like to over-state it, but I do not think I do when I say that it is really
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desperate. There is a great shortage of food there. Take, for example, the officers' position. They receive no rations all from their captors. They are compelled to feed and clothe themselves. They have to go into the open markets to purchase their supply, and the prices are fabulously high; indeed, they are famine prices. Bread is 2s. 6d. per lb. We think we are badly done by if we pay 9d. for a 4 lb. loaf, but their bread is 2s. 6d. per lb. Meat is 5s. per lb.; butter, 20 s. per lb.; and sugar 10 s. per lb. Now, that is bad enough. But you will agree that it has a worse aspect when I say that the pay allowed to the officers to make these purchases is, first of all, that which they receive from the Turkish Government. They make them a payment, not as we do to prisoners who come here from Germany and elsewhere, on the basis of their rank and on some agreed basis, but they make a payment of £6 to £7 per officer; nothing higher than £7. I do not know why there is that small difference, but there it is. An officer of the highest rank does not get more than £7, and an officer of the lowest rank does not get less than £6.
LORD GAINFORD: £7 a month?
VISCOUNT DEVONPORT: Yes, £7 a month. Then the British Government remit through the Netherlands Government—which is the Government looking after our interests at Constantinople—a further amount of the value (at all events when it leaves here) of £10 or £15 per officer per month, according to rank. But when this money gets there, what is its value? The £10 or £15 has shrunk to a value of £2 or £3, because, although the money is paid in here in good British sterling, it is paid out at the other end in depreciated Turkish currency—paper. To give one example of what it really means, £16 sent from this country will provide only £3 worth of purchasing power when it gets into the hands of the officer, because the paper currency there has shrunken by nearly one-sixth of its original value. Therefore the predicament of these men is terrible to contemplate.
Further than that, unlike prisoners in Germany, these men cannot rely upon receiving parcels. At one time there was a parcels-post open, but even then 70 per cent. of the parcels sent from here failed to arrive; and since last March the parcels-post has been entirely closed at the instance

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of the Austrian Government. The parcels to get to Constantinople and thus into Asia Minor must go through Austria for some reason which I do not know. But perhaps my noble friend will be able to tell me—because this was a matter which was to be discussed at The Hague—why it is that the facilities for the transmission of parcels has been brought to an end at the instance of the Austrian Government.
Then as regards the rations for the men, the Turkish Government claim that they are receiving precisely the same rations as the Turkish soldiers. That may be true; I do not doubt it; but it is totally inadequate and insufficient for these men who are engaged on very heavy work. The bulk of the men are engaged on the Baghdad Railway, some of them on straightfoward construction work near Mosul (I think the place is), and others are in the Taurus Mountains engaged in tunnelling work. These men have always been accustomed to a meat dietary and they find it impossible satisfactorily to sustain themselves; hence the mortality amongst them is large. I am going to make an appeal to LordNewton on this question of helping the officers to keep going whilst they are in captivity, because many of them have not only their immediate wants to provide, but they have responsibilities at home; they are married and have families to sustain here; and as long as the drain on them is so heavy, owing first of all, to the enormous prices, and secondly to the depreciated currency, it is impossible for them to make both ends meet. Those who represent them feel strongly that the Government ought to make an announcement that this abnormal expenditure to which these men are put should be made good to them on their return, This would make a very great difference, and relieve them from a great amount of anxiety; it would also enable them to finance the position in some way which it is now impossible for them to do.
The great need at the moment is to get the whole of these men away. There are very few of them compared with what there were two years ago. I am going to state the numbers, and I will overstate them; if I were to give the figures that were given to me I should place them much lower than I am going to do, but I prefer to be over the mark rather than under it. I am told that there are only 2,000 British officers, non-commissioned officers, and men in the hands of the Turks, and 3,000 to 4,000 Indians;
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whereas we hold 50,000 Turkish prisoners. With 50,000 Turks in hand I think we ought to manage to get away 5,000 of our subjects. I do not suggest how it is to be done, but it ought to be done. Before I forget it, I may say that I promised to mention the 600 British prisoners in Bulgaria; I hope they will not be forgotten.
All I have to say, in conclusion, is that I think we are entitled to ask for some declaration of the intention of the Government in this matter. We want to hear whether the Government are determined to act; not to say to us, "Well, the difficulties are great; we have concluded an Agreement but nothing has materialised; what more can we do?" I do not think that this will satisfy public opinion. The Government will really have strenuously to apply themselves to saving this situation. There are shipping difficulties, of course, in connection with the Berne Agreement, but is it impossible to get these men back? Is it not possible to exchange them in some other way? I am told—in fact, it is not disputed—that immediately after the fall of Kut 1,000 men on each side consisting of the very worst cases—men, I suppose, so bad that there was no possibility of their marching—were exchanged and passed through the respective lines. It occurs to those who are watching this matter that there may be some possibility of effecting an exchange in that way.
My last word is straying, perhaps, a little away from the Question I have on the Paper, but it has an all-important bearing on the subject of the exchange of prisoners; it relates to the administration of all matters appertaining to prisoners. As your Lordships know, there is at the present moment divided authority controlling matters. We have first of all Lord Newton's Department, which is housed at the House of Lords, near by; then we have General Belfield's Department at the War Office. and Lord Sandwich's Department at Thurloe-place. They are all interested in the same individual. There is no concentration or co-ordination of organisation. It has been objected to and protested against repeatedly in the last two years. The noble Lord, Lord Newton, himself was good enough to say, in a speech which he made here prior to his departure for The Hague, that if we had known that the war was going to last three years we probably should have seen the wisdom of establishing a Ministry to deal with this all important

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question. Well, I say now that it is more important still that it should be done. We have been dealing with small counters in the past as regards exchanges; now we are going to deal, not with hundreds but with thousands, tens of thousands and probably hundreds of thousands of men, and if we have this divided authority, as sure as I stand here, before many week, are over there will be an outburst of public indignation from the relatives, and from those who are interested in the prisoners, because they will be wanting to ask all sorts of questions, and they will be expecting to get all sorts of information, and if we are to send them, as often in the past, from pillar to post before they get it I think it will lead to trouble. So, my Lords, I hope we shall hear something as to whether there is a possibility of a Ministry being established. We have had a good many Ministries set up, and people have objected to them. This will be one, I think, which they would cordially approve of, so that the whole question of prisoners could be co-ordinated and dealt with in a concentrated form. I beg to ask the Question standing in my name on the Paper.
LORD BERESFORD: My Lords, I should like to support Lord Devonport in his efforts to get further information about the prisoners. The noble Lord, Lord Newton, has returned from The Hague, and I hope he will have some sort of good news, or better news with regard to the prisoners in Germany. But what I wish to bring before your Lordships is the question of the prisoners in Turkey. Lord Devonport has explained their condition. There is really only about one-third of them left. The question is most immediate. If we cannot supply these prisoners with food, clothing, and drugs before the winter I do not believe that one single man of them will come back.
Think of the brilliant action that these prisoners carried out at Kut-el-Amara and at Ctesiphon, which the Prime Minister of that day described as the one bright spot in the war. It was not their fault that they had to give in; they had to give in owing to the superiority of numbers and lack of food; but their heroic defence has not been beaten in any tradition in history. That is my view of the situation. I want also to ask Lord Newton whether he can tell us anything about the brilliant Commander of that Expedition. We have
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heard nothing about Sir Charles Townshend lately. Has any effort been made to obtain his release or to get him exchanged or brought home? We should like very much to hear what has happened to Sir Charles Townshend, where he is, and what efforts the Government are making to get him back to this country.
I agree with Lord Devonport as to the question of finance. The relatives of these unfortunate prisoners, not only those who have died but those who are alive, should be assured by the Government that they will get some sort of pension or a sum of money to make up for the extraordinary drain on their resources owing to the rate of exchange and the difficulties they have of getting money out there. One more point which Lord Devonport mentioned was the question of putting the whole of the establishment under one bureau. It is a very difficult thing, if you have to refer to three or four different heads, as I understand it is at present. If Lord Newton were given commission or authority to undertake the whole of this business he might do so. As it is at present it appears to be under different Departments, which entails very great delay.
I once more plead for these men in Turkey. They did their duty as well as duty has ever been carried out by British soldiers. There have been any amount of conferences with regard to the German prisoners, but we have not heard of any conference, or any efforts—they may have been made, I cannot say—but personally I have not heard of any effort that has been made particularly on behalf of these prisoners in Turkey. We owe them a debt that we cannot repay; the least we can do is to try and save the lives of the deplorably small remainder of these men now prisoners in Turkey.
LORD SYDENHAM: My Lords, may I say a few words in support of the definite proposition with which the noble Viscount, Lord Devonport, concluded his speech. There is a very widespread feeling throughout the country that the question of the handling of the prisoners has left much to be desired from first to last, and the terrible account which the noble Viscount has given to the House of the gradual dying of these fine men who are prisoners in Turkey will go very far to strengthen that feeling. The reason has been, I am

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sure, that from first to last there has been no proper machinery set up to deal with this great question. It began on a very small scale, but it has now grown to very large dimensions, and may still expand to larger dimensions before the war is ended.
This question has really got quite out of hand. Lord Newton, as we know, feels the keenest sympathy with these much suffering men, and we know that he has done his best, but from first to last he has never had sufficient power. There are far too many Departments and too many offices which are sharing the responsibility and not properly fulfilling it. I am quite certain that the only possible course is to put the whole matter of the prisoners—prisoners at home as well as prisoners abroad—under one responsible head. We have lately been told that we have now got ninety-one Ministers, and one more Minister cannot matter very much. I think the general feeling against creating new Ministries arises from the fact that it is assumed at once that some enormous new hotel will be taken and a staff of three or four thousand people will be gathered together in that hotel. But that is not the least necessary, it seems to me, in this particular cases. It is only required to bring certain Departments now working apart together under one distinctly responsible head. It was believed before the war that under the Convention of The Hague due provision had been made for the humane treatment of prisoners in future wars. All the hopes that sprang from that Convention were dashed to the ground owing to the vile conduct of our enemies with regard to these helpless men. I feel that no efforts can be too great, and no sacrifice of a larger number of prisoners on our side can he too great, to get these men out of the sufferings which they are now enduring. I believe we can only succeed by appointing one single Minister responsible directly to the War Cabinet for the whole question of prisoners at home and abroad.
THE ASSISTANT UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD NEWTON): My Lords, the three noble Lords who have spoken have introduced a question which in reality has little relevance to that which appears on the Paper—namely, that concerning the administration of prisoners of war in this country. I have frequently explained the position to the best of my ability, and
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all I can say is that the decision upon this point does not rest with me. It is a question for the Cabinet, and if the Cabinet choose to appoint a Ministry of Prisoners it is for them to say so. But I would venture to point out, without attempting to defend myself personally, that the system which prevails in this country with regard to prisoners is precisely the same system, so far as I know, as that which prevails in every other country, and I am myself, I admit, somewhat sceptical as to whether any marked results would be effected by the proposed change. I quite agree that the addition of, say, a ninety-second member of the Government is not in itself an addition of much importance, but if you are going to withdraw all the requisite officials from the Departments concerned, then it is obviously a large question which requires considerable consideration. I can only repeat that it is a question on which, happily, I have not myself got to decide.
Now, my Lords, with regard to the Question on the Paper. The first portion of the Question relates to the Agreement which has recently been signed at The Hague with Germany, and of course the House will understand that, that Agreement not having been ratified, I am precluded and forbidden from entering upon any details, but it is now public property that the Agreement of which I speak is one of a very far-reaching character, which involves the exchange of a very large number of combatants, and which also involves the exchange, or rather the repatriation, of all such civilians as wish to return to their respective countries; and, of course, the Agreement also deals largely wit h all questions relating to the treatment of prisoners. The negotiations, I may say, were not only protracted but extremely difficult, and I might add that they were in no degree facilitated by the active campaign which was being waged simultaneously in this country against enemy aliens here; but these difficulties were fortunately surmounted at the last moment, and an Agreement was arrived at to the mutual satisfaction of both sides. The noble Lord asked me when the ratification was likely to take place, and whether speedily, and he instanced, not for the first time, that the Franco-German Agreement had been ratified very quickly. If the noble Lord had been engaged in these negotiations himself he would have realized

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that an Agreement between the German Government and the British Government is a very much more difficult matter than negotiations between the German and the French Governments.
In this particular Agreement there is a vast number of details, and a great number of points had to be considered. They are points of great importance, and candidly, although I am naturally more anxious than anybody else that the Agreement should be rapidly ratified, these points will, I expect, require a good deal of consideration on the part of His Majesty's Government, and if they require consideration on the part of His Majesty's Government they will in all probability require longer consideration on the part of the German Government. I may add, too, a warning note—that there is a reservation on the part of the German delegates which may in itself occasion considerable trouble; but the noble Lord may be perfectly satisfied that, as far as I and my fellow delegates are concerned, we shall naturally do our utmost to expedite the process of ratification. I do not know that there is anything that I can add with regard to this particular Agreement to-day. I shall, of course, be only too pleased to give the fullest details as soon as I am in a position to do so.
I would pass from that portion of the noble Lord's Question to the part which relates to Turkey; and here let ire observe that I do not think the noble Viscount, or many of the other critics of the Government, have realised how very much more difficult is the position with regard to Turkey than it is with regard to Germany when you are dealing with prisoners. At all events, when you are dealing with the German Government you are dealing with a Government which knows what it wants and to a certain degree is anxious to effect exchange; but the Turkish Government neither knows what it wants, nor in the least degree is anxious to effect any exchange at all. I wish to emphasise that fact. Ever since the war began there has been only one Turkish prisoner in whom the Turkish Government has taken any interest, and that man has ceased to take any interest in his own fate. As to the rest of the prisoners in our hands—the 50,000 of whom the noble Lord spoke—I honestly believe that the Turkish Government does not care one fig whether any of them are ever released or not. That really
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constitutes the whole difficulty. I have observed a tendency on the part of critics to blame us for the failure of these negotiations because we are supposed not to have employed experts for the purpose—I mean experts on Turkey. I really would ask the noble Lord to believe me when I say that we are not quite so simple, or foolish, as we are supposed to be.
VISCOUNT DEVONPORT: I never said anything about experts.
LORD NEWTON: Possibly not, but it has been frequently alleged that we have been unsuccessful because we have not employed the right people. We have employed experts and made every use of them, and I can assure the noble Viscount and the House that no means have been neglected to impress upon the Turks the advisability of coming to an agreement with us. No means have been neglected at all.
Now let me endeavour to deal with the complaints made by the noble Viscount—when I say "complaints," it is hardly the correct word to use, because so far as I remember the facts that he gave are almost absolutely correct. I will deal first with the question of mortality. The noble Viscount was perfectly right in saying that the rate of mortality has been excessive and that it is deplorable, but what I want to point out is that, this excessive mortality took place in consequence of the sufferings which the unfortunate men had undergone who were transported from Kut to their respective camps. That is the fact which accounts for the very excessive mortality, and it is known that after the men arrived in the permanent camps the rate of mortality decreased, although I admit that unfortunately it is much higher than it ought to be. With regard to treatment, the information that we receive from time to time tends to show that there has been an improvement, and that this improvement may most certainly be attributed to the result of the conference which took place between the two Governments in the winter at Berne. When the reports are eventually received from the inspectors who are to be sent by the Dutch Legation to the camps in question we shall be able to judge how far this improvement has extended. I regret to say that it has not yet been possible to despatch these inspectors on their work.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Why not?
LORD NEWTON: The noble Marquess might as well ask why many other things have not been done, and if he had to deal with-the Turkish Government he would, perhaps, realise the extreme difficulty of getting things done. With regard to relief allowances, it is perfectly true that there has been a very great depreciation, but recently the Netherlands Minister has been authorised to send remittances more than double as great as those previously allowed, and at the present moment something between £50,000 and £60,000 a month is being spent upon these allowances. Whether these allowances should be increased or not is a matter for the War Office and for the Treasury, and I have no doubt that the arguments of the noble Viscount and his friends will be borne in mind.
Now with regard to food. The noble Lord complains that the food parcels do not reach these prisoners, and that they are consequently inadequately fed. This is another of the difficulties which have to be faced in dealing with prisoners in Turkey. All parcels have to go through enemy countries. The noble Viscount asked me why they could not be sent in some other way. There is no other way that occurs to me.
VISCOUNT DEVONPORT: I did not suggest any other arrangement with regard to parcels. I made no suggestion, but I said that parcels to Constantinople and Asia Minor must necessarily go through Austria.
LORD NEWTON: I am sorry if I misunderstood the noble Viscount, but I understood him to suggest that there were other methods of enabling parcels to reach the prisoners than through enemy countries. That, unfortunately, is not the case, because the only other method of enabling parcels to reach the prisoners would be by sea, and it is obviously impossible to send parcels by sea to an enemy port. At the present moment the reason why fool parcels are not reaching prisoners in Turkey is that they are stopped in Austria, and, in consequence of this stoppage of our parcels by the Austrians, we have stopped Austrian parcels being sent to Austrian prisoners here. We hope that this will remedy the situation. The only really satisfactory way of providing for the needs of the prisoners, either as regards food or as
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regards clothing, was the method which we agreed upon at Berne—namely, that a ship should take Turkish prisoners to Turkey, bring back British and Indian prisoners, and at the same time convey food and clothing for the use of British prisoners. The noble Viscount seems surprised that the ship has not yet started. Ever since the Agreement has been ratified we have been endeavouring to secure the despatch of this ship, but it must be perfectly obvious, in the first place, that you cannot despatch a ship until a guarantee against attack has been given by the enemy, and, in the second place, that it would be very unwise to do so until we knew that the Turkish Government had collected the British prisoners at the place where they were to be picked up.
The Turkish Government have not carried out either of these two provisions. So far as we know they have not—or, at any rate, they have done very little in that direction—collected the men at the port at which it was agreed they are to be collected, and I very much doubt whether they have taken any real steps to obtain the necessary safeguards from the German Government with regard to the safety of the ship. When we were at The Hague we received directions to approach the German Government with regard to this particular question, and I personally approached one of the chief German delegates upon it and he gave me an assurance that he would take the matter up immediately upon his return to Berlin. I trust, therefore, that we shall shortly succeed in obtaining some assurance, but the noble Viscount may be satisfied that we have been continually pressing to obtain this assurance, up to now unfortunately without any success.
The noble Viscount asks whether His Majesty's Government were prepared to make any definite proposals with regard to further exchange. The House is probably familiar with the terms of exchange already agreed upon with regard to invalids; and "invalid," let me explain, is a very wide term and ought to cover a very large number of men. I understand that the Cabinet are quite prepared to make further proposals with regard to an exchange, and I hope to be able to announce in a few days exactly what has been decided. For my part, I have always been firmly convinced—I have never altered my opinion at all—that the only solution of this question so far as Turkey is concerned, is the ex-change of prisoners. We have done our

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best up to now to exchange invalids only, and in view of our failure to do that, I am afraid that the prospect of the Turkish Government agreeing to a total exchange is even more improbable. But I should like to make it perfectly clear that there has never been any opposition on our part to anything of the kind, and that all the opposition has come from the side of the Turkish Government, which, I can only repeat, has never shown the smallest disposition to an exchange or to meet our demands in any sort of way. As far as I am concerned, I can assure the noble Viscount that I will do my utmost to bring about an exchange on as wide a scale as possible. What particular form the proposal will take depends upon the decision of the Cabinet, but I can only say again that in a wide, far-reaching exchange I personally see the only satisfactory solution of this question.
LORD BURNHAM: What about the prisoners in Bulgaria?
LORD NEWTON: I am coming to that. The noble Lord, Lord Beresford, addressed a question to me with special reference to General Townshend. It has always been the practice of His Majesty's Government—and in my opinion it is a thoroughly sound practice—not to entertain the question of what are known as individual exchanges, and I do not think that any-body asserts that, so far as exchanges are concerned, General Townshend has any higher claim to be exchanged than any other officer who has been taken prisoner by the Turks. I have always understood that his position is not considered to be different from that of other officers who have the misfortune to be prisoners at the present time, and that all cases must be dealt with on the same basis. With regard to Bulgaria, when we were at The Hague I was able to get into communication with the Bulgarian Minister there, upon instructions from His Majesty's Government, and we have ascertained that the Bulgarian Government are quite ready to negotiate an Agreement with us upon the lines of that which has just been signed between ourselves and the German Government.
LORD BERESFORD: May I ask my noble friend whether any effort is being made at this moment for Sir Charles Townshend and the rest of the officers by way of exchange?
LORD NEWTON: The whole course of ray speech, or of a large portion of it, was made with the object of showing—I am afraid I have lamentably failed—that we have been consistently trying for a long time to exchange not only General Townshend but the other officers and all the combatants in Turkey.
LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE: May I ask my noble friend if it has been considered whether it would not be possible to exchange prisoners either by way of Baghdad, or, better still, by way of Jerusalem? That would not necessitate the use of any shipping. Of course, no provisions could be sent, but it would do away with any danger of the submarine menace.
VISCOUNT BRYCE: Before the noble Lord answers I should like to ask another question. He is aware, and the House is aware, that the United States is not technically at war with Turkey, and I have some reason to think that objects destined for relief have succeeded in finding their way into Turkey, and I do not think it is certain that they found their way in through Austria. I would like to suggest to the noble Lord whether it is not possible that this fact that the United States is not at war may not be used to enable some other way than the way through Austria to be found for sending parcels into Turkey for the benefit of our prisoners, As regards what he has said about Turkey, it is perfectly true, and any one who has any knowledge or dealings with Turkey knows, that their total want of humanity extends to their own people, and therefore we, as a civilised Power, have nothing to offer them. Barbarians like the Turks do not care what becomes of their own prisoners, and they naturally do not feel the same desire to get them back as a civilised Power would feel. I sincerely hope that the Government will do all they possibly can for these unfortunate fellow countrymen of ours in Turkey. Like all who have spoken, I feel that the noble Lord has done all in his power, and we are grateful to him fur the efforts he has made.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I should like to emphasise one or two points. I am under no illusion as to the character of the Turks. I have not, perhaps, the same experience as Lord Bryce, but I know, during the course of

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foreign policy for many years that the Turks are quite impossible to negotiate with, but that there are, sometimes, means of approaching them which they value (not of a kind we generally talk about) and which is often very effective, and would certainly be justifiable in the case of the relief of prisoners.
A good deal has been said of the difficulty of getting parcels through Austria. It occurred to some of us sitting on this bench to ask why parcels should not be sent by sea. The noble Lord opposite dealt with the question of using the sea route in respect of prisoners, but he did not deal with it in respect of parcels. He was dealing with the difficulties and the objections to the sea route as regards prisoners, and one of his reasons for hesitating to adopt the plan was that the Turks have shown no signs of collecting British prisoners at an appropriate Turkish port, and therefore it would be premature to send a ship with Turkish prisoners to meet them. That may be perfectly true, but that criticism does not apply to parcels, and I do not see any reason, on the face of it, why parcels should not be sent by sea to a Turkish port and delivered there. At any rate they would have a better chance of arriving than if they were stopped in their passage through Austria. I make that suggestion to my noble friend for his consideration. I ventured to interrupt (and I hope the noble Lord did not think I was rude) when he was speaking of the despatch of the Dutch inspectors to the Turkish camps where British prisoners are found. I think that was an arrangement come to as far back as December of last year.
LORD NEWTON: Yes, but not ratified until April.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: At any rate, it was ratified in April of this year. That is several months ago, and I should like to ask where the difficulty of getting these Dutch inspectors has arisen. It may arise from the difficulties raised by the Dutch Government, but I do not think my noble friend suggested this. He suggested that the difficulty was always with the Turks. I should certainly think that, as the Dutch Government is neutral, they would be likely to have much more effect in pressing the point upon the Turkish Government than we should ourselves, and I should hope the Dutch Government
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would have been willing to use all the pressure in their power for so humane a purpose as sending their inspectors to Turkish camps where British prisoners are found. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he thinks everything has been done to induce a friendly Government like the Dutch to do their utmost on behalf of prisoners and, in particular, in obtaining the authority for these inspectors to visit Turkish camps.
Lastly I should like to press again the point, which has been already mentioned by Lord Devonport, as to the pecuniary compensation of our wretched fellow-countrymen in these circumstances. I confess it was impossible for us to listen without emotion to the account Lord Devonport gave of the terrible sufferings of these officers and men, and if it is merely a question of money, trifling and trivial, in order to enable them to buy the necessary provisions to keep body and soul together, there is nobody, not a single man, in either House of Parliament, or the country, who would not spend ten times the sum to achieve that end. I am quite certain that my noble friend has only to represent this to the War Office, or to the Cabinet, to get an immediate assent, and that any sum of money which is necessary to be sent to our officers and men under these distressing circumstances would be readily and instantly granted for so great and noble a purpose. I desire to press that point very much upon my noble friend.
In the course of his speech Lord Newton said that. he was afraid the Agreement which he has brought back—I 4m glad he has brought it back—from The Hague would require a good deal of consideration in its details. That may be so. I should he very sorry to criticise that, but I earnestly hope, so far as the British Government is concerned, the consideration will he got through in the shortest possible time. There has been—shall I say—perhaps a little too much consideration. We want things done promptly, and so far as this Government is concerned we earnestly hope they will not allow any unnecessary delay to take place.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, I want, not for the first time, to say a single word about part of the answer which the noble Lord has made to-night. We all believe he has done his best in an extremely difficult

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matter, but what does seem to me to be somewhat strange is that, time after time, when this question comes up, the noble Lord has said, "I have done this; the rest does not rest with me; it rests with the Cabinet." We do not care who it rests with. The Question is not addressed to the noble Lord; it is addressed to the Government, and we have been told, at last on five different times, that the noble Lord has done what he could, but that the rest is the responsibility of His Majesty's Government. It seems to me to be a strange mode of treating this House. I think we are entitled to have a direct answer from the Government to the Question asked. It is really an important matter, and this is not the kind of way in which the answer should be given.
LORD NEWTON: I am very sorry if my answers do not give general satisfaction in this House, but I think the obvious reply is that all really important matters concerning prisoners have to go to the Cabinet, and they will continue to do so, so far as I know. That really is not my fault.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: Certainly not. I make no imputation against the noble Lord.
LORD NEWTON: I do not very well see what else can be expected. Differences of opinion must constantly arise, and, if they do arise, they must be eventually decided by the War Cabinet. I will endeavour, shortly, to answer the questions put to me by the noble Marquess. I should like to assure him that the additional arguments which he suggested might be used with respect to the Turks have not by any means been overlooked. I thought that I had already conveyed that in my speech. With regard to his proposal that the parcels should go in the ship, I do not think that he quite realises that that ship would not be going to a neutral port, but to a belligerent port. And what are the prospects of its getting there?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: It would be a neutral ship.
LORD NEWTON: It might get there, but on the other hand it is extremely probable that it would be torpedoed. It would have to he protected, and even then it might not arrive. The other point was
1110
as to the inspectors. Inspectors exist. I saw one the other day on his way out there. In addition, there are inspectors at Constantinople, at the Dutch Legation, but the Dutch Legation cannot get permission from the Turkish Government to send them to inspect the camps. I have no doubt that the Dutch Legation do their best with the Turkish Government, but, like ourselves, they are not so successful as they ought to be.
One further suggestion was made by my noble friend upon the Cross Benches, Lord Oramnore and Brown—namely, that in view of the difficulties attending transport by sea the prisoners should be exchanged over land. That is a solution which has constantly occurred to me, and probably to many other people, but I have always been told that it is a thing to which the military authorities on every side refuse to consent. It was carried out immediately after the capitulation of Kut, but that, I believe, is the only occasion on which it has been done, and I presume that the military objections with regard to it are insurmountable. At all events, whenever I have approached them on the subject I have always been told that they would not consider it.

STATEMENTS BY RETURNED PRISONERS.
LORD BURNHAM LORD BURNHAM rose to ask the Parliamentary Secretary of the War Office what are the Regulations in force as to statements made for publication by prisoners of war returning to this country as to their treatment by the enemy; whether such statements have to be submitted to the military authorities; and whether the Army Council will issue further authorised communications on the subject.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a Question put down purely and simply for public information. I want to clear away the haze of ignorance, and possibly of misunderstanding, that exists not only in the country but I believe in the forces of the Crown as to the conditions under which statements may be made by returned prisoners of war as to their treatment—and in nine cases out of ten it is ill-treatment—in enemy prisons and in enemy camps. Prisoners of war returning are of two classes. There are the exchanged prisoners and there are the escaped prisoners, and it does not follow that the

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same rule ought to apply to the one class as to the other, but at the present time there is an impression that such Regulations as exist are not applied equally in all cases, and that there is an amount of restraint imposed upon returned prisoners of war which is not justifiable either in their interests or in the interests of the country.
So far as I understand, my Lords, the only Regulation that bears upon this matter is the well-known Army Regulation No. 453 which lays down that "an officer or soldier is forbidden to publish in any form whatever, or communicate, either directly or indirectly, to the Press, any military information, or his views on any military subject, without special authority." It goes on to say that he is not to prejudge questions which are under the consideration of superior military authorities by the publication of his opinions, and even if they approve and sanction publication they do not in any way endorse the contents of the statements that he may make. I think that has not been evenly applied in some cases. Statements are made in the Press in some cases, and statements are made from the platform in other cases, and it is said that there has been an official refusal to sanction any sort of publicity being given to these experiences.
I dare say that there are a certain number of people who are afraid that the full statement of what our men have undergone in enemy countries may further exacerbate and enrage public opinion. I do not think that we need fear that public sentiment can be more embittered and more enraged than it is now, and I believe that the best thing that can be done is that the whole truth shall be stated so that the public can see into the dark places of the organised and systematic brutality which we know them to have been. I do not think that the statement can be too full, but I admit that it is quite right that the military authorities should exercise a certain authority as to the mode of publication, and as to the time of publication. For example, it is undesirable that statements should be made such as we react from a Fleet paymaster which were afterwards repudiated by the authorities. These things are greedily seized upon by the directors of enemy propaganda in order to discredit the whole of the indictment that is drawn up against the barbarous ill-treatment that our men have suffered abroad. Therefore I do not question that the military autho-
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rities are right in insisting on all statements being submitted to them.
I distinguish, however, between ex-changed prisoners and escaped prisoners. I think that in regard to escaped prisoners there is not the same reason for a strict elimination of what might be undesirable in the case of exchanged prisoners, for obvious reasons. I am told on good authority, by a member of your Lordships' House, that escaped prisoners feel very bitterly the manner in which the tales that they have to tell have been received in some official quarters. Whether that is justifiable or not I cannot say, but I am told it upon the authority of one whose word would have credence with your Lordships. If that is so, the impression ought to be removed. In any case, it is desirable that sailors and soldiers who come back after their woeful experiences should know where they are. At the present moment there is very little to guide them, and I can assure my noble friend who is about to answer this Question that there is a feeling of great resentment that they have been muzzled from impressing upon their fellow-countrymen the horrors that are going on, especially, as we know, behind the lines and on commando in enemy countries.
I am not going to trouble your Lordships with any further observations, because I am looking forward to the reply of the noble Lord who I hope will not only be able to answer in the way that I , but will also be able to say that in due time the Army Council mean to make a further and authorised publication on this subject of material acquired from all the sources within their knowledge, and carefully sifted as to the veracity of the statements made. Public opinion requires it, and I venture to think that such publication can, in spite of any difficulties that there may be, do nothing but good, and it is for that purpose that. I put the Question.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE WAR OFFICE (Earl STANHOPE): My Lords, I am glad that my noble friend has put this Question, because I agree with him. I think that there is a certain amount of misunderstanding on the subject. The only Regulation which deals with this subject is the one which he quoted, No. 453. The attention of our men as they come back to this country, whether escaped prisoners or repatriated, is rawn to this paragraph of the Regulations for several

1113
reasons. I think your Lordships will agree with them all. In the first place, I may say that as far as the War Office is concerned—and I should imagine every other Department of His Majesty's Government—we feel that the more publicity is given to these statements the better. They are just exactly the things that we feel the country ought to know; we feel that any idea of an unsatisfactory peace or of accepting any statement which is made by the Germans without question is far less likely if the truth as to the treatment of our prisoners in Germany is understood.
The reasons why we imposed these rules on repatriated prisoners is this. As regards those who escape, we are anxious that no information should be published which might give away the method by which they escaped from the German camps and—perhaps even more than that—that nobody who assisted them in their escape (either our own prisoners or possibly civilians or neutrals) should be discovered and be prevented from helping other men who may succeed in escaping later on. As regards those who are repatriated, there again there is a possibility that information might be given which would be detrimental to prisoners still in German hands. We are very anxious, as your Lordships will agree, that that should be safeguarded with great care.
In addition, we feel that cases such as the noble Lord quoted should be safeguarded and that a case which, alas, is only too strong should not be spoilt by exaggeration or statements which are difficult to substantiate. Therefore we are anxious that every statement which is made should be carefully investigated before it is published. What is done is this. Every escaped and repatriated prisoner on arrival in this country is interviewed by a Government Committee which is formed for that purpose, called the Government Committee on the Treatment by the Enemy of British Prisoners of War. Its chairman is Sir Robert Younger. If depositions have already been taken in neutral countries then prisoners do not attend, but in other cases I think every prisoner, escaped or repatriated, is interviewed by this Committee. There are several barristers on the Committee who are skilled in taking evidence, in sifting it carefully, and in bringing out the points which we think should be given prominence, and to which public attention should be
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drawn. A copy of the evidence so produced is then sent to the War Office purely for the purposes of censorship, to safeguard those three points to which I have already referred, and the censorship, I think, takes only a very short time.
In regard to the last part of my noble friend's Question, the Army Council itself is not responsible for issuing statements in regard to these prisoners. It is done by the Committee. I understand that further reports are already practically complete and will very shortly be issued, and, as we get more evidence, it will be produced and published. I am sure that if there has been any case of lack of sympathy with any prisoner who has escaped or been repatriated it is a most unusual instance, because I am sure the noble Lord needs no assurance that everybody has the deepest sympathy with them and is only too anxious to find out everything they can tell us.
We hope shortly to be able to arrange further lectures by officers who have escaped and who have returned to this country. As the noble Lord knows, a few have been given, and we are arranging to extend the system of lectures and generally to let the public know as much as is possible of the way in which our prisoners have been treated in Germany and the manner of their escape.

EDUCATION BILL.
Order of the Day read for resuming the Debate upon the Motion for the Second Reading.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, I should like to ask the present Leader of the House, the Lord Privy Seal, whether he proposes to take this Bill at this hour. It is very unusual to take a Bill of this magnitude as the 8th Order of the Day and after four hours of debate on some very interesting Questions have preceded it. I think your Lordships will see that the House is not in a condition for effective debate, and to bring on in such conditions a debate on a Bill of this magnitude at the dinner hour does seem a very unusual occurrence. If the noble Earl insists upon carrying it on now, I think he must understand that we shall seek an opportunity on going into Committee. There are many Peers who desire to take part in the debate when it is possible to obtain some audience and also some public notice of whatever arguments may be used.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I wish to express my entire agreement with what the noble Viscount has said. Here is, perhaps, the most important Bill that has been brought in this session, and one of the most important Bills that have been brought in for a long time. Is it to the credit of this House that it should go forth to the public that we scamped the discussion and did not adequately consider the Bill? Would it not be better to put down a notice of Motion for to-morrow, giving this Bill precedence over the other Orders and devoting to morrow to a proper discussion? Unless we can have an adequate attendance during the dinner hour and then time tomorrow, I do not see how we can possibly give the Bill the proper consideration that it deserves.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: My Lords, I very much regret that it should be necessary to resume the discussion of the Bill at an hour which is apparently inconvenient, but I must remind your Lordships that ten days ago my noble friend Lord Curzon warned the House that your Lordships would be invited to sit on Tuesday and Wednesday evening to deal with this Bill—public warning given to your Lordships on July 17. Yesterday certain very important speeches were delivered, and I have every reason to hope that we may get the Second Reading today. Lord Sheffield is prepared at once to resume the discussion of the measure, and Lord Haldane was prepared, if necessary, to resume the discussion after the dinner interval; and I have to inform you that, assuming that the debate will go on after dinner into the evening sitting, dinner has been ordered for your Lordships tonight.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: There are other Peers. Will the noble Earl understand me? It is a complete misunderstanding if the noble Earl thinks we propose that there should be no discussion after dinner. What we suggest is that a Bill of this kind is too important to be scamped. It needs another day.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: I really demur to the view that because the House is small the debate is therefore scamped.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: Well, we cannot speak.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: The House is small, and will be small, no doubt, for the rest of the evening, but Lord Sheffield's remarks will be very direct and to the point, even if there is a small audience to hear him. That equally applies to the noble and learned Viscount opposite (Lord Haldane) and to the most rev. Prelate the Archbishop of York.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: We quite agree, but there are other Peers who wish to speak.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Will it not be better to proceed and allow those Peers who are prepared to make their speeches, which may not receive much note in the Press, but of which due note will be taken by the Official Reporters of this House. Nothing we can do to-night can prejudge the right of any Peer on the Motion for going into Committee to reopen what are commonly called Second Reading questions, but I really submit that we ought to get the Second Reading to-night, especially in view of the fact that more than adequate notice was given that we should have to sit late. I think it would be very unfortunate to carry over the discussion from this moment till to-morrow, and so put off whatever measures are on the Paper for to-morrow, some of which have been down for some time.
LORD SHEFFIELD: I believe I am now in possession of the House, in spite of this conversation.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I think it is rather unfortunate that the Government have taken this view of things. This discussion on the Second Reading is a purely friendly discussion; it is not as if it were a Bill which is going to be savagely contested, or anything of that kind; and if I might conceive myself to be—which I never shall be—in the position to guide the deliberations of your Lordships' House, and I found the House in that condition, I should have studied the convenience of the House in every way I could, and I should not have said that the House had been warned of this or that or the other; because it is for the House to decide, and not for the Government to do so. That is the proper attitude which Ministers ought to adopt in addressing your Lordship's House. It is not a question of warning the House as if we were common soldiers to be

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warned for duty. The proper phrase is, whatever is convenient to your Lordships in the conduct of the business of the House.
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: May I ask my noble friend whether he is blaming me for saving that ten days ago it was foreseen that it might be necessary to sit after dinner? Surely I did no act of disrespect to your Lordships in saying that this was foreseen ten days ago and was announced to your Lordships.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I am not going to resist the wish of the House. If the House wants to sit after dinner it is proper that it should do so, of course; but I did not think that, considering the importance of the Bill, the deliberations of your Lordships' House would have been such as would have been worthy of the importance of the occasion. My noble friend says that after dinner the audience will be select. I think that is true; it will be very select. The debate will not be reported. It will be in Hansard, an important consideration, no doubt. But I confess that, considering the great distinction of the noble Lords who desire to address your Lordships—I know several who have been mentioned already—I must say that I think it would have been far more suitable if this debate had been allowed to take place upon a day when it would have been really unhampered by other very important Orders. Nobody can complain of what has happened this evening, because the debates which have taken place have been very important; we could not have been any shorter in dealing with the other Orders of the Day. However, as the matter has been so decided, there is no more to be said; but I do not think that the result will be to redound to the credit of your Lordships' House.
LORD SHEFFIELD: My Lords, I will now proceed, although the House is not a very full one, to address my remarks to your Lordships upon the Second Reading of this Bill. I may say that I do not think the House is much emptier than it was towards the latter part of the debate last night; but, whether the House is full or empty, I think that those who take an interest in this question will attend and will take part either to-night, or, if they think it necessary, on some later occasion.
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I do not propose to detain the House at any great length. I do not intend to pay any more of those well merited compliments to the mover which he received last night; he may take those for granted. Nor do I propose to pass any elaborate eulogium on the Bill, because the best eulogium one can pay is a determination to support it; and I am here with the intention of supporting this Bill most heartily, which course indicates a general approbation of its aims. The noble Earl who introduced the Bill, and others, will not expect me to say that I accept it as a matter of verbal inspiration; and I recognise, as other speakers have done, that there are many important aspects of the education question which had to be left out of this Bill if, at a time of great national stress, an important step towards the establishment of a proper system of national education were to be taken with the consent of all parties, and without raising those elements of controversy which have so often delayed the progress of education.
Further, I hope the noble Earl in charge of the Bill will not think that it detracts from my approbation of the Bill if the whole of my speech is directed rather to criticism of points in it; the more so as I can assure the noble Earl that I do not intend to give him any trouble in Committee. I might put down an Amendment or two in Committee in order to define my position, but I have no intention of doing anything to delay the progress of the Bill; because I agree with the Leader of the House, and with all who have spoken, in the extreme importance of getting through a measure which the whole country expects and looks for; and it will be a bitter disappointment to the people of this country if the Bill is delayed or shipwrecked. Therefore my observations will be directed to calling the attention of the noble Earl in charge of the Bill and of His Majesty's Government to points which I think will have to come up later, possibly in some amending Bill or in administration, rather than to any alteration of the text of the Bill at present.
May I refer briefly now to one or two of the points made by the speakers last night? The first point of regret I have as to this Bill is regret for an absence of proposals which was unavoidable. The noble Earl in talking about education, and of his activities on the Hertfordshire Education Committee, regretted that the debates were so dull and the topics so uninteresting;

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and that he never had an opportunity of giving scope to his enthusiasm in education and to his interest in the more intellectual and interesting parts of it. But may I point out that this dulness connected with the administration of education is the dulness which is coupled with all administration. If you care for education itself, however, behind the dulness of daily administration you will find the interest of the cause you are a promoting; and if the noble Earl had had the benefit of serving on a body elected ad hoc and not on a body which is a mere adjunct to a body elected for purely local affairs he would have found persons coming on it more interested in education than those who give but a fragment of their time to it as well as to county roads, to county police, and to sewers and sanitation. I mention that because I recognise that it would have been idle to raise the question of ad hoc bodies in this Bill. But the noble Earl will allow me to record my permanent and persistent adhesion to the belief that, until you have a body specifically elected for the purposes of education, you will never get that wide interest in education which we had under the old School Board. What I say is not in any way obstructive to the Bill but merely a record of opinion.
The noble Earl referred last night to the Statement of the Medical Officer of Health of the Education Department that there were 1,000,000 children who, through lack of stamina or want of health, did not profit by education. I have seen that statement before, but in my opinion it is a grossly exaggerated one. Anybody who takes the trouble to read these Reports will find that, interesting as they are, they have a great bias. I have not the slightest doubt that amongst the 7,000,000 children in our schools there may be 1,000,000 who are below the average standard in stamina, in health, in eyesight, in physique, and all the rest of it. Of course, in so far as the child falls short of a proper, healthy, vigorous development he is likely not to get the full profit of the system of education. But it is an enormous stride from that to terrify the public with the suggestion that we are having a very costly system of education and that the children will get no profit from it. The cause of education is endangered by exaggerated statements, and I wish to put in that caveat. We all wish every child to profit as much as possible, but do not let us, because some children fail to get the full benefit, speak
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as though those children got no benefit at all. There were some other points which I might have mentioned in the noble Earls' speech, but they will rather arise when I come to one or two Clauses in the Bill, such as the nursery schools, continuation schools and other things.
There was another remark of the noble Earl which I should welcome very much if I thought the Bill was doing much for it. He hoped the Bill would bring our Universities within the reach of a far larger number of persons than at present. I am sure we all desire that, and that education should spread to the very highest ranges of systematic teaching as well as the lowest, but I cannot see anything in this Bill which deals with the Universities at all or in any way brings a larger number of persons within their range. If there were any chance of it, I should be glad, but I do not see that there is. I pass on. The noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, in speaking in defence of retaining the principle of free schools throughout, made, I thought, too large a concession to the critics of the universal free schools when he spoke of the verminous child, or the slum child, and of the dislike of the clean child to coming into contact with him. In the first place, no person has the right to send a verminous child to school. He can be summoned for cruelty to the child, and the child can be excluded from the school. But does anyone suppose that the existence of free schools brings the respectable child into contact with the child of the slums? In the whole of London there is not a single fee-paying school nor in the whole of Wales. The fact is that these schools are to be found in isolated spots, and have no relation to the general education scheme. If there is an Amendment to be moved as to the free schools as to fees, I shall reserve my remarks until we come into Committee.
The most rev. Primate treated us to a brief sketch of two centuries of the Church in its relation to popular education, and he spoke with the greatest confidence when he said that he was perfectly certain he could defy contradiction. I do not want to do anything so abrupt in this House as to contradict the most rev. Primate, but I would say that if there were a proper amount of time I would not allow his statements to pass unchallenged. But as they seem to me to be a little outside the scope of this Bill, I will take no further notice of

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them. The noble Lord below me (Lord Gainford) who was for some time the head of the Board of Education, spoke on several questions with an authority which he had the right to assume as having been the head of that Department. He laid special stress on the health question, on juvenile employment and the falling off in attendance. I agree, and we all agree with the noble Lord about the question of health. Every one is agreed that the health of the children, which will include the sanitation of the premises, good lighting and air, adequate playgrounds, and all the other things, and what has been put in by the House of Commons—namely, continuous medical attendance as well as medical inspection—are of the greatest importance. The only point on which I join issue is when he intimated that the Bill might be strengthened in Committee. I wish to say that I am opposed to anything which will endanger the rapid progress of this Bill.
While questions might be raised which, if there were a sympathetic indication of approval of the principles, might be taken as memoranda and noted with a view to future legislation, we ought not, as the French say, to make that which is better the enemy of that which is good by putting proposals into this Bill which would delay its passage into law and its coming into operation. But I do agree with the noble Lord in reference to school attendance and child labour. He pointed out that a child or a young person between twelve and sixteen might be at school twenty-seven hours in the week and thus might be at work for nearly sixty hours in the week. Every one will agree that that is an unreasonable tax to put on the body and brain of a young, growing child, and we hope, in factory legislation, and in other legislation on child labour, to see some material limit put on the employment of children and young people. With reference to those who have left the elementary school, the children who, as a rule, will be between fourteen and eighteen years and the bulk of whom go into the continuation classes, I think there should be a reasonable interval of time between the hours of school and the hours of work, in case the child becomes fagged. That should be an indication for future legislation, and there is not the slightest doubt there will be an effort to limit the hours of work for young people between the age of fourteen and eighteen. If the working man now
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agitates for eight hours of labour, and we are told in the colliery for six hours, then young people under eighteen, who are under the obligation to study, ought to have some maximum time allotted to them such as is not provided for in the Bill. Here again, that is a matter I desire, but I do not wish to force it into the Bill, as we want to get the measure through.
If Lord Gainford will allow me to put it so, I should like to make a correction in one thing which he said. He talked of the falling off in the attendance of the children, but he must know quite well that substantially the whole of the falling off is in regard to children under five years, where the local authorities, for the sake of economy and to avoid building schools—and the Board of Education have encouraged them—have been able to exclude by resolution all under five years from the schools. That has nothing to do with a want of interest in education, but with the action of those who administer education. That is a thing which I very much regret. To come at once to the children under five and the nursery schools, I consider that the enactment about nursery schools is a serious blot in the Bill. Not that I object to a more intelligent, free and happy system for young children under five in our schools, I have some doubt myself with regard to children from two to thee years, even if you called it a nursery school and made it more like a crèche than a school. What I feel is this, that if you are going to put upon the local authority the power to establish these schools, such schools ought to be within the purview of the Education Acts Public Elementary Schools. What are the notes of a public elementary school? There must be public management, there must be a conscience clause, there roust be no fees. I agree with the President of the Board of Education that there is not much importance in a conscience clause for children from three to five years, though I remember a very strongly ecclesiastical colleague of mine on the School Board for London who, when fighting for more definite instruction, said it was a great mistake to think that children could not appreciate dogma, but that you could teach an infant dogma long before you could teach him anything else. You may teach there to repeat words. You may teach a child words involving the most mysterious doctrines of the Christian faith, but thereby you do not make him a dogmatist any more than

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you make him a conjuror by teaching him to say abracadabra.
I object very strongly to allowing the local authority to subsidise with money or otherwise the school which they do not manage. That is a blot on the Bill. I only record my sense of the blot and I pass on. I was very glad to hear the noble Earl in charge of the Bill speak highly of the need of the suitable training and bringing up of these young children, because we know that some of the opponents of infant schools wanted to leave the children out altogether; until they were five years old. I should like to see as many infant schools as possible.
The Board of Education consider that a smaller amount of superficial feet or cubic space is needed for an infant than is needed for an older child. I say that he should have more space, and I hope that if nursery schools are established by the Board of Education they will insist upon ample space, light rooms, plenty of floor space where the children can have their action songs and games, and cots where they can go to sleep in the afternoon, and roomy playgrounds, and that that will be the ideal. If you cannot have comfortable homes with roomy nurseries these nursery schools will afford the best opportunity for these young children to grow up like flowers in the sunlight. That should be done also in the infant schools. There is no reason why the Board of Education should invent new schools under private management and which will not be subject to control, when they can do the same thing in their own infant schools.
There is another thing, and here again I do not think it will be very important in practice, although it is a blot in principle. These nursery schools not being public elementary schools will be free to charge a fee. It is clearly contemplated that these nursery schools should be established in the crowded and poorer parts of large towns, and the children from such districts will not be the children for whom such nursery schools will be prepared to charge a fee. Therefore these schools will practically be free, although no doubt there may be a small charge made to go towards the cost of providing milk and similar food. I expect that these schools when started will be started by benevolent people who will first of all take an interest in schools for mothers and then crèches and so develop a desire to give as bright and happy a life as possible
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to these infants until they are able to pass into the ordinary elementary schools. Therefor my expectation is that these nursery schools will be very little used. I doubt whether it will be possible to run them at a less cost than £5 per child, and therefore I fear that they will be too costly for any general adoption.
I come now to one or two points on which I hope the noble Earl will be able to give some fuller explanation on the committee stage. The first is as to the definition clause (47) which says that a child is a person who is under an obligation to attend school and who has a right to attend school up to the age of sixteen. I think the Government and the noble Earl in his speech has made it quite clear now that there is every intention not only to empower but to encourage children to stop on until they are sixteen years of age in the elementary school, and practically under Clause 2 it has become the duty of the local authority under Part III to provide adequate instruction where these children over fourteen stop on. My point is that in the Bill a child is defined as a person under a legal obligation to attend school. Hardly any local authority, I think, will adopt a by-law raising the age to fifteen. The great majority therefore of children will remain under compulsion to attend school only up to the age of fourteen. Now under this Bill a child will be a person under a legal obligation to attend school, and therefore it might be contended that the right to continue at school up to the age of sixteen disappeared because that right only extended to children and a child was defined as a person who was under a legal obligation to attend. I think that could be amended by saying, "a child is a person who is attending a public elementary school," and then when you come to the definition of young person you can say he is a young person over fourteen who is not attending a public elementary school. It is rather a question for the draftsmen and the legal officers of the Board of Education, and if on the Committee stage the noble Earl assures me that I have found a mare's nest, or that I am hypercritical, and that the right to attend school survives at the age of sixteen, I shall have nothing more to say.
The next point is as to the compulsory continuation schools. Until the Cockerton judgment and the Act of 1902 evening schools were under the control of the

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people who had, charge of the elementary schools. They were held in the same buildings, taught by the same teachers, and the children were canvassed to go on. Now that these schools are made compulsory and part of the compulsory system I think it is still more important that they should be managed by those who have charge of the elementary system of the district. That will not interfere at all with what I call advanced continuation education for adults, which I hope will not be extinguished by this compulsory continuation. I hope that by the compulsory continuation up to eighteen you will develop such a desire for learning that you will increase the demand for adult schools, hut I very much regret that these compulsory continuation schools are not part of the system administered by those who have charge of the elementary schools. These compulsory continuation schools are going to cost a great deal. I believe that Mr. Fisher estimated it at £10,000,000 a year, but I am quite sure that it is going to cost a great deal more than that. It is going to be very costly, but I am not going to elaborate criticism on these continuation schools. I think it is one of the most difficult parts of the Bill, that it will be the most difficult to introduce and administer, and that it will cause the greatest amount of friction hereafter socially, and I regret that they will not be part of the elementary school system but part of the system administered by the Higher Authorities. Under the Act of 1902, which is not repealed, the Higher Authority has power if it pleases to inflict the whole charge for the cost of the building and education of these continuation schools upon the minor locality, and yet the minor locality will have practically no effective power in determining the structure and cost or staff of the schools. It is true there is provision in the Bill that the minor authorities—the urban authorities—are entitled to put some managers on, but we know what a manager is. A manager is a man who does the drudgery work for the authority and has no power at all, and even if they appoint the manager there is nothing in the Bill as to the proportion of the managers or as to the substantial authority. Here, again, I do not propose to move any Amendment. In fact, I think I should be out of order if I did, because any proposal to deal with finance—and to say that if the central or county authorities decide to give the direct management to a subordinate authority
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they should bear, as a county, at the very least one-half of the cost would be a financial amendment—would be out of order.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Not out of order.
LORD SHEFFIELD: It would be a breach of privilege. The noble Marquess is right. We can move anything we please, but the mischief arises when we get our snub down below. Still, practically, it is one of those things which are thought to be outside our province to shift the burden and incidence of taxation or the rate of payment. As I plead for ad hoc so I plead very strongly in this matter. I quite agree that, the larger area must have a controlling voice in the higher education and secondary education. If we retain those urban districts or boroughs with populations of ten or twelve or fifteen thousand, they are good for local interest in elementary education, but their interest is not sufficiently wide for advanced education. Therefore, I agree that the county should have a voice, though I do not think that these continuation schools for young people step so completely into the region of secondary education but what they will fall more naturally to the local minor authority. There, again, I hope the counties will very largely see the wisdom of consulting and co-operating with the minor authorities. They can if they please. In my own county of Cheshire, so long as the local authorities would raise the penny rate which they were entitled to raise, the county gave them an equal amount and encouraged them very largely to organise their own affairs. In Lancashire, I am quite sure, with big towns like Ashton-under-Lyme, Leigh, and other places with between 40,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, the county would have plenty of trouble if they did not try to co-operate with the local authority, and I think it would be an undesirable thing if in the county of Cambridge the county authorities treated the borough of Cambridge as of no account and did not give it a large voice.
Therefore, I hope that in future legislation—I do not ask for it now—we shall deal with subordinate authorities in their relation to the county and in relation to the burden of expense which it is in the power of the county to throw upon them.

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There is another thing I regret very much—again it is a thing upon which I record my regret and do not go further—and it is that in all the Bills which the Government have introduced, including the Bill of 1906, there has been a proposal, in regard to the charge for buildings of elementary schools in a county, that there should not be the obligation to put a substantial part upon the parish, but the obligation it proposed should be in every case on the county as a whole. That charge is most burdensome and oppressive upon a small parish. You have a parish of about 600 people which has to put up a school and the county cannot pay more than one half. It may be, I think, only one third or one quarter—I am not sure which. It would be quite inappreciable to the county as a whole to merge that into the general county rate, which would save much trouble. There is a greatdeal of complicated calculation when you levy a rate and make demands for the outstanding loans upon the various parishes, and I think it is a great pity that the Government have shrunk from their own policy of several years running and have turned this into an option and permission, whereas before it was an obligation.
The result will be that the churlish county will let the parish pay, but I think the liberal counties with a go-ahead policy will take the burden. It is a bad thing, and it is a very bad thing in this way—it gives the strongest inducement to a rural parish with an atrociously bad school, which ought to be closed, to fight tooth and nail against the action of the Board of Education and the authorities which demand that a new school should be built. These people will say "Why, if we submit to this we shall very likely have a rate of 1s. in the £ for forty years before the debt is paid off. That is too oppressive. We cannot afford it." And they will bring pressure to bear on the county. Many atrociously bad schools exist in the rural districts because of that obligation on the minor authorities to pay at least one half, and even three-quarters of the cost. Once more I regret it, but I utter my word of protest, and pass on.
There is one small point now which I really think the Government might deal with in Committee. It is very small as respecting the number of people it affects and it is small also as regards the charge it involves. It has to do with the instruction of the deaf The noble Earl will know that in the Acts relating to the instruction of the
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blind the obligation of the local authority to provide education begins at the age of five. In the case of the instruction of the deaf it begins at seven. Of course, a great many deaf children have become deaf in infancy through scarlet fever or other disease. Those who are connected with the teaching of the deaf regard it as vital that all, except those who are backward and cannot be so taught, should be taught on the oral system. We know that a child of five is much more susceptible to this teaching than the older children. Every year that goes by it is more difficult to educate the voice and the palate and the brain by this oral system. If the noble Earl in charge of the Bill could see his way in Committee to place the obligation upon local authorities to provide for the education of the deaf on the same footing as they have to provide for the education of the blind at five years instead of seven, it would do a great deal for the advancement of the education and future welfare of these unfortunate children.
May I say that in some ways the deaf are more hopeful objects for the State's interference than the blind, because, while we never can expect to make the blind self-supporting citizens, in the case of the deaf we can train them to take up trades and professions and earn as high wages, as any hearing person—in fact, sometimes higher wages, because they are less likely to gossip in the workshop? There fore, I would urge this matter upon the Government. It is so small, and so free from controversy, that if the noble Earl can see his way in Committee to make that little Amendment—I would rather he put it down himself—I think he would get the gratitude of those interested in the education of the deaf, and he would get also that of the deaf themselves when they grew up and were old enough to appreciate the advantage they had gained. These are the principal points to which I wish to call your Lordships' attention. I have tried to make my remarks as practical as possible and to keep clear from all controversy. I will end my speech by heartily congratulating the noble Earl on having been put in charge of such a benevolent, beneficient and progressive Bill, and by expressing the hope that he may see it accomplish its success in a very short time.
[The sitting was suspended shortly before eight o'clock, and resumed at nine o'clock.]
VISCOUNT HALDANE: My Lords, I cannot but think that it was with some satisfaction that the Government listened to the speech of my noble friend who preceded me. Lord Sheffield is a strong swimmer in the waters of education, and if any one could make headway against the current it is he. My noble friend has blessed the Bill, and I think that was a strong testimony to the foundation on which the Bill has been erected, for that foundation is nothing less than the Act of 1902. My noble friend rendered distinguished service on the London School Board, which was one of the most brilliant illustrations of what could be done with the principle of the Education Act of 1870 which set up ad hoc authorities. It was a magnificent body. It contained the talent of the metropolis, and it did great work, but, as happens constantly, what is true for one generation ceases to be true for the generation which follows it, not because the truth was not truth at the time, but because it has been absorbed and taken up to a higher level. The Act of 1902 swept away the basis of ad hoc authorities. For myself, I had long before that Act was pasted come to regard the Liberal tradition of the Victorian epoch about ad hoc authorities as having become a superstition. A new notion was making itself apparent—the notion that the business of Government was to devolve from Parliament to local authorities, which should be recognised as having attained a very great and important stature.
It is quite a mistake, I think, to draw a sharp line of demarcation between Parliament and what is called local government. The very doctrine of to-day, a doctrine becoming more and more apparent every month, is that we must devolve much of what Parliament does to the local authorities. We had a discussion the other day about public health, which showed the way in which the Poor Law may be broken up, and in which many other things may be broken up by devolution to county boroughs and county councils, which are recognised as having the status of something more than concerns dealing with merely local interests, and as being more in the nature of local parliaments which would deal with matters of local policy that are appropriate to local parliaments. And so it came that in the year 1902 the country passed away from the notion of ad hoc bodies and accepted the principle of devolution to local parliaments. I only wish it had done it more
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thoroughly. There were compromises in the Act of 1902, upon which this Bill does not go back, but compromises which I think marred the effect of the principle. The great local authorities, the county borough councils and the county councils, were well adapted for the functions which were entrusted to them in connection with education, and they are well adapted to-day for having entrusted to them functions connected with public health and with a variety of other forms of public assistance with which we have not dealt. But I repeat that the opposition to the policy of the Bill of 1902 seems to me to have been a Victorian superstition of the Liberal Party, and I look back with some satisfaction to the fact that I myself dissociated myself from that superstition at the time that it came before the other House, of which I was then a Member.
My noble friend Lord Sheffield took yet another point. He expressed the view that the continuation schools should have been administered by authorities which were more strictly concerned with elementary education. He desired to see the continuation schools kept upon the same footing as the line of elementary education which was being pursued by those authorities. Later on I shall have a word to say upon that, but there again, upon that point, I do not think that I wholly agree with my noble friend. But I repeat that it must be a satisfaction to the Government to feel that that strong swimmer in the waters of education, Lord Sheffield, has gone with me in yielding himself to the current of this Bill and striking out in its direction.
It has been said in the course of these debates that things in the Bill are not new, that the details are details which are to be found in clauses and fragments of clauses which belong to earlier Bills. I think that is the case. I myself have been much concerned in educational questions for twenty years, and I recognise many old notions in this Bill, but the mere fact that draftsmen have accumulated clauses of that kind matters very little. The whole point is, how has the author of the Bill, the man who conceived it, got it together and welded the matter into an organic whole? The distinction of this Bill and its distinct quality is that it has been obviously fashioned by one who is himself a master of education from the highest point of view, and who has approached it not from the point of view of elementary education but

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from the University standpoint of which he is a distinguished representative. It is the largeness of spirit of the Bill and the way in which it is welded into an organic whole in a new spirit that distinguishes it from previous attempts in education.
One has only to bake one or two concrete illustrations to see how that is so. Continuation schools are nothing new. The name most prominently associated with them is the name of one who is to-day an alien enemy, but who has expressed himself in the past in terms which we should all approve, and who was the author, I may say the first and true inventor of the continuation school system. Dr. Kerchensteiner, of Munich, not only conceived the idea of putting continuation education on a higher footing than it had ever been before and weaving it into the education system of Germany, but succeeded in carrying it into effect in a fashion which caused some of us who were watching and who were very much concerned for the future of our own country a good deal of uneasiness as to the competition to which we should be exposed from a very highly trained kind of workman. But Dr. Kerchensteiner's policy was infected by that which is the characteristic, failure in the German conception. In Germany the system of class prevails; the workman is not encouraged to proceed to higher education. He is marked off strictly as belonging to an inferior class to that above him; and continuation education was marked out and designed as something for artificers who might get certificates, first as journeymen and then as master-workmen.
Now, Mr. Fisher's Bill takes continuation education in a very different spirit. He could not have done otherwise. When first it was proposed to introduce continuation schools into this country, criticism was passed upon the project by a very remarkable body, which has done good work, the Workers' Educational Association, which is closely associated with the idealism of the Labour Party. The Workers' Education Association said, "What we want is that every boy and girl should have a chance of higher education, and we welcome continuation education if and only in so far as it makes provision for proceeding to higher education." When I read the clauses of Mr. Fisher's Bill concerned with continuation education I found all the difference in the world between them and Dr. Kerchensteiner's idea. Mr. Fisher's
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idea is to give as much secondary education as he can in connection with the development of elementary education for the poorest as well as for the richest; and I think it is because. Mr. Fisher's Bill recognises continuation education as really of a secondary character that he has not taken the line which my noble friend would have approved, of keeping the continuation schools in the hands of the elementary schoolmaster. It is an alternative fashion in which the poor may climb up to the advantages which are open to the rich. Not only so, but the whole spirit of this Bill is a spirit which aims at obliterating any artificial distinction between elementary and secondary education.
The doctrine which Mr. Cockerton (peace be to his spirit!) succeeded in getting the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice to lay down has been repealed; there is no distinction any more between elementary and secondary education. Education is to be looked upon as one organic whole. That has important consequences when you come to consider the Bill as a whole, and brings out in relief certain defects in it, for which I do not reproach Mr. Fisher but on which I shall be bound to touch in a few moments. But the real foundation of this Bill is to treat education as a whole, and to deny that there is any distinction between elementary and secondary education. They are not of different, kinds; the one is a development of the other; and continuation education is a form of secondary education which is appropriate to the working classes. I am glad to think that thereby the principle contended for by the Workers' Education Association has been vindicated. I think there will be a great deal of the most valuable technical education given in the continuation schools; but, still, what is aimed at is, what is the true foundation of all technical education, the general knowledge. That is the basis on which it must rest if the edifice is to be securely erected.
Then, not only has the Cockerton doctrine gone, but one of the most prominent features of the Bill is that in the higher reaches of the elementary school, when you come to what is called in educational slang "tops," those responsible for the schools are encouraged to develop the teaching in the school into a region which brings it into the secondary sphere. The facilities which are given to enable men and boys to remain up to sixteen if they desire to do so is a change which cannot, if it is followed

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out, be without an immense influence upon the elementary schools of this country. They cease to be merely elementary schools, and that must re-act to the advantage of the teachers.
I have instanced these as two great features in this Bill, and I now come to another topic touched on by my noble friend, and which was suggested yesterday by a part of the speech of the most rev. Primate. The most rev. Primate claimed for the Church that it had exercised a vital influence in the development of the education system of this country. So far as my researches have gone I agree with him, but what he said was true not only of this country but of a good many other countries. For a long time the Church was the only body which took any considerable interest in education, and we owe a great deal to the Church. I do think that, in regard to the days that are gone, the most rev. Primate was right in saying that the nation owed obligations to the Church which it should not forget. When I had the honour of occupying the Woolsack for nearly three years, it was my duty to present to a large number of small livings, and what impressed me was that in the remote country districts, so far as I could discover, the parish clergyman was the one figure to whom you could look for something like continuity in keeping up interest in the higher things of the spirit. 1fe did not always do it, I am afraid in many cases he did not do it, but in a great many other eases he did it splendidly, and he was there, a centre from which radiated interest in the schools, and in other things. I was much impressed, and no doubt my noble friend who outlines the Woolsack has been much impressed, with the value of the service which a really good parish clergyman could render as a centre of light and leading in his parish. I would it were always so, and it is certainly often so.
That is just an illustration of what happens when you do not have any proper provision made by the State for the radiation of these subjects. You must fall back on somebody. In the past we have fallen back on the Church, and in the present, I suspect, to some extent we fall back on the Church, as well, and we shall continue to do so. But that, I think, was no reason for raising what was called the religious question in this Bill. I think it was a new reason for silence on the religious question. The religious question was a question which
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was of vast importance, and bulked hugely in the Victorian period of which I have already spoken. But that period is passing away, and we are passing into a new period. We are passing into the period of democracy, which is not concerned with controversies which often weighed most keenly among the middle classes, but is concerned in the first case with efficiency in administration. If you get efficiency in administration in the Church schools as well as in the private schools then you will find the controversy becoming very much less acute. The modern view, and it is certainly my own view, is that the parent is entitled to say in what religion the child is to be brought up. If that were to mean that he was entitled to interfere with the good administration of the school, as sometimes happened in the past, then I could well understand an acute feeling arising, but if you have already good system of administration, under which the Church schools, as well as other schools are properly administered, then you will find the controversy dying down, and you will have—I do not like the phrase of "right of entry"—but something like the provision of the religious education which the child's parent desires, and you will find the controversy becoming very much less acute.
As I understand the underlying principle of Mr. Fisher's Bill, it is this, that he has recognised that, and seeing that with the administration of the school system raised to a higher level this question will tend more and more to become less acute, he has left the thing to work itself out. Therefore, if I were asked to advise the Church, which I certainly have not been, I should say let things alone and you will find all you want gradually realising itself in the course of time. Everything depends upon the level of administration being high, and once granted that I think the controversies of the Victorian period which occupied so important a place when the level of administration was low will be found to be controversies that have come to occupy only a second place. Therefore I am entirely in favour of the policy of the Government, as embodied in this Bill, of leaving the religious question severely alone.
My Lords, it is not only in England that that policy has been successful. In Scotland in the education system, which I know fairly well at first hand, the same things has happened We are a very

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practical people in Scotland. Two years after the Education Act of 1870 was passed in this country, and fully aware of these controversies we had to pass an Education Act for Scotland, and the Scotsman in that day, and I dare say the Scotsman of to-day would do the same thing, pursued a policy which was characteristic of the nation. They set out in a pompous preamble that whereas it is the right of the people to have their children given such efficient education as they desired, and whereas it had been the custom in the public schools to give instruction in religion to children whose parents did not object, it is important that the education authorities be enabled by this Act to continue the practice. Then you turn to the conclusion of the Act to see what it is that they put in in order to vindicate the rights of the churches and you may search that Act from beginning to end without finding anything which gives any right to anybody. Having put in the preamble the Act remains in silence. There was a conscience clause which did nobody any harm and nobody any good. The result is that we have been able to work out our educational system with practically no religious controversy. It is true there are some things which would sound very odd to people here, where the School Boards have a Roman Catholic majority and the oppressed Protestant has to sit down under it. But we do not worry ourselves about these things. It is a simple illustration that when people do care about education and the level of administration gets up pretty high such controversies become of secondary importance.
I have spoken about what I think are the main features of the Bill, and I want to speak of one or two gaps in the scheme, and when I speak of gaps I do not wish it to be understood that. I speak with the slightest reproach to the authors of this Bill or the Government. They could not do more than lay the foundations, and I think that in this Bill they have laid the foundations as deeply as they could, but still it is only the foundations that are laid in this Bill. For example there are secondary schools. My noble friend Lord Muir Mackenzie, who has taken an immense interest in the public schools of this country, has spoken to your Lordships on other occasions about their value, and I agree with him. The leadership and development in character which our great public schools give has been the envy of Continental nations. True it is
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that in many respects our public schools are rather deficient in the mere matter of learning, but they are improving in that. In the training of leadership and character they have a very strong basis in their system. But then these great public schools touch only the merest fraction of the population. What we really lack badly in England—and I emphasise the word "England"—are secondary schools.
Wales has set up its Intermediate Education Board, but then Wales has a magnificent educational spirit. It has been my privilege for the last two years to be the chairman of the Royal Commission on University Education in Wales which has recently reported. The Commission went down to Wales more than once, sojourned with the people there, and imbibed something of their spirit. We became very much moved by what we found there. We found that part of the country—the Principality—moved and permeated by the spirit of education, and I have not the slightest doubt that Wales, given the opportunity, will work out all that is requisite for itself. It has the advantage of a democracy permeated by ideas. When you go to Scotland the case is even more striking. Scotland has now a really admirable system of secondary schools. I am informed by the highest authorities that you cannot put those schools into the places suitable for them too quickly. If you erect a new school it is full at once, and you have to provide another. The working class and the other classes are everywhere taking advantage of the system of secondary education. That is what happens when you have a democracy which has ideas.
I have been reproached—very unjustly I think, but one is not a good judge in one's own cause—for not insisting upon leadership and ideas but in looking to the democracy for inspiration. That is quite untrue. I have all my life believed in putting before the democracy, and pressing upon it, new conceptions, and in no department has that been more strikingly necessary than in the case of education. For the past twenty years some of us have been working at the new Universities. Well, the new Universities have been at last established pretty well throughout this country. There has been an enormous increase of them in the past twenty years, and it has been very marked the way in which, when those ideas were definitely put before places like Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and

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Bristol, these people have risen to the conceptions and what advantage has been taken of them. But still an enormous deal remains to be clone there, and what hurts the efficiency of the new University system in this country is the absence of a sufficient supply of secondary schools.
Contrast that with what you find north of the Border. I am speaking of what I know. In Edinburgh, Glasgow, in almost every centre, accessible even to the country districts, are excellent secondary schools. You can go there. Scholarships and facilities are provided. The result has been an enormous development in the last few years. It is quite true we have no Etons, or Harrows, or Westminsters, but what we do have is a set of perfectly admirable secondary schools, some of a less distinguished social character, others of a very good social character, but every class provided for. Such has been their permeating influence that almost everybody who desires to go on with education goes there. Quite lately I was chairman of the Committee of the Privy Council on Scottish Universities and it fell to us to consider an Ordinance for making a new matriculation examination for the Scottish University. As we, were a Committee of Scotsmen we held up our hands and said to our countrymen—" We are shocked. Examinationsa Have Scotsmen not got beyond the stage of external examinations? Do you wish us in the year of grace 1918 to set our hands and seals to a proposition for setting up some more external examinations in Scotland, even if they are handed over to the Scottish Education Department to conduct them on behalf of the secondary schools? "We suggested to them that it might be a better way if, instead of matriculation examinations, they would get rid of them altogether, and look on" record "in the admirable secondary school system in Scotland as the qualification for entering the Universities. It fell to my lot to go down to Scotland and preside over a series of conferences between the heads of the Courts of the Universities on the subject. They jumped at it, and the result is that an ordinance has been passed under which the entrance to the Universities is not to be by matriculation examinations but by the record of attendance in a Scotch secondary school. We have extended that so that pupils from public schools like Eton, Harrow, and Winchester, if they have a good report from the teacher on the way they have profited by their three years there,
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will be able to walk through the portals of the Universities, and attain the intellectual standard their abilities entitle them to.
We are growing into a new set of ideas, in which the external examination is being abolished, but it is painful to see how the external examination is being clung to in this Bill. To a Scotsman it is a shock to see that the matriculation examination of various Universities, and examination by other bodies, is to exempt from attendance at the continuation school. It may be necessary to have something of that kind. It may be necessary to make provision for our weak brethren, but it must be remembered it is a provision for our weak brethren, and that the real principle which ought to be followed is "record"; the record of opportunities profited by in the place of education from which you come. Until that is done you will never have a really national system of education in this country.
The difficulties caused by the absence of a good system of secondary schools is apparent in this Bill. Far from reproaching those who drew the Bill for ignoring these difficulties, I am glad they have made them apparent, but I am certain this Bill will be foundational in another sense. It is not merely a Bill for improving elementary education; it is a Bill for bringing out the absolute necessity for a great advance in the provision of Secondary schools. The reproach has been made, I think it was most effectively dealt with by the noble Earl who introduced this Bill, that it ought not to have been introduced in war time. It is a great revolution, and a costly one, but the money is "salvage money," and it is money which we could not afford not to spend. The Bill is really a war Bill. Some of us who have been watching for twenty years considered that there was a much more certain danger from Germany than the danger of the outbreak of war. That might, or might not, have been averted. It depended on circumstances which do not enter into consideration now. But there was one thing that was certain and quite clear, and that is, that Germany, realising clearly her object, had set to work by superior organisation to beat this country- out of the field; and what is more, I believe she would have done it. I am not sure there is anything that could have saved us except the convulsion of this war.

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Those of your Lordships who have the leisure to do so will do well to look in the Library at the Quarterly Review for October, at an article on the Baghdad Railway. It is obviously written by an extremely competent writer. At the end of it he quotes a conversation before the war with a distinguished German statesman. The German statesman said to him, "Wara We do not want war. It is quite unnecessary. The peach, when it ripens, will fall into our mouths as we stand below the tree." I think that that was strictly true. I used to watch these things with concern and pain. If we did anything here—and we did some really remarkable things in education here—they were at once repeated and trebled in Germany Money was always found, and, what was more to the point, energy and organisation were found and with our democracy without ideas, and with the painful lack of interest among our governing classes in the great cause of education, they would not listen to those who were deeply conscious of the danger that was growing up.
I am glad to say that we have now got a new chance. It will take Germany a long time before she can get to the level of where she was before the war, and we have been pushed on to a further level. I am quite certain that on the men in the Army the effect of this war—and no one could tell us better than my noble friend who sits opposite and who has been among them—has been to make the men feel that they require new knowledge and a new level if they are to save their country in peace as I believe that they will have saved it in war. If ever there was a measure which was a war measure—a measure necessitated by the war, a measure but for which no victory in this war could have profited us ultimately—it is this Bill, and I congratulate the Government for that reason on having made it a permanent part of their programme, and on having done all in their power to pass it through.
I come to another point, and that is the secondary schools on which I must say a word, because I think that that is a defect in the Bill, so far as it goes. I think that the Bill will have to go further. The principle of the Bill of course is devolution to the local authorities of the service for education. The Education Office simply superintends the process. But, my lords, there is a great deal more which I think will have to be devolved than is devolved
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by this Bill. It is not possible for the 319 local education authorities to cope with all the problems of higher education which are devolving upon them in an increasing volume under the change which it is proposed to make in our educational system. There are other questions—questions connected with secondary education, questions connected with the training of teachers, questions connected with scholarships, questions connected with transfers from school to school in the various parts of the country—of a character for local authorities to deal with, for they are too remote for the Board of Education to be capable of effectively grappling with from Whitehall.
In Clause 6 there is recognition of this necessity, and provision has been made for the local authorities working together. But when I look at Clause 6 I find that it is not in as good a form as the original clause in the original Bill as it was introduced into the other House. I know the difficulties that the Government had. I know how they were attacked upon this. I know how the ridiculous and absurd apprehensions of the local authorities came to be awakened, as if they were going to be interfered with, but I am sure none the less that before long you will have to go beyond what you have done in Clause 6.
It is all very well to enable these education authorities to federate. But federate for what? For their own purposes, for the objects to which they are limited. I want to see these local education authorities federating and taking into counsel the teachers of the universities in their localities for much larger educational purposes. I look forward to the day when the Board of Education will devolve the higher concerns of education as well as the concerns of elementary education, even as expanded in this Bill, and continuation education. I think that until you do that you will not have the educational commonwealth in a healthy condition. Still the Government has great difficulties to contend with, and it has gone probably as far as it felt it could do, and I am in the same frame of mind as my noble friend Lord Sheffield. I certainly shall not move any Amendment in committee on this subject but shall be thankful for what I have got.
The physical side of education is recognised in this Bill, and that is quite right; and there are the annual camps. Nobody

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realises more than myself the enormous value of these annual camps. We introduced them for the purpose of the Territorial Force, and we still have them in connection with the Cadet Force; but I frankly say I should have liked to have left the education authorities free to introduce the foundations of military forms and military training into these annual camps. I think it is another Victorian superstition that you encourage militarism by doing these things. Do what you like, you will never prevent boys from following military forms, and I suspect girls also after this war is over, and if you shut these things out you lose one of the greatest forms of stimulus to interesting the children in their own education. Therefore I hope that the spirit of the Boy Scouts and the. Cadet Force will be let loose as freely as the limits of this Bill, which are somewhat exiguous, permit in the development of that side of things.
Then there is another point. The continuation school system is admirable. It is really a form of secondary education, which no doubt will be given in connection with technical matters, technical matters being taken as significant of the higher principles which underlie them, and thereby the mind of the apprentices being stimulated. But still continuation schools are, under this Bill, more what the Workers' Educational Association desire and what Dr. Kerchensteiner has set up in Germany. Consequently they ought to afford a means of picking out of the vast reserve of talent, untapped talent, which we have in the children of our working classes, those who are specially deserving of being brought on to the higher line of education, whereby they may go through the secondary schools to the University. The continuation school gives an opportunity of picking out and bringing them across, but the Bill does not in terms establish the ladder by which the selected geniuses may pass from the one category into the other, and I think that before long it will be essential if we are to get the full good of this Bill that that should be developed, either administratively or in the form of another Education Act, recognising the enormous importance of taking the very best of the latent talent which there is among the boys and the girls who are the children of the working classes, and giving it that same development which it would have had had they belonged to a richer class.
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Finally, in the Bill itself there is, of course, very little about teachers, and, particularly, very little about women teachers. I have felt for long that the Board of Education may plant, and the Government may water, but it is the spirit of the teacher that will give the increase in this matter, and the spirit of the teacher is a spirit which requires to be encouraged. I gratefully acknowledge that the grants for teachers have been very much increased lately, but still more has to be done and the unrest which is to be witnessed among the teachers of every kind just now is a very significant unrest. I do not think we can over-estimate the importance of getting a well-appointed and well-contented corps of teachers to work the new system. I am certain that it lies at the root of the success of the whole matter. I know again how difficult it is to secure money for these things, and. I am far from reproaching people who have done as much as the authors of this Bill have done.
But yet I would have them do more, because I feel that more is required if this new system is to be made a real success. So far as the system as a whole is concerned I need not say, after what I have already remarked, that the Bill will have my warmest support. It is a great step on. It is characterised by a large spirit, and if it is a Bill which lays foundations, rather than completes the edifice, that is a necessary stage in a process which I am certain will not have ceased to become operative after the reception by this measure of the Royal Assent.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK: My Lords, in the journey through the spacious fields of education which the noble and learned Viscount has just conducted with so much sureness of knowledge and skill, he praised the Bill before us because of the spirit in which it was conceived. But there were no words more true in the speech of the noble. Earl who introduced the Bill—a speech which has received so much general and deserved praise—than those in which he said that, after all, the Bill was only a framework, and that its success would depend upon the spirit not so much in which it had been conceived as the spirit in which it would be administered.
There is no doubt as to what that spirit should be. It is the spirit which recognises as the paramount and governing consideration, not the interests of the Board of

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Education, or of the local education authorities, or of the teachers as a profession, or of industries in need of labour, but of the actual child—the boy and the girl. The spirit in which we want to administer this Bill is the spirit which is determined to secure for every boy and every girl in the land the fullest possible opportunity for the development of the whole personality—body, brain, and spirit. What we want is that this spirit should prevade the whole community; therefore it is of the utmost importance to interest and to enlist in the cause of national education the largest possible number of our citizens. There has been, I think, in some places and at some times a tendency among local education authorities and even in the great teaching profession to say "hands off" to those who were not actually engaged in the work of teaching or in the administration of educational business. It is obvious that no mistake could be greater. What we want, if this Bill is to be the success we hope it will be, is to interest in the Bill and in its operation the largest possible number of the men and women throughout the land who really care at all for education.
I was rather sorry that the noble and learned Viscount spoke of still being possibly compelled to "fall back" upon the Church. I am sure that he meant only that he and others interested in education would be still most ready to co-operate with the Church. I hope—and the spirit of what he said strengthens the hope—that the day is past when there will be this suspicion and misunderstanding between those who have resolutely contended for the essential value of religious teaching and those who are in the forefront of educational reform. I feel quite certain that what is wanted is that educational reformers should realise that what the Church has stood for is simply that religion is as entitled as any other subject, nay, more entitled because of its intrinsic importance, to the best possible teaching, and above all, by teachers themselves trained and qualified to give it. If there is a recognition of that ideal in all the schools of the country I, for one, share the hopes that have been so frequently expressed in this debate, that the rancours and quarrels and misunderstandings of the Victorian period may be forgotten.
I do not think I wholly agree with the noble and learned Viscount that it is the
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success of educational machinery and administration which will dissipate these mists of controversy. It is only what I spoke of just now, the recognition of the intrinsic importance of religion as a subject of teaching in all classes of schools. Then he spoke of Scotland. I do not think what has protected Scotland from some of the evils of controversy in this country was the efficient administration of the Scottish schools. It was rather the general recognition among all classes in Scotland that, keen as they are to get on themselves, they do still recognise, as part of the use and wont of their nature, that man's chief end is to glorify God, and they are really keen upon the religious teaching in their schools.
But that is by way of digression. What I want to emphasise is the great importance, if this Bill is to succeed, of enlisting the largest possible number of men and women in its actual operation, and in carrying out all the varied field of activity which it opens up. I notice with great satisfaction the second section of Clause 4 which provides that the authorities who are responsible for promoting schemes under the Act "shall consider any representations made to them by parents or other persons or bodies of persons interested, and shall adopt such measures to ascertain their views as they consider desirable."
What I hope very much is that during the time in which these schemes are being considered and drawn up the local education authorities will invite the freest possible conference with all who are in any way concerned with the welfare of children, and of boys and girls. If they do, I venture to say just this, that I am sure they will find that what might roughly be called the Church of England, though it is really the managers of the schools and buildings belonging to our different parishes, will be the most ready to meet the authorities with the offer of buildings both for central classes and for continuation schools. Obviously, at the present time, it is not desirable to increase the building operations which this scheme will largely involve, and I am quite certain that there will be a most ready disposition on the part of the Church to offer to the local education authorities in framing their schemes, buildings, which though not perhaps always suitable for public elementary schools, will be entirely suitable for continuation schools or central

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classes. What we want is that the local education authorities should everywhere act on behalf of the educational life of the district, not only formally by way of election, but really by way of being a centre of co-operation among all who are concerned in any way with the education of the young.
Again, my Lords, the spirit which will make the Bill a success is one which suspects any rigid bureaucratic uniformity, whether central or local; and encourages freedom, elasticity, and variety of subjects, methods, and schools. Of course, there must be control. It is needless to take up your Lordships' time by dwelling upon that, both because public money has to be properly expended, and because the business of the State centrally and locally is to see that education everywhere is both sufficient and efficient.
But, subject to this, what one welcomes in the Bill is its recognition of the importance of making the system of education flexible and varied. It does so first of all in regard to the public elementary schools themselves. I do not mean merely in the provision made for practical instruction, as it is called, or for advanced instruction, but in the fact that it extends the time during which every boy and girl in the country will be under educational influences. Hitherto the teacher, we know, has been cramped unfairly by the narrow limits of the educational life of the child. He had to assume that its education would come to an end just when it ought to be almost beginning. The result was that in all our schools the tendency was to encourage instruction rather than education, and I need not take up your Lordships' time by pointing out that the two things are very different. Instruction appeals to the memory of the child and is necessarily a diminishing quantity. Education appeals to the intelligence of the child and is necessarily a progressive quantity; but it has been extraordinarily difficult for our teachers because of the cramped limits of the educational life of the children really to take time to educate the children, to get hold of their own intelligences, and make them their own teachers.
I have sometimes been inclined to say in a quasi paradox that the ideal would seem to be for our elementary schools to have the best possible teacher, receiving the highest possible salary, teaching the fewest possible subjects, to the smallest possible class. That would seem more possible
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under this Bill than ever before, because the Bill not only raises the status and stipends of the teachers, but makes the elementary school only one stage in a progressive education. I believe that under this Bill it will be more possible for our children to pass out of the elementary schools in what we should all recognise to be a much more satisfactory condition—able, I mean, not so much to answer questions as eager everywhere to ask them; and my hope is that the main functions of the continuation schools will be to continue and develop the sense of curiosity and general interest which the elementary schools, have aroused.
With regard, in the next place, to the new classes of schools established under the Bill, there is also this welcome recognition of elasticity and variety. First with regard to the nursery schools which it is proposed to establish. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Sheffield, to whom many of us have for many years looked for guidance in educational administration, I welcome and do not regret the permission given in Clause 19 to the local education authority to aid the supply of, as well as to supply these nursery schools, and I also welcome the permission given to the Board by grants in aid under proper conditions to help such schools when they are established. I feel that it is of the greatest possible importance that nursery schools, under the management of women who are closely connected with the homes and the mothers of the children, should be encouraged.
Allusion has been made to the nurseries already in existence in connection with schools for mothers and other agencies of the same kind. I think it is a great advantage that these should have an educational character given to them. One shrinks from the thought of elaborating the instruction of infants of two and three, and yet I know what was said by a great leader in educational methods to a mother who complained of the slow advance of her boy, though, she said, she had begun teaching him when he was six years old. The educational expert replied, "Then I am afraid you began four years too late." I think it would be a great assistance to those nurseries that are already in existence if they were compelled to think not only of feeding the children but of actually, from the first, shaping and fashioning the working of their minds. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Sheffield, will see—at least I hope he will—in the working of this clause

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that it is of the greatest possible advantage to interest, in the actual teaching of the children, from the first, those who are in daily contact with their mothers and their homes.
Still more in connection with the continuation schools is there scope for variety and for experiment. I agree with what the noble and learned Viscount said. I am quite sure it is best that these continuation schools should be under Part II authorities in the technical terms rather than under Part III, because I think it is of great importance that these continuation schools should in every way mark a new departure, that they should be taken out of any of the ruts into which educational life and administration may have run. Especially I think it is of great importance that the area from which the teachers in these continuation schools are drawn should be enlarged. That is, partly, a practical necessity. It would be extraordinarily difficult to get teachers for these continuation schools, but, more than that, it will, I believe, be of the utmost advantage to the schools themselves that the teachers should be of every kind and class of educational experience. I am quite sure that there is a large number of men and women, themselves well educated and competent to teach, who would be most willing to throw themselves into the work with the opportunities these continuation schools will give.
We all know how many highly educated women during this war have found how much their lives are enriched by being devoted to one branch of service or another. When the war is over they will be eager to find opportunities in which the life of service which they have begun can be continued and fulfilled. I am certain there are many of them—I am speaking especially of women now—who are interested, and capable of spreading interest, in branches of science, history, literature and ethics, who would be very glad to be employed, if only as assistants, in these continuation schools. I am quite satisfied that the intention of this Bill is to open the door of teaching in these schools in the widest possible way. I think it was the Archbishop of Canterbury who said in our discussion yesterday that it would be an extraordinarily difficult thing to secure discipline in these schools, where boys and girls between fourteen and sixteen will be compulsorily brought together; and it will be more
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than ever necessary to supplement discipline by developing in every possible way variety in the subjects, variety in the teachers—anything that will stimulate and quicken the interest of the boys and girls.
I notice with particular gratification Clause 3, subsection (2) and I am very glad to notice the provision that, "The local education authority shall have regard to the desirability of including therein arrangements for co-operation with Universities in the provision of lectures and classes for scholars for whom instruction by such means is suitable." I most earnestly hope that, while in every continuation school there must necessarily be at least one highly trained permanent teacher, and in the larger schools a staff, there will be places given by means of these lectures, or otherwise, for the supplementing of the teaching of the school by men and women, of every rank and class, who have special experience, special knowledge, and who are specially competent to teach and interest boys and girls.
Here, also, may I say that I think it would be of great interest if many of these schemes that are presented for continuation schools—I am sure I shall have the sympathy of the noble Earl in charge of the Bill—include experiments in what is called co-education. I think it might be of the greatest possible value to try in these continuation schools to bring the boys and girls together in a sort of natural comradeship of thought and work, which I believe more than anything else may abolish that sex consciousness out of which, at that time of their lives, so much evil is likely to come.
It is in regard to the country continuation schools that I think there is the greatest difficulty, and the greatest need of variety of experiment. I think it was the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, who pointed out what a difficult administrative problem these country continuation schools will present. In some parts of Yorkshire at any rate I do not see how these continuation schools can be managed unless the boys and girls, living at great distances, are brought together for a certain time in the winter months in some central town at a concentrated continuation school, and, if so, it seems to me that in some places arrangements will have to be made for their board during the time of their instruction. I venture to hope that possibly Clause 21 in the Bill, which provides for the boarding of children at elementary schools, may be

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extended to those who are attending continuation schools. That is a detail which I dare say the noble Earl may notice. The point is, that there is no class in the community for whom these continuation schools may do more than the farm boy and the farm girl. The children of the farmer are safe enough. They will probably go to the nearest secondary school, as they do now, but it is the boy and girl in the farm, and on the land, on whom so much of the future depends, that these continuation schools can do so much to help. I think it was the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, who said that it would be undesirable, even in these continuation schools, to devote too much attention to agriculture, but I venture to think there is a great difference between agriculture as an instrument of education and most other crafts and trades.
After all, agriculture means the production of wealth from the soil. It is the basis upon which all other production rests, and it ought to have a unique educational advantage of its own. I think it was Swift was it not who said—though I do not suppose his words would be echoed by many of your Lordships—that any man who will raise two ears of grain instead of one is doing more permanent good to his country than all the politicians put together. After the discussion earlier this afternoon it is unnecessary to labour the point. It is of extraordinary importance that we should make these farm boys become really skilled workmen upon the land, and men who have a real interest in country life, and a pride in it, and who will feel that to them has been given a place in the community of real value if they are citizens interested in agriculture, and believing that it is the basis of national prosperity. I earnestly hope that there will be such freedom and variety and constancy of experiment in these country continuation schools that they may he a source of supply of those citizens upon the land whom the country so greatly needs.
There are other ways in which this Bill allows great variety of experiment. I would particularly call attention once again—though I think both the noble Lords who preceded me called attention to it—to Clause 17 which permits the local educational authorities both under Part III and Part II, to make grants to supply or maintain or aid the supply or maintenance of holiday or school camps, and to provide facilities for social and physical training in the day or in the evening. I
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note particularly the use of the word school camps for young persons attending continuation schools, and I seem to see there a very happy picture rising before me. I see the continuation schools, especially in the country, being taken right out into a camp, and many of the hours that are obligatory being spent in teaching in the open air.
But the value of this clause is, of course, that it recognises the place of leisure in any reasonable system of education. I think that it was said by the late Bishop Creighton that the great object of education was not only to enable a man to get on, but to enable him to use the time in which he was not engaged in getting on. I believe that is profoundly true. This clause opens out a large field of co-operation with the managers of our cadets, brigades, scouts, guides and clubs in our towns and cities. I am sure that it would be an excellent thing for the authorities who manage these continuation schools to be in constant intercourse and co-operation with the managers of these institutions, men and women who are familiar with the homes, the life and the employment of the boys and girls, and who are striving day by day to build up their characters on a basis of self-respect, discipline and of religion. My Lords, I am sorry to have taken up so much of your time. I only desire to emphasise two directions of educational activity to which this Bill gives scope, the one the encouragement of variety in types of syllabus, teachers, and schools, and the other the endeavour to increase the number of citizens actually and personally concerned in educational work, and so to put education in its proper place as an essential part of the life of the whole community.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: My Lords, I do not propose to follow the most rev. Prelate in the careful examination which he has made of the Bill to-night. I have risen merely to indicate certain points on which when we come to the debate before going into Committee we shall ask the Government for further information. I cannot help thinking that the present state of the House is in itself an indication of the disadvantage of the procedure against which we protested two or three hours ago, by which the Government, after asking us to discuss seven other Orders of the Day, two or three of them of great importance, have asked us after many hours of debate to

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begin upon the examination of this most intricate and most extensive and, as I think, very little understood measure.
Though I was not able to be present last night owing to another engagement, I have had the advantage of reading the speech made by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who introduced the Bill, and I thought the one mistake of that speech was that he endeavoured to show what was done by the Bill. Now, if he had only addressed your Lordships on what was not done by the Bill he would have had a very easy task. There is practically nothing which, by the utmost stretch of the imagination, could be dragged in as part of education (with one exception which I will give your Lordships directly) which has not been placed within the purview of the Board of Education with regard to this measure. But, on the other hand, although I think the noble Earl gave himself unnecessary trouble in his exposition of the Bill his speech, admirable as it was, was singularly deficient in one particular. In a Bill which involves a larger expenditure of money than any Act of Parliament which is remembered by the oldest member of this House, there is not one single figure indicating what the expense will be to the country of this vast revolution.
The utter inadequacy of this debate may be shown by the fact that there has not been any attempt at determination of the enormous charge which is to be laid on the taxpayer and on the ratepayer by the Bill. I know your Lordships are not justified in making proposals for expenditure, but certainly it has not yet been held that we are not justified in criticising expenditure, and I could not help feeling in regard to Clause 17, to which the most rev. Prelate alluded a few minutes ago, that if you take that clause alone—quite apart from the refusal to allow fees to be levied for anything which may be in the minds of a municipal authority or the Board of Education—if you take that clause alone it is so expansive that there is the means for the most profligate expenditure on the part of the municipal authorities in every direction—camps, physical training, equipment, public buildings for school baths, and in general other facilities for social and physical training in the day or evening, involving every kind of institute, everykind of large building, without any further authority by Parliament of any description. I do not think there is any parallel to this
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extensive demand on the public purse, to this complete faith in a Public Department. And this at a moment when it is well known that the public expenditure—which I see Lord Inchcape proposes to indicate next week—is likely to be the most serious consideration with which we shall have to deal after the war.
There is only one remark which I would make on that clause. While every other kind of business which is not national is included in the clause the elementary principles of drill which, by every consideration and by all the experience of the past four years, is one of the most necessary things to enable individuals to fulfil a duty which may be laid upon them, is one of the points which is not included in the clause, but which I shall invite your Lordships in the most definite terms to include. I think in this connection I shall have the measure introduced by the noble and learned Viscount in 1907 to support me.
VISCOUNT HALDANE: The noble Viscount has my sympathy, but—
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: I thought I had the noble Viscount's pledge almost in writing, but we can examine that when the time comes. There are many points in the Bill which all of us welcome, amongst them being the amendment as to the employment of children and others. But I want to point out two things. In the first place I want to call attention to the unlimited powers which are given with regard to 5,500,000 children and a very large unspecified number of young persons in the continuation schools. If you are dealing with so vast a number you have the right to know the sort of limits within which your liabilities are going to be kept. At present those limits are undefined. Wherever lax language could be used it has been used in this Bill; and to ask your Lordships on July 24 to attempt to introduce order into this Bill which was introduced into the House of Commons on February 25, involves us in the dilemna in which the noble Lord, Lord Sheffield, placed us just before the dinner adjournment, when he told the House that he hoped that any criticism in the way of provisions which would alter the Bill would be taken merely as memoranda for future guidance, but that they were not to be so pressed as to delay the progress of the Bill.

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I entirely dissent from that view. I think that if we are to be told that in a few days we are to go through the farce, before an audience of a dozen members out of 650, of registering a few speeches which cannot be listened to by the mass of the House, and which are certain not to be reported in the Press, and that when we get into Committee we are to follow the noble Lord's advice and make a few memoranda for future guidance twenty years hence—I am afraid, with all respect to the noble Lord, that he takes a different view of the duties of the Houses of Parliament from that to which I was brought up when I was a colleague of his in the house of Commons.
There is one remark which I should like to challenge in the speech delivered by the most rev. Primate last night. He said that there was no danger of this Bill being a rigid or a bureaucratic measure. I dare say he may be wise in the use of the word "rigid," but is he sure that the word "bureaucratic" was a felicitous one in the circumstances? I believe that this Bill gives the greatest power to the most gigantic bureaucracy which has ever existed in this country, and which will be housed in the Education Department—a power which enables them to take land for a dozen different purposes; which takes away every financial restriction which Parliament has hitherto imposed; which places in its power and in its ken the whole of the children of this country, almost from the day they were born, from two years old to eighteen; which enables them to set up creches for those who cannot look after themselves and cannot walk, and amusement centres in the holidays for all those who do not want to go home; to provide education for those who require it, further education for those who want to avoid it, and, by a wave of the hand, further education which is not to be restricted if any person does not happen to have the cash with which to pay for it, and which may go on to the age of seventy, as far as I can see, if the Board of Education thinks it is right.
The Bill has, we all know, great merits. The conception is magnificent. But the operation of it is likely, I think, to be one which will cause this debate, which would otherwise I fear go down unsung, to have some record in a suffering country which will wonder why, when some £40,000,000 to £50,000,000 were already being spent on education, a further sum—which is not to be specified, for purposes which it is taken
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care should not be defined—was placed upon Parliament at a time when Parliament was moribund, brought to this House at the end of the session, forced through by the action of the Government, after a warning, at the end of an evening which had been devoted to other and most interesting topics, and which is to be disposed of, if the Government can obtain the support and assent of your Lordships to it, in a very few hours of discussion next week.
I am not unfriendly from any point of view to the progress of education. I served for six years on the London County Council, and of all the defects of the bureaucratic and chaotic relations between authorities which I have ever seen, in the course of nearly forty years of public life, those between the Education Department and the local education authorities were, I venture to say—and I could prove it to your Lordships—the greatest. There was nothing in the way of conflict of ideas and of aims which, within the limits of education—which is a very large subject—was not to be found between these authorities. And to increase them tenfold, by a number of provisions which are specific or precise, seems to me to be one of those things with regard to which we ought to have been allowed longer time, in order to bring before those who are concerned the necessity of shaping this measure, in several of its more important provisions, more aptly for the service for which it is intended. My Lords, I have said more than I intended when I rose, but I feel very deeply on this subject, because I believe that the enthusiasm which we all have for a better system of education is likely to lead us into a very serious morass of difficulties as soon as this Bill comes to be put into operation.
LORD GORELL: My Lords, I will not detain you for more than a few minutes. I cannot claim to speak with the great authority or long experience, or to go into any of the detail which has characterised the speeches to which you have just listened. But I may perhaps helpfully say one or two sentences from a slightly different point of view. The noble Earl who introduced the Bill half apologised to your Lordships' House for the Government at this time bringing in a Bill which was not concerned with the direct prosecution of the war. I cannot be sure that that is not a recommendation. There is a great danger that, with the mass of necessary war legislation and with the eyes of all inevitably strained upon

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the present, the claims of the future may be, to some extent, overlooked; and while it is perfectly true that the future depends upon the present to a rather unusual degree, the present is to a certain extent limited and the future is infinite.
The noble and learned Viscount referred to the Army and to the way in which minds had been wakened up by the war. That is perfectly just and perfectly true. Men's minds in the Army have been awakened to a feeling for and a desire for education which is very remarkable and which one cannot but feel is one of the most hopeful signs for the future. Because they have been kept away from the things of the mind and the spirit they do realise their importance more than it was possible for them to do before. My Lords, I cannot in any way claim to speak on behalf of the Army, but I have been, as the noble Viscount said, among the soldiers, and I do know many people, officers and men, who are watching the progress of this Bill through your Lordships' House with interest and sympathy and appreciation, for after all though they can take but little part, they are very vitally concerned, because it is a Bill for their England, for the England of the future for which they are fighting now and to which they will return. There are many people in the Army who view this Bill as the first broad measure of reconstruction—of the reconstruction which will face us all and of the work which will be before the men in the Army to-day when they come back to civil employ. Therefore I wish most heartily and in every way possible to support this Bill.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, before the Motion is put, I would like to be allowed to express in two words my very sincere appreciation of the spirit in which your Lordships have accepted this Bill. We have had an extremely interesting debate, with speeches from those who are perhaps more qualified than any to speak on educational subjects in this country; and there has been in those speeches a remarkable unanimity of appreciation of the principles of this Bill—a unanimity which, I think, must rouse the envy of those who in the past have been responsible for passing Educational Bills through Parliament. We used to regard education as an extremely controversial subject, and I think it is a great tribute to the President of the Board of Education that he should have introduced an Education Bill which has
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received so universal a tribute of appreciation.
There was, perhaps, a slight departure from this general chorus of praise in the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton. I make no complaint—a little controversy is always enlivening—and even in his speech I think the criticism was directed as much to the manner in which the procedure of discussion had been arranged as to the Bill itself. I regret very much that the extremely eloquent and interesting speeches made to night should have been delivered in a House with so small an attendance, but I really think that the charge that we have endeavoured to rush the Bill through with undue haste can hardly be supported. We have allowed two days for the Second Reading of the Bill, and I do not see any evidence of such a desire on the part of many noble lords to take part in the debate as would have justified us in giving it another day. It is the desire of the Government to give sufficient time for the consideration of the measure, but having regard to the speeches made I think the time which it is proposed to give for the Committee stage is amply sufficient for the proper consideration of the Bill.
There have been some questions of detail raised in this debate, and I do not for a moment suppose that the absence of criticism means that there will be no difference of opinion about the details of the Bill. I am quite prepared for criticisms to be made on various points as we go through the Bill in Committee. I think in the main, however, that those questions may be left to be dealt with when we get into Committee. I think the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, if I may say so, attributed rather more to the Board of Education under this Bill than he was quite justified in doing. He seemed to imagine that the Board of Education was going to exercise enormously wide and arbitrary powers over the children of this country from an age before they could walk until they had almost one foot in the grave. But the powers given under this Bill are powers which are going to be exercised in the future, as they have been exercised in the past, by popularly elected bodies, to whom powers in respect of education have been delegated by Parliament. It is quite true that the powers will be carried out under the supervision of the Board of Education, but, in so far as there is a large power of super-

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vision over the children of this country those powers will be exercised by the local education authority.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: I do not quite clearly understand. Will there be any control by the Treasury, or is it merely a question between the Board of Education and local bodies?
THE EARL OF LYTTON: I think the question of expenditure will be entirely in the hands of the local education authorities. The noble Lord said that opportunity for profligacy was provided by this Bill. I really do not think the word "profligacy" is justified in this connection. It is true that local education authorities will have large powers of spending money, but we must remember they are responsible to the persons who elect them, and the money they will be spending will be the money of those persons who elect them. I think it is rather late in the day to say we must not give power of spending money to popularly elected bodies for fear that the consequences may be that large sums of money will be spent.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: I do not like to interrupt the noble Earl, but he will surely recollect that in all previous Bills a limit bas been placed upon the amount which can be charged on the rates in a number of instances. All these limits are stow struck away. What I wanted to know is this—Supposing the local authority and the Board of Education agree to spend £10,000,000 on buildings in one year, has the Treasury, which has to provide the money, any power to restrain them? Perhaps the noble Earl would rather answer in Committee. It is an important point.
TEE EARL OF LYTTON: I would rather not go into technical matters, and I speak subject to correction, but is not the noble Lord thinking of a rate limit imposed on educational authorities with regard to their expenditure in respect to higher I education? That certainly has been removed under this Bill. The amounts of the grants made by the Board of Education have been under the control of the Board of Education and under the control of Parliament. I do not, however, think the noble Lord is justified in saying that all previous Education Bills have placed limits on the amount that local education authorities may spend in respect of elementary
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education. If I am wrong in that connection I shall be corrected, but I believe that is right.
I quite admit that there was a serious omission from my speech on Second Reading. I did not give to your Lordships any estimate of the expenditure which was likely to be incurred under this Bill. I had to leave out a large number of subjects as it was impossible to deal with everything, and I did feel that it would be extremely difficult to give anything like definite figures as to what this Bill may cost. The cost of the Bill will depend very largely on the extent to which its powers are used. That, again, must depend upon the authority to spend money which the bodies will receive from those who elect them. Figures have been given by the President of the Board of Education in another place indicating, I think, that the raising of the school age and the continuation schools taken together would involve au additional expenditure of something approaching £10,000,000, but that has already been questioned, I think, by Lord Sheffield, who thought the expenditure was likely to be a great deal more. At any rate, it is not an expenditure which can be accurately estimated at the present time.
I should be quite prepared to answer any question as regards that, or any other point, when we are in Committee, but I quite think the noble lord is justified in say in g that this was an omission in my statement on the Second Reading. With that exception I think most of the points raised by noble lords were points which can best be dealt with in Committee. I should like to express my thanks to Lord Sheffield and Viscount Haldane, speaking with such great educational authority, for the approval they have given to the Bill. The criticisms they have made were very helpful and suggestive, and personally I am extremely grateful to them, and to other noble lords who have spoken, for the general tone of approval given to this measure.
LORD SHEFFIELD: Will the noble Earl allow me to make an explanation. What I said was that Lord Crewe, when he was at the Board of Education, estimated the cost of bringing about such changes as are contemplated in this Bill at £10,000,000. I said I thought the President of the Board of Education had estimated that the continuation section

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alone would cost £10,000,000, and that I considered the whole cost would be a great deal more than £10,000,000.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: May I ask the noble Earl on what day he proposes to put the Bill down for Committee?
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD: Wednesday next.

PARLIAMENT AND LOCAL ELECTIONS BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and returned to the Commons.

NAVAL PRIZE BILL
Brought from the Commons; read la, and to be printed.
House adjourned at ten minutes before eleven o'clock.